Wallace South Brew News

Mirror, Mirror, on the Pond - Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale Clone

2010-03-06T20:42:00.000-05:00

I am a big fan of most of the podcasts on The Brewing Network. I find them informative and I definitely enjoy their entertainment value on my 40 minute drive in and out of work each day. One of the shows, The Jamil Show - Can You Brew It focuses on cloning commercial beer. The general format of the show is to call up the brewmaster, extract a recipe from him or her, along with some tips, and brew up a batch. Then, live on air, they do a blind tasting of the commercial beer along with the homebrewed version. The beer is judged "cloned" if the majority of the tasters state they could not change the recipe to get any closer to the commercial example.

I have made a couple of the beers featured on Can You Brew It and I have a list of additional ones I would like to try. However, I must say that I have only tried about six of the commercial beers they have attempted to clone, as the rest of them are beers that I can't get around here. This does not dissuade me from attempting them, as the goal, for me, is not to get a perfect clone, but to make interesting beer. In general, some part of Jamil's description or discussion of the beer peaks my interest and then I want to make it.

The beer I am attempting to clone here is Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale, which is featured on the September 28, 2009 Can You Brew It show. Deschutes describes this beer as "a quintessential American pale ale. Mirror Pond elegantly blends the sweetness of malted barley with the bite of hops (which add bitterness and aroma). It's refreshing, loaded with strong hop flavors, and perfectly balanced." The name comes from Mirror Pond, which is a scenic pond along the Deschutes River that is a choice spot for summer festivals and concerts and is just three miles from the brewery. The beer has won many awards and has garnered quite a following.

Here are the statistics of my clone brew attempt and the tasting notes:

Brewed: 1/23/2010

Kegged: 2/3/2010

Original Gravity: 1.050

Final Gravity: 1.011

IBU: 42

Alcohol By Volume: 5.0%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours with an uber-thick creamy head. The sheer volume of foam makes me think there is a nucleation site inside of my tap or beer line. In fact, it is so large that I have to let the foam settle out before topping off the beer, as evidenced by the foam "cap" in the picture. The beer is the color of amber or dark honey, with a light chill haze being evident. I get a nice citrus aroma from the all-cascade hopped beer, with a hint of pine resin. The beer has an interesting malt character that appears at the beginning of the taste. It is vaguely reminiscent of toast and biscuits and is likely derived from the Mutons pale malt that makes up half of the base malt. As an aside, I have discovered a real love for this malt of late and have begun using it more than Maris Otter. The mid-palate has a strong bitterness to it; one that I must say is not balanced by the beer's body. The bitterness lasts through to the end of the taste, which is nice and dry.

On a whole, I am pleased with my Mirror Pond clone attempt. Having never actually tried the real beer, I can't attest to how close my attempt came to the original. However, it is a nice beer and we have cleaned out the keg fairly quickly. My only real complaint is the bitterness, which is not in balance with the beer's body. I suspect that I miscalculated the bittering hop addition, either through over-estimating how much alpha acid was lost to age or mis-measuring the actual hop addition.

I hope to someday try the real Mirror Pond. Until then, I have to say thanks to The Brewing Network for getting me to try this interesting American pale ale.

Lug Wrench Brewing - First Pump Build Post

2010-02-22T22:45:00.002-05:00

Jeff and I started a collaborative blog a couple of months ago called Lug Wrench Brewing Company (http://www.lugwrenchbrewing.com). The idea was to encourage collaboration in our shared homebrewing hobby through creative writing and blogging. While Wallace South Brew News will focus on my individual homebrewery and tasting notes, Lug Wrench includes topics of interest to a wider audience. Thus, I decided to post information about my toolbox-housed wort pump build on Lug Wrench, as others may enjoy and benefit from the ideas. However, I wanted to post a link to the entries here, as they directly involve my homebrewery.

You can find the first post here: http://www.lugwrenchbrewing.com/2010/02/wort-pump-in-toolbox-concept.html.

Double-Wide Dubbel

2010-02-01T21:54:00.004-05:00

With all the snow we have had recently, I must admit I have enjoyed having a rich Belgian-dubbel on tap. This is the Double-Wide Dubbel, which my friend Greg and I brewed for last year's Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. Belgian dubbels are rich and malty ales that were traditionally brewed for Trappist monks and provided a good amount of their daily sustenance. American versions tend to be more imperial in nature, and this one is no exception. It is based on a Tommy Arthur recipe found in the book Brew Like a Monk by Stan Hieronymus. Dubbed "Double-Wide Dubbel" because it took two of us to brew the massive double batch, and it was brewed in two parking spaces outside our homebrew store, Fermentation Trap.

But, enough of the background, here are the stats and tasting notes.

Brewed: 11/7/2009

Kegged: 12/6/2009

Original Gravity: 1.076

Final Gravity: 1.014

IBU: 16

Alcohol By Volume: 7.9%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a deep ruby red, which contains a slightly hazy appearance. The color looks fantastic when held up to a bright light, with a thin layer of small bubbles running through the center of the ruby column. The dubbel has a thin white head that rapidly dissipates, which is not surprising, given the low hopping rate and high alcohol concentration. The aroma is very complex, with hints of raisins, dark fruit, caramel, cinnamon, cloves, and all spice. The aromatic complexity increases as the beer warms.

The dubbel's flavor is also complex. The initial part of the taste provides some of the spice hinted at in the aroma (note, this is all yeast-derived, as no spices were added to the beer). I also get a bit of a zip from what I suspect is the carbonation level, though the beer is not carbonated any more than others in my kegarator. The spice fades to a dark fruit, raisin, and honey sweetness at mid-palate. I also detect some alcohol warming at this point, though it is subtle. The end of the taste has more caramel and honey, with the sweetness lingering on the palate. The sweetness becomes cloying by the end of the pint.

I must say I like this beer, given the winter weather we have had in Central Virginia. It hides its alcohol very well and has an enjoyable complexity. However, if I made it again, I would definitely lessen some of the specialty malts and possibly lower the mash temperature. The beer could finish dryer, which would help it drink easier (though at 7.9%, this might not be a good thing). The beer is also over carbonated, as the flavor improves when I knock some of the carbonation out of it.

One other interesting thing to note is that I tried Greg's version of the dubbel and it tasted different. You could tell they came from the same base, but his had a metallic flavor that is missing in mine. We used the same wort, the same yeast, and targeted the same fermentation profile. I am always intrigued by things like this, because they clearly show that even when things are almost equal in brewing, two different brewers can produce two different results.

Club Competition - Brown Ale Judging

2010-01-16T21:22:00.002-05:00

Last night was a first for me, and a first for our club, the Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale (CAMRA). We had more than one club entry into the American Homebrewers Association's (AHA) Club-Only Competition. For those not familiar with these competitions, you can find more information on the AHA's website, but it is basically a series of homebrewing competitions where each club can only submit one entry. The idea is to have interested homebrewing clubs organize brewers to work on a style, then pick the best entry from the club and submit it to go head-to-head with other clubs. It is used in evaluation for the AHA Club of the Year award, and is a neat concept.

The next Club-Only Competition is for English Brown Ales, which include milds, Northern English brown ales, and Southern English brown ales. These ale styles are popular in CAMRA and we actually had six entries competing for the honor of representing the club in the competition. This was the first time we had more than one entry for a Club-Only Competition. To determine which beer would be selected, four of us gathered at a member's house last night for a tasting.

We printed out a copy of the BJCP style guidelines and a score sheet and sampled each beer. Our general process was to pour the beer, visually inspect it, then smell it, taste it, smell it again, and taste it a final time. We took notes and evaluated the sample individually, and then discussed our thoughts together. We tried to come to a relative consensus about each beer, but we did not always get that far. The discussion was lively and very interesting.

In the end, we chose one beer to represent CAMRA. I had a great deal of fun with the actual judging and discussion. It reaffirmed to me once more that what I love most about this hobby is the people I have met through it. It was a great evening spent in the company of friends.

2009 Brewing Year In Review

2009-12-29T22:06:00.002-05:00

This was a neat post I did at the end of last year, so I figured I would continue the trend with some random brewing stats and facts from 2009. Enjoy!

- Number of Batches Made - 18
- Number of Gallons Made - 110
- First Brew Day - 1/17/2009
- Last Brew Day - 11/29/2009
- Number of Beer Batches - 16
- Number of Wine Batches - 0
- Number of Cider Batches - 1
- Number of Mead Batches - 1
- Homebrew Competitions Medals Earned - 1 silver and 2 bronze
- Batch with Highest Alcohol - ~13% - Mixed Berry Mead (not finished yet, so ABV is estimate)
- Batch with Lowest Alcohol - 3.7% - Mild n' Wild English Mild
- Average Alcohol Across Batches - 6.2%
- Favorite Brew - Hoppy Gentleman English IPA (wonderful biscuit malt character that blended very well with the herbal and earthy English hops)
- Worst Brew - Headless Folly Pumpkin Beer (added too much vanilla, so all you can smell and taste is vanilla, which makes it hard to drink)
- Favorite Name - Double-Wide Dubbel (Belgian ale brewed in two parking spaces outside our local homebrew shop for Teach a Friend to Brew Day).
- Approximate Amount of Grain used in 2009 - 263 pounds (average of 16.4 lbs/brew)
- Approximate Amount of Hops used in 2009 - 47.5 ounces (average of 2.97 oz/brew)
- Biggest Equipment Upgrade - Purchase of a 15-gallon stainless-steel kettle with attached ball-valve
- Number of Batches Brewed for Baker's Party - 4
- Biggest Supporter of My Brewing - My wife, who still supports my wonderful hobby, though under duress at times. Thanks, honey!

Oktober Fete and Fest

2009-12-27T19:55:00.004-05:00

Oktoberfest or marzen beers are the richest of the European amber lagers. They were traditionally made in early spring and lagered in cold caves over the summer months. They would be pulled out for the fall harvest festivals, where their rich character and higher alcohol content would be appreciated by festival-goers. Oktoberfest beers are typically smooth and rich and start with malty sweetness, but finish dry enough to be drunken in quantity.

Back in Septemeber, I brewed my third attempt at making an Oktoberfest-style lager beer. My first attempt was years ago, before I understood how lager yeast worked and it did not finish fermenting out. I don't even think it should have been called a beer, though a friend of mine "adopted" the whole batch and, as far as I know, actually drank it. My second attempt, just last year, also had fermentation issues. The first pitch of yeast I used (Wyeast Bavarian Lager - 2206) turned out to be sickly and did not get off the ground almost at all. I pitched a dry lager strain on top of that to save the batch and it worked. The finished product had a fair amount of diacetyl in the flavor (buttered popcorn), but was definitely drinkable. But, it was not to style and I knew I could do better.

This year's Oktober Fete and Fest used the same grain bill as last years batch, but I used a different yeast strain (White Labs 820), which was special ordered right from the manufacturer and was VERY lively. I made a gallon starter out of it to prime it for the job. The result was easily my best yet and I have had difficulty not drinking it all quickly, as it pairs very well with food.

Here are the stats on the Oktober Fete and Fest:

Brewed: 9/12/2009

Kegged: 11/2/2009

Original Gravity: 1.059

Final Gravity: 1.013

IBU: 27

Alcohol By Volume: 6.0%
Lager Length: 31 days at 40 F

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a clear rich amber color with a rocky white head. The head slowly fades during the pint, but leaves thick lace behind all the way down the glass. This beer is one of the clearest I have ever produced, which is likely a result of long lagering period. The aroma holds a very subtle bready malt character, but finishes with the drying quality that you find in many lagers. I do wish the Oktoberfest had a more substantial aroma, as this one is rather thin.

The initial taste is slightly bready and malty, but lacks some of the malt complexity that I like in this style. The mid-palate flavor has a nice balance between malt and hop bitterness. The taste concludes with a nice dry lager profile that makes it easy to go back for another sip. I think it is this dryness that makes the beer pair well with food and also makes it go down so easy.

The Oktober Fete and Fest received an honorable mention at the 2009 CASK Virginia Beer Blitz competition and earned a score of 33. The judges found it to be very drinkable, but found slightly more diacetyl than they would like to see, as well as it lacked some of the malt complexity they wanted up front.

I am just glad that it placed as well as it did.

Third Annual Virginia Beer Blitz

2009-12-20T20:57:00.003-05:00

Earlier in December, the Colonial Ale Smiths and Keggers (CASK) club, out of Williamsburg, VA, put on their third Virginia Beer Blitz. This is a competition that a member of our club did really well in last year, so the rest of CAMRA was interested in it this year. We put on a concerted effort to get entries into the competition, which included having a member's friend drop the entries off at the host brewery in person. Jamey also went down and volunteered as a judge in the competition and had a good time doing so.

The results of the competition can be found here: http://www.colonialalesmiths.org/BeerBlitz/ It was nice to receive a silver metal (mead), a bronze metal (cider), and an honorable mention (Oktoberfest) from the competition. CAMRA, as a whole, also did very well, coming in a three-way tie for most metal points with CASK and the Beer and Ale Research Foundation (BARF) for the coveted Blitzkrieg award. The award ended up going to CASK because they got the most points in the best of show round. This was a great showing for our club, as we are relative newcomers to the Virginia homebrewing competition scene.

Thanks to Jamey for bringing back everyone's medals and prizes and for representing the club at the competition. I hope to be able to volunteer at next year's event.

Hand-Crafted Tap Handles

2009-12-16T22:15:00.005-05:00

A couple of months ago, one of the members of our homebrewing club offered to help anyone who was interested make their own tap handles. Eric had just gotten a small lathe for his wood-working shop. The type of lathe he purchased was most often used to make fancy wooden pens or small ornamental dowels, but Eric figured it could also make great tap handles. He wanted to get a feel for what the lathe could do, so he wanted some "guinea pigs" to try different techniques out. I immediately volunteered, as anything we could come up with would be better than the small plastic handles I was currently using.

On three nights over the span of a couple of months, I met Eric in his shop and we created three completely different handles. Eric let me select pieces of wood to use from his furniture-making scrap pile, which had a lot of off-cuts. I selected three different woods, so that I could get significant variation in the tap handle appearance (from left to right, in the picture, we have maple, cherry, and walnut wood). We drew some inspiration for the tap handle shapes from on-line pictures, but most of it came spontaneously as we worked with the wood. I was able to help do some of the less detailed work, but Eric usually had to step in at the end with his more delicate touch.

Thanks for your help, Eric. I had fun making them and I think they look great.

The "Mane" Event

2009-12-13T20:15:00.004-05:00

This post needs a little background. Stay with me, as I promise it will get back to beer.

For about 8 years now, my family has been involved with a local childrens theater company called Blackbox Players (http://www.blackboxplayers.com/). My wife and I have enjoyed acting for quite a while and now that we have kids who enjoy being on stage, our interest in Blackbox is even stronger. This fall's show is a musical version of the C. S. Lewis book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It has been a fun show, with an interested cast of adults and children and some great original music from a local artist.

I am cast as Aslan, the mysterious lion leader of the good forces in the land of Narnia. Aslan has proven a difficult role for me to play, as I am typically cast in a comic-relief type role. Aslan does not joke; he does not make the audience laugh; he hardly even smiles. All the same, it has been an interesting role for me and the costume is really neat (see the attached picture).

Now, back to beer. One of my fellow cast members has been interested in brewing for quite some time. We got to talking and I invited him to my house over to brew a batch of a beer of his choosing to help show him the ropes and see if he would like to explore the hobby further. He said he wanted to do an oatmeal stout and we left it at that. Apparently, he was in a grocery store looking for a couple commercial examples of oatmeal stout when he saw a beer bottle with a giant lion (think Aslan) on its label. He kindly purchased it and gave it to me as a gift.

Lion Stout is brewed by the Lion Brewery PLC, which is located in Sri Lanka. It is a beer that has gained quite a following outside its country of origin. The bottle has the following quote from Michael Jackson, of Beer Hunter fame, ". . . the stout was soft, fresh and quite delicious. This was the top-fermenting Lion Stout . . . it was bottle-conditioned and had an extraordinary chocolaty, mocha character . . ." Ratebeer.com gives it a rating of 98%, with well over 1,000 votes. Here is my humble review . . .

