Sample this

During the week and a half after I had placed the beer in the fermenter there wasn't a whole lot to do but sit back and let the yeast do it's thing.  I did need bottles for bottling my brew so I lit up the Bat Signal and informed my beer drinking buddies that I was in need of their help.  Talk about a good job:  "I need you to drink beer and save me the bottles.  Then, I will use your bottles for my home brew that I will give you some of."  Its win-win!

The type of bottle I needed was fairly specific.  The best bottles are brown and must have the pry-off type caps.  Twist-off type bottles don't seal well enough to hold the pressure built up during the carbonation process.  Brown bottles limit the amount of light that can reach the beer inhibiting spoilage.  I started buying Dos Equis Amber Lager and began a stock pile of bottles.

After ten days of fermenting, the bubbling in the air lock had greatly subsided.  I needed to check the specific gravity of the beer to see if it was on track to be bottled in a few days.  I was expecting to see that the yeast was beginning to fall to the bottom of the fermenter and sedimentize.  Instead I found that the yeast still seemed to be very active.  Using a sanitized baster, I extracted a sample of my brew.

Wheat beer hydrometer reading

First thing's first:  I needed to check the specific gravity of my brew.  My hydrometer reading indicated that there was still too much sugar in the beer.  This told me that the fermentation was still very active and probably wouldn't be ready to bottle for about a week.  I decided to test everything again in 3-4 days.  That just left me with one final task:  tasting the beer.

I put the sample to my nose and gave it a sniff.  It smelled of wheat and yeast, a good sign since this was a wheat beer.  The taste, however, seemed off to me.  Yes it was yeasty, but it also tasted very sour and acidic.    I was now fairly concerned about my brew.  Perhaps I hadn't been careful enough with my sanitation during the early brewing process.  Back to the waiting game again to see what the coming week would bring.