KGBrewing

Caramel Sauce Update

2012-01-24T14:04:00.003-05:00

So I did a little more research on this and it turns out the recipe I followed was WAY off. It had me boil the sugar to 380F!?!!? Caramel should be 310-350F. The higher end of that starts adding some bitterness to the equation. When you go higher you now have burnt sugar and lots of bitter flavors, which is what happened to me. Next time this stuff will be amazing...

Baby in the Hopper

2012-01-24T10:11:00.004-05:00

I thought I may have mentioned this in the past but I’m not sure and don’t feel like going back to check. HK and I are expecting our first baby this March! I wanted to mention this since going forward, while I’m not going to turn this into a baby blog, it will undoubtedly be mentioned in many posts since pretty much every aspect of my life will be affected in some way by this baby.

Today actually marks week 32. You can read about it here. They go by 40 weeks as being full term, so it’s actually longer than 9 months like everyone thinks, but not quite 10 since months aren’t exactly 4 weeks. We are not finding out what we are having so for now things are gender neutral. I did a lot of painting and whatnot for the nursery early on so it would have time to air out some before the baby is sleeping in there. It’s not quite done yet but the bones are there. I’ll chat more about what we’ve done in another post.

It’s been going well so far though. HK has had obvious things like back pain, heartburn and trouble sleeping but the baby seems healthy with lots of movement in the womb. She did “fail” the initial glucose test so we had to go back for the dreaded 3 hour test. It was the Friday after Christmas, in the morning, so we sat in the waiting room for 3 hours while she had her blood drawn every hour after drinking the special drink. All was well in the end though as she was fine and does not have gestational diabetes. She is anemic though so is taking iron pills along with trying to eat more red meat and things.

So far we have taken a breast feeding class, a tour of the hospital, and the newborn essentials class. All offered by Isis, which is great to take advantage of if you are expecting or have babies. Luckily there is one in Needham where all the classes are so we don’t have to go far, unlike some other couples. This Saturday is a big one, the birthing class. It’s 6 hours long….not sure I’ll make it but hopefully they make it interesting. Then it’s a short 2 hour infant CPR class in February and the classes are done.

Alright, that’s it for now, but here’s an old ultrasound picture from back in October….I think it was around week 16 or so.

Pump it Up...

2012-01-19T09:50:00.004-05:00

This is a new addition to my brew house, courtesy of 'Wrence playing Santa. I got the fittings so it's ready to go. I'm planning on a Black IPA next using the hop rocket hopback and this pump to send it through. Gravity seemed to take forever so this should help. It'll pump up to 12' above itself so I can have the pump on the floor and everything else on the counter. I put a valve on it so I can control the flow on the way out of the pump, in case it's moving too fast. Not sure when I'll use it but probably next month sometime.

CO2 and Belgian IPA

2012-01-17T13:34:00.001-05:00

When I got home Friday and went to pour a beer not a drop came out of the faucet. My tank was empty again. I couldn’t believe it. Now I knew I must have a leak. My lovely wife, wanting to make me happy, offered to take a drive with me to the brew store which was open 6-8pm on Friday. So, for the second week in a row I exchanged a tank.

Before I hooked it up I notice that one keg had absolutely no pressure whatsoever, while the other still held some. So I deduced that it must be a leak from the line going to the keg, or most likely, the keg itself. I mixed up a spray bottle with soapy water and sprayed everything down on both kegs after hooking up the new gas. I did not see any leaks but in the process I think I heard some gas escaping from the gas post of the no pressure keg. So I replaced the gasket on the post (it’s the one keg I haven’t refurbished, coincidentally) and put the gas back on. I didn’t hear any gas escaping. Problem solved? I’m still not convinced it could be that easy, but so far so good. I check it every day, watching the gauge and listening for any gas escaping. I’m really hoping that was all it was. This is pretty much the first problem I’ve had with my system since I built it 4 years ago, so I can’t complain.

I also racked the Belgian IPA to secondary and dry hopped it. It fermented out nice and dry, around 1.007. I tasted a small sample and it was pretty good. I’m used to my IPA’s being very clean and dry so the hops shine, but here the hops and yeast produced flavors were competing for attention. They seem to go well together. It reminded me of times in the past where you get a Blonde or Golden and it’s fresh and hoppy. It should be better with the dry hops and carbonation so I’m looking forward to getting this on tap in a couple weeks.

Smoke This

2012-01-10T13:55:00.006-05:00

Early in December I was at an antiques/thrift type place and found a wooden pipe. For some reason I felt compelled to buy it. It was made in Germany (East), as printed on the side. The next weekend after that I was at a tobacco shop and picked up some pipe tobacco. An English Blend that smelled nice. Then I proceeded to smoke a pipe. First, I decided to do some googling and youtubing to see if there was anything special about lighting it. Turns out the answer was yes.

There is a whole art to lighting a pipe which is designed to produce a nice ember that will last through your entire smoke, which if packed well will last a good 45 minutes or so. The first step is packing the bowl of the pipe. Basically put some in, pack it down, repeat. Keep doing this until it’s full but where you can still draw air through it. Then you can light it, but your first light is called a “false light”. You puff maybe a half dozen times with flame, but it’s not lit yet. You then pack down the tobacco and light it again. This is your “true light”. This is done to prevent you from having to keep relighting your pipe. Both times I have smoked, it’s gone out after 10 minutes and I repacked it and lit it a third time. After that it seemed to not want to die and lasted forever. They sell little tools for the packing but I just used the flat end of a stick.

This pipe was also "broken in" already since it was used. A new pipe needs to be broken in by smoking half bowls for a little while. I think it conditions the wood so it doesn't burn. Also, if it gets really hot in your hand that means you're smoking it too fast and the fire is getting too hot. Anyways, I’m not going to turn into a big pipe smoker, but I will enjoy it once in a while, much like I do cigars.

Cheers

Belgian IPA Update

2012-01-09T13:54:00.000-05:00

Much to my delight, I finally saw some yeast activity when I got home from work last Friday. So I decided to go ahead and use my current yeast and not buy anything new. It had a raised airlock about 24 hours later and was churning away the following morning. For a known slow starter, I’d say that’s a success so far. My brew session also went unnaturally smooth…I do a little PRP (PreRushPrep) the night before (grind my grains, measure water into pots on stove, bring all crap up from the basement) so when I get home at 5:30pm I can turn the burners on and start heating up the water. I was done with cleanup at 9:15pm. That has to be my record time for AG brewing. There were no stuck mashes, no boil-overs, and I chilled it down to 68F in around 3 minutes with my plate chiller since the water was so cold.

Here are the hops that went, or will go, into the beer when all is said and done, in no particular order:

6oz Saaz

3oz Zeus

2oz Amarillo

I had a 6oz package of Saaz and since I rarely use that hop, any I may have had left from my recipe I just threw in there.

Also, I finally got to drink the new IPA, carbonated, and it’s drinking nice. I burped at some point and HK said “woah, grapefruit”, so I’ll take that as a job well done.

Belgian IPA

2012-01-06T15:26:00.003-05:00

I’ve got gas! CO2 that is….visited the store in Foxboro last night to do a switch. It was painless and easy and I’ll be using this place again. Unfortunately he doesn’t have 10lb tanks ever so I’ll have to wait to fill that bad boy on my own. It’s good this way because I’ll never have to pay to recert my 5 gal tank. I weighed my old one empty before we went and it weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces. When I got back and weighed the new full one it was 12 pounds 7 ounces. It looks like exactly the same tank so assuming they weigh the same empty there is 1 ounce shy of 5 pounds of CO2 in the tank. I’d day that’s a damn good fill. I made sure the regulator was on tight, carbed up my IPA, and hopefully everything will be flowing well tonight so I can sample as . . .

I’m all set to brew this evening: a Belgian IPA, my first attempt at one. The malt bill will be primarily Pale malt with a little Dextrin malt and sugar. For the hop bill I’m using what I remember (I think) Houblon Chouffe uses, which is Saaz, CTZ and Amarillo as my late additions. I’m going to use twice as much Saaz since it’s more delicate and then maybe it can keep pace with the other two. I’ll be using (hopefully) Wyeast 1214. I got this smack pack many months ago, mainly for free, which is why I decided to brew this beer. It’s being very slow to show any signs of life though. I made a small starter with yeast nutrient and O2 added hoping to bring it around. No luck yet. I was going to pick up some extra yeast last night just in case but decided to stick it out with the yeast I have. I figured I’d give the guys a shot. I mean, the only reason I’m brewing a Belgian IPA is because I had that yeast in my fridge. Now I’m having second thoughts. I know I’ll be near a beer store that has some homebrew supplies tomorrow so I’m thinking of picking some up if mine seems caput. Although who knows how old their yeast will be. Usually those types of place don’t go through stock very quickly.

Perlick Cleanse

2012-01-06T10:10:00.004-05:00

I did some PBW soaking over my break. I took apart a keg and cleaned it so I had lots of solution which was passed from carboys, to my fermenter, to buckets to soak bottles, tubing, racking cane, plate chiller, etc. Also, since I had a tap free, I took one of my Perlick faucets off to take apart and soak. “Wrence and I had discuss that I should do this every so often and I had noticed some “sticking” lately so…you can see some crud in the first picture (top piece), which all came off. It looked nice and shiny when it was put back on the tower.

The new Perlick faucets don't have the spout that unscrews like mine, but it looks nicer and is pretty sleek....

New Blog Layout

2012-01-05T15:09:00.004-05:00

I played around with my layout a bit today, so don't be alarmed if it looks different around here. I also changed my "mission statement". I feel it needed an updated look. Also, it was to help renew an interest by me. I looked at last year and I only posted 58 times, which was almost half as much as previous years, so I'm going to try to post more in 2012. Cheers.

Dining Room Molding

2012-01-05T13:09:00.008-05:00

The week after Christmas I did a few projects on my time off from work, but the biggest was adding some molding to the dining room.

Tuesday (after Xmas): After dropping H&K off at the T, I started at around 8am by taking things from the dining room down to the basement. Everything else I piled into the middle of the room. I started with the chair rail. We used all the same molding we used in the stairway, all of which we picked up at Home Depot Monday evening after dropping my Bro-in-Law (Food Boy) off at the airport. After consulting with Food Boy I decided to keep it at a height based on a shelf in the built-in. It worked out to around 33” from the floor which seemed to fit with what I’ve seen around. I had to notch out a corner to accommodate the shelf but that was pretty easy with a coping saw. (I also did something similar to this for an electrical outlet when making the wall frames, see finished product pics at end). This set into motion putting the chair rail up around the room.

At this point I thought about just leaving it with the chair rail and not going further. But we had the wood so what the hell. I then used some Kilz primer over all the red that would soon be painted white.

Then began the process of making the wall frame moldings. Food Boy and I also decided it would look best to just have one rectangle per “section”. Since the walls are all divided by windows, doorways and the built-in, it would look silly trying to make them the same size or putting two on a big wall, etc. It took me making maybe two of these before I fell into a groove and then it went pretty smoothly. I decided to caulk everything as I went so I didn’t have to do it all at the end. I also taped above the chair rail BEFORE I caulked so it made a nice seal and didn’t allow white paint to seep under it. That worked really well. I like using wood filler for nail holes and wood joints and then used caulking around the wall edges. I ended up finishing right after I picked HK up from the T, so probably around 6pm, with a break or two in between. It was tiring but now they were all up and caulked.

Wednesday: I had to leave the house by noon and would be done for the day so I started in right away again sanding everything down from the caulking. I then went around and cleaned everything off to get rid of the dust and allow the paint to stick. Then the taping. I had to tape around ALL the molding in the room so I could paint it to match. It’ll all be the same color as the crown is. I painted all the exterior surfaces of the built-in as well but didn’t go behind the glass doors, that’s another project. Anyway, I got everything prepped for painting and gave it all one coat before I had to shower up and head out.

Thursday: Another coat in the morning, then some beer stuff. A third coat in the early afternoon. Then a fourth coat in the late afternoon. Hmm…I think I can still see red? Dammit. I gave just the walls a FIFTH coat of white on Friday and was finally happy with how it looked. I may have even lost track of how many coats so it could’ve been more, who knows. Red is tough to paint and tough to paint over. After I cleaned up and put some of the room back together I took some pictures. I think it came out great and looks nice. Tones down the red a bit and give it some class. It didn’t feel like I had much a vacation but it beat having to be at work and I think it was worth it. I know my kegerator likes it.

Corny Keg Refurbish.

2012-01-04T12:04:00.005-05:00

Early on in December we got a corny keg and some fittings to give ‘Wrence for Christmas to help him on his way to setting up a kegerator. I got it from Northern Brewer but they don’t clean or refurbish so I decided to do it myself. I waited to do this post since he reads this and it would have given away his gift. I have 3 kegs of my own but have never taken them apart as they came clean and holding pressure. More on that later…

Basically I just took it apart, soaked everything in PBW, replaced all the o-rings and put it back together with some keg lube. I left the poppets as they seemed to hold pressure fine.

Since I’ve done this one though I’ve been going through mine and giving them a good cleaning and new o-rings. I also got some “universal” poppets and since mine have leaked in the past I replaced them. Turns out this might not have been a good idea. My Holiday Ale kicked over my break (a beer which really grew on me over time so was sad to see it go) which enabled me to get my new IPA on tap. The new poppets helped my kegs hold pressure and have good seals but when trying to connect, it was really hard to get the ball lock fitting down, and when I finally did on the liquid side, only a trickle came out the tap. So I took the new poppet out and put in old one back in. Seemed to do the trick, but I guess I’m back to where I was. Maybe I’ll replace them with regular poppets that fit my kegs.

Then I noticed my gas was almost out. Great. I went through this one really quick. I know I use more gas these days with force carbing all my beers and blasting secondaries with CO2 and whatnot, but I’m going to test my system for leaks when I get gas back on. I think something may be amiss. Also, I was moving my kegerator around some over break and I may have knocked the regulator and unscrewed it partially or caused a leak, I’m not sure. I do know that I’ve gone through a 10lb and a 5lb tank since March. Seems extreme. I’m also wondering if I’m getting low fills. The place I normally go to is only open 8-4 M-F so it’s tough to get to. I actually meant to go over my break but was busy and forgot. The small homebrew store in Foxboro does exchanges for 5lb tanks though and they are open Th-F 6-8pm and Saturdays. So I’ll be calling him tomorrow and hopefully driving down there to exchange my 5lb tank. I’m going to weigh mine from now on when empty and full and start keeping track of things, as well as check all my connections.

Anyone for S'mores?

2012-01-03T15:56:00.002-05:00

I got this little s'mores “maker” for H&K this Christmas. She likes her s'mores so I knew she’d get a kick out of this little gadget. It’s just a platform to hold them really, and a container in the back that holds water. I assume this is to keep everything moist and humid in a microwave oven, where two go in for 30 seconds.

I must admit I was a little impressed. The only thing missing is the char from roasting the marshmallow over an open fire. That is more than made up for in my opinion by the fact that the entire thing gets heated evenly. For me, the worst part of a s'more is that you bite through gooey melted marshmallow only to encounter a cold brick of chocolate. This way had the chocolate melted just right.

Happy Holiday

2012-01-03T09:13:00.004-05:00

Hi All, Happy New Year and a belated Merry Christmas. I had some posts ready to go the week before Christmas but we were let out early both Wednesday and Thursday, plus I was busy preparing for the week off of work so I didn't have time for blogging.

