opened the first stubby recently, needs more time to properly carbonate.
way too sweet
lots of chocolate
more like a milk shake

- took final reading today before bottling, unfortuanately during the lager period it really didn't attenuate much at all, final reading was 1.028, which is much higher than I hoped for.
- I'm a little worried about the bottles, being such a high FG.
- initially, smells a little bit like apples, but taste gives no sign of this, tastes great

- ever since it's been in the demijohn, i have noticed there has been to an extent, little bubbles coming up the sides. Now - although a lot less than before, they are still there. Although the krausen died down at one stage, it came back, this could have been the temperature rising.
- today i'm going to bottle it, will be very interesting to see a) how it tastes, and b) what gravity it has gone down to from 1.030

- didn't take reading, still corked up
- ever since it was put in the 20L demijohn, i've noticed very small bubbles running up the side of the glass, and a slow to very slow bubble out the air lock. Right now it's almost stopped, and you can still see bubbles rising - but very few and far between. Almost all krausen-like stuff floating on the top of the beer has now disappeared, and it's almost completely flat. This seems now close to the point where I could bottle it I think. I will probably leave it for the 3 week lager period estimated initially, which i think will be till july-15. Then I'll bottle it.
- no way to tell if it's got any/many defects yet, have to wait.

- have had this down to 6 or 7 in the past day or two, but keeps going back up to 8 degC, seems to like it there. Trouble is I don't have proper temp control, and I can only leave it on for a 1/2 hour or so, then I have to manually switch it off.
- need my temperature controller box
- still very small bubbles can be seen going up the side of demijohn, however bubbler is not bubbling, or if it is, very very slowly.

- bubbling died down a lot, and krausen settling out
- keeping up temperature decline
- haven't taken reading, will wait till end

- yesterday 25-june-2009, it was bubling at about 11 bubbles/minute
- now bubbling a lot slower, about 4-5 bubbles/minute
- appears krausen at the top has died of a bit too, and general bubbling up the sides has calmed
- I'm going to take this as a queue to drop it to lagering temp, about 2 degC
- I'm told that the only way to get rid of acetelaldehyde is to pitch more yeast.I didn't save any yeast, to re-culture up (SILLY!) will do this next time. So I'll just have to hope that the rest, and lagering take care of it.
- I have no idea what the gravity is at this point, and I don't really want to open up the seal, so I'm going to leave it to lager for up to a month and try it before I bottle it. This brings up a good point, that it is an advantage to have some access to the beer, to be able to taste it, perhaps a tap on the demijohn. I guess you could always just open it and dip in a dipper thing.
- today will start the descent to 2 degC. I'll try to go 1/2 degC per day, so as not to 'shock' the yeast.
- After what Tim said last night, I have reservations about how the Bent Monk will turn out

Racked to 21L from fermenter (basically the whole lot) into the 20L demijohn. Almost filled it up, probably 1/2 a litre more would have brought it right up to the very top. So there is still a very small amount of headspace for oxygen, but I don't think it's enough to worry about.
Currently it's being warmed up to 14 degC for a diacetyl rest.
Has a noticable amount of acetlylaldehyde, hopefully the rest will take care of it.
Will keep @ 14 degC for 2 days.(until wed-24-june-2009)
Then will be lagered for 3-4 weeks before bottling.
3 week lager would come out wed-15-july-2009
4 week lager would come out wed-22-july-2009
Guess I'll have to wait untill it's finished lagering to see how it finally attenuated. If it hasn't attenuated sufficiently, I'm going to have problems - hopefully it will.

- think i'm getting some acetlaldehyde here now
- yep, in the aroma and the flavour
- i'm about to rack it to a secondary, and use the yeast cake for Bent Monk

- Ok, since I stirred it up and raised the temperature for a little, it's developed a nice krausen, and look's like its happy again, for a while
- lots of nice ferment gasses in the freezer, and still tastes and smells great in the sample jar
- hopefully It will go for anotehr week or so, and go down to 1.018 or so, don't want it too sweet.
- pretty constant at about 10/11 degC now

- yep, it's stalled, virtually no krausen, only thin layer of bubbles
- tried to stir it up, and pull out some yeast, but this is pretty difficult, didn't manage to get any yeast out, so I stirred it up with the spoon.
- put it in the warm freezer, will take it up to 15 degrees or so, and see what happens
- i suspect that the best thing to to here is pitch more yeast, this guys got a long way to go, at least 20 points more
- still smells and tastes good

- slowly going
- perhaps something a little strange in the smell ?
- way to sweet still
- Huhh...leave it alone

- looks like it's going pretty slow now, not as much ferment gasses in the freezer, but it is still going
- smell and taste very malty, still too sweet.
- looks like this might be a while more, possibly 2 weeks more

I think the temp crash had some effect on the fermentation - I'm not noticing as much co2, or ferment smell in the freezer now, but it is still going slowly.

At some point after this entry, I accidently left the freezer on for about 3 hours. This caused significant temp drop in the wort.

pitched starter of 3068 (from chris) at 11 degC