Dec 26: Merry Christmas!

wow, can't believe i forgot to update this portion of the blog with my latest and greatest(?) creation?  first off, the winter celebration ale came out to be a boisterous 4.8% abv.  nice sweet flavor from the orange peel, but definitely a bit of good ol' fashioned hops from the mt hood that i put in there.  probably the most biting and spicy hops i've consumed.  i had a few bottles over Christmas.  definitely potential there - just needs a few more weeks to mellow out.

so my latest brew that i've had fermenting for almost 2 weeks now is a light beer.  don't confuse it with being "light" as in "light calorie" or "light carbs."  no, the only thing really light about this beer is the color.  i'd definitely describe it as being a "straw colored" beer, SRM of under 5.  It should be slightly less in alcohol content than my normal brews - just so that Jennifer can finally drink a whole bottle without acting like a karaoke superstar.  case in point, my blueberry cerveza was the goofiest i've ever seen her.  although she was cooperative the other day and shared a bottle of rogue santa's private reserve with me.  anyway. oh yes.  3# of extra light (color) dried malt extract, 1/2 # of 2R barley, 1# clear beet sugar, 1oz Fuggle hops, 1oz of Willamette hops, and 8oz of maltodextrin.  The yeast that I chose to use was the Wyeast American Ale II liquid yeast.  this beer should be an interesting one.  the maltodextrin is unfermentable, which will give the beer a good mouthfeel (think a really really good cream soda or an avery's cream ale), the two hops that i chose complement each other - both mild and soft, but the Fuggle will add just a tiny bit of spice.   beet sugar will add alcohol content without adding color, and we'll also hopefully get a good aroma from using the specialty grain.  all of this went into 5 gallons, so the brew will top out at no more than say - 2.5 percent, which is fine with me.  i might let it ferment for a full 3 weeks to draw some more flavor into it, but we will see.

Dec 1: update, new brew

the pumpkin ales were quite good.  technically i suppose it's a pilsner, but since i used an ale yeast, it's an ale.  QED.  there's a pronounced difference between using liquid yeast and dry yeast.  i can actually taste which bottles are brewed with what.  i mean, you can sort of tell by looking at how much trub accumulation is at the bottom of the bottles, but the batch brewed with kolsch yeast had a much lighter, crisp, and almost floral flavor than the one brewed with the dry ale yeast that came with the mix.  of course, jennifer still can't drink a whole bottle by herself...haha.

did my winter celebration brew this morning.  decided to get a little bit more adventurous this time and use an unhopped malt extract.  found aforesaid extract in the form of northwestern food products' weizen LME.  here is their site.  used 6 pounds of extract, one oz of mt. hood hops, one oz. of sweet orange peel, and 1 pound of clear beet sugar in the following schedule: hops (45 minutes), peel and sugar (last 15 minutes).  the yeast that i used was a liquid bavarian wheat.  pre-fermentation abv percentage registered at 15%.  blue moon will be put to shame, to say the least.  haha.

November 6: Good stuff.

after sitting for a few more weeks, the blueberry cerveza actually turned out to be quite tasty because it mellowed out.  i gave dean 2 bottles, so hopefully if he lets them sit for even longer, we'll have a nice tasting beer at thanksgiving.  the raspberry ipa with ginger (the precision beer) turned out to be just that.  each of the flavors was pronounced, and the beer had a very clean taste.  the nut brown ale + viena lager + honey actually turned out really fantastic as well.  when i made it, i was sort of just, "eh, whatever." but the clover honey and brown sugar i used really brought out the flavors.  definitely warms you up.

pumpkin ales are bottled.  the batch with liquid yeast measured in at around 5% abv.  just perfect.  hopefully in 2 weeks i'll get to bust one open and try it. 

October 22: Some Barf Beer, Some Decent Beer

so i finally got a taste of what crappy beer tastes like.  i think that common sense should have told me to remove the 7 sticks of cinnamon i had steeping with the weiss beer BEFORE fermentation, but decided not to do that.  consequently, the beer tasted like alcoholic cinnamon water.  i had a glass of a bottle, and chucked the entire batch.  FAILURE!

also tried some of that triple cerveza style beer with blueberry.  in the years that i've had beer, i've had several beers that really floor me: delirium tremens did a number on me, and maudite by unibroue is quite strong as well.  but there's something unsettling about being able to make such a strong beer at home.  jennifer got all woozy after just drinking 6 ounces of it; and i would definitely say that it's not a light every day drinking beer.  even eating pizza with it was insufficient - i think that a proper food pairing would be a full pot roast or something.  the good news is that dean will probably die when he drinks it. ha.

pumpkin ale season.  so i started off with a EDME pilsner base rated to make 13.5L.  added a full pound of extra light spraymalt, a full cup of brown sugar, and 30 ounces of canned pumpkin.  separated it into two separate 8.5 quart batches, one of which got the standard dry ale yeast that comes with the base, and the other got Wyeast Kolsch liquid yeast.  hopefully in about 4 weeks i will have a delicious pumpkin ale ready.  ha.

