Half Dome

Last Monday nine of us hiked up Half Dome. This is not to be confused with "climbing" Half Dome (thx Evan), as that would be super crazy. Here is a link to the pictures. I got some good ones!

When we got back to the base, I drank this:This is a beer blog, after all. Anyway, I wanted to mention it because I like the new micro-can trend. It may never catch on, but I am for it.

Oh, too bad the beer wasn't great. Pretty hazy for a pils.

Late.

All-Grain Demo

This morning I went up the the homebrew supply store for a demonstration on all-grain brewing. I have been a bit in the dark about what sort of rig to invest in, and I was hoping today I could talk to someone who knew a few different approaches to the craft. I got more than I asked for! There were 5 brewers there, all with their own rigs. The variety of approaches showed me that anything will work, just see what works for me. Oh, and remember to have fun.

Above is the in-house system. Professional, sturdy, straight-forward. Probably more than I want to take on right away. Not portable or storage-friendly, though probably makes awesome beer. This rig was surpassed by one of the other brewers, who won a super custom rig in a raffle. There is a picture below.

This thing was a rolls royce. I'm more interested in getting something to make great beer in a smaller space; I don't know how long my housemate will put up with me. Here are the other rigs:

Above is a great table-top rig that would work anywhere.

This one with the blue cooler interested me most, mostly due to the awesome pump that he was using. I didn't get a photo of it, but he simply ran everything through, including the wort. I think his system had the most thought of cost-efficiency and compact design. He didn't have a false bottom either, it looked like a braided hose. Something to look into.

Easy as one two three
This setup was simply 2 coleman coolers and a keg kettle. The brewer of this was actually struggling the most, he had forgotten some of his materials that would have made his life easier.

The brew club these guys belong to looks like a great time. If I can get up and running I would certainly consider bringing my beer to the party.

Hop Trellis is UP!!

This is so cool.
So, I am now a hop farmer. 11 out of 12 plants are above ground, ready to climb, baby, climb!!OK, so truth be told
I had next to nothing to do with constructing this thing of beauty. Sure, I planted the suckers, but the trellis was 100% my roommate. Dude put this up in one day. Thanks, Alex!!
He anchored the 8' 4x4 beams on cement blocks and buried them just under the surface of the soil. With the bottom board steadying the two from underneath, the adjustable eyehooks and wires at top really give the thing really sturdy construction. It's ready to support some bushy plants.

Angelsblood

This brew is based on last year's Angelsweat Wheat. It is a simple extract recipe that I had great success with during the time of Bay to Breakers last year. This time around, I decided to take something I liked a lot and take the chance of ruining it by adding fruit! Specifically blood oranges from Italy I picked up yesterday from Monterey Market in Bezerkeley. Go there if you haven't; it's an amazing place. I know, the one in the picture isn't all that blood-red, but trust me, it was super sweet and delicious.

The recipe:

7+ lbs. wheat/malt extract
1.25 oz. Hallertau upon boil
.5 oz. Saaz with 20 minutes left
Spoonful of Irish moss. It will still be hazy, I expect. Which is a good thing.
.5 oz. Saaz at the end of boil

While this is happening, I heated 1/2 gallon of water to 180 degrees with the zest and meat of 4 nice-sized blood oranges. Let that steep and cool.

At yeast-pitching time, I threw all of into my large carboy and let it all talk it over. It looks pretty fun, we'll see how my first fruity beer turns out.


I didn't take a hydrometer reading, seemed a little pointless with all that fruit.

Hosed

I mess to impress.I got some new hoses to tighten up my wort-chilling process. It actually worked pretty well, and riding on that success I went on to try and poison everyone I know and love. See, I thought filling my carboy with a hose made a lot more sense than holding it under the awkward bathtub faucet. It worked well, but something didn't quite sit right with me. I hadn't sanitized the inside of the hose, and I didn't like the idea of the water touching all that rubber before touching my beer. As the water level in the carboy was happily rising, I took a peek at the label that had come with my new hose. It read:

WARNING: This hose contains chemicals, including lead, known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm. Do not drink water from this hose. Wash hands after use.

Heh. So I started over. There are some lessons I am very happy to have learned the easy way instead of the hard way.

