Wedding Reception (Beer / Cider / Wine)

[CrealCritter]

Nice coloring in the Irish Red Ale, so far👌

I've made this self created Irish Red Ale recipe several times. It took me a couple of tries to get the right mix of grains to get the red color, then it was a tweak on flavor and technique. I don't care much for dark roasted barley, so I used light roasted barley instead and just enough that you know, it's there but it's not front and center.

I personally believe there are two outside of the box techniques, I personally developed for this brew, is what i believe makes this beer stand out.

1) I use low oxygen techniques during mashing. By adding the water to the bottom of the mash tub and placing a stainless steel mash cap over top of the grains. This keeps oxygen exposure of the grains to a minimum. Mashing is just when you steep the crushed grains at a certain water temperature to allow the enzymes already present in the malts, to convert starches to sugars (boy did I broad bush that definition). And since it is totally illegal to own a still in Illinois. I also add Potassium Metabisulfite to my brew water which drives out oxygen from the water and eliminates both free chlorine and chloramine from the water. Else I would just distill my own water and it would probably be an even better beer. It's as close as I can get to distilled water without actually distilling my own water. Which again is totally illegal in illinois.

As far as the other technique, I do a slow rolling boil for entire hour for this brew and it's mainly the reason I end up with 1/2 gallon extra because their's less boil down than a "normal brew calls for". There is absolutely no need to carmelize any of the sugars in this beer, it should be a fairly dry in the mouth when drank.

It's a really good beer and very authentic. It's the result of a lot of research and trial and error and inventing some new to me techniques. If you're looking for a authentic Irish Red Ale. The recipe is near the beginning of the thread. And I could help guide you, if you want to give it a go.

BTW I brew beer / cider / wine / mead because I like the flavors and the health benefits of natural fermented foods and drinks. I also make saurkraut, fermented pickles and ginger ale too. I guess i just like fermentation.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[farmerjan]

Now, I like ginger ale..... Hmm.... never thought of it as a n ale, even though that is the name.... I also like to eat sauerkraut....

 

[CrealCritter]

Both beers have been in secondary fermentation 8 days now. Hopefully you can see the clear beer, it's only cleared about 3/4" from the top. It still has a long ways to go but usually starts clearing faster after a couple of weeks.

Very high level explaination of what's happening. The yeast is cleaning up after it'self, eating every last little bit of nasty tasting stuff it can. As it runs out of stuff to eat, it drops out of suspension from the top down. This is a Ale (top fermenting) yeast strain. Lager is a Bottom fermenting yeast strain but a this stage both lager and ale yeast behalves the same.

I don't filter my home brews, so it's a matter of patience. I would say time wise it's a little more than 1/2 way finished. Every homebrew behaves a little different, to keep the hobby interesting.

Blond Ale, easier to see the clear beer on the top.

Irish Red Ale not a very good picture to see clearing.

Some home brewers "Cold Crash" at this point. Which is just like it sounds. They stick the carboy in cooler at about 34 degrees fahrenheit. After a few days the yeast drops to the bottom but in my opinion, leaves behind off flavors. I don't like cold crashed beer, I can tell with just one sip if the beer had been cold crashed or not. I would rather let the yeast clean up and have a nice natural and enjoyable flavored beer. Like I said to me it's patience... and It's worth the wait

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

Success 👍 both brews took longer to drop clear than I expected but was worth the extra wait.

I think it's difference in the water from our old place to our new place. We are on a totally different water supply now. Next batch will prove or disprove my suspicion. Probably a bit of excess calcium in the water, if I had to guess. But this water produces a smoother brew, so I'm not at all complaining. People forget or overlook... The number 1 ingredient by volume in beer, is water.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

 

[CrealCritter]

My future daughter came over today to make apple cider for the wedding. I had 6 1/2 gallons of some jacked up juice from a apple cider kit that I made and fed starting September 2019. It was Brewers Best Apple Cider House kit. I fed it table sugar until the cider yeast died of alcohol poisoning. Then I finished it off as a wine. It's been bulk aging every since in a 6 1/2 gallon glass carboy in my closet. Today was the first samples drawn.

I like to experiment and this cider wine finished off at 18% alcohol by volume, it's STRONG stuff. But after a bunch of samples mixing in apple juice we dialed it in to what we believe will be a awesome cider after I carbonate it. We tried 75% cider wine mixed with 25% Apple juice and it was still a little to strong. 50/50 was to sweet but 2/3 cider wine with 1/3 apple juice was really good. So now I have to add 2 gallons of apple juice to the 6 gallons of apple cider wine and keg 5 gallons and force carbonate with CO2 gas.

The remaining 3 gallons I'm going to bottle uncarbonated in wine bottles for them so they can drink one bottle a year on their wedding anaversary. That will be about 15 750 ml bottles, they better stay married a long time 😂. I'm going to have to go with the top of the line bottle corks to make it 15 years.

Even mixing with 1/3rd Apple Juice it's still a respectable 12% Alcohol By Volume. Which is like 3 times more than normal store bought bottles of apple cider. I told my future daughter I am not responsible for drunk ladies at the wedding reception.

Just for the record I asked my wife to pick up a bottle of apple juice so we could sample. I asked her just the basics I don't want a bunch of chemicals added. She said she first grabbed a bottle labeled "healthy" read the ingredients and couldn't pronounce a lot of them. Then she grabbed the Walmart brand and read the ingredients and said yep this cheap stuff is it. She did good see apple juice lable below.

The makings for a good apple cider

Walmart Apple Juice Label Apple Cider Wine

I need to name this stuff for a label. And no it can't be Crealcritter's Concoction either : 😂 any ideas???

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[Cecilia's-life]

Crealcritter's Concoction either : 😂 any ideas???

I thought your account name was Cereal Critter for the longest time...🤣 How about Apple pie something??

 

[Messybun]

I really like the idea of the fifteen years of wines. That’s just awesome. With the verses I think starting with Genesis is really clever, and for the proceeding years just pray about what order.

 

[Messybun]

6 1/2 gallons Irish Red Ale on left and 6 gallons of Blond Ale on the right. I racked both into clear 6 1/2 gallon glass carboys and 1/2 gallon growler for secondary fermentation. They will stay in the carboys/growler covered with some old tee-shirts, until they drop clear naturally. Clarification for ales usually takes 2 to 3 weeks.

If all goes according to plan, I should end up with deep Ruby red colored Irish Red Ale and a Straw colored Blond Ale. So far so good but hoping for successful finished beer.
View attachment 15932

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

Why do you cover the jugs with t-shirts? Just curiosity.

 

[farmerjan]

Very interesting.... thank you for the "lessons" .....