Spicy Ghost -- wracked

So the weird smell was also on this batch. We can only assume that is has to do with old, canned, hopped malt.

Great. Lots of nasty beer.

I am of a mind to toss the whole batch, but we should probably just wait a month or two and see if it is drinkable.

Mahogony Chocolate Porter -- in bottles

I don't know about this beer anymore. After we wrack it, it went crazy bubbling, so much so that it blew out the top of the airlock and made a mess.

When we cracked it open for bottling it smelled better than when we wracked it, but still pretty bad. We bottled it anyway and were sure to cut down on the priming sugar as it seemed to still be pretty actively converting sugar to alcohol and we did not want to blow the bottles.

Hopefully a couple of months of sitting around will make it okay, but I do not have my hopes up.

Cascade Spicy Ghost: Brewing

Today we also "brewed" Cascade's Spicy Ghost, also brought back from down under by Sarah. Having just brewed one wit and planning to brew another in another week or two we can have a full-on side-by-side taste test of witbiers!

This hopped kit was super-easy to put together, just like the Cascade Porter, and we cut back the sugar just like the Porter. It was very dark, but that is because it has been sitting around for awhile. We should be able to drink it much sooner than the porter because as a wheat it will take less time to mellow, so we will see!

Cascade Chocolate Porter: Wracked

This afternoon we wracked the chocolate porter we brewed last Sunday into secondary. I was a little worried to find that the primary was as cool as it was. The closet we stored it in was just a bit too cold. The color is good, but there was very little yeast, and it smelled vaguely of tomato sauce. So it was as good a time as any to do some yeast rousing!

During the process there were some choice words from Sarah about how the beer in the primary receding like a hairline as we siphoned to secondary. Now it is bubbling like crazy due to the warmer location and the yeast rousing. Hopefully that tomato smell will melt away.

Next Sunday - bottling day!

2 Year Old Witbier

The beer itself may only be 7 weeks old (starting on the day it was brewed), but the ingredients are really much older than that. I had all of the best of intentions of brewing a witte a really, really, really, really long time ago, but instead just held onto the ingredients as brewing opportunities blew past me. I even swapped out the perishable ingredients a couple of times, after all, yeast only lasts 3-6 months. To give you another hint at the aging process, the wheat malt was practically red by the time it went into the wort, and this is the most amber Witte I have ever drank. To add insult to injury I could not bring myself to wrack it into secondary, and then I could not brink myself to bottle it, so it stayed in primary for 3 weeks. But it tastes pretty good and that is pretty much all that matters, right?

Cascade Chocolate Mahogany Porter

Sarah brought home this hopped malt kit from her trip down under. It was our first hopped malt kit, and I have to say it was almost too easy. The recipe was for 6 gallons, but we cut down the sugar addition from 2lbs to 1lb and only made 5 gallons. Not having to boil the wort for an hour was pretty good, I just wonder how it will taste after all this.