Got a beer making session in today. There was really no excuse for not doing this earlier. I’ve had all the ingredients in the house for the better part of a year. The yeast was dated Feb 2006 so I’m not sure quite what to expect here. I started the yeast on Thursday morning and it looked ready to go on Saturday morning so I put it into a starter culture. It never really took off but it was producing enough bubble to tell me that it was alive. The boil was okay but I overestimated the amount of water that I needed to boil and didn’t realize that I had until after I sparged the grain. I was still over when it was time to add the malt extract and start the boil. I tried to save as much as possible in a pot but I think I lost a little of the malt. The boil bubbled over twice making a mess on the stove but that wasn’t so bad. The biggest mistake as that the clamp on the wort chiller loosened up a little and so the wort chiller was adding tap water to my beer water. I like to boil all the water going into the beer. The original gravity was between 1.059 and 1.061 and the recipe called for it to be 1.061 ~ 1.064 so I think I’m okay. Well see when it starts to bubble in the primary. I hope to transfer it from the primary to the secondary next Friday night.
Followup
I remeasured the O.G. at 1.062. I’m pretty psyched. The yeast has started working. I’m getting about one bubble in the airlock every 10 seconds.
It’s been a few weeks so the beer should be pretty aged out by now. I should transfer it to the keg and get it on tap in a day or so.
I haven’t been writing in a while. It’s not because I don’t love it, I’ve been ramping up on a couple of projects and quite frankly that’s what I’ll be doing in about 10 minutes.