Aftermath

The verdict is more or less in on batches 1 and 2.

Batch 2 actually tastes a little better than 1, as far as I remember... 1 has some unpleasant vegetable bitterness, like raw wort. Very subtle, but then I expected something like that owing to the lack of a wort chiller at the time that I pitched it.

After siting for so long the OG for #1 came out to 1.010. Looking back on my temperature records, I suppose I could assume that to have in fact been 1.009.

Negligible really. Though batch 2 tasted a little better than 1 they were both a bit to sweet. The sweetness diminished with the priming, but it was still there. I’m going to have to study hard and come up with a mash profile that will lead to more dryness.

I’m not speaking in terms of preference here, the sweetness WAS overpowering the other flavors in a bad sort of way. It reminded me of that time that I did a brown ale faithfully from a recipe, but was hit by a minor contamination. I knew well what this beer was SUPOSED to taste like, and I could taste it, but I had to imagine that otherwise perfect beer as it was masked under an infuriating moldy bread flavour.

At it’s best the cloy taste reminded me a bit of Fuller's London Porter. Only faintly though, and only when it was warm. Both of these batches taste more like a tall glass of diabetes than Hobgoblin.

#1 is little darker than #2, but it's still to blond to be a Goblin. For batch #4 I may bump the Black Patent by half an ounce. That would be effectively doubling that potent little malt. To see it in the grist it just looks like some one added two scoops of mouse turds to the bag, (actually I tried to freak my weekend brewing partner Neil out with that joke once... didn't work though) but it does have an impact.

My assumption is that those who developed the recipe that I am partly fallowing had grains of the same variety but from a different supplier, so the lovibond could be different. Not necessarily the black alone, but perhaps in conjunction with the chocolate malt?... So many variables.

Some good news to report in the clarity department. Batch 2 which had been mostly cloudy through out it’s infancy cleared right up in the bottle.

Batch #3 is the current unknown. I transferred it to secondary today, (Feb 15) and managed to capture plenty of the yeast for later use. It was a faster ferment, already at 1.012. It’s been decidedly warmer of late, from 20° Celsius to 25° Celsius. At times a bit to much for this yeast, being wyeast 1275.

It tasted just fine, completely matured flavors, and I might go as far as to say it’s ready to bottle.

My home-brewing supplier remarked that he runs batches through quite a lot faster than many recipes specify. I’m sure a lot of these time tables assume total temperature control, and I don’t see much percentage in letting a batch sit at the mercy of ambient temperature when it’s gravity is already resolved... Then again, I’m sure I don’t see many things.

One thing I am becoming sure of now is that it’s better to use a small vertical air lock on a secondary than a vent line. That additional length of line increases the pressure in the fermenter and I wonder if the violence of the bubbles when they spring free can deceive one of the actual strength of the ferment.