Today is running a little different than last time, though, partially because I had to stay outside the whole time, so I couldn't use the stove for a mash water heater which delayed my ability to get the extract brew on.
For those of you playing along at home, I've found that I can get three brews in pretty easily so long as they follow a certain pattern: one all-grain 10 gallon batch, one extract 5 gallon batch, and one no-boil (mead or cider or perry or something) batch. I also can build my water for the all grain batch, but I tend to use tap water for the extract batch. Today I added an RV carbon filter to that line to remove some excess chlorine or other bad flavors - the water tasted great coming out the other end of the (drinking water) hose. Total cost for that was under $20. Today, I'm throwing a half-batch of cyser in there today (only 2.5 gallons) so I will be targeting 17.5 gallons total, but still using all my carboy capacity. The cyser may rest a while longer, though, so that limits me to probably single 10 gallon brews or maybe a 2-batch day for the rest of the year or so...
So - what's in the lineup for today?
1- Kolsch - I won about 10 lbs of pilsner malt in a raffle so what do I do with that? Make a nice easy-drinking kolsch for Oktoberfest time! It is a 10 gallon all-grain batch with a simple grain bill.
2- Porter (plus something extra) - have been wondering for a while if there is a way to incorporate bacon into beer. Found a recipe and a commercial example, so I am guessing the answer is yes. So, here goes - Porker Porter - five gallon extract batch (grains steeping above in picture), bacon (cooked and dried of as much grease as possible) added to the secondary.
3 - Cyser - I was pleasantly surprised with my cider creation last time - so decided to spice it up a bit. Making a cyser with honey, white raisins, apple cider, and cinnamon. Sounds like a fall or winter treat. I will probably try to bottle it in November, I think - maybe earlier - and enjoy some young this fall, to see how it goes. I'll save some for next year, perhaps.
Now, here's the tricky part (to be figured out next week some time). I only have 4 carboys. I am using all 4. I want all three with beer in them (porter and two with kolsch) to be secondary fermented. Where I sit right now is either racking one to a sanitized bottling bucket, then holding while I clean and rack the other 2 carboys then return the bottle batch to a clean and sanitized carboy, OR saying forget it, bottling one of the batches of Kolsch, and daisy-chaining from there. I do think the Kolsch would benefit clarity-wise from a secondary rest, though. We will see (and by that I mean we will see how lazy I am). I also need to get some bottles cleared out to hold all this beer!
Will post recipes shortly. Enjoy!
2 comments:
If you're asking me, and I wouldn't recommend asking me...bottle that first 5 gal and then go from there. It's already September and you're running behind, you need to get some of that suitable for consumption immediately.
Yeah what I decided to do was add bacon to the porter in-place, then I'll bottle that when ready and use that as the start of the secondary clearing space for the Kolsch, leaving my big fermenter free to use as a primary on a 5 g pumpkin ale as soon as I can find pumpkins in the grocery store. Just means Kolsch will stay in primary an extra 7-8 days. No biggie. Unless I can't get the bacon flavor in the porter in 7 days.
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