Wednesday, October 23, 2013

breaking brews into batches

I made my first cider a while back, which left me with the four 1-gallon glass jugs that the apple juice had come in. I figured the jugs would be perfect "mini-carboys," and on Sunday I got a chance to try using one in that capacity.



I was finally getting around to bottling the Belgian-yeast beer I brewed almost two months ago. I'd left that beer sitting in secondary fermentation for six weeks because I wanted to see if an extended secondary would help mellow the yeast further before bottling--I've been having trouble with bottles over-carbonating and turning into gushers. I've collected a lot of lilikoi juice in that time, and I thought it would be cool to rack some of the Belgian beer onto a few ounces of lilikoi, to see how the flavors would blend.



So, after sanitizing one of the 1-gallon jugs, and pouring three ounces of pasteurized lilikoi juice into the bottle, I added about four-fifths of a gallon of beer to the jug (I wanted to leave it with some headroom, just in case it kicks into another vigorous fermentation). Then I put a sanitized cap on the bottle and shook it up. A sanitized airlock on top, and it was all set.



It's already bubbling, and I'm eager to see how it turns out.

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