Brew Year's Resolution - in July (There's a Pattern)

Some people do New Year's Resolutions. Apparently, I do summer resolutions!

Here it is July again, and I find myself gravitating back to homebrewing. Again. I only brewed 5 beers in 2019, and 4 of them were brewed in the summer. I would like to say that this will change for the remainder of 2020 (which has obviously been a doozie!) and into 2021, but I say that every year...

I like planning - developing recipes. I like brewing. I certainly like drinking the results. But like so many other brewers, I hate cleaning! The setup and time for an all-grain brew day is a bit of a drag as well. I suppose that there are ways to make setup more efficient, which might shave some time off of that step. An extract or extract with steeping grains batch can reduce the brew day a great deal. There are no real shortcuts for cleaning, however.

This summer, I find myself analyzing brewing a bit differently. Along with the simplified analysis of what I like and don't like about brewing in general, I decided to think about what I like about drinking  beer. Above all else, I love the refreshing variety of flavor and style options. My wife is always asking me why I need so much beer; the answer is choice. I like to have choices!

Some days I want something light and refreshing - a craft lager or pilsner hits the spot (and because of hockey, I also always have some locker room beer like Rainier or PBR). Other days, I crave something hoppy - an IPA, pale, or session pale are there for me on those days. When I long for something dark and roasty - a porter or stout fits the bill. Besides simply matching the hankering in the moment, I also like to match the beer to the food I make.

Brewing that much variety in 5-gallon (or larger) batches is an undertaking. I do have a 4-tap keezer, but brewing and keeping 20 gallons of beer is kind of a big deal. When I used to brew with friends, it was easier; one year, a friend and I brewed over 300 gallons! Nowadays, however, it seems like I barely brew 20 gallons a year! Clearly, a different approach is in order...

In years past, I have mashed and brewed a bigger batch - to the tune of 10-12 gallons - and split it into two smaller batches. That worked well enough: more beer for not much more time on a brew day (running two burners for the boils). I have tried parti gyle batches, were I got a bigger beer and a smaller beer; I have made different beers from the same wort by varying hop charges and yeasts; and I have brewed very different styles from the same base wort by utilizing steeping grains. Each of these double batches got me two kegs. I'm not sure that any of these methods will get me brewing more often though.

Even if I were to go the double batch route, and fill all four of my taps, that might be 2 or 3 brew days, which is reasonable. Although four choices is technically quite a bit of variety - I could easily cover my bases with a lager, something hoppy, something darker, etc. - that's 5 gallons each; roughly 36 pints each keg. The novelty of those specific varieties often wears off before the keg is blown.

When I first begain brewing, doing extract batches on the stovetop, I often brewed smaller batches. Not only was it easier to manage, I also got to try my hand a lot of different styles! Back then, bottling 2-3 gallons of beer into some combination of about 24 bottles, 12 ounce and 22 ounce, was a lot less daunting task than bottling a full 5-gallon batch as well. After watching James Spencer brew up a one gallon batch on Basic Brewing Video, I even did a bunch of those batches, which yielded about a six pack of finished beer (that was a lot of work for six beers - I would recommend doing a 2-3 gallon batch over this method, unless you were conducting experiments).

These days, I have four 2.5-gallon kegs, which I have used for the occasional 1/2 batch (or when I brew something like a mild for a yeast starter). When I eyed those smaller kegs the other day, it got the gears turning... The smaller volume might get me over the "I'm kind of tired of this" hurdle. The smaller size also means that I can potentially fit more into my keezer - if I stack them; if I add some new taps, I could potentially double my choices (withiout having to drink 5 gallons of the same beer!)!

The prices have come down quite a bit on the smaller kegs (at least since I first bought mine about 5 years ago). I'm thinking it is probably worth investing in few more 2.5-gallon kegs. I already have quite a few 3-gallon carboys - more than enough to get a handful of beers going. Scaling recipes is a snap.

All of this has me a little bit excited - more excited than I have been about brewing for a while! My plan for reinvigorating my brewing is to go small! It is undoubtedly too early, given that I have not even begun brewing aything yet, but I am dubbing this the "brew-a-week" plan...

A Return to Roots

At least twice each year, my military buddies (and a few others) get together for a group brew day... This usually happens on Veteran's Day and President's Day weekend, when there is an extra day off and we can manage a guilt-free day away from family commitments.


I always host. I always prepare the main dish we'll be eating during the day. I always have fun, but usually have much less time for socializing as I juggle an all-grain batch, food, and other hosting duties. I'm usually still finishing my brew day after everybody else has left. And then I'm cleaning up in the dark.


At my local homebrew shop (Olympic Brewing), I noticed Briess liquid rye malt extract for the first time... I'm a sucker for rye! I'll try anything with the word "rye" in it. I grabbed 3 Kg with the intention of trying it out soon...


