What a day!
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on January 15th, 2008
What a day, indeed!
I didn’t actually brew today .. but I kegged 3 batches and bottled the remains of the pale ale from the competition a couple months ago. I had 11 bottles worth of beer left after kegging 10 gallons!
I tried some of the Oatmeal Stout (fantastic) and Ariel’s cranberry ale (only got a small sip, but it’s pretty good.) It’s pink!
I also kegged a pale ale that I brewed from a kit a couple of weeks ago. Kit brews are nice… everything is included and ready to roll as soon as you open the box. I’m always pleasantly surprised by how fast/easy brewing from extract in the kitchen seems after doing a couple of all-grain batches outside. I swapped out the dry yeast that it normally comes with for a nice American ale yeast, and it tastes decent. Our pale ale recipe is better, of course!
Now comes the hard decision … which beer goes on tap first?
Currently on tap:
1) Holiday Ale
2) Rye Porter
you should tap the cranberry ale for Valentines day!
I vote for the rye porter!
Hi, I am in Cookeville, too. I’ve got a Beer Machine 2000 that my brother gifted to me but I don’t have any yeast. Do you know of any home brew stores in the area that I can buy yeast at? Or can I buy the yeast at Kroger’s or Wal-Mart? I’m not sure of what yeast I need. Yeah, yeah, I know…a Beer Machine. But hey, a guy’s gotta start somewhere! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Well, there’s the health food store (Good Shepherd) on Willow. They have dry yeast in stock pretty much all the time in the fridge there, and they say they can order liquid yeast (Wyeast or White Labs anyway) if you want.
Typically I get my stuff when I’m in Nashville since I either need it immediately or I’m picking up large quantities of grain. I go to All Seasons in Nashville. There’s another place in Murfreesboro, but I haven’t been there before.
I’ve also ordered online before from Northern Brewer and MoreBeer, which works pretty well during the winter. When it starts to warm up it’s a bit more expensive since you’ll need to order an ice pack along with the yeast and spring for overnight shipping.
Ok, great! Thanks so much. I think I’ll give that dry yeast a try. I’ve got to figure out how much to use for the Beer Machine, though. It’s a small barrel, obviously, so I assume it uses very little yeast.
I really appreciate your reply.
How small is “small?” Honestly I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Most of my reading says that it’s hard to use too much yeast for your primary fermentation. A packet of the dry yeast will probably be just fine for 1 – 5 gallons.