The stout pours with a thick mocha-colored head. The foam has a tight bubble matrix, which makes it look rather like a giant pillow, though it gradually dissipated, leaving a neat lacing on the glass. The beer itself it as black as I imagine a black hole would appear. I held the glass up to a strong light and I could not perceive any light coming through. The aroma has a distinct dark chocolate smell, with just a hint of alcohol, which reminds me of a Godiva liquor. I also get hints of coffee, but it does not come close to competing with chocolate in the nose.

The flavor of the beer is devine. It is smooth and creamy, without any of the alcohol presence I would expect from an 8% ABV beer. The main flavor component through the entire taste is dark chocolate. I get some coffee and mocha in the mid-palate, but it is subdued. The end of the palate has a slight sweetness; one that competes nicely with the slight roast character of the beer. The stout reminds me most of a "death by chocolate" desert, but not as sweet. It is really quite incredible.

A special thank you to my kind cast-member, Tres, who gave me this wonderful stout. It has been my pleasure to review it. My vote . . . it gets a big ROOOAAARRR!!!

Collaboration Label

2009-12-07T21:40:00.002-05:00

Jeff recently mentioned that he would like to create a label for our collaboration brewing sessions. Seeing how we do them infrequently and they will likely always be bottled beers meant for aging, a label seems a creative way to make the effort special. Add to this that Jeff has a friend who is a graphics designer who might be willing to exchange his expertise for homebrew, and now we are cooking.

Jeff asked for some ideas on what our co-homebrewery might be called, and here is what I came up with.

- North and South Brewing
- Dixie Line Brewing
- Wallace Brother's Brewing
- Two Brothers Brewing
- Barley Brothers
- Wallace Clan Brewing
- Shared Obsession Brewing Company
- Stout and Bitter Brewing
- Witty Exchange Brewing Company
- Bugman's Brewing

I will add Jeff's thoughts to the list when I see them. Regardless of what we choose, it seems a fun collaboration for our collaborative brews.

Thanksgiving Beer and Brew Day

2009-12-02T21:19:00.004-05:00

My brother and his family were able to come down for Thanksgiving this year, which was great. In addition to being able to spend time with my lovely sister-in-law and nieces, Jeff brought down some incredible beer. He has access to a larger beer market where he lives than we do here in Virginia. Some of the beer that we were able to sample includes:

Cantillion Gueuze (http://www.cantillon.be/br/3_101)
De Struise Black Albert (http://struise.noordhoek.com/eng/)
De Struise Pannepot (http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/struise-pannepot/37835/)
Pretty Things Jack D'Or (http://www.prettythingsbeertoday.com/site/node/13)
Jolly Pumpkin Luciernaga (http://www.jollypumpkin.com/beers.htm)
Several beers from River Horse Brewing (http://www.riverhorse.com/our_beer/our_beer_tripel_horse.html)

Jeff also brought me down several bottles of the New Belgium Dragon's Milk clone we brewed together this summer. This beer is a complex dark ale with wood and bourbon character. Early taste tests of the beer were clearly too heavy on the bourbon, but time has definitely helped blend the rougher characteristics together. We did a side-by-side comparison of our clone and the actual Dragon's Milk (http://newhollandbrew.com/corp/beer/high_gravity) and they were amazingly close. I detected a slight coconut flavor in our clone that was missing from the real beer. Jeff suspects this is due to a difference in the wood chips we used versus the barrels used at the brewery. Otherwise, they were really close and this was the best clone I have done to date. I am going to stash the 11 remaining bottles away and see how they age.

Our loving spouses were also supportive enough to allow a brew day on Sunday, which we took full advantage of. Jeff and I have co-brewed a beer every time we have been together since he started homebrewing early this year. We have arrived at the consensus that we should brew dark big beers together because they can age well and a while often passes before we can see each other again to hand the beer off. It also allows us to build a library of beer we can sample and discuss when we visit. So, this time we elected to brew an English barleywine. Neither of us have attempted this style before, so we decided to use Jamil Zainasheff's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles as a starting point. We modified the recipe to use the hops we had on hand and ran with it.

Sunday was a beautiful day. It was sunny and there was an autumn crispness to the air. There were leaves on the ground and the sound of laughing children around the deck as we made our beer. Regardless of how the beer turns out, I must say, that it will always embody the joys of family for me. It was made in the company of multiple generations (see the picture of our youngest brewer), in the shared interest of two brothers, and at the end of a holiday that celebrates our extended family, past and present. It is a beer I will save away to bring out on special occasions. When I serve it, I will remember a small piece of the joy that my family brings to me.

Cheers, Jeff. Thanks for another wonderful brew.

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - 2009

2009-11-08T21:41:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was the American Homebrewing Association's (AHA) annual Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. This is an event that the AHA organizes to help show people how homebrewing works and encourage interest in the hobby. It is one of my favorite "group brewing" events of the year, as I really enjoy showing off the process and talking to prospective brewers. I have participated in this event for the past three years, by hosting an event at my house in 2007 and then helping with the events at The Fermentation Trap in both 2008 and 2009.

This year, my good friend and fellow CAMRA-member, Greg, and I decided we should do a joint-brew of a Belgian Dubbel. We had been planning on doing another join-brewing session for a while and this seemed a great way to profile the hobby and our local homebrewing club, as well as making some good beer. The recipe we chose to follow is Tomme Arthur's dubbel, as documented in Brew Like a Monk (see my review of Tomme's Lost & Found Abbey Ale here). To do a 10-gallon batch of this beer, we required more than 31 pounds of grain, three pounds of dark candy syrup, and over a pound of raisins. The sheer volume of grain meant that we needed to use both our mash tuns, which allowed us to show the differences between batch and fly sparging. We ended up calling our beer "Double-Wide Dubbel," as it was a double-sized batch and we brewed the batch in the parking lot, while taking up two parking spots.

We had about 14 people stop by and chat with us during the event at The Fermentation Trap. I hope that we were able to provide some useful information and encourage interest in our favorite hobby. In the end, Greg and I each got six gallons of 1.083 wort (higher than we expected) that will make a great beer. I greatly enjoyed brewing with Greg, as he is a fantastic brewer with different processes than mine and because we are good friends. Thank you to Randy and the staff of The Fermentation Trap for hosting the demonstration and for being so supportive of CAMRA and homebrewing in Central Virginia. They are great and I would recommend people stop by their online or retail store and pick something up (http://www.fermentationtrap.com/).

The Lost Abbey's Lost & Found Abbey Ale

2009-10-15T19:45:00.003-05:00

One of the members of my homebrewing club took a trip up to Pennsylvania a while back and brought a bunch of bottles of beer we could not find down here in Central Virginia. He was kind enough to offer several bottles of Lost Abbey and Russian River beer for sale to club members, at the cost he paid for them. I took him up on the offer and picked up a bottle of Lost Abbey Lost & Found Ale. I have previously had Lost Abbey's Devotion Ale, but that was the only one of their offerings I have sampled.

Here is what The Lost Abbey says about the beer (http://www.lostabbey.com/lost-abbey-beers/year-round-beers/lost-and-found-abbey-ale/):

"Lost and Found- Modeled after the great Trappist and Monastic beers that inspired the founding of our brewery. A richly deep garnet colored ale created from a blend of Domestic and imported malts. As part of our commitment to interesting brewing endeavors, Chef Vince created a special raisin puree for this beer. Malts, raisins and a fantastic yeast strain working in harmony produce a beer of amazing complexity and depth. Available in 750ml bottles and on draft at select inspired locations.

OG- 1.065 TG- 1.010 7.5% ABV [bottle shows 8.0%]

Malts- Two Row, Wheat, Medium and Dark English Crystal, Special B and Chocolate Malt.
Hops- German Magnum and German Tettnang
Yeast- Proprietary Belgian Ale Strain
Adjuncts- Dextrose and Chef Vince’s Raisin Puree."

The beer pours a cloudy deep garnet color, with a thick off white head. The head itself has very course bubbles in it, looking almost like a sponge. The head dissipated rather quickly and did not leave any lacing on the sides of the glass. However, after the bulk of head evaporated, there was a thin lair of tighter bubbles that lasted through out the tasting. The aroma is very complex, including dark brown sugar, bitter herbs, raisins, and some funk.

The taste begins with the flavor you get from brown sugar, if you imagined taking the sweetness out the equation. I get a definite raisin flavor next, which has some sweetness that lingers on the tongue. I also get a lot of carbonation in the taste at this point, much like tiny pin pricks on the tip of my tongue. The end of the flavor has more raisins, but finishes dry with a little alcohol warming. I was actually surprised at how well the beer hid the alcohol, as I would have expected to taste more at 8.0% ABV.

All in all, I liked the beer. I remember liking Devotion a more for its pillowy body and smooth drinkability. But I would recommend trying Lost & Found, if you can find it.

Hoppy Gentleman - IPA with English Class

2009-09-22T20:01:00.003-05:00

At the end of July, I was looking through my freezer and discovered I had accumulated a good amount of odds-and-ends hops - partially full hop bags that were left over from previous brews. Given that I brew a lot of English-based ales, it is not surprising that most of the extra hops are English in nature (herbal and floral hops, rather than the citrus or pine-like American varieties). I felt like making something hoppy, something with class and style, but something that still excited my palate. So, I thought, why not make an English IPA?

India Pale Ales generally fall into two categories, American and English. The IPA style originated in Britain, though it is not brewed much there anymore. The IPA style has been adopted by West Coast American craft brewers as the poster child of the good beer movement. While the American version is bold, higher in alcohol, aggressively bitter, and dripping with flavor, English IPAs are more subdued and balanced and have a more defined malt character. They seek to interest your palate through subtle complexity.

So, here are the stats on my Hoppy Genetleman, an IPA with English Class:

Brewed: 8/1/2009

Kegged: 8/15/2009

Original Gravity: 1.066

Final Gravity: 1.014

IBU: 51

Alcohol By Volume: 6.6%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a dark amber-red color, with a thick rocky head. The head stays with the beer through the pint, leaving a neat lacing on the sides of the glass. The beer has a floral nose, similar marigolds in the summer, with a hint of bitter herb in the back. The IPA has a lot of malt flavor in the early part of the taste. I get hit with an assertive fresh bread flavor that fades to dark caramel by the mid palate (hence the picture with the IPA and the homemade sourdough bread). The hops are there in the beginning of the taste, but definitely playing second fiddle. They become more prevalent in the back of the palate, and help end the beer dry, which prepares you for another taste.

I think I would like a bit more hop presence in the beginning of the taste, but I am very happy with the beer. It hides its 6.6% ABV well, so that you really don't realize its potency. I will definitely do this one again, perhaps with more late kettle hops to increase the hop flavor at first taste.

It is classy and interesting, it is a Hoppy Gentleman.

Red, White & Awesome - Dogfish Head Inspired Ale

2009-09-16T19:54:00.004-05:00

My wife, Meghan, has been a big fan of Dogfish Head's Red & White ale since she first tried it at their Frederick brew pub several years ago. The Red & White ale is a strong Belgian wit that is supplemented by pinot noir grape juice, fermented out in stainless steel, and then aged in used pinot noir wine barrels. It is a complex and interesting beer, though it is quite strong at 10% ABV (as are most Dogfish Head beers). Given Meghan's love of this beer, I set out to make a beer using the same basic process as a gift to her.

The basic process is that I take a standard Belgian wit recipe and brew it up. I ferment it out completely, and then rack it into secondary on top of a couple of ounces of oak chips that have soaked in pinot noir wine for a few of weeks. I let it age on those chips for about a week, or until I can start to taste the oak. Then, I keg and serve it.

This is the second time I have made this recipe. The primary difference is that last time I did not get much Belgian wit character, as it was missing a solid orange citrus character. So, I doubled the orange peel this year. The other difference is that I could not find medium toast oak chips this time, so I had to use heavy French toasted ones. These tend to add a vanilla character, so I added and extra half an ounce to see if I could get oak in addition to the vanilla (I used 2.5 ounces this time, for a week).

Here are the stats for my version, which is called Red, White, & Awesome (RWA for short):

Brewed: 8/16/2009

Kegged: 9/4/2009

Original Gravity: 1.055

Final Gravity: 1.011

IBU: 21

Alcohol By Volume: 5.9% (calculated as 5.6%, assumed 5.9% from wine in chips)
Time Aged on Oak Chips: 8 days

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

My wife very nicely surprised me with a bottle of Dogfish Head Red & White ale to do a comparison with the RWA. In the picture above, the RWA is the one in the Chimay-style glass. We tasted them together and here are her observations:

The Dogfish Head version has a much richer aroma, much more complex. The version I brewed has a less intense aroma. The Dogfish Head beer has a slightly darker color, though it has yeast particulate matter floating in it. The RWA ale has a bright and clean flavor, with a citrus finish. The Dogfish Head beer has a different starting flavor, one that is rounder and fuller, much like the aroma. The finish of the Dogfish Head beer is similar to the RWA ale in that they both finish dry and clean, though the RWA has a citrus finish that the Dogfish Head lacks. She says she likes the complexity of the Dogfish Head beer more than the RWA, though the bright flavors in the RWA are nice too.

I share most of her opinions, though I will build on them with the following. The RWA ale appears more cloudy, much in a true wit fashion. The Dogfish Head is more amber, though with some hop matter floating in it. I think her description of the beer aromas are dead on, as the Dogfish Head ale has is much more complex. The RWA does have a very clean and citrus-forward flavor. I don't get too much in the way of an oak flavor or that much wine character in the RWA, maybe a little bit of vanilla from the heavy toast chips. With the Dogfish Head version, I get a much more defined alcohol character, which I would expect for the ABV difference (5.9% versus 10%). I also definitely get a wine character and an oak character in the early and mid palate. I think the RWA finishes cleaner than the Dogfish Head version, and seems more drinkable.

All in all, the beers are more similar in the finish than anything else similar. However, they are not that close in taste overall. That is why I have stopped saying that RWA is a "clone" of the Dogfish Head beer. I really like the "inspired" idea, as that is what actually happened. Meghan liked the beer, as did I, so I tried to make something like it. I very much enjoyed our beer discussion about the two different ales, and was very grateful for the unexpected gift of great beer.

Cheers, honey. I love you.

Dominion Cup 2009

2009-09-14T20:12:00.003-05:00

The Dominion Cup is the largest homebrewing competition in the state of Virginia and three of us from CAMRA drove down to Richmond to volunteer at the event this year. Jamey, Greg, and I left Charlottesville around 7:00 am the morning of August 28th and arrived at the site of the competition, Capital City Ale House Music Hall (http://www.capitalalehouse.com/), a little after 8:00 am. The Capital City Ale House Music Hall is a large rectangular room with a large cooler in the back, where the competition organizers from the James River Homebrewers (http://www.jrhomebrewers.org/) set up a series of long tables for the judging to take place.

Jamey, Greg, and I each ended up in different roles during the competition. Greg, who won a bronze medal for his German alt beer in this year's National Homebrew Competition, ended up judging IPAs during the morning session and fruit beers in the afternoon session. Greg has been talking about getting BJCP-certified, so this was a great experience for him. Jamey ended up stewarding for both sessions of the competition. A steward assists the judges at his or her table by organizing score sheets, maintaining the beer entry pull list, and generally trying to keep things moving for the judges. As an added bonus, Jamey got to taste some of the entries along with the judges and weigh how he would have scored the beer as compared to the judges' comments.

I got to spend the day performing the duties of cellarman. I had volunteered to steward for both the morning and afternoon sessions of the competition. But, though a volunteer sheet mix-up, I was not scheduled in the morning. The competition director put me to work helping the club's cellarman, Mark, for the morning session. The cellermen of a competition organize how beer is stored and distributed to the stewards and the judging tables. In this case, it meant moving and organizing 732 bottles of beer (366 entries, two bottles each). The cellerman position was surprisingly interesting, as it was a logistical focal point of the competition. We had to make sure the entries were pulled in the correct order for each of the 11 tables, so the judges were working through sub-categories correctly (light alcohol to heavy alcohol, less assertively flavor sub-categories coming first, etc.). We also had to organize the cooler so that we could easily locate the best of show entries for the final session in the afternoon (the best beer in each category was reserved and then provided to the BoS judges late in the afternoon to pick the best beer of the competition). Mark did a great job and I enjoyed myself enough to volunteer to continue to help him into the afternoon. It was a great way to spend the day.

