The Beer Launcher

You gotta love beer drinkers with ingenuity. Check this out!

Even the Dogs are Sleeping on the Front Porch this Weekend...

There’s not much happening on the Front Porch this weekend. I’m planning my next big brew for the weekend of February 16. Mark your blog calendars. The wife will be out of town. I always plan a brew when she is out of town. It cuts way down on the “How come you brew so much beer” questions. I’m planning a double batch – I’m going to brew these Cajuns a nice Blonde ale so that they can learn there are more palatable balanced brews than Bud Light, and I’ll brew a Bridgeport IPA clone for my own selfish consumption. I’m also going to try some techniques I’ve been reading about to create a lower carb brew. Stay tuned for more…

While I was hanging around in my brew house this weekend I poured my first Alaskan Smoked Porter clone from my kegerator. It was a beautiful thing; check it out!

A perfect pour in my favorite glass that my son gave to me

And while I was at it, I decided to rebuild my grandmother’s chandelier that my wife disassembled while we were moving from Maryland. The unit is probably 50 years old and the wiring was brittle and asbestos laden, so we decided to take it apart and clean it up for rebuilding and reassembling when we moved into our new home in Louisiana. My dad helped my grandmother select it way back when he and my mom were young. It's a very special thing to me, so I figured, what the heck…Sunday afternoon…chandelier…homebrew…let’s get after it! My wife had carefully detailed each piece that was disassembled, in reverse order, on a notepad. She also took photos of the disassembly process.

The note pad. Check out the disco ball. I know what it means!

And the digital photos for reassembly. I love that woman!

I still felt like CSI as I tried to discern small washers from medium washers from large washers and that “six-sided tightening thing”. But it appears as though things are taking shape and I should have the unit ready to hang after wiring and finial hanging, in a week or so.

My starting layout. Can you spot the homebrew?

The finished main body, inverted. Can you spot the homebrew?

While I was toiling, my wife was going through some old memorabilia. She found a few choice essays that my daughter composed when she was a wee lass. Here's some good reading for her fans:

Some fine literary talent, with stickers. Can you find the homebrew?

Until next time, cheers!

My Love Affair with Yeast

Yeasts are cool. Responsible for so many of the good things in life; bread, wine, anything pickled, liquors, ethanol, and of course – beer. Check out What Are Yeasts for a fully detailed description of those little asexual, unicellular fungi that are responsible for fermenting all of the alcoholic beverages that you love to drink.

Today I racked my Alaskan Smoked Porter clone to my keg and bottles. I thought that you might like to have a look at my Saccharomyces cerevisiae friends after they've been carousing for a week. Unlike humans, yeasts like to romance before alcohol. They then reproduce, and the entire neighborhood then has a blast (literally) while converting sugar to alcohol and CO2, and then they go to sleep – weary from their cycle but ready for the next party of oxygen and sugar to come along.

I carefully pried the lid off of my fermenter to see if any yeast were still present on the top of the beer. S. cerevisiae is termed a top-fermenting yeast; all of the action takes place in a frothy, foamy party on top of the beer. It is used in the production of almost all ales. This as opposed to Saccharomyces pastorianus, the bottom fermenting yeast that is used to produce so many of those lager, or pilsner beers that you may love.

The action under the lid was pretty calm; the yeast had pretty much partied out by Thursday (as determined by a non-bubbling airlock). What you see below is the top surface of the beer with gas bubbles and some thin, lazy yeast laying around on the surface. All of the remaining yeast has sunk to the bottom. You can see from the side of the bucket that the yeast foam was about an inch thick while they were doing their thing. That's pretty calm; I've actually had them having so much fun that they blew the airlock off of the fermenter and gushed beer all over my wife's basement floor. She still discusses these events.

The yeast ring on the side of the bucket was about 1" thick

I racked the beer to a 3 gallon keg and then made several six-packs of 12-ounce bottles. I put the Smoked Porter keg into my kegerator next to the keg of Belgian Wit Ale that I made last month. Here is a picture of the two of them getting along quite nicely together. Aren't they a good looking couple?

L to R on the bottom shelf - Alaskan Smoked Porter, Belgian Wit, CO2 Bottle; plus a couple of new sixes on the floor

For you geeks, the original gravity of my wort was 1.053. My final gravity measured today came in at 1.006 (both measurements taken at 68 deg F and then adjusted to 60 deg F). That is outstanding conversion, and gives me an alcohol by volume of approximately 6.2%. Yeah baby...that ain't no Coors Light! Here are some photos of my hydrometer measuring specific gravity in the beer. I apologize that they are not clearer; perhaps my wife will buy me a better camera and a Brew-Magic System for my bithday in 2 weeks.

