Racking Kimble
After five days in primary, the bubbling of Kimble's scotch ale had decreased to 1-2 per minute and the krausen had noticeably fallen. It was time to rack this boy to secondary, and free up the primary fermenter for my next (and intended first beer).
The racking went relatively smoothly, and the better bottles demonstrated the value of their design. I just sanitized some tubing, attached it to the valve. Sanitized the valve through the tubing (I don't have a lab squirt bottle yet). Rinsed everything, and placed the tube in a sanitized and rinsed 5 gal better bottle. I opened the valve, and watched it drain. It was almost too easy. I didn't have any valve clogs, and left all of the trub behind. I can probably improve beer yield with some additional finagling. It is just a solid-liquid separation.
The gravity of the brew was 1.018 suggesting 7.3% ABV. Kate and I drank the sample from our hydrometer tube. It was very sweet with a lot of caramel, and only vague hints of hop bitterness. I think that the hopping didn't scale well between the BOP recipe and my home brew set up. That or I screwed up. We'll see. Kate was surprised that the brew tasted so much like beer after less than a week. Maybe time will help resolve the sweetness issue. If not, Kimble's scotch ale will taste like something from the Dogfishhead brewery sans amarillo hops.
I did most of the fermentation at room temperature (65-68 degrees) and eventually hooked up a fermawrap for a day and a half at 70 +/- 2 degrees. Now it's at about 62 for a nice long secondary in my beer closet. We need to get access to our basement storage so I wig out a bit less about temperature.
The racking went relatively smoothly, and the better bottles demonstrated the value of their design. I just sanitized some tubing, attached it to the valve. Sanitized the valve through the tubing (I don't have a lab squirt bottle yet). Rinsed everything, and placed the tube in a sanitized and rinsed 5 gal better bottle. I opened the valve, and watched it drain. It was almost too easy. I didn't have any valve clogs, and left all of the trub behind. I can probably improve beer yield with some additional finagling. It is just a solid-liquid separation.
The gravity of the brew was 1.018 suggesting 7.3% ABV. Kate and I drank the sample from our hydrometer tube. It was very sweet with a lot of caramel, and only vague hints of hop bitterness. I think that the hopping didn't scale well between the BOP recipe and my home brew set up. That or I screwed up. We'll see. Kate was surprised that the brew tasted so much like beer after less than a week. Maybe time will help resolve the sweetness issue. If not, Kimble's scotch ale will taste like something from the Dogfishhead brewery sans amarillo hops.
I did most of the fermentation at room temperature (65-68 degrees) and eventually hooked up a fermawrap for a day and a half at 70 +/- 2 degrees. Now it's at about 62 for a nice long secondary in my beer closet. We need to get access to our basement storage so I wig out a bit less about temperature.
posted by Unknown at
11:55 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home