Another thing I really love is drafting up recipes. My recipe binder is probably at least 3 times s thick as my brewing log! So of course, after buying the rye malt syrup I took a couple of shots at rye recipes.


Around the same time, I was making final plans for the group brew day... A light bulb went off: why not brew extract with grains? That simple decision was quite liberating actually. I seldom brew extract anymore - usually at least half of my fermentables come from a mash (partial mash); occasionally I'll brew quick batches of extract to fill keg gaps between all-grain brews (especially in the winter).


It would be nice to have a bit more social time when everybody was over. Cutting liquor heating, mash, and sparge time out of my brew day might mean hanging out more than flitting about. My brew day would be synched with everybody else's (who mostly brew extract batches). Plus, it was like a step back in time - a return to my roots - to what got me hooked in the first place...


I flipped back to my earliest recipes in my brew logs. It was a trip down memory lane. Although I could no longer bring to mind tasting memories of most of those early brews, I had my notes. And I remembered little associations for every single one: the ones I brewed for my wife, the bad batches, the hits and misses. The "beginner" shined through: other people's recipes (Papazian, homebrew shop, etc.), odd combinations of ingredients, weird formulations, kitchen sink brews...


My recipe formulation has come a long way... Thanks in part to Brewing Classic Styles, I can quickly formulate a beer that falls where I want it. Experience with various ingredients - different grains and hops - has helped me with what fits best and where. My extract batches have benefited in the same way - I have a few that I stick with because they yield good results with minimal fussing: American Pale, British Bitter, and Bavarian Hefeweizen (the first two are usually made to build up a good supply of healthy yeast).


Although I was going to make the move to simplicity for the big brew day, I did step it up from my straightforward  stand-by extract brews... I opted for a more sessionable IPA: on the low end of ABV for the style, with the bulk of the hopping as late additions. The liquid rye would provide the bulk of the fermentables, along with a little dry malt extract. I also decided to do a mini-mash of 2-row along with a bit of chocolate malt (concurrent with my main boil to preserve the time efficiency) for a bit of extra character and color.


The brew day went great. I had more time to talk and hang out, as I had anticipated. There was much less cleanup for me. I actually had time with my family at the end of the brew day.


Within 12 hours, my beer was off and going like gangbusters in the carboy. Time will tell how the beer actually turns out, but the process was fun, and I'm sure that the end result will be enjoyable one way or another as well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recipe: Rye't On
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General
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Category: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Subcategory: American IPA
Recipe Type: Extract
Batch Size: 6 gal
Volume Boiled: 7 gal
Mash Efficiency: 72 %
Total Grain/Extract: 9.11 lbs
Total Hops: 4.6 oz
Calories (12 fl. oz.): 185.5

Ingredients
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0.5 lbs 2-Row Brewers Malt
0.25 lbs 2-Row Chocolate Malt
6.6 lbs CBW® Rye Liquid (Malt Extract)
1.76 lbs Dry Extra Light Extract
0.6 oz Bravo (Whole, 15.50 %AA) boiled 90 minutes.
0.6 oz Magnum (Whole, 14.50 %AA) boiled 15 minutes.
0.7 oz Chinook (Whole, 13.00 %AA) boiled 5 minutes.
0.25 oz Magnum (Whole, 14.50 %AA) boiled 5 minutes.
1.3 oz Chinook (Pellets, 13.00 %AA) added to Secondary.
0.6 oz Citra (Pellets, 12.00 %AA) added to Secondary.
0.6 oz Magnum (Pellets, 14.50 %AA) added to Secondary.
Yeast: Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Notes
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-Mini-mash 2-row and chocolate malt @152°

-Dry hop 5 days

Vital Statistics
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Original Gravity: 1.056
Terminal Gravity: 1.012
Color: 16.13 SRM
Bitterness: 47.7 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 5.8 %
[recipe created/calculated using Beer Tools]

Brew Day Wrap-Up & 5 Month Update?

Great googly moogly! May 22nd? I just can't seem to maintain any kind of momentum here.

Today was a gloriously beautiful day in the PNW! It was a perfect brew day - we could not have planned it better. Robert arrived just after 10 AM (after doubling back to get his forgotten hops), and we started the day with some cleaning... Wouldn't it be nice if everything was clean when you got started? Yeah, right!

We got going on the brewing fairly quickly though. Robert always gets an early lead and finishes first, because he's still doing extract/steeping partial-boil batches! Today was no different - he already hit flame-out before I even finished my single infusion mash. Plus, I am always multi-tasking here at the house: doing something for my kids, or my wife, or cooking lunch...

He brewed up a batch of American Stout... Once his primary is done, he's going to rack it onto about 5 lbs of blackberries. I've never had a Blackberry Stout, but the LHBS owner says it's a great recipe. In a similar vein, I brewed up a batch-and-a-half of Dry Stout; I'll end up with 5 gallons of Dry Stout and about 3 gallons of Cranberry Stout. There was no collaboration in advance, and yet we still somehow ended up at fruit beers - both Stouts, no less!