At the end of the day, CAMRA did great (full awards list can be found at http://www.jrhomebrewers.org/dominioncup/DomCupWinners2009.php). Jamey ended up winning more medals than anyone else and took home the Plato Award for best brewer at the competition (total of 25 medal points). Greg won two medals and I won my first ever medal, a bronze for my Hoppy American Amber Ale. Several other CAMRAites won medals, bringing our club total to 15. It was very exciting to see our club get so many accolades. It was also fun to see my brother take home two medals with some of the beer I brought down from his club when we visited Rhode Island earlier this year.

Most of all, I enjoyed spending time with my two friends and talking shop about a hobby we all love so much. I had a chance to meet a bunch of other homebrewers from all around Virginia and hear some of their stories and brewing methods. The experience once again affirmed to me that brewing beer is, above all, a social activity. While we all came together in the spirit of competition, the most enjoyable part of it all was spending a day in each other's company.

Of course, winning a medal never hurts either . . .

Smokey Fox - Comparison and Contemplation

2009-08-31T19:19:00.003-05:00

I have been remiss in posting tasting notes for my homebrew of late. So, I figured I would take a moment to post some thoughts on what I am calling Smokey Fox, my smoked lager brewed with grain that was smoke-malted at the Copper Fox distillery (see the post from June). This beer was an experiment for me, as I had never made a smoked beer before and had no idea what to expect from the malt from Copper Fox. I must say that this beer has again shown me that decent process will result in good beer, even if you are not familiar with specific ingredients.

Smokey Fox used a traditional German Rauchbier malt and hop profile. This is a style that originated in and around Bamberg, Germany and the distinctive smoke flavor in the beer came from the beechwood fires used to roast the grain at the end of the malting process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rauchbier). The malt bill included the Copper Fox smoked 6-row barley, pilsner malt, Munich malt, Caramunich malt, melanoidin malt, and a pinch of black patent malt for color. The smoked malt made up about 50 percent of the total grain bill. I used hallertau hops in the beer, though you could use any German noble hop, as the hops are not the focus of the beer. Here are some stats:

Brewed: 6/28/2009

Kegged: 8/1/2009

Original Gravity: 1.052

Final Gravity: 1.014

IBU: 32

Alcohol By Volume: 4.9%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

Smokey Fox pours with a huge craggy off-white head. I was surprised at how much head this beer has, given the smoked malt in it. The beer's aroma is just slightly smokey, which increases as the beer warms. The aroma is otherwise smooth, with a very faint hint of sulfur at the end of the nose. The beer is a deep red in color, almost like the color of sunlight coming through red glass. This color did not come through very well in the picture, but it looks wonderful up close. The smoke flavor in the beer is also subdued, though it picks up as the beer warms. I also get a little biscuit and bread flavor, along with just a hint of spice. Smokey Fox finishes very clean and leaves you wanting another sip.

Knowing that I was going to eventually be reviewing Smokey Fox, I took the opportunity to pick up a classic example of a smoked beer while visiting my parents in Rochester, New York (Beers of the World is a wonderful store). I bought a bottle of Schlenkerla smoked marzen, both because they are one of the classic producers of smoked beers and because I love marzens. When comparing the two side-by-side, I was struck by their similar color; they looked almost identical. Their heads were the same color, though the Smokey Fox was thicker. That is where the similarities ended.

Compared to my beer, the smoked marzen was smokey, REALLY smokey. Its smoke aroma was intense and lovely. Think bacon cooking over a camp fire (yes, I said bacon). It was truely lovely. The smoke aroma transferred to a slightly lesser extent to the flavor. The malt in the marzen, which is usually a mainstay of the style, was completely subservient to the smoke. The smoke persisted throughout the taste, even lasting 10 seconds or more after you swallow.

I must say that I really enjoyed the Schlenkerla, but it definately wore my palate down. The smoke flavor, which I loved, kept building through out the pint. By the end, my palate was dead. I did alternate between the two beers through out this evaluation, but by contrast, the Smokey Fox tasted like a smooth malty lager, with little to no smoke flavor. I guess it is not that surprising, given the Schlenkerla's intensity. After having both, I think I would like a bit more smoke in my beer, but not that much more, as I can have several pints of Smokey Fox, but not more than one of the Schlenkerla.

I hope you enjoyed the review as much as I had writing it. Thanks to Copper Fox for the malt and the chance to do this project.

Cheers,

Tom

Brother Brews: Dragon's Milk Clone

2009-08-05T21:44:00.004-05:00

We went up to visit my brother and his family in Rhode Island a couple of weeks ago for vacation. The cousins had a lot of fun playing together and we did all sorts of fun activities like going into Boston, going to the beach, and playing around in the backyard. Jeff and I also got to do a bunch of fun beer-related activities (much to our wives' chagrin), such as stopping at some of his local bottle shops, trying a bunch of his homebrew, and doing a comparison of the Lost Abbey Devotion clone we had brewed together with the actual commercial beer. Jeff is lucky enough to get Lost Abbey beer in his area. It was really a lot of fun to compare the two beers. As I recall, our homebrewed version was more grainy, rough, and had more Belgian character than the commercial version, which was smooth, velvety with just a hint of spice. We were also able to get a brew session in together, which was a highlight of the trip for me.

Jeff and I had previously decided to try and brew a clone version of New Belgian's Dragon's Milk, which is a wonderfully rich bourbon-aged old ale. I had previously tried Dragon's Milk at The Timberwood Grill, which is near my house, and fell in love with the beer. We decided on it because it was a rich and interesting beer and would age well, as it would be some time before we would see each other again and be able to exchange bottles. The clone recipe was published in the January 2008 edition of Brew Your Own magazine.

I had a lot of fun seeing how Jeff brews beer, as every homebrewer develops their own process with their own equipment. Jeff also brews at night, which is very different than my weekend daily brewing. He also batch sparges, while I use a homebrew-sized fly sparging setup. As an added bonus, one of our best friends from when we were growing up, Craig, came down from Boston and stayed the night to hang out. It was really fun to show him the process and chat with him over a couple of pints of Jeff's great homebrew.

The Dragon's Milk Clone is now aging on bourbon-soaked oak chips in secondary and I can't wait to try it out. I had a great time, Jeff, and I hope we can do it again soon.

Pictures from the 2009 Baker Crab Fest

2009-07-27T19:56:00.004-05:00

Well, the 2009 Baker Crab Fest went very well. We only had a very brief period of rain and it was not too hot. The food was excellent and I even got away with a lion's share of the clams. The beer seemed to be well received and it was fun, as in years past, to chat with people about what they thought of our efforts. The only slight problem we had was that the pilsner poured foamy after about 6 oz were in the glass. The flavor was still good, but it was pretty foamy.

The order the kegs were kicked was as follows:

- Midnight Breakfast Oatmeal Stout on Nitro Tap (making it the party favorite, yay!!!)
- Pissed Black Cat Pale Ale
- Double Down Scottish 80/~
- Hippy Hawk Bohemian Pilsner (it was kicked after the party)

And here are some pictures:

Here are John's handmade tap handles

Here is a picture of the full tap machine

Here are all the kegs

Me pouring a beer

Copper Fox Distillery

2009-06-14T12:39:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Central Virginia and, surprisingly enough, my family had nothing scheduled to do. So we decided to take a drive, have a picnic, and tour some local wineries and distilleries. That is right, I said distilleries. There are two operating distilleries here in Central Virginia and both of them are within an hour drive of our house.

The first one, the Belmont Farm Distillery (http://www.virginiamoonshine.com) has an advertisement on Route 29, near Culpepper. It was fun to visit and really looked the part of an old time farm-based distillery. The pot still used there was built in the 1920s and several parts of the bottling line were from the early 1900s. There are several modern pieces to the operation, most notably all of the different water filtration systems, but the place still has a very authentic feel. They sell two types of whiskey there, both available from the farm, an aged whiskey and a raw, unwooded whiskey.

The second distillery was the real gem, and the most fun stop for me on our entire trip. I first saw mention of The Copper Fox Distillery (http://www.copperfox.biz) on the Mad Fermentationist's blog, where his club was looking to possibly get a used barrel from the distillery (http://madfermentationist.blogspot.com/2009/06/oubreak-2009-infected-barrel.html). Copper Fox is located in Sperryville, VA in an old apple processing facility. The owner, Rick Wasmund, and his "Master of Malt" (Mom) operate the distillery and provide very personal and educational tours. They have an innovative aging process where they age the whiskey in contact with apple and cherry wood, which imparts an interesting color and taste to the whiskey. But, the coolest thing of all is that they malt their own barley.

Copper Fox uses 6-row barley as the sole ingredient in their whiskey. They get the barley from one farmer, who lives about 3 hours from the brewery, and bring the raw grain directly into the distillery. Then, during the cool times of the year, they soak the barley in giant vats and then lay it out on the floor of a special section of the building. They let it germinate and then they kiln it right on site, using apple and cherry wood (http://www.copperfox.biz/products/). This imparts the malt with a interesting smokey note that helps make the whiskey distinctive. As far ask Rick knows, they are the only distillery in North America that malts their own grain.

Rick was kind enough to send me home with a sample of this special malt. I am planning on using it in a German-style smoked lager sometime in the near future. I would encourage any readers in Virginia to pay the distillery a visit, as the tours are well worth the drive. While you are at it, pick up a bottle of Wasmund's Single Malt Whiskey and give it a try.

Baker Summer Party Brews

2009-06-12T20:00:00.002-05:00

Mr. Baker and I have been busy brewing beer for his annual 4th of July Crab Fest. We brewed the last batch of beer this past Sunday and it is mostly done fermenting now. John asked me to do a brief write up of the four beers we will have on tap, which he includes in the invitations and posts near the kegs on party day. I figured I would post that text here, just so people could see what we have put together.

Hippy Hawk Bohemian Pilsner
OG: 1.055 FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.3% IBU: 40
Bohemian pilsners are more malty and rounded than their dry German cousins, while still retaining the crisp and sharp hop edge that defines the pilsner style. This characteristic roundness is emphasized by a lower mineral content water that provides a softer body that helps bring the malt body in balance with the Czech Saaz hops. Our Hippy Hawk Bohemian Pilsner is named for a hawk we saw circling over the deck on brew day, as well as the Bohemian quality of the beer that will leave you wanting more and more of this beer. Groovy, man . . .

Pissed Black Cat Pale Ale
OG: 1.050 FG: 1.010
ABV: 5.1% IBU: 48
The pale ale style is one that has defined the American craft beer movement. It originally came from England, where its slightly higher alcohol content and lighter color than traditional English bitters and milds made it very popular. American brewers have made it their own by using citrus hop varieties, such as our use of Millennium and Centennial, higher hopping levels, and larger alcohol concentrations. This beer was the crowd favorite from last year, being the first keg tapped on that rainy Saturday. The beer's name came from a previous brew session, where John witnessed my neighbor's black cat urinating on my smoker. I hope she was not commenting on the quality of the smoked dishes I like to cook.

Double Down Scottish 80/~
OG: 1.053 FG: 1.019
ABV: 4.2% IBU: 15
Scottish ales are characterized by a massive, complex malty body that finishes slightly dry to make drinkable in quantity. The ales are meant to be session beers, where their relatively low alcohol concentration enables someone to have several pints in a "session" at the pub with friends and not get overly intoxicated. Scottish ales are named for the number of shillings of tax the brewer had to pay on each barrel at some point in long forgotten history. This beer is an 80 shilling, designated by use of the symbol "80/~" Our beer is named for the two kettle boil overs I had the first time I made this recipe, which created quite a mess.

Midnight Breakfast Oatmeal Stout
OG: 1.064 FG: 1.018
ABV: 6.0% IBU: 36
Oatmeal stouts are derived from dry Irish stouts, though the addition of oatmeal in the grist provides a rounder and less edgy finish, often described as a "slick" feeling on the palate. This has long been a favorite beer style of mine and we have had a version on tap ever since I started brewing for John's party several years ago. Last year, John purchased a stout tap for this beer, which uses a nitrogen/CO2 gas mix to carbonate the beer. It provides a rich and velvety finish to the stout and gives it a dense foamy head. The beer is dark as midnight, but the smell coming off the kettle on brew day reminds me of breakfast oatmeal. Thus, Midnight Breakfast was born.

Brother Brewing - In Person

2009-05-18T20:15:00.006-05:00

My brother was able to come down and visit a couple weeks ago and we were able to brew together in person. I must say that I had been looking forward to doing this for some time. Jeff and I have shared common interests and hobbies since I was in kindergarten and it has been great to have another topic to talk about. We have definitely exchanged more phone calls and emails recently, discussing homebrewing clubs, equipment, competitions, and recipes. In fact, during the visit, my wife even requested "can we PLEASE talk about something OTHER than beer!" I count this a moment of personal success, as my wife is pretty much immune to beer-related talk at this point in our relationship.

At any rate, after much debate and research, we decided on brewing a Belgian pale ale. It fit our requirements to brew something slightly "paler," with an interesting element, something of moderate alcohol strength (~6% ABV), and something neither of us had brewed recently. We elected on doing a Brew Your Own (BYO) magazine clone of the Lost Abbey Devotion Ale. The recipe looked interesting and was developed with the help of the brewer (a key component when it comes to clone recipes). The brew day went very well, except for planning around a spring storm that never arrived, and Jeff spending time trying to solder an addition to my immersion chiller (more below). Jeff even got me to try a Flemish sour beer that I ended up liking (Duchess de Bourgogne, brewed by the Verhaeghe Brewery). I am planning on taking some of the Belgian pale up to Jeff when we visit his home later this summer. [Note: the Belgian pale is the furthest carboy to the back of the picture. The other two are oatmeal stouts for Baker's summer party]

One of the other brewing things we did during that weekend was to upgrade my immersion chiller. I had been having some trouble cooling batches down recently, with 10 gallon batches taking well over an hour to cool to pitching temperatures. My existing immersion chiller was only 25 feet of 1/4" copper tubing. So, I purchased 25 feet of 3/8" copper tubing with the hope that I could connect the two of them somehow and double my cooling capacity. I am glad that Jeff was here to help, as he had soldered pipes before. Even so, it took two different trips to Lowes to get everything we needed, plus about 90 minutes of work. But, the chiller works great and it is all thanks to Jeff.

Factors that Influence Tasting

2009-04-28T20:01:00.002-05:00

My brother read the review I had of his Almond Wheat and emailed me a correction. The beer he sent was an American Wheat, there was no almond in it at all. I felt rather embarrassed to say the least, but he would not take an apology, stating that I had planted the seed in his mind to do an almond flavored beer. However, all this got me thinking, what factors influence our sense of taste, especially when it comes to beer?

I have long been a believer that what a person says they taste is what they taste. Taste, along with smell and touch, are very hard to verbalize and put into words what we experience. It is more almost like a guided free association, where you try to describe what you taste using correlations with your own experiences. As such, people will likely not use the same words or "descriptors" to describe what they are tasting. I am a believer that what words a person uses to describe their sense of taste are right for that person. I tell this to people I taste beer with in our homebrewing club, and I tell it to my wife when she says "You know I am not very good at this sort of thing . . ."

All that being said, how much did my thinking there was almond in my brother's beer influence my taste in it. I guess I will never know, but I have a feeling that it influenced it to some degree. Perhaps I would have described a portion of the flavor profile with another word, other than almond. Perhaps not.

I am not sure where I am going with this post, other than to say I find it very interesting. I wonder if other people think about these sorts of things. Or, maybe it is just another sign of how much of a beer geek I really am.

Cheers.

