Monday, December 17, 2012

Brewing News - Good and Bad...

First the bad.  I poured 10 gallons of beer down the sink this weekend.  Found out the oatmeal stout I brewed a month or so ago went horribly wrong.  It either got infected or was made with a bad pitch of yeast.  I re-pitched the 1056 cake from my last IPA (which turned out great) so I'm not quite sure where the snafu occurred.  The beer had a telltale medicinal taste to it, which points to a bacterial infection.  Regardless, that batch has been scratched from my memory forever and this is the last I will speak or think of it.  Besides one last point... I have made a decision to no longer harvest yeast for future use.  Despite my successes in the past with this practice, I'm come to the realization that I'm too busy (and too lazy) 

Now the good. The sour cherry batch came out fantastic!  The amount of tart cherry juice I added (24 oz per 5 gallons) tastes just right.  The beer is beginning to show more Brett flavor now as compared to the lacto tartness that came out first.  It will likely continue to change as it matures and as the bugs have more time to eat the cherry sugars.  However, I doubt the keg will be around long enough to document much more change.  Think I will start another batch soon since this one took 5 months to make!

No comments: