Cramped Space Brew

No Time.

2012-02-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Well, the time has come, and I always knew it would, for me to realize I don't have the time to remember to blog regularly anymore. I recently started school and have been mixing albums for other bands, working full time, and trying to release an album with my internet band. That plus the fact that I take public transport everywhere, and add in Buster and my lovely wife, AND my friends, and it means... I just don't have the time to do this regularly!

I do want to say that I would hope that anyone out there getting into brewing would try to become closer and closer to their finished product as they become a better brewer. Don't brew with extract. Use public hop varieties. Malt and/or toast some of your own barley if you have the space, and build some cool brewing stuff.

And it isn't just about saving money (ALTHOUGH YOU WILL SAVE TONS), its about coming home after a hard day, pouring a brew, sitting on the porch and thinking...

Fuck yes. I made this, and that is awesome.

Brew on, my brethren. Im sure I will post on here a few times a year, and Im sure no one really read it... but I hope I helped someone in their beer brewing journey, and I hope to meet that person when we get to that big imperial pint glass in the sky!

ANOTHER DOUBLE BREW DAY

2011-12-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

Hot damn, have I ever been busy lately. Got a new job and my mom and her cool boyfriend Ed were in town for a few days for the holiday. Which is all fine and dandy, but these things tend to get in the way of the things that really matter... beer. Yesterday I had the whole day off and a bunch of recently finished malt, so I got up at the crack o' ten and got busy brewing! TWO BATCHES! Last week I came to the decision that I want to pick two beers that I always keep on tap, and one rotating tap. Who were the lucky winners for a permanent spot in the keezer?

Recently I made a porter. Good news: ITS FRIGGIN AWESOME.

I decided that this beer will be one of my first launch beers when I get around to starting up a brewery. At 6 percent, it also makes a fantastic winter warmer, so I decided it has earned itself a life long spot in the kegorator.

I also brewed up a pale a couple weeks ago to start the search for a house pale. I have not yet kegged it, but I did sneak a sample last week and it blew me away, so I decided that it would be the lucky winner of the second permanent spot.

Of course, I will be tweaking these recipes, but when you are malting all of your own ingredients it really helps to be able to plan ahead as far as possible. The grain bills for these beers are extremely simple, so now I know I won't have bags of random specialties that I decided to make on a whim with no particular beer in mind. The best part is neither of them use any crystal malt, which is a pain in eh @$$ to make.

Back to the brew day. All went well, except for a stuck mash at the end of my second brew. I did the pale first, and the porter second. It was FREEZING outside, so I brewed in the house, and discovered that...

HEAT STICK+RANGE=OMG HELLA HEAT BOIL BOIL BOIL

Sparge water and wort got up to temp SO fast. It was amazing.

Im typing this at work, and right now they are both in the tub cooling to pitching temps. Can't wait to get home and toss some yeast in those bad boys. Beer rules.

LOST ALL MY MALTING PICTUREEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS

2011-11-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

F F F. My phone decided to stop working yesterday, and so I lost all of the pictures of the latter half of the malting process. I was going to do a step by step on how to malt... anyways, Im going to Best Buy to see if they can help me out. Hopefully they can get my pictures back, if not I might be SOL.

BALLS!

BEAUTIFUL DAY TO BREW

2011-11-11T10:55:00.001-08:00

Denver is awesome. The weather is great, and today it is particularly nice outside. I just mashed in on my first attempt at a repeat/improvement on a home malt brew, and now I'm just hanging outside with the Busterman smoking a pipe and rocking a homebrew.

This is the best hobby in the world. I can imagine brewers hundreds of years ago doing the exact same thing as I am right now, and for some reason, its profoundly comforting.

That's all all I have to say about that.

SCIENCE EXPERIMENT

2011-11-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

For a while now, I have been malting and toasting my own grains for all my beers. I think the official count is the last eight batches have been made from only home malt. Suck on that, overpriced homebrew shop! The only problem is the fact that I tend to jump into things full-force, like an action star jumping out of the third story window of a burning building while rescuing a baby. Sure, in the end it turns out great, but I don't take the time to think things through and take notes, so when I go to repeat the process, I could end up with a totally different beer. Or using the same analogy, I could end up with a broken leg and a dead baby.

OK, maybe not that bad, but with all of my home malted beers I have been putting in two to four specialty malts, roasted for different lengths of time. This becomes a problem because in the end I don't really know which malt is having the greatest effect on the color and taste of my finished beers. And now that the burning obsession with home malting has died down, its time to get serious and start learning the effects of toasting and roasting on my beers.

So with all that in mind, over the last couple of weeks I made two wheat beers: a dunkleweizen and a hefeweizen. The hefeweizen recipe looked like this:

2.4 lb pale malt
2.4 lb wheat malt
Mt Hood/Goldings to 15 IBU

Easy enough. Mashed in the mid 50's. I racked this one over to "secondary", which basically means I want to free up my buckets and look at my pretty beer in a see through container, and it looks like this:

The dunkleweizen was essentially the same recipe, BUT (and I know I already talked about this in my last post) I roasted half of the wheat malt in the oven @ 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Differnent hop schedule too, but this experiment was more about color, so that doesn't matter. I JUST racked that one over to the OMGlookatmyprettybeerbottle a few minutes ago and it looks like THIS!

Big difference! Also, the sample tasted great. Roasted wheat is something I have never been able to use since it doesn't really exist at a homebrew shop, and it is VERY interesting.

Both beers taste awesome and I am pumped to keg them. Actually, now I think it will be easier for me to continue to let my pumpkin beer age until Thanksgiving, since I know I have these two great beers on deck!

Alright, I gotta go work on getting a keg empty so I can get one of these going... PEACE!

WINTER BREWING=BEST BREWING

2011-11-03T12:53:00.000-07:00

The snow is falling, Buster hates going outside, I have to go find my jacket, and my beers always stay in the perfect fermentation temp... yep, its wintertime again! I never thought I would be the guy to say it, but damn it, I love the winter. Since I have not done a brewing update in a while, I figured now would be a good time to just post my brewing adventures of the last couple of weeks.

The first thing I did when I got home from tour was malt a batch of wheat. It took FOREVER, I assume because of the colder temperatures. The first thing I brewed with that batch of wheat was my hefeweizen recipe. Same recipe that I always make, but this time with HOME MALT! I just pulled a sample of this batch the other day and it tastes great, only a week in.

The second thing I brewed was a dunkelweizen, kinda. What I did was I toasted 1.5 pounds of my wheat malt in the oven @400 degrees for a half hour, and I also used S04 instead of 06, hence the "kinda." Heres a picture of me preparing for my brew day ritual. Isn't that grist pretty?

Today I started a new batch of barley malt

AND tasted my pumpkin ale, which is tasting pretty damn awesome right about now. I'm trying hold out until my mom visits to keg it, but I don't know if I will make it that long!

Other than that, I've just been enjoying the weather and enjoying my beers currently on tap. Right now, its my copper ale (which is the tits), my Chinook IPA (tasting pretty good as well) and apfelwein, which I can't get enough of. Life is great.

With this current batch of barley I will be making a "how to" on how to malt grain. So stay tuned for that, keep warm, and DRINK HOMEBREW!

APFELWEIN AND THE PERFECT FALL BEVERAGE.

2011-10-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

While browsing the Homebrewtalk.com forums, I came across a recipe for a hard cider that it seemed everyone (mostly) raved about. Its called apfelwein, and the particular recipe I made was created by a guy on the forum named EdWort. So, after reading all the great reviews on it, four week ago I whipped up a batch. Its really easy, here is the recipe from the site:

Ingredients

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

Equipment

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

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

There’s no need to worry about filling up a carboy so full when you use Montrachet wine yeast. There is no Kreuzen, just a thin layer of bubbles (see here). I'm able to fit all but 4 oz. of my five gallons in the bottle. Ferment at room temperature.

It will become cloudy in a couple of days and remain so for a few weeks. In the 4th week, the yeast will begin to drop out and it will become clear. After at least 4 weeks, you can keg or bottle, but it is ok to leave it in the carboy for another month or so. Racking to a secondary is not necessary. It ferments out very dry (less than 0.999, see here)

Apfelwein really improves with age, so if you can please let it sit in a carboy for up to 3 months before bottling or kegging, then let it sit even longer.

I followed this exactly, and last night, I kegged it. I have to say, it is

AWWWEEESSSOOOMMME!!!!!

I have made ciders in the past, some good, some not. None of them were nearly as good as this particular recipe. Dry, yet sweet, and still has a nice apple flavor hanging around. Also, its very strong... like Hercules strong. Here's a picture, only the second pour out of the keg so its still clearing a bit:

And as fantastic as this stuff is by itself, it also makes an amazing winter/fall warmer. Here's what I did:

1. Pour off about a cup of apfelwein.

2. Put it in a saucepan with a 1/2 TBS raw sugar and about a half of a small cinnamon stick.

Let that simmer for a little on LOW heat. If you make it too hot, you might accidentally boil off some of the alcohol. (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!).

3. POUR IT IN A MUG AND DRINK IT!

Its great on a nice cold evening... or morning... and it will jam some fall spirit right down your throat.

I highly reccomend making some of this! Its totally easy, especially if you don't have any actual brewing equipment. I used a Homer bucket from home depot to ferment it. Anyone can make it, although without a keg you would have to bottle and carbonate that way.

Happy Halloween!

RATHER BE BREWING.

2011-10-22T11:17:00.001-07:00

Cars suck. Had to drive down to the tire place to get a new tire for the ol' ball n chain, and its going to take TWO HOURS to be finished. Now I'm here at Starbucks (CORPORATE PIGS) drinking their crappy coffee when I could be home brewing and drinking home brew.

I find this happens a lot. Me, out doing *something*, but mostly just thinking about recipes or projects or how I love that new brew I just kegged. I should invent a brewing system that fits in my car. Which actually wouldn't help me at all in this particular situation.

F cars.

Check out this awesome picture of my latest brew and it's Krazy Krausen!

BREWIN' LIKE THE IRISH

2011-10-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

Bleep blorp. Since I've been home, I've done a lot of sitting around and doing nothing. Drinking my new beers and smoking my Leedy pipes have been keeping me fairly busy throughout the day, but two days ago I just got so bored I couldn't stand it. Since all my primary buckets were full, I decided to bust out old skool Cramped Space style and brew up a one gallon batch!

I have not done much experimenting when it comes to actual BREWING lately, so I figured I would use the small batch opportunity to try out two things: caramelizing my wort and saving hop flavor/aroma while using my newly adopted no-chill method. What is no-chill? Well, recently I started to genuinely HATE chilling my beer after the boil. Its not fun, it wastes water, and in the summer it takes way too long. So I did some research, and found a process that the Aussies have been doing for quite some time: NO CHILL BREWING! Basically, instead of using an immersion/CFC/plate/what-have-you chiller, you just dump the boiled wort into a food safe bucket, seal it, and let it chill over night. The next morning, dump in the yeast. Since learning about it I have been using it with great success, and I don't plan on ever going back.

The problem with this method is that the hops spend more time than usual at near-boiling temperature, which turns pretty much any hop addition into a bittering addition. Dry-hopping obviously helps with aroma, but I have been having difficulty getting the hop taste back into my beers. Couple this with my desire to make a dark beer the way our ancestors used to before the really dark malts, and I had myself a fun experi-brew-day.

So first things first... BEER

Awww yea. Like Popeye and spinach, my home-malted, home-brewed elixir gave me the power to... make more home-malted, home-brewed elixir.

First I needed a plan. Here it was:

-1 gallon batch. First .5 gallon of wort will be reduced and caramelized as much as possible before burning, and then added to the boil. All base malt should be used.

-Hops. Mini-boil .7 ounces of hops for 5-10 minutes in extra wort. Cool quickly, stir in after wort has chilled enough for pitching.

Easy enough! LETS DO THIS.

Time to get back to the grind... lolz. With my current awesome 90+ percent efficiency, I only needed 2.5 pounds of base malt to make a 1.08 beer. F ya. My arms definitely appreciate the smaller grain bill.

Mashed in. One thing I didn't think about was the difference in thermal mass between a 2 pound grist and a 5-7 pound grist. I tried to mash at 158, but for the life of me I couldn't get it to hold any higher than 150. Lame. I should have done it on the stove like the olden days.

SCIENCE. So here I am sparging, with the .5 galllon of first runnings on the stove while I fly sparged the rest (1.5 gallon) for what would turn out to be 1:45 boil. Good thing I had enough pots.

Heat sticks are great. Got my brew from sparge to boiling in like... 5 minutes! Pretty awesome.

I ended up reducing the wort for one hour. By then the main boil had been at an easy boil for 45 minutes. I dumped in the sticky mess you see here:

And added my only bittering hop addition. Set my timer for one hour and let her continue to rip.

At this point, I ran off another quart of wort, got it boiling and measured out .3 oz of Chinook.

I then boiled the Chinook for 5 minutes, then added another .4 oz of Chinook and boiled that for an additional 5 minutes. Then I strained the liquid and put it into the freezer to cool off.

After the boil, all that was left to do was to dump the wort into a Homer bucket and let it chill. With a one gallon batch it only took a few hours to cool down to pitching temps. Then I mixed in the hop mixture, pitched my yeast, and VOILA!

A one gallon batch of (wee heavy?) something. I am pretty stoked on how dark it is, but the bummer is that apparently part of that has a lot to do with how Im kilning my malt. The wort, as you can see in the pictures, was already relatively dark in the kettle. DEFINITELY not what a 100% pale grist should look like. I did kind of expect this already though, since my beers have tasted more like a Munich based beer than a pale malt based beer... which to me is fine. I love those high kilned malts.

Anyway, thats that. Im just gonna bottle this thing in a week (as long as it hits its target FG) and let it age that way. Ill let y'all know how it turns out!

Hurray for experiments! Hurray for science! HURRAY FOR BEER!!!

ITS 5 O CLOCK SOMEWHERE...

2011-10-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got home last night! It was actually a pretty great homecoming. I walked to my friend's house to pick up my van from the bus stop, and what do you know... my buddies Brandon and Andrew were just about to start a brew session! And had awesome beer to share! So instead of heading home to be alone all night, I got to hang out with my best buddies in Denver, help them brew a sour pumpkin ale, drink beer, and smoke a "THANK GOD I MADE IT HOME" cigarette. Yay.

So I headed home around 7:30. Not sure if it was the time difference or the fact that I had been travelling all day, but I was beat. Before I went to bed I kegged my first three batches of homebrew made from only house malted barley, and then I hit the hay.

Since I went to bed so dang early last night, I was up by 7 ready to take on the day. I was hoping to be able to wait until later today to tap the first keg, but I just could not. I figured after eating breakfast, drinking an entire pot of coffee, and watching all the Daily Show episodes from last week, I had waited long enough. Plus, I have been on the east coast for two weeks, and over there its practically lunch time. So, after months of hard work and waiting, here she is!

My first beer from home malted barley! Here is the actual recipe I used:

4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 66.67 %

1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 16.67 %

1 lbs Home Amber (35.0 SRM) Grain 16.67 %

0.30 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 22.0 IBU

0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (30 min) Hops 10.8 IBU

1 Pkgs SafBrew Ale (DCL Yeast #S-33) Yeast-Ale

So, some notes. The color is awesome, a light amber to copper hue. The head pours thick and creamy, and a small layer stays on the top all the way down. I am getting a lot of caramel, which most likely means I need to cool it on the specialties. Had I known it would be this sweet, I would have added more bittering hops. It leaves a VERY nice toasty flavor in my mouth when I have not had a sip in a while.

