Wade's Homebrew

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!

2011-05-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

You've seen the billboards. According to some it's the end of the world this Saturday. But, it can't be! The CVBG Big Brew is that day and I get to participate! So, in celebration of the world coming to an end I decided to brew this. I made this recipe and label some time ago. Now it has just a little more meaning......

Deliverance Double IPA
14-C Imperial IPA
Author: Wade Williams

Size: 5.5 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 269.07 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.080 (1.070 - 1.090)
Terminal Gravity: 1.020 (1.010 - 1.020)
Color: 9.68 (8.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 7.96% (7.5% - 10.0%)
Bitterness: 272.3 (60.0 - 120.0)

Ingredients:
16.68 lb American 2-row
0.55 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
0.55 lb White Wheat Malt
2.0 oz Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 90 min
2.0 oz Warrior (16.0%) - added during boil, boiled 90 min
1.0 oz Simcoe (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 45 min
1.0 oz Columbus (15.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
1.5 lb Corn Sugar
2.25 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1.0 oz Simcoe (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
3.25 oz Columbus (15.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter
1.75 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter
1.75 oz Simcoe (13.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter
3.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Notes
Mash at 150 degrees

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.12

Orange Blossom Honey Cream Ale

2011-04-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

The last keg of Weed Death Wheat Ale is about to blow and I need something on the lighter end of the flavor spectrum on tap for the summer months. Now, it seems that every time I brew a "summer" beer I end up not liking it. I think this comes from the fact that I just can't stand wheat beers. Heck, I just haven't liked anything that I've brewed that ends up on this tap. A cream ale seems like it could be more to my liking since I'm a fan of some Kolsch beers and this recipe uses Kolsch yeast and a Kolsch-ish recipe. This recipe comes to us thanks to MuddyMikes on the MoreBeer Forums. Here's the recipe and the label:

Orange Blossom Honey Cream Ale
6-A Cream Ale
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 11.04 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 151.0 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.046 (1.042 - 1.055)
Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (1.006 - 1.012)
Color: 6.04 (2.5 - 5.0)
Alcohol: 4.46% (4.2% - 5.6%)
Bitterness: 18.5 (15.0 - 20.0)

Ingredients:
14.06 lb English 2-row Pils
3.52 lb Corn Flaked (Maize)
1.17 lb German CaraHell
0.59 lb Belgian Aromatic
0.59 lb Biscuit Malt (Mout Roost 50)
1 oz Cluster Hops (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 75 min
.5 oz Mt. Hood Hops (6.5%) - added during boil, boiled 75 min
1 tsp Wyeast Nutrient - added during boil, boiled 10 min
.5 oz Mt. Hood (6.5%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
2 ea White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch

Notes
Saccharification Rest Temp : 152 Time: 60
Mash-out Rest Temp : 165 Time: 15
Sparge Temp : 170 Time: 30

*** Pitch 2 lbs of California Orange Blossom Honey, dissolved in 2 cups of hot water, in primary fermentor 5 days after fermentation starts. ***

*** Pitch zest of 3 naval oranges into pramary fermentor 14 days after fermentation starts. ***

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.12

Atomic Punk Strong Ale

2011-01-07T05:43:00.000-08:00

A brew day with six friends and then dinner for them and their wives, what could be better? ;-) Tomorrow (Saturday) will be one looooooooooong day!

Here's the updated recipe and label:

Atomic Punk

14-B American IPA

Author: Wade Williams

Size: 10.5 gal

Efficiency: 64.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 230.79 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.069 (1.056 - 1.075)

Terminal Gravity: 1.017 (1.010 - 1.018)

Color: 21.64 (6.0 - 15.0)

Alcohol: 6.82% (5.5% - 7.5%)

Bitterness: 95.7 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:

29.0 lb Pale Ale Malt

3.25 lb Special B - Caramel malt

1.0 lb Cara-Pils® Malt

1.0 tsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer - added during mash

50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 85 min

50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 45 min

50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

1.0 tsp Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min

1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min

50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0 min

2.0 ea Fermentis S-04 Safale S-04

Notes

Mash at 148

Pitch @ 66-67 and let it rise naturally to 69 and hold it there until it's within a few points of finishing then ramp it up to 72.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.12

Arrogant Bastard Clone

2010-11-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

Props to Mike "Tasty" McDole for cloning this beer! This beer will be next in my lineup and will be brewed by myself and six friends who purchased the brew session and dinner at the OLM School fundraiser.

Arrogant Bastard
14-B American IPA
Author: Tasty McDole

Size: 10.5 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 224.17 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.067 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.017 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 21.56 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.62% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 95.7 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:
29.0 lb Pale Ale Malt
3.22 lb Special B - Caramel malt
1.0 tsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer - added during mash
50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 85 min
50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 45 min
50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 tsp Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
50.0 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0 min
2.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Notes
Mash at 148

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.12

Willamette IPA

2010-08-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

'Tis time to brew an IPA again as the Mad Pig is almost gone. I was thinking of re brewing the wildly popular Sick Puppy IPA again but I've had this pound of Willamette hops on hand for about a year and I've been searching for a brew to use them in. After searching the interwebs one night I learned that Jamil Z had tried to clone Lagunitas IPA many moons ago and came up with a recipe that used all Willamette hops. I'm not shooting for a Lagunitas clone (and most homebrewers know that this recipe doesn't come close) but I did use the Lagunitas malt schedule on this beer and replaced most of the hop additions with Willamette hops. What I'm shooting for is a somewhat spicy IPA with a nose that will knock your socks off! Of course, with all experiments, this may fail miserably, but I'm hoping for the best. I just picked up my supplies today from Barley and Wine and I'll be brewing this Saturday at about 5 am hoping to be done by 10 am.

Here's the label and the recipe:

Willamette IPA
14-B American IPA
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 11.0 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 209.43 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.063 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 12.7 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.19% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 48.2 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:
24 lb American 2-row
2.0 lb White Wheat Malt
1.8 lb Munich Malt
1.2 lb Crystal Malt 60°L
2.75 lb Crystal 15
1.75 oz Magnum (10.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.7 oz Glacier (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min (similar to Willamette and I want to get rid of them)
1.25 oz Willamette (4.7%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
2 oz Willamette (4.7%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
4 oz Willamette (4.7%) - added during boil, boiled 1 min
4 oz Willamette (4.7%) - added dry to primary fermenter
2.0 ea WYeast 1968 London ESB Ale

Notes
Mash temp 158-160

Ferment temp: 66F for three days - slowly raise to 70F over the next 3-4 days

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Poker Dogs Pale Ale

2010-07-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm changing up the brewing schedule here a bit. I went to fill up a growler of 44 Pale Ale this morning for a friend and the keg blew. The last keg blew. That means no more pale ale, the most popular beer in the lineup. Sooooooooo, I'm going to brew the SNPA clone again, but I'm changing it up a bit to make it a little less than medium on the mouth feel. This should make it more drinkable and with a little less ABV. Here's the label and the recipe.

Poker Dogs Pale Ale
10-A American Pale Ale
Author: Wade Williams
Date: 7/2/2010

Size: 11.0 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 183.25 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.055 (1.045 - 1.060)
Terminal Gravity: 1.014 (1.010 - 1.015)
Color: 14.11 (5.0 - 14.0)
Alcohol: 5.42% (4.5% - 6.2%)
Bitterness: 41.5 (30.0 - 45.0)

Ingredients:
25.16 lb Pale Ale Malt
2.19 lb Crystal Malt 60°L

1.1 oz Magnum (14.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
1.0 oz Perle (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30.0 min
2.0 oz Cascade (5.6%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
4.0 oz Cascade (5.6%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min

2.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

2 oz Cascade (5.6%) - added dry to primary fermenter

Brew Day - Fuego Del Diablo

2010-05-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

Another blustery day outside and another brew session under my belt. Everything went great except the boil over. Always, and I mean always, watch that brew pot until you begin your boil! I was trying to do too many things at one time, took my eye off of it for about five minutes, and noticed sticky wort coming under the garage door. Yikes! I lost about 1/2 gallon to this mess. No worries though, everything cleans up nicely with a hose.

I hit my OG a little high at 1.069 instead of 1.067 but that's close enough for government work! ;-)
The hydrometer sample tasted wonderful! The additional 10 IBUs at 60 minutes really balanced out this beer. I can't wait to taste it in 3 weeks!

Now, on to the pictures!

This is the new brew house setup. The burner on the left is new(er) and is used to head the Hot Liquor Tank holding the strike water. It's more powerful than the old burner on the right and I had to turn it down a tad after it heated the keg on top of it bright red/yellow! And, yes, I'm still using the dog kennel to hold the Mashtun, it's just the perfect height. I also kept the water filter close to the HLT in order to refill after pouring the initial strike water into the mashtun. This helped because I didn't have to move water from the boil pot to the HLT. The less lifting I have to do the better!

With two burners I'm now able to drain the mashtun directly into the boil pot. Again, no lifting heavy buckets!

The boil over mess..... :-(

The end of the boil with the wort chiller sanitizing in the pot. I'd read on the Morebeer Forums that if you turn down pressure of the water going into the chiller that the wort will cool down faster. I tried it and it worked great. The water goes slower through the copper giving it time to allow the heat transfer to take place. Cool water in, hot water out, cool wort in the process.

Everything is in the fermentor and cooling down to 67 degrees. I'll pitch the 2,000 ml yeast starter of Wyeast 1056 American Ale tomorrow morning.

Cheers!

