First brewday of the season was yesterday. I did some experimenting with the pH of my mash and obtained an exceptionally high efficiency in my brewhouse. 84%. Wowsers, that's a really signifigant increase from the mid sixties I was getting. I do believe I will keep the changes I made as to make myself save a little scratch on malt. This is my first really light beer in some time. We'll see how it goes. I sense good things already judging from my tasting and what's happening right now in the bucket.
Next batch will be a trippel of modest gravity. No craziness, just a good solid tripel. I think I'll have no problems with it. I want to make it simple and small so the yeast cake left over isn't strained. That way it'll perform well when I jam a big ole nasty quadrupel in on top of it. Something BIG this time. I'll have to feed it carefully. By feed it I mean brew the beer, but reserve the simple sugars from the fermenter. This allows the yeast to be active and work on the maltose rather than the sucrose. Add the two together and the yeast works on the simple sugar first, then the maltose. So when it poops out the malt sugars are left and you get a big, syrupy malty taste. Keep them separate and the yeast will eat up all the malt and then work on the easy stuff when it's tired. Thus you get a drier, stronger beer in the end. Makes sense, no?
Tonight I go watch roller derby and try and flirt with as many gals as I can. That should be fun. Meeting new people has been for me lately. I guess I'm getting over all the social anxiety.
Next batch will be a trippel of modest gravity. No craziness, just a good solid tripel. I think I'll have no problems with it. I want to make it simple and small so the yeast cake left over isn't strained. That way it'll perform well when I jam a big ole nasty quadrupel in on top of it. Something BIG this time. I'll have to feed it carefully. By feed it I mean brew the beer, but reserve the simple sugars from the fermenter. This allows the yeast to be active and work on the maltose rather than the sucrose. Add the two together and the yeast works on the simple sugar first, then the maltose. So when it poops out the malt sugars are left and you get a big, syrupy malty taste. Keep them separate and the yeast will eat up all the malt and then work on the easy stuff when it's tired. Thus you get a drier, stronger beer in the end. Makes sense, no?
Tonight I go watch roller derby and try and flirt with as many gals as I can. That should be fun. Meeting new people has been for me lately. I guess I'm getting over all the social anxiety.
Have fun. I went to three derby bouts this year -- I saw the Windy City Rollers twice, and the Chicago Outfit once. Good times.
P.S. Have fun brewing too.