OG 14brix (1.057)
FG 6brix (1.003)
ABV 7.2%

racked it over to a keg and put in on gas on friday. still smells yeasty, that should settle out by cold crashing. tasted a small sample- it's really sour. I guess that makes sense, most of the sugar in it was fermentable which would leave basically lemon juice and alcohol after fermentation. I think next time I will use 2lbs of malt to give it a maltier profile, clear candy sugar instead of turbinado sugar to raise the gravity and not affect the color (it's more amber-yellow than I wanted) and use 1-2lbs of lactose which is largely unfermentable to leave it sweetened- more like lemonade. we'll see in 2 weeks when it's fully carbed. might have to add some sweetener to it when serving to cut back the sour. who knows? the champagne yeast was still doing work when I moved it. I really could have left it for another week and probably have gotten a 10+%abv, but that might be overkill. that yeast is alcohol tolerant up to 17% though. with the right recipe, you could end up with a very dangerous beverage.

I also whipped up a couple labels for some friends' b-days recently

sweet instagram effect on the slackermaker


super sweet design for Blake on the beer he helped brew


-kris

so, after the biers of war session, I decided to try making some hard lemonade...why not? bake let me borrow his little champ kettle, I had Brynne to be my awesome brewing assistant, and I used this recipe I found on one of the forums somewhere...don't really care to find it right now, but a quick google search is how I found it.

10 cans frozen lemonade concentrate (can't contain sulfites or sorbates)
1 lb. of the lightest DME you can get (salt city had briess extra light about 2plato)
2 lb. sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
1 pack champagne yeast (I used Wyeast 4021 Pasteur Champagne)
1/2 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient


boiled it all together for 60min with about 4gal water, cooled, poured onto 7lb ice in fermenter, topped with enough water to reach the 5gal mark in the fermenter, shook the shit out of the bucket to aerate, and pitched the yeast.





today the airlock is bubbling away happily. started with an og of 14brix (1.057), the guy who posted the recipe said he had a fg of 1.000... which would give him an abv of 12%?! I don't think I want it that strong, maybe around 5-6%? we'll see in a week or so. by the way, the guys at salt city brew supply are awesome, will definitely be shopping there often.



-kris

we brewed up a special batch of beer today in honor of gears of war 3, which releases in just over 8 weeks from now (sept 20). it also just so happens to be our first attempt at a lager, schwarzbier. we are calling it "biers of war".

brewed up sake berrill yesterday. ended up with an og brix of 13. also fitted the keezer with some new custom berrillmaker tap handles and magnets.