Tis the Season

Well, its been too long since i've actually written about by brewing exploits.  I've got some catching up to do.  I have brewed and bottled another batch of the Junkyard Dog American Amber Ale.  This brew got such great reviews from everyone, I decided to try it as a partial mash. I did this at my house, with no other supervision.  I hope it turned out ok. I took a lot of precaution when steeping the grains to make sure the temperature was right on.  I brewed in a 5 gallon brew kettle, so I inevitebly had to add in about a gallon and a half at the end of the brew in order to bring it up to volume. I don't think that affected my O.G. too much. This was also the first time I tried using Paul's meathod of not running the brew through a chiller before putting it in the fermenter.  I cooled it as mucha s possible, and then pitched the next day. I got all the way to bottling without any infections so we should be good. I've got another week and a half before they are set to drink. We shall see.

So now that we are caught up...

Last weekend Paul called me up on friday and said, hey, lets brew. He was doing his first all grain.  Scarry stuff. I wanted to brew too. I had been in the mood to get a holiday ale on my tap so I aquiesed to his request.  So I had a delima to resolve. Paul only had one brew kettle, and one burner.  I had my 5 gallon that i could have used, but as brewers will be brewers and I was at Academy buying a burner anyway, I spotted a very nice 10 gallon pot.  I wanted stainless steel, but they only had that in the 7.5 gallon.  I really wanted the 10. So, I got myself some new brewing equipment, Yay! me.

Now, on to my brew. I knew I wanted to do a Holiday ale. All the recipies I looked at were hop heavy. I understand people's love for hops, but i prefer a nice malty beer. On the same note, I also wanted to add in a little holiday cheer. I wanted to make this a spiced ale. I found another recipie and picked an chose some of the spices from that one.  I chose to add in some nutmeg, cloves, cinamon, and orange zest.  What I was hoping for was some nice subtle hints of the spices.  I added in about a half a teaspoon of nutmeg, 3/4 a teaspooon of ground gloves and 3 cinnamon sticks and a whole orange zest with 5 minutes left in the boil.  I figured, that little amount in 5 gallons of wort couldn't possibly be too strong. Man I was wrong.  That wort smelled like pumkin pie. Which, on one hand is exactly what I was going for, on the other hand, it was much stronger than I anticipated. We will have to wait til Christmas to find out. Hopefully the spices mellow out and become more subtle after the brew ferments and sits for a few weeks. 

I want to do this!

It has come to my attention that it is time for me to start kegging my beer.  Well, the issue with that is that I then need a way to dispense said beer.  I could just go get a kegerator, easy enough, but they can be a little expensive and you don't get much out of it.  I could become the intrepid do-it-yourselfer and try and do this.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/yet-another-freezer-conversion-71683/

Or I might go somewhere in between. But I really like this idea.  plus it looks very classy.