Fuego Del Diablo

2010-05-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

My, oh my, how the beer seems to disappear faster when the sun comes out! I just tapped my second keg of Mad Pig IPA and I'm almost completely out of Pale Ale and Amber Ale. I planned my next 3 brew sessions today and they'll happen over the next 9 weeks, the first of which will be this Friday. I'll also be reusing the yeast cake from this beer for the next two.

Fuego Del Diablo means The Devil's Fire and it's a slightly altered version of JZ's Evil Twin. All I'm doing to change it is to actually do a 90 minute boil and add 0.4 oz of Magnum hops at 60 minutes to up the IBUs by 10 points. This will be an evolving recipe where I try different ideas each time I brew it.

Here's the recipe:

Fuego Del Diablo
14-B American Amber/IPAish sort of thing
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 11 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.8%
Calories: 224.06 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.067
Terminal Gravity: 1.016
Color: 19.84
Alcohol: 6.7%
Bitterness: 52.7

Ingredients:
26.25 lb Pale Ale Malt
2.2 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
2.2 lb Munich Malt
1.1 lb Victory® Malt
1.1 lb Crystal 120
.6 lb Pale Chocolate

.4 oz Magnum (14.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
1 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added dry to primary fermenter

2 ea Wyeast 1056 American Ale in a 2,000 ml starter

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Weed Death Brew Day

2010-03-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

My 18th brew day is done. A good day indeed. All of the usual stuff will come here shortly, but I had to mention three new things I got to use in the brew house today.
First, I got to use my new mash paddle. It went through the mash effortlessly and really broke up those dough balls! Easier = better in my opinion.
Second, I was able to use my new high temperature tubing to transfer the 165 degree water from kettle to bucket. I also used it to transfer the wort to the kettle and I'll use it here shortly to transfer the boiled wort to the fermentor. Again, very easy to work with since it's so flexible.
Third, I got to use my new stainless steel spoon instead of my plastic spoon to stir the hops into the wort. Wow, just wow. No more wimpy spoon twisting in my hands as I stir.

Now, back to our regular programming:

The yeast starter went a little crazy on me and blew its top. I made two 2,000 ml starters - one for the initial starter and one to step it up and grow more yeasties. The first starter fermented out in two days so I put it in the fridge, let the yeast settle to the bottom, decanted the nasty starter beer off the top and re-fed it again on Thursday morning. I took of for my meeting in Monterrey and came back Saturday afternoon to this mess. Yuck! The starter is just fine but I have quite the mess to clean up!

The mash with my new mash paddle! Take that you little dough ball bastards! OK, maybe I'm just a little too excited about this.....

Did I mention that I mashed in really early this morning? Also, I had to lengthen the mash to 1 hour 20 minutes instead of the standard 1 hour. I missed my mash temp by a few degrees so I wanted to make sure everything converted.

7.5 gallons of wort on my first runnings, 8 gallons from my second runnings. 1.5 gallons of wort (that won't fit into the boil kettle) down the drain. I've got to work on my mash math so that I come out with zero extra gallons of wort.

Just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiitle too vigorous on the boil. I tuned it down and got the perfect boil going. Not too much, not too little, just right. Hmmmm. Thinking about some kind of Goldilocks Ale now..... ;-)

Just chillin'. Oh, BTW, the outlet hose for my chiller split in the middle of the hose AND the darn connector started leaking. Had to put a towel over the connector to keep hose water from getting into the wort. Hmmmm. Thinking about some kind of Hose Water Hefeweizen now..... ;-)

And, finally, the little bastards that this ale was named after. I could here these Weedomites screaming in their death throws today: "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". Damn that was irritating! ;-)

Weed Death Wheat Ale

2010-03-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

The Summer Sunset Orange Wit is about 4 pints away from blowing the keg so it's time to brew something light to replace it. To be honest, I don't like Wits (Sorry Stephen!) and American Wheat beers seem to be getting lots of attention so a wheat beer it is.

Now, as much as people like wheat beers, they may not necessarily want to drink one with the word Death in the name so here's the explanation. Almost everyone reading this is going to have a lawn. Very low alcohol beers are sometimes called "lawnmower beers" meaning that you can have one when you mow the lawn. Well, I don't have a lawn, I have weeds and I've been battling them for 4 years. This year my father in law gave me a mixture of round up and some other chemicals that I'm sure will pollute the ground water for years to come, but I won't have any weeds! So, instead of "Lounge Lizard Larry's Lawnmower Libations" I opted for "Weed Death Wheat Ale", a name that was partially born out of my buddy Steve's suggestion of "Wade's Weed Death Mixture".

The yeast starter was created last night and is spinning dizzily on the stir plate. Brewday is Sunday while I smoke 16 pounds of pork butt (Yes Steve, I said pork butt). Here's the label and the recipe.

Weed Death Wheat Ale
6-D American Wheat or Rye Beer
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 10.56 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 166.16 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.050 (1.040 - 1.055)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.008 - 1.013)
Color: 6.63 (3.0 - 6.0)
Alcohol: 4.91% (4.0% - 5.5%)
Bitterness: 22.3 (15.0 - 30.0)

Ingredients:
10.5 lb Pale Ale Malt
10.5 lb White Wheat Malt
2 lb Vienna Malt
1.5 oz Sterling (7%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.5 oz Sterling (7%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
2.0 ea White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen Ale

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Containing the Mad Pig

2010-02-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

I was able to clean a couple of kegs and then transfer the Mad Pig from the KegMentor to kegs.

1.070 SG, 1.014 FG = 7.36% ABV.

The hydro sample had some hop haze to it but it smelled/tasted great! Should be ready in time for the CVBG March meeting!

Mad Pig Brew Day

2010-01-18T13:09:00.000-08:00

The Surly Sow has mutated. It's become bigger, more bitter, hoppier, more aromatic, and about 1% more alcohol. The color looked great in the sparge, the kettle smelled fantastic with 8 ounces of hops going into the boil, and the gravity sample tasted out of this world! I cannot wait for this beer to finish fermenting so it can go on draft!

I did change one thing in the recipe and added 1 lb of corn sugar to the boil at 10 minutes to dry the beer out a little. Here's how the brew day went.

I finally found a picture of a "mad" pig that didn't involve foaming at the mouth. ;-) I didn't think I'd be happy with a white background on the image, but in the end I was quite surprised at how well it made the pig stand out in the label. He's one P.O.'d pig!

I was getting everything ready Saturday night and decided to bring things inside to sanitize them so I could spend some time with Carlen while I did it. The fermentor (keg on the left) was easy to sanitize on the stove. I just put a little water in it and boiled it for 10 minutes. I had a new thermometer and spigot for the brew kettle and wanted to put it through it's paces for brew day so I put it on another burner. No leaks!

Santa brought a ping-pong table for the kids this year. It sure is a nice place to spread out the brew stuff!

31.77 pounds of grain + 9.5 gallons of 175 degree water = 154 degree mash! Hit it dead on!

Sparging one hour later. The wort was a beautiful golden/amber color.

The hot break forming on top of one full boil kettle. I've learned that my boil off rate is very high in the kettle (3 gallons per hour) so I have to collect 14 gallons of wort to to boil down to 11. 10.5 of which goes into the fermentor and 1/2 gallon which is left behind because it looks like pea soup from the pellet hops.

209-210 degrees is the perfect boil temp! Keeps the wort at a nice, stead boil without going crazy.

14 gallons of wort at a boil with the first addition of hops floating around. When the 3 ounces of Chinook hops hit the kettle the whole garage smelled like heaven. Or, what I hope heaven will smell like!

The one hour boil is done and we're cooling everything down to 80 degrees with the immersion chiller. Also cleaning up the boil over that happens when I put the wort chiller in the pot. Don't know why it happens, but it does. I'm thinking of switching over to a different kind of chiller, but haven't figured out which one I want yet.

All those hops left over on the screen after the wort has been drained off. The wort is in the fermentor and 1800 ML of WLP001 yeast starter is in there chugging away.

2 weeks until this one is done fermenting.
1 week dry hopping.
2 weeks carbonating.
2 weeks conditioning.
----------------
7 weeks until it's ready to drink.

Mad Pig IPA

2010-01-15T10:07:00.000-08:00

Finally! After 3 months I'm brewing again this Sunday. The yeast starter is done and will be on the stir plate tonight. This recipe is loosely based off of Blind Pig IPA that I got from Brandon over at The BN.

Mad Pig IPA
14-B American IPA
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 10.56 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 223.09 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.067 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.017 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 12.16 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.59% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 96.8 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:
28.5 lb Pale Ale Malt
1.09 lb White Wheat Malt
1.09 lb Cara-Pils® Malt
1.09 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
3.0 oz Chinook (12.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz Cascade (7.8%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
2.0 oz Cascade (7.8%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min

1.0 oz Amarillo (8.6%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
1.0 oz Simcoe (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min

2.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

1.0 oz Amarillo (8.6%) - added dry to primary fermenter
1.0 oz Simcoe (13.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added dry to primary fermenter
2.0 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

44 Pale Ale

2009-10-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a BLUSTERY birthday brew! Here are the action shots:

The updated label to indicate the windy day.

The scene outside the garage.

Mashing in and heating sparge water in the garage behind one closed garage door and two others open. This kept out the wind some and the flame didn't blow out.

Mashing out with the rain in the background.

One full boil kettle!

5.5 ounces of hops!

The boil kettle after all the wort was drained off.

The new fermenter!

Birthday Brew Planned

2009-10-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

My 44th birthday is next Tuesday, so I decided to take the day off to brew. The Evil Twin Red Ale is just about to blow, so I figured I'd brew a Pale Ale to sit on that tap when the time comes and my Evil Twin kicks the bucket.

