Brewing update.

[montjoye]

I’m behind in brewing posts. So I’ll offer a few pics and make some date related notes as a minimum

Two Mums- the American wheat beer was bottled last Sunday Oct 27th. I think that was at the 2.5 week mark after start of ferment.

Ginger mead- is still going but slowly. It’s now been in the fermenter 3.5weeks. My old notes say the hopped mead took four weeks to ferment. This isn’t ready yet, but maybe by next weekend?
Nup   3wk density=1.008. 5wk density =1.003 7wk density=1.001, still bubbly very slowly (Nov 27th)

Robust Porter- was mashed last Saturday Oct 26th. Then put to the fermenter the next day after cleaning up from the wheat beer bottling. It’s nice and dark. My fear is that it will taste too burnt for my preference. My hope is that it comes close to the Sierra Nevada porter. Fingers crossed, gotta start with some recipe! The ferment took off really fast but the temp has been kept in the right range. A week later and it's slowed right down.
Starting density 1.061(target 1.064). after 2.5wks ferment, 1.021. Looks finished but density says not. I reckon it needs to sit for another week before bottling.
(Nov 27th) 4wk density=1.021 but the ferment seems to have started up again. Should be 1.015.


This is just as the boil was starting on the porter. I'd put some of the 60min hops in as the grain bag drained (an approximation of FWH- First Wort Hopping). That's the green bits. I thought the shapes and textures were so hoopy I just had to take a photo.




Full rolling boil achieved. Nice chocolatey colour eh?




and here is the lovely dark wort in my wort "cubes" (after the inevitable dribbly mess had been cleaned up- spills sure show up when the wort is this dark).




All that style musing and I've decided I DO want to brew an English ale. The coming weekends are getting a bit full though!

I also feel i ought give more thought to the best way to keep a brewing diary. I've got notes in at least three different places plus the inevitable scraps of paper. Need to start putting it all together but I haven't decided in what format. BeerSmith is good but it's a bit clunky. Whereas recording things here is good for date order and tagging but is laborious to write out all the details. Mayhap I need to do both?