While we're still waiting for Cracked Car Kosch posting #'s 3,4,5 and 6; and the new beer (I won't spoil it).. I wanted to post a few thoughts for our next round.
First, a few terms.
Grist: the crushed grains that go into the...
Mash Tun (proun: Mash toon): the pot where you heat the grist. Interestingly enough, typically made out of a 5 gal sports cooler.
Mash: it's when you use all grains (grist-no malt extracts or syrup) to make your wort. Also a fairly rad TV show.
Sparge (NOT proun: Spooge): once the grains are mashed at certain temperatures for certain times, you need to rinse all of the extra sugars out of the grains. Got to get the goodness out, SAY YEAH! [That's the Reverand Al Green BTW] This is done in a...
Lauter tun (proun: Lawter Toon): The vessel that allows the water to filter through the grist bed extracting any sugar that's left. We want the sugar. Sugar=alcohol.
Balling Degrees: Scale indicating density of sugars in wort. Devised by C J N Balling. OR: "The members of Brewtherville Labs have shown varying Balling Degrees."
Brake: the crap/sludge/schmeg/spooge at the bottom of the boil pot or fermenting pot (more on that later).
Brewtherville Labs is stepping up it's game. We've had success after success with the extract brews. So far, our "mistakes" have turned into gold (mostly). We could keep on keepin on, but I say increase the Balling Degree (which has very little to do with sugar).
Here's a general layout for an all grain batch.
Select your grist. There are many different kinds and they each have their own qualities. For example, Crystal 20L is very lite and can be used for lighter colored ales. Crystal 80L gives a nice darker amber color. These are roasted to different degrees. Pilsner malted barley is very light and obviously used for Pils, chocolate malted barley is used for stouts. With an all grain mash, you can create your own combination, like a Black Imperial IPA or a great hoppy lite beer (great idea Danny). The combinations are endless.
Second step: Mash the grist. This can be done in a number of vessels, but we'll do it in a lauter tun (which I am in the process of making. You need to steep the grist in ~152deg of water for about an hour. Drain the wort into your boiling vessel (recycle the first few quarts back into the lauter tun to get rid of any big grains that come through).
Sparge the grist with clean ~170 deg water to kill the enzymes that are converting carbs to sugar and wash out the good sugar. After the sparge you should have about 6.5-7gal of wort. This wort will boil down after a while. You can separate the wort into two boiling pots if you don't have a nice big 15 gal copper kettle pot (but really who doesn't) and combine them later. I have a line on a nice big 10 gal crab steamer pot, but I'm not sure our normal burners are going to handle the volume. We'll see.
After you have collected the wort, take a hydrometer reading. Are we at the OG we want? If not, boil down a bit to concentrate. If we're over, either dilute with water or suffer the consequences of a 10% ABV brew. Now, it's time to boil and add hops and all that good stuff.
After this, it's kind of business as usual, but for a few tricks...
How to clear the crud.
1. Add Irish moss at T-15 min. This will act to gather brake so it does not end up in the final beer.
2.Cool the wort in the boiling tun. We're going to start using a wort cooler. I'm making one on the cheap. As the wort cools, certain proteins and schmeg that we don't particularly want in our beer (I don't speak for Jason) will precipitate out of solution and fall to the bottom. We can do a whirlpool stir to get the brake to the middle of the boiling tun before we rack to the fermenter (where they won't end up).
3. Bonus round! We filter the wort through a whole hop bed which will collect these proteins and add a little hoppy goodness to the brew. I've ordered 3 lbs of whole hops from a grower/distributor in Oregon. This will also add a good bit of oxygen to the wort to help the yeast ferment.
Carbonation:
The dude at the Thirsty Brewer (who we love) gave me the goods on priming the beer for bottling. [He also gave me the equation for calculating how much malt extract to use in the wort to get a desired OG/FG, which as a pre-2 beer scientist, I love] He suggested using malt extract instead of corn sugar. This has pros and cons. It can affect the taste of the beer. Malt extract will impart a larger body which you may not be looking for. Corn sugar is easy but has very little flavor and character, but is highly effective (even in the fermentation phase). Basically different beers require different amounts of priming sugar. Two things can affect the amount of carbonation. First, incomplete fermentation can cause an excess amount of sugar to be in the wort when the beer is conditioned. Second, the amount of priming sugar was not optional. Either the volume was too low/sugar concentration too high; or vise-ah vers-ah.
