Erisian Brewer's Cadre. Or: How I saw the Goddess in the first place

[Luna]

Decisions, decisions...

Another batch of applejack next, or a mead?

Hrm...

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

mead!

[Luna]

mead!

Hm...  Have a few ideas... 

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

My housemates and I are going to start brewing our own beer, probably starting this weekend with a stout (it being autumn over here and all). Any tips for beginners?

Good sanitation is crucial.  If you can keep it clean and you are working from a good recipe, it's easy to make good beer.

My homebrew shop carries Cooper's Sparkling Ale yeast, and I bet that yeast would make a good Australian stout.

[Rumckle]

So, we went to the local brew store last night, and had a nice long chat with the owner. Bought some stuff (Blue Mountains Lager) and put it all together this morning, so now I just play the waiting game.

Good sanitation is crucial.  If you can keep it clean and you are working from a good recipe, it's easy to make good beer.

Yeah, that's what everybody has been saying, hopfully everything should turn out fine then, I'll just have to wait and see.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

Good luck, hope it comes out great.

I just dropped off 9 entries to my club's sponsored homebrew competition -- an American wheat, a Scottish export, a chipotle Kahlua stout*, a Russian imperial stout, a Belgian golden strong ale with strawberries, a double rye IPA, a cider, an English barleywine, and a Belgian dubbel.

So, I basically traded away 18 bottles of good-to-awesome beer and $45 of hard-earned cash in entry fees for a chance to win a few ribbons.

----
*Yes Squid, I brewed another batch and have plenty now -- do you still have any of your Turkish coffee stout left?

[Luna]

Per Pixie's demand (since I'm fairly sure she can kill me from across an ocean), supplies for mead are gotten.  Starting.  If I blow up, is all Pixie's fault.

[Luna]

Per Pixie's demand (since I'm fairly sure she can kill me from across an ocean), supplies for mead are gotten.  Starting.  If I blow up, is all Pixie's fault.

No explosions.  Not even a toxic spill.  I must be doing this shit wrong.

Orange clove mead, in the carboy, once it cools a little more, the yeast goes in, and I get to wait months to see if I did it right.

ETA:

[Luna]

Looks promising...  It's going "blurp" at me every 5-6 seconds, which has to be a good sign.   

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

Good luck, hope it comes out great.

I just dropped off 9 entries to my club's sponsored homebrew competition -- an American wheat, a Scottish export, a chipotle Kahlua stout*, a Russian imperial stout, a Belgian golden strong ale with strawberries, a double rye IPA, a cider, an English barleywine, and a Belgian dubbel.

So, I basically traded away 18 bottles of good-to-awesome beer and $45 of hard-earned cash in entry fees for a chance to win a few ribbons.

----
*Yes Squid, I brewed another batch and have plenty now -- do you still have any of your Turkish coffee stout left?

Do I ever! It's still carbonating in the beer closet. It has a weak head that disappears pretty quick right now, but by fall I think it will be perfect. Tastes good though.
I have a lot of this stuff

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

Good luck, hope it comes out great.

I just dropped off 9 entries to my club's sponsored homebrew competition -- an American wheat, a Scottish export, a chipotle Kahlua stout*, a Russian imperial stout, a Belgian golden strong ale with strawberries, a double rye IPA, a cider, an English barleywine, and a Belgian dubbel.

So, I basically traded away 18 bottles of good-to-awesome beer and $45 of hard-earned cash in entry fees for a chance to win a few ribbons.

----
*Yes Squid, I brewed another batch and have plenty now -- do you still have any of your Turkish coffee stout left?

Do I ever! It's still carbonating in the beer closet. It has a weak head that disappears pretty quick right now, but by fall I think it will be perfect. Tastes good though.
I have a lot of this stuff

The head on my Chipotle Kahlua stout disappears quickly too, and the carbonation is really fizzy.  I'm not sure what's up with that.  The first batch didn't do that.

It seems like the longer it ages, the better the pepper flavor melds with the other flavors.  It's very spicy now, but it doesn't hit me until the finish.  I get roast, coffee, chocolate, and alcohol up front.  I hope whoever judges the herb/vegetable/spice beer category on Saturday likes heat, otherwise I'm certain to lose points for being "unbalanced".

In this new batch, I used more Kahlua, and I also added a pint of Creme de Cacao.  A fifth of Kahlua plus a pint of Creme de Cacao in a five gallon roughly equals a half-shot of liquor in every 12 ounce bottle, or enough to bump the base beer up from 8% ABV to 8.8%.

A five-ounce taster glass of this beer is awesome, but a pint glass is more than I want unless I have a complementary food like grilled sausage to pair it with.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

It sounds spectacular. I'm all jealous that it's not in my house.
Our stout turned out tasting exactly how I wanted it to. Like a tiny cup of turkish coffee with the cardamom and everything. The coffee flavor is a little more muted than I wanted, but that may change with time. I'm quite pleased with it.

Looks promising...  It's going "blurp" at me every 5-6 seconds, which has to be a good sign.   

That's perfect for a mead, they typically don't need a blowoff tube or anything.



PS- the pomegranate and blueberry juice stuff we made ended up fermenting all of the sugar out so it tastes like a pink champagne. A very dry one at 15%. Not sure I like it so I'm gonna let it sit for a year or 10 and see what happens.
(I may have mentioned this before, can't remember, sorry if repeat) 

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

The head on my Chipotle Kahlua stout disappears quickly too, and the carbonation is really fizzy.  I'm not sure what's up with that.  The first batch didn't do that.

It seems like the longer it ages, the better the pepper flavor melds with the other flavors.  It's very spicy now, but it doesn't hit me until the finish.  I get roast, coffee, chocolate, and alcohol up front.  I hope whoever judges the herb/vegetable/spice beer category on Saturday likes heat, otherwise I'm certain to lose points for being "unbalanced".

Heh.

... Hot spicy peppers dominate, YEOW!  Peppers dominate this beer hard to discern other flavors.  Background is roasty, chocolatey. ... Hot pepper sensation on tongue all the day down the throat. ... Not a pleasant sensation for a beer.  The peppers dominate this beer to a level that does not feel well balanced for the style.  Special ingredients should add complexity, not dominate.  Try again as the base beer seems solid, just back off the peppers.

... Very hot peppery.  Too dominant in flavor.  Lose the stout in hot pepper flavor. ... Too overwhelming with hot pepper.  Not able to taste base beer.  Need to greatly reduce peppers to make beer drinkable.  Would make great base for chili.

I took second in the Russian Imperial Stout category.  The RIS that beat mine went on to take 2nd in the overall best of show.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

Oh yeah, the competition organizers trolled some of the judges.  The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) sells flavor kits for wannabe beer judges so they can doctor beers and taste them to learn to recognize various off flavors.  So the organizers used one of those kits to doctor the ever living fuck out of a beer and then submitted it in the name of a guy who is a prominent member of our homebrew club despite the fact that he rarely brews any beer. 

The scores officially range from 0-50, but as a courtesy we typically don't go below 13.  One of the judges was telling me about it before I knew anything, said it was by far the worst beer he had ever had, and couldn't understand why anyone would submit it to a competition.  He gave this beer a 4.

[BabylonHoruv]

My housemates and I are going to start brewing our own beer, probably starting this weekend with a stout (it being autumn over here and all). Any tips for beginners?

stouts are good to start with, they're pretty easy and the full dark flavor will cover up accidental off flavors.  The main things to watch out for are to be patient, if you think it might be done leave it a few more days.  don't open your fermenter.

Can't offer anythign else without having some idea of what sort of setup you have.