Here's the recipe:
44 Pale Ale
10-A American Pale Ale
Author: Wade

Size: 11.0 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 191.23 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.057 (1.045 - 1.060)
Terminal Gravity: 1.014 (1.010 - 1.015)
Color: 9.21 (5.0 - 14.0)
Alcohol: 5.65% (4.5% - 6.2%)
Bitterness: 42.3 (30.0 - 45.0)

Ingredients:
24.72 lb American 2-row
1.64 lb Munich Malt
1.09 lb White Wheat Malt
1.64 lb Victory® Malt
2 tbsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer - added during mash

1.5 oz Magnum (14.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 0 min
1.0 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0 min

2 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

Notes
Mash at 152

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

It'll be my first time using dry yeast. I hear it doesn't bring much complexity into the beer, but it sure is easy!

Sick Puppy IPA Kegged!

2009-09-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a fun brew this has been. I let it sit on the dry hops for 10 days instead of my usual 7 before crash cooling to 32 degrees on Monday. I finally got around to kegging it today (Friday) where it will sit on the CO2 for 7 days before it goes in the keezer.

I took the liberty to ramp up the fermentation temp to 75 degrees for one day just to make sure the yeast attenuated all the way. well, it did and then some. Instead of 1.016 for the FG I ended up at 1.014. 78.125% attenuation out of that yeast that's supposed to attenuate at 67-71%. I guess I don't have to ramp up to 75 degrees next time! The hydro sample taste great!

Here are a couple of pics of the carboy after draining off 5 gallons of beer to the keg:

Up next: A pale ale. I'm almost out of Evil Twin.

Sick Puppy Brew Fun

2009-08-16T09:33:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a nice brew day! It wasn't too hot (90's), no interruptions, and the outcome couldn't have been more perfect. Here are the pics!

Boiling the starter in the house Thursday night. Sharon was gone so I didn't have to worry about the beer smell that seems to permeate everywhere in the house. Smells good to me!

Some folks ask "Why go to all the trouble to make a starter?" These pics should clear that up.

The starter Thursday night. If you look really, really closely you can see little white flecks of yeast in there.

The yeast Friday morning. Looks like those yeasties procreated just a little! ;-)

Cleaning a few kegs while the grain is mashing. It sure is nice having a hot water spigot outside.

My OG was supposed to be 1.064. Nailed it!

Sick Puppy IPA Brewday Planned

2009-08-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

This Saturday is my 3rd IPA brew day! I'm going to be switching back and forth between the Surly Sow and Sick Puppy IPAs to have on tap. I'll make notes each time I make these and hopefully each will become better and better! The Surly Sow will be more bitter/hoppy/piney while the Sick Puppy will have more emphasis on the malt and flavor hop additions. Definitely two different ends of the IPA spectrum.

This will be my first take of the Sick Puppy which is a take-off of the Lagunitas IPA from the CYBI episode on The Brewing Network. I've made a couple of changes depending on ingredients that I have on hand as well as making this just a few IBUs higher than the original.

Here's the recipe that I'll be brewing on the 15th.

Sick Puppy IPA
14-B American IPA
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 11 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 213.01 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.064 (1.056 - 1.075) (Lagunitas = 1.059)
Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 13.48 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.29% (5.5% - 7.5%) (Lagunitas = 5.07%)
Bitterness: 48.1 (40.0 - 70.0) (Lagunitas = 45.6)

Ingredients:
15.12 lb Pale Ale Malt (It's what I have left)
9 lb American 2-row (I ran out of Pale Ale and regular 2-row was all that B3 had in stock)
2.0 lb White Wheat Malt
1.8 lb Munich Malt
1.2 lb Crystal Malt 60°L
2.75 lb Crystal 15
1 oz Vanguard (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min (I had it on hand so figured I'd use it)
.75 oz Magnum (14.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.3 oz Glacier (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min (Supposed to be Wilamette, but B3 was out so I subbed Glacier)
1.0 oz Centennial (9.1%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2.5 oz Cascade (7.8%) - added during boil, boiled 1 min
1.5 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added dry to primary fermenter
1.5 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter
2.0 ea Wyeast 1968 London ESB

Notes
Mash temp 158-160 (Yup, that's high!)

Ferment temp: 66F for three days - slowly raise to 70F over the next 3-4 days

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Amber Brew Day

2009-07-11T16:43:00.001-07:00

Today was my first venture into the world of Amber Ale. I was supposed to light the burners at 4:30 AM, when Sharon left to climb Half Dome, but I hadn't filtered my water or ground my grain last night, and at that time of the morning I started to doubt my choice for an Amber Ale so I started researching recipes and taking inventory of all my grains and hops on hand. After a few cups of coffee I decided to stick with the original plan and brew the Amber.

Mashing out at 9 AM. The first runnings were dark and sweet!

I took this picture for two reasons. First, I put a new piece of brewing equipment into rotation: The Ove Glove! It's much more convenient to grab hot pieces of aluminum, etc with this then trying to use a regular, square hot pad. Second, notice that there is NO BOIL OVER on the edges of the brew pot or on the ground. Why? I started using Foam Control on this brew and even though I had a great rolling boil, I didn't have all the foam associated with it. This stuff ROCKS!

11.5 gallons of Amber Waves of Grain in glass where it will sit for the next three weeks. I used a few drops of foam control in each carboy and it started eating through the foam from the aeration right away. 1/2 hour after pitching the 2 liter starter I had visible yeast activity.

Oops! I boiled off a little too much and over shot my starting gravity. Was supposed to be 1.055. As Mark would say, "This is going to be a big ole ale!"

Amber Waves of Grain - Amber Ale

2009-07-07T13:43:00.001-07:00

This Saturday I'll be lighting the burners at 5 AM and brewing an Amber. I'm still waiting for the keg of Pale Ale to blow before I hook up the Summer Sunset Orange Wit. Man, oh man, I can't wait to taste that beer!

Here's the recipe planned for the 11th:

Amber Waves of Grain
10-B American Amber Ale
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 12.0 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 173.16 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.052 (1.045 - 1.060)
Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.010 - 1.015)
Color: 17.8 (10.0 - 17.0)
Alcohol: 5.12% (4.5% - 6.2%)
Bitterness: 35.8 (25.0 - 40.0)

Ingredients:
20.78 lb Pale Ale Malt
2.19 lb Munich Malt
2.46 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
1.59 lb Crystal Malt 120°L
1.59 lb Victory® Malt
3 oz Vanguard (5.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 oz Cascade (7.8%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 oz Centennial (9.1%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
.5 oz Cascade (7.8%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
.5 oz Centennial (9.1%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Summer Sunset Orange Wit Brewday Planned

2009-05-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

For those followers of this blog I'm extending an open invitation to come brew with me on May 16th at 9 AM. I'll be brewing up a great session beer, a Belgian Wit. Two other folks who want to learn to brew will be there and I have room for many more. Plus, I'll have three beers on tap for everyone to enjoy. Just submit a comment on this blog with your info and email address and I'll send you directions to my house.

Here's the recipe planned for the 16th:

Summer Sunset Orange Wit
16-A Witbier
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 10.56 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 162.08 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.049 (1.044 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.008 - 1.012)
Color: 3.69 (2.0 - 4.0)
Alcohol: 4.79% (4.5% - 5.5%)
Bitterness: 17.3 (10.0 - 20.0)

Ingredients:
8 lb Pale Ale
9 lb Wheat Flaked
2 lb White Wheat Malt
2 tsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer - added during mash
1.3 oz Sterling (7.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
7 oz Orange zest - added during boil, boiled 10 min
.5 oz Corriander crushed - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2.0 ea Chamomile Tea Bag - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2.0 ea White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

B2D2 - The Better Beer Dispensing Device

2009-05-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

Nope, it doesn't look anything like R2D2, but the 4 tap draft box is FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here she is in all her 4 tap glory!

The collar that started it all.

The freezer fitted with a collar for the bottom to raise the unit up to acceptable (for me) pouring height, and for the top for the taps to fit through. I also added non-marring casters so it could roll around the house without scuffing up the floor.

1x3s installed to secure the freezer to the collars to the freezer, create airflow between the freezer and the outside plywood, and to be used as nailers for the plywood.

Skinned with 1/4" plywood and dry fitted with taps and CO2 distribution unit.

An inside peek before all of the hoses are installed.

Building the top.

After the stain and first coat of varnish is applied.

The finished unit sans drip tray (that will come next month).

Yes, I know that's a crappy ol' staining job but the drip tray will sit right at the bottom of those stain lines so I'm hoping it will mask it some.

Three of the taps are pouring Scottish Wee Heavy, Red Ale, and Pale Ale. Yippee!

Surly Sow IPA

2009-04-17T14:04:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I brewed up the Surly Sow IPA. This recipe is based of the one that Vinnie Cilurzo created and won homebrew competitions with before he commercially brewed the Blind Pig IPA.

Here's the recipe:
Surley Sow IPA
14-B American IPA
Author: Wade L. Williams
Date: 4/16/2009

Size: 11.0 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 206.06 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.062 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.015 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 11.55 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.09% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 77.7 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:
26.0 lb Pale Ale Malt
1.0 lb Malted Wheat
1.0 lb Cara-Pils® Malt
1.0 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
1.0 tsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer - added during mash
2.8 oz Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
2.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 lb Corn Sugar
2.0 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
2.0 oz Oak Wood Chips - added dry to secondary fermenter
2.0 ea White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.2

The brew day went GREAT and I had a few guests. Brandy, her son Clayton, and her dad Bruce showed up and helped brew. OK, only Bruce helped, but Clayton just walked around looking cute until it was time for a diaper change and a nap. :-)

Bruce was a big help and we talked about beer all day long. We celebrated the end of the brew with a Sierra Nevada Big Foot Barlywine. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Also, this is the first time I was able to use a water filter for my brew water. It's a carbon filter and it took all of the "organic" flavor out of our well water. The beer turned out nice and clear with not a hint of that flavor!

