“Just throw the damn towel, Rocky”

I am done.

I quit.

I just cannot devote any more of my time and energy into these guys.  Really. I am through.  And trust me, it’s not me…it’s them in an incredible turn-around on an old cliche break up line.

For the love of all that is right and just in this world, they reviewed three beers from the G. Heilman / Pabst Brewing Co., as if they were the greatest thing to have been made with barley, water, yeast, and a total of 4 hop pellets per batch.  All three of these beers are rated with an average of a C on Beer advocate.  This is the same company that produces such winning beverages as Colt 45 (see what  happens when you sell your soul to the Empire, Lando???),  Champale: a malt liquor so heinous I can’t even find an old commercial or worthwhile graphic for it on the interwebs, and Lone Star: the very essence of Texas if you like to drink fermented cowboy pee that has been mixed with water from Galveston Bay, then run across the back of one of the fine ladies at the Oceanside Cabaret and into your glass….

hold on a moment….. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit…

Ok, all better.  And by the way, steak is much better the first time.

My point being here is that these guys have latched onto the “hipster” crowd.  PBR is what the cool kids are drinking in dive bars across the country because it is very retro in the red, white, and blue can, cheap as all get-out, and well… after 3 or 4 you can’t taste the distinct canned vomit flavor anymore.  It is widely consumed by 21-35 year old douchbags that think they are “retro-cool”, wearing their douchebag Ed Hardy t-shirts, and walking around thinking that they are sexier than “The Situation” (whoever the Hell that is.. I just read a passing mention of that asshat on Yahoo the other day)

Mmmm, sign me up for this fun ride.  “Drink Beer! Alienate your friends and make people hate you for being a schmuck”

So, I am done ranting about the beer guys.  This has become an instance of mind over matter.  I no longer mind, because they no longer matter.

***Management reserves the right to rescind this proclamation at any time***

So, now we get to the meat of the article here.  I have been lax and neglectful of my beer writing duties here this summer.  This does NOT, however, mean that I have not been brewing on some of the hottest days of the year.  (We artists must suffer for our art, you know…).  So, I guess to begin, I should mention the Blonde Ale I brewed for SWMBO… I mean,  my loving and ever-caring wife, Stacie.

As mentioned on my last post regarding America’s love of eating, drinking and “blowin’ shit up”, the 4th of July holiday would be incomplete if it did not involve some form of alcohol.  I had decided when I wrote the last post that I had just enough grain left in-house to brew Scream Queen/ Gentlemen Prefer a Blonde.  I was almost close, so i had to improvise.  This is what was brewed on July 5th, 2010 (with notes pertaining to substitutions):

• 4.62lbs Optic Pale malt (was supposed to be 7lbs, but I estimated poorly)
• 2lbs Vienna Malt
• 1lb British Mild malt (not called for in the original recipe)
• 1lb Flaked Rye (not called for in original recipe, preferable to flaked wheat due to less haze)
• 1/4lb Light Munich (again, not called for in original)
• Mashed at 150*F for an hour
• 1oz whole Willamette hops added at 60 mins (5.5%AA, homegrown)
• 1/2oz Whole Willamette hops added at 15 mins (5.5%AA homegrown)
• 1/2oz whole Willamette hops added at flameout (5.5%AA homegrown)
• 11g sachet of Safale S-05 dry yeast
• OG was 1.043 (same as calculated at 69% efficiency)
• color was very light straw… almost toe-headed
• IBU are around 27

The Mash and boil went smoothly, although I sparged quicker than I probably should have.  The sparge ran for 35 minutes, rather than the normal 60.  Had I slowed the runoff down a bit, we probably could have hit 75% efficiency on this batch.  We let this do its thing in primary until bottling it on 20 July.  This proved to be a pretty refreshing beer, considering the potpourri of grains that went into it in a CYA moment.  Most impressed, and likely to try this recipe version out again in the near future.

Throughout the month of July, I noticed an alarming and disturbing trend with some of the batches that were bottled in May, June, and early July…. they all seemed “off”, and were overcarbonating and had varying off-flavors.  Lost to the drinking public were the second batch of Great Potato Famine, the June batch of Hippy Bro, and the club brewoff Chocolate-Coconut Porter (batch one in the link).  Of undetermined health is the www.ipa.com beer that was brewed also with the Hippy Bro.

I think the issue with the spoiled batches is tainted racking tubing.  I started having issues with bad batches after I racked the Flanders Red Ale at the end of May.  I deep-sixed the racking cane and hose, and I am hoping that will do the trick (along with a “shock and awe” cleaning/sanitizing of all my fermentation gear).

This weekend past, I also had occasion to brew our annual Russian Imperial Stout: aka Romanov Family Portrait (fka Vlad and Joe’s Rockin’ Imperial Stout).  I was not sure I would get this one done, as I had a bunch of things to do on my “list”.  I woke up early on Sunday morning, mowed a majority of the lawn and decided that the beautiful weather was just calling for a brew-session.  Following is the beer we brewed on 8/1/2010:

• 20lbs Maris Otter
• 2lbs Flaked Oats
• 2lbs Chocolate Malt
• 1lb Roasted Barley
• 1/2lb Cara-Amber
• 1/2lb Cara-Aroma
• 1/2lb Dark Crystal (about 130*L)
• Mashed at 153 for about an hour

the boil was a special instance of splitting and condensing the sugars.  Due to kettle limitations, I am only able to collect 6.5 gallons of wort safely for the boil.  This recipe required that I collect nearly 8 gallons for the 2 hour boil.  I collected my main boil volume (6.5 gallons) in my normal kettle, then I ran off an additional 2 gallons and boiled that kettle separate… just turned the burner on and walked away for 2 hours.  In the “main” kettle containing 6.5 gallons, I added the following hops:

• 1/2oz Nugget pellets at 90 minutes (13%AA)
• 1oz Perle pellets at 60 mins (8.8%AA)
• 1oz Perle pellets at 30 mins (8.8%AA)
• 1-1/2oz Willamette whole hops at 20 mins (5.5%AA, homegrown)
• 2oz Willamette whole hops at flameout (5.5%AA, homegrown)
• 1/3 gallon straight yeast harvested from the brewoff porter and the Hippy Bro batches
• OG: 1.109 *vs a calculated OG of 1.122
• color:  light shall never pass through this liquid
• IBU: 112

This was another good brewday.  The sun was unrelenting, though there was a nice breeze.  I did manage to wrench my back when picking the cooler-tun from the ground to table height (deadlifting 115 pounds by one’s self is hitherto deemed unwise in any situation).  The yeast managed to kick right in within 6 hours of pitching into the wort.  This will primary for at least 4 weeks, then it will go into secondary until I decide it is ready.

I don’t have any more brewing on the immediate radar.  August is a pretty jam-packed month, so I likely will not have the time to brew.  I do need to try to get that Hippy Bro done again so we can present it to our friends, but aside from that, I’ve got nothin’….

Until next time, please live well, drink safe,

Oh, and Brew Guys, I have boxed up your clothes, curling irons and Duran Duran tapes and left them outside.  Please pick them up.  I am through with you.

The great American tradition continues

I shall start this post with a song in honor of both Canada Day and the 4th of July:

“Oh Canada,

Your bacon’s really ham.

Your beer is watered down, and tastes no better canned.”

…that’s all I got on that one.

So, this weekend is when we Americans celebrate those things that make our country great.  By this I mean that we get a day off of work, gorge ourselves on processed meat that has been cooked over a fire created by burning a fossil fuel while drinking to excess in the blazing sun with our fat American bellies hang over our belt line.  Then, once we have had our fill of fake meat and have consumed enough alcohol to make an elephant legally drunk, we will blow shit up.  Good times.

