Random thoughts for today

Afternoon everyone! It's a nice, sunny day in upstate New York. The temperature is a breezy 60F. Not to bad for November. I came up with name "Smugglers Den Brewing Co." because I've always loved sailing ships and pirates, so I thought what a great name for our hobby. That's what it is - a hobby. The beers and wines we make are not for sale. We make no guarantees about any of the information on this blog. This is just me, Morgan, telling you what we did and what works for us. This blog is to share information freely with everyone involved.

We have been experimenting with some different things lately in our brewing process and in secondary. We have playing with some smoked malt in different quantities, different yeast strains and additions of oak in our secondary. First of all, smoked malt has an amazing aroma and taste. When I open the bag I want to eat it right out of the bag. It smells that good! It adds excellent flavor to your beer. There are many different smoked malts out there each with it own aroma and flavor. If you haven't tried any smoked malts in your recipes, step outside the box and add some to your next brew.

We've been changing yeast strains in our beers and wines, opening up a whole world of different flavors. We have used dry and liquid yeasts with very good results. We even used a Saflager lagering yeast and fermented and aged at ale temperatures which produced an amazing tasting Oktoberfest. We just bottled a batch of smoked porter that was aged 3 weeks with an addition of french oak cubes. The flavor is warm, complex and perfect for the upcoming winter months. The problem is getting it to last that long.

I'm going to do an article soon on oak additions to your beers and what we have learned through the process. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead to see what's brewing next. This is part of the wine and beer we made this year.