Beer-Loving Zombie

You just gotta love this. This is what I've been talking about, for any of youse that knows.

Dumb Ass

Last time at Thirbearsty I learned what happens when my ass turns off the grain mill mid mash-in.

So there I was, whistling along, dumping bag after bag of malt into the big, loud grain mill. You have to turn the thing on before beginning, that I knew. Why that was the case I really didn't care to understand, but my ass decided to teach me a lesson. I had just dumped an entire bag of pale malt into the mill when I backed up right into the on/off switch. The contraption whirred down to a halt. It took me a moment to realize what I had done, and even once I did I had no panic, for I had no idea what the repercussions may be. I tried pressing the on button of course, but just got the electric hum of a device stuck in neutral. At that point I left the grain room and hollered up to Brewer Bear, who was stirring the mash in the brewery room.

"Hey B!" I called up, trying to sound casual and confident.
"What's up?" he replied.
"I, uh.." how to phrase this now? "I accidentally turned off the mill." No mention of asses.
"Shit," he replied simply. "Is there malt in it?"
"Yeah," I said, as the seriousness finally started to sink in.
"Fuck," he answered. Things got more quiet from that point on.

The next half hour was spent with B trying to remember how to disassemble the entire grain mill apparatus to release the trapped grains, and me trying to not make jokes to ease the tension in the tiny little room. The mash up top was enjoying a nice, steamy rest while we got to know that machine intimately.

Turns out that the mill consists of two big, grooved metal rollers that almost touch. The grain simply falls down between the objects and gets crushed, the severity of which is controlled by how close together you set those rollers. There is also a strong magnet that traps any metallic foreign matter that is along for the ride. You can imagine metal rollers trying to crush metal particulate could be crunchy.

And I wouldn't have known any of this if my ass hadn't gotten in the way. What should my ass turn off next week?

Math

Portland(Beer + Clouds) - (Hangover + Sore muscles) = Heaven
Here's my list of post-marathon beers in Portland, in order of consumption:

1. Terminal Gravity IPA
2. Widmer Broken Halo IPA
3. Bridgeport IPA
4. Widmer Droptop (amber?)
5. Deschutes Hoptrip
6. Rogue 100 meter IPA

7. Roots Hop-opotamus
8. Roots Woody's IPA
9. Alemeda Klikitat Pale
10. Alemeda Old Ale

11. Amnesia Copacetic IPA
12. Amnesia Desolation IPA
13. Amnesia Dusty Trail Pale
14. Ninkasi IPA
15. Bridgeport Fresh Hop IPA (cask)
16. Brigdeport IPA (cask)
17. Mcmenamins Hammerhead Amber
18. New Old Lompoc IPA
19. Widmer Oktoberfest
20. Widmer Dortmunder
21. Widmer Alt
22. Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza (Michigan, I know.)
23. Hair of the Dog Adam
24. Terminal Gravity ESG
25. Carderas Dry Hop Red
26. Laurelwood Free Range Red (org)
27. Wolaver's Porter (org)

28. Laurelwood Mother Lode Golden Ale
29. Laurelwood Piston Pale
30. Laurelwood Boss IPA
31. Laurelwood Tree Hugger Porter
32. Laurelwood ESB
33. Double Mountain Killer Green
34. Bridgeport Freshhop Firkin
35. Fishtail Winterfish (Washington)

Lazy Fridale

Princess Kobeer, Lex Lager and I have been casually brewing and eating all afternoon. Yose Nabe has been simmering on the Coleman stove in the middle of the living room. The princess stewed up clams, mushrooms, tofu, chicken dumplings, shrimp wontons and omfg good food. Drinking some longhammer, RR salvation, and saison du pont.

The brew? An amped up extract recipe based on victory hop devil from Pennsylvania. Used 5 lbs american light extract, plus 4 lbs dried light. Centennial hops for bittering, cascade and EKG for flavor, cascade to finish... the amounts are all approximate since I have no scale to work with.

Dry hopped in secondary with EKG 2 oz.

OG reading 1.060
FG reading 1.023
4.85% by volume - NOT BAD!!

