Hoppy Holiday Hefeweizen

Brewing in Squirrel's red-neck backyard an all-grain hefe beer based on a Paulaner recipe. The all-grain ghetto setup is totally rad; no $1000 brew-tree required. With a turkey-fryer and a small gas stove he is able to rig a totally functional system. The process is long and fun; he started early this morning and now, at 2 in the afternoon the wort is happily boiling away. One of the slickest work-arounds is the wort chiller. A flexible hose comes from the valve UNDER the sink and attaches to an on/off valve on the end of the copper tubing. This bypasses the awkward connection between copper tube and sink faucet. This is real brewing, no fuckin' around (in reference to the NFA stout I am totally enjoying).

The basics: Mash 14 lbs grains -
7.25 wheat grains,
6.75 Belgian 2-row pale malt,
6 oz German Munich Malt
Hold at 152 degrees for two hours
transfer and let settle to insulated lauter tun for a half-hour
sparge approximately 5 gallons H20 at 175 degrees
- transfer small batches to brew kettle
Begin boil!
Upon boil - hop bill 1.5 oz Columbus (14% alpha acid!) 1.5 oz Hallertau
90 minute boil, enter the wort chiller and 1 teaspoon Irish Moss 5 minutes
Everything is sanitized form this point on!
Activate the wort chiller, bring to 80 degrees (about 30 minutes).
Strain into the fermenter (bucket), yielding 5 gallons.
Yeast is hefe tube yeast made into a starter with wheat DME.
(3 tbs Wheat DME + 1 cup water, fermented 2 weeks ago then refridgerated)

O.G. 1.060 (8% potential)
F.G. _____

Barrel Beers

A week ago I attended the Bistro's Inaugural Barrel-Aged Beer Festival. There were beers aged in barrels formerly containing whiskey, bourbon, madeira, wine, you name it. And there were about 50 of them. Some brewers there, including Roger from Drake's. He keeps talking to me about opening a brewpub in Oakland. Apparantly there are a few others already in the works.

It's like that old saying in Texas, well I know it's in Texas, but probably Tennessee too... fool me once, shame on...shame on me...fool me won't be fooled again.

Wait, not that saying, the other one. I think pops said it, that if I've come up with an idea, someone else has already thought of it, and is probably doing something about it.

I digress. The tasting was great, tasted 13 beers, reanging from sticky sweet, puckery sour, sherry flavored, woody vanilla, stouty, hoppy, malty. So many different flavors, unrefutable evidence that beer is not a one-note tune.

The Winners:
Pizza Port Old(er) Viscosity Strong Ale. Best in show, a barley-wine styled sweet beer.
Glacier Brew House Ukrainian Imperial Stout. People's choice, a tasty toasted stout.

Orphan Ale 2006

Based on a clone of Anchor Liberty, today brews a quickie before Thanksgiving NINE days away.

Last night I created a starter for the first time: 1/3 cup light dry etxract and 2 cascade gop pellets boiled in 2 cups water (over-flowed briefly, of course). Cooled, added to an empty double-duece bottle. Pitch yeast, add airlock, leave out overnight. This morning, a nice head inside the bottle tells me to go ahead. Now for the beer!

Steeped 12 oz or so 60L Crystal malts for a half hour @ 150 deg., then mini-sparged with a whole gallon of the same temp. Measured out 3 lbs. dry malt extract, realized that it takes a hell of a lot of that shit to make up 4 lbs. Had to get the last pound by itself. Added that plus about 5 lbs AMerican light extract. 2.5 oz Northern Brewer hop pellets and we're off and boiling for 45 minutes.

Pee Money is here to assist me, stirring the beer with a ladel and stirring my mind with a low-pitched "Eyesore." HUH?!?!
http://pee-money.blogspot.com/2006/04/eyesore.html

After that 45 minutes, .5 oz Northern Brewer Hops and .75 oz. Cascade go in for flavor. 1 tsp of Irish Moss for Clarity. 14 minutes on the boil. Time to start sanitizing.