I don't think I ever posted about our tree this year. We didn't cut it down like last year, mainly for money reasons, but found a great tree that we got for around $32. I only added water to it maybe 3 times, it didn't suck up much, especially after the first week, but it still clung to it's needles really nicely. I never really even had to vacuum under it the 4 weeks it was up. Anyway, I snagged a picture the night before we took it down with my new iPhone since I realized we never took any pictures of it.

I'm back at work today after basically a week and a half off....not happy. I got some stuff done over the break though and took lots of pictures for blogging, so hopefully 2012 will start off with a little more action on KGB. I hope everyone had a great Holiday season!

Salted Caramel Sauce

2011-12-20T12:21:00.006-05:00

EDIT: I realize now that the temps in this recipe are off. Don't boil past 350F. See update.

I made up some Salted Caramel Sauce last night that we plan to gift to some peeps as gifts. Making the caramel is basically the same as making dark candy sugar syrup for brewing, which I tried before many years ago. This time I used a thermometer and did it right.

Some sugar and a little water were combined and boiled. Once all the water was boiled off the sugar began to caramelize quickly. One recipe I used called for getting it up to 380F. Next time I’ll probably kill it a little before then as it tasted a bit burnt, but wasn’t bad. Then I added some cream, butter and Kosher salt. This helped smooth out that burnt taste and keeps it liquid at room temperature. We eat this by the spoonful but it’s good on ice cream or in coffee/hot chocolate, whatever you want.

I think the recipe was:

2.5 cups sugar
.5 cup water
1 tbs corn syrup
Boil until 380F
The add:
1 pint heavy cream
1 stick melted unsalted butter
2.5 tsp kosher salt (or fleur de sel)

Some pics (sorry, it keeps turning the 4th picture)

IPA

2011-12-14T12:45:00.002-05:00

I decided to fit in a quick brew session this past weekend. I ordered a ton of hops recently so it’ll be a hoppy brewing year I’m guessing. This one was an IPA. The usual suspects were present: Simcoe, Citra, Zeus, Centennial. Although Centennial underwhelmed me when opening them up. I’m thinking of doing a Black IPA again and I’ll probably do the same hop additions but leave the Centennial out. I’m also planning a Belgian IPA to use up some yeast I have.

Anyway, this IPA came in a little under gravity and over volume (I tried to compensate for wort and beer loss due to all the hops and dry hops) but it’ll end up in the 5+ abv range. It also maxed out my kettle, as you can see in the picture below, but somehow I avoided a boil over. I pitched a huge slurry of 1056 and it was going to town in around 3 hours. It fermented cool in my dining room but got up to around 66F at its peak. Now it’s at around 60F. It’ll be dry hopped and fined and ready to go after the Holidays have depleted my beer supply like usual.

2011-11-29T11:50:00.001-05:00

I received my results/medals in the mail last week for my Best of Show English Barley Wine (made with American Ale yeast by the way). I got two gold medals, one of which has a little Best of Show thingy attached. H&K took a picture of them on our dog….it’s blurry but you get the picture.

I didn’t receive any prize though…L The website states the BOS winner gets a $250 gift certificate to a homebrew store in Latham. I’m giving them a few more days but then I’m going to have to be “that guy” and email them about it.

My homegrown hop ale kicked this past weekend so a tap/keg is now open. I’m skipping the Dry Stout keg for like the third time so I can get the Holiday Ale in there. It’s only 2+ weeks old but it’s meant for December drinking so….gelatin is clearing it now. There is probably only 2 gallons or so of the Cali Common left so the Stout will get on tap soon. The Holiday Ale had a nice fermentation though. It finished up at 1.014 so mashing high did its job. A little more brown than red but not a bad color. It tastes like a malt based Amber Ale with some orange peel noticeable if you’re looking for it. I thought about Dry Hopping it but I think I’m going to leave it as is.

Brewing and Competition Updates

2011-11-14T12:25:00.001-05:00

I brewed a “Holiday” Ale yesterday as planned. It went well except I had a completely jammed mash tun when I tried to sparge. I tried any and all methods to get the flow going and nothing worked. So I ended up dumping the entire mash into a bucket, unclogging the spigot, and tried again. It went as well as normal after that. The wort was nice and red as I wanted it and the orange smelled nice at the end. It’s fermenting away in the dining room as I type. I’m letting it get a little warmer than usual for this one. Also during the brew day I was "skyping" with ‘Wrence, my Dad and other folks out at my Dad’s house while ‘Wrence was doing a double brew. It was fun….I think we were on there for a few hours total. Eventually I was done and took the computer down to the studio. A video was taken….maybe I’ll try posting it here this week.

I got my results from the NERHBC Saturday. Nothing placed but they were all in the 30’s range for the most part. They liked the Pumpkin Stout the most and gave it a 40.

But more importantly they held the Knick Battle of the Brews on Saturday. I had 1 of the 4 beers I entered place. It was my 3 year old Barley Wine which took FIRST place in the Strong Ale flight…I was psyched because it beat out a Russian Imperial Stout which seems to be “loved” by everyone and almost always is at the top of its category….then at the bottom on the page I stared in disbelief as I saw it took BEST OF FUCKIN’ SHOW! We all cheersed one over webcam on Sunday while brewing in celebration. Awesome. I think I’m getting a $250 gift certificate to a Homebrew store in Latham NY as a prize. It certainly made my weekend and made up for going 0-6 at the NERHBC.

Holiday Ale

2011-11-10T13:17:00.002-05:00

I’ll be brewing this weekend for the first time since September. I wanted to brew a “Holiday” ale and this way it’ll be ready in December, even though I have quite a bit of beer on hand still. It tends to go quick around the Holidays so I’ll be prepared.

This beer should really just come out as a nice Amber ale, which I’m hitting with some sweet orange peels late in the boil.

4# Munich Malt

2# Vienna Malt

1# Pale Malt

.75# Crystal Malt 80L

.25# Crystal Malt 40L

2oz Chocolate Malt

Bittered with Columbus and fermented with 1056. I’ll mash high to try to leave some malt behind since 1056 tends to dry out beers. I'll probably add 1 oz of orange peels at the end of the boil.

Fried Pickles

2011-11-09T15:35:00.002-05:00

A couple weeks ago we tried our hand at making fried pickles. They came pretty good. I’m personally a fan of a beer batter as opposed to a corn meal or other dry batter. I used a simple mixture of flour, baking powder, salt and beer. Next time I’m going to add a little cayenne pepper or something to give it a little more kick. Also, I think I’ll thin the batter a little more since the layer on the pickle was a little thick. I need to get a new candy thermometer too so I can monitor the temperature properly (mine broke). They were fried in canola oil and rolled in corn starch before being dipped in the batter.

Anniversary

2011-10-26T10:45:00.001-04:00

H&K and I recently celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary earlier this month. We had a one night free stay at the Batcheller’s Mansion in the same room we stayed on our wedding night. Cool. The highlight of the weekend was our wedding cake topper we saved. It was just as good as it was a year ago, which was amazing. Apple spiced cake with dulce de leche filling and a vanilla butter cream frosting. Perfect for the season. We shared it with our families so everyone got a chance to try it again. The secret was how it was stored. You have to wrap the cake in plastic wrap, then put it in a large zip-lock baggie with ice cubes in the bag, then leave it in your freezer. I guess the ice cubes keep it from drying out. Anyway, we didn’t have a control or anything to compare it to, but this method definitely worked and I would highly recommend it to anyone in the future.

Cake Pops

2011-10-20T11:37:00.002-04:00

Last week H&K had a “cupcake” competition at work. She wasn’t going to make anything but, since no one else in her department was taking part, she decided to. She had also seen this recipe for “cake pops” that she wanted to try. We made them before but they were just round with one chocolate dip and these were supposed to look like a cup cake with two different colors of chocolate. They didn’t quite turn out that way but they are tasty.

Basically you just make a cake, crumble it all up and mix it directly with some frosting. You then mold it into little round shapes and put them in the freezer to harden up. In the meantime you melt some chocolate for dipping. For these, we tried using a cookie cutter to shape the round into a cupcake like shape. Then you dip the bottom in milk chocolate and the top in white chocolate and add an M&M on top with sprinkles (jimmies here in Mass) or whatever else you want. They are really good despite not looking quite like a cupcake. She did not win.

Green Peppers

2011-10-19T09:41:00.006-04:00

Some late crops...these will have to be harvested before we get our first frost...we've never grown peppers before but they were quite easy and did pretty well so we'll be growing them again (there are more on the plant than just these two).

Miscellany

2011-10-14T15:00:00.006-04:00

We were visited recently by K&M from California and I was delighted by a belated Birthday gift of 2 bottles each of Pliny, Blind Pig and Aroma Coma (Drakes). I’ve had a bottle of all 3 and they’re all great. I had never tried Blind Pig and it’s as awesome as I had assumed. I kind of prefer a super hoppy IPA as opposed to a DIPA, which is basically how I make my IPA’s. The Aroma Coma was something fairly new I was told and the store had received it’s allotment before most others so it’s really fresh. It was good too.

In our travels this weekend we took a spontaneous visit to the Red Hook brewery in New Hampshire. It was $1 and you sampled 4 beers and took home a little glass…so I took home 6 glasses, 1 for each person since no one else wanted them. I liked their beers more than I expected, although it seems beer are always better at the brewery regardless of the name. I started with a DIPA that was on tap while we waited for the tour to begin. 5pm on a Sunday, who figured? They do tour every hour most of the weekend I guess. The DIPA was good and it reminded me of the Aroma Coma a bit. HUGE place. They are usually 2^nd or 3^rd to Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams) for most output for a “craft” brewery every year. Many, many 100bbl tanks. We tried the ESB, which they seem to be most known for and I know I’ve tried before. Nothing to write home about. A Harvest Ale, which was a Dark Amber Fall type beer which was pretty good. The Longhammer IPA, which I’m pretty sure I’ve tried before and didn’t like, but it was nice a hoppy from the source. The 4^th sample was a Porter which was quite good. Some sort of one off that they were actually out of aside from the tasting room.

I packed up 4 beers and left them with my Pops to drop off for the Knick Battle of the Brews. Bock, Belgian Golden Strong, Barley Wine IV and the Old Ale. They won’t be dropped off until the last weekend of October for the comp on November 12^th (I think). Tonight I’ll be packing up beers to drop off of the NERHBC which is October 29^th. Pils, IPA, Cali Common, Stout, Pumpkin Stout and American Wheat.

I don’t think they all have medal qualities but If I was placing odds I’d put the best bets on the Cali Common and Barley Wine IV.

Dill Weed

2011-09-28T12:56:00.003-04:00

We decided to make some pickles this week. H&K wanted some Dills and I wanted to make my Great-Grandmother’s sour recipe. Some research I did came up with fermenting cucumbers naturally in a brine to create the sour taste, but I decided for our first try we’d stick to vinegar providing that kick. Both were pretty easy to do.

For the dill, we played off some recipes found online and used 3 cups water to 2 cups white vinegar mixed with maybe ¼ cup of salt. Side note: couldn’t find pickling/canning salt but did get some with no iodine added which should be okay. That was added to the jars with the cucs along with a couple cloves of garlic, a few peppercorns and, of course, a ton of fresh dill. They then got a 15 minute hot water bath. As they cooled and the air contracted the jars sealed up.

I grew up having the sours from my Grandparents, but mostly from when my Dad made a huge batch at some point. We were eating them for years if memory serves. This called for straight apple cider vinegar mixed with some salt, sugar and dry mustard. Add it to the jar with the cucs and that was it. These things come out super sour and awesome, although are not crunchy by any means. Some recipes called for blanching the cucs first to keep them crunchy or aging them in the fridge and eating them fairly quickly.

We plan on aging these for at least a couple months before trying them. The sours especially can go a long time with all that vinegar preserving them. Unfortunately we only got 3 big jars of them so they probably won’t last too long. We had 6 smaller jars for the dills.

Pumpkin Stout and Some Other Things

2011-09-23T10:57:00.002-04:00

I’ll be back in the saddle this weekend for my 4^th and final brew of the 4-weekends-in-a-row-brew brew sessions: Pumpkin Stout.

6# Pale Malt

.25# Munich

.25# Cara-Wheat

.75# Roasted Barley

.25# Chocolate Malt

.5# Molasses

6# Sugar Pumpkin (grated & mashed)

.5 oz Columbus for bittering

1 tsp Cinnamon

.25 tsp Allspice

.25 tsp Nutmeg

.12 tsp Cloves

1056 cake from Dry Stout

I’m using the same spice mixture that I used in the Pumpkin Ale last year. I debated trying different things with the Stout but I think that worked so I’ll try it here and see what happens. I won’t need to brew for a while after this though. I’ll have a lot of beer plus I want to drink some other things. Namely the Apple-Maple Wine I made a while back, the Spiced Cider I still have from even longer back, and some other aging beers I have around.

I kegged the Home Hop Ale this week. I was not very impressed with the sample I took. It did not have the hop presence I was hoping for. Maybe the CO2 will bring some of it out after it’s cold and carbonated…I hope.

I got an email about the New England Fall Home Brew Competition coming up. They only need 2 bottles now instead of 3 which is pretty cool. That means I now have some extra bottles of American Wheat, Pilsner, and the hoppy Pale Ale I made for our last BBQ since I saved at least 3 for each entry. I may have to bottle condition some of the Dry Stout if I want it to be entered. They have to be dropped off by 10/14 and I doubt I’ll have a keg free since the Pumpkin will need to get carbed up before it. I’ll be sending: Pale Ale, Pilsner (German & Bohemian), Cali Common, Belgian Strong Golden, Dry Stout, & Pumpkin Stout.

The Albany/Saratoga comp is coming up soon too, in November. This is always my strong beer comp since they need just 2 bottles. I’ll probably keep it that way even though the NEFHBC changed their rules. I’ll be resending some beer to this as I think age has done them well. First will be the Old Ale. Last year it was only 7-8 months old and quite young tasting. The judges recommended aging it so we’ll see how it does this year. The other will be Barley Wine IV. This took 3^rd place 2 years ago but I feel it’s REALLY good now, and should do even better. I’ll throw the Doppelbock in there too but I’m not sure yet if I’ll send it as a DBock or a regular Bock. I’m thinking of entering it as a Bock. It just doesn’t have the over the top malt to get to a DBock.

Stout Brewing

2011-09-20T11:34:00.001-04:00

I brewed up the Dry Stout this weekend with ‘Wrence in the house. It was a pretty easy brew (although the mash did get stuck) and took only a little over 4 hours with clean up. It was also one of the fastest fermentations I’ve had. I racked the homegrown hop ale to secondary and put the Stout on its cake. It took off within 3 hours. Gravity was right around 1.042 as expected.

The California Common was kegged and carbed up too. It has an almost overwhelming smell of marijuana. Those Northern Brewer hops I guess. It came out darker than I expected, probably from the home toasted malt, and maltier. It’s good though. It was young at only 2 weeks old so it should mellow a bit still.

Dry Stout

2011-09-16T13:55:00.002-04:00

I already tapped the Cali Common last night. It’s pretty good even though it’s young and wasn’t fully carbed yet. It’s maltier than I expected but pretty well balanced with the Northern Brewer hops. I like it quite a bit so far as it’s perfect for this cooler weather we just got hit with. I don’t like that my 10# CO2 tank is already emptying though. I just filled it last March. My first 5# lasted me a year and 10# has only lasted me 6 months…? I’ll have to double check there is no leakage and maybe mention it the next time it’s filled.

