Homemade Hellenbock

On February 1st, I started brewing Hellenbock with the Mr. Beer kit. It is a strong, German-style lager that is primarily served at spring festivals, its variation being the lighter Maibock. The Hellenbock marked my 6th batch of Mr. Beer beer. I have learned a lot from my previous brewing experiments and decided I would experiment a little bit with this beer by adding a different kind of hops than the recipe called for. I obtained actual German hops to use in place of the Argentine Cascade hops the recipe called for. I also decided I would add honey to the beer in the bottling stage instead of sugar. The reason a sweetener is added in the bottling stage is for carbonation purposes. I have found that the cane sugar the recipe called for makes the beer taste much like champagne, while agave or honey don't affect the taste in that manner. Below is a picture of the Mr. Beer kit with the keg and 8-1 Liter bottles it comes with

Just like winemaking, sanitizing the utensils that will be used along with the kit itself is a key part of the process. Once that is done, the cans of unhopped malt extract and vienna lager oktoberfest hopped malt extract are mixed over the stove and then mixed into the keg along with water and a cheese cloth satchel containing the fresh hops, and a little bit of honey

 

After the keg is filled, it is put in a place with constant cool temperature and no direct light. I put it under a small table that has a top cover that reaches down all the way to the ground, preventing any direct light from entering. 

After two weeks of keg fermentation, the contents of the keg are added to bottle along with a small amount of sweetener for carbonation purposes, as I mentioned above. Finally, after another two weeks of bottle fermentation, the beer is places in the refrigerator for an additional two weeks for what is known as lagering. Then, the beer is finally ready to drink. I tend to allow extra time in the keg, bottle, and refrigerator, for the beer's flavors to have more of a chance to develop, but for the sake of the blog I opened one bottle early in the lagering phase. The beer is a soft brown color, quite clear and smells pretty good. When tasting it, it becomes apparent that despite the high alcohol percentage (7%), the beer is quite easy to drink. It is not bitter, and the honey has given it a nice, even finish that does not mask its delicious, hoppy flavor. Overall, it is probably the second best beer I have made using the Mr. Beer kit, with the Cranberry Maibock being the top. Still, I do not want o be quick to judge it, since I believe that after more lagering, the flavors will develop fully and the overall taste might be substantially different, hopefully for the better.

 

Homemade Pinot Noir tasting notes and Hellenbock status update

Quick refresher: Made 12 bottles of this:

 

I got the grape juice from this:

Then, I put it all together inside of this: 

Now, the moment of truth came. I opened the first "immediate consumption" bottle after the recommended 2 weeks in a bottle passed. Poured it into the glass, tasted and...not good. Tasted very much like a 1-note wine with very heavy tanning flavors. I called my father who has made wine from scratch in his youth and told him of my failure. He told me not to be discouraged, that he could maybe help me with the next batch despite his lack of experience with this particular kit. Feeling less disheartened, I got off the phone and took another sip and wow! I had forgotten to let the wine aerate, which basically means that once the wine is in the glass and comes in contact with the air, it opens up and its flavors develop. Most expensive wine has a recommended period of aeration which is usually about an hour. While my wine is nowhere near as fancy, that second sip was entirely different than the first one. Encouraged, I let it sit in the glass for another half an hour before returning to it. Just smelling the wine in the class confirmed that indeed, the wine had opened up and even an untrained nose like mine could detect a berry and oaky aroma. 

Tasting notes: Medium ruby; silky mouth-feel, pleasant, sweet, bright cherry, raspberry, and strawberry fruit aromas with spicy, oaky flavors, deep, medium-to-full body, with a smooth, but short finish. 

Overall, I was pleased. So much so that after having half a glass of Lindeman's Australian Shiraz with dinner, I decided to go back to the Pinot, since I thought it had a more complex bouquet, something I had not expected to think about wine made using this rather amateurish method. I am soon going to get started on my next Artful Winemaker adventure, namely Pinot Grigio. My other source of excitement is that last week I put my eight 1-Liter bottles of Hellenbock in the fridge for what they call "lagering" (the final stage of the brewing process). In 1 week from today, I should have homemade beer, hopefully something that resembles Hellenbock, the German-style beer I am trying to make, for which I used German Hops.

Pinot Noir in my kitchen

This Christmas, I got The Artful Winemaker kit as a present, along with several wine packages including Pinot Noir, which I chose as my first wine to make.

The process of the artful Winemaker takes 28 days from beginning to bottle. Step 1 is easy enough. After careful sanitation of the kit and all its components, the grape juice bag inside the square box in the photo is poured into the winemaker with a few wooden oak pieces added, undoubtedly to give the wine a barrel-like flavor.Then fermenting yeast is added. There is of course, an airlock at the top. Step 2 occurs after 14 days and involves more sanitizing and the mounting of the interior cones and removal of the oak pieces.

Step 3 comes after an additional 14 days, when the wine is bottled. The instructions recommended to bottle 6 of the 12 bottles for immediate consumptions and 6 for later, the difference between the two bottling procedures consisting of the way the bottle is rinsed. It is further recommended to let the immediate consumption bottles age for an additional 1-2 weeks before consuming them, so that the flavors and bouquet have a more of a chance to develop.

The last step of the bottling procedure was labeling the bottles with the labels provided, and further labeling by hand the bottles meant for immediate consumption and those for aging.

Overall, I found it to be a pretty straight-forward, easy process. Full results are pending, since I just bottled my wine late last week, but I have high hopes that the results will not be 12 bottles of homemade vinegar. Tasting notes coming in about one week, but in the meantime, my Napa tasting experience will be the subject of my next post.