Secondary Secondary Ordered
I haven't been recording the beer as I once did, mostly because the initial mystery is over—I pretty much know what we're doing and how to do it. The trick now is to discover all the little steps we could be taking to improve the batches and to continue to make mistakes to learn from.
Case in point: the Tongue Splitter Mk. II, a super-hoppy IPA extract kit that we doctored up with even more hops and malt, then idiotically added a full package of priming sugar when bottling. The result? Our first exploded bottles and a beer that foams uncontrollably when exposed to open air.
It's sort of amusing to try to direct the foam into two or three glasses and let it mellow out enough to drink, but it's not great beer to drink in the first place (it's better than the first batch of Tongue Splitter, but still not amazing).
We've ordered another two kits and another secondary carboy (5 gal) to start up the July/August brewing season. Both kits are extracts, one a Beligan-style Witbier and another the most generic Porter that Northern Brewer offers. It's clear that the time for moving to whole grain is near, though—we're simply running out of extract styles that we want to try.
The Saison and Hefeweizen we brewed last were both very tasty, however, so it's not all crap beers. We're approaching a point where we're going to need to take this slightly more seriously (new equipment, more attention paid to temperatures, cleaner brewing environments). If we're going to take it to the next step, however, I want to make sure that we're making beers that are worth the trouble.
