Front Porch Brewery

Hoppy Days Are Here Again

2011-03-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

My hops came up and are growng nicely. This is year two for these rhyzomes. It should be a good year if early growth is an indication. These are my Cascades. Can you spot the homebrew? Hint: It's an Irish Red. This is my Centennial. You'll note that it is smaller than the Cascade; last year it didn't produce any cones. I'm hopeful that it will produce in its 2nd year. Can you spot the homebrew? Hint: Its a freshly tapped Two Hearted Ale made with 100% Centennial hops. Someone on the west coast who drives a VW should be drooling...

Nirvana via Air Mail

2011-02-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

Sometimes my son-in-law really outdoes himself...

My New Mash Tun

2011-02-05T17:49:00.001-08:00

I decided I needed a bigger mash tun. The 5 gallon round cooler I have been using for years just didn’t allow enough freeboard for brewing bigger beers, like the Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout I made last October. I thought I would never get the sparge to run to completion on that one, and there was a lot of frustration involved in brew day because of it. BTW – the beer turned out fantastic – it will be my entry in the AHA competition this year if I don’t drink it all first.

So back on the ranch, I decided to double my capacity to a 10 gallon round cooler. It provides more than enough headroom for my 5 gallon brew day, even for big beers. Even super big beers. But I needed a replacement for the false bottom I have been using on my 5 gallon model. Because I am reluctant to spend money on things I think I can make myself, I decided to make my own.

Reflecting on some reading I have done on homemade mash tuns using rectangular coolers with copper pipe strainers, I figured the copper pipe concept would be adaptable to a round cooler as well. Using 1/2 inch copper pipe, tees, and elbows I made a three legged device that slipped inside of the 13 inch diameter cooler. I used an electric grinder with a thin cut off blade to make slices in the pipe at 3/8 inch intervals. I was careful to not cut too deep so as to weaken the pipe significantly and cause it to bend under the weight of a huge mash bill. I did minimal filing and cleanup to remove copper burrs.

I used the bung from my old unit to replace the plastic cooler valve, and pushed my hose through it into the waiting open tee inlet on the new copper header. The ID of the bung is slightly smaller than the OD of the hose, so it makes a good seal and didn’t leak a single drop of wort. The hose slipped into the copper tee with a wee bit of clearance but I figured what the hey, that’s just like cutting another slot in the copper pipe. I slipped some thick washers over the copper pipe to hold the device about 1/2 inch off of the cooler bottom. You can see in the picture that I actually introduced my mash water directly from the boil kettle through the device into the BOTTOM of the mash. No guessing on when I had enough mash water!

All of the parts (8 pipes, 4 elbows, and 3 tees) slip together and are easily disassembled for cleaning, drying and storage.

The device worked great! I was concerned that I might not get enough flow out of the slots I cut (I actually did calculate the total flow area) but I ended up having to restrict the flow from the hose in order to sparge at a reasonably slow flow rate. You can see from the photo that there was plenty of headroom after mashing with this 12 pound grain bill. I need to adjust my calculations on strike water temperature a bit to allow for the different heat transfer properties of the larger cooler.

By the way, the beer I made was Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, one of my favorite IPAs. I’m thinking of using it for Brett bait. I brewed it on January 29, 2011, which would have been my grandma’s 100th birthday had she still been alive. I’m going to have to come up with a catchy name for it to commemorate that special event. The original gravity came in at 1.062, and I just measured a 1.014, so I’m looking at a 6.5 percenter or better. The bitterness and the flavor of the 100 percent Centennial hops was excellent! I’m going to let the beer rest on the cold yeast (56 degrees right now and I’m trying to keep it warmer in our current cold spell) for another week to assure minimal diacetyl, then I’ll rack to secondary and dry hop and let it condition cold for a couple of months.

Until next brew day (which probably won’t be until April due to a heavy day job work load), Cheers!

Celebrating Something

2010-11-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

I made a batch of Celebration Ale this weekend. I always make a batch of beer when one of my younguns is soon to have a baby. Recent batches have included Wait for Nate (which surprisingly turned into Ain't Nate) and Hey Jude Celebration Ale. Since I don't have the predetermined name of the baby yet, I can't name the beer. For now I'll just name it Yummy Beer. It's a perennial favorite that I make every year for the Holidays. This beer will also be ready in time for Dr. Beyer's arrival. The OG came in at 1.056 (a bit disappointing), but I'm hoping for good attenuation which may drive the final gravity to lower than expected levels and yield a bit more alcohol kick. I couldn't find any Safale US-05 yeast locally, so I went with a double pitch of Nottingham Ale Yeast. If you don't try different things, you'll never try different things, correct?
So stay tuned for details on the outcome. The beer and the baby...

The Numbers Are In

2010-11-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

The Black Chocolate Stout appears to have attenuated nicely. The starting gravity came in at 1.089, and the last check on the final gravity yielded a 1.019. My goals were 1.090 and 1.023, so not a bad effort. In terms of alcohol content, we should be looking at just over 9% ABV. Perfect for Dr. Beyer's visit at Christmas time. I've got in in the keg and am conditioning it for 6 more weeks before I partake. I've never been able to hold off that long on a batch; wish me strength.

I've been focusing on yeast performance as of late, especially since I detected diacetyl in my rye-wheat batch made over the summer. I'm lead to believe that petite mutants, those respiratory deficient little buggers with their impaired mitochondria, may have created the problem. I controlled the fermentation temps to lower levels, trying to maintain around 66 degrees for the first week, then slowly bringing it down to around 60 degrees before taking it off of the yeast cake. This, combined with a double sized pitch quantity from a healthy starter should do the trick for eliminating undesirable flavors. I also aerated the dickens out of the wort with my aquarium pump and stone.

Oh, did I say that it was BLACK chocolate stout. Check out my favorite coffee cup below. Hint: it ain't coffee in that cup.

BIG Brew Today

2010-10-09T04:54:00.000-07:00

Big brew day today…my buddy Jack is in from Spokane and we’re going to do a very large American Stout; a clone of Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout – one of my perennial favorites. Too bad Andy isn’t here…he used to be pretty good at this.

Here’s the grain bill:
15.5 lbs pale
1 lb chocolate
¾ lb white wheat
½ lb roasted black barley
¼ lb flaked wheat
3 oz black patent

That equates to 18 plus lbs of grain. Yeah baby! We’re looking for an OG of 1.090 plus! If I can bring her down to a target 1.023 FG, she should come in at 9% ABV with good attenuation.

I’m going to mash in at 154 degrees to get some extra sweetness and mouthfeel. This should be a very large beer suitable for drinking in January on these bitterly cold southwest Louisiana nights:)

Here’s the hops bill:
2 oz Kent Golding 60 min
½ oz Amarillo and ½ oz Kent Golding 15 min
½ oz Amarillo and ½ oz Glacier 5 min

The estimated IBU is 46. Did I ever mention that Garrett Oliver is one of my beer heroes?

I also made a yeast starter using Safale 05 dry yeast on Tuesday night / Wednesday morning to assure that there would be a sufficient quantity of the little buggers to address the high gravity wort head on!

Stay tuned for brew day details! There will also be stogies involved and endless college football. I only hope safety professional Jack can be of some assistance lifting these heavy containers…

My Boat Babe

2010-10-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

I was drinking a homebrew on Friday night while preparing for a Saturday fishing trip and discovered this in my boat. Isn't she beautiful? I'm crazy about my boat babe...

Then, when I went to get a refill, I came back and the neighbors were in my boat.

We had good Friday night...

Brew Plan

2010-10-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

Here's my brew plan for the remainder of the year. For me, I have to put it in a spreadsheet to make sure that I don't have multiple events occuring with any single piece of equipment. Thanks to Mark's advice, I'm going to brew the Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout next week and let it condition for a good long time until I drink it in, say, January. While that is going on I'll brew up a batch of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale in time for the Holidays, followed by a Bell's Two Hearted Ale that will be ready after the new year.

I happen to have all of the ingredients for all of these all grain brews in my refrigerator as I type. That's because if you buy more than $100 of merchandise from Austin Homebrew Supply they throw in the shipping for free. 50 plus pounds of grain with no shipping charge. I love it when that happens...

Better Red than Dead

2010-10-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

That's the name of the recipe for my Irish Red ale that I used from one of my prior year's Zymurgy magazines. Last year's initial try was tasty but came out looking more like a Porter. So I adjusted my specialty grains this year and the result is just about what I was looking for. I think a bit more tweeking and the color will be perfect next year. The flavor is awesome, however. This continues to be one of the best beers I've ever brewed - perfect for Fall. It's becoming my official Octoberfest beer. This is a wonderful session beer; I could easily drink six of these and still want more.

Irish Red Anyone?

