Beer: A Progress Report

Well, I’ve bottled my first micro-mini-keg (just two gallons) of beer, a so-called “West Coast Ale” mix. It’ll have to condition for at least a week in the Grolsch “swingtop” bottles I put it in so it can carbonate and do all those other good bottle-conditioning things. (Actually, I’m thinking a week may be too short. I’ll try chilling one bottle a week or so from now and then split it with my taste tester to see if I should let it go longer.)

The sample I tasted, flat, no carbonization [what I get for writing with my eyes closed :-)], was definitely an average pale ale, though it could have used more hops, IMO. Still, if these come together and carbonate nicely in the bottle, I’ll be well pleased.

The molasses (“kitty litter”) beer stopped out-gassing about a day ago (no bubbles or aromas escaping from the less-than-airtight makeshift fermentation bucket), so I took all the Grolsch bottles I had left and put about a gallon in them to bottle condition. Then, I did what every site I’ve read on the subject said not to do: I put the last 1.5 (plus a smidge) gallon in twist-top bottles… and I even re-used the twist top bottle caps.

Now, before someone chimes in with a warning about exploding bottles, I did put these in a closed ice chest (sans ice, of course :-)) to condition. Besides, I used only bottles that had had bottle conditioned (bottle carbonated) beer to begin with (rabbit trail: I have managed to save some of the sediment from those bottles and have another trial brew already bubbling away, visibly fermenting from that sediment!), and the caps? Well, I’ve already used such a setup to “brew” both bottle-carbonated root beer and ginger ale successfully, and I used the trick I did then: I bottled one bottle extra in a PET (plastic) bottle so I can do the “hardness test” (plastic bottle becomes too hard to squeeze w/o real effort: enough carbonation, already!).

Besides, as I said, these bottles and caps have already been used once to bottle carbonate beer and what man has done, man can aspire to do!

*heh*

(And as I said, the bottles are all closed away and any explosions will be sequestered, so why not give it a shot, eh? BANG! *heh*)

Anywho, we’ll just see. The pale-ale-from-a-mix won’t quite be ready for Thanksgiving, but I think I can make some sparkling cider (maybe a half gallon?) by then as well as another gallon or so of root beer and a gallon or so of ginger ale. After all, I already have some turkey ready to go, and the kids are bringing most of the rest of a “traditional” Thanksgiving feast, so why not make some of these if I can?

Mini-micro-update: I used the last wee tad of molasses beer left in the fermentation bucket as the base for a water/sugar mix to rehydrate some cranberries I dehydrated last year. I’ll add some pineapple and perhaps some pectin and make a cranberry-pineapple jam/jelly for Thanksgiving. The cranberries are soaking, still, after a stiff boil (in a tightly sealed pot), and I’ll add the pineapple (and maybe pectin) later after the ‘berries are fully rehydrated. Mmmmm, cranberry-pineapple molasses beer jelly! Oh, yeh, and mandarin oranges. What’s with my memory? And lemon zest.