Here's the pics from the day:

Filtering the water the night before.

I now use big blow off tubes instead of airlocks that can get clogged with gunk. Here they are in action:

Evil Twin - Kegged and Labeled

2009-04-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

I kegged the Evil Twin on Sunday and had the usual problem of me being too greedy when it comes to getting every last drop of beer from the carboy to the keg. I "push" the beer with CO2 so the pressure makes kegging very fast. The problem is I don't know when to say when and I usually end up sucking up CO2 out of the carboy and bubbling it up through the beer in the keg. Oh, well. No use crying over spilled beer! ;-)

Here's a copy of the label I came up with. Bonus points to anyone who remembers this episode. Thanks to my parents, I remember EVERY episode! :-)

New Brew Club

2009-04-02T08:47:00.001-07:00

A few of the Modesto Mashers club members decided to create a new club. Reasons behind the split are unimportant, but we will be focused more on the actual craft of brewing.

One of the items we needed was a club logo and while I'm no graphic design artist, here's what I've come up with so far:

Evil Twin

2009-03-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

Today I brewed a recipe made famous by Jamil Zainasheff, Evil Twin Red Ale. This is supposed to be a great malty beverage with a big hop flavor and aroma without the bittering as all of the hops come at the end of the boil. Here's the recipe:

Evil Twin
Size: 11 gal
Efficiency: 70.0%
Attenuation: 75.8%
Calories: 223.88 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.060
Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (0.995 - 1.035)
Color: 18.39 (1.0 - 50.0)
Alcohol: 6.3% (2.5% - 14.5%)
Bitterness: 42.8 (0.0 - 100.0)

Ingredients:
23 lb Pale Ale Malt
1.5 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
1.5 lb Munich Malt
1 lb Victory® Malt
1 lb Crystal 120
.5 lb Pale Chocolate
1 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
1 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min

Notes
Directions: Single infusion mash at 154F (68C) using a ratio of 1.3 quarts water to 1 pound of grain. The 90 minute boil enhances the blood-red color. It also adds a touch more melanoidin and caramel notes. Cool the wort quickly after the last hop addition to retain as much hop aroma as possible. Optionally, dry hop with more Centennial or Amarillo if you’re a real hop monster. Carbonate to no more than 2 volumes and serve at 45 to 55 F (7.2 to 12.8 C).

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.2

It was an interesting brew day. Everything seemed to go well, and then the unexpected happened. See the pics below for details.

I found a great new place to make the yeast starter: in the garage. The camping stove works great and the house doesn't end up smelling like beer.

Ten ounces of hops waiting to go into the boil.

My new "hopsock" that I built out of a small piece of aluminum dowel, a 3 inch PVC pipe adapter, a 4 inch hose clamp, and a 5 gallon paint strainer. The hopsock goes in the boil, the hops go into the hopsock, and I don't get leaf hops clogging up my ball valve when I'm draining the wort!

So, at the end of the boil I put in the wort chiller and noticed that the "in" side had a small leak. No big deal since it's dripping outside the kettle, right? Wrong! This little gem burst apart spewing water all over the garage but didn't get any in the boil kettle. Whew!

10 Gallons of wort in glass and the hydro sample (that tasted absolutely delicious!). If you look closely at the hydro sample you can see the red color that this beer will have. Can you tell which carboy got the bottom of the brew kettle nasties in it? ;-)

Three weeks until fermantation is finished and we can put this lovely elixer on CO2 to carb it up!

Hops!

2009-03-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't brewed in four months, instead I've been buying supplies in bulk so I can brew cheaper. Last month I ordered three pounds of hops from www.nikobrew.com. I ordered:
1 lb Cascade Pellet
1 lb Amarillo Pellet
1 lb Centennial Leaf

I needed to seal these up with a vacuum sealer and one of my employees gave me a vacuum sealer that his dad picked up at the thrift store for $2. Not bad since these usually cost anywhere from $40 to $140.

I sealed up the hops today and they smelled wonderful! Unfortunately the Cascades were short 1 oz and the Centennials were short 1/2 oz. I emailed Niko today and let him know what happened. He seems to be a pretty straight shooter so I'm sure he'll make it right.

Update: Niko is sending out the hops to make up for the mistake!

Here's a couple of pics.

Three pounds of hops!

The $2 vacuum sealer that worked excellent!

Up Next: Evil Twin Red Ale

Some New Toys

2009-01-31T18:06:00.000-08:00

I haven't been brewing lately, but I have been busy building some new toys. Brad (Mark's friend) bought my old brew kettles so i made a couple of new ones.

I bought a couple of straight sided kegs because they look better and they're easier to handle than the old "barrel" type of kegs (Coors Light). The HLT is on the left and the boil kettle is on the right. And, oh yeah, I bought a new wort chiller too!

The new HLT has a thermometer and a sight gauge built in as well as the spigot. I put the thermometer in so that I wouldn't have to keep reaching over a boiling pot of water to put the thermo in. The sight gauge was put in so that I don't have to measure out my water in a 3 gallon pot - I can go straight from HLT to mashtun.

Here's a close-up of the HLT.

Here's a hint for what's up next.

Kegging the Pale Ales

2008-12-11T08:59:00.001-08:00

I went to keg the pale ales yesterday morning and realized that I'd never racked beer off that had been dry hopped. I was worried that I might suck hops up into the racking cane and clog it. After discussing options on the Modesto Mashers Forum and searching the web for ideas I came up with this:

It's a copper pot scrubber (sanitized of course) secured to the end of the racking cane with a zip tie. I had to stuff it into the neck of the carboy but it did a wonderful job of keeping ALL of the hops out of the racked beer.

Here's the rack in progress. I had to use CO2 to force the beer through the hops and through the scrubber into the keg.

Here's the resulting (very) empty carboy. I was able to suck out every last drop of beer with this method leaving behind the hops and almost all of the yeast.

ppfffffftttttttttttttttt!

2008-12-05T14:20:00.000-08:00

The bad new is that the English Pale Ale blew last night. :-(

The good news is that the Scottish Wee Heavy and Apfelwein are in the fridge carbonating. The Wee Heavy will be ready to tap next Saturday. The Apfelwein will be ready a week after that.

Until then:

Deschutes Obsidian Stout
Traquair House Ale - 1 bottle
Firestone/Walker Pale 31
Big Sky IPA
Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale
Big Sky Powder Hound Winter Ale
Pete's Wicked Ale - 1 bottle

That should hold me over! :-)

Dry Hopping the Pales

2008-11-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to try something new. I dry hopped my pale ales with a couple different varieties that Mark was so kind to give me. 3 oz of Cascade went into the first carboy, 2 oz of Amarillo went into the send one. The smell was wonderful! Here are the pics:

Stuffing the hops into a funnel and into the carboy. This took quite some time since I was using a rubber spatula. the handle was flat instead of round so not a lot of hops got in with each push.

Two carboys filled with hops.

A close up of the carboy w/the Amarillo.

Early, Early Morning Brew Session

2008-11-05T09:08:00.001-08:00

Today I brewed up 10 gallons of Pale Ale. Since it's a work day I decided to try to start brewing early, I mean really, really early. I lit the burner at 4:11 AM and mashed in at 5:19 AM. This is by far the best time of day to brew!

Here's the recipe for today's brew session:

Sierra Nevada Clone
10-A American Pale Ale
Size: 11 gal
Efficiency: 70.0% Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 189.99 kcal per 12.0 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.057 (1.045 - 1.060)
Terminal Gravity: 1.014 (1.010 - 1.015)
Color: 13.64 (5.0 - 14.0)
Alcohol: 5.61% (4.5% - 6.2%)
Bitterness: 36.5 (30.0 - 45.0)

Ingredients:
23.0 lb Pale Ale Malt
2 lb Crystal Malt 60°L
1.0 lb 2-Row Carapils® Malt

1 oz Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
1.0 oz Perle (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30.0 min
2.0 oz Cascade (5.6%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
4.0 oz Cascade (5.6%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2.0 oz Cascade (5.6%) - added to the primary fermenter after fermentation is complete (1st carboy)
2.0 oz Amarillo (5.6%) - added to the primary fermenter after fermentation is complete (2nd carboy)

2.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Here are a few pics from the day:
Lighting the burner at 4 AM!

Coffee and hops. The breakfast of champions!

Starter Spew!

2008-11-04T09:52:00.001-08:00

I've updated my process for creating starters thanks to advice from my brew buddy Mark. Now I start with 4 cups of water, a pinch of yeast nutrient and 1.5 cups of light malt extract. After this sits on the stir plate with the yeast (two vials of White Labs) for a couple of days I repeat the recipe and add it to the flask.

I had great success with the fermentation of the Scotch Ale (due to hit my fridge in about a week) and I had even greater success last night. For the first time ever I have krausen in my starter, a sign that I've hit the perfect gravity on my starters! The pic below was taken this morning after the second feeding of the starter last night.

The krausen came all the way up to the top of the flask and even puked out a few yeasties onto my stir plate. This should make for some very active fermentation when I pitch this yeast into my Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone tomorrow!