I had a substantial amount of 2nd generation Wyeast 1028 (London Ale), so I split it up for our batches and got it reactivated with a bit of starter wort before the brew session. It is always confidence-inspiring to have a good-sized pitch of active, healthy yeast that get things off and running right off the bat! This yeast really gets mixed reviews on various forums, but I've always had good luck with it. But I always use Jamil's yeast pitching rate calculator and either pitch multiple packs/vials or do a starter.

The last 5 brewing months in review:

June: Hops were growing like crazy - I had to weld up some additional supports to keep them from pulling my cross-wire down. No brewing. Bummer.

July: Hops threatening to take over the garden - wife threatening to hack away at the hops (Something about having them winding their way into the corn?). Brewed up two batches of beer right at the end of the month for a leadership retreat: an Amber and an American Pale. Both were well-received, but folks were drinking very conservatively (it was late in the day and a short BBQ - everybody was playing it safe!), so despite having about 20 folks, we only put a small dent in the beer (more for later anyway!).

August: 2 kegs of beer delivered to leadership retreat... Brewed a quick batch of extract English Pale. Began monitoring my hops very closely in anticipation of the upcoming harvest!

September: No brewing, some cleaning around the "brewery". Began harvesting the first of my hops. The first few varieties ready were the weaker producers - a bit of a disappointing yield on my Cascades and Horizons (right around an ounce each of dried hops); looking at the others, I had to take comfort in the fact that they were faring better. The Chinooks did a little better, and I ended up with several ounces of dried hops.

October: Finished up the hop harvest/drying... Ended up with about 1/2 pound of Fuggles. I gave up trying to separate the Glaciers and Nuggets which had decided on near-symbiosis, and I just harvested them all together; this was the big haul - over a pound of dried hops in this batch! In fact, I had so many, I had to switch from a window screen to a sliding door screen to get these dried! And I brewed today!

Planning Another Big Brew

I had a great time in April brewing with my Guard buddies; it really rekindled my brewing bug. I've been fairly active with beer-related stuff even when I haven't been brewing (but I have brewed 20 gallons in about 4 weeks time).

At drill this weekend, I pushed folks to get another brew date on the calendar. I knew that Kris needed to brew at least another 5 gallons for a wedding in July, so it was just a matter of 'when', not 'if'. We're going to shoot for either Memorial Day weekend or the weekend after drill (mid-June). Confirming that it was actually going to happen, the wheels started turning...

Kris told me that he was planning on brewing another batch of Bill's Citra Special IPA (www.olybrew.com). He brewed a batch about a year-and-a-half ago, and it was stellar. In fact, last spring when Black IPAs/Cascadian Dark Ales were getting a lot of press (and I was drinking a lot of different BIPAs), I began to think about how I would formulate my own Black IPA recipe. This recipe was the first one I thought of as a likely candidate: clean malt profile with a dry finish, and a bright hop character. What better way to contrast the darkness and tiniest hint of roast?

Also, Kris had inquired about brewing 10 gallons instead of 5, so that he could share one keg at the wedding and keep one for himself. Which is also great for me and the rest of our rag-tag brewing group, because that means we'll actually get some. It was then that it hit me - he could brew the Citra Special, and I could brew the Dark Side Citra! Then everybody could do the side-by-side, comparing the original recipe with my style-modified version of the same beer.

I guess I should start working on the recipe. This will have to be a pretty big yeast starter - 15 gallons at around 1.070 OG!

A First: California Common!

I am hoping to brew 15 gallons of beer this weekend...

The first one I brewed was a California Common. I used JZ & John Palmer's How to Brew to formulate the recipe. My starter was going good and strong. The brew day and boil were cruising along without a hitch. All systems go, right?

Did I mention that I am planning to brew 15 gallons this weekend? Ten gallons are going to come from the same grain bill - a parti gyle (mentioned in a couple other posts this past week). This takes a bit of prep and coordination. My plan was to get an early start, and brew straight through the day, marathon style. Can you tell by all of these disclaimers that I have not yet gotten to the actual story?

So... I was pre-staging ingredients for the first brew from the parti-gyle (a big Old Ale) - getting the grain ready, weighing out hop additions, measuring my black treacle. My wife, who supports my brewing habit but doesn't get directly involved with the process (or any of my hobbies - obsessions as she calls them - now that I think about it?), was attempting to engage me in a conversation; the topic was definitely important, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. And then I was called upon by my sons for an expedient toy repair.

