Bottles away!

Today I bottled the first brew. Everything went as planned and anticipated.
Of course, the real assessment of that will be in a few weeks when I can open a bottle and see how it did.

The beer spent 11 days in the primary, and 22 in the secondary. Technically it should go 33 days in the bottle conditioning process. Even though I can be patient, I doubt I can wait that long.

Just under 5 gallons came out of the secondary.
I snuck a few glasses to drink over the past couple of weeks. The last one was just a couple of days ago. I had the glass sitting on the counter while I tended to a couple of other things, and the wife happened by and thought that it was a commercial ale! WOW!

The time in the secondary really let it clear up. I even put a little bit in the fridge a couple days ago; which is really too cold for an English Bitter, and it only had a little bit of chill haze.

I bottled 27 500ml and 13 12 oz. bottles.

OG was 1.044, TG was 1.011. That should give roughly a 4.3-4.4 ABV.

When I started out on this venture I couldn't imagine how to consume 5 gallons of beer before it went bad. I've even been doing some research this past week on how to brew smaller batches.
Now, today, after putting my creation in it's final march, I can't see how it's going to last long enough for the second batch to be ready! LOL

I still plan to do some smaller batches. I just have to finish solving a couple of issues; mainly how to find an adequate ~2 gallon vessel for the primary.

Yeast Starter Calculator

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

How to build a keg system

http://www.northernbrewer.com/docs/html/corny-keg.html

Yum & CLear

Yesterday was a big day.

Thanks to the wonderful preparation and coaching of my next door neighbor I shot my first deer.
Well, precisely, that would be my first two deer. I got a 6-point buck and a button buck. Not bad for the first time out in about 25 years and my first deer ever!

To celebrate I pulled a small glass of the English Bitter that's in the secondary to have with dinner.
The brew is 3 weeks old, with the last 10 in the secondary. Wow! It's really getting clear!
I had originally, meaning before even brewing, to add gelatin as a fining a few days before bottling. Now I don't think that that will be necessary with almost two more weeks to go in the secondary.
I think it could be bottled now if I wanted. But I'm sticking to the original plan; less the gelatin.

I thought it tasted pretty darn good.

The wife wasn't quite as happy with it. Not sure if her taster was off or if it being flat affected her perception.

It's going to be some good drinking!!

I'm quite pleased.

Interesting Recipe

Recipe for Dogfish Head's Midas Touch high cap beer.

http://www.byo.com/recipe/1011.html

Two meads recipes

Basic/Quick Mead

and

"Viking" Mead

Here is a recipe I found for Boddingtons Bitter.

It looks real close to what I'm currently making (though I used a kit, some I'm not sure what the malts are).

Worth trying.

This came from site I found with all kinds of recipes, both AG and Extract.
The Cat's Meow

Vanilla Ale

The wife loves just about anything vanilla.

Last night I found this recipe (and/or kit) for a Vanilla Velvet Amber Cream Ale.

Gonna have to give that a try.