As promised, I am updating you on the progress of the holiday ale project that my husband and I started almost a month ago. To quickly recap, we have home brewing equipment and went to Brew Camp, a great beer supply store up on the north side to purchase our malt, hops, yeast, and finishing sugar. We added (per a recipe we used from The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing) fresh ginger, orange peel, cinnamon, and honey. The mixture fermented quite aggressively for about a day, and then it remained in the carboy (large glass jug with a narrow opening) for about three weeks.
Last weekend we decided it was time to bottle, again per the recipe and advice of the crew at Brew Camp. We could see a sludge-like layer (really sludgy!) at the very bottom of the carboy, and this was the dead yeast that had done its job in creating alcohol in the beer. We carefully siphoned off the beautiful, clear, brown ale, trying not to stir up any of the leftover yeast. At this point it was once again very important that every element used in the process was completely sanitized. The hoses, the bucket into which the beer was siphoned, and all of the bottles and caps were cleaned and dipped in either iodine or quaternary sanitizer. We then dissolved the finishing sugar in a very small amount of water and mixed it into the flat beer. The job of this sugar is to feed whatever yeast organisms are left so as to produce carbonation in the bottle.
Bottling was next, carefully filling each clean bottle evenly (remember that we used champagne bottles for this project) and then capping it. We have a capper, and beer caps actually fit quite nicely onto these bottles. The Brew Camp store had some cool, stopper-type caps, which we may use in the future, but these caps worked just fine. My sister Sara helped me with the layout and decoration of the label (thanks, Sara!) and that’s the end of the line. We have had it in the bottle now for about one week, and it is almost time to enjoy!
I will update you one last time to let you know how it tastes!
