A simple brewing mistake…
Monday, January 21st, 2008So, a couple of weekends ago we tried to brew our first lager… Having brewed several ales at this point I think we may have been slightly overconfident. Everything was going just fine, the boil looked great, the beer cooled down fairly fast (thanks to slightly cold weather that day) and the yeast looked fine when we rehydrated it. However, if you read the directions for lagering, it is suggested that you should start the lager at normal ale temperatures and then move it to a cooler spot for lagering. We didn’t read this part so although we did get some pressure in the airlock we did not get the rapid bubbling that we are used to with the ales. When I visited Brian on Thursday morning he told me that the Oktoberfest we had brewed wasn’t fermenting properly. We looked at it, had a small discussion and decided to throw some dry ale yeast on the top of the wort and see what happened. When I visited on Saturday afternoon, before our trip to the brew store (more on that in a few), Brian told me the wort had already bubbled through the airlock and he had to replace it. He had come down to the basement to put wood in the stove and could smell the fermentation. He put the new airlock on and when I visited it was bubbling like crazy, it finally slowed down on Sunday morning. Hopefully this beer turns out alright. I will definitely keep updates on it.
The other mistake we had was that we had planned a trip to Jasper’s in Nashua since it is the closest brewing supply store to us and while we get great service from Midwest Brewing Supply, we still have to pay shipping fees. Nashua is about 45-60 minutes from the Keene area. So we figured we could swing over on a Saturday and spend some cash, maybe walk out with a couple of new carboys and some grains for brewing. We got all the way out there, only to find that they were closed that Saturday due to the holiday weekend. So we stopped at Burger King and picked up a burger instead. 
