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Getting Distracted

So it's been a while since my last update, but I have a pretty good reason.

Her name is Happy Hours and I've been taking her out every day I can.  I've still been brewing, but just haven't had a chance to write about it.

We're planning on making a "champagne" for New Years by force carbonating some box of wine and adding some raspberry extract.  Of course, we'll still have the honey brown and an IPA on tap.

First All-Grain

Finished building all the equipment I'll need:

• Coleman 70 quart MLT

• Copper Immersion Chiller

• High Pressure Propane Burner

• 52 quart Boil Kettle

I went with an easy recipe that I can taste test against a commercial brew: a Fat Tire clone.  I made a ton of mistakes, but learned so much.  Missed my strike water volume, overshot my temps, draining the MLT took longer than I thought it would, almost had a 5 gallon boilover, and my immersion chiller blew up.  It was exhausting and after it was all done had a huge mess on my hands, but I loved it.  This is what brewing is all about.  

The beer came out great.  It was spot on, and other than the head retention, was exactly the same as its commercial inspiration.

Going All-Grain

So I've been brewing extract for a few months, and I've spent over $40 just on little plastic buckets for the LME.  Our local home brew store lets you bring your own, but I always stop by on my way home from work and have to spend another $4 on a new one (or two if I'm doing a big beer).  So....like everything else in my life, I make a drastic correction to a solve a minor problem....so now I'm going all-grain.

I ordered a Coleman 70 quart cooler from Walmart and will pick up some CPVC and fittings for the manifold and spigot once I can make the measurements in the cooler.  I'll use all of that to build a mash lauter tun that can handle 10 gallon batches.  I also ordered a turkey fryer that comes with a 32 quart pot that should be perfect for a full 5 gallon boil.

Doing a 5 gallon boil will take some serious cooling power to get down to pitching temps, so I plan on building a copper immersion chiller.  Good thing it's my birthday...I can treat myself and not feel guilty. =)

Olde Dog New Trick

With my barleywine taking much longer than I thought it would to ferment, I've been a little worried about off-flavors due to a 6 week primary in a carboy.  I'll still bottle and age this batch, but I think I'll get a small conical for next time.  I probably could have taken it off primary earlier because my hydrometer read 1.005 at 70F...so with an OG of 1.100, my alcohol content is a little north of 13% abv.  The taste test going into secondary was a little scary; the smell of alcohol overpowered the rest of the beer, but the taste was very smooth with a nice malty flavor with little aftertaste.  I'm dry hopping it right now, so hopefully the aroma changes to something a little more citrusy.  Once it's aged, that alcohol taste should subside and let the rest shine through.

Tonight Athena kegs her IRS (I'm dubbing it "The Taxman Cometh"), so I'll be posting the verdict soon....and we still have everything to make up the Stone Ruination clone, so I'll probably make the starter tonight and brew that up sometime this weekend. 

Update: There is no update

It's been just over a month since my last post, so this is where I should list all the great beers I've brewed up, all the new stuff that was just racked to secondary, and all the plans we have for new ales....well, that would be the case, but my barley wine is still in primary fermentation and isn't anywhere close to being done!  I can't wait till this one is finally ready to drink...it will be epic.

Athena used my other carboy to make up a batch of Imperial Russian Stout (which is now sitting in secondary), and I still have everything to make a Stone Ruination clone...so my next update will be when those are kegged.

I had a Super Bowl Party yesterday and was hoping to have a few home brews on tap, but Athena and I went through a corny keg of her honey brown ale in about a week and the IRS was taking longer than we thought (first time brewing with Belgian Candi Sugar).  Not to worry though, because Tom came through with a quarter keg of Stone Arrogant Bastard and another of Stone Pale Ale.  I got to break out my new grill and BBQed up 16lbs of carne asada and adobada.  All in all, I'd say it was a success even without the homebrew.

Barley Wine (Olde Dog / New Trick)

Today I made up a batch of barley wine which I'm calling Olde Dog (New Trick) Barley Wine.  Until now, the strongest ale I've made is my Chocolate Oatmeal Stout which was only around 7% abv, so this is a big step up.  The recipe I'm using calls for 10lbs of LME and a pound of Belgian Candi Sugar.  It also requires a high gravity yeast as a 2 pint starter fermenting for at least 24 hours.

When we were putting everything away from the brewstore, one of the bags of candi sugar ripped open, so I put it in a ziplock freezer bag.  The other two got a little wet, so the sticker with the price got wet and came off.  For some reason, I just assumed the candi sugar was explicitly for the barley wine and put all 3 bags in...only to find out that both the Imperial Russian Stout and Stone Ruination Clone require a pound each!  So that means I put 3lbs of candi sugar into a 5 gallon batch of barley wine.  My OG was 1.100, and potential alcohol content is up around 10-12%.  Here is a video of fermentation on the second day:

Athena was a little bummed when she went to make her IRS and there was no candi sugar left, but we hadn't made the yeast starter for her batch yet so it all worked out.

Right now we have Athena's Honey Brown Ale in Secondary, Barley Wine in primary, and the IRS yeast starter almost 24 hours in.

Christmas!

Christmas came early for me this year.  Santa (Athena) got me ingredients for a Russian Imperial Stout, Stone Ruination Clone, Barley Wine, and another Honey Brown Ale.  Athena also picked up a couple 1/2 gallon growlers for yeast starters and a new 5 gallon glass carboy for secondary fermentation.