Hops:
For bitterness your hop selection should be dependent on your need. If you want hoppy bitterness, you want a high alpha acid content and add it early in the boil (like 60 min). More aromatic hops (larger Beta values) should be added toward the end of the brew.
That's all for now. I'm out.
Anyway, I've learned a few tricks that should improve our beer 3.14159265 (prime) fold.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Cracked Car Kolsch Part Deux
When last we left...well, reread Part One.
All I can say about our first attempt to brew the kolsch is this, "When you fall off the keg, you gotta get right back on!"
So, after another trip out to The Thirsty Brewer for another round of supplies, Bill and I gave it another shot.
Being of one mind and determined vision, we powered thru the brewing process in an efficient--and mostly sober--manner. This time around, we decided to use a plastic 5 gallon water bottle from my water delivery service. The best part, we wouldn't even need to clean it back out when we were done with it. One quick rinse, and then right out on my front walk to be returned with all my other empty bottles. (We have done this a couple times now, and I have yet to hear from the water company asking me what the hell the dried crud is in the jugs.)
So, we finished up brewing and it was then time to cool down the wort. If only we had remembered to get a couple bags of ice. What to do? What to do?
Thankfully, I'm an idea man, Chuck:
We raided the fridge, and got the beer up to the five gallon mark with ice, some Hello Kitty icepacks and cold water. Now it was time to sit back and get the wort down to 75 degrees. About 2 hours later that night (a school night, I might add), we were only down to 80 degrees. Throwing caution to the wind, I pitched the yeast and went to bed, but I left the beer in good hands:
We brewed on a Thursday, and the fermentation hit it's stride on Sunday. The initial overflow was fairly chunky and bubbling like crazy. It was only after a few days that I was able to switch over to the airgap on the top of the carboy. Fermenation continued on for another 4 days or so after that, and then calmed down.
At this point, let me take a moment to go over a couple of things. Brewclub has been an awesome experience. The social aspect, the science aspect, the manly aspect and the drinking aspect. All good. You know the one thing that sucks about Brewclub? Scrubbing the damn labels off the bottles. Sierra Nevada labels came right off after a good soak--some of the others?...not so much. Those guys went right into the recycle bin.
Once all the labels were off, I mixed up a batch of sanitizer (I used iodophor, and was pretty happy), and basically submerged all the bottles and equipment for a few minutes. After that, I started going a little crazy and sanitized everything I could think of: my water bottles, some old growlers I had, the cat.
We heated up the priming sugar in a small pot of water and added it to the batch right before bottling. Not only is this an effective way to help ensure the sugar is evenly dispersed, it also helps to bring the batch closer back to the original five gallons (replacing what we lost during fermentation overflow.) Did it get the beer all the way back up to 5 gallons? We shall revisit this topic in the future blog: Why does my Cracked Car Kolsch Keep Cracking?
After a little toast--it tasted like warm flat beer, so we were pleased--we bottled the beer and packed them away for a two week nap.
As for the final result:
Liquid goodness and oral fireworks. We were very happy with the final product. It still packed a bit of a punch (somewhere in the high 5% range) and it had much more flavor than I would have expected for a 'lawnmower pils'. The color was spot on and the clarity was much better than I thought it would be. There was still a bit of sediment in the bottle, but no floaties swirling after the pour.
It was definitely a thumbs up for the Cracked Car Kolsch...despite our best efforts to sabotage it.
All I can say about our first attempt to brew the kolsch is this, "When you fall off the keg, you gotta get right back on!"
So, after another trip out to The Thirsty Brewer for another round of supplies, Bill and I gave it another shot.
Being of one mind and determined vision, we powered thru the brewing process in an efficient--and mostly sober--manner. This time around, we decided to use a plastic 5 gallon water bottle from my water delivery service. The best part, we wouldn't even need to clean it back out when we were done with it. One quick rinse, and then right out on my front walk to be returned with all my other empty bottles. (We have done this a couple times now, and I have yet to hear from the water company asking me what the hell the dried crud is in the jugs.)
So, we finished up brewing and it was then time to cool down the wort. If only we had remembered to get a couple bags of ice. What to do? What to do?
