Rainy Day IPA: Racked

The Rainy Day IPA has been moved to a secondary for clarification, and possibly further fermentation. The gravity read in at 1.006, which is pretty amazing being how it's only been about 5 days. That puts the current attenuation at 86%.

The brew smells amazing and really has great flavor. I can't wait till this one can be carbonated and consumed!

Rainy Day IPA

Using Matt's homegrown hops, we threw together an all grain IPA recipe this past week, and we pushed to get to brewin' this Thursday evening.

(Matt's Cascade homegrown hops)

Brent was unable to attend the brewing event this week, but contributed with a new piece of equipment for the mash tun to help with the sparging process:

Rain was expected, but up through the sparging process not much had really fallen. Just as the hops were added to the boiling wort, ready for 60 minutes of alpha acid extraction and saturation, the rain came. Matt and I never even considered giving up on the brew, and began taking turns holding an umbrella.

In search of a better brewing method, Matt recommended we fix a broken patio umbrella that was standing collapsed and useless only a few feet away. After a few short minutes of turmoil, we had prepared a more relaxing solution.

A few minutes later, a pizza was delivered from Bishops and we enjoyed a pepperoni and onion pie while being warmed by the steam from a sweet wort with beautiful boiling hops. Not a bad time.

Here are the stats on the beer:

We were shooting for a 1:1 GU to BU ration, and had decided this IPA would do well around a GU of 58. The OG turned out a bit lower than we hoped at 1.042, but not terrible. We used enough of Matt's cascade hops to in theory put us around 58 BU's. The brew should be plenty bitter, but I'm really excited to see how the homegrown hops contribute to the aroma and flavor.

A few more shots from the evening.

All grain German Alt Bier

Brent and I brewed up a German Alt Bier on Thursday afternoon, once again trying our hand at an all grain brew. The SG came out a bit lower than we were hoping at 1.034, but hopefully we still have a good brew on our hands.

Here is a video of the airlock ferociously bubbling as the alt bier fermented:

Fuggles IPA: All Grain Brew was a success!

For our first all grain brew, we couldn't have had a better result, in my opinion.

I've already completely emptied my keg of it (split between Matt and I - Brent graciously offered us his share), although I did have a higher volume of visitors in the last two weeks than usual and most of my friends enjoy a good brew. Still, it was hard to not go for a pour of the Fuggles over the Great Lakes Elliot Ness and dark hoppy extract brew that I also had on tap.

The taste was a very nice light, almost fruity flavor that even quenches the thirst. The color was a cloudy orange color. The head was perfect after the beer finished carbonating, mixing with the slightly cloudy consistency and sweat on the glass to form a visually fuzzy spectacle.

My rating: a delicious 4.75/5

And I've only left the last 0.25 in case we can top this one, in this style. I'm not sure it'll happen though.

I'll let Brent post about the dark hoppy brew we just completed. It was also very good, but I'll let Brent do it justice with a rating of his own.

All Grain Brew Event

Last Thursday we attempted our first all grain brew using my homemade mash/lauder tun and some new propane burners. So far, everything has gone extremely well.

Since it was a night of firsts, I also decided to try out a liquid yeast and put together a starter.

Here's a shot of the full setup:

Removing some steeped grains from the extract brew:

The new Bayou burner with propane tank:

Brent and Matt finishing up the extract brew:

And some nice hot break forming on the top of the Fuggles IPA:

The Fuggles IPA had an expected SG of 1.042 - 1.046. We ended up with 1.045! I couldn't have been happier.

The extract brew went just as well, coming in around 1.062 (with an expected 1.070 SG).

Today we transferred both brews to secondaries, dry hopping the extract brew; it should be a pretty dark IPA, and it tasted delicious. It had a gravity of 1.019 today (so far a 69% attenuation).

The Fuggles IPA had a gravity reading of 1.010 (78% attenuation!)

After the brews settle a bit in the secondaries, it'll be time to rack 'em in some corny kegs and get them ready for consumption.

Next Extract Brew Recipe

Our next extract brew will be a recipe pulled from my favorite source BeerRecipes.org. This site was responsible for Hell Gate Porter, Bah Humbug and Hop Hound Dog IPA.

The recipe is called Serious Black Ale, and it peaked my interest because of it's cross between my two favorite beers - hoppy IPAs and dark porters. This brew appears to have ample amounts of cascade hops, which incidentally is the same variety that we have left over from our HopsDirect.com purchase.