All in all, its a pretty good beer! No noticeable off flavors aside from the over-the-top caramel notes. Its also pretty darn clear; especially for the first pour out of the keg. I am very proud.

I will post a side by side of all three beers later tonight. I already know I need to find a better way to estimate the colors of my home malts... all of these beers, at least in the fermenter, looked exactly the same.

BREW ON, MY BROTHERS!

COMING HOME SOOOON

2011-10-11T14:16:00.001-07:00

So in case anyone doesn't know, I'm a Roadie. I've been on the road for the last couple weeks, and due the that and getting ready I haven't been blogging.

Then I found out there is a blogger AP for Android! Hurray! I'm writing this from Syracuse, three days from the end of this particular tour... and I can't wait to get home. As much fun as I'm having this go around, I have 6 beers that have been going from 2-6 weeks, and I can't WAIT to keg them and get to drinking homebrew again. As soon as I get back ill be kegging the first three batches i made with home malted barley (which are currently cold crashing thanks to my lovely wife!), and the anticipation is KILLING ME.

Its funny how my passions have changed in the last year. Usually, I would gladly take any opportunity to hit the open road. But lately, I have been much more interested in getting back to settling down to a more normal lifestyle. It's so hard being a way from my wife, Buster and my beers, and as much as I love traveling, I look forward to the day that I don't have to go away anymore.

Tasting notes this weekend! BREW BREW BREW!

HOLY 93% BATMAN

2011-09-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

So lately I have been doing some SERIOUS malting. The first batch of wheat malt I made ended up in a terrible beer. TERRIBLE. But I now have four batches of beer made from all home malted, home toasted, 100 percent Colorado grains.

Today was a crazy day. Brewed a beer, and I assumed my usual 75% efficiency when I put the recipe together. I also decided to do a REAL fly sparge... and it took forever. An hour to be exact. Apparently the word "sparge" literally means "to sprinkle," which is what I did. Sprinkled water over the grain bed til I eventually had all the sweet wort I needed to brew.

Problem is, I kinda sorta forgot about it, and I ended up getting a gallon more than I needed without realizing it. I really don't know how this happened, it just did. Anyways, as I was getting near the end of the boil, I checked how much wort I had, and it was 4 friggin gallons. Great I thought. Now Im gonna have a super weak beer. So, I came to terms with it, and I proceeded to start cooling down my wort.

This is where things get awesome.

After cooling the wort, I took a gravity reading, 1.055. Which was only 4 points under what I was aiming for if I had THREE gallons of wort. With 75% efficiency, and an extra gallon of wort, it should have been around 1.044.

So after a lot of checking, double checking, Google searching, forum trolling, and soul searching, I finally was able to except an awesome fact. Even if only for today, I rocked a 93.8% brewhouse efficiency.

So. Friggin. Awesome.

The End.

2011-09-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Busy day. Barley is fully modified, so I finally got to use my new contraption that I built a week or so ago!

When I malted my wheat, I realized how much I hated moving the grain a million times during the whole malting/kilning process. Now I just plop this bad boy on top of my malting floor, and voila! A malting floor/kiln. Frick ya,.

It works *great*. Its been literally holding 104 degrees all day. Perfect!

I also made roasted barley

and what ended up being light, medium and medium/dark crystal.

The light is still in the oven drying a bit more.

Tomorrow I will cure some pale malt hopefully and make some other toasted malts. I love this! When I first did the wheat, I was starting to feel overwhelmed. But after using this GREAT barley from Colorado Malting, I have made a complete 180. I am starting to fall really feel as attached to this as I am to brewing... I HAVE TOTAL CONTROL. I AM THE MASTER OF ALL MY BEERS.

BRYAN RULES

YEAR LONG DREAM: REALZED

2011-09-12T16:30:00.001-07:00

Today I did it. Home made beer made with home made malts. This beer is representative of weeks of planning and awesome DIY projects, and it still won't be totally finished for a couple more weeks.

I can't wait to drink it and I am so very excited for my new future as a maltster. Next step? FARMER. Lets do this.

SO FRIGGIN PUMPED

2011-09-12T10:23:00.001-07:00

This is a picture of the grist that will eventually turn into the first batch of beer made entirely made from home malted and roasted grain! Just waiting for my mill to arrive... so excited. Better than Christmas.

I also started malting my first batch of barley. So as of today, I should only have to visit the brew shop for hops and other miscellaneous stuff.

Too pumped. Here's to new adventures!

FINALLY FINISHED ALL THE MALT!

2011-09-09T08:02:00.001-07:00

I got busy... again... and after the initial drying of my wheat malt, I didn't have time to cure it. That all changed yesterday, and I ended up with about 12 pounds of pale wheat malt and 2 pounds each of dark and medium crystal! So pumped. I have my mill in the mail so I should be brewing with this next week... I DID IT!

MALTING UPDATE

2011-08-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

Things are going great! No bad smells, good growth. I spread them all out to finish up modifying last night.

They smell really good! I didn't expect that. Thank God for my basement, its holding the perfect temperature all the live long day. MALT SHOT

Im going to see if I can malt enough grains to keep me brewing all year long. I think Ill need something like 150 pounds. Easy.

More updates will come as I have them!

DOUBLE BREW DAY/ADVENTURES IN MALTING

2011-08-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Good news... TODAY WAS DOUBLE BREW DAY. And I got to brew outside, which was awesome. Check me out, all spargin' and shiz.

I brewed my Pilsen Pale Ale with the new modified hop schedule (F U CORPORATE HOP PIGS) and a new wheat ale recipe I made up today. It was a full day of brewing, and it was awesome.

Also...

I finally started malting grain! I figured I needed to start practicing, since when I start my brewery I plan to use only grains that I malt my damn self. My first step was to swing by the feed store and pick up a 50 pound bag of raw wheat.... I went to three stores and not one of them had a sack of barley.

I was JITTERY with excitement when I brought this home. And the best part? I paid 25 cents a pound. Compare that to the buck-thirty I drop per pound at the LHBS. Sure, its much MUCH MUUUCCCHHHH more convenient, but who needs convenience when doing stuff yourself is so much more satisfying?

Sadly, there isn't much information about malting at home on the internet, but I did find THIS awesomely terrible looking website that had some awesomely GREAT info on malting and building a malting floor. If you read through it, you'll find he basically just builds a small box with a Plaster of Paris floor. So, thats what I decided to base my design off of. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

After buying the grain, the first thing I did was dump about half the bag into a Homer bucket and filled it up with water.

BOOM. I had officially started to malt me some wheat! The malting process always starts with a series of steeps and rests. There is some controversy over how long to steep/how long to rest the grains, but from what I could scrape together on the internet, it seems its most common to steep for 6-8 hours, then drain and let them rest for 6-8 hours. Repeat this process until the grain starts to "chit," which is when the first little rootlets start to poke out.

A word of warning... grains swell up like CRAZY. These babies totally ballooned up enough to fill the whole bucket.

So, I pulled a bunch out and stuck em in my little blue brew kettle you see there to the left. Problem solved. Back to chitting.

My research said that wheat takes all around less time to malt than barley, and this proved true since mine started to chit after only 2 soaking and rinsing cycles.

Now that my wheat was starting to grow, I need to figure out, you know, where the frick I was going to put it! I stole some ideas from the previously mentioned website, drove down to Lowe's and threw this bad mamma' jamma' together.

It was extremely easy to make... concrete board bottom, 2x4 frame, thick Plaster of Paris coat to finish it off. At this point, I went back to my grain and soaked them in a StarSan bath. I have never read about anyone doing this... or many people malting at all for that matter... but I figured it would be a good idea for a couple reasons. First, it cant hurt the grain. Second, it will hurt, nay, murder any microbes that could potentially cause the lump of wet organic material that is my malt to start rotting. So after letting that final soak take place, and letting my plaster dry, I rinsed the grain and dumped it onto my malting floor!

This phase is called couching. Basically you put the grain into a lump, and the heat from germination helps the grains to grow more. This is the stage I am still currently in. I have been going down there (my basement) to stir them up and dump a little water on them every few hours. In fact... I'm about to go do that again very soon!

Temperature is a big deal, by the way. If anyone plans on trying this, the grains have to be as close to 55-60 degrees as possible. That being said, my basement hovers more around the 65ish degree mark. As of yet though, I have no mold, and they seem to be doing great! A lot of them have a few rootlets poking out now. Tomorrow I will spread them out to let them finish modifying. And before they are done, I have to figure out how the frick I'm going to kiln it.

PROJEKTZ RULE

When this is all done, I'm going to malt the rest of the bag and do a how-to. Cheers!

REBELLION

2011-08-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight I sit here deleting all the Simcoe, Amarillo, Warrior and a few others out of all my recipes. Why? Because I'm tired of using proprietary hops in my brews. These hops, along with many others, can only be grown by the dudes that hold the patents or by people who pay royalties for the privilege of being able to do so. It may not sound like a huge deal, but I have a problem with it for 2 reasons:

1. HOPS ARE LIVING THINGS. These companies are mini-Monsantos in their own special way; running around "creating" freak versions of living organisms and claiming them as their own. And I don't think that businesses like that have much of a place in the brewing world.

2. They totally control the flow of these hops. I don't want to give someone that much control over whether or not I can brew a particular beer. Im not saying this has happened, but they *could* decide one year to scale back production to increase demand. Like, you know, the oil companies.

So worst case scenario, they are a hellish Frankestein made of rotten bits and pieces of the business practices of oil companies and Monsanto. But in reality, they are just annoying and apparently I think I'm too punk to use their product.

So there you have it. I'm adopting an attitude of "if I couldn't feasibly grow it, malt it or roast it without getting sued, I'm not going to use it." This is also going to put some grains out of bounds for me... Carapils and Honey malt basically. But frankly, I could do without them.

Grapfruit bombs are overrated anyways.

BEER STUFF DAY

2011-08-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

Today was awesome. I had the whole day off and Amanda was out working on her new business (which Im so excited about as well!), so I figured today would be a good day to figure out how to keep my beers cold. About damn time; Ive been kegging now since Christmas and until tonight I have never poured cold beer from a keg into my glass. Its been a long time coming.

ANYWAYS, I started on good ol' Craigslist. I knew I would rather have a chest freezer to convert into a cool looking keezer down the road, so I, you know... searched for one. I found a 8-point-something cubic foot Kenmore that was in great condition, but they were asking 100 bucks for it, which was a little out of my budget. So I decided to lowball em and offer 60 bucks, and they accepted! Hurrah! I went down and loaded it into the ol van.

I was FILLED with excitement. I was driving home with the very thing that was going to make my life exponentially more awesome, and the freezer in itself is almost a never ending project.

Baby's first keezer.

I got home, loaded it into the office. I decided to go ahead and keg my two beers I had waiting around; an amber ale and an imperial stout, both of which I brewed with this nerd.

It really felt good to be doing BEER STUFF again. The house was taking up so much of my time, it was really nice to be able to put my time and money towards the thing I love the most. Here's some SICK KEGGIN SHOTS AWWW YEA

My brewing space isn't so cramped anymore, is it? HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA... Im so funny.

So just a few short hours later I had some cold Amarillo Pilsen Ale and 2 new brews carbonating in my new beer freezer.

I cant really call it a "keezer" yet since it doesn't look cool. In due time though, I assure you. Im not sure which route I want to go down yet, but what I do know is that its going to look friggin' awesome. I think Ill pour one more in celebration!

There is one more thing I want to add before I sign off here. A lot of dudes that build these things also have to drop 30-90 bucks on temperature control modules and what-not so that their beer doesn't freeze. On MY freezer though, there are your regular coldness settings (OFF to 10), but there are also a few little notches between OFF and 1. When I keep it turned to the notch right above OFF, it stays pretty constant just below 40 degrees. Which totally rules, because everyone likes to save time and money! Cold, LIQUID beer without the extra work. Hurrah!

Beer rules. Building stuff for beer also rules. Life is great. Brew more beer.

MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE!

2011-08-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

Have not been posting since I have been too busy for beer and blogging, since we have been getting settled into our new house. Queue hipster pictures!!!

Thats the front and back of the house. And you see that killer 15x15 shed in the back? Well...

THATS GOING TO BE MY BREWERY!!!!!!

So pumped about it. To celebrate, I did actually brew an imperial stout, which is sitting in my cellar as we speak. I now have an amazing to-do list, which I love. So many great projects in the near future, like:

Start malting and roasting all my own grains
Get the shed into working condition... concrete, finish walls, etc.
Start a garden!!!
Build shelves and awnings and stuff!

It goes on and on forever. Owning a house is fantastic... Buster has more room to run around, Amanda has more room to work and get her business going, I have more brew/music/smoking room. And as an added bonus, we have great neighbors.

So, expect lots of build blogs in the next few weeks here. Kegerator is up next, along with a fermentation chamber.

Cant. Friggin. Wait.

WILDERNESS BREWING. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

2011-07-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

Im really pumped for the dudes at Thank Heaven For Beer. They are officially half way to meeting their Kickstarter goal of 40 grand. What are they going to do with FORTY THOUSAND dollars, you may ask? Start a kick ass brewery. Please go HERE and help them out if you can!

THE BIG THREE WERE NOT THE FIRST

2011-07-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

As I was doing my daily research of brewing, malting and beer in general, I found THIS AMAZING BOOK, by Anonymous (hackers like to brew too?... O wait, wrong Anonymous). It was published in the 1750's, and the first few paragraphs are what initially caught my eye. The author opens by comdemning commercial breweries for sacrificing good beer for good profit, and that this practice of brewing terrible beer just to make a buck is a detriment to beer drinkers and, more importantly, everyone's health!

I intend on finishing the whole thing, but if you have any interest in the history of beer at all, you should at least take a few minutes to read the preface. Kinda puts things into perspective. Its funny how we humans know that we should learn from our past mistakes, but when it comes to war, beer, and pretty much everything else...

We never do.

JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE PROCESS DOWN...

2011-07-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I brewed. It was a great time, as usual, but I made an awesomely terrible mistake that I thought would be fun to share with everyone. What mistake? I boiled the yeast!

Now those of you that have brewed before might be trying figure out just where in the process this is even possible to do. I am here to tell you that it is indeed possible... for me anyways. I'm sure by the time I croak I will have committed every brewing crime there is, and I will be damn proud of it.

I have been trying to get into the habit of re-hydrating my yeast lately. I don't really know why, except that I know it helps the yeast survive better, but I have never had under-pitching issues, so there isn't much of a reason for me to be doing it in the first place. But, alas, there I was, dumping my yeast into some extra wort, and I realized too late that I had let the wort cool off too much. So I thought to myself, "hey self, I have an easy solution... lets stick it on the stove!" Keep in mind that I had not much business re-hydrating at all, and furthermore it wasn't THAT big of a deal that the wort wasn't exactly 100 degrees. Nevertheless, the solution I came up with for my made up problems was to stick the pot onto the stove for a little bit.

Then I got sidetracked. S*&^.