This weekend will continue my consecutive brew weekends with a simple Dry Stout.

5.5# Pale Malt

1# Roasted Barely

2# Flaked Barley

A little Columbus to bitter

Wyeast1056 to ferment

I want it to be quite dry and easy drinking. My last attempt ended up being in between a Dry and a Foreign Extra...and was judged accordingly. Pretty much all of these beers I’m making lately are under 5% abv. I’m liking the “ session-ability”….I can always go to the cellar for the hard stuff.

Vermont Trip

2011-09-15T15:38:00.002-04:00

In a nut shell....

Grinding my Meat

2011-09-09T09:39:00.005-04:00

My Mom got me the meat grinder attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer this Summer for my Birthday. I used it once and had them over and they came out great, even though they were overcooked a bit. I forgot to take pics though. I did it again for the party we had (people are lucky to come to our parties!) and didn't over cook them and they came out great again. Something about grinding at home that makes them super tender and tasty.

Both times I've used a cut of chuck meat. I cut it up into strips and then everything, including the grinder, gets put in the freezer for about an hour. The first time I thought I over-froze it, but it really helps with the grinding. The second time I didn't do it long enough and it made the task tougher. Set the mixer at around 4 for a good speed. You also send it all through a second time to make sure everything it mixed and nice and tender. I've used the largest hole setting both times and it seems to work well. Then it all comes apart for cleaning.

It's a little more effort and doesn't lead to saving any money really, but it's well worth it for great burgers (or anything else you want to grind).

Brewing and More Brewing

2011-09-08T15:32:00.002-04:00

Last Friday while I started brewing, I pulled about a half pint of the Pale and it kicked… Then I pulled about the same amount of the Pils and it was gone too. Damn. I had the Belgian Golden Ale ready to go so that was put on tap, but now for the first time since I put together the kegerator one tap is empty. The Cali Common will get kegged as soon as possible and put on, probably two weeks from brew date. This is setting up for a busy brew schedule in September, at least for me. I’ll be brewing 4 weeks straight. This is for getting beer on tap now and to have stuff ready for our annual Fall party in late October.

So, we had the Cali Common/Steam Beer, next up is a Homegrown Hop Ale, then a Dry Stout and finally a Pumpkin Stout, which will be served out of a pumpkin at our party. If all goes well the Pumpkin Stout will be 4 weeks old, which is about as good as it’s going to get.

I found a better deal on a sack of grain this past weekend at the homebrew Store in Saratoga NY. $46 for a 55lb sack of Canadian 2-row. $0.84 per pound is the best deal I’ve found so that’ll be my new go-to for grain.

Also, I harvested the Cascade hops at my Dad’s house while in Saratoga. I collected around a pound, which is drying now, and I should end up with 4 ounces or so. The day I brew with them I’m going to harvest the Cascades from my house and use them wet/fresh. I probably have around half as many, if that. I may put some of the dry in the hop back too.

Here’s my Dad and the harvest from Toga:

California Common

2011-09-02T14:16:00.001-04:00

I’m brewing a California Common Beer this evening…aka Steam Beer. Characterized as a lager brewed at/near ale temps. Highlighted by the “minty”, “woodsy” presence of Northern Brewer hops to go along with some caramel toastyness.

Here the recipe:

6.5# Baird Pale Malt

1# Munich Malt

1# Home-Toasted Malt

.5# Crystal Malt 40L

1oz Chocolate Malt

Bohemian Lager yeast fermented around 60F.

Lots of Northern Brewer hop pellets…..

That’s all.

Beer & Burlington

2011-08-16T15:43:00.001-04:00

I unexpectedly had the day off yesterday so with some of the extra time I decided to do some beer stuff.

-Bottled the American Wheat and Pilsner from the tap for competition this Fall. The Wheat was really cloudy so I had added gelatin and it has slowly dropped clear…so I think I’ll call it an American Crystal Wheat. I’m also not sure about the Pilsner being a German Pils or a Bohemian Pils. I’m stumped and might have to enter it into both categories.

-Bottled the Eisbock I brewed over the Winter. I had around a ½ gallon. Added some sugar and yeast to try for natural carbonation even though it’s super high alcohol.

-Bottled 1 gallon of the Belgian Golden Strong Ale to condition naturally and put the other 4 gallons in a keg. I’ll keep a few bottles to age out, submit a couple to comp, and then drink some sooner to compare to the force carbed keg.

-Racked the IPA/Pale Ale (not sure yet) off its dry hops and added some gelatin to clear it up. I ended up falling short on my gravity so this beer is probably 5.5% ABV. I also didn’t have any white sugar so used Turbinado sugar instead. If it’s malt backbone is too high and it’s not bitter enough it’ll be an APA but if it’s bitter enough I’ll call it an IPA.

We were up in Burlington VT this past weekend attending my Aunt & Uncle’s 10 year wedding anniversary and I got to try the much hyped Switchback Ale. They had a keg for the party. I must say I enjoyed it. I’d call it an English style Amber Ale if anything. Malt forward but not too sweet. Well balanced so you could drink it all day/night. Which I did up until I cracked my head on the corner of a cabinet and blood came streaming down my face. Then I called it a night.

Hoppers!

2011-08-12T10:22:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago in July it hit 103 degrees, in the shade, here around Boston, and was in the high 90’s for another few days around that. It was Sunny too and seemed to take a toll on my hops.There was lots of browning and definitely some side arm loss but luckily the bulk of them remained. I’m of course referring to the Cascade plant since the Golding is again a disappointment.

The Goldings in the pot on my deck has not produced a thing. I did manage to keep it healthy and alive this year, unlike last year’s deficiencies, but it just won’t produce a single flower being in the pot. So in the fall once it dies back down I’ll be transplanting it into the ground…somewhere. There really are no good spots in my yard but I’ll have to find somewhere that will work that will at least get a little sun.

The Cascade has clung to life and has produced some cones that are now maturing on the vine.There should still be enough on there to make a hoppy beer with, which I’ll do this Fall.

Crown Molding

2011-08-09T11:53:00.009-04:00

Back on to the home improvement front, I put up crown molding in our dining room and living room over the weekend. I attempted to start it the previous weekend but got frustrated so I stopped. I figured out what I was doing wrong during the week so went back at it this past weekend and got it all up. It’s not perfect, like everything in our house, because our home is 115 years old so the walls and ceilings are not all flat and have been painted many times and corners are not exactly 90 degree angles. So I went with the miter cut and coping saw method for installing them. If it was a new home you could probably just cut two 45 degree angles and form them together, but ours wouldn’t fit right. So you put one piece flush to the wall and the other you cut at 45 and then use a coping saw and files to angle the edge way down and then it slides right in to form a nice fit with the other piece. This doesn’t solve irregularities in the ceiling though, which I found out. Luckily they are painted white so gaps can be filled in with caulk and painted and everything should look pretty nice when finished. I still have to caulk and then touch up paint (I painted them before putting them up so it would be easier).

You have to cut crown upside down on the miter saw. The base being the ceiling and the side rail being the wall. Then you cut “backwards” for the angle you need, resting the crown as it would sit in the house.

Here’s my saw in action…I had to hold a piece of wood to act as the wall since the crown came up higher then what was on the table:

The piece in the picture above is just for show, but you can see the sharp edge on it since it’s already been coped using these:

Here’s a shot of a piece being flush:

Here’s a made corner:

And here’s a shot of the two rooms as they are now:

I only had one outside corner around the built-in in the dining room. That I did just cut two 45's and space them together the best I could. It came out pretty nice but will look better when I caulk and paint. It looks like it should have been there all along, which is good.

Toasting Malt

2011-08-08T12:14:00.004-04:00

I tried my hand at toasting some pale malt this past weekend. I soaked a half pound for about an hour in water and toasted it in the oven at 350F for 1 hour. A little over half way through I added a half pound of dry pale malt and toasted that for around 20-25 minutes. My house smelled like a cross between brewing beer and baking bread. It was quite nice.

Dry on the left, wet on the right....

Wet grain half....

Results....

The wet stuff is basically homemade crystal malt. The dry should add more toasty flavors. Had I left the dry in longer it would have become Brown Malt.

Brewing

2011-07-29T10:09:00.002-04:00

The Belgian Strong Golden brewing went pretty well last week. Ended up at 1.062, a little lower than the estimated 1.065. Fermentation seemed to go nicely and was done when I got home after the weekend; 3 days at around 66F. It was a sweaty brew session with the long boil for the pils malt used and 100F day.

Brewing up an IPA this weekend. Mainly so I’ll have it for a BBQ we’re having on the 27^th of August. I’m using up hops that I have in the freezer and I came up with a combo of Chinook, Citra and Cascade. Instead of measuring them all separately for each addition I mixed them all together first. It ended up around 9oz total. I pulled 2oz for a dry hop and then split the rest in half for 3.5oz at 15-20 minutes and then at flameout. The mix was around 4oz Chinook, 3oz Citra and 2oz Cascade. The malt bill is 10# pale, .5# crystal 40, and then .5# sugar. Fermented with a 1056 slurry.

Next up will be a California Common, or steam type beer. All Northern Brewer hops, fermented with lager yeast but in the low 60’sF. I’m also going to try toasting a pound of malt for this beer as well. Half pound wet for 1 hour and half pound dry for 20 minutes. I have to do that soon actually because it’s supposed to set or a few weeks before you use it after.

Inspiration

2011-07-20T12:11:00.001-04:00

Here’s the recipe for the Belgian I’ll be brewing this week:

6# Pilsner Malt
4# Pale Malt
.75# Munich Malt
.12# Cara-Wheat Malt
1# Turbinado Sugar

Single infusion mash at 150F
90 minute boil (at least)
Magnum bittering for 60 minutes
2 oz German Spalt Hops late in the boil

Wyeast3522 Belgian Ardennes

While coming up with the recipe I revisited ‘Brew Like a Monk’ and read the chapter mainly dealing with Russian River Damnation, which inspired this beer. I’ll ferment it at around 64F and let it rise a towards the end of fermentation. A lot of people do this but Redemption only rises to around 68F, so nothing crazy. This keeps the phenolic character on the low end but the fruitiness higher. I also read that Vinnie added dark sugar the first time they made Damnation thinking it would turn it dark….it didn’t, but they loved the flavor so they kept it that way. In that regard, instead of using just white cane or corn sugar, I’m going to use Turbinado. Also, he said not to be afraid to substitute some Pale malt in for the more expensive Pilsner Malt. It should end up around 7% abv if all goes according to plan. I’m going to bottle condition maybe 1 gallon of it when it’s done and the keg the rest. The bottles will be carbonated high in Belgian bottles and used for aging and probably competition (if it comes out okay).

Beans

2011-07-19T13:28:00.001-04:00

First crop of the year...

Some Beer/Brewing Updates.

2011-07-15T12:00:00.001-04:00

I’m still on the fence with my German Pilsner. I tasted quite a bit of diacetyl after fermentation so gave it a thorough rest. I still think I can taste a little but it might be in my head and could just be the sweetness from the Pilsner malt. It finished up at 1.007 so it finishes dry, which is good. I gave it some gelatin in secondary to get it nice and clear and now it’s carbed in a keg and lagering for a few weeks in the mid-30’s. I’m thinking this lagering period should help smooth out all the flavors. Once it’s tapped it’ll still be lagered except at around 45F. Didn’t taste much for hops but I’ll reserve judgment for when I try it cold and carbonated.

Next up will be a brew inspired by Damnation, called Inspiration (clever, huh?). It’s going to be either a Strong Belgian Golden Ale or a Belgian Blonde Ale. I’ll wait until it’s finished and see how it tastes before I declare either one, since the styles can sort of mesh together. I picked up some yeast when I was back at my Dad’s over the 4th. I stopped at the brew store there so I wouldn’t have to ship yeast around the country in the heat we’ve been having. The owner is a nice guy who knows both my Dad and ‘Wrence. I had decided to use Wyeast3522 Belgian Ardennes which is the Achouffe yeast. I was also debating on using 1214 Belgian Abbey which is Chimay. The Ardennes that he had in the fridge was 6 months old, and the Abbey was only 3 months old, but I decided to stick with the Ardennes knowing I’d make a starter anyway and figured it’d be okay. The owner knew they were old and didn’t want to sell it to me. I watched his thought process as he was going to give it to me free, or maybe give me both packs he had left but only charge me for one, but ultimately he decided to give me both packs for free. I thought that was nice so I made him a deal that I’ll buy the Abbey yeast and then take the two Ardennes for free. That way, he was still making a sale and getting rid of old yeast, and I would have a backup in case the Ardennes was bunk. I smacked them both Thursday morning and they are swelling slowly so they seem to be fine. I won’t be brewing until next Thursday or Friday though so I’ll be making a started regardless. Had I known they would be okay I might have just dumped both packs with no starter. I’ll have to do something with the Abbey yeast eventually. I thought of maybe mixing yeast and using all three packs but I probably won’t. I also picked up some Pilsner malt while there. I’ll post the recipe for this once I nail it down.

A Few Things.

2011-07-14T10:34:00.004-04:00

Here are a few things so my blog doesn't get too lonely.

First, I finally managed to get our screen door up to where I'm satisfied with it. I won't bore you with the entire debacle with this thing but...here's most of it. Our door frame is 7 feet tall. Most standard doors now a days are 6 feet 8 inches (I think). So rather than pay hundreds for a custom screen door, we got one at home depot for I think $25 and added a 4" piece of lumber to the bottom. This seemed like an easy no brainer. Turns out, by doing so I warped the door a bit and it hung crooked. We fixed this by using many corner brackets and it finally sits level. We painted the same color as the door so I took the screen out to make it easier. When I went to put the screen back in, it didn't work because it was impossible to line everything up again. Off to Harvery's to buy some new screen, put it on, and then cut it. Worked. It wasn't quite tall enough to I put it all the way to the top and added a draft thingy to the bottom to close the gap. There were more issues with the hinges, handle, springs, and holding it shut, but I'll leave it at that....anyways, we finally have a decent screen door which gives us a nice cross breeze with the back screen door.

I also finally got around to painting the front steps. I'll let you search back and find a before picture but they were covered in cement chunks, paint splatters, and tar drippings. Nice. I cleaned them up the best I could, put 2 coats of primer on to make sure I got in all the crevices, and then 2 coats of brown to match the porch floor. Then a top coat on the step platforms that was mixed with sand to give it grip. Not the ideal front steps but they looks much better than they did before.

Here are some pictures of my hops right now. The Goldings on the deck is again not great. I see no signs of flowers and top side arms aren't developing as plentiful as I'd hoped. If it yields next to nothing again I'll have to find a spot int he ground for it. Even if it doesn't get a lot of sun it might be better. I've been fertilizing this year too so it looks good, just not developing like the Cascade which is doing great. Lots of good growth up top with a ton of flowers.

Also, we have our first red tomato almost ready, a handful and beans that need to be picked, and a ton of flowers on the cucumber plants.

We picked up a new umbrella for the back deck too, at a grocery store. It's red and bigger than the last one we got at a yard sale. You'll also notice int he picture below that I'm painting the trim around the window white, to match the rest of the trim we've pained. You can just see the original color in the bottom corner of the window frame above. I'm just about finished with the basement and 1st floor level and will be moving on to the second floor next and eventually the roof line. Which will be fun. I have a ladder now but I already went up to clean the gutter where it clogs and it was a little scary. I do have a thing which should help steady it though so hopefully that helps. I'll get the painting done though.

