Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - 2009

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/).

"Double Down" Scottish 80/~ Ale

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 . . .

Partner Brewing

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/

John's Party Brew Day #2

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!

John's Party Brew Day #1

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.