Thankfully, I'm an idea man, Chuck:
We raided the fridge, and got the beer up to the five gallon mark with ice, some Hello Kitty icepacks and cold water. Now it was time to sit back and get the wort down to 75 degrees. About 2 hours later that night (a school night, I might add), we were only down to 80 degrees. Throwing caution to the wind, I pitched the yeast and went to bed, but I left the beer in good hands:
We brewed on a Thursday, and the fermentation hit it's stride on Sunday. The initial overflow was fairly chunky and bubbling like crazy. It was only after a few days that I was able to switch over to the airgap on the top of the carboy. Fermenation continued on for another 4 days or so after that, and then calmed down.
At this point, let me take a moment to go over a couple of things. Brewclub has been an awesome experience. The social aspect, the science aspect, the manly aspect and the drinking aspect. All good. You know the one thing that sucks about Brewclub? Scrubbing the damn labels off the bottles. Sierra Nevada labels came right off after a good soak--some of the others?...not so much. Those guys went right into the recycle bin.
Once all the labels were off, I mixed up a batch of sanitizer (I used iodophor, and was pretty happy), and basically submerged all the bottles and equipment for a few minutes. After that, I started going a little crazy and sanitized everything I could think of: my water bottles, some old growlers I had, the cat.
We heated up the priming sugar in a small pot of water and added it to the batch right before bottling. Not only is this an effective way to help ensure the sugar is evenly dispersed, it also helps to bring the batch closer back to the original five gallons (replacing what we lost during fermentation overflow.) Did it get the beer all the way back up to 5 gallons? We shall revisit this topic in the future blog: Why does my Cracked Car Kolsch Keep Cracking?
After a little toast--it tasted like warm flat beer, so we were pleased--we bottled the beer and packed them away for a two week nap.
As for the final result:
Liquid goodness and oral fireworks. We were very happy with the final product. It still packed a bit of a punch (somewhere in the high 5% range) and it had much more flavor than I would have expected for a 'lawnmower pils'. The color was spot on and the clarity was much better than I thought it would be. There was still a bit of sediment in the bottle, but no floaties swirling after the pour.
It was definitely a thumbs up for the Cracked Car Kolsch...despite our best efforts to sabotage it.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Cracked Car Kolsch
“So, I’m in a brew club with five other guys. Only one of us knows what he’s doing…and I’m not him.”
-Excerpt from a dialogue at The Thirsty Brewer
Thus began a journey of perseverance and dedication in the face of incredible odds and monumental lapses in both reason and the basic laws of science. What shall we take away from the following account? Karma loves a good beer.
Part 1:
After a very successful first batch by Steve and Matt, it was my turn to step up to plate with my partner, Bill (beer, not life—not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Our goal? A kolsch. In keeping with the season, Bill was looking for a beer that would be a nice compliment to crabs, apple pie and little kids running with sparklers. I was just looking for something that wouldn’t make me throw up until I at least drank a few 6-packs (more commonly known as Thursdays.)
With beer recipe in hand, off I went to the Thirsty Brewer for supplies. I would highly recommend a visit to this store for any home-brewers out there. The guy behind the counter was very helpful (i.e. he didn’t laugh at my ignorance), the place smelled like hop-heaven and the prices were great. With a box of ingredients, a bottle of sanitizer and an air of self-confidence, I strutted out of there like John Travolta at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever. Little did I know I would be shuffling back a week later like Charlie Brown after he hung that one bulb on the Xmas tree and it bent to the ground.
The following evening, brewclub assembled. After the introductory round of secret handshakes, the reading of the minutes and a sampling of some other homebrew that was destined for a shelf in Obsoletion Central once our beer was completed, we got down to business. (**I would like to take this moment to come clean to my fellow club members. It was at roughly this point that I realized you are supposed to refrigerate the yeast until the day of brewing. I did not. Heavy exhale. Weight lifted.)
The recipe was fairly straightforward: http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/MarylandHomeBrewInc/store/content/kolsch.pdf , and since I thought ahead and started boiling the water earlier, we shot right thru things at a much faster rate than our predecessors. All that was left for the night was to cool down the wort, pitch the yeast (that phrase still sounds not quite right) and make some more empty bottles.
