A watched pot never boils.....

...but if you turn your back it will always boil over!!

I brewed my American IPA yesterday out in the fridgid cold, and stepped inside to warm up a bit and had a boil over. It was so cold that the bolied over wort froze as soon as it hit the ground. Other than that, it was a succesful day.

I've been very lucky these past few months. Things at work were slow.....very slow. So slow that I had a lot of time on my hinds. Time to do things like plan out 6 brew sessions....Belgian Tripel (3 seperate batches), Munich Dunkel, Winter Spiced Ale 2009 and recently American IPA. I also had the time to look for a new job....which I accepted a few weeks ago and start on January 4th! :-) While this new job won't give me access to great homebrew shops like my old one did, it will put me right next to my favorite beer bar in Boston (Bukowski's) and give me a 45 minute shorter commute.....each way!!!

Anyway...enough rambling. My Winter Spiced Ale turned out ok, but had no carbination. So in order to fix this issue, I sanatized a keg, and dumped them all into the keg and I'm in the process of force carbinating it. My sister-in-law helped me make an AWESOME label (which I'll post when I can get it off my thumb drive which I don't have now) and I think everythin will be saved, just not in time for Christmas. Oh well.

I brought my Munich Dunkel today to a meeting I had at Cape Cod Beer. I was lucky enough ot have the opportunity to meet with Todd and Beth Marcus, Owners of Cape Cod beer, for some insight into the business and starting out as a brewer! It was awesome. And, in edition, he tried my Munich Dunkel and had some good feed back. They're going to serve a few of them at his next homebrew meeting and send me some additional feedback as well. SWEET!!!!!!

Other than that, my wife and I are getting ready to welcome our first child in March. I'm trying to get a few more brew sessions in before then, for two reasons. One, so I'll have enough home brew to last me through the summer, and two because I don't want to assume I'll have enough time to brew much at first.

I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year!!

Cheers,
Jason

Odds and Ends

Boy, do I need to brew some beer!!!! My last batch was back in September. I brewed my Winter Spiced ale for this year. I'm changing it up. For starters, I brew it will all grain. Second, I'm not going to dry spice it this year with cinnamon sticks. I thought the cinnamon in last years batch was very overpowering and I really want to make sure the beer is what stands out, not the cinnamon. I still have 4 bottles from last years batch, so I'll do a side-by-side when this years batch is bottled and ready!

A little off topic, but a cause of why I have not been brewing, I just renovated my bathroom! This was a full renovstion, down to the studs and I did the vast majority my self, with the exception of the plumbing and electrical work. It is almost 100% complete which will be nice. We have a 110 year old home, so when you do these types of projects, there are always issues. We had many....which caused all the delays. I was planning on being done this past sunday, and then I was going to have 2 brew sessions this week after work, but this delays/issues keep piling up!! So, I'll brew soon enough!

Next up is 2 batches of Belgian Tripel. It was a big hit, so I'm going to brew a lot of it and trade it with some friends for some random things. This should be fun! I also think I'm going to brew up my brown session ale. I've been really craving some session beers lately, but all I have are the belgian tripels and some bigger IPA's. This isn't neccesarily an issue, but when you swill 4-5 of them you definitely feel it in the morning, which IS an issue!!

With the renovation of the bathroom, we rented a dunpster for all the demo. This allowed us to clean out the basement, which was long overdue. It was clutered with things we bought or collected over the years and have no use for. With this new found space, I'm going to try and carve out a space so I can brew down there in the winter. I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not to brew with a propane burner indoors, but I think if I do it by the door and have the door open, I'll have the proper ventilation I need to make everything ok. Besides, I've seen plenty of people in BYO or Zymurgy who have propane setups in their basements and it seems to be fine. We shall see!

Cheers,
Jason

Belgian Tripel

Things have been a little busy which has forced a lack of posting on my end. But there are some good things to talk about, so onwards!

