Wuhoo!

[ChrisMack]

Finally finally finally......I finally managed to get my brew of "blushing Blonde" bottled today after several delays, the most notable was the loss of the last brew on Feb 22 - 6.3 Christchurch earthquake) followed by being "out of the house for a few months" Then I put down a Stout brew to easemy way back into brewing...and finally the Blushing Blonde got processed....One area of mystery though is that after taking the OG and FG and then doing the Alcohol % calculator...I get a % of 5.8, which going by the Coopers recipe is about 1.4% higher - is this possible, or have I maybe read my initial OG wrongly

 

I did give the brew some extra fermenting time over the recipe - maybe this created a berry sugar by-product allowing for the higher alcohol percentage. The brew fermented crazily in the first few days - so much so that foam forced it's way through the bubbler! - first time I've had that happen....the bubbler stopped for a few days...and then at about a week later it kicked back into action again (although not anywhere near as severely as the first time)

 

Next up, I'm thinking of doing a Honey brew of some type...keen to hear peoples feedback on recipes to try for this, and would also be keen to hear what "taste" properties honey actually adds to the beer - for example does it have a slightly sweeter taste, or does all the "honey sugar" ferment down in the brewing process? I knmow a lot will say "experimenting is the key" but the Coopers Strawberry Blonde recipe states to use a light flavoured honey - how would a stronger honey adjust the taste?

 

Cheers for any assistance...

Chris

 

Oh P.S. Chritchurch had a good dumping of snow earlier this week bringing the place to a halt.....the joke went round "Christchurch has snow! It's just the icing on the Quake!!) [biggrin] Who says you cant have a sense of humour in adversity eh?

[Pistnbroke]

Congratulations mate, well done, good to see you are back in business brewing again! Hope the brew turns out as good as or even better than you are expecting!

 

Perhaps the yeast have consumed some of the natural sugar from the fruit? This would explain the higher than expected ABV?

[Matty A]

I would be guessing that you had a mis read of the OG. This is pretty common espeacially when you don't disgard the first runnings from the tap. Nothing to worry about, it will still taste great.