Recently in brewing Category

Not to disappoint anyone, but despite the lack of updates, I'm not dead yet. I've been somewhat busy, getting class schedules rearranged, working on homework, taking care of Kat, etc.

I plan on bottling the cider I started so long ago today. Also, I found a recipe from 1819 for ginger beer, which will probably be my next project.

Recipes are in the extended entry for those curious ones.

In other news from the past long-time-since-I-updated, Dan's bachelor party was good. However, Dave and Buster's is more like Chuck E. Cheese's than I was expecting. Not in that there was games and food, I was expecting that. Nor the fact that it was filled with people. It was a Saturday night, so I had kind of anticipated that. No, the problem was that people brought their podlings. That's right, there had to be over 100 children at Dave and Buster's. Never in my life have I wanted to smack so many people upside the head. If I had wanted to drink at Chuck E. Cheese's, I would have gone there and snuck in a flask. Dave and Buster's exists so that I'm not competing with a 5 year old for an arcade machine.

PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO DEAL WITH YOUR BRAT AT DAVE AND BUSTER'S

In any case, having attended the bachelor party, the class that I transferred into at school (CompE 401, Network Centric Security) promptly had a homework assignment that was assigned last week. So I didn't go to the wedding, so that I could write a paper on SIPRnet.

But the class is definitely a good one, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester.

In any case, goals for the semester:
-write thesis
-get job
-get A in last class
-do good on VR project

In other news, I'm on a diet. Have been for about a month now. Pretty much an "eat less, lose weight" thing. Been shooting for between 1300 and 1600 calories per day, and after shrinking my stomach through whatever illness it was my parents gave me, and eating less, I find it interesting that I have to put effort into getting my minimum calorie count for a day in. Like I'll notice that I'm sitting at 700 for the day, and it's 9pm, so I need 600-900 calories to ensure that my body doesn't think it's starving and thus stop losing weight altogether. It's really strange to think that eating more is something that I should do for my own health.

Kat has likewise been losing weight, and having someone else to diet with makes it much easier.

In any case, talk to everyone later.
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Finally got down to brewing the plum wine. It tastes dry and tart, even after the sugar I put into it. It should mellow out some with age, but I'm predicting a dry, tart, blush, with a medium alcohol content. Speaking of which, it now occurs to me that I didn't check the specific gravity of the brew before I put it into the carboy. Oh well, knowing the a.b.v. of a brew was neat in the beginning, but I'm currently more interested in flavor. Should be interesting.

I also picked up 25 lbs of brisket for the barbeque this weekend.

And now, to sleep. There are upsides to having class starting at 2pm.

Got up today and got some forging done, made what I call a double integral knife. An integral knife is one where the pommel, grip, blade, etc are all made of a single piece of steel. I call this one a double integral knife because when viewed vertically, and from the side, it somewhat resembles an integration symbol.

It's a kind of neat knife, made for skinning game, and it should look very cool once I get it filed, ground, and polished to a shine. No clue on how long that's going to take through.

My brother should be dropping by tomorrow to pick up his birthday gift and drop off 4 or 5 gallons of frozen plums. Then I get to figure out how to make plum wine. Should be fun.

The cider is awesome. That is all.

This stuff kicks ass. 5.04% alcohol before bottling. Sweet with strong apple flavors and a slightly yeasty aroma. Figure it will go up to about 6% after bottling and bottle conditioning. Very nice. Jen would probably really like it.

Racked it off yesterday. Probably a bit soon as some of the ale yeast was still active on top of the cider. In any case, it was put into a secondary fermentor where the leftover live yeast will multiply and eventually finish the job. It will just take a little longer this way, and require at least one more racking. 4.83% alcohol at this point, which is a bit low. I'm hoping it gets a little closer to 7 or 8 percent by the time it gets done. The taste was sweet and applish, with no trace of the alcohol evident. If this trend continues for another 2-4%, we could have a real winner on our hands.

I should update my brewing page with cyser results and a page for the newest cider.

I should note down here, that last Saturday (11.22.03), I started a batch of cider with the intent of making something very sweet and with a strong apple taste.

4.5 gal filtered, storebought cider (No potassium sorbate)
4 packed cups of dark brown sugar
6 cans of Sam's Choice frozen apple juice concentrate (No potassium sorbate)
1 pkg Safale S-04 Ale Yeast.

Dissolve sugar in about 1 gallon of cider. Boil for 5 minutes. Turn off heat, add frozen juice concentrate to cool the mixture, make sure to stir until liquified. Pour in the rest of the cider to cool mixure further, and pour it into a sanitized carboy. Wait until temperature is appropriate for yeast, then pitch yeast, and throw on a blow off tube.

This mixture fermented VERY vigorously, blowing off into the airlock, which was soon replaced with a blowoff tube. Leave the blowoff tube in for a day or two, until the violent fermentation is passed, then put on an airlock. We are currently one week in, with some slow but steady fermentation, one bubble from a curved type airlock about every 4.5 seconds.

Ale yeast was chosen because it ferments at the temperature found in my house, and it wouldn't go as high in alcohol content as the champagne yeast will. This should leave a great deal of sweetness in the final product.

When the mixture went into the fermentor, it was the color of dark tea.

The cyser was bottled. The cyser is GOOD. Even before bottle aging, which will smooth out it's taste, the cyser is sweet (an accomplishment given the champagne yeast used), and tasty. And VERY alcoholic. Champagne yeast should need to get to ~20% abv before it dies out, and since this stuff is still slightly sweet, and all the yeast has fallen out, it is probably about 40 proof.

Going to have to save a few bottles for out of town friends who might be interested in trying some. I might also think about making some for my family as Christmas presents.

List of people not compiled yet, but we know roughly who is on it.
Penthouse cleaned.
Geolabs done.
Got the ACM presentation prepared.

Still need to move boxes around, get some work done for my other employer. Silver stuff needs to happen. As does the micro test I have tomorrow morning. Gonna need some caffiene for that one.

All was steralized, and the bottles were (slowly) opened, and the contents poured back into a fermentation vessel. This cyser has gone far beyond crisis brew. I'm going to name this stuff Apocalypse Cider if it ever turns out drinkable. In any case, I figure on giving it at least 3 more weeks of aging in the fermentation vessel, then rack it off gently to remove yeast and sediment. We will then see if it is drinkable. If so, I plan on bottling it without sugar, and getting a flat or slightly carbonated product. I really don't need the glass handgrenades again. Quite worrisome. I should make a note of this on the recipe page for this particular brew. I will later. Tired now, test at 9:30 tomorrow.

Racked it off to a secondary fermentor and added the champagne yeast last night. The flavor had some funk to it, but it hasn't aged nearly enough, so I would say that right now it's ahead of the curve. Might have to add pectic enzyme or Irish Moss to make the yeast drop out of suspension, but quite a decent amount dropped out of this by the time we racked it off, so that might be more for clarity's sake than anything.