2010-09-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I kegged the Irish Red I made back in August. I was going to keg half and bottle the other half, but I simply kegged all of it. Call me lazy. Call me a draft beer lazy kind of guy. Bottles are way too much work after a day of work at my paying job. So I kegged it all into two of my Cornies. It should be ready to sample by the weekend. Actually, I’ll probably drink some of it on Thursday since the Aggies are playing football on ESPN and I’ll need something to settle my nerves.

The photo shows my relatively easy kegging process. I condition the beer in a 5 gallon Cornie, then I use CO2 (blue hoses) to push it from the large keg to the smaller kegs I keep in the fridge. The keg in the foreground is already full; I was pushing some CO2 into the top to displace any oxygen. One of the tricks of the trade here is that you have to introduce the beer into the receiving keg through what is normally used as its outlet. That way, the beer enters the keg almost at the bottom as it flows out of the intake tube. Otherwise, your beer would fall the height of the keg through the gas inlet and entrain much oxygen on its journey down. Always remember, oxygen = bad for beer.

Who Put the Buttered Popcorn in my Homebrew?

2010-09-11T13:49:00.001-07:00

I just racked the remainder of my rye-wheat Hey Jude Celebration Ale into a few commemorative bottles (yes, I kegged the remainder) and I noticed something strange…the beer had a hint of butter flavor to it. Oh my gosh…I’ve got diacetyl in my beer! where did that come from? I never had it before. Is it supposed to be present in this beer style (which I’ve never made before)? Or did I do something wrong? Will other people notice it? Could it harm my unborn grandchild? Should I dump it all and start over? Hmmm… I’ve got some research to do. I do know this from my on-line investigating. Here goes:

Three pathways lead to the creation of diacetyl. The first is through normal yeast metabolism. Brewer’s yeast form a precursor called alpha acetolactate (AAL), which is tasteless. This compound is converted to diacetyl as the beer ages. The reaction that changes AAL to diacetyl is accelerated by high temperature. At cool temperatures it will still occur, but more slowly.Modern brewing practice dictates that beer be aged on live yeast until the vast majority of AAL is converted into diacetyl. Brewer’s yeast, while unable to metabolize AAL, will readily absorb and break down diacetyl into relatively flavorless compounds. By giving the beer enough contact time with the active yeast, the brewer can eliminate the diacetyl. It generally takes only about two weeks of aging ale to assure that it will have no buttery flavors. OKAY. I GAVE IT TWO WEEKS, SO I SHOULD BE GOOD HERE.

Diacetyl is also formed by mutant yeast. Brewer’s yeast that has lost its ability to properly utilize oxygen are called respiratory mutants, or petite mutants (because they form abnormally small colonies on laboratory plates). These yeast are also unable to properly metabolize diacetyl, thus leaving it in the beer. DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS, BUT I DID BUY MY USUAL PACKAGED YEAST.

A bacteria called pediococcus can also form high levels of diacetyl in beer. While this bug cannot hurt humans, it can make beer sour as well as buttery. Tartness is desirable in Lambic beers, but it is most unwelcome in most other beer styles. The vast majority of brewers do their best to avoid pediococcus! I DON’T THINK THEY HAVE THIS IN LOUISIANA.

By the way - my Irish Red yeast made a bubble gum smell while fermenting. This could be interesting.

My Homebrew is Holding Me Hostage

2010-09-11T13:48:00.001-07:00

I was going to brew some Bell’s Two Hearted Ale today, but I couldn’t. I have no where to put it. I have too much beer in my inventory. This is a unique problem for me.
You see, I like to keg my beer. Perhaps because I am lazy, perhaps because I spent hundreds of dollars on being able to keg my beer, perhaps one led to the other. Anyway, I don’t much care for bottling beer like I used to do. I like to keg it. But my kegs are full. Well, two of them are half full of current drinking inventory, and one is empty and ready for beer. But I’ve also got 5 gallons of Irish Red ready to put into the empty keg and one of the half full ones when it becomes empty. So where to put the Two Hearted Ale in two weeks when it is ready to keg? I guess I need to start drinking more beer more quickly. Or have a party…

Until then…cheers!

Irish Red Ale

2010-08-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

I took the day off and brewed an Irish Red ale today. It’s a great session beer. I brewed my first batch last year for my buddy Eugene’s 50th birthday party, and I immediately took a liking to it. Which says a lot about it for a hop head such as I. Did you know that you can hardly find a true Irish Red Ale any more? Sorry, Killians is a lager and it’s terrible, thanks to Coors. Murphy’s Red is also a lager. Rogue makes a version called St. Rogue’s Red, but it’s not made in the true style of an Irish Red from the Emerald Isle, as they bitter it with northwest hops. I hear that Sam Adams makes an Irish Red; I’ll have to try it if I can find it. The only other one to be found is Smithwick’s.

That pretty much leaves you to drink my version if you are around these parts. Last year’s batch was a bit too dark, so I lightened up on the specialty grains and adjusted my water chemistry a bit to reduce the residual alkalinity. The numbers look pretty good. I was shooting for a gravity of 1.053 and wound up at 1.055. Nothing wrong with a wee bit more alcohol. If I have good attenuation with my yeast, I should be able to achieve a final gravity of 1.016 and an alcohol by volume of 5.3%.

Tonight the yeast should start their party…

Hops Baby!

2010-08-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

I planted a couple of Cascade rhyzomes and a Centennial this spring so that I could establish a hop source for my hobby. I harvested the Cascade crop today. It's really not bad considering that it is in its first year of growth, and who would think one would have a snowball's chance to grow hops in this southwest Louisiana summer heat anyway!? I'll probably get 2 or 3 ounces out of this one gallon package after drying them.

Until I feel like writing again...Cheers!

And Here He Is...My Grandson Jude!

2010-08-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

My son-in-law was kind enough to visit one of my favorite beverage retailers in Albany this weekend, with his new son Jude along for the experience. At just under two weeks of age, the timing was perfect for him to be photographed with grandpa's favorite beverage. Note how excited he is, and how he grasps the bottle with his little monkey foot...

And the Winner Is...

2010-08-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks all of you for the hundreds of entries received in my "name that beer I brew while I wait for my grandson to be born" contest. The lucky winner is that sweet little prego gal on the left coast whom I love so dearly. The beer will be named "Hey Jude Celebration Rye". I racked it to the keg on Monday. It looked and smelled even better than a newborn baby. I didn't measure the final gravity yet, but the yeast ring on the side of the fermentation bucket leads me to believe that it had fantastic attenuation! Kind of like Jude's hair. It looked like it was just microns away from blowing through the airlock. I'm sure we're looking at a 6 percenter. Anyway, I'll tap into it on Friday and let you know my first impression. I've saved some of it back to put in special bottles with labels I've yet to create commemorating the lad's birth. Todd and I have much celebrating to do...

Until then...Cheers

2010-07-29T18:55:00.001-07:00

Ahem...hello...anybody out there? Where have you people been?!

Anyway, the wife is out of town again so I'm brewing tomorrow. I'm brewing an American Rye-Wheat Ale, and I'd like to give it a name deserving of the event for which my wife has departed - the impending birth of my 2nd grandson. His name shall be Jude. Unless he turns up Judy, which has happened in our family before...but that's another story.

Anyway again, I'm taking suggestions for names. My current choice is "Summer of Jude Wheat". Any others please?

btw - I did kick Andy's butt last year at the NHC. Heck, I think even Elizabeth beat him...

Welcome back, and
Cheers

Just 3 More Days to the NHC...

2009-06-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

My beer brewing buddy Andy and I are headed to the National Homebrewer's Conference in Oakland , CA midweek. We'll be "Sippin' on the Dock of the Bay" for three days, baby! It's a really big deal for me - I get to drink unlimited homebrew and hang out with fellow homebrewers from around the country for 3 days, I get to hang with my best buddy Andy, and when it's over on Saturday I get to spend time with my youngest for the weekend.

Our agenda goes something like this:
Wednesday Am - travel
Wednesday PM - hang out with EP and friends
Thursday AM - kick Andy's butt at golf at Monarch Bay
Thursday PM - let the NHC games begin - homebrew!
Friday and Saturday - beer, seminars, more beer, talks, more beer, and beer
Saturday PM - to Petaluma with EP; home of Lagunitas Brewing...
Sunday - more time and touring with EP. Maybe we can hit some breweries...
Monday - travel home to dry out

Some conference highlights:

Our keynote speaker is Ken Grossman - co-founder and president of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co
Thursday is Pro-Brewer's night. At last count there were 52 professional brewers from craft breweries across the nation registered to show off their wares and provide samples for all of us until sometime Friday morning. See the unbelievable list of breweries represented here.
Friday is Club Night. This is the biggest homebrew party in the world! We'll be "Partying on the Dock of the Bay"! Homebrew clubs from across this great beer brewing country of ours will be setting up booths and letting us sample their wares until sometime Saturday morning. At last count there were over 30 clubs registered. Just think - the kegs of beer are heading towards Oakland even as we read this post! They even have a free agent booth for guys like me without a club! Yeah baby!
Over 31 seminars are available for my educational endeavors, from yeast propagation to proper beer color to the latest in equipment.

