Aqua Vitae

Day three of fermentation for the Belgian Abbey Ale, and it continues to bubble away like mad. Day two ended as it had begun, with several bubbles per second. Day three woke up the same rate of bubbling, despite the ambient temperature dropping ~6 degrees overnight. In fact, the temperature of the fermenting wort only […]

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After repitching the yeast last night at in last weekend’s Belgian Abbey Ale, I woke up this morning to the airlock bubbling vigorously - 1-3 bubbles per second.
I repitched at about 7:30, and actually noticed the first bubbles in the airlock by about 10:30. So fermentation was clearly off to a very fast start.
So the […]

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I’ve already started fretting over the fermenter. I’ve added bottles of hot water to bring up the temp a few degrees and have checked the temp twice this morning.
I’m hoping I didn’t leave too much yeast in the aerating buckets. If fermenting hasn’t started by Sunday morning I may need to repitch. The wort seems […]

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OK, brewing actually went fine.
I just shouldn’t have tried to clean the house, make dinner, answer client calls, submit ads, and try to get out of the house by 8:30pm to go out, all at the same time as brewing.
Couple things worked really well:

short garden hose on kitchen faucet - this was fantastic for filling […]

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The 083006 Pale Ale got bottled tonight. Very easy, very quick. Erik came over and lent a hand. We filled 33 12 oz. bottles and 7 22 oz. bottles.
The Pale Ale tasted good too, even without the carbonation. Two more weeks, and then we’ll see how it all came out…

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It’s two days away from bottling the pale ale that I brewed a while back. It feels like ages ago.
Anyhow, tonight I cleaned 48 12 oz. bottles and 3 22 oz. bottles. I also got a case of 12 22 oz. bottles, just in case.
Tomorrow I’ll sterilize them. And then Thursday I’ll bottle.
Can’t wait.

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