So.... an update...

Tonight I bottled one batch and kegged another. So I now have no beer fermenting in the closet.

The bottled beer is the Doble Doble I brewed on Christmas day. As of today, it is showing about 9.5% alcohol. I think that a few months of bottle conditioning will be good for that one, so I may wait to try my first bottle around my birthday (early June). It is a good, strong Double bitter beer. It should be good for drinking for at least the next couple of years.

The kegged beer is a Cappuccino Stout. I brewed it 12 days ago. It is a milk stout that I added some espresso concentrate to. For those interested, a milk stout, also known as a 'Sweet Stout', gets its sweetness from Lactose (milk) sugar that is added to the boil. Lasctose is an unfermentable sugar, so it remains in the final product, giving the beer that milky taste. Because of the large amounts of sugars in the wort, the initial gravity was a little higher than most regular-strength beers (1.070), but the final gravity is also higher (1.034). The alcohol level in this beer is therefore around 4.5%. That is not a precise number (since my hydrometer and personal measurement technique are likewise not very precise) but a good ballpark.

Site changes (yes, again):
If you visit www.mybrewing.com, you will quickly find that it directs you back here. I grew tired of (not) updating the other pages, so I removed them. The kegerator write-up is still out there and the myBrewing link on the right now simply points to that page. I moved the beer legend onto this page for ease of updating and lookup.

Cheers.