Second Floor Brewing

Saturday we brewed a Marzen.  I called it the March Marzen because I hope that it will be ready to drink sometime in March.  But I am worried.  This takes me back to the good old days, when men were men, frankfurters cost a nickel, and when I worried over my beers as though they were all my first born children.  Oh, to be young again!  I read and I read but you don’t know until you have done it successfully at least once.  Here come the second guesses, here come the shoulda’s, here come the woulda’s.  But I have already learned so much.  For example, a carboy will stay warmer set in unfinished basement wrapped in a sleeping bag than it will on the lowest setting of a kegerator.  Even setting the knob between 1 and 0 is still like 45 degrees.  I just want to get it into the 50s and sleeping bags always warm me up.  We’ll see or we’ll see it poured down the drain.  UPDATE — Don’t trust anything on you see on YouTube.  These people are fermenting lagers at room temperature.  John Palmer says ferment at 50 degrees for two weeks.  In JP we trust.

In other news, we racked the Honey Brown into a clean carboy for another week of aging.  I forgot to get a gravity reading but it tasted much different that it did freshly brewed.  I think its going to be good.  I don’t want to wait another couple weeks before drinking but I guess I will have to.

I continue to be impressed with our Oatmeal Stout.  Delicious.  I wish we had more.  Good thing that problem is easily remedied.