Brewing has resumed

This past weekend I managed to pull my stuff together and jump back on the horse. I live in a new home, so my homebrew process needed figuring out. At the old brewery on West Linden, I brewed on the front porch, using the change in elevation to help with the process. At my new place, the setup is different. The optimal place to brew doesn't have stairs. What it does have, however, is better lighting, a roof from the elements, and much more space. None of the brewing process will need to take place in the kitchen (except the drinking part), and I am no longer limited to daytime, fair-weather brewing. (Truth be told, I have brewed in the dark and in the rain, but it was enough of a pain that I did try to avoid it.)

So when it came to designing my new brewery, the main question was whether to stick with the gravity method of fluid transfer or step up to using wort pumps and such. When it came down to it, the decision came to what I was willing to spend, and a wort pump was just not yet worth the price of admission. So gravity it is. So then it came to figuring out a structure which would allow versatility and ease of process. There are a few commercially available homebrew targeted brewing structures, but, again, they can be expensive. So I decided to build one.

What I came up with is a table that uses sawhorses as legs, and then another smaller table to provide a third level. So this is my new brewery:


With one batch brewed, I am feeling pretty good about it. The only part that is slightly tough is lifting the hot sparge water to the top level. But for 5-gallon batches, it is never too terribly much water. If I ever moved to larger batches, then I will more likely move to a different system anyway.

Cheers.

A Lull

I am having a bit of a pause in my brewing, but only for a month or so. I am moving in the next few days, which means a few different things as far as my brewing is concerned. 1. My brewing has paused, as I have mentioned, in order to move more easily (brewing will probably resume in a week or so). 2. West L.A.B. will be no more (I won't be living on West Linden Ave. anymore) . 3. I hope to increase my production some. I will have much more space for both brewing and storage. I am working on upping my refrigeration capacity, so if anyone has a source for good, cheap refrigeration appliances, let me know.

Earlier this month, I did a friend a favor and brewed two batches of beer for his grand opening party. I brewed a Chocolate Milk Stout (using chocolate nubs from Scott at the Olive and Sinclair Chocolate Company ) and my typical Special Bitter. The bitter tasted about like usual, but maybe a little lighter. I think that was due to using a different source for my Maris Otter base malt. The Chocolate Milk Stout was pretty phenomenal, if I do say so myself. I look forward to brewing that one again, hopefully sooner than later.

With that event taking up my kegs, I am pretty light on beer right now. I did brew a standard bitter before the party, though, so I wouldn't be completely dry. It is based off of my Special Bitter, but is attempt at a more session-able beer. I like the results, but I am not satisfied with them. That recipe will require some tweaking. So that's what I currently have.

On another note, one of the beer blogs I read regularly is by a fellow named Ron Pattinson, who is a beer historian and tends to write alot about beer history and old beer recipes and beer numbers and many things that are often dry, but he tends to give an entertaining slant. Ron also posts (usually-) weekly recipes from the early days of European (and mainly British) brewing. There also happens to be a brewery up in Massachusetts called Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project. These two came together to re-produce (as in produce again) a beer based back in 1832.

The beer is called a Mild Ale. It is not a dark-colored mild that most people know a mild to be today. This is a caramel/amber colored beer that really tastes more like an imperial ESB (if that makes any sense ). Well, I managed to get a hold of a couple of bottles of the beer through a friend coming to Nashville from Mass. a few weeks ago. Tonight I finally opened the first of the two, and it was very interesting and quite enjoyable. I plan to hold onto the other bottle for a while to see what aging does to it. I also intend to track down a homebrew-quantity version of the recipe and attempt brewing it myself. Well worth learning some brewing tips from the early 19th century.

Cheers!

Teaser and Short Update

This is a teaser for one of my next beers. I'm brewing for a friend's bike shop grand opening. Should be a good beer.

In the last month or so, I have brewed a dry-hopped pale ale and I have kegged my backyard bock. The pale ale is very good and the bock is decent. It is a little sweet, but I can definitely taste the difference made by lager yeast instead of ale yeast. I am glad that I don't require cold weather to make my ales.

Cheers.

Lager, etc.

This week I started my first foray into lagering. I brewed a bock-inspired recipe on Wednesday night and pitched some lager yeast. I also turned the heat down in my house to help out the cause. (I have a laundry/utility room in the back of my house that tends to be about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of my house... That room seems to be about 50 degrees right now...) Once primary fermentation appears to have settled, I plan to move the secondary out to a shed behind the house to take advantage of the seasonal cool weather for a few weeks of lagering.

This is a new thing for me. With ales, I know how to tell when the primary fermentation is finished based on the appearance and activity of the yeast (ale yeast is top-fermenting - so the yeast dropping to the bottom is a good indicator). Lager yeast, however, is bottom-fermenting (or so they say). So I am in the process of learning something new. Really hoping that 1) the weather cooperates and 2) the beer is good.

