Fresh yeast is not going to waste here...

I had to do it. I couldn't resist. I made a dark beer with the yeast from the 1620 Deux batch. Fuggles & Cascade for aroma and bittering. Roasted malt and chocolate malt for steeping. I think this will be the end of the road for the English Ale yeast. This is the fourth fermentation. Well, maybe just one more after this.

So what is it called? Who knows? Yule Porter?

Cheers!

Two batches of 1620 Deux English Style Ale (force carbonation vs. cask conditioning)

I modified the 1620 recipe by substituting some cascade for the east kent goldings. Hey, it is all I had. (shrug) Now I have two batches of 1620 deux. One has been kegged and force carbonated. We'll probably tap that soon. The other has been dry hopped with cascade, primed with a little less than a half cup of corn sugar and stored in the basement. I should be able to drink it in a few weeks. Should be interesting to see what the difference will be.

I wonder if I'll need to use finings on either? Gelatin perhaps?

Cheers!

Via Bryan @ The Brew Lounge - Joe Sixpack | Norway | Winter Solstice

Bryan over at The Brew Lounge passed this along. Thanks Bryan!

Joe Sixpack ran a great story today about Hans Magne Olsen of Norway, the Winter Solstice tradition of brewing juløl and coping with the 24 hours of darkness.

Here in the Northern hemisphere Winter Solstice is upon us. Gradually the sun will rise higher in the sky and spring will return. Until then dream about tasting some juløl to keep you warm on these long winter nights.

Skål!

Winter Solstice is around the corner!

Around this time of year people all over the world celebrate. Dozens or more traditions are recognized this time of year for one reason or another. Here's to some of the longest darkest days/nights of the year. May you spend it in good company :-)

Cheers!

A really real beer blog post!

Ok, so I promised to stay on my tangent about homebrew beer blogging. Now I will commence with the introspective stream of conscience. Hold on to your mouse!






What am I doing here in the brewing blogosphere?

Making homebrewing more accessible? Expressing myself? Virtually and sometimes physically meeting new people? Bringing together some good home brew bloggers? Attempting to justify my hobby by writing interesting little notes about it on the Web? Keeping track of some of my experiences in brewing so I can reflect on them? Trying to improve my brewing? Drinking beer?

Yep, that is what I'm doin' here? What are you doin' here in the beer blogosphere?

later

A real beer blog post.

Blogs sometimes stray from a topic either intentionally or unintentionally. I'm feeling a bit reflective today so get ready for a tangent. Skip to the bottom of the post if you want to hear about beer.

What am I doing with this site? What the heck kinda site is this anyway? Well it is a blog. What's that? Here is the current entry from Wikipedia...

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) and are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.

Well "blog" may well be the more accepted portmanteau (new word for me) of web log, but, I think Grove's Beer Log site name suggests alternate roots for this portmanteau, "beer log" or perhaps "brew log". Fits this corner of the blogosphere much better don't you think? (Or is that beerosphere?)

Whew! Still not done with the larger tangent here. In the next post I'll write a bit more about what I'm doing on this site or I'll at least make it up as I go along ;-)

BEER RELATED CONTENT!
Oh yeah...the two carboys of 1620 Just in Time Ale are still waiting to be kegged. Actually these were a bit different, but, still based on that recipe. Perhaps we'll call it 1620 Second Time Around ale.

Prost!

Jeremy's Homebrew Batch 001

I've been preoccupied with some other things lately. Not much time for blogging I guess. What is a man to do?

Have a homebrew of course. Jeremy gave me a couple bottles when we visited the other day. I think this is a kit brew from Best Brew called a Dortmunder Style brew. When Jeremy first brewed it I thought. Not too bad for a first brew. I have to say that the bottle conditioning really helped this out. I'm enjoying the heck out of this one right now! Thanks Jeremy.

Anyway, how does it taste? Fruity esters in the nose. There's some hops in the nose too. Kinda grapefruity in a way. The taste is pretty much the same. Enough hops to be prominent and enough malt to balance out the hops. This isn't a sweet beer, but, definately full bodied. I could drink many of these.

Prost!

Brew Dad just moved up.

Brew Dad
Ok, so I'm not sure how I manage to miss Brewdad on my clickabout and movin' up posts. {shrug} Let it be known it wasn't on purpose. Brewdad is just the kinda site I like. He shares his experience and tries to help new home brewers get started. He's not too cool for us. Thanks Brewdad for a great blog!

Prost!

A clickabout, what's happening at my favorite homebrew blogs.

