Hops Harvest!

Hello Folks!

Sorry for the delay in posting but the hot summer weather makes me reluctant to sit over a tub of boiling wort. With temperatures last night dipping into the high 30's it has me planning and preparing.

For starters, I just harvested my hops! I had planted these from rhizomes I received from Northern Brewer. They grew great! I didn't do as much soil prep as I should have so I doing some serious mulch and compost work on them now, they should be rocking by next year.

It was a pretty light harvest, a few handfuls of hops and that is it. (It is Cascade by the way)

I just snipped it down with a pair of scissors and prepped it is. Next to it is a loaf of beer bread I made yesterday using a half bottle of my nut brown ale. If anyone is interested I'll post the recipe.

In order to dry my hops so they are ready for a very special brew coming up I'm using a trick I saw on Good Eats.

Window fan with air filters!

I'll let this go for a few hours, then place them all into an air tight freezer container until my kit arrives from NB and I'll decide how to best put them to use...

Till next time... Drink well and live better!

The next post will be a mighty beer for a mighty friend for a mighty season.

Casey

Nut Brown Ale gets a secondary education

After 5 days in the primary fermenter I am ready to rack the ale into the secondary. How did I know it was ready to rack you ask? Simple! I watched the airlock, saw no activity in it over a minute and decided to call it good.

Next I move my primary over, this is a rather hazardous process made much easier by using the brew hauler. My racking setup is pretty simple, just an auto-siphon and a chair. I sanitized everything using my Star-San no rinse sanitizer. Another product I am exceptionally pleased with. So after a 30 minute soak (more then recommended but better safe then sorry) I pull out the auto siphon and put it into the fermenter.


Those of you who have good eyes may notice an airlock also stuffed into the primary fermenter. This is to hold my racking setup in place so I don't have to stand there, it also has the benefit of kicking it sideways as well to get a bit deeper into the carboy. Someday I'd like to explore using Better Bottles PET plastic carboy... but I'm going to wait and read about it some more.



Also, I took a sample for my hydrometer at the conclusion of the siphoning process. My FG (final gravity) is approximately 1.010. This is a bit lower then I was hoping for but I believe I put a bit too much water into the primary fermenter when I was topping it off. Yes, this will give you more beer, but it will be a weaker beer, no cheating the laws of physics in this house!


Here is a picture of the beer in the line with the contrast of the beer in the carboy. Much lighter then it looks in the carboy eh?

One thing I always do as well is take the sample I did a hydrometer reading of, place it in the fridge and let it chill. I like to taste the beer at various stages. It really gives you a good knowledge of your beer and really shows the benefits of letting your beer age a bit.

Now I let it hang out, relax, and prepare to be bottled! ...in two weeks that is.

Just a label example of mine, I figured I spoke of the honey wheat, might as well show what I did up for the label. I like doing labels as I feel it gives beer more character then flavor alone. We take great pains to make the beer itself look great but put it in a simple unassuming bottle. Why have a crap bottle when you can avoid having a crap label?

One other excellent benefit is you now know what you are putting in your mouth before you find out that it is that rancid beer your brother in law brewed in his wally-world brewing kit...

Sharing a homebrew.... or six

One of the first things I noticed when I started brewing is the level of curiosity you get out of people about the finished product. When I first stated my intent to brew my own beer several years ago I was met with sidelong glances, snorts, chuckles and ultimately the dreaded phrase "Piss in a bottle and it will taste better than homebrew."

Being a stubborn bastard I was I pursued it, I purchased Charlie Papazians book, read it cover to cover several times and waited. After time my good wife finally gave me a gift of a brewing kit. And a good one at that too! My first beer was an Irish Fireside Stout. I figured I would mimic Guinness a bit, try a dark beer, and go from there. Hey, it sounded good. I made the batch to, maybe, be ready for deer season. Unfortunately it was a bit under-carbonated. All in all though it was a solid beer and it changed alot of peoples minds.

In my area it has proven difficult, alot of people are the lite, light, MGD, OM, MB drinkers so anything a shade darker then Budweiser is not received well. So my next brews were made for a bit more mass appeal. I first did an American Cream Ale. I should have researched this type a bit more but it still turned out okay, not exactly what I had hoped for but drinkable... and alot of other people liked it. I think the reason I didn't like it was it reminded me too much of the Mass Production Swill.

The beer after that, and the beer I have been happiest with so far, is a Honey Wheat Ale. Surprisingly enough it has more flavor, more bite and more hoppiness then my Cream ale. Even more people like it! It has barely been out of the secondary for 3 weeks and it is almost entirely gone. Now that word has gone out alot of people are getting interested in my beer. It is a pretty good feeling to watch someone enjoy the fruit of your labors. The slight lump in your throat as they take the first sip, stare into space for a moment to let it run down the gullet, then they nod slowly, and say "Well this isn't bad at all!" Next thing you know they are having another one.

