Home beer brewing and wine making with the Oakes family

Another Batch of Green Apple Riesling

2006-08-16T14:08:00.000-04:00

Well I know it has been a while, but its to hot to brew beer in the summer, at least outdoors it is. That and the addition of a new family member, my daughter, who had been living with her mom all these years, has decided to live with us for a while.

Mead Update;

Well the Mead is still in the final clearing stages, etc, and hopefully will be clearing soon. But as Mead goes, it does take a while to clear and bottle, sometimes up to 12 months.

Now on with the latest batch, Green Apple Riesling;

I have purchased another of Island Mists Green Apple Riesling wines, because it was so wonderful. It was hard to keep in the house let alone in a glass.

Again following the instructions, and ignoring the instruction to make 6 US gal. I made the batch at 5 US Gals. It went through the primary fermentation, and I let it stand for almost 3 weeks, unlike the 7-10 days the instructions call for. It did not hurt the wine much and it had started clearing nicely by itself. I racked the wine into a 6 gal carboy, this way I did not have to remove any wine to get the f-pack (green apple syrup) to fit in the carboy. I did have a bit of head space at the top so I topped up with water, but no where near a gallon. I could have topped up with a nice German Riesling like I did last time, but felt it was not necessary this time, and it didn't dilute the flavor very much, or not enough I could taste it.

After adding the F-pack, and the clearing agent, Insoglass, and the sulfites, and topping up with some water, I let put the carboy up to finish clearing. Wow, in one day the wine was clear, and I am guessing this was because it had already started settling out while waiting for the first racking.

I am going to let this sit for several more weeks before bottling so check back in a few weeks.

Peace and Happy brewing

Racked the Mead.

2006-05-06T15:27:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

Well I racked the mead today. I took a sample of the mead, did an SG test on it, and it came out to 1.016. The mead started at 1.078 so if I am looking at the SG device properly the alcohol content is around 8%.

The mead tastes pretty good so far, but it is very cloudy. Based on what I have read on the web, Mead will take a LONG TIME to clear. I have read it will take 6 to 12 months to clear nicely. While I could probably use some finnings, and clear the wine chemically I am going to let it go and do it by itself. Which is the way wine and mead was made before chemicals. Right now it looks like a cloudy apple juice. The taste is very strong taste of alcohol. It is definitely going to be a potent batch.

I am still worried about the amount of yeast nutrients I used when I started the Mead. I used 4 ounces which was the way they had the nutrients packaged at the Wine making store, so I assumed that this was the correct amount. I read some posts and entries on other websites that I may have used too much. I should have used 1 tbl spoon of nutrients per gallon of wine, so I should have used 5 tbls instead of the 4oz. All in all it tastes ok so far, a bit of a chemical taste but I can tell what it is. I have smelled the same stuff in the early stages of wine making so I am hoping it will go done as the mead clears.

Well I will keep everyone up to date as to the progress of both the Mead and the wine.
Till then happy brewing.

Racked the Black Raspberry Merlot

2006-04-25T05:21:00.000-04:00

Well the weekend was to beautiful to spend it inside, but I still had to rack the Black Raspberry Merlot into the carboy.

After sanitizing the equipment, a quick check of the Specific Gravity (SG) showed the wine has fermented quite a bit. The starting SG was 1.048, and the SG before racking was .990 which should yield a very nice wine with decent alcohol content.

Per the instructions on the kit, racking into the secondary fermentor leaving as much of the sediment behind, then let the wine rest for about 7-10 more days. Looking for a stable SG. It has been my experience that if you are brewing your wine at room temperature, and you live in Florida like I do (which means room temp is around 75-80 degrees) then the fermentation goes rather quickly. I have noticed that once in the secondary fermentor almost no fermentation is going on, and it bubbles very little, in fact I haven't seen any bubbles in a day or so.

I will continue with the clearing and fining stage next week. This stage also adds the Black Raspberry syrup to the wine to add the flavor to the wine. From here the wine will begin the clearing stages, and a few weeks later it should be very clear and close to bottling.

Till the next stage, stay tuned for blog about the Mead, which is still fermenting happily along...

Peace!

New Batch of Wine, and a Mead :)

2006-04-17T09:04:00.000-04:00

Well folks I know it has been a long time since the last post but I haven't forgotten you.

Well I broke down and finally setup to make a batch of Honey Wine a.k.a. Mead also known as the “Nectar of the Gods”.