Oh, and we will celebrate the birth of something… what was it now?  Oh yeah, the birth of our nation, indivisible under <insert deity of choice here>, with Liberty and Justice for all, and remember the sacrifices of our founding fathers to provide us with the freedoms that we all enjoy.

Enough of that though.  This is a beer website, and I have some brewing news.

This past week, the timeline hit for me to have to bottle the Chocolate-coconut Porter.  This was the first beer we brewed back on May 23rd.  As you may recall, the second beer of that brewday  met an unfortunate end.  The first beer (the porter) has had a very fine life so far.  The yeast took a bit to kick off fermentation, but otherwise, there were no issues.  We brewed on May 23rd, and the beer sat in primary until June 6th, when I racked it over to secondary on top of the 5oz of Cocoa nibs and 4oz of organic unsweetened coconut shavings.  To prepare the coconut, I spread it out on a cookie sheet and toasted it for 45 minutes in the oven at 275*F.  Every 5 minutes, I stirred the coconut around on the sheet to ensure an even toast and also to keep it from burning.  The toasting was to serve two purposes:  First, toasting will intensify the flavor and aroma.  Raw coconut, especially when unsweetened, is actually pretty bland.  Second, I was hoping that toasting the coconut would cook out some of the natural oils and fat content.  I had some concern that those things would hinder head retention as well as provide rancidity due to break down of the fatty acids.

We did a three week secondary with the cocoa nibs and coconut, and bottled this past Monday.  I was quite happy with the gravity sample.  This beer ended exactly where I wanted it to with a final specific gravity of 1.013.  The cocoa nibs really are shining the spotlight in this beer.  The coconut just barely shows itself in the nose, and is nearly absent in the flavor.  Next time, I think we will double the amount of coconut used.  I have high expectations that this beer will be a hit at the club meeting on July 14th.

This holiday weekend, we have a few things planned.  Saturday, we will be travelling to lovely and rustic Newark, NY, to spend the day with Tony, Colleen, and Tony’s family.  It will be fun in the sun with good people, good beer, yummy food, and of course…. explosives.  Sunday and Monday are fairly open.  I think I shall have to brew our house beer:  Gentlemen Prefer a Blonde/ Scream Queen.  (Oh yeah, Stacie… I want to brew this weekend. mhuah!).  I sadly do not have any special beers purchased to toast the holiday.  Maybe I will have to pick up a Sierra Nevada 30th bottle.

Here is hoping that all of you have a safe and happy July 4th.  What do any of you have planned, and what yummy beers will you be enjoying?

Newsflash: BP to stop drilling relief well, will plug leak with Joran van der Sloot

I am going to start this post with a brief departure from beer, so I can rant about a couple of things first.

Let’s start with this Joran van der Sloot piece of crap.  This “man” deserves to be put in general population of that Peruvian prison…  and he must shower with powdered soap.  This is the deal.  This kid has built this entire persona as a perpetual liar.  He has confessed and retracted and back pedaled on so many different allegations over just the past five years that no one at this point could possibly believe anything he has to say.  As far as a scam artist goes, this guy has done pretty well for himself.  Unfortunately, the Feds dropped the ball recently in Aruba, and another young lady is dead.  He confessed to the second murder, then retracted saying he “was scared”… as Sherman T. Potter would have said “Son, that is a big load of horse puckey”.  This kid is just following his M.O. in the hopes that the authorities screw something up and he gets let off on a technicality.  Like I said, throw him in general population in a pair of ass-less chaps.  He will quickly understand justice.

Next up is this whole “Big Oil is SATAN!!!!!” nonsense.  It isn’t Big Oil that is evil, it is the administration at BP.  I am actually a bit conflicted on this topic, because I started my working career in the oil and gas industry.  For 18 long months, I worked in quality control on an exploration vessel in the Gulf of Mexico.  We did not actively rape and pillage the Earth, though we did help acquire the data for our contracted companies to do so.  I actually worked on a couple of surveys for BP (back when they were still mostly British).  They weren’t overly demanding, and since we did not drill test wells or anything, my life was never in imminent danger due to explosion… except on chili night, but I digress.  This is what I am taking out of this particular situation:

The oil industry is not bad in, and of, itself.  Our particular operation was quite environmentally conscious.  Any spill was quickly contained, we did not jettison non-biological material (and the biomass we did discharge was processed and treated before it became effluent), and from what I saw the very few times I was actually on a drilling platform, every process was performed with the utmost care to worker and environmental safety.

BP, however, in their quest to pull in a larger profit margin than their competitors cut very significant corners against the advice of the two companies that they were operating the Deepwater Horizon with (TransOcean and Halliburton).  BP dug this hole for themselves, quite literally and figuratively.  Now, unfortunately, an entire ecosystem will suffer for many years to come and many families will, for all intents and purposes, lose their livelihood.  F-you Britain! At least when we polluted our own waters it was tea, and the fish and lobsters only got hyper.

Should the Gulf disaster lessen our search for alternative, renewable resources?  Not at all.  There were only so many dinosaurs and prehistoric flora that died and were compressed.  We will run out  of oil eventually.  Oil shale extraction still is not a viable alternative, cars can’t run on NG, and bio-fuels are no more “green” than traditional fuels.  I don’t have any solutions or suggestions as to where we go… maybe nuclEar (that’s for you, GHW) power and fuel cells and electric vehicles will start getting more funding….

OK.  Now that that is off my chest, let’s get to the beer!  As I mentioned in my last post, I have had a “trouble batch”.  No matter what I tried, I just couldn’t get it brewed.  Mishaps, commitments, sunburn, fatigue and hangovers were keeping this beer from being born.  I took a step back from this recipe, re-evaluated it, and decided it wanted to be a Double IPA.  I also knew that Father’s Day was looming.  My lovely wife, Stacie, and I have an understanding:  On Mother’s Day, she lifts not a finger for any reason.  On Father’s Day, I brew beer.

Father’s Day was yesterday,  and I really could not have picked a more beautiful day to brew.  I started the weekend thinking I would get that IPA done, then I was requested to brew a batch of our Hippy Bro Nut Brown Ale for a friend.  DUAL BREW DAY!!!!  I actually kept a half-assed log throughout the brewday complete with times. I will list that out at the end so you all can see how the day progressed.  First, here are the recipes:

1. Hippy Bro Nut Brown Ale

recipe for 5.25 gallons,brewed on6/20/2010

• 8lbs Fawcett Optic Pale Malt
• 1 lbs British Mild malt
• 3/4lbs Cara-Amber
• 1/4lbs Crystal60*l
• 1/4lbs Crisp Brown Malt
• 1/4lbs British Chocolate malt
• 1oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) as First Wort hops
• 1oz Nugget pellet hops (13%AA) added at 60 minutes… I just realized writing this that the recipe called only for 1/2oz…oooops!
• 1oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) added at 5 minutes
• WYeast 1028 London Ale yeast
• Expected starting gravity:  1.054 with 5.75g in carboy
• SRM(color)  31
• IBU 67 (would be 37 but for adding too many Nugget hops)

2.  WWW.IPA.COM (original recipe may be found here)

recipe for 5 gallons,  brewed on 6/20/2010

• 15lbs Fawcett Optic Pale Malt
• 2lbs Vienna Malt
• 3/4 lbs Dark Munich
• 1/4lbs Crystal 60*L
• 1/4lbs Cara-Amber
• 1lb Light Muscovado sugar added with 10minutes left
• 2oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) as First Wort hops
• 3/4oz Warrior pellet hops (17.2%AA) added at  60minutes
• 1/2oz Perle pellet hops (8.3%AA) added at 60minutes
• 1oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) added at 20minutes
• 1oz Amarillo pellet hops (8.7%AA) added at 10 minutes
• 3/4oz Warrior pellet hops (17.2%AA)added between 5 and 0 minutes
• 1oz Willamette whole  hops(5.5%AA) added between 5  and 0 minutes
• 1.5oz Perle pellet hops (8.3%AA) added between  5 and 0 minutes
• WYeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast cake from Smoked Irish Red
• Expected OG: 1.092 with 5.5 gallons in carboy
• SRM: 15.3
• IBU: 132  (human taste threshold is 80-90, anything above is for bragging rights)

