APA 4/16/11 - The Pour

Our American Pale Ale has been ready and tasted from some time, but I guess the 7.3% abv keeps me from remembering to take photos.  Well, here they are. 

Isn't she pretty?  Of course, we couldn't just pour one.

I would have poured more, but we ran out of CO2.  I am getting the tank exchanged today.  Until then, we are unable to enjoy our homebrew. :-(

American Pale Ale 4.16.11 Completion

Our APA stayed in the secondary fermenter for 14 days.  We kegged it on May 5.  After finding our finishing gravity of 1.002, we calculated that it is a whopping 7.3% ABV.  That's a hefty brew.

Here is Gary adjusting the pressure of the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) to "force-carbonate" the beer.  Basically, we connect the CO2 tank to the "out" valve of the keg (the out valve goes all the way to the bottom), then we force the CO2 in at 25-30 psi.  We will then pull the relief valve and relieve all of the pressure once or twice (this gets rid of any oxygen or O2 that may have gotten into the beer during the kegging process).  Then, we put the CO2 pressure onto the keg again and then shake it vigorously.  This forces the CO2 into the beer.  After this process, the beer will be carbonated in a few days.  This is much faster than other methods of carbonating beer.

As you can see, we have the CO2 connected to the keg, but the keg is not yet connected to the kegerator.  We put it in the kegerator and let it cool to drinking temperature and then connect it after a few days of forced carbonation.  The beer is now ready to drink and it is as tasty as it is potent. 

Now, the hard part is not drinking it all in one weekend (remember, homebrew draws a crowd).