This is a very ancient type of wine made back before the middle ages. The wine is basically pure honey with occasionally added things like herbs or fruit to make different variations of the wine.

Mead is almost certainly the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man and likely discovered before the wheel was invented. As long as there have been bees and honey there has been mead. Mead occurs naturally when honey is mixed with water and yeast. A chance occurrence of mead was likely produced during the Stone Age when honey became wet from rain and wild yeast in the air settled into the mixture.

Honey by itself cannot sustain fermentation because of it’s pure content, but by adding things like citrus, or herbs, or adjuncts Honey can sustain fermentation by providing some nutrients to the yeast along with the pure sugar found in the honey.

In the 21st century we just simply add 4 oz of Yeast nutrients which is a mixture of citric acids, and other chemicals the yeast can use to live while converting Sugar to Alcohol.

To make Mead it is a very simple process of Adding 12 lbs of Honey (a little more than a Gallon) to a large stock pot ( 12-15 quarts is a big enough pot ) then add a lot of water to bring the volume almost up to the top of the pot (nearly filled, leave some room for stirring etc.) Then bring the mixture of Honey and water up to 160 degrees F. slowly and stirring to completely dissolve the honey into the water. DO NOT BOIL the mixture!!! Just bring the Temp up to 160 degrees for about 5 minutes, and then pour it into the primary fermentor. The process of bringing the honey solution up to 160 degrees is called pasteurizing. This will kill off any stray bacteria, or virus’s that might be hanging in with the Honey. Some mead makers will tell you that store bought Honey doesn’t need to be pasteurized but because this stuff will be fermenting in my home, and for a long time, I would rather err on the side of caution and make sure the mead has a good healthy chance of becoming wine without turning into some weird science experiment.

Once the mixture has been added to the primary fermentation bucket, I top up to 5 gals with some fresh room temp spring water. Depending on how cold your Room Temp spring water is you may need to cool the mixture a bit so you can pitch the yeast. Yeast cannot be pitched if the temperature of the Must is over 105 degrees F. it will die if introduced to such high temps. My must was over 125 degrees, so I just set the bucket into a sink of Ice-water and stirred the mixture occasionally to bring the temp down to 100 degrees. I then added the yeast, put on the top of the bucket, and set up the airlock.

All while this was going on I made a batch of Black Raspberry Merlot from Island Mist wine kits. We love the Island Mist wine fruit kits, and have had excellent results from these kits. While drinking a bottle of Green Apple Riesling made from a previous Island Mist wine kit. We set up to make the Black Raspberry Merlot. I would tell any of you that if you want to make one of these kits I would say, just follow the instructions and you cannot go wrong. With one exception, the recipe calls for 6 gals of water. Do yourself a favor and only make 5 gal batches. This will increase the flavor of the wine, and the fruit in it and you will have a great tasting fruit wine. I found that if you try to make the 6 gals like the instructions say, your wine may come off tasting a little watered down. Even the folks at Island Mist will tell you to make 5 gal batches and not 6 gals.

So following the instructions and using only 5 gals we quickly had the Merlot in the primary fermentor, and the yeast starting to ferment. By the end of the evening he Merlot had already started fermenting, and by morning both the Mead and the Merlot were bubbling away happily.

Next week we will transfer the merlot to the secondary fermentation container, and if the mead is happy we will do the same. But it might take a bit longer for the mead. Mainly because there is so much more sugar.

The Starting Specific Gravity for the Mead was 1.078, and the starting SG for the Black Raspberry Merlot was 1.048 (as per the instructions) notice how much more the mead is compared to the merlot.

Ok that is all for now check you next week when we go to the secondary fermentation……

Bottling the Green Apple

2005-11-19T15:58:00.000-05:00

Oh it has been a while now since the Green Apple started to ferment and become wine, but the wait was realy worth it!.

I finished steralizing all the bottles and got the racking cane out and began to fill the bottles. With Help from my wonderful wife of course, the operation went very fast and smoothly. She would fill the bottles and I would Cork and put them away.

We were left with about half a bottles worth of Green Apple Reisling which we all enjoyed that evening after the bottling.

The wine is crystal clear, and smells very much like Green Apples. There is a hint of Sulfites left but that should go away after a little while, during the aging process.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning and putting away the Wine making equipment for the holidays. We have run out of room around the apartment to keep the stuff handy to make another batch of brew and with the holidays it will just get in the way. So expect to hear from me again after the new year, to begin a new batch of brew. I think I will try my hand at Mead next. I love the taste of a nice mellow Honey wine.