My son-in-law is also collecting craft beers in his fridge drawer at his home in in case we get thirsty after the event ends on Saturday. He's a good lad...

Stay tuned for details as the week unfolds. Andy and I are on our way...

An Article for All Serious Beer Drinkers to Read

2009-05-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from the article:
"Beer is a living beverage that deserves to be taken care of all the way to your glass. "
Need I say more to invite you to a great read...

For all of you who don't brew but are strictly beer drinkers, read chapter 7 (p.36)

Cheers!

FBP

My Best Gift

2009-04-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-05T18:47:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-05T18:25:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

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.

National Homebrew Competition

2009-03-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Every year, the American Homebrewer's Association sponsors the biggest beer competion in the world - The National Homebrew Competition will culminate this summer in Oakland, CA. Over 5600 beers were entered last year. This year, there is also an entry off of the Front Porch - a Chocolate Stout recipe I've been brewing for years. This year's batch came in at 9.5% ABV and is quite tasty, if I may be so bold.

My beer has to be in Atlanta, GA by April 8th for first round of regional judging. Final judging takes place in Oakland at the National Hombrewer's Conference. I'm hoping someone I know in that area will leave a light on for me should I make it that far.

So keep an eye out for entry ID 418 in a winner's circle near you! Until then...cheers!

Krewe of Barataria

2009-02-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

Babs and I were invited to our first Krewe party last night. At this particualr event for this Krewe, the Dukes, Duchesses, Queen and King were introduced. Apparently, there are hundreds of Krewes throughout Louisiana currently celebrating Mardi Gras. Everybody in attendance is required to be in costume, and there is a theme for each royal person who invites you. We were invited as patients of Nicole, the Duchess of the Red Cross. There were probably a couple of hundred people in attendance, all of them having a Louisiana Mardi Gras good time.

We're not entirely sure what this Krewe business is all about, but one thing is for sure: these people know how to party. Enjoy.

Dr. Pheel-u-ups, Nurse Pheelgood, and a bottle of Abita Christmas Ale

Our Emcee. Check out his beads.

Here is the entry of the first Duke. This sort of thing went on for an hour...

The arrival of the second duke

This guy knows how to rock. You can hear what a good time Babs is having...

Here's our Duchess, surrounded by her naughty nurses and "exposed" patients...

All hail the King of Krewe Barataria

And the Queen....

And the King and Queen togther

Check out the robes

And finally...the entire royal Krewe toasting their subjects.

After this, there was much more loud music, drinking, eating and dancing until 1:00AM.

And the parades haven't even started yet.... Like I said, these people know how to party.

I'm managing a 5-week turnaround starting next weekend, so I'll talk to you again in March.

Until then...cheers!

The Ultimate Farkle Roll

2009-02-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

Rolled by Babs on Friday night January 30, 2009.

The Meaning of Life

2009-01-25T17:08:00.000-08:00

I've been kind of busy for a month or two, and this has nothing to do with beer, but sometimes you just have to slow down and realize that the hokie pokie does hold one of the true reasons for living...

My Bottlecap Collection

2008-11-30T15:27:00.001-08:00

I save all of my bottlecaps. I don't know why I do that. I suppose its like my History Channel for beer drinking. My granddaughter loves to play in the caps. I reckon there's a couple of hundred in there. I'm hoping to have the bucket filled someday. My kegerator slows my progress, however.

Here's my bottle opener above the cap bucket.

Black Yeast

2008-11-30T15:05:00.000-08:00

You've all seen my video of my airlock bubbling while my yeasty friends do their thing. In case you missed it, here's what happy yeast looks like outside of the fermentation vessel

But under the lid, that's where the action is. Check out the yeast action under the lid of my Black Chocolate Stout while at the high krausen stage. Oh, if only you could scratch and sniff...

My target gravity was a little low at 1.080 (I had hoped for 1.090) but I'm still hopeful that I can get 10% ABV out of this batch. Try to get that in your Louisiana Coors Lite!

Stay tuned for final gravity results.

Hey Ralph - how was your interaction with the man?

Next Brew

2008-11-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

I ordered my materials to brew a batch of Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout next weekend. If I was Ralph, I'd be camping at Garrett Oliver's doorstep every day, begging him until he brought me some of his sure-to-be-delicious 2008 vintage. You can't buy it here in Louisiana. As a matter of fact, I'm probably the only one in the state who has ever tried it. That will change in a month or so. Stay tuned for more...

Cheers!

My Bigger Sunday

2008-11-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

Today was even bigger than yesterday, because today, I got me a new beer drinking buddy. In about 20 years, anyway.

Meet Eric David Phillips - my first grandson, born today in Lake Charles LA. I'm so proud. I can't wait until he can lift a 7 gallon pot of sparge water for me.

Since he has my first name, we need to find him a nickname. My son is thinking Bubba. I'm thinking Racer 5...

My new pal

My gal and my pal

Sis, mom, and the new addition

My Big Saturday

2008-11-16T18:34:00.000-08:00

I went by my favorite beer store in Lake Charles - Homsie's. Homsie doesn't have a website, but he's got an incredible beer selection for this part of the country, and he makes great boudin.

I was looking for some Celebration Ale, as my beer instincts were telling me it was that time of year again. I first tried this beer in Seattle after my first granddaughter was born while visiting my son-in-law Todd and my buddy Andy, and I always like to drink it with great memories of that weekend. I just kegged my own homebrewed version of Celebration Ale, and I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison. Much to my chagrin, there was no Celebration Ale to be had; it hasn't been received from the distributor yet. Head hanging, I thought I was going to have to go home empty handed. As I perused the aisles on my way out, I spied what looked to be some Bear Republic offerings in 22 oz bottles. There was Hop Rod Rye. XP Pale Ale. Red Rocket Ale. And lo and behold...a few bottles of my new fav - Racer 5! So I snatched a bottle and went home for some great beer and some California dreamin'. I'll get the Celebration Ale next Saturday...

The 22 oz offering in one of my favorite beer glasses (thanks Liz)

Racer 5 - Check!

2008-11-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

My son-in-law does an excellent job of taking care of my beer needs when I come to visit him. He can even teach my buddy Andy a few things about taking care of one's guests. While I was visiting this past weekend, I tried a Racer 5 from Bear Republic Brewing Company. It quickly became my new favorite beer. I told Liz I'd have to try and find the recipe for a clone version when I returned home.

As a homebrewer, I've been subscribing to Brew Your Own magazine since 2000. I save most of them. Surely, I thought, there would be a recipe for Racer 5 in one of my past issues. I wasn't disappointed.

I went to the internet and somebody mentioned the 2004 September issue. I went to the garage and plowed through my tomes. I probably have 50 issues. There in volume 3 was the target issue. On page 40 in "Attack of the Hop Clones", right between Hop Rod Rye (also of the Bear line) and Pliny the Elder (Russian River Brewing) was the Holy Grail. I'm in business baby! I'll be making a batch this winter (after I work my way through the Celebration Ale I just made and the upcoming Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout). A man has to have a plan.

My collection. Each blue binder holds 18 months of issues. I need more binders. Also note the homemade counterflow heat exchanger and the cool growler from Goose Island Brewery in Chicago (thanks Liz)

Here's the recipe if you're into it:
· 11.25 lbs 2-row malt
· 1.66 lbs wheat malt
· 0.625 lbs crystal 15 malt
· 0.21 lbs Carapils malt
· 0.42 lbs dextrose
· 6.1 AAU Chinook hops for 90 minutes
· 8.7 AAU Cascade hops for 60 minutes
· 0.3 oz Centennial dry hop
· 0.3 oz Amarillo dry hop
· 0.2 oz Cascade dry hop
· 0.2 oz Tomahawk dry hop
· American Ale yeast (California V)

OG should be 1.071; FG 1.015; yielding 7.2% ABV; SRM = 10
IBU is actually lower than I thought at 60, but it gives it a really nice balance without being a hop bomb.

I'm on it! Anybody have any ideas for a clone name?

The September 2004 Cover

The Holy Grail

Babs and my neighbor Pete on his Soft Tail right before we evacuated for Hurricane Gustav. Don't you think I should get a Harley?

Happy Birthday Little Bits

2008-10-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Can't wait to drink out of blue folding cups with you next week...

When the Going Gets Tough II, the Tough...

2008-09-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

...install a cold air intake on their pickup truck. I should get better mileage and more horsepower. Mine's actually what is called a short ram, manufactured by AEM. My buddy installed one on his truck with good results.