Jeff's Almond Wheat

2009-04-13T20:16:00.003-05:00

I am finally getting around to trying another one of my brother's beers. He sent three down to me, the first being the award-winning Irish Red I have already reviewed. He also sent two wheat beers, an Almond Wheat and a Cherry Wheat. My brother's wife has discovered a love of wheat beers with a dash of something special. Jeff is wisely supporting this interest by supplying excellent homebrew to meet the need.

He always was a very smart person . . .

The beer pours a slightly cloudy dark amber color, though the amber leans more towards red than burnt orange. The head is comprised of coarse off-white foam that lasts for the entire pint. It leaves a nice lacing down the glass that is very pretty. I would expect a nice head on the beer, given that it has a large portion of wheat in the recipe. The beer smells is very clean and neutral, with just a hint of floral aroma and a little bit of sweetness.

The first thing I taste is a hint of caramel that has some alcohol warmness. I next get a touch of almond, with its warm nutty character. This is most akin to the liqueur Amaretto, though not nearly as sweet. I found it very pleasant. The flavor finishes slightly sweet, but not in enough quantity to build on the tongue and limit drinkability. I could definitely drink another pint.

It is a very nice drinkable beer. If I could make any suggestions about it, I would recommend increasing the almond flavor a bit to make it more immediately identifiable. I would also increase the hopping slightly, maybe with a floral or herbal hop that would mesh well with almonds. I would not increase either of these elements too much, maybe 5 IBUs more of bitterness and just a bit more almond. The beer has balanced itself well as it aged and I think these changes would just help make it stand out a bit more.

Another good beer, Jeff. Thanks for sharing!

Dark Mild - Multi-Yeast Experiment

2009-03-30T20:31:00.005-05:00

A little while ago, Greg, a fellow CAMRA club member, and I started talking about doing a cooperative brew. We share a number of common interests: brewing, breadmaking, cooking, kids; so it seemed a great idea to share a brewing session. We both enjoy English session ales, so we figured we would brew a dark mild, as they are not commonly available here in the U.S. and are best drunk fresh. Additionally, to make things interesting, we decided to do a yeast experiment.

I have often heard people state that the liquid yeast products that brewers pay a premium for are far superior to the dry yeast equivalents. Some things about the two yeast forms can definitely be attributed to fact. Liquid yeast strains can be designated as pure and without contamination, which means with proper sanitation, a brewer has very little chance of getting wild yeast contamination. Dry yeasts always have some wild yeast contamination as part of their manufacturing process. This is minimized, but how great is the risk of infection? Several podcasts and homebrewing magazines have done experiments on the dry versus liquid yeast packages, but Greg and I wanted to do our own.

The plan was to use one common wort source, split in half, and then to use two different yeasts to determine the yeast form's impact. Further, we wanted to use dry and liquid yeast strains that came from the same historical source. So, we picked Wyeast 1968 London ESB and Safale S-04 Dry English Ale. Both of these strains are based on the Whitbread yeast strain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitbread). This should provide us with a situation where the dry versus liquid yeast difference would be maximized, if any existed at all.

The following stats applied to both beers:
SG: 1.039 (both yeasts)
FG: 1.011 liquid, 1.012 dry
Starter Size: 1 L liquid, no starter dry (10 gram pack)
Pitching Temp: 72 F (both yeasts)
Fermentation Temp: 68 F (both yeasts)
Fermentation Length: 4 days liquid, 3 days dry

The results were extremely close. The liquid yeast beer (Duval glasses in picture) was slightly lighter in color than the dry yeast batch. The liquid yeast beer also had a slightly more definable aroma, but it came from a keg, so the aroma could well be from a slightly higher carbonation rate. The most definable difference was in the intensity and length of flavor. The liquid yeast batch's flavor lasted longer and was more intense than the dry yeast, but not by a large factor. I did not get any off flavors from the dry yeast, and I think it was quite comparable to the liquid offering.

Bottom line was that they were VERY close. Given that the dry yeast is much cheaper and it is easier to use, I think I would recommend using dry yeast when a version that has been well received by the brewing community is available.

Thanks for a great brew day and tasting, Greg. It was a lot of fun.

90 Seconds of Goodness Imperial IPA

2009-03-26T20:12:00.004-05:00

Spring, for some unknown reason, has gotten me into a hoppy beer mood. I am normally a English session beer kind of person, if I were to pick a favorite set of styles. However, with winter starting to loose its hold over Central Virginia (compared to where I grew up in New York, winter never has a "hold" over Virginia at all), I am feeling in the mood for hops. So, when I had the opportunity to get some commercial Chico yeast from Starr Hill Brewing Company, I decided to go hog wild and make an Imperial IPA.

One of the biggest challenges that you face when doing big beer recipes is to get full attenuation. Because there is so much sugar in the wort for these beers, it is absolutely crucial that you have a HUGE slug of yeast to get the resulting beer down to a reasonable terminal gravity. If you don't, you risk having a sweet and unpalatable beer. The Starr Hill yeast samples we got were HUGE slugs of very active yeast. They gave me the perfect excuse to try one of the biggest beers I have ever contemplated (ABV of 8.5%).

This beer recipe is from a series of clone brews done by Brew Your Own Magazine. 90 Minute IPA by Dogfish Head is one of my favorite big hoppy beers. It has a great hop nose and a complex flavor, but is dangerously drinkable because it finishes dry. Even with all the alcohol, it does not leave a lot of sugar on the tongue, so you can easily finish a pint. This clone brew recipe was done in colaboration with the brewers at Dogfish Head, so I definately wanted to give it a try.

So, without further a do, here is the review:

Brewed: 2/15/2009

Kegged: 2/24/2009

Original Gravity: 1.083

Final Gravity: 1.016

IBU: ~92

Alcohol By Volume: 8.5%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a dark orange color with huge coarse white head. The most immediately apparent thing is the aroma. The beer is a hop aroma bomb. The aroma is complex and multi-dementional. It starts off with an herbal quality and then moves to a slightly sweet citrus orange/lemon smell. The dry hopping (2.5 ounces of amarillo, millenium, and simco) is really pronounced and I find myself just sitting and smelling the beer for a good while.

The initial flavor is a hint of sweetness. This is followed by some of the hop complexity with flavors of orange, pineapple, and mint. I then get a bit of bitter bite on the tongue, which is followed by a slickness that I attribute to the simco hops. The taste ends with a drying quality similar to belgian tripels or other very low terminal gravity belgian beers, though the IPA also has a twinge of burnt sugar. I do also get a very faint warming from the alcohol, though nothing like drinking a scotch or other whiskey.

All and all it is a very good beer, certainly my best so far this year. I took it to a homebrew tasting recently and was strongly encouraged to enter it in the National Homebrew Competition (NHC). So, we shall see how it does and what feedback I receive. Regardless, this is a beer I will definately make again.

Cheers.

Congratulations to Jeff - Gold Medal

2009-03-04T21:25:00.002-05:00

Just a quick note of congratulations to my brother, Jeff. His first brew ever (discounting the Mr. Beer kits) won a gold medal at the 2009 Boston Homebrew Competition for his Irish red ale! I previously reviewed this beer on the blog. I am very proud my brother and hope that he continues to enjoy this wonderful hobby.

http://www.wort.org/bhc/winners.shtml

Brother Brews

2009-02-22T21:33:00.003-05:00

One of the coolest brew-related things that have happened to me this year is that my brother has started homebrewing. He first did this a while ago with a Mr. Beer kit that I gave him for Christmas. As with many Mr. Beer experiments, it did not go well and my brother did not repeat his Mr. Beer experience. I am not sure exactly what got him to try it again, but part of it is probably our repeated trips to Beers of the World, while visiting our parents in Rochester, NY. It is a great bottle shop with so many neat beers to try, as well as a homebrewing section that we would browse through. In addition to our frequent conversations about homebrewing, which I find a lot of fun and very interesting, I know that part of Jeff's interest in the hobby has been a result of finding a local homebrewing club near where he lives. The club members have provided an outlet for my brother's questions, as well as providing tasting samples and an interest in a common hobby.

Jeff was nice enough to send a sample of his first batch, an irish red, for me to taste. I appreciate it and I wanted to review it here.

The beer pours a delightful deep red color, almost scarlet. The beer is slightly cloudy, but I can still see my hand through it when the beer is held near a strong light. A frothy white head sits on top of the beer and remains while you consume the pint. It leaves a nice lacing on the sides of the glass. The beer has a very clean and neutral aroma, with a hint of caramel sweetness at the back of the nose.

The beer tastes very clean and balanced. It has a crisp malt character, somewhat akin to a german pilsner in its dry maltiness. The beer is nicely balanced with the hops and it creates a very drinkable beverage that leaves no sweetness build up on the tongue. The only recommendation I would make with the beer would be to carbonate it a bit less. The beer became more malt forward once I swirled it in the glass a bit to shake out some of the carbon dioxide. The flavor became more like some of the other irish reds I have had in the past and a little less pilsner-like. I will definitely say that I could drink several pints of this beer, which, in my opinion, is the most important judgement on a beer's quality.

Thank you for sharing, Jeff. I hope that you find as much enjoyment in this hobby as I have over the last 10 years or so. The community of homebrewers that you will interact with, both online and in person, really make this such a unique and wonderful hobby to be a part of.

Pissed Black Cat Pale Ale - Yet Again

2009-02-17T20:14:00.003-05:00

This is the third time I have brewed a version of this pale ale. In general, I really like how it has turned out in the past. It is a beer halfway between a pale ale and an IPA. Hoppy, but not over the top. It has a nice amber/pale orange color and was the crowd favorite at Mr. Baker's Crab Fest last year.

All that aside, it did not turn out as well this time. This recipe is the first one where I tried to recreate a beer that I brewed and really liked previously. With it, I begin to understand how hard it must be to be a professional brewer, who must constantly turn out a high-quality product that varies little over time. I am also definitely not my harshest critic, so I can't imagine what a sharper tongue would do to my attempts to replicate my previous success.

I think what went wrong with the beer is hop choice. Previous versions of the beer used nugget/columbus and millenium/centennial, with the millenium/centennial turning out the best. This version used warrior and amarillo, with warrior being used for a lot of late addition hopping. I have subsuquently read that warrior is best used as a bittering hop and does not lend itself well to flavor or aroma additions. I think these hops must have clashed to create the undesirable flavors that I mention below, as I hit all of my other numbers (OG, FG, fermentation temp., fermentation time, etc.).

Regardless, here are the stats and the review . . .

Brewed: 1/17/2009

Kegged: 1/25/2009

Original Gravity: 1.048

Final Gravity: 1.012

IBU: 47

Alcohol By Volume: 4.8%

Carbonation Volume: 2.8 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a crystal clear pale amber color, with a white pillowy head. The hops in this beer provide for a nice long lasting head, that follows the beer all the way down the glass, leaving a nice lacing pattern on the sides of the glass.

The beer has a strong herbal aroma too it. The aroma borders on medicinal in nature, which is not flattering to the beverage. I remember previous renditions of this recipe having a more citrus or floral scent, which I liked better. The medicinal quality of the aroma seems to strengthen as the beer warms.

There is definitely an off flavor of some sort to the beer. It is immediately present when you take your first sip and it lasts throughout the entire taste. Perhaps my mind is wandering towards our medicine cabinet, but it is vaguely reminiscent of an herbal cough drop. I am thinking about a Ricola-style cough drop, though not quite as strong. There is a biscuity flavor there too, which might be pleasant on its own, and reminds me of the previous versions of the beer. The off-flavor diminishes as you drink your pint, but that is likely due to your taste buds becoming used to it.

As I mentioned above, I think the off flavor is likely due to hop choice, particularly the warrior hops, which I used as a late addition to the kettle. My friend, Jamey, thinks the beer tastes slightly old or stale, and we have actually had some fun becoming "beer-sleuths" and trying to figure out what went wrong. I will definitely brew this one again, but next time I will go back to the original hopping regimen of millenium and centennial.

Happy Birthday, CAMRA!

2009-02-09T21:43:00.002-05:00

Just a quick note to say that the homebrewing club I helped found, the Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale (CAMRA), celebrated its first year birthday last week. What began as an idea hatched amongst three friends who loved to make beer, grew in the first couple of meetings to standing room only crowds at a local bar. Since those first meetings, we have contracted into a core group of about 15 to 20 people. Meeting attendance varies some what, but we usually have a dozen people come out to talk beer styles and brewing.

Tastings have proven the most popular events, and so to celebrate our birthday, we had a combination homebrew tasting and a tour of the largest brewery in the area, Starr Hill (http://www.starrhill.com). We had a blast touring the brewery and talking with Master Brewer Mark Thompson. The difference in scale at a professional brewery is truly staggering. Equally impressive, though, was watching one of his brewers take a starting gravity reading before pumping the wort into a 50-barrel fermentation tank. While the scale is truly different, that act is one I have done on every brew day of my homebrewing journey. Watching this one step really hit home for me both the similarities and differences between homebrewers and professional brewers.

All of the CAMRA people who turned out for the tour and tasting had a great time. I hope we get to do it again sometime.

Cheers, CAMRA, and I wish you many more birthdays as rewarding as this first year has been for me.

Partigyle Brewing - Trying to Get Two Beers from One Grist

2009-02-05T19:44:00.004-05:00

Partigyle is the practice of making multiple batches of beer from one grist. This means that you mash once and run the "first runnings" off of the mash and make one "big" beer. Then you run more sparge water through the grains to get a second "small" beer. The idea is that the first beer will be of high strength and high malt character, while the second beer will be a small beer that is much milder. Historically speaking, this was done all the time, as brewers would extract as much sugar solution from each grist as they could. Partigyle is responsible for many different styles of beer that we have today, including Belgian Doubles and Tripels, English Barlywines and Milds, etc., as brewers made different strengths of what was basically, the same beer.

I had read about this practice in several books and heard about it on at least one podcast, so I wanted to give it a try. I was planning on brewing a big weizenbock and figured it would be the perfect time to try the technique, as there should be some sugar left in the grist, right? Well, it did not really work out as expected, as you will see below.

First, a review of the beers themselves.

Big Daddy Weizenbock

Brewed: 11/25/2008

Kegged: 12/6/2008

Original Gravity: 1.077

Final Gravity: 1.020

IBU: 24

Alcohol By Volume: 7.5%

Carbonation Volume: 2.5 (13 psi at 40 degrees F)

This beer was the real reason for the brew day. It is the color of dark brown, bordering on black, though deep red highlights show through if you hold the beer near a strong light. The weizenbock pours with a thick tan head that lasts for about 5 minutes as you drink it. The beer has a strong banana aroma, almost like banana bread. It also has a slight hint of clove in the aroma, but no bubblegum at all. The aromatic qualities of the beer are directly related to the yeast strain I used (hefeweizen ale - White Labs WLP 300), and it is fermentation temperature of 62 F.

The beer has a very pleasant taste, with a malt forward presentation on the tongue. I taste a little biscuit on the tip of the tongue, followed by a caramel and molasses flavor. The beer finishes with a hint of carbonation and hops, but they are definately in the background. There is a slight bit of molasses that stays on your palate before the next sip, but it does not seem to build too much as you work through the pint. Finally, there is a warming feeling from the beer. This is not any kind of hot alcohol, but a pleasant feeling in the throat that occurs several seconds after finishing a sip.

I am very happy with this beer, and I would definitely consider making it again. It is sort of like a dunkleweizen on steroids, and dunklewezien is one of my favorite beer styles. I would hope to have the beer attenuate a couple of points lower next time, but otherwise I am pleased with it and its yeast character after it had aged for about a month in the keg.

Baby Bock - Little Weizenbock

Brewed: 11/25/2008

Kegged: 12/6/2008

Original Gravity: 1.027

Final Gravity: 1.009

IBU: 14

Alcohol By Volume: 2.6%

Carbonation Volume: 2.5 (13 psi at 40 degrees F)

The small beer is a dark honey color with a thick off-white head. It has a neutral aroma, though I do detect a hint of astringency that smells vaguely of plain oatmeal. The head remains a while on this beer, as with many wheat beers.

