FF "Why do I brew?"

Why do I brew?

I remember why I started brewing the first time. It wasn’t legal for me to buy finished beer in the store. You see, I was 18 and living in a dorm room as a freshman in college. Just extract brews all kits. Nothing fancy or worth writing home about, it was simply a means to an end which was getting drunk. After my freshman year I packed everything up and didn’t look at it again for several years. In that time I worked in a bar, started a small business, wrapped up school and closed a small business. All the while I continued my outdoor hobbies, found other hobbies, and realized I had a taste for the finer things in life. By the time I closed down my small business to move away from the college town to the city to take a newly offered position I had a scotch collection that surpasses most. Unpacking my alcohol reserve supply of a small country I rediscovered my brewing equipment. Realizing that the only beers I had been drinking were of the craft brew variety I decided it was time once again to try my hand at brewing beer. This time around it was not for the only reason of getting trashed cheap. The last five years have seen brewing become a true escape and a means to relax form the beginnings of crafting a recipe to the magic conversion of the last drop back to water. It has witnessed the gathering of friends, solo brew journeys, crazy experiments with ingredients people would never brew with, sun rise, sun sets and all manner of weather. So why do I brew? It’s fun, that would be the short answer, but it is so much more. It’s a way to slow down time for a short while, maybe to live a bit of history, to create, to slow down and watch the world go by. Maybe it’s that elusive dream of finally creating the ever elusive perfect beer. Its enjoying the perfect beer, the one you created, flaws if any and all, cold from the fridge, while brewing the next beer to become the perfect beer.

Summertime brewing blues

Here in Texas the heat is upon us and brewing beer is flat out a sweaty endeavor. With daytime temps pushing 100F with generally higher humidity, being around vast quantities of hot liquid and a raging, high output propane burner can be miserable. I feel like Hansel and Gretel testing if the oven is ready. To beat the oppressive heat I drink the occasional home brew and copious quantities of water. The heat is probably worse than when I worked in a kitchen during college. Through the brew process I easily drink over a gallon of water. And spend a lot of time in front of several box fans.

The high heat also makes cooling the wort problematic. There are no frost problems in Houston so pipes are almost always run up in the attic. The solar radiation that is so good at heating up an attic space in turn heats even the “cold” water to a high temperature making it virtually impossible to cool the wort fast. I end up employing a lot of ice in bags packed around the kettle to help. I have plans of getting a second wort chiller to use as a pre chiller for the circulating water.

Fermentation used to be a concern but since I got a Johnson controls and an old refrigerator it isn’t an issue any more. Once the wort is transferred to the fermentor and in the chill chest it’s time to clean up and cool off.

I wonder if I could convince my non brewer better half to let me experiment with small batch brewing in the kitchen. Brewing inside would be a treat but I bet she wouldn’t like the house smelling like a brewery.

The Joys & Stress. Fermentation Fridey

As always a big round of thanks to BB2 for the creation of this fun day called fermentation Friday and to all the people who host it, thank you Ted at tedbrews for hosting this month’s F.F.

Brewing beer is pretty enjoyable process for me. I really like the steps I go through to decide on what type of beer I want to brew. The reading of others recopies and trying to envision what they may taste like. From there I start a formulation of my own and won’t look any recipe for several days until I have completed that. I enjoy the preparation of actual brew day and going through the steps that I the recipe dictate to create hopefully a tasty brew.

When nothing goes wrong there is very little stress on a brew day. I even enjoy the clean up to unwind reflect on how things went how I could improve or do different next time. It’s the days that don’t go so well that can be a bit stressful. I never like the feeling when you get ready to rock and roll and come up short some ingredient. The brew store for me is 30-45 minute drive. I have changed a mash schedule to a single infusion form a stepped mash because I forgot something and didn’t want my brew day to be a ridiculously long day. Those days however are rare. The most stress on a regular basis for me comes from bottling the brew. Though I have never had a batch go belly up at the bottling stage it is always a concern that there are bottles that are not clean all the way. I also just don’t like bottling. I can never get anyone to help…. I wonder why? My disdain for bottling in a short time will probably lead me to keging. I just can’t quite bring myself to build a draft setup. I’m not sure where I would put the darn thing. I could possibly rearrange my garage but that would be quite a chore if I still wanted to be able to get my vehicle into it. There is always the option finding a place with a larger garage.

The wheat is a success.

The wheat beer is a tasty success and a hit with my friends who have tried it. Most of who are non adventurous beer drinkers or macro water sippers. Here it is and the first recipe I am posting online. It’s simple but good.

