Beer: I Built a Hop Spider

So this weekend I randomly decided to build a hop spider. I was watching a video by Chop & Brew about a beer they brewed and aged it in a Woodinville Whiskey Rye Barrel. I noticed they were using one in the video. It seems like a neat idea for an easier cleanup. So I looked up how to do it here and made a trip to Lowe's to pickup some supplies. After posting on reddit, it seems like most people prefer the stainless steel option. The PVC I bought seems to be extremely tough and durable so we'll see. The heat distortion temperature of PVC is 197.6°F and most boils are 210°F+. Since it'll be above the boil, I'm hoping the wort vapor won't be too bad.  

The wife and I wanted to start up an online store selling random stuff we make and I've decided this is going to be my first item. I know a lot of people brewing are the DIY type, but some people may not have the tools or means to do so. I'm not looking to profit, but to help a fellow brewer out! More to come on the new store we're opening!!

Beer: Stein Beer

We decided to take a shot at brewing a beer in the stein brewing method. All I have to really say is this was one of the most fun brew days we've ever had. There was just so much awesome crammed into one day! We decided to go with a simple Kölsch recipe to start with and then if it was successful, do something a little more complex. We hit a 1.052 OG which was very close to what we were hoping for. Only issue we had was the Wyeast Kölsch smack pack had a hole in it when we smacked it. And yes we did cook steaks on the rocks and potatoes in the fire. It was amazing.

Hopefully we'll have more pics, but here is what I have so far!

Here is the link: http://imgur.com/a/1csBh

Original Gravity:

1.055

Final Gravity:

1.014

ABV (standard):

5.42%

IBU (tinseth):

24.37

SRM (morey):

4.11

Fermentables

Amount	Fermentable	PPG	°L	Bill %
10 lb	American - Pilsner	37	1.8	90.9%
0.5 lb	American - Carapils (Dextrine Malt)	33	1.8	4.5%
0.5 lb	German - Munich Light	37	6	4.5%
11 lb	Total

Hops

Amount	Variety	Type	AA	Use	Time	IBU
1 oz	Domestic Hallertau	Pellet	3.9	Boil	60 min	16.7
0.5 oz	Domestic Hallertau	Pellet	3.9	Boil	45 min	7.67

Mash Guidelines

Amount	Description	Type	Temp	Time
4.5 gal	170F to warm mash tun and dough in at 161F	Infusion	150 F	60 min
3.5 gal	Bring to boil and sparge as much as needed	Sparge	170 F	10 min
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.5 qt/lb

Other Ingredients

Amount	Name	Type	Use	Time
15 each	Granite Rocks (Fist Size)	Other	Boil	60 min

Yeast

Wyeast - Kölsch 2565

Attenuation (avg): 75% Flocculation: Low Optimum Temp: 56 - 70 °F Starter: No Fermentation Temp: 65 °F Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / ° P) 90 B cells required

Beer: All I want for Christmas is a Brew Kit

Check out this article I wrote for Modern Man Jack!

All I want for Christmas is a Brew Kit — Modern Man Jack

Beer: Stein Brewing

In a couple of weeks we are going to attempt an old school brewing technique called stein brewing. The concept is pretty simple. We are going to be using hot rocks (granite) to heat up the boil kettle. Not many people do it anymore and we just thought it would be a fun day of fire and activities. Sixpoint Brewery did one a little while ago and made a quick video about it.

We are going to make sure to post a bunch of pictures and hopefully get some video of the day! We're sticking with a basic Kölsch recipe and maybe in the future, try out a stout. It'll add some smokey and sweet caramelized flavors that are going to be real nice. Here is another video by Basic Brewing about the method. Cheers!

Beer: The New England 1020 (Update)

I transferred The New England 1020 IPA last night and it tasted absolutely delicious. Still have a little ways to go on dropping that gravity down, but overall very impressed with the Yeast Bay Vermont Ale strain I used. It is sitting at 1.020 and would like to get it to at least 1.012 if I can. If not, oh well! As Charlie Papazian says, "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew". More updates to come later! Cheers!

Food: Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving was a success! All that planning and it felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. Everything came out exactly the way I wanted. Turkey was a bit dry, but not bad.

The rub consisted of sazon, adobo, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, and olive oil. I used the chicken stock from the practice chicken I made a few weeks ago. The gravy was absolutely delicious! (Thanks Regina and Barb!) We also had garlic mashed potatoes, green beans, homemade Duffy stuffing, carrots, Puerto Rican pork and rice, cranberry sauce, and pearl onions. For desserts, we had chocolate pudding pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, ice cream, homemade whipped cream, brownies, and a variety of cookies.