As I was doing other stuff like sanitizing carboys and drinking scotch with Brandon, I smelled something burning. It didn't take long for it to hit me... "IM KILLIN' MAH YEST!!!" I took the yeast off the stove, but it was already too late. I had heated them up to around 150 degrees, and effectively committed mass murder on my undeserving yeast buddies. A perfectly good batch of S-33 went to waste. Bummer. Its a good thing I had a jar of freshly cleaned S-05 in my fridge, because my beer is now bubbling away as I write this.

In the end it wasn't such a big deal, and it will be a fun story to tell in the years to come. The main reason I kick myself over it is S33 the one yeast I use regularly that I don't have a jar of sitting in my fridge. I hate buying yeast, and now I'm just gonna have to buy another packet of it next time I brew. Like some frickin' noob. Which apparently I am, since, you know...

I BOILED MY EFFING YEAST.

HOME FROM TOUR. BREW DAY. OTHER STUFFS.

2011-07-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

So I was on the road AGAIN for about a month with my band A Billion Ernies. We had a great time, played some good shows and had some serious bro down time with our buddies in Caddywhompus and Greg and D Ray from Community Records. I miss them all dearly. The good news is that I GET TO BREW BEER AGAIN! Hurray!

The first day of tour was in SLC, where my parents live, and I brought two kegs of beer with me. Went through both of them in two nights. One had three gallons, the other had probably around two. So needless to say... tour got off to a great start. The only problem is it decimated my pipeline, so now I have three empty fermenters and only one full keg! I haven't been in this desperate of a beer situation for a long time. Time to get going on filling these bad boys back up.

Today Im brewing with my new pal Brandon, and we will be brewing an amber ale that started as a Mack n Jack's clone. This will be the 4th time Ive brewed it and the 4th variation on it, so now I think its safe to say that its my own recipe. Its a damn good beer, and every little tweak makes it a little bit better.

In other news, the guys from Thank Heaven For Beer are starting a real live actual brewery!!! They have a kickstarter up HERE that I would encourage everyone to donate to. They are going to be living the dream, and I know they are going to do amazing things. On a side note; if you're reading this, sorry it took so long for me to blog about it dudes! Tour is time consuming.

Thats it for now I think. I'm going to make a post in the next few days about my thoughts on the scourge of craft beer... BEER SNOBS. But for now, I'm out.

PEACE

NO SHRINKS FOR ME. I BREW BEER.

2011-06-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks have been ridiculous. Between fixing my van with my own bare hands, working on getting ready for tour with my band A Billion Ernies, and buying a house, I have had little time for beer DRINKING, let alone beer creation. But yesterday was a different story.

Do you ever get that great feeling where, at the time when you feel like you cant take another ounce of stress, all of a sudden everything gets worked out? That is how I felt yesterday. The seller accepted mine and my wife's offer, my van is now running smooth with no problems, and ABE made $700 in donations to get us started on my tour. So yesterday I was driving home from work, feeling great, and I saw the exit for Stomp Them Grapes brew shop. I had gotten so used to thinking, "not today, I have to (insert time consuming task here) or my world will explode," and it was so nice to see the exit and finally realize that... hey... I DO have time to brew tonight! So I took the exit, and with no recipe in hand or even the slightest idea of what I wanted to brew, I walked merrily into the brew shop and straight back to the grain bins. Finally, all was right in my world.

I ended brewing an extremely simple beer. 100% Pilsen base, Citra hops to about 30 IBU, and S05 that I recently harvested and cleaned. I had no problems at all, and it is now bubbling happily away in my brew cabinet. I have to say, it felt damn good when I was siphoning into my carboy. The whole process of brewing is so therapeutic for me, I think I go a little bit crazy when I am unable to do it.

So in the future, when I am going through craziness, I am going to make sure to make time to brew. It doesn't matter how busy one gets in life, we have to make time to do the things we love to do. For me, thats brewing beer and writing songs, and I need to look at the former as less of a luxury during those rough times, and remember to think of it for what it really is...

THERAPY

FINALLY

2011-05-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

Murdered a keg today. Farewell, Chinook Black Ale, you were great to me. Tomorrow night I shall brew up a steam beer of sorts... basically going to use a lager yeast and ferment and room temperature. Should be a nice fruity summer beer! I can already taste it... even though at this rate I might not get a pint 'til summer is over!

In other news, I have been gone from the blog lately because my wife and I will be buying a house this summer and I started a band out here in Denver. Both are super exciting and time consuming, but with the house will come awesome new blog posts about me BUILDING MY BREWERY. Yes. Ill be pumping out beer 31 gallons at a time, after I get my brewer's license of course, and all of the craziness will be up here for you guys to see.

Its been a while since my last brew, hopefully I still have what it takes and tomorrow isn't a full blown nightmare.

IM HOME!

2011-04-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

Just got home from tour yesterday. Had a good time on tour for work, and a GREAT time this past weekend in New Orleans at Block Party. Best friends were hugged, amazing bands played, and crawfish was eaten. Now I'm home, enjoying a homebrew and a smoke, and really just being thankful to be back in Denver with my family. Adventures are always great, but they are always a little bit better when you have someone to come home to.

The only thing that could make this a even more relaxing homecoming would be a brew session... but my pipeline is completely full! O well, I guess I have to just drink a little faster over the next couple weeks.

WHEN IN SCANDINAVIA...

2011-03-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

Do as the Vikings did. Or at least close to it! Today Im brewing sahti, the Viking brew of choice. No hops, baker's yeast, no boil and a 6 hour mash! This is going to be fun.

UPDATE: Aight, I decided to just update this post as I go. Before I did anything, I made sure to fire up my new Nordic style pipe, hand carved by mister Tom Leedy, and to make sure I had my weapon of choice ready for battle...

Aw yea, ready for action.

LETS BREW SOME SAHTI!

STEP 1 - THE RECIPE

So, in its purest form, sahti is traditionally brewed by the household. Therefore, there isn't just one recipe. In general, there is:

-Malted barley (60-70%)

-Malted Rye (10-20%)

-Crystal malt (0-20%)

-Juniper branches

I really wish I could have gotten my mits on some juniper branches, but alas, I could find none. Usually the mash is strained through a bed of branches, and I really wanted to do that. O well. Here is the recipe I came up with for the Leavelle house sahti.

-2 lb Pilsen

-2 lb Pale

-1 lb Rye

-8 oz Crystal 120

-8 oz Crystal 80

-.5 oz juniper berries

STEP 2 - CRUSH DA BERRIEZ

Since I could not get juniper branches, I had to settle for berries. I decided that the best way to utilize them would be to crush them up and add them to the mash. So I stuck em on a plate

Crushed them up and dumped them into my grains and mixed them up really well.

STEP 3 - BOIL WATER

Next I got a lot of boiling water started. The idea is to make a very thick mash at first, then continue to add water twice an hour over the course of 6 hours.

STEP 4 - MASH IN

Put the grains in the mash tun, and add enough boiling water to get it up to 150.

Its a VERY thick mash. I wish I had a big enough pot, I would have rather mashed in that, because I know Im going to have to boil the whole mash at the end. Still have not figured out how Im going to do this. Maybe a beer or two will get my gears turning...

Im gonna grab a pint while I wait. Thats all for now!

UPDATE: My cooler holds heat too well. I took the lid off to try and lose some degrees on the mash. Havnt been able to add any water yet, and its been an hour!!!

UPDATE: Minor fail. After almost 2 hours of mashing at 150-155, I realized I added WAY too much boiling water at the beginning. Soooo, Im moving on to boiling the mash/sparging. More updates while the wort is cooling.

UPDATE: DONE. Here's the rest of what I did.

STEP 5 - BOIL THE MASH

There are a few major differences between how beer is brewed and how sahti is brewed. Heres a quick rundown.

-Generally there are no hops
-Usually the wort is not boiled after sparging
-The mash is sparged with boiling water instead of 170 degree water
-Usually the mash itself is actually boiled

*I have to use words like "usually" and "generally" all the time because... there are a million ways to brew this stuff. I looked at many recipes and basically used what I saw as the most common practices.*

So, this final difference is just what I did in this step. I dumped the entirety of the mash into my kettle (actually, some of it got on the floor...)

and let it boil while stirring for about 10 minutes.

As I was boiling the mash, I filled two pots with water and started to boil those as well for my sparging water.

As the mash got to the end of its boil, I boiled a small saucer pan to sanitize it for transfering the mash back into my mash tun from the kettle.

Once the mash was done boiling, I put it back in my mash tun for sparging.

STEP 6 - SPARGING

By now both pots of water were raging. So I rinsed out my boil kettle, dumped about 2 gallons of sparge water in, opened the valve and... O NO. Stuck sparge. Just as I was about to dump everything out to find out what the FFFFF I did, a miracle happened... WORT STARTED FLOWING! What a beautiful site. It was slow, but better than nothing!

At this point I snaked a small portion of the wort, put it in the little pot I was using as a scoop, and threw in my yeast. BREAD YEAST.

I also tasted the wort and noticed there was barely any juniper taste at all. So I crushed up another .5 oz of berries and put them in with the yeast to add later in the fermenter.

Yummy.

STEP 7 - REGULAR BREWING

Chill the wort, sanitize the fermenter, pitch the yeast, aerate. Blah blah blah...

BEER

Today was a fun brew day. Very hectic compared to my recent brews! The process was so much more different than usual, my flow was always interupted. Reminded me of when I first started brewing... just as you go to sit down, a little alarm goes off with a jolt of adrenaline, and you think "O shit! I forgot ____!!!"

I learned a few things about brewing sahti that I will incorporate in my future sahti brews.

-Mash in a pot. Transferring the mash twice was a headache.

-MOAR JUNIPER. I could barely taste any at all from the wort. We will see if my additional "dry junipering" will help. I have a feeling Ill have to dry juniper that beotch again.

-Start the mash lower in temperature. I need to think of it like a step mash, I think, with multiple rests.

Thats all, methinks. This will be my last brew for a few weeks... heading out on the road for work starting Saturday, and seeing as my pipeline is completely full as of today, it may even be a month before I bust out the mash tun again. Bummer.

BAH. PEACE OUT YALL

I KNOW I JUST BLOGGED, BUT...

2011-03-27T17:43:00.001-07:00

I cracked open the keg holding my tripel to see how much I had left (I bottled a sixer to see how this baby ages), and... it was empty! Totally weird.

Anyways, thats all. No idea what to brew next, so if you have any ideas...

BEAUTIFUL DAY TO BREW

2011-03-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

Spring is starting to show itself here in Denver. We have had a week of absolutely beautiful weather, and I couldn't be happier. Yesterday I blew a keg, which means I had a free fermenter, which means BREW DAY! Huzzah! So I busted out Beer Smith and worked up this little number.

Type: All Grain

Date: 3/27/2011

Batch Size: 3.00 gal

Brewer: bryan Boil Size: 3.43 gal Asst Brewer: Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: My Equipment Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount	Item	Type	% or IBU
4 lbs	Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)	Grain	63.49 %
1 lbs	Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM)	Grain	15.87 %
8.0 oz	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM)	Grain	7.94 %
8.0 oz	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)	Grain	7.94 %
4.8 oz	Carapils (1.6 SRM)	Grain	4.76 %
0.30 oz	Amarillo Gold [8.60 %] (60 min)	Hops	14.9 IBU
0.20 oz	Amarillo Gold [11.20 %] (45 min)	Hops	11.8 IBU
0.30 oz	Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (15 min)	Hops	7.3 IBU
0.30 oz	Williamette [4.80 %] (10 min)	Hops	3.0 IBU
0.50 oz	Williamette [4.80 %] (5 min)	Hops	2.8 IBU

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.057 SG

Measured Original Gravity: 1.010 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.47 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 0.65 % Bitterness: 39.8 IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint Est Color: 14.4 SRM Color:

Color

I was aiming for an amber ale. No real reason why, except that I had a terrible amber from Breckenridge Brewery the other day called Avalanche Amber. Think amber colored Pabst. Ugh. I guess I did have a reason why... to prove that I can do it better.

I'm not really one to stick to specific style restrictions, but... it will be amber colored, and it sure as hell won't taste like Pabst! I used Amarillo for bittering mainly because it was in the fridge. I have always loved Williamette, and figured this might be a good opportunity to use the two together.

The brew day was very smooth, and I ended up with this beauty

Come to think of it, all my brews have been exceedingly smooth lately (knock on wood). I didn't even take a gravity reading... in my mind I performed the process of brewing pretty much as good as can be expected, so why bother fussing with the hydrometer and turkey baster? Ill still be making beer, even if I missed my target gravity by a couple of points.

O yea, and good news... 15 bucks til I get a free batch from my LHBS! I feel pretty lucky to not only have a homebrew shop nearby, but to have one that has a kick ass rewards program. Spend x amount and get 15 bucks in beer shiz for free. My batches usually run around $12-14, unless its an IPA, so hell ya. Free beer is good beer.

CHEERS!

NEW BREWS, DREAMS OF MALTING, AND THE LOSS OF A FRIEND.

2011-03-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

Today I raised a half empty glass of Munich dunkel as I bid the beer farewell. It was a great brew, and I was sad to see it go. Malty, smooth, low ABV easy drinker... I was damn proud of that one. O well, out with the old, in with the new! My Chinook black ale is now occupying the very same keg, and judging from the swig I took when I started the siphon, this recipe is gonna be a keeper! Its an original, basically colored with loads of medium crystal and a tiny hint of chocolate malt. Its dark as night, and the subtle roastieness of the chocolate work VERY well with the loads of pine notes from the Chinook. Very pumped about this one.

Also, I have been researching more and more about malting and roasting my own malt in the last few days, and I am committed. As soon as I have a place big enough, I am going to be the total master of my entire brew, from malting to kilning to mashing to boiling to fermenting. I am super pumped about it, and at 30 cents a pound for unmalted grain, it will be a good choice as far as my bank account is concerned.

Last, I want to raise yet another mug to my friend Mitch Dubey. He was shot and killed two days ago. A senseless tragedy and a big loss for the whole world. He oozed positivity, and he will be sorely missed. We love you, Mitch. Hope you are having a good time, wherever you are.

THE GRAND TOTAL

2011-03-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

So today I spent a good 3 hours fine tuning my itemization spread sheet for the cost for my brewery and the keg/tap system that I will be using in the actual tasting room. The grand total?

9360.50!

Not too bad, especially considering that I ditched my super punk rock brewery set up and decided to actually go with nice brewing equipment built by the dudes over at Stout Tanks and Kettles. Their prices are awesome, especially when you see all of the gadgets and gizmos built into all their pieces. I will still be fermenting in giant plastic barrels that I will stick into refrigerators so... PUNX POINTS FOR ME!

I'm pretty pumped about this. I know that there are still things I need to account for (decoration, furnishing, building an actual bar), and I still haven't considered the costs of licenses and such, but damn, it feels good to be able to slap a price on the vast majority of the stuff I need to buy.

I HATE THIS MAN

2011-03-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

And his terrible home brewing videos. He makes it look like rocket science, and it isn't. This guy is going to do more harm to home brewing than good in two ways:

1. He makes us all look like douche bags.
2. He is going to SCARE more people than he helps.

I hope he chokes on the next Cooper's kit he messes up.