Alright, that's it...I'm not reading through this whole thing to edit it so I apologize for any errors.

Champagne...at a yard sale?

2011-06-27T13:54:00.003-04:00

So I forgot to blog about something last week. The reason I got a late start brewing was because we were getting the car serviced and for some reason it took 5.5 hours for an oil change and 4 new tires….? Anyway, it’s in Wellesley near some stuff so H&K and I figured it would take a couple hours at least and planned to do some walking and then get a coffee or something. Then proceed to sit around and enjoy the day until I got the phone call (that never came) telling me my car was ready. Anyway, on our walk we came across a yard sale (which we love to try to find stuff at) and stopped in. We actually came away with a few cool items, one of which was a bottle of Champagne…? Yes, and unopened bottle of booze for sale in someone’s garage, and for the cool low price of $4 it came home with us. It’s a bottle of Dom Ruinart Blanc De Blancs from Reims France. We were intrigued by the fact that A) it was Wellesley, B) it was in an original decorative box sealed with a sticker and unopened and C) it was from 1990. We bought it on a whim and when we got home and I started brewing I did a quick search on the web to see what it’s all about. I found a few sites that talked about it a little but one store-type place had two 750ml bottles for sale from different vendors, one for $175 and one for $199. Hello! We are still undecided on what to do with it. We’re tempted to sell it and make some money but I’m not quite sure how to go about doing so as I don’t see too many people searching for it on eBay. Also, it would be damn cool to drink the sucker. I’ll let you, my faithful readers, know what we decide, when we decide, whenever that decision may be made.

“You know, the day you open a '61 Cheval Blanc... that's the special occasion” -Maya, Sideways

German Pilsner Update

2011-06-20T14:13:00.002-04:00

Well, brewing was interesting on Saturday. It wasn’t a total junk-show but was a lot of work and a 6 hour session like normal all-grain used to be for me. First, I didn’t get started until 3pm (reasons later) so it was the hottest part of the day and stayed around 80+ outside up until I finished at 9pm (it was 82 when I checked). My kitchen was quite swampy with all the hot water and boiling happening. I hit the 130F rest okay and pulled for the decoction. Brought that up to 150F for 20 minutes, then to a boil for another 20 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching (and going against everything I learned when I first started brewing by boiling grains). When that was added back to the mash it only brought it up to 147F when I wanted 150F. So I pulled some more and brought that up to a boil and added it back. It ended up sitting at 147F for around 15 minutes and then 153F another 30 minutes. I think it’ll all even out. I planned for a long boil because of the pilsner malt but ended up having to boil for a full hour before the volume was ready to begin the normal 60 minute boil with hops added, 2 hours total. It was bittered with Magnum and I added around 2+ ounces of Hallertau pellets late in the boil. It then took a while to cool it. In the Winter my tap water is cold enough to get the wort under 60F in probably 10 minutes with the plate chiller…not in the heat though. The coolest I could get it was around 61F and that was at a trickle, so it took a good 30-40 minutes. Meanwhile I was filling buckets trying not to waste water and reuse it. When I ran out of receptacles I went outside and watered stuff and then came in and refilled. I was dripping wet most of the time and at 9:15pm when clean up was finally finished I retired to my front porch with a cigar and a strong beer.

The good news is nothing went really wrong or wasn’t fixed well enough. The wort looked nice, very light and hit just over 5 gallons at 1.050. There was a little activity in the fermenter the next morning and by the evening it was going pretty good. I’m keeping it cold so it’s not vigorous like an ale would be. The fridge is at around 45F, the lower end for the Bohemian Lager yeast, and since it’s slow going I’m guessing the fermenting wort isn’t too much over that. No one ever said making Pilsners was easy. Hopefully it’ll be worth it.

Flowers

2011-06-15T12:37:00.005-04:00

Here are a couple pictures of the front of our house as it looks now. We planted flowers in the flower boxes we made last Summer and did the hanging plants too. Here's how it looked originally:

The next picture is how it looks now:

Most of the color is gone from the box flowers but the hanging plants are doing great. We added the "circa 1895" sign next to the door. We made it ourselves since places charge a lot of money for them. I also finally sucked it up and gave up on the Gala tree. We found a Honey Crisp tree that looked great for $30 at Home Depot...Way to go Depot. It's a good match for the MacIntosh and looks a hell of a lot better than the (almost) dead Gala. I did put the Gala out back and cut the branches off to see if it'll do anything. I hit the bottom with a shovel by accident when moving it and it looked alive at the base. It had virtually no root system though, which was weird. Added some fresh mulch too.

Beer Here

2011-06-14T14:14:00.000-04:00

This past weekend I made up a big starter using Bohemian Lager yeast for the German Pilsner I plan on brewing this weekend. It’ll be all pils malt (courtesy of ‘Wrence from the brewery) and German Hallertau pellet hops with the Bohemian yeast. With the free grain, yeast used in multiple batches and low hops, this beer will costs around, hmm, $5 for 2 cases? Not bad…aside from water used and gas. This will also be my first time doing a decoction step mash. This will extend my brew day some, along with a longer boil because of the Pils, but will hopefully be worth it.

I have the American Wheat on tap now too. It’s good. SUPER cloudy though, which I know it should be for the style but it still bothers me a bit and I feel the flavor is muddled a little because of it. I taste a lot of wheat and the hops play second fiddle. 1056 is not a great flocculator, not bad, but not great. So I’m think cold conditioning will help settle out some yeast from suspension and just leave the proteins and whatnot from the wheat and hops and firm up the flavor. OR, I can dry hop in the keg and get more hoppiness in there. I’ll wait for now.

I also got my score sheets back from the 8 Seconds of Froth. Again, ribbons but no other prizes.

IPA that took 2nd scored a 42 (PR, my best)
Black IPA that took 3rd scored a 40 (my 3rd best)

They loved them both…for nothing more than to inflate my ego, here are some quotes from the sheets…see ya.

IPA:
“Please send me the recipe, Awesome!” (certified judge)
“I can’t find anything wrong with this beer. Very nicely done. If you would email me this recipe, I’d be very happy.” (pro-brewer)

Black IPA
“It makes me happy that Black IPA falls to #23 because I got to drink your version.” (pro-brewer)

For the aroma, this last guy also started with “Boom!” …haha.

California

2011-06-10T15:40:00.011-04:00

So last week H&K and I went out to California to see some sites and visit her sister and her husband (who generously paid our airfare as a gift from this past Xmas). H&K’s Great-Aunt (the one we went out to San Diego to visit in February) passed away in April. She was cremated and a memorial service was planned for Saturday May 28, the day we arrived, so we could be there for it. We flew into John Wayne airport in Orange County since it was close to Newport Beach which is where we would be staying most the time with H&K’s sister & her husband. We were given a gift certificate by H&K’s parents for Xmas to stay at the Hotel Del Coronado (H&K’s favorite place) so the plan was to rent a car and drive down to San Diego and then get picked up at John Wayne on Monday when we drove back. The memorial service was in San Diego at 4pm. We got in around 11:30-12 and dealing with traffic we had just enough time to change in a borrowed hotel room and get to the service. We then all had a dinner afterwards and at around 10pm we drove to Coronado to check in to the hotel. We were on around 3 hours of sleep over a 48 hour period, plus traveling, so we were tired to say the least.

Sunday would bring the grand brunch at the Hotel Del. It’s champagne brunch, buffet style with everything included in a flat price. So Champagne was unlimited as well as the food. I think we each had 4 glasses or so of mimosas and pomegranate champagne. We had around 4 rounds of food. The first being mainly a reconnaissance mission but we came back with a few donut holes, cheese, bread and crackers. The next stop with the “traditional” table…waffles, pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs Benedict, etc. Then I had a round of some sort of Mongolian stew beef and fried corn fritter while H&K had a Brie and fig Panini and some other items. Dessert for me was mainly the chocolate table (they had 3 stations of just desserts). Anyway, we spent a good two hours slowly eating ourselves silly. Everything we had was amazing. They had about a dozen or more stations, many with a chef on hand cooking and preparing various items to order. It was not like your average buffet, FO-SHO. That afternoon we took a guided historical tour of the hotel and hung at the beach (the hotel is on the water by the way. We pretty much spent our whole vacation within 50ft of the Pacific Ocean). I originally wanted to check out the Coronado Brew Pub but since we had limited time there I figured why bother leaving the hotel. We had some drinks one of the bars downstairs (Karl Strauss on tap) and enjoyed the hotel.

We drove back up to Orange County on Monday and met up with H&K’s peeps, Sister(Kay)/Husband(Mic), and her parents who were flying out Monday night on the redeye. We had some lunch, then Mic and I had dinner/beers while the older folks got driven to the airport. Tuesday we explored/hungout on Newport Beach. Wednesday H&K and I drive up to LA and did a site seeing tour of LA, Hollywood & Beverly Hills. It was cool to see some of that stuff. The next days are a blur but we did hit the Tustin Brewing Company brewpub (good IPA, great pizza), search many places for Pliny and Blind Pig (see earlier post), and then hit Hollingsworth (I think) delicatessen. This place was great. Good beers, good folks, decent sandwiches. There was a 2 hour boat rental tour. A trip to a dog beach. A fast food adventure of In-N-Out, Del Taco & Carl Jr’s. Lots of ice cream and frozen yogurt consumed. Some good Cali brewed beers. There’s more but I can’t remember everything and it’ll bore you eventually, if not already. It was pretty much prefect weather most of the time. High 70’s day, high 50’s night. Not warm enough to swim really but very nice after leaving swamp-donkey New England.

The Crown Room where the brunch was held:

Our view from the next day's much smaller and less expensive breakfast:

Hotel Del:

LA/Hollywood/Bev Hills:

Does this one remind anyone else of Pee Wee's Big Adventure?

Newport Beach:

PS--> In-N-Out Burger is nothing more than a glorified McDonalds burger in my opinion...the best "fast" food burger out there is from Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

NHBC

2011-06-09T16:21:00.006-04:00

I got my results from the National Homebrew Competition (not sure I ever shared?). The Rauchbier got a 31 and Schwarzbier got a 33. I did received 2 certificates from them even though I didn't win anything. Since they scored over 30 points they were "silver" certificates I guess. At least I got something...and it validated that I didn't just send shit beer. It also motivates me to enter it again next year. I'd like to send an IPA but that would mean brewing it again if it made it to the final round. We'll see...

Bounty

2011-06-09T13:18:00.005-04:00

Here’s the haul I brought back from California last week. They were all around $5 a bottle except the Supplication which was around $12. Of course Pliny was hard to find and Blind Pig was nowhere to be found. Pliny was only found when asked for. It was kept in the back and they allowed only 1 bottle per customer. There were 3 of us in there at the time so I got 3 and called it a day.

Oh, and the Pliny was bottled on May 25th....purchased about 1 week from bottling.

Hoppers!

2011-06-08T13:09:00.002-04:00

Here are some recent pics of my two hop plants. They grew significantly while I was gone. You'll notice the chicken wire structure I put up on the roof. It seems to be doing the job okay. Although I've had to get on a ladder and help the bines along a couple times.

I'm Back...

2011-06-07T09:01:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the hiatus but I was on vacation last week, going back to Southern California. I’ll do a post dedicated to the trip soon. For now, the 8 Seconds of Froth competition was held this past weekend and the results were just posted. The IPA (Simcoe/Citra) took second (same as the 4-Hops IPA last year in this competition) and the Black IPA took 3rd place in the specialty beer category. I’ll take it…

http://www.bbriggs.vcn.com/2011Winners.html

Brewing and Hop Growing Update

2011-05-17T11:53:00.003-04:00

I discovered I had more Cascade hops than I had thought when I was brewing this weekend so changed things up a bit. I took out the Centennial and did a half and half Chinook/Cascade for the late additions. I ended up with almost 5.5 gallons so my gravity was a little low. Kind of like someone who is 5’11” says they are 6’ because it’s easier, this beer came in at 1.040…on its tippy toes. It fermented out in maybe a day or 2.

I took some pictures of the hops so far….they’ve already grown since then, though. I also made a chicken wire structure for the roof so the Cascades have something better to climb on, but you’ll have to wait until the next pics to see that. We’ve been having lousy weather the past couple weeks. Cloudy, little to no Sun and some rain here and there. They are growing nicely with the wet conditions but they really need a lot of sun to take off, so hopefully it comes out again soon.

Hoppy American Wheat

2011-05-13T13:25:00.000-04:00

Hi all, I’m planning on brewing a Hoppy American Wheat beer tomorrow.

‘cipe:

4# Bairds Pale Malt
4# Belgian Wheat
.25# CaraWheat (40L)

Very small amount of Citra for 60 minutes

1 oz Cascade @ 15 minutes
1 oz Centennial @ 15 minutes

2 oz Chinook @ flameout

1 oz Cascade dry hop

Wyeast1056 – American Ale

Should be a nice over hopped wheat beer with a soft bitterness. Great for Summer drinking.

Blue Ribbon

2011-05-12T10:41:00.000-04:00

After a few emails with the event coordinator for the South Shore Brewoff we figured out that since my cover score sheet wasn't filled out completely, and that's what he went by, that no award went out for the one that I won. So he promptly sent me my blue ribbon and some loot. My entry number matched his records for what won, so his worry that he sent awards to someone who didn't actually win, was unfounded.

They finally completed and posted results for the 1st round of the NHBC. The two I entered did not place. But I'm back on the horse sending a couple things to Wyoming for the 8 Seconds of Froth competition. I like it since they only require 2 bottles per entry so shipping and beer loss is low. I sent my Four Hops IPA there last year and it took second, so I figured I'd enter again this year. It's being held on June 4th.

Updates and Junk

2011-05-06T14:38:00.004-04:00

I racked the Dark IPA this week to secondary. It finished up around 1.010. I did all dry hopping in the primary after a week. The Columbus & Simcoe were in for around 12 days and the last 3 days had a half ounce of Citra thrown in for good measure. After I racked it to secondary I added gelatin and around 2 ounces of Sinamar, also for good measure. I tasted it but I’m getting over a cold so couldn’t fully appreciate it. It has potential though.

It looks like Saratoga finally got their judging done for the NHBC. They started the earliest they could on April 2nd, yet were the last to finish May 4th. Not sure if they’ll be used as a judging center next year…or maybe it’s not a big deal due to the size of the competition. I’m guessing first round results will be posted shortly.

I got my score sheets back from the South Shore Brewoff…no award or ribbon though. Maybe they’re shipped separately? Usually I get everything in one big box. The Schwarzbier scored a 36…probably not enough to place in the NHBC, but we’ll see. Since it took first, maybe they were just tough judges all around. They basically said it could use a bit more hop bitterness to round out the maltiness. I’ll brew it again sometime and see what I can do. They pretty much ripped apart my other 2 entries.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately….I need to take pictures and maybe write about the following soon:

-My hops are up, both surviving the Winter, and doing great so far.
-Planted the garden and deck garden for the season.
-Planted the window boxes on the porch and the hanging plants.
-Fixed up an old guitar over the Winter.
-Getting my bike up and running for the road.

That’s it for now though…see ya later on down the trail.

Black IPA

2011-04-19T13:47:00.002-04:00

After checking my specialty grains on hand, I discovered that I had a ½ pound of carafa II, so decided to make my IPA a Black IPA.

