Mu: Catharsis

A re-hash of last years Porter.

A few months back C's Brother, who has a very different brewing philosophy than I, brewed an ESB. After some discussion, it was obvious that the exactly meaning of the label 'ESB', (extra special bitter), was not particularly well understood by me. Further investigation lead me to a believe that ESB was a term applied to a bitter (or amber ale) that was stronger than normal. Not very helpful given the wide rang of options for what could be called a bitter.

It's been a few months since I last updated on the Kolsh beer project (or have posted at all, busy summer...) At this point I think the project can be classified as a failure.

Over the last few months, the beer had been mostly aging in secondary. As stated in previous updates, fermentation had continued slowly beyond the initial primary. I allowed this to continue for almost a month before putting the beer into the fridge to lager.

Just racked into secondary, the gravity is a bit high. The taste is a bit sweet too, but not quite so much as the gravity implies. Could it be that some of this is a result of using so much un-malted barely? I'll give it another week in secondary, and see how it goes. Perhaps I'll pitch additional yeast.

The last Kolsch attempt was pretty good. This brew attempts to build on it. The following objectives: - Make the color lighter - To that end, test some process changes -- namely not boiling the DME/LME for very long ~ 10 minutes before (add just before flavor hop. - Add slightly more, and different flavor hopping. - Find out if the fourth pitch of my White Labs Kolsch yeast is still good - Make so damn beer :)

Since that last batch went so quickly, I figured it would be fine to make another. This time with a slight change. Instead of using a pound of honey I figured on trying some grade A maple syrup instead. The calculation for how much syrup to use was based on the assumption that the refiners had accurate calorie information. The conversion also assumes the yeast treats a honey calorie the same as maple tree calorie, which may not be not entirely true.

In preparing to make another batch of cider, I realized I had not recorded the results of the last batch. After allowing it to ferment very dry (to a gravity bellow 1.00), I racked it to secondary. This was a bit of a challenge due to the number of loose raises. They had swollen and become encrusted with yeast (they had become zombie raises). Even after scooping most of them out with a slotted spoon, they still manage to clock my racking tube twice. Thankfully I had some help with the process.

After a few months of keg-aging, the beer has improved quite nicely. I've gone though about three of the five gallons already. Which I think makes this recipe a success. The plan now is bottle the rest of it to free the keg for an oatmeal stout. Hopefully some of these bottles will get hidden away long enough to observe the effects of some additional time :)

Apparently this blog wasn't the only thing I've been neglecting these last few months. On Christmas Eve eve, I was cleaning out my fridge, something long over-due, when I found a pitcher of apple juice I had made up a month or so ago to sweeten a cider. It had all the tell tale signs of active yeast fermentation -- even fizzy to the taste. As I began to poor it out, I realized I had myself a perfectly good yeast starter. How did it get there? Was it the offspring of one of the many ale yeasts I've been keeping? Or perhaps wild from the orchards of the 'organic' apple juice?

Last night I moved the beer over to secondary. Observations: The gravity is currently between 1.021 and 1.020, which I think is a little higher than I want. Although, even with that, the flavor is not cloying. The hops, and other various flavor components that were present in the wort are still there. Especially evident are the various dark malts, and the black treacle. The yeast has added a hint of fruity esters, but they seem to meld well. Let's see what another week in secondary brings us. This one may also might end up being bottled to age for a few moths.