For my next Pinter kit with kviek yeast experiment, I'm using Pinter's Fresh Batch collaboration with Brewgooder Hazy IPA Remixed. Instead of the included Pinter Loyalty yeast, I pitched a packet of Omega's liquid yeast: OYL-057 Hothead Kveik. Omega yeastery's notes suggest honey and mango aromas, but I'm not sure I'll get much of those flavors...but we'll see! After shaking things up, the Pinter batch started around 1.050 original gravity, so I should be close to the expected 5.0 ABV when the batch is finished.

Fresh v. Cellared (Fresh on left)

On a side note, I finally got around to doing my little sippy-sip side x side comparison of a fresh Gulden Draak v. a cellared bottle. Gulden Draak "should" age very well, but I've never had an opportunity to try any cellared vintage, so I decided to experiment a bit. I bought 4 bottles from my favorite bottle shop, The Beer Trappe, and stored them in my "beer cellar" (just a coupla cardboard boxes in a downstairs closet, but it does most of the necessaries: no light, relatively steady temp below 72 F.) Anywhos, this was my first year into this experiment. I purchased a fresh bottle from the Trappe and tossed both in the fridge a couple weeks ago.

It was immediately apparent that the cellared version had lost a significant amount of carbonation, though it had not gone entirely still. The color hadn't changed to any appreciable degree, and the aromas were quite similar. The flavors of the cellared version were considerably darker and rounder...less caramel and chocolate, with a LOT more fig and date. I would assume some of the flavor differences are due to oxidation in the bottle and some to the change in carbonation lvl. Regardless the cause, I personally preferred the cellared version. It just dawned on me, the flaw in this experiment is I can't do a sippy-sip side by side comparison with ALL levels of aging! Next year, I can test fresh against 2 yr cellared, but will have to rely on my memory for the 1 yr flavors!

I should have bought at least 3 extra Gulden Draak bottles while I was at the Beer Trappe tonight. A coupla weeks in a box in my closet won't make a huge difference, so I'll get on that next time I'm at Beer School!  

That Hazy IPA in my Big Red Pinter should be getting tossed in the fridge soon...I'll be sure to let ya'll know how it comes out!

I Wandt to Go Space Hopping Too!

Well, dear readers, the Pinter kit batch modified by using Kveik yeast that I started telling you about in my last post worked out great! I had pitched the Ebbegarden yeast Kveik yeast strain from Kveik Yeastery instead of Pinter's Loyalty yeast included in their West Coast Fresh Pack, with the hopes of bumping up perceived bitterness and mebbe adding some brighter fruit notes.

I Wandt to Go Space Hopping Too!

The Ebbegarden yeast was really active, really early...it was blowin' krausen out the valves less than 8 hour after I shook that Pinter up and went to bed. Ambient temp was around 67-70° F. It hadn't completely fermented out when I removed the Pinter's Brewing Dock and threw the Pinter in the fridge, but activity had slowed significantly. Just in case, I tossed a sheet of tin foil under the Pinter with the edges turned up to catch any unexpected activity. Turned out to be completely unnecessary, but nobody wants a mess in the fridge!

Tapped this batch the other day, and it came out beautifully! It's still noticeably a Pinter Fresh Pack (their kits have a very notable similarity in taste across styles) but the Ebbegarden added a distinct increase to the perceived bitterness, making this kit come out a LOT more West Coasterish than the first batch I made using Pinter's included Loyalty yeast. Amazing fluffy clouds of head and fantastic retention with some lovely "legs" :

This kit beer came out with some really pleasant fruit notes: strawberry foremost, but lots of different sub-notes going on. Honestly, considerably more improvement than I expected with no more effort than mixing up the yeast! I'm really looking forward to the next few similar experiments!

Took a minute to finish this post, but I think there's still a pint or two left in my lovely Blue. The weather is starting to warm up, so we'll see what happens with the next batch! Till next batch!

New Kitchen, New Nonsense

As both my faithful readers know, the infamous Kitchen found a new home a coupla years ago, and it took a minute for the realization to sink in: that lovely glass top stove was just not going to get along well with my lovely 10-gallon steel brew kettle. Unwilling to pester my new neighbors with 3 AM propane stove brewing sessions in the front drive, I put homebrew way back on my personal back burner for quite awhile.

Recently, however, I acquired a Pinter. This lovely little bit of homebrew equipment allows for 1.5 gallon batches of beer with a minimal amount of effort and equipment. Using Pinter's own Fresh Pac extract kits, you can create a batch of homebrew in short order with NO boiling and NO bottling! Just add  water and follow the instructions. The brew dock allows for trub to fall out and be discarded, while thebuilt-in pressure valve allows controlled carbonation right in the fermentation container once you toss it in the fridge. After a few days conditioning in the fridge, you serve it like a mini keg of draft beer.

Very cool, especially the ease and absolute lack of extra equipment needed, but it is straight up extract kit beer: the most amazing stuff ever, when it's the first batch you've made! But there are a LOT of amazing beers readily available for not much more than you pay for ingredients that don't take any more effort than opening DoorDash on your phone. But it dawned on me...this little Pinter eliminates bottling and even siphoning into a secondary, but I could still cook up my own wort! I realized I could boil up a 1.5 gallon all-grain BIB batch in a 3 gallon kettle without smashing that glass-top stove to smithereens!

So I ordered one each of all three color Pinters and at least one each of their extract kits that sounded interesting. I figured the quickest and easiest way to become familiar with these devices would be through the kits they've tested and their easy to follow instructions in their app.

So ya'll know that plan lasted thru about 4 batches. Then I got an email ad from Northern Brewer about a new strain of kveik brewer's yeast they had available, which of course sent me down a new rabbit hole. I ended up ordering several different strains of kveik yeast, mostly dry yeast from Kveik Yeastery. 

Once the yeast packets arrived, I started up a batch of Pinter's Fresh Batch Space Hopper IPA West Coast Edition extract kit. I'd tried this kit once before and the results were OK, but it could definitely have been more bitter. So instead of the yeast included with Pinter's Fresh Pack, I pitched Kveik Yeastery's Ebbegarden strain. It is supposed to ferment well between 64 and 100 degrees F, adding fruit notes and enhancing bitterness. It started blowing krausen out the carbonation valve less than 8 hours later and was still showing a little activity when I tossed the Pinter in the fridge more than a week later!

I'll be sure to check back in and let all three of ya'll know how it turns out! (Yes, faithful readers, a third has been added to your small but devoted gathering. Whether this new reader has the fortitude to maintain your unearned and so earnest interest remains to be discovered, but it's nice to have fresh set of eyes looking over my silly rambling!)

Being entirely out of practice, I'm just gonna toss some random pics in here at the bottom of this post. Thanks for hangin' out with me for a minute and hopefully I'll have something interesting for all ya'll soon!