It has been awhile since I've posted. I had foot surgery recently and let's just say blogging on prescription meds isn't good for anyone involved...
But now that I'm back on my feet (sort of), I wanted to give you the update of what's been going on in the condo.
Our Excelsior Altbier has calmed down a bit. After being patient (which is hard) and letting the beer sit undisturbed in the bottles for a little while, opening them now results in a dryer kitchen counter
#winning
We have also since brewed an IPA (Ok, he brewed while I sat on the couch with my leg propped up and watched). We are calling it our"Octane IPA" after the kit it came in. It was conditioned with oak chips and is currently conditioning in bottles. It's a little on the sweeter side thus far, because it conditioned in a condo that was kept at a probably too warm 78 degrees (apparently recovering from foot surgery resulted in me having no blood circulating in any other extremities, therefore I was feeling especially chilly for the few days the beer was sitting in the carboy.)
[Side note: I do have a great fondness for one particular IPA and that's Flying Dog Wildeman, which I could drink all day (and on occasion have...don't judge)]
Also conditioning is an English Bitter, which despite the name, is not actually bitter tasting (which was good news for me, see previous paragraph). Turns out that across the pond, that "bitter" is just another way of saying "pale ale". That is sitting in a carboy (at a much cooler condo temperature) and awaits bottling.
Since we both possess an affinity for all things "Monty Python" (and since surgery has inducted me as a member of the Ministry of Silly Walks), we are going to call it "Naughty Zoot". Label to come...
Finally, and perhaps the biggest news we have, is that we have decided to step it up and move to our first ALL GRAIN batch. Fellow home-brewers understand this is a big step and we are taking a lot of necessary pre-steps. A false bottle for one of the giant orange coolers has been purchased and installed.
Also, all of our previous nozzles have been replaced with stainless steel ones. So we've gone from this:
To this:
(oooh shiny!)
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we've decided WHAT we are going to brew. The ingredients have been ordered and we will be toying with a Kona Fire Rock clone recipe. We will be affectionately referring to it as "Lava Flow" because while we were vacationing in Hawaii, anything you ordered that had "Lava Flow" in the name was automatically delicious.
The last update I have for you involves the latest in our condo-beer beer tinkering. As you can imagine, condo-brewing has it's own unique challenges, such as, no access to an outdoor space, especially a hose, leading one to resort to a converted bathroom sink and plastic tubing (and if you don't watch that sucker, it COULD result in water...e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e....)
OR the extremely fun challenge of trying to heat 5 gallons of water on an electric stove and after 45 mins JUST getting to your initial steep temperature while simultaneously praying that your electric bill gets lost in the mail this month, and you can't help by cry out..."there has to be a better way"
Well my friends, we might just have it.
Since we have some time to kill before our ingredients arrive, we are going to make an electric heat stick. This is an electric stick (duh) with a water heating element on the end of it. It's basically a hot, plug in, magic wand. Our specs are going to be modeled after this design:
We liked this one because it can hook over the pot and be left alone. My philosophy here is that the less we have to fuss with this thing, probably the better. It should cut our boiling time in more than 1/2, which is good because summer is coming and spending 6+ hours waiting for a pot to boil doesn't make for the best tan.
