It has been 13 days since I put the original beer into the fermenter, so it was time to crack it open and get half of it moved over to “secondary.” The beer tastes pretty good, but there was a disturbing amount of funk that came off the top when I opened the pail. The FG seems like it will be around 1.016, but we’ll see what happens with the yeast in the experimental batch.

Basic Brewing Radio and Brew Your Own Magazine are collaborating on a set of brewing experiments to test out some of that “common knowledge” among homebrewers. Dispelling myths is one of the aims of science, but when you dispel brewing myths, you get both knowledge and beer. How could I not participate? Especially when for Experiment 1, my idea for a myth to dispel was chosen. I will not rehash the details as James and Chris have done a nice job of fleshing out the idea already.

I just finished putting my entry into the experiment into the primary fermenter. I have dubbed it “Black’s Breeches,” named for Joseph Black, the Scottish scientist who discovered, among other things, carbon dioxide. It is a Scottish Ale weighing in at 1.060 OG. It is bittered with Fuggles and uses some of Crowjoy’s homegrown hops as aroma hops. The recipe is based mostly on the winner of the 2008 GABF Pro-Am competition.

My hypothesis is that there will be very little if any detectable difference in the two treatments of the beer. If there is a difference, I do not think that there will be one or the other that is better, just a difference. I look forward to drinking the results.