I brewed a Belgian Tripel back in July from an Allagash clone recipe I got from BYO. It's been bottled for a while now, and I'm almost all the way through the batch. The company I work for is based in France and we have a lot of ex-pat's from France here in the US that I work with. Some of them are big beer fans. I decided to bring some in and gave them each a few bottles from the batch. other co-workers saw this and wanted some as well. Needless to say, I gave most of this batch away. But, all is not lost. They LOVED it!!! And they now want me to brew whole batches for them. Of course, I can't accept any payment or profit from this, as that would be illegal, but the beer is going to be brewed again next weekend in hopes to get it to them after Thanksgiving!

I was really happy with how the beer came out. I had a wonderful frothy white head, a nice tan color and powerful aroma. Some hints of alcohol were present in the aroma, and packed a powerful punch when sipping. I am no doubt going to continue to brew this. My next task it to tweak the recipe a little so I can call it my own. Now that I have a strong base recipe, it will be fun to figure out how to make this beer a little different without making it worse!!

Also, the final design for the label was done. Thanks to my sister-in-law for helping out with this. I've printed them on Avery address label paper, which makes it really easy to stick it to the bottle.

Cheers,

Jason

Label Help!

I'm bottling my Belgian Tripel tonight (Allagash Clone) and I need your help. I have two labels I made but I can't decide which label to use so I turn to you, my readers! Which do you like better? The bottle caps, or the Roman numerals? Leave a comment and make a choice on the poll to your left!!!

Cheers,

Jason

Allagash Tripel Clone recipe

Although I only got 7 of you to vote, it looks like the Allagash Tripel clone is the winner. I'll be brewing this on Sunday so I'll post a full report on Monday with stats and how the brew day went. For those of you who want the recipe, it is below. It is in the July-August 2008 issue of Brew Your Own Magazine along with recipes for Ommegang Witte Clone, Lost Abbey Devotion Ale Clone, Two Brothers Domaine DuPage Clone and Red Rock Brewing Pecome Blonde Clone. This is a great magazine that always has great recipes and articles about technique and ingredients. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for some home brewing magazines to read/subscribe to.

Allagash Tripel Clone:

Fermentables:
12.8 lbs (5.8 kg) Pilsner malt
1.6 lbs (.73 kg) sucrose

Hops:
2 oz (57 g) German Tettnang hops (4% AA, 60 minutes)
.4 oz (11 g) Hallertau Mittelfruh hops (whirlpool)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1762 (Belgian Abbey Ale II) or Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity) or White Labs WLP510 (Belgian Bastogne Ale)

Instructions:
Mash at 153 F (67 C). Boil for 90 minutes. Add sugar for final 15 minutes. Add whirlpool hops at end of boil. Ferment at high end of yeast strain's recommended range.


Cheers,
Jason

What to brew next?

For the past 4 months I've been training very hard in order to complete in my first half-ironman triathlon. For those not familiar with triathlons, the race consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run. The weekend is finally upon me, and on Sunday I will be swimming, biking and running my way to the finish line in under 5 hours and 30 minutes....I hope!! I'm really excited that the race is finally here. I get to see all that training that I did put to good use. The weather outlook looks great for race day, so I'm looking forward to a great day!!

Another reason I'm excited about the race being here is that all that time I spent training......can now be spent brewing!!! I haven't brewed since early May and I am in desperate need of a brew session. But, I'm having a small problem. I don't know what I should brew. Part of me is thinking I should brew the batch I brewed for the wedding, and try to incorporate some of the suggestions I had into the beer and attempt to perfect it. But the creative side of me wants to try something new. These past few months, I've been indulging in some Belgian beers. Mostly from Allagash and Ommegang, but I've made a list of some of the beers I'm going to try and track down from some of the trappist breweries in Belgium and try those. I've given up drinking for the past two weeks (which was not easy) so after Sunday, I'm going to get back on the wagon with an Allagash Curieux and either a Brooklyn Local 1 or Local 2. (The decision between Local 1 and Local 2 will be made by who wins the race....me, or my friend Shaun who is also competing).

Which brings me to the reason for this post. I can't decide what to brew....so I'm leaving it up to you, my readers. I'll post a poll for this and you can vote over on the left side. Brew day is going to be Sunday, July 26th and it can't come soon enough!! If you have a suggestion that isn't in the poll, leave a comment and I'll consider it!!

