The 3rd batch that we'll be brewing in a week is going to be something along the lines of Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale. Well I'm not going to go out and spend 100's of dollars on a crazy bourbon cask, I can replicate it to an extent. I went out and bought 3 lbs of oak chips, 1.5 of Makers Mark Bourbon and a large mason jar. I poured almost all the bourbon over all of the oak chips. When we move batch #3 into the secondary, we will put a cup of bourbon chips and 1 vanilla bean on the bottom of it. It will sit in this 2nd tank for 2-4 weeks. (depends when I run out of beer hahaha)
A big portion of your money goes towards Yeast for every beer. Roughly 10 bucks per container. Well I was taught how to split my yeast and grow it so I can keep that type of yeast on hand. Also the yeast you grow is about 7x more effective (so i was told). Basically take 4 cups of water, 1 cup of malt extract. Whisk together, boil until somewhat clear. Split in half into 2 - 1/2 gallon growlers and chill to room temp. Shake your tube of yeast, put half into each and put an air lock on it. Now start the normal beer making process while both of these sit out. Pour one into the wort like normal at the end. Leave the other out until the air lock starts popping. Once this happens the yeast is activated, place it in the fridge, where it goes into hibernation. Start this process over the next time you use this yeast.
These are the two growlers:
Batch #2 is a wheat beer and I pretty much took one recipe changed it a whole bunch to create my own.
6 lbs of Bavarian Wheat Extract
3 lbs of Wheat Malt (grain)
2 lbs of Honey
2 lbs of Maple Syrup
1 oz of Tettnang @ 45 min.
1 oz of Tettnang @ 25 min
1 oz of Saaz @ 15 min
1 tsp of Irish Moss @ 15 min
White Labs Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
http://hopville.com/recipe/161184/home-brew/maple-wheat
I created it on that website by plugging in all the ingrediants. I bought a Hydrometer so I can measure how much alcohol percent is in my beer. This is super simple. Basically fill a cylinder with the beer you made right before you add the yeast to it. Plop the Hydrometer into it, take the reading. Then do this again as you are siphoning the beer into the Keg. Subtract the two and check out the chart. This beer should be around 8.5%. My OG reading was 1.078 so we are right on par.
This helps while you work too btw, any type will do, this is Amber Bock:
Tam baked a pie for us while we made beer:
This is Witch Loopenstein stirring his pot of witch brew to try and cool it:
The beer on the right, is the beer we brewed Thursday. This is what it looks like after sitting for 1 day. You can see the color difference from the first beer we brewed and all the chunks that have settled.
This is after I shook it up.
That is all for now... time to go tap the other beer.
