BCHX and inki's brown: tasting notes

i think the BCHX could have stood to bottle condition a little longer. the last bottle was very sour with a kind of mettalic aftertaste. maybe too yeasty, maybe a bad side effect of using the wheat malt. i noticed a wheat malty flavor, though the sourness and carbonation kind of overpower everything else. didn't get to drink the last one out of a glass. perhaps degassing would have helped cut the tongue-assault of the carbonation. don't think i'm going to try wheat malt again any time soon. next beer should be heavy with lots of aroma hops, maybe cut the bittering to 45 minutes.

inki's brown has been in the bottle for a while and has the malty sweet flavor as expected, but i'm noticing the same kind of sour taste as BCHX, although it doesn't wrap up in the metallic aftertaste. this batch is decent, but not as good as i recall the last couple. perhaps i'm having higher expectations or maybe the collapsing ceiling in the kitchen unleashed some wild yeast or bacteria into the mix. it would have to be airborne, because i haven't changed my sanitation. of course this is a taste of the bottom of the bucket bottles, which might have some of the heavy stuff in them. they are pretty clear so far, so i'm not sure. more to come on the 'higher' bottles.

BCHX still green

had my first bottle bomb. a bottle of the BCHX blew up in the basement, leaving shards of glass and a puddle. two bottles that i put in the freezer opened with just a wisp of carbon dioxide. thin film of head, and not too many bubbles. can't believe it, but these probably need another week in the bottle. not much hop aroma, but plenty bitter with that green, not carbonated enough taste. i'd try this again without the wheat extract.

BCHX second taste

after leaving a bottle in the fridge a couple of days, tried the BCHX again: neverending carbonation! i released it slowly with the bottle sitting in a measuring cup to catch all the foam. after about 5 minutes of constant foaming over (about 1/2 the beer escaped as foam), i had stable beer; amber, cloudy, and with a bitter wheat aftertaste. i'm thinking that the bavarian wheat lme might have been a bad idea. i didn't like the taste of it raw as much as the regular lme's. it might mellow out in a bit. not noticing any good hop aroma, sadly. i have a feeling that this needs another week before it settles down, but i'm curious to see if the hop aroma will win out after more conditioning.

BCHX, first taste

made the mistake of opening a bottle of BCHX. probably needs a week or two more, bottle barfed all over the place. mostly head, and tastes like bottling sugar.

bottling day for BCHX

FG in bottling bucket with sugar: 1.015. Caramel red color. Smells awesome. Was in secondary for 1 1/2 weeks, with dry hops for a week or so. Tried to rack with a sock over the cane, got too cloggy, so gave up and racked plain. Not too leafy, also not too much trub, which is odd. Bottles will probably be full of sludge. It looked like it was still a little active, and a taste was very sugary. it's been warm lately. Hopefully fully fermented! Not too worried. Should probably try one in about 10 days. Probably won't be ready, but wtf.

racked BCHX

racked bull city experiment (BCHX) to secondary after 2 weeks primary. added 1oz cascade to try try hopping, directly to fermenter. keeping it upstairs to keep temp more constant. temps in 50's outside at night not below 60 inside, i think. gravity at 1.015, good, i thin

BCHX

bull city homebrew experimental (BCHX)
i boiled the mish-mash brew from bull city homebrew:
3.3 breiss munich lme
3.3 breiss bavarian wheat lme
1# caramel 10 L
1# english ale 2-row malt
2 oz fuggle
1.5 oz cascade
safale us-05

fug/cas additions at 15, 10, and 5, then 1 oz cascade at 2 minutes
boil notes:
cool down took 20 minutes. added safale US-05 that had been proofed og 1.055. light-looking. not so sure about the bavarian wheat LME, but what the hay (get it?). shook the fermenter with the yeast already added (not sure there's a difference). started steeping grains at 140, up to 155 for about 1/2 hour (probably 15 on 155). grain was crushed at the store. made sure to boil after grains and before adding LME. took a long time to get back up to boiling after adding LME. had a very distinct hot break not long after hop addition. was able to avoid boilovers by stirring. only had to take off heat once. stove on 7.5-8 during boil. after cooldown, poured 1 gallon or so of water into bucket, poured wort through strainer, added rest of water to just over 5 gallons (got to have a full 2 cases this time!). started bubbling within 12 hours.
ryepa from 7/22 has been mostly ready, though there are still some green bottles even after almost a month in the bottle. i've drunk about a 6 of green beers waiting for this to condition. i suspect a combination of whirlfloc and not racking enough of the trub to the bottling bucket. it seems like there wasn't enough yeast. i'm not sold on the whirlfloc. i just don't care that much about color at this point. probably more important with the light beers.
homeade brown ale is really nice so far after bottle conditioning for 2+ weeks, though we did have a couple of volcanos at around 10 days.