Black IPA is relatively new on the scene and it basically tastes and smells like an IPA but is black (dark brown). Other descriptions are out there (as well as other names) and a couple that I have tried have usually had a light-moderate roast flavor. Recently this was released as a guideline for American Style India Black Ale:

American-style India black ale has medium high to high hop bitterness, flavor and aroma with medium-high alcohol content, balanced with a medium body. The style is further characterized by a moderate degree of caramel malt character and medium to strong dark roasted malt flavor and aroma. High astringency and high degree of burnt roast malt character should be absent. Fruity, floral and herbal character from hops of all origins may contribute to aroma and flavor.
Original Gravity (oPlato) 1.056-1.075 (14-18.2 oPlato) ● Apparent Extract/Final Gravity (oPlato) 1.012-1.018 (3-4.5 oPlato) ● Alcohol by Weight (Volume) 5-6% (6 -7.5%) ● Bitterness (IBU) 50-70 ● Color SRM (EBC) 25+ (50+ EBC)

This says it should have a medium to strong dark roasted grain flavor and aroma. According to all this it appears they may be different styles?

Anyways, I used all the carafa and then added around 2-3 ounces of chocolate malt for more color and maybe just a touch of light roasted flavor/aroma.

.5# carafa II
3 oz chocolate malt
1# munich malt
10# pale malt
.5# sugar

I had a nice and easy brew session and was done in around 4.5 hours. I was a little over volume, on purpose knowing I’d lose some to dry hopping, but still hit my gravity on the nose at 1.061. The hopping schedule remained unchanged from my previous post. I chilled it down to a respectable 64F, added some 1056 slurry leftover from the Citra/Simcoe IPA, and it was churning away nicely this morning, still at 64F.

IPA

2011-04-14T12:40:00.004-04:00

I’m hoping to get a brew in at some point over the upcoming long weekend. Based on the hops I have on hand it’s shaping up to be sort of Plinyish…similar to my Four Hops IPA I made last Spring that won a second place ribbon.

It’ll be mostly pale malt, maybe a little Munich, and a little sugar (maybe an ounce of dark malt for color). The late hop schedule as of now is as follows:

20 minute addition:
1oz Simcoe
1oz Columbus
1oz Centennial

10 minute addition:
1oz Simcoe

Flameout addition:
2oz Simcoe
2oz Centennial

Dry hop:
1oz Columbus
1oz Simcoe

1056 yeast.

Results.

2011-04-08T14:03:00.004-04:00

Well, they finally posted the South Shore Brewoff results today. Sunday morning I used H&K’s iphone to check, saw results posted, and did not see my name. I checked again later on the laptop and it said “results coming soon”…hmm. So I checked the next morning and they had results posted, but this time I noticed it was from 2010. Nice. So anyways, today I found my name at the top of the list for my Schwarzbier taking 1st place. Although I thought the Rauchbier was my best bet, I was wrong. Although they combined many styles and the Schwarzbier’s table was styles 1-7. The Rauchbier was mixed with ‘specialty beers’ which may have sunk it since I find judges tend to like the bigger, crazier beers better. So it’s my first placing at this event and my first 1st place ever…so I got that going for me. That’s not a bad sign for the National Homebrew Competition, to have to Schwarz going in with a gold already, but ‘Wrence was a judge at the Northeast regional for the first round and said it was kind of a junk show, so we’ll see what happens.

This week I finished up the HopBack Ale (dry-hopping, gelatin, keg). It’s not quite that bitter so I’m not sure I can call it an IPA. It’s more of a Pale Ale. It tastes good but it’s probably around puberty and need another week or two to mature. My next beer will be another IPA attempt most likely. I have Columbus, Citra, Simcoe and Centennial hops in my freezer so I think it’ll be a go. Then I’m thinking a Hoppy American Wheat and a Pale German Pilsner. I have almost everything I’ll need so this’ll help me get rid of some of my inventory and save some money.

This Week in Beer

2011-03-25T14:12:00.002-04:00

Here’s to another boring beer post! To start: the Stout kicked so I decided to finally change my beer lines (3 years old, always flushed but never really cleaned properly) before I put the Schwarzbier back on. At the same time I wanted to change the ball locks to screw fitting instead of straight to a barb.

This involved a little investment (stainless barbs are attached to the tube and then screwed on to the ball lock) but I had already bought everything months and months ago I just never got around to actually doing the work. I didn’t see a need for these types of fittings when I first set up my system but now I do.

Mainly, I can now switch the lines and send gas down (and then up the beer) through the liquid out post. The gas and liquid ball locks are different fittings so you can’t just switch them. It also enables me to easily flush things with CO2 by just unscrewing the line from the ball lock and if I ever want a commercial keg on tap all I need is an adapter to hook to a sanke coupler. I didn’t bother to change the gas lines but now I’m thinking I might. One, they are just as old and have gotten a little bit of crap in them here and there, and two, I’ve always wished they were about a foot or two longer.

Anyway, you can see the discoloration from the picture below of my old lines. Also there’s a little picture of the new setup.

I also racked the Hopback IPA to secondary. The yeast took a really long time to drop but finally did (although cloudy still). It fermented down to 1.010 which is about perfect for me. Should give it a little bit of body to go along with the bitter hops. It tasted good but was masked by the yeast still in suspension and it being so young. I threw two ounces of pellets in for a dry hop. Citra and Simcoe in equal parts.

Now onto the competition portion of this post. Last weekend I dropped of the Stout (as a Foreign Extra), Rauchbier and Schwarzbier at the brew store in Foxboro (which was hoppin’ for a tiny store) for the South Shore Brew off. It’s the first weekend in April. Not expecting much for the Stout but hoping the other two do well.

I also decide to enter for National Homebrew Competition for the first time this year. It’s a huge Nationwide competition that take place every year. It’s basically the best homebrews around competing so it’s quite an accomplishment to win something. It’s broken down into two rounds. The first round is done by region. There are 9 regions, each accepting entries (up to 750) and doing their own judging in mid-April. If you have a beer place first, second or third you get a ribbon. That then qualifies you to continue to round two, where the winners from each regional competition then compete against each other. If you place there you get a medal, and serious bragging rights.

They only need 1 bottle per entry for the first round so I figured I’d enter the Rauchbier and Schwarzbier. If either go onto the second (finals) round, I will have to send 3 more bottles for that judging. So I have all the bottles filled and refrigerated to keep fresh just in case. The second round doesn’t take place until June, so you are allowed to brew the same beer again, which one would have to do if it was a hoppy beer or something else that needs to be really fresh or at its peak. I figure my lagers should hold up well enough in a fridge for a few months.

Hop Back Update....

2011-03-16T12:44:00.003-04:00

The HopBack IPA brewing went pretty well on Saturday. Being the first time using the Hop Rocket I’m definitely still learning and tweaking how I’ll use it going forward. Basically with the rocket, the hops are suspended in the middle of the thing. Just boiled hot wort flows into the bottom and works its way to the top by flowing through the hops and stripping the oils from them. It then exits the top and immediately gets cooled by the plate chiller to protect those oils it just dissolved.

The flow was quite slow going to the fermenter. I was expecting that by having the valve on the kettle open all the way that it would go quick so I had the water on full blast, which is cold this time of year. It ended up cooling the wort to around 53F so fermentation was slow to get going (I was too wrapped up in the rocket to check the temp flowing from the hose otherwise I could’ve turned the water down). After about 20 hours and still no activity I swirled the bucket around to get any yeast that settled to the bottom up and moving, and then wrapped it in a heating blanket. It took off from there and fermented nicely. I even had some kraussen come up through the airlock, which is rare for this yeast at cooler temps. Smells hoppy! I’ll be doing some dry-hopping shortly and then adding gelatin before kegging.

Our Kitchen

2011-03-11T12:39:00.009-05:00

I’ve meaning to post about an upgrade to our kitchen that we did back in November but I never got around to it and now we have more to report. First off, in November we installed a hood above our stove. There was never one there and the stove went under a window about 5” so it was tough to put one in. But, we found one on sale at Ikea that was 24”. Too small for the stove really but in the space available it sits almost centered above the stove. It was the best we would be able to do and once it was up it actually looked nice and like it belonged. The fun part was that I wanted to vent outside, as opposed to just recycle the air though a filter. Cutting a 6” hole in the side of our house was eventful, as everything is in our house built in 1895. There were many different layers to get through but eventually everything worked out. I like it for brewing because the house would get wicked steamy in the Winter when it was all closed up. Having a light above the stove for cooking is also key. At the same time we found some new handles that we liked so we replaced all of them on the cabinets. We also picked up a pot rack and hung that above the island. So back in November, here’s a picture of our kitchen.

Push ahead until now. A couple weeks ago we installed a backsplash. There wasn’t one already there and with the hood installed it looked like it needed one. We talked about for awhile but then finally decided to do it when we found some 3” x 6” stone tile we liked that wasn’t very expensive. I had to pick up a cheap wet saw for the project but I really don’t see how I could’ve done it without one. It took probably 7-8 hours including cleanup and a little break in the middle to get all the tile up. Then over the next couple days after work I did the grout. This weekend we’ll be sealing everything up now that it’s all dry and set. It was fun at first but by the end it was a little back breaking. I was sore for a few days from bending down to cut tiles on the floor. For a cheap saw it worked pretty well. It was really messy and you couldn’t go too fast but it got the job done.

Getting started:

Getting messy:

We also replaced the lights (for a second time) since we were never really happy with them. They fit our house better. We added medallions because a: they were on sale for $5 each, b: they look cool & c: they cover the spot where the old lights were. No matter how much I painted and sanded you seemed to always be able see where they were before.

Anyway…..that was out most recent project(s).

Oh, and we made Juicy-Lucy's that night for dinner....

HopBack IPA

2011-03-10T13:06:00.001-05:00

I’m happy to say that I think I’ll be brewing again this weekend…finally. It’s been probably 2 months. I’m going to try out the hopback and make an IPA. I’m not exactly sure on the recipe but it’ll be mostly 2-row with a little crystal/cara/whatever and fermented with 1056 American Ale yeast. All late hops will be equal parts (probably) Citra and Simcoe. 4oz of whole cones in the hopback, 2oz pellets for the dry hop, and 4oz of some combo going late in the boil.

In other news, I carbed up the Rauchbier and switched it in and took the Schwarzbier off for now. It tastes good…smokey and malty. I still have the Stout on tap so once that’s gone the Schwarz will go back on. I also racked 3 gallons of the Doppelbock to a keg, force carbonated and bottled it. It’s not bad. A decent amount of alcohol present but not fuselly. It’s not as malty as I would like but I’m thinking with age the alcohol will mellow and the malt will come through more.

I also did the Eisbock. What a junk-show that was. I froze 2 gallons of the Doppelbock and then tried to rack the beer from the ice. I got maybe a cup or 2 and that was it. I think maybe I froze it too much. So I went to another method and dumped it in a strainer over a bucket and let the alcoholic beer drain from the frozen water. I ended up with maybe .75 gallons. It tasted like a good barley wine. I haven’t taken a gravity reading yet but I will. The Doppelbock finished a bit low at 1.016 and was 8% ABV so we’ll see what the Eisbock ends up at. If it ends up at 1.032 can one guess that it’s 16% ABV since it doubled? I’m not sure how that works but it might as least give an idea. I’m guessing there was still a decent amount of beer left in the ice but I didn’t feel like waiting forever for it to drip out. I need to get some small bottles for this, otherwise I’ll only end up with like four twelve ouncers….and it’ll definitely get force carbed first.

Neddy Update

2011-03-02T12:14:00.001-05:00

Straight from the horses mouth...so to speak.

It looks like we are going to spend a little more on our horse. He will recieve a Stem Cell Treatment and rest for one year. Then we plan to have a Trainer who takes part of his winnings for his fee. The Trainers do not like his high steppin because they say it is a wasted motion. We just want to give him a chance to succeed.I will keep you posted.

Poor Neddy...

2011-03-01T14:14:00.003-05:00

So almost 2 years ago my Dad became 1/3 owner of a horse that they planned on training to get to the harness track. His name as of now is Neddy, or little Neddy, or Noble Neddy or something Neddy. I guess he has a sister that was really good and won some big races and made some money. He turns 2 at the end of this month and has been in training since November. We visited him a couple weekends ago and took a few pictures. Wasn’t the best light and he likes to move around so they aren’t the best.

He was running daily and they had just started getting him to run faster once a week. To qualify to race he has to do a mile in 2:05. I guess he’s a good looking horse and they all seem to think he could be a good racer, but the trainer said he wouldn’t know for about another 4-6 weeks or so. I think my Dad likes bonding with an animal since he’s never really had any pets or anything.

Unfortunately I got an email last night with some bad news. I guess Neddy has a torn tendon. They may have to send him off to get fixed and rehabbed and scratch a year of racing and have to wait until he’s 3 years old to run. Otherwise he could turn into an expensive pet for my Dad and the other 2 owners. They are going to talk to the Vet more and see what’s best for the horse. Bummer man….

Sea Oh Too

2011-02-22T13:52:00.001-05:00

Also, a thanks to ‘Wrence for his CO2 tank. I have two tanks for my kegerator, the idea being when one goes empty I have another to put on and give me time to fill the empty one. Well, I screwed up a little because I never got my last empty filled and I went to fill a couple growlers on Friday for the weekends travels and got very little flow with an empty tank. The place I like to go for refills is only open business hours M-F which makes it a bit difficult for me to make it there. I hooked up ‘Wrence’s tank to buy me a few weeks until I can get both of mine filled. I don’t usually lose track like that but my only guess is that it went quickly last Saturday when we had a few people drinking off it. Then, the pressure got low enough to not have a good seal on the keg and gas kept slowly escaping. I thought maybe I had a leak but I doubt it. Off to see the GasMan soon….

Berkshire Brewing Company

2011-02-22T12:52:00.005-05:00

Saturday we were able to get a "private" tour of BBC from 'Wrence. It was cool and the samples were flowing...there were no proposals this time.

A few things about BBC: "open" fermenters; top cropping all their yeast for future batches and never buying fresh; do their own distributing; care about their beer and employees; have tons of tanks and brew more beer than I thought.

More Hops Please.

2011-02-15T13:09:00.003-05:00

We had a pretty hoppy beer fest at my house this past Saturday. We drank the stuff I brought back from CA plus some other goodies. ‘Wrence found Hoptimum and brought one to sample. I also finally tracked down Nugget Nectar and drove out and bought a case.

Hop Juice and Idiot IPA tasted very similar. They were both more of an East Coast IPA even though they are from the West Coast. Quite malty and hoppy, a lot like Hercules. AleSmith IPA was amazing. Tasted like a true California IPA. ‘Wrence and I both agreed Pliny tastes better in CA. I don’t know, for some reason it tasted better when I cracked a couple in San Diego. The hops were fresher and more pronounced. I’m not sure if the plane ride did something or what. I was also disappointed with Nugget Nectar this year. It says it was bottled on 2/7/11 but it doesn’t taste like it’s that young. In the past when this is fresh it tastes like you are actually drinking the juice dripping from the cone on the front of the bottle. It always impresses me, except when it’s old. This doesn’t taste old but it’s not super fresh either, I’m guessing. Maybe these beers got down to freezing in transport and that affected the hop flavors?!?! Who knows. 1000 IBU’s was a waste of money. I spent $13 on that 12.7 oz bottle (I was on vacation so it wasn’t like real money) but I won’t do that again. It was worth trying but tasted like a hopped up barley wine or something. The Hoptimum was good…hard to believe it’s over 10% ABV.

