Would you brew...er ferment in one of these?

Would you ferment in this? Its a commercial grade trashcan from Rubbermaid in their Brute line. While reading some homebrew mag at the bookstore I saw that somebody suggested fermenting beer in this trashcan, a dolly made for it, a lid, grommit, airlock and some keg lubricant for the seal.

So, I looked into it and found the LDPE 4 recycle symbol on it. It is also NSF 2 rated. From what I can tell that's a good sign. It is USDA listed, whatever that means.

Well, there's a thread on HomeBrewTalk about stuff like this.

Would you ferment in it?

Ok, I'm not gonna blog...

I'm gonna go outside and do something.

:-)

Bits of hop growing news...

Hopyard
You can see for yourself in the last post that the hops in the hopyard are sprouting. While they're not six feet tall like one of my established plants, they were planted just a few weeks ago and are progressing as you might expect. We're still waiting on the Magnum to send shoots up. I can't wait to see all thirty hills growing up the trellis system.

Hops in the Office
Still didn't get that rhizome potted. Maybe I'll plant it tonight and bring it in tomorrow.

Backyard
The backyard hops are going crazy and as the most established plants they of course are the biggest. The Chinook plants are really taking hold. One of the bines is six feet tall and at least as thick as my pinky finger. I trimmed all but two of the shoots back, strung some twin and started training them. The question is what the heck will I do with them once they grow higher than the shed? At this rate that could be in a couple days.

Western Pennsylvania
Meanwhile the rhizomes at my father's place have done well. Trimming back to force growth into stronger bines.

Virgina Rhizomes
Rhizomes at my brother-in-law's place are just fine. He'll be trimming them back to force growth into some stronger bines.

Hop shoots sprouting...

This is a closeup of one of the thirty hills planted with hops. This is the product of a crown I split up into extra big rhizomes pieces. That explains all the shoots :-)

Photo courtesy of Gavin, enjoy!

No Blog

Sometimes you just get on with the day :-

Where's my coffee?

Buddy's first time...

Every now and then I'll find my way to The Sly Fox in Phoenixville, PA and participate in a beer tasting. Last night was an anniversary of sorts for some of the old timers. They've almost finally agreed that lastnight or next Monday night was indeed the sixth anniversary of Monday Night Tastings. Jack posted some pictures and more of the story. Hey, I'm even mentioned...

"All the rest of those guys were late-comers, although they will likely lie to
their grandchildren in their declining years and say differently."

Yeah, I'm one of the late comers. By the way, he's mostly right if you consider not telling your grandchildren lying.

Note: You'll find Buddy in the last picture.

All hop hills have sprouted...

Almost all of them anyway, twenty-seven out of thirty have shoots. Hoping to get a picture to share soon.

Also, my Belgian beer fermented with yeast from Iron Hill is bubbling away.

Fermentation Friday @ Northern Table tomorrow

Checkout Jakes blog Northern Table for the announcement. Start typing that post :-)

BTW have you seen a better incorporation of photos in a blog? Wow!

Two books about herbs, gardening and brewing...

After reading Ted's blog about this book I thought I would give it a shot. Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation contains tremendous detail about herbs and their health related properties. I'm just beginning to skim through the more interesting sections. Of course, being one of the more controversial herbs, Wormwood is discussed as well as some other familiar ingredients such as honey and even spruce tips. Have you ever picked up a book and thought, "This is just some homebrewer writing about x, but, their experience is too narrow?" This is not one of those books. Each ingredient is profiled in detail including health effects, historic and cultural references as well as a good dose of the authors opinion.

Planting a fairly large hop yard led to my interest in this book, The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs. Even though some reviewers said you could find most of this one the web, I find value in having it handy in a book with one voice tying it all together. I'm not so sure all of the info is on the web anyway. (dangerous thing to say eh?)

I haven't read either of them all the way through nor do I intend to. They're more like references that I go to when I'm researching a recipe or tending to the hops. By the way, I had no idea how much went into malting grain. I'm tempted to try that someday.

Virginia hops update...

Yes, those rhizomes my brother-in-law planted are doing quite nicely.

Hops in the office?

I need to find the magazine I saw this in so I can give proper credit to the person who inspired me. That's right I'm going to try to grow hops in my office.