.5 oz each of the 2 varieties for one minute, then on to the wort chiller. 20 minutes later, ready for the carboy.

Looks pretty cloudy after all the straining. Even if I had a finer mesh strainer it seems like it would take forever to get through all that gunk.

One screw up at the end, may lead to contamination. Pitching my starter I failed to realize that there was more volume than I was used to. No more room in the tank since I filled it to the bottom of the neck! Ended up dumping some out then adding some back in, a brewer's no-no. Oh well, we shall see.

O.S.G. 1.038
F.S.G. 1.021

The beers of Krypton

Finally my friend SUPERMOM brought me beers of her father. I can only assume that they were crafted on crystal mountains of the planet Krypton. First up is his Belgian-style ale. As you can see by the pic it looks like beer. I poured it straight into my favorite tasting glass, a stemmed Michelob glass SQUIRREL picked up for me at a garage sale a year or so ago. A nice amber color, the beer produced a nice head in the glass that, unfortunately, quickly dissapated. Larger bubbles quickly formed on the sides, but within 8 minutes or so they were also gone. Tiny bubbles continue to cascade up the middle of the glass even now as I write. The flavor is REAL nice, a great Belgian sweetness without puckery sourness. It lingers on, and is complex throughout, if not a bit too sweet. I would have liked some more lingering carbonation. Perhaps it just needs more time in the bottle to mature. It's probably pretty young.

Next, the stout, Which SUPERMOM says is even better. Well, the head retention is a bit better, with the nice light brown bubbles clinging to the side of the glass as I imbibe. The flavor is good, very toasty to the point of burnt. The carbonation is nice, not too much or little. The finish is short, I'd like that toasty quality to continue on longer. Nice showing, all in all.

Unbeer Post

Superman Vs. Batman - video powered by Metacafe

This has nothing to do with beer, but c'mon, it's some funny nerd shit. I love funny nerd shit.

Canadian Rejuvenation

Nothing like that annual trip to build up wonderful, new expectations and challenges in this life. Nothing like returning to work after 2 weeks off to crush that spirit into a pulp that you can't make beer with. Yesterday I allowed myself ONE DAY of post-trip
depression. That's all I am allowed. Now, after four straight days of challenging work and one day of sitting on my ass, I will renew my quest in becoming a stellar self-taught brewer. Got to start somewhere. Since I am still feeling hog-tied to work, I need to re-structure my away from work life. I have a plan to re-arrange my apartment to allow for a brew tree. After I attempt to run a marathon this Sunday, I will come home and pour myself a tall, cold, Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ale (more on that in a future post) and plan baby steps for my overhaul.

Holy Matrimoniale, Batman!

Familiar recipe:

8 oz each for 1/2 hour steeping in a gallon of O-Town H2O at 160 degrees:

Munich malt
Caramunich malt
40L Crystal malt

Sparge grains with a gallon of 150 degree water.

Bring to a boil in brew kettle, add the sweets:

4.5 lbs british light extract
4.8 lbs light dried extract (a bit more!)
1 lb left over extract from who knows what
2 oz malto dextrin (4 oz short!)
2 1/2 oz centennial hops (a bit more)

Bring it up to 2.5 gallon marker, boil for 45 minutes.

Add flavor hops:

scant 1 oz East Kent Goldings (more!)
1/4 oz Cascade (more!)
1 tsp Irish Moss

Boil for 12 more minutes. Add:

1 1/2 oz Cascade (more!)
Wort chiller to sanitize

Turn off heat.

Chill the wort. Strain, add excess water, wait.

