Brew days can be so much fun. We seem to pack a ton of work into each day. Yesterday was a bit insane as we went strong, not sitting at all for over 14 hours. It all started with the Hefe, then went all kinds of efficient craziness. We tasted and oaked our barleywine, we transferred our Blonde to fermentation buckets, set up our new temperature controller, cleaned a keg or two, and then moved us on to brewing a big IPA.
The day after we are a bit sore and tired but also excited. A quick peek in the morning saw both fermentations started but the Hefeweizen seemed a bit slow. We turned up the chest freezer from 16.2 C to 19 C and we let the temperature rise on its own. A look late in the afternoon saw a great fermentation going. The IPA, which was pitched on top of a week old slurry of Belgian yeast was so violent it was making the blow off container look like a hot tub! Very quick start and great result of a technique that we don’t often use but will try to in the future.
Stacked in the back of the basement was our Berliner Weiss. We finally got going on that project yesterday as well. The kegs went into the fridge and today we added some Lactic Acid to sour up the beer. You see, months have gone by and the hope was that the yeast would still work it’s magic inside the keg. That did not happen. At all. A quick taste of the cold un carbonated Berliner Weiss was a disappointment. No real lactic taste at all. I believe that the winter will find us brewing this style and leaving it on the yeast for the required time to get the real feel and taste. A quick addition of the Lactic Acid, 8 teaspoons into 3 gallons, seemed to bring the desired effects. It’s now on CO2 and we shall see in about a week if it’s saved the beer from the drain.
Los Angeles Brewers 