The flavor of the small beer is definitely lacking. Thin is the word that comes to mind, though watery is also applicable. Next to its big brother it is down right plain. It also has an mildly unpleasant astringent flavor. I think this came from the fact that I tried to get all of the sugars I could from the beer. This dropped the sugar levels in the grain bed too low and I started to pull tannins out of the grain husks. There is little yeast character in the beer, but I expected that using dried California ale yeast. The hops are a little overbearing in bitterness, but otherwise clean with little herbal hop character or aroma.

The little beer is definitely that . . . little. I increased the boil time on the beer to 90 minutes with the hope of getting a higher starting gravity, but it did not happen. It seems that most of the flavor had already gone out of the grist, so the beer just tastes plain. However, it is not really bad, just uninspired. The astringency has aged a bit out of the beer, so that it is not that objectionable now.

Observations

I can see how this process was used frequently in the past. I effectively got two beers out of one set of ingredients, minus some extra hops and a package of dry yeast. However, the little beer was almost not worth the trouble. I suppose that perspective comes from the fact that I don't sell beer for a living, but this is something that I will probably not do again. If I were to consider a second partigyle, I would take the following into account:

- You should not really worry about the volume of wort for the bigger beer. Just drain your mash tun and use whatever you get. I made sure to get enough wort to make a full 5 gallon batch of the main beer. This left too little sugar for the second beer.
- Start with a larger grist than you would normally. I would definitely have added a couple of extra pounds of base malt to ensure there was sugar left for the second beer.
- Pay attention to the specific gravity coming out of your mash tun on the little beer. If the SG drops below 1.008, make sure to stop so you avoid the grain husk tannins.
- Take a pre-boil gravity of your small beer and use that to determine your hopping. Seeing how you cannot predict how much sugar will be in the small beer, if you pre-plan your hops, you could significantly over hop the little beer.
- Be happy with what you get and be glad that the sale of the little beer does not directly correspond to how much food your kids have to eat.

2008 Brewing Year In Review

2009-01-11T13:33:00.002-05:00

I thought that a quick post of random stats and facts about my brewing year in 2008 might be fun. So, here you go:

- Number of Batches Made - 23
- Number of Gallons Made - 115
- First Brew Day - 1/19/2008
- Last Brew Day - 12/28/2008
- Number of Beer Batches - 19
- Number of Wine Batches - 1
- Number of Cider Batches - 1
- Number of Mead Batches - 2
- Batch with Highest Alcohol - 12% - Black and Blue Mead
- Batch with Lowest Alcohol - 2.6% - Baby Bock (made from already used grains in weizenbock)
- Average Alcohol Across Batches - 5.6%
- Favorite Brew - Double Down Scottish 80/~ (so very drinkable)
- Worst Brew - Steamy Summer California Common (fermented 10 degrees to warm and had the aroma and flavor of a freshly opened band aid)
- Favorite Name - Murphy's Law Irish Stout
- Approximate Amount of Grain used in 2008 - 225 pounds (average of 11.8 lbs/brew)
- Biggest Equipment Upgrade - Switch to kegging beer with my kegerator
- Number of Batches Brewed for Baker's Party - 7
- Biggest Supporter of My Brewing - My wife, who loves me enough to drink my beer and encourage me to keep brewing. Thanks, honey!

Review of "Tis Not the Season" Hefeweizen

2008-12-15T21:40:00.004-05:00

I brewed this hefeweizen during Teach a Friend to Homebrew day, at the beginning of November. I have decided to call it "Tis Not the Season" Hefeweizen, because German wheat beer styles are usually served during the spring and early summer, rarely during the cold winter months. However, it was my wife's turn to pick the beer recipe, as she had not done so for several batches, and she was craving a nice hefeweizen. So, to work I went, and I was fairly pleased with the result.

Brewed: 11/1/2008

Kegged: 11/10/2008

Original Gravity: 1.043

Final Gravity: 1.012

IBU: 14

Alcohol By Volume: 4.0

Carbonation Volume: 2.5 (13 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a cloudy straw color, sort of like one of those fiber-supplement drinks you see advertised on TV. I know this is not a flattering description, but it was the first thought that came to mind. The beer has a very pillowy white head that lasts for several minutes as the beer was consumed. This is perhaps the most pillowly head on a beer I have ever made. I imagine it is due to all of the wheat that was in the grain bill.

The hefeweizen has a very pleasant smell. The smell of fresh yeast is very strong, similar to the smell you get from Starr Hill's "Love" wheat beer, which is unfiltered. There is a spicy clove smell that is fairly strong, while the banana and other tropical fruit scents sit in the background (which is just how my wife likes it, as she can't stand bananas).

After a month in the keg, the beer has definitely smoothed out. It has a very fresh flavor that is nicely balanced with the light hopping that went into the beer. At first, I was not pleased with how the beer turned out. It seemed to be too light on body and there was a unpleasant bitterness on the back of the tongue. This has faded away, leaving a very nice and refreshing beer. I taste a creamy smooth mouthfeel, along with some faint clove, banana, and pear flavors. It tastes very much like it smells. There is a small bit of residual sugar on the back of the palate, but it does not build up or get in the way as you finish a pint.

While "Tis Not the Season" for a hefeweizen, I find it very seasonal, indeed.

Merry Christmas to you and may you find time for family, friends, reflection, and good beer in this crazy holiday season.

Homebrew Tasting - Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

2008-12-08T20:50:00.002-05:00

Our homebrew club had its second-ever homebrew tasting last Tuesday, December 2nd, at a member's house. Over 20 people attended the event and I estimated that close to 50 different beers and ciders were on hand for tasting. CAMRA members have been working towards having another tasting for several months now. Most people in the club state that lack of tastings were the one thing that they hoped would change as CAMRA moves forward.

Several notable facts about the tasting include:
- Excellent beer, ranging from sour Belgian ales to cider, to holiday spiced beers to hefeweizens, were available. I honestly mean excellent beer. I was stunned at the breadth of styles and skill that homebrewers here in Central Virginia demonstrate.
- Open tasting format that allowed the brewers to circulate and discuss their beer as it was being poured. This worked well for our loosely-organized club and allowed the brewers to receive feedback on the spot.
- Excellent food, including some homemade bread and cheeses. I was supposed to bring some spent grain bread . . . but sometimes life gets in the way.
- Impromptu live music provided when several attendees picked up our host's instruments and started playing. They were actually quite good.

Feedback provided about the event has us thinking of making the following changes for next time:
- Have better name tags so people can get to know each other's names without having to keep asking.
- Provide a sign-in sheet that asks people to list the beer they brought. Several people commented they wish they had something to write down notes on to ask for recipes and tips later.
- Have these events more often, as they are a lot of fun and what the homebrewing hobby is all about.

A great time was had by all. Thanks to our host and all of the CAMRA supporters who came out and tasted the variety and excellent beer that can be made at home.

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - Saturday Nov 1, 2008

2008-11-24T13:17:00.004-05:00

In typical fashion, I am writing about this event well after the fact. But, it was a fun event, so I wanted to include some information about it on my blog.

The first Saturday every November, the American Homebrewing Association (AHA) organizes an event called "Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day." The purpose of the event is to help spread the word about homebrewing good beer and take the mystery out of it. Homebrewing is something anyone can do and it is not hard, especially once you see it done. I did a Teach a Friend to Homebrew event at my house last year and enjoyed it immensely.(http://wallacesouthbrewnews.blogspot.com/2007/11/teach-friend-to-homebrew-day.html).

This was the first year we had a homebrew store in town to help organize the event. Bob Cuddleback, over at the Fermentation Trap, invited our homebrewing club to come out and brew at the store for the event. He advertised the event to the Charlottesville area and we did the same on our club forums. So, I packed up all my equipment and headed over to the store around noon. I had a good time brewing along side Bob, as well as comparing equipment and stories with him. I also really enjoyed showing those that stopped by my equipment and discussing the brewing process.

Here are some interesting bullet points about the day:

- I brewed a simple all-grain hefeweizen recipe, which took about 6 hours.

- In that time, Bob brewed two malt extract recipes, a hefeweizen and a scottish ale. His comment was that he was glad I showed off my all-grain equipment, but also glad that he ended up with twice as much beer.

- We had between 15 and 20 people stop by and observe the brewing process.

- The most gathered around me as I started to mash out, and promptly had a stuck sparge (where no wort comes out of the mash tun). This is particularly embarrassing, as it implies that I don't really know what I am doing (which I am not always sure that I do). I was able to salvage the beer without too much effort, but still . . . Murphy's law.

- I got to try a couple of people's homemade wine during the day, including a truly excellent cherry port.

- Fellow CAMRA members Christopher and Mike came out and kept me company during the long brew day.

- Everyone seemed to have a great time.

Fun Homebrew Review: Centennial IPA - T Minus 16 months . . .

2008-10-19T15:43:00.003-05:00

I wrote this homebrew review for a member of our homebrewing club not too long ago. It was a neat review, so I thought I would repost it here. Enjoy.

-------------------------

A friend gave me a bottle of his Imperial Centennial IPA more than a year ago now. I remember him saying that he did not know what to call it, as it really turned out a bit more like a barleywine than a true Imperial IPA. I suggested "800-pound gorilla" because the beer has so many hops in there, but my friend wisely avoided the primate reference. I also remember him saying that he wondered what would happen if the beer was laid down to age, but that it was unlikely he would do so, as he tends to drink them before letting them age. So, unbeknownst to my friend, I aged the beer and am finally getting a chance to drink it.

The beer pours an amber/red color that is almost edging on brown. The beer is very clear and I can easily see my hand through it. There is definitely carbonation in the beer, but the head is thin (about a quarter-inch thick) and course. The head lasted for about two minutes before slowly dissolving into the beer, though it left some lacing on my glass. There is a definite hop aroma to the beer, but it is rather thin. I sort of expected this, as hop flavor and aroma drop off as hoppy beers age. Many people often say you should drink IPAs and other hoppy beers quickly to get the hop presence. I also smell brown sugar, or a dark belgian candy sugar.

The IPA tastes very good. It has a definite bitter component, which nicely balances the sweetness from the imperial quality of the beer. As expected,a strong hop presence is absent from the beer. Aside from the bitterness, I don't get much hop character that I would expect in an IPA. I taste a dark sugar component, but without all of the sweetness. The beer finishes slightly sweet, but the sweetness does not really build on the tongue, so it is still easy to finish the glass.

Interestingly, the beer tastes a lot more like a belgian tripel than a barleywine, which differs from my friend's original characterization. The flavor is similar enough that I would probably classify it as a tripel, if I did not know the beer's history. The only thing that is not quite on style is that the beer has a bit more bitterness than a tripel would, so it might be an "American tripel."

Thank you for sharing your beer with me. I hope you like your "surprise review," even though I spilled the beans that I was going to write it a couple of weeks back. Cheers!

Review of "Double Down" Scottish 80/~ Ale

2008-10-19T15:10:00.003-05:00

I must admit that this beer had me a bit concerned. As you may have already read, the day I brewed it was very eventful. Add to that experience that I have read a couple of negative reviews of the recipe I used and early tastes of the beer were a bit cloyingly sweet. However, the beer rallied nicely about a month after I brewed it and I am very happy with it right now. It is definitely a session beer and I am enjoying a pint of it right now.

Brewed: 9/20/2008
Kegged: 9/27/2008
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.018
IBU: 15
Alcohol By Volume: 4.1%
Carbonation Volume: 2.5 (13 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours a brownish color with strong red highlights. It is fairly clear, when held up to a strong light, though under normal conditions, it appears opaque due to its dark color. The beer has a moderate amount of off-white head on it, which dissipates over a few minutes, leaving a light film on top of the beer. This film makes interesting patterns on the glass, as you enjoy the pint, which is called "Belgian lace." The 80/~ has a malty aroma, mixed with something nutty, maybe like toasted almonds. Hop aroma is completely absent from this beer, which is as expect from the style and lack of aroma hops.

The beer has a strong malt flavor. This is the first thing that hits your palate and lasts throughout the taste. This is a mild silky flavor in there, slightly reminiscent of an oatmeal stout, though it is much less apparent. The is no detectable bitterness to the beer, but it must be present to counteract the high final gravity of the beer. There is a slight honey flavor in the beer that probably came from the honey malt. A friend of mine says that specific flavor is something he does not like about this recipe, and I am tempted to agree. If I make the beer again, I will omit that specialty malt and go with more toasted bread flavor, probably from victory or a similar malt. The beer finishes with a slight prickle of carbonation, but leaves a hint of sweetness on the tongue.

This is the first true session beer that I have brewed. Session beers are those under 4.2% ABV and are very important in the British brewing tradition, where gathering at the pub for a couple of pints after work is the norm for the British public. If their common beer were stronger, people would be getting sloshed all the time, so the pub masters brewed milds and bitters that were session beers, i.e. beer with great taste that is refreshing, but not too strong. Brewing good beer like this is a challenge that I hope to undertake again soon.

A note about the photo: I write this post after spending the day at an apple festival with my family and the family of a good friend who is also a homebrewer. The leaves are beginning to turn and it feels like Fall. It was a great Fall day outside, clear and crisp, so I felt the need to take a picture of the beer outside, while rays of the setting sun showed the highlights in the beer, much like the highlights of the changing leaves.

"Double Down" Scottish 80/~ Ale

2008-09-21T16:09:00.004-05:00

So, I am sure a lot of the other homebrewers out there have had boil-overs before. It is a common problem, especially when you first start homebrewing. At that time, you have no idea that boiling wart has the characteristic of explosively generating foam, much like boiling pasta water on steroids. However, I have been brewing for several years now; so, for the most part, I know what to look for and how to avoid the common pitfalls.

Enter important Tom personality characteristic #2 (the first is that I love homebrewing). I rarely sit still. I mean to say that I usually have a to-do list inscribed in my mind that clearly dictates all of the tasks that I must complete in a given weekend. So, it is very common for me to try to do multiple tasks at once. In this case, I was doing the following:

- Brewing the Scottish ale
- Watching my son (read, he was "helping", while my wife was at our daughter's soccer game
- Baking a batch of sourdough bread
- Mowing the lawn and doing other gardening stuff

So, add to this insane mix that my Mom calls to say hi. She has no idea I am doing all of this stuff and we had not spoken for a few weeks (Call your Mom, today!). So I pause to talk to her and to help my son do a jigsaw puzzle. Enter boil over number one. I caught it in time not to be extremely bad, but I still had to wipe off most of the pot and parts of the burner stand. I hang up with my Mom and get things cleaned up.

Things seem to be going well, so I toss in the hops and then turn to respond to a question that my son asks. BOOM. Boil over number two, this time with hops. I promptly curse, which is repeated by my son. It is just the way this brew day is going.

In the end, everything got done (the beer is fermenting away in the fridge now, the lawn is mowed, my son is still alive, the bread is fantastic, and I am still sane). I felt that the beer should be named "Double Down" for the two times that foam ran down the sides of the kettle.

The take home lesson is that you should enjoy the brew day (especially seeing how beautiful it was outside this weekend) and not try to do too much at the same time. Your beer, and your spouse/significant other/children/neighbors, will thank you for it . . .

American Pale Ale

2008-08-27T20:11:00.003-05:00

I must admit that American Pale Ale (APA) has never been a favorite style of mine. It is probably the most commonly available style, with every brew pub in America making their own version. However, that said, it also allows a LOT of latitude when designing a recipe because there are so many different versions.

I was inspired to do an APA by two factors. First, the APA that I brewed for John's party this year was a huge hit. It was the keg that disappeared the fastest by a good hour or more. This in spite of the fact we had oatmeal stout on nitro tap (my personal favorite). The recipe is actually a modified version of the one I made for John's party, with different hops.

The second reason for the APA was a discussion at a CAMRA meeting a couple of months ago. One of the members was talking about mash hoping, a technique where you add hops directly to the mash. This is an excellent way to use old hops, as the technique does not really get extra bitterness out of the hops, but somehow results in greater hop mouthfeel. I really wanted to try this out and had 2 ounces of year old amarillo hops to use.