When temp hit 75 degrees, pitch 1056 American Ale

OSG: 1.057

Wedding Brew

A Wednesday afternoon brew day, Princess Kobeer and I await squirrel's arrival whilst our grains steep. We are trying to re-create the birthday brew of yestermonth for Mollex's wedding day. So far so good, only very minor modifications to the recipe. ...later, I just pitched the yeast at a quarter to eight. From start to finish, less than 4 hours, not too shabby, no sir! Now Squirrel and the Princess are cooking dinner while I fart around on the blogosphere. Hm, everything seemed to go pretty smoothly this time around. Maybe for the future, another strainer would come in handy. Also, make sure to check my quantities at home before going to the supply store. I didn't have enough Malto Dextrin (WTF does that do anyway?), nor did I know how much dried extract I had or what hops I had in the fridge. A simple 5 minute check would have helped. Nevertheless, with a bit of luck on the supply front and familiarity of recipe, this seems to be a success, barring any contamination. Good thing I'm not superstitious or I would be banging on my fake-wood desk right now.

Beer and CHiPs

That's right California Highway Patrol. Frikkin Ponch pulled me over today as I was crawling back from Berkeley where I had bags fo beer supplies, a take & bake CostCo pizza and some fresh bread from Acme. Why, oh why, doing oh-five in the slow lane would the man with no eyes pull over my poor dented truck? No seatbelt, of course, because I am a lazy shit.

Interesting thing was my first thoughts. I had to give myself the once over, checklisting my potential illegal behavior...had I been drinking? Speeding? I knew the seatbelt was off, but oh well, right? I even considered reaching over to pull it on. Good thing, would have been a dumb move.

Anyway, officer BoBrady takes my license and reg, comes back with my ticket, looks in the passenger seat. "What is THAT?" He asks, and I assume he's looking at the copper tubing making up my wort chiller. "Is it COKE?"

I think I laughed, and blurted a "mmghyeah, right! It's beer-making stuff." I reach over and grab the brown bag and only then do I realize he's looking at this huge clear bag of off-white powder. I show him.

"That would have been some drug bust," he exclaims and stands to leave.

"I would have to be a pretty stupid drug dealer," I reply.

"I don't have to lecture you on your seatbelt, do I? You just didn't put it on?"

I shake my head, frowning. I thought we had passed this point in our relationship. C'mon, beer buddy, how's about tearing up that stupid $20 tichie so's I can make more beer?

Monday, Tuesday, Brewsday, Thursday...

Today it is another adapted recipe from Beer Captured: Victory Hop Devil India Pale Ale. I also bought a wort chiller today, hopefully I will get it to fit on my faucet. Key-Z is coming over to pitch in, we will drink Stella, eat Cost-Co take and bake, and have a brewtastic time.

We kept excellent company with our one and only bar connection from Japan, who advised us that we should number our beers consumed from 1 to a dozen and keep in mind baka is a reasonable substitute for hammerhead. Now if only we can get that translation from Portuguese.
It's hard to tell what one gallon is. I found filling up 3 nalgenes about does the trick. Yes, for the first time I am using Oakland's finest instead Safeway approved. I have my grains speeting for a half hour, suspended in a grain bag from a rolling pin in 160 degree water.

The specialty grains are:

8 oz. German Munich Malt
8 oz. German Cara-Munich Malt (wtf is this?)
8 oz. German 40L Crystal (adapted from 65L Dark Crystal)

After a half hour steep, I did the 'ol minisparge with a gallon of H20. Brought that to a bizzle, added all the sugary stuff:

4.6 lb. Light Dry Malt Extract (adapted from 4.5 extra light)
4.5 lb. British Light syrup (adapted from 3.5 lb. Bierkeller light syrup)
6 oz. Malto Dextrin
2 oz. Centennial pellets

Brought the level to 2.5 gallons, boiled for 45 minutes. Added:

1 oz. Goldings (adapted from 1/2 oz. G, 1/2 oz. Cascade, since I had less cascade than i thought)
tsp. Irish Moss (gonna need it, this beotch is murky)

12 minutes later,

1 oz. cascade

Killed the heat in 1.5 minutes.

After an hour of stovetop cooling (lid on), I strained the wort into the carboy half-filled with Essence of Lake Merritt. I made up this funwrist swirl to get the muck off the surface of the strainer: if I rotate in a circular fasion, the spent hops simply pull away from the sides, forming a nice neat green ball in the bottom of the strainer, letting the liquid slip by. I am learning!