Cheers,
Jason

Wedding Brew and Benmarl Winery

This weekend was the weekend where I served my Newest American Pale Ale, aka CrystALE recipe, at my friend's Kate and Shaun's wedding which was at the beautiful Benmarl Winery in Marlboro, NY. The weekend was awesome. We spent a lot of time at the winery, setting up for the wedding, the rehearsal and then for the actual ceremony and reception. We didn't get an official tour, but I took it upon myself to nose around a bit and check it out. The wine cellar was my favorite. There were stacks of full barrels, a "Vintage" room filled with bottles from the 50's and 60's and then through the barrels there was the fermentors, bottling line and label station. I could begin to see the start of my brewery with all the fermentation equipment and barrels around. I was in heaven.

My biggest excitement came on the actual wedding day. I had brewed 4 cases of my beer for the reception. All 4 cases were gone by the end of the cocktail hour (actually more like an hour 40). I was extremely happy, and slightly bummed I didn't make more. All night I had people approaching me telling how awesome my beer was. My sister-in-law, who is a graphic designer, helped to make the labels which were also a huge hit. We didn't' start making the labels until Wednesday and they had to be done on Thursday, so needless to say it was rushed......which would be why I missed spelled "bottled". Oh well, It was a gratifying experience nonetheless. One of the guests was actually a brewery at the Barrington Brewery & Restaurant in Great Barrington, MA. I spoke with him for a while about the beer, brewing as a profession and other things and the one thing I remember fondly was the constructive criticism he gave. He was very impressed with the beer and though it was a very marketable beer. He also though there was a hint of an off flavor in the finish of the beer, but couldn't detect what it was exactly. I had hoped I could have had more so I could have reviewed it again myself, but I guess I could have worse problems.

Cheers,

Jason

Wedding Brew Weekend

As I've mentioned in previous posts (see Witbier and Two Brew Weekend) I was asked to brew some beer for my friends wedding. With the final beer being chosen in early April, I set out this weekend to brew it up for the big day......twice. Early in the week I decided to make two batches. I thought that for an entire wedding reception, 2.5 cases just wasn't going to cut it (now that I said that, I bet there will be a ton left over).

The first batch went off without a hitch. The mash settled perfectly at 152 and stayed there for the entire 60 minutes. I had a small boil over at the beginning mostly because I was paying more attention to drinking some of the last batch and watching the Red Sox. Post boil, I ended up with 6 gallons, which is what I planned. Chilled, racked and pitched. Batch one down!

The second batch went off.....but not so much without a hitch. To set the stage, it was close to 90f in Natick on Saturday, I had gone for a 7 mile run about 2 hours prior to starting the first batch, had one bowl of oatmeal to eat all day, and about 6 homebrews by the time I started batch two. Needless to say, it had it's effects on me. I didn't realize my mistake until the boil, but it turns out I used an extra gallon of water in the mash. DOH!!!! (sorry Chappy, the beer will be fine, I promise)

Sunday, after I had sobered up, I went through my notes and realized where I went wrong. In an attempt to be more efficient, I started batch 2 while batch 1 was still chilling prior to pitching the yeast, so I didn't have the availability of my Blichman boilermaker with the volume sight gauge on the side. Instead, I went back in time to my "pre-boilermaker" days and used a wooden spoon I had notched out at the gallon marks. Apparently I mistook the 5g mark for the 4g mark. Other than that slight mix up, the batch come out well. It's a little lighter in color but it's fermenting away.

Both batches have a very nice krausen on them and are vigorously fermenting away right now. I'm a little concerned that because of the ambient temp in the room, that I might get some bad esters in the beer, so I might move them to the basement. But then basement is on the cooler side of the temp spectrum. Probably in the high 50's. I did give myself a few extra weeks, so if the fermentation slows, I think I'll be ok. Recipe is below.

So here's my questions.....do you think I should blend the two batches prior to bottling to essentially make them one large batch? If you could let me know your thoughts and experiences with blending, that would be great!

