skip to main  |skip to sidebargrove's beer logWednesday, April 15, 2009Live in Oslo and need malt?Then you might be interested to know that there is an initiative to collectively order 2000 kgs of various Thomas Fawcett malts from the UK. More information here (in Norwegian).Posted bygroveat17:282 comments:Links to this postLabels:brewing,events,ingredientsFriday, March 06, 2009Norwegian Homebrewing Competion 2009What: The annual festival where homebrewers serve their own beers to the public, which get to vote for their favourite beer of the evening. Homebrewers also compete in five other categories (bottled entries submitted earlier), including strong/specialty beers, light lager, dark, larger, light ale, and dark ale. The winners are announced towards the end of the evening.When: Saturday March 28th 2009, 19:00-00:00 CETWhere: Studentersamfunnet Bislet, Pilestredet 52, Oslo, Norway.Cost: 130 NOK (100 NOK if you're a member of Norbrygg)This year's event is going to be a great one as the best beer from the strong/specialty category will be brewed at Nøgne Ø and will later be available at Vinmonopolet (the government liquor shops). Cred to Nøgne Ø for doing this! Also, the 30 best beers served at the event will be awarded with 12 liter brand new Cornelius kegs. Plus there'll be lots of other prizes. In another words, there is no reason not to participate this year.View Larger MapI'll be there serving my beer. This year I'll have the Imperial Kölsch (brew #66), Russian Imperial Stout (brew #67 with Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans and MacAllan 10 yo cask strength single malt whisky) and Raspberry Melomel (brew #70) on. See you there!Posted bygroveat20:583 comments:Links to this postLabels:brewing,eventsBrew #70: Raspberry MelomelI have been planning to make a mead for a long time, and have had 4 kgs of Argentinian honey lying around for almost a year, and I have now finally done something with it. It went pretty well, but I made a couple of mistakes along the way. First I miscalculated the final volume. Originally I had aimed for 13 liters of water and honey, but ended up with 18 liters (21 liters after adding the raspberry). I also ended up fermenting the mead a too little cold and the sweet mead yeast crapped out at 1.060 (I suspect because of the pH level), so I had to add some really old Lalvin D-47 from 2005(!). That boosted the fermentation, and it went down to 1.008 just a couple of days later.The melomel is now in the secondary, but I'll keg it soon. From the samples I've had so far it is promising, and I'm sure I'll try making more meads in the future. I plan to serve it not carbonated.The batch was brewed 2009-02-06.Style: Raspberry MelomelType: 21 liters. No heat.Ingredients: 4200g Argentinian honey 500g Norwegian Raspberry honey 2840g Red Raspberry puree, Oregon 1.5ts Fermaid K (day 0) 1ts Fermaid K (day 2) 1ts Fermaid K (day 5)Yeast: 2 packs Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead, and 2 packs of Lalvin D-47 after a few daysBoil: 180 minFermentation: 1