A couple days later I made another stock with the turkey. Of course, the leftovers made PLENTY of turkey and stuffing sandwiches. My wife isn't a fan of leftovers so I am still trying to consume as much of it as I can by myself. It's pretty difficult. I feel like I've gained 20lbs already. 

 

I also broke out the Apple Pie Ale, as well. It came out great! I don't really have any complaints about it thus far. Very well rounded and delicious. I can't wait to do it again! Cheers!

Beer: Brewing The New England 1020 IPA

So I am a moron. Again, I forgot to take pictures of brew day. I get too caught up in the moment and enjoy it too much. I'm going to dedicate one of my friends solely to taking pictures next time. Anyways, we have fermentation! The picture is a bit deceiving because it is in an extremely dark place and I had to use the flash. The color is a lot lighter... A LOT lighter.

Again, we missed our OG. We were at about 1.043. I added a pound of table sugar that I know will dry it out a bit but I got it to 1.053. We also mashed in a little too high at around 160°F. Next time I am going to focus a lot more on detail so that this doesn't happen again. 

We used a little bit of a Campden tablet to kill unnecessary microbes and fluoride. I've been noticing my town has been adding a lot more recently and it was weirding me out. I pitched the Yeast Bay Vermont Ale Yeast 48 hours later to make sure the Campden tablet didn't kill that too! That would've been very unfortunate. 

We did a whirlpool which was extremely fun attaching this massive paddle to a drill and using it at 180°F. We need to re-do the paddle as it was too big and getting stuck when we would try to pull it out and causing it to come to a dead stop. Completely defeating the purposes of a whirlpool. 

I will update more when I transfer to secondary and dry hop! Below is the recipe we used. Feel free to have at it!

Original Gravity:

1.063

Final Gravity:

1.013

ABV (standard):

6.63%

IBU (tinseth):

141.25

SRM (morey):

5.2

Fermentables

Amount	Fermentable	PPG	°L	Bill %
10 lb	American - Pale 2-Row	37	1.8	72.7%
1 lb	Rice Hulls	0	0	7.3%
0.75 lb	Belgian - Munich	38	6	5.5%
0.75 lb	Flaked Oats	33	2.2	5.5%
0.5 lb	American - Caramel / Crystal 10L	35	10	3.6%
0.5 lb	American - Carapils (Dextrine Malt)	33	1.8	3.6%
0.25 lb	German - Acidulated Malt	27	3.4	1.8%
13.75 lb	Total

Hops

Amount	Variety	Type	AA	Use	Time	IBU
5 mL	Hop Shot	Fresh	2.77	Boil	60 min	51.39
1 oz	Citra	Pellet	11	Boil	10 min	16.28
1 oz	Simcoe	Pellet	12.7	Boil	10 min	18.79
1 oz	Citra	Pellet	11	Boil	5 min	8.95
1 oz	Simcoe	Pellet	12.7	Boil	5 min	10.33
1 oz	Citra	Pellet	11	Whirlpool at 180 °F	0 min	16.48
1 oz	Simcoe	Pellet	12.7	Whirlpool at 180 °F	0 min	19.02
1 oz	Citra	Pellet	11	Dry Hop	7 days
1 oz	Simcoe	Pellet	12.7	Dry Hop	7 days

Mash Guidelines

Amount	Description	Type	Temp	Time
5.3 gal	175F to warm up mash tun, once at 160 dough in	Sparge	150 F	60 min
4.1 gal	Close to boil, then stir mash with water to distribute evenly	Sparge	175 F	15 min
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.5 qt/lb

Other Ingredients

Amount	Name	Type	Use	Time
1 tsp	Gypsum	Water Agt	Boil	60 min
1 each	Whirfloc Tablet	Water Agt	Boil	15 min

Yeast

Default - - -

Attenuation (custom): 80% Flocculation: Med Optimum Temp: 66 - 72 °F Starter: No Fermentation Temp: 68 °F Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / ° P) 102 B cells required

Notes

Pale 2 Row must be RAHR
Vermont Ale Yeast
http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/vermont-ale

During second sparge mix up the grain in order to distribute the heat evenly. 

Beer: New Techniques During Brew Day

I have been on the journey to brew the best IPA I can ever since I started brewing. Which is actually not too long ago. Last year around this time I was brewing 1.5 gallon stove top brews and adding 3.5 gallons of tap water to make 5 gallons. In this short amount of time I have already jumped to all-grain brewing. Can you imagine what I will be doing next year? I can't.

