Well, la dee da. I made two beers in one day, it was a lot of work, but worth it, of course. Right now, it's towards the end of November. I brewed these around the end of September, but apparently never bothered to update this blog. I've looked around, but can't find my brew notes. Since I've done both of these before, I'm just going to link to my previous notes:
Basil IPA: https://itcomesinpints.grafidog.com/2022/08/batch-274-basil-ipa.html
Dunkel: https://itcomesinpints.grafidog.com/2022/09/batch-276-erdinger-dunkel-clone.html
A few things were done differently, so I'll use my awesome memory and write down a few fuzzy notes.
We took out our garden this year, we're just not back from Baja early enough in the spring to get things in the ground in time for a good harvest. The basil came from my son and some from a tennis friend. I had more than enough, so I made some dehydrated tomatoes with a basil leaf and black pepper on top. Those are so delicious and so easy! Just slice the tomatoes, put them on the dehydrator, grind on some fresh black pepper, stick a basil leaf on top, and in a few hours are a wonderful snack. Next year I'm growing my own basil in a pot, and maybe a tomato plant also.
I should also mention another thing about the basil batch that I linked above -- that beer is still on tap! And it's still delicious! Admittedly, the hops flavor has diminished, but the basil flavor is still quite prevalent and it's still a very good beer.
For the dunkel, I wanted to use Wyeast 1007, but my local homebrew store was out. My second choice, Wyeast 1010 , was also out of stock, so the homebrew store guy recommended a dry yeast. Beats me what it was, some sort of German strain, but it took off like crazy. I was at the homebrew store today, and couldn't find it again, so I still don't know what it was. I sprinkled one package on top of the wort, and had a blowout. I never have blowouts, I ferment in 13 gallon containers so I usually have 3+ gallons of head space, plus I always put another plastic bag over the top, which generally holds in any excess foam. Not this time, my chest freezer is a mess.
So I brewed these at the end of September and put them in the fermenter I'm guessing around September 30? Maybe? Then my wife and I headed out on a 6 week cruise on October 5. I've got one of those nifty wifi connected Inkbird temperature controllers, so somewhere at sea off the coast of Peru around October 17, I turned the temperature down to 33F for a good cold crash. We got back from the cruise last night, and today I kegged them, discovered the mess in the chest freezer, and discovered that I have no notes, but this is a better read anyway.