Today we're waiting for hurricane Ike. We decided all of this evacuation business wasn't all it was hyped up to be. So we're hunkered down and waiting. We've got a generator, plenty of rum, and a kegerator full of homebrew. It's supposed to get rather windy and wet tonight. Stay tuned. Until then...cheers.

You can see the leading edge of the new intake filter just below the Spanish Peaks Pale Ale

Brew Beer and Be Somebody!

2008-09-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

Maybe someday I can be President of the United States. Or perhaps one of my great, great, great grandchildren will have a shot at it after my brewpub gets established.

America...you gotta love her for the possibilities...

Click here for the story.

Until I'm elected to a higher office, cheers!

Another Reason to be an AHA Member

2008-09-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Man, I wish I lived closer to Kalamazoo... these rallies are some of the major highlights of a homebrewer's year. Check out the benefits for this event:

$33 One-Year Membership to the AHA (reg. $38)
Meet Bell's brewer and founder, Larry Bell
Meet AHA Founder Charlie Papazian (one of my heroes)
VIP Brewery Tour
11 beers will be on tap, including a SPECIAL RELEASE - wow!!!
Everyone gets a Bell's Brewery, Inc. pint glass filled with goodies and a 1oz sample of hop pelletes!

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough...

2008-08-30T08:22:00.000-07:00

...brew beer.

There's a hurricane evacuation in place here. People are already fleeing town, for something that is 3 days away with a 20% prediction accuracy. I didn't quite know how to react. So when in doubt - relax, don't worry, have a homebrew...and brew! I'm brewing a Saison today. While my neighbor cuts his grass again. Right now I'm in the final 10 minutes of my boil, so I need to get back to the garage.

In the meanwhile, we'll see how things look tomorrow. If we have to hook up the trailer and leave, I hope I can keep the beer cool during fermentation...

I'm looking for cool names for my new creation, please. It should have the word "Gustav" or "Hurricane" or something similar please.

Until the Front Porch evacuates...cheers!

Kalamazoo Konnection

2008-08-25T18:49:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest highlights of my brewing hobby is that one special day, about once every month, that I crack open my first beer from the batch I brewed the prior month. Today was that day. I couldn't wait to get home and try my first-of-the-batch Two Hearted Ale; a clone I made of a beer of the same name from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo Michagan. Yesterday, I carefully placed my little babies in the kegerator in preparation for today's unveiling. I thought about them all day; little work got done as I dreamt at my desk of Amarillo and Centennial hops wafting from a glass of the clear, pale nectar of the gods. I wasn't disappointed. It was perfect - the balance; the hoppy nose, the bittering flavor of some of the finest agricultural products ever to come out of the northwest. Ahhhhh......I can't wait for the keg to be ready by this weekend.

Note the clarity and the the really great glass that my daughter gave me. The head is a little light, as the beer is actually still conditioning. I haven't the patience to wait for it to finish...

Even the Pope Drinks Beer

2008-08-24T16:11:00.000-07:00

I had one of these this summer, albeit in Louisiana. It was pretty tasty. Now, I'm feeling even more enlightened by my imbibement...

Cheers!

The BIG Ad

2008-08-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

I watched this in 2005 when it came out. It is the most amazing marketing for beer I've ever seen. Check out the story here if you like.
Turn your speakers up...

I suppose that I should try a Carlton Draught...

Ever Had a Tui?

2008-08-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

If their beer is half as good as their marketing, somebody's got to try one of these and let me know how they taste...

Mulate's

2008-08-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

We went to Mulate's the other weekend. After the alligator tour. If you want cajun food and authentic, jammin', play that fiddle faster, what did he say in French, momma's got a squeeze box, I can't stop my feet from dancin' live cajun music and you want to bring the whole family, Mulate's is the place to go. Live Cajun music 7 nights per week! And fried catfish. Check out their website for their rich history. If you're ever in Breaux Bridge call us; we'll drop everything and meet you there!

Be sure and leave your business card on the ceiling. I'm not sure if you have to bring your own thumbtack. I kept looking for a yellow card...

The bad news, no micros. We had Heinekens.

Cheers!

Thinkin' With the Left Side of My Brain...

2008-08-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

I purchased a sixer of Eel River Pale Ale at Homsie's the other day.

My son-in-law gave me a Boonville beer glass last year.

I thought: Why not combine the two?

What a beautiful photo.

Just think...in about 70 days I can do them both fresh, with oysters...

Where There's a Will, There's Beer...

2008-08-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Mayor Letch is my new hero. Check out the video.
Hey Tracy - he's a Stella man!

Cheers to Frank Letch!

Can You Spot the Gator?

2008-08-10T18:45:00.001-07:00

Babs and I visited Avery Island this weekend. You may recognize it as home of Tabasco Sauce. We found out that it has a lot more than that; from the worlds biggest salt dome to egret habitat to a 26 room house that the McIlhenney's lived in after the civil war, to gators. Yep, they got alligators in them south Louisiana marshes. They are the ultimate maters of disguise. check it out below:

It looks like algae, but the swamp here is actually covered by millions of tiny little leaves from tiny little water plants. The gator uses these plants for cover from his unsuspecting prey.

And there he is!

More tiny plants...

And there's another one!

These guys weren't worried about hiding

They actually had signs that read "Please Don't Feed the Alligaotrs". I wonder if alligators have signs that read "Don't Eat the People"?

Two Hearted Ale in the Pail!

2008-08-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

Brew day started early in order to avoid the afternoon heat. I started heating the water at 0615 and was mashing by 0700. It was already 82 degrees in the garage. I moved my propane rig outdoors in order to keep the heat from building in the garage.

10 lbs 2-row; 1/2 lb Munich; 1/2 lb Crystal 20L; 1/2 lb Carapils

Heating water for the mash. I mash in the 5-gal coolers

I started with 10 gallons of water from the local market Culligan dispenser; I still need to get a water analysis from town before I’m comfortable brewing with tap water without any adjustments.

The first thing I noticed with my supplies was that there were no Centennial hops. Two Hearted ale is made with 100% Centennial hops! Due to the hop shortage, my supplier had substituted Amarillo hops for the Centennials. Being a forward thinking kind of guy, I had purchased several packages of Centennials some months ago and stored them in my freezer, anticipating their shortage. So I decided to do a mixture of Amarillo and Centennial, saving some of the remaining Centennials for another batch of brew later this year. I used the Centennial for bittering and aroma and used the Amarillo for flavor and dry hopping. It will be an interesting experiment.

These babies are like gold nowadays

Reheating the first runnings

Daddy's little helper

Boil in process

The sparge went quickly, too quickly actually. My final gravity came in about 20 points low and I noted a good deal of residual sweetness still in my spent grains. I should have held the sparge in the grain bed longer in order to rinse all of the sugars. Next time I’ll slow it with a clamp on the outlet of my sparge hose.

I used my counterflow heat exchanger in series with a copper coil immersed in an ice bath in order to get the wort from boiling to pitch temperature in one pass as quickly as possible. Tap water at summer temperatures won’t do the trick. It worked well; I measured the wort at 75 degrees and the waste water at 125 degrees. I collected the waste water and used it to water the plants.

$2.50 gets me 32 lbs of ice at Twice the Ice!

See if you can trace my cooling path (hint: the cornie is just to support the heat exchanger)

These copper coils were covered in ice when I started the cooling process

As stated, my final gravity was a bit light at 1.040. I added some Beano tablets to the secondary today in order to convert some of the residual complex sugars and get a bit more alcohol out of the beer. By the way, the Beano really works – you can watch the yeast come back to life after a day. I’ll leave the Splenda out this time, I used way too much last time and had to dump my beer:(

There’s 5 gallons in the secondary as I type. Preliminary tasting shows it to be a great, hoppy start to a great pale ale. I’ll let it condition for a couple of weeks, then rack half of it to my kegerator and half to bottles.

If you swirl your wort before you open the valve to drain it, the hops will mound in the center of the pot and not get mixed into your liquid

A perfect 5 gallon measure into the primary

My neighbor Brian, who chose to cut his grass with his new mower instead of helping me

A bubbling airlock the next morning signals a successful brew session!

Until I rack to the kegerator, Cheers!

Beer Drinking Birds

2008-08-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

These would make great pets. Especially if you could teach them to drive you home from the pub...

Cheers!

PS - here's a little related item for the Dr. Macs of the world...

Schlitz Makes a Comeback!

2008-08-02T19:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a Schlitz since high school, when we used to get the seniors to drop off a case in the woods on Friday nights. I was 15 when I had my first beer - a Schlitz. It was probably the bad stuff they detail in the article, but hey, I was 15 and it was beer! Maybe I'll give it another try, but I doubt if I'll travel to Milwaukee...

