Pumpkin Weizenbock

I decided--fairly randomly, although triggered by the thoughts of fermenting in a pumpkin--to make a pumpkin beer.  While my first thought was a oatmeal stout, I quickly decided that a weizenbock would work nicely.  I fell in love with the style after trying the original, Avantius (absolutely delicious...and propagating the yeast should be possible).
While I decided to not ferment in a pumpkin--too much work/cost for not much in the way of results (beyond being able to say I did it)--I did use fresh pumpkin in the recipe.

First Wild Brew

I'm excited to say that I finally pitched yeast on my first wild brew.  I've been wanting to do this for quite a while, simply out of curiousity.  The results being, that back in June I "harvested" (it was airborn) assorted yeast, microbes, and I don't know what else from the garden--this is known as an "ambient" starter (as opposed to one started from fruit skins, or flower petals).  See the prior blog post (here) for the journal of the starters.



What this is, is a semi-spontaneous fermentation.  I say the semi, since a completely spontaneous fermentation would have used the full volume of wort, and no starters to make sure it won't just go bad--too risky for me.  For information on Spontaneous fermentations, like lambics, read here.  The Milk the Funk wiki, and their FB group are both very good sources of information.  This article is also a good one.

The wild capture starter in the middle is the one being used.

Spontaneous Starters

For information on the process, see Bootleg Biology's page on the subject.

Starter 1 and 2: 500ml water, boiled with ½ cup DME for 10 minutes, some yeast nutrients were also added.  OG should be around 1.06-1.07.  Divided into two mason jars, which are being swirled vigorously regularly.  Both are tightly covered in foil.

Starter 1 (Hereafter, Apple blossom) received a number of blossoms from the apple tree, once cooled to body temp.

Starter 2 (Hereafter, Garden Starter) was set out in the garden, next to the greenhouse and by the small crabapple.  It was covered in muslin to keep chunks out, and left out from 5pm to midnight (before bringing it in, I swirled it uncovered for several minutes).  Temperature was 70s during the day and cooled to the 40s.

Cold-mixed Absinthe, a (legal to make) recipe

A guest post from a friend who needed a place to share his recipe.

Conrad’s Ever-changing Absinthe Recipe

This recipe is based on looking at half a dozen regional absinthe recipes.  This recipe is non-distilled for ease and legality.  

The Highwayman Old (well...) Ale

One of my favourite songs is The Highwayman, a poem written in 1906 by Alfred Noyes, and performed as a song by Loreena McKennitt (Link to youtube of the song). 

For some reason, the song spoke to me, saying it wanted to be made into some kind of beer.  Something traditionally English, common to the inns of the time, BUT with some continental influences--specifically French or Belgian character, since the mental feel I have of the Highwayman stereotype is at both English and French.  While the primary yeast and grain bill (other than the Special B) are English (and I will use something like treacle or apple cider concentrate for bottle carbing), I want plummy red wine and rum flavours in there as well. 

"Belgian" Dubble Graff

This was my New Year's brew for 2013--it turned out fairly good, but seems to have only gotten better with time; I opened one of the few remaining bottles last night and it was amazing.  Ripe with dried fruit flavours.

This is one of my graffs--a cider with malted grains--which has a Belgian dubble based grain bill, and contains home made dark candi syrup.  Belgian yeast was not available to me at the time, and I ended up--for some unknown reason--using a lager yeast (and fermenting in cold temperatures, of course).  I actually consider that to be a success--it was drinkable extremely quickly, and might not have been with a quicker fermentation.

(Light) Cherry Cyser

This is a sweet, hopefully juicy mead--easy to drink and enjoy, and done fairly quickly (both times, I made it in September, and bottled for New Years).  The "light" in the name refers to the ABV% which is slightly lower than the average mead--around 10%.  Thus far, I have made it twice--with differences in each.

So, here are the recipes and my rather minimal log notes.

2014 Batch.  And I am still mourning this glass.