A week later, dry hopped with one oz of Saaz pellets. (adapted from recipe)

Kegged two days later. A quick brew that I want to make again.

OSG:1.054
FSG: 1.019

1.054-1.019 x 105=3.7%

Good Beer Link Site

http://www.hal-pc.org/~hkaspar/beerlinks.shtml

Websurfing Day

http://abtonline.com/brewpub.html -Brewpubs 101. What the hell is bbl? has to do with amount of barrels a batch, I think. And hls. is what? Boy do I know nothing.

Dr. Cornelius

Oh man do I have no idea what I'm doing, trying to get this beer into a soda keg. It's 2 days before Thanksgiving at 12:30 am. I have a Ciabatta Biga starter in my kitchen, an empty fridge, laundry in the dryer, a carboy full of beer, and a clean cornelius keg (I'm hoping big man at the brew store re-conditioned the keg with clean parts, 'cause I don't yet have the tools to disassemble the muthafuka). I used this crazy iodine solution that scared the bajeezus out of me, and hope that it won't taint the beer. Commence racking...

I think it's pressurizing...if I wake up witha explodeded fridgerater then you all know why.

Cascade

Dry hopped yesterday. So after 6 days, fermentation was still kickin but slowed. I quickly sanitized my other carboy and siphoned that good lookin stuff into it. dumped a nice amount (close to 1 oz) of cascade hop pellets right on top of it. A nice floating green layer formed immediately. Now to figure out how the hell to keg this stuff. Next weekend, my fridge will be taken over so get ready!

Drip Drip Drip

 

R.I.P.A. Day

Steven Seagal and I first marked off 2.5 gallons on my big stock pot. We are loosely following the BridgePort IPA clone recipe in Beer Captured.

10 oz. cracked 40l crystal malt steeped in hot water (150 degrees) for 30 minutes.
Ladled a gallon of 150 degree water over, sort of a mini-sparge.

Added 4 pounds pale malt syrup.
Added 3.3 lbs extra light dry malt extract. That's a lot of powder. I love my new scale by the way.
Looking for a substitute for Chinook bittering hops. Decided on equal parts cascade and Golding; 3/4 oz of each.

Added a bit a water to bring the kettle up to the 2.5 gallon mark, bring to a boil. 45 min boil.

Added 3/4 oz each of cascade and golding pellets, plus 1 tsp. irish moss. Not Randy Irish Moss, as the Raiders just fell to The Chiefs in the last second of the game. Boil 14 minutes.

Add 1/2 oz. each cascade, golding, crystal (used whole hops for crystal), boil for a quick 30 sec or so, turned off heat.

Had no attachment for the wort chiller, so we put the kettle in the sink and ran cold water to fill. Slower, but seems to work.

Strained into carboy with 2.5 gallons spring water in it. Looks like yield is still low, need to add more water to hit 5 gallons. When temp hit 71, pitched 1056 American yeast.

osg: 1.034
fsg: 1.011 (nov 23)

1.034 - 1.011 x 105 = 2.5% alcohol. Well blow me.

Good Music

http://www.asthmatickitty.com/main.php

Comment Spam is pissing me off

Lets test this blogspam thing again with an updated verification thing

LINKS

www.siebelinstitute.com - Chicago
www.winesguides.com - resources
http://www.hifimundo.com/public/blog/2005/07/brewery-profile-russian-river-brewing.html
http://beer.toptensources.com/toptensources/default.aspx

Beer Names

It's been so long since an entry I barely remember how. Nonetheless, beer names:

Lager Del Lobo: pays homage to MW and Bay Wolf, and attractive to Oaklanders who speak Spanish.

Hammerhead: Already taken by a brewery in Portland. Maybe I can alter it and keep it.

R.I.P.A.: for my cat if I ever kill her and if I ever brew it!

Go OBC! Like the look of that.