Hive Door Ale (racked, finally)

From what I have read (main source being Palmer's "How to Brew"), as long as you dont leave your brew in primary for a month or more, it is safe to let it condition there, on top of the yeast cake, before you go to secondary (you dont want to go over a month b/c the yeast will begin to breakdown and cause off flavors). So anyway, with the Hive Door, I decided to leave it in primary for a good while, a little over three weeks, actually. Before racking it, I pulled some for a hydrometer reading as well as a tasting. The Final Gravity came to 1.010 (Original Gravity was 1.067), making it a nice 7.5% alcohol. Perhaps a bit low for the Tripel style (what my recipe was somewhat based upon), though many Tripels are actually reyeasted and pushed a bit further with more sugar etc.
So how did it taste? Wow. I cannot say enough about the fullness of the flavor. I didnt take notes as I just wanted to enjoy it, but I will say, with my first first brew that I went maybe a bit out there (from a beginner's standpoint) in regards to spices (black pepper, white pepper, coriander, vanilla), I really feel like I nailed it. The sweetness and the peppery spice of this brew go hand-in-hand (I am a fan of peppery red wines, so I appreciate how this balances the sweet). I plan to leave it in secondary for two weeks, and then bottle. Also, due to recent activities, we ended up with a few empty bottled of Dom Perignon. I was very pleased to find out that these Dom bottles are recapable as their lips fold and match the lip of a beer bottle. This is great news for aging a few!

Trap Door Ale (bottled)

So the Trap Door got a little love last weekend... After mellowing out in my closet in secondary for almost a month, it got primed (with Dark Muscovado sugar) and bottled on Sun, Oct 12 while watching the Niners lose.

Like the Hidden Door, once bottled, it was taken down the street to the muddy cellar. I plan to let it bottle condition for at least a month (though I do plan to sample one after two weeks to monitor). I put a few bottles in a hallway up some stairs from the cellar (guessing it is a bit warmer), to see if that makes much of a difference as far as bottle conditioning is concerned.

It yielded a little under two cases worth of beer.

Also, when bottling, a sample was pulled and tasted by myself, my wife Hannah, and my friend Mike, and all of us agreed that it is coming along nicely. Both Hannah and Mike said it tasted better than Chimay. We'll see about that! If anything, my Belgian stylings are going in the right direction, it seems.