The Long Awaited Day: Beer Bottling!

Faithful blog followers, do you remember this post about brewing day four months ago?

Well today was bottling day! Huzzah!!!

So we took the carboy of beer that has been sitting in the closet fermenting since October...

 and managed to siphon it into the white bucket with a spout next to it

(after a lot of sanitizing of bottles and caps and tubes).

Then I (wo)manned the spout and filled the bottles while Clay capped them.

And here is the result:

and again in the cupboard...

It's an Imperial Stout and it measured at 8.9% ABV (alcohol by volume).  

Becky the Snail Mailer posted a really good idea for a name on my original posting: Bête Noire, the black beast.

I'm not using that name, but it is quite similar to the name I finally arrived at.

Three Dark Mules Imperial Stout

named after the three mules you see on the sidebar,

Molly, Elmer and Livee.

This is in tribute to them because I miss them a lot. This summer my parents had to sell them because of health issues with my dad.  It was a hard choice, but with another Wisconsin winter on the horizon, it would have been too much for my parents.  So they were sold, all three together to a farm an hour or so away from where my parents live.

Hopefully when I go to visit my parents next I can also visit the mules.  Their new owners use them to give trail rides, so perhaps I'll even be able to ride my sweet Livee again.

But, tonight is a night for celebration, and I'm doing that with a delicious cocktail, a Martinez (a precursor to the Martini), and a marvelous letter from a newish penpal.

Have a good night!

BeerbeerbeerbeerBEER!

So, I'm taking a short break from my normal correspondence themed postings to show you some pictures of my activities today: BREWING DAY!


That's right, today we brewed the Imperial Stout.


Earlier this week Clay helped me make a yeast starter.  This is it: 

A yeast starter is basically a very simple terrible beer made solely for the purpose of feeding the yeast.  We want to build up a large population of yeast because the Imperial Stout is a very alcoholic beer, so there need to be enough yeast to survive the deadly alcohol.  You don't have to make a yeast starter for every beer.

Here it is again. This is what we actually poured into the beer.  The yeast settles to the bottom and then you pour off the extra on top.  But the yeast goes into the beer last of all.










Here is one of the first steps of brewing beer:

Right now this is just the malted barley soaking in water.

Next fun step: pouring the malt extract into the brew. :-)

This is as thick as molasses. Ooooh.

We poured two of these jugs in the wort (but at different times).  Total that's 12 pounds of dark malt extract syrup.

Then comes lots of stirring and making sure the wort doesn't boil over.

This is by no means a how-to of beer making.  I'm describing here the steps I took photos of!

There's also a lot of sanitizing and you add hops and other steps. It's not hard, but don't try to make beer by looking at this post!!

Anyway, after chilling the wort in the sink surrounded by cold water, ice and cold packs, you get to pour it in the fermenter!

In our case, a bucket.

You also add 2 gallons of water to the fermenter before you pour in the wort.

This makes five gallons total of delicious beer to be!

The you put the lid on and rock the beer back and forth to aerate it...

and this is what it looked like after that!

 This is even before we put the yeast in, so before it is fermenting at all!

Oh boy. I am so excited.  I just love the photo of Clay pouring the wort into the bucket. Dark as night!!

And now I have about four months to wait before I can drink it.

I just hope I can think of a name for it before it's ready!

Any suggestions?

US Fuggle

In a recent letter to my friend David I included this empty, but still scent-ful packet of hop pellets that went into the last batch of my boyfriend's beer.
Have you ever smelled hops? It's a very interesting aroma.

And as stationery, I used part of a beer 4 pack container of one of my favorite beers!!

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. 

DELICIOUS!!

And I'm happy to announce that I just purchased a kit for making my own batch of Imperial Stout!
It will take 4 months to brew it.

The description from Northern Brewer:
"A strong, pitch black beer with tan head, resounding with burnt, bitter chocolate character, hops, syrupy malt, and a warming alcohol note. A nice companion on a cold winter night or accompanying chocolate dessert."

I can't wait!!

By the way, this letter was sent in the last purple envelope from the last post.

Office Mail

Okay, so since it's holi-no-mail-day, here's a second post for you to enjoy!!

This past year my boyfriend was in AmeriCorps and worked at a non-profit here in Boston.
As the year went on I got to know his co-workers pretty well since it was a very small organization. I even ended up sending some mailart to them at their office!

Below is one of the pieces I sent.

On the right is a piece based on lyrics from a Magnetic Fields song: "Love is wrapped around my heart like a boa constrictor babe."

And on the left is an ad for a super delicious beer. As you can see, it is blueberry flavored, BUT it is a dark beer!! I LOVE darker beers; stouts and porters are my favorite, and this one was amazing. I was able to try it at the American Craft Beer Fest that took place in Boston this summer. I got the ad there too.

 

This was sent to a fellow Magnetic Fields and beer fan.

*

I also sent a letter from Wisconsin to one of Clay's co-workers who grew up there. You can see it in this post. (first photo)

A hand drawn postcard went to a ginger lover in the office.

Yes, I meant the spice... not redheads.

But I have nothing against redheads- I even wanted to be one thanks to Anne of Green Gables. :-D

And finally, sent to the boyfriend himself, and inspired from a post I saw a lonnng time ago on Pintrest:

There was actually one more piece that I sent to the office, but I forgot to take a picture of it. Sorry.

Looking forward to mail tomorrow!!!

Collison Brand Beach Beer

Every year a good friend of ours goes to the beach with his large family, the Collisons. They rent a beach house for a week and we and several other friends are invited.  It is the greatest time ever. The best part of the year. 

So, in the past year my boyfriend has been homebrewing and he decided to make a beer for this special beach occasion.  It's a Belgian Tripel.  Yesterday evening was spent making labels for our awesome beach beer.  And here are the photos!

our supplies: permanent markers of many colors, ink pads, construction paper, rubber cement, and some beach themed rubber stamps

25 finished labels

a small selection - each one is completely different!

and finally, glued on the bottles!