8OZ rice hulls
4LBS 8OZ pale malt
3LBS white wheat malt
8.53QT @ 130.5F (122F) 30min
6.4QT @ 206.5F (155F) 40min
Batch sparge with 6.35QT @ 170F twice
.5OZ cascade 5.4% 60MIN
.25OZ cascade 5.4% 30MIN
.25OZ cascade 5.4% 15MIN
1LBS Honey pasteurized at 130 for 20MIN added at flame out.
American ale yeast
Primary at 68F
Bring up to room temp for 2 days
Rack to secondary and return to 68 for 2 weeks
Prime and bottle or keg.

I took some extra time after primary to help settle some of the dryness created by the honey. All the extra time in the bulk vessels may not have been necessary but I am generally not in a rush to get a beer complete. The wheat wine has been put in two separate one gallon jugs and one has been given some oak. The alcohol flavor has subsided somewhat but has a long way to go. As this sits I think it will become quite a complex beer. I’m tempted to blend and stew up some raisins, dilute the syrup to get an accurate sugar reading and prime a few bottles with it. We will have to wait and see.

Rainy Day Brewing

We had a crazy amount of rain over the last few days. There were many times that the clouds blocked out so much of the sun that it was constantly in the twilight or just after sunrise. It was a very gloomy day but the lawn was thankful for the rain. It also put a damper on my original plans and instead I turned to brewing. I tackled that wheat wine I planned mentioned in earlier posts. I pushed the mash times a bit and lost about 7% efficiency and did a small sparge to rearrange time for the prolonged two hour boil. It was a basic recipe with white wheat and two row with a pound of honey pasteurized and added at flame out. During the first hour of the boil I was digging for a snack and got a wild hair. I weighed out some golden raisins and dates blended them with a bit of water and started pasteurizing them alongside the honey. I added them right to the primary as I started racking over the chilled wort. This should prove to be an interesting brew when it is all said and done. Being a fairly big beer I probably won’t be able to judge its true potential until at least October. I will probably leave it in secondary for at least three months. Then let it sit in the bottle for a few more. I do look forward to giving it a taste when I move it to secondary. The big question is if I added to many dates and raisin or if I will need to add more to the secondary. I may split up the brew into two batches and do a bit of experimenting.

Transfer and a taste

I moved the wheat beer from one glass vessel to another and per the usual I took a sample for measuring and a taste. It tastes pretty good. It needs to settle and clear and sit in the secondary for a week or two and I will bottle it up. When I brewed and boiled it on brew day I ended up with more wort than planned so now I have a half to one gallon sitting in my primary. I am going to brew the wheatwine and pitch it onto these leftovers. The thing that I am not looking forward to is the long long boil to get down to the volume and sugar concentration I am shooting for. A positive event from brewing the wheat is that I must have had a really efficient mash since I was very close to my estimates with the large volume of excess. Over 75%. My buddy who helped me out seems to be getting the brewing bug too. Hopefully the taste of the final beer will set the hook. It is always nice to add to the brewing community. It would also be nice to have some to split the expense with on the more adventurous brews.

Wheat beer

Wow, two months and a few days since my last post. I need to get better about posting on a more consistent basis. I may need to open this blog up to more than just brewing to keep me going. The two beers as seen in the photos below have since been bottled and have carbed up nicely. I think they are bit a bit young. The alt I think is just a bit to bitter for its own good. The honey beer has lightened up considerably but has a bit of a grassy hop flavor most likely from the hops I added at flame out. With the grassy tannic flavor it masks the light honey flavor that would otherwise be quite pleasant. I hope the grassiness ages out over time. If not it is still a very drinkable beer.

This weekend I am introducing a long time friend to the brewing world. He likes wheat beers so I have planned to brew up a simple American style wheat beer. 60% American two row and 40% American white wheat malt. Light hopping with crystal and cascade is planned. It is a simple recipe aimed at making a drinkable beer with little chance of anything going wrong so as to keep my buddy interested.

On a funny note I ended up buying twice as much grain as I need for this batch of beer. The problem lies in that I no longer have two fermentors since the unfortunate breakage when I moved. I think I will mash half of the grain as planned for the wheat beer and while that wort is boiling I will start mashing the second half of the grain. What am I to do with the second runnings if I don’t have a second fermentor? I am going to boil it way down to make a wheatwine. I figure two gallons will take my gravity up to the 1.123 if I also add in some honey. This should be an interesting totally off the cuff brew. There is no telling what this beast will become.