In the process of cleaning up the garage a bit, I opened a conditioning chest that I had all but forgotten about.  As it turns out it contained a keg of my peated english ale and a keg of a strong IPA that I brewed last year.  I had wanted to age both a bit, but had completely forgotten about them.  What a glorious day!  Both are VERY tasty, and will be on tap for St. Patty’s Day as well.  That puts me up to 6 beers on tap for the party.  Not too shabby.

Due to the storm this past weekend I was unable to brew. As I need to get a couple more beers on tap in time for St. Patty’s Day, I was forced to brew on Monday night. Fortunately, I have decent lighting on the back deck. The brew session went exceedingly well, and two more brews are bubbling along nicely as I’m writing this post.

Brew 1: Irish Red Ale

This is a variation of a recipe I’ve been brewing for about 6 years. The backbone is provided by marris otter and english 2 row pale malt. The color and mouth feel come primarily from the crystal 70-80, with a touch of biscuit malt for that toastiness I like in a red. This was pitched on top of the yeast cake from the english pale that I brewed a bit over a week ago, and has been fermenting at the expected feverish pace since about 20 minutes after the transfer to the fermenter.

Brew 2: Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

This one is based on a very simple chocolate stout recipe that I’ve been brewing for at least 10 years. There is a nice chocolate nose and flavor that is offset by a bit of coffee-like bitterness. Toasted oats give it a bit of nuttiness to round it out. This is a relatively low alcohol stout that serves as an excellent way to begin a drinking session. There is just a bit of hop bitterness, but no discernable hop flavor or aroma (as it should be for this type of beer). I plan to put this one on nitro when it’s ready. Few things are tastier than a stout on nitro….

During my brew day yesterday I did manage to keep the wine moving along.  As you may recall, I have one batch of syrah and 3 batches of zinfandel going.  They have been ready for oak for a couple of months now, but I hadn’t found the time to do the work.  Yesterday, however, I transferred all four into nice clean kegs with oak and another infusion of potassium metabisulfate.  They will stay there for the next 6+ months, prior to going into the bottle.  I did grab a small sample of each during the transfer process, but didn’t get any pictures.  The syrah has a very dark color and a heavy mouth feel.  The flavors are really starting to develop and it is becoming quite complex.   The three zinfandels, differing only in type of yeast used for fermentation, are all fairly similar.  All three have a lovely bright color and are a little on the thin side.  All three have significantly different characteristics both on the nose and the palate.  I won’t bore you with the details, but I am certainly happy with how these are progressing.  The oak should add a nice bit of flavor and further improve complexity.  I expect the zinfandels to darken a little bit, but I could be wrong. 

 I will likely have a “barrel tasting” in a couple of months to see how these are progressing.  The sulfites will be quite strong at that point, but the character of the wine should be interesting.

What better way to spend Presidents Day than to exercise a right that was granted by Jimmy Carter; the right to brew beer at home. Having just returned from the Belgian Beer Festival at Max’s Taphouse in Baltimore, I was looking forward to brewing one of my tripel recipes. Logic, however, got the best of me and I decided to brew a couple of batches that would be ready to put on tap in a small amount of time. The problem with going so long between brew days is that the taps tend to dry out. With St. Patty’s Day approaching I figured I needed to get a few things on tap.

Batch 1 was one of my common house recipes: West Coast Pale Ale #4. This one is a bit thinner and lower alcohol than my Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone. It has a nice strong hop character, provided by the Mt. Hood and Chinook hops. The beautiful golden color and moderate head retention make this one a very tasty looking brew in the glass. When it’s ready, I will post some pictures, naturally. The recipe is a simple one. 90% 2 row pale (Great Western) and 10% Crystal 15. Bittering is done with Chinook, with the flavoring and aromatic aspects coming from Mt. Hood. I use a neic thin single infusion mash that works quite well for this style. Fermentis Safeale US-05 is used to minimize diacetyl and give it a nice crisp finish and a slightly fruity character.

Update 26FEB08: This one was kegged on Monday night.  The alcohol came in at right about 5%, as expected.  This is a very tasty, light bodied west coast pale ale that should make an excellent session beer for those who like a beer on the hoppy side.