Amid the brewing prep and maelstrom of family activity, my timer went off. 10 minutes remaining in the boil. I grabbed the last hop addition, along with the treacle, and headed out to the deck to drop them into the wort along with the wort chiller. Ten minutes later, I killed the flame, partially replaced the kettle lid, and began chilling my California Common wort.

People who understand the BJCP style guidelines have already spotted my mistake... Treacle? In a California Common? WTF? However, at this point I had not noticed my mistake. Then I took a gravity reading with my refractometer - I overshot by A LOT? I did some quick calculations, and added back some filtered, boiled water to hit my gravity numbers.

It wasn't until I got ready to start on the parti-gyle that I realized what had happened. I went to look for my treacle, which should have been right there on the counter with my hops... Nowhere to be found. Oh crap! I freaked out!

My wife, again supportive of my brewing, managed to talk me down "off of the ledge" about my mistake. She convinced me that the beer would still be 'great' - just not what I had planned (only a small consolation, by the way!). So, technically, I have still never brewed a California Common.

Planning My First Parti Gyle!

Without getting too far into the details of the brewing process, parti gyle brewing is a traditional (nearly, extinct, commercially at least) technique. Most modern brewers make one beer from one mash/grain bill. In parti gyle brewing, multiple beers are made from one mash/grain bill. With current brewing techniques, the first runnings (first drain of sugary water from the grain) are combined with the subsequent sparge (rinsing of the remaining sugars) to make one batch of wort, which will become one batch of beer when the yeast are done doing their thing...



With the parti gyle technique (originating in Scotland), the first runnings are used to make a bigger (stronger/higher gravity) beer, and the subsequent sparge(s) is used to make one or more smaller (less strong/lower gravity) beers. In its simplest form, the first runnings compose the wort for one distinct beer, and each subsequent sparge creates another distinct beer. This is evident in monastic and farm brewing: the first runnings went to create beer for the abbot or landowner; the second runnings were for the monks or guests at the farm; and the later runnings went to create table beer for the laymen & pilgrims or the farmhands.



Another parti gyle technique involves blending of the various runnings, with the strongest of the line of beers being 100% (or near 100%) of the first runnings, and the lowest gravity beer being mostly last runnings. One commercial brewery that still uses this particular technique is Fuller Smith & Turner (aka Fuller's) in the UK. Fuller's Golden Pride is an example of the strong end of their line, with ESB and London Pride somewhere in the middle, and Chiswick Bitter at the bottom of the beer-strength continuum. The same grain bill is used to brew them all, but each is blended at a different rate from the runnings off of the mash.



For those brewers that brew two distinctive, individual (not blended) parti gyle beers, there is further variation.

The brewer can choose a runoff volume ratio to determine how much wort is created for each batch. Common ratios include 1/3 first runnings to 2/3 second ruings, or 50-50. In the 1/3 to 2/3 ratio, the first third yields a stronger, richer wort in smaller volume which means less finished beer quantity; but it is higher in alcoholic strength and arguably the stronger flavor profile yielded by the combination of grains selected for the mash; the final 2/3 result in twice as much finished beer, but at half the strength and possibly less-pronounced or more subtle grain flavor profiles. The 50-50 method yields equal volumes, with less alcohol content and flavor differentials; the brewer still ends up with one stronger beer, both in alcohol and flavor characteristics, but simple chemistry and physics leads to a narrower extreme on both ends.



My first attempt will be a 50-50, just for ease of process. I will be making an Old Ale with the first runnings and a Northern English Brown with the second runnings (as opposed to a stronger Old Ale or Barleywine with the 1st runnings and a mild or or ordinary bitter with the 2nd runnings if I did the 1/3 to 2/3 method). Old Ale is a big English style ale, characterized by an elevated level of sweetness and alcohol. Originally, these beers were aged significantly before being drunk, but these days most commercial examples are either not aged, or a blend of aged and newer beer. If you can get your hands on them, good commercial examples include Theakston Old Peculier or Greene King lde Suffolk. Northern English Brown is a malt-balanced ale, with low hop bitterness and minimal hop aroma. Commercial examples include Newcastle Brown Ale and Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale (I am hoping for more of the Samuel Smith's version).



I have two special, limited edition Wyeast yeasts for these beers. The Old Ale Blend (WY9097) is a blend of alcohol-tolerant, dry English ale yeast with a bit of Brettanomyces (a different, non-beer yeast); the ale yeast will do a good job fermenting down the beer with a nice English character for starters, then the Brettanomyces will take over, fermenting some of the sugars that were unfermentable by the ale yeast, adding some rustic aged characteristics to the finished beer. For the Northern English Brown, I am using West Yorkshire Ale (WY1469), which should help emphasize plenty of the malt flavor and character, and finish dry and balanced with some nutty/fruity esters. We'll see.

Organization

Last weekend, I spent a lot of time cleaning out my garage... It was long overdue for a lot of reasons, but one of the motivating factors was brewing. I had a brew date on the calendar, and friends coming over to brew.