Cheers!

Fat Tire News

2008-08-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

It's official; you can now get your Fat Tire in aluminum cans (according to my latest Aluminum Association periodical). I prefer bottles, but I suppose now you can take your New Belgium poolside.

Cheers!

Beer Wisdom

2008-07-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

My best friend Jack Dayley pointed me to this link of beer wisdom and one liners. Jack had an epiphany of his own on Saturday night, and it now appears atop this blog...

BTW - my buddy Jack is quite an accomplished movie producer when he's not being the best and highest paid safety professional on the planet. Jack made a video of he and I and our beer bond that we established while working together in Maryland that is a classic. Check it out here. Another fav is Leesburg, Friends, Food and BEER , as well as Virginia Wine Festival. Check out the other movies while you are there also; there are some awesome flicks Jack made of kayakers in the rivers of the northwest.

I miss Jack. I can't wait until our next movie...

A Little More New Orleans

2008-07-27T19:24:00.000-07:00

Here's what the old Jax Brewery looks like now; it has been converted into a shopping mall. This makes me sad.

A typical New Orleans Porch

Roddy and the Tuba Man

The old and the new

A typical New Orleams street jazz band; check out grandma on the clarinet!

It Will Be…Two Hearted Ale

2008-07-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

After considering your very limited input, I have decided to brew a pale ale next weekend from Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo Michigan; Bell's Two Hearted Ale. My son-in-law, aka Big Blue’s Driver, turned me on to this excellent American craft brew when we were visiting in Chicago many years ago. It is a very well balanced beer, abundantly hopped with 100% Centennial hops. You can taste them and smell them from the first sip to the last. I ordered my ingredients today from Austin Homebrew (where shipping never costs more than $6.99) and expect to have everything ready for an early Saturday morning brew while the temperature is still in the 80s. I’m going to name the creation Unclean Spirits, in honor of my granddaughter Claire’s baptism today. It was more like an exorcism; I think the unsuspecting priest got ‘em all out of her, one unclean spirit at a time. Never wait until your children are two to have them baptized…

Until Saturday…cheers!

Babs and Rik in the Big Easy, Part II

2008-07-22T18:40:00.000-07:00

The 1st Afternoon

The women started shopping right after the beignets. Rod and I made a break for it. We went by the Tourist Bureau and discovered that the Crescent City Brewhouse was within walking distance; six blocks away on Decatur and Toulouse. We went for it.

When we got there, Heath was applying lacquer to the exterior wooden doors. Heath is one of the brewers there. When he heard me mention my membership in the American Homebrewers Association, we immediately struck up a conversation (I didn't tell him the bumper sticker secret; I don't know him well enough for that yet). Anyway, when Heath isn't brewing he's doing maintenance work. Makes sense to me if you are trying to control your costs. Heath told us that they pretty much brew only lagers, and one wheat ale. They have a 17 barrel system and will probably brew 60 times this year (that’s about 2000 gallons). The facility is four stories tall, and they have a lot of cold conditioning tanks and equipment on the 3rd floor.

Then he told us the bad news – they didn’t open for another hour. What’s going on here; no beer in the big easy at any hour? Oh well, that meant we had to find a ‘tween place to sip some suds and wait for the noon opening. We walked up the block and discovered The Beer Fest International Beer House.

They boast 48 taps, but most of them were out of order due to pressure problems. The bartender had hot pink hair and didn’t seem mechanically inclined, so we had to deal with the limited selection. They had a Longhammer IPA from Redhook that I’ve had in bottles but never on draught, so we tried that. It’s a moderately hopped pale ale with a great citrusy flavor and a nice hoppy nose and finish. It was served at the perfect temperature, which means they were also having problems with their refrigeration system, as these Cajuns like their Coors Light very cold. Their loss; my gain. We finished our beers, went and gathered the women, then went back to Crescent City for lunch.

What's wrong with this picture?

We ordered lunch and I had the sampler; a collection of their four beers. I had some food too. They make a Pilsner, a Red Stallion, a Black Forest, and a Hefeweizen. The pilsner was probably the best beer; it had a nice balance and a clean finish that was not too bitter. The Red Stallion did not have a very rich color, and the Black Forest was more red than black. Shiner Black Lager is a better beer than theirs, if you ask me. The Hefeweizen was interesting; I think I detected Belgian yeast undertones, but all-in-all they were just average beers. I’d rate the beers a 6 on a scale of 10. If they would have had an IPA I would probably have bumped them up to a 7. The food was good, and the prices were reasonable.

The Sampler

Behind the Bar is the Brewing Equipment

We spent the rest of the day touring and taking in the local culture. We had dinner at Emeril's that night, the one on Tchoupitoulas St., which I would highly recommend to anyone. Bring your big checkbook. I’ve never had four servers put dinner out simultaneously to four people before; it was like each course just appeared before everybody at once. Then our main waiter would explain in detail what each dish was comprised of. We actually had three waiters attending to us all night, and the four course meal that we had was magnificent. I also had an Abita Jockamo IPA to sate my IPA urge for the evening. Be sure and check out the link for some very interesting reading on the origins of the name.

We ended the night with a walk down a very loud and bustling Bourbon Street. Painted, bare breasted and rather oversized maidens were throwing beads at us from balconies above. There was loud music coming from every direction, and more tattoos and body piercings than you could count. I picked up the beads for my granddaughters as Babs ran away from the madness and the crowds. We ultimately made our way to Antoine’s for yet another dessert and coffee. Antoine’s is the oldest family owned restaurant in America (circa 1840) and is the home of Oysters Rockefeller. Again, check the link for some great history reading.

On Saturday, we went to Commander’s Palace for brunch. Hey, I told you I went for the food! I finally got my turtle there, but that will have to wait for another day. Check the link for a preview

Until then, cheers!

There's always this for beer too...

Babs and Rik Travel to the Big Easy

2008-07-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

New Orleans – The 1st Night

Babs and I went to New Orleans this weekend with some old friends of ours, Rod and Christine Holcombe. Babs went for the shopping. I went for the food and in search of that elusive Louisiana brewbub. The first night we went to Preservation Hall and listened to a brass jazz band. Two saxophones, a trumpet, a trombone, a tuba, some snare drums and a bass drum. It was awesome music. It was musty and dark and hot and must have been just like it used to be "in the day". That's why they call it Preservation Hall; it is the effort of many people to maintain the original style of jazz that was slowly disappearing that made New Orleans famous. They played great songs like "I Got a Hole in my Bucket" and "Hold that Tiger" and "When the Saints Come Marching In". Lots of Tiger Rag, too. I got there in time for the last set that started after 10:00; Rod had been standing in line since 6:00PM to make sure we got good tickets. We had a great time, and afterwards went for refreshments next door at Pat Obrien’s. I had a Hurricane, consummating once again my love affair with rum, followed by an Abita Amber Ale, made in one of Louisiana's few craft breweries. Babs had a mint julep. Being true tourists, we bought the glasses and brought them home. We made it back to our hotel, The Provincial, a hotel I would highly recommend in the heart of the French Quarter, after 1:00AM.

The 1st Morning

I knew that if I was to go searching for the elusive microbrew, I would need to start my long day with some good New Orleans coffee, complete with chicory. Babs would want some beignets with hers. Café Du Monde is the place for that. I think I paid $1.50 for a cup of black coffee that is "seared black". It was great. While sitting there, I watched people eat their beignets. They were buried in confectioner's sugar. I mean buried! I've never seen so much sugar. You get about a half dozen beignets on a plate and then they throw what looks like a shovel full of sugar on them. The sugar covers your lap, the table, and the floor. It is impossible to eat them without making a powdery mess. While we were there, the sugar truck pulled up. I watched them load 50 lb bags of confectioner’s sugar onto their cart. Five bags. Ten bags. Thirteen bags. Another cart. They brought 16 – fifty lb bags of sugar inside. I asked the guy if that was a normal order. He said no; today was a light day. They usually get 20 bags per day. That's 1000 lbs of confectioner's sugar every day! And most of it winds up in your lap and on the floor. Oh well, they do grow a lot of cane sugar around these parts. I guess that's how you support your local farmers.

Have some beignets with your sugar

Have some sugar with your cafe

Seen on a street in the Garden District

Stay tuned for the first afternoon and the beer saga...

It's a Done Deal!

2008-07-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

You too, can become the world's largest brewer if you only have $52 BILLION!
That's 52 followed by NINE zeroes!
How much beer would I have to brew and sell to gather that many zeroes?
The King is now a prince...
Check it out here.

