Barley Up, CO2 gone

Its been a while since I've blogged. With spring comes all sorts of projects and with summer come even more. I hope the recent solstice found you with wheat beer in hand. I've very excited about my barley project. I have a 20 x15 foot space in my garden currently occupied with the feathery heads of barley. Its a 6-row variety which is all I could find for sale in Michigan. Next year I will locate a 2-row variety and I hope to have it available through my new business, Heritage Hops, LLC, for other folks who would like to attempt to brew a REAL homebrew! My hops are coming along nicely as well. I went down to the basement to pull a draught of my pale ale...and nothing. I believe there is a leak in my system. I'm guessing its in my picnic tap. Anyway, I'll have to get the old tank filled up soon. I guess that's one problem with kegging...a fairly big problem if you don't have a backup CO2 tank!

Suprise...From the Czech Republic

I was kind of baffled when I picked up a package from the post office today from the Czech Republic. When I found the package slip in our PO Box I figured it was something for the baby from my mom, but no...it was a mystery. But then I remembered I submitted a haiku to a beer poetry contest from the Beer Culture - The Czech Beer Blog. I couldn't find a link to my poem on the blog but I won a T-Shirt from the Staropramen Brewery in Prague! I'm wearing it in the photo which is an action shot of me checking out the Cascade hops in my garden. The giant beer conglomerate InBev distributes Staropramen, so there is a chance I could find it in the States. Let me know if you see it somewhere. Also FYI, a Euro XL T-shirt = US Large. The haiku:

A flower you say?
What a glorious blossom
crowns my IPA.

2008 Batch #6 Recipe: Waiting, Waiting, Wheat

I was asked to make a batch of brew for a baby shower of some friends of ours, since my wheat is turning out quite well and they are generally crowd pleasers I though I would take another crack at the wheat paying more attention to the sparge this time around.

RECIPE: See Trout Lily Wheat.

CHANGES: I used 4 Gallons of sparge water which seems to be the correct amount. Also I borrowed an outdoor propane burner from a friend (Thanks Keith!) which cut down on the time to boil significantly. I forgot to start the yeast the night before, so I started it before brewing and it was ready to go by the time the wort was cool. This Safbrew T-58 is some active stuff (or just very fresh). Brix = 12.6; OG= 1.050

Kalamabrew Feature

I was recently featured in KalamaBrew post about growing your own hops. The folks at KalamaBrew do a great job of posting about all sorts of things-brew, so if you haven't checked them out yet, you really should. Thanks for feature guys (and gal).

2008 Batch #5 Recipe: Trout Lily Wheat

Happy Homebrew Day!

I brewed two weekends ago so, this weekend will be dedicated to gardening and enjoying already brewed homebrew. If you are looking for a recipe to brew today, why not try this wheat beer? I learned a few things about wheat malt that I'll report. The yeast starter did a bang-up job (it was down to 1.013 in 3 days) and this beer tastes great young, warm and uncarbonated (dare I say better than the Oberon I had last night?) so I can't wait to get it into the keg.

Erythronium americanum - The trout lily, my favorite spring wildflower.

RECIPE: Trout Lily Wheat

• 6 lbs US pale malt
• 4 lbs wheat malt
• 1/2 oz cascade - boil
• 1/4 oz cascade - aroma
• 1/4 oz centennial - finish
  

THE MASH

2.5 gallons of H2O at 130º add grain and hold at arpox. 122º for 30 minutes. Add 5 quarts boiling H20 to bring the temperature up to aprox. 155º. I mashed for 30 mintues (iodine stayed orange after 15 minutes). Transfered to Lauter Tun and spraged with 5 gallons 170º H20. This is where things started to get interesting. I was worried about a stuck run-off due the the high amount of wheat malt (no hulls like like barley to make an appropriate bed) and in fact that is what happened. So, I just gave the malt a stir and WHAM it started flowing again. This was probably not the best way to filter your beer, but what else can you do (any ideas?)? THEN, I made another mistake by using too much sparge water. I ended up with 8 gallons (I need to work on my lautering technique) which I used to top off my brew kettle (sigh...why did I do that). I believe this is partly due to the wheat malt not retaining as much water as barley (correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway, I boiled the wort down until my refractometer said my wort was at 1.043 and then I started my boil.

