I cracked open a bottle of this honestly not knowing what to expect last night and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't overly carbonated, which I quite like and is probably down to bottling method (the real test of this beer will be when I tap the mini keg). The colour is a bit darker than Summer Lightning is, which I think is due to the boiling of the extract, I'm looking into ways of avoiding it next time. Taste wise, it is very light in the mouth and not overly bitter. It has a wonderfully pleasant hop aroma and taste that is nicely balanced (I'm starting to dislike overly hopped light ales because they are everywhere, so this is a good thing).
All in all, I'm very impressed and will now forge on ahead with extract brewing, knowing that I can produce genuinely good results.
Tuesday 25 May 2010
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Update: 'I Agree With Nick' Summer Lightning clone.
I'm already kind of regretting the name of this brew, but don't want to change it really. Anyway, politics aside, I put this into bottles and a mini-keg last week but forgot to blog about it. Really, it was such a hassle I didn't want to write about it at the time, but feel like I should now.
I started off with 10litres in the fermenter, and the plan was to put half into the keg and half into bottles. I've got a 10litre fermenting bucket with a tap on that I used as a bottling bucket of sorts. I basically had a length of hose on the end of the tap to deliver the beer to the bottom of the bottle. It kind of worked in theory as a crude bottling stick, but was a lot of hassle and I will therefor be getting a bottler before the next brew. By the time I had syphoned the brew into the bottling bucket, it was down to 8 litres on account of there being a whole pile of grossness at the bottom. I guess this was mostly cold break material as this brew wasn't crash cooled. Again, before the next brew, I need some way of cooling it quickly. Filling the keg went without incident but the bottles ended up being a pain and I only got 5 filled before I got too annoyed with holding the bottle and tipping the bucket etc.
Anyway, it's done now and I just have to wait about 4 weeks to tap the keg and see if it was all worth it.
In other news, the St Peter's Ruby Red is tasting pretty nice.
I started off with 10litres in the fermenter, and the plan was to put half into the keg and half into bottles. I've got a 10litre fermenting bucket with a tap on that I used as a bottling bucket of sorts. I basically had a length of hose on the end of the tap to deliver the beer to the bottom of the bottle. It kind of worked in theory as a crude bottling stick, but was a lot of hassle and I will therefor be getting a bottler before the next brew. By the time I had syphoned the brew into the bottling bucket, it was down to 8 litres on account of there being a whole pile of grossness at the bottom. I guess this was mostly cold break material as this brew wasn't crash cooled. Again, before the next brew, I need some way of cooling it quickly. Filling the keg went without incident but the bottles ended up being a pain and I only got 5 filled before I got too annoyed with holding the bottle and tipping the bucket etc.
Anyway, it's done now and I just have to wait about 4 weeks to tap the keg and see if it was all worth it.
In other news, the St Peter's Ruby Red is tasting pretty nice.
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