An Attempt At Brilliance

*TASTERS UPDATE*
This is the best IPA I've made and its only a week in the bottle. Could be the best beer I have made. The hop aroma is sweet and citrusy with plenty of pine to bulk it up. The taste is a bit sweet in the nose and the middle needs more time but the rear has that mouth pocket tingle from the bitterness. Well done midwest and Surly, just about nailed the original recipe. I will definitely replicate this for years to come.

I was brought one of the newest kits on the market from Midwest after the holidays from my dad. Which is currently out of stock, Thanks Dad! Sitting on it patiently, waiting to get a shot at brewing this clone kit of what is the standard for me of American IPA, Surly Brewing Company's Furious. If you are wondering why the above picture is called Ferocious and not Furious, rights rights rights. Surly worked with Midwest to produce this recipe, but as a marketable product, they cannot lend the same name of the beer to what is sold as a kit of ingredients, enter property interests. Deciding to brew this special batch in my apartment ended up being less of a headache than expected. Primary note of importance is to make the place clean and free of dirty dishes. Cause if you have seen my kitchen, its a crawl space which cannot be cohabitated by both brewers and dish piles. I took the risk of using Winnipeg tap water, though run through the Brita filter. I figure if Half Pints can do it, why cant I? Also, after seeing two batches made by friends turn out the right way, I have no cause to fear. This kit was an extract kit with very few grains included. The bulk of the kit (which is the priciest on the shelf last time I checked) was invested in two different jugs of LME and a total of 6 bags hops! Warrior hops, 'I think I love ya'. The boil level was high due to my lack of estimate on just how much the 9.9lbs of LME would raise the water. But no boil overs to my relief. Warrior hops were employed for the full 60 minutes as bittering, and a regiment of 5 servings of a mixture of Simcoe/Amarillo hops every 5 minutes for the last 20 of the boil to add aroma. The brewhouse was smelling hot and heavy.

No major surpises with this batch thus far. The only moment worth noting was when I woke up at 5am to the sound of bubbles from the blow-off hose reverberating throughout the room as the glass it was submerged in was on the musical wood floor. Think Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, could neither sleep through it nor blame it for what it is. Normally this is a joyous sound, but it surprisingly kept me awake, so scurrying about in the dark to both not lift the hose out of the water and also attempt to not spill the full glass was a bit stressful. 12 hours later, bubbling away and hop resins crawling to the upper walls of the carboy. In 5-7 days, will transfer to the secondary and dry hop the bejesus out of it with the remaining 3ozs of hops. American IPA, All The Way!

After bottling this sweet smelling bitter, labels of course had to be made. As much as I would have loved to just print off a surly label. it just wouldn't have been right. The bottling produced fewer bottles than I would have hoped, 34 in total. Because of the dry hopping, attempting to leave out as much of the hops in the secondary is key but often you lose about a quarter of a gallon. That's a bear, for the record.

Lager Town

After much hiatus (and helping a few friends with their first batches), Ive decided to post a bit about my lager adventure. Several batches were made since I last posted - mostly ales - some filled the toilet tank and some got passed around to jolly faces. However, since winter brings about both cold temperatures, ideal for lagering, and the end of a comfortable brewing season, I'm going to post the following photos and synopsis.
Bohemian Pilsner / Bock / Kölsch


All three of these "beers" are German styles, which is where lagering historically originated as a trade practice and has corroborated the reputation that country has with beer connoisseurs. Budweiser, Miller, Coors, etc. are German lagers, as bastardly hard as that is to say.

Bohemian Pilsner
Pilsner, originating from the Pilsen region of the Czech Republic, has more pilsner barley which is very light in both taste and color than the recipe I used which utilized carapils, a browner caramely color and flavor. Thus its darker color making it a brown German pilsner with lager yeast. This batch was all-grain, 9lbs of organic pilsner barley and 1lb of aromatic with hallertauer and tettnanger hopes (traditional German variety). For the first time with a lager yeast (which requires much colder temperatures than ales, and is top fermenting yeast) I did a primary fermentation at 15 degrees Celsius then carried the thing out to the barn to sit for about 2 months. Not only is lagering about cold temperatures (as you can imagine, leaving it from early October to early December it ranged between plus 10 and -25c) it's also about 'lagering,' the process of leaving the young beer in fermentation for prolonged periods of time. However this beer was gravitating to 5% alcohol at best, so...it froze solid. Really solid. After thawing, it was terrible. I felt there was an off chance that it could be recovered based on the fact that making ice beer is essentially scooping out layers of ice in slowly freezing beer, so the water content would be seperated leaving the alcohol to be racked out. This was not the case, the liquids had completely separated but even the obviously thicker solution towards the bottom was complete swamp water. tough shit, that's what I get for assuming a barn is insulation enough against old man winter.

