After about 3 months of not brewing anything, I finally ran out and decided to make another brown ale.
We started it on the 5th and bottled it Wednesday, so it should be ready just in time for Thanksgiving. I have a ton of unused bottles sitting around, so I will likely brew something else in a couple weeks.
Check out The Smith Family to see what else we’ve been doing.
Shortly after brewing my sparkling ale, I read through the recipe for the lager I planned on making next, and suddenly remembered a major difference between lagers and ales:
Lagers take about 3 months to condition while ales only take a week or two.
This time requirement is the main reason everything I have made so far has been an ale, along with the fact that it would require another 3 or 4 cases of bottles.
We bottled the sparkling ale Sunday and I went ahead and brewed the lager last night. This way I have something to drink while I wait.
The ale, or sparkling beer, as I decided to call it, will be ready around the 27th. The lager should be ready for bottling this weekend, so I will probably buy bottles from my local homebrew store tomorrow.
In case you are keeping track, the sparkling beer was BEER dad brew #14 and red lager is #15.
Tonight I will embark on a journey I call the BEER dad countdown.
Like a modern day Noah, but crafty, I have been saving two of every beer I’ve made.
My English Bitter is ready and so is Laura’s Easter basket. She hasn’t seen it yet, so no telling her what she got.
My American ale is finally done and happens to taste excellent. Not only am I glad it’s ready, I’m slightly amazed by what day it finished on. Because of that, I will call it my special inauguration beer. BEER mom and I had tickets for today’s events, but ended up staying home since airfare is expensive.
In about a week I am going to brew an amber wheat beer for BEER dad brew #11.
The corn sugar and caps I ordered ended up shipping late, so we were forced to wait an extra day before bottling our American Ale. While an extra day may not seem like much, the effect it has on homebrew can be disastrous depending on your recipe.
Our ale seems to be unaffected, but it is always good to bottle your beer at the precise time it’s ready. We ended up with 72 bottles this round, which will be ready for tasting in about 10 days.
Many visitors to BEER dad ask me “how do you know when your beer is ready to bottle?” and some even ask how exactly you bottle it, so here are a few tips on when and how to bottle beer.
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We finally got those pesky hospital bills paid off so I was able to buy green coffee and brew beer again! It’s been about a month since I’ve had either, so I’m looking forward to when both are ready to drink.
We brewed the porter tonight, which was our 8th brew, using malt rather than corn sugar. This means it will have a more full body when it’s ready, which to me means more delicious.
I used a pre-hopped kit again because I’m still not brave enough to brew from scratch, and don’t have a big enough brew pot for grain brewing.
My coffee should arrive Tuesday and the porter will be ready to move into 72 bottles next weekend. It will be ready to drink about 8 days after that. The porter will be around 5% alcohol when ready.
Also good news: BEER dad has been renewed for another year of beer and parenting.
Once again I need help deciding what I should brew next. I’m leaning towards porter, which is similar to stout but not as dark. I have also been contemplating a pale ale.
We will begin the next brew the week of the 1st through the 5th. That will make it ready to drink or bottle the weekend I get back from Chicago.
