Hi, Long time ago I was complaining here about the brewing process taking too long to be practical on a weekday night. Now I wish to report on my experiments on brewing on two evenings.
The idea: If you can't do it in one night, do it in two nights. Interrupt the process at some point, and continue the next day. I made two experimental brews, stopping at different places. But first the basic setup: My regular 4-liter experimental brew (because I have three 1-gl fermenters from Vin?l Hobby - great bottles). A simple basic formula, aiming to keep it plain and simple: 1 Kg of pale ale malt 5 l of water 5 g of Saaz hops for bittering 2 g of Saaz hops for finishing Wyeast 1028 London Ale yeast Beer 14-A: "Overnight boil" Simple one-step infusion mash. Boil it up with bittering hops, and leave until the next day. Boil for 5 minutes with the finishing hops, cool and pitch. Observations: Due to the small batch size, it cooled quickly. Still, something must have been going on in the pot, as the result was a bit darker than expected, and not all that clear. Resulting beer was quite uninteresting, almost boring, but drinkable. Conclusion: Possible, but not really recommended. Might work best for strongly flavoured beers that are not supposed to be very clear - porter? Beer 14-B: "Overnight mash" Simple one-step infusion mash, that is allowed to stay and cool down overnight. Simple boil, 1 hour for bittering, and 5 minutes for finishing. Observations: Developed a nice sourness, that really gave life to the beer, without dominating. Conclusions: Nice technique for things that could use acidity, not only Krieks and Lambics (they will probably need proper bacteria cultures), but all sort of refreshing beers. Might be fun to experiment with even longer times, to get a proper sour mash. Certainly a technique I will remember for the occasional use. Comments welcome, as always -Heikki -- Heikki Levanto LSD - Levanto Software Development <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
