January 26, 2009

We seem to be having a real Winter this year, and things are again "progressing" slower than I would like. A busted pipe reminded me that the equipment isn't too happy with the sub-freezing temperatures. (Unlike the fermentation room, my little brewhouse is unheated.) Couple that with the fact that this is a small-scale, part-time endeavor (brewing on weekends or days where I can play hooky from work), the beer isn't flowing out too rapidly at present. As warmer weekends approach, so will new batches of beer.

Meanwhile some Weizenbock should be out early February.

I'll be kicking the smoke up a notch with the next batch of Hellsmoke Porter. The earlier homebrew version was a lot smokier than what was available to folks in December's "First Flight", but I seemed to be the only one who was happy with the homebrew level of smoke. Perhaps I brought the smoke level down too much. A good number of RateBeer / BeerAdvocate reviewers indicated that they would like more smoke, so I'll try to find a happy balance between the old homebrew smoke and that of the December release. Not too much to overwhelm the senses, but a bit more smoke seems to be called for.