Moving

Well I'm moving faster than I thought toward all grain brewing. I purchased a 5 gallon water cooler off Amazon yesterday. There was some doubt in my mind as to what size my brew kettle was. I didn't know if it was 7.5 or 8 gallons. It's 8, I measured it and also scored a piece of wood so I can know how much wort I will be boiling. I need a more efficient way of cooling my wort, I think I lose more volume with an ice bath. I tried a full boil on my last batch, I started out with over 6 gallons of wort and ended up with just over 4. It's time for some trial and error. Maybe I'll try making my own wort chiller. Who knows

Racked and Bottled

Yesterday was, as promised, busy on a lot of fronts. I did end up playing golf, quite well I will say, in the morning while V and Katie went to the store. I got home and the beer craziness commenced. We started out by racking Jason's dunkel to secondary. The hydrometer reading was at 1.020 so the yeast seems to have done it's work. Now it lagers for a month at 38˚ F. After that we transferred the Ladder Truck Red to secondary. I may have to rename it because it seems I have created a hop monster. We'll think about that later. The hyrdometer reading on this one was 1.010. And finally, while both Katie and V were napping, I bottled the RyePA. The dry hopping seems to have done it's job with a nice fruity aroma.

In the bottle now
Bitter Beer Face Pils
I Am Hefe - 1 week to go
Rueben Extra Mustard - at least 2 weeks
Long Pull Brown Ale

Secondary
Hop Red Ale

Busy beer weekend

This weekend is shaping up to be one of the busiest on my plate in a long time. We have a farmers market to hit up, sloshball to play, our social calendar is quite full. But I also have three beers to do something to. (That sounds dirtier than it is) Jason's Slam Dunkel is ready to be racked to secondary after two weeks in the primary. It's a lager so it's going to be at about 38˚ for another four weeks.

I've also got my red ale, which I changed the name of to Ladder Truck Red, to transfer. I worried myself almost crazy, not to mention how crazy Katie thought I was, by pitching the yeast at a too high temp. It sat above 80˚ for more than 4 hours with no signs of yeast activity. It eventually started and I should have a nice hoppy dark ale in about three weeks.

The RyePA, aka Reuben Extra Mustard, is ready to be bottled. Katie will help with this part when the little miss is down for her nap. I am looking forward to this weekend and the beer activities should be a nice addition to it.

Bubbling red ale

The Red Ale is fermenting nicely, has been for the past two days, and I have high hopes that this is going to be a great beer. I did some calculations on two different websites and they both gave me different answers. The color rating was pretty similar, but the bitterness rating was different by twenty points, from one to the next. We'll see how it turns out, I can't wait.

Fire Crotch Red Ale

The red ale is in the fermenter down in the garage. I'm going to try primary down there just to see if it works. If it does that's one less thing taking up space in my closet. I figure with the temperature in the garage around 68 degrees, the conditions should be ideal. The SG on this one was 1.044. It will probably end up around 1.012-1.010 which will give it an ABV of 4.5-5% I think this is going to be my most bitter ale to date. I used Galena and Amarillo as bittering hops and then two ounces of Cascade at flameout to give it a nice fruity floral aroma.

When I came up with this recipe, I wanted to get a good size grain bill so that I could start trying to figure out the all grain versions of some recipes.

1 # pale 2 row

.5 # caramunich 60

.25 # aromatic malt

.25 # 120 L crystal malt

.125 # chocolate malt.

steep in grain bag at 155 for 45 minutes

6 # pale LME

1 oz galena for 60 min

1 oz amarillo for 30 min/ whirlfloc addition

2 oz cascade at flameout

I pitched WLP 001 a little hot, I need a better thermometer, I think it was around 80 degrees or so, but it will probably just kick start fermentation.

With a grain bill like this, I feel like it's an easy enough conversion to all grain that this would be a perfect starter beer for that venture.

Fire Crotch stats

SG - 1.044

FG - 1.012?

SRM - 14.46

IBU - 80

Brew day

Gonna brew tomorrow. I've got the ingredients for a red ale. It might end up being a redux of my red headed stepchild fuck up. We'll see. This is my first recipe that I pretty much came up with on my own. It's going to be lightly hopped for bitterness and will have two ounces of Cascade at flame out. I need a name for this one, help me out

Fun day at Brewery 20th Ave

I Am Hefe is now bottled, upon tasting it seems like a winner. I throttled down the corn sugar to get a lower carbonation, hopefully it turns out good. It is going to have around 5 percent ABV. Reuben Extra Mustard was transferred today as well and the gravity reading told me that I'm basically going to have a session pale ale. We'll see how it turns out, it's dry hopping with an ounce of Willamette right now.

Katie helped bottle I Am Hefe, maybe this is the start of our family brewery. So in the bottle right now I have Long Pull pub ale and Bitter Beer Face pils ready to go. I Am Hefe will be ready in about two weeks and I will be bottling the rye pale in about two weeks. All grain here I come.

We got to go out tonight sans bebe to celebrate a friends birthday. Fun times and right now I'm feeling good. Until next time

Family All Grain

Got the new Gorillaz single going in the background, pretty sweet, and all I can think about is my first all grain batch. I want to do it, I feel like I can do it, so I should right? Extract based beers are known to lack middle body. If you take a sip, the first taste and smell of an extract IPA leads you on, tickling your fancy and palate. Floral, pungent hop aroma and bite latches onto your senses, and then all of a sudden, it's gone, like it was never there in the first place. I have had fun brewing and learning both with friends and by myself. I want more and I hope that I can do it soon.

The one drawback to all grain is the time it takes. If a batch of extract takes 3-4 hours then this is going to take 4-5. I feel like involving my family, and Katie has shown interest in this, so I need to find out how to make brewing accessible to a nineteen month old. Only time will tell.

This is basically what I want, but I will probably end up with a chest cooler

All Grain

I now have a serious hankering to make the switch to all grain brewing. I just spent about an hour reading up on it online and I feel like it's the logical step in my brewing process. Don't get me wrong, I have loved all but one of the beers I have made (that made it to the bottle) and the only reason for my hate on that one was lack of sanitation. If I cleaned the bottles better, it probably would have been a great beer. The equipment I would need would probably only run me another hundred bucks and the outcome would be closer to what I wanted to achieve in the first place which is quality beer close to what the microbreweries put out.

I've got the large brewpot capable of doing at least a 6.5 gallon boil

all I need are two 5 gallon igloo or rubbermaid water coolers and the conversion equipment.

Let's get started

Reuben extra Mustard

RPA stats

SRM- 6

IBU- 53.6

OG- 1.042

FG?- 1.012

ABV?- 4%

Results of Brewturday

Yesterday went off without a hitch. I did my first full boil ever, a Rye pale ale, and ended up only having to top off about 1 gallon. Jason did a Munich Dünkel with his fancy new 15 gallon brew pot. They are both fermenting right now, with the Dünkel in the chest freezer downstairs and the RPA in my closet. I will be bottling I Am Hefe soon, it seems to have settled out well. I think next time I am going to try an American ESB in the Red Hook style.

mmmm... beer

Saturday=Brewturday v.2

So this Saturday is most definitely brewturday, provided V doesn't end up puking in our bed like she was 2 weeks ago. Jason and the fam are coming over for a birthday weekend brew. I will be brewing a rye pale ale calling it Reuben Extra Mustard. I'm gonna dry hop this one with an ounce of Willamette and an ounce of Cascade in the secondary

I Am Hefe is safely transferred to the secondary and the gravity reading was 1.012. The ABV is gonna be around 5.5%. It will be in the bottle in about a week or so.

Hoppy brewing everyone