Busywork

Yesterday marked day 2 with Brewer Bear. I will try to restructure what I learned. We did not brew this time around. Today was a transfer/cleaning day. These two time-consuming tasks work well in conjunction together. Instead of hurryupandwait, we would bounce back and forth between the cold room and the brewery, as activated tasks ran their course. I think I will describe them as two separate events, for I fear my shortcomings as a writing stylist will muddify particulars of the actual events.

Transfer: The ESB from fermentor to serving tank. First thing to do is to taste the beer. Rough life, I know. Brewer Bear filled one pint from the side spigot on the side of the fermentation tank, after a quick sanitizing spritz from the iodophor bottle. This is a tiny spigot at the bottom of a 15 barrel tank. These tanks, pretty small to moderate in brewery sizes, hold 465 gallons of beer plus another 1/3 volume head space. One barrel is 31 gallons, if that helps. Some ancient measuring system that exists now chiefly to confuse number-retarded people like myself.

Oh the beer. This beer has been nitrogen-conditioned in the tank, after fermentation had ceased. There are different gas lines coming into the room, some with CO2 and some N. Conditioning post fermentation is as simple as capping the tank so no gas exits and plugging in one of those lines to carbonate. Since fermentation produces CO2 beer will carbonate itself if there is some yeast activity still present. Additional CO2 can be added to further carbonate, but is mostly use to create pressure to go from here to there.

Right, the beer! Besides the nice nitro cascade, it held a cool copper color and fresh hop aroma. Mild, semi-sweet with no punchy hops one would expect from American-style ales. This is a decent example of English-style ale as I understand it, though can't speak for its authenticity.

Hm, I haven't described any transferring so far. I think I'll devote more time to it in a future post when I understand it a bit better.

Bear Beer

Wholly Geeznuts, a lot of change in a short amount of time. To review, since November of '06 I have been in talks to open an upscale sportsbar with my bartender colleague Agent Smith. Last month the business partnership gained a lot of momentum and started rolling towards serious commitmentville. We stood on the precipice of a consulting contract in which we would pay $100K to a team to steer us through the process of getting Ferrum up and running over the course of 18-24 months. This prompted me to step aside and do some serious soul-searching and bank account-examining. At the end of my few day reflection, I had my answer: BAIL!

So I bailed. Lots of factors led to the decision, but the biggest one was my disenchantment with the concept. As I have previously stated, my goals tend towards the brewery and my ideas. I could no longer justify working for the next 5+ years on someone else's concept that is not a direct line to my goals. Plus, who wants to own a sportsbar anyway? Not this guy.

So back to the brewing, yes? YES, dear reader (as if you're out there). Through the classic connection of I-know-him-he-knows-her-she-works-at-a-brewery I was able to get into the furry underbelly of Thirsty Bear Brewing company for a day "working" with the brewer. I was there from 8-3 asking questions and pitching in when allowed. It was great, me and Brewer Bear alone with our rubber boots and water hoses for hours. I had to stop myself from giggling with glee several times throughout the day. It is supposed to be work after all. We brewed the Black Bear Lager, from grains to fermentor. I have to say there were no surprises. I understood the concept, and the work was no more or less glamorous than I expected. This bear's porridge was juuuust right.

After working for several hours, Brewer Bear seemed to warm up to my presence considerably. Those bears can be so territorial! Over lunch I ever so slyly let him know of my seriousness of the work, and offered to come back again. It was such a tightrope all day, of how eager to seem, to not be annoying, to be helpful but not in the way, and now I was asking to come back and bug him more! I was nervous, as probably I should have been, but it turned out well, he was open to the idea. So this Thursday, back for more! I've got my foot in the door, I will brew another day.

Like George J, I'm a movin' on up.

Biérevolution

Things are definitely happening...Agent Smith and I had a meeting with a powerful consulting team who spelled out for us everything we do not know about starting a restaurant. The same night I met with III about his desires to put forward a restaurant team. Just the day before I met with myself and reminded me how much I wanted a brewery in my future. Will a sportslounge be a path towards that goal? I'm hoping that this book will answer some of my questions:

I plan on a full book report as soon as I finish the read. I am currently trying to figure out how to a) make this picture a link to this guys blog, and b) add links to the side of my blog. I'm html htmzzzzz.

