Friday, July 4, 2008

Brew Update July 2008




It’s been a while since I gave the readers a quick update on the Beer Blokes Homebrewing enterprise so for the benefit of those interested in homebrewing, and for Dr Lagers’ information, I will lay out the following brief ramble.

Still working primarily with the malt extract system of brewing, we have managed to keep up a good supply of lagers and ales for the warmer months to come. A Bavarian Lager and a Canadian Blonde are maturing very nicely, thanks for asking, and these brews were made with the addition of flavour, bittering and finishing hops. They were made as an all malt batch so that the flavour and hop balance should result in a tasty but thirst quenching drop. Not adding sugar to get the alcohol volume up to scale means a clean, crisp taste.


The other day I cracked open a sample from our very first batch of common-old-garden-variety straight-from-the-can-with-no-additions-or-palava-style original lager. To say that I was very, very, very, very, very pleasantly suprised by the improvement in the taste since November 2006 is ... well, about exactly how suprised I was. Smooth and refreshing and without even a hint of that 'homebrewyness' at the end of the sip, I am glad that I resisted the temptation to tip them all down my throat in the first few months. Trying hard now to leave all our brews to mature and smoothout for as long as I can. Cheers

I have just finished bottling our ‘tribute’ brew to our mate, Pickles. He was living in Sydney for the past few years and so I used a Morgan’s homebrew can of Blue Mountain lager to reflect this aspect of his life. Growing up and educated in Ringwood, the hop variety Pride of Ringwood seemed a perfect fit. A nice pale golden lager with a very well developed nose already, it should be ready to taste by the middle of August and then we’ll store it away until this time next year.

This week I am putting the finishing touches to a recipe for our first cool temperature yeast based lager. I may have to think of a more condensed name for the brew when it’s done as the labels aren’t really very big. I am planning to use the ‘Magic Box’ (discussed in an earlier post of the same name) to maintain a low temperature for the fermentation and the lagering processes and maybe even to store them away long term. I might have to make a couple more 23 litre batches to use up some supplies of empties I have as they are currently stored IN the Magic Box.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, these bottles aren’t just gunna empty thereselfs.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

P.S. Day 5 of 21 that Mrs Pilsner and the eldest little Pilsner are away overseas and things are going well with the two littlest Pilsners. They have been very well behaved and getting along well and even helped me with the bottling and are sleeping well and I am coping well and all is well and everything is generally well and if I have to watch Yo Gabba Gabba one more time I am going to kill something. Well.

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