Now, this is how the brewday went down:

• 9:30 got woken up by a kid yelling in my ear that it was time to get out of bed
• 9:45 showered and dressed, strike water has been measured for the Double IPA (DIPA)
• 10:00  Burner is lit to heat the strike water for the DIPA.  Begin crushing grains for both batches to be brewed.  Water is measured for the Brown Ale and set aside until burner is free
• 10:38 The DIPA is mashed in into the Igloo cooler-tun.  Strike water was heated to 164*F so the  mash stabilized at 150*F  (Our oldest daughter was kind enough to inform me at this point that I had already added the 5.2 mash stabilizer to the strike water.  She will be a brewster yet!)
• 10:55 The Hippy Bro is mashed in right in the kettle.  Strike water was heated to 165*F so the mash stabilized at 154*F
• 11:50, sparge water put onto the burner to  heat for the Brown Ale
• 12:20  Sparge water for Brown Ale reaches 175, and sparging begins and runs for the next 45 minutes
• 1:00 Burner is turned on after 3 gallons have been collected for the Brown Ale
• 1:20 Brown Ale reaches a boil
• 2:20  Brown Ale boil is complete, chilling begins.   Sparge water for the DIPA is put on the burner to heat to temperature
• 3:00 Brown Ale is done and in the carboy
• Vital Statistics for the Brown Ale

OG measured 1.052 with 5.3gal in the carboy for system

efficiency of 71%

• 3:20  IPA Sparge is started.  The first runnings were absolutely clear of grain particules before I had even run off a quart of liquid.  All hail the braided hose!!!  Sparging runs for next 50 minutes
• 4:00 Burner is turned on after 2.5 gallons have been  collected for the DIPA
• 4:30 DIPA reaches a boil
• 5:35 DIPA boil is finished and chilling starts
• 6:15  DIPA is done and in the carboy.
• Vital Statistics for the DIPA

OG Measured 1.092 with 5.6 gallons in the carboy for system

efficiency of 70%

• 7AM 6/21:  DIPA  has begun blowoff.  Additional cold water added to container bin,  airlock replaced with sanitized AL foil.  No signs of life from Brown
• 7PM 6/21  DIPA blowoff finished.  Still nothing from the Brown (no starter was prepared

So, that was my brew day/ Father’s Day this year.  A good, solid 9 hours of brewing under absolutely crystal clear skies.  The slight breeze off of Lake Ontario made it bearable to stand next to large volumes of boiling  liquids all day.  It also made the sunshine seem much more innocuous than it really was.  Another weekend, another sunburn, but I just consider it job security since the company I work for designs and manufactures microscopes for non-invasive skin cancer imaging.

We will update on these beers once they are near or at their completion.  Until then, Cheers, brew well and live even better.

RYW

Change you can believe in

I am proud to announce  that, by unanimous decision, I am the undisputed champeen President of the Upstate New York Homebrewer’s Association for 2010 *cue Rocky music*.

I have a couple of cool things I would like to have the club do  in the coming year, or at least get the ball rolling towards having said things occur in the future.  It will be a fun time for all (no matter how crazy Tony thinks I am for doing this), and I am looking forward to getting right into the fray.  I don’t want to get too far into my plans or ideas here,  as this particular site is not entirely the proper forum for such things.  Just know that I have some good stuff rolling around in the large void between my ears.  As things get in the planning stages and whatnot, I will be sure to update, but for now it is neither the time, nor the place.

OK, so now that that is out of the way, do we all remember these guys?  This week marked another of their forays into beer journalism.  As many of you can tell by the lack of vitriol,  though, this article did not pertain to homebrewing.  Rather, this week’s article dealt with beer festivals.  To be completely honest, I really have no major issues with the article this week.

Actually, I will take that back.  I DO have an issue with the article this week.  Not with the content itself, but rather what it is lacking: that English Bitter recipe.

Let’s face it, we’ve  been hoodwinked.  They promised to not only guide us through the homebrewing process, but also the equipment and ingredient requirements necessary to brew an English Bitter.  So, what gives, Adam and Bryan?  I can only assume that one of two things happened:

1. They were limited to three articles on the homebrewing process, and were too verbose in the first two articles to complete the series and give the reading public what was promised.
2. They read blogs like mine, or have received many outraged emails detailing the failings of their tutorial and simply threw their hands to the sky in exasperation and futility.

OK, my arguments this week are very feeble.  Like I said, I really have no issue with their recommendations for how to enjoy a beer festival.  The only point I would probably broach is that they did not mention is the idea of doing a beer review based off of a festival pour.  My thoughts are quite simply, don’t do it.

Look, generally, if you are going to review a beer, you have a 12oz “sample” in front of you.  It is very difficult to adequately review a beer based off of a 2oz pour.  With a full 12 ounces, you can more fully experience the beer as it warms from serving temperature until the entire beer is gone.  As the beer warms, you will experience changes in aroma and flavor that are simply not present in a 2oz  pour that is very easily “shot” so your glass is empty for the next sample.  If you want to review beer that you drink at a festival, go about it this way:

• find the brewery that has piqued your interest and ask if they have any new releases or “festival only” beers on tap
• if it is a new release, ask if it has hit store shelves yet, and request this as your sample.  If you dig the sample, make a note of it and purchase a more suitable reviewing sized bottle at your local beer or grocery store.
• if there is a “festival only” beer, request that as your sample, and if the line behind you permits, request another sample when the first is finished. If you feel the need to revisit the beer later, head back to that booth and get a third sample.  It still won’t be a full serving size (12oz), but you will have a much better feel for the beer after a couple of samples than if you base everything on a 2oz  “shooter”.
• Don’t be “THAT GUY” that stands in the middle of everything plugging your review into Beer Advocate on your iPhone.  If you insist on writing notes down on festival-only brews, wait until you get home to upload them onto your computer.
• Realize that very often breweries will not send THE brewer to a beer festival.  While there are exceptions to this, it is very often a brewery rep or an intern that is at the taps.  And technically, in NY, brewery reps and employees are not allowed to actually pour the beer.  This is why you see so many people walking around in “Volunteer” shirts.  Stupid Draconian alcohol laws.
• Brewers are not impressed when beer geeks ask how many IBUs are in a particular beer, or when you (the all-knowing beer geek and self-righteous homebrewer) suggest that they use a different variety of hops.  And again, most often it is not the brewer behind the counter but a rep or an intern that will look at you like the RCA dog as you spout off technical data that makes no sense to the beer you are talking about….the only thing more sad than a sad midget clown is a drunk beer snob that thinks they know how a professional brewer should do their job.

That’s about all I have on this one. Like I said, it was pretty much a cut-and-dry article this week.  I would actually like to take a moment to display a rare moment of humble-ocity (yeah, it is a word, I just wrote it on the internet so it has to be true!!!!) and say that I harbor no ill feelings towards the Keg Lines guys.  Hey, anyone that is willing to write about beer in a newspaper and try to advocate for its movement away from the “unsophisticated man’s” drink deserves at least 1 thumb up in my book.  So they got some stuff wrong, it really isn’t the end of the world.

As the new President of UNYHA, I am sure that I will be having some correspondence with Adam and Bryan at some point.  Heck, I will even step right out and offer for them to join us at a club meeting if they are not already members of the club  (2nd Weds of every month at 7:30, Merchants St. Bar and Grill 2nd floor).