In other news I spread my hops plant to another friends house. Good thing these things can't drive themselves. I feel a hops horror movie coming on.

See I can refrain from writing about that movie.

Bloggers, writers, historians, homebrewers...

Man even the people who didn't see it have to talk about it. Beer Wars sure did get things stirred up. For some the war is over, for others never a war, yet I think many see this as their chance to jump in the frey. I've even seen posts from people who have been mostly quiet on the web.

What do you say we all just keep bloggin', writing, researching and homebrewing. Don't tell anybody though, this craft beer and homebrewing is our own little secret. Soon we'll be paying fancy wine prices if we're not careful ;-)

April 2009 Fermentation Friday: Liquors and Homebrewing

Checkout Jakes blog Northern Table for the announcement. See you this Friday!

Cheers!

Participating in and facilitating a conversation...it's what we do.

Beer Wars love it or hate it, did cause some commotion on beer sites. Alan's blog is a good example. I've been mulling this stuff over a bit. So after the movie I kinda felt like this. "Yeah that's too bad about the beer industry. What the heck should we do about it?"

Then it occurred to me. If this documentary is to be the beginning of a conversation or perhaps a rekindling, then we represent some of the people who could heat things up a bit. That's right you and me. So lets do what we do.

Beer Bits 2 readers and fellow bloggers, what say you? Let's turn our collective attention to the issues of the beer industry. Go on, blog about it. Not just about the movie but, what we can do to spread our insight on good beer beyond our little corner of the Net?

• What is so damn important that Anat Baron decide to make a film about it?
• Are these things important to you? (You don't have to say yes by the way.)
• Should these things interest the average beer drinker and why?
• If so, what can we do to share our insights with the average beer drinker? I don't think they read my blog or yours, so how do we reach them?

By the way I'm not doing this, because I was asked to. I'm doing it because, I like to get attention on
my blog ;-) That and I believe there are problems with the way the beer industry works and who better than the consumers to bring change.

Note: I'll chime a bit later with my personal take.

Comment moderation turned on for older posts...

Looks like the comment SPAM is still a problem. I'm turning on the comment moderation for older posts. Sorry for any inconvenience this or the SPAM has caused.

Trellis poles up and thirty rhizomes planted...

I'm tired, but, its a good tired.

Beer Wars: Who won?

So before I go reading BA or other blogs, here's my impression. No plot spoilers or technical critiques here...heheh.

Yeah, saw it in King of Prussia, PA. A couple of friends and familiar faces showed up. We hit Rock Bottom Brewery for some grub and a couple beers. The IPA was actually interesting. Nice.

Just finished a pint of homebrewed pale ale we kegged last night and ready to pull one more from the tap. I'm stalling. Ok, I would have to say it was confusing. I mean I enjoyed parts of it, but, not the whole experience. The film was a mixed bag, something I'd expect to see on the History Channel or Discovery Channel. The panel at the end was uncomfortable sometimes. Is that a good thing? Could be. Kinda shows its real. Can I sum it up in one sentence.

How would you react to a show that preaches to the choir in a new/different quasi-live format when you expect to eat popcorn and be entertained?

• Did I laugh? Yeah.
• Did I cry? No.
• Was it interesting? At times.

The one thing I'd have to say is that it wasn't overly polished. I tend to like those kinda things. What has changed? Not much for me I guess, but, then again I'm in the choir.

Edit: I think there were maybe 50-100 people in the theater. Didn't count.

Brewed a big beer last night...

Many years ago I brewed a Barleywine. At the time I didn't really know much about brewing such a big beer so I asked somebody from a local homebrew shop how to make one. I still have a few bottles left and I enjoy it immensely, probably more than anybody else and probably, because I made it. Its only many years later that I can form a more objective opinion.

A few things stand out as lessons learned and perhaps a change in tastes. So, this first attempt was an extreme American style barleywine with a ton of hops. I realize now that more is not necessarily better and balance is important. Also, I used champagne yeast in the secondary to dry it out. I wasn't really aware of what I was doing. I was just following directions. In the end it turned out a bit too dry and exposed lots of hot alcohol. Don't light a match around this stuff ;-) As it sits in the bottle over the years, it seems to be mellowing a bit. Time will probably change this a bit more before its all gone.