Active fermentation

2008-09-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of days the Dos Wee Heavies have been fermenting along very vigorously. This has to be one of the most active fermentations I've ever seen. The krausen is up the necks of both carboys and I've had to clean yeast packed gunk out of one of the airlocks two days in a row.

OK so my picture taking skills with one hand while holding a semi-nasty, yeasty, airlock aren't the greatest. This is the same airlock that was packed with junk Sunday. This is how it looked Monday night. I cleaned it again, replaced it, and now it looks slightly milky brown on Tuesday morning. I guess it might have something to do with me putting slightly more of the starter in this carboy.

Here are the two carboys at full krausen. The one closest in the picture is the one I've had to clean the airlock on, twice.

Dos Wee Heavy

2008-09-27T16:19:00.000-07:00

What a brew day. Up at 7 am, light the burners at 8:00 (when the wife wakes up), brew all day, and done by 4 PM. Whew! Hopefully it's all worth it. Here's the recap:

Thursday night I started my first 2 vile starter. Yup, we're brewing 10 gallons this time!

Here's the starter wort in an ice bath and the White Labs Edinburgh yeast.

Friday night I weighed out and ground the grains. Two things for me to remember: First, buy a different scale. This one only goes to 8 oz! It takes a long time to measure out 32 pounds of grain that way. Second, either buy a better drill or grind the grains by hand. I burnt up my cheap drill I bought from Harbor Freight.

Here's what 10 gallons of water and 33.5 pounds of grain looks like. Heavy indeed!

The first runnings came out pretty dark. I think this brew will definitely come out darker than expected. Especially because I had to take two gallons of wort and separately boil it down to 1 gallon. This is supposed to give the brew a great caramel flavor.

Pre-boiled wort. The boil pot has never been this full!

Oops! This is the second brew in a row that I've had a boil over. My burner doesn't know it's own strength!

Here's the carboy with the corriander "tea" in it. It smelled heavenly!

Here it is. 10 gallons of Scottish Wee Heavy going into glass to ferment for a couple of weeks. I haven't tasted the hydrometer sample yet, but it sure did smell good!

Here's a picture of the two carboys in the chest freezer after a hefty dose of aeration with the mix-stir. It's basically plastic helicopter blades turned sideways and mounted on the end of a long stainless steel rod. I put it on my drill and whip the wort until the froth reaches the neck of the carboy leaving just enough room for the yeast starter.

Don't do it! Don't even ask me about the kegerator!

Edit: I checked the carboys this morning (Sunday) and both airlocks were packed with yeast and gunk. It took a bit of work to clean them out. Quite the fermentation!

New Mashtun!

2008-09-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got around to building my new mashtun. It's about time since I need it this Saturday for my first 10 gallon brew. Here 'tis in all it's blue cooler glory!

The new mashtun is on the left, the old is on the right. One may think that having a bigger mashtun was the whole reason for doing this. But, we all know that blue coolers make better beer! ;-)

The spigot on my 19 year old cooler wasn't very sturdy. It barely grabbed onto the threads of the hose barb that's on the inside of the cooler. Also the plastic hose barb on this is a no-no as it could, and probably did, impart a little plastic flavor into the beer. I really never noticed it though. Not a great design, but it did make a lot of really good beer.

The new spigot was designed very differently. I've got a 1/2 inch nipple going through the spigot opening with a rubber washer, SS washer, and a brass hose barb on the inside. On the outside I've got a washer, ball valve and a hose barb. Very, very sturdy. After the second go-round with the plumbers tape it doesn't leak!

You can see that the inside of the old cooler is bubbling from the heat of the mash and sparge water. Hmmmm. Wonder what that released into the beer?

The inside o fthe new cooler is, well, new. It's smooth and shiney! Notice the channel running down the center of the cooler. I won't have to tip the cooler as much to get every last drop of wort.

So, that's the new mashtun. Her maiden voyage is this Saturday when I'm brewing a Scottish Wee Heavy. Five gallons will be traditional and I'm going to add corriander to the second five gallons for a spiced Scottish ale. Should be mm mm good!

Beer Labels

2008-08-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

Nothin's brewin' lately so I thought I'd post some of the labels I've made for my beer.

Harvest Apfelwein

2008-08-20T08:19:00.001-07:00

This morning I kegged the Apfelwein. It smelled wonderful and I can't wait for this to be ready to drink. It's one of the strongest brews I've made at 9.19% alcohol by volume. It's actually a hard apple cider that comes in a little dry on the finish. The apple flavor is great and the alcohol is very apparent right now. This will mellow over time and mask the strength of the brew. It will be great to have this on tap during Thanksgiving and Christmas. It takes 8 weeks (minimum) to age so it should be ready to drink in late October, although I think I'll wait until Thanksgiving day to actually tap it.

Today was the first day I've had to chase down a leak in one of my kegs. I'd used it before but today the liquid out post decided that it wanted to leak even with a new poppet installed. I swapped that post with another off of a keg that won't seal around another opening and it worked like a charm. It did take about an hour of my time to switch everything out and track down exactly what the problem was. Damned analytical mind! ;-)

Happy Wednesday. Brew on. Wade

English Pale Ale

2008-08-19T09:45:00.001-07:00

The English Pale Ale is kegged. It came in at 5% alchohol by volume and I couldn't have been happier with the taste of the gravity sample. It finished off with a final gravity of 1.013 which should make is slightly sweeter than the American Pale Ale that I, and lots of friends, enjoyed so much.

Kegging this beer was much easier than any of the others because I was able to drop the temperature down to 40 degrees in the chest freezer. The yeast cake on the bottom of the fermenter was very firm and didn't get sucked up into the siphon when I got close to the end.

Six weeks conditioning in the closet and this one will go on tap. Just in time for fall.

I've now got two beers on tap (Nut Brown & Lite), two conditioning (Columbus IPA, English Pale Ale) and one fermenting (Apfelwein). I'm hoping to do a ten gallon batch of a Scottish Ale soon and 10 gallons of stout for the winter.

Oh, yeah, the price of the chest freezer I want for the kegerator dropped to $269 yesterday so I'm hoping to pick that up this weekend and get started on the kegerator on the 30th!

A bad day brewing is.......

2008-08-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

Better than almost anything! Almost.....

OK, so it wasn't a bad day at all. A pretty darn good brew day if you ask me. It did, however, start off a little weird. At 5:11 AM I woke up to the telephone ringing. When I answered it all I could hear was a sound like someone was pushing one of the buttons. I figured it was a crank call and went back to sleep. At 5:26 AM I got another call. When I answered it all I could hear was some pretty lame music. Now I was awake. Time to brew!

Today I brewed an English Pale Ale (Think Bass Ale). And since I have my new Barley Crusher, I decided to give the grain a good crush last night.

Here's the grain waiting to be crushed.

After about 10 minutes of hand cranking the grain through the crusher (3 hoppers worth) here was the outcome.

I've been missing my Original Gravity's lately. Falling a bit short actually, so I thought that crushing my own grain and switching sparging methods to Bobby M's method might help. Nope, still a lower gravity than expected. I figure it's time to stop fighting this and time to change my recipes to meet my brewhouse efficiency (68-70%).

Again, nothing earth shattering today, but I am pretty darn happy with my new (to me) chest freezer and temp controller for fermenting. Now I've got that part of the brewing process completely under control.

In the corner, out of the way.

Here's the EPA and the Apfelwein in the chest freezer. The Apfelwein has been fermenting for a week and smells like old elephant farts! Yucko! Everyone says they get these smells while it's fermenting. Glad I didn't stick that one in the basement of the SWMBO's office! The EPA is cooling down to 65 degrees before I pitch the yeast.

Here's the nut brown ale that I drank right after brewing and cleaning up. Yummo! The drill will be used to aerate the wort. The vodka will go in the airlock. The Leggo sculpture is something my daughter made me last night. ;-)

Here's the Columbus IPA that I kegged Thursday morning at 5 AM. Smelled like a little bit of heaven!

Apfelwein!

2008-07-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

At this point I think I'll ferment just about anything! I've been reading a lot of homebrew forums and EdWort at Homebrewtalk posted this recipe for German hard apple cider, or Apfelwein. It seemed so easy that I thought I should give it a shot. Here's how the "brew day" went.

Here are the ingredients for this fermented coctail: 5 galons of natural, pasturized apple juice from Costco, of course. 2 lbs of corn sugar, and 1 packet of dry yeast. You're supposed to use Red Star Montrachet, but Wayne at Barley and Wine didn't have any. He recommended Lavlin #EC-1118 Champagne Wine Yeast for the same clean, crisp, dry finish that the Montrachet would have produced.

OK, um, I usually put "brewing" photos here but there was no brewing, just mixing and pouring. Here's the recipe right from EdWort:

Ingredients

5 Gallons 100% Apple Juice (No preservatives or additives) I use Tree Top Apple Juice
2 pounds of dextrose (corn sugar) in one pound bags
1 five gram packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast

Equipment

5 Gallon Carboy (I use a Better Bottle)
Carboy Cap or Stopper with Airlock
Funnel

First sanitize the carboy, airlock, funnel, stopper or carboy cap.
Open one gallon bottle of apple juice and pour half of it into the carboy using the funnel.
Open one bag of Dextrose and carefully add it to the now half full bottle of apple juice. Shake well.
Repeat Steps 2 and 3, then go to step 5.
Pour in the mixture of Apple Juice and Dextrose from both bottles into the carboy.
Add all but 1 quart of remaining 3 gallons of apple juice to the carboy.
Open the packet of Montrachet Yeast and pour it into the neck of the funnel.
Use the remaining quart of juice to wash down any yeast that sticks. I am able to fit all but 3 ounces of apple juice into a 5 gallon Better Bottle. You may need to be patient to let the foam die down from all shaking and pouring.
Put your stopper or carboy cap on with an airlock and fill the airlock with cheap vodka. No bacteria will live in vodka and if you get suckback, you just boosted the abv.