It feels so much better out there now. Everything is orderly and easy to find. I spent some time organizing and labeling bins, consolidating and arranging equipment. There is space to move around.

I recognize that I am a habitual planner - I have always like to sketch out plans, to make lists, to plan new creations. The reality is that I have always planned proportionately way more than I have executed. But even so, I realized that a major road block that was skewing this ratio even more than usual was the mess.

It was way more work just getting ready to brew. Where is the equipment? Is it clean? do I have everything I need? Which bin has the ingredients I need? You get the idea. Preparing to brew is still quite a bit of work, but I don't dread it now that I have things reasonably presentable!

Busy Brew-Related Day!

Wow... Not much to report in 2011 for my brewing - until yesterday!

The garage has been a mess, the weather has been miserable, and most of my gear was in dire need of a good cleaning. The obstacles that I needed to clear in order to get brewing were going to take longer than the brew day itself. Not exactly a recipe for motivation.

I knew that left to my own devices, a brew day would be a long time coming. A bunch of us have been talking about a group brew day, especially since I missed the one over the long MLK Jr. weekend back in January. So we put it on the calendar: my place, 4/17.

Since I finished the super-shelf in the garage a little over a month ago, and it has warmed up a bit now, I started to load it up! Of course, I did nothing all week long leading up to the weekend, so I had a bit of a scramble to get prepped. After going to the District Pinewood Derby with my sons, I spent about six hours pulling boxes and bins, then heaving them up the ladder and up onto the shelf. I did take a bit of a tumble off the ladder with a foot locker, but I managed to avoid the emergency room. Getting a lot of stuff up and out of the way helped make room for some organization.

I had been hopeful to get an early start on finishing things up on Sunday morning, but shopping with the family and a trip to the dump ate up a big chunk of that time... Fortunately, nobody was planning to arrive until mid-afternoon. Once I got home from the errands, I just set to work, chipping away at cleaning up the garage and brewing equipment.

I am embarrassed to admit this, but I had way more dirty brew ware than clean - and I haven't brewed since January. Buckets, carboys, kegs, pots, mash tuns... It was all filthy. Not to make excuses, but we have had freezing weather off-and-on right up through April, so I have not even had faucets uncovered or hoses connected outside yet this year - which makes it kind of hard to clean stuff. Now, I could have hooked things up temporarily to get the cleaning done, but I have used the chilly weather as an excuse, and now it was time to pay for my neglect.

All I can say is, "Thank you OxiClean!" I do have PBW, and it does work a bit better, especially in cold water... But it is quite a bit more expensive, so when I use the PBW, I like to recycle it. I have some OxiClean (non-scented) for the bulk cleaning of the really nasty stuff, when I am not concerned about re-using the cleaner. I think my laziness is self-evident in this post - that's what I love about PBW/OxiClean... Just dump it in, fill it up with water, and let it soak! Of course, it works quite a bit better if you don't let stuff dry and turn crusty.

All told, I cleaned 2x buckets, 2x kettles, 4x carboys, 6x kegs, and assorted smaller brewing bits. I was not quite done cleaning the equipment when the guys started to arrive. In fact, it was still soaking. But the garage was presentable! I finished the cleaning and we got to brewing! I brew alone so often, I had forgotten how much I enjoy brewing with other people!

Kris brewed up a batch of Cream Ale; Robert brewed up a batch of Bavarian Hefeweizen; and I brewed up a batch of Imperial Red Ale. Here are links to the three recipes:
>Cream Ale
>Bavarian Hefeweizen
>Bruise Brothers Redwing (Imperial Red) Ale
We drank quite a bit of good beer, including a few homebrews, while we brewed, and we were alternately entertained by my kids and throwing darts.

I am going to get my equipment cleaned up and try to brew a couple more batches this week... And I am excited to schedule our next group brew day!

The Hops Are Coming! The Hops Are Coming!

Well, they're sprouting up at least. I noticed right around the end of March that there were some green nubs poking up through the soil in my hop containers - and a little over a week later, they all have significant growth!

I got the twine hung, so that the bines have something to train along before they go too crazy. Last year, I had 3-4 twines running up at an angle to one central point (a 15' piece of rebar). This worked well (and my wife was happy with the aesthetics), but once the bines reached the top in around August, they got all tangled up. This made it more challenging to keep the hop sorted out when I harvested them.

This year, I moved the two pieces of rebar to the extreme ends of the area planted by hops. I strung a piece of aluminum wire horizontallybetween the two pieces of rebar (this is similar to what the hop farms in Yakima do). I tied each piece of jute twine to a zinc washer, then threaded that onto the aluminum wire. This will make harvesting the hops way easier, and will keep the bines from getting tangles since they will grow straight up this year.

