Archive for category Beer
Home Brew – Fermentation un-woes
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on January 2, 2012
Looks like pitching the Pacman was the right thing to do. When I got home I could see the English Bitter showing visible signs of fermentation which included a nice foamy krausen. I also took a minute stir the mead wildly releasing as much CO2 as I could be bothered to and took a gravity reading showing it was down to 1.081 from 1.096.
Year in Review (in English)
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Fitness, Hobbies, Home Brewing, Japanese Language, Misc on December 31, 2011
Time to say goodbye to 2011. Bye 2011!
This year was one where I broke some long standing personal records and achieved some challenging goals. For strength related personal records: I made a PR for Bench Press, an exercise I sucked at pretty bad, pressing 215lbs once (30% over my body weight). I set a PR for deadlifts just last weekend, lifting 265lbs once. I did a hanging clean of 145lbs once yesterday as well, another PR. For calisthenic related goals, I did my first Muscle Up early this year, followed up by reaching a PR 7 consecutive last month. I completed the 100 Days of Burpees Challenge and managed to make 75 Pullups in under 5 minutes. I also did a lot of running to train for the 5KM Run for the Cure, which I did while wearing a 20lbs training vest in just under 25 minutes total time.
This year was also very beer heavy. I believe I made over 20 beers this year, plus a couple ciders and wines. I made the switch from extract brewing to all grain this summer and began to produce vastly better beers. My last 12 or so batches have all been from grain to glass and I have no intention of switching back to extract. Ever. Through time saving brewing techniques such as no-chilling and BIAB I have cut my brew day time down to under 4 hours. I also tried a few money saving techniques such as yeast harvesting, yeast washing and bulk buying grain (which I believe I still have around 100lbs of in my basement…). Don’t even ask me how much of that beer I drank.
As for my Japanese study… Well… I could have done a lot more this year. I studied quite a bit of low level kanji and can recognize around 200+ characters now (well if I reviewed them again over a week). I know my vocabulary has gotten a smidge larger and my ability to write (on a computer… I can barely write in English on paper anymore) has improved. Overall though I don’t think I made very much headway in the area of Japanese in 2011.
I do not know what 2012 will bring, but something tells me its going to be a very amazing year.
Home Brew – Fermentation woes
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on December 31, 2011
I am leaving town to spend New Years in the Rocky Mountains within the hour and will not be home until tomorrow evening. I pitched my dry yeast into the wort around 5PM last night (14 hours ago) and when I checked the wort this morning there were no signs of any fermentation taking hold.
No kruasen. No odour. No tiny little bubbles. Nothing.
I realize that it can take over 24 hours for even small signs of fermentation to appear, but it really is not the norm. Generally I would just wait until the 24 hour mark before considering the yeast a possible failure, but the yeast I pitched was very old though still well within its Best Before date. I decided because of my absence this weekend it would be safer to pitch one of the bottles of wash Pacman yeast I had sitting in the fridge.
Odds are it was just lag time, but I do not want to risk letting my wort sit around for the next 48 hours without fermentation.
Home Brew – English Special Bitter Ale
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on December 31, 2011
This is the last brew of the year and depending on how January goes, possibly the last brew for a long time.
I wanted to try a full bodied English Bitter Ale. I got a new nylon sack yesterday for my Brew-in-a-bag sessions. It is much larger then my previous BIAB bag making the mash a lot easier to deal with. This is going to be my first full bodied mash as well, allowing the temperature to sit at 158F for 70 minutes.
She's had one too many and looking for a party. At least I think its a she.
Harpy New Years! Bitter Ale —
Grains/Adjuncts
- 5.0 lbs Pale Ale Malt
- 1.5 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
- 0.5 lbs 2 Row, 0.5 lbs Pilsner, Roasted at 375F for 45 minutes
Hops/Herbs
- 0.5 oz Williamette @ 45 min
- 0.5 oz Tettnang @ 30 min
- 0.5 oz Williamette @ 20 min
- 0.5 oz Tettnang @ 5 min
Misc
- 1 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ Flame out
- 1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 10 minutes (for clarity)
- Windsor Ale Yeast
Procedures
- Unconditioned malt, milled once
- Brew-in-a-Bag
- Single Step Mash, ~156F-158F, 70 minutes, 4.5 gallons
- Sparge, 1.25 gallons, 170F
- 45 minute boil
- Ice Bath Chill
Beer Profile
- Batch Size – 4.5 gallons
- Actual OG: 1.046 (Eff: 75%), Estimated FG: 1.012 (4.4% ABV)
- IBU – ~25
Home Brew – Mead Making, 101
Posted by bradinator in Home Brewing on December 30, 2011
Mead is actually pretty simple to make when you compare the process to brewing beer. You are adding honey to water and stirring until its dissolved, then pitching yeast nutrients and the yeast itself into the honey must. The science of mead making is a bit more involved and there are some additional processes you need do during the first few weeks of fermentation.