Yep, that’s it.  I’ve got nothing more.  I plan to brew this Sunday for Father’s Day (…oh yeah.  Hey Stacie, I am brewing on Father’s Day. Thanks,  love you!).  I am not completely decided on what I will be brewing.  I really want that IPA to get brewed, but I also owe a batch of Hippy Bro Nut Brown Ale to a friend.  Perhaps I will get to pull two batches out in one day.

Stay tuned for the fun-filled description of events yet to transpire.

The thing that should not be

I have Metallica in heavy rotation on my Pandora radio today.

There is a beer that I just cannot seem to get brewed.  Various brewing mishaps (detailed in humorous glory below), weather, and ill health in the form of over-indulgence the night prior have made the brewing of this beer seemingly unattainable.  The Beer Gods simply will not allow me to experiment.

It starts a few weeks back, when Tony and Joel came over so we could brew our club-sanctioned batch of beer using cocoa-nibs.  The premise of the beer is simple.  Everyone in the club gets together in various teams, and devises a recipe that would utilize cocoa nibs.  The only “rule” was that our base recipe could not have chocolate malt as a part of the grainbill.  This makes sense, as the goal of this mini-competition is to highlight the various flavors that can be coaxed from cocoa nibs.  They will not provide only a chocolate flavor and/or aroma.  At times, they will be  fruity, at times chocolatey, and there are other flavors and aromas which escape me at the moment.

We decided to use my Tasti Sparrow Porter as the base recipe for our team beer.  (Coincidentally, our team was dubbed “The Bearded Clan” by the club coordinator given the preponderance of facial hair that the  three of us possess and the name suggests a funny double entendre).  I did have to modify the recipe to exclude the normal 1-1/2lbs of Chocolate malt.  I did this by increasing the amount of Black Patent and also including some darker crystal malts so ensure that we would have a nice dark Robust Porter with some residual sweetness.  I also decided….no, I had an epiphany that we should use toasted coconut in this particular beer.  It was going to be epic, and reminiscent of the South Pacific.

Hey, I was in the throes of beer-gasmic creation.  Let me have my delusions.

Our final recipe for the beer ended up being the following (brewed on 5/23/2010):

• 10lbs Maris Otter
• 1lbs Victory Malt
• 1/2lb Cara-aroma Malt
• 1/2lb Black Patent Malt
• 1/4lb Crystal 60*L
• 1 oz Northern Brewer pellet hops (9.5%AA) added at 60 minutes
• Wyeast 1028 London Ale yeast
• 5oz Cocoa nibs added to secondary for 3 week “dry-nib”
• 4oz home toasted unsweetened coconut added to secondary for a uh…”dry-nutting” (that sounds dirty…hehehe)

OG was 1.054with 5.75 galls in primary (calculated OG was 1.063 at 5.5 gals, efficiency = 60%)

IBU was 43

color was 80-ish SRM

Brewing notes for the beer thus far are:

• Our mash temperature ended up higher than we wanted at 157 *F vs the planned-for 152*F.  I think in the long run this will benefit the finished beer by providing a good residual sweetness to accentuate the cocoa and toasted coconut.
• We did a 1 hour boil and neglected to take a preboil gravity reading..meh
• We nearly cooked the yeast, by “smacking the pack”and leaving it in the sun for 45minutes or so to allow the little yeasties to wake up and propagate.  They didn’t fully cook, but I think we did stress them a bit, as there was no yeast activity in the fermenter for a good 30 hours after pitching the yeast in there.
• Beer was racked secondary  in 6/6/10 on top of the 5oz cocoa nibs and 4oz freshly toasted unsweetened hippy organic coconut shavings.  The gravity at this point had dropped to 1.013, right as expected.  Tasting the sample proved my thoughts in residual sweetness correct.  I think this will be outstanding provided that any oil from the coconut doesn’t completely  obliterate the head.

So, that beer was done and in the carboy by 2pm on a beautiful day for brewing.  Joel had to jet off to a family event, but Tony had planned for a day of brewing and beer.  We had already brewed one batch, that left beer to be had.  A short  while into our beering, my lovely wife Stacie asked why we weren’t brewing another batch.

Ihadn’tthought of it.  It was pure genius. Of course, I was starting to feel buzzed at that point.  I took a quick look at my available ingredients and decided we had the makings of an interesting IPA.

I whipped up the following recipe for 5 gallons:

• 12lbs Fawcett Optic Pale Malt
• 3/4 lbs Dark Munich
• 1/2lbs Cara-aroma
• 1/4lbs Cara-Amber
• 2oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) as First Wort hops
• 1/2oz Warrior pellet hops (17.2%AA) added at  60minutes
• 1oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) added at 10minutes
• 1/2oz Warrior pellet hops (17.2%AA)added at 5minutes
• 1oz Willamette whole  hops(5.5%AA) added at flameout
• WYeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast

We do not yet know what this beer would end up being going into the carboy.  This is the beer that Ninkasi will not allow.  The following has kept this beer from being born:

• On 5/23, we had mashed in and all was going well.  Tony  went outside to transfer the mash kettle off the burner in  order to heat the sparge water.  In so doing, my twins decided it was a good time to get under foot.  They NEVER get close when I brew.  They must have been sniffing paintchips again, because they broke the cardinal rule on this day. Tony over-corrected his positioning of the mash kettle, and down it fell on the driveway, spilling sweet wort and grain everywhere.  Luckily neither he nor the twins were burned or hurt….. My mash/boil kettle however did not survive the fall, having flattened itself  when it hit pavement.  Oddly  enough, the glass floating  thermometer did NOT shatter.   It’s all good Tony, you saved the kids and yourself from irreparable harm, showed great restraint in not throttling them for their misdeed, and I get to upgrade my brewery.  In the meantime, I will make sure Tony’s loaner kettle stays nice  and shiny for him.
• Memorial Day weekend was my next target date for trying this beer.  What I did not plan for was the wall-to-wall sunshine that Sunday that would beckon me to mow the lawn for 6 hours…. without a shirt….and forgetting the sunscreen.  Nor that night when I would get a little too deep into my cups and further dehydrate myself.  I awoke on Memorial Day hating the sunlight and the  fact that my clothing felt like sandpaper on my back.  There would be no brewing this day, only after sun lotion, Tylenol, and large amounts of water.
• And again this weekend.  Once  again, I got into it on Friday night, so Saturday had  beer very far from my mind as anything to make or consume.  Then today, when Mother Nature decided we would have a monsoon in the morning with high winds the rest of the day.

This “W-IPA”, as I have come to call it, will be brewed.  Perhaps Karma is telling me to revise the recipe.  As I look at it again, it seems a bit thin in the hopping.  Any brewers that read me, feel free to chime in with your thoughts.  This is meant to be an IPA, nothing imperial/double strength or “strip the enamel from your teeth” bitter.  Critiques are welcome.

I shall ruminate on this for the week.

I will ask myself “What would FSM Brew?” as I climb the beer volcano and keep an eye out for pirates attempting to overrun the stripper academy.

I will do all things beer-y to get myself in Ninkasi’s good graces.

Bi-weekly rant on the Democrat & Chronicle

For previous articles, please see: A rant and farewell to my computer and Is this really how you brew???

Once again, I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.  I awoke this morning with a gnawing, burning feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.

It was Tuesday.

It was time for the bi-weekly “Keg Lines” article in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

I was willing to actually give this week a fair shake when I first read the article.  Firstly, they were supposed to be writing about what equipment is needed and how to brew an English Bitter, as mentioned at the end of their last article.  Fantastic!  It’s pretty difficult to screw up kettles and fermenters and sanitation and how to brew what is most likely a beer kit that involves no weighing of the sugar… sorry, grain, hops, or yeast.