Description pulled from the recipe posting:

"This beer is a very dark Hybrid Ale/Porter, overtly hop forward and lasting until finish. However it has an nice toasty and chocolate flavor on the palate. Wonderful hop and coffee aromas as soon as the beer is opened and poured. As I said this beer is very dark. It is Brown almost black and has a head almost like Guiness. "

We'll see... I certainly hope so.

I'm hoping if the post-secondary taste test goes well, I may take on the effort of filling my second tank with a CO2 and Nitrogen mix, to get the true Guiness-style head.

Finally, the recipe:

• 7.5lbs Amber liquid malt extract.
• 2lbs Muntons dark dry malt extract.
• 12.5 ounces Chocolate malt cracked
• 12.5 ounces Crystal malt 60l cracked
• 7 ounces Victory malt cracked
• 2 ounces northern brewers hops
• 5 ounces cascade hops
• 5 gallons Spring water
• 2tsp yeast nutrient
• 2.5tsp yeast energizer
• 1 vial of White Labs California Ale V yeast WLP-051

OG: 1070 FG: 1021
Primary Ferment: 5 days
Secondary Ferment: 10 days

All Grain Brew Prep

I recently picked up an 8 gallon brewing pot and was interested in finding faster ways to bring water and the wort up to temperature. Since we have an all grain brew coming up this week, I thought it'd be a good idea to try out some of the new planned equipment.

We're going to try to do all of the brewing out back this week, using a turkey fryer burner (15psi high pressure propane burner). I was able to take 5 gallons of water from 77 degrees F to boiling in a little over 35 minutes. I've never tried this volume of water on my kitchen stove, but I can guarantee it wouldn't be done so quickly. Due to the success of the burner, I decided to pick up a Bayou burner on Amazon that had great reviews (20psi high pressure propane burner). The turkey fryer burner was borrowed from a buddy who will be joining us for the next brew.

This experiment also included the use of the immersion cooler with the garden hose, demonstrating how much easier this backyard setup will be than the typical kitchen environment.

Finally, I was able to test out the mash tun to see how much the temperature would drop over an hour. I was a bit disappointed to watch the temperature go from 155 degrees F to about 150 degrees F over the hour. I'm hoping that with the inclusion of the grain, the temperature may drop a big slower. I also intend to wrap the mash tun in insulation and a sleeping bag when we try it out this week.

DIY Mash Tun

I threw together a mash/lauder tun based on Greene Thumb's blog posting. I made some minor modifications since the cooler I'm using is slightly different in size, but the overall procedure was the same.

We should get a chance to try it out this Thursday. I'll report on how well things worked out after 8 Bit Beer's first all grain brewing experience.

Great Father's Day gift

My wife purchased this glass etched with the 8-Bit Beer name for me for my first Father's Day. Great gift. I immediately filled it up with a pour from the Troegg's HopBack I had on tap in my kegerator. Delicious.

Bah Humbug: It's about time

I finally got the chance to tap the Bah Humbug keg, sampling it this warm spring evening with my wife.

Thanks to a rather inauspicious business practice of taking a customer's money with no plans to provide the purchased items, I was stuck for awhile without the final pieces necessary to connect my kegerator to my pin-locked cornelius keg. In case you're interested, the website is www.keepjimfromenjoyinghishomebrew.com (where keep = keg and jimfromenjoyinghishomebrew = kits).

Thanks to http://www.midwestsupplies.com/ I was able to resolve the situation. I'm not sure why I didn't go with them to begin with, considering the fact that I've only known good experiences when ordering from their online store.

Anyway, so I bet you're wondering how this Winter Ale turned out: pretty damn good. It's a spicy, smooth and not overwhelming ale, reminding me of a good pumpkin ale from the fall.

My rating: 3.75 / 5

Hell's Gate Porter: Thumbs Up

My current setup only allows me to have one brew on tap at a time (there is most certainly a project on the short list to remedy this situation), and the Hell's Gate Porter was chosen from the two available. The beer poured beautifully with a thick head; the porter turned out to have a very dark color.



Despite the dark look, the porter has a lighter taste to it. It doesn't have a syrupy after taste, making it go down very smoothly and leaving a refreshing taste in your mouth.

My rating: 3.5 / 5

Although it really does taste great and has met expectations, it isn't a very exciting brew. Not that I need excitement from every brew I drink, but with this dark of a porter, it seems like it should pack a punch in the flavor department and it does not. I'm always happy with a good home brew, free of any turn-offs; and this brew is a model of the very least of what I hope to put together with our efforts.

