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

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.

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.

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!!!

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!

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:

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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...

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!

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
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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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/

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

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:

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...

My Hefeweizen and Blackberry Red Ale (brooklynbrewshop.com)

       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!

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