Brewed: 7/19/2008

Kegged: 8/7/2008

Original Gravity: 1.053

Final Gravity: 1.010

IBU (estimated, due to mash hopping): 48

Alcohol By Volume: 5.5%

Carbonation Volume: 2.7 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer pours an amber color, much like a dark honey. It has a chill haze at lower temperatures that vanishes as the beer warms. It has a nice off-white head, a little craggy due to all of the hops. It has a definite hop smell, more along the lines of an IPA than an APA, but not quite as citrus-heavy.

The beer tastes very hoppy. There is a fullness to the hop flavor that I have not made before, which I attribute to the mash hopping. I really have no idea how this works, but I like the end product. There is a bit of caramel on the back part of the tongue, but it is very subdued. The beer finishes very dry, as we can see with the 1.010 final gravity. This leaves the palate ready for more beer, but when I brew it again, I might increase the caramel malt a bit. The dryness is a bit out of balance and I would like a slight hint more residual sweetness. Overall, I am very happy with the product and will definitely try to brew this one again.

Partner Brewing

2008-08-27T19:56:00.004-05:00

I brewed my Oktoberfest or marzen lager this past Saturday and put a post up about the brew day on our homebrew club (CAMRA) forums. One of the members of CAMRA, Billy, contacted me and stated he wanted to come over to help brew. I must say that this is my favorite part of this hobby. Homebrewing is a very social hobby and people always seem to want to help each other. Friendly chatter and helping hands make a brew day all the more enjoyable.

Billy is a relatively recent, but passionate, homebrewer. He had not seen anyone do an all-batch of beer before and he had lots of questions. It was rather fun to walk him through the process and his questions were insightful and well-thought out. We also had the opportunity to enjoy a homebrew or two and Billy seemed to like both the pale ale and chocolate-hazelnut robust porter that I have on tap.

Thanks for coming over, Billy. Sharing mutual interest in this wonderful hobby is what CAMRA and homebrewing are all about. For more information about CAMRA, see our website at: http://www.cvillebrewing.com/

Chocolate Hazelnut Robust Porter

2008-08-13T18:19:00.003-05:00

This beer came from Jamil Zainasheff's book Brewing Classic Styles. This has become my favorite recipe book and I have had consistent success with the recipes it presents. I brewed this beer for my wife, who loves all things chocolate, because she is so tolerant of my hobby and because I used a good portion of my "marriage capital" when I purchased and built my kegerator. Thanks honey, I hope you like it.

Brewed: 6/7/2008
Kegged: 6/21/2008
Original Gravity: 1.076
Final Gravity: 1.022
Alcohol By Volume: 6.8%
Carbonation Volume: 2.2 (12 psi at 40 degrees F)

The beer features a full 8 oz can of Hersey's baking chocolate, which a friend wisely had me mix in hot wort in a sauce pan, rather than dump directly into the boil. The smell coming off of the brew pot was heavenly, even it if was 95 F outside on the deck when I made the beer. By the end of fermentation, the chocolate had settled to the bottom of the carboy, in a thick dark chocolate sludge. I was briefly tempted to try some, but then thought better of it. The porter had 0.5 oz of hazelnut extract added directly to the keg. The beer should age very well, given its large amount of dark and roasty malts and higher alcohol content.

The beer pours very dark. I mean like looking into a black hole dark. It's head is course and craggy, more like the head you would expect on an IPA, rather than a stout. The head is a dark creamy color, similar to the espresso stout I made last year, but not quite as tan. The head disappears quickly, which might be due to the high fat content in the chocolate. The porter smells of dark chocolate, with a very slight hint of hazelnut. It reminds me a bit of some of the chocolate shops we visited when in Italy, not sweet like Hersey Park's Chocolate World, but something more complex.

The first taste you get is roast. The roast character of the porter is more reminiscent of a stout. I think the robust porter naturally has this flavor, but the dark chocolate contributes to it as well. You get chocolate on the middle of the tongue, but it is more subdued than you would think after the smell. There is a bit of mocha on the back of the tongue, followed by just a hint of hazelnut. If I make the beer again, I will definitely bump the hazelnut extract up, perhaps to 0.75 oz of extract.

Overall, this is a enjoyable beer, but one that is complex enough so that you would probably not have more than a pint at a time. Cheers, honey, and once again I am glad a married a wonderful woman who enjoys beer and supports my exploration of brewing it.

Kegerator Conversion Complete

2008-08-09T16:21:00.005-05:00

I have finished converting my kegerator so that it can use three taps. When I first bought the kegerator, I was amazed to discover that the refrigerator portion could accommodate three 5-gallon corny kegs. However, the draft tower only had one tap on it, which prohibited me from taking full advantage of the keg space. I thought of several different ideas on how to get more taps on the tower, but each idea had problems. The biggest problem is that the tower column is only 2.5" in diameter, which means that the faucet shanks would run into each other if they were anywhere near one another. Add this to the fact that if I drilled additional holes much lower on the tower, I would no longer be able to fit a pint glass under the new faucets.

In the end, I decided on adding additional space at the top of the tower. Here is how it worked:

I saw a cool looking old champagne bucket that had wooden handles and a neat two color metal finish. I found it at a garage sale for $6.00

I drilled a 2.5-inch diameter hole through the bottom of the bucket and its insulation so that it could slide over the draft tower pipe.

I drilled three 1-inch diameter holes through the front of the bucket in a triangle shape, to fit the three shanks and faucet adapters.

I mounted brackets to the bottom of the bucket and angled the brackets up through notches in the bottom bucket hole and attached them to the draft tower. They were spaced so that the bucket slid over the original draft tower hole to make the entire piece look seamless.

The top of the brackets were mounted to the draft tower at the top, using bolts, nuts, and washers, so I did not have to drill a hole in the tower pipe. This would allow me to disassemble the bucket contraption and the original tower would still function (not that I plan on doing this).

I put all the fittings together and poured a pint. This, actually, was after much adjustment and grumbling on my part, and at least one puddle of beer on the floor.

Here you can see my "frankenstein" of draft towers (yes, that is the blade of a sword on the wall . . . don't ask, it is a long story). I think it looks pretty nice and I can say I made it myself. It certainly cost less than a new three tap draft tower would have cost, which is around $300. I probably spent about $150, but that is because I bought two expensive forward-sealing taps. The actual parts, with normal taps, would have been less than $100. Cheers.

Beer Names for Bakers Party

2008-06-24T19:40:00.002-05:00

I finally caved to John's request and named each of the beers for his summer party and family reunion. This is my least favorite thing to do, so I procrastinated writing them all down. However, I wrote a brief statement about each name, so I figured I would share them through the blog:

- Gusty Oats Oatmeal Stout - We brewed the two oatmeal stouts on an extremely windy day in March. It was cold and there were leaves and twigs flying all about. I would not be surprised if there were even oats gusting around that day . . .
- The Bends Oatmeal Stout (Nitro) - You get "the bends" when you come up from diving depth too quickly and nitrogen comes out of solution in your blood stream. This beer can do the same thing, as its wonderful flavors will make you want to deposit it directly into your blood stream via IV.
- Blazing Saddles Hoppy Red Ale - This hoppy red ale will leave you chuckling with its comic blend of smooth malts and jarring hops. We could think of no better tribute to the late Harvey Korman, who did so much to make us all laugh.
- Pissed Black Cat Stout - My neighbor's black cat has never been much of a fan of when I invade its territory on MY deck to brew MY beer. So, it demonstrated its hatred to John by taking a leak on my smoker right next to the brew pot. I can still smell that cat every time I fire the smoker up.
- Steamy Summer California Common - This beer style is more commonly known as steam beer, which is very appropriate, given the steaming sauna of a day we brewed it on. Hopefully, the day of the party will be a little less oppressive, but you can quench your thirst with this beer either way.
- Murphy's Law Dry Irish Stout - A fitting homage to the Baker clan's ancestry. This beer is aptly named because everything that could go wrong during the brewing process did. The beer's ultimate thumb in our faces was that it turned out so good.
- Short On Hops IPA - This india pale ale is anything BUT short on hops. Its name is a reference to the current worldwide hop shortage, which had me substituting three of the four hop varieties in the beer.

Belgian Wit

2008-05-10T15:47:00.002-05:00

I have now made about eight beers using the recipes from Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles book, and I just love it. The recipes turn out fantastic and the book is full of excellent tips. Now, the stats:

Brewed: 4/19/2008

Kegged: 4/30/2008

Original Gravity: 1.056

Final Gravity: 1.011

Alcohol By Volume: 5.8%

Carbonation Volume: 2.7 (15 psi at 40 degrees F)

This was my first 1o-gallon batch, as mentioned in a previous post. I split the batch into two 5 gallon carboys, one of which I fermented normally and the other I racked onto pinot noir soaked oak chips to imitate the style of the Dogfish Head Red and White Ale. I will document the results of that experiment in another post. These tasting notes are for the batch that was fermented normally.

Belgian wits are supposed to be drunk fresh. They are yeasty and very tasty and I am happy with the results of my brewing. The beer appears cloudy and sort of glows a pale yellow-white color when held against a strong light. The wit has a thick pillowy white head that dissipates quickly, but leaves a nice lacing pattern on the glass. It smells strongly of yeast and orange citrus, which is no surprise given that the 10 gallon batch used the fresh zest of three navel oranges. In fact, the smell is one of the things I love most about this beer. The taste has an immediate zing from the coriander that settles into the orange. The carbonation leaves a trail on your tongue, but dissipates quickly. You next taste the yeast, which has a spicy aftertaste that finally settles on a firm smoothness. The beer finishes with a slight lingering sweetness.

I really like how this batch turned out. However, for the next batch I will back off on the coriander slightly, as it is a bit too strong. I also plan on increasing the carbonation a bit, as it could be a slightly stronger. Additionally, a member of our homebrew club recommended I add 1/4 tsp of lactic acid to the beer as I keg it to add a slight sour spritz to the flavor. The cloudy "white" color can also be pronounced by adding a tablespoon of flour wort when it is boiling in the kettle.

Overall, I am very pleased with this beer and how it tastes out of the keg.

Bohemian Pilsner

2008-05-10T15:33:00.004-05:00

I meant to post this a while ago, but this review is timely as this is the very last bottle. Here are the stats:

Brewed: 1/19/2008

Bottled: 3/8/2008

Original Gravity: 1.061

Final Gravity: 1.011

Alcohol By Volume: 6.5%

Lagering Time: 5 weeks

I have been extremely happy with this beer, given that it is the first lager I brewed. The pils is very clear, probably the clearest beer I have ever brewed. It maintains its head for a long time, which is something, as most of my beer has a head that dissipates quickly. It has a clean taste, but with a definite strong hop backbone. In fact, I would say the hops are a bit too much and next time I brew the beer I intend to reduce the total IBUs by at least five. I detect a slight amount of honey in the palate, but not sweet. The finish is very clean and slightly dry.

One other thing I read about is that bohemian pilsners are made with very soft water. This makes the hops stand out a bit less spritzy (I know that is not a word, but it is what came to mind), but makes the flavor softer on the palate. I read that this can be simulated by purchasing cheap deionized water from Walmart or similar store. Substitute 50% of the water used to make the beer with the DI water and it will make the total water used softer, but still drinkable.

This is one I will definitely do again.

April was a Busy Brewing Month . . .

2008-05-09T14:43:00.002-05:00

Ok, I admit it, I have been extremely lax about updating the blog, especially given all of the beer and brewing things I did in April. I keep telling myself that I will get around to posting to the blog, but never seem to make the time to do it. Here is a bulletized recap of the brewing and wine-making activities of the last month or so:

John's Party Brew Day #3 - John and I brewed beer batches #5 and #6 in April, which included a Dry Irish Stout and a Pale Ale. The Dry Irish Stout resulted in a stuck sparge, so it took a LONG time, and we kept missing our temperatures; thus it was nick-named Murphy's Law Irish Stout. However, despite all of that, it tastes great.

First 10-Gallon Batch - I brewed my first 10-gallon batch ever in April. I had borrowed a friends 20-gallon aluminum pot so John and I to make two batches of beer at the same time. While I had it, I figured I would try to brew 10 gallons of Belgian wit, which worked well, but still took longer than expected.

First Brewing Experiment - I divided the 10-gallon batch into two carboys and finished each different. I used the first carboy as a control, allowing it to finish fermenting normally and just following the recipe. I tried to make the second carboy into a clone of Dogfish Head's Red and White beer, which my wife loves. This involved racking the beer onto 2 ounces of oak chips that had soaked in pinot noir wine for a week. It will be neat to try the beer side-by-side to taste how it is different.

Kegerator - I got really lucky on Craig's List and bought a $1,000 kegerator for $150. It is only three years old and is in very good condition. It can hold three homebrew kegs and I am currently working on a method to outfit it with three taps. I am very excited about this project, as I will finally have draft beer at the house.

4th CAMRA Meeting - Our homebrewing club had its fourth monthly meeting and we had about 25 people show up. One of the members led the discussion about the Belgian wit category (very timely, as I had just brewed one and he had lots of good suggestions) and we talked about growing hops and organizing our first homebrew tasting event at the end of May.

I hope to write an individual post about most of these items, but if past performance is any indication, it might not happen for a while. I am especially interested in follow-up posts about the kegerator and the Belgian wit experiment. I also need to do a write up on my bohemian pilsner, as I am down to the last bottle.

Until next time, whenever that may be . . . cheers!

John's Party Brew Day #2

2008-04-06T08:40:00.005-05:00

We did the second big brew day for John's summer party on March 22, 2008. This was another two batch day and we started nice and early. The first beer we brewed was a hoppy red ale from Jamil Zainasheff's book, Brewing Classic Styles. I am very interested to try this beer, as the description sounds wonderful. It should also work really well for John's party, as the its hoppy nature should pair well with the spicy seafood he serves. This beer maxed out the my mash tun, so I had to cut back on the base grain by a pound, as my mash tun can only take a total of 14 pounds. The brew session went very well and we hit all of our numbers.

The second beer we made was an India Pale Ale (IPA), also from Jamil's book. This batch called for four ounces of hops, which made it a bit pricey in during the hop shortage we are currently experiencing. But hey, John bought the ingredients, so I have nothing to complain about. The brewing process went very well and we again hit all of our numbers. The only problem with both of these brews is that the large amount of hops in each one meant that we could transfer less wort to the fermentors, as there was a large amount of hop and break material in the bottom of the kettle. This will mean we make about a six-pack less of each beer, but the beer should be of good quality.

The beer from the previous brew session was still finishing fermenting in my tool room (the coolest room in the house, which makes it ideal for fermenting ales, as it stays in the mid 60s F most of the year). So, this is the first time I have ever had four carboys of beer fermenting in the same room. It made for a cool picture.

John and I finished brewing just before dark, just in time to sample some of the brisket that I had been smoking all day long. The smell had been making our mouths water through out the brew session, and it turned out as good as it smelled. Yum!

Deckbuilder Dunkleweizen

2008-03-24T19:47:00.004-05:00

I brewed this batch of beer for my good friend, Jason, who was a huge help in finishing the deck where I spend most of my brew days. It was a favorite of his wife, Crystal, and I was happy to provide them with a little thank you. The fact that it made three extra bottles that I could keep for myself is just an added bonus.

The beer is a very dark amber with red highlights. It has a decent off-white head that dissipates rather quickly. It smells faintly of banana and some clove, which is a characteristic of the German yeast and the wheat malt. As for taste, I just love this beer. Love, love, love! It is a malt explosion on your tongue. It is not sweet, as there is a definite difference between sweet and malty. There are some biscuity flavors in there, as well as faint hints of toast. The flavor has layers, with malted dry chocolate at the front, followed by the biscuit and toast, then something vaguely like dark honey, and finally the zip of spice that you expect from the German yeast. The beer finishes dry, which makes it very drinkable.

I will need to make some more of this beer soon, lest my wife, who also loves this beer, will send me out to sleep on the deck . . .

John's Party Brew Day #1

2008-03-24T19:32:00.005-05:00

March 15th was the first brew day for the annual John Crab Party, that is held near the 4th of July. Three years ago was the first time I brewed for John's party and it was a whole lot of fun. Each year we have stepped up the number of batches we make for the party until we are maxing out this year - 5 batches for the party (the maximum number of taps John actually has) and 2 batches for his family reunion. It gives me a chance to brew with John, which is fun, and an excuse to make more beer.