ALLS QUIET ON THE BEER FRONT

2011-03-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

Having a full pipeline all the time makes for scarce homebrewing adventures, but Im not really complaining. Its nice not to have to worry about brewing every couple o days, to be honest. And by the time I blow a keg and its time to brew again, I already know exactly what I want to brew! Good times.

In other news, I went to REVOLUTION BREWING! Some friends and rented a cabin and made the 5 hour trek out to Paonia. We spent the weekend eating, smoking, and drinking beers from Revolution. It was a great time.

One thing I really liked about their beer was that it honestly tasted like really good home brew. The beers were not crystal clear, with the exception of their pilsner. Sitting in the modest backyard area, drinking their good brew, eating free peanuts... gave me the best vibe. Such a great place. I wish it was down the street from my house, I would be there every night. O, and their pints are priced very nicely... 3.50 a pop. I can't even get a Pabst for that cheap in some bars.

Im hoping to make another visit this weekend, my buddy Andrew is there for work, and frick, any reason to go to Revolution is a good reason!

CHEERS

DAY OF BEER

2011-03-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

Great day today... besides me being sick. I was a busy boy. Got taxes done with the ol' ball n chain, and then hit up the homebrew shop for my first brew day in a couple weeks! I was going to do my tried and true hefeweizen, but I decided to take that recipe to turn it into more of a witbeer. No fancy spices, just good old hops, water, and barley... the way the Germans like it.

I also kegged my tripel, which tastes great! Harvested the yeast from that beast as well, like a pro. I get better at it all the time. Looking forward to that one being carbed up. Hopefully its good enough for everyone going up to Paonia with me next week, I guess we will know if the keg comes back empty!

Im liking this whole "full pipeline" thing. It makes days like these that much more relaxing and enjoyable. Hopefully when I move to a bigger place, I keep the same process... but I have a feeling that I will be buying a few more kegs and carboys if that ever happens. O well, MORE BEER IS GOOD BEER

TOM LEEDY AND HIS AMAZING PIPES

2011-02-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

GO HERE AND LOOK AT THESE PIPES. Even if you don't smoke, you have to appreciate these as works of art. I just ordered one from him yesterday... hes making one custom for me. Amazing dude to work with, even sent me pictures of the block of briar that will eventually be my new awesome (huge, apparently) pipe.

I can't wait.

THE PIPELINE IS FULL

2011-02-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

Feels good. 3 fermenters and 3 kegs all full of beer. I ended having to dump a terrible stout that I had in one of my kegs... first time Ive ever had to do that. O well, I guess there is a first time for everything. Ill never use Windsor yeast again.

Im happy about this mainly because now I will have to kill a keg before I can keg another. I'm hoping it will force me to let my beers age longer then I have been lately. Ever since Ive gotten a kegging system I have been pretty much racking from the primary once I hit my TG straight to the keg, force carbing, and drinking. The beer has been great, don't get me wrong, but in the back of my mind I always know that it could be BETTER if I had given a couple more weeks. And it takes one dude a long time to drink 3 gallons of beer... especially when this particular dude has 3 different beers to choose from, so it looks like I won't be actually brewing another batch for at least a couple weeks.

Next project I believe will be a box for all my beers to go in, with pimp lookin taps and everything. Hopefully Ill get started on that this week!

THE NON-ALCOHOLIC BEER EXPERIMENT

2011-02-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

Recently I was thinking about my buddy Kenny and an idea he had. He was talking about how there basically is no good non-alcoholic beer, and he was right... the choice is pretty much O'Doul's, and even if you find another kind it will definitely just be a bad lager. I was in the mood to experiment, so I grabbed the gallon of winter warmer I had in the fridge and decided to give it a go.

From my research I found that its a pretty simple process (in theory) to remove the alcohol from beer... you boil it. Alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water (~165 I think) so all you really do is heat up the beer, and when the temperature starts to rise up to 170-180, you know the alcohol is gone. Long story short, thats exactly what I did!

After the alcohol was gone, the temperature shot up VERY fast. I had a boil over. Behold the aftermath.

Before I started my brain kind of told me that I should add some hops at the end, which I did. Huge mistake. I didn't consider that the hops would not be boiling, so I pretty much just made hop tea in beer. It tasted terrible.

And even though it tasted bad, I choked down 2 pints without the slightest hint of a buzz, so... SUCCESS! Im gonna try this again sometime, and next time I won't add the extra hops.

I think it would be cool when I start my brewery to have a good non-alcoholic beer. Its a whole group of people that:

A. Cant for one reason or another enjoy alcohol

B. STILL LIKE BEER

And the sad thing is, they have no access to the awesomeness that is craft beers! Yes, I think this will work, I just have to, you know, get good at it first.

THREE CHEERS FOR KEN DAWG!

2011-02-15T07:35:00.000-08:00

My buddy Kenny got a fridge and made his first lager! Im extremely jealous, but at least I have this pimpin video to drool over. Check out that nasty krausen on top, thats insane.

I love helping my friends. Every time they tell me a new story or crack open a new brew, its like Im there drinking it with them. Hurray for friends helping friends!

HAPPY B-DAY, COMMUNITY RECORDS!

2011-02-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

Today is the 3rd birthday of my band's label, COMMUNITY RECORDS! I know this seems like it has nothing to do with beer, but I have drank more beer with these guys in 2 summers than I have cumulatively in my life. I love them and everything they do, and if you have never heard of them (which judging from the people that read, you most likely have lolz), please go to their site and at least check them out and what they stand for.

COMMUNITYRECORDS.ORG

Best label, best dudes, my best friends. 3 MORE YEARS! 3 MORE YEARS!

GODISGOOD

2011-02-14T08:45:00.000-08:00

First, here is a reason why God really is good. MY BUSTER MAN!

Too cute.

Second, here is the beautiful grossness that makes beer the wonderful thing that it is. Back in the day, when no one knew how beer fermented and turned into a foamy, bubbling brew, it was called Godisgood. Nowadays, we just call it yeast, and here is my latest harvest of Nottingham.

Almost a full pint! I could have filled the thing up, but the other jar where the good yeast was separating form the trub still had some junk on the bottom that I didn't want, so I just dumped it out along with about an inches worth of yeast. No prob, this jar alone is probably enough for 3 batches, and each of those batches can be re-harvested more than 10 times before the yeast starts to mutate and I have to buy another packet!

I did this last night in a hurry and didn't have time to take pictures and blog about it, but Ill be kegging a tripel this week so Ill do a step by step then.

Happy Valentine's day!

MASH TUN UPGRADES

2011-02-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

Ever since I built my converted cooler MT, I have had sparging problems. I was using a mesh paint straining bag as my false bottom, and it was just too much trouble to get it to sit high enough in the MT. I was always burning myself with sparging water, spilling wort, getting stuck sparges... nightmare brews.

So a few brews back I decided to make a couple upgrades. I went to a thrift store and found the kind of false bottom hat usually goes in a steamer, but it had the same size of holes people put in the false bottoms built for home brewing. 1 dollar and an hour or so of snipping later, voila!

A false bottom that fits perfectly into the bottom of my mash tun. I used the scraps that I snipped off to form the supports for it

They just sit underneath the false bottom, holding it about 2 inches from the base of my MT. I also make sure to wash them out and sanitize them really well before every brew... all those crevasses scare me a bit.

I also wanted to make some kind of manifold, so that the wort wasn't being sucked through just the one hole in the MT. That was my main problem... if that one exit point got clogged, it was all over. I needed something with multiple holes in it so that it would draw water evenly from the bottom of the mash, making a more efficient sparge and lauter while reducing the chances of a stuck sparge.

So with a little research (thanks HomeBrewTalk.com!) I decided on the stainless steel braids that cover those faucet hoses. I went and picked out a longer one, cut off the ends, pulled out the inner plastic tube thing, and ended up with this

One end I crimped up to close it off as best as I could

then I stuck the open end into the outlet of my mash tun

7 dollar manifold!

So now when I brew, I stick the braid in, arrange the little stands to support the false bottom

And then stick my false bottom in.

Ever since I made this 8 dollar upgrade, I have not gotten a slow or stuck sparge. Just smooth runnings all the live long day. All my brews have been exceedingly easy, even the triple decoction I did last night... all that boiling turned parts of the mash into a kind of mush, and still the sparge was constant and went without a hitch.

What to do today... Im thinking about kegging my last two brews so I can do a saison and stout next week. Or I could just sit here and watch Lord Of The Rings all day...

Ya, Lord Of The Rings it is.

DREIMAISEHVERFAHREN!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-02-12T20:36:00.002-08:00

Epically epic brew day today. First, I got a great deal on a new fermenter and brew paddle... 12 bucks for both!

THEN I totally rocked a Dreimaisehverfahren! What, you don't know what that means? Its a German technique also known to most beer geeks as a German Three-Mash Decoction.

I heard of this method through the book Radical Brewing (which rules big time), and ever since I read about it I have been itching to give it a try. I guess it makes sense that since my last brew was so simple, today's brew would be the most complicated and time consuming I have done to date. A decoction is basically another way besides direct heat and infusion to heat the mash. So instead of adding water or firing up the burner, you actually remove a portion of the mash, heat it to boiling, and then return it to the mash tun.

This method takes a LONG TIME. I mashed in at 12:30 today and sparged at around 5:30. That is a whopping 5 hours, compared to the 1 - 1/2 hour infusion mash method I usually use. Why bother? Well, besides the age-old reason of "shits and giggles," I really wanted to make an authentic Munich Dunkel. According to the previously mentioned book, there are ways to work around using a triple decoction, but none of them will ever truly taste like the original. It should give the beer an intense malty kick, in both taste and aroma, that really just cant be duplicated any other way.

So today I thought to myself, "Hey self, whaddaya say we give this a try?" To which my self responded "well, you better pour yourself another...

cause it will take a steady pair of hands."

David Bazaan rules, and heres what I did today.

STEP 1 - ASSEMBLED THE INGREDIENTS

I started with the the Monk-y Business Munich Dunkel from Radical Brewing, and I modified it a bit. Heres the recipe.

Amount	Item	Type	% or IBU
5 lbs 4.8 oz	Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)	Grain	97.07 %
2.6 oz	Carafa II (412.0 SRM)	Grain	2.93 %
0.26 oz	Hallertauer [4.80 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop)	Hops	8.5 IBU
0.60 oz	Hallertauer [4.80 %] (60 min)	Hops	17.7 IBU

.12 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] (3 min) Hops

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.048 SG

Measured Original Gravity: 1.053 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.64 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 0.65 % Bitterness: 26.2 IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint Est Color: 18.6 SRM Color:

Color

The original recipe has all the hops added at 60 minutes, but I am a lover of first wort hopping and moved 30% of the hops to first wort, and I added a smidgen at flame out for a slight Hallertauer nose. Also, I used Nottingham ale yeast instead of lager yeast... I cant get a constant 50 degrees, but my bedroom stays around 58-60, and Nottingham ferments really clean at those temps.

STEP 2 - DOUGH IN/ACID REST

I mashed in at a smooth 95 degrees.

I probably could have skipped this, but I really wanted to go with the old skool method from the picture above. On a side note. it is recommended when using Munich as a base. After about 20 minutes, it was time for the first decoction!

STEP 3 - FIRST DECOCTION!

Using a measuring cup, I drew out about 1/4 of the mash (3 qt) and stuck it in a heavy duty pot on the stove.

I cranked up the heat, and did the following rests:

-Protein rest @ 122 for 15 min

-Saccrification @ 148 for 15 min

-Heat to boiling, boil for 30 min

I sat there and stirred that crap for all 30 minutes of the boil. The last thing I wanted was a scorched mash. That would have ruined my day big time. It darkened and reduced quite a bit... mmmm, caramelized mash.

After the 30 minutes was up, I stirred it back into the mash tun.

STEP 3 - PROTEIN REST

Easy peasy... the boiled mash brought the rest of the mash perfectly to 122. I let it rest for 15 minutes.

STEP 4 - 2ND DECOCTION

This was easier than the first. Drew out another 1/4 of the mash, but this time just heated it right up to boiling while stirring. Boiled for 30 more minutes (ugh, more standing and stirring). Again, after the 30 minutes were up I dumped it back into the mash tun.

My target after this was supposed to be around 148, but I could only get it to around 146. O well, that can't be too big a deal. I think it will still make beer :)

STEP 5 - SACCRIFICATION REST

Basically I just let it chill for 30 minutes. I used this time to go pick up a 6er of Fat Tire, as I didn't want to drink all my delicious winter warmer before it was actually ready =P

So clear... so delicious.

STEP 6 - 3RD AND LAST DECOCTION!!!

Same as the 2nd decoction but with 1/3 the mash instead of 1/4. Heat it up, let her boil, dump it back in to the mash tun!

This was supposed to get me up to mash out temps (165-170) but for some reason it only got me up to about 157 >.<. O well I says, I used the time to let it convert some more sugars and boil some extra water for mash out. Ended up taking about 5 quarts of boiling water to get it to mash out temps.

STEP 7 - MASH OUT!

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh let it sit at 165 for 10-15 minutes! All that was left was to sparge and finish up the boil, cool and pitch.

I did it! Triple decoction! DREIMAISEHVERFAHREN!!!!!!!!!!! It went so much smoother than I had anticipated, although I did overshoot my target gravity a bit. The finished product has a really beautiful color, I hope it stays that way in the end. Also, it was hands down the best tasting wort Ive ever made.

What a day, 7 hours of brewing bliss. Up next: SAISON!!! See you then!

HOT HOP COFFEE

2011-02-10T08:07:00.000-08:00

Good news, hop heads! I discovered (for myself, as Im sure its been done a million times over) a way to get your hop fix in the morning without the risk of being labeled as an alcoholic! I call it, HOFFEE. Its like coffee, but with a smack of hops to it! Do you love hops? Do you sometimes have fantasies of waking up to a nice fresh double IPA? If so, read on, because this is for you!

STEP 1 - MAKE SOME COFFEE

Use whatever you like best. I use the organic Guatemalan stuff from my local hippie mart. Any kind will do.

STEP 2 - PUT SOME HOPS IN A TEA THINGY

Get about a tablespoon of some hops (I used Fuggles), and stick em in a tea strainer.

There's nothing quite like the smell of coffee and hops in the morning.

STEP 3 - POUR SOME COFFEE!

Grab your pot and pour that sweet nectar of life over your hops.

Remember that standard hopping rules apply! The longer you let them steep, the more bitter they will become.

STEP 4 - HOFFEE TIME

Drink up!

I found that if I drank it too early, it just tasted like regular tea and coffee. Around the 7 minute mark I had some awesome hop flavor, and by the end of the cup it was lots of bitterness, which I actually really liked.

Next time Im gonna try multiple additions... this is fun. Maybe stick some in my coffee "mash," or "first wort" in the coffee pot?! And I have already come up with the idea of brewing iced coffee almost like beer... multiple additions, chill, dry hop.

This rules! Try it out! GOOD MORNING AND PEACE!

