Hot, Quick and Thick

Bottled the light roughly one week ago. It was still too cloudy but I was impatient so I threw in 5g of gelatin along with the priming sugar. True to the last time I did this, the beer was clear one day later in bottle (albeit with a thick layer of sediment on the bottom). Belgian pale ale is overdue for bottling, so I may try throwing some gelatin into the cold beer in secondary to see if it helps clearing more than racking warm beer onto gelatin and then cooling does.

Am pushing to get the remaining beers (BdG, sauvin summer ale) bottled before I move, less than two weeks till I have to have everything packed up and done before I go west.

Also throw a handful (measured exactly thus) of Nelson Sauvin into the summer ale fermenter, it just did not have any hop flavour I could notice.

Och Aye ~80, 1.056 – 1.006

3G Ale, 1.044 – 1.004

Biere de Garde – 1.072 – 1.010

Biere de Light – 1.033 – 1.004

By the quarter of original gravity approximation, every one of my last four brews has excelled (excluding the mulberry tripel only because it’s not calculable). That along with a really truly final bottle of bad penny pils reminds me that I was having a short issue with poor attenuation. No idea what I did to fix it but apparently it worked.

Light is auld reekie, sulphur has become prominent in the last couple of days. 1007 was a silly choice but it may clear enough to bottle in time.

Biere de Garde is stunning given the obligatory cloudy and from primary concessions. The malt is so smooth and rounded I can barely notice the yeast character, though it’s definitely there.

Also finally worked out that the IPA needs to be drunk at cellar temp or higher for it to be tasty.

3G Ale and Och Aye ~80 are nearly gone, both have been very nice. With another go I think I could nail the ~80 to my satisfaction. The mulberry tripel is still in secondary, flavourwise it is ready to bottle but it is still not clear. It hasn’t achieved a sufficiently purple colour to justify the Purple People Eater monicker, so I will bottle it soon and dub it Crimson Haze. I checked the alcohol on it by distillation and hydrometry and it weighs in at 10.2%. Currently tastes like a soft yet brutal rose (no thingy over the e when I’m not on a mac, it’s too hard).

I used my (half) day off last weekend to brew the bieres de garde and light partigyle. The brew day was stunningly smooth and I ended up with 21.5L of BdG at 1.072 and 23L of BdL at 1.033. Currently the former is at 1.017 and the latter is finished at 1.004. I am regretting the choice of 1007 for the light, as it is murky as all hell and I don’t have the cold conditioning facilities to help it settle. It is thin (obviously) and still carrying some sulphur & other fermentation byproducts but once it is matured, clear and has the right carbonation level I think it will be a very nice light beer (if a little hoppy).

 The Biere de Garde has had a warm ferment, averaging in the mid to high 20′s. Flavourwise the yeast has held up to these temperatures well and the beer is tasting very promising. The malt is really rounding out the BdG yeast flavour profile, providing a real soft and fruity complexity to it.

 Also opened a couple bottles of my barleywine (Blunt Force Trauma) a couple nights ago. 6 months in the bottle has done it good service, the agressive hop profile has died back, the malt has fallen into balance and it has achieved the right level of carbonation. It’s fortunate that room temperature suits it due to the terrible chill haze, it is still quite bitter but it seems to balance out well with a very strong malt sweetness.

I am brewing again next weekend hopefully, another double brew day with a belgian pale ale and a summer ale featuring nelson sauvin on the cards. It may be the last chance I get to brew at home for a while.