This next brew we are calling The New England 1020. It's going to be a what I call them a "New England IPA". Not as bitter and more aromatic. I get to experiment with techniques I've never used before. I am going to be using a HopShot which is a hop extract to add some bittering elements without adding too much flavor of the hop. Next I am going to be whirlpooling at 180°F with the addition of hops. This is going to (hopefully) create a blast of aroma in the face. I also just picked up this yeast strain which is a Conan clone. 

I will definitely try to take a lot of pictures and update as soon as I can! I have trouble taking pictures because I am having too much fun the whole time. Yesterday I finished up the labels on the Apple Pie Ale and took a few nice pictures. Here they are! 

Beer: Apple Pie Ale Bottling (Update)

We bottled the Apple Pie Ale this weekend. It tasted absolutely amazing. Extremely well rounded with hints of apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and bready notes. Although we wanted it at about 8%, I think having it at 5.8% is actually better. Makes it very drinkable at any time. Also we were surprised at the clarity. You can see right through it!

While all this was going on I was preparing a chicken stock for Thanksgiving. I slowly simmered it for about 6 hours and then strained it. Simple recipe of celery, carrots, onion, parsley, salt, and pepper. 

Kyle did a little photoshoot with the Scotch Stout and The Quadrupel. I have to say it came out looking awesome! 

Beer: Hoppy Brown (Disaster) Ale

A while ago I tried a beer by Banner Beer Company called "Run to Equinox". What is it? A hoppy brown ale. It was pretty good. It didn't blow me away, but it was pretty good. So what did I do? Go on the search for some more hoppy brown ales. The search was, well, not that successful. The only other that I found in the area was Smuttynose's "Durty" which is now called "Mud Season". So what does a homebrewer do if they cannot find the beer they want to drink? Find or formulate a recipe and brew it.

After much research, everyone seemed to base their recipe off of Janet's Hoppy Brown Ale. Must be good then right? So I did the same thing. Tweaked a couple of things but overall kept it close to the same.

We called it the "Hoppy Brown Disaster" because pretty much every step of the way, something went wrong. When draining into the fermentation bucket, the hops blocked the drainage. When fermenting, the temperature somehow jumped to 82°F even thought it was cool out. When transferring from secondary to the bottling bucket, the hops clogged and broke the auto-siphon wand. You get where I'm going. It was a disaster. Other than the fruity esters from the high temps, it came out great! 

The only difference from this recipe and the final is that the OG was 1.069 and the FG was at about 1.009 after the yeast went insane cause of the high temperature. So the final ABV was around 7.9%. I was okay with that. I also decided to use whole cone dried hops last minute to try them out. Needless to say, I wasn't a huge fan because I didn't account for water consumption. You live and learn!

Original Gravity:

1.068

Final Gravity:

1.016

ABV (standard):

6.89%

IBU (tinseth):

81.92

SRM (morey):

30.84

Fermentables

Amount	Fermentable	PPG	°L	Bill %
10 lb	American - Pale 2-Row	37	1.8	64.5%
1 lb	American - Caramel / Crystal 40L	34	40	6.5%
1 lb	American - Chocolate	29	350	6.5%
1 lb	American - Wheat	38	1.8	6.5%
1 lb	German - Carapils	35	1.3	6.5%
1 lb	Rice Hulls	0	0	6.5%
0.5 lb	American - Smoked Malt	37	5	3.2%
15.5 lb	Total

Hops

Amount	Variety	Type	AA	Use	Time	IBU
1 oz	Northern Brewer	Pellet	7.8	Mash		5.78
0.5 oz	Centennial	Pellet	10	Boil	60 min	18.59
1 oz	Northern Brewer	Pellet	7.8	Boil	60 min	29
1 oz	Northern Brewer	Pellet	7.8	Boil	15 min	14.39
1.5 oz	Cascade	Pellet	7	Boil	10 min	14.15
1.5 oz	Cascade	Pellet	7	Boil	0 min
1.5 oz	Centennial	Pellet	10	Dry Hop	7 days

Mash Guidelines

Amount	Description	Type	Temp	Time
4.5 gal	Brings it to 150F	Sparge	165 F	60 min
3.5 gal	Brings it to 175F	Sparge	212 F	10 min
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.5 qt/lb

Other Ingredients

Amount	Name	Type	Use	Time
1 tsp	Gypsum	Water Agt	Boil	60 min

Yeast

Danstar - Nottingham Ale Yeast

Attenuation (avg): 77% Flocculation: High Optimum Temp: 57 - 70 °F Starter: No Fermentation Temp: 72 °F Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / ° P) 110 B cells required