Cheers,
Jason

CrystALE

OG - 1.050
Batch Size - 6 g

Fermentables:
8 lbs Two-Row
1.5 lbs Crystal 15L
1.5 lbs Crystal 40L
1 lbs Munich .25 lbs Brown Malt
.5 lbs Flaked Barley

Hops:
.5 oz Columbus (13% AA, 6.5 AAU, FWH)
.5 oz Magnum (14.5% AA, 7.3 AAU, 30 min)
.25 oz Columbus (13% AA, 3.3 AAU, 30 min)
.5 oz Glacier (5.5% AA, 2.8 AAU, 15 min)
.25 Columbus (13% AA, 3.3 AAU, 10 min)
.5 oz Glacier (5.5% AA, 2.8 AAU, DH)

Yeast: Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Two Brew Weekend

This weekend was one of the first weekends I've had this year where my wife and I didn't have to travel anywhere, or have any plans to do anything, so I took full advantage of it and was able to brew two batches of beer. The first batch was an attempt at making a clone of Sixpoint Craft Ale's Sweet Action. I used a lot of crystal malt to try and pull out the sweetness, and decent amount of high alpha hops to try and balance it out. The second batch was brewed at my neighbors house with another neighbor and fellow homebrewer. It was our goal to recruit one more person into the homebrewing club, and I think we were successful (Matt??).

The reason for the Sixpoint clone is two-fold. First, It's an awesome beer with a great balance of big sweet malt flavor and big hop aroma and flavor. So naturally, when a homebrewer likes a beer, they try and clone it! Second, my good friend Shaun, who lives in Brooklyn, is getting married to my other good friend Kate. As I've mentioned before, they've asked me to brew some beer for the wedding. We've collectively been trying to come up with a beer that would be enjoyed at the wedding, and one I'm able to brew successfully. A few beers are on the list, but this one was next so I gave it a shot. I posted a few comments on the TastyBrew forum about the original recipe that I created and was told I had WAY too much crystal malt in the recipe and that it would be ridiculously sweet. So I took some out, and added some other malts to try and balance it out and added some more hops for balance as well. I still think I'm on the sweet side with about 23% crystal malt, but we'll have to wait and see.

CrystALE

OG - 1.050
Batch Size - 6 g
Pre-boil Volume - 8 g

Fermentables:
8 lbs Two-Row
1.5 lbs Crystal 15L
1.5 lbs Crystal 40L
1 lbs Munich
.25 lbs Brown Malt
.5 lbs Flaked Barley

Hops:
.5 oz Columbus (13% AA, 6.5 AAU, FWH)
.5 oz Magnum (14.5% AA, 7.3 AAU, 30 min)
.25 oz Columbus (13% AA, 3.3 AAU, 30 min)
.5 oz Glacier (5.5% AA, 2.8 AAU, 15 min)
.25 Columbus (13% AA, 3.3 AAU, 10 min)
.5 oz Glacier (5.5% AA, 2.8 AAU, DH)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 American Ale

On Sunday, Rob, Matt and Myself brewed at Matt's house. Matt has been asking Rob and myself to teach him to brew for a while now, and we finally were able to make it happen. We took a walk (through the snow) to Barleycorns and picked up a kit for Matt to make. He chose an English Ale called Burton's Best Bitter. "Best Bitter - Mid level gravity and more malt flavor than the ordinary, also with a touch more hop character" It was reasonably priced at $44 so we picked it up and went back to brew. The day went off without any issues and we were able to show Matt how easy homebrewing can be. With an extract/grain recipe, our brewing time was about 90 minutes and we let the wort cool in the snow which took another 1.5 hours or so, during which we drank beer and stared at a fire. Two of my favorite things....beer and fire!! I don't have the exact recipe, but my attempt from memory is below. I was surprised how much hops were used, 5 total oz for a 5 g batch, but they were mostly low alpha hops.

Burton's Best Bitter

Fermentables:
4 lbs amber malt extract
3 lbs light malt extract
1 Victory Malt
1 Carastan Malt
.5 lbs Two-Row

Hops:
2 oz Goldings (5% AA, 60 min)
1 oz Fuggles (5% AA, 30 min)
1 oz Goldings (5% AA, 1 min)
1 oz Fuggles (5% AA, DH)

Yeast:
Safale S-04 dried yeast

I'm looking forward to finding out how these both come out. Next up, I'm brewing my American Pale Ale for my fantasy baseball draft. I don't have much time so I'm going to have to brew it one night this week. More brewing...WOOO HOO!!!!!