The outcome?

Here is the finished product with my son in the background hamming it up! It's mighty clear for a "brew day" concoction.

Here's a picture of the Apfelwein in my "new to me" fermentation chamber! Applause!!!!!!!!! My son and I just picked this up today in Turlock for as close to nothing as you can get.

This stuff will sit in this chest freezer (with temp controller of course) at 70 degrees for the next 6 weeks. 6 weeks? Yup, 6 weeks. It ferments slow and should finish out at around 0.999 on the hydrometer or at just about 8.13 ABV. Yikes, that's some serious alcohol. I might just have to invite Mark over to help drink this stuff!

And, no, I haven't built the kegerator yet. I may have to wait until next month to buy the chest freezer. I've got a broken window to fix on one of our french doors and that ate up quite a bit of funds!

Columbus IPA

2008-07-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

Today I brewed my first IPA, YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's my favorite style of beer and I'm finally comfortable enough with my brewing techniques to brew it. Here's how the day went:

Here's Oliver (Ollie) the brew cat checking out the wort chiller.

Here's my first yeast starter on my homemade stir plate. It's looking mighty lovely!

I lit the burner and started heating my strike water at 8:15 am. UPS has not yet delivered my grains/hops for this brew, but I think they'll be here by 11:00. I heated the water early knowing it wouldn't lose too much temp by the time the grains got here.

Heating the strike water.

It's going to be a hot one today (104) so I'm brewing in my bathing suit (Semi-No Pants?). Several trips to the pool will be required to stay cool!

The UPS driver delivered the grains at 11:15 am and I mashed in at 11:30. The recipe for this delicious nectar is:

Grain Bill

12 lbs 2-Row
1.5 lbs Crystal 15L

Boil Schedule

2 oz Magnum @ 60 Minutes - Bittering
Whirflock @ 10 Minutes - Clarifying
Yeast Nutrients @ 10 Minutes - Helping the yeasties do their job!
2 oz Columbus @ 5 Minutes - Flavoring
2 oz Columbus @ 2 Minutes - Aroma

When mashing in lately the ProMash calculations for strike water temperature have been low making me miss my mash temp. ProMash recommended 163 for strike water temp, I adjusted up to 168/169. I put the strike water in the mashtun, added the grain and 1 tsp of 5.2 and nailed my mash temp at 154! Woohoo!

Mashing in!

Keeping the heat in for 60 minutes!

The mash went well. I only lost 2 degrees over an hour. The mashout went very well also. I got 5 gallons from my first runnings and 2 gallons from my second. Seems that I over mashed just a tad!

Draining the first runnings into the boil kettle after recirculating 4 times to get the grain bed to settle and the wort to run clear.

Woe is me! I turned my back to the boil kettle for a few minutes and had a nice (OK, not so nice) boilover. Sticky wort on the concrete is not what I wanted to be working around today especially because I'm not wearing any shoes!

Boilover aftermath

After the boil returned to normal, I added 2 oz of Magnum hops. The patio smelled wonderfully of wort and hops! Mmmmmm! I've said it before and I'll say it again: They should make Potpouri that smells like this! Edit: after adding 4 oz of Columbus hops to the boil I have to say they should make Potpouri that smells like this! ;-)

Oops! I must have misjudged the pre-boil volume of wort. I only ended up with 4 gallons post boil. About 3.75 will make that into the keg. :-( So much for me being comfortable with my brewing techniques! From now on I'm going to sparge into a measuring bucket so I'm right on with my wort amounts. Last time too much, this time too little, sheesh!

Sweet wort being transferred from the boil kettle to the carboy for fermentation!

Here's the wort's resting place for the next three weeks: In the basement of my wife's office. It's been warm outside so I suspect this is going to ferment a little higher than 63 degrees, probably more like 68. Still in the good beer zone!

Edit: I missed my OG by 6 points. It was 1.054 and the range for this beer is 1.060 - 1.065. I've always had low efficiency on this system. Time to get a new cooler for a mashtun (this one's all bubbled up on the inside from the hot water) and start crushing my own grain to see if that helps. Still, the gravity sample tasted mighty good!

Up next: Hopefully the kegerator! I have all the parts except the chest freezer and the temp controller. Morebeer will have the temp controller available 7/18 and I'm just hoping Craigslist comes up with a freezer for cheap!

Nothin's Brewin'

2008-06-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't brewed in a while so I thought I'd go to the next best thing: A list of the commercial brew I've got sitting in the beer fridge. Some good, some bad, and some really, really bad!

From left to right:
Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat - A pretty good American wheat with hints of blueberry and lime. Not really my cup of tea, but not a bad beer on a hot summer night.

Alaskan ESB - A very good extra special bitter. Malty with very little bitterness and a small hint of hops. A very good early spring or late fall beer. This brewery is famous for their smoked porter. I didn't like that one very much, but I haven't liked any smoked beer that I've tasted.

Firestone/Walker Pale Ale - I've been drinking a lot of pale ales lately and this one is right up there with the best of them. Pours a light golden color with a medium malt presence with a very nice hop profile.

Green Flash Brewing West Coast IPA - A very, very hoppy IPA with a nice bitterness. Kind of a shocker if you're not ready for it. This is one big beer only for the serious hophead!

Deschutes Inversion IPA - I haven't had one of these yet, just bought the six pack last night at Bevmo. This is supposed to be a malty IPA with a good hop presence. Not over the top, but just right.

JB's (Trader Joe's) Winterfest Lager - I brought this home from the cabin a couple of weeks ago and haven't had one since ski season. This is a very good lager with lots of dark malts. Tastes of molasses, brown sugar, caramel, and roasted malts. I plan on drinking this late Saturday night while swimming in the pool.

Not shown (and for good reason) New Belgium Skinny Dip - Absolute grossness in a bottle. Seemed like the brewery had an infection somewhere along the line. If not, the head brewer needs to change his recipes. Actually, the only thing I like from this brewery is their 1554 - Enlightened Black Ale.

So, that's it for now. I'll be brewing again next month - probably a SNPA clone or a Columbus IPA. And, the kegerator will be started. Pictures to follow!

My Ghetto Stirplate

2008-05-31T13:51:00.001-07:00

Alright, so when you make a yeast starter you can do what I've done in the past and just let it sit in a dark place with tin foil on the top...
OR
You can put your starter on a stirplate to give the yeast plenty of oxygen and really, really take off doing what they do best.

Stirplates cost a lot of money and I'm a pretty thrifty guy, and I like to build stuff so I decided to make my own. Thanks so much to Push Eject for putting these plans on his website. I did improvise a little, but not much.

I basically took an old hard drive enclosure and gutted it, raided the rare earth magnets from the hard drive, took an old PC fan and an old cell phone charger and put it all together. Here's some of the process.

The parts:
An old hard drive enclosure.
A PC Fan.
A rare earth magnet.
A Rheostat from Radio Shack.
An old cell phone charger.

The guts:
I took out the hard drive, circuit board and all the wires from inside the enclosure.
I harvested the wires from inside the enclosure to make the connections from the power supply to the rheostat to the fan.
At first I tried mounting the HDD to a couple of pieces of wood, but the magnet was too far away from the magnetic stirbar to take hold so I went to Lowes and got a couple of bolts and nuts to mount it to the top.

The finished product:
Even with the fan mounted to the top of the enclosure I still wasn't getting a strong hold from the magnet to the stirbar because the plastic was so thick. A cutting tip on a Dremell rotary tool made quick work of the plastic.

Bingo! This baby will keep the yeast in suspension and growing nicely!

What's next? The Kegorator will get started next month along with The Son of a Mother of a 38DD Fermentation Chiller.

Engrish Bitter Ale

2008-05-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

I've been searching and searching for ideas for the name of this ale. I've been looking at pictures of Englishmen with bad teeth, swallows, etc and nothing seemed to fit. Then it hit me, why not name this after the way that most folks speak around here. Nobody speaks English any more, they all speak Engrish!

So, here's to you Mr. Liquor Store Clerk! Your very own beer - Engrish Bitter Ale! It even comes with it's very own catch phrase: You Likey! ;-) Be kind. It's my first attempt at an actual label.

Here's a pic of the first beer out of the tap.

Yes, that is some crap floating around in the beer, but this was the first pint. It's running clear now!

It is truly delectable! Very easy drinking and very flavorful. Lots of biscuity malt with very little bitterness. Hmmm. Makes you wonder why they call it a bitter.

12 Steps

2008-05-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

That's how many steps it takes to get my wort down into the basement of our Merced office for summer fermentation. Cooincidence that it's the same number of steps to combat alcoholism? I think not! ;-)

Why take it down there? Well, the ambient temp is between 63-66 degrees and that's just right for fermenting beer in the summer time.

Here's the wort all safely buckled up and ready for the ride to the office. Thank goodness for the carboy carrier/cover. This made it easier to carry to the car and will keep the sunlight off of the wort for the ride. I had the air conditioner in the car set for 60 degrees. That was one cooooooold ride!

Here's the yeast starter riding on the floor. Not a very good view from down there! ;-)

Yep. Those are some steep, narrow steps down to the basement!

The view from the first landing down to the basement.

The basement. The wort's home for the next three weeks while the little yeasties eat, fart, and procreate. What a life!

The Nut Brown Ale will join this Light Ale behind the decorative heater in the corner. Hopefully the kids will keep their hands off!