Second, when I first read the article this morning I was not even close to fully awake.  These damned long weekends with their wall-to-wall sunshine and seemingly endless consumption of that liquid elixir we all love (that would be beer if you aren’t keeping track) really take their toll on a person.  I was happy to be in the office for at least 8 hours of peace and quiet, but I digress…

My point is, my brain was not yet firing on that crucial 4th cylinder.  I felt like a vintage Volkswagen bus climbing a 2% grade.  I was not ready to view the world yet.  I was in a kind and forgiving mood.

I was forced to read the article a second time at lunch, after Joel and Tony expressed astonishment that I had not yet become a raving lunatic.

Once again, I shook my head.  Then I felt the bile rise up my gullet and was forced to stifle the shrill screams of one that has just been raped from the inside out…. My brain hurt once again.

Let’s deconstruct this decomposing pile of “journalism”:

• First and foremost, you’ll need to make sure everything is as clean as possible.

Ok, there isn’t much I can complain about here.  Cleanliness is very important in brewing.  I would argue that anything used for brewing before the boil (mash tuns and paddles) or during the boil (kettles, hop bags and brew spoons) need only be not coated with crap from the prior brew.  Anything used to touch or contain the beer after the boil (funnels, strainers and fermenters, bottling buckets, wine thieves/turkey basters, tubing and clamps… oh and bottles and caps as well) needs to be sanitized.  More on this in 3…2…1…

• Hot, soapy water generally does the trick, although folks sometimes add a small amount of chlorine to the water as a disinfectant.

Good, sweet 8 lb, 7oz Baby Jesus!  If you look towards the moon this evening, you will plainly see my head orbiting our planet’s sole rocky satellite.  Here is the deal:

1. Soap is what is known as a “head killer”.  Unless very thoroughly rinsed off with tap water that is commonly thought of as “not sanitary enough for brewing”, left-over soap scum will kill the head retention on your beer quicker than ants under a magnifying glass.
2. The only “soap” I use in any of my equipment is the occasional 24 hour soak in PBW or OxyClean Free.  Even then, I only use these on my fermenters and rinse the bejeebus out of them.
3. Uh.. chlorine is already added to tap water as a “disinfectant”… they mean that some people add Clorox bleach to the water.  This is not a good idea unless you use the proper concentration to avoid…

• While this (ed: adding chlorine) is perfectly safe with proper rinsing, you run the risk of creating a beer that smells like your swimming pool.

A very slight redemption for our local jesters, Adam Travis and Bryan Clutz. I really have no qualm with this particular claim.  I erroneously once used a too-strong solution of bleach water and then did not rinse adequately.  I ended up with 5.25 gallons of a beautifully clear Blonde ale that tasted and smelled like the local YMCA pool.  I forced every last bottle of that batch down my gullet to teach myself a lesson…. and no, I did not drink them all at once.

• Several homebrewing supply companies make a sanitizer that does the job without contributing off flavors or smells.

Great!  Perhaps in your research you might have actually, you know, written down what these sanitizing products might be? Exactly what pieces of equipment need to be sanitized?  To fill in the gaps for these two yahoos:

1. You will need to sanitize any equipment that will come into contact with the wort after boiling, and after it ferments into beer.  This includes (but may not be limited to): Racking canes and tubing, funnels, strainers, wine thief/turkey baster, your fermenter, bottling buckets, bottles, bottle caps, hose clamps/shutoff clamps, Airlocks and bungs/stoppers…
2. Iodophor is an Iodine based sanitizing product that is a true “no rinse” sanitizer.  One capful of the sanitizer is added to 5 gallons of cool water.  The recommended contact time for this solution is 3 minutes, and after mixing with water it will remain effective for about 24 hours.
3. Star San is an acid-based sanitizer that is also a true “no rinse” product.  1 oz of Star San mixed into 5 gallons of water will only require a 1 minute contact time to thoroughly sanitize your fermenter.  A mixed solution of Star San can be retained and will be effective until the pH rises above 3.0.  This sanitizer will create a good amount of foam as you are pouring water on top of it, and dumping the solution out of your fermenter or bottling bucket.
4. Acidified bleach solution.  This was promoted as the most effective sanitizer a while back.  The story here is that a straight-up bleach and water solution is too high in pH to be truly effective (around pH=12 I seem to remember).  In order to bring this down to a more acceptable range, it is mixed with an acidifying agent… most commonly White Vinegar.  In order to avoid making Mustard Gas in your bathroom or kitchen, this should be mixed as follows:

• add 1/4cup bleach into the empty vessel to be sanitized
• pour 5 gallons of cold water into the vessel to fully mix the bleach in
• add 1/4cup White Vinegar and mix well.

Sanitation should occur within 10 to 20 minutes, which is quite a bit longer than either Star San or Iodine-based solutions.  The advantage to acidified bleach, however is that it will kill damned near anything that is in your fermenter/bucket, or anything that you place in there for ancillary sanitation.  A very good article that is referenced on numerous brewing forums was actually originally published by the American Society of MicroBiology.

Moving on now:

• First, you’ll need a large brew kettle that holds at least 5 gallons. We recommend a stainless steel stock pot. Do yourself a favor and buy a high quality one;

Actually, do yourself a favor and buy yourself not only a 5 gallon kettle, but also a larger kettle.  Even better, buy a 5 gallon kettle along with a turkey fryer kit that will come with a burner and a 7.5 gallon kettle.  This will allow you to perform a full wort boil of between 6 and 7 gallons, and thus increase the efficiency of your hops (and lower the amount of hops needed, which = more money for beer!!!)  Let’s face it; this is a hobby, and like all hobbies, we will always be upgrading our equipment, tailoring it to our needs.  You will want that 7.5 gallon kettle eventually, just buy it at the beginning.

• A good thermometer is also essential. If your wort is too hot when you add the yeast in, you could kill it.

This is very true.  However, long before you get to pitching the yeast (the ever so technical step above of “add the yeast in”), you need to make sure that any grain that you steep or mash remains within a particular temperature range commonly held to not exceed 170°F.  To allow your grains to broach this temperature, or even to boil, will extract harsh mouth-puckering tannin astringency that will NOT age out of your beer no matter how much yeast you add, living or dead.

• Next you’ll need a fermenter. … for your first batch, you’ll be just fine with two large buckets and tight-fitting lids. One bucket will be used for the primary fermentation, the second for the secondary fermentation before bottling.

Again, this is largely true.  In the grand scheme of things, though, you will not often require a bucket or carboy for a secondary fermentation.  A majority of beer styles just do not require a secondary, and to use them at this stage as a very new brewer — before your processes and sanitation procedures are second nature — is to invite oxidized beer or an infection.  Standard strength ales (alcohol content of 2-6% abv) don’t need a secondary.  Lager, Pale Ales, IPAs, and fruit beers will need a secondary, as will high alcohol brews such as Barleywine, Imperial Stouts, and many of the e’er popular Belgian styles.

• Some of the more serious homebrewers out there invest in a wort chiller, a coil of copper tubing that connects to your sink and uses cold water to cool the wort as it’s transferred to the fermenter.

What they describe here in the mechanics is an Immersion style wort chiller.  Then they explain how a Counterflow wort chiller works.  Semantics, I know, but it sounds scary to a new brewer that you have to chill your beer AS it is being transferred to the fermenter.

