Monday, September 7, 2009

Beknighted Dunkel: Tap Day

Making beer is as much about taste as it is about sustenance. Beer, properly made without fillers, is like drinking a loaf of bread. It is the yield of the grain, the staff of life. What can be more basic than wheat beer?

On this edition of Me and the Homebrews, WBN chronicles the making of a Dunkelweizen, or dark wheat, beer.

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Today was Tap Day. We tapped our Beknighted Dunkel after 24 hours in the fridge with a canister of CO2. First thing I noticed was that we had run through a lot of CO2; down from 900 units to about 200. I'm not convinced there isn't a slow leak -- perhaps refrigerating the CO2 along with the keg is a bad idea as well.

Also, the PSI is inconsistent. We set it to 10 PSI when it went in the fridge. After 12 hours I checked it and it had risen (surprisingly) to 15 PSI. I notched it back down to 10 PSI. Another 10 hours later I noticed the PSI had dropped to almost nothing. I cranked it back up to 10 and let it alone for another 3 hours.

When the Homebrews came over we switched CO2 tanks and have the keg a good shaking. The initial taste test was flat and slightly bitter. After switching the tanks and forcing the carbonation, our Dunkelweiss tasted wheaty and a hint of sweet on the aftertaste. MUCH better. We'll see how the carbonation holds up in the fridge.

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