Lisa came over today and we brewed up a clone of New Belgium's 1554, one of her favorite beers. The recipe was, as usual, from Austin Homebrew Supply.
It was good to have an assistant brewer because I forgot a few things. She ended up running to the store for a mortar and pestle, grinding paradise seeds, and helping out in a number of ways that cut down what could have been a long afternoon of me forgetting stuff. She also googled what to do with spent grain, so we're going to dehydrate some and try to make bread or something. The rest will get composted.
The wort was nearly pitch black. Which was cool until I spilled some on my new, light grey running shoes. That took a lot of Shout and scrubbing to clean up.
This is an odd recipe because it uses Munich lager yeast but ferments at room temperature. I'm looking forward to it and will have to go get another keg soon since I'll have the bock, this one, and next week's graff ready to keg all about the same time.
No pictures this week.
Notes:
Style: Belgian Dark Ale
Fermentation & Aging Time: Appx 3 weeks
Batch Size: 5 gallons
ABV: 5.1%
Update 9/26/12
Racked the 1554 clone into secondary this evening. It was a deep black-ish brown with hits of red and smelled fantastic. A little bready. Maybe pumpernickel-ish. Another 10 days and this one will be ready to keg. I did manage to make quite a little mess trying to get the hydrometer reading. I'm got everything cleaned up but it required moving the microwave and mopping the floor.
Updated 10/13/12
I kegged the 1554 clone. The sample I took tasted ... odd. Not bad, but not really good. Of course, it was 76 degrees F. Maybe it just needs chilled. Final gravity shows 5.1% ABV.
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