Lots of Updates!

Whew, so, okay. A lot has happened.

I guess we'll start with how the Wrye Wit and the Belgian Mild came out. The Wit has been a huge success - I've brought it to a few parties, and people have been asking for it. I'm pretty happy about that - it was a PITA to brew, but I suppose I'll have to do another batch of it in the future. The Belgian Mild has been a disappointment for me - I wanted something much maltier and ester-y-ier. It's drinkable, but not exciting. I do, however, like the yeast I ended up using (WLP550) and will use it again on the next attempt at it. The problem I'm having with it is I want to develop the esters without overattenuating the beer. I attempted to do that on the first batch by not aerating the beer at all, but that didn't work. Heat would boost both ester production and attenuation, so it's a non-starter. It requires more thought before I'm ready to go again on it.

I also put together Reds #4, 5, and 6, as well as a second Pilsener and now a Schwarzbier is in the fermenter.

Red 4 was an experiment in doubling the crystal malt that I had used previously in Reds 3 and 3.01 - still a bit too early to tell, but I think it's come out okay.

I went to bottle Red 5 today and discovered it to be growing mold on the surface of the beer - alas to our fallen brethren. I've read you can skim the mold off and proceed, but that doesn't sit real well with me from a food safety standpoint, so I ended up pouring it down the drain. This was the red with a scottish ale grain bill, so I took a bit off the bottom to sample and it tasted good - I'll have to brew it again sans mold.

Red 6 has also been bottled - this is essentially the same grain bill as Red 3, but with more crystal malt and the addition of oats to try and thicken the body. We'll see how it comes out.

Also, Red 2 had been developing a bit of a lactic character for a while now, which I was enjoying, so I let it run with that... and then they started blowing up. I saved a few in the fridge to share with some people, but ended up dumping the rest in the interest of not dying.

At the moment, I'm sitting on 11.5 cases of bottled beer. Anyone wanna party?