Last night I boiled up 5 gallons of water to prepare it for the 7KG of honey I was going to add. Its important to remember to never boil honey in the water as it will destroy some of its more delicate flavours. I allowed the water to cool until around 150F and proceeded to VERY CAREFULLY add the liquid honey to the warm water. I don’t think I need to stress how much of a sticky mess it would make if you were to spill even a small amount of honey. I stirred until it was dissolved and added the yeast nutrient (DAP and vitamin B combination). I used a cup of the honey must, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and a teaspoon of yeast energizer to make a mead starter.
The honey must was moved into the fermenter and allowed to cool to 27C before adding the yeast starter.
There was some visible signs of fermentation this morning, though without a gravity reading its really impossible to tell. I stirred the now fermenting must to remove some of the CO2 as per the advice given from the mead makers at Chinook Arch meadery. I will continue to stir it as often as possible over the next couple weeks to remove excess CO2 as it can make yeast toxic and impact the fermentation. I will also take a gravity reading later tonight just to be sure the yeast is actually doing something.
Here is the recipe —
Mead —
Ingredients -
- 7KG (15.7lbs) Honey
- 5 Gallons of boiled and cooled water
- 2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
- EC-1118 Yeast starter (1/2tsp yeast nutrient, 1/2tsp yeast energizer)
Profile -
- Style: Traditional Dry Mead
- Batch Size – 6.0 gallons
- Actual OG: 1.092 , Estimated FG: 0.995 (12.7% ABV)
Home Brew – Home roasting some specialty malts
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on December 27, 2011
I have a lot of grain in my basement. Probably around 100lbs or so remaining from the bulk buy I did back in the summer. I have decided to try home roasting malts based off this fellow home brewers excellent how-to. I decided to start small, roasting 0.5lbs of 2-row and 0.5lbs of pilsner malt together at 375F for 45 minutes. I stirred it constantly to keep it from burning and now have it cooling in a bowl that I am stirring every 20 minutes or so. It should give the equivalent colour that of a 60L specialty malt I can buy the LHBS.
The reference I used recommends allowing the roasted malt to rest for 2 or more weeks, but I am going to be using it in a few days from now. Hopefully it does not impart too many off flavours, but I am hopeful I won’t even notice.
I am also going to be making up the mead I was dreaming up a few weeks ago. I got 7KG (15.7lbs) of honey for Christmas which is enough to make up a 5 gallon batch of potent mead. My brother and I went to the Chinook honey farm and meadery where we bought the honey, sampled some of their prize winning meads and even talked mead making with their head brewer. I took away some useful tips on mead making and an immense amount of honey for the honey wine I am planning.
I will probably tackle both of these home brews the same day, making the mead during the mash stage of the beer brewing.
Home Brew – Jolly Christmas Manticore Ale and Skeeter Pee Plum bottled
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on December 22, 2011
I just spent the last two hours racking, bottling and cleaning two more of my home brews. One is the last all grain beer I will make for the year, bottled just in time for the holiday season; The Jolly Christmas Manticore Ale. This is a Christmas spiced golden ale made using Pilsner Malt, Tettnang hops and a variety of spices including cinnamon, allspice and coriander. It finished a bit lower than I was expecting, 1.007, making it 4.6% ABV. I primed with 3.6oz of dextrose and I managed to get exactly 34 pints of this ale, setting the cost at around $0.27 a bottle. I did not get a sample taste of it but it is one very clear, very golden ale. I can’t wait to try one in a couple weeks!
I also bottled the Skeeter Pee Plum, which I also primed with 2.0oz of dextrose. I got 30 pints of this cider,which has a final gravity of 0.998. I believe the ABV is around 5.5%-6.0% but it is impossible to tell because I dumped about 1/2 gallon of the wine must the left over from the Shiraz kit I am making for a friend. I took a sample taste of this concoction and can safely say it is not gross.
Once again almost every bottle I own is used. Now its time to start enjoying the holiday season. By getting liberally drunk.