Cheers,
Jason

Patriot Homebrew Contest results

I received the results from the Patriot Homebrew contest. I entered two beers, Robust Vanilla Bourbon Porter and American Brown Session Ale. I scored a 33.5 out of 50 for the porter and a 32.6 for the brown ale. Although the score was lower, the feedback was much more positive with the brown ale and it scored second place in Category 10 C. I was pretty happy with that, and the criticism I received was deserved. I knew I had an issue with this recipe, as I stated in my previous post, because I added Munich malt. The biggest criticism was it had a roast malt flavor so when I brew this again this weekend, I'll replace the munich with Cara-pils.

Next up, the Sam Adams Longshot Homebrew contest.

Cheers,
Jason

Lagering - Part 1

I took my first step in being able to brew a lager. This weekend I converted my basement fridge into a lagering fridge. No, I say "converted" but all I really did was reinforce the bottom shelf of the firdge with a piece of plywood and braced the shlef to be able to withstand the weight of my carboy. I know, it's not much. But it's a step in the right direction and I can now fit a single keg on one side of the shelf and the carboy on the other.

I've already put together a Munich Dunkle recipe that I'm going to try out. It's second in line now to my Sweet Crystal Ale, which I'm hoping will be close to the Sixpoint Sweet Action I wrote about. Hopefully I'll be able to brew the dunkle before I leave for Red Sox Spring Training in March.

Here are my questions to you....have you ever brewed a lager? Was it difficult? What did you brew?

I'm not set in stone to brewing the Munich Dunkle, so if you have a good recipe, let me know.

Cheers,
Jason

Organic Belgian Wit

This weekend I tasted the Organic Belgian Wit that I bottled from the keg. It was my first time force carbonating in a keg, and I definitely need to study up a little more on that. The beer was pretty close to flat. It was in the keg at 50 f under 18 PSI for 5 days and it had very little carbonation. I used the keg carb stone and it still didn't work. I have my APA II in there now, so I'll see if I leave it in there longer if it will help.

Besides the carbonation level, the beer was pretty good. Great spice from the coriander and orange. I used marmalade based on The Bearded Brewers recipe, and it went well. The marmalade I used had bits of orange peel in it as well. The one taste issue I had was with the aftertaste. It had a heavy orange peel bitterness to it at the end of the bottle that i was not expecting and was unpleasant. I'm not sure why, but I will re-make this with either a different kind of marmalade or with regular dried orange peel. The staple cloudiness of the beer was perfect and the color was very light pale, almost white. Not a bad beer. I will definitely go back to the drawing board with this one as I think it could be a great beer.

Cheers,
Jason

American Pale Ale II

This beer is a re-brew of the recipe I brewed for Teach a Friend to Home brew day. This recipe was the third IPA/APA I've brewed and the first two had to be dumped because the first one (American Patriot IPA) was just flat out horrible, and the second (Fresh Hop Harvest Ale) was spoiled by bacteria that was on my home grown hops that I dry hopped with.

This APA came out awesome and I was very pleased. The hop presence was very well balanced by the malt flavour and the sweetness from the crystal malts. Because it was originally brewed for TAFTHBD, I gave almost all of it away. So, this one is just for me!! I was little upset because I missed my OG by .005. This is the second beer in a row where I've missed by OG. I suspect it's because I'm not adjusting my efficiency % when I calculate the recipe on Tastybrew, so I will have to test it out. I want to do an efficiency test on my system soon also so I can know my actual % instead of estimating. Thankfully, no boil-over like last time. I'm finally able to adjust the temp on the burner to prevent the boil-overs. They have been a big headache for me since my swtch to all grain.

I had a different issue with this brew. When I was transferring it to the carboy from the kettle, it seems the trub screen I have inside my boil kettle got clogged with hops. Unfortunately, I had to use a wooden spoon to clear it which didn't work all that well, so I switched to my auto-syphon and racked it with that. I ended up with a lot more trub in the carboy than I wanted, but oh well. After I used the spoon, I realized it wasn't the one I had sanitized, so hopefully it won't ruin this beer but I wanted to make note in case it goes sour. Recipe is below.