At this point, I would like to take a moment to describe the professional representation in brewclub (I have changed the names for matters of personal professional privacy):
Stev: scientist by day, founder and the one guy in brewclub who knows what he is doing (see introductory quote)
Scot: Educator (yeah, it’s only middle school, but he has been doing it for a while and--up until the Corona incident—he has shown sound judgment)
Mat: Assistant Principal and tallest member of Brewclub.
Bil & Jas’n: I know these guys have college degrees, but I’m not exactly sure what they do. I think Jas’n provides sports therapy for dogs and Bil is a transpondster. I don’t know for sure, but they are definitely white-collar.
Me: I’m the only blue-collar member and I have an English degree but I don’t teach, so I basically bring nothing to the table.
So, what I’m trying to say is that someone other than me should have realized it is not a great idea to pour steaming wort into an ice-packed glass carboy (from the Arabic qarraba meaning big jug, FYI). The one saving grace is that, while the entire bottom of the 5 gallon jug did break completely off, it was sitting inside of a larger tub, so my kitchen floor (and wife-allowed future brewclub hosting dates) remains intact. It was a lesson learned, and I rested easy knowing that it was everyone else’s fault the batch was ruined, and not my fault for failing to refrigerate the yeast.
Stay tuned for Part 2
-Excerpt from a dialogue at The Thirsty Brewer
Thus began a journey of perseverance and dedication in the face of incredible odds and monumental lapses in both reason and the basic laws of science. What shall we take away from the following account? Karma loves a good beer.
Part 1:
After a very successful first batch by Steve and Matt, it was my turn to step up to plate with my partner, Bill (beer, not life—not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Our goal? A kolsch. In keeping with the season, Bill was looking for a beer that would be a nice compliment to crabs, apple pie and little kids running with sparklers. I was just looking for something that wouldn’t make me throw up until I at least drank a few 6-packs (more commonly known as Thursdays.)
With beer recipe in hand, off I went to the Thirsty Brewer for supplies. I would highly recommend a visit to this store for any home-brewers out there. The guy behind the counter was very helpful (i.e. he didn’t laugh at my ignorance), the place smelled like hop-heaven and the prices were great. With a box of ingredients, a bottle of sanitizer and an air of self-confidence, I strutted out of there like John Travolta at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever. Little did I know I would be shuffling back a week later like Charlie Brown after he hung that one bulb on the Xmas tree and it bent to the ground.
The following evening, brewclub assembled. After the introductory round of secret handshakes, the reading of the minutes and a sampling of some other homebrew that was destined for a shelf in Obsoletion Central once our beer was completed, we got down to business. (**I would like to take this moment to come clean to my fellow club members. It was at roughly this point that I realized you are supposed to refrigerate the yeast until the day of brewing. I did not. Heavy exhale. Weight lifted.)
The recipe was fairly straightforward: http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/MarylandHomeBrewInc/store/content/kolsch.pdf , and since I thought ahead and started boiling the water earlier, we shot right thru things at a much faster rate than our predecessors. All that was left for the night was to cool down the wort, pitch the yeast (that phrase still sounds not quite right) and make some more empty bottles.
At this point, I would like to take a moment to describe the professional representation in brewclub (I have changed the names for matters of personal professional privacy):
Stev: scientist by day, founder and the one guy in brewclub who knows what he is doing (see introductory quote)
Scot: Educator (yeah, it’s only middle school, but he has been doing it for a while and--up until the Corona incident—he has shown sound judgment)
Mat: Assistant Principal and tallest member of Brewclub.
Bil & Jas’n: I know these guys have college degrees, but I’m not exactly sure what they do. I think Jas’n provides sports therapy for dogs and Bil is a transpondster. I don’t know for sure, but they are definitely white-collar.
Me: I’m the only blue-collar member and I have an English degree but I don’t teach, so I basically bring nothing to the table.
So, what I’m trying to say is that someone other than me should have realized it is not a great idea to pour steaming wort into an ice-packed glass carboy (from the Arabic qarraba meaning big jug, FYI). The one saving grace is that, while the entire bottom of the 5 gallon jug did break completely off, it was sitting inside of a larger tub, so my kitchen floor (and wife-allowed future brewclub hosting dates) remains intact. It was a lesson learned, and I rested easy knowing that it was everyone else’s fault the batch was ruined, and not my fault for failing to refrigerate the yeast.
