Wow...It's been a while.

Sorry it’s been a while. I’ve had a full plate in my real-non-brewing world.

 

So what’s been going on?

When we last left off we had just bottled our first brew. The question came up about the size of the bottles I use. The blue grolsch bottles are 16oz which gives me about 6 and 3/4 beers.

By now they should be ready for tasting. The instructions say two weeks…I like to leave them to mellow for about four weeks. I feel it gives the beer time to smooth out and really lets the flavors shine.

 My first beer was a Belgian dubble oaked with port wine. The flavors were just about what I was hoping for with the port and the dubble complimenting each other. They weighed in around 7-8%. Since this is one of my first brews I haven’t started checking gravity to get a good measure but I will soon.

So what did it look like?

I poured with a good foamy head and a red color. The taste was caramel and vanilla with the port throwing in a slight chocolate/grape note. I was able to get little to no sediment into the bottles which was great.

Overall I’m very happy with my first try at brewing and even happier that it was all grain. Next up a Chocolate Maple Porter from the Brooklyn Brew Shop.