export 80 and emma's ale gravities

export 80 at 1.020, looking finished lots of floaty chunks. tastes peaty for some reason ;-P. this one had whirlfloc, hopefully the chunks settle in the carboy.

emma's at 1.015, maybe ready for carboy? tastes really smooth, is almost a red ale. perhaps from a more rigorous/quick boil, thanks to the timer thermometer? might darken in carboy...

gonna start reading these daily and maybe rack simultaneously, saving me a clean-up, kinda.

emma's ale pt 2, re-using yeast

i decided to use the 1275 cake from the last batch of emma's ale on this one. i did a half-assed job of washing the yeast and put it into 2 quart mason jars in the fridge (2 weeks). warmed them up yesterday and did a 650ml starter. not much bubbly activity, but it's cloudy (both jars, minus the jar beer). still a bit of trub.

for this boild, i did the pseudo sparge with the grain bag. in the middle of doin it now, in fact.

the original emma's ale was bottled 2 weeks-ish ago and is tasting fine. a bit drier and maybe more bitter and malty, but nice. used big bottles for most of it, saving a 6 of 12-oz bottles for the dregs. have been taste-testing over the last week with the 12ies and it has matured nicely, though maybe a little champaigny despite doing only 4 oz of brown sugar for bottling. maybe take that down another 1/2 oz for this next one.

edit -- og was maybe 1.054?

scottish export 80

sg 1.063? overshot 1.054. i'm just good at coaxing the sugar. new thermometer with alarm thanks to inki! poured white labs 1728 english ale yeast, straight from the vial, see how she goes.

started bubbling sometime the next day. still bubbing on 25th, so yeast probably good with the no-starter.