Stay tuned for Part 2
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The Kolsch-style brew
After the fated carboy crack-up Danny and I went to the Thirsty Brewer in Baldwin Thursday to pick up ingredients. The guy that mans the helm there assured us that brewing in the big 6 1/2 gallon plastic bucket was the way to go and that worrying about blowing off the the top was a myth (something about people saying the bitter hops needed to be shed, bla bla). He said the word is that plastic is susceptible to scratches and therefore a haven for more bacteria, but said "if you can't keep your equipment sanitary - you should quit brewing". Same advice goes for being in the adult film industry:). We still have the batch set up for blow off since we're using a 5 gallon which then becomes a necessity (which our TB friend agreed). The wort smelled good; Danny has some pictures of what still could be the 'Doomed Brew'. Cross your fingers....
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Wow! Did you see the rack on that Book Club?
I racked the beer tonight. That means, that I took it from the fermenter and put it into the bucket that we will bottle from. Normally, we would bottle right away but we're going to try a dry hop step. So I added one oz of Chinook hop leaves, stirred it up and will let it sit for a few days before we bottle. The final gravity was 1.03 which translates into 4% alcohol. But, the yield was only about 4 gal so if I bring the volume up to 5 gal, which is the recipe size, it should lower the final gravity (water is ~1.0). I also took a quick lick of the siphon tube. It's going to be kick-ass; totally worthy of Gary and Wyatt. Copilot Matt and I will bottle sometime this weekend after a few hoppy days.
I've started using Book Club as a synonym to boring and sucky, and Brew Club for total awesomeness and duh' winning. Example: The kids and I were drawing pictures this evening and I had Pandora on the Jack Johnson station. Some lame Train song came on and I instinctively said, this song is so Book Club, we need Brew Club. So I dialed in the Led Zeppelin station. Brew Club.
And, we're only up to $13 on the ads. Click peoples, click! This will fund a Brew Club party at the grotto!
I've started using Book Club as a synonym to boring and sucky, and Brew Club for total awesomeness and duh' winning. Example: The kids and I were drawing pictures this evening and I had Pandora on the Jack Johnson station. Some lame Train song came on and I instinctively said, this song is so Book Club, we need Brew Club. So I dialed in the Led Zeppelin station. Brew Club.
And, we're only up to $13 on the ads. Click peoples, click! This will fund a Brew Club party at the grotto!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Brewtherville Labs March 2011 First Meeting
There was much anticipation leading up to the first meeting of the Brewtherville Labs Brew club. Even some members of Book Club were getting jumpy. We hadn't even had a meeting yet and I get a request for a mixer from Lady K (leader of Book Club). Damn baby, let the boys brew first. Shiite.
The boys came over and we called the meeting to order. I began describing the process and the first Brew Club law revealed itself. At the mention of wort (pron. wert) all members must take a drink of beer. Sooooo I talked about how we make the wort, what goes into the wort, how to flavor the wort, how long the wort cooks, how to time the hops that go into the wort, wort, wort, wort...and so on. Next beer. We get the water to a boil and add the sack-o-grains. The club let loose many jokes about Stewie's warm grainy sack. Insert your own in the comments section below. Stewie's grainy sack boils for 45 min. We can see the nice golden brown color and aroma coming from the Crystal 80L grains. Now we're brewin'. Next comes the hop schedule. If you ever brew beer, open the bag of hops and smell them before you add them to your wort (drink). And again, insert your favorite joke in the comments section about smelling Stewie's hops. In the middle of the hop sequence, Scott thinks he's freakin Justin Wilson and decides to stick his head in the pot. More on this pic later. So we go through the whole hop schedule and it's smelling really good.
Next, we need to transfer the wort (drink) to the glass carboy (thanks John C.!). This was a little tricky even though we had a funnel that looked like Darth Vader's helmet. We had a little spillage. No biggy, easy clean-up. Then the wort (drink) gets cooled down in an ice bath. So for 30 min we do like any club would, we and talk about Mormons. Nothing bad, just about what it's like in Salt Lake...beer wise of course. Once the wort (drink) cooled down we added the yeast (Note: do not do a search for "yeast" on Google images. Nasty.). I forgot to take the Original Gravity (OG). The OG is 1.06. We were shooting for 1.062. Close enough. Now we're on to the fermenting stage. The yeast will now eat the sugar from the wort (drink) and shit out ethanol. OK, yeast don't have asses, but that's essentially what they do.