Judging from the density of the shoots sprouting up in each container, this will probably be the last year that I can keep the rhizomes growing in them. I started the rhizomes in containers last year, because I was not sure if this location was going to be conducive to the hop growth - clearly it was, since I got well over a pound of hops in the first year! I actually had begun preparing the soil at the foot of the raised beds so that I could move the hops this year, but by the time I got around to it, they were already coming up. I didn't want to risk it, so I'll move them for next year.

I am excited to see if my yields increase this fall!

Breakfast Gives Rise to a Fun Idea!

So... My oldest son (7-1/2) was eating his breakfast, and he was reading the cereal box as he often does. I was pouring a cup of coffee when he shouted out, "Dad! This cereal could be beer! It's got wheat, malted barley, and yeast in it!"

"You must be so proud," my wife said to me somewhat facetiously.

Actually I was. I read the cereal box while sipping my coffee... Whole grain wheat flour, wheat four, malted barley flour, salt, dried yeast, soy lecithin. Hmmmm... "You know what buddy, you are absolutely right!" I replied. "What ingredients are missing?"

"Just the hops, Dad."

Yep. I am proud. I explained to him that the yeast might not actually be viable, since it may have been cooked as the cereal was processed. When he asked me why it was in there, I explained that yeast has some nutritional value, including vitamin B. I could see the wheels turning in his young head.

"So... Beer is kind of like food," he finally said. "Could you actually make beer out of Grape Nuts?"

After some thought, I replied, "I don't see why not... The only ingredient that would have a negative affect, as far as I know, is the salt."

After the disapproving glances and pointed glaring, my wife's face formed into a devilish grin. My first thought was how much trouble I was going to be in now... "You know what you should do? You should make up a batch of beer for the family camping trip, and call it 'breakfast beer'. Then when everybody likes it and it's gone, you can tell them you made it from cereal - they just drank their Grape Nuts!"

This actually sounded like a fun way to do it... I have read many forum posts about Grape Nuts beer, and beer from cereals in general. But for me, this beer would have a back-story!

I have begun thinking about the cereal, trying to get a handle on how much extract I can expect... It is unlikely that I could steep it and expect to get much more than the malted barley out (I would assume that this would be a bit like crystal malts). I am thinking of trying a small cereal mash added to a normal mash with some pale malt. I might also just try adding it into the mash with some pale malt. The difference in extract probably depends on how much of the cereal is actually wheat - it is not listed as malted wheat. Maybe it is negligible? Maybe I could make do with the simpler mash? That's why I want to try both methods...

3/5/10 - Dry Hopping & Kegging

This weekend, we are officially "reintegrating" the guys who recently (Thanksgiving) returned from Afghanistan into the unit... I have missed these guys a great deal - first while they were deployed, and more recently as they resettled their lives upon their return. Out of respect for their space, and knowing firsthand the heightened sensitivity to all-things-military, no matter how well-intentioned, I have kept my distance for several months as they adjusted to life back home.

I brewed up a couple of batches of beer for the occasion - one a Classic American Pilsener that I brewed at the tail-end of last year, the other an American IPA which I repitched on the yeast from the BYO/BBR Collaborative Experiment on extract techniques... The yeast had crashed out well, and it was time to keg it up. Actually I should have kegged it up last weekend.

I took the day off to go in and do some admin prep for the drill, but I started my day in the shop taking care of this beer! Since I did not keg it last weekend, and I wanted to dry hop both beers (a little bit of noble hop character in the pilsener and a hefty hop nose in the IPA), I had to alter my technique a bit... I opted for a "hop tea" added to the keg prior to racking in the beer.

I was adding about 2 oz of hops to the pilsener, so I boiled 2 cups of water for them; since the IPA was getting closer to 4 oz, I boiled about a quart for them. While they boiled, I weighed and bagged up the hops - nice and loose with lots of 'swimming' room! After 10 minutes of boiling, I cut the flame and tossed in the hop bags, making sure that each bag was entirely saturated... When I wasn't stirring, I kept the lids on the pot in order to trap in most of the volatiles.

The liquid and saturated bags went into the sanitized kegs ahead of the beer, which I racked onto the bags and hop tea. I sealed up the kegs, and applied CO2 over-pressure to speed carbonate them in time for Sunday's picnic...

2/21/10 - Brewing is Always Better with Company!

So earlier in the week, my wife informed me that we were having company on Sunday... It seems that my kids and their DI team needed a bit more practice for their upcoming competition. I wanted nothing to do with it - so I told her I was going out to the garage to brew.

I emailed my buddy Micah to see if he'd be available. He confirmed. However, I told my wife that I'd take care of my part of cleaning the house, and we were booked up on Saturday. I called Micah around 1PM, and he was still game...

