Friday, September 21, 2012

Palace Bitter & Rocky Raccoon's Honey Lager - Part 2

Palace Bitter
A variation of a Bitter from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
O.G.:  1.101
F.G.:  n/a

The 2 oz Kent Goldings hops floating on top of the bitter
Rocky Raccoon's Crystal Honey Lager
A variation of a Lager from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
O.G.:  1.084
F.G.:  n/a

2 oz. heather tips resting at the bottom of the carboy

First, an update about brewing conditions: these batches have been fermenting in a basement that keeps them at about ~86 degrees Fahrenheit. I had a little bit of trouble with the Honey Lager. Specifically, the initial pitching of the yeast yielded no fermentation activity after 36 hours, so I ended up having to run to HopToIt's Denver location and picked up an additional yeast packet. After letting it activate and pitching it into the carboy, fermentation activity was well underway within 24 hours.

Transferring the beers from primary to secondary fermenters went extraordinarily smoothly today. I had no issues in terms of equipment failure or human error, and was able to get both batches swapped over in the period of about 45 minutes (this includes sanitation, dry times, addition of hops/herbs, and the actual racking).

One thing I was initially concerned about was the possibility of contamination when adding the hops/heather to the secondary fermenter. Typically, one doesn't need to worry about contamination when adding hops and other ingredients to the beer because it is boiling and any bacteria that find themselves in that situation perish post haste. It seems that contamination during primary isn't likely as the rigorous yeast activity will most likely out-compete any bacteria that make their way into the fermenter, and it is equally unlikely in secondary due to the alcohol content of the beer and the continued discharge of CO2 from the yeast into the carboy. 

So, we'll see how the brews turn out in a month or so - two more weeks of secondary and then bottle conditioning can't come soon enough!

Post-transfer celebratory beer at a local beer garden

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