Next we got a little serious about that wild idea of actually building a kegerator. And by "a little serious," I mean that Rick just went out and did it. Props to him for not only making it, but making it look good and seemingly work well. Feast your eyes.
(please excuse my cameraphone. I'm hoping my camera capabilities might improve in the next month.)I also bought a second keg so that when a beer is conditioning in one keg, we can have another beer still on tap. Preliminary talks have already begun about a third keg, but we'll see. Also, given that my brewing hobby has transformed into a household obsession in which we are all equally contributing, the brand is shifting from DSB (Darling Strange Brew) to KSB (Kenyon Street Brewery). Will the branding on this blog change? Probably not.
Ok, so next we get into our next beer. This is kind of a monster of a beer. I don't know if it's the most ambitious beer I've ever done, but it's definitely up there.
Brewing
Date: 12/1/09
Name of beer: KSB Stout Morning Wood
Type of beer: Chocolate Oatmeal Coffee Stout
Quantity: 5 gallons
Homage Beer: We drank the last of our Brothel's Virgin IPA, as well as some Darling Strange Poo Brown ales, and who knows what else.
Ingredients:
1lb Light dry extract
8lb Golden liquid extract
1.5lb oats (the quaker variety)
1.00lb chocolate malt
.75lb Roasted Barley
.5lb crystal malt
.5lb de-bittered black malt
.5oz Nugget hops (boiling)
.5oz Willamette hops (added halfway through)
.5oz Willamette hops (added with 2mins to go)
.5 tsp yeast nutrient
8oz dark bitter chocolate (added with 15mins to go)
8oz oz freshly roasted, coarsely ground ethiopian coffee
American ale yeast
Process: Nothing crazy going on here. Just a whole lot of everything. The oats went in with the specialty grains, and the yeast nutrient goes in with 10 mins left in the boil. Half of the coffee went in at flameout, the other half will go in during the secondary "brightening" stage.
I don't have any stats on this beer such as gravity readings because I dropped (and smashed) the hydrometer just before measuring. Also, it was about a week and a half ago and I've forgotten what it tasted like.
We put this in a plastic bucket to ferment, and when it has sat in the dark for around 2 weeks we are going to tranfer it into a Better Bottle carboy for secondary brightening, at which point we are going to add the coffee. Once that has sat for 2-4 weeks (whenever it looks good I guess) we are going to put it in a keg until the beginning of February, when we will tap it and enjoy. It's a full 2 months from start to finish but I think it will be worth it.
I think that this is a plenty long blog post. We did brew another beer this past Tuesday, but I will write about that in a future post. And if you don't believe me, here's a sneak preview. I spoil you.
3.7 Internet Points go to whoever can identify the beer style based on this picture. Leave a comment.
<3
JJ