I'm done brewing for a while. I've got five gallons of English Bitter on tap with five gallons of Light Ale being kegged this Thursday. The Nut Brown will ferment for three weeks and be on the CO2 for two weeks before I even pull a pint.

Why am I done brewing for a while? Well, for one, I've got enough beer for now. With the hot summer days coming up I'm sure it will disappear soon, but I've got gear to buy if I'm going to have more than five gallons on tap. I'll be buying a small chest freezer, temp controller, taps, beer line, etc, etc, etc to build a 4-tap kegerator. It's got to look nice so that I can keep it in the house so I'll be painting it black and putting some wood/stainless steel finishing touches on it. Pics to come soon after I'm done with the purchases. That could take a while though!

Eye Surgery?

2008-05-06T11:21:00.001-07:00

Nope. This is a picture of the inside of a keg of Pale Ale that kicked last weekend. Such a mess from such a clear and fine brew.

"No Yeller" Light Ale

2008-05-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Today was a GREAT brew day! I've finally got to the point where I don't get very nervous when brewing. I usually stress from the time I start getting the brew pot out until I put it away at the end of the day. What's different? I think I've brewed enough times that I have my process down and everything just falls into place. I usually yell at the kids and get very frustrated. Today was truly a trying day with four 8 year old girls running around the house and in the swimming pool. But, I pulled it off: no yelling or stressing out at all today! So, to celebrate I'll name this brew No Yeller Light Ale. Catchy, huh? ;-)

Always Make a Starter

A "starter" is a small batch of beer that allows yeast to propagate and get ready to go to work on the 5.5 gallons that they will be married to in the fermentor. A special thanks to Greg Muller for posting his version of how to make a starter and of course my Modesto Mashers buddies for answering my hundreds of questions about homebrewing and making starters. Here's the process that I've used a couple of times now:

Boil 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of light malt extract for 10 minutes. Make sure not to leave this even for a second or you'll have a boil over of hot-sticky crapola on your stove that will take about 3 days to scrub off. It doesn't make the wife very happy when you do this!

Cool the wort in an ice bath for about 10 minutes. This brought the temp down to 64 degrees.

Here's the yeast we're working with on this beer. White Labs "California Ale", WLP001. Make sure this is about the same temperature as the wort.

Pour the wort and the yeast into a steralized container. I use an empty Martinelli's Apple Cider jar.

Shake vigorously to airate the wort/yeast mixture. This is what it looks like after I shook it 300 times. What a workout!

Let the starter sit for 24 hours before pitching (putting) the whole mixture into the fermentor with the completed wort for your beer. If you want to pitch only the yeast slurry and not the nasty little starter beer then let it sit for 48 hours and "cold crash" the mixture in the fridge for 24 yours to drop the yeast out of suspension. Pour off the nasty beer and save the yeast slurry in the bottom.

Light Ale Brew Day

The recipe and the brew day timer making sure I don't forget any hop or other additions to the brew.

7.1 gallons of brewing yumminess!

Just for you Dano! This is my brew day view. Lovely, isn't it? ;-)

The only plants we have in our back yard!

Back to brewing! Here's the finished wort getting transferred into the carboy. Notice the Carboy Carrier around the glass. It makes it sooooooooooo easy to carry the carboy and keeps out the sunlight so the beer doesn't skunk. One of the best purchases I've made so far! I'm sure to get another next month.

What's left in the brew pot after all the wort's gone. It looks nasty but smells wonderful! They should make Potpouri in this scent!

The four brewing beauties! It doesn't take landscaping to make kids happy. A pool and some friends and you're set for the day!

2 Brewing Firsts in One Day

2008-04-27T13:24:00.001-07:00

Today was a good day. I had two brewing firsts today. First I followed my friend Mark's advice and used CO2 to "push" my beer from the carboy into the keg. Second I actually have two beers done and on the CO2 at one time! The second beer (English Bitter) isn't ready to drink for two more weeks and the Pale Ale is almost gone. I think it's about 1-2 glasses away from going ppffffttt!

Here are the pics from the day:

A stainless steel T splits the gas line in two.

Two beers in the fridge! They barely fit!

The CO2 Push Setup

The beer flowing from carboy to keg.

Almost done!

A full keg is a happy keg! The foam on top is from Star San - a no-rinse sanitizer.

The transfer only took about a minute with 1 lb of pressure from the CO2 canister. I'm going to invest in a quick disconnect for the CO2 so I can move the caniser around and not have to cut the cut the hose each time.

Up next: Two brews in one month, another first! A Nut Brown Ale for flavor and a Light Ale for those long summer days by the pool!

Mi-Wuk Pale Face Tasting Notes

2008-04-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

This beer took a turn for the better tonight. It lost it's edge and the bitterness mellowed quite a bit. Like it all the sudden just decided to pull together. Here are the final tasting notes.

Thursday, April 10th @ 8 PM - Watching American Idol with my son.

This beer is now pouring an amber color with 2 fingers of head which quickly reduced down to about 1 finger. The aroma is lightly hoppy with the faint smell of fresh cut grass. Mouth feel is medium with slight bitterness and good hop character and a backdrop of light malt. It finishes nicely with a little bitterness on the back of the tongue. The lacing barely clings down the sides of the glass, not sticky, just a little foamy. I'm sure this beer will get even better with a few more weeks in the keg - if it lasts that long!

General Brew Related

2008-04-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

OK, so I brewed again. This time it was an English Bitter that tasted so good before I put it in the fermenter that I almost didn't wait for the yeast to do it's job before I had a pint!

In other news, I've got a new brew spot! It was REALLY windy this weekend so I decided to brew in the garage. I think I've found the perfect spot. Very little wind, nice ventilation, and the TV is mounted up in the corner. Just works out great!

The English Bitter Recipe. Yum!

(EDIT) - Whirfloc should not be added to the mash, but rather to the boil with 15 minutes left. This helps the hotbreak clump up and settle to the bottom so you don't get so much in your carboy. Thanks Mark for pointing out this error on the recipe sheet!

Lots o' room for the brew gear box

The mashtun on top of the dog crate. BTW, I think I can get one more good brew session out of this cooler. It's starting to buckle on the inside and I've got a few cracks developing along the top walls of the cooler. Not bad for a 19 year old cooler we got as a wedding present! Here is what will replace it.

Got the laptop setup on the quad to keep track of recipes, run the Brewday Timer, and hit up the forums whilst I brew!

Oh, yeah, the Pale Ale is doing fine. I had a friend over this Saturday after our son's baseball games and we had a few pints. I think it needs a couple of weeks to blend/mellow before I'll pass any more out or bottle any for the homebrew club and friends. I've still yet to get a couple of beers to Mr. Kirby and the Burdicks and I'm starting to feel bad about that since they helped me out by giving me some of my original equipment. Don't want to give them beer with that sharp flavor though! Honestly guys, it's coming soon!

Mi-Wuk Pale Face

2008-04-03T10:11:00.001-07:00

It's official, this has got to be the best pale ale I've ever tasted! Lighter than SNPA with more of a hop presence. The Magnum and Glacier hops shine through without being over powering. It pours a golden/copper color and smells slightly of fresh cut grass. It still has a slight yeast taste that will become less pronounced as the keg clears. It has head medium retention and a nice lacing down the side of the glass as you drink it.

I'm naming this beer Mi-Wuk Pale Face. A play on words for our favorite place - our cabin in Mi-Wuk, and the fact that two pale faces (my son and I) brewed it. It's also the first he's tasted when we were checking the OG before it went in the carboy to ferment. He looked at me and said "Not too bad."

I'll enjoy this beer as I brew an English Bitter this weekend.

Two good beers in a row, I am stoked!

1.010

2008-03-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

1.010. That's the final gravity on all most all of the small ales that I've brewed so far. 3 weeks in the primary fermenter has worked out to be a pretty good plan to make sure that the beer is completely fermented out and given time to condition.

My son and I kegged the Pale Ale last night and it tasted pretty darn good. He even took a sip and said "Not bad". I don't know if that's a good omen since he's only 11 years old! I'm still looking for a name for this one. Here are the beers that I've brewed so far:

Charlie's Brown Ale - A mild brown ale that turned out to be not so good. I went and infected the batch by putting in unboiled well water in the carboy. But, just like old Charlie Brown, I'll keep brewing even if someone pulls the football out from in front of me!
Tinimamawiezen - A German hefeweizen that the SWMBO requested. Turned out gooooooooood with an excellent clove and banana profile.
No Name Pale Ale - Good so far. I've got to give it one week on the CO2 at 12 PSI to get it to carbonate. I'll try it this weekend to see if it's ready for guests. Thinking of giving it a name with "Cheap Bastard" worked in which is how I refer to myself almost every day.

Up next: English Bitter. Got to come up with an oxymoron of a name since this one is actually very smooth with very little bitterness.

Mark picked me up another 6.5 gallon carboy today at B3 in Concord so I can start brewing 10 gallon batches. Yippee! I'm thinking my first 10 gallons will be my favorite, an American IPA with lots of hop profile and quite bitter. This one will be for me and the hard core hopheads! Hopefully I can get a few folks over for the brew day. Kind of hard since everyone I know interested in brewing is at least 30 minutes away and you can't have a good brew day without a few brews!

American Pale Ale - 03-01-08

2008-03-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

We drained the 5 gallon keg of Hefeweizen at the bike race party on Saturday, so it's time to brew more!

Here's how the brewday progressed:

Heating the strike water.

Doing my calculations on the computer.

Sanitizer in the carboy.

The recipe.

Homework shmomework, I'm helping dad brew!