Here's the hydrometer floating in its cylinder. Just the tip is showing above the beer (a good thing)

Here's the hydrometer close-up. You can almost make out "1.000" and then count down 6 clicks to 1.006

Lastly, here's a photo of the sleeping yeast at the bottom of the fermenter after all of the beer was racked off. It's probably ½" to ¾" thick. Although there are some hops and other sediments in the mix, if you compare the volume here to the original package I showed in last week's posting, you can see that the yeast truly multiplied and had a great time during their short party.

The bucket is empty except for the layer of yeast and sediment on the bottom

I ran my finger through the yeast layer; you can see it covered it up to the first joint

A handful of one of God's greatest inventions

Long live Saccharomyces cerevisiae!

Until next time...cheers!

It's Alive!

And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for. Did the brew session bear fruit? Is beer being made? Did he drink too much homebrew during the brew and screw up the process? Yes, yes, and no! Houston, we have lift-off! Check out the video for an airlock replete with bubbling CO2 gas. Which means alcohol generation! Yeah baby...we're making beer!

Happy Airlock

Hooray - It's Brew Day!

Saturday was brew day. I decided to go with a clone of Alaskan Smoked Porter. I bought the all-grain ingredient kit from Austin Homebrew. If you’re like me and have limited local sources for your supplies, these folks do a great job. This is probably the 4th kit I’ve purchased from them, and I’ve never been disappointed. They formulate your recipe, mill the grain, and ship you as much as you want for a flat $6.99 shipping fee. One day I’m planning to order an entire truckload of grain to see if I can have it shipped for $6.99.

The grain bill consisted of 11 lbs 2-row, 1 lb Rauch, ¼ lb chocolate, ½ lb Black Patent, and 1/8 lb Crystal 90L. For hops I used 1.5 oz Golding @ 90 minutes, 1 oz Williamette at 15 minutes, and ½ oz Golding @ 5 minutes. I went ahead and added some Irish moss at 5 minutes, and started with a couple of Tbs of gypsum to keep my pH right.

9 gallons of water ready to convert to beer!

Ingredients from Austin Homebrew - grain, hops (3 bags), yeast package, and booster (for more alcohol!)

I mashed for 60 min at 160 deg F. My neighbor Bryan came over for a short while to get educated and to help me manage water at the beginning of the sparge. Like the typical male, I’ll never ask for help but am always appreciative when it’s offered. His wife and daughter also wandered over to see what the strange new guy next door was up to in his garage. Good for Bryan; beer brewing was meant to be fun for the whole family.

Boiling in process; note the water loss due to evaporation and retention by the grain

The sparge went pretty quickly with some minor improvements made to my false bottom plate. (Look for details in the forthcoming beer-giek section). I went ahead and checked the OG before boiling just for yuks. I measured 1.042 @ 59 deg F. More giek (as in Aggie-k) stuff. My FG came in at 1.052 @ 68 deg F.

I had to cool the beer twice through my counterflow heat exchanger because the tap water is still fairly warm in Louisiana.

Oops - I believe that the reason I had to run it through twice is because I hooked the hoses up wrong. Dooooh! I created a parallel flow heat exchanger setup! Someone poor me another homebrew!

Cooling the wort while letting the waste water run on the ground

My wife explaining how to be more environmentally responsible while cooling the wort

Cooling the wort in an environmentally friendly fashion for future plant watering with the waste water (note the extra bucket)

Next time I’m thinking about using my pool water instead, which sits at 56 deg F this morning. I’ll probably have to schedule that for a day when the wife is out of town.

I plan to skip the secondary and go directly to the keg next weekend. I’ll let it condition in the keg for a couple of weeks before drinking. I’ll probably bottle a couple of gallons as well.

The finished product prior to pitching

Some more pictures from my busy day:

Happy yeast. Note the expanded package while the yeast turns sugar into alcohol and CO2!

Daddy's little helper. I kept a small glass full and was prepared to say "I only had one small one" when asked. Nobody asked.

Check the edge of the glass. Even the bees in Louisiana like a homebrew in early January!

Until next time, cheers!