Batch 2 was a variation of my English Brown Ale recipe. This one is a medium bodied, slightly nutty ale with a deep brown color and medium head retention. Goldings are used for bittering and a combination of Perle and Fuggles are used for both flavoring and aromatic. The grain bill is a simple one: 30% 2 row pale (Great Western), 60% Marris Otter, 8% Crystal 15, 2% Chocolate Malt. Fermentis Safeale S-04 is used to ferment this beer. This English ale yeast is smooth, clean and highly flocculent. Fermentation of this recipe generally takes 3-5 days, with the bulk of the fermentation finishing in the first 36 hours.

Update 26FEB08: This beer was kegged on Monday night.  The color, aroma and flavor are outstanding.  My wife loves this style, and this is one of her favorite recipes.  She insisted on having a glass of it during the transfer to the keg.  This one is going to be an excellent session beer, and is about 4.5% alcohol.  I plan to serve this one slightly under carbonated and a wee bit warmer.

I’ll post again when I keg these guys.

Sorry this blog hasn’t had much action lately.   The few times I have had time to brew have been ruined by rain.  I’ve considered moving the brewing operation indoors, but the reward doesn’t justify the risk.  With Laguna Seca coming up in July, I need to get some brews cranked out.  Currently, 7 of my 8 taps are empty, which saddens me greatly.  I’m traveling next week, which effectively kills half of this weekend and half of next weekend.  There’s a small chance I will take a shot at brewing in the evening after work, but the idea of brewing in semi-darkness and chilly weather does not excite me. 

I do, however, promise that I will get at least two batches brewed by the end of February.  I’ll likely do one lager (most likely a Pils) for Laguna Seca and an ale to get on tap asap (most likely a stout or brown ale).  I’ll keep you posted….

I had planned to brew a nice Belgian Tripel on Sunday.  As it turns out, I was lacking a number of specialty malts that I thought I had on hand.  To make matters worse, some of the whole hops that I had in the fridge were bad, due to my inability to find time to brew in the past couple of months.  I was left with two choices: 1. not brew  OR   2. improvise

Option 2 sounded better.  The result will be a beer that is essentially a hybrid of a trippel and an imperial IPA.  The color will be slightly on the dark side, as the only crystal malt I had was crystal 30.  The Belgian candied sugar adds a nice bit of extra flavor as well.  This grain bill is fairly close to my standard trippel recipe, but lacks a few key malts.  The hop additions, however, were vastly different.  This beer is hopped with cascades for both bittering and flavoring.  No aromatic hop additions were used. 

The wort was quite tasty with solid bitterness and plenty of sugar.  Starting gravity was about 1.105, so I am expecting this sucker to finish out at around 10-10.5% abv.  Here are some pics from brew day:

Yummy base malt, ready to be cracked:

Freshly cracked grains, ready to mash:

Finishing heating the strike water to the appropriate temp for dough-in:

Went for the less-efficient, but much easier, single infusion mash.  Not as efficient, but saves a bit of time at the expense of a bit of extra malt.  Yup, it was a lazy day.  Only one batch, and no sparging….

Nailed my target mash temp of 150 degrees.  It’s almost like I’ve done this before…

Transferring to the kettle for boiling.  Looks (and tastes) tasty:

A pic of the boil (post hot break):

Time to pump it throught the counterflow chiller into the fermenter (and yes, everything was pre-sanitized prior to this step). 

The yeast (Fermentis S-33) were pitched immediately (wort temp ~80 degrees) and fermentation began within the hour.  The first part of the fermentation was at about 64 degrees.  This beer will be aged on oak and should be quite tasty in about 4 months.  Patience, grasshoppers….

07DEC07 Update:

Last night, as the initial fermentation was starting to slow, I pitched a packet of Safelager S-23 yeast.  I did not prepare a starter, as this yeast does quite well without.  The fermentation will continue at the high end of the range for the lager yeast and just below the low end for the ale yeast that was originally pitched.  I’ve found that these two strains work quite well together and add a nice level of complexity to the final product.  I expect the fermentation to finish up by the end of next week, assuming a fairly constant temp of ~61 degrees.  After that it will go on oak for about a month.  Finally, a good portion of it will go directly to bottles, with a small amount of priming sugar added.  The rest will be force carbonated in kegs. 

