YUM!

Well, I got the two racked over to the secondary today. The timing actually worked out perfectly because I'm leaving tomorrow for my Hawaiian vacation (YES!) so the IPA stayed in the primary for 8 days and the stout for 9 and since I'm going to be gone for seven days they'll be right and ready to be bottled! The Stout tasted great! It seemed to be pretty chocolaty but it had that somewhat roastiness I was hoping for with it as well. The IPA on the other hand was outrageously good! It's got a decent bitterness but not too forward or cloying like I hoped the Northern Brewer would do, and the simco and centennial really shined through on the nose and flavor! It's going to be a damn fine beer :) Here they are now, where they will be waiting for me to return and give them yet another new home: My stomach.



Can't wait for Hawaii! Even though I'm pretty sure most of the time I'm just going to be thinking about what I'm going to brew next...

Patience...

Here's the new wort chiller in action! I finally found a plumbing store that could connect it to my stupid faucet. 220F to 65F in forty minutes, a giant leap from the lifetime it took in a stupid ice bath.

Ahhhh now the waiting game . . . (aren't they beautiful!)

Double Brews!

Yesterday, I got to try out the new system and all went pretty well! I brewed up an IPA which is going to end up as an interesting beer.. My efficiency was around 60% again which sucks, and I also didn't use enough sparge water and ended the brew day with only 4.75 gallons instead of the 5.5 I was kinda banking on. I guess I'm not really sure what the consequences would have been using cold water to sparge, if there are any, but I decided I'd be fine with the 6 gallons pre-boil I had. I need to look into the differences between fly and batch sparging too because low efficiencies piss me off. So essentially with a higher concentrated boil and low efficiency my planned 60 something IBUs is now near 100... hahaha true northwest style :) Everything else was good though! I had some pictures I wanted to put up, but I guess SWMBO (she who must be obeyed, a brewboard term hahaa) took the camera and dumped all the pictures into some folder at her school. So next brewday I'll do some documentation on the system. I really enjoy it. With the IPA too, I'm using Pacman yeast for the first time which is also awesome.
Today then I got the St. Patty's Day Stout brewed up! I'm really really very excited for this one. I took the Black Hole Stout upped the flaked barley and added a pound of dark munich and half pound of crystal 120. I cut back on the base malt though, so hopefully (the bad boy's boiling right now) I'll hit the OG right around 1.048. I also today, it's been a good couple days :), kegged the Murder City Stout for the dudes that are coming out for the show tomorrow. It's . . . Interesting. I definitely like it! But I learned my lesson about molasses. It has an almost smoked flavor to it from the molasses. I'd have to pull out my notes to see what kind of molasses it was, but I didn't expect the smokiness. It landed at exactly 10% alcohol though, so that was a goal achieved. hahaha

I also cracked open an Abbot. It's not carbed but things are already changing for the better. It doesn't seem as watered down, the color was PERFECT, and the aroma is still great. So that's exciting. And Liberation is still quite a delight :D that ones not going to be around for long (YUM!)

Man, this stout smells so damn good! So I'm back to the boil pot . . .

Brew On!
~KYLE

Cascades!

Got old Abbot bottled today and wasn't really pleased with what came out. It's obviously really watered down and possibly even oxidized? It still smells great though! hahaha. I'm excited to see how the final project is. I'm sure it'll still be a damn drinkable homebrew. I cracked open a pale ale yesterday though to see how it was going to fair at the homebrew meeting tonight and it came out pretty good! My efficiency on the mash was terrible, and I went a little heavy on the aroma and flavor hops, so I ended up with a pretty serious cascade (the only flavor and aroma hop I used) pale ale! It's very flowery...almost a sweet flowery.

But alas, I'm going to be late if I don't get going! I love these meetings because the guys and gals that come out never disappoint :)

~Cheers!!!!

Kyle

Abbot, Liberation, IC and new a Mash Tun!

Abbot: A title given to the superior of a community of twelve or more monks. The name is derived from abba, the Syriac form of the Hebrew ab, and means "father".

Got the old man racked over to the secondary yesterday, and to my surprise it dropped all the way down to 1.008! Not to my surprise the yeast didn't exactly treat it like I wanted it to. According to "Brew Like a Monk" 1214 Belgian Ale at 75-85 degrees (where it most definitely was after the first 48 hours for about 36 hours) should produce a Clove Bubblegum Banana Alcohol Rose and Fruity flavor profile and though it tastes terribly terribly watered down, stupid efficiency, I DEFINITELY get a tiny bit of clove in the beginning leading into an alcohol followed by a strong old banana. The aroma on the other hand is great. Really fruity with some bubblegum. YUM. The color wasn't quite what I wanted either. I was hoping for something a little darker and red, but it still looks pretty. So, I definitely am going to call a do-over on this one since my efficiency sucked and I screwed the temperature. But I guess when It's done I'll have to try and enjoy it :P

On Sunday I bottled Liberation and as previously noted was scared of infection. I was so scared that I actually threw one into the fridge on Wednesday just to make sure. Well, it was obviously not carbonated, but other than that it was simply wonderful! CRYSTAL clear, like I've never had, with a fantastic aroma and great flavor. I'm going to crack one again on Tuesday to see how it's coming along and then we have a homebrew meeting on Wednesday so I'm hoping she'll be carbed up and ready by then!