(insert picture of mashing here. Who the heck forgets to take a picture of this?)

First addition of hops by my big hopboy!

7.9 gallons of boiling goodness!

My first yeast starter.

The outcome from brewday:

Nailed my mash temp at 154 degrees.
Had to go to three sparges to get enough wort. Yikes! Now calculating grain absorption at 30%!
7.9 gallons of wort pre-boil.
5.25 gallons of wort post-boil. Have to watch the boil temps. Too high, obviously.
60 minute boil.
1 oz Magnum hops @ 60 minutes.
Whirfloc, Yeast Nutrients and Chiller @ 20 minutes.
1 oz Glacier hops @ 5 minutes.
1 oz Glacier hops at 1 minute.
OG - 1.43. Supposed to be between 1.48-1.55. A little less alcohol in this one.
Taste - Hoppy and gooooooooooooooooooood! Maybe a little too hoppy for some, but more for me!

This one will ferment for three weeks and go into the keg on March 23rd.

UP next: something the swmbo will like!

The little Hefeweizen that did!

2008-02-25T18:13:00.001-08:00

Success!

This is one good brew. Tastes of banana and clove. Just like a German Hefeweizen should. Very reminiscent of a dunkleweizen with more of a yeast profile. Very good if I do say so myself. It still tastes a bit young, but should be full of flavor by this weekend!

OK, so here's the setup that I have now:

Not pictured is the CO2 tank sitting outside the fridge. I ran the gas hose from the regulator into the fridge following the water-in line for the water dispenser/ice maker.

Here is the keg inside the fridge with 5 gallons of goodness inside!

Up next: I hope to be brewing a pale ale this Saturday!

The Little Hefeweizen that Could

2008-02-19T12:48:00.000-08:00

Alright, so things are starting to look up in my world of brewing.

First my wife let me turn the bottom half of our garage fridge into a kegorator of sorts! Second, the Hefe tastes like a very good, flat beer! It as kegged at 5 AM this morning and will be "force carbed" for 7-10 days using the "set it and forget it" method.

Here's the specs on the beer:

Brewed:
1-27-08

Grain Bill:
6.5 Lbs Wheat
4.5 Lbs 2-Row

Hops:
0.5 Oz Hallertauer @ 60 minutes

Yeast:
WLP300 - White Labs Hefeweizen

Gravity/Alcohol:
OG 1.042
FG 1.010
%AL 4.192

Fermentation:
3 Weeks
67 Degrees

Carbonation/Conditioning
7 - 10 Days
40 Degrees
12 PSI

So, this brew should be ready to drink between 2-26 - 2-29. Tasting notes to follow!

You're a blockhead Charlie Brown!

2008-01-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't posted here in a while and it's because the first brew didn't turn out all that well. It seems that I may have done a few things wrong, usually no big deal. But, one of the mistakes proved fatal for poor old Charlie Brown and 1.5 gallons of him has gone down the drain (I'm saving the other bottles just in case he decides to bottle condition himself back from the dead).

So, what whent wrong? Here's the short list:
Put my last addition of hops in with 20 minutes left in the boil instead of 1 minute.
Poured the junk (trub) from the bottom of the boil kettle into my carboy.
Didn't let the beer sit on the yeast long enough (only 11 days).
And last, but certainly not least, I topped off the carboy with unboiled well water - AKA "The Death Blow". It seems that well water isn't exactly clean of contaminates like it's well chlorinated cousin; "City Water".

So, after all that work and all that waitin:
It looked like beer.
It smelled like beer.
The first sip almost tasted like beer, but like it had been mixed with aspirin, lots of aspirin. Yuk!

Live and learn. I'm on to my second batch this Sunday, a Hefewiezen. It won't have any cute names, I'll do everything step-by-step, and I WON'T TOP OFF THE CARBOY WITH TAP WATER! ;-)

Charlie's Brown Ale

2007-12-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

Yup, Reece named it. I was a little nervous doing this for the first time on my own, but everything seems to have turned out OK, so far.

The grain going into the mashtun on top of the strike water. The water was 169 degrees and after the grain went in I hit my temp of 154 perfectly.

My first mash!

The first runnings were very clear thanks to the 1" wire hose braid. I still recycled about 4 times because I may be a little anal retentive!

Into the Binford 9000 boil kettle. ;-)

My son ready to stir in the first addition of hops once we get to a boil. Thanks to the Binford 9,000 outdoor burner that I got from Home Depot, that didn't take long at 150,000 BTU.

After 30 minutes of chilling the wort was at 79 degrees. Perfect for putting into the fermenter.

5 minutes of shaking the carboy to aerate. Pitched the yeast at 70 degrees. A few more good shakes and it was into the closet with the fermentation lock and blow off tubing.

Now, all I have to do is wait about two weeks to allow the yeast to consume the sugar and turn this wort into beer!

Monday Morning update - I didn't have time to make a yeast starter, still the beer is fermenting slightly this morning. Yeah!

Ready to brew!

2007-11-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

Man, oh man, oh man. Somethings just come together.

I needed three last pieces of equipment and was going to make them all. I ended up making two and purchasing the third. Here's the latest gear that I have that now makes me ready to brew!

Mash tun

I had an old cooler that I wanted to convert and with the help of Robert from the Merced Lowe's and about $12 worth of stuff we got it setup in no time!

Notice the spigot on the right side instead of the drain plug that used to be there.

This is the inside of the cooler with a bulkhead replacing the drain plug and a 24" braided stainless steel water supply line with the plastic insides removed to act as a strainer when we seperate the liquid from the grain.

The hinges on the cooler were old and broken. Not to worry, a couple of new stainless steel hinges did the trick. But, now the cooler occasionally flips over backwards because of the heavy hinges.

My Brewpot

Ric Kirby had an old keg he didn't mind contributing to this project. His wife just wanted the darn thing out of their garage! ;-)

*** UPDATE *** Ric let me know today that the garage is his domain and that he is master of that domain. Dana has no say as to what goes on in the garage except to banish Ric there when he oversteps his bounds. I bet Ric gets to sleep in his domain the next few nights!

Ric was also nice enough to cut the hole in the top with his plasma cutter and let me borrow his grinder to finish the job nicely. Jody Burdick and her husband John were nice enough to lend me their step drill bit and tapping oil so that I could get the spigot hole drilled in the side. Morebeer.com was happy to sell me the weldless spigot. ;-)

Here's the results:

Holy half barrel keg Batman! So that's what the inside of one of those things looks like!

30 minutes of drilling and I was finally able to install the new spigot. It's drilled in just above where the floor of the keg attaches to the side. The middle of the floor slopes down just enough to catch the "trub" or junk left over after brewing. Sweet!

Wort Chiller

I had to finally tell myself that I was going to have to buy my wort chiller instead of building it. Bummer. When I checked the prices of copper tubing I found that it was just as expensive to buy the copper and make it myself as it was to buy a premade one. Then, at the last minute, I checked Craig's List and TADAH! Someone had an OLD wort chiller for sale in Merced. I talked the owner down to $25 for a chiller he had built himself about 15 years ago. All I have to do now is dip it in a little muriatic acid and get all of the gunk off.

Cold water goes in. Hot water comes out. Wort gets chilled in the process.

So, I'm now ready to brew. Now all I need to do is buy the ingredients. I'm thinking of a nice English Bitter or a Pale Ale for my first venture into all-grain brewing. Got to get paid first. I'll probably be brewing in the first week of December!

Eating your desert first

2007-11-15T10:05:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm kind of doing things a little backwards, but - hey - that's just the way I roll.

Today I got one heck of a bargain off of Craig's List . It's a Tap-A-Draft system that is basically a small kegging system that allows you to "keg" your beer in 1.5 gallon batches so you can easily store it in your refridgerator and take it with you to a party, picnic, fottball game, etc.

I got two extra bottles and an extra tap for a pretty good deal. Yup, I'm a thrifty guy and anything I can do to save money and still make great beer you can bet I'll do it.

I've also purchased a basic deluxe (oxymoron?) starter system to get me almost everything I need to brew for $99.

I still have a keg that I will convert into a boil kettle and an old ice chest that I'm going to convert into a mash tun. Hopefully I'll get both done this weekend and post the results and pics.

RTFM

2007-11-13T12:42:00.001-08:00

Wanna know how to brew beer? Want to know how long to boil it, why yeast works, what causes off-flavors, how to build your own mash tun, what the hell a mash tun is, and when your beer will actually be ready to drink? Then buy this book and RTFM.

Honestly, this is the homebrewer's bible. It talks about everything and is written by one of the premier homebrewers of all time, John Palmer.

I'm learning a lot from this book. The most important being that brewing beer is only sort of like cooking. It's more like math and chemistry that actually produces something yummy!

Every infection has a host that started it all

2007-11-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

About 20 years ago I brewed a batch of beer from a kit that came in a 5 gallon fermentation bucket. The beer turned out sort of OK, but mostly not good. We still drank it wondering why there was a thick blanket of gunk (yeast) on the bottom.

20 years later and a much more refined palate and I want to give it another try. I attended a "Teach a friend to brew day" event at my friend Mark's house. The bug is back and I now want to brew great beer. This blog is setup to chronicle my journey into the world of brewing beer. Not beer from kits, but from scratch, also known as all-grain brewing. This is a more "purist" way of brewing, and from what I tasted at Mark's house (7 beers on tap) I know it's the only way to go.

So, stay tuned. I've got stuff to buy, stuff to make, and deals to negotiate before I can brew my first batch. Oh yeah, and a wife (SWMBO) to keep happy all along the way! ;-)