Thursday, October 06, 2005

Making Beer: Altbier to the Secondary Fermenter

Tonight I transferred the Altbier to the fermenter. It looks very dark and tastes great. Malty and bitter...mmmmm. I measured the specific gravity and it seems like it has a bit more to go which is expected. I also tried to save the yeast from the sediment on the bottom of the primary fermenter for next time. This is the first time I've done this so we'll see how it goes. I decided to siphon as much of the sediment into a sterilized growler and put an airlock on it until I figured out the rest and let it finish eating up the nutrients. As I understand it, storing it in a closed container like a capped bottle could cause it to explode if it isn't finished fermenting. Whoohoo! Just a couple weeks until it gets kegged or bottled. :-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Following your brewing progress with interest. I used to do homebrewing a number of years ago, but I've become lazy! I'd be curious to know what yeast strains and hop varieties you're using for the Alt and the barleywine. Also, are you using any water treatment? Best of luck..."Prost!"

Adam said...

Hey..me too, I just kinda got excited about it again one day and one of my friends thought it would be cool to try it...and here I am brewing again :-)

I don't remember everything off the top of my head. Here's the yeast.

Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale Yeast for the Barleywine.

White labs German Ale/Kölsch WLP029 for the Alt.

No water treatment. Malvern, PA tapwater (somewhat hard).

I might comeback and comment on the hops later.