He barely made it to the local homebrew shop before they closed - 4PM on Sundays. It was just about 5 by the time he arrived... This kind of defeated the original purpose, since I wanted to be out of the house during the practice (which I accomplished anyway by going to the dump!), and this raised a glare from my wife (along with some facetious comments).

But Micah came through for me! He brought her a bottle of wine - Riesling, her favorite - and a bunch of awesome snacks for after dinner. So Micah bailed me out of the doghouse I was going to be in for missing all of the kids' bedtime routine by winning over my wife, and my kids (who think he is their newest best friend).

Micah also brought three kits ready to brew straight from the LHBS, which saved me from having to throw together an ad-hoc recipe. As we broke out the food and beer making supplies, he also gave me the beer he had brought - a Mickey's 24 ouncer. This turned out to be a joke, but I drank it later in the week anyway! After a dinner of fresh brats with fries and good beer, we got to brewing!

He opted for a cream ale recipe, and I brewed the nut brown ale he had brought (supposedly a Samuel Smith clone - which is great since that is really the only nut brown that I choose to buy on a regular basis!). It was a bit chilly by the time we got brewing (and frosty, literally, by the time we finished), so we decided to brew on the deck and split our time between there and the kitchen table.

We went through many different beer tastings in between talking through the brewing process (I think Micah has fewer than 5 batches under his belt since I first got him going last fall) and snackage... We drank some Widmer W'10 - their interpretation of an PNW Black IPA (a lot like a Broken Halo made black as night, with just the slightest hint of roast)... Lagunitas IPA... Maybe Lagunitas Pils or Sierra Nevada Glissade... (I don't remember - I should check the empties!). The highlight of the night was the last bottle we drank: de Koningshoeven Trappist Tripel. It was 750mL of cloudy, golden heaven! And I had Micah almost in tears as I repeated the name repeatedly as we drank it!

As with drinking good beer, it is always better to brew with a friend.

MMX Reflections...

I am off to a bit of a slow start on both blogging and brewing this year... I finally decided to move my blog. I started the old blog at the start of my deployment to Afghanistan, and underwent several evolutionary changes in the time since then. This new blog will be much more focused on my hobbies and how I spend my freetime - the name (which means middle of the night in Latin) reflects this. If you know me, you understand the name...

About three years ago, I brewed my very first batch of beer. Wow. I fully blame my buddy Robert for getting me into this hobby - here is how it started:

At the end of August 2006 in Afghanistan, I decided that I would go out with one of our teams - Robert's team. This was going to be different from other times I had gone out on "command visits" because I was going to replace one of the operators on Robert's team. Robert was the team leader, and I'm sure he was probably less than comfortable with having his First Sergeant join him on an extended operation - nothing like having senior leadership meddling in your day-to-day affairs! Meddling, however, was not my intention; it was Rob's team, and I was just a strap-hanger that was filling a shift on the team.

After only two or three days into what ended up being about thirty days, it was fully evident that Rob and I were definitely among the geezers on hill. Most of the younger guys spent their downtime talking about things like "hot chicks", fast cars, and how they were going to spend all of their money when they got home. We had not even seen most of the movies or TV shows these guys were talking about, and at nearly 40, our interests were significantly different.

I'm not sure who mentioned it first, but one of us brought up how much we missed good beer. As the conversation continued, Robert lamented the fact that he had a batch of unbottled homebrew sitting in a carboy back at his apartment, and how it would have spent over a year in the carboy by the time he got back to bottle it. I didn't really even know what a carboy was, but had been interested in getting into homebrewing for a long time.

Robert was full of great info, and most of our non-mission-related conversation for the rest of the operation revolved around beer and homebrewing. He told me that the best starting point was Charlie Papazian's The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing. He said that it was sure to get me started off on the right foot, and was an entertaining read to boot! As Rob described it, it sounded akin to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, philosophy and practical information rolled into one.

After thirty days without a shower or a hot meal, one of the first things I did was get online and order the book, along with The Homebrewer's Companion, also by Papazian (OK, the real order of events upon arriving back on base was more like this: 1) check back in with my commander; 2) attend our battalion's weekly command & staff meeting; 3) hot dinner - KBR never tasted so good; 4) hot shower and clean uniform; 5) amazon.com to order the book). After so much thinking about beer, I broke down and drank my first non-acloholic beer – Bitburger Drive – not great, but OK when it was ice cold, by the way.

Once Rob's team went back out, I had nobody to talk to about beer... It was going to be at least another week before my amazon.com order... I was going crazy doing internet searches... Then I discovered a couple of podcasts: Basic Brewing Radio and the Brewing Network. I downloaded everything I could, and spent a lot of time listening. When the books arrived, I read them over and over – three times before I got home.

