Thursday, June 23, 2011
1. Inside the box
It's a question of whether this is shutting the clouds out, or closing the mist in. In either case, it's desolation.
2. The varnish
Just had a proper taste of the dunkelweizen which was bottled last weekend! Yx is a fan of dunkelweizens, so I made one for her. It was difficult to get hold of any tried and true recipes though, so it was quite an experimentation. In the end, I went with a grain bill of:
3kg pale malt
2kg wheat
150g chocolate malt
150g roasted barley
It was a single infusion mash at 65C for 1 hour, and I deviated away from using traditional hops - instead, bittering was done with East Kent Goldings, with a flameout addition of 12g of Spalt Select for aroma. Also, I used a Belgian wit yeast (think Hoegaarden) instead of regular German hefeweizen yeast. The result was yummy, but I'll let it carbonate a bit more before I write up full tasting notes!
What's next then? The current inventory consists of :
American pale ale - 3 mini-kegs
India pale ale - 8 bottles
Stout - 12 bottles
Hefeweizen - 1 mini-keg
Dunkelweizen - 2 mini-kegs
In other words, 2 regular house parties and I'll be cleaned out. I'm shooting for another IPA - maybe a Stone IPA clone?
Wenky
7:09 AM
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011
I'm feeling extremely pissed off right now. Once again it's about the administration at the place where I am currently working at. Seriously they need to be less fancy and start being practical. I'm feeling very unhappy at work. If these morons keep this up, then they have no grounds to complain that people are leaving the public service - where weekends are not compensated for, annual leave is not a right, and where people find fault in things that you do. It's a vicious cycle, of people leaving and deteriorating working conditions. Friends are truly the ones that keep you alive at these times, but sadly friends cannot sustain you forever. I'm still glad I kept to my path. And I am not ashamed to tell people that my goal, at the end of it all, is to go into the private sector. And why? Because then I can practice for real, and not put up with dimwitted, unevolved apes.
Wenky
7:22 PM
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Monday, June 20, 2011
7 am on a Monday, and I'm still at home blogging. Had a most horrendous call on Saturday due to a sick respiratory patient and admissions. Thankfully my dear friends Lionel and Ruimin were crazy enough to go out of hospital for dinner, and brought back noodles and durians - yes, durians - for me! In any case, I only managed to have my first bite of dinner at 9pm.
On a brighter note, we attended Beerfest Asia on Sunday! Alas, due to a bad mix of circumstances, we could only go on the last day - which meant that a lot of the beers I actually wanted to buy were already sold out. I missed out on Brewdog's Punk IPA, and Stone's Ruination and Arrogant Bastard ales. We did manage to lug back a few sixers of other beers though - YX found joy in a saison, while I grabbed the last 3 bottles of Stone's IPA. Thankfully I also managed to buy Rogue's chocolate stout - they use pacman yeast in these, and I'm looking forward to culturing the yeast from the 2 bottles of stout to use in brewing!
Wenky
7:06 AM
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Wednesday, June 15, 2011
I can feel subtle changes in myself, and I don't like it. This tends to happen when I start working - after a full day dealing with rubbish at work, I find myself unable to give very much more back home. This is when I really feel like my life revolves around work, which is bullshit. It should never be the case. There's a break coming up in July, which I'm really looking forward to. It'll be a good time to re-calibrate my attitude towards work. I'm amazed by people who can stick to their ideals and slog away for years - for me, I just can't wait for the end of the road.
Wenky
6:38 AM
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Tuesday, June 14, 2011
6 weeks down. 4 1/2 more months to go.
Wenky
6:58 AM
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Sunday, June 12, 2011
Just had a junk food/beer party with Dawn and Rita and Edmund. Great times! Going to brew a Dunkelweizen next, and came up with a pretty nifty yeast system. YX got these 2 large sterile bottles for me, which I added a malt agar and cultured yeast on. What happened was that the yeast slowly ate up the malt agar, dissolving it in the process and ended up forming a layer of very concentrated liquid yeast. I added some 10 mls of sterile wort into it before pouring out the yeast to make a starter, which is now happily fermenting away. I've left the agar bottle out for the yeast to grow again, and hopefully this cycle can continue indefinitely as long as there is agar left and if it does not get contaminated.
Wenky
12:54 AM
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Saturday, June 11, 2011
I cheated and drank a bottle of Bee Cave Brewery's Haus Pale Ale which I only bottled 1 week ago, and already it's very very good! Will be doing this recipe again for sure. Nice and easy to drink, with a beautiful light colour. Maybe it's because I didn't have breakfast before drinking it at 10.30am, but I'm getting a bit of a buzz from it. =) It's only 4.5% ABV.
Wenky
10:44 AM
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Saturday, June 04, 2011
Infection! My last 2 batches of all-grain beer had been getting infected, and I'm seriously wondering why. Thankfully it's only a Brettanomyces (wild yeast) infection, and not bacterial - it's safe to drink, just that aesthetically it's awful with bits of yeast floating at the top, and I lose control over the original yeast's flavour profile. Brett is not always bad though, as it can add some depth and character, but I'm going to try to find out why they've been infected. I'm suspecting one of 2 things - the spout from the brew kettle (where the wort exits the brew kettle into the fermenter), or the tea bag which I use to dry hop in. For the next batch, I shall sanitise the spout (oversight on my part!) and also soak the tea bag in sanitiser first.
Back to Bee Cave's ale - remember the low starting gravity and hence the low alcohol %? Ah. I actually brewed to my usual 23litres, but just re-read the recipe and found that it's for 20litres! One of those Duh! moments.
Wenky
6:43 AM
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Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Time to grow up.
It's hard.
Wenky
10:36 PM
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