Introducing...

My first villain beer is complete! I hope Supermom is pleased with her nemesis. Upon tasting on Saturday I am pleased with the evilness of beer containing no alcohol.

Thanks to key-z and pee-money too. Zombiebrewz...what do you think?

Kontinuing Krypton

I'm finally getting around to my tasting notes on the other three beers brewed by Supermom's pops. Here they are, from too brief to overly wordy.

Amber: Over-carbonated. It didn't overflow, but would have if I had poured the entire beer in the glass. Even the bottle itself filled up with head after pouring. After it retracted it stuck around in a sort of weak form. The flavor is delicious and tinny (that's all I wrote?!?). Full-bodied, filled my mouth pleasantly.

Red: Funny how this carbonation thing is so inconsistent. The brews go from perfect (grain beer from previous post) to too much (see above), to a bit thin, as in this red beer. I'd like to know how to control that. I'd guess that the amount of sugar vs specific gravity would have a good deal to do with that. I'd also guess that Jor-el put the same amount of priming sugar into each of these batches, as I have always done. That would account for the inconsistent levels in differing brews. The flavor of this beer is wonderful. It has a bit of that stingy, metallic flavor I expect from a red beer. All that plus real body and full finish. Back in college when I was drinking all that Leiney's Red I would have wanted it to taste like this beer. Too bad it never did.

Brown Ale: Since my critiques tend toward carbonation levels, I'll start there again: perfect this time! Especially at the outset. I poured straight into my Duvel taster and the head bubbled up, pushing the limits of the lip of the glass, without cascading over. The head slowly dissipated and carbonation stayed strong till the end. The flavor is dominated by a pleasant nuttiness. A flash of bitterness hits the back of the tongue initially, followed by a bit of malt flavor, and the beer finishes quite bitter. This is a great ale! Not what I expected from a brown, I'd have to say. It has none of the sticky sweetness found in others, I am relieved to say.

All in all, Krypton is putting out some of the best homebrews in my world. An import I hope to see a lot more of.

Montreal invades California

Last night Pee-Money and I hiked across Berkeley campus on a misty June 1st to check out Arcade Fire at the Greek Theater. Colin Stetson, high school classmate and avaunt-guard saxophone king, is now playing with them. He used his whole arsenal of instruments, including French horn and bass clarinet. The show was great! All 10-12 of them are into every tune, singing along whether or not there is a microphone in front of them. Halfway through the set they played a rendition of "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" that I felt was the highlight of the night. At one point towards the end of the night, Winn, during a song break, said to the audience, "The fucking fog broke my amp. Thanks a lot, assholes!" He then rambled on about foggy days and sunny days for a bit then exclaimed, "Eh, shut up and play the hits already!" It was a fun moment, then they immediately broke into "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)." The last song of the set was "Rebellion (Lies)," a predictable and appropriate choice. After the song was over, a large portion of the audience kept the sing-a-long chorus going for a couple minutes until they returned to the stage, no easy feat for several thousand non-singers to achieve. The encore was two songs, a heartfelt homage to his Grandfather who is buried in San Francisco followed by a raucous rendition of "Wake Up."

Oh yeah, beer: we each had two $7 plastic bottles of Anchor Steam. Bargain!!

Beer Minus Alcohol = Still Fun

Today I am subtracting alcohol from Supermom's IPA, hence making it Supermom's "Foe" IPA. I am partially making this method up as I go, due to the shortage of detailed instructions online. Apparently not many homebrewers are actually interested in brewing beer without alcohol. Funny. I also asked the grumpy old dude at the Oak Barrel beer supply store about brewing non-alcoholic beer, and he told me it was thought of as very difficult to do well. So if I fail miserably I'll at least be in large company.

First, I took my fully-fermented but only partially hopped beer and racked it back into the brewkettle, which brought me to unexpected hurdle #1: my brew kettle is only almost 5 gallons. I'm used to boiling 2 1/2 gallons at a time. I grabbed another pot and switched over towards the end, which ended up being a good idea, because I avoided getting more sludge in my finished beer from the bottom of the fermenter. I will probably end up dumping that last couple pints of sludgy beer. Sad but better than picking sediment out of your teeth.

