My Best Gift

My daughter and son-in-law gave me a Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club membership for Christmas. It has been quite an impressive gift. Every month I have received 12 American microbrews (3 bottles each of 4 kinds of beer). This month I received beer from Wyoming (my first ever Wyoming beer) and Massachusetts. I've gotten everything from Milk Stout to Porter to Belgian Wit to India Pale Ale. It's been quite a ride that alas, has come to an end. My membership officially expired with this shipment. I'm going to start my own personal club at Homsie's (they don't have a website, but their beer selection is great and so is the boudin).

Some of my past and current selections. The kegs on the lower shelf contain my homebrewed version of Bear Republic Racer 5, ready for tapping this weekend.

A sideways view of the well packaged and protected container that the beer is shipped in. I saved them all for future mailings.



And alas, my notice of termination

Thanks for the memories, Liz and Brett!

NHC Here We Come

Andy and I signed up to attend the National Homebrewer's Conference in Oakland from June 18-20. Competions, seminars, speakers, and unlimited homebrew samples for 3 days. We should be quite happy together...

My New Toy

I broke my third or fourth hydrometer during my last brew session in late November. A hydrometer is an instrument used to measure the specific gravity of wort. They are made of glass and consist of a cylindrical stem and a bulb weighted with lead shot to make it float upright. The wort is poured into a tall tube and the hydrometer is gently lowered into the liquid until it floats freely. The point at which the surface of the liquid touches the stem of the hydrometer is noted. The hydrometer contains a paper scale inside the stem, so that the specific gravity can be read directly. I check the specific gravity before and after fermentation, and the difference gives me an indication of percent alcohol in each batch of beer I brew.

Unfortunately, the glass tube offers little resistance to concrete when dropped from waist level. This has been the case in each of the 4 instances I dropped mine. So I decided to upgrade to a refractometer. A refractometer is an analog instrument used for measuring a liquid's refractive index. It works on the critical angle principle by which lenses and prisms project a shadow line onto a small glass recticle inside the instrument, which is then viewed by the user through a magnifying eyepiece. Wine makers use this instrument to check the sugar content of grapes.

No batteries, no glass stem, no problem! Instead of filling a tube with liquid, I placed 3 drops between the measuring prism and cover plate. Light traveling through the sample is passed through to the reticle. The net effect is that a shadow line forms between the illuminated area and the dark area. It is where this shadow line crosses the scale that a reading is taken. My wort came in at 16.8 on the Brix scale. Now if I could just find someone in the wine business who could convert from Brix to degrees Plato like my hydrometer used to indicate...

My new refractometer alongside one of my older hydrometers

Racer 5

I brewed for the first time in over 4 months yesterday.

All work and no play makes FP Brewer a dull boy...
All work and no play makes FP Brewer a dull boy...
All work and no play makes FP Brewer a dull boy...
All work and no play makes FP Brewer a dull boy...

Okay, I'm going to get back on the brew once per month track.

I created a nice Racer 5 clone. It is happily fermenting as I speak. I used 14 lbs of grain with Cascade and Chinook hops for the brew, to be followed by dry hopping with Columbus, Cascade, Centennial and Amarillo. Wow, a northwest taste bud extravaganza! I'm so excited. Stay tuned for sampling details in about 3 weeks.

Until then...cheers.