FOOLCiRCLE

So yesterday Karen and I bottled the Vader (Imperial Stout) and the Tripel (no name yet 😳 ).

Bottling is soooo much better with two people; an extra set of hands, someone to talk with, someone to help, it’s nice. So we bottled the Vader and the Tripel yesterday, two big beers that I’m (so far) quite proud of. I pulled off a tulip of each beer to sample. Both beers, IMHO, are delicious. The Tripel (according to Karen) is “sproink!” and very Belgiany, I liked it. And the Vader is chewy, sweet, chocolately, velvety,  – very lushy. Hopefully these same attributes will carry over to the finished versions.

I not only tried a new technique (well, not new new but new enough to not be 100% comfortable with), but I tried two new techniques. First, since it seems to have been working better than my original style, I have been running the CO2 calculations through the ProMash calculator to calculate the amount of priming sugar I need. Originally I used 4oz of corn sugar in all my beers regardless of style, fermentation temperatur, or desired amount of CO2 level. Now I run it through the program based on like four different variables to get a number. To show you how varied it can be, I believe the Vader was 3.5oz of corn sugar while the Tripel was 6oz, I sure hope those bottles hold up. And for the second new technique I added bottling yeast to both batches! This is the one that really has me crossing my fingers. This is how it theoretically goes to me; these two beers are 9%+ alcohol and have been in secondary fermenters for 3+ months, there isn’t much viable yeast left to do the job of carbonating the beer (ala Gnarleywine style). So, I add the measured amount of corn sugar, and a measured amount of rehydrated dry neutral yeast to the bottling bucket and theoretically we now have lots of viable yeast ready to eat this fresh convenient source of food making my beers have the appropriate level of carbonation. The plus is nicely fermented beer. The minus is possibly hazier beer or worse over-carbonated beers or worse bottle-bombs! Keep your fingers crossed.

Anyone have any suggestions for a name for the Tripel? So far Skywalker and Mackass have been suggested. I am still open to names. Come on, make a suggestion, then you can take credit for it. Whatever . . .

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Homebrew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.