1. An Immersion wort chiller is a coil of copper (some are Stainless Steel) that is placed inside the boiling kettle to chill the wort.  One end of the chiller connects to the sink or garden hose.  The other end is the effluent side, which is allowed to flow either down the drain or onto the ground, or for the more eco-friendly brewer, this water is reclaimed for cleaning and sanitation operations or even for the next brew (if you are brewing back-to-back batches).
2. A counter flow wort chiller involved snaking uncoiled copper into a garden hose.  The wort is pumped through the copper in one direction and into the waiting (and sanitized!!!) fermenter, while cold water is run through the hose in the opposite direction.  This style of chiller could be used in a gravity-fed manner, though it is simplified and more brewer-friendly if food grade pumps are used to push the wort through the copper.

• Unless you’re using a fancier fermenter with some sort of spigot or filling nozzle, you’ll want to pick up a bottle bucket and a bottle filler

The “Fancier fermenter” they would be referring to would be a ported Better Bottle.  I am a big fan of Better Bottles. They are lightweight plastic, mainly oxygen impermeable, and allow you the chance to see your beer as it ferments.  I am not a fan of the ported models, as I feel the spigot and racking accessory is horribly overpriced.

I also don’t understand the need for a bottle filler.  Simpler is better, IMHO.  The bottle filler (more commonly known as an Autosiphon) is apparently the way that brewers fill their bottles when they neither understand how basic Physics works, nor how to operate a tubing clamp.  Siphons are easy to start by oneself; you just place the fermenter or bottling bucket on a chair, fill your racking cane and tubing assembly with water, cover one end, close the clamp on the other, place the racking cane end in the beer-filled vessel, open the clamp and place the other end either in the bottling bucket or bottle to be filled.  We don’t need a special gadget with hard to clean internal areas to do it for us.  You can see through the glass of a beer bottle; simply watch the level of beer fill and close the tubing clamp just as the beer reaches the top lip of the bottle.  Now cap the bottle and move on to the next.

• Finally, if you’re really serious about your brew, consider having labels made. There’s a number of websites out there that print customized labels for homebrewers.

Or, you know, use MSPaint and MSWord along with Google Image Search (depending on what you want on the label, turn “Safe Search” to off…)… Or, if you are a little more computer or design savvy, download The Gimp and you can create some rocking designs yourself.

• With Father’s Day just around the corner,

Uh oh.  I think I know what’s coming…

• consider getting Dad a ready-to-use homebrew kit,

Please, please, please!!!! Let them be talking about one of the start kits at Northern Brewer..

• available at many local retailers and online.

I know this isn’t where they are going, but how about a shout out to Beers of the World (new website with a homebrewing section!!!!, btw) or Sunset Hydroponics as local retailers?

I promised myself I wouldn’t cuss.  I promised myself I wouldn’t cry… talk amongst yourselves….. Should we elect Obama to a 2nd term when he is seen in public drinking Coors Light? Discuss…

• Adam started out homebrewing in college using a Mr. Beer homebrew kit, and produced some delicious brews, 2½ gallons at a time…

God Damnit!!! Who the frakkin’ HELL in their right frakkin’ mind would recommend this shitty “system” to new brewers that want to actually brew!  Jesus jumped up Christ! This is like telling someone they can recreate an Emeril Lagasse recipe with a Easy Bake oven!  For the love of all that is good and right in this world, the Mr. Beer kits don’t even instruct you to BOIL the damned wort!!!

Look, go ahead and buy a Mr. Beer kit. Then take the nasty-ass stale f’d-up ingredients and throw them right the Hell out.  Now, go out and buy real Malt Extract (Light or extra light), real hops, and boil a 2.5 gallon batch, cool to yeast pitching temperature, and pitch in a WYeast smack pack, or White Labs vial, or a sachet of Fermentis or Safale dry yeast.

• The most important part of homebrewing is having fun. Relax, experiment, and be prepared for failure. Adam has a bacon-flavored porter in the fermenter

Yes, homebrewing is all about relaxing, experimenting, having fun and appreciating the best hobby ever.  Yes, also be prepared for some failures here and there…. Be especially prepared if the only reading you do about homebrewing is from the Keg Lines articles.

Bacon beer seems to be the “new thing”.  Everyone has their super hyped up IPA with 10 quadrillion IBUs and has been freeze-distilled to 190 proof these days (Brewdog, I am looking at you! ).  Bacon beer, for that matter CAN be done, but you have to prepare the bacon in just the right manner to extract as much of the fat before adding it to the beer…otherwise you have a flat, rancid, rotten waste of good beer and even better bacon.  That is a crime punishable by death in 16 states and at least one province in Canada.  Do I wish them luck in this particular endeavor?  Sure, I want everyone to succeed in their homebrewing exploits.  Do I have any confidence that it will work out? Uhm, have you been following the homebrewing articles these guys are writing?

• Samuel Adams Boston Lager went from the kitchen experiment to World Beer Cup winner in just a few weeks.

Well, shit, I must be doing this whole thing wrong then.  I’ve been brewing since 2005.  Something tells me that Boston Lager took just a smidge longer to win the WBC than just a few weeks.  Hell, it takes at least 3 months just to get approval from the TTB… and that is if you have all the proper information to submit the first time!

Oh, and whatever happened to that English Bitter recipe they promised?  The supreme amount of suck in their article this week must have taken that part right out of their memory banks.

It appears that this will be their last homebrewing related article.  It really is too bad, as I really, truly want to give these guys a chance and see them redeem themselves.  I guess in the end, though, we will have to wait another two weeks and see what gems Adam and Bryan have in store for us then.

In the meantime, please rest assured that my blood pressure registered a very safe 101/67 with a pulse of 75 at one of those pressure test things at the neighborhood Wegmans.

What would Jesus Drink? (a mead that can float on water)

A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a great idea: Dandelion Mead.  You see, I had been planning to make a standard mead for a while, then I procrastinated long enough that the Dandelions sprouted and overtook our lawn.  Now I was conflicted, because I wanted to also make a Dandelion wine similar to one that a friend had made in high school.  The problem with these dual plans was that I only had one fermenter available for my whimsy.

“Why not make a Dandelion Mead?” I thought to myself.  A fantastic idea!  So, knowing that children make the best slaves…uh… free labor… erm…. willing helpers, I grabbed 4 gallon sized ziplock bags and handed 3 of them to our oldest daughter.  “Want to go pick flowers with Daddy?”  And enthusiastic nod meant that I had met an easy mark for my plan.

What I wasn’t planning for was how long it would take to fill 5 gallon sized bags with dandelions and the short attention span of a 5 year old.  I actually ended up picking a majority of the flowers, which probably worked out for the best. When making dandelion wine, you only use the blossoms.  The stems and roots are very too astringently bitter to be palatable, and the leaves are better suited for a spring mix salad.  My next step was to steep the blossoms in a like volume of 175*F water for 2 days.  I don’t know the exact science behind this steeping process, though I imagine it is done to extract the flavor and aroma of the flowers.

After the steeping period was over, the flower blossoms are strained, and the must is brought back up to 170*F in order to sterilize.  This is when the honey was added in.  After the mead is allowed to cool (I cheated and used my wort chiller), you add an appropriate wine yeast along with some acid blend and yeast nutrients, set the carboy in the corner and let it sit for a month.  After that first month, transfer the mead to a secondary fermenter and allow to condition until it is as crystal clear and smooth as you want it to be.

That first batch of mead turned out pretty damned awesome.  I decided to make a second batch this spring.  I even tried my clever ruse with the kids about how much fun picking flowers would be.  They were a little more receptive, but I still ended up doing most of the picking.  The following is what 2010’s recipe looks like (off the top of my head, since the recipe is on my dead computer):

• 3 Wegmans grocery bags of Dandelion blossoms
• 12lbs Honey.  I used a combination of Clover and Orange Blossom
• 3tsp Yeast nutrient
• 1tsp Acid blend
• 1 sachet rehydrated Cote de Blancs wine yeast

• OG was 1.095

• Color is a very light yellow

I have some interesting notes:

• I noticed after the 2 day steep that the Dandelion must smelled remarkable like honey.  I credit a good steep that extracted lots of pollen for this.  It might also be due to using way more dandelion blossoms than was actually needed.
• Wine yeast does not develop a krausen like beer yeast will.  I imagine this has to do with a lack of proteins in must, whereas beer wort usually has all sorts of proteins from the hot and cold breaks.  I could be completely wrong, but that’s my hypothesis.

