When it came right down to it, I just didn't feel like brewing.
So, I saved the the starter for this past weekend.
My original plan was to brew Sunday morning after an overnight mash, but on Saturday after a morning bike ride and then a pickleball "match" with my wife ... it didn't seem like I had much else going on until that evening when we had tickets for the big DU vs CC "Gold Pan" Hockey match.
I decided to start up the Foundry. This was my 83th batch of beer I've brewed on it.
The Anvil Foundry still seems new to me, but I've brewing on it since the end of 2020. Crazy right?!?
Anyway, this is the 2nd time I've brewed Tafel Mystère, and there is an interesting story behind the beer recipe.
When I first developed the recipe, I had some unlabeled harvested yeast that I was fairly sure came from a Belgium beer using Wyeast's 1214, but honestly was not 100% sure.
So, I brewed a Belgium Single "Table Beer", assuming that I was correct about the origin of the yeast, but prepared to be wrong.
The way the beer turned out, made me more sure that the yeast was indeed the Belgian Ale Yeast. I harvested it again.
But, honestly, it has been sitting my my beer fridge since that last batch of Tafel Mystère.
The general "best practice" is to use harvested yeast fairly quickly, but this had been sitting in my fridge for over a year.
I have had good experience with old harvested yeast as long as I make a yeast starter, but I don't think I've ever used harvested yeast this old before.
I wanted to try it out, so I made the starter I mentioned above. The starter smelled exactly how I expected, and decided to go for it.
I do have some Belgium Beers on my Roll-a-Style list, that I'd like to use this yeast for coming up early next year.
Just in case, I picked up a pack of dry Belgium yeast along with my grains, so if the fermentation just didn't take off I'd be fine.
Anyway, I started my brew day on Saturday around 11 AM with a long 3 hour (or so) mash.
My pre-boil gravity and volume was about perfect.
The recipe calls for a short boil, which went just great.
I was chilling around 3:30 pm, and pitched well before 4pm.
I have recently purchased and set up a Raspberry PI to work with my Tilt Hydrometer to automatically log the readings.
This is the first beer I've used the "Tilt PI" to log with. It works great. It is nice to be able to check the real-time temperature and gravity from any place in my house.
I can also look at the log from anywhere on the internet, which means even when I'm away, I know within half an hour what the readings are.
I know ... it is geek stuff. But, I'm a geek, so it is great for me. I might even have to buy another Tilt say I can have one in more than one batch of beer at a time.
The fermentation took off sometime before the morning. If I had to guess by the gravity readings in the log, I'd say it really started bubbling between 6pm and 10pm that night.
And ... as I type this, the Tilt now says the gravity is around 1.012 with a temperature of 69. I expect fermentation will finish by the coming weekend.
(Edit ... as of the 18th ... Tilt says 1.003, and the fermentation is done)
I have an empty spot in my beer fridge, so it will be "on tap" soon.
While brewing, I tried the beers I had on tap.
Will-o'-Wisp Autumn Ale (no pumpkin) is the oldest of the beers I had, and since Saturday, the keg has kicked.
Will-o'-Wisp was a gorgeous deep-amber / brown / red color and crystal clear. It is a nice autumn beer with notes of caramel and a touch of dark chocolate.
The 2024 X-Mas Ale is drier and lighter in color than my typical X-Mas base. More of a British Strong than my typical Winter Warmer.
It is also much better balanced (ie not as sweet) with nice EKG hops in the finish. A really pleasant, drinkable beer.
It isn't as clear as I would like and would expect at this point, but that's ok. I'm sure it will probably clear up before I kill this keg.
The newest of my beers is Decemberfest Lager. Stylistically, I would describe this as somewhere between a Marzen and a Festbier.
Nice, bready / crackery malt along with a fairly strong finish of floral Tetnang hops.
The picture above show it isn't all that clear, yet, but I will say it is getting better every day.
I also have Pack o' Hooligans Stout on tap, but I'm planning on doing another blog post on how it compares to another Milk Stout fairly soon, so I'll make you wait for that discussion.
Stay tuned to Sheppy's Blog: Hooligans to see that post.
I might get one more brew day in for 2024, or this might end up being my last brew day I guess we'll see.
Either way, stay tuned on the regular SheppyBrew Channels to see what is happening with beer, barbeque, biking and other things in my life: SheppyBrew's Facebook Page; Sheppy's Twitter Feed; SheppyBrew's Instagram Page; and SheppyBrew's Website.
Go Pios!
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