The first brew day was a double day, so we started early at around 9:30 am. We made two batches of oatmeal stout, which was the hands-down favorite from last year. John wanted to try one on a nitrogen tap (he is an engineer and the problems presented by nitrogen taps and their finicky nature excite him). It was a beautiful day to be out on the deck, if a little windy. The temperature was in the low 60s and spring is definitely in the air. We finished the first batch mid-afternoon and had the second batch done before dark. We cleaned up just in time for a bowl of my wife's awesome chili and some fresh bread, as well as dinner and a nice evening with some out-of-town guests who were visiting for the weekend.

It was a great brew day.

I NEVER Want to See a Bottle Again!

2008-03-08T16:05:00.005-05:00

I did a marathon bottling session today. That was for three batches - pilsner, dunkleweizen, and blackberry mead - which took six hours. I removed labels from about 70 bottles then sanitized and filled 144 of them. I had delayed bottling the batches for a number of reasons and this was the first chance I got.

I really understand why so many homebrewers want to keg. Why spend six hours cleaning and filling bottles when you can do it in 30 minutes and not even have to wait the two weeks for bottle conditioning. The cost is a bit of an issue (probably at least $150 for the keg, fittings, and the CO2 tank) and then I need to fit it in a refrigerator.

But, it might be looking into though, especially after today . . .

CAMRA Update

2008-03-05T21:03:00.002-05:00

Well, it has been a while since I last posted, but I have big news on our homebrew club. We have decided on a name - Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale (CAMRA). The CRABS name did not work out because there is a group in Maryland that already has that name. We had our second meeting last night and had 23 people come out. The bar where we are meeting was full to standing room only. We are very excited about where this club will go and the interest people have shown in it.

If you want to learn more about CAMRA, head over to our website: http://www.cvillebrewing.com

More information will be forthcoming and I hope to remember to bring my camera to take some pictures next time.

Spiced Winter Ale = Gushy Mess

2008-02-07T07:50:00.000-05:00

As it turned out, my spiced winter ale was a gusher. This beer was my first infected beer in a while. All of the bottles that we drank after a month and a half or so had a slight aftertaste and you could hear the head "sparkle" as you poured it. Further, if you did not serve it cold, very cold, it would gush. The wild yeast must have gotten in there prior to bottling, due to the pervasive nature of the infection (i.e. it was in every bottle). I think it was because I did not cool the wort fast enough to pitch quickly and I did not aerate enough, so my beer yeast got a really slow start.

To clarify what infection means if you are not familiar with it in a brewing sense, wild strains of yeast or other microbes get into your beer. Because beer is acidic and alcoholic, no pathogens (stuff that can really hurt you) live in beer. However, infections usually have off flavors that can make the beer almost undrinkable. In extreme cases, they make the beer smell and taste like newly opened band-aids or old socks. They also ferment sugars that normal beer yeast cannot, which super-carbonates the beer and makes it gush. This makes a mess and can lead to "bottle bombs." In the case of the spiced winter ale, the off-flavor was minimal, but you could taste it. The real issue was the gushing nature of it.

So, for next time, I have to make sure I cool the wort quicker and aerate more. I got an aeration kit from Northern Brewer, which should help. I also learned how to link my wort chiller into an ice bath using a cheap pond pump, as shown on the latest Basic Brewing DVD. I think these things will really help.

Bohemian Pilsner

2008-01-21T20:56:00.001-05:00

Well, I have begun the new year with my first lager-style fermentation. I have never "successfully" done a lager before. My one previous attempt was to make a marzen (or Oktoberfest, as it is more commonly known) when I had no idea that you needed fermentation temperature control. The beer never really fermented, and the resulting beer, which really was more of a wort, was consumed by a friend who helped make the beer and felt guilty that it did not work out alright. It was in no way Sam's fault, as I really had no idea what I was doing.

I bought a temperature controller with some of my Christmas money and hooked it up to my beer fridge. This controller is basically a thermostat that you plug your fridge into and then the thermostat cuts the power on and off. This allows me to set the fermentation temperature to around 50 degrees, which is important to minimize dactyl (butterscotch flavor) production in lager and pilsner-style beer.

Also new to my beer process this year is active aeration using an aquarium pump and stainless steel airstone and my home made stir plate for yeast starters. The aeration really helps fermentation start faster and minimize wild yeast propagation. The yeast starter does the same thing by increasing the amount of active yeast you pitch into the wort. More on the stir plate, which was built out of a cigar box and spare computer parts, in anther post.

One of the other complicating factors in fermenting a lager or pilsner is that it takes about a week to 10 days to ferment and then another 4 weeks to "lager" in the fridge. So, we will see how it goes. Stay tuned for more information . . .

First Homebrew Club Meeting

2008-01-13T20:40:00.001-05:00

Jamey, Christopher and I have been meeting a couple times a month for the past several of months to get our concept of a homebrew club ready. Well, now the invitation has gone out to a bunch of our friends and other people we think might be interested in brewing. The first meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 5th at 6:30pm at Court Square Tavern. The response has been favorable so far, and we expect more than 10 people to come out and join us.

The goal, at first, is to have meetings on the first Tuesday of each month to provide a social gathering of people who enjoy homebrewing beer, with the longer term idea of providing speakers, tastings, and other similar events of interest. We may also organize informal gatherings to go to breweries and maybe even go to the American Homebrewing Association Conference in Cincinnati (I am now an AHA Member - a Christmas present from my in-laws - thank you!).

Stay tuned for more details and check out our club's website and forums at:

http://www.cvillebrewing.com/

Get spicey!

2007-12-06T20:24:00.000-05:00

The spiced winter ale we made during Teach a Friend to Brew day is finally ready. I like it. It is very subtle, more subtle than hops, but a great flavor all the same. The spice smell is there too, though less than just after the boil when it filled the room.

This beer clearly showed me that serving temperature impacts the taste and smell a great deal. If you drink the beer when it first comes out of the fridge, there is no spice taste and smell. But, if you let it warm up a bit, maybe 50 degrees F, the taste and smell are great. I gave a couple of bottles away to friends and told them to drink it a bit warmer and they looked at me strange. However, they later thanked me and said it made a big difference.

Cheers to all who helped brew this great winter beer!

Maui Madness -- What a cool head!

2007-11-19T20:20:00.000-05:00

Well, the coffee stout is ready and it came out very tasty. Most surprising of all was the foam of the head -- it is the color of chocolate milk. Very cool. I have never had the foam on my beer appear anything but light tan, but this looks great. Also, surprisingly, the beer tastes of dark unsweetened chocolate. The coffee flavor is there, but very balanced. I was not expecting the chocolate and dark fruit flavor at all. I am very happy with it.

The beer was definitely worth going to Hawaii to get the raw ingredients! Now, how to get my wife to agree to go back to get more . . .

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day

2007-11-08T21:29:00.000-05:00

Well, this past Saturday (November 3), was the American Homebrewers Association's Teach a Friend to Homebrew day. I invited a number of friends over and registered our house as Site #82 on the AHA site. The day was absolutely beautiful, a nice crisp fall day with temperatures in the mid 60s. It proved an excellent opportunity to break the deck in with its first "multi-person" brew day. As a side note, the deck is not complete yet and people had to get on it by using a chair, but it looks nice and is already very functional.

Three friends of mine were able to make it out (Sid, Bryan, and John), along with my In-laws, wife, son, and daughter. My In-laws were in town for a completely unrelated reason and my son and daughter always help out in a matter of course (or as much as a 4 year old and a 2 year old can). So, we can count the number of brewers as 8, WOOT!

We brewed a spiced winter ale as our collective brew. One of the tasks the participants were charged with was coming up with a name for the beer. I, of course, reserved the right to veto any names that were deemed unoriginal enough (such as "Bryan, Sid, and John Ale," which actually was suggested). The winning name was "Slap the Bag Ale," named after a rather amusing drinking story shared by Bryan. I shall not recite it here, so I do not embarrass Bryan further, but it was rather funny.

The brew day ended with a cook out of sausages and grilled eggplant. You can see the fixin's behind John as he pitches the yeast into the cooled wort. I hope everyone had a good time and learned something.

Now, hopefully the beer is as good as the story behind its name . . .

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - Nov 3

2007-11-01T11:41:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like I will have a couple people out to the house on Saturday for Teach a Friend to Homebrew day. The weather looks like it will be a nice crisp Fall day, perfect to make some beer with friends. I decided on a Spiced Winter Ale to make, because winter is coming fast and I just listened to a Jamil Show podcast about that style. So, here is the recipe, which was taken from Jamil's show.

Spiced Winter Ale

Ingredients:
- 13 lbs British Pale Ale Malt (original recipe calls for 19.5 lbs)
- 0.75 lbs Crystal 80 Malt
- 0.25 lbs Black Patent Malt
- 1 oz Horizon hop pellets (ended up using Progress hop pellets due to hop shortages)
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Ginger
- 1/8 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp All Spice
- London Ale Yeast
- Bottling Sugar

Stats:
- O.G. - Unknown (original was 1.090)
- F.G. - 1.022
- IBU - 45
- Color
- 19 SRM (approximate because I changed the amount of Pale Malt)
- Alcohol - 6.5% (original was 9%)

Instructions:
- Mash at 152 F for an hour using 1 quart per lb of grain.
- Sparge at 170 F until you have 6.5 gallons of wort.
- Boil for 90 min.
- Add hops 60 min from flame out.
- Add spices 1 min before flame out.
- Ferment at 68 F in primary and rack to secondary when mostly complete.
- Taste beer when racking from primary to secondary and adjust spice flavor if necessary with appropriate spice slurry.
- Add bottling sugar and bottle.
- Wait three weeks for bottle conditioning and enjoy.

Maui Madness

2007-10-23T12:08:00.000-05:00

I bottled my espresso stout this past weekend and it is shaping up to be a really nice beer. I am calling it Maui Madness, as the coffee beans are from my wife and my anniversary trip to Hawaii. The stout has a nice coffee flavor and well rounded bitterness from the unmalted barley. The coffee should be prevalent, as there are 10 shots of espresso that were added to the secondary fermenter. It almost has a dark chocolate flavor that I hope will carry over to the finished beer. I will try to take a picture of a glass of it, once it is ready, and post it. The color was really nice and I hope the head carries some of the rich brown of the beer.

It should be ready in about two to three weeks . . . I can't wait!

Change is in the air . . .

2007-10-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

I am taking a new job, one that does not involve travel! Yay for me!

I hope this opportunity will allow me to spend more time with my family and my hobbies . . . namely making fermentable beverages. I have neglected this blog for too long, and I hope to keep up with it more in the coming months.

Things of note I hope to post on in the near future:
- Update on the blackberry mead (racked it on 10-6-07 and it is looking good)
- Latest brew - Maui Madness Espresso Stout (brewed on 10-6-07)
- Teach a Friend How to Homebrew Day plans - 11-3-07
- Update on CRABS

Blackberry Mead . . . The Madness Has Begun

2007-07-26T08:28:00.000-05:00

I started the blackberry mead two days ago. In the process of making it, I think I forgot just about everything I have learned in 7 years of making beer and wine. The following are the key things I foolishly forgot:

Time. For some silly reason, I forgot that brewing always takes a LOT longer than you think it does. The mead recipe I was using was pretty simple. Boil 20 pounds of honey for 15 minutes, then pull off the burner. Toss in the blackberries for 15 minutes to pasteurize them. Add to the primary fermenter, cool, and pitch your yeast. I allotted 90 minutes for this process and had something to do at the end of that period. Boy, I was wrong. It took a LOT longer and I ended up trying to rush things, which is never good.

Follow the recipe. The recipe called for boiling one gallon of water with the 20 pounds of honey. I thought, that is too little, so I made it two gallons. This meant that things took longer to boil. It also meant that my brewpot was overflowing when all the honey was added to the pot and I had a boil over. It also meant that I had to pasteurize the blackberries in the primary fermenter because there was no more room in the brew pot. Thus, I had to pour boiling hot honey-water through a funnel . . . more on that later.

Test your equipment, FIRST. This was the first time I used a new large funnel I purchased while visiting my brother. The funnel is supposed to prevent splashing, but I did not test it. Well, the funnel actually splashes more, it seems, especially with HOT liquids. My wife was holding the funnel when it "burped" and honey water splashed all over her arm and burned her. I felt really bad about that. Plus, it spilled onto the floor and honey water is incredibly sticky. What a mess . . .

Cool Concentrated Liquids. Given that I could not pasteurize the blackberries in the brew pot because I added too much water, I could not cool the brew pot before putting in the glass fermenter. This meant that even after topping off the carboy with cold water, the honey water was much to hot to pitch the yeast. In fact, I ended up having to let the mead sit over night before adding my yeast, as it would not cool down. I pitched the first thing the next morning, and now it is bubbling away happily, but I obviously wanted to pitch sooner.

With all the crazy things that happened during the brew day, I am tempted to name this one "Black Madness." However, the mead is fermenting fine now and has a beautiful color. We will see how it turns out, as this mead will need to age for nine months to a year before drinking. Hopefully, I will be out of the dog house by then, having burned my wife's arm while she was trying to help.

But then again, as often as I put myself in the dog house, I doubt it . . .

"HI," How are you?

2007-07-26T08:23:00.000-05:00

My wife and I are going to be headed to Hawaii soon for our 10 year wedding anniversary. We will be spending time both on Maui and near Honolulu. Besides using this trip to relax, re-energize, and spend quality time with my wife, I hope to find GREAT Hawaiian beer! I will be sure to report any findings on this subject for the benefit of the rest of you.

Hopefully, I can sample some beer and come up with a homebrewing method to reproduce it. If not, perhaps some stranger ideas may ferment in my head. I am already coming up with some homebrewing ideas on the subject, such as a nice espresso porter, brewed with kona coffee beans. Or perhaps a pineapple wheat wine. We shall see . . .

I may have CRABS . . .

2007-07-18T14:01:00.000-05:00

Well, we are trying to organize. The beer establishment has got us down and we want our voices heard! We want quality beer, decent prices, good advice, and good wages . . . well, who does not want good wages. So, it is time to organize a local homebrewing club.

My friend Jamey and I have been talking about starting a homebrewing club in the Charlottesville area for a while now. The last time I went digging for one, I found some references to a club called "The Back Door Brewers" on several homebrewing sites. I sent an email to the address listed and got a quick response back saying the club was no longer meeting. Basically, they wished they had not been listed on the brewing sites because the organizer still gets emails about it years after the club disbanded.

This gives me hope . . . as there may be other people interested in homebrewing in Charlottesville and we just have to find them. I am hopeful that with a simple website and some meetings at local pubs, we might find a cool group of people that like to make beer, have fun, and exchange ideas. Thus, the Charlottesville Radical Ale Brewing Society (CRABS) will soon be born.

So, I fired the idea off to my art-talented brother, who, while pursuing a career in engineering, is still an awesome artist. I was expecting some general ideas, but he sent back several draft designs within an hour. I have included a couple of them here. I thought he just modified some things he found on the web, but no, he just free-hand designed them using Illustrator. Simply amazing!

The overall winner of the logos was this one. It is my favorite and is based off of one of my brother's hobbies, geocaching (http://www.geocaching.com/). He had a travel bug called Steamey the Crab and liked how it looked. Thus, the CRABS mascot will be "Steamey" as well. He even drew an anchor tattoo on Steamey's claw. Simply great.

I hope to have more information about CRABS soon, as several of us are meeting next week to start the group off. What better way to do it than meeting at a local brewpub to sample cask-conditioned ales . . . Yum!

7th of July Party

2007-07-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

My friend hosts an annual crab and clam party every year on the first Saturday after the 4th of July. I have attended several events and it is always a good time. Then, starting in 2006, my friend found an old coke dispensing fountain in a friend's attic and was surprised to find it still worked. The machine takes room temperature liquid (think old-fashioned kegged soda) and quickly super-chills it and dispenses it from one of five taps. My friend's immediate thought, now I can request some Wallace homebrew to serve at the party.