AN ALL GRAIN BREWER'S FIRST EXTRACT BREW

2011-02-09T16:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a great day. I had an awesome day at work, got to go hang out with a couple of cute kids, and noticed a home brew shop was right on the way home. In light of this, I figured it would be as good a day as any to do my first extract brew! I stopped by the home brew shop and put together an ESB from the top of my brain, using only a calculator, my knowledge of malts and hops and a piece of paper. When I got home though, I did end up swiping BierMuncher of Homebrewtalk.com's hop schedule from his Red Hook Clone (but I did use different hops). Anyway, here is what I came up with:

Amount	Item	Type	% or IBU
4 lbs 3.2 oz	Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM)	Extract	86.60 %
8.0 oz	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM)	Grain	10.31 %
2.4 oz	Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)	Grain	3.09 %
0.31 oz	Fuggles [6.00 %] (60 min)	Hops	9.6 IBU
0.31 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.70 %] (30 min)	Hops	7.8 IBU
0.31 oz	Fuggles [6.00 %] (20 min)	Hops	6.4 IBU
0.31 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.70 %] (5 min)	Hops	2.0 IBU

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.057 SG

Measured Original Gravity: 1.055 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG Measured Final Gravity: ? Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.55 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 3.25 % Bitterness: 25.8 IBU Calories: 128 cal/pint Est Color: 13.6 SRM Color:

I used Nottingham dry yeast. Overall the brew went great. I really enjoyed the simplicity of the process, it took less than half the time of an all grain brew and I had way less of a mess to clean up afterwards. If it tastes good, I'm going to continue to brew them every once in a while for easy beers or on days that I really just don't feel like doing a full fledged mash. Anyways, heres a step by step on how to brew a batch of brewski's from extract!

STEP 1 - HEAT UP SOME WATER

For this particular brew I wanted to do a 90 minute boil, so I heated up 3 gallons of water, aiming at eventually boiling it all down to about 1.5 gallons.

I couldn't find exact numbers or calculations or much info at all about how much water I should be using, which was a little annoying, so I ended up just guessing. In the end I hit my gravity though (which I think is impossible NOT to do on an extract batch), so I guess it was fine. Anyway, just stick the water on the stove and turn on the heat!

STEP 2 - STEEP THE GRAINS!

There is no reason whatsoever that anyone should be doing an extract batch without using at least SOME specialty grains. The ratio of added awesomeness to added time and difficulty is so in favor of stepping grains that one would really just be shooting themselves in the foot by not doing it. If you can make tea, you can steep grains. If you can't make tea... well, you can make beer, but it probably won't taste very good.

As soon as you put the water on the stove, dump your grains into a mesh or muslin grain bag,

tie off the top, and stick em in the water. Let them sit in the water, stirring frequently, until the water gets to 200 degrees.

When the water reaches 200 degrees, take the grains out and let them drain in a bowl,

then give the bag a good squeeze to get all the deliciousness out. Dump what you got back into the kettle.

STEP 3 - MIX IN THE EXTRACT

This is the part that kind of blew my mind. I kept staring at the little container of extract, or concentrated wort, and thinking about how much trouble I go through sometimes just to get to this spot.

In 3 seconds I am completing what usually takes me upwards of 2 hours in preparation, cleaning, mashing, sparging and more cleaning. I would be lying if I said it didn't feel good.

Anyways, mix the extract into the boil pot. Do it SLOWLY, it will try to clump together at the bottom, and the last thing you need is scorched extract in your brew. You now officially have wort.

Why do I look so huge in this picture...

STEP 4 - THE BOIL AND HOP SCHEDULE

When the wort heats up to a good boil, set your timer for 1 hour and throw your bittering hops in! For this recipe, it was .31 oz of Fuggles.

There are an endless variety of hops and schedules. Literally endless. Its my favorite part of both building a recipe and brewing. Generally, your brew will get its bitterness from hops that boil for 30 minutes and longer, its hop flavor from hops that boil from around 7-15 minutes, and hop aroma from boiling for no more than 10 minutes, usually less than 5. The world is your oyster, so be creative! My boil was for 90 minutes, but usually you only need 60 minutes.

The rest of the process after the boil is the same as in my first HOW TO BREW BEER post, which can be found HERE. SPOILER ALERT, you end up with something like this this:

Using extract requires considerably less time, initial investment in equipment, and really less all around knowledge of beer and brewing itself. If you really don't want to drop the extra money on an all grain setup, this is a good alternative. I started with all grain and by no means regret it, but to each their own! There have been award winning beers brewed from extract, so in most cases you should be able to get great results with extract brews.

So thats that. I hope you had as much fun reading (and brewing) as I did writing (and brewing). O, and even if I never end up brewing another extract batch again... the extract container makes a great stand for drying out my sanitized carboys ;)

PEACE

EXTRACT BREWING

2011-02-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

I just kinda realized I have never done an extract brew. Everyone starts at extract, but from my first batch to now Ive always been all grain. Its like I skipped a step, and now I recommended all grain to everyone without even really knowing the pros and cons of extract brewing first hand!

I think I might do one sometime soon and post a how-to. Also, now that I can hit my target gravities and mash temps perfectly, I might even continue to brew with extracts for the simpler styles that don't have a lot of specialty grains and the big ass beers that take a million pounds of malt. If I like how it tastes, why should I continue to make it harder on myself by fussing with grains and sparging and all that jazz?

Yes, thats what Ill do. Sometime between today and Friday, I will make my first extract brew!

BREWERY NAMES.

2011-02-07T16:10:00.000-08:00

I have been giving a lot of thought to brewery names lately. I think my favorite thus far is Dead Stuff. It sounds weird, but I would name all my beers after things/ideas/places that are dead. It works really well when you get creative...

-Democracy Dubbel
-Chivalry IPA
-Ska LOL
-Pilsner! (since the US of A ruined the style for the most part)
-MLK Stout (lol, Andrew's idea.)
- The Roman Empire Ale

Good times. Makes naming beer fun, I think I found the winner.

GREAT NEWS EVERYBODY

2011-02-06T14:05:00.000-08:00

So my buddy Andrew and I have been brewing together lately. He just got into it, and last night we cracked open the 2nd brew we ever made together. Holy crap is it awesome. Its a milk coffee stout, and I really can't believe how great it turned out. If anyone gets a chance, give it a try! Here's the recipe:

Type: All Grain

Date: 1/8/2011

Batch Size: 5.00 gal

Brewer: bryan Boil Size: 5.72 gal Asst Brewer: Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: My Equipment Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount	Item	Type	% or IBU
9 lbs	Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM)	Grain	59.02 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz	Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)	Grain	9.84 %
1 lbs 4.8 oz	Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)	Grain	8.52 %
1 lbs 3.2 oz	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)	Grain	7.87 %
8.0 oz	Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)	Grain	3.28 %
8.0 oz	Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)	Grain	3.28 %
1.00 oz	Fuggles [4.50 %] (60 min)	Hops	13.1 IBU
1.00 oz	Fuggles [4.50 %] (30 min)	Hops	10.0 IBU
1.00 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (5 min)	Hops	2.9 IBU
1 lbs 4.0 oz	Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM)	Sugar	8.20 %

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.079 SG

Color

We used S-33 yeast and steeped ground coffee in the boil. Hurray for good brew!

DEAR WINDSOR YEAST.

2011-02-06T10:00:00.001-08:00

You suck and I hate you. You taste bad, smell bad, and suck at doing your job. I will never use you again.

Love,

BRYAN

THE BEST THING TO COME HOME TO...

2011-02-02T21:52:00.000-08:00

Is an awesomely violent, healthy fermentation! Here's a video of my latest brew doing its thing. Its funny... if I ever saw that without knowing what it was, I wouldn't drink it in a million years. But now when I look at it, I can see past the grossness and think those great words coined by Homer Simpson... "mmm, beer." Godisgood is good.

HOW TO KEG BEER

2011-02-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

Today I kegged my cinnamon stout. The brewing itself was a nightmare that I believe was sent upon me by the devil himself. I could feel a legion of his minions laughing crazily at my misfortune as I:

-Mashed at over 160ish due to a broken thermometer

-Dealt with the worst stuck sparge EVER

-Spilled wort all over the floor

-Got drunk out of sheer frustration and don't really know how long I boiled for

SOMEHOW I hit my target gravity, 1.070. But after two weeks and re-pitching, today when I took my reading it was just under 1.030... OMG UNFERMENTABLES! It will be sweeter than expected, but I don't think thats a bad thing.

Anywho, here is my guide on how to keg and force carbonate beer!

STEP 1 - PREPARE THE BEER!

Set it up on a chair or something, preferably at an angle. I do this first so that any trub I shake up on accident has time to settle again.

STEP 2 - KLEAN THAT KEG!

I was going to sanitize and clean the entire thing, but I figured its been sanitary and full of C02 up until now, so why bother? I might do a full sanitation every few brews, but for now all I did was dump some soapy water into the bottom, shoot it out with CO2, and then repeat a few times with clean water. Then I dumped some Star San in and did the same thing. I think that will suffice for now. Heres the stuff that came out!

Yum.

STEP 3 - C02 CUSHION

Here we are going to pump in some C02 at low pressure for about 30 seconds.

The logic behind this is that:

A. Oxygen is bad for beer after primary fermentation

B. C02 is heavier than Oxygen, and will sit on the bottom and stay on the top of the beer as the keg fills.

That way, we are making sure that there is no oxygen in our beer! Hurrah! I tried to take a picture of the gas sitting in the keg, I hope you can make it out.

Ooo, creepy.

STEP 4 - FILL HER ON UP!

Grab your SANITIZED auto-siphon, or in my ghetto ass's case a SANITIZED tube with the bottom of a racking cane attached

and siphon from the carboy into your keg! Easy peasy.

This is also a good opportunity to SANITIZE the keg lid and posts.

STEP 5 - PURGE THE OXYGEN

You officially siphoned your new brew through a SANITIZED tube into your SANITIZED keg with a nice cushion of C02 and have stuck the lid back on. Congrats, you're almost home free! The last step to ensure the safety of your brew is to make sure there is no oxygen whatsoever left inside the keg.

Earlier I mentioned that C02 is heavier than Oxygen, so logic would say that if there is any oxygen left in the keg, it would be right on the top, right? What we are going to do now is pump some more C02 (at low pressure again) back into the keg, and then purge it out. Repeat this 2 or 3 times. I use pin lock kegs, which don't have the fancy pressure release valves on the lid that ball lock kegs do. So what I do is fill it a little, then push down on the lid

OR I remove the C02 lead and push down on the poppet with a knife. Either way works great, but the former method is faster at low pressures. At higher pressure it won't work as well, because you won't be able to push down on lid woth 20-30 PSI pushing back on it.

STEP 5 - CONGRATS, YOU JUST KEGGED YOUR BREW!

Its safe from almost anything now. If you want to naturally carbonate, then you would have racked the beer into the keg on top of your priming sugar. If you want to force carbonate, read on.

STEP 6 - PUMP UP DA PSI'S

The idea behind force carbonating is that instead of having slow yeast do the work by eating added sugar, you are directly injecting CO2 (which dissolves into beer), thereby bypassing that which makes beer take forever to naturally prime. To do this, jack up your C02 tank to 30-50 PSI! Make sure that you do some research to make sure that the amount of carbonation is compatible with the style you are brewing. Since this brew is a stout, I'm going to have it on the lower end of the scale, and Ill carbonate it at around 20 PSI. Let it fill up good.

STEP 7 - SHAKE HER UP

Leave the keg attached to the C02 and (carefully) SHAKE THE SHIT OUT OF IT.

Laying the keg in you lap and rolling it works too!

Keep this up until your CO2 tank stops hissing. The hissing means that the beer is absorbing the CO2 and the tank is having to pump more CO2 into the keg. So, in around 5-10 minutes you have done most of the work that will take the yeast 3 weeks to do. Good deal.

STEP 8 - WAIT N REFILL

This last step is important! Don't wake up the next day and start pouring glasses. Sure, you might think it tastes carbonated, but I guarantee if you wait a few days it will taste much better! What I do is connect it every day back to the CO2 tank and blast it again while shaking. Just to see if it will accept more C02. After 4 days, you can probably start drinking it :)

WARNING: BEFORE YOU START DRINKING, MAKE SURE YOU PURGE ALL OF THE C02 OUT OF THE KEG AND RESET YOUR TANK TO SERVING PRESSURE. FOR ME ITS ABOUT 6 PSI, BUT FOR OTHERS IT COULD BE AS MUCH AS 12PSI.

DONE. I like doing these step by steps, I hope this was helpful!

HURRAY FOR BREW DAY

2011-02-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

Today was a great day. Not only because it was brew day, but because I had made up my mind before I started that I would blog about it. I have not done so in quite a while, and I miss it. So, when I got home from the brew shop, I made sure the camera had plenty of fresh batteries and took a picture of my next beer-to-be!

Its basically going to be a dark, strongish winter ale. The last time I brewed this it turned out fantastic... big body, malty without being too syrupy, with a nice mild but definitely present hop profile that was just great. Loved it. So today I wanted to brew a 3 gallon batch. I went to the brew shop, and to my dismay they were fresh out of Vienna malt, which just so happens to be the BASE OF THE RECIPE. Bah. Anyway, my eyes wandered over to the Munich, and I thought to myself, "self, you always wanted to try a Munich base. Maybe the beer gods are telling you something." So, long story even longer, I went with the Munich!

I drove home, pet the Buster, and fired up the strike water.

When it got to my target 170, I dumped it into my mash tun and... OOO SHIIIIIIITTTTT! It was leaking like crazy out of the valve. Took me a while to install some new washers, and not 20 minutes into my brew I already had quite the mess on my hands.

So much for a totally flawless brew, but after mashing in I poured a fresh honey wheat and relaxed for an hour.

The good news is that I hit my 156 mash temp purrrrrrrfectly, and had an amazing smooth sparge. This is most likely thanks to the new false bottom I fandagled and stainless steel mesh manifold I got from Home Depot. No pictures of that unfortunately... Ill stick em up later.

Also, Ive been using this stuff called 5 squared. I was having some efficiency issues lately, and a dude at the brew shop pointed me towards it.

Im usually not one to add steps and use all kinds of weird shiz in my brews, but this stuff really is great. You add it to your mash and it gets your PH exactly where it needs to be, whether its under of over. So awesome, and since I started using it I have hit my OG's perfectly.

Anyways, after the sparge, I drained my mash tun to go throw the spent grains out, and realized I had about 1.2 gallons of wort still left. Then I remembered all those forgotten hops sitting in the back of my freezer, and the half used pack of S-05 in the fridge... and I decided to make another brew!

Just a one gallon batch, with Brewers Gold for bittering and I finished it with a little Nugget. We'll see how it turns out!

Today was also pretty momentous in that I used whole hops for the first time.

Im hooked, it was sooooo much easier to keep em out of the fermenter. Plus they look awesome, and I don't know if my brain is playing tricks on me, but I think they smelled better too.

So ya, all in all today was a great day. Super smooth brew, which I attribute mainly to the fact that I had planned to blog about it. All of my brews lately have been disasters, but almost every time I blog about my brews, they go with no hitches. I might just start doing this every brew day.

I ended up with 3 gallons of winter ale (1.067) and 1 gallon of... the same pretty much but much smaller (1.04) and less hoppy.

They look delicious! Can't wait to keg em and let y'all know how they taste.

PEACE

THINGS IVE LEARNED ABOUT KEGGING

2011-01-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

So in the two weeks since Ive last posted, my mom bought me a keg rig with 3 5 gallon corny kegs. My mom rules and I have been busy fine tuning and researching on how best to optimize my system (AKA not get beer all over the place and still have cold, carbonated beerz).

