Sunday, April 22, 2007

Rocky II

Yesterday was brewing day for our second batch of Rocky Raccoon's Crystal Honey Lager (p.210). We modified the recipe slightly, at least in part due to ingredient availability. We used an extra half pound of DME, substituted an ounce of Northern Brewer hops in the boil, and used a Trappist Ale Yeast. That last was definitely intentional, since I tend to prefer the Trappist yeast. Here is the array of goods, which I call "Still-life with Beer Ingredients."

This time around, rather than trying to engineer a sinker for the aeration hose, we used a racking cane attached to the air hose: Marco supervised the aeration: And here I am contemplating the marvel that is aerated wort, and maybe a bit of wondering how much of a pain it's going to be to clean up the foam that's coating the outside of the carboy:

Finally, the wort was aerated, the yeast pitched, and the blow-off tube attached: That was at around a quarter past 10 last night. By this morning, there was definite positive pressure in the carboy, though it's not quite bubbling yet.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I feel better about taking pictures of my cooking projects now. =)

Mike Marsh said...

I like to lead by bad example.

Anonymous said...

How did this turn out? I am making something similar.

Mike Marsh said...

It's a great recipe. I don't think I've had a batch turn out badly. The Trappist ale yeast makes it taste more like a Belgian trippel. The third batch was a bit less impressive, in my opinion, though it went over well at the block party.