Till next year
Have a safe and happy holiday!

Trouble with the Green Apple Reisling

2005-11-01T07:21:00.000-05:00

A little problem with the Green Apple Reisling kit from Island Mist.

The wine is week and not as Apple-y tasting as my last batch.

As it turns out the kit has a new set of instructions in the box, which I followed to the letter, and the new instructions tell you to fill the primary fermentor with 6 US gal. Instead of the 5 like I made last time. So following the instructions like a good brewer I made a 6 Gal. batch instead of a 5 gal. batch.

I went to the local Beer and Wine Making pantry to discus the weak wine, and the owner told me that she has instructed all her employees to tell customers that purchase the Island Mist kits to make 5 gal batches instead of the 6 gal batches per the instructions. Guess I must have missed that advice when I bought the kit.

In any event they have a Green Apple extract (2 oz.) to add to the wine to bring out the apple flavor but I am still worried about the weak wine part.

I will have decided that during the bottling phase (next week) I will purchase a bottle or two of my favorite Reisling wine, and remove some of the weak wine, and blend in some store bought wine, and add the Green Apple extract to bring the wine back up to my liking.

The Island mist kits have always been a favorite at our home, and an important lesson can be had here. Some times the instructions are not exactly correct and it is up to us, the good wine and beer brewers to experiment with.

Will let you know how the Green Apple turns out after the bottling. Also will be bottling the Meza Luna Red as well, and this is tasting wonderful!

Wine Racking

2005-10-10T08:45:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

Well it was time to rack the wine this past weekend. I racked both the Green Apple Reisling, and the Meza Luna Red. I started with the Green Apple and racked that into a 6 gal Carboy, I checked the SG, and it was low, all the way down to .993 SG

Thought that was a bit low for me, but we will see. Also raked the Meza Luna red over to a 5 Gal Carboy, and again checked the SG, it was also down to .992 SG. It smelled wonderful. I sampled a glass of the red and it was very good. It will be much better after bottling and aging, but so far so good.

The Green Apple will have the flavour added in a few days, and another racking then clearing. I will do this sometime this week.

Until then....

Have a good day.

It's time for Wine

2005-10-05T10:42:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the huge delay, but financial limitations have slowed the brewing cycle down somewhat.

Now that the Wife (a.k.a. The financial advisor) has a full-time job now, we can get back to home brewing more frequently.

We purchased 2 Wine kits this time, as we have the equipment to do this of course. Our first wine kit is a fruit wine, it is a Green Apple Riesling. We have made this once before and it was such a hit we very quickly went through 2 cases in no time.

The Second kit is called Meza Luna red, this kit was bought to satisfy my need for a nice red-wine every now and then. Don't get me wrong I love a nice chilled fruit wine in the hot summer evenings, but I also enjoy a nice hearty red wine with dinner.

This past Saturday we put the wine into the primary fermenters, and pitched in the yeast and the other chemicals. I also added 1/2 of dextrose to the Meza Luna red to add a little more sugar to the party so I can get a couple more point of alcohol content. I also added a whole cup of dextrose to the green apple Riesling. I find the fruit wine kits have a much lower alcohol content then regular wine. I don't know how much more punch the sugar will add to the wine but as every good brewer knows everything in moderation. IF this turns out well, the next kit may get even more sugar.

Both of the Wines are bubbling along nicely and the first day the fermentation was going like gang-busters. By this weekend sometime the wine should have slowed down considerably and if the Specific Gravity is good I will rack them off to the carboys to begin the second fermentation, and clearing.

Well this is enough for now, will report back when the racking takes place.

Eat, Drink and be Merry!
Brew master George.

MMMMMMM Beer !!! it's ready now

2005-08-11T07:23:00.000-04:00

WOW,

It was difficult to keep from drinking all the beer in one night. I have 2 cases, and it has finished in the bottles, in the fridge. I opened one last night, grabbed a nice frosty mug, and slowly poured the beer into the mug.

Oh what a sight, a Dark Amber, but not brown, very clear, and clean looking with a light frothy head.

The first sip was pure heaven. Nice lager flavour, with a hint of oktoberfest malts. A nice clean crisp taste with no after-taste. It's not your typical Lager because of the hops, and darker malts, it is very tasty.