THE BOIL

Add 1/2oz Cascade at the start of boil. Add 1/4oz cascade at 40 min and the 1/4oz centennial when you turn the heat off before chilling.

OG= 1.044
Yeast = Safbrew T-58 dry yeast started the previous day with 1.5oz malt extract and 12 oz H20 in a small single malt scotch bottle (very important detail).

ENJOY!

And the winner is...

Not me exactly, but my Pine Tar Porter took 3rd of 19 porters in the World Expo of Beer homebrew competition. Being that it was my first entry ever and I've only been brewing all-grain since December (I've been brewing for over 5 years total), I couldn't be happier about it. I've also brewed my first all-grain wheat beer on Sunday. I learned a few thinks about the water retention differences of wheat and barely malt and what a stuck run-off is. In other homebrew news; the hops are poking out of the ground in my garden and I planed a 20x10 patch of 6-row barley yesterday. More on all that later.

Brewing photos as segue to future post

I've been meaning to post about my recent equipment changes/acquisitions, but these photos of my new bottling hydrometer taken by my lovely and talented wife will have to suffice for the time being (Avuncular Dunkel SG= 1.0125).

My First Competition

My friends like my brew. I like my brew. But is it prize worthy? I will find out soon because I'm entering The World Expo of Beer's Homebrewing competition. I've been to this festival in Frankenmuth a couple of times with my brother and his friends. Its a good time with lots of beer and entertainment, and besides Frankenmuth is a fun/wacky place to visit. The homebrew competition is a new event this year. I'm entering my Pine Tar Porter and maybe my Dunkel or the IPA that I'm currently finishing up. The deadline is April 11th so if you don't have a brew ready to go, its probably too late for this one.

Holly Michigan: Home of the Carry Nation Festival

Remember prohibition? No? Well anyway, you can celebrate the life of one its most infamous advocates in Holly Michigan this summer if you like. I came across the Carry Nation Festival when researching prohibition the other day and you know, it looks... strange. Why Holly? She went there once. Ok. But, really, I do love festivals so this might be one to check out. The website has not been updated so hopefully it's happening again. The most important question: will there be a beer tent?

2008 Batch #4 Recipe: Diversified Pale Ale

As home brewers these days we have to diversify when it comes to the hops we use in our brews. Thats where the name for this batch comes from, I'm using two hops that are new to me: Perle and Cluster (because they were the highest alpha hops the store had!).

I made a yeast starter from the White Labs Cal V I had saved ( 3 vials left) two days prior to brewing using wort I saved from two privious batches in the freezer. The dark color come from the pine tar porter wort.

I also tried the super easy techinique of whilpooling the cooled wort before transfering to the pimary. I had a problem with sediment and hops plugging my valve last time I brewed. It worked great. Now, on with the recipe!

• 8lbs 2-row US pale malt
• 1/2lbs toasted 2-row US pale malt
• 1/2lbs 20 lvb crystal malt
• 1 oz cluster hops
• 1 oz perle hops
• 1/2 oz northern brewer
• ale yeast (I'm using a re-cultured White Labs Cal V)

THE MASH

Heat 9 quarts of H2O to 170ºF, add crushed grain. Stabilize at 155ºF. My mash was on the low side of 150º for 30 minutes then I heated it up to 158º for the second 30 minutes. 1 hour mash total, then mash out at 168ºF. Sparge with 4.5 gallons H2O at 170ºF.

THE BOIL

Add the 1/z oz Northern Brewer hops when the wort is boiling. at 15mins add 1/2 oz of the Cluster. At 30 minutes add the other 1/2 oz of cluster. At 45 at 1/4 oz of the Perle. At 60 minutes turn off heat and add 1/4 oz of Perle. Chill, transfer to primary, pitch and seal up! I added about a 1/2 gallon of H2O to bring the volume up a bit. Next time I'll boil let vigorously to decrease the water loss. The Brix before pitching was 11.6 (SG ~ 1.046) After the fermentation begins to settle down, transfer to a secondary and add dry hop with the remaining 1/2 oz Perle.