Zymurgy

A month or six weeks ago I noticed some fresh pressed apple cider at the Superstore, sold under their "President's Choice" brand name. It was a 3 litre jug for 4 bucks, which is not much more than the really cheap local orchard that our brew club Members of Barleyment visit every fall. I took home 4 of those, and immediately sequestered 2 of 3 of the to the basement. They need to be stored in the fridge, but one corner of our basement is fridge temperature this time of year so I put one of those three on the floor in that corner. The other two went onto my utility bench as shown in this video, and had about 100ml of actively fermenting Blonde Lager poured into the jugs after having about 300ml of apple juice removed. The juice tasted fantastic, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what the cider ends up like.

I stumbled upon this bottle and recalled having opened it in spring of this year. It was bottled in spring of 2003 and the label says it was in the fermenter 18 months before that, which means it is about 8 years old right now. And if I'm not mistaken, this is the last 150 ml of it that I have in my glass right now. Oh, man, is it good!

It has been a marathon week - 3 batches of beer in 5 days! I want to get the stockpiles up while I'm still unemployed - start the new job on May 1st. My first 4 batches so far this spring have been "quick" beers - from very quick beers like Hefeweizen and Belgian Wit which can be ready to drink a mere week after brewing, to relatively quick beers like the Stout I made last Friday, which can be ready to drink in as little as 2 weeks after brewing. All of these of course to get the stockpiles up quickly.

Now it was time for a slow beer. Something that will take 3 to 5 weeks to ferment, and then require another 5 to 8 weeks of lagering at near freezing temperatures. I knew I'd brew a lager, I just wasn't sure until this morning just what type of lager. But I recalled that I had a fair amount of German Weyermann Dark Munich Malt on hand, which is a base malt that has enzymatic power to convert starches to sweet sugars for the yeast. So I decided upon a Dunkles!

Today was an exciting day - I brewed my first ever Belgian Wit - a wheat beer that is brewed with a significant amount of unmalted wheat. I absolutely love the style, and so does my wife - no idea why I had never brewed it before. Just never got around to it I suppose - so many beers and so little time. Being unemployed has its advantages I suppose.

The grainbill that I chose was recommended by a few friends. I knew that a basic Wit was 50% malted barley and 50% unmalted wheat, but it was recommended that I included some rolled oats at 5%, so I reduced the unmalted wheat by that amount and went for it.