August 2nd is Brew Day

2008-07-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't brewed since June 8th. I have the date circled on the calendar in my brewshop. I haven't even changed the calendar to July yet. It's there to remind me that I'm behind schedule again; I normally like to brew once per month. I'm so far behind on brewing that my brewshop has become home to my new zero-turn Gravely mower. She's a beaut, and can do in 45 minutes what used to take me 2 hours of pushing. I love her, but I love beer more. She'll be motored outside on August 2nd and beer will be brewed in her space!

The Gravely and the Kegerator sharing space (notice the cool boot on the wall)

It will probably be 100 degrees outside, which makes for a tough heat exchange from boiling to pitch temperature, but I must do this for America's real beer drinkers. Besides, there's always the pool, which will be a cool 92 degrees by then. I also have to get it done before the Plecia nearctica show up again in September. They come every May and September. Last year they kept dive bombing my wort. I figure they provide interesting flavor that you can't get in the Northwest, though.

Anyway, back to brew day. Since this is an interactive format, I'm looking for suggestions on what style of beer to brew. Please pass along your wishes. Remember that what I brew in August will be ready to drink in early fall, when the temperatures cool back down to the mid 90s and the leaves start to turn color (brown). I like to brew my beer in season. For instance, you'll never catch me drinking a stout in the summertime – never! I still have a bottle of Cappuccino Stout in my beer fridge that my son-law bought me last December that I'm saving for a cold Louisiana winter night. I can't wait for that night to get here! Anyway, summer is for wheat beer and weizens...nectars of the gods. I'll consider your responses and let you know what I decide.

Be expeditious with your advice; I'll probably be buying ingredients next weekend on my way back from New Orleans. The wife says I have to take her to Preservation Hall to listen to jazz, and we have reservations at Emeril's on Friday night at 1900. Reckon Emeril has some decent beer on draught? I'm for sure gonna eat a turtle in one fashion or another. What beer goes with turtle?

Surely there's another homebrewer with a shop between here and New Orleans...

Until I hear back from you...cheers!

The Unpublished Benefits of Being an American Hombrewer Association Member

2008-07-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

I am a dues paying member of the American Hombrewers Association (AHA). It is a great venue for homebrewers to learn about making great beer. As part of my membership I get several magazines per year, daily newsletters, discounted beer at participating microbreweries, and plenty of educational material related to the hobby. I also received a free bumper sticker that says "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew...". I put it on the back of my truck, much to the wife's dismay. I'm very proud of my little truck decoration. Little did I know that it carried an extra benefit that isn't published in the AHA material.

While driving through one of my local Louisiana towns, trying to learn to sing Panis Angelicus (almost like Pavarotti) with my head in the clouds, there I spied one of the local law enforcement officials, cleverly concealed behind a tree, clocking me at 45 in a 30 mph zone. I gripped the wheel and assumed my best driving position, immediately slowing down (as if that ever does any good) and looking forward, hoping that perhaps he was looking for someone younger and faster. It was not to be; he pulled out, got behind me, and flipped on his party lights. I pulled over and did some quick housekeeping so as not to reveal any past and recently empty indiscretions from the weekend's camping trip. I gave him my license and insurance card and waited patiently for my sentence while he walked back to his cruiser. He returned shortly.

That's when it happened; when I realized what the unwritten rules of membership. "Are you a homebrewer?" he asked. I replied to the affirmative, of course. He said "So am I". I was shocked; I thought that I was the only human being stuck in homebrew limbo around this Coors Light culture. That began a wonderful 10 minute dialogue on the benefits and wonders of homebrewing. We talked about who we buy our materials from, the differences between all-grain and partial grain brewing, how to best cool wort in these hot climes, the hop shortage, our favorite styles of beer, kegging versus bottling, various types of equipment and expenses, and so on. I got his name and told him where I lived (as if he couldn't have figured that out) and he told me to come by the station to visit anytime. I told him that I'd give him a shout the next time I brewed. When it was over, he handed me my cards and told me to have a nice day. Not even a warning ticket or lecture! I figure I avoided $100 in fines, and I met a fellow homebrewer.

I can't wait until my membership expires and I get a nice new bumper sticker for the wife's car. I hope she doesn't get pulled over by a tee-totaling recovering alcoholic cop with an attitude...

And Now...The Link

2008-07-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Alas, I have been a blog slacker and not paying attention to your posts. The link, you dummy, where is the link?! Here it is; mea culpa, mea culpa. Thanks for taking the time to read my material.

As an added bonus, for your patience, here is yet another article mentioning Garrett Oliver. He is quite the quoted brewmaster these days.

The King is Dead (almost)...

2008-06-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Here's showing what guys like me (with a little more money and marketing saavy) can do to bring good beer back to this great country of ours. Check out the Brooklyn Brewery video. I used to drink their beer regularly when I lived in Maryland. I won a blue ribbon at the Great Frederick Fair with my Black Chocolate Stout clone. You gotta admire Garrett Oliver.

Time to Go Fishin'

2008-06-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

My daughter and her two children are visiting us for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, my granddaughter Lucy and I went fishing. It was too early for a homebrew, and she’s only four, so I focused on the fishing aspect of the journey.

Lucy has never been fishing. She lives in Albany, NY. I’m not sure if they have fish there. Since we were in the south, we decided that her first fishing trip should involve catfish. So after an early wakeup call and some oatmeal and quite a bit of crying (apparently brought on by the early wakeup), we were on the road to the Sunrise Catfish Farm at 0700. It takes about 40 minutes for the drive up towards Deridder. We saw lots of cows and horses on the way. Lucy discussed them all with me.

When we arrived, a very nice man rented us a vintage Zebco rod-n-reel, sold us some chicken livers for bait, and directed us in our truck to the levee on the side of the main pond. I rigged up Lucy’s rod with a hook and weight and put a big fat chicken liver on the hook. Lucy said “throw it out far”, so I did, and it splashed into the middle of the pond. I told her to hold the line tight while I put together my own fishing rig. While I was working on my hook, Lucy said “something’s pulling my pole”. And indeed, something was. After quite a struggle, she landed a 4 pound channel cat! It looked bigger than her.

Lucy's First Fish

After taking care of the fish, I put another liver on Lucy’s hook, “threw it far”, and then joined her with my offering. Something then “pulled her pole” again. Another struggle; another nice catfish. She was on fire! And then she decided to count…two for me grandpa…none for you. The pressure was on. I finally caught one. Then she caught two. Then I caught another. Then she started to get tired from all of the hard work she told me she was doing. So after about 75 minutes, we took our fish and weighed them in at 16.5 lbs.

Lots of Fish!

The nice folks at Sunrise Catfish Farm cleaned our fish, and then we drove home. Lucy took a nap, as she was worn out from all of that hard work catching this fish.

Fishing is hard work

The fish are in the freezer now. We’re saving them for the fryer this weekend when Lucy’s dad, a true catfish aficionado, comes to town. I hear they’re going fishing while I am at work. I hope he can throw it far and not have the liver fall off of the hook…

Verona Craft Beer

2008-05-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

We actually found some craft brewed beer while walking a marketplace in Verona. They had four kinds of beer – Sausa Pils, Weizen, Red Moon, and a Stout. Babs and I each had a Sausa Pils on draught. ABV was about 6%, which made dealing with the jet lag more tolerable. It was very tasty. You could also buy cheeses and cured meats that were hanging in vendors tents. I avoided this at first, but succumbed to it later. The provolone, prosciutto, ham, and salami were great (especially for breakfast)! We walked to the Arena di Verona while drinking our beer. The Verona Arena is a Roman amphitheater which is famous for the opera performances given there. Unfortunately, there were no operas being performed at noon. So we just enjoyed the beer and took many photos.

A pretty good selection for wine country

George Clooney enjoying a local brew

The Arena was built in AD 30 and could host more than 30,000 spectators. A major earthquake in 1117 almost completely destroyed the outer ring. After restoration, and because of its outstanding acoustics, the building now lends itself to musical performances.

Babs thinks these were added after original construction

There is Beer in Europe

2008-05-17T13:57:00.000-07:00

Babs and I just returned from Italy. We passed through London on our way there. We landed at Heathrow and then had to take a bus to Gatwick to catch our connection to Verona, Italy. I'll be darned - they do drive on the other side of the road in England (but not in Italy)! We stopped at an airport restaurant called Garfunkels. I thought it only right to order a couple of "pints" while on layover in England. Well, I ordered the pints and Babs, being the lightweight, had the smaller servings. I believe that I had a couple of glasses of bitter, while she had the standard Stella. Both were served on draft and were very tasty. The temperature of the brew was perfect at around 45-50 deg F. Babs, of course, thought this was not cold enough. I'm still training her. I had a version of sheperd pie for my meal, and I can't remeber what Babs had. Attribute the lack of detail to the jet lag. Our bill came to 23.35 pounds, because they don't use the euro in England. I thought that was strange. You can use euros at the airports only, but all change is converted to pounds. There is no line on your credit card bill for a tip. They don't tip in Europe. I gave them cash for the tip. That's what my grandfather taught me to do.

