Relax, that blip, blip noise you heard from my basement is nothing to get alarmed about. Fireside Chat, my Febrewary brew, was busy turning sugar into alcohol.The blip, blip was just little “Chat” farting some carbon dioxide as he gorged himself with sugar. Once the noise slowed down, that meant Chat had devoured most of the sugar and was ready to move to a secondary vessel. When I racked Chat to a secondary, I thought he needed a little more hop aroma, so I threw in some East Kent Goldings for dry hopping.
It’s been a few days since I added the dry hops and I’m a little nervous about over-hopping Chat. So, I taste a sample. Wow, he tastes delicious and smells wonderful! The balance of English hops and toasty, sweet malt is just about right. To stop the dry hop, I siphon him to another vessel and filter out the hops. While the vessel’s top is off, I check the specific gravity – it’s 1.016. Given the original gravity of 1.069, that calculates to 6.9% alcohol by volume, just a little over what is expected – 6.7%. Little Chat is such an overachiever and I’m such a proud poppa! I’ll check the specific gravity in a week. If it remains steady, that means the yeast has devoured all the sugar and it’s time to bottle.
Every beer needs a label. While baby Chat has been busy downstairs turning malt into
alcohol, I have given the label design some thought. Here’s a draft with a lot of help from my friends.
Cheers!
Warren
If you call it Fire Side Chat, there should be some reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Or to FDR or the New Deal or 32nd POTUS etc. Just to be historically and politically correct.
Thanks for your comment, John. My 87-year-old mother used to reminisce about listening to FDR’s fireside chats on the radio. The name is a tribute to those stories. Also, I liked the idea of sharing a few beers with friends in front of the fire on a cold winter’s night.