Ovaltine beer tasting

Aroma: A mite sour. Ok, maybe a bit more than a mite. Slight chocolate aroma.

Appearance: Dark, dark, dark. One of the darkest brown beers I've ever. Surprisingly, and thankfully, it has none of the opaque "chocolate milk" look it did earlier

Flavor: Pretty tart and bitter, but then there's a nice chocolate/coffee taste at the end. It really makes me want to try with just the Ovaltine and none of the Whoppers. Maybe it could use some more hops, too, as I'm not really tasting any at all.

Mouthfeel: Feels like beer. I never know what to put for this.

Other comments: Nice amount of head, pretty good retention. It turned out more "beery" than I really expected. It's a shame about the sourness, because otherwise, it would be a real nice stout.

Overall: This tasted a lot better than I thought it would. I really enjoy the chocolate/coffee taste. I'll taste it again in a month or two, to see if the sourness has mellowed out at all.

She's obviously handing her mother that drink,
not drinking it herself. Yes.

Contest time! The label for the Ovaltine stout is to the right.

The first person to find and decode the message on it gets a bottle of the beer. Comment bellow with your answer, and an email address where I can contact you at.

Err, I mean of course, I'll send you a bottle of "yeast suspended in wort." Because no major postal service allows you to mail alcohol.

Apple Pie Ale- Week 1

Day 1- Vigorous fermentation- about 30 bpm.

Day 2- Slowed down quite a bit-, like to 4 bpm

Day 3- No bubbles. Could it be done fermenting already?

Day 4- Nothing again.

Day 5 & 6- Still nothing.

Day 7- I took the gravity and it came out 1.009! That's one of the fastest fermentations I've experienced- they weren't kidding about that yeast. I'll check it in a couple days too, but my hunch is that it's ready to bottle.

Still kinda green, but definitely more beer-y looking

Apple Pie Ale- Brew Day

The pie was a small, generic apple pie from Target.
I wasn't going to waste anything good on this!

Finally got this post done. I apologize for the delay. It seems that fate was against me last week. I had problems with everything from supplies disappearing to my camera's batteries dieing. Whatever. Enough with the excuses, on to the beer.

1.5 lbs of apple pie

A couple weeks ago, you all voted a whole apple pie as my next "special ingredient," so on Sunday, I finally got around to making the beer. When designing the recipe, I wanted to keep the whole thing as simple as possible to limit the confounding variables that went into my beer. That all went out the window when I learned about Austin Homebrew's Magic Hop Dust. I just couldn't resist throwing it in.

Apple pie glob. Lots of spillage during straining.

My first idea was to draw inspiration from Tom Seefurth's Mamma Mia Pizza and just steep the pie in the mash for a while. After I did this, though, I tasted the results - not very apple-y at all. Tasted vaguely of cinnamon and crust. So, I just added the whole thing to the last 15 minutes of the boil and strained all the chunks out.

I chose White Lab's famous WLP001 because I've never used it and heard good things about its hardiness and taste. If all goes well, it may become my go-to yeast in these experiments.

Recipe: Apple Pie Ale- 1 Gallon

1 lb light malt extract
.1 ounces of Austin Homebrew's Magic Hop Dust (60 min)
.1 ounces of Magic Hop Dust (15 min)
1 Whole Apple Pie - approx 1.5 lbs - mashed in a bag at around 155 degrees for 15 minutes, added in the last 15 min of boil
White Labs California Ale Yeast- WLP001

OG- 1.042

Looks like pea soup

Bad News Everybody

I was planning on making the apple pie beer today. However, when I got out all my supplies, I discovered that my hydrometer was shattered. So, I'll postpone until I stop by the LHBS Monday or Tuesday after work and get a replacement.

Ovaltine Beer - Final Synopsis

Don't worry, all that residue is from the no-rinse cleaner.
Don't fear the...residue?

Day 23- Took gravity, it's at about 1.011. I returned the sample to the fermenter because there's so little to begin with, I don't want to waste any. Made me a little nervous, but I'm being very careful, sanitation wise. I couldn't resist, and kept a sample sip. It wasn't as bad as it smells, but pretty bitter. Maybe I overdid it on the hops.

Day 24- Gravity is the same.

Day 25- Gravity is the same, that means about 6.4% abv. Nice!

It's ready for bottling! I probably won't get a chance to do it until this weekend, though. In preparation. I set my bottles in an Oxyclean solution to loosen the labels.

Day 27- Stripped the labels and scoured off any remaining gunk. I put the bottles into a no-rinse cleaner bath.

Day 28- Bottling Day! The brew now smells sweeter, though still a bit sour. Color-wise, it still just looks like light chocolate milk, very opaque.

 

My 10 soldiers.
I always make one of my bottles clear so
 I can see the color and keep it as a souvenir.

Lots of trub left over.

I'll condition them for a couple weeks, then report on the taste. Be sure to check back tomorrow night, when I move on to brew a Whole Apple Pie!

Ovaltine Beer - Week 3 Synopsis

Day 15- I transferred the beer to secondary last night. This morning, there was no activity in the air lock, but plenty of normal-looking krausen.

The Beer in its new home- notice the muddy brown color
 This is the opaque beer I've ever made (or seen).  

The residue in the old fermenter. Yummy.

Day 21- No activity all week. Sorry for the brief post. I'll start taking gravity readings next week.

The morning of day 16.

Radical Brewing

Last night, Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass arrived. I spent a couple hours sipping a beer and reading it. I'm really enjoying it so far. The author is very funny and engaging. I'll write a full review when I'm done.

On another note, I was going to make my Apple Pie brew today, but the ingredients I ordered from Austin Homebrew on Tuesday didn't get shipped until yesterday. I love their shop - good selection, competitive prices, and flat shipping, even on heavy items. However, their turnaround times often leave something to be desired. Oh well.