Brewed - 1/10/09
H20/Grain ratio - 1.2
Mash Temp/Time - 155/60min
Pre-Boil Volume - 8.5 g
Post-Boil Volume - 6
OG - 1.050
IBU - 41
SRM - 7

Fermentables:
11 lbs Two Row
.5 lbs Crystal 40l
.5 lbs Crystal 20l
.75 lbs Munich Light
.25 lbs Victory

Hops:
.5 oz Magnum (13.5% AA - FWH)
1 oz Chinook (12% AA - 15 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.6% AA - 10 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.6% AA - DH)

Yeast:
Wyeast - 1056 American Ale

Cheers,
Jason

Organic Belgian Witbier

Ah yes....my first stab at an all organic beer! This year, I had the awesome pleasure of being asked to be a groomsman in one of my friends weddings which is this June. We attended Hartwick College together and both swam and played water polo. Since college, we've also both gotten into triathlons, him a little more successful than I (injuries suck, but I'm back this year...watch out chap). So when he asked me to be in his wedding I was psyched and truly honored.

Knowing that I'm a home brewer and having sampled my beers in the past with much delight, he came up with an idea that to this day still makes me smile! I've been asked by the engaged couple to brew some beer to serve at there wedding. Of course I said yes, and since then I've been trying to improve my brewing. I should also mention that the bride to be is also a good friend of mine and one of my wife's best friends. She has also asked my wife to be in the wedding, which adds to the awesomeness of this event!!!

This Belgian Witbier will be the first tasting. We're all meeting back up at our alma matta on Jan 31st and will be sampling the witbier. I took the organic idea from the Bearded Brewer since his Inky's White Ale was such a hit and I also used his trick with orange marmalade instead of the orange peel. The other reason I chose all organic is because my friend, the groom to be, works for a company called Vote Solar. Vote Solar is a company that's committed to bringing solar energy into the mainstream through legislative ways like tax incentives and the such. With that in mind, I thought it might be a good idea, and fun, if I were to brew this as an organic beer. Now id I could only get a boil kettle that can operate on solar power. Anyway, below is the recipe. Sorry for the long diatribe!!!

Date brewed - 12/30/08
OG - 1.046
Batch Size - 6g
Water/Grain ratio - 1.3 qts/lb
Mash temp/time - 152/60 min
IBU - 18
SRM - 3
ABV -

Fermentables:
5 lbs. Organic Belgian Pils
6 lbs. Organic White Wheat Malt
.5 lbs Organic Flaked Wheat

Hops:
1 oz. Organic Belgian Saaz (3.5% AA, 60 min)
1 oz. Organic Belgian Saaz (3.5% AA, 10 min)

Additives:
1 oz. Organic crushed Coriander (5 min)
1 tbls. Organic Orange Marmalade (5 min)

Yeast:
Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier

The yeast took a day to actually get started, but then started with a bang and i had some blow off, but neglected to use the blow-off tube initially. This brew is also a big milestone for me. I've purchased a Co2 tank and regulator and I'm going to force carb this in a keg, then bottle using my blichman beer gun. the bottling will definitely take longer, but I'm just psyched to be able to force carb my beers now. The brew day went very well. It was freezing cold, so my brother and I (he came by to learn how to brew and drink some beers) spent a lot of time inside, only going outside to quickly add hops. One small boil over at the end occured because I left the lid on the kettle after the 10 min hop addition.

If anyone has an experience with either the Blichman beer gun or a counter pressure bottle filler, let me know. I'm still debating on which one I should buy.

Cheers!

Brew Years Resolution

In the spirit of the new year, I've decided to put together a list of my 2009 new years beer resolutions.






1. Brew at least once a month.
2. Enter more homebrew competitions (in order to get better feedback about my beer)
3. Finish my business plan (if I'm ever going to get this business started, i need to finish it)
4. Learn and understand more about water composition in certain styles
5. Buy a grain mill so I can start buying bulk grain
6. Find a place to store the grain
7. Post more on the blog (goes with brewing more)
8. Post more educational information about brewing (for the beginner readers I have)

So....I know that's a lot, but I figure if I can get half of those done, then I've accomplished a lot. I hope you all had a great holiday and have a happy new year. I'm brewing my Belgian Wit tomorrow so I'll post the recipe and notes after.

