Update on a brew with my camera cable lost...

Without my camera cable, I feel naked. What's the point of talking about brewing without photographic evidence? How do you know I'm telling the truth and not just making stuff up?

Well, I think it all begins with the hellacious brew that wasn't, when two yeasts didn't take and I gave up on some disgusting bread yeast that was just gross and under-attenuated. It was around that time that the camera cable went MIA. I still have the camera, but I can't charge it. I'm waiting on a replacement. 

Anywho... I brewed! I brewed again, a simple, all-Cluster hops, low-gravity American Wheat Beer. It's siting in a bucket over there, waiting to get put into bottles. I'll be washing the yeast from this one, and hopefully creating a good yeast bank. I should get quite a lot of yeast off this one as long as I keep doing a few low-gravity, low-hopped brews to keep the strain alive. We'll see how that goes! After my last, lost wort (that actually had the makings of great beer from the flavor of it) I want to make sure there's a little more yeast in my fridge always ready for emergencies. 

I brewed up a witbier, as well, to build up a yeast cake of Belgian-style, low-gravity, lightly-hopped yeast that I can wash and maintain. Both recipes are very simple, with a touch of oats for body and head-retention, and just two kinds of base malt, with an OG around 1.045. The witbier used some coriander, chamomile, peppercorn, and hibiscus along with Styrian Celeja hops. 

I'm mostly unimpressed with Styrian Celeja hops, so far, but I'm convinced I haven't found the right way to use them, yet. They seem to have this vegetal, celery/parsley-like smell when dry, and I don't believe I want that in a dry hop, but I'm still not sure how much of the unpleasantness makes it into the glass when it's cooked. Cluster, on the other hand didn't just impress me. I was floored by how good Cluster are as a hop, compared to their reputation. Cluster will become a staple of my brew-closet, alongside equally most-favored hops like US Northern Brewer, French Strisselspalt, German Smaragd, and Czech Saaz.

I'm also steadily moving my operation outdoors. I ground my grains on the deck last time and it was so nice not to have to spend half an hour sweeping and mopping up the mess in the kitchen. The birds took care of all the spare flying grains for me, and seemed grateful for it, too. What they didn't handle, a rainstorm washed out.

I've also recently made my own brown malt, and crystal 60l out of base malt. I cannot recommend home toasting and roasting your own malts enough. I have been very pleased with the results of my experiments in this avenue. 

Once I get a camera cable again, I'll post some dern pictures...