Anyways…these beers plus some Berkshire beers and some homebrews gave us plenty to do Saturday night…not to mention the braised brisket which came out super good I thought. I need to remember to take pictures of the food I make so I can blog about it more.

La Jolla, San Diego

2011-02-08T14:37:00.003-05:00

This past weekend H&K and I made an unexpected trip to San Diego to visit her Great Aunt “G”. She’s 94 and her health has sort of been going downhill lately so waiting might have been a mistake. I don’t even know many of my Great Aunts and Uncles but H&K was lucky to be close to two of hers. One is already gone.

She lives in La Jolla, so that's where we stayed and spent most of our time. Since Aunt G has spurts of energy around 2-3 hours at a time, we wanted to be close by to see her as much as we could and have it not be a big deal if she decided she wasn’t up for company and we had to head back to the hotel. Everything worked out well though and it was a fun trip, although really short. We flew out Friday morning at 6:30am and got back to Boston Monday at 5pm.

I knew we would have some time on our own to explore so I did a little beer research. My main mission was to find some Pliny the Elder (or anything from Russian River really). I learned that their Southern California distributor sends some to Whole Foods in La Jolla (which doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll have it). It turns out that H&K knew it well since it’s right near the hotel (2 minute walk). So, upon landing at 12:30pm, I was drinking a Pliny by around 3pm.

After landing and picking up the rental car (Dodge Journey crossover) we checked into the hotel. We were set to head to Aunt G’s for dinner around 5-5:30pm so we walked over to Whole Foods for some snacks and beer. They had a great selection but nothing from Russian River. I spent some time studying so as not to overlook anything but figured I was SOL. I was waiting for H&K to come back with a basket and I was going to grab some other hopped up California beers I can’t get back East, when the beer guy walked by me and asked if I needed “any help, boss”? I said “yea” and before I could ask “do you have anything from Russian River?”, he said “are you looking for Pliny? I just got 3 cases in today.” Shit you not. He went back and brought out a case (500ml bottles). I really wanted to walk out with the case but didn’t want to bother with shipping it and could only hold so much in my luggage so I grabbed 8 bottles, 6 of which made it back to Boston. They were bottled on 1/12/11 so they are fresh and awesome. I brought back a few other things that looked good too. The one I’m looking forward to the most is the IPA from AleSmith.

We checked out a couple brew pubs too. Karl Strauss was pretty good. Solid beers but nothing to knock your socks off. Also, La Jolla Brew House, which had only 1 beer on tap that they actually made…huh? They had like 4 guest taps going…the Guest IPA was great but that doesn’t say anything for their brewery. They had a good pretzel though.

It also didn’t go unnoticed that Pliny the Younger was released at their brew pub on Friday the 4th. It was a bit of a kick in the ass that I was actually in California on the day it was released but there was no feasible way to get all the way up there so. Next time.

Cold and Snowy

2011-02-01T09:08:00.001-05:00

Not too much new happening here at KGB lately. I have some things I want to blog about but have been somewhat lazy with the old blog. I’m also coming off a sickness from last week and dealing with the continuing onslaught of snow. At this point I say let it snow, we might as well go for the record since we are well on the way already. In regards to the sickness, it seems that when some people get sick they automatically say they have the flu…??!!? I don’t think they realize how bad the flu really would be to have. Most likely you had what I had, a bad cold.

I stayed home last Friday and managed to rack the Rauchbier to secondary. It finished up at right around 1.015, which puts it at 5.7% ABV. I tried a little sample but I couldn’t taste much at the time, so I can’t really say how it is.

I also packed up a couple beers for a competition in Buffalo (Amber Waves Of Grain) later this month. They only needed 2 bottles per entry so it wasn’t that expensive to ship 4 bottles. I sent the Dry Stout and the Pumpkin Ale from November. I saved a few bottles for just such an occasion. I’m not expecting much but we’ll see what happens.

Cold Weekend

2011-01-25T09:36:00.002-05:00

It was a bit cold out Monday morning so I snapped the pic below from my car. I saw on Facebook some folks in upstate NY seeing readings of 20 below so I guess it’s not that bad…but it was pretty darn cold.

I was able to get the Schwarzbier on tap this weekend so I had a sample Sunday night to help take the edge off of a Saturday night bender with ‘Wrence and Cheese Slice in Northampton. It’s good, but I don’t have much to compare it to since I’m not super familiar with commercial examples of the style. It’s really dark, has a nice dark tan head, a bit creamy and has a silky mouthfeel, malty sweet with some roastyness underneath but manages to finish a bit dry from the roasted malt. I’m going to pick up a bottle of Schwarzbier this weekend to compare it to I think, but I’ll definitely enjoy drinking mine regardless.

Rauch Update

2011-01-20T12:55:00.000-05:00

The Rauchbier brewing went well on Sunday….Overshot my gravity by about 10% though and ended up at 1.058. I wanted it malty so I mashed a little high but hopefully it’s not too sweet. It smelled good but not overly smokey. We’ll see how it comes out but I may want even more smoked malt next time. Tough to tell before it’s fermented out though. The color was pretty much spot on for what I wanted and I’m glad I didn’t add any more roasted malts. It’s a nice Amber/Brown color. I added about a liter of slurry from the Doppelbock and it was fermenting away pretty quickly at around 50F. I moved it out of the fridge last night after activity died down for a diacetyl rest.

Schwarzbier is kegged, mostly carbonated, and waiting for an empty slot to go on tap. Stout is drinking nicely.

Rauchbier

2011-01-14T12:17:00.000-05:00

We got dumped on with snow this week in New England. I think we had around 16 inches at our house. It was nice to have Wednesday off for a snow day but I spent around 3 hours shoveling the driveway/deck/porch. Luckily my neighbor helped do the end of the driveway with his snow-blower which was a big help. It was getting more wet and heavier by the hour so I went out early and was at least done by noonish.

Anyway, I racked the stout to a keg and it’s now on tap carbonating up. I was going to rack the Schwarzbier too but wanted to add gelatin so I did that instead and I’ll rack it to a keg this weekend for another week or two of lagering. I also figured I could brew this weekend so I should mix up a starter. I had a dilemma though because I got a hop-back for Xmas and want to try it out but I already had the ingredients and plans to do a Rauchbier next. A 1056 starter would have plenty of time to build up yeast, however 2124 would not for the small amount of lager yeast I have on hand. Then I thought about the Doppelbock. It needs to get racked to secondary and it only came in at probably 8% abv at the most so I figured that yeast still has work left in it. So, I’ll be racking the Doppelbock and then adding some of that yeast to the Rauchbier. I try not to add all the trub and stuff but should get enough yeast to do a good job.

This will be my third attempt at a Rauchbier. I’m hoping this time it’s a winner. The differences this time being more smoked malt, Munich and Vienna with no pale, less roasted malt and a lager yeast. Here’s the recipe:

5# German smoked malt
3# Vienna Malt
2# Munich Malt
.5# Melanoidin Malt
.25# Carafa II

1.25 oz Hallertau pellets for 60 minutes

Wyeast2124 Bohemian Lager

This will be last of my Winter Lager brews.…

Vacation Beers Update

2011-01-04T11:58:00.000-05:00

I closed out my vacation with a little more ‘beering’ yesterday.

The Stout finished fermenting after about two days so I checked the gravity and it closed out at 1.012. A little higher than I wanted but there are lots of reasons for that (unfermentables, high mash temp, low fermentation temp, etc). Anyway, tasted good and should be flavorful.

The Doppelbock seemed done too so I pulled a sample. The gravity was 1.014 which should put it at around 8% ABV. I didn’t taste anything off but I figured one more day at 60F wouldn’t hurt it, so I’ll put it down for lagering tonight. In the next week or two I’ll rack it to secondary for more lagering, eventually turning two gallons into Eisbock.

That’s it for now.

Beer Everywhere

2010-12-31T10:20:00.003-05:00

There's been beer fermenting all over my house for the past few days. I put in a double brew day on Tuesday. I started at 7am when H&K left for work and wrapped up a little before 4pm. First I brewed the Doppelbock, then around noon started the Dry Stout. Everything went pretty smooth. The Doppelbock ended up with a gravity around 1.076, just a tad under what I was shooting for, and the Stout came in at 1.042, a little higher than the estimate. During the brew day I also racked the Schwarzbier to secondary (pitched the DB on the cake) and kegged the starter beer.

So I've had the Stout in the dining room trying to keep it warm. It's done now and managed to stay in the mid-60's. The doppelbock is in the fermentation fridge downstairs and has been keeping a fairly constant temperature around 50-52F. It's still fermenting away and has a nice kraussen on it. Then the Schwarzbier is just hanging in the basement at around 55F. I check all their temps a few times a day, although not so much anymore, mainly just the Doppelbock. Once activity dies down on that I'll pull it for a diacetyl rest around 60F.

I only have the Leftover Hops beer on tap now and then the 2 gallons from the starter beer. The Stout should be ready pretty quickly but I'll probably brew up a nice hoppy beer soon that will also be ready fast. I want to brew a Rauchbier but with all these lagers I need to have some Ales to tap sooner. I also got a new toy for Christmas that I want to try out. I'll post about that later.

Anyway, it's been a busier vacation than I'd like but (shoveling, dog had another seizure, had to go unexpectedly to the dentist, etc) what can you do. I have been able to drink lots of good beer, eat lots of great food, brewing was good, and I tried out some of my other non-brewing new toys as well...power tools are fun.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate. As usual, it came and went too fast. Happy New Year and have a fun but safe night tonight. Here's to 2010 and cheers to 2011 coming in.

Dry Stout

2010-12-22T11:11:00.001-05:00

Here’s the recipe for a Stout I'll probably brew up next week:

6# Pale Malt
.5# Flaked Barley
.5# Crystal Malt 40L
.75# Roasted Barley
.25# Chocolate Malt
.12# Black Malt

.3oz Magnum pellets for 60 minutes
1oz Cascade pellets for 20 minutes

Wyeast1056

Doppelbock & Schwarz Update

2010-12-21T13:34:00.002-05:00

Over my break I’ll brewing the Doppelbock, probably early next week after Christmas. Since I’m horrible at blogging from home I figured I’d post this now in advance. Here’s the recipe:

8# Munich Malt
5# Vienna Malt
2# Pale Malt
1# Melanoidin Malt

1oz Hallertau pellets for 60 minutes

Wyeast2124 Bohemian Lager (cake from Schwarzbier)

Hopefully this will end up in the 8% ABV range. I’ll boil a gallon of the first runnings down to a quart again to get some extra caramelization. I’m going to try to not to mash too high either. I want it to be malty but this yeast is not the beast that 1056 is (and I’m used to). It leaves more sugars behind. Plus it’s a big beer and I want it to ferment down decently, to below 1.020.

Other news: I took a sample of the Schwarzbier (may the schwarz-bier with you? I see your Schwarzbier is as big as mine?) last Friday. It finished around 1.015 and has some nice body and maltyness to it. There was lots of yeast in suspension so it tasted a bit yeasty in that respect but otherwise it was a very clean beer. I tasted no diacetyl, esters or other off flavors. The roastyness was a bit more subdued than I had hoped but it was so young that I’m not judging it yet. For the style it shouldn’t be Stout or Porter roasty, but it should be noticeable in supporting the malt. Instead of cold crashing it I put it in the fridge and I’m lowering the temp more gradually so I don’t piss off the yeast. They have a lot more work to do. It’s down to 40F now and I’ll take it down to probably 35F for the next week until I brew.

That’s it for now. I’m thinking about brewing up a quick low gravity Dry Stout next week too for quicker consumption. I’ll post that recipe this week.

Brewing Update...

2010-12-16T13:42:00.001-05:00

The Schwarzbier brewing went well last weekend. I ended up with a gravity of 1.054, but just under 5 gallons so it’s around my estimated gravity of 1.050. I pitched the slurry at around 60F and had it in the fridge down to 50F overnight. It was fermenting away the next morning so that’s a good sign that I pitched enough yeast. It quieted down and the kraussen had pretty much dropped yesterday so I let it come up to 60F for a diacetyl rest. I know I should have tasted it to see if it even needs it, but I figure the yeast will like the warmer temp for a couple days to clean things up in general. Then I’ll cold crash it down to maybe 35F until I brew the Doppelbock after Christmas. Then it’ll get sent to secondary to lager at around 55F until it gets kegged

Guess that’s about it…sorry for the boring post.

Bohemian Rhapsody (Schwazbier)

2010-12-09T12:07:00.002-05:00

I’ll be brewing tomorrow…a Schwarzbier. Super psyched for it. Here’s the recipe:

6# Munich Malt
3# Pale Malt
.5# Crystal Malt 40L
.37# Chocolate Malt
.25# Roasted Barley
.25# Carafa II

1oz Hallertau @ 60 minutes
.5oz Hallertau @20 minutes
.5oz Hallertau @ Flameout

Wyeast2124 Bohemian Lager yeast

I guess I should name this ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, it works for this beer, and because of the yeast.

It should end up around 5% ABV. The starter I made is taking it’s sweet-ass time falling clear. I moved it to the fridge to get it down to 40F so more yeast will fall out of suspension and thusly, provide more yeast for me to pitch. I probably should have made this two weeks before brew date instead of just one.

Next Beers:
This is a starter in itself for a Doppelbock that I’m brewing later this month, of which at least half will be turned into an Eisbock. I may brew up a Stout too just to have another Ale ready to get on tap. Then in January I want to brew a Rauchbier again. Lots of Lagers which need adequate lagering and longer before I can drink them. I’ll need to throw in a hopped out beer in there somewhere too and then for a Spring transition beer I want to do a Dunkelweizen. I’ve never brewed a Dunkelweizen, Schwarzbier, Doppelbock or Eisbock before so all the new beers are exciting to try. Should be some fun Winter brewing in the coming months

Christmas Tree

2010-12-08T13:53:00.002-05:00

Last year we attempted to cut our own Christmas tree but the place, in Foxboro I think, was a complete junk show with 2-3 foot trees or some tall ones with leprosy. On &Ry’s advice we went and checked out a place up in West Newbury. Turned out to be pretty good. We got there with about 30 minutes before closing time but I’m guessing they would have stayed open as long as people kept coming to buy trees.

The trees they had for cut your own were basically a Spruce of some kind that were generally fatter and fuller but not that tall, and Firs (I think) that were taller but not so fat and full. We opted for the fat and full one. We found a good one that was taller than Peter Dinklage and sawed it down and brought it home. Any tree was $52 regardless of size. Funny that they charge you more to cut it down yourself. When we got it home we realized just how short and fat our tree was. We tried to raise it up by setting it on something but it was just a disaster waiting to happen so we left it as is. It’s maybe as tall as me so another foot on top would’ve been nice, but it’s big enough to hold all our ornaments easily. It’s also the prickliest tree I’ve ever had to deal with…my arms are still healing from all the pin pricks from the needles.

Beer and Stuff....

