Apfelwein!

I wanted to brew a new beer this week, but I'm moving in a few months and figured the less bottles I have to move the better. To curb my desire, I looked into making some Apfelwein. The process is simple: grab a gallon of apple juice, raise the gravity with some cane sugar, and throw an airlock on top. This can be scaled up or down to whatever batch size you're doing, and it doesn't require time consuming boils or cleanup. I wanted to start fermenting last Sunday, but my LHBS was closed until Tuesday. Then I remembered I had saved some of the yeast from my Belgian beer when I racked it. I didn't expect to ever use it, but it was there, so I threw it into a gallon of TreeTop brand apple juice. It took a little more than a day to see airlock activity. I didn't know how much sugar to add, and arbitrarily put 1 cup of cane sugar in, brining the OG to 1.080. This might be a little high, but we'll see. Interestingly, there is almost no krausen. I couldn't help but trying some today and it is tangy and delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I had to go get a couple more gallons and some more yeast. I got a second gallon of TreeTop and a gallon of the more expensive Martinelli's. I picked up some Lalvin EC-1118 yeast (recommended at LHBS) and repeated Sunday's procedure (though with more attention to cleanliness). Sweetened these to 1.062 and 1.068. I also got some Fermaid-K, which is a yeast nutrient, and some campden tablets, which kills off-flavor producing wild yeast and bacteria. Not sure if I'll use the tablets. Can't wait to see how this turns out - it should be a couple weeks before it's drinkable - I'll try to bottle some of it to see how it ages. Here's a shot of the Apfelwein.

Dunkelweizen

I brewed a dunkelweizen from Austin Homebrew Supply about 6 weeks ago. I didn't take any pictures of the brew day. This was my first "mini-mash" kit. Basically the same as an extract kit with a much larger amount of steeping grains (had to use two muslin bags). The only changes I made to my brewing technique for this batch was using tap water rather than store bought drinking water. I figured it would impart more flavor which might be lacking when using store water. A friend of mine said using distilled or drinking water isn't a big deal for extract brewing since the difference maker is what water was used when the supplier made the extract. I will probably continue to just use (untreated) tap water to save a few bucks until my brewing methods improve and I can discern the difference. Beer turned out pretty good, though it's not something to brag about. Hopefully I can find someone with a refined palate that can offer a more quantitative opinion of my last two brews. This beer carbed faster than I expected. If I remember correctly, there was a decent head after about 4 days, and just after a week I was getting a nice thick weizen head. The weather is starting to heat up, so it'll be nice to have the wheat beer around. Recipe below.

AHS Promotional Dunkelweizen MM

• German Pilsner Malt 1 lb 4 oz
• Red Wheat Malt       1 lb 4 oz
• Crystal 60L Malt             8 oz
• Cara Wheat                    4 oz
• Special B Malt                4 oz
• Chocolate Malt               2 oz
• Dark Wheat LME    ? lb
• Tradition 4.4%AA 1oz (60 min)
• White Labs Hefeweizen Ale WLP300