This years mead was brewed May 1-3.  When I transferred to secondary last weekend (May 23rd), the gravity was at a whopping 0.996.  For reference, water has a specific gravity of 1.000.  My mead can float on water!  It truly is a heavenly beverage!  That works out to a current alcohol level of 13.1% ABV… and it is well hidden.  This mead is already pretty smooth tasting and not “hot” with alcohol.  It does need to condition a while to remove some of the yeasty flavors, but in 6 months time, this will be a great drink for our annual holiday party.

T-minus four days and counting

The next installment of “Keg Lines” in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle will be this coming Tuesday.

Will they get it right this time?

Will my head actually explode at the immense levels of misinformation that they espouse?

Should I see my family care doctor for scripts  for blood pressure medication and Valium?

Only  time will tell. Stay tuned

Two Hearted Ale (the Binghamton Chronicles)

A few weeks back (May 16th, to be specific), the fam and myself went to visit some brewer friends in Binghamton, NY.  The trip was dual purpose as they were throwing a birthday party for their daughter, and we could bring our kids, let them run til they drop, then brew to our hearts’ content the following day.

It was a true brewing party.  RYWBC showed up from Hilton with our van packed with brewing gear…and one small bag for each of us because that was all the room I had left for “non-essential” items.  Al and his neighbors also had brews planned for the day.  In total, the goal was to brew two 5 gallon batches and one 10 gallon batch all while redirecting children and tending to the barbeque grills.  For my part in the brewing, I decided to pull a trusted favorite recipe out and brew my version of Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.  As this beer is not distributed into New York, this is really the best way for me to get my hands on it (legitimately…).

As a bit of back-story, let me explain how I came to brew my Two Hearted Ale clone.  Just about four and a half years ago, the wife and I found out we were expecting twins, much to our shock and eventual joy.  I decided that I had to brew something to commemorate their impending arrival.  My first thought was a barleywine to be cellared until they were of legal drinking age.  Then Stacie had this great idea to brew a beer, make a label for it, and hand them out as birth announcements.  Fantastic, thinks I… so… what do i brew?  I had heard of this beer called Two Hearted Ale, but I could not find any to samplle and try to dissect the recipe.  That left “the Google“.  I found quite a few recipes on various forums, and even a clone recipe that Northern Brewer sells under a different name to avoid trademark issues.  Finally, I found an old thread on the hbd.org boards that had a scaled down recipe submitted by David Bell himself (*note I have long since lost the link to this particular recipe, and it is deep deep within the Google machine at this point).

So, I had my base recipe, which I tweaked a little along the way based on what I could buy locally.  I brewed that first batch, and it was good.  Delicious… Mouth-gasmic.  I still by that point had not had the pleasure of sampling the commercial beer,and would not have that opportunity for almost a full year.  As luck would have it, I had brought a bottle of my homebrewed example to a UNYHA meeting the same week that another club member had brought in a case of Bell’s version.  I was finally able to do a side-by-side tasting.  My version was a bit aged, having been brewed the year prior, but the main points were still very much there.  I was overjoyed that I have cloned a beer on the first attempt successfully without ever having tasted the beer I was attempting to clone.

I’ve brewed the recipe a few times since, though never quite as successfully.  I was looking to change that in Binghamton.  My good friend Al proposed a great idea in that he would get the ingredients for me and provide the fermenter if I brought my gear down and actually brewed the beer.  That sounds easy enough.  Down to brass tacks now, this is what I brewed in Binghamton:

The recipe, for 5 gallons (brewed on 5/16/2010):

• 10lbs Rahr 2-Row
• 4lbs German Vienna Malt
• 1lb Biscuit Malt
• 1lb Victory Malt
• 3/4oz Centennial pellets(9.2%AA) as First Wort Hops
• 1 oz Centennial pellets (9.2%AA) added at 60 minutes
• 1oz Centennial pellets (9.2%AA) added at 10 minutes
• 1 – 1/2oz Centennial pellets (9.2%AA) added at 5 minutes
• 2oz Centennial Pellets added to secondary for 10 days prior to bottling
• White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale yeast

OG was 1.071 with 4.87 galls in primary (calculated OG was 1.069 at 5.5 gals, efficiency = 60%)

IBU was 70

color was 16-ish SRM

Now, a few things went a bit squirrelly with this batch.

• First of all, I was supposed to bring the yeast.  My preferred yeast for this recipe is WYeast 1084, as that was in the recipe that David Bell posted eons ago.  I mistakenly left the yeast in our fridge… in Hilton… and did not realize this until we were half the way to Binghamton.  A quick call to Al, and a prayer that he could get to his homebrew shop in time, and we had what I hope to be a suitable replacement.
• My volume was much lower than expected… This was due to a misread line on my brewing spreadsheet when we were measuring the strike water for the mash.  Rather than measuring out the 5 gallons as calculated, I told Al to measure out the 3.52 gallons that would be lost in the grains due to absorption.  Rookie mistake on my part.

So, Beer Gods willing, I will have a slightly stronger beer in the end.  I will just have about 6 less bottles of said beer when all is said and done (the 2 ounces of hops added in the secondary will suck up about 4 bottle worth of beer, plus the .14gallons I was short to begin with.  I should be lucky to get 4 full gallons out of this batch.  That is, of course, provided Al saves some for me.

We will update this post with some final numbers and tasting notes.  Keep an eye out for this in late June, early July.

Is this really how you brew???

For related articles in this series, please see: A rant and farewell to my computer and Bi-weekly rant on the Democrat & Chronicle

I did not want to read the paper today.  I knew deep within my bones that doing so would raise my blood pressure to near-fatal stroke levels.  You see, it has been two weeks since the last “Keg Lines” article ran in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.  I posted a pretty lengthy rant about the inconsistencies within the “How to Get Into Homebrewing” article.  The authors left the end of the article fairly open ended, as there is a lot of information to cover.  This week, they were to cover the possible ingredients that one can use to brew beer at home.  There are only four main ingredients.  How badly could they possibly screw it up, right?

I broke down and read today’s “Keg Lines” installment after brewing cohort Joel walked into my office shaking his head in disbelief.  He knew I had not read it straight away, as my ears had not yet turned red and neither was I convulsing in fits of rage.

Did you know that if you /facepalm while shaking your head that you run the risk of breaking your own nose?  Yeah, this was that bad.  So, following the postulation/retort format from last week, here we go:

• Sugar plus hops, yeast and water equals beer

This is not good. This is the title of the article, and already I am enraged. Really, really enraged.  I can see poor college kids already buying Fleischmann’s cake yeast and table sugar at Wegmans and an ounce of hops from one of the local homebrew shops that still remain unnamed in the article, throwing it in an empty unwashed milk jug and wondering why it tastes of toe jam, vomit, and apple cider.

Let me say this now.  Beer utilizes four main ingredients: hops, water, yeast and MALT!!!

• …there are four basic ingredients that are widely accepted as being necessary to make beer: sugar (mostly created from malted barley), hops, yeast and water.

Yeah, they try to redeem themselves here.  It does not work, frankly.  Yes, it is true that malted barley is the premier grain used in the the production of beer.  However, other malted grains are commonly used, which fall into the whole “Malt” category.  These would be Rye, Wheat, and Oats.