2010-12-06T15:48:00.001-05:00

I managed to get some beer stuff done this past Saturday. First, I racked the Leftover Hops beer to secondary (and saved some slurry for the next ale I brew). It’s tastes awesome. Exactly what I was hoping for, a nice hoppy American Pale. I added gelatin to it as well so it’ll clear up and I can carbonate it in a keg this week and I’ll be drinking it this weekend, at the 2 week mark. This will be the second fastest beer I’ve ever had from grain to glass; 6-day Hefe being the shortest. The reason I need it on so fast is because the Stout kicked Friday night. So I finally got around to cleaning the Pumpkin Ale keg at the same time as the Stout keg.

I also made a big 2 gallon starter beer for my next brew this Friday: Schwarzbier (Black Beer) or Dark Lager. The first of three upcoming lagers. I’ll post that recipe later but the starter was just 2.25 pounds dry light malt extract from Williams. I boiled it for around 15 minutes then threw in 2 ounces of the Mystery Hop (which is all I have in my freezer beside Hallertau for the upcoming lagers) and boiled for another 15 minutes. I’m using wyeast Bohemian Lager. I added hops figuring I wouldn’t just waste the beer from the starter and I’ll actually drink it. The 15 minute time should give a little bitterness but still keep some flavor. Really, it’s just something to buy some time since I’m getting low on beer, the Holidays are coming and the Dark Lager will need to condition for a while before consumption.

We got home yesterday afternoon after being out for a few hours and the house smelled like someone came in and just continuously FARTED the foulest gas the entire time we were gone. This is a super sulphur producing yeast. The house smelled like fresh pine tree when we left (Xmas tree) but this yeast easily over powered that. Anyways…I guess this will be the Mystery Hop Smelly Steam Beer since it’s fermenting in the low 60’s.

Empty the Freezer of Hops

2010-12-02T14:03:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, it’s been busy around here. We had to put H&K’s family dog to sleep a couple weeks ago, which was not fun. Then 5 days later, on Thanksgiving, her Grandfather passed away. They knew both were coming but they weren’t really expected that quickly, and it’s never easy. I won’t go into any more detail here.

Anyway, while H&K was busy I did enjoy some of the break with some BBQ, beers & music with ‘Wrence &Ry on Wednesday night and then a great meal on Thursday, paired with Autumn Maple by The Bruery, which was quite good. Then I managed to fit in a quick brew Saturday morning before I headed up to H&K’s parents house. This was my “leftovers” beer, or at least the hops part was. I decided to forego ALL specialty malts and just go straight up Pale Malt. Then I used up what was left of my hops from the 2009 harvest. I’ve been craving a nice American hoppy beer. I have the Mystery Hop Ale still on tap but it’s not the same. I don’t have anything to dry hop it with but I’ll be drinking it within a few weeks so it’ll be nice and fresh. Recipe as follows:

8# Bairds Pale Malt

.1oz Zeus whole hops for 60 minutes
1.4oz Zeus whole hops for 15 minutes
2oz Simcoe whole hops for 15 minutes
2oz Willamette pellet hops at flameout

Wyeast1056 – American Ale

I had a great brew session and was done in around 4 hours…even with a stuck mash. The counter flow chiller works super fast in cold weather since my tap water gets colder which speeds up the process. I missed my mash temp by a little bit so it’ll be pretty dry with the 1056 yeast. To help this a bit, and to make up for no specialty malts, I took ½ gallon of the very first running and boiled it down by over half for some malt caramelization. It fermented out over the next couple days while I was gone. I’ll secondary it this weekend and carb it up next week. The Stout is pretty much on life support at this point and I expect to kick it soon, probably this weekend. Also, my new range hood fan worked great at sucking the moisture out of my house….I’ll dedicate a post to that soon.

NERHBC Prizes & Results

2010-11-18T13:48:00.001-05:00

I got my results back from the NERHBC. I was emailed about 10 days ago saying their medal supplier had problems getting the wood or something so it took quite awhile to get everything back. But they always hook you up if you win something. First, here are my scores:

Cider – 38 41 – 39.5
Best Bitter – 37 38 – 37.5 – third place finish
Pale – 36 38 – 37
IPA – 30 33 – 31.5
Bitter – 29 31 – 30
Mild – 28 29 – 28.5
Stout – 25 29 – 27
Blonde – 22 26 – 24

Too bad the cider didn’t place. I actually entered the same EXACT cider last year as a Common Cider. I think it scored around 30 and they said it might do better as a New England Cider. I had some left over so I sent it in this year as a NE Cider. It did much better! So their advice worked. Still wasn’t enough to get a medal though. Which again, is crazy to me since they did nothing but praise it on the score sheet. Anyway…here’s a list of all the loot I got:

3rd place wood medal
$10 gift certificate to Northern Brewer
Cargill T-Shirt (which is a medium so I can actually wear it)
Iodophor sanitizer (I use Star San but I’ll try this)
An issue of Zymurgy magazine
Cargill water bottle
HopUnion lip balm (???)
HopUnion pen
Couple random stickers and coasters

I do love this competition even though it’s a tough one…until next year!

Fall Party

2010-11-16T13:51:00.005-05:00

Nothing I entered placed at the Battle of the Brews this past Saturday. Bummer….but we had our second annual Fall party this weekend so that made up for it. Although I got blacked-out drunk and my wife didn’t really talk to me for most of Sunday but, what can you do.

We ended up with 9 people, which considering how many couldn’t make it, we were happy with that. The Pumpkin ended up holding the entire batch of beer, and then some. I drank some of it before hand but it was probably a 6 gallon pumpkin. Crazy. We had a few apps kicking around and then the main attraction for food was a couple pizzas I made.

One was a “croquet monsieur” style pie. It had a béchamel sauce as a base, a layer of sliced ham, a mix of gruyere and Swiss cheese, and the topped off with some pear caramelized in brown sugar.

It was really good but the next one was the best. It had the same béchamel as the base with thinly sliced butternut squash, cheddar cheese, sage, and drizzled with a port wine/maple syrup reduction. It was killer. All the flavors really worked well together and smelled and tasted great. It was basically butternut squash soup on a pizza…with some cheese.

They both had a crust of 50% white flour and 50% wheat flour. It was only because that’s what I had for flour when I made the dough but it came out pretty good. I think everyone liked the pies. I made the same one’s the next day for my Mom’s Birthday but I was in no shape to eat them really and was kind of sick of them at that point.

Next year I’ll probably get a slightly smaller pumpkin. Partly because of the price, but also: it’s become a “thing” to finish the pumpkin and since there were only a few of us actually drinking a lot of it (plus drinking other stuff), by 11pm or so drinking was kicked up a notch, which directly contributed to me not remember the rest of the night. I did save some seeds from it though which I’m letting dry and will plant next year to see if I can grow my own. Maybe we’ll have a homegrown pumpkin cask next year. If I get a couple of them I could ferment it in a pumpkin too…we’ll see. Until next Fall!

Porch Rehab

2010-11-10T13:38:00.004-05:00

There’s not much new in the brewing world for me lately (although I do have some stuff coming down the pipe) so I figured I could take the blog back to home improvement stuff.

This is pretty much what our house looked like when we moved in. There was some additional landscaping on the right that we had already torn up in this picture, plus it’s Fall and grey and gloomy, but you get the gist of it…

First, we decided to get a quote, and then go through with, getting some new windows. We started with five for now and locked in the quote. When these five are paid off we’ll probably finish the job. The first five were more expensive because we wanted to turn the small window up top into a full size one, so it was more symmetrical. The construction added to the price, as well as getting tempered glass for the window in the stairway. We added shutters to complete the new window look.

Then we decided to tackle the front door. It was black, which wasn’t bad, but the paint was flaking and it looked like a nice wood door underneath. So we stripped both sides of it thinking we could restore the wood. Wrong. Maybe we could have with a lot more work but it was way more then we wanted to take on. We resorted back to our original idea which was to paint it red. Many, many, many coats later, it was looking good. We added an old door knocker to it as well which fit nicely.

I always hated the window/screens of our front porch. I could tell they were added on in probably the ‘70’s or so and just looked bad. They barely worked and I had to use a hammer and a screwdriver to get them open. A couple had some cracks and breaks and some other had some paint on them. Not to mention it would get rid of a ton of that gross tan/dirt color. I liked having a screened in porch but they just needed to come out and I wanted to get our house back to its likely original state. H&K was always hesitant to this idea. Once we had the new windows put in, and spent all the time on the door though, she realized you couldn’t even see them through the gross windows and screens. So one Saturday we said fuck it, and tore them out. It was an adjustment being so open when you walked out the front door, but looked instantly better from the street and it was nice to sit out there in the open.

The walls were now a little low though so we built some window boxes to put on top of them, as we noticed some people do. We also added some decorative corbels under the overhang in the front. Then everything was painted white. This sucked and took awhile. I had to paint every little nook up in the ceiling. We painted the beams going across the ceiling a dark brown so they almost look like wood and used the same color/paint for the floor. I had to add a little sand to the floor paint since it seemed to get a little slippery with the morning dew. We also used some of the leftover door paint to add some accents to the columns and try to break up the white a little bit.

You can see the updated picture below. The “Two Ninety One” is now screwed in to the back of the top step. I plan on painted the concrete steps the same color as the floor but at this point I’ll probably wait until the Spring. There is lots of paint, tar and random crap on them making them look worse than they already do. We got some hanging plants to add to the mix as well. This Spring we’ll plant some flowers in the window boxes and the hanging “pots” so it should like nice with the added color.

As I’ve posted here before, we had already redone the landscaping. This Summer we will be painting the rest of the “dirt-tan” trim white to match the porch. The siding is actually painted. It was white and someone painted it the color you see in the picture. I don’t mind the color, but up close you would notice that they needed another coat and for whatever reason decided to leave it the way it is…so we will probably be repainting the siding at some point, maybe the Summer of 2012, we’ll see were other projects take us. We originally thought blue but now are leaning towards a grey. It would look nice with the white/black/red.

Holiday Break

2010-11-04T12:43:00.002-04:00

For those that don't know, I work at a College. I get this email every year and it's my favorite....

To The College Community,

As the semester winds down, we all begin to look forward to the upcoming holidays and semester break period. I know that many of you may be traveling during this time and hope that providing this information now will help you facilitate your planning.

This year, the semester will come to a close on December 17th with the completion of final exams. However, there will still be work to be done – faculty will be submitting grades, the Registrar’s Office and academic standing committees will meet to review academic progression and notify students of their results.

In order to allow appropriate time for this work to transpire and for students to make their appeals to the Deans and Provost, it is necessary for the College to remain open until 4:30 on Thursday, December 23, 2010. The semester break will then begin on Friday, December 24th. The College will re-open on Tuesday, January 4, 2011. This will provide an extra day for those who may be traveling to avoid the New Year’s weekend rush. Anyone requiring additional days either before or after the start of the semester break should submit a request to use accrued vacation time.

As a reminder of the schedule for Thanksgiving, there will be no classes in Boston on Wednesday, November 24th; Worcester/Manchester will end classes at noon; all offices will close at 1:00 p.m. for the Thanksgiving recess November 25th and 26th. I wish you all a safe and Happy Holiday Season.

Halloween

2010-11-02T12:08:00.005-04:00

H&K and I got invited to a Halloween party this past Saturday. We were given about one weeks notice so we had to come up with costumes quick and cheap. About 3 days before the party H&K decided she could pull off Juno with mostly things she already had. If I had had more time I could’ve put together Bleekers running outfit but I just couldn’t do it. You can actually order it online too but I didn’t have enough time for it to ship to me. So I was the next best thing: a brewer. All I had to do was buy a hat. I’m not sure most people there even knew what I was supposed to be but…some did. I thought about bringing my mash paddle but didn’t want to have to carry it around all night or risk ruining it since I actually use it. It would’ve added to the costume though.

Here’s a picture….ignore the beer in my hand, it’s all they had. Luckily I was driving so I couldn’t drink much anyway.

Halloween night was similar to last year. Our doorbell rang 4 times and we had maybe 12-16 kids total.

NERHBC

2010-10-25T13:52:00.003-04:00

The results are in and I won ONE medal. A third place for my Best Bitter. I have to admit I'm a little disappointed. I really think my Oatmeal Stout is one of the best beers I've ever made and I'm surprised it didn't show up. Maybe it's lacking for the category, I don't know. I'm glad I entered it in the Knick Battle of the Brews so we'll see how it stands up over there in upstate NY.
I also thought my Ordinary Bitter had a good shot, but no luck. The others I entered were just kind of for the hell of it.

They had 405 entries! That's a ton. It's a really well managed competition and it has grown by 50 entries per year since I first entered. It's tough to win but satisfying if you do. I'll get my results and medal in the mail in a week and post the results.

Here's a link to the winners...

France

2010-10-22T15:22:00.007-04:00

The Monday after the wedding and the owls we headed off to spend a short week in France. We stayed in Versailles at the Trianon Palace but spent most days in Paris. It was a little over a mile to the train from our hotel and then about a 20-30 minute ride to Paris so it was around an hour all together. We probably wouldn’t have stayed that far out had we known the hotel was so far from the train but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Everything went pretty well aside from trying to navigate the trains with all our luggage (well, mine fit on my back but H&K had a huge suit case) during morning rush hour on no sleep and then walking what seemed like forever to finally find our hotel. A quick nap, dinner, and then about 10 hours of sleep cured that though.

We tried to fit as much as we could on our days in Paris. The first full day we hit the Eiffel Tower, walked to the Arc de Triomph, and shopped on the Champs-Elysees. We then walked back to the Eiffel Tower since that train stop was on our line and we also got to see the tower lit up at night. We next stayed in Versailles for a day and visited the Palace of Versailles (of Marie Antoinette fame). You could spend hours upon hours just touring the gardens alone. Once again venturing to Paris the next day we went straight to the Catacombs, which was pretty freaky. We then went to the Notre Dame Cathedral and proceeded from there walking to the Louvre. Our last full day was spent at Musee D’Orsay and then we went back to the Louvre area for dinner and to hang out and shop and whatnot.

It rained the day we got there and the next day but after that it was nice Fall weather and got quite warm in the late afternoon sun. I managed to find a decent beer, Pelforth Brune. The first day there I asked if they had any Belgian beers, seeing that they are neighbors, and in a snotty French voice I got “noh, ve hav Franche biers”....so I said okay and he brought me a Kronenbourg 1664. It was not too good. The Pelforth was though. Brewed in France I believe but in a Belgian style. A nice Brown Belgian Ale, nothing fancy but solid. I also had a really good Witte beer. I NEVER order Witte beers but they had a Blanc de Brugges on the menu and it was hot and sounded good. They didn’t have that but brought a different one that was really good. Lots of orange and it was quite refreshing. The rest of the time we drank wine, usually I had Burgandy. We ate many Croque Monsieurs and I was introduced to the Croque Madame. I also had a really good pasta dish with pancetta and cream sauce. I got Mousse au Chocolate at almost every meal too…unreal.

Here are a few pictures…

Do you like owls?

2010-10-21T13:02:00.004-04:00

The next day we had a brunch at the house where my (now) in-laws were staying. The brunch was great, but then they had this surprise and made sure everyone stayed until noon. We were all guessing but no one could figure out what was going to happen. Turns out, since we have a things with owls, they arranged to have an owl “whisperer” or something, come by with some owls for a little show and tell. She actually rehabs hurt owls and releases the ones that are healthy enough to go back into the wild. Some she keeps and cares for, like the first one we saw, which was almost completely blind.

It was quite cool to see them up close and stuff during the day since most or nocturnal and spend their lives trying not to be seen. The big scary looking one at the end hooted at us a couple time which was cool. The handler also attempted to put him, Wyatt, on my shoulder but he wouldn’t have that.

