Exciting Times, New Products

[Dogger Dan]

Well folks

What a weekend for Dogger, Big Excitment, I had a big drive to get my fresh grains (if anyone followed that thread) to make up a nice Porter. And guess what, isn't there two new products available to me at my other brew place. The first I am really excited about and that is liquid yeasts. Sure I have heard of them even seen them in the smack pack but this group is different. This is made by an outfit called White Labs. They have a web page at http://www.whitelabs.com/. Take a look. The nice thing is you can propogate it so the 10 bucks cost can be fined down. I was a little worried as it took a while to fire up but that may have been more the beer kit (to follow)

The other is an all grain beer kit. Check it out at http://www.rgspagnols.com. I used to work for these guys while I was going to school and they took some good ideas from me regarding beer making. Their big claim to fame is wine but being me I thought I'd give them a whirl on the beer, no hard feelings. As you know I wanted a Porter so I took their Cream Ale and made some good additions to it (They are cheap so it likely needed a bit of help anyway) It is bubbling away and I think good things will happen. On a down note regarding this kit they obviously have had some problems with shelf life and pH so they have made it acidic and thrown in a pH balance kit that you mix in prior to pitching (Don't forget it or it will be absolute kife). I am a bit worried as they don't take into account pH of your water but as you are only adding 8 Litres to make this kit up it won't be enough to make the changes for good or bad.

It had issues getting going so I added a yeast enzyme mixture to help out and kept my fingers crossed. Normally I pitch another yeast at the same time but all I had was dried Coopers and I didn't want to piss away a 10 dollar liquid yeast. This did the trick and it has fired up right nice, of course I could be running a wilder but I don't think so.

Ok all, I hope everyone has a good week and I will keep you posted on the outcomes

Dogger