I really do enjoy the nooks of cyberspace I visit for homebrewing inspiration. Here's my take on them and what's happening at each:

Ted's Homebrew Journal
Something to look forward to in January. Ted and his brother are brewing some herbal beer. For healing or as an alternative to hops? Either way its the kinda things that homebrewers are in a unique position to experiment with. While we are waiting you can read a flyer posted today about the up and coming Half Acre Brewing's draught release party. Always interested to see the substantial posts coming from this blog.

CNYBrew.com
Travis over at CNYbrew has been wrangling a big yeti clone and getting creamed by a voracious yeast/beast. All this after wrenching on a second beer fridge/kegerator. ;-)

Foureyed (Beer) Geek
Eli is back in the saddle after a long hiatus. He's been traveling across the state to Philly and enjoying his spoils from The Sly Fox. He's home brewing too! I'm not sure if the trip inspired him to brew or the brew inspired the trip, but, I'm happy to see him writing again. Today he's asking for some help pairing a beer with venison. Drop over and help him out if you can.

Grove's Beer Log
Grove, The Norwegian ;-), gives us some good quality posts every now and then about brewing
equipment, his brews and their recipes. I want this guy's setup!

Michigan Beer Buzz
Sarah, Kevin and Rob at Michigan Beer Buzz wax nostalgic about The Beer Store and ponder the hops shortage. They seem to be new to the blogging world and according the them their blog will be "the best blog ever". I wonder if they've seen Beer Bits 2!? New straight up regional beer blog in Michigan.

Nate's Beer & Brewing Blog
Nate seems to be splitting time being a homebrewer, club organizer, blogger and plain old evangelist for good beer in Western PA. Hey Nate thanks for turning me on to Voodoo. Just bought some for some friends as a gift.

Rooftop Brew
Scott and Andy over at Rooftop Brew have been at this blogging thing for five years! I really need to check out their tutorials, recipes and tools. I'm so used to reading the blog I overlooked them.

Chibebräu: the Chibes' online homebrew log
Russ and Leah run the blog over at Chibebräu. Russ is blogging about a trip to Germany. To be honest I haven't read all of his posts, but, I'm gonna. I think I'm afraid I'll wanna go to Germany. I'm so jealous!

The Daily Ikura
Brian over at The Daily Ikura posts every now and then about his all grain homebrewing adventures. Recipes, equipment and unabashed home brew stories documented for all the world to see.

Monday Night Brewing
Today they are the masters of gravity. What can I say? Week after week they have something to say about the long road to their dream of commercial brewing, the motley crew that surrounds them (ok, so I don't know if they really are motley) or interviews with breweries.

Mornin' governor!

I guess those two English Style Ales are just about done with their primary fermentation. Time to rack those into the kegs. One will bel force carbonated and the other will be dry hopped & cask conditioned. I guess I'll add some of my home grown whole leaf hops for dry hopping and some fermentables to naturally carbonate it. Then there is the whole finings thing...hmmm. Hey I don't know what I'm doing. Do you?

Off to see what those other beer blogging blokes are up to. I'll let you know what I find during my walkabout...er clickabout. {shrug}

Cheers!

Kegging & Cask Resources

The following is a list of links to kegging resources on the internet. I'll continually add to this list as I find more resources. If you know of others please post a comment here with a link. If you are interested to see what other resource pages I have created click on the "resource posts" label link at the bottom of this post or over there in the sidebar.

Check your local homebrew store for supplies. You can also find equipment on Amazon...

Amazon: Kegerator Equipment

Alternative Brewing's Kegging Page (Cornelius Kegs)
http://www.ebrew.com/primarynews/intro_keg_system.htm

Brew Your Own's reader's question on cask conditioning your homebrew
http://byo.com/mrwizard/383.html

Cheers!

Wasted beer and new beginnings...

I got the call last week while I was at work.

Umm...we had a little accident. Somehow somebody moved the recycling bucket in the garage. In the process the thingy on your beer opened up and beer was all over the garage floor. I stopped it, but, I don't know how much is left.

GAAAA! Yeah, this was not good news. I checked it out when I got home. About a gallon or so of the the Old English Pumpkin Ale (OEPA) was gone. Not to mention a wonderful brewery smell permeated the garage. Oh well, it was my fault for leaving it out where things like that can happen. Won't do that anymore. You know this may have been one of the best beers I've brewed in a long time too :-(

No sense crying over spilt beer ;-) Good thing I got two more batches of English Style Ale going last Thursday using the yeast cake from the OEPA. These were based on the 1620 Just in Time Ale with home grown whole Cascade hops instead of East Kent Goldings pellets. This time I made one big high gravity seven gallon wort and split it between two carboys. Then I topped it off to approx. five gallons. Seemed to work out pretty well. One was a bit lower gravity than the other, but, who cares.

