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| Well... it's COVID time... been cooped up too long so time to make some beer! | Never made a fruit Labic beer so going to give this a try. | After an hour boil with the wheat ingredients, you pour the cooked raw beer into the carboy which has five pounds of Apricot puree on the bottom. |
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| Add the yeast when it cools and cover the carboy up. The yeast likes it dark (and about 70 degrees). | After bubbling away for two weeks it is time to sterilize the bottles that I'll put the mixture into. | You can use any bottle that doesn't have a twist top (you have to have a bottle opener top) |
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| After sterilization, bottles on the bottle tree are upside down to minimize bacteria infestation. | These are the hardest labels to get off... not paper... some time of plastic type... 18 hours soak and they don't come off clean. | Then you boil your bottlecaps so they don't transmit bacteria into the raw beer. |
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| Then using gravity, you siphon the beer from the carboy into bottles. | The tip of the end is spring loaded so pressing down opens up the flow; release the pressure and it stops. | Then it is time to put the bottle cap on the bottle sealing it all up |
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| The cap goes on the capper and you pull down both handles crimping the cap down snug. | You'll rip your hand off trying to twist this one open... bottle opener only! | Then you box the beer up and let it ferment for another 2-3 weeks in a dark cool room. (notice 1st bottle that was filled in lower left) |
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| The first one is full of trub (the junk on the bottom of the carboy). It has the dead yeast, hops parts, grain parts etc...not bad for you but not great tasting. | The siphon first sucks the first or 2nd bottle then comes out clean for the rest until the last one in which it sucks up stuff again. | It came out pretty good 6.1% with a taste of Apricot. But good wheat beer! A batch will make 2 1/2 to 3 cases. (4.5 to 5 gallons) |
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| I am also currenly fermenting some Texas honey (making Mead - Honey Wine). This should be about 7% when done but takes a year to ferment. | I enjoy making my own labels but hate taking them off the used bottle! <grin> My last batch (a take off of Fat Tire) stuck in fermentation. Tasted just like Fat Tire beer but no alcolhol punch at all in it. 3.4 % | A movie of bottling. Have to sit on the kitchen floor for the siphon to work. |
My Christmas Ale Label 2020