First, some pictures! This first one is the new rig.

Now, me pouring a delicious APA from said rig:

Check out that nice clear beer!

And now for the best part: DRINKING IT!

SUCCESS. This particular ale has a seriously deliciously complex hop profile, BUT on the next batch I am going to try and get some more malty sweetness into it.

Now onto the things Ive learned about kegging.

1. THE TASTE OF FORCE CARBING. Force carbonating is great for getting your latest brew from the fermenter to your glass quickly, but it definitely tastes different than natural carbing with priming sugar. I like the naturally carbed taste more, and Im sure it has something to do with the fact that it gives the beer an extra 2-3 weeks to age properly. At any rate, the difference between 4 days of force carbing and 3 weeks of natural carbing is small enough to continue force carbing (for me anyways). My small apartment just doesnt have the extra room I would need to have 3 kegs rockin' brew and a couple more kegs sitting around carbing.

2. GIVE IT TIME TO CARB. If you do indeed decide to force carbonate, give it at LEAST four days, taste it, and if it still tastes undercarbed, give it a few more days. I am extremely impatient and started pouring the day after I kegged my first three batches. That was a huge mistake. The beers tasted carbonated off the tap, but when I bottled a few and brought them over to a friends house, they were terribly undercarbed. Lesson learned. I pumped the kegs back up to 30 PSI and left em for 3 days, and now they are great! Just remember: 4-7 days is much better than waiting 3 weeks. Give it time!

3. RESET YOUR REGULATOR FOR SERVING PRESSURE BEFORE POURING. Force carbonating pressure is around 30 PSI. Serving pressure is between 5-12. This may be obvious to some, but let me tell you that I made a huge, marriage threatening mess by trying to pour beer into a glass at 30 PSI. And then I did it again. And again. 3rd times a charm I guess, because I finally realized I needed to:
-Purge the keg of the C02 that was in it
-Re-pressurize the keg at serving pressure (between 5-12 PSI).

Since I figured this out, its been nothing but smooth pourin'. But I still take a big empty bowl and a towel with me every time I pour.

4. KEGGING IS AWESOME. My beers are clearer. I get to drink them sooner. I DON'T HAVE TO BOTTLE. The pros of kegging outweigh the pros of bottling 100000 times over. I highly recommended it, and you can buy dirt cheap kegging stuff at www.cornykeg.com.

I am going to be kegging a stout on Friday, and now that we have our camera back Ill post a step by step on how to keg beer! But for now I have to go polish off a keg so I have an empty one on Friday, and I think the Belgian strong ale is the lucky victim.

Peace!

THE WHEELS ARE TURNING

2011-01-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Over the past couple weeks I have been doing MAJOR research into starting a brewpub. I have learned so much more about the brewing process, and taking a hard look at what I would really need to get started is actually proving that this is more feasible than I previously imagined. My friend and possible partner in crime Andrew showed me the website for Revolution Brewing in Paonia, CO and that in itself gave me a huge boost of confidence that this is something we could pull off.

I'm thinking that the key is keeping the overhead extremely low... which would include malting and roasting our own grains and coffee beans, having a SUPER ghetto (in looks, not in function) 1 BBL brewing rig, and finding a cheap place to start. This would mean a ton of extra work on our part, but I believe that keeping costs down will make startup much smoother and will give us the advantage of seeing what we can actually afford when it comes to upgrading.

Its also looking like my friend Will from Nashville is willing to join forces and handle the restaurant aspect! Love that man, great vegan cook.

This is shaping up to be great. Baby planning phase is fun, I can't wait to start building.

HELPING FRIENDS IS DA BEST

2011-01-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

Yo. Its been a while since I last posted (OMG DA HOLIDAYS), so I thought I would log on here for a while and share what Ive been up to lately.

For Christmas, my ridiculously awesome wife bought me a 3 gallon Better Bottle so I can make bigger batches of beer! Also, the way it is shaped, it takes up no more room in the closet then my little one gallon dudes that have been so faithful to me in the past. I have done 2 3 gallon batches so far; a dark strong Belgian style ale, and an American style wheat beer that will have a little more of a hop kick than most wheats. The 2nd 3 gallon batch I had to split between 3 bottles, and I have officially run out of fermenters. Thats always sad... but I think I will always do 3 gallon batches from now on. I'm growing a little tired of making awesome batches that run out in just a few short days.

Last night I helped my buddy Andrew bottle his first batch of beer. Its a holiday ale I designed especially for him, and we brewed it exactly two weeks ago. I have to say, it tastes... interesting. It reminded me of Christmas ham, but not in a bad way. Kind of like how Guinness reminds me of bacon. I'm really pumped about the malty finish, and the fact that this definitely does not taste like someones (like mine) first batch of brew.

Which brings me to the point of this post, really. I love helping people brew beer! I have helped three of my homies put together their systems and get their first batch rollin'. I wish I had had someone around to walk me through the process that first day. I had no idea what I was doing, or why I was doing certain things. I love being able to not only help people learn HOW to brew, but WHY it works and the importance of each step. Also, it would have been great to have someone tell me those famous words...

RELAX, DONT WORRY, HAVE A HOMEBREW!

Back then I would lose sleep wondering about how this beer would turn out, running the night over and over in my mind, finding little things to beat myself up over! Ridiculous. But maybe it was a good thing in the end... it lead me to a good 2 month long obsession with learning as much as I possibly could about making beer. If I hadn't worried so much, maybe I wouldn't have fallen in love with the process at all.

I might put a post on Craigslist offering to come and help people brew their first batch. Or maybe not... theres creepy people on Craigslist. Either way, I hope that I can continue to help people along in their quest for awesome homebrew, and that these INGRATES SEND ME A PINT OF THEIR BEER ALREADY!!!

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, EVEN IF YOU DON'T READ THIS BLAWG

RAWR

NEW MASH TUN!

2010-12-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

Greatest project ever. The other day I went to Walmart and picked up a 5 gallon drink cooler for 20 bucks. Im not usually one to shop at Walmart, but... the deal was too awesome, and damn am I sick of mashing in a boil pot that loses heat constantly and having to strain my grains into multiple other pots. Its a mess and it sucks, so in this case, I don't care that I supported one of the most evil corporations ever.

Yesterday I went to Home Depot (and by "yesterday" I mean two trips yesterday and one final one today because I kept needing more parts) and picked up all the stuff I needed... a 1/2 inch ball valve, some washers, a 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch converter thing, and some neoprene washers. I removed the old valve from the cooler, screwed in my new parts, and voilà!

New mash tun!!! I even added a little copper elbow on the inside that points down about 1/4 inch from the bottom.

Now all I have to do is float the mash and drain the wort out of the ball valve, through a mesh strainer directly into the boil pot. No more dumping grains all over the place and getting hot wort all over the counter. I am ECSTATIC about this!

A note for anyone that wants to do this... I highly recommend replacing ALL plastic pieces with metal equivalents. The main reason I kept running to the store is the new metal parts were stripping the plastic pieces, and it kept leaking. The cost of the whole rig? 40 bucks. Brew shops sell this for 80 bucks and up, so ya, Im pumped.

DIY OR DIE

GREAT WEEKEND FOR BEER

2010-12-12T22:41:00.000-08:00

This weekend I went back to Hemet to hang with friends and family. Saturday I made plans with my buddy Kenny to help him with his first 5 gallon batch. We headed out to the brew store early, got all the ingredients for a Mack And Jacks clone. We were super pumped, ready to brew. We jumped back into the car and... o God... the battery was dead.

We ended up spending 4 hours in the parking lot sorting the whole thing out. It was a nightmare, but like most bad days, it ended great. We went back, drank lots of homebrew that I brought back on the plane, and brewed up Kenny's first batch of beer! Was a relatively smooth and painless process, and really made me want to get into doing bigger batches. One day...

I'm just really pumped that all my buddies enjoyed my homebrew and are getting into it themselves. Its one thing drink a great beer you bought, but a totally different thing to drink a great beer you made yourself.

BLUE MOON CLONE

2010-12-10T09:43:00.000-08:00

The other day I was searching around for a good Blue Moon clone. What I found was this thread on HomeBrewTalk.com. Basically, someone posted there looking for a Blue Moon clone, and instead of getting a bunch of educated guesses from people that really didn't know, he got a response from a guy that actually helped brew it back in the day when they were originally creating it! Needless to say, I was PUMPED. I love Blue Moon, and I can only imagine how awesome it takes fresh from the brewery.

So anyways, I took all the info, plugged it into BrewSmith, and got this recipe:

1 lbs 3.8 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 50.00 %
15.8 oz Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 39.92 %
4.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 10.08 %
0.29 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] (90 min) Hops 17.4 IBU
0.05 oz Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.24 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
Yeast- S05

I made it two days ago before I left for California, and last I checked it was happily bubbling away in my brew closet. Ill take a picture next week and post it, it looks great! I definitely recommend this to anyone, I have a feeling its going to be great. Make sure you do a protein rest when mashing though, all that wheat needs the extra time to make more food for the yeasies.

Next week Im bottling my blackberry red ale, so hopefully I can give a good update sometime soon.

BROWN ALE, TAKE 2

2010-12-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

The second beer I ever made was a brown ale/Newcastle clone recipe. The color came out awesome, but it tasted like piss. I forced myself to drink it as punishment and as a deterent from ever making crappy beer ever again.

For the most part, it has worked out... but yesterday I took the TRUE test by trying my hand yet again at a brown ale. I created the recipe myself, here it is:

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Beer1
Brewer: bryan
Asst Brewer:
Style: Southern English Brown Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 1.25 gal
Boil Size: 1.43 gal
Estimated OG: 1.035 SG
Estimated Color: 21.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 13.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU
1 lbs 1.6 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)          Grain        69.18 %
4.0 oz        Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)     Grain        15.72 %
1.6 oz        Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)                     Grain        6.29 %
1.4 oz        Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)                Grain        5.66 %
0.8 oz        Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)              Grain        3.14 %
0.10 oz       Brewer's Gold [8.00 %] (60 min)          Hops         13.1 IBU

At 1.035, its the lowest gravity beer I have made to date, and you know whats great about that? Less grains=LESS MONEY! This brew, including the Nottingham I bought, was only 5 bucks. Holler at your boy.

I have never used Honey Malt before, but I heard about it the other day and really wanted to try it out. Its supposed to be exceptionally sweet, and that's what I'm going for. Of all the brews I've made, I have never made one that is all sweet malty goodness, so here's to hoping it turns out that way.

Three cheers for beer!!!

RELAX, DON'T WORRY, HAVE A HOMEBREW.

2010-11-26T17:14:00.000-08:00

Tonight has thus far been an awesome night. Decorated the Christmas tree with my wife and Buster boy while sipping coffee and Jameson. I decided to chill my newly ready-to-drink American IPA 2. I had low expectations for it, and for good reason (or what I thought were good reasons). When I brewed it, I accidentally added around a half gallon of not sanitized tap water. Also, I was unable to take any gravity readings, since I broke the last two that I owned. ALSO, I threw every hop I had left in the fridge into it. I was leaving for tour in a few days and thought what the hey, I may as well use these all up. I was afraid it would come out watery and too hoppy, or at least have a clashing hop profile since I didn't take much care in choosing the hops that went into it.

So, I cracked it open about 20 minutes ago.

IT IS AWESOME.

Great balance of hop bitterness and malty sweetness. Great looking head that lasts for days. And to top it all off, its the clearest beer I have brewed to date. I am for sure going to try and brew this again. I just need to figure out how much water I added at the end and figure out how to adjust for that... which I don't mind, because learning about beer is fun.

So the moral of the story is this: No matter what you think you did to screw up your beer, RELAX, DON'T WORRY, HAVE A HOMEBREW! Chances are it will turn out just fine.

CHEERS!

Brew day... Arrogant Bastard with an apple twist!

2010-11-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

Woke up, this morning, took the dog on a walk, ate some food and started brewing! Today was supposed to be an Arrogant Bastard clone, with this recipe:

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size: 1.25 gal

Boil Size: 1.43 gal

Estimated OG: 1.083 SG

Estimated Color: 19.1 SRM

Estimated IBU: 60.0 IBU

Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %

Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

------------

Amount Item Type % or IBU

3 lbs 7.2 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 90.31 %

5.9 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 9.69 %

0.20 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 29.3 IBU

0.20 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (45 min) Hops 26.9 IBU

0.30 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (2 min) Hops 3.7 IBU

Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body

Total Grain Weight: 3.82 lb

----------------------------

Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body

Step Time Name Description Step Temp

60 min Saccharification Add 4.78 qt of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F

10 min Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F

The only problem is I had to substitute Nugget for Chinook. Its supposed to be a good replacement, but in my opinion its not as piny as Chinook, so that's a bit of a bummer. Im sure it will turn out great though! Also, since its technically not really a clone anymore, I decided to get fancy and add a little apple smack to it.

All in all it was an extremely smooth brew day. Had an almost perfect mash, only had to add heat once. I really have to get myself a cooler to mash in. At the end of the boil, I steeped 2 diced Granny Smith apples!

Left them in for 20 minutes and removed them right before the ice bath. It cooled down quick, then I just stuck it in a jug and pitched in some S-33.

Easy peasy. Has not started bubbling yet, but Im sure it will soon enough. My first brew in three weeks and damn it felt good! Next up will be a blackberry red ale, hopefully within the next couple o days.

Also, watch Out Of The Wild. Awesome survival show.

The Great Post-Tour Bottling Extravaganza

2010-11-18T14:58:00.000-08:00

I might sound like a whiner to people who consistently bottle 5 gallons of beer, but I have to say, after the last few days I really don't want to bottle another batch of beer again. I filled up ALL of my jugs before I left, and when I came back all 6 were ready to hit the bottle. I went ahead and did it over a few days and ended up with this:

Life is gonna be great in a few weeks...

An army of beer! All of them with approximately the same... uh... due date. 35ish love children of water, hops and grain, all going to be ready right after Thanksgiving. Perfect timing, since I won't feel obligated to bring over a bunch to any sort of Thanksgiving get-together that I might be attending (sorry Joe).

They all taste awesome so far. The only downside to all of this is the one batch that is now lonely in the closet (ran out of bottles):

This will be my 2nd Mack And Jacks clone that I got a little experimental with. Used Maris Otter instead of American pale malt, and Windsor yeast instead of the Fermentis American ale yeast. I'm interested to see how this one tastes compared to the first clone. This one is noticeably darker, but that's all I can tell for now.

I don't think Ill have to worry about this little guy being alone for long... as I have 5 clean jugs now awaiting fresh brews!

One more thing I wanted to mention today... I have noticed quite a difference in taste between my pop-top bottles and my Grolsch swing-top bottles. It seems that the Grolsch bottles for some reason always have a distinctive taste that I don't get in my regular pop-tops. I am chilling one of each right now, and hopefully tonight Ill do a proper taste test so I can know for sure wtf is going on with that.

PEACE!

IM HOME!!!!

2010-11-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

Tour was crazy. Worked my ass off setting up other people's drums and guitars, but now I'm home drinking my beers and all is well. Just bottled my American IPA, and it is DELICIOUS. I also am going to bottle probably 5 more gallons of beer by Monday, so I'll have plenty of updates from that.

More good news! My buddy James from That Band With The Fat Kids is getting into homebrewing as well, and I just gave him a bunch of tips this morning. Hopefully his stuff turns out as awesome as mine!