October 8: New Beers, avec Precision!

i got around to bottling the weiss base with cherry and cinnamon the other day, and i noticed that on bottle #5 of 8, a piece of cherry skin got caught in the spigot causing very slow flow.  as a result, i disassembled the tap assembly and manually poured in the wort into the final three bottles.  although this process probably was not as orthodox as some may like, i kept my process relatively clean by washing my hands quite religiously before the process began.   the end product was 5 bottles of very clear beer, one bottle that was relatively clear, and 2 bottles that as adam would say, were the "money bottles."  full of yeast, trub, and whatever fruit products were left.  now in no way will those two bottles be undrinkable - they'll just be cloudy for most of the carbonation process.  and as i noticed, they've also become rock hard in the few days since i started carbonation.  

a perfectionist by nature on things that interest me, aka...not work, it dawned on me that in order to brew the most flocculated beer (clearest) and attenuated (maximum alcohol percentage potential), i needed to be the most precise as possible during the entire process.  

so for my first batch of beer after this realization, i decided to not use any fruit and to just keep the beer strong but at the same time simple.  i decided on a Vienna Lager base with a Honey Nut Brown base with half a pack of booster and the equivalent of the other half in the form of clover honey.  i took special attention in preparing the booster, and did not rush any of the process.  as a result, even when i was pouring the wort into the fermenter, i noticed a cleaner and more transparent brew even though the bases i used were relatively dark.

with that small moral victory underway, the beer that i attempted this evening had the utmost of attention poured into it - no pun intended.  used a relatively versatile base in the form of a pale ale, and to offset the bitterness i chose to add raspberries.  however, since i do like my pale ales to be quite bitter, i added a whole ounce of liberty hops into the whole mix.  and for a little spice, or a lot of spice in my case - about a 2 - 3 inch root of freshly chopped ginger.  

i was also armed with some new utensils from the local grocery store: a silicon whisk and just a small strainer.  as i was using booster, i prepped using iced water, and meticulously stirred in the whole 2 cups of booster a bit at a time until it was completely clear.  while heating the water/booster mixture up, i chopped up the ginger root, and steeped in the warm water for about 10 minutes, and when the water reached a boil, steeped for another 5 minutes.  letting the mixture rest for about 5 minutes, i then proceeded to strain out ALL the pieces of ginger.  meanwhile i pureed the raspberries to what looked to be a very thin 'soup', and added the beer base into the water ginger booster mix.  careful not to reach full boil too fast, i also made sure that the wort was completely uniform in texture before i put in the liberty hops.  i wanted the hops to be both bittering and aroma'ing, so i let the hops sit in almost boiling wort for 5 minutes, and then took it off the heat and let the hops sit in the wort for another 10 - 15 minutes.  

during this time, i strained out the puree of raspberry until i was left with nothing but a very thin  soup of raspberries.  i used the seeds and pulps in an iced tea later on to not waste any part of the product.  

why all the details?  when i finally poured the wort into the fermenter, it was as clear and light as what my finished product usually looks like, and in turn i have very high expectations for this particular brew.

boysenberry gold lager is gone.  so is the pilsner. 

October 3:

a few updates: i'm almost done drinking the pilsner.  turned out to be quite tasty - almost like an urquell, but with a more developed taste.  i have two bottles left - one will go to the bike shop, and one of the others might go to a friend of mine who actually helps me out a lot at the LASR building at the university of chicago for work. 

also tried the boysenberry pale gold lager the other day.  it's a tricky beer.  it's real light and refreshing, true.  and at first you think, "oh this is a wuss beer."  and then you sit there for a little bit.  and before you know it, it floors you.  hahah.  i thought that mr beer was pulling a fast one on me when they described it as being that way (deceptive), but i guess they were right.  woot.

