Homebrew Updates

First, let me say that I am sad. I kicked the keg of ESB last week. That was a sad day. Fortunately, I had another full keg in there to make up for it. Back on 23 March I kegged the mocha porter I had brewed in early February.

The Mocha Porter turned out awesome. It ended with a final gravity of 1.018 giving it around 7.3% ABV. It's a dark, murky brown color that lets pretty much no light through. It has a nice roasted malt aroma with some coffee notes. The body is thick and silky smooth from the flaked oats I used in the mash. There is a solid porter foundation with lots of dark malt flavor and a touch of crystal sweetness. The coffee and chocolate flavors meld nicely, neither one being too obvious above the rest of the beer. This was easily the best coffee/chocolate-based beer I'm brewed yet. This recipe will definitely be brewed again with tweaks to hone it. If I ever manage to open a brewery like I want, this'll be a nice Winter seasonal (maybe with a bit more alcohol, though). :)

On the same day I kegged the Mocha Porter, I also racked the Belgian Dubbel into a secondary fermenter. The gravity was 1.022 at the time and fermentation had pretty much ceased. After racking, I put it closer to the heater and let it go. The fermentation kicked back up fairly strongly for a few days, so I'm hoping I got a lot closer to my attenuation target. I should probably check the gravity of it soon and get it into one of the empty kegs. There is one open slot in the chest freezer for another keg to get tapped.... :)

Beer me!

So the chest freezer is set up in my kitchen, and tonight I added lines and cobra taps to the chilled kegs. I am currently drinking a pint of my amber that I brewed many months ago (sometime back in the winter). Mmmm. This beer has really done well with the aging, though it lost a bit of the hop bite. It was really meant to have more hop flavor than bitterness anyway, and the flavor has been preserved quite nicely. This is delicious.