Ah Crud!!

[andylegate]

I'm FOAMING at the mouth! I am SO TICKED right now it's not funny!!


4 months! 4 FREAKIN' MONTHS!!!! That's how long I had to wait.........

And when I cracked open this batch of Ale.......the who damn thing is skunky!!!! GRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Sigh.....

Well, I've done about 23 batches, and this is my 3rd time making this type (a Scottish Ale, nice an smokey!). So I suppose I had to finally have one of my batches go bad on me.

Yuck! Ain't nothing like spoiled beer.

But man o man, I'm mad! That's $35 dollars worth of ingredients down the drain! Literally!

But I know what happened...I had kept these bottles in the dark, as they are clear bottles (not the dark brown I normally use to restrict sunlight as the UV rays will hurt your beer), and I had them in one of my closets. Well about 2 months back, they got pulled out and were in the light. Worse, they were in front of a window where the afternoon sun streams in. For about 4 days while were were gone. I didn't know my wife had pulled them out, else they would have gone back in.

Ah well. Time to go out, get some more, and make another batch.

And I know EXACTLY what I'm going to do with these clear bottles. What I should have done a while ago. Set them up on my land here, and introduce them to Mr. .30-06.....been itching to use the new ammo anyway...can't think of a better reason!
BANG!

[Nek'rahm]

WOOT

BEER SHOOT! I'll bring the chips, you bring the clips

[greendragoon]

I'm sure you'll get it right just in time to celebrate the return of Uru Online.

I realize that statement can be taken a sarcastic, but no, I really am that big of an optimist.

[andylegate]

Well, actually beer (Ales really) are ready for consumption only 4 weeks after you cook it. Takes a week to primary ferment, another week or two to do a secondary ferment (which is the yeast consuming the complex sugars) and then a week to 10 days in a bottle to carbonate after being primed with corn sugar or malt. (other kinds of beers take longer, as they are fermented at much lower temps, and produces different flavors).

The reason I waited 4 months on this batch, is that the longer you wait, the better the beer tastes! Most home brewed beers flavor peeks between 4 to 6 months after bottling. But if you wait up to a year, they tend to go bad by then.

So you make different batches, and what happens is, down the road, you always have different beers that are ready to pop open and enjoy.

Trust me: home brewing can be very addictive! The day you are cooking your beer (boiling the water, malts and hops), the whole house smells like a bakery! The hard part is the waiting.....especially once you've bottled it!

[Grogyan]

Good thing I don't rink beer ay?

I'll stick to water, clean H2O

[Chacal]

Do you make a stout?

[andylegate]

Yes! I've made two batches of a "Fat Tire" as it's called. Dark and full of hoppy bitterness. I only have one of those once in a while as a Stout for me makes my eyeballs pop out!

My favorite is a Red Larger. Commercial wise, I love Killians Red. I've made a few batches that come close to that.

Worst batch I ever made was the Pumpkin Ale....blech! There are many people who rave about it (at the online homebrew forums that I hang out at), but I ended up giving it away. My wife drinks more beer than I do, and her face turned green.....thinking it was bad, I had a friend check it out. He guzzled one down and said "Yep! That's good!", so I gave him the whole batch.

The most "explosive" batch I made was my Carmel Cream Ale.......it blew the top off my carboy and I had to clean Ale off my ceiling! Ooops....

Most expensive was my Chocolate Ale......and it really didn't taste that good to me to tell you the truth.

Oh, and my wife's favorites that I've made are: A light larger (was a bit like Bud Ice), and my Strawberry Mead.....she went nuts over that last one......and I had to sip at that one myself....too sweet, and the ACL was over 14%....whew!

[Chacal]

My idea of happiness is a barrel of Guinness, an axe and a large glass.

[mar]

I know how you feel.
I have making wine by myselve, also ricewine Chacal ( that's very easy).

It is very frustrating, you have put a lot of energy in it , tread the bottles like it are babies and when the time is there you must wait at the result you looked every time of everything is going fine.Then the moment supreme you open with a exciting feeling how it tast ......and then it is spoiled.

Yes that's a real anticlimax. Hopely you have enought beer in storage to deal with this lost