Whats next you ask? I am thinking of making a Grolsch Clone. I found a nice recipe in the Brew Magazine and I am ready to try a clean clear lager, with a nice Light Golden color. Oh yes I have Grolsch bottles to put the beer into, I even have some with Flippy Lids.

Till next time.....

Enjoy life, Drink a Beer!

Bottling Time is Here

2005-06-18T17:26:00.000-04:00

Well it has been a long wait, but worth it...

I pulled the carboy from the refrigerator, and carefully put it on the counter. I got out a clean steralized 6 gal. bucket so I can rack the beer off the sediment.

I took out a small saucepan and added 1 cup of water and brought it to a boil. Once it was boiling I added 1/2 cup of corn sugar (a.k.a. Dextrose) and stirred it to make sure it did not burn.

I racked the beer into the clean bucket, and slowly added the sugar water to the beer. The sugar water is addedd so that once bottled the yeast that still remains in the beer will feed on the new sugar, and create the carbonation while the beer is in the bottles.

After the beer was racked off the sediment I took one final gravity reading, and the beer is at 1.010 SG.

While all this was going on the bottles were being steralized. Now we are ready to bottle. I moved the bottling bucket up on the counter, and started another siphon.
The wife was filling the bottles, and I was capping them with a new two lever capper the wife got me for fathers day. This batch made 2 cases + 7 bottles of the Loving Brau Oktoberfest beer.

I then put all the bottles in a corner, to warm up, so the fermentation could re-start. I will put the beer back in the frige tommorrow. I have adjusted the frige back to normal tempurature so it is now at 45 degrees. The beer should sit in the frige for another week, and then it should be ready to drink.

I poured the last leftover bit of beer into a clear glass so I could look at the clarity, and admire it. The beer is almost completly clear, with just a hint of cloudyness. This is probably from the last bit of sugar that was added. This should finish clearing nicely in the bottle.

As for the taste, well of course you got to test it, I sampled the last little bit of beer that I was admiring for clarity, and aside from being flat, tasted very nice.
The color is a nice Dark Amber color, and once carbonated should have some very nice bubbles too.

Next week I will open a bottle and test it to see if it is ready. Next step is to print some labels for the bottles. Talk to you next week.

Final stage of Lagering

2005-06-09T09:35:00.000-04:00

Howdy folks,

The beer is at the final stage of lagering, Chill-proofing, and I have been cranking the temp down in the fridge. Current temp is 35-39 degrees, I am hoping to get it down to under 32 degrees F.

The reason I am doing this is to reduce Chill haze. Chill haze is Haze caused by precipitation of protein-tannin compounds at cold temperatures. Does not affect flavor. Reduce proteins or tannins in brewing.

chill-proofing = Cold fermentation to precipitate chill-haze.

I will be bottling this weekend a week earlier than anticipated, because fermentation has stopped completely, and the settling has just about finished.

I will be buying 60 brown bottles, a capper, and bottle caps. I will go over the bottling process in the next post, I will also give you the Final Specific Gravity.

Have a good week.

The Death, and Replacement of the Refrigerator

2005-06-01T15:04:00.000-04:00

As some of you may have read in a previous post, I was lucky enough to find a refrigerator on freecycle that was free, and all I had to do was lug it home from Valrico.

Well in a freak storm, the fridge must have taken a power strike or something, well it quit working :( not sure why it just Died.

We called around to find a refrigerator repairman, and come to find out that those maytag guys are a myth they do not exist. We were referred to Sears to get the refrigerator repaired and they would not even come out to us without paying a 45.00 estimate fee, on top of whatever the cost would be to fix the fridge.

So we called around, and found a used fridge for 60 bucks, with a 6 month warranty.

The new/used fridge is now where the old one is, and the beer is back down to lagering temperatures. Only a couple more weeks till bottling.

Stay Tuned

Begin the Lager!

2005-05-28T09:12:00.000-04:00

Well I couldn't wait any longer, had to get the beer off the primary fermentation, and begin the secondary (lagering) phase of the beer.