Cheers!

Kegging the Winter Ale and Hells Gate Porter

On 3/25 we transferred the Bah Humbug Winter Ale and the Hells Gate Porter into corny kegs. This is now our second time kegging, and things went extremely well with the transfer of the beer; it's amazing how much time you save when you don't have to clean and sanitize bottles...

Both beers had been transferred to secondaries on 3/16. The gravity measurements from 3/16 were practically identical to 3/25.

Hell's Gate Porter
OG: 1.055

FG: 1.020

Atten: 65%

ABV: 4.7%

Bah Humbug Winter Ale

OG: 1.074

FG: 1.023

Atten: 69%

ABV: 6.8%

The attenuation was a bit lower than expected based on previous brews using the same yeast; however, I believe this is mainly due to the lower temperature of the fermenting room. Don't be surprised if there is a post about a temperature-regulated fermenting box in the near future.

Problems with the kegging process:

More due diligence on both my part and one of my colleagues would have made this a much less painful process. We have a mix of cornelius keg styles with different pressure relief valves. The first group of kegs that were purchased seem to work with no issues. They have the user-initiated pressure relief levers. This latest set has a pressure relief that is triggered only when the pressure inside the keg reaches a certain level (configurable based on the strength of a tiny spring inside the pressure regulator valve in the keg top). After much fidgeting, I was able to get the pressure valve to hold 20 psi (removed the valve mechanism; cleaned it; re-tighted it).

The good news:

I'm happy with my gas setup at this point. I now have both kegs pressurized from the same CO2 tank, with the cost to extend to a 2nd keg being somewhere around $10.

The IPA has been bottled

The 1 Gallon Brew attempt has advanced to the next stage. I bottled the IPA yesterday afternoon with a FG of 1.018 (73% attenuation).

The good news: 1 Gallon of beer requires that you only prepare 4 bottles

The bad news: only 4 bottles of brew...

8 Bit Sees More Action

I'd like to say that 8 Bit Beer is back in action. Two of the three members met up tonight to complete a much needed, overdue brew night. Unfortunately, the third member is off touring the South Pacific. There's more than just chemistry in the flavor extraction from the grain steeping when brewing with 8 Bit, so we're looking forward to the next brew night where the team is whole again.

So, enough of that, let's talking beer: Bah Humbug Winter Ale and the Hell's Gate Porter.

You may notice that both of these brew names are retarded. This is usually a good sign that a recipe was chosen by the blond of the group (although, I have to admit, he has chosen some great tasting recipes, thus far). The Hell's Gate Porter is a repeat which we are attempting to brew at least as well as the previous brewing: it was a damn good porter.
The Winter Ale was chosen a few months ago, but put on hold. It seemed like a good night to resurrect the recipe so we weren't partaking in a bit of a Christmas ale during the Easter weekend.

Here are the recipes:

Hell Gate Porter
- 6 lb of dark liquid malt extract
- 1 lb of amber dry malt extract
- 1 lb of 80 L Crystal
- 1/2 lb of chocolate malt
- 1/2 cup Black Patent
- 1 oz of 8.8% A.A. Cascade (60 min)
- 1/2 oz of Ken Golding (30 Min)
- 1/2 oz of 4.5% A.A. Cascade (30 Min)
- Safale S-04 yeast

OG: 1.055

Bah Humbug Winter Ale
- 8 lb of light liquid malt extract
- 2 lb of honey
- 1/4 lb of Black Patent
- 1 lb of 40 L Crystal
- 1 oz Willamet Hops (60 min)
- 1/2 oz of Kent Goldings (10 min)
- 2 Tbsp allspice
- 1 can Welch's Cranberry juice concentrate
- peels from 4 oranges
- Safale S-04 yeast

OG: 1.074

And some highlights from the evening:

1 Gallon Brew: IPA

Recipe:

• 1 lb of Pilsen Golden Dry Malt Extract
• 1 lb of 60L Crystal Malt
• 1 oz. of Northern Brewer pellet hops
• Safale S-05 yeast

OG: 1.065

I was interested in attempting to repeat one of the first IPA's brewed by the 8 bit crew and came across an instructional video detailing a method of brewing smaller batches to keep overall brew time and resources to a minimum. I decided to give it a try. So far everything has gone well, but we won't know for sure until we taste the final result. Here is a link to the 1 gallon brewing process as outlined by Ben's Homebrew:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVGkTcYW0Yc

Here are a few pictures from the brewing process: