Fermentation Friday...can I time travel...

No time to write this one. I'll still try getting this done this evening.

September's Fermentation Friday...how it all started...

Weather is too good to write. I'm late, but, I'm gonna write this.

Get your posts in! Its Fermentation Friday ya know.

Go over to Brewing the Perfect Beer to submit your link. I think everybody can participate in this one. Its craft beer related :-)

Catch you in the round up.

Shirron & Perlick installed :-)

Whoa! I'm sitting here again, and its early.

Yeah, so let me catch you up.

• I'm one step closer to my first all grain batch. I have the equipment, the ingredients, a good book or two and some great advice from you. Now I just need the time.
• Stopped at Keystone Homebrew to pickup the sparge arm and came away with lots of goodies including a faucet for my kegerator, some heather flowers, wormwood and placed an order for some elderberries.
• Artisan homebrew is still planning to open in Downingtown in early October.
• One of my kegs leaked CO2 and depleated the system and the bottle.
• Hops still aren't picked in my backyard.
• Oh right, I need to hold the drawing for the hop give away. I'm tellin' ya the kid is hard to track down this week. We'll get it done though.

Free Hops Drawing...the final list...

First, I just bought the ingredients for a nice all grain pale ale :-) I must be getting close. Any weekend now. Back to the contest...

It is official. The contest is closed! Here's the list of sixteen contestants who entered by leaving a comment over the last couple weeks. Thank you for all your advice and well wishing. Remember this is for 10 oz. of my homegrown Cascade hops. That ought to be enough to experiment with :-)

• Jason
• Russ
• evilchurch_doc
• Schuyler
• Charlie
• Bard's Basement Brew
• Travis
• Dell (Do you even use Cascade Mr. Sourhead? ;-)
• Planet M
• Craig Gardener
• Scott Schluter
• Bytemyfoot
• MacAttack Brewing
• Bill in Lincoln Nebraska
• Kevin Lavoy
• Keith

Good luck. I'll conduct the drawing soon. First, I need to book my expert hops picker as he'll be doing the drawing. Also, if I missed your name, let me know.

September Fermentation Friday Announced @ Brewing the Perfect Beer

Jason takes a calculated risk suspecting that a few of us are craft beer drinkers. I think he done good with this one.

Leave comment, get chance to win hops...

Still giving 10 oz. of 2009 homegrown Cascade hops away to some lucky commenter.

Just leave a comment. If you have all grain brewing tips, I'd really appreciate hearing what you have to say. If not, you can still be entered to win the hops.

Win 10 oz my homegrown hops here!

Just leave a comment about homebrew and you'll be entered to win. If you have advice about how to make an all grain brewing day go well, I'd appreciate it.

10 oz Homegrown Whole Leaf Cascade Hops
Grown in Eastern Pennsylvania
Packaged in vacuum sealed 1 oz packs.
Original rhizomes from Northern Brewer
Unknown Alpha Acid; use them for flavoring, finishing and dry hopping

I've already brewed a harvest ale with them and I'm really enjoying it. I'm actually serving it at a family reunion coming up. This is your chance to brew with whole leaf hops grown this year with no pesticides. Kinda like you grew your own hops, but, didn't have to plant them.

Why am I doing this? For fun really.

Artisan Homebrew in Downingtown...

Artisan Homebrewing
128 E. Lancaster Ave.
Downingtown, Pa.






Sometime in October I'll be putting together a recipe and I'll need something. Now I know where I can get it. This will be the closest homebrew shop to me since Brew By You close many years ago. Mike Hamara's gonna spoil me by being so close. Sounds like a full website is coming soon. Mike says he'll open in early October.

All Grain Brew - Open Discussion & A chance to win 10 oz of Homegrown Hops

Ha! I'm here again. Couldn't get my butt out of bed quite as early today, though. These cool fall like nights make it so hard to leave the bedding and get moving.

With the beer carbonating in my spare fridge and my mind set on brewing all grain, I'll ask for your help now. Sure I could figure it out on my own. I have plenty of books on all grain brewing, but, I want your help. Anybody want to give me a stream of conscious run down of how my first all grain brew day could be successful? How about the most important thing you've learned? Any help would be appreciated.

The facts...

• sabco mash tun (15.5 gal conv keg) with false bottom
  
• similar style hot liquor tank and brew kettle
• should I insulate my mash tun or direct fire it?
• what should I expect my schedule to be like?
• 5 or 10 gallon batch the first time?
• rice hulls?
• flaked wheat?
• batch sparge or wait for the fly sparge arm
  

I'm counting on you now. All who comment will get a chance to win TEN ounces of homegrown whole leaf cascade hops. I'll pick the winner from a hat at random with the help of my expert hop picker.

Don't know all grain? No worries, leave a comment anyway to be entered into the drawing. Lets make this my most commented post :-)

What do you know, I'm sitting here again.

Coffee, breakfast, music and just enough time to blog about something two days in a row. Don't fall of your chair. One of my children actually said, "Daddy why are so weird today?" I believe she was talking about seeing me awake and acting silly (read silly and coherent), before she left for school. I don't know, but, I like it. Let's see how long it lasts.

Kegged the harvest IPA last night. Turned out to be more of a pale ale actually. This will definately be a session beer at 3.5% abv. I forgot that I wasn't boiling for a the full hour and using late malt additions. Which will serve as my excuse for adding too much water, way too much actually. Anyway, I used the home grown hops right at the end of the boil. I'll be interested to see how they affect the aroma once I get the beer carbonated and I lose the after effects of this cold. Maybe then I will be able to smell the beer a bit better.

What's up next on the brewing agenda? Could it be an all grain brewing session? Hell, I can't even get the water volume for an extract beer right! Not to worry, I'll figure something out. Not this weekend though. Family reunions are coming up. The next weekend might work. Time to look forward to sharing this homebrew with family and friends.

See you here tomorrow at the same time? We'll see.

Mobile phones and blogs don't mix and site updates...

Not sure if you noticed, but, I've been a bit absent around here. A couple reasons come to mind, but, one little sneaky one is this new mobile phone that lets me twitter, facebook, check email and well get distracted, however, its not really conducive to blogging. So here I am catching up and trying to mend my ways before my phone calls me.

• Future Fermentation Fridays are filling up. Still need more hosts though :-)
• Jason @ Brewing the Perfect Beer is our host for September
• The schedule is updated too.
• I even responded to a few comments.

Who knows, with the kids going back to school I might be getting up earlier and find myself sitting here like this more often. (cup 'o coffee, music and just enough time) Hey, stranger things have happened. Catch you on Twitter.

Twitter: BeerBits2