Well, to keep my stress level down (an absolute must in homebrewing) I went out and built an Immersion Chiller (IC) today. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it to connect to my stupid faucet though. The threads on the thing are seriously like 33/54th or something stupid. So I'm thinking what I'm going to do is just get a small yard pond pump and hook it up to there and keep the pump in a sink of water with ice. I think that'll work. And I'm sure I can find one of those pumps for pretty damn cheap.

It was a pretty simple (but not cheap!) construction. Just 20 feet of 1/2 inch copper tubing with some simple tubing. I'm really excited!

Speaking of excited, I just ordered a Mash Tun off of EBay about 20 minutes ago! It's two 15 gallon Igloo coolers. One with the outlet hooked into a hose that goes to the other which connects to a sparging manifold on the other which has a braided tubing at the bottom to act somewhat like a false bottom. The only thing I'm worried about, and since buying have been getting more worried, is that that is a lot more space than I need and will most likely lose a lot of heat during the mash. hmm, hopefully it'll work out.

So with this money getting thrown around I might have to put a small budget cut on actual brewing for a while. But that's ok, I should have enough to get me by.

-Kyle :)

oops.

Well, in the attempt to get the temperature to rise a little I set a small space heater up to Abbot and was planning on leaving it for about 20 minutes and then turn it off and do that on and off for the next few days, but on Saturday night after setting up the heater I fell asleep (AHHHH) I didn't wake up til around 4am and I ran straight to the kitchen to find poor Abbot TERRIBLY over heated :( I'm hoping that this won't have too much effect on the beer...

I got the Pale bottled yesterday though. I was kinda worried about infection because it looked kinda like it had some bad floaties while it was in the secondary. When I tried the sample it smelled a little bit sour, but the sample was taken out of a beaker that I measure the gravity in that hadn't been washed very well, if at all. I'm using that as an excuse and keeping my fingers crossed for the final product. In hopes of getting away from this stupid occational infected beers trend I'm going to be getting or building a immersion chiller. That way I can cool the beer down much faster keeping it exposed to the nasty mean yucky out side air between the boil and yeast pitching time for a much shorter period of time. I would have gotten one sooner, but most immersion chillers are made for outdoor brewers and hook up to garden hoses. Others are set up to attach to faucets, but living in a wierd old hotel type complex built in the 20s (i think?) the faucet isn't really normal... BUT I think after my trip to the hardware store I have devised a way to make it work. So, here in the picture is the now lonely other beers. I think i'm going to rack over Abbot on Wednesday and then bottle it in about 5 days or so.

Beer!

Heat it up

Well, it looks like the krausen already fell out in Abbot, which I'm really surprised about.. So I'm going to start raising the temp up to see if I can't get them little yeasties poopin' out some of them good esters! I wanted to do a sloped temperature from the beginning, but got kinda apathetic after the first 24 hours. But now that a slow fermentation has turned into an abrupt end, I need to get watchin' that little guy and make sure the magic's happenin'. While I'm doing so though, I'm enjoying the "Trader Joe's Vintage Ale 2008". I noticed it down there about a week and a half ago. They had cases upon cases stacked to the ceiling and I had never even heard of it. Apparently, Unibroue (YUM) brews a special beer this time of year every year for Trader Joe's that's supposed to be deliciously cellerable. I decided though before cellering any (which is a habit that's best gotten into early, and I don't even have one beer set aside) I would just grab one and come back later. Tonight when I went down there though they only had 6 cases left! I still just grabbed one, and it's pretty tasty :) I'll try and get another couple tomorrow to put away for some future vertical tastings.

I plan on bottling the Pale tonight too which is cool cause then I'll finally have something to drink again! (R.I.P. BOBP Porter 2.0 and Black Hole) Which means also that it'll be ready for when the dudes get here for The Devils. That way if the Stout turns out bad we'll have a great sessionable pale to enjoy :)

~CHEERS!

Abbot

Here's the Dubbel after about 48 hours. It's looking pretty good! It's not nearly as dark as I thought it would end up, but that's ok. And the OG was way below what I wanted (I'm not surprised) too, which is all the more reason for me to figure out how to figure this stuff out with out stupid beersmith. I think if I actually write everything out I'll be able to get closer in hitting my OG. It was a really relaxed brew day though. I just kinda hung out in my sweat pants and watched the inaguration. It was nice :)

!kyle

Inauguration Day Brew!

Happy Inauguration day! And also, Happy Birthday to Miyo, Luke and Jessica! Just got the Dubbel (named "Abbot") onto the little stove top and it's about ready to get boiling :)

It's definitely a good day.

A good day for America, and my future beer enjoyment.



~CHEERS!

APA

I racked over the American Pale Ale (dubbed: Liberation Pale for liberating me from extract) to the secondary today and everything looked great! It has a WONDERFUL Cascade aroma, and very American 2-row biscuity flavor. The crystal malt gave it a little sweetness, but due to a somewhat low efficiency when brewing and such a high attenuation from the American Ale 1056 (it finished at 1.008!) it tastes a little bit too bitter. I'm hoping with a little age, not too much - it is a pale ale, and the carbonation; everything will mellow out together well.
So there they are. 5 gallons of APA, 4 gallons of Impy Stout and 3 gallons of Barley Wine.

Can't Wait!
~Kyle