Also, as an update, I am currently serving/drinking the "small" extra stout from my Christmas day brewing, and quite enjoying it. I call it "extra" stout because it is super dark tasting with a very dark/toasty lingering aftertaste. It is certainly an interesting beer to drink. I call it "small" because it was brewed from the second runnings of my imperial stout mash. That imperial stout is still in the fermenter just chilling out. One of these days I will bottle that one, and I look forward to the opportunity to try it. Considering how dark and tasty the small beer is, I think the imperial will be pretty remarkable. That one had an initial gravity of 1.118, which means it could conceivably reach an alcohol content of around 12%. Crazy. It should only improve with time. I intend to bottle the imperial stout sometime around the end of this month.

Cheers.

Kegging

A good friend of mine, known to many as The Mannondale, has lately started brewing his own beer. He is on the accelerated homebrewer program. In the month he has been brewing, he has brewed maybe 6 batches of varying strength and variety. I have yet to try any of his beer (since he lives 2 southern states away), but considering his increased interest and the quality of the ingredients he is using, I have no doubt that the quality of his product is top-notch. Another aspect of his brewing for which he can be considered an over-achiever is that he has already acquired a kegerator and is planning to keg his first batch tonight. This post is essentially a primer for how I keg and carbonate my beers so he has somewhere to work from when figuring out his process.

What you need to keg your homebrew:

• A 5-gallon soda keg
• An auto-siphon
• Sanitizer solution
• keg lube
• co2

Kegging

The process is super quick and simple. Essentially, it is the same as racking to secondary, but you are racking to the keg. Your keg needs to be clean. Then your keg needs to be sanitized by pouring in some sanitizer solution, re-fitting top, and shaking the keg for a a few seconds. I usually then let it sit while I take a sample of my beer to check the final gravity. Then, simply pour the sanitizer water back into your sanitizer bucket. Go ahead and drop the top in the sanitizer water, too. (But I usually keep my rubber o-ring out of the solution.) Using a sanitized auto-siphon, transfer the beer to the keg. Then lube the o-ring with a fresh coat of keg lube, place on the top, and secure the top on the keg.

Purging

With your beer in the keg, the next important thing (for beer quality) is to purge the oxygen immediately. To do this, simply hook the co2 up to the "in" connector on the keg and turn on some gas. You will hear the gas fill the empty space in the keg. When the keg is up to pressure, simply let the gasses escape by opening the pressure relief valve on the top of the keg. Repeat this several times to be confident that the oxygen has been evacuated.

Carbonating

It is generally accepted that beer carbonates more successfully when chilled. So at this point, I typically put the keg, while still connected to the co2, into the fridge to chill overnight.

(Fast forward to the next day)

Now that your keg of beer is chilled, you have a couple options for carbonating.

1. Slow Carbonation - If you just hook up your beer to the gas and let it sit for a few days, then your beer will eventually carbonate. This can take different lengths of time, depending on your co2 pressure. I have had this take a week to fully carbonate in this manner. These days I want my beer faster, so I no longer use this option.
2. Fast carbonation - For this method, I will jack up the pressure to 20-30 psi and actively work at the carbonation over the course of 20-30 minutes. You can either lay the keg down on its side and rock the keg back and forth or plug the co2 into the "out" connector (if using ball locks) and keep the keg upright (but still gently rocking it back and forth). Keep going as long as you hear the bubbling of co2 entering the keg. After maybe 20 minutes of this or when the bubbles are much less pronounced, then I call it done.

At this point, your beer should be ready to serve. Turn your gas down to your desired pressure (around 8-9psi for me - i prefer lighter carbonation) and pull yourself a beer. You may find that the pressure settles in over the course of a few days.

That's all there is to it. Beats bottling any day (Though I do still find reason to bottle the occasional special beer).

Cheers.

November Brewing and Porters vs. Stouts

This month has been a busy one for brewing. Six 5-gallon batches brewed, 4 of them bottled, and 2 will be kegged. The 4 are the aforementioned single hop pale ales. They seem to have come out pretty well. We'll see once they are carbonated and chilled. My favorite so far (warm and flat at bottling time) is the Crystal hopped pale ale.

I hadn't really planned on brewing more than those four, but that is mainly because I hadn't considered how quickly my kegs would run out. Two nights of the guys coming over to hang out, one of those nights with hot chicken, and the kegs get pretty low. My special bitter was exhausted within 3 weeks. The cappuccino stout is still pouring, but only because I've been milking it (get it?). So anyway, my two new batches are another batch of special bitter and then a vanilla stout to replace the cappuccino stout.

These brews had problems. And the problems were mostly out of my own control. When I purchased the malts from my local homebrew store, the mill was set too coarse, so the malts didn't get crushed enough. This effected the beers to the effect of losing about 25% of my expected initial gravity. The special bitter has been a very consistent beer for me to brew, so the cause of the difference was obvious to me; especially after analyzing the grains further. Some of the grains weren't crushed at all. Disappointing. The vanilla stout was supposed to be a little stronger than I would usually brew, but ended up being about normal due to the grain problem. (For anyone local who has concern, I did contact the homebrew store, and upon inspection they found their mill settings to be off. They have since fixed it.) As disappointing as this is, I will still have good beer to drink. But I also have more resolve to control even more of the steps of the beer making process. So there may be a grain mill in my future.

