Wednesday, September 12, 2012

I bottled the Limecello last night, it has a great green color and is very smooth.

Also, I am experimenting with some Limoncello now.  I just zested a dozen lemons and have them mixed with the alcohol.  I'm going to follow the same recipe that I made for the Limecello for now, to see how it turns out.  I will probably tweak it later on.

I'm pretty excited that all of the Autumn or harvest style beers are coming out in the stores now.  Finally! they are some of my favorite. 

Unfortunately, my favorite seasonal brew from Leinkugel's (their octoberfest) was already sold out!  I picked up a 12 pack of Sam Adam's Oktoberfest to satisfy my thirst.

I am planning on brewing about 5 or 6 gallons of mead.  I'm waiting on some local honey.  I'm thinking a cider would be awesome as well.
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6 comments:

  1. confictushomeSeptember 12, 2012 at 5:44 PM

    I've done cider two years in a row now, and have a few things to say about it. The first one turned out fine, everyone (but me) loved it. I just put juice in a vessel pitched champagne yeast and let it work. Bing, bang boom. I didn't like it because I felt the champagne dried out too much. To mix it up a bit I bought acid blend and blindly added about 3/4 cup of the stuff (*for those not in the know that's about enough for 30 gallons of wine). It was so acid I couldn't get any yeast to start in it. Period. I diluted it down with brown sugar and purified water from 3 gallons to 8 and it finally started to ferment. I genuinely find cider one note and dull, but my wife and other women think it's amazing so just keep your expectations in check. Crispin Cider does some interesting things to mix it up that I believe I'll be following their lead. They pitch different yeast strains and have different additives. Like ale yeast and honey in one, and stout yeast and molasses in another. Mix it up, there's always what's kind of becoming my standby yeast Danstar's Nottingham Ale yeast. You don't have to bother re-hydrating, this stuff is the yeast of rock stars.

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    Replies
    1. SammyKSeptember 12, 2012 at 6:19 PM

      Thanks for the tips buddy. Did the champagne yeast leave a strong yeast flavor? I have tasted some home brew ciders that come out really yeasty. I'm going to have to look into mixing strains. I normally use Lavin and I haven't done too much with additives yet, but honey and molasses sound interesting.

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    2. confictushomeSeptember 13, 2012 at 11:58 AM

      I didn't think so. but that may be because I let it clarify for damn near forever (6 weeks or something after the airlock quit making bubbles) before I bottled. Even with bottle conditioning it only had a tiny layer of yeast in the bottles. If you go slow and recognize that cider is more like wine than it is like beer you can get some pretty decent results. Next time I'm considering double pitching, like day one let the ale yeast work and day two pitch the champagne yeast. Champagne yeast attenuates higher, and is murderously competitive. I don't have ph sticks that give the exact ph, but my acid blend batch has more pucker than straight lemon juice and the champagne yeast still fully fermented it. I've been sitting on it for a year and am thinking about degassing it and doing some blended bottles with the cider I do this year. I was thinking a 3:1 ratio of straight to sour.

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    3. SammyKSeptember 13, 2012 at 12:30 PM

      That's crazy, the champagne yeast sounds like a powerhouse. The 3:1 blend sounds like it would work pretty well. Ive heard of people throwing cinnamon sticks in the secondary or right in a bottle, that may be good too

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  2. smSeptember 15, 2012 at 1:26 PM

    no suggestions

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  3. DWeiSeptember 22, 2012 at 2:53 AM

    Cider would be great but I could be biased in that regard because I love cider.

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