Bock
Bock is a German lager of high alcohol content. Historically, this beer was reserved for royalty and the upper class. The peasant brewer would make this style and have to transport it over great distances to pay tithing or royalties to the landlord, requiring a higher alcohol content to prevent spoiling on the trip. Similarly to the pilsner, I had to lug this thing quite a distance and I feel the utmost respect for both the pre-capitalist indentured poor but also for their ability to lug this stuff for miles. Hence, I named this batch Back-Break Bock. As you can tell from the top image of the bock, its very rich and brown but also having a lot of texture. This is predominantly because of the increased starch and sugar present in the style, which leads to higher alcohol content. To vigorously boil that much thick substance to a point of concentration, it would have taken me at least a day. So, I decided to let the yeast do the rest of the work breaking the concentrations down. In order to get this thickness I did a combination of all-grain and extract brewing. Added 10lbs of aromatic and carapils to the mashtun and 7lbs of malt extract to the brewpot. In addition I added about 2 cups of brown sugar, a very noticeable flavor after all said and done. This batch sat for 1 month instead of 2 in the barn and it miraculously survived! Both length of time for lagering as well as higher alcohol content made it harder to freeze solid, so what i discovered when i moved it to thaw was how much it resembled a slushy. Lo and behold, it thawed just fine and has been one of my best beers yet. 10% folks.

Kölsch
This style is a special German ale which is suited for lagering and lager temperatures. So, im adding it to my lager portfolio. However, it was a disaster. After reading up on this beer, it seems to be one of the more proprietary rights/regionally protected styles out there. Originally brewed from the waters of the Rhine in Cologne, it has been secured as a heritage trademark which cannot be brewed beyond or without the traits of its origin. So, no other commercial brewery can attempt this beer unless they are on that river or own a piece of Gaffel or other breweries. The softness of the water plays a large role in its flavoring, but it also widely known for its lightness in color. I bought an all grain kit at Midwest brewing supply in Minnesota on my last foray and gave it a shot. I knew that i would be leaving my brewery for the winter months so I took the poorly chosen route of single stage fermentation for this batch. Tasting it all the way through was a little odd. It had a very yellow color and never seemed to be lacking in carbonation. But there was also something very...lemony about it. My assumption is that because I did not do a two stage fermentation and directly went to the cold storage lagering for two weeks in a 0 Celsius garage, both the yeast was not as active to consume and die off and grew too sluggish and just hung in the wort. After months in the bottle, this beer is far too carbonated and far too thick. Even when stored in the fridge and opened, it immediately fizzes up to the top and causes an overflow, not to mention the mass amount of sediment at the bottom. I typically hate light beers, but this one received very little chance to be dismissed as a style. I was very excited about trying to make it for the very fact that as a homebrewer I could subvert this German monopoly on what i would surely coin a sub-par beer, but I didn't even make it that far. Someday Kölsch. For more on Kölsch and possibly investing in Kölsch 15 years ago, heres a funny PR video."A 700-year old."

The Sampler

I compiled a sampler pack for my dad and sister to be taken over the border (hoping there is no problems with that!?). 8 bers in total, all hand-crafted. I like this photo, even though its not the greatest quality, it shows the variance in color (though the brown and green bottles don't help) between the styles that are present. 2 pale ales, 3 brown ales, 1 stout, 1 wheat ale, 1 belgian ale.

Vagabond Gingered Ale

After having a bad result with Spruce some eight batches ago, i thought it was time to get back to the weird stuff. Also, after having brewed several pale and brown ales, i needed a dark companion for my Oatmeal Stout that could be opted for by the time winter rolls around. Ginger was the decided ingredient and Dried Malt Extract was the selected coloring agent. At this point I hadn't tasted any of my previous batches that had been either all-grain or brewed with the well water, so i went back to an extract batch and culligan distilled water. Shaved two average size ginger roots, more or less, and hoped for the best.

Not being a huge ginger root fan, I tried to be as conservative as i could in the boil by adding the hops at the appropriate schedule so that hops would temper the harsh taste of ginger. I allowed the American Ale yeast packet to fully swell before pitching it as I have had mixed fermentation results with the culligan water (definitely doesn't have the kick that the well water does). However as can be seen at the right a very nice kreusen line can be seen in the carboy. Foamy goodness on top of a yeasty-frappe that will hopefully smack you in the mouth when it passes your lips.