This time I'll let the pedulum swing all the way back to something with less hops and no champagne yeast in the secondary. Is it a barleywine? I don't know. Its more like the closest I could get to something like a barleywine with the ingredients I have.

• 12 lbs pale liquid malt extract
• Briess caramel 10L
• Belgian Caravienne
• Belgian Caramunich
• Belgian Special B (tiny bit)
• Northdown Hops
• Safale 33 (yeast cake from my recent English Pale Ale brew)

With all that Belgian specialty malt it might be a quad or something. So I feel like I know more than I did during that first run at a big beer. Hey, I made this recipe myself and didn't make the same mistakes as before. Maybe different ones this time.

Had to turn on word verification in comments...

For the longest time I didn't really get blog SPAM, but, over the last few days it seems they've found me. I apologize to any of you who received comment SPAM. Hopefully the comment verification will take care of it.

BEER WARS...BEER WARS...GET YER BEER WARS HERE!

The blogosphere is buzzin' with noise about this Beer Wars movie. Some people are expressing their opinions about this here flick. Damn, I love it when that happens. If anybody cares, I think I'll be there. I can't wait to see who shows up from the local beer crowd. It is afterall an event where no beer is being served.

I have to tell you something though. Kinda embarrassing actually. I've been known to attend first showings before. Nothing like camping out all night or taking off work for such a thing, but, I've been to midnight showings. I usually try to buy tickets online ahead of time. Costs a couple bucks more, but, reserves my seat for that potentially sold out show. Here's the funny part.

So I'm all cool in my head thinking, "Yeah, I don't really care that much about this thing." Alan and Mike really got me thinking it might be kinda pointless. Well, after a little reflection I realized something. Just yesterday I was so interested, that I actually thought it might be sold out and rushed to buy tickets online. I think I'll take my chances and buy them at the door.

I wonder if this post qualifies me for a free ticket? I guess I didn't post the press release like New Century Brewing asked, but, I did what I do with such things. Chandra are you listening?

Edit:

BTW Did you see that list of sites they compiled?

• Beer Related Sites
• Blogs

It's almost as big as Jay's :-) (scroll down on his site to get the full effect)

Checked on the backyard hops...

The backyard hops, not the hop yard hops, are going crazy. Some shoots are over a foot long already. I cut all the shoots off to force more growth into a couple bigger shoots. The first year is hard for people to do this, but, it does help and I don't feel overly attached to those first shoots anymore ;-) Here are some words you should be familiar with if you're going to grow hops. I'm in the middle of doing my taxes so I won't post links or definitions. If you would like to, I'd be ever so appreciative.

• rhizome
• crown
• bines
• shoots
• twine
• trellis
• hill
• side arms
• hop burr
• hop flower
• female plant
• male plant
• high yield
• bittering vs. flavor/aroma hops
  

That's all I can remember right now. Back to my taxes.

Thirty rhizomes to be planted in hop yard...

Between the Cascade rhizomes from my plants and the various others that just came in the mail I should have about thirty to plant. Does that sound cool or what? Need to plan the final steps. Poles are up. Perhaps cemented while I was away, I hope. Now it's a matter of creating the hills for each rhizome and planting. Easy to say huh? I'll keep you posted.

• Cascade (15+)
• Chinook (3)
• Brewers Gold (3)
• Magnum (2)
• Mt. Hood (3)
• Nugget (3)

:-)

Spreading hops to Virginia :-)

Here's the proof. Pics of the rhizomes I shared with my brother-in-law. Already sprouting.

Pics of New Hop Yard

The 18 foot poles are up :-) Braces will go away after holes are filled in.

HOP YARD

A good friend offered to grow some hops at his place. New rhizomes ordered, cascade rhizomes cut from the back yard, trellis is being put in place. After that, some planting. Lots of planting. If everything goes as planned we'll have thirty rhizomes planted this year with room for more in the future. I keep thinking about how we might harvest all these hops. It is pretty time consuming afterall.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself here. They aren't even planted yet :-)

Of rain, vessels and growing hops...

hop sprouts push up
through the soil
friends prepare sizable stainless steel brew kettles
for me

larger burner
soft warm rain falls
new hop yard plans
fleshed out

:-)