Having brewed a vanilla stout, some people who were recipients of last year's (over-carbonated) vanilla porter may be asking why I call this one a stout instead of a porter. The difference between porters and stouts has long been discussed and argued. Some sources I have read lately point to times, maybe 40 years ago, when there were clear-cut differences. These days, however, it is mostly up to the individual brewer since strength, color, sweetness, IBU's, etc. for both porters and stouts are all over the charts. So with that, I feel like it is my duty, as a (home)brewer who makes both types of beer, to clarify the difference to me.

I try to make my stouts dryer (except for the sweet stouts (milt stout, cappuccino stout, etc.)) and more one-dimensionally strong and dark then the porters. My stouts will often use a lot of the darkest malts (black patent, etc.) to cause the dark colors and flavors and should usually leave the mouth dryer, with less of an aftertaste, because they have less going on. My porters, on the other hand, typically have a broader spectrum of flavors such that, while they may be just as dark, there is typically more complexity and lingering flavors on the palate. This is achieved in the porter by using more variety of varying degree dark malts in the grain bill. The outcome if still a very dark beer (and sometimes maybe darker?) but with more levels of dark taste.

I hope that is clear enough. Enjoy your beers.

Cheers.

New Belgium Brewery (A curiosity piece)

New Belgium brewery has been on my mind lately; mainly due to stuff I have read about them lately. I am not sure i have much of a conclusion for my thoughts, but I will proceed anyway. Maybe writing out my thoughts will help me....

First, I will describe my personal history with New Belgium beers. I say personal history because I have been drinking their beers since I was old enough to buy beer back in 1997, living in Texas. I always really liked their beers; especially their lesser known Sunshine Wheat, Trippel, and some others that we don't quite have out here in Tennessee yet. Even their Fat Tire had a strong appeal beyond just the fact that there was a bike on the label (I was working at a bike shop at the time - their's was the preferred of the "bike associated" beers back in the day.) Fast forward about 6 years and I moved to Tennessee, where I have been since. New Belgium Beers have only recently been available here, and really just 3 standard brews and a seasonal are available. And they have stormed onto the scene. Neon cruiser bikes are everywhere (even bike shops), there are frequent specials on New Belgium Beers, and they have quickly infiltrated about everywhere that serves beer. I sort of think this is a good thing. Only that where my friends and I used to bring back cases of New Belgium beers from trips and such, now I sometimes feel like I am settling for a Fat Tire when there are no other decent craft beers within easy access.

This summer, I visited the New Belgium brewery. It was no less than breathtaking. The culture is closely guarded and the facilities are second to none. They are very active in their community and they had many different beers to sample. Essentially, they have made their brewery a beer mecca and their beer one that is often celebrated. They have become America's "cool" brewery.

So two bits of information that I have read lately are interesting to me. The less interesting is that they are looking for a beer ranger in North Carolina. Maybe it has already happened, but they are on the verge of hitting the Atlantic (Just a year or so ago, they wouldn't even cross the Mississippi). The other bit of news is that the couple that founded New Belgium are getting divorced. My source for the info (a trade magazine) stated that the divorce should be final by the end of October (now). The wife part of the relationship is taking over the company and the husband is letting go of his involvement.

That is interesting to me in several ways. The biggest, though, is that the husband, Jeff Lebesch, is the person who started the brewing and came up with their flagship Fat Tire Beer. Now, I am not going to pretend to know how the company has progressed since then as far as management, direction, or whatnot. I also have no idea what has transpired to take things to this point (and I have no interest, especially on a personal level), but I do question the focus when the original beer master leaves a brewery. Jeff hasn't been in charge of production for a long time, that is known, but still.....

It is no secret that Kim Jordan, the other half of that founding couple and now CEO, knows the business as well as Jeff. But it is also obvious (from interviews, etc) that her focus is on the culture and the employees and such as much as on beer. I think these things are important, but it all has to start with the beer. And I do feel like some of the quality of the beer has been lost in the last year or two. Granted, I may be all wrong about Kim's role in that and maybe the quality is one of the things she is looking to improve upon in the coming months and years. But these things are clear: they are expanding very quickly, the beers they are expanding with first are not their best beers (in my opinion), and their ubiquity seems to be pushing them to the realm of Sam Adams, a beer that is everywhere but mostly just a fall back when there is nothing else worth drinking. To successfully distribute so widely, a beer has to cater more to the average beer drinker, which essentially precludes it from having any significant character....

So anyway... as I mentioned, I am speculating that Kim Jordan may not be the best for the brewery and that losing the originator of the beer may also remove the original passion from the brewery. I hope I am wrong. But my hope is waning. I am curious to see what happens in the coming years, and I am curious to see who will take the "coolness" crown if New Belgium loses it.