DRUNKEN BREWING

2010-10-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

AIGHT. Im more of a bad news first type of person... so here it goes. My beautiful wife is gone, and I won't see her again until Nov. 12th. I am sad. Also, our dog Buster is sad. My wife took the camera, so I have no way showing just how sad my canine friend really is.

THE GOOD NEWS. I'm drunk. I went to the LHBS before I got drunk, bought 2 batches worth of grain, and I'm not going to sleep until the Mack And Jack's clone (number 2) is finished. i don't care if its 11 O'clock, I'm NOT hitting the hay until its done.

Yes, this is my serious face.

I bought shitty whiskey and Red Hook ESB. The ESB is for taste, the shitty whiskey is to keep the buzz going and to escalate my drunkenness. I will be updating this with problems as I go along.

1. NO PROBLEMS!!! Mash is done. Preboil gravity reading with my brand spanking new hydrometer is right on target.

2. ME BLOGGING AND DRINKING WHILE BREWING. I don't know how long this has been boiling... but its been raging for a while now. Also, I think I'm gonna hop the shit out of it. Who knows, it could be better than Mack And Jacks. It could also be much, much worse.

3. IM MORE CONCERNED ABOUT GETTING THE NEXT 30 ROCK EPISODE GOING THAN I AM ABOUT TURNING DOWN THE HEAT. Its pronounced "wiener slave."

4. I DONT KNOW WHATS GOING ON IN 30 ROCK. Jenna is dead but sheees not... or something. I need more whiskey.

5. Everything went fine, until I BROKE ANOTHER HYDROMETER. I don't really care. The wort is in the closet, bubbling away after less than an hour. So..

SUCCESS. I just brewed drunk. Was fun. Maybe I messed it up, maybe not. All I know is that I passed the time and it was fun.

DISASTER!

2010-10-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when I was making the dunkelweisen, I was getting all my crap ready to put the wort into my primary and I dropped my hydrometer. It shattered all over the ground.

Frickin bummer, I don't know what the starting gravity of my beer was :(

O well, i guess this means I get to make one last trip to the brew shop before I head off for tour on Saturday. There's always a silver lining... maybe Ill even brew one last batch since I'm going there anyways!

One last note... don't try tasting your beer when its fermenting like crazy. I stuck a straw into my MNJ clone to get a taste today and basically got a tiny bit of beer along with a mouthful of krausen. Gross... I need to stop doing that.

WAKE UP AND BREW

2010-10-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up at 9:30 and immediately started brewing my dunkelweisen! Awesome way to wake up, except I forgot about the coffee part of my morning routine and I am getting a headache. Anyway, while that is happily mashing away at 154 degrees

I thought I would post the recipes for this beer and the MNJ clone I did last night.

DUNKELWEISEN

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 1.25 gal
Boil Size: 1.43 gal
Estimated OG: 1.056 SG
Estimated Color: 14.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 17.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                                            Type         % or IBU
1 lbs 9.6 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)                     Grain        60.61 %
8.0 oz        Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)                    Grain        18.94 %
4.0 oz        Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM)                               Grain        9.47 %
2.7 oz        Caramel Wheat Malt (46.0 SRM)                  Grain        6.44 %
1.9 oz        Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (160.0 SRM)    Grain        4.55 %
0.30 oz       Liberty [4.30 %] (60 min)                            Hops         17.9 IBU

Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 2 Step, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 2.64 lb
----------------------------
Temperature Mash, 2 Step, Medium Body
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp
30 min        Protein Rest       Add 3.30 qt of water at 129.3 F     122.0 F
45 min        Saccharification   Heat to 154.0 F over 15 min         154.0 F
10 min        Mash Out           Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min         168.0 F

Mack And Jacks Clone

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 1.25 gal
Boil Size: 1.43 gal
Estimated OG: 1.059 SG
Estimated Color: 13.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 46.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                                          Type         % or IBU
2 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM)            Grain        81.52 %
4.0 oz        Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM)                     Grain        9.06 %
2.1 oz        Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)                     Grain        4.71 %
2.1 oz        Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)     Grain        4.71 %
0.10 oz       Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 3 days)         Hops          -
0.35 oz       Centennial [9.70 %] (60 min)               Hops         46.2 IBU
0.10 oz       Cascade [5.50 %] (2 min)               Hops         0.6 IBU
0.19 oz       Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 5.0 min)              Misc

Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 2.76 lb
----------------------------
Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp
60 min        Saccharification   Add 3.45 qt of water at 165.9 F     154.0 F
10 min        Mash Out           Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min         168.0 F

I have yet to taste these obviously, but they should be awesome like every other beer I make. Besides that brown ale... that damn brown ale...

Busy Day for Brewing!

2010-10-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the brew store (Stomp Them Grapes in Denver), and after an HOUR AND A HALF I finally left with two fresh bags of grain, a Mac And Jack's African Amber clone and a dunkelweisen. I made the clone today...

Hope in a bottle.

...hopefully after all that mashing and sparging and boiling and hopping and funneling and yeasting and shaking, it will somewhat resemble the awesome beer I can only get when I visit my bro in Seattle.

After I finished that up, I went ahead and bottled my last cider. Its pretty tasty, but honestly I would have rather made another beer.

Tomorrow its the dunkelweisen's turn.

Those grains don't even know what they are in for...

I had never heard of this style of beer before, and I am pretty pumped on it. Its basically a dark wheat beer. Never had one before... but I love experimenting!

Just Spent A Few Hours In Beersmith

2010-10-25T22:58:00.001-07:00

Tweeking a Mac and Jack's clone for my system and creating a dunkelweisen recipe. Gonna brew them tomorrow and Wednesday. PUMPED!!! Also, I have come to the conclusion that there are far too many yeast strains in the world. I wonder if there is anyone that has actually tried ALL of them. I would like to shake that persons hand, and then ask him/her if they think it is really neccessary that we have that many in the first place.

I suspect the answer would be "no," but then again I'm a noob so what the hell do I know. Anyway, updates from the kitchen tomorrow.

Success and Failure

2010-10-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

SUCCESS
So I checked on the yeast I washed and harvested from my hefeweizen... and it worked!

The white stuff on the bottom is the yeast. What does this mean? I don't have to pay for yeast when I brew my next hefeweizen batch! Hurrah!

FAILURE
So after I concluded that my yeast washing attempts had been succsessful, I was gonna post a guide on how to wash yeast... then I fricked it up royally. I didn't sanitize the jars >.< Anyway, next time I'll do it right... I hope.

how to bottle beer

2010-10-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

Looking to learn how to bottle beer? Well do I have good news for you... I know how and have nothing better to do then sit here and write about it!

Last night I bottled my hefeweizen and oatmeal stout, and took a bunch of pictures in the process. Its a fairly simple procedure, but can be messy, especially if you try doing it yourself. Its also important to remember that after your beer is done fermenting, you want to expose it to oxygen as little as possible. Oxygenating beer after it has fermented can lead to off flavors (AKA shitty tasting beer), so you want to make sure everything is in order before you crack open your jug.

So the first things first! Here is a list of stuff you will need to bottle.

1.Auto-siphon and plastic tubing. Don't get a regular racking cane, they suck. Auto-siphons cost a few bucks more, but are certainly worth the cost. I used a racking cane for my first two brews and I almost gave up completely trying to get it to work consistently.


Auto-siphon with tubing attached

2. Hydrometer, and a sanitized wooden spoon. The hydrometer to take a reading, the wooden spoon to slowly stir in your priming sugar

3. A gallon of sanitizer. I recommend Star San! Its the best.

4. Small sauce pan for boiling your priming sugar.

5. Big pot to hold your beer and mix in your priming sugar.

6. BEER! To bottle beer, you need some beer that is ready to bottle. Totally crucial.

7. Clamp for plastic tubing to control the flow of your beer.

8. Small spray bottle of sanitizer. So convenient!

8. Scale for measuring out your priming sugar. My mom just bought me a fancy new digital one!

9. Bottle capper, if you choose to go down that road.

10. Last but not least, empty bottles! And caps, if you use them. I like the Grolsch ones, but the pry off bottles are great too. Its pretty awesome to crack open a cold one, especially when you made it yourself :)

A word about twist-offs... everywhere that I have read, people say that twist-off bottles don't work. I can tell you from experience that BLUE MOON TWIST OFFS DO INDEED WORK! I have never tried other types of twist-offs, but I know for sure that Blue Moon bottles do the job just fine.

11. Actually, THIS is last and not least. Sugar! We will mix this with the beer to give the yeast one final meal to carbonate your beer. You can use regular table sugar, or pick up some corn sugar from your LHBS.

Aight, you have all the crap you need, time to bottle it!

STEP 1- SANITIZE YOUR SHIT! Your workspace, pots and pans, tools, bottles... everything!

To sanitize the bottles, dunk them in the sanitizer, shake them up and stick them upside down on a drying rack.

Don't fear the bubbles! As long as you give them 15-30 minutes to drain and dry, you'll be fine. There will almost surely be bubbles left, but its totally safe and wont hurt your beer.

STEP 2- Take a hydrometer reading.

Get the sample out quick with a turkey baster! This number will be your final gravity, and you will use this and your original gravity reading (that you took when you first brewed your beer!) to find out the ABV of your beer.

STEP 3- Find out how carbonated you want your beer and how much sugar its going to take. This is a great site to help you figure it out: http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html. It will tell you how a particular style of beer is usually carbonated, and then you just fill out the form and click CALCULATE! This will give you the amount of sugar you will need. Measure this out on your scale!

STEP 4- Boil your sugar. Add the sugar with equal parts water to your small saucepan, mix it up and boil it for a few minutes.


Adding some water to muh sugar.


GET YER BOIL ON

STEP 5- Dump the sugar and water solution into your big SANITIZED pot and let it cool down.

STEP 6- Siphon your beer to the pot! You can either do what I do and put the beer up on top of an overturned bowl and stick the pot in the sink, or you can move the pot down to the floor. Gonna need gravity's help for this!

Attach one side of the tube to your auto-siphon, and put the other side in the sugar water. Then put the siphon halfway down into the bottle and give it a couple of pumps.

Let the beer mix in with the sugar, and do what you can to minimize splashing!

When you get near the bottom of the beer, tilt it a little so you can get as much as possible. DON'T SUCK UP THE YEAST!!!

After its finished, put the jug aside, move the pot up to where the jug was, and put your bottles down where the pot was.

Bottles waiting to receive the beer...

STEP 7- BOTTLE ZE BEER! Bottling is essentially the same thing we just did, except with... bottles. I give my beer a very short, gentle stir with a SANITIZED spoon just before to make sure the sugar is evenly dispersed.

Anyway, just stick the end of tube into the bottle, and siphon like before.

Just make sure you fill up the bottle to about 1-1.5 inches from the top...

And cap em!

STEP 8- Store away from direct sunlight for 2 weeks...

And you are done, hurray! If you really really can't wait, your beer should taste fine in about 10 days, but the general consensus is that it will taste the best after 3 weeks or more.

That's it people, you now know how to bottle beer! SEND ME ONE WHEN YOU'RE DONE!

Dear Ryan: This is for you

2010-10-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

Hey man! Remember when we were texting a few minutes ago and you wanted my American IPA recipe? Here it is!

3 lbs	Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)	Grain	85.71 %
8.0 oz	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)	Grain	14.29 %
0.30 oz	Chinook [11.65 %] (60 min)	Hops	41.7 IBU
0.10 oz	Chinook [11.65 %] (30 min)	Hops	10.7 IBU
0.20 oz	Cascade [5.00 %] (15 min)	Hops	5.9 IBU
0.30 oz	Cascade [5.00 %] (5 min)	Hops	3.6 IBU
0.10 oz	Cascade [5.00 %] (2 min)	Hops	0.5 IBU
0.10 oz	Chinook [11.65 %] (1 min)	Hops	0.6 IBU
1 Pkgs	Fermentis 05	Yeast

MAKE SURE THAT THE ALPHA PERCENTAGES ON YOUR HOPS MATCH MINE. If they don't, I can send you an updated recipe to mesh with the hops you bought :)

Mash at 154 for an hour. Mash out, sparge and shit as usual. The last 2 hop additions were STEEPED together for about 1.5 minutes in a tea... thing. Make sure not to leave them in when you cool the wort.

Just tasted mine, and holy crap its awesome. I hope its done when I get back from tour!

Late night experiments

2010-10-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

I found some very HARD ciders under my bed, and I'm drinking them. I think now is a great time to try cleaning and harvesting my own yeast for the first time ever.

Updates soon.

Great day! Bottled 2 new beers!

2010-10-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Today we made a trip out to Boulder with my mom for a hike, and on the way we stopped at the LHBS and bought...

New Grolsch gaskets!!! Hurray! Actually seeing brand new ones in person really made me feel like a dumb ass for putting any beer in the bottles with the old gaskets. Check em out side by side, see if you can guess which is which.

Yes, I'm a tard.

After I got done replacing all the worn out gaskets I went ahead and bottled two beers; my 2nd hefeweizen (%6.29 ABV) and my first oatmeal stout (6.00% ABV). Both are a little stronger than their respective traditional styles, but they both taste awesome, and in the process I took a ton of pictures for an instructional post on bottling. I should have it up sometime soon.

Well I have to go now. I just spilled Corona on my jeans and have to change my pants.

Awesome beer blog. Thanks Matt!

2010-10-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

My buddy Matt sent me a link via THE FACEBOOK SOCIAL NETWORK to his friend's beer blog. Apparently he plans to start a brewery in Pasadena sometime soon. Check it out!

http://thankheavenforbeer.com/

opposite day

2010-10-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

It must be opposite day today. This morning I woke to an IPA that is on the verge of exploding because of all the bad ass fermentage that's going on, and an oatmeal stout that might be stuck at 1.040. Usually you don't want to bottle a brew until the gravity has gone under 1.020; if you bottle before, there is the chance that the yeasts will get a second wind in the bottle and your bottles could explode. Anyways, Im a little bit depressed about it.

Queue Charlie Brown sad music...

I need to do some more research to see how I can salvage this! Honestly, most fermentation "issues" on beer forums are responded to by "wait a week," or something to this effect. Hopefully this is the case for me. Anyway, it tastes great ;)

Here's some pictures of the IPA. Amanda woke me up to tell me that "something happened" to my beer. The airlock got clogged with gunk, and since no CO2 could escape, it actually exploded off the top of the bottle!

BREAKFAST

So I installed a blow off tube, which is basically a plastic tube with one end in my primary and the other in a cup of water/sanitizer. That way, all the crap can get out easily without turning my airlock into a bottle rocket and making a huge mess all over my jug. Again.

Hella fermentage

Anyway, hurray for brewing and hurray for learning stuff! My mom is visiting and we finished all my homebrew last night... so hopefully I can bottle a few of these soon to drink after I get home from tour.

PEACE

GROLSCH BOTTLES, A WARNING!

2010-10-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

If you decide to use Grolsch bottles, like I did, make sure the gaskets are not worn out. You can buy packs of 100 for around 7 bucks.

Why am I saying this? Because I have already somewhat ruined half of my batch of my favorite beer that I brewed thus far. The gaskets were all worn out and crappy, leaked CO2, and I ended up with 4 16 oz bottles of flat beer. Still drinkable and tasty, but flat!!!