I think I'll dry hop one and leave the other. Who knows, maybe I'll try to "cask condition" some. Whatever that means to a homebrewer. Gravity pour from a cornie keg? Hmmm...any ideas out there in the beer blogoshpere?

Law: Is homebrewing beer legal?

Well that depends on where you do it.

The current U.S. federal limit on homebrewing beer is 100 gal. (20 x 5 gal. batches) for a single adult, or 200 gal. (40 x 5 gal. batches) for a household with two or more adults. More info here at the American Homebrewer's Association (AHA)...

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/government-affairs/statutes

Beyond that the State governs homebrew as well. If you're interested in laws in your state that govern homebrewing, look no further. Again the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) has a great resouce where we can look up the laws for each state here...

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/government-affairs/statutes

The sites above should have all the legal info you need. If you are looking for books about home brewing...

Amazon: Home Brewing

Cheers!

Not beer related. Pictures from the woods.

Here you go! I'll keep it in the right column for a while too.

Prost!

It is time. I'm movin' some sites to the top.

I've been adding to the "New Links I'm Checkin' Out" for months. I'm getting tired of pulling the interesting ones out when I make my rounds. I decided to move them to my "Favorite Home Brewing Links" list to make it easier.

These are the links I've enjoyed reading or waiting to read day after day and week after week. I think their candid tone and informative posts are what really draw me in. I want to hear about home brewers' successes and their failures. In no particular order here are the sites I've moved up...

Foureyed (Beer) Geek
http://thefoureyedbeergeek.blogspot.com/

Michigan Beer Buzz
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/beer/

The Daily Ikura
http://breuni.blogspot.com/

Chibebräu: the Chibes' online homebrew log
http://chibebrau.blogspot.com/

grove's beer log
http://blog.geirove.org/

Rooftop Brew
http://www.rooftopbrew.net/

The Drunken Polack
http://www.drunkenpolack.com/

Prost!

Pumpkin English Old Ale: Tasting & Gravity

So what happens when you're racking a beer from the primary and you see a nice fresh yeast cake sitting there? If you're like me you think, "I could really take advantage of that fresh yeast." So I did. I threw together a high gravity pumpkin ale using the WLP002 English Ale Yeast I used for the 1620. How did it turn out? Here is my second set of tasting notes.

• Very clear after about 12 days in the primary
• Orange Amber
• my nose still isn't quite up to par :-(
• smells of musky (is that bad?) pumpkin & spice with grain
  
• Real Pumpkin', spice with some slight alcohol notes
• not sure if there is enough malt
  
• A bit of a spice dry nutty finish, but, not off putting
• like cracking a nut and eating it fresh from the shell

I was shooting for subtle and I think I found it. Nothing really stands out as a problem. I'll be interested to see what this is like after I keg, chill and carbonate it. The specific gravity is 1.018 at this point. The abv should be around 7.0%.

Cheers!

No luck deer hunting, but...

As you can tell I got some great pictures, but, alas no buck :-( Oh well maybe next year. I did get four more soda kegs for kegging and a 16 gal keg that I can use for a keggle! The Pumpkin Old Ale is just about done fermenting in the primary. Hmmmm...what's next? I think I'll brew another batch of 1620 or another English style ale since I have the yeast ready to go.

Cheers!

Pumpkin English Old Ale Progress

I took a specific gravity reading today. It seems to be doing just fine at 1.020. I imagine the final gravity will fall a bit more. How does it taste and smell? Alcohol notes in the nose. Very malty with very very faint spices. The yeast is still in suspension so that gets in the way a bit. I'm still looking for the pumpkin taste and smell. (still can't smell and taste things that well even though my cold is gone) Maybe I'll find it when the beer clears or maybe it just wasn't enough to overcome the malt and the alcohol. We'll see! Overall I do like it and I think it will turn out just fine. I'm not going to add more spice at this point. I think I like the understated hints of spice.

The fermentation seems to be slowing down. The air lock is blurping about once a minute or so. I think I'll transfer it into the secondary soon. Since I'm using a keg as the secondary I'm not too worried about getting it done right away. When using carboys the transfer to the secondary is done while there is still some fermentation activity going on in the primary. This allows the fermenting beer to produce a protective blanket of CO2 in the secondary. This CO2 protects the beer from oxidation. My theory is that I don't have to worry about oxidation since I'll fill the headspace of the keg with CO2. The only other thing to consider is off tastes produced by autolysis of yeast cells. From what I can tell that isn't a huge concern in the short term.

Cheers!