I know I’m jumping the gun a bit, but let’s face it, we celebrate the New Year when the clock ticks over, and then nurse hangovers on the actual holiday. I’m glad to see 2014 go, and am optimistic that 2015 is going to be pretty good.
No champagne for us tonight. I don’t really like champaign. Back in November I made a Belgian Wit and a German Hefeweizen. Both have been in secondary for a few weeks, so today I kegged the brew and force carbonated it. It’s chilling and settling now.
I’m only mildly satisfied with both. The hefeweizen lacks body, and is too watery. I probably should have fermented it at a higher temperature. I also had problem with yeast viability pitching. I’ll have to make some more attempts at this style. The Wit is better, but I think I’d prefer a more citrusy profile. The bitter citrus rinds they sell in the home-brew shop aren’t quite up to making the right flavor, I think.
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Do you do yeast starters? I do it with every batch now and have no problems with viability. Happy new year.
Sometimes I do them. For low gravity beers I’ll cheat most times and just use a smack pack. In this case, both local home-brew stores had packs that were nearly out of date and wouldn’t swell very much even six hours later, but I got a start and it finished. It’s not bad results. I’ve never had anything so bad I’ve had to pitch it, and my early brews were terrible. I attribute that to dry yeasts that came with kits back in the early 2000s being generally awful, and I didn’t have enough experience then I know any better.