Just bottled up a batch of Leffe Abbey Blonde. A little concerned, but hopefully just being a little paranoid. Found a couple tiny patches of what looked like mold on the lid of the fermenter. This is the batch that I had a lotta trouble with it deciding to finally get off ground zero and start fermenting. Nearly 4 days before any activity showed up in the air lock. Krausen ring was there, and the normal brownish tan I'm used to seeing. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary there. When it did finally start bubbling, didn't take long for it to go back to rest. Left it in the fermenter for 22 days, total. (Brew date was 12/12/21). Maybe too long, dunno. Didn't taste off, but gotta remember I'm tasting raw unconditioned beer. Seems I remember a slightly sour taste in the first batch I did too, until after conditioning. Hoping that's just the yeast. FG was still pretty high (1.014) but OG started at 1.068. I used dry yeast this time, which may have been my downfall. However, it cleared up nicely in the bottles as I recall, but very sensitive sediment when pouring. Takes nearly nothing to stir it up. Dunno whether it's the yeast that gives it the slightly sour flavor, or the fact I'd just had a mouthful of sweet coffee when I sampled it. Not horrible, just slightly sour and flat on the first taste. Didn't taste the sour so much on the second taste. Smells great. Very cloudy, like the last batch was until conditioning. It's a Belgian Wheat, what can I say? All grain batch, so lotsa work in it. Really gonna hate to lose this one if it is infected. Need it for shelf stock. Buying Kona Big Wave at the moment. YUM!. Might be time for another batch of that. Guess I'll know something around next Saturday. Sure would hate to pour 50 bottles down the drain. It smells delicious, but there's those little black specks I found on the lid ..... Nothing out of order with the air lock and no apparent problems around the o-ring. Still had a very slight positive pressure (bell was floating), so I'm hoping this was just something that was only on the lid.
Got a batch of Rapier Wit (Blue Moon clone) that I'll bottle next weekend. The Rapier was exactly the opposite of the Leffe. By next morning, it was bubbling like crazy. No guessing how some of these are going to go, but I don't remember the Leffe taking that long to get started last time. Pretty sure I had it in bottles after only 15 days. I've slept twice since then, though.
I'm also looking over the new BJCP guidelines. Exciting stuff!
