UPDATE 08:29: I posted over at the Home Brew talk forums, and the consensus is that I’m looking at krausen (where the foamy yeast action happens) with hop particles suspended in it. Whew! That’s really a great site with some terrifically helpful people.

Original post:

At Christmas I tried a batch of beer I had made, luckily it was only a 1 gallon batch, and there was something terribly wrong with it. It tasted like water, but with a funky taste to it. I figured I must have had an infection in it.

So now I’m a little paranoid, and I’m wondering if I did something wrong with my last batch of Centennial Blonde. It has these green floaty things on the top.

I made a 10 gallon batch, and split it between two carboys, and used a starter of a American Ale yeast in one, and a package of Nottingham yeast in the other. The American Ale yeast carboy has these green things across the entire carboy, and the nottingham yeast carboy only has a few of them, in a 4 inch circle.

I took a whiff of both carboys, and they smell fine to me. I’m just a little concerned since I had the problem with that 1 gallon batch, and I was planning on putting a Stout on the yeast cake of the American Ale Carboy.

I’m going to post to the Homebrew forums to see what those knowledgeable folks have to say, but I figured I could share here as well.

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  Last Friday, I mentioned that I was going to be doing some brewing, which I did do yesterday. It was the first time I had attempted a 10 gallon batch, usually brewing in 5 gallon batches, and things went pretty well.

It took quite a bit more time to get the water to boil off, I ended up with almost 14 gallons of wort to start with, but it ended up only taking an hour or so more than I’m used to. I also ended up with 11 Gallons of wort instead of 10, which was good because after reviewing the recipe, it turns out it was actually for a 11 Gallon batch.

I think I’m going to have to buy a real immersion chiller soon, that would probably cut close to an hour from my brew day.

I was a little worried that the Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast that I had rinsed from a previous batch wasn’t going to be ready in time, but Saturday it just took off, and I was able to use it in one carboy after all. The second carboy has the Nottingham yeast that the recipe calls for.

So my storage room now has 2 carboys full of the delicious Centennial Blonde. I’m curious to see if I can tell the difference in flavor between the two batches, since I used different yeasts.

I’m planning on doing a quick extract American Stout recipe in 2 weeks, and I’m going to put it on the American Ale yeast cake.

The only strange thing is that I still seem to be running a pretty bad efficiency, this time it seems to be 65%, but I keep hitting my Original Gravity targets. So I’m not too concerned with it.

Once I open a bottle of the Centennial Blonde, in about 4 weeks, I’ll have to take a picture.

Of course, this week is Christmas, I hope yours is wonderful!

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