yesterday the red ale was also bottled with some new amber 22 oz glass bottles i got from a little mom and pop shop called Beverage Arts.  AWESOME place on the far south side of chicago, but since i had a participant there anyway, i swung by real quick and picked up some utilitarian items: a drying tree, 2 cases of 22oz bottles, some nice oxygen barrier caps, and a crimper.  BUT while i was there i also talked to one of the guys that worked there at length about different things to try and make.  

for reference, each can of beer mix that mr. beer makes is around 1.25 pounds and weighs in at 2.3%abv.  booster adds another 1.4%, and each can of unhopped malt extract also adds 2.3%.  BevArts had some cool kits too - but they were all for 5 gallon batches.  and so i picked one up with some booster that the guy there recommended.  wasn't till i got home that i realized that i was in for a real treat.

the beer mix was over 3.75 pounds, which means it was potentially 6.9%abv in a 2.5 gallon batch.  assuming that booster in my kits is the same thing that i got at the shop, that's another 1.4%, and i added a can of fruit in there too - i mean, we're talking a potential 9.3% beer here.  the base i chose was an international series from cooper's called the mexican cerveza, and the 'booster' i got was a light spraymalt.

imagine my surprise this evening when i took a look at the activity of the beer.  here is a video - you can save it and make it bigger, or just view in your browser.  the little things floating around are yeast colonies that are being tossled by the waves of CARBONATION!  craziness...

Sept 25: Bottled the Boysenberry Pale Gold Lager

only got 7 of the 1 liter bottles out of this batch because a small piece of either hops or berry got lodged in my spigot workings.  should be a good one though.

Sept 21: New brew.

bottled the first of my beers yesterday evening (the pilsner).  actually i guess pilsner is technically a misnomer because by definition, a pilsner is supposed to be a pale "lager", and since i was using ale yeast, i suppose that it's more of a, well - pale ale.  not to be confused with ESB pale ale, as there were no extra bittering or aroma'ing hops added to the wort.  the beer should have settled in at around 4.6%.  everything in the fermenter looked pretty good.  i tasted some of the non-carbonated stuff (leftovers after bottling) and discovered that although it's cool to see sediment at the bottom of the fermenter, it's not necessarily cool to try to drink any of it.  the collective term is trub (proteins, unactivitated yeast, tannins, etc) which isn't bad for you...it just has a very milk of magnesia-like texture.  the few good sips i did have though - were quite good.

did a cherry cinnamon wheat beer today.  this is typically where all of my blue moon bashing would come, but as i already know that my brew will be superior to any domestic "belgian-style ale", i am not going to waste time nor effort.  suffice it to say that in addition to the beer extract, i added a pouch of beer nutrients and a can of tart cherries - the brew should top in at around 4.7%.  suffice it to say that i will not be offering it to any trixies or hipsters, or even girls who like "fruity beer" such as lindemann's.  cause let's face it, it's just too good.  especially with the 6 or 7 sticks of cinnamon i also used in the wort.  should be a nice spicy/fruity wheat beer just in time for the cooler months of fall. 

Sept 12: A mathematical approach to brewing.

i think that one of the reasons why i am actually enjoying the brewing process right now is because it does take a good bit of science and math to make everything work, as well as a discerning palette, of course.  the first foray that i will take into this section will be through combinations and permuations.  as a quick reminder, in a combination order does not matter.  for example, if you had a pizza with pepperoni, sausage, and cheese, it wouldn't matter if you said, "pepperoni, cheese, sausage", "cheese, sausage, pepperoni", etc.  permutations, on the other hand - take the order of things into account.  another food example would be i dunno...eating a cheese plate in certain orders to attain the correct types of flavors.  if you go 1-2-3, the flavor profile might be completely different than if you went 2-3-1 or 1-3-2, even if all three cheese remain the same throughout.

i'm not going to bore you with the math behind permutations and combinations, but here is a good link that gives a pretty good overall lesson behind the two concepts.

the importance of this to brewing?  any beer that mr. beer is able to yield uses the following ingredients, although maybe not all at once: beer mix, unhopped malt extract, yeast nutrients, yeast (dry or liquid), fruit, and hops.  looking at the mr. beer webpage, here are the the breakdowns of ingredients:

beer mix: 10 unique bases
hops: 12 unique types
unhopped malt extract: 4 unique types
yeast: 2 dry + 8 liquid = 10 unique strains
yeast nutrients: 1 listed, but 4 total (other 3 are brown sugar, molasses, and honey)
fruit: 7 listed on the site, which is fine.