So, in 2006 we tried the system out. My friend found some 5-gallon corny kegs on sale cheap on eBay and together we brewed a red ale and an English pale ale. Both recipes were extract-based. Then we hooked them up to the coke machine and started fiddling with carbonation. Several problems became evident. Unlike bars and most homebrew kegging systems which keep their kegs at serving temperature, the coke machine takes room temperature beer and super-chills it. Given that gases dissolve in liquid at different rates for different temperatures, this proved to be problematic. We eventually got it right, after drinking half a keg of beer over a month or so, and things were great. The party went off well and people liked the beer, especially the English pale ale.

So, 2007 rolls around and my friend wants to up the ante. This year we made four kegs of beer (that's right, 20 gallons). We kept the English pale ale from last year, and added a West Coast pale ale for comparison. I also suggested two of my favorite recipes, a clone of Samuel Smith's oatmeal stout and a smoke amber ale. Again, we had the same problems of adjusting the CO2, or that was my friend excuse for drinking a third of the smoke amber (I am pretty sure that was his favorite, so I don't buy the excuse for a second). An impromptu survey conducted of party beer drinkers revealed the following facts/opinions:

1) The oatmeal stout was great, which surprised many people because it is a dark beer on a hot day. This was my favorite of the bunch, and the first keg to be drained completely.

2) People thought the smoked amber was very different, but really liked it, and several were surprised at how quickly the keg drained (it was finished second, most likely due to my friends CO2 "tests").

3) People rated the West Coast pale ale much higher than I thought they would. The beer, while clean tasting, seemed a bit plain to me. But, several people said the hops cut through the Old Bay seasoning on the crabs very well, which made it an ideal complement to the meal.

4) The English pale ale was enjoyed too, but it seemed the least favorite of the homebrews.

In addition, my friend bought a bunch of bottles of Amstel Light and dumped them into a keg and pressurized it. This was the last tap of the coke machine. Not surprisingly, this was the only beer left at the end of the party, with the English pale ale keg draining just after the fireworks show. My friends comment, "Next year I will tell those light beer drinking friends to bring their own and WE will brew another beer; one that has TASTE."

I look forward to it . . .

Dark and Wheaty with a Nutty Aftertaste . . .

2007-07-03T08:45:00.000-05:00

I bottled the dunkleweizen last night, with the help of my lovely wife. It looks and tastes great, with a dark malty flavor and a nutty aftertaste (perhaps of almonds). I am very excited to see how it turns out. If it holds up to the carbonation process, the beer should be quite good.

Last night marked the first time we used my new "auto siphon." This is a neat device that is basically two racking tubes inside each other. The inner one is fitted with a gasket and you and pull it in and out like a syringe. You submerse the whole siphon in water then draw the inner tube up and out. Then you push the inner tube down and the pressure from this action pushes the liquid up and out the middle racking tube and, PRESTO, you have a siphon (works very similar to a syringe). It as the easiest thing in the world and I did not have to try to start the siphon by mouth, which is always dicey and may not be totally "germ-free" (though I have heard of some who "rinse" their mouths with scotch or vodka before starting the siphon. If that is not an excuse to drink booze, I have never heard one). You can find out more about the auto siphon here on the Northern Brewer site (http://www.northernbrewer.com/siphon.html). Just scroll part way down to the Fermatech Auto Siphon entry.

Grow Your Own Hops

2007-06-20T11:10:00.000-05:00

This year I took advantage of the Northern Brewer sale on hop rhizomes and planted some hops. Northern Brewer had a nice selection of hop roots (rhizomes) and the only requirement was that you had to buy at least two. I ordered a cascade rhizome and a fuggle rhizome. Cascade is one of my favorite all-purpose bittering and flavoring hops and fuggle was, well . . . something else. Fuggle is an English flavoring hop and I make English ales from time to time, plus I needed to order a second rhizome and voila, I picked fuggle. Yes, the silly name had something to do with it . . .

So, the rhizomes are shipped to your mailing address about the time your area gets its last frost. Once the last frost is gone, you are supposed to dig two to three foot holes and fill them with a good mixture of well drained soil (I used equal parts top soil, potting soil, and peat moss). You then put the root stock in the ground, vertically, about two inches below the top of the soil. I planted mine in early May and hoped for the best.

Both hop plants have come up fairly well, with the cascade doing a little better than the fuggle (cascade is on the left, fuggle on the right). The first year the plants don't grow to full size or at full speed, as they are establishing their root system. But because they are sending out shoots, I decided to put up my hop trellis last weekend. Hop plants are vines and will grow up to 20 feet up a structure (trellis, tree, house, pole, etc.) in a season, if they are able to. So, you need to create some kind of structure to hold them, or else they don't go anywhere. The higher the better, in general, but the structure has to be able to hold a fair amount of weight, as the hops vines get fairly heavy before they produce their flower cones. You also need to be able to get the hop vines down to the ground in order to pick the flowers, so most designs use string that you can replace every year (the hop plant dies back to its roots every winter).

My trellis is based on my friend Jamie's "ghetto" design. It is not pretty, nor is it extremely tall, but it works well for him and can be easily constructed. The design is basically a 12 foot tall pressure treated 4x4 post, which is then crossed by a 2x4 board on top. I notched the top of my post to provide extra strength and then put screws to hold strings along the cross bar. I sank the post two feet into the ground for extra support and thus it is only 10 feet tall. But it should do for my needs and I can still reach the top on a normal sized ladder (very important because we live on a slope).

Only time will tell how well this experiment will work, but I am excited to potentially brew with my home-grown hops.

2007-06-15T07:22:00.000-05:00

I racked the NoopleTucker into the secondary fermenter last night. I use a clean and sanitized 5 gallon glass carboy as my secondary fermentor. I try to do secondary fermentation on most of the beers I make. Secondary fermentation simply means that you siphon (or rack) the beer off of the lees (yeast sediment) at the bottom of the primary fermenter. This is an important step for two reasons:

The first reason is that over time, the lees begin to decompose. This occurs because the lees consist mostly of dead yeast cells and cold break protein compounds. The decomposition can add to off-flavors in some beer styles. So, racking the beer into a secondary fermenter buys you time if you can't bottle your beer right away (you can leave your beer in secondary for a couple of weeks). As I often travel for work, I will take any time flexibility that I can get. Because of this extra time, most people recommend that you use a glass vessel as your secondary fermenter, as plastic allows some oxygen transfer over time and can oxidize your beer.
The second reason is that it helps the beer to clear better. Basically, when you move the primary fermenter around, some of the lees gets stirred up into suspension. This gets transferred to your secondary fermenter, where it again has a chance to settle out. If you were to bottle straight from the primary fermenter, you would be more likely to pick up sediment that goes into your bottles.

The NoopleTucker tasted very good for this point in the fermentation. I could still taste some yeast, but because this is a wheat beer, that is almost a good thing. I detected no off-flavors (so far) and the beer had a nice smooth nuttiness to it. I was not expecting this last element at all, but it tastes great. The beer as a nice dark brown color to it, almost mahogany. I am very excited about this beer. I will keep you posted.

NoopleTucker Dunkelweizen

2007-06-12T11:20:00.000-05:00

On Saturday 6/7/07, I started a batch of German dark wheat beer. The style is called a dunkleweizen and was my favorite German beer from my trip to Heidelburg a couple of years ago. I had no idea what went into the beer until I was reading through The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, by Charlie Papazian. This is book is the textbook of homebrewing, and if you have not read it, I suggest you pick up a copy. This is true regardless of your experience level. He explains things very well.

Here is the NoopleTucker Dunkelweizen recipe from the book (all grain), modified by me to fit the grain available from Northern Brewer, http://www.northernbrewer.com (my favorite web-brew store):

- 4 lbs Pale 2 row malt (#G001C)

- 3 lbs Durst Munich malt (#G303C)

- 3 lbs Weyer dark wheat malt (#G353C)

- 2 oz Weyer Carafa II malt, smallest you can order is a lb (G357C)

- 1 lb rice hulls (#G011)

- 1 oz hallertauer hop pellets (#HP07)

- 1 Whirlfloc tablet (Irish moss)

- 1 package Wyeast Bavarian Wheat Blend (#Y3056)

I always buy my grains crushed from Northern Brewer, as I don't have a grain mill. I also added the rice hulls to the recipe to help prevent a stuck sparge, which can happen with that much wheat malt.

Here is a list of steps that I took, and some pictures of the actual brew day:

1) I measured out 3 gallons of water to be used for the mash, then heated it in my brew pot. The standard ratio is 1 quart of water for 1 lb of grain, but I have found that is too little water for my system so I add a half a gallon to the calculation. I heated the water to 175 degrees F, which is my strike temperature. Strike temperature is simply the temperature that the water needs to be that when it is added to the room temperature grains, it results in your mash temperature. The recipe calls for a mash temperature of 152 degrees F, so I used a handy web calculator http://www.tastybrew.com/) that resulted in the 165 degrees, and I have found that I have to add 8 to 1o degrees to this because my system absorbs a fair amount of heat (trial and error, gotta love it).

2) I poured this water into my mash tun. Then, as I slowly added the grain to the water, my wife stirred it well. Once everything was added (including the 2 oz of carafa malt), we checked the temperature, which was 151.7 degrees F - close enough for government work. I then screwed on the top of the mash tun and waited for an hour. During this time, the enzymes in the malted grains convert the starches to sugars. In fact, at the end of this process, if you taste some of the water, it tastes really sweet. This still amazes me!

3) While we waited in an hour, I heated 5 gallons of water to 170 degrees F. This is my sparge water, that will run through the sparge arm gadget I have. I heat 5 gallons because that is all my water cooler will hold, and we don't always use it all (better to have more, than not enough). This was put in the sparge water tank, which is the highest of the three tiers (sits up on a stool, which is on top of a table - very safe, huh).

4) Once the hour has elapsed we begin to vaurloff. I am not even sure if that is how you spell it, but it is a German word that means the first runnings out of your mash tun will have a bunch of bits of grain hull and stuff it in. To digress for a bit, the husks and bits of grain in the mash tun are suspended in water. As that water drains out, they form a sort of natural filter bed, on top of the false bottom in my mash tun (the stainless steel screen). This in turn helps clarify the water as it flows through the grain bed. So, we collect the first couple of cups of liquid out of the mash tun and then pour them back on top of the grain bed. We do this until the liquid coming out is clear, which take about 4 to 8 cups or so. This is called vaurloffing.

5) Next, we begin to sparge. All this means is that we are washing the sticky sugars that formed during the mash off the bits of grain. We do this by adding 170 degree water very slowly to the grain bed. We use 170 degree water because you want it as hot as possible, but any hotter than that will extract bitter compounds from the grain husks. I use a neat gadget called a sparge arm for this process (it was described in the last post). Basically, we use the ball valves on the mash tun and the sparge water tank to control the flow in and out of the mash tun. We want the equilibrium between these amounts to keep about an inch of water on top of the grains. I do this by just adjusting each one a little bit until I like the how it works. The water coming out of the mash tun goes into the brew pot. We sparge until we have our 7 gallons of wort (sugar water that has not been fermented), or the specific gravity reading from the sparge water coming out of the mash tun falls below 1.010. When if falls below this point, the sparge water starts to pull out bitter off flavors from the grain. In this particular brew day, I got the full 7 gallons - YAY! This is not always the case.

6) I now began the boil. This recipe calls for a 60 min boil, with 3/4 oz of the hops being added at the beginning of the boil, and the rest added at 58 min to give the beer aroma (more on hop usage another time). I add my hops in small muslin grain bags, as this helps keep the pellets from going everywhere and makes clean up easier. I also added a whirlfloc tablet at 50 min, to help clarify the beer later. We have about 6 gallons of beer at this point, as a gallon of water evaporated during the boil.

7) I then took the boiled wart and put it in an ice bath and hooked up the non-contact cooler. The goal here is to bring the temperature of the wart down to 75 degrees as fast as possible. We put the pot in an ice water bath then use tap water flowing through the non-contact cooler to cool the center of the pot. In about 15 min we had the wart cooled down to 77 degrees, which is close enough.

8) I now pour the wart through a strainer into a sanitized bucket (more on sanitization another time). This strains out some cold break material and any loose hops. I stir the wart like crazy to add oxygen to the liquid. Yeast need oxygen at the beginning of their life cycle to reproduce. The more you oxygenate, to a point, the quicker fermentation starts and you avoid infections.

9) Finally, I siphoned (technically called racking) the wart into a sanitized 6.5 gallon carboy and pitched the yeast. I then attached an airlock and put the carboy into a cool closet in the basement. I also wrapped a towel around it so that it would stay absolutely dark (light = skunky beer).

In the next post, I will talk about how this beer fermented and the next steps towards creating excellent beer.

Brewery Equipment

2007-06-11T11:56:00.000-05:00

I figured I would start off by providing a quick tour of my basic brewing equipment. These pictures were all taken before the start of my last brew day (6/7/07).

I use a basic three tier all grain setup. The three tiers include a sparge water tank, the mash tun, and the brew pot. The sparge water tank and the mash tun are converted 5 gallon rubbermaid water coolers. I replaced the plastic push valves on each with stainless steel ball valves. The mash tun also has a stainless steel false bottom, so it can also function as my lauter tun. The coolers are connected by thick heat-resistant tubing.

My brewpot is a 7.5 gallon stainless steel turkey-fryer pot. Basically, I bought an manufacturer-returned turkey fryer from ebay. The equipment had never been used, but it was returned because it was missing some accessories. This allowed me to get a nice 7.5 gallon stainless steel pot and accompanying propane burner and stand for less than a new 5 gallon brew pot would have cost me. I have been very happy with the set up and it allows my wife to help for the first time in my brewing career (the smell of cooking hops in the kitchen gives her a head-ache, but out on the front porch, the smell does not bother her. It is exciting, really, to have her excited about brew days!).

The sparge arm setup is something I bought at a homebrew shop. It is a neat little gizmo that consists of a copper "T" suspended from a PVC tripod. The water comes down the the main section and out the arms of the "T." Because the drilled holes in the arms of the "T" radiate in opposite directions, the arm spins around like a sprinkler. Really quite an neat invention.

I use a non-contract copper cooler, along with a water bath, to quickly cool the wort. Cooling it quickly helps ensure that cold break proteins form and fall out of the wort, in addition to shortening the amount of time required before pitching your yeast. This is a crucial stage, as before the yeast gets going, there is a strong potential to get an infection in your beer.

My typical brew day takes about 5 hours and consists of the following steps:

Heat the mash water outside in the brew kettle (typically around 3 gallons)
Mash the grain with the mash water in the mash tun
Heat the sparge water and put it in the sparge water tank (typically around 5 gallons)
Vaurloff the first 8 to 12 cups of drainage from the mash tun (you basically drain a couple of cups full of mash water into a measuring cup, then pour it back over the top of the grains. This allows you to clarify the grain bed.)
Sparge with the sparge arm, while draining the water through the grains (this yields a total of about 7 gallons of wort)
Boil the wort, adding hops and other additives as called for by the recipe
Chill the wort quickly using a water bath and a non-contact copper cooler
Pour the wort through a strainer into a large bucket
Stir heavily to introduce oxygen for the yeast and rack into a 6.5 glass carboy
Pitch the yeast and hide in a closet

So, why a blog . . .

2007-06-11T10:42:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine asked me if I could provide him with some information about my homebrewery. So, on my last brew day (7/9/2007 - dunkleweizen), I snapped a bunch of pictures and began to draft an email response. Then suddenly I thought, "perhaps I could turn this into a blog." Well, to be honest, my wife planted the idea in my head. She already has a blog about our two kids and has a ton of fun with it. Like many of the things in my life, this idea was either conceived or heavily supported by my wife.

So, over the next several posts, I will try to show off my home brewery through the pictures and supporting text of my last brew day. Then, I will try to post every once in a while about the different things I am doing and maybe even some pictures of us enjoying the fruits of our labors. I hope you enjoy!