So in short, worn out Grolsch gaskets like THIS:

Equals flat beer like THIS:

O well, lesson learned. I guess that gives me another reason for a sweet LHBS trip!

HOW TO BREW BEER

2010-10-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

Here is my step by step guide to how I brew. There’s a bunch of pics and stuff for you guys to look at, and additional tidbits of information that I have learned in all the research I have done over the last month and a half. I hope its helpful! First and foremost, you have to learn to...

RELAX, DON’T WORRY, HAVE A HOMEBREW!

This is a common saying amongst homebrewers haha. I love it. Basically, its extremely hard to frick up your beer. You have to really try. And since this is your first batch, you will probably go overboard in trying to do everything perfectly, which means your beer is going to be fantastic. So don’t worry about it! On a side note, if you have not read the "STUFF YOU NEED TO BREW BEER" or "BABIES FIRST RECIPE..." posts, I highly suggest you do before reading this.

LETS DO THIS!!!

STEP 1- Chill some homebrew!

My Hefeweizen and Blackberry Red Ale (brooklynbrewshop.com)

O hell ya. Brewing is so much more awesome when you are also drinking homebrew. If you have no homebrew, go grab a 6 pack of your favorite. Don't drink too much though, or you might have TOO much fun and frick it up! Better yet, drink homebrew while homebrewing and reading up about homebrewing.

STEP 2- Sanitize your shit!

DIE BACTERIA DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE

This is the easiest way to ensure that you have amazing brew. There are evil bacteria out there that want to live in your beer and eat all the sugar before your yeasties get a chance. By sanitizing, you are making sure that your yeast has a good environment and all the fermentable sugars it needs to get you krunk.

STEP 3- Heat up 1 quart of water per pound of grain to 166 degrees Fahrenheit in your BIG brew pot.

While its heating, smell your grains.... mmmmmmmmmmm...

STEP 4- MASH IN! Turn off the heat and dump in your grains.

Stir it up for a minute or so, and check the temperature.

It should be around 145-154 degrees. If it is, put the lid on it and set your timer for one hour.

TRY to hold it at exactly 154. Check your mash every 5-10 minutes to make sure temperature is on target. If you need to add heat, do so while mixing the mash. If its too hot, thrown in a couple ice cubes. Too hot is over 160 degrees.

While this is going, start heating 1 gallon of water to about 170 degrees. You will need this in step 6.

STEP 5- MASH OUT! Mashing out is the process of raising the temperature of your mash to about 165 degrees while stirring over the course of 5-10 minutes. You will start mashing out as soon as timer goes off.

DON’T LET IT GET OVER 170 DEGREES! If it DOES get over 170, your beer will turn out TERRIBLE and your wife will turn into a zombie.

Just kidding. If it gets over 170... relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!

Turn off the heat and head to step 6!

STEP 6- THE SPARGE/LAUTER! Sparging and lautering is basically removing your wort (sweet liquid) from the spent grains, and then running hot water through the grains to get every last bit of fermentables out of them. Put a strainer over a pot and dump your grains in.

Having another homie around to help with this step makes it much easier.

Rinse your big boil pot while the grains strain (rhyme HOLLER), transfer the strainer/grains over to the big rinsed out boiling pot, and recirculate the wort from your other pot.

THEN take the 170 degree water and pour it evenly, to get the remaining sugars.

Oooo baby gimme those fermentables.

This will be a 1 gallon batch, but collect about 1.4 gallons of wort!!! The reason is that in the boil you will boil off 20-40 percent of your wort. No worries, fermentables stay behind. Better too much than too little, but you should have no problem getting exactly 1.4 gallons. I marked the outside of my big boil kettle so I know when I have enough.

Mmm... beer...

STEP 7- THE BOIL! Transfer all your delicious sweet wort over to your stove.

Turn it on high and bring it up to a boil. Stir occasionally. I will usually add the lid back on to help it retain heat, but it is VERY important to take it off once it gets up to a boil. Once it starts to boil, set your timer for one hour.

Also, while its heating up, Ill usually let my strainer sit over another pot.

Right when the wort starts to boil, Ill add whatever wort is in there. If you have 1.4-1.5 gallons of wort, you shouldn’t have to do this... but i do anyways just in case.

STEP 8- Add your bittering hops! Do this as soon as you set your timer for 1 hour. Stir it up, enjoy the aroma. Best smell ever. Especially Chinook.

With the recipe I gave here, this will be your only hop addition step. Set your timer for one hour, and let it boil. This should be a LIGHT boil! All that is required is a constant exchange of surface area.

This is also a great time to pour yourself another homebrew.

Also, Amanda and Buster say HI

Just a side note on hops. Long story short, the potency of hops can fluctuate throughout the year. The important thing to look for is the alpha percentage. This will tell you how bitter the hops will be when boiled. A higher percentage means the hops will be more bitter when compared with another type that has a lower percentage.

I had to change the amount of hops for this particular recipe at the last second because the program I used to create the recipe (Beersmith) had Chinook at 13%. Had I not adjusted for the lower potency (11.5%), the beer would have come out almost 10 IBU’s less bitter. Not good when you are brewing an American IPA!

Hops also have a very distinct taste and aroma. This comes from adding finishing hops (hops with a lower alpha %) at the end of the boil for no more than 10 minutes. You can get even better aroma by steeping some hops for no more than 2 minutes, like I did with this brew.

Adding a mix of Cascade and Chinook to a tea thingy

Steeping the hops! Smells so goooood

Put your leftovers in a zip-lock bag (make sure to get all the air out) and store em in the freezer!

Anyway, back to brewing.

STEP 9- Cool the wort. Stick it in an ice bath. I sometimes stir it like mad with a sanitized spoon. It will cool quicker and will help aerate the wort, which rules because your yeast needs oxygen to live.

You need to cool it to under 80 degrees as fast as possible. From this point on, you are on a race against bacteria. The shorter the time period between you taking the wort off the burner and putting it in your primary fermenter, the better.

While wort is cooling, sanitize your jug.

STEP 10- So close! The boil is done! Your wort is cool! Only a couple more things to do before you stick it in the closet and forget about it for a couple weeks.

IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT AT THIS POINT TO SANITIZE EVERY STUPID THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY COME IN CONTACT WITH YOUR BEER. YOUR HANDS, THE COUNTERS, YOUR SPOON, EVERYTHING!!! STEP 9 GOES ON UNTIL YOUR WORT IS IN THE CLOSET.

Boiling killed everything that might have snuck in before. Close your windows, and don't let anything that has not been properly sanitized touch your beeeeeeeeeeeer!!!!!!!!!

STEP 11- Strain the wort. This will get all the hops and random shiz out of the wort, and will help aerate it.

Pour the wort through the SANITIZED fine mesh strainer into a SANITIZED pot.

You could just pour it straight through the strainer into the jug, but that's hard.

Taste the deliciousness left behind! SNACK ATTACK!!!

SO GOOD

LOLZ JK. Don’t eat it. Also don’t feed it to animals, it will kill them. Not kidding.

OPTIONAL STEP 11.5- This is a great time to take a gravity reading. This will require a hydrometer that you can buy for I think around 7 bucks. Don't let them sucker you into buying a flask, you can use the container it comes in.

Gravity readings tell you how much sugar is in your wort. Basically you take one before you put in in the fermenter, and another when its done. The number should go down, and this tells you how much of the sugar was turned into alcohol. Use a SANITIZED turkey baster to put some wort into the SANITIZED hydrometer container and then drop the SANITIZED hydrometer in.

My gravity was at 1.075. Not to brag, but its literally EXACTLY AS I HAD PREDICTED. Bryan rules, you drool.

STEP 12- Fill the jug. Pour the wort from your SANITIZED pot into through the SANITIZED funnel into the SANITIZED jug.

STEP 13- Pitch your yeast. Dump it in! You should only need to use half of the pack

STEP 14- SANITIZE your hands and SHAKE

SHAKE

SHAKE!!!

Or hump...

This will wake up your yeastie buddies and will help aerate some more.

STEP 15- Fill your SANITIZED air lock half way with water...

Stick it in your SANITIZED rubber cork...

Jam it into your jug and label it with the type of beer, when you brewed it and the original gravity reading.

STEP 16- Put it in the closet away from direct sunlight! Done! Finito!

Yes... my pretties...

Fermentation should start within a couple of hours. You will notice a layer of CO2 forming and possibly some gross looking stuff sticking to the sides on the top of the beer (see the brew on the far right), and the airlock should start bubbling. Technically, it CAN take up to 36 hours to show signs of fermentation, but mine have never taken longer than a couple of hours.

And that's it! I'm going to do the same thing with racking to a secondary fermenter and bottling.

I HOPE YOU FOUND THIS INFORMATIVE THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO MY SPEECH.

BABY'S FIRST RECIPE

2010-10-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

As you probably know by now, I brew one gallon batches. The standard is 5 gallons.There are a lot of good reasons to brew this way, the main obviously being that it takes much less space. It also forces you to actually BREW more if you want more beer, each batch is cheaper, you get more practice, you can experiment more, and if a batch sucks you won't feel like you wasted all that time and money on 5 gallons of elephant piss (although you should never dump a batch).

On a side note, if you have not read the "STUFF YOU NEED TO BREW BEER" post, you probably should.

This is my heffeweizen recipe. Its a super straight forward style. You cant frick it up, and the ingredients will run you maybe 8-10 bucks for the first batch since you have to buy hops. The hops will last you 3 or 4 batches! Ive made 2 batches of this, and both are better than any hef I have bought in a store.

HEF!

-1.2 lb German Wheat Malt

-1.2 lb German Pilsner Malt

-Hops - 60 min boil - Preferably Hallertau, but Liberty is a good substitute. (.2 oz) 4% alpha

-Yeast - Fermentis WB-06

Primary for 3 weeks, then bottle and let it sit for 2-3 more weeks.

Fun fact about German beer! For a really really long time, there was a law called the

Reinheitsgebot!!!

Basically it was a law stating that beer could only be made using water, barley and hops. They could litterally come into your house or brewery, and if there was suspicion of you using anything but these 3 ingredients, they could confiscate your beer and brewing equipment!

When Heffeweizens came onto the scene, since they use wheat in part of the grain bill, the law was actually changed. This style was so awesome to them that they changed the law to allow people to continue brewing it. I think that's rad.

Now that you have your shopping list, you have to actually go out and BUY the stuff. Obviously, they don't sell this crap at your local market; you will have to find a local home brew shop (AKA LHBS). These places are freaking awesome. The first time I walked in one, I instantly got a boner and teared up at the same time. For the most part, the people that work there are awesome, and one that I go to sometimes offers me whatever it is they happen to be brewing at the shop! Its great.

Buying this stuff should be pretty straight forward, but no one wants to walk in looking like a n00b and asking a bunch of questions (although that's perfectly acceptable!). Your first stop is going to be the grain. The shop will have 20 or 30 bins of different kinds of grains and malts... roasted barley, 2 row pale malt (UK and US!), and crystal malts to name just a few. Just find the stuff you need, scoop it out and weigh the amount you need. Then simply dump ALL of your grains into the grain mill and turn it on. Well, make sure there is a bucket underneath to catch it all first, or you might make a mess and be kicked out onto the street.

All of the places Ive bought grain at have been totally fine with me milling them all together, sticking it into one bag, and then just telling them how much of each ingredient you got. Easy peasy.

When you buy hops, they might not have the exact kind you need, but they WILL have a print out of all of the different kinds of hops there are in the world and their substitutes. The shops I go to even have the varieties that they carry circled.

Yeast... I would suggest not buying liquid yeast. From what I hear, you can't really save the extras, and they only make them in packets big enough for a 5 gallon batch. Also, they are literally 10 times more expensive than their dry counterparts, and take extra work to get them ready for pitching. Fermentis makes a bunch of awesome dry yeast, you only use half the packet and you can save the rest for later!

Sweet, you got your shiz... time to brew.

STUFF YOU NEED TO BREW BEER

2010-10-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of all the crap you need to brew all grain batches of BEER! A lot of people say you should start with extract brewing. Extract brewing basically takes out the first and most difficult part of the brewing process... this step, called mashing, is really where you will learn the most about how beer works, is the most creative, and in my opinion, is the most fun.

So I just said screw it and jumped into all grain, and I think you guys should too. The first two batches I made are OK and the four I brewed after that are freaking awesome!

Im gonna divide the list of shiz you need into 2 groups. The first is stuff you need to actually brew and get it into the primary fermenter for the first 1-2 weeks, the rest is stuff you need afterward to put it into a bottle. That way you guys don't have to go drop a bunch of money on stuff you wont even use for a few weeks.

STUFF YOU NEED TO BREW

A big boiling pot. Mine holds 3 gallons, I would suggest that. 15 bucks.

Big boil pot... for boiling mashing and boiling wort.

Sanitizer. Super important. You can use bleach, but I suggest getting a no rinse sanitizer called Star San. You can get it at any brew store, and it will last you forever.
1 gallon carboy. You can get cider at Trader Joe's that come in 1 gallon glass jugs for 7 bucks... throw half a packet of ale yeast in and make cider, OR you can buy the jug by itself for 4 bucks at most brew shops.

1 gallon jug! For the beer!

Strainer. You can get a big wire mesh strainer for like 30 bucks, or a small wire one for 8-10. I got the small one for the last stage of putting the wort (beer) into the fermenter, and I just use our regular big pasta strainer for sparging (straining the grains from the wort).

Regular pasta strainer, for lautering/sparging.

Fine mesh strainer, for straining/aerating wort before dumping it into primary.

Spray bottle for sanitizer. Most convenient thing ever. (No picture, just a small spray bottle)
Funnel. For pouring the beer into the jug.

Funnel. For pouring beer into your primary fermenter.

Thermometer. When you mash, you have to monitor the temperature so it stays in a certain range (144-154 degrees). You can also use the kind that float.

Thermometer. For measuring the temperature of stuff.

Regular size boiling pot, 2 if you have em. They have to hold at least 1.25 gallons of liquid. You will need one to heat water while you are mashing, and another pot to make sparging easier. This will make a lot more sense later.
Air lock and rubber stopper. 2 bucks total at a brew store.

Rubber stopper, for fitting the airlock onto the jug.

Airlock. CO2 can escape, but bacteria can't get in!

One more thing. Get a digital scale if you can... I know you potheads might already own one. I really need to score one for measuring hops, when I make gallon batches the amount always comes out to like .2 or .3 ounces, so I usually end up guessing.

That's it for stuff you need. Next up, your first recipe, how and where to get it, and brewing your first batch of beer!

WELCOME TO MY BLAWG!

2010-10-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Yo. I'm assuming anyone that is reading this already knows me personally. This blog is for you! Or us... whatever way you want to look at it. I want to share my ideas and experiences with brewing beer in my tiny Denver apartment. I also want to help you brew beer in your tiny apartment. AND I want us all to learn from each other to make AWESOME beer in our tiny apartments.

Hopefully this can one day be a place for us to share recipes, and tips/secrets about how we brew our ridiculously great beer. This should also serve as a collective middle finger to the big brewing companies that want to sell us terrible, over priced beer and say that we can't do better ourselves.

So that's my intro post. Im gonna copy and paste my how-to Google doc to this blog.

LOVE YOU ALL