A work in progress

Tired but happy

Back to my Beer Roots

2008-05-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

I graduated from Texas A&M University in 1979. Whenever I wasn't studying to maintain my benchmark 2.3 GPA, I thought about studying while drinking beer and playing dominoes at the Dixie Chicken. The Dixie Chicken was THE beer joint on the Texas A&M campus, and after all of these years, it still maintains its status as the no. 1 hangout for the beer drinking Aggie college crowd.

Babs and I visited the Chicken today while on our way back from a wedding in Cameron, TX. The beer is still served in longneck bottles pulled directly from a trough filled with ice. They've added a kitchen and a back porch also. It was good to see the college kids playing dominoes and drinking Shiner beer and enjoying life in Central Texas.

Ask Elizabeth if she ever spent time at the Chicken...

Some views of the "new" Chicken

My old hangout

Babs and my friend Jack, who was visiting from Spokane. Babs was thirsty in the Texas heat.

A good Texas Longhorn

Makin' My Way Back

2008-04-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since my last post. I've been a beer slouch. Sorry. Things will soon be back to normal and I'll be brewing again. Right now, I'm buried at work and am trying to make a bunch of project deadlines before I take my Babsy to Italy next week. I promised to have her there on her milestone birthday (I'm not allowed to tell which milestone), which is Friday 5/9. We bought a new camera last weekend and she is learning to wield it like a pro, so look for many additions to this site when we return after 10 days. I'm thinking that the thrust will be more about wine than beer, but what the hey, it's all fun and educational.

The "love bugs" are starting to swarm in Louisiana, so brewing will have to wait until they are cleared out. The little fellers love to auger in on my sweet wort during brewing. The next brew is shaping up to be a double batch during the weekend of June 3.

The Beano beer didn't work out; I added to too much Splenda. I had to dump 5 gallons of blonde ale (ouch) and am slowly consuming the IPA. Stay tuned for experiment no. 2.

You should also know that I had dinner at the "all you can eat spicy boiled crawfish" buffet at the Isle of Capri Casino tonight (the wife is out of town). I couldn't eat all they had, but they knew I was there! If you're inclined, you've got about one more month left in the crawfish season. Come on down!

Thanks for all of your kind words and prayers during our time of loss. Mom is doing fine, thank you. Be sure and check out all of the new posts at my dad's site.

Edwin Faraday Phillips (October 05, 1930 - March 22, 2008)

2008-03-23T06:26:00.001-07:00

Our dad passed away last night. He was the smartest, kindest person we ever knew, and our role model for life. Cherie Mac and I will miss him terribly. Please keep he and my mom in your prayers.

My dad, my grand daughter, my daughter in-law, and my mom - and his buddy Allie

To check out a blog we've started on Dad and his wide ranging impact on the world, see http://edwinfaradayphillips.blogspot.com/

Pool's Open

2008-03-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

The pool reached 70 degrees this weekend. That is cause for celebration, so I poured a light homebrew and jumped in and cleaned the walls. Don't try this in Michigan!

The Great Light (but not Lite) Beer Experiment

2008-03-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I concluded my month long study of the effects of the alpha-galactosidase enzyme on polysacharrides. Or, in other words, I added Beano to my fermented beer to reduce the carbohydrates. Reduced carbs equals lighter beer! Here’s the theory:

When beer has finished fermenting (see “My Love Affair with Yeast” blog in my earlier post) there are still carbohydrates in it. Yeast can only ferment simple sugars and will not utilize complex carbohydrates, such as polysacharrides or dextrins. If I could somehow break up the unfermentable carbs into simple sugars, the yeast would be free to consume them and I would have a lower carb beer. And more alcohol baby! Commercial brewers do this with the enzyme amyloglucosidase. I used Beaneaux (the Louisiana version of Beano).

Each tablet of Beaneaux delivers 150 units (150 GALUs to my geek friends) of enzyme. I tried 3 tablets per 5 gallon batch of beer. I chose to add the Beaneaux after primary fermentation was complete and I had racked to the secondary fermenter. The beauty of adding it later is that I can measure my initial gravity after fermentation, and then measure it again after the alpha-galactosidase enzyme has done its thing, thus letting me measure its effectiveness! But wait, there’s more!

Taking the carbohydrates out of the homebrew makes it taste thinner, because carbs give your beer mouthfeel. This is not a good thing. Well, it is not a good thing if Coors light is not your mainstay. To compensate for this, I need to add back something that is non-carbohydrate and non-fermentable. Enter the other secret ingredient…Splenda! Yeah baby, I’m talking that good old fashioned mixture of maltodextrin and sucralose in the yellow packets that you find on the counter at IHOP ( BTW – the packets actually have dextrose in them, so make sure you use the stuff in the box). For every gravity point removed by the Beaneaux, I wanted to add back an equivalent amount with Splenda.

So here’s the math. Feel free to skip to the end if you’re not a beer-math geek. My first batch was a Blonde Ale (see “It’s a Blonde” blog in my earlier post). Actually, I went a bit heavy on the specialty grains, so she turned out to be a Brunette. My original gravity before primary fermentation was 1.051. My final gravity (pre-Beaneaux) was 1.012 (all measurements converted to 60 deg F). That should yield a beer that is 5.4% ABV (alcohol by volume). I added 3 Beaneaux tablets when I racked to the secondary and, low and behold, she was bubbling the next day. Amazing…it works! After 2 weeks I checked the gravity again. I had reduced it to 1.004! Yeah baby, another 8 points worth of gravity reduction, or a 6.4% ABV brewski. I have created a Lighter beer! Less carbs…more alcohol…great mouthfeel. You won’t hear that on a Sunday afternoon ball game ad.

A little blurry, but you can see the gravity at just over 0.000

Once the excitement had become controllable, I calculated how much Splenda I would need to replace the mouthfeel in the beer. Splenda can be swapped for sugar on a per volume basis (a 3.8 oz box of Splenda is equivalent to 2 lbs of sugar). A rule of thumb for sucrose is to add just short of 2 oz. for every gravity point lost in a 5 gal batch. So, for my really cool 8 gravity point drop, I needed to add 8 x 2 = 16 oz equivalent volume of Splenda. I dumped 2 cups of Splenda in the beer and now she sits and conditions for a couple of weeks. Stay tuned for the final chapter on the Brunette…

I also had a batch of Bridgeport IPA that I made with a final gravity of 1.017. I added 4 tablets of Beaneaux and after 2 weeks measured my gravity at 1.006. Whoa – another success with an 11 point gravity drop! That’s another 1.5% ABV with fewer carbs. I added the calculated amount of Splenda to this batch and she also sits in the conditioning mode for a couple of weeks. Actually, I used less that the calculated amount because my box of Splenda ran out and I didn’t feel like driving to the store after consuming many homebrews, so this in itself will be a relative mouthfeel comparison.

Finally, some notes on the laboratory experience. The Splenda foams upon introduction to the beer. The natural inclination is to want to stir it in, but in an effort to minimize oxygen entrainment (aka skunky beer) this stirring must be done very carefully and quietly – a very difficult combination to achieve when you are trying to mix a solid into a liquid. I think that next time I will add the Splenda to some hot water and dissolve it before I add it to the beer.

The Brunette, the Splenda, the hydrometer, and the Beaneaux. Oh...and a homebrew...

Note: portions of my text were excerpted from Charles Parker in BYO magazine May-June 2004

Part II - Help, I'm Surrounded by BBQ and I Can't Find a Real Beer...

2008-03-07T15:39:00.000-08:00

Indeed, they know tons about barbecue, but they know so little about beer. Four hundred sixty-one barbecue pits and all I could find was Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors Light...the 3 basic beer groups down here. No Inversion IPA, no Lagunitas Capucino Stout, no Mirror Pond Ale, not even a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Oh, woe is me...I have so much work to do with my countrymen and women. In the meantime, I did find rum, and there was plenty of Coke, and I had unlimited access to open bars, so I was set.

On with the adventure...

Six Flags Over Texas and Texas-sized Mardi Gras Beads

And a couple of more BBQ alleys we walked...

A Couple of Flags that EP can Appreciate...

Pork anyone? This bad boy was going for a full 12 hours over a real wood fire

A couple more booths worth photographing..

And my favorite sign

It wouldn't be a Texas barbecue without washer pitchin'...

...or a good man to shine your boots...

...or a little cowboy

Part I - You Know You're in Texas When...

