Beer update

I racked off my Witches Brew today. I was a bit disappointed because the 20-odd litres of wort only gave me just over 15l of beer - the rest of the fermenter was full of a wheaty sludgy mulch with some whole bits of puffed wheat embedded in it. This made the siphoning hard because the puffed wheat would clog up the siphon tube - some bits even made it through into the secondaries. Next time I'll clean the grain bag out after the sparge and use it to hold any extras ('adjuncts' to use the correct terminology) in the boil. That way the wort will be a lot cleaner.

The brew tastes extremely bitter and I'm hoping that this is not a by-product of the fermenting solution sitting on the wheat for a week & just part of the natural process - that the bitterness levels off during the secondary fermentation & bottling processes. Time will tell - I can see many sleepless nights ahead with me snapping awake screaming 'No! The Fuggles!'. It's all a valuable learning process but despite common sense telling me this is only a first try I will be disappointed if the end result is something mediocre.

I also bottled the ginger honey beer that's been sitting in a secondary for a while now. This has fermented pretty much to dryness so I'm taking a chance and bottling most if it in wine bottles (the fact I have a surfeit of wine bottles is a sheer coincidence). I didn't add sugar so this should turn out as a flat dry gingery lowish alcohol wine with a honey backtaste. That's if the bottles don't explode. Fortunately the 'under the sink' beer-holding cupboard is fairly sturdy so although explosions will result in a sticky mess at least the flying glass will be contained.

I now have two demijhons and a 30l fermenter free. Time to go poke around the fridge and see what's available to brew up today :)