Adventures in homebrewing, indeed

My favorite homebrew supply shop is Adventures in Homebrewing in Taylor, just beyond the Detroit airport.  It's not that I can't get supplies in Ann Arbor, but there's no dedicated homebrew shop here, and the selection is limited.  Besides, Adventures is a terrific shop staffed by great people who really know their stuff.

But this isn't about the store.  It's about the fact that it's aptly named.

I wrote in my previous post that the low-down on my second batch of homebrew, my attempt to make a steam style beer, was a whole other story.  This is that story, though at the time I wrote the previous post, I didn't know whether it would end well.  Now I know.

We learn in woodshop class, or from a parent or mentor, or via hard lessons of one sort or another to "measure twice, cut once."  How about measuring at all?  That'd be a good start; after all, sometimes after you measure just once, you still end up cutting just once, and it turns out OK.

I had bought a recipe kit for steam beer in homage to one of my all-time favorites and intro's to craft beer, Anchor Steam.  The long and the short of it was that it was under-malted.  There wasn't enough malt extract in the kit to make the promised five gallon batch and have the original gravity fall within the desired range.  That's a bummer, but it's no big deal, because any beer-loving, would-be-homebrewer doofus with a batch under his or her expanding belt-line probably ought to know to take gravity readings while adding water to bring the wort up to volume.  This particular doofus did so while making the tasty brown ale - still so enjoyable as I get down to the last bottles - and just made about 4.5 gallons instead of 5, because that's when I hit the right gravity range.  Yet for whatever reason, or no reason, I just didn't do it this time until I had brought the volume up to 4.5 gallons.  Then, some little synapse went "bing," and I thought to measure the gravity.  Way low.  Already.  At 4.5 gallons.  I cursed a bit, staved off panic, and turned to The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by demigod Charlie Papazian, the man who wrote about how to brew beer at home long before it was re-legalized.  Sure enough, in the "troubleshooting" section, there was some advice about this very situation.  He suggested that one could just ferment what one's got and chalk it up to experience - the option he preferred - or one could add some malt extract.  Of course, he indicated how much malt extract - based on liquid malt extract.  And oh yeah, he also advised as always that I relax, not worry, and have a homebrew.  Generally, that's terrific advice, but I needed to grab some more malt extract first.

So, on an icy night, off I went to the local homebrew shop, and I bought some malt extract.  Dried malt extract.  See, they were out of the right liquid extract, and I hadn't quite gotten to the part in the book where Charlie indicates that there's a difference as far as what it'll do to your gravity.  Or I hadn't noticed.    Either way, I went home and poured in the extract.  In fact, rather a lot.  And again, I didn't measure as I went.

My gravity was sky-high.  Have I already mentioned that I am a doofus?

Now friends, there are worse things than having a high-gravity beer.  In fact, I drink a lot of those - though not a lot at once - and love them.  Besides, I still had some room to bring the beer up to volume, so I brought it up to the full 5 gallons, and the gravity was still high, but no longer ridiculous.  I capped the fermenter and, like Charlie suggests, relaxed, tried not to worry, and had a homebrew.  Of course, now I was worried not only about the gravity but about the possibility that I introduced an infection into the cooled wort when I added the malt.  But the tasty homebrew helped, just like Charlie says.

In case you haven't noticed from these posts, there's a seat-of-the-pants, experimental quality to homebrewing, even when using a well-regarded recipe kit.  It's not a hard thing to do, let me tell you.  It ain't rocket science.  But there are several variables, and attention to detail is very helpful.  Measure twice, cut once.

The beer was three weeks in the fermenter.  Even so, the final gravity was higher than the desired range, meaning that there were sugars in there that the yeast hadn't metabolized.  I had already stirred it up gingerly and reluctantly after the two week mark in an effort to restart fermentation, risking oxidation, but the yeast wasn't having any of it.  It was time to bottle it and move on.  When I sampled a touch of the flat beer during bottling, at first I thought that it was an overly malty, unbalanced mess.  But on my second sip, there was some nice bitterness and hop aroma there.  That's how hope smells and tastes, in this case.

Two weeks in the bottle, and the Queen and I cracked one open, and I feel very fortunate as I write that it was very good.  Amber with bright ruby highlights, a thick, creamy, off-white head that dissipated pretty slowly.  The carbonation wasn't too intense, but just right to carry some fresh, spicy, floral aroma.  It had a rich mouthfeel but avoided being too heavy, and while somewhat sweet, it was balanced by a pretty assertive (but not overwhelming) bitterness and notes of spice, pine, and flowers.  It's like a steam-amber ale hybrid, and it's pretty darn delicious and a definite session beer.  I look forward to more as it matures further in the bottle.  The Queen even opened a second bottle on its inaugural night, and if that isn't a favorable review, I don't know what is.

My buddy Sean had mentioned before and after my bottling-day sampling that I shouldn't be concerned yet, since the beer could still end up being terrific.  Another lesson learned.

Homebrewing yields lessons in every batch.  I can't wait to start the next one, and at this point, I know enough to avoid some mistakes, and also to expect to learn some more lessons.