So I haven't posted in a while, however there's a reason for that... We haven't made any beer!! I feel like quite a slacker. The last beer we did make was the Lagerhead Turtle. However the fermentation didn't exactly go as planned.
I first would like to point out a lesson learned... "NEVER USE EXPIRED YEAST". Well I shouldn't say never, but if you do, make sure you create a large starter. I however should have taken my own advice. The yeast was only out of date a few weeks. I figured it would still be okay, however it wasn't.
After 4 days of no fermentation, I declared the yeast dead. Even a gravity reading indicated that no sugar to alchohol conversion had been accomplished. Luckily, I had some dried Nottingham yeast sitting around from a previous kit. I dumped it in without rehydrating... Yeah I know...probably not a good idea. However fermentation kicked in within 24 hours. Since there were so many fermentation problems, I decided not to go with the honey.
So now I should probably call this beer Alehead Turtle... From the rackings I tasted on the secondary transfer, it tasted quite good. We shall see. Sometimes it's better to be lucky then good.
Prost!!
Jeremy
