Learning to Homebrew: 2025 X-Mas Ale (Batch 384)

Saturday was Learn to Homebrew Day. Originally I thought maybe I'd be brewing with one or more of my homebrewing buddies, but Doc was busy and Du has moved away ... so it was just me and the SheppyBrew Beer Model this year.

Doc and I might get together in a couple weeks, but we'll see.

You may remember from Roll-a-Style 20: 17D. English Barley Wine (X-Mas Ale 2025) that this year's X-Mas Ale is a little different than the usual Winter Warmer that I generally brew.

This year, I'm marking 17D. English Barley Wine off my Roll-a-Style list, and since a Barley Wine is a bigger beer than I usually brew, I decided to pitch right onto the yeast cake of Gnomeberry Hollow Cherry Porter (Batch 382).

This meant, I had to keg Gnomeberry Hollow before getting started on Saturday. 

Luckily, the Beer Model gets up ridiculously late on the weekends so I had plenty of time to get the Gnomeberry Hollow kegged and the mash water ready for when she was up and ready to go.

Also, such a big beer uses enough malt that the Anvil Foundry would have been too full, so we used the Reiterated Mash technique for this batch of beer.

So, we started off mashing half the grains in the Foundry, went through a little shorter, but still a full mash with half the grains, and then used the result of that mash as strike water for the second half of the grains.

We did something a little different this time compared to the first two times I did the Reiterated Mash.

This time, I did the first mash in the Foundry (as usual). I did the second mash in our old mash tun. I thought maybe this would be easier to clean.

The problem with this approach was that controlling the temperature of the second mash is not as precise. It turned out close enough, I thought, but I think next time I do a Reiterated Mash, either I'll do it all in the Foundry OR maybe I'll do the first in the old mash tun and the second in the Foundry.

My pre-boil gravity was a bit low with this. Not sure if the lower second mash temperature was to blame or something else.

But .. regardless, I added a little DME and we continued on with the boil.

The Beer Model was the one who added hops and other boil additions. I think she got them all in at the right times, but I wasn't paying close enough attention to know for sure.

We used the propane burner for the boil this time, which heated up faster and probably was a higher boi-off rate.

Even so, the OG ended up at 1.075 SG, which is below the lower limit of the BJCP spec. I might still get this in the right ABV range. Either way, I'm still calling this an English Barley Wine.

We had lunch as the boil was going on. With lunch we had a flight that included all the current SheppyBrew Beers on tap.

• Voodu Magic Tropical Stout
  Kegged 8/10. My Roll-a-Style 16C. Tropical Stout. Still tasting like a nice solid roasty stout. I believe this is almost gone.
  
  
• Tafel Mystère Belgian Single
  A Belgian Single quickly brewed on 10/24 (see Tafel Mystère Belgian Single (Batch 383)) and then kegged a week later on the 29th. Even though this is a young beer with a fast turn-around it is tasting pretty nice.
  
  
• 1519 Barker Exportbier
  Another beer I've had on tap for awhile ... this German Helles Exportbier is a nice crisp lager, and very sessionable. Certainly the clearest beer I have on tap right now. It also won't last much longer. I'll miss having it on tap when it is gone.
  
  
• Gnomeberry Hollow Cherry Porter
  Even though I kegged it earlier in the day, we included this in the flight. So, it was pretty flat, but a nice dark beer regardless. The cherry is more subtle than I was thinking it would be, but that is a good thing for beer-flavored-beer fan such as myself.
  
  

Lunch was nice.

"We" got the wort chilled and then racked right onto the yeast cake of Gnomeberry Hollow Cherry Porter (Batch 382).

As you would expect, the fermentation took off very fast and was rocking before the end of the day. As I type this, most of the main fermentation is actually done, but it still needs to clean up and clarify. 

We're still probably 10 or so days away from kegging this beer. We'll see how fast it is ready to actually drink. I'd like to be able to give it a shot on Thanksgiving, but if we need to wait, we will.

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