Taste Test

Both beers came out great!  My chocolate oatmeal stout pours with a short, cream colored head that tends to settle a little early due to the cocoa powder added to the wort.  A brandy snifter is really the only way you can see the dark caramel color at the edges of the otherwise opaque brew.  It has a toasty, chocolatey aroma with very subtle hoppy undertones.  This beer taste just like it smells; slightly sweet at first from the roasted grains followed by a mild chocolate flavor.  The oats give a smooth mouthfeel making this high gravity stout almost too easy to drink. There is also a very satisfyingly bitter finish from the hops and cocoa that beckon you to take another sip.

Athena's honey brown ale has been the crowd favorite, and for good reason; I'll let her go into detail with her own review, but I'll still give a quick rundown.  It pours with a solid head typical of an English brown ale that keeps well throughout while drinking.  The roasted grains give it a slightly cloudy but deep caramel color through the center of a pint glass.  The aroma hops give it a citrusy bouquet and keep the bitterness to a minimum which lets the sweet malty taste of this beer shine through.  Athena used 2 cups of honey that really cut through the bitterness of the flavoring hops to make this beer my new favorite brown ale.  This one's a keeper and I'm sure we'll have a batch going year round.

Keezer Pics

Lots of updates

I've been really busy lately, so my chocolate oatmeal stout and Athena's honey brown ale have been sitting on secondary for three weeks or so.  In that time, I ordered the hardware/plumbing for the keezer and came up with a more conventional (cheaper) design and Athena even picked up her own Corny keg.

Keezer Hardware:

• Perlick Stainless Faucets with handles (x3)
• 4" Stainless Steel Shanks (x3)
• CO2 and Beer Hoses (12' of each)
  

Lid Materials:

• 3/4" Oak
• 1/4" Furniture-grade Plywood
• 2" Mold-resistant Styrofoam Insulation
• Weather Stripping

I got to hang out with my dad for the better part of a Sunday afternoon building the lid and staining it.  Later that week I sealed it with a couple coats of polyurethane coating, installed the insulation, and got it mounted to the freezer.

Athena came home today with her keg and I got my drip tray and rubber shelf mats in the mail.  We siphoned both beers into their respective kegs, slowly brought the pressure up to 30PSI while aerating over the coarse of about 30 minutes, then let them chill while we went shopping for dinner.  We cooked up some rib eyes with mashed potatoes and sauteed veggies just in time for our beers to get cold and fizzy.

Nothing like a home cooked meal with a home brewed beer.

Officially Obsessed

Last weekend Tom and I racked his Pliny of the Elder clone and my Fat Tire clone to secondary.  Then on Monday and Tuesday, Athena and I made a batch of Honey Brown Ale and a Chocolate Oatmeal Stout respectively.

 

  That means there are 20 gallons of beer fermenting in my garage as we speak (or type)

  Chocolate Oatmeal Stout on the left, Honey Brown Ale on the right

Now it's a Keezer

Today I wired up my inline temperature controller and set it to 38F.  It was way easier than I thought and the whole thing only took about 15 minutes.

Kegs are here

Woke up this morning with a big box from Midwest Brewers Supply on my doorstep:

I also got my inline temperature controller so I can turn my chest freezer into a refrigerator. Right now I have all the components to build phase one of the Keezer, so I think that will be my project this weekend.

Brew Day +1

Less than 24 hours after pitching my yeast I had an airlock full of foam!  It has since died down, but I still have a nice krausen...yeast starter ftw.

Brew Day!!

Today I bought the last of the equipment needed to start brewing:

• 20qt Stainless Steel Stew Pot
• Metal Brewer's Spoon
• Wine Thief
•  Rubbermaid Bin (to fill w/ ice to cool my wort)

The whole process took about 3 hours from the time I put the water on the stove to the end of cleanup.  The ice bath of saltwater (thanks MythBusters!!) really helped get the wort to a pitchable temperature in record time.  I ended up with a little over 3 gallons of boiling water that I was able to cool down to about 85 F in less than 20 minutes.  I had 2 gallons of sterilized mineral water in the freezer, so when I mixed the two the final temp going into the carboy was about 67 F.  The whole time I was cooling the wort, I had my aerator working its magic, and I left it in the carboy for another 20 minutes after pitching the yeast.  Instead of using a plastic airlock, I opted for a 3 foot section of 1" surgical tubing with the other end in a 48oz beer stein half-filled with vodka.

Now I'm just going to cover it up and let the yeast do their thing.

Aeration Perfection

I'm anxious to try my first batch so I'm giving my yeast a head start by aerating my wort as I rack it.  This is for a fish aquarium, but has an inline HEPA filter so I don't get any bacteria in my wort.  I'm going to start brewing right after Halloween...  =]

And as always, more pics on my Flickr page

No Turning Back

Went to my local homebrew store and picked up everything I will be needing for my first batch of beer:

More pics on my Flickr page

First Purchase

Actually put my money where my mouth is and bought a chest freezer.  Got this 7.2cu ft Frigidaire on craigslist for $40!  Cleaned it up and it looks brand new.

More Keezer pics on my Flickr page

Planning

After going over my finances for the past year, I realized that a very large portion of my disposable income was going towards nightlife related expenditures. A few months ago, I decided to invest some of that money into a pool table and entertainment center to motivate me to stay in rather than go out.  I'm now spending significantly less on entertainment, and with the money I save by not paying cover/parking/ridiculous drink prices, I have been able to step up the quality of spirits, wines and brews.

The next step was to start buying small kegs of beer and build a kegerator to complete my man-cave.  After about a week of research, I planned out my 5 tap keezer:

More Keezer pics on my Flickr page