 Feb 6 Update:  Sorry I haven’t written more lately.  My work and travel schedule has been a bit hectic, to say the least.  The Superbowl party at my place burned-up the rest of this tasty brew.  I didn’t even get a picture of it before it was gone, but it was quite tasty and had a beautiful light amber color.  The mouth feel was appropriately heavy, with a sweetness balanced nicely by a solid hop backbone.  Delicious.  I’ll definitely be brewing this “mistake” again in the future. 

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been in Italy with my lovely wife for the past couple of weeks.

For those of you who didn’t know, I am attempting to make wine for the first time. I purchased some beautiful grapes from a local vineyard and I am making 4 very small batches to get the hang of the process. I’m doing three batches of zinfandel (all with different yeasts) and one batch of syrah. The fermentation went very well on all four batches, and I pressed the wine this weekend. Below are some pictures of the process (perhaps next year I’ll have a proper wine press on hand….

First, I had to open the kegs that I used for fermentation. Next, I dumped all of the contents (wine, skins, seeds) into a bucket, using a collander to separate the skins from the liquid.

Next, the skins and seeds had to be pressed, to squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible. Not having a proper grape press, I used good old fashioned hand power with a mesh bag. Squeezing the skins and seeds a little at a time, I was able to extract most of the liquid from them.

Finally, I used another mesh bag to do one more “scrubbing” of the wine as I poured it into the keg where it will be spending the next few months. After that, I added the appropriate amount of potassium metabisulfite to ensure that no nasties are going to grow, and sealed the kegs. Having the equipment on hand, I figured I may as well purge them with nitrogen to remove any oxygen that was present. I don’t have pics of that process, but here are pics of the wine being poured into the keg, and the addition of the sulfite:

This process was repeated for all 4 batches. Now they will sit for a few months to clarify a bit before being aged on oak for 12-24 months. I want to add a special Thank You to Eric for hooking me up with a nice winemaking book, as well as to my lovely wife and our fellow wine enthusiasts (see also: alcoholics) for prodding me to take a stab at making wine.

I should note that, although very young, all four batches had a beautiful color and were tasting like they might have the potential to be semi-decent. Time will tell…. All I know is that the extended time on the skins (three weeks at 62 degrees) should give these wines plenty of tannins. Wish me luck!

So I finally set up a beer gas (25% CO2, 75% N2) draught system with a Guinness tap. I’ll add some pics later, but in the meantime, here is the video I took while pouring one.  I hope you enjoy watching this as much as I enjoyed making it.

Cheers!

Well, I finally have a camera to use, which should make this blog a bit more interesting.  Unfortunately, I ended up kegging the pluot pale and chocolate rye imperial stout rather late on Monday night and the camera doesn’t take great night shots.  In a couple of days, when the beers are fully carbonated, I will post a pic or two of each of them.  I’ll also try to post a pic or two of my dispensing chests and such.  Additionally, I’m hoping to brew this weekend.  If so, I will chronicle it a bit better with some pics and get them uploaded as well. 

 I did test the camera a bit last weekend when I went on a two day ride with my friend Wyatt.  We put on about 1100 miles in about a 48 hour period, with many of those miles coming in the form of the nice twisty roads between Redding and Eureka, CA.  Yes, I know I suck for wearing jeans for the ride, but I haven’t had cause to keep current on gear in recent years, so it’s all I had.  Consequently, I took it pretty easy but it was still a blast!  Thanks Wyatt for putting the trip together!

I’ve decided to ask the (very) small reader population help me pick one of the two beers I will brew in my next brew session.  I’m open to any kind of beer, and if you don’t know beer styles that well but you have a commercial favorite, just use the commercial name.  What I’m asking you all to do is add a comment with one or two beers in it.  In a week or so I’ll choose the most popular one, get whatever grains, hops, etc. I don’t already have on hand, and brew it.

I’m looking forward to your suggestions.