My wife and I talked about delaying Christmas until I returned sometime in January 2007. When the topic about my gift came up, I took advantage and told her I wanted a homebrew starter kit. My wife must really love me, because she knows how I get about my hobbies (she often says I don't have hobbies – I have obsessions), but she still bought me that setup and my first beer kit. The shop owner (Bill at Olympic Brewing Supplies in Bremerton, WA) asked her what kind of beer I liked, then set me up with a decent all-extract Cooper's English Bitter kit (one can of Cooper's, supplemented with additional malt extract, and dry yeast).

I brewed it at the start of February, and when I drank the first bottle towards the end of the month, I thought it was the best beer I had ever tasted! It was probably pretty good, but we all know how our opinions are colored by our amazement on our first few batches. I followed up with a stout, modified from Papazian's Toad Spit Stout, which I dubbed “Dark Horse”, and ready in time for St. Patrick's Day. This one got rave reviews from more than just my family, and I was off and running!

I was still addicted to surfing the internet for all things beer and homebrew, and was interested in brewing software... I downloaded many trial versions and tried them all out. I discovered Beer Tools, which offered a free online (simplified) recipe formulator. I used that to help me modify a few recipes from Papazian's books and from the homebrew shop. Then I ordered Beer Tools Pro, which was available for Mac, and I upgraded to a gold membership on their website...

By the time June rolled around, I had already brewed six batches, and was ready to move beyond extract batches with steeping grains. I think I ended up with 11 or 12 batches (at 5 gallons each) that first year, and I learned quite a bit about recipes and basic processes. That was a big year for me, and many of my friends had begun to ask me about my brewing, perhaps in part to get more homebrew!

As I look back over the past three years, I chuckle a bit about how much I thought I had learned and how much I though I knew at the end of that first year. Two of my biggest learning experiences actually stemmed from failures: one a probable sanitation problem that resulted in iodiney-gushers (bummer – my first all-grain batch!), and the other a drastic underpitch on my big holiday beer (anybody like flat banana beer?)... It is true that I did progress quite a bit in my brewing, but I had yet to make any changes that truly elevated my brewing and got me brewing consistently great beer.

Since then, I branched out and did much more reading. I listened to many more podcast episodes – the ones that got me started and kept me sane in Afghanistan, and some new ones as well. Brew Your Own and Zymurgy magazines were also full of great info. James Spencer of Basic Brewing Radio really got my head in the game, so to speak. But it was the Brewing Network content featuring Jamil Zainasheff that really helped me make better beer.

In my second year of brewing, I got a bigger brew pot and a propane burner so that I could do full-wort boils and I began pitching yeast starters. These two simple and relatively inexpensive steps improved my brewing tenfold. I had much greater control over my beer's flavor profiles, and my fermentations kicked off quickly and reliably, and progressed predictably. What a huge difference this made!

Thanks to a great article in BYO by Chris Colby, and info in Basic Brewing Radio and Video, I got set up better for mini-mashing (partial mash technique). Before I was trying to mash grains in my brewpot suing the oven for temperature control; I switched over to countertop partial mashing using a 2 gallon beverage cooler, and I gained a much better understanding of mashing grains, starch conversion, and individual grain contributions to my finished beers. My beers began winning medals and ribbons in competitions at this point. I also made the move to some all-grain brewing in a 5 gallon beverage cooler I had in my garage. Robert, the buddy who had gotten me started, began coming over at least once a month to brew... I also began kegging and built a kegerator from a converted chest freezer. My son's Kindergarten teacher informed me that he had shared that the most fun thing he did over a long weekend was helping his dad and friend Robert bottle their beer (my boys have a thorough understanding of the process and biology of beer, despite being 5 & 7 years old!). Things were really rolling!

Year three saw me continue striving to become a better brewer... In my National Guard unit, my soldiers were relying on me for a regular supply of good beer, including kegs to mark special occasions. My holiday beer baskets sell more tickets than any other raffle item at our annual holiday drill! Robert got roped into another deployment, though, and my feverish pace slowed quite a bit. While he was gone, I began getting other friends involved in homebrewing – in my National Guard unit, there are 5 or 6 guys that are brewing regularly now after an instructional brew day with me.

I still have averaged just under 100 gallons (not including root beer that I make with my kids or hard cider) in my first three years brewing. While I have come a long way, and enjoy teaching other people what I know, I realize that there is still a lot more that I don't know about brewing than what I actually know. I am hoping to get a few more people into the hobby this year, and I am hoping to break the 100-gallon mark for the the first time. Now that Rob is back, I am hoping to brew with him more regularly again.

So far, I've only brewed 12 gallons in 2010 (one Rye-PA and one American IPA as part of an experiment). I have those two batches, plus a dark lager that I started in December, to keg or bottle this weekend. And I have at least two batches that I should brew (one dry stout as a moving/housewarming gift, and one hybrid classic/American pilsner using SF lager yeast for a picnic in March)... And St. Patrick's Day is coming up! I guess I had better stop thinking about brewing, and get to work!