first, some limitations.  browsing the site, i see that the heaviest non-fruit recipes call for the ingredients in this ratio as the MAXIMUM amount of stuff you can put in there: 2 cans of beer mix, 3 cans of UME, 1 strain of yeast, 2 types of hops, and up to 3 different types of yeast nutrients.  

the fruit recipes have the following as the max: 1 can of mix, 2 cans of UME, 1 strain of yeast, 2 cans of fruit, and up to 3 different types of nutrients.  

assumptions that i am making for calcuations: multiple cans of beer or UME will be of different types.  the same will hold true for hops.  the fruit can have repeats (example, 2 cans of the same type of fruit), and each batch of beer can have up to 3 types of nutrients.  

calculations: 

non fruit beer:
10 types of mixes taken 2 at a time (combination): (10*9)/(2!)= 45
4 types of UME taken 3 at a time (combination): (4*3*2)/(3!) = 4
10 strains of yeast taken 1 at a time = 10
hops: 12 types of homes taken 2 at a time (combination): (12*11)/(2!) = 66
yeast nutrients: 4 types taken 3 at a time: (combination): (4*3*2)/(3!) = 4. 
this is almost 500,000 unique brews.

Sept 11: Three total beers in the making. 

In addition to the pilsner that I made last friday, yesterday evening i made two new batches of beer: one will be a strong ale topping in at around 8.2% and the other beer i did last night will probably not be more than 4%, but it's a lager infused with boysenberry.  timeline for the beers should be the following: 

fermentation for all 3 will cease october 1.
bottling will take place on october 1, the official "end" of carbonation will end the 15th.  cold conditioning of the cowboy lager with boysenberry will take place until the 29th, and cold conditioning of the pilsner will take place until mid november.  sometime next february i will pop open the final 8.2% ale to give it the full taste.

if for some reason fermentation takes place quickly for the boysenberry lager, i might do a 2 week + 2 week period and be able to pop open one sometime in mid october.  we'll see though. 

Sept 10:
decided to go ahead and add a new section of my blogs devoted solely to the brewing of fine alcoholic libations and even rootbeer.  the processes are quite similar. 
when i was in college, i always thought it would be cool to start brewing my own beer just for the 'fun of it.'  at that time in my life, i was still drinking deplorable varieties of beer such as busch, busch lite, natural light, natural ice, keystone light, icehouse, coors light, MGD, miller high life, etc. etc. the highest quality of beer that i ever drank on my own whilst not out on the town for an evening was budweiser select.  i think maybe in college the nicest beer i EVER drank was a sam adams.  no joke.  

my terrible escapades continued after my college years as i lived so closely to finn mccool's.  perhaps a little bit better, i drank items such as pilsner urquell and blue moon.  at the time i did not mind because of my inclination to chug anything set in front of me.  at some point in there, i met jennifer and went to rock bottom and my world began to change.

i met the roth twins via ridefetish.com, and through a series of interesting riding events, i was exposed to the microbrewery 'piece' known for its new haven style pizza and tasty brews.  and then i was exposed to the map room.  and then i was exposed to tuman's.  and on a whim one day, i went to sam's depot and got a bottle of dogfish head chateau jiheau, some 90 minute ipa, and some other stuff.  and i finally started to realize that the drinks i had before were really all just forms of piss water.  my latest brewery experience was at goose island, which i find to be quite superb as well in terms of their brewing abilities, and i've consumed a fair number of unibroue products in the past month as well as a few items from achouffe brewery.  

the point is: i learned that drinking beer shouldn't be a way to kill time or to drink off sorrows.  if you're doing it to "get drunk", sure go ahead - drink all the natty ice you want.  if you're playing an engaging game of beer pong or i don't know what else, go ahead and drink coors light.  but to enjoy the true aspects that make a fine beer, you should go for something a little bit better.  

so i decided to start brewing at home myself.  i'm starting off easy - i chose this particular beer kit from mr. beer.  nothing fancy, no double fermenters.  just easy extract brewing with scaleabiltiy options in the forms of different yeasts, malt extracts, and hops.  

my first brew that i did this past friday was a pilothouse pilsner.  and yes, as adam alerted me - technically i'm supposed to use a pilsner/lager yeast, but since mr. beer sends only ale yeast in their shipments, that's fine.  plus it's easier to work with and more versatile overall.  

to be continued...