I checked the beer the next morning, and nothing happening yet. But, when I get home from work, there's a bunch of foam on the top of the fermenter. There's a little air trap at the top that is supposed to let out gas, and another outlet that is for foam. But foam is coming out of both. Minor spill, not a disaster. So I rig it so only one tube coming out for the gas and foam. Duh, winning. We go out to a rocking happy hour at Jill C's house. Jill C. is a member of book club, but we don't hold it against her. When I come home from the HH, more foam, more rigging, not too much fermenting. I give the fermenter a few swirls. I'll give it a day or two and see if it starts up. We did add quite a bit of yeast so I wouldn't be too surprised if it's done fermenting already. If nothing happens, I'll take another gravity reading and see where we are. We made a label for the Gary and Wyatt's Weird IPA, but you'll have to wait till the beer is ready to see it.
There's a theory that Jason might be a spy for that other club. He posted the above pic on Facebook and mentioned that I was looking at Scott's butt. Then, at Jill's HH he was caught fraternizing with the other club members. Brew Club is so winning, that we could easily find a replacement. But I'll leave it up to the loyal readers (all 5 of you) of this blog. See the poll on the right and vote.
That's it for now. Go drink a beer or join a book club.
Update: In the AM, more foam. I'm not liking the carboy (sorry John C.) though it's probably something I'm doing wrong. Never had a foamover with the bucket.
Update#2: Still fermenting. This is going to be some strong shit. I think I finally got the foam under control with a wider tube coming out of the top of the fermenter cap.
The boys came over and we called the meeting to order. I began describing the process and the first Brew Club law revealed itself. At the mention of wort (pron. wert) all members must take a drink of beer. Sooooo I talked about how we make the wort, what goes into the wort, how to flavor the wort, how long the wort cooks, how to time the hops that go into the wort, wort, wort, wort...and so on. Next beer. We get the water to a boil and add the sack-o-grains. The club let loose many jokes about Stewie's warm grainy sack. Insert your own in the comments section below. Stewie's grainy sack boils for 45 min. We can see the nice golden brown color and aroma coming from the Crystal 80L grains. Now we're brewin'. Next comes the hop schedule. If you ever brew beer, open the bag of hops and smell them before you add them to your wort (drink). And again, insert your favorite joke in the comments section about smelling Stewie's hops. In the middle of the hop sequence, Scott thinks he's freakin Justin Wilson and decides to stick his head in the pot. More on this pic later. So we go through the whole hop schedule and it's smelling really good.
I checked the beer the next morning, and nothing happening yet. But, when I get home from work, there's a bunch of foam on the top of the fermenter. There's a little air trap at the top that is supposed to let out gas, and another outlet that is for foam. But foam is coming out of both. Minor spill, not a disaster. So I rig it so only one tube coming out for the gas and foam. Duh, winning. We go out to a rocking happy hour at Jill C's house. Jill C. is a member of book club, but we don't hold it against her. When I come home from the HH, more foam, more rigging, not too much fermenting. I give the fermenter a few swirls. I'll give it a day or two and see if it starts up. We did add quite a bit of yeast so I wouldn't be too surprised if it's done fermenting already. If nothing happens, I'll take another gravity reading and see where we are. We made a label for the Gary and Wyatt's Weird IPA, but you'll have to wait till the beer is ready to see it.
There's a theory that Jason might be a spy for that other club. He posted the above pic on Facebook and mentioned that I was looking at Scott's butt. Then, at Jill's HH he was caught fraternizing with the other club members. Brew Club is so winning, that we could easily find a replacement. But I'll leave it up to the loyal readers (all 5 of you) of this blog. See the poll on the right and vote.
That's it for now. Go drink a beer or join a book club.
Update: In the AM, more foam. I'm not liking the carboy (sorry John C.) though it's probably something I'm doing wrong. Never had a foamover with the bucket.
