Family Time (Bottled and Brewed)

Belgian-style Tripel Update
I took a final specific gravity reading and the tripel ended up at 1.020 - so the OG was a little low (the kit said it should be between 1.083 and 1.086. The alternate tripel recipe I have has an OG of 1.080 - 1.084, and an FG of 1.016 and 1.022, so it's right in between that, which is comforting.

I'm concerned about the two 80 degree weather days we had in the last month, and I hope they don't turn the taste. As its getting into summer, I'm going to move everything down to the storage unit after brewing. This will keep temperature down and stable, especially in the hot summer months.

The tripel spent 9 days in the primary ,and then another 25 days in a secondary before bottling, and the bottles are going to end up down in the storage unit as well to age.




Gumballhead Clone
I brewed the Gumballhead clone - I had 1 lb of Caravienne grains that I needed to crush myself. I started with a rolling pin, until I realized that pushing that hard imprinted on the pin, and my wife would kill me if I started breaking her good kitchen utensils. So I got out a spoon. A teaspoon. That worked better than the rolling pin when crushing the gains, but had a slightly diminished volume it was able to crush at a given time. Finally, I stumbled across my wife's food processor, and having already crushed a separate pound at my "Local Home Brew Supply" (LBHS) store, and compared the two - the food processor did just as good as a manual crushing apparatus.

I was a little slow on the straining, and forgot to get the sieve in place for the first half, so I didn't get all the trub out. It's supposed to sit in the primary carboy for a week, and then strain and transfer to a secondary where its dry-hopped. I've never dry hopped before especially not with pellets, but I'm going to put the last ounce I have in the secondary and let it sit for another week before bottling.  As soon as I make sure that fermentation has started with this clone recipe, I will pull this 5 gallon tub in the basement as well.


Bottling
So we've actually turned bottling day into a family event - I sanitize everything, ensure the beer is in the carboy with tap, set up the tube and wand, then my wife fills the bottles (usually - we keep a stock of towels nearby), and I cap. This all goes on while we watch a movie or TV show, but it's surprising how this draws my wife (and sometimes my whole family if we need to get something from the kitchen and are bottling while my son's still up) into the beer making process. This led her to brew a batch with me, and now I'm brewing a batch for her specifically - hopefully this one comes out well.