Everything went swell with this batch, from the brew day, to the pitching of the yeast, to the fermentation, to the... Bottling. This was the only monumentally foreseeable problem which was completely avoidable had proper planning been carried out. But no, things have to be done precariously by the seat-of-my-pants. So I needed bottles in a hurry in order to prepare my first 8-pack sampler for the fam. This arriving at the tail end of two previous weekends in which bottling was undergone both times. Leaving me with brew and nothing to secure it in for transnational migration. 24-grolsch were purchased (because the price of buying empties through EZ cap was way more expensive). I enlisted the help of a fellow beer drinker, we had three days to get through them and whatever else we could find to come close to a grand total of 36 swing-top bottles. Over the course of a beautiful weekend with full sunshine, barbecuing, soccer golf, and magic the gathering: we endured and came out victorious. The final product is this take no prisoners wanderlust oddity, now you taste it, now you don't.

Fat'n Tire'd

What to say about this hot mess? The original recipe was to be a clone of a favorite beer of mine brewed in Fort Collins, Colorado at the New Belgium Brewery called Fat Tire. A remarkable display of what an Amber Ale should be, and thus my hopes to re-create such a Belgian beer. However, something about me and this recipe just didn't jive. Try as I might, this brew day was as near a nightmare as i have had. Above is a photo of me milling my grain, a tasty chocolate malt is currently pouring out the bottom of the mill. Suffice it to say, I had gathered all the proper ingredients and things were going well until the hops hit the boiling wort, MASSIVE BOIL OVER. I have learned from that experience (and a few times in the past, but nothing that stuck with me like this), I now know to add the hops after i have turned the heat down or taken the brew pot right off the element. At the right hand image, you can see the resin of the hops around the rim which overflowed. When this happens, you take the risk of allowing the wort to cool down while taking the mess to task, which could provide ample time for bacterial contamination. However, there was still about 50 minutes of boil time left, which nullifies any unwanted critters to survive in the molten sweetness. Still makes ya paranoid! I lost about a quart of precious wort. Second problem was that I added the Willamette hops as the boiling hops (60 minute) rather than the more bitter Northern Brewer hops. This means that the flavors are all mixed up because less bitter but more aromatic hops were used earlier therefore losing a large majority of their unique character. Big sigh at this point. So I marched on, but I didn't take the time to photograph anything else from the disastrous brew day.
A more appealing side to this addition of the basement ber brewery is that I found a gnarly label maker online that allows you to make up a seal and then save the image in fairly high quality for free. Changing the aspect ratio to fit about 40 on a sheet of paper is a bit trickier. The above image was the label I had made in anticipation of the possibilities of a great clone, but after all was said and done, it did not reflect the full context of the situation.
Since I fully concede to a d'oh moment, Homer got the nod from the bench to take the heat. Thus the name was altered to Fat'n Tire'd because all i could do was wallow spinelessly and try and shut the world out. This batch was bottled after 6 weeks in various stages of fermentation. Will be ready to surprise me in a few more.

The Brewery

When I started my brewery, it was simply a beginners kit. All the things you find in your start up pre-boxed kit at the homebrew store. I have managed to amass a small collection of various objects that I feel it necessary to identify for potential future use beyond beginning homebrewing, or just novelty rigs that are fun to historicize in this fairly historical hobby

The Growler -
In the late 1800's and early 1900's, fresh beer was carried from the local pub to one's home by means of a small galvanized pail. Rumor has it that when the beer sloshed around the pail, it created a rumbling sound as the CO2 escaped through the lid, thus the term "Growler" was coined.

Swing Top bottles -
As mentioned and displayed in other parts of this homebrewing blog, there are several different sizes and shapes and closing devices for beer bottles. The swing top bottle is my preferred mode of storing my homebrew because it is an ideal drinking size (450ml-600ml-1litre). These bottles allow for easy open/close when bottling as well as drinking! No need for purchasing caps to fit the bottles or invest in the standard beer bottle capper. However the big dig is the price. Regular beer bottles are everywhere if you look, almost free! But the swing top bottles have an input cost which, in my opinion, is resonable. A company called EZ-Cap out of Alberta sells them bulk for over a dollar a bottle. My method has been to solicit the free listings of Winnipeg and my colleagues. As a fall back though I go to the local liquor store when i can afford it, and buy a 4 pack of Grolsch for just under $15 Canadian - or Fischer (600ml for about $5 per bottle).

