PDA

View Full Version : Woolpack Dave's Beer and Stuff - Eisalloy



Blog Tracker
19-03-2014, 15:40
Visit the Woolpack Dave's Beer and Stuff site (http://hardknott.blogspot.com/2014/03/eisalloy.html)

No, that isn't the shout that came just before the Titanic hit the iceberg. It's the name we've given to our latest experimental beer. It's an eisbock.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5RVlKT1gyDo/Uym3gQ_ar8I/AAAAAAAABlc/Lg9XPbWonB4/s1600/Eisalloy2.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5RVlKT1gyDo/Uym3gQ_ar8I/AAAAAAAABlc/Lg9XPbWonB4/s1600/Eisalloy2.jpg)I've wanted to have a go at freezing a beer for a while. Really, to make it worth doing, it's best to start with a fairly strong beer. Having now tried it, I would further endorse this starting point.

Rhetoric III (http://www.hardknott.com/Shop/?page_id=640), our green tea and Szechuan pepper infused beer was 12.4% and interesting enough. I racked some off into firkins and got an old unused chest freezer and bunged the firks inside that. After several days we ran off what hadn't frozen and then refroze that.

The then double-freeze concentrated beer was re-carbonated and bottled for your delight. There are only just over 100 bottles. If you buy it all I'll have a go at making a bigger batch, and perhaps next time we'll try for a higher ABV. It's not that we're looking to break any records you understand, just learn how to make really good eisbock.

This one came out at 20.4%, but more importantly it's very interesting trying out the differences between the base beer and the concentrated version. You can buy it here (http://www.hardknott.com/Shop/?page_id=687) if you'd like to try it.

It's an interesting process incidentally. Quite a lot harder than I expected. For a start, it is not really very easy to measure the ABV of what comes off and so judging when to stop is rather tricky. We'd love to have a means of checking ABV at each stage of the process, but sending multiple samples off to the lab is somewhat expensive. When we did send the finished product off for testing the lab reported some difficulties in getting an answer.

More... (http://hardknott.blogspot.com/2014/03/eisalloy.html)