2008-03-04T18:52:00.001-08:00

...there are 461 teams vying to be the best of the best in barbecue! Babs and I attended the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo World Championship Barbecue Contest this weekend. Unless you've been to a major Texas barbecue, you can only imagine what we experienced. Held at arguably the biggest sports complex on earth, complete with a ferris wheel, full sized painted statues of horses, and a band in every tent, we went where few people seldom go. Well, actually, I guess that a few hundred thousand people went over the 3 days that the contest raged. Although the beer was nothing to brag about, there were plenty of potential pairings. Here are some photos that we took. Enjoy!

Reliant Stadium (Home of the Texans)...the Astrodome (former home of the Oilers)...and an F750 pickup truck (how many tons is that?)...things are definitely bigger in Texas!

How can you have a barbecue without a ferris wheel? You had to walk through a Texas sized carnival to get to the barbecue booths.
Here's a map of the area and a listing of the names of each of the 461 contestants. It pretty much covered the entire parking lot of the entire Relaint Stadium complex. The wait list to be no.462 is 7 years!
The first place we were a guest at was "Sharks R Us"; a collection of 13 lawyers and judges who love to cook. This their mobile, and their pit and entrance below.

One of many of the barbecue alleys we walked

This 18-wheeler is probably one of the biggest barbecue pits in the world. If you look close, you can see the large screen TV. How could you think of cooking without one!

If your band was good enough to get out of the tent, you could play here
This has got to be some good stuff!

Posey had a nicely designed facade

As did my old friend Jack (notice Babs making a bee line...)

And then getting "bandana'd

On The Way to Houston!

2008-03-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

Today Babs and I are driving to Reliant Park in Houston to attend the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to immerse ourselves in the World's Championship Barbeque Contest! There will be unlimited barbecue and of course, beer, to partake for the entire afternoon. You gotta love Texas. We reserved a room at a nearby hotel so that we can fully participate and not have to worry about driving home under the influence of my favorite beverage. My camera is packed, and there will be a major posting forthcoming. Stay tuned.

Until then...Cheers!

The Great Beer Experiment

2008-02-25T18:41:00.000-08:00

What do these objects have in common - a homebrew and...what's that in the little bottle? Hmmmm...seems as though Professor Beaneaux was in Lake Charles this weekend. What could possibly be in the works? Care to take a guess?

There is a method to this madness. Stay tuned for more...

Until then...cheers!

Bubbling Buddies

2008-02-19T17:10:00.000-08:00

It's certainly not as exciting as Conner and Carson, but to a homebrewer it is quite thrilling - airlocks from two batches of successful brew doing their thing. Check out the video for some great fermentation action! The one in the back is a Blonde Ale; in front is my Bridgeport IPA clone.

Until next time...Cheers!

It's a Blonde!

2008-02-16T06:41:00.000-08:00

No photos today; just data from last night's brew.
I decided to make a Blonde Ale in the hopes that the locals would find it palletable and not too dramatically different as opposed to their Bud Light. One little step at a time...

Ingredients:
10 lb 2 row
1/2 lb CaraHell
1 oz Williamette @ 60 minutes

I went a little heavy on the hops just because I wanted to. Actually, I was drinking a beer and talking to my neighbor Pete and I forgot to reduce them to 0.8 oz. Oh well, if you can get them, use them! The global hop shortage is real folks; there are many on-line brewshops that I used to purchase them from that are out. Zip. Zero. And what used to cost $1 is now going for $4 and projected to increase. I hope that my supply will get me through the next 2 years! And if you think that it won't affect you because you are not a brewer, think again. It's going to cost all of us. Read about the shortage here.

Back on the porch, I thought that I would make several water measurements in order to build a database that will help me to estimate my volumes and thus my final gravities more closely. Here's what I used:
10.5 lbs grain @ 2.1 target lbs mash water/lb grain = 22.05 total lbs water, or 2.69 gal of mash water required.
Assuming .084 lbs of water retention per lb of grain, I calculated my total mash volume to be 3.57 gallons, and this is what I tried to hold in the mash tun. I mashed out at about 154 degF.

For my total water volume, I targeted a final kettle volume of 5.5 gal. I assumed a 17% evaporation rate for a loss of 1.13 gal. My kettle start volume thus had to be 6.63 gal. I assumed that each lb of grain would absorb 0.115 gal of water, so I added another 1.21 gal. I assumed 5% system losses, for another .28 gal. Total water for the brew was thus calculated to be 6.63+1.21+.28=8.12 gal (it's easier to put all of this on a spreadsheet that does the calcs for you, which I did).

I measured the preboil gravity at 1.044 @ 60 degF. That's respectable. I measured my actual evaporation at 1.3 gal. Pretty close to my assumption; it looks like I may actually be losing closer to 20%. I'll keep tracking that. My final gravity came in at 1.051 at 60 degF, which is a little heavier than I had figured. Oh well, more alcohol for the Cajun Coors Light crowd that I am trying to convert.

This morning the airlock was bubbling; she's alive! Stay tuned for details on primary fermentation.

Today I'm travelling to India on the USS Bridgeport.

Until tonight, cheer!

Son of Kegerator!

2008-02-14T18:00:00.000-08:00

Since it's Valentine's Day and my wife is out of town, I seized the opportunity to spend time with my mistress...beer. I've been kind of concerned about my kegerator of late - so lonely looking with that huge door and just that one little tap. So tonight I created Son of Kegerator.

Such a lonley little tap

Please refer to my last post in which I displayed various parts. Add to those parts these simple tools, and you have the makings for a kegerator addition

A drill and 2 hole saws is really all you need

First, I drilled a pilot hole through the front of the door. I choose to drill in the door because doors rarely have refrigeration coils in them, like you might find in the side of some fridges. Drill a hole in your coils and you have a big problem - bad kegerator karma there.

The 1/8" pilot hole

Next, I used the 7/8" hole saw to drill a hole from the inside of the door towards the outside.

7/8" hole from the inside

I then drilled a 1 3/8" hole through the outside skin of the door.

1 3/8" outside hole

After that, it's just a matter of installing the tap in the door and a two-way manifold to the CO2 lines and voila...kegerator has a buddy! Side by side, every day, they will be there to keep each other (and me) happy!

Plastic manifold with hose and clamps

Beer and gas lines ready to go (notice no butter in the butter tray)

Voila! Buddies for life!

Tomorrow starts the weekend brew marathon. I'm building a Blonde on the Front Porch...

Until next time, cheers!

The New Parts Arrived!

2008-02-09T17:30:00.000-08:00

Today a box showed up at my house with my newest purchase. More parts from the Beverage Factory! Below you can see them in their newly purchased glory.

What will he do with those things, you might be asking?
Stay tuned for next week's blog...the wife is out of town again.

Until then...Cheers!

Done with the Chandelier

2008-02-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

Not much brew news to report this weekend, although I did order some more parts from the Beverage Factory when my wife wasn't looking. More on that next week. Meanwhile, I did finish rebuilding my grandmother's chandelier. Photo attached.

Until next time, Cheers!

The Beer Launcher

2008-01-23T18:14:00.000-08:00

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

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

2008-01-20T16:20:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-06T13:24:00.000-08:00

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!

Welcome & Kegerators

2007-12-31T16:39:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog, encouraged by my son-in-law who has his own blog(s), and insisted I document my brewing ramblings online for my fellow home brewers.

I have been home brewing for seven years now. I was fortunate to have learned what real beer tastes like after moving to the beer Mecca of Washington state for a short period of time. Then, my daughter bought me "The Everything Beer" book and I found out that I could make these great northwestern creations myself. I've been hooked ever since. I've been lucky enough to win several awards for my beers, including Best of Show at the 2001 Great Frederick Fair for my Belgian Wit Ale (aka Front Porch Ale). I now live in Louisiana where most folks consider Coors Light a premium beer, so my mission to educate these folks on how to enjoy real beer has been heightened. I currently brew about one batch per month. If you can't buy it, you can make it yourself!

This past weekend, the time was right to bottle a batch of Front Porch Ale but I was pressured for time to produce a fireworks show on New Year's Eve for the kids. So to save time, instead of bottling two cases of beer, I racked them both into my new kegerator and my new 3-gallon Cornie kegs for draft enjoyment by all my family and neighbors. This is my 3rd kegging; I've also done a batch of Edmund Fitzgerald Porter and a homemade IPA recipe. If you've been thinking about a kegerator of your own, I encourage you to go for it!

Below I have included a video of that kegerator that I converted myself from parts purchased at BeverageFactory.com. All you need for this project is a cheap refrigerator, the parts from BeverageFactory.com, a drill with a couple of hole-saws, and a bottle of CO2 gas (and of course your beverage of choice). It's much easier than capping 50+ bottles every time you brew a batch of beer, and it is a party magnet.

This weekend I plan to brew a batch of Alaskan Smoked Porter. Or, it might be a Bridgeport IPA. I've purchased both all-grain kits from Austin Homebrew Supply. Hopefully, there will be more news to post at that time.

Until then, cheers!