We’re back and we’re fermenting
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
the last couple of weeks have been spent with my second daughter who was born on May 27. Family and I are all doing well and the time off together was great. Now that we are getting a new flow going to our lives plus one, it’s time to get back to the business of beer.
Thanks to all the kind words from everyone!
Corny Keg Fermentation.
I wanted to split out a batch of mead so that I could rack some of it over fruit. I knew one of my 2.5 gal cornies would be the way to go but I needed a way to get an airlock on. There are expensive corny lids that you can buy out there that have a drilled out hole and coupler welded over it so that you can attach any variety of hoses, etc. but I knew there should be a much cheaper solution out there. My solution? How about free!
I took off the gas in body connector and dip tube and replaced with a short section of 1/2″ hose. From there I inserted a short piece of 3/8″ hose and inserted airlock into the 3/8. Done and works great. Click on the detail photo for a bigger view of it all. 
So what is in there and why? I had 3 gallons of orange blossom honey mead fermenting away in a secondary and got the wild idea to put some of it on fresh bing (Tulare) cherries. With my nice new high performance cherry pitter (13.99 at Andronicos), I was able to stem and pit 4lbs of cherries in 15 minutes. Prior to pitting, I steamed both the cherries and their nylon bag for about 10 minutes to help sanitize. The mead was running about 8% ABV at that point so I wasn’t too concerned but wanted to steam and clean nonetheless. Cherries went in the sack that was tied shut and pushed into the carboy. I then co2 pushed the mead out of the 3 gallon carboy and filled a 1 gallon carboy…leaving the remaining 2 gals to the corny. With 2 gals of mead and four pounds of cherries, it came close to topping off the corny.
As of a week later, airlock is still bubbling nicely with it’s new sugar source. I’m sure the cherries have also buffered out any low acid levels that I may have had and I know the yeast appreciates that as well. More later.
21st Amendment Brew Free or Die recipe change??
My beer drinking has been light since I had been on call to run my wife to the hospital for the delivery of our second daughter, but also I was very tired afterwards and I needed to be awake to help out and get settled. Well, I was pretty excited to pick up a sixer of brew free or die and have a nice IPA after all of this. But whoah! from my first sip to the last, this was a different beer. Where was all of that lovely munich malt? It was gone. One of the things I loved about this beer was a healthy dose of munich which gave it a nice malty, ballsy balance to the hops. I couldn’t belive my eyes (er, tongue and nose). I’ll finish this sixer to double/triple check and I also have a friend who has some older cans to compare….all of this just to be sure. Anyway, for now it seems like their beer has gotten rid of most or all of their munich malt. Ouch. I liked it with that malt. Maybe research showed that people don’t? Before I speculate too hard, let me go back and confirm this.
Comments are very welcome here.