Other nonmalted grains are often used as well for flavor, head retention, and to lighten the body.  These would include unmalted versions of barley, wheat, Oats, Maize (some call it corn), and rice.

The “sugar” that these guys are trying to convey are the maltose that is extracted from the aforementioned grains through a process called mashing.  Without getting too in-depth, this involves steeping or soaking malted and crushed grains in water at a temperature between 140°F and 165°F for a prescribed length of time.  This steeping process will allow enzymes within the grains to convert the internal starches within the grains from starch into fermentable sugars (maltose) and less fermentable sugars (maltodextrins).  The more maltose present at the end of the mashing process, the more fermentable the beer will be.  Increased Maltodextrin (less fermentable) sugar chains present at the end of the mash, the more body and residual sweetness will be in the finished beer.

• Malts, as well as several of the ingredients we discuss in this column, are available to order online or at some local stores around town…

Really??  We have local stores that sell homebrewing supplies? What are their names, and where might they be located? Are there any such stores in nearby cities that might also carry homebrewing supplies?  Remember, think globally, buy locally.  Rochester’s economy won’t better itself without some help.  After all, you are the same guys that plug High Falls/Genessee every chance you get…with honorable mentions to Custom Brewcrafters, and even fewer instances where you even mutter the name of seminal local craft brewery: Rohrbach, are you not?

You are leaving new brewers with incomplete and inadequate information with which to start on their quest to this great hobby.

• Beers of the World is probably the best known homebrew supply shop within the Rochester metro area.  The guys there are super helpful, and they are willing to order special grains for you if you need something they do not carry, and you give them adequate time.
• Sunset Hydroponics is an up-and-comer in the homebrewing arena.  Their selection is pretty similar to Beers of the World, though they have the added bonus of allowing partial pound ordering of grains. They also have a grain mill in store for you to grind your grains there, should you not have a mill at home.  Their primary focus is still the hydroponics business, and their brewing knowledge might not be quite up to snuff, but they are trying.
• Niagara Tradition Homebrew Supply in Buffalo is a nice little shop that packs a truckload of ingredients, supplies and other odds and ends into a tiny shop.  I’ve been to their retail location a couple of times, and was impressed with the overall friendly atmosphere, selection and helpfulness shown towards an average schmoe off the streets (me).  I believe they also extend the 10% discount for UNYHA members, though you would have to visit in person or phone in your order to take advantage.

See?  That wasn’t difficult to do, was it?  My credibility has not suffered.  I am not selling out to corporate interest.  I am attempting to help those businesses that can best help us become brewers.

• Hops tend to be quite bitter, so this works nicely to add flavor and aroma to the beer.

• …there are several choices for hops that will give a beer a distinct flavor and aroma.

So, bitter is a flavor and aroma now?  Bitter is perceived on the tongue, though it is more of a mouthfeel…. You feel your tongue react to bitterness more than you actually taste bitter.

Here’s the straight poop:  Hops are added at various times throughout the boiling process that occurs after mashing and straining the grains.  The longer that the hops are in the boiling wort (beer without yeast), the more bitterness that is extracted from them.  Beer is generally boiled for 60 to 90 minutes. Hops added at the start of the boil will provide a majority of your bitterness.  This is due to many of the delicate flavor and aroma components being driven off by the extended boiling process.  Flavor and aroma are controlled by delicate oils and chemicals within the hop flower, and are very volatile in the sense that they are destroyed easily.

If you were to add hops with between 30 to 10 minutes left in the boil, you will extract a majority of your hop flavor.  You will also extract some bittering properties, however, this bitterness extraction is not as efficient as if the same hops were added at the beginning.

Hops added between 10 and 0 minutes left in the boil will also provide flavor, and lessening bitterness.  Their main advantage is the extraction of aroma compounds to the beer.  The more hops that you add during this time period, the more citrusy, spicy and even piney your beer will smell.

Every hop variety has its own strengths as to which component it would be best contributing to your beer.  Some varieties are multi-purpose, some are best at simply bittering, and still others are prized for the aroma or flavor they will provide.  The hop variety data book at Hop Union is a fantastic reference point for what hops will work best for a particular style, what hops you can use in a particular variety’s place, and other notes and average data for that variety.

• We recommend that you always boil the water you are going to use for homebrewing to rid it of any chlorine or other unwanted chemicals.

Let’s not get the cart before the horse here.  Check with your local water authority, and ask for a current report of your tap water.  If you are on a well, you should get your water tested, especially if you think Iron is present (Iron will make your beer taste like blood, which I cannot imagine is even remotely palatable).  Homebrewing reference books will be able to help a moderately inclined homebrewer modify their water chemistry with the use of certain brewing salts, such as Gypsum, in order to get the proper chemistry.

If you are truly concerned, simply buy distilled or Reverse Osmosis water from a local retailer, and use your homebrewing reference books and published tables of famous brewing water (Munich, Edinburgh, Rochester) to “build” your water up from scratch.

• Porters are much darker and have roasted barley, which gives it a smoky smell and taste.

Um…yeah.  This is an ongoing debate on many homebrewing forums, so I won’t beat them up too much on the inclusion of roasted barley in a porter.  One camp in the debate claims that it is not a porter unless it uses Black Patent malt.  Another camp will state that if the beer contains roasted barley, then it is automatically a stout.  The last camp are the non-style oriented and will tell you that the beer is whatever the hell the brewer wants to call it.  I am not aligned firmly with any particular argument.

Oh, and too much roasted barley will make your beer taste like a wet ashtray.  I guess that would be a smoky smell and taste, though not one I strive for in any of my recipes.

• Hefeweisens are German-style wheat beers that are cloudy and fruity. Many … choose to add a slice of lemon or orange to this style.

I am not a big fan of fruit beers.  I am even less a fan of fruit IN my beer.  Especially if I order a beer at a bar, and they add it without even asking if that is what I prefer.  Tony will likely disagree with me for this particular viewpoint, but….

People choose to do this with current Hefeweisens because they think it is the “cool” thing to do.  It just seems out of place for a style that often has banana and clove notes due to the yeast that is used.  It is a flavor clash, IMO, and fewer would unthinkingly ruin their beer with fruit if it weren’t shoved down our throats by the marketing giants of Miller-Coors (Blue Moon) and AB-Inbev (Hoegaarden).  Stop the madness sheeple!!!

• If lagers are more your style, think about a bock or a pilsner.

Sure.  Hop right on that, new first-time brewers.  Notice that the authors make no mention here of the need for temperature control in the 35-45°F range.  Go right ahead, oh young brewer, and brew a CAP (Classic American Pilsner) or a Traditional Bock at any time of year… at room temperature… and report back to me.  It may not be a vomit-inducing experience, but it will definitely NOT taste like the beer you intended to make.

Once again, a lack of research, or incomplete research does more harm than good with this series of articles.  These guys appear to have skimmed the holy grail of non-sourced material out there (Wikipedia), or they used the same researchers that Alton Brown did for “Good Eats”.  I promised myself I wouldn’t cuss, but really, this is just piss-poor.  I question whether these two have actually brewed before, much less brewed a batch of beer that did not smell of feet and taste of moldy yogurt.

In two weeks, they cover equipment and brewing a batch of English Bitter.  This should be fun.  My BJCP hat will be on to critique their recipe (which I guarantee will be just a Brewer’s Best kit beer…not that there is anything wrong with that…).

Really “Keg Lines” guys, you may never see this post… and your damned paper won’t allow commenting on your article…but just in case, make sure you actually do some research before your next article.

We want to bring more people into the hobby, not set them up to fail.

We want to promote our local businesses, not gloss over their existence.

We want coherent, well thought out writing with the correct nomenclature.

Is this too much to ask?

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