Hard Apple Cider...FAIL

so my cider didn't come out. Too much sediment, completely my fault for forgetting to strain. Also sat for too long (damn you work/school). I think it could have worked with more care and handling

Hard Apple Cider...

more like hard apple sauce. I did not realize before, how much solid made it into the fermenter. we'll have to see how this turns out. If it ever finishes transferring that is.

The best part of making beer...

That's right, the best part of making beer is tasting the beer. Right now I'm sampling linebacker dopplebock and blue lightning. Both beers are by mr.beer, but that doesn't discredit them in any way. Since I'm working on two beers right now, lets start with the dopplebock.

The dopplebock came out a nice dark brown, just barely opaque. At first sip, I was a bit of overwhelmed by the bitterness, but as i continue it is starting to grow on me. Once past the bitterness the malt is more noticeable.

The blue lightning is a little too sweet. The sweetness however is not any fault of the recipe, but rather the honey used. Rather than use the standard fair of clover honey, I decided to use an organic wildflower honey, which also contributed to the beer being a bit darker than expected. While darker than expected, the beer is still a nice amber color. My only complaint is that the sweetness of the honey overwhelms any hint of blueberry taste.

In the next few days, I will hopefully have an update on my apple cider. I'm going to try and get that in the secondary fermenter tomorrow.

Hard Apple Cider...from scratch

that's right, none of this "start with x gallons of preservative free apple juice," crap. real apple cider, made from real apples. here's how to do a 4 gallon batch. start by picking out about 40 good looking apples. from what i read in preperation you want to use a 2/1 ration of different apple types. for a sweet cider use 2/1 sweet to tart, for dry cider use 2/1 tart to sweet. i said to hell with that (as i don't really know much about apple flavor profile except for red delicious and granny smith, to be quite honest) and picked up about 5 apples from each of 8 different apple types. the 8 varieties used where: red delicious, golden delicious, granny smith, ambrosia, fugi, honey crisp, macintosh, and braeburn. all apples were peeled, cored, and sliced. I then stewed the apples (with a gallon of spring water) and then cooled them, mashed them and pureed them. once all the apples were pureed, they were put back in the pot with 4 cups of brown sugar and cooked again to make sure none of those little beer spoiling critters survived. the apples were then chilled again and then dumped in a five gallon carboy and topped up to 4 gallons with more spring water. six whole cloves, a dash of allspice, and a little under a table spoon of ground cinnamon when into the carboy as well. aeration then followed as well as a packet of mr. beer liquid lager yeast and a packet of mr. beer standard brew yeast. unfortunately i forgot to measure the original gravity, so i can't tell you guys what the %abv will be. not to let it just ferment away. i let you guys know how it turns out in a few weeks

Pint collection

a few weeks ago i decided to start collecting pint glasses for the hell of it. so far i've got a dead guy ale and a pumpkin ale glass

I realise this is not original

i know i'm not the first person to blog about beer, or even about making beer to be more specific. but what i do here is for my own benefit, and if it helps someone else out, so be it, glad i could help.
this blog is mainly so that i can track my own growth as a brewer. as you can see by the fact that i've only got a few mr. beer recipes under my belt, i've got a long way to grow (not that there's anything wrong with brewing with mr. beer, these guys do a great job). so as i go along my beer making process, i'll post the recipies i use, make comments on them once they're done, and give general updates as they go through the process. from time to time i'll give my thoughts on a commerical beer that i've sampled. so for those of you who for some reason make it here, sit back and enjoy the ride.