Also, I finally popped my Winter spiced ale with a few friends over Christmas, and it was a big hit. My brother and I were very excited as you can see. When I originally tasted the first a few weeks ago, the cinnamon was overpowering, but the extra time in the bottle really allowed the cinnamon to mellow and balance very well with the nutmeg and ginger. I was very please, although Christmas night I had a few too many of them and had a hard time walking home. Oh well!!

Cheers and Happy New Year!!

Jason

Weekend comes to a crashing end

Thanksgiving each year for me is shared with my wife's family in PA. Since there are so many of them (28) we celebrate thanksgiving and Christmas together, and then my wife and I spend Christmas with my family. This year, instead of going to my wife's aunts house, we all rented some condo's in the Pocono Mountains in north eastern PA.

The week was great, minus the fact that there was no good beer around. Thankfully I thought ahead and brought a bunch of beers, plus some of my own (Brown Session and VB Porter). I gave some tastings to some family members and they all loved them. I think I've secured beer duty for all future family gatherings.

When we got home and unpacked, I had to re-stock the fridge with all the left over beers ( i brought beer for everyone, but apparently only needed to worry about me and my wife so I had a ton left over to bring home). I was in the basement about an hour later and heard a sudden crash come from the fridge, and then the door flung open and out poured bottles of beer, shattered glass, waves of beer spilling from the broken bottles, and a few bottles which thankfully didn't break.

Apparently it's not smart to fill a shelf made of glass with 2 + cases of beer, because it will shatter and spill everything on it. The real problem is that I didn't label my last two beers (Brown Session and VB Porter) because I was going to enter them into homebrew contests and as most of you know, labeled bottles are frowned upon. I had it all down though, the VB porters on the right side of the top and bottom shelf and the Brown Sessions on the bottom shelf. Well, when the shelf shattered, it mixed them all up and now they got all mixed up and I don't know which ones are which. So needless to say, I might be entering them into the wrong categories. Oh well....Might as well start drinking the little that is left over and find out which beers are which.

Hope you all had a good turkey day!

Cheers,
Jason

Catching up

It's been a few weeks since I've last posted, but I haven't been able to brew since TAFTHBD so I haven't had much to write about. A few things have happend since then. Firts, my company laid off 1500 people in the first of 3 rounds of layoffs. Thankfully I was spared for now. Second, I tasted my first all-grain batch (American Brown Ale) the other night and I was very pleased. Great sweetness from the carmel malts, and just the right amount of bitterness I was looking for. The was some bready/malty flavors that I think came from the munich malt and it was a little darker than expected, but still great. Next time, I will leave out the munich and use some cara-pils for better body. This beer had good carbonation and head retention, just didn't have the prickly co2 bubbles in the drink itself. I'll post a proper review when I get a chance.3

Also, we're bottling up the APA from TAFTHBD this weekend. My friend is very excited since this is his first beer, and I am too since I only have to split it with one other person! More beer for me!

I posted a question on the tastybrew forum about when I should bottle my Winter ale. So, I will ask you, my readers, as well. I brewed this beer in early October and it's still in the carboy aging. Should I continue to age it in bulk in the carboy, or bottle now and let it sit until christmas? My plan is to age it until christmas regardless of where, but I'm curious to see if it is better to age all togther, or in seperate "batches" in each bottle. Let me know you're thoughts!

Cheers,
Jason

Teach a Friend to Home Brew Day - APA

TFTHBD was a good success, brewing wise at least. Only had one of my friends from work show up and my neighbor (who brews as well) came by for the afternoon. The day started pretty early (around 10:30 am) and we cracked open our first Pale Ale from Opa Opa. It was great beer, and get our creative juices flowing.

We chose an American Pale ale as our brew and decided to drink those types all day. The mash went well, although we were a little on the warm side (158) which I'm not too happy about, but thats what happens when you put the lid on, then go drink and don't check it for an hour! I tried to add our first hop addition as First Wort Hops (FWH) to prevent a boilover, but that really didn't work and I once again had a pretty big boilover. Hopefully it won't effect the IBU's too much. We hit our target gravity right on the money, 1.055. That made me happy because my first all-grain batch was a tad bit off the mark.

