First brew in about a decade.
I brewed a half-batch (~2.5 gallons) of beer Sunday. This is my
first batch in about a decade. I'd forgotten most of the methods;
but I soldiered through it. I'm trying to lager it. Since I don't,
yet, have a wort chiller, I mixed the hot wort with (pre-boiled)
cool water and placed it in the fridge. Then I added the yeast
about 3 hours later when the mixture had cooled. I used to have all
sorts of sanitation problems. My beers usually had excessive head
that is often attributed to a bacterial infection. So, this time, I
sanitized everything with iodine and pre-boiled the water into
which the wort goes.
Even so, it took the fridge most of the night to cool down to its
normal temperature. I expect to leave the beer in there fermenting
for 3-4 weeks. But I plan to transfer it into a secondary fermenter
at some point.
Since I really don't know what I'm doing anyway, I decided to try
using dandelion leaves and roots for bittering, rather than hops. I
picked them from our yard (tiny yard that it is), chopped 'em up
and boiled them in the wort. I still used the requisite Saaz and
Hallertauer for flavor and aroma, though. I'm not ready for a
totally hop-less beer. But at $6/oz, it's clear that finding other
cheaper bittering herbs is the route to go. Even with the
dandelions, I used $9 worth of hops in this half-batch.
First brew in a decade. First time to lager. First time to use
dandelions. Obviously, a half-batch was the best route, because
there's a very good chance this will be a total loss. But you can't
win if you don't play, eh? -----