Carefully siphoned the beer into a 6 gal carboy, leaving the sediment behind. Checked the specific grafity, and it was at 1.005, had to taste it too, just to get an idea of the finished flavor. It tastes great, can't wait till it clears, and then gets bottled. It will make a great Oktoberfest Dunkel, it has a dark amber color. Not totaly brown, but close. I have the digital thermometer in the fridge, and it is currently at 56.3 degrees, I wanted to start off at a warmer temp for a day or two, to let the residual yeast get used to the lower temps, then I will gradually reduce the temp down to about 45 hopefully by the end of the 3 weeks (this is how a lager is produced), then if I can I will try to get the temp down under 32 at the very end to reduce cold haze.

Next is just a lot of waiting, and time to buy bottles. I heard from two different camps on the topic of bottle color. One says that they prefer the dark brown colored bottles to protect the beer of course, the other camp prefers the clear bottles, so you can see what the beer looks like before you open the bottle. I can see the reason for the clear bottles, and the dark colored bottles. I'm not sure which way I will go, but I will probably go with the brown bottles. Oh and get a bottle capper too.

Want to try your hand at brewing beer, go for it, it is easy.

Some Recipes

2005-05-28T06:33:00.000-04:00

I found some nice extract recipes on Homebrew.com. Go to their web site, and check out these extract kits. They have the ingredients already packaged for these recipes. So Find a recipe you like, add it to your cart, and they will send you all you need to make that recipe!

Bismark Munich Hellas Extract

Bavarian Haus Bock Extract

Bier Haus Eisbock Extract

Blitzkreig Dortmunder Extract

Crimson Oktoberfest Extract

Eine Kleine Vienna Rocks Lager Extract

Ludwigs German Pilsner Extract

O'Mathis Irish Lager Extract

Sedylmayr Munich Dunkel Extract

Tea Party Lager Extract

Volstead Pre Pro Lager

Walk-About Australian Lager Extract

What in the Hellas Bock Extract

Found a refrigerator to cool down the Fermentation

2005-05-26T07:48:00.000-04:00

WHOOO HOOOOO, I found a fridge! God I love Freecycle.org

I put a post out on Freecycle looking to see if anyone had a refridgerator they no longer needed, and that I could use it. And well, I found one, I will have to drive a bit tomorrow but it works, and its free!

In case anyone is not familiar with Freecycle.org, it is a group of people like you and I who either are looking for stuff, or have stuff that is no longer needed, and instead of throwing it away, giving it away for free. We have gotten an exercise bike that I will use as a back-up human powered generator in case we have power outages during hurricane season. My best friend purchased all new furniture, and was able to give away all their used furniture. Sofa, entertainment center, beds, all still in good condition. So if you are interested go to http://www.Freecycle.org, and sign up in your area. You may need a Yahoo account to gain access but its free, and they now allow up to 1 gig of email space.

Now for the fridge. Because I am brewing a Lager, the secondary fermentation should take place in an environment where the temperature is around 45-55 degrees this will slow the fermentation down, and settle out the sediment.

Lager comes from the German word "lagern" which means to store. A lager beer is in cold storage while it ages in the conditioning phase. Temperature influences lagers in two ways. During primary fermentation, the cooler temperature (45-55 Â°F) prevents the formation of fruity esters by the yeast. In addition to producing fewer byproducts during the primary phase, the yeast uses the long conditioning phase to finish off residual sugars and metabolize other compounds that may give rise to off-flavors and aromas (this was excerpted from the website How to Brew at this URL http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter10-2.html)

So I will take the fridge, clear out enough space for my 6 gal carboy, adjust the temperature to this range, and let the secondary fermentation take place for about 4 weeks.

Primary Fermentation Going Strong

2005-05-25T08:20:00.000-04:00

Not much interesting to post today, other than the primary fermentation is going along nicely, still bubbling very well.

Quote of the day "A watched Primary Fermentation tank never boils" :0

I made a slight change to the Loving Brau Recipe post, I accidentaly posted that the beginning specific gravity was 1.4, which didn't make sense, so I took another look at the specific gravity tool and realized that I mis-read the numbers along the side. The Real original specific gravity is 1.040 which makes a lot more sense now.

So if you read the post, just make a note that the SG should read 1.040, not 1.40

Now to figure out how to cool the secondary fermentation down to 50-60 degrees for the next 4 weeks ?? any ideas?

Houston we have Lift off!!!

2005-05-24T05:28:00.000-04:00

Came home this evening hoping for a good fermentation and boy was I happy. I saw that the yeast have finally made it back from the brink of destruction, and are happily converting the sugar to alcohol and releasing tons of CO2 as a by product.