Now I have a bit of beer snob in me, no doubt about it and I have a strong desire to brew all sorts of beers. But I also like brewing for people, for friends, for family, hell even for complete strangers! One of the things I find very exciting is when someone asks for a catalog, or they want to help once to see how it is done. So magical a thing is beer, the sharing it and the making of it is a powerful thing indeed.

Signing off for now to a day of lawn work...

Nut Brown Ale!

Hello folks!

Welcome to my blog, I will attempt to cover my brewing exploits here with a few photos and some discussion.

First off today we have my first kit from Northern Brewer. In the past I used Homebrew Heaven out of North Carolina... Which to make a short story long...

My wife, a few years back, decided to get me a brewing kit for my birthday. Somehow the internet took her to the HH site where she promptly ordered a deluxe all glass brewing kit. They called her several times to coordinate with items in the kit, they were very hush hush and I had no idea until the kit came in. Bravo, props to them! Fast forward a year and a half. I go to order a kit from them and the entire website seems... neglected. They delayed my delivery due to extreme cold, so I called to confirm and reached a gentleman that seemed less then thrilled, like I bothered him. No problem, my next kit comes from somewhere else. So, to continue on about my brewing exploits!

Like I said this is a kit from Northern Brewer, Nut Brown Ale.
Everything was packaged well, hops went into the fridge, as did the yeast for brew day. First time I've used liquid malt extract so we will see...

Also have a new brewpot, cheap, thin stainless. After this batch it went into the garbage, scalded my wort!


This is my first experience using the "smack pack." Though I like the feedback it gives as far as viability goes. Since you always wonder... is it fermenting or did I kill it?


This is also a new strain of yeast for me, 1028 London Ale. In fact it is my first English ale, yes, my Real Ale friends would be sort of proud in a beer snob sort of way :)

My brewing bible! Not only do I like this book for its excellent information and ease of use but he's a Tech graduate as well just like me! MTU (Michigan Technological University) is an extremely tight little school, I know not only did Mr. Palmer endure horrible drinking conditions, but the classes were tough and it snows damn near all year! So bravo to you my fellow Alumni, you have helped me make good beer!






So here we go, finally brewing. I really like the grain steeping part. This had a mix of grains, from light to chocolate and man, does it smell good! Almost enough to make you want to eat it just like that. My usual procedure is to let it warm to about 120F, drop in my bag of grains and slowly raise it to 170F. About 165F I start stirring to reduce any hotspots and finally just shy of 170F I pull the grain bag and it goes into my compost pile. (And no, I don't squeeze it dry, lotsa goofy proteins drop out)



Now I go through the boiling, since pictures of boiling and explanations are a bit on the boring side I'll give a quick summary and talk about my previous brew. 60 minutes rolling boil, added LME prior to boil, hops in at 60, and hops in at 1 minute till end. While stirring I did two things, drank a Honey Wheat I just did (Relax, have a homebrew!) Observe the bottle opener next to the glass, it is stamped with "Bosch Brewing Company Houghton Michigan" Old brewery from where I went to college, beer was rumored to be absolutely horrible. My Honey Wheat is definitely not horrible!

The second thing I do while it is boiling (Besides drinking my Honey Wheat and Stirring) is reading this book. I spent some time in St. Gallen Switzerland and had a wonderful beer called Schutzengarten Edelspez. After some research I believe it is a helles style, so I am reading about it and learning alot about Munich lore and German brewing tradition. Very interesting read and highly recommended!



Back to my brew! Here is my chilling setup, a wort chiller is in my future... soon! This chills the brew down to temp in 20 minutes and I always get an excellent cold break. Chill haze hasn't been a problem on any of my beers yet, but I plan on making an immersion chiller very very soon. So while this is happening I add 3 gallons of water to my fermenter (yes, it is sanitary, not from the tap). Once this puppy cools I add it in, top it off with more sanitary water, and pitch my yeast.


Here it is! Another product I love is my Brew Hauler! I hated moving full carboys, too much potential for disaster. But with my brew hauler I do a full little walk with it and all is safe. This picture is actually after fermentation... I think. Within a few hours I had white yeast spots, the next morning I had about 2 inches of krausen, that afternoon the krausen was falling. Now it gets weird, the next morning the usual deflated krausen I'm used to is gone, nothing on top, and it appears to be bubbling small bubbles that generate no foam. This may just be from the different strain of yeast, or possibly "Gusher bug!". There, I said it! I hope not but it is possible. Any of you yeast experts provide any thoughts?

Well now I must depart, I hope to continue this with brewing updates, my hop planting, and even possibly my journey into all grain brewing.

Signing off,

Casey