Nate Reviews My Steam Beer

Friend and homebrewer Nate takes a look, smell and taste of my steam beer. A quote:

Starts with a nice rounded soft maltiness that is gets hit pretty quickly with grassy & rubbery (phenolic) hops.

What I am not sure of is why I'm getting that rubberiness. Could it be the pellet hops?

I'll research more later, but for now I'm off to Slippery Rock, with hopefully a side trip to North Country.

Is It Possible to Dry Hop for Too Long? Plus, a Homebrewing Update

Last night I bottled up my Imperial Amber, 38 bottles total. It had been in secondary for a month, having been transfered onto the two ounces of Cascade on December 2nd.

What I am wondering is this: did I defeat the purpose of dry hopping by leaving it in the carboy too long?

Meaning, is there a limit to the mount of time you can dry hop? A point at which the process tapers off and then starts to fade?

I'm interested to see how this one tastes, if it turns out "like the others", I think its time for a switch of some sort, either with process or ingredients. What do I mean by "like the others"? Perhaps the beers are too young, my mature batch having only been in the bottle for a month and a half (bottled 11/14/2007).

I've tried a bottle of each of the other brews and while they are both still quite young: a month in the bottle for the Imperial Steam and less than three weeks for the IPA.

After tasting my Steam beer, Dave talked to me about his use of liquid malt extract and the flavor issues he had using it. We also talked about priming with corn sugar versus dry malt extract.

That leaves me with two variables to improve (at least), but I'm thinking I may hold off on brewing again to see what these current brews turn out like.

That being said, there's no reason I can't keep charging forward, improve on those two aspects and see what happens.

My homebrew, another's review.

Dave reviews my steam beer, which he's dubbed Steamy McBeer, over at his blog.

Thanks Dave!

Nothing in Primary

For the first time in a few months, I've got nothing in my fermenter buckets.

I bottled up the Imperial Steam Sunday morning, capping a total of 42 bottles.

Doing that emptied out a carboy, into which I transfered the Imperial Amber Ale, along with a 2 ounce Cascade dryhop.

I also opened up my first bottle of the Steam beer I brewed as my 'comeback' beer. Nicely carbonated, not a foamer like the EAssB, long lasting head. Its still not where it needs to be, as it smells a little green, but I'm hoping a few more weeks of sitting will turn it around.

I noticed a bit of the weirdness that I had from the EAssC, but I'm not sure if that is the age of the beer, only two weeks in the bottle or if its a DMS problem.

I left the lid off this time, so if that is the case, I'm going to blame it on a weak boil. Even using the turbojet we have for a front burner on our stove it can be a push to get a good rolling boil, a problem I've alleviated in the past couple batched by using a ring of heavy duty aluminum foil as a heat shield around the bottom of the pot. Visually, its working well. Hopefully it pays off in taste.

Batch 0005 Fermentation Photo

There it is, Batch 0005 on top of the fridge, nice big krausen forming up and bubbling happily away.

In the background: two cases of steam beer hopefully getting carbed up.

The Joy of Autosiphons

In preparation for bottling my Steam Beer, I stopped at Village Homebrew yesterday afternoon and picked up an autosiphon. Until now, I had been starting a siphon by mouth (after a tasty vodka mouthwash), a messy and somewhat questionable method.

What a difference! The autosiphon couldn't be any easier to use. It was so much less painful that I transfered my Cider to secondary the same night.

Taking a gravity on the Cider, turns out that it sure is dry. The Cider fermented down from 1.060 to 1.002. I'm not sure if I'll add some apple juice concentrate or something else to sweeten it a bit or just let it ride...