Mocha Stout Now in Bottles!

20Nov08

a few guys came over last night and we bottled the Mocha Stout.  Put in 9 shots of espresso this time, and used molasses for priming as usual.

A few weeks and we’ll know how it came out.  I tasted a little and it has that nice, mocha stout flavor.

Fatbottom is aging nicely–really enjoying it.  And the Pumpkin Ale is still undrinable.    I guess one bad batch out of 20 or so should be expected.

Countdown to tasting the stout begins….now.

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Short Fermentation Update

10Nov08

I finally got around to (with the help of DW) racking the Mocha Stout and the Mead into the secondaries.  The Mocah Stout SG came in at 1.039.  OG was 1.076.  Last batch of the Mocha Stout was OG=1.055/FG=1.014.  This is a higher gravity stout than the last one, some of which can be accounted for in the addition of the lactose, but not all of it.  It was a different brand of LME.  The color is still beautiful and dark.  Did not taste, but will at bottling.  Of course it still has molasses and espresso to come in.

The mead weighed in at 1.002.  It’s probably done fermenting, but I’m going to give it a few months in the secondary anyway.  I don’t want another batch of sparkling mead if I can help it.

I’ll probably bottle the stout during Thanksgiving weekend and schedule the next brew night for mid december to try it out.

Filed under: Fermentation Update, Mead, Mocha Stout   |  Leave a Comment

Bad News on the Pumpkin Ale Front

26Oct08

I’ve opened three separate bottles of the pumpkin ale so far, and they’ve all turned out to be volcanic in the carbonation end. Maybe I’ll post a video of one of them, but I’m not optimistic about getting to drink any of it. That means both the fall beers that I tried to make from the BYO recipes didn’t come out very well for me. I’m sure it’s not the recipe, but it’s a bummer anyway.

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Mocha Stout–Brew Night Report

08Oct08

3 gallons distilled water, 1 1/2 tsp. gypsum

Warm to 100 degrees, steep the 4# of crushed grains. Leave at 150F for 20 minutes. Heat to 200, pull grains.

Bring to boil.

Add 6.6# LME and 1# Lactose, 8oz of cocoa.

Bring back to boil.

After 10 minutes, add hops. At 50 minutes, add finishing hops.

It looks really beautiful in the carboy. OG, 1.076. mmmm.  Note:  there were two issues I’m concerned about here.   one was a little spillage at the straining stage that caused me not to top off completely to 5 gal.  That may account for the higher OG than last time.  Second, the yeast activator wouldn’t activate, so I mixed in the whole thing and the activator, and added some dry yeast as backup.  We’ll see what that does, and I’ll get the other packet out earlier for the next batch.

**Bottled the Pumpkin Ale. Fg was 1.010, and the mead is currently at 1.006. I did not rack it into the secondary though.

We had a good time tonight. The Lord Fatbottom is carbonating, and we tasted two bottles but it’ll age even better. Yield on the pumpkin ale was 34 bottles plus a really big ez cap bottle.

More later as the Mocha Stout ferments.

Filed under: Brew Night, Fermentation Update, Lord Fatbottom, Mead, Mocha Stout   |  Leave a Comment

Updates

08Oct08

I added a new page to the blog, “On Deck” which lists what’s in the fermenters and bottles that is not ready to drink yet, and what’s coming up.  You can follow the fermentation of the current batches there.  It’ll be a little easier to manage having a third secondary now.

Tonight is brew night.  Come on over.  We’re brewing two batches of Mocha Stout and bottling the Pumpkin Ale, as well as transferring the mead into a secondary.  And we’ll enjoy some nice beverages, including a bottle of the sparkling mead and a bottle of an Allagash ale I picked up recently.

Filed under: Brew Night, Mocha Stout, New Equipment   |  Leave a Comment