Our second batch of beer. We corrected the mistakes we made with the first batch and produced a truly wonderful beer. Below we have our brewing information and pictures.
| Date of Brewing: | September 14, 2003 |
|---|---|
| Batch: | 002 |
| Name: | Wise Ass Weissen |
| Style: | German Weizenbier/Weissbier (wheat ale) |
| Volume: | 5 gallons |
| Recipe Source: | Our own version of Lovebite Weizenbier from The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing found on page 192. |
| Ingredients: |
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| Time of boil: | 1 hour |
| Hops: | Boiling hops added at start of boil along with wheat and malt syrups. No flavoring or aroma hops used. |
| Temperature of wort then yeast pitched: | 78° Fahrenheit (ambient temperature in the room). |
| Beginning specific gravity: | 1.055 at 75° Fahrenheit, 1.057 corrected = 7.6% ABV mark, 14° Plato. |
| Date of transfer to brightening tank: | No brightening tank used. |
| Date of bottling: | September 28, 2003 |
| Bottling agent: | 1 1/4 cups Crosby & Baker Ltd. Munton's Light Dried Malt Extract |
| Specific gravity at bottling time: | 1.010 at 68° Fahrenheit, 1.011 corrected = 1.4% ABV mark, 2.8° Plato. Approximately 6.2% ABV. |
| Date of first taste: | October 11, 2003 |
| Taste Evaluation: | Truly wonderful! An excellent Weissbier. We cannot keep it on the shelves! |
| Notes: |
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Rob begins the brewing process by pouring in the Wheat and Klagas syrup.
Melissa assists.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!
It is very hot stirring boiling wort for an hour. Notice the sweat on my forehead.
Ladling the hot wort into the carboy, this is called sparging.
The carboy already has 3.5 gallons of water in it to cool the wort and avoid shocking the glass.
Several ladles later.
The filter is beginning to clog from the hops.
And the flow has almost stopped.
Shaking the funnel does not help.
A sanitized piece of tubing works well though.
Moving the hops out of the way.
Continuing to ladle.
Almost empty stock pot. You can see the dried wort on the sides. Very sticky and hard to get off.
Cooling down the hot wort with cool water.
Like the finger of god bestowing life into man, Rob bestows goodness into the beer!
It is taking a long time to cool down.
Steve, so excited by wonderful smells and thoughts of the beer, has an orgasm on the kitchen table. Can you blame him?
We consume Peach Pie and wait for the wort to reach room temperature.
Guarding the beer from would be thieves.
The wort has cooled, so I take a sample to test the specific gravity.
The sample does not go back in, so it does not need to be sanitary.
One pint of wort (unfermented beer).
Measuring the specific gravity.
This could give us an alcohol content as high as 12.5%.
Adding the liquid yeast which has been incubating on top of my IBM 19 Inch Monitor for two days.
Liquid fungus. The stuff does not smell very nice.
Aerating the beer.
I proceed to beat the hell out of it.
Excellent anger therapy.
The beer ferments in its box.
Bubbling rapidly, the krausen is already forming.
Two weeks later, we prepare the bottles.
It can take a long to to drink enough beer for the bottles necessary to bottle 5 gallons.
Rob scrubs off the labels and glue.
Sanitizing the bottles in bleach and water.
Rob arranges the bottles, it is difficult to get 60 bottles in that red bucket.
The lovely Weizenbier transfers to the bottling bucket.
We had spent 4 hours and several trips to the hardware store to find a spigot that did not leak. We ended up sealing it with plumbers putty.
Rob checks the density of our brew.
Success! A change of 0.046 means an alcohol content of 6.2%!
Dormant yeast cells and bits of hops form the scum on the bottom of the carboy.
Bleh!
From a 1.75oz. packet of liquid yeast comes all that sludge.
Which is not fun to clean out.
Rob tries out our new bottle brush.
Works quite well.
Rob, coiled in tubing, prepares to fill the first bottles. Notice the tubing duct taped to his shoulder.
Our first bottle of batch 2.
These bottles are marked with a "2" to signify that they are from our second batch.
We used two separate bottling techniques for this batch, these bottles are marked with a "2." to signify the second technique.
Lovely red brew.
Andrew enjoys a cold glass of our beer.
Look how much sexier Rob looks after having our beer! It can do this for you too!
Cheers!
Bliss.
Even Steve gives it a go. He rather liked it.
(High resolution versions can be found here.)