I used Magnum for the first time and I was very please. Very high alpha (ours were 13.5) and awesome aroma. The recipe is below.

Stats:
Brewed - 11/1/08
H20/Grain ratio - 1.3
Mash Temp/Time - 158/60min
Pre-Boil Volume - 8.5 g
Post-Boil Volume - 6
OG - 1.055
IBU - 41
SRM - 7

Fermentables:
11 lbs Two Row
.5 lbs Crystal 40l
.5 lbs Crystal 20l
.75 lbs Munich Light
.25 lbs Victory

Hops:
.5 oz Magnum (13.5% AA - FWH)
1 oz Chinook (12% AA - 15 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.6% AA - 10 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.6% AA - DH)

Yeast:
Wyeast - 1056 American Ale

It is bubbling away pretty good right now, so I'm excited for this to be done. Tonight, I bottle my Brown ale. I took a reading last night and had a great fermentation, slightly more than I had planned though.

Cheers,
Jason

Vanilla Bourbon Porter tasting

I popped open the first bottle last night and was unpleasantly surprised. The Vanilla had mellowed A LOT, almost to the point where I couldn't taste it. And, the carbonation was lacking to say the least. I've had it in the bottle for exactly 3 weeks, and the only thing I can think of is that it's too cold in my kitchen where I store them. I moved them into the dinning room right next to the heating vent last week. Hopefully that will have an effect, but I don't know.

I had big hopes for this beer, and it still tastes pretty awesome, but the carbonation sucks and I need more cowbell.........I mean vanilla. Any hints on what went wrong or how to fix it? I primed with 5 oz. of corn sugar. Do you think the addition of the bourbon killed off the remaining yeast which would lead to little or no carbonation??

Let me know what you think!

Cheers,
Jason

First All Grain Batch

Today, I made the jump to all grain brewing. It's been a long time coming. I've been saving up so I could upgrade my equipment to allow me to do all grain. I recently bought a 10 gallon Rubbermaid mash tun from more-beer and a 60,000 BTU propane burner. Added to the blichman brew kettle my wife bought me for my b-day, I'm ready to rock.

I wanted to do a somewhat easy beer, but something I could brew a lot and make my "house" beer. Lately, I've been hooked on Harpoon Brown Ale. It's their rendition on an American Brown, with some good up front bitterness, and balanced malt sweetness. I'd probably tell you it's my favorite beer right now, but that's because I have one in front of me.

My goal for my first batch, was simple.....clone the harpoon Brown and I'm good. So, I went out their site and noted the stats (they don't list malts or hops they use) and hoped to try and match that. I've been listening to Jamil Zainasheff over on the Brewing Network and he had a show on American Brown ales, so I took his recipe and scaled it down to a 6 g batch and reduced the IBU's so it would be closer to Harpoon. I had a problem though, because the day before i was listening to his show on APA's and when I was going through my notes I seem to look at the APA recipe at the last minute and made a change from cara-pils to Munich, why I don't know. Not sure how much of a difference it will make, but we'll see. Below is the recipe and stats.

American Brown Session Ale

OG - 1.052

FG - 1.010

ABV - 5.5%

quarts per lb - 1.3

Fermentables:

10 lbs American 2-row

.25 lbs Victory Malt

.5 lbs Munich Dark

.75 lbs Crystal 40L

.25 lbs Crystal 60L

.5 lbs Chocolate Malt

Hops:

1 oz Phoenix (10% AA - 60 min)

.5 oz Amarillo (7% AA - 15 min)

.5 oz Amarillo (7% AA - Flame out)

Yeast:

Wyeast 1.056 American Ale

Grains were mashed in 4 gallons of water. Dough in was at 164 f and mash stabilized for 60 min at 150. The mash temp dropped to about 148 f by the last few minutes, but I think it was because I had the top to the mash tun off a bit then getting ready for the sparge. Sparge was with 5.5 g of water at 175 f. The wort boiled down to about 6.5 gallons and I collected about 5.5 in the carboy.

Cheers,

Jason