Anyways, here are some pictures…the next day we were off to France for our honeymoon.

More Wedding

2010-10-21T12:34:00.004-04:00

I found pictures of the last 2 courses so figured I'd put them up...also, the last two shots are kinda funny.

Wedding

2010-10-20T13:38:00.007-04:00

So back on 10/2/10 H&K and I got married. If you’re reading this and wondering where your invitation was, don’t feel bad: there were only 18 invited guests. Of those, 3 didn’t make it so the finally tally was 17 people including us. It was a beautiful day and everything seemed to go perfectly according to plan. It was at the Batcheller’s Mansion Inn in Saratoga Springs, NY. They had special rates for under 20 people so that’s where we got that limit from. We had photographers for just 4 hours in a special package, so we had all the photos taken before the actual ceremony. That way, afterward, we could enjoy the champagne and hors d’œuvres with everyone else. There was just enough foliage to make it interesting but still early enough for some beautiful flowers to be around. The ceremony was outside and then we moved in for the dinner.

This is all from memory but it started with champagne and hors d’oeuvres of which were croquet monsieurs with caramelized pear, bacon wrapped filets, manchego with quince paste, and another with endives and goat cheese. The main ‘party’ consisted of a 5 course dinner, plus dessert, each with its own wine pairing. I managed to get pictures of the first 3 before I started to forget to take them. The meals were: chevre en croute with grilled asparagus and lentils, sea scallops in a shallot wine sauce with red rice, homemade pumpkin-maple ravioli with sage butter, paprika chicken stuffed with chorizo and dry aged strip loin with steak fries. Dessert was our wedding cake which was an apple spice cake with dulce de leche filling and vanilla butter-cream frosting. THE best cake I’ve ever had. It was followed by homemade truffles and coffee.

They were billed as amuse bouche style courses so we were figuring on leaving hungry, but the portions were much bigger than anticipated. I don’t think anyone left hungry and certainly most were having trouble finishing their last dish. I can’t remember all the wines but in order but I think they were: Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, a red I can’t remember, and then a killer dessert wine.

All in all I think it went well. I’m already not wearing my ring because I had it sized in the Summer and now it was really loose and falling off almost. They are taking down a half size (for free since it’s kind of their fault). I’d rather have it a little snug for 4 months a year than falling off for 8.

The next day we ate breakfast with Owls (to be continued…)

Pumpkins!

2010-10-19T13:53:00.001-04:00

The brew session on Friday went pretty well. There were no stuck mashes, I hit my temps well and I hit my gravity, 1.050, pretty much right on. I saved a huge slurry of yeast from my last beer (Mystery Hop) so it was going at it the next morning full-boar. I’m really psyched and anxious to try it, as I am with every brew really, but especially when trying something new like this, being my first Pumpkin beer.

I also picked up the pumpkin we will be serving this out of next month. I paid $40 for it! It was the biggest one they had on the lot. It was at a church and all the money went to charity so I didn’t feel so bad spending that much money. The pumpkin is bigger than the one I used last year, fo-sho. It might even fit the entire batch, it's tough to tell. It’s about as big as they can get before they get all misshapen and stuff. I would have used one of those giant one’s though if I found one….I’m thinking you’d have to grow one yourself. Mine came from New Mexico, where they apparently grow really good pumpkins and they last longer because of the dry weather there. So now it’s my job to keep this thing fresh until the party. So far the weather is cooperating being cool and dry.

We picked up some other pumpkins too, just to have. The best priced being $3.99 from Trader Joe’s….got to love that place. Here are some pictures, though they aren’t the greatest.

Pumpkin Ale

2010-10-15T13:19:00.001-04:00

It’s a lovely Fall day here in New England! Sorry about my lack of updates lately but I’ll explain that all later. This post is about beer. Pumpkin Beer. Ever since our Fall party last year where I served beer out of a pumpkin, I wanted to brew an actual pumpkin beer to serve for this year’s party. First off, here’s the recipe:

7 # Bairds Pale Malt
.25 # Crystal Malt 80L
.5 # Crystal Malt 40L
.5 # Victory Malt
.25 # Pale Chocolate Malt
.5 # Aromatic Malt

.5 oz Magnum hops for 60 minutes
Maybe a late addition of something but I’m not sure yet. Only if I have something on hand that I think would work with the rest of the beer.

Wyeast1056

4+ # Fresh grated pumpkin – added to the mash

.25 lb Molasses – added near the end of the boil

1 tsp Cinnamon – this spice mixture will be added at flameout
.25 tsp Allspice
.25 tsp Nutmeg
.12 tsp Clove

This is how it looks now but that of course is all subject to change. I’ve tweaked it all week so I think I’ve got it dialed in now but we’ll see.

I picked up a few sugar pumpkins, not really knowing how many I needed, I knew the extra(s) would be good décor. It turns out I got 4 plus pounds from one of them so I called it a day and left the other two alone. I cleaned it well, quartered it, scooped out the guts, and then “grated” it all down with a “cheese” grater (aka: sponge ruiner). I read lots of ways to handle the pumpkin: roasted, mashed, shredded, canned, chunks, etc…I thought having thin pieces by grating would make it easier for the flavor and any sugars to get into the beer. I left the skin on to aid in sparging (also added some rice hulls) and maybe offer a little more orange color, who knows. Although the beer will be pretty dark so….I originally planned on using regular chocolate malt (375L) but happened to have .25 # of pale chocolate (225L) on hand so I just used that. It should be a Light Brown Pumpkin Ale.

I tried to go light on the spice mixture. Normally I would’ve used more but I know it needs to all be balanced and not take over too much. Plus, it’s easier to add more spice later than take it away. The molasses was a late idea but I think having just a little bit there could add a cool mix to everything, so we’ll see how it all turns out.

North Country malt Supply Update

2010-09-29T12:47:00.000-04:00

Well, I got a letter from North Country Malt Supply. They are in fact no longer serving NEW home brewers after September 30th. However, if you already have an account with them and have ordered in the past, then you can continue to purchase from them. I guess they have expanded their distribution to more home brew supply shops and are having a tough time catering to home brewers and all their small orders. Fine by me. I’ll continue to use them.

Competitions and Stuff....

2010-09-28T13:15:00.000-04:00

I racked the Mystery Hop beer into secondary yesterday. Tasted pretty good. I ended up with only 4.5 gallons or so and was thinking of topping it with water to reach 5 but it finished at 1.008 so I think I’ll leave it be. I’ll lose even more with the dry hops but so be it. I added 2 ounces to it for a week.

I also packed up a bunch of beer for competitions…yup, it’s competition season for me in the Northeast; one in October and one in November.

First, ALL these went to the NERHBC for October 23rd:

Mild
Blonde Ale
Chinook Pale Ale
Imperial Amber Ale (as an IPA)
Ordinary Bitter
Best Bitter
Oatmeal Stout
Cider (entered as New England Style)

Some of these are older and probably won’t do much but I thought I’d give them a shot. I think my Oatmeal Stout is the best of the bunch but I’m never right on these things. The two Bitters also came out pretty good. The Cider was entered last year as a Common Cider and both judges said it would do better as a New England Cider. I took their advice and we’ll what it does this year, a year older and in a different category. I don’t seem to drink Cider too much, hence why I still had laying around, so I don’t mind giving it away. I dropped all these off in Cambridge to be picked up. Not without a comment by the guy behind the counter…some weirdo. Why can’t they hire normal people there?

Then I packed the following for the Knick Battle of the Brews in November:

Russian Imperial Stout
Old Ale
Oatmeal Stout

This is now my annual strong beer competition since they only require 2 bottles and not 3 like others. I threw in the Oatmeal Stout here to see how it does. Since they only require 2 bottles, I had just tapped it, and I think it’s really good, I figured I’d see what another comp would say about it and entered it twice. This one isn’t until November but I packed them so the next time I go to my Dad’s I can bring them and have him drop them off for me so I don’t have to pay shipping….bonus.

Mystery Beer Update and More....

2010-09-14T14:24:00.002-04:00

I had sort of an old school brew session on Friday. After getting my brew time down to as low as 4 hours, the Mystery Hop beer took me back to just under 6. It seemed things just kept going wrong. The beer should be fine and probably not really affected, but my night was. The bigger things to go wrong are below:

First, after the mash I opened the valve to collect the runnings and about a tablespoon of liquid and grains came and out and that was it. I stirred the mash and still nothing....barely a drop. I figured some grain must have made its way under the false bottom and clogged the tube. So I emptied everything into a bucket, cleaned the tun, and dumped it all back in…of course I quickly realized that I forgot to close the valve and wort began flowing all over my floor. Fun stuff. The rest of the sparge went normally. As the kettle is coming to a boil I’ll put a probe thermometer in there and set the unit at 200F so when it gets close to a boil I’ll beep and I can then watch it. I figured even if it was off by 5 degrees or so I’d be safe. Wrong. It was boiling at 95F and I had another mess to clean up on the stove this time. It then seemed to take forever to chill it down. I think my water just wasn’t very cold. Most of the extra time was spent scrubbing the stove….it could’ve been worse but man it was an annoying brew session.

I hit over my estimated gravity and came in around 1.052 or so. Fermentation seemed to go well and is more or less done now. It’ll get dry hopped with 2 ounces and be ready in mid/late October.

I decided I’m happy with the Imperial Amber Ale. It’s tasty and dark enough to be Amber. It’s almost carbonated now but I’ve been sampling it along the way…I like it. I’m also carbonating the Oatmeal Stout now too so it’ll be ready to go when the last of the Bitters are kicked. That tastes nice too….very chocolaty.

Mystery Hop Beer 2010

2010-09-10T14:03:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I harvested my Dad’s hops. The Cascades I left for him and my bro to use in a batch sometime. The mystery hops made the trip back to Boston with me. I dried them out on some screens for a few days to dry them out and then they weighed in at just under a pound. Quite a bit more than I expected since last year I think I got less than half of that. I’ll be using them in this evenings brew. It’ll be simple:

8# Bairds Pale Malt

.25oz Magnum whole hops for 60 minutes
3-4oz Mystery Hops for 20 minutes
3-4oz Mystery Hops at flameout

Fermented with 1068 American Ale yeast.

I’ll probably dry hop it with a couple ounces as well. Whatever is left I’ll freeze and use as finishing hops in upcoming brews. After this it’ll be a Pumpkin Brown Ale to be brewed in October, then I’ll get around to doing the left over hop beer hopefully.

Here’s some pictures of the harvest…

Jellyfish at Walden Pond

2010-09-10T09:01:00.001-04:00

This is pretty weird...clicky.

ImpAmbAle

2010-09-09T15:29:00.001-04:00

I racked the Imp Amber Ale to a keg on Tuesday. It’s not really super “Amberish” and is pretty much an IPA. I thought about trying to tweak it but I’m thinking I’ll leave it as is. I already ordered the labels to use on this for a wedding beer and I didn’t quite describe it right but who cares really. I may soak a couple ounces of pale chocolate malt and add it to the keg for some color and maybe a touch of nuttyness, but I’ll probably leave it. Amber is such a wide array anyways, it can be almost Pale to almost brown. I’m going to fill a few 12 oz bottles for competition and enter it as an IPA. I’m going to have a shit-ton of beers going to the next competition I enter in October.

I emptied the keg of Bitter into a couple growlers too so I could get the Oatmeal Stout into a keg and ready to get carbonated soon. I’ll be going through a good amount of beer this month and early next so I’m also now planning to brew tomorrow evening….that’ll be tomorrow’s post.

Brew 100

2010-09-01T15:12:00.002-04:00

I racked the Stout to secondary this past weekend and it finished up a little high at around 1.018. I’m guessing from mashing kind of high and having all those unfermentables in there. Tasted pretty good off the hydrometer though.

I keep a “journal” or record of the recipes for every beer I’ve ever brewed since I started brewing on my own in December 2003. I keep track of how many batches I brew each year and I had numbered the pages every 10. Yesterday I was filling out my book with the last few brews and noticed that the Imperial Amber Ale was number 100! Guess that’s a pretty good way to celebrate.

I racked beer 100 off the dry hops and added some gelatin to get it to clear up. It’ll go to a keg soon to get carbonated up for show time

Medal

2010-08-31T08:23:00.004-04:00

Won a medal this weekend!

It's not for what you think though....

It's not for being a dip, but for the best dip at a BBQ this past weekend. It was a play on a dip that my Step-Mom introduced to the family a couple years ago. Hers was an artichoke and mushroom combo, with cheese (and spices), served hot. We tweaked it as we made it and added more cheese and less mushroom. This time we kicked up a full 10 notches by removing the mushrooms all together, adding BACON, and SMOKED CHEESE. It was truly amazing. We used about half smoked and have non smoked cheese so it wasn't over smokey. I think this way even people who don't love smoke would still like it. It worked because we won by more then a 2 to 1 margin. There were only maybe 5-6 dips total but I have a feeling there will be more next year. We'll have to come up with another winner to defend our title.

End of Summer Garden Update

2010-08-27T09:20:00.003-04:00

It’s starting to really feel like the end of the Summer since our “garden” is slowly dying out. Here’s a little recap of this year’s growing and harvest and stuff.

Cucumbers: Much like last year they didn’t get really big. We had probably 20-30 of them but they were mostly small. It’s tough to know when to pick them since they were supposed to grow big but didn’t. The one’s we had were good, but a few we waited too long to pick and they were already done. Next year these would do a lot better in the ground I think.

Green beans: I don’t think we’ll do these again next year. We did get a good crop to have two servings of beans for one meal…but that was about it.

Pumpkins: These started doing much better when they went in the ground as they didn’t work in a pot. They flowered over the past few weeks but I think it’s too late now. Also, I haven’t seen any female flowers…they all appear to be male. I will try these again next year, in the ground from the beginning.

Tomatoes: Are doing really well as the always do. The Cherry plant took right off and has been giving us a handful of red tomatoes every week for the past 4-5 weeks. It’s up to around 7 feet tall I’d guess. The Roma was a slow grower but hit a growth spurt in early August and really took off. We have only had 2 red tomatoes from this plant so far but there are now around 20 growing on it, so it looks really promising. It’s up to around 5 feet. These will probably both get planted again next year, in pots (I like our deck garden). I’m thinking if we plant more stuff in the ground we can then plant more tomatoes on the deck.

HOPS: The Goldings grew up the entire support I have for them (at least one bine did). They looked really good but didn’t produce many side-arms up high, which is where the cones form. It became a huge bush at the bottom but then either a potassium deficiency hit or a disease or something because a lot of the leaves ended up browning and dying. I cut all the lower arms off and got most of the dead leaves off so it looks really unimpressive now. I don’t think I’ll really get any cones from it this year. The bines themselves look good though so I think it’ll be in good shape for next year. I will cover it with mulch to help protect the roots during the Winter. Then next year it will get a lot of good organic fertilizer or compost to help feed it.

The Cascades did pretty nicely actually. Both reached the roof and the strongest one went up and over. There are around 10-20 cones formed. Again, this should just be setting the stage for next year. I’ll give this one some good fertilizer and compost as well. I think I’ll throw some chicken wire or something on the roof so it can climb up, then I won’t have to bother with tying twine up and stuff.

Here are a couple shots I took this morning. Not the best but you get the idea. The deck is already looking “Fallish” and a little bare with half the pots gone.