Bottle Tree -
This cool, yet easily reproducable, device is a miracle for drying bottles after cleaning/sanitizing. Its a fairly exclusive made in Italy device, yet its just molded plastic with 45 pegs coming out in a radial pattern on 5 different tiers along a center column. Fits both regular beer bottles and swing top sizes...growlers are out of luck. You could make a similar one with as many dowl rods and a 2x2 piece of wood and a drill if you fancied it.

Grain Mill -
This is actually a beef mill, but I figured it could be used for grain too and what a great reclamation of a once butchery device now put to use for the grinding of locally made handcrafted beer to be consumed largely by a vegetarian! Precious symbolism! Now, this device is not that good...if i could be so blunt. It has two different grind plates, one with holes (ground beef?) the other with triangluar fan style openings (fanned beef?). The purpose of milling is not to pulverize the grain, but to just pop the husk as you want the endosperms to stay intact when preparing the mash. I recommend milling at the homebrewstore unless you want to invest in a home mill that utilizes rollering pins rather than grinding plates.

Demijon -
Revel in the size of that honkin thing! Rina's nonu being an avid wine maker, had a few of these. This one somehow ended up at the farm...within my reach! Its about 56Litres! That will hold about 2 1/4 five gallon batches comfortably. I havent gotten the chance to utilize it yet since I dont have a homebrew under my belt that I feel I want 84 Grolsch bottles of yet! When the time comes, I will be enlisting help, as I figure it will require two batches on the stove at once and needing some consistency too! Probably needs about 3 yeast starters...

Hops -
It doesnt have to be all equipment! I started a hops plant back in late may. I got it from a nursery which is never a safe bet because the plant needs to be the female variety to yield, and secondly it takes three seasons before said plant will yield the precious hop flower we as homebrewers are after. Not to mention the fact that these hops could just plain ol' suck! Ive read that wild hops are hit and miss, and these are most likely plantation grown root transplants from a mega nursery that doesnt specialize in strains. Dont get me wrong, if this guy (hoping a girl though) gives me flowers im going to use them!

Mash-tun -
I outlined what the mash-tun is and does in this previous post, but I wanted to dispell any misconceptions of the device from the inside, in case it seemed scary and complicated (as i perceived it before building one). The image here is of the stainless braid that fits snuggly around the 3/4" inside-diameter copper piping, connected with a 3/4" outside-diameter hose clamp. It was quite a pill to squeeze down in the water jug and tighten the clamp, but it had to be done. Now because this device is only held in with a fairly old drilled rubber stopper, its best to hold the stopper in place when pouring the strike water because if you have a leak, its gonna be a sticky near-boiling mess that no-one is going to want to drink if you decide to power through.

These are a few of the devices, aside from the basic rigs like glass carboys and airlocks, that I have accumulated over the last 6 months that I have been brewing!

816 Redditt Weizen

At last, the impending step towards self-sufficiency: using well water. At Rina's farm, drinking water is brought in by the bottle from the town's municipal taps. They have a fully functioning well, but as the taste goes, the majority prefer not to drink it. My goal was to move closer towards a sustainable brewing process whereby the resources I would draw upon would be both local and cost efficient. Beer being over 90% H20, it seemed the logical step to utilize what was available in spades.

Aplty named after the location of this foray into well brewing, 816 Redditt Weizen is my first attempt at a wheat beer. The image at left is more a demonstration of what crazy colors come out of different strains of hops, but the purple coming from the boiling of the Saaz hops was a new experience to say the least. Note, these hops are green in color before mixing into the boiling wort, so I don't really know if there's a chemical reaction happening to cause this or if they just turn purple when diluted. This was another all-grain batch, utilizing my mash tun which is working like a champ. The only other notable occurance during the brewing of this batch was the extreeeeme amount of activity happening in the primary carboy about 10 hours after pitching the yeast. The yeast was going absolute bonkers inside the primary, quite amazing to watch as there was no external anything stirring the batch, and yet it looked like it could power a turbine just by the amount of self-propelled mixing going on. Just below, is a picture of the blow off hose I had attached, and obviously the fermentation was strong enough to need it.

This batch was bottled last weekend, and yielded slightly less than an average 5 gallon batch: 29 Grolsch bottles and 1 3litre Rossi jug. I purposely made less because I wanted to utilize the "new" 20litre green carboys that I had picked up off of kijiji along side a whole lot of retired fermentation gear for a very reasonable price. The woman I bought the stuff from had made wine for 20 or so years and decided she was moving to Okanagan Valley, British Columbia (thats wine country folks) so she wouldn't be needing her rigs. After bottling, the taste in the gravity test tube was so-so. Had an acquired taste, but if the riddle of fermentation is good beer, I think I'm in for a surprise!