Batch #2 on the Horizon
Posted by Aaron Murray on January 24th, 2008Now that I am opening and enjoying my first homebrew, I’ve got my sights on the next one. So far the top candidates are:
- A Belgian Wit, seasoned with citrus and coriander
- A Belgian high-gravity Trappist-style ale
- A dark porter or stout
With spring coming, I am leaning towards the Wit for its clean and crisp character and citrus notes. I think a Trappist ale would be fun, but a bit complicated for my experience level. Stouts strike me as cold-weather beers, and from what little I’ve read about brewing them they seem to require a long conditioning cycle, on the scale of months. Perhaps this summer I’ll work on one of those to have ready for next winter.
Another problem I’m facing is storage space. Living in a little one-bedroom apartment doesn’t really lend itself to storing multiple batches of conditioning beer. Once I’m nearing the end of Murray’s Irish New Year, I’ll begin gathering the ingredients for the next experiment. Stay tuned!
January 24th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Belgian Wit = drool.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I mean: it doesn’t *taste* like drool. I just … ah, nm.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Perhaps you’re thinking of the German Druul ales, which do, in fact, taste like drool.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:45 am
welcome to the homebrewing revolution! Shannon pointed me in your direction….
I’ve been brewing on and off for the last 6 years, and my buddy Jay has been doing it on and off for 16 years. We just broke a friend in this weekend, brewing two batches: a Sam Adams Summer ale clone, and a Hophead pale ale (think Boulder Brewing company’s Hazed and Infused without the dryhopping).
I’m on the train and don’t have my recipe books with me, but I think the Wit will require a yeast starter, that should be done up a couple days prior to brewing — just a heads up.
The Trippel will require a very strong yeast to survive the high alcohol — some people will even suggest harvesting your own from bottles you buy at the store (check northern brewers forums). Plus, you’ll want to place this into a secondary fermenter for a few weeks before bottling — just pick up a glass carboy, or two, so you can keep brewing in the meantime.
The BIG beers take time , but will last. We did a barleywine back in the fall of 2005 and I’ve only opened 3 bottles out of the batch (16 and 33oz cobalt grolsch bottles) and it keeps getting better. It calculated out to 10% abv! We’re opening a bottle on Saturday for my son’s 2nd birthday.
I would definitely recommend a sam summer clone — lemon zest and grains of paradise, maybe as you third beer.
relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew…
February 18th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Thanks for the comment!
We don’t have a lot of space in the apartment we’re living in at the moment, but as soon as I get a little more breathing room I’d like to start fermenting multiple batches at once and being a kegging setup.
The Wit is in the primary (actually will be moved to the secondary probably this evening) and it’s looking great. I’m getting ready to post about it.