Hello and happy new year! It’s been a long couple of weeks and the posts I want to make are starting to fuzz up in my memory so I need to start cranking them out lest I forget what I’ve done for the past month.
First up is documenting my second attempt at homebrewing. As this is only my second attempt, I’m still working from kits. I picked one that seemed a little more complicated than the last one: BrewCraft Heather n Honey Deep Brown Kit:
A variation on an American style of brown ale, this beer is heavier and darker than typical English brown ales. It also has the unusual addition of wild-harvested Scottish Heather tips in place of flavor and aroma hops, for a unique floral/herbal twist. Heather was once used for both medicinal and flavoring purposes in ancient Scottish and English ales before hops were readily available. Nowadays it is used to create a stand-apart brown ale by brewers in both the UK and US. We include rare Meadowfoam honey which has a “caramel-marshmallow” flavor and aroma; we think it’s ideally suited to compliment the flavors and aromas of toasted brown malt and heather in this beer.
I steeped the grains in 3 gallons of filtered tap water at 165* for 10 minutes. Then I removed the grain and added 3 pounds of Breiss dry malt (amber). Dry malt is weird – if you don’t stir vigorously, it chunks up into – looking bits.
You can see some of the malt stuck to the side of my tub. You can also see the pan I used to make scrambled eggs next to that. 
I brought the wort to a boil. The instructions warned me that it might boil over, but it never did. It foamed about as much as it is in the above picture. I added 1 ounce of US Northern Brewer Pellet Bittering Hops and boiled for 45 minutes. Then I added 4 ounces of dried heather tips and 2 more pounds of Breiss Dry Malt (amber).
I stirred this for 1 minute and boiled for 12 minutes.
I transferred the wort to the fermenting bucket, making sure to pour vigorously to aerate it properly. I then put it in my sink full of ice until it reached about 70*. I sprinkled dry yeast on top and put the lid on.
It’s been sitting in the primary fermenter since 12/9. I was thinking of doing a secondary fermentation to clarify the beer, as some friends had recommended, but after doing some research on the homebrew forums I decided to just leave it in the primary fermenter for longer than the 2 weeks the instructions recommended.
Tonight I’m going to add the sugar (which is in the form of raspberry honey!) and bottle it. It’ll be a long time before I can taste it (more on why later..) which will help me work on patience for bottle conditioning. I won’t be tempted to open it a week after bottling, like last time, which didn’t end well.
Congrats on the brew! That sounds like an interesting recipe. I Don’t think I’ve ever had a homebrew or a commercial beer with Heather tips in it, though.
When you’re steeping your grains you want to tie the bags to the pot handles so they don’t touch the bottom of the pot. You can burn the grains that way and it’ll make your beer taste like burned toast (or worse). I used some shiskabob skewers across the top of the pot and dangle the bags off them. Also, 10 minutes steeping time seems a bit short. Usually it’s closer to 15-20 minutes.
If your beer has been in the fermenter since December 9th it should be ready to bottle now. Primary fermentation is almost for sure done by now. Unless this is intended to be a big huge beer 9% ABV or more? If it’s meant to be 4-6% fermentation is usually done in a week to 10 days. Not much need for a secondary on this one, usually I only do secondary on pale ales and IPAs and other lighter-colored/clear beers.
You should bring it to the next meeting of Albany Brew Crafters and let everyone get a taste test.
Cheers!
Chad
Thanks Chad! (And thanks for promoting me, btw!)
Good idea. I’ve noticed that the grain bag tends to float around, but I’ll keep that in mind. The 10 minutes came from the recipe instructions, which I’m learning is not really a good idea to follow.
I’m sure the primary is done – i had some trouble with my bubbling airlock so I never saw any bubbles, but I cracked the lid on the fermenter after a week and it had obviously foamed up and subsided. I left it in the priamry fermenter longer in an attempt to make the beer a bit clearer. I have a friend who typcially brews belgian style and always does a second fermentation for clarity purposes but after reading through homebrewtalk.com I decided to just leave it in the primary for a little longer instead of racking it. It’s definitely not a big beer – according to the hydrometer it should be a little over 6%.
I should find the time to make it there – it’s hard, since I live about half an hour outside of Albany. But I’ll give it a try.
did you take a gravity reading when you put it in the fermenter? The way you determine ABV is the difference in gravity between the time you brew it and how much it changes over the course of fermentation. The lower the number drops the higher the alcohol. Your original gravity was probably something like 1040 or 1050
Yup, I did. I wrote it down somewhere at home, I’ll have to check. I’ll take a reading tonight and see what I get.