As the beer heated up towards 180 degrees, it got pretty foamy, threatening to overflow a few times. Stirring only made it worse. My plan was to bring it back to a full boil in order to throw some cascade hops in for aroma, then back the heat back down. Now I'm thinking that a full boil with a full pot will result in a hot and sticky situation. Instead I am going to attempt the hop tea approach. I will steep the hops in boiled water then add the water at the end of this unfermentation process.

To make I used 1 1/2 oz of cascade pellets wrapped (perhaps too firmly) in cheesecloth, plus a small handful of dried out whole crystal hop flowers. The resulting tea was somewhat aromatic, and tasted slightly bitter. Hope it adds something.

After 40 minutes of 180 degree temperatures on the stovetop, I took the beer off, added the tea and cooled down the now near beer with my sanitized copper coil. I'm being extra careful with sanitation today. Usually I am a bit more carefree, confident that the alcohol would kill most bacteria that would sneak through. My last hurdle before bottling was that it takes For-effing-EVER for 5 gallons of liquid to cool down to 75 degrees, the acceptable temperature for pitching yeast. Since the re-boil killed off any old yeast, I had to wait to pitch again along with 3/4 cup corn sugar in order for these 20 or so double duece bottles to have any fizzyspritzer to them.

Now it is time for the finger crossing. Will the bottles explode? Will the yeast survive? Will there be any hop aroma? Will the flavor be alright? Did the alcohol go away? Will it taste anything like beer at all?!? I'll try not to get my hopes up too high this week.

Supermom's Foe IPA

I've finally gotten around to my first hero/villain beer...and it's not going to have any alcohol. WTF anyway.

A familiar beginning:
1 gallon of The Town H2O steeping 10 oz crushed 40L crystal malt for 30 minutes at 150 degrees.
This imparts both color and "specialty grain" flavor to the finished beer. Since I am extracting the alcohol and probably losing any subtleties in this batch, this step may be totally meaningless. I feel compelled to do it anyway, thinking that this beer will need all the help it can get if it is going to be at all quaffable.

Strain the water into the brew kettle, and sparge the bag of grains with another gallon of 150 degrees H2O.

Upon boil, added
5 lbs American light extract syrup
1 lb light dry extract powder
1.5 oz chinook bittering hop
boil all this for 45 minutes

Add 3/4 oz Kent Goldings
3/4 oz Cascade
1tsp. Irish Moss
boil all this for 15 minutes

STOP!! NO AROMA HOPS!!

Put the cooling tube in the wort to sanitize. Don't forget to run some clean water through it first. Some water from inside almost always drips into the wort at some time; best if it is not stale water form the last time I brewed.

Cool it down, add to the carboy and pitch the yeast
1056 American Ale slap pack

O.G. 1.033

Angelsweat v.2

I vow to find out if Angelsweat is as swheat as I think it will be:

2 1/2 gallons of Oaktown's finest
Approximately 7+ lbs wheat extract
1.25 oz Hallertaur pellets for 1/2 hour
.5 oz saaz for 12 minutes - add teaspoon Irish moss here too!
.5 oz saaz for the last couple minutes

On Thursday May 17, I transfered the sweat from my new 6 1/2 gallon carboy (yay) to the neck of a 5 gallon with .5 oz saaz hops for that extra fresh kick.

More Offerings from Krypton

The father of Supermom has done it again.

First up: grain beer. No other description given.
First impression is a great head, not too much but definitely present, with dense small off-white bubbles. The beer is cloudy and pale. The aroma made me think Belgian, but the palate made me doubt that guess. There isn't a strong hop aroma, which makes me think it probably wasn't dry-hopped. I also guess that cascade hops wern't used, since I don't get that recognizable west-coast smell or citrus flavor. There is a great new flavor, however, somewhat bready and slight sweetness with tasty, stinging hops bittering up the finish. The head stays around till the last sip, without any real agitation required. Good job, Jor-el.

Return of the Odd Sox

Yes, Frank is back.
www.frankallisonmusic.com - definitely check out the chicken whisperer video