Update#2: Still fermenting. This is going to be some strong shit. I think I finally got the foam under control with a wider tube coming out of the top of the fermenter cap.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Great time tonight. I'm going to need a few days to process before updating the blog. Be patient and stay tuned.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Setup
The husbands are a bit jealous of the wives' book (i.e. wine) club. So we're starting brew club. And we're not even pretending that our club is anything other than a brew club. We're not starting a golf club where we sit around and drink beer. We're not starting a band where we sit around and drink beer. We're starting a homebrew club where we sit around and drink beer...and brew every once in a while. It's taken a few months to get up and going, but Thursday night, St. Patty's day, is our first meeting.
Here's how it will work. There are 5 dudes in the group, two guys will be the beer meisters. These guys get to decide what style of beer we are brewing, go shopping, foot the bill, come up with the name for the beer and are basically in charge of brewing. The other three guys watch/learn and work on supplying empty bottles for the brew. One to two weeks after we brew the beer the beer meisters will get together to bottle. Others can join, but are not required. Two weeks after that, we distribute the bounty and brew the next batch. The first batch is not quite ready for another two weeks at least. Depending on the yield, the three consumers will get at a minimum, two 22oz big boy bottles. The beer meisters will split the rest. Maybe we'll split it a little more even; it really depends on how much we brew. It should be about 2 1/2 cases. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Matt and I are taking the first shift. We're brewing an especially hoppy IPA inspired by our ski/snowboard trip to Wisp. It was about 34deg. and raining. So we came inside and enjoyed a few Loose Cannon's. We were quite taken by the grapefruit flavor of the hops. A few weeks later when we finally got around to selecting our brew style we decided to go for the Loose Cannon. Matt came up with the brilliant idea to call it, "Gary and Wyatt's Weird IPA" named after the infamous Weird Science characters.
I went shopping at Maryland HomeBrew and bought the ingredients. Here's the list and hop schedule:
1lb. Crystal malt grain 80L (cracked) (30min)
8lb Xtra light Malt
2.0oz Chinook, 1.0oz. Cascade @ 60min
1.0oz Cascade and Chinook @ 15min
1.0oz Centennial @ 5min
1.0oz Cascade @ 0min
2.0oz Chinook Dry Hopped @ racking (still haven't figured out how I'm going to pull this off)
5.0oz Priming sugar
American Ale Yeast
2.5 Gal boil for 60min
All hops are pellets except for the dry hop Chinook. We're just using the bucket brew method except for a glass carboy for fermentation (thanks John C.!). Tomorrow night I clean all the stuff to get ready. Then it's brew time.
Here's how it will work. There are 5 dudes in the group, two guys will be the beer meisters. These guys get to decide what style of beer we are brewing, go shopping, foot the bill, come up with the name for the beer and are basically in charge of brewing. The other three guys watch/learn and work on supplying empty bottles for the brew. One to two weeks after we brew the beer the beer meisters will get together to bottle. Others can join, but are not required. Two weeks after that, we distribute the bounty and brew the next batch. The first batch is not quite ready for another two weeks at least. Depending on the yield, the three consumers will get at a minimum, two 22oz big boy bottles. The beer meisters will split the rest. Maybe we'll split it a little more even; it really depends on how much we brew. It should be about 2 1/2 cases. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Matt and I are taking the first shift. We're brewing an especially hoppy IPA inspired by our ski/snowboard trip to Wisp. It was about 34deg. and raining. So we came inside and enjoyed a few Loose Cannon's. We were quite taken by the grapefruit flavor of the hops. A few weeks later when we finally got around to selecting our brew style we decided to go for the Loose Cannon. Matt came up with the brilliant idea to call it, "Gary and Wyatt's Weird IPA" named after the infamous Weird Science characters.
I went shopping at Maryland HomeBrew and bought the ingredients. Here's the list and hop schedule:
1lb. Crystal malt grain 80L (cracked) (30min)
8lb Xtra light Malt
2.0oz Chinook, 1.0oz. Cascade @ 60min
1.0oz Cascade and Chinook @ 15min
1.0oz Centennial @ 5min
1.0oz Cascade @ 0min
2.0oz Chinook Dry Hopped @ racking (still haven't figured out how I'm going to pull this off)
5.0oz Priming sugar
American Ale Yeast
2.5 Gal boil for 60min
All hops are pellets except for the dry hop Chinook. We're just using the bucket brew method except for a glass carboy for fermentation (thanks John C.!). Tomorrow night I clean all the stuff to get ready. Then it's brew time.
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