The airlock is bubbling like a fish tank. !!!

It seems that the customer support person at White Labs, Joanne, really knows her yeast, and she was right on, when she said it may take another day to get going.

Well I'm going to sit back and relax, and wait for the fermentation to slow down, to begin the next steps......

TTFN

I am a Yeast Killer, or Keep yeast refrigerated before use.

2005-05-23T10:41:00.000-04:00

I am a yeast killer :( I feel so ashamed.

Bought the ingredients to make my Loving Brau, and due to an Air-conditioner failure at our home, I put off making the brew by one day. So the ingredients stayed on the table. I forgot to put the yeast in the refrigerator. I found this out after I had everything going, and was preparing the wort for the yeast.

It has been over 24 hours with no noticeable fermentation going on.

I had strained out the hops and any left-over grain that might have escaped the grain sock, and had it cooled down to room-temperature, when I read the instructions on the Vial (to late).

I also noticed that the Vial also had expired by a couple days. So in my panic, I sent out an email to White Labs, and to my surprise, I got a response very quickly. They (Joanne) said that even though it was past the expiration date, and that is spent the night at room temperature I may still have enough live yeast to get the party started. The folks at White Labs have been very helpful, and suggest that if you get a yeast past the expiration date, you should make a starter solution first before pitching it in. The instructions for making a starter solution are on their website at Http://www.whitelabs.com. Joanne also said that if it didn't start going after 48 to try to add another vial to save the batch. She said it might turn out a little fruiter, and that is better than loosing the whole batch.

Still waiting on fermentation, this morning I noticed that some air was being pushed out of the primary fermentation tank, and my wife said she saw a bubble a few moments ago. There still may be hope for this beer yet.

More to come, keep your fingers crossed. P.S. Joanne and White Labs told me to send them my mailing address, and she would send me a coupon for a free vial of yeast to replace the bad one I bought. They are some nice people over there!

Wish me luck

Loving Brau Recipe (Lowenbrau Clone, I hope)

2005-05-22T11:35:00.000-04:00

Munich Hellas Pale (Lowenbrau Clone)

7lbs. Light Bock Malt
1/2 lb. Carapils
1/4 lb. Wheat Grain
2 oz. Hal bit. (hops)
1 vial of White Labs Pitchable liquid yeast, Oktoberfest/Marzen Lager yeast # WLP820

4-5 gals of Spring water, store bought(walmart) i used Silver Springs Florida spring water.

Heat 2 1/2 Gals of spring water to 160-180 degrees. Put the grain in a grain sock/bag, and steep for 30 minutes.

Then remove the bag, and bring the water to boiling, while adding the Malt. It is now called Wort from this point on, untill called beer ! Once the wort is at a rolling boil add 1 oz of the hops.

Allow 30 minutes to go by, then add half of the remaining hops, or half an ounce, and wait another 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes add the remaining hops. (that is what I am doing right now). I will let this go for another 10 minutes, and then start cooling the Wort. You can add a gallon of Cool spring water to help bring the temp down fast, Then an Ice bath till the Wort is room temperature (70-80 degrees). Put the wort into the primary fermenter, and top off the fermenter with spring water until you reach 6 gals.

A quick check of specific gravity tells me that my wort is at 1.040 sg. not bad for a first timer ;)

Lastly toss in the yeast, give a good stir making sure to aerate the wort so the yeast had a good Oxygen base to start the fermentation process. Put on the airlock and let the yeast do some work for a change.

Now for the cleanup... yuck :(

First Blog

2005-05-22T11:17:00.000-04:00

Good Day all,

It was bound to happen, I got sucked into blogging. Well at least I'm blogging about my favorite past-time, Alcohol, or the making of it :)

This blog will be where all can read about my latest beer brewing or wine making adeventures.

At the time of this post, I have successfully brewed up over 30 gals of fruit flavored wines from Island Mist kits. My favorites Blackberry Merlot, and a Green Apple reisling.

Now it's time to start making beer. I am currently brewing what I will call Loving Brau, I hope to clone my favorite beer LowenBrau. I had a difficult time finding a recipe, but the people at the beer and wine makers pantry in pinellas park florida, helped me find, and purchase the ingredients need to make a Munich Hellas Pale lager. The style of Lowenbrau is made after.

I will include the ingredients, and my step/instructions to make this first batch. I am currently boilong the wort, and in 6 minutes will add the second amount of Hops.