I have really come into some good practices in my brewing the last couple or three beers.  I am getting a system down, trying some newer things and having some success.  The Christmas Stout turned out really nice (IMHO) and I will actually get to taste my Rogue Dead Guy clone next weekend.  On Thursday I did a partial mash Rye IPA using a sparge bag and a new method for rinsing the grain and mashing out.  I had issues keeping the mash temp just right, but didn’t lose much on the original gravity.  The Pacman yeast has been bubbling away since Friday afternoon and I look forward to seeing what it has done when I go to dry hop later this week.  This week when I brewed, I started noting some things in my mind that I wish I had known originally, but am very glad I learned.

Sanitation – This is one of the most important things.  Period.  I knew this.  However, what you have to do is get your method for sanitation down.  Know that you are going to make a bad beer when you are starting and the odds are that it will be because you sacrificed something in sanitation.  The best thing to do is get into habits quickly when it comes to sanitizing and cleaning your equipment.  Boil the things you can boil and keep sanitizer handy.  It only takes 15-30 seconds in the sanitizer to re-ready something, so don’t skip it.

Experimentation – Do not ever be scared to try something.  I am not a kit guy.  Kits are absolutely wonderful things and make incredible beers, however, I would rather formulate the recipe myself.  I like the idea of putting different things in beers and I like the thought of hopping beers in a different way than I have had before.  I am not that far along in this area, but I have little fear when it comes to throwing an ingredient in as long as I do my research and learn the ramifications first.  There are tons of places to feed the experimental drive of anyone.  Use Google to your advantage.  Find active communities on the internet that allow you to learn from other brewers.

Software – Speaking of the internet…use it to find some good beer recipe software.  I have used both Strangebrew and Beersmith.  Of the two, Beersmith is far and away a better tool.  Strangebrew is a great tool, especially for beginners because the learning curve for the software itself is not that steep.  The downside to Strangebrew is that it doesn’t seem to be updated anymore.  It feels dated (putting on my software reviewer’s cap here).  Each time you reinstall, for whatever reasons, you have to email the owner in order to get a new code.  It happens quickly, but it’s still a pain.  Beersmith, on the other hand, is sleek and very tight as applications go.  It is easy to use and has a huge database of ingredients from which to build recipes.  Neither application is that expensive, so go buy one now.  You can try both, if memory serves me correctly, for a limited time.

Your System – No two brewers do things the same way.  One of my brewer friends sanitizes the floor, just in case he drops something.  Another started immediately with  a conical fermenter, completely jumping past the typical bucket and carboy setup.  Both have found success, regardless of the differences in methods in comparison to mine.  Everyone will do it different, create different things and inevitably, unless they are just not good, will brew good beer.  The devil is in the details and he can drive you nuts if you worry about how others do their brewing.  Find what works for you.

Perhaps more than anything I have learned was stated in the first book I ever read on the subject.  Charlie Papazian states clearly “Relax.  Don’t worry.  Have a homebrew.”  No truer words have been said when it comes to the wonderful art that is homebrewing beer.

In a previous post, I proclaimed that my holiday Belgian ale had fallen victim to oxidation.  While that may still be partially true, I now have reason to believe that it may not be the case.  A few weeks ago, I brought one of my “failed” homebrews to Ernie (the webmaster of this site) so he could make an affirmation for me that “yes, this beer tastes like wet cardboard”.  To my surprise and his, the cardboard flavor wasn’t really there anymore.  The first impression when you smell the beer is “well, this is a Belgian alright”, but the taste was surprisingly refreshing yet bitter.  Remember, I brewed this beer with coriander, grains of paradise, and orange peel; therefore, there is going to be some bitterness to it.  Ernie seemed to enjoy this beer and I decided to give out a few more to some friends at work.  Because the bottles rattled around in my trunk while I was driving to work, their feedback will have to wait.  However, I decided to try one last night.  I was even amazed at how it had transformed.  My wife, who does not like bitter beers, even thought it tasted pretty good despite the bitterness of the orange peel.

So, the moral of the story?  Well, for starters, I need to stop being so hard on myself when it comes to my homebrews.  I have always been SO critical of myself, and this is a reminder that I need to take it easy and just enjoy the process.  Even though it’s a little bit of work, the best parts of homebrewing for me are the brew day itself and watching others enjoy the end-product.

On Twitter, I decided to start doing short 3 word reviews of the beers I try.  It’s easier than writing out a whole formal thing and really works into my laziness and schedule.  Each week I will try to combine them and post them here with additional notes.

Rogue Yellow Snow IPA

Twitter Review – Three word review of the Rogue Yellow Snow IPA: 1)Citrusy! 2)Balance 3)Tasty I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

Notes:  This hits you in the nose, mouth and throat with hops.  The citrus is strong in this one.  It has a definite grapefruit taste and the smell has a flowery, almost lemony scent to it.  It pours a nice pale color and is honestly one of the best IPA’s I have ever had.  The aftertaste does not linger, but it has a crisp bit at the end of the swallow that makes it possible to session this thing.  You may not taste anything for a couple days after the session, but it’s definitely tasty enough to do so.

Meantime Coffee Porter

Twitter Review – Three word review of the Meantime Coffee Porter: 1)Crisp 2)Java 3)Lingering. I would give it 3.5 out of 5 stars

Notes:  Great smell.  It’s like lifting a cup of coffee to your nose.  The taste is good and is definitely a porter with coffee beans added, but is not as good as a couple others I have had recently.  The Valdex from Pisgah Brewing and Java Head from Troegs are both really good and are slightly better than this version.  However, this has a good flavor and sticks to your tongue, much the way a good coffee does.  The aftertaste is nice, so when it lingers, its a good thing.

Magic Hat Winter Lager

Twitter Review – Three word review of Magic Hat Howl Winter Lager: 1)Nutty 2)Dark! 3)Bite. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. Very good beer!

Notes: This is not what I have come to expect from Magic Hat.  To be honest, after #9, which is pretty good, I haven’t really fallen in love with any of their beers.  Matter of fact the weird Wacko very nearly turned me off their beer all together…brewing with beets my a$$.  Despite all that, I was pleasantly surprised with the Howl Winter Lager.  They darkened this beer to the point of nearly impeding all light from coming through.  It creates a nice reddish glow around it tho.  The taste is nutty and hoppy, but not IPA hoppy.  The aftertaste is a typical lager aftertaste with a a crisp bite from the carbonation that when mixed with the hops, makes it very refreshing and not heavy at all.

Recently I have turned my attention towards the next inevitable step in a homebrewer’s life.  I have brewed with solely extract kits, delving into partial mashes or steeped grains in the last 3 beers I have created.  I feel I do a good job as far as recipe creation and execution.  I have learned quite a bit recently and made some friends that are incredible resources.  Based on all that, I feel I will be moving to all grain brewing very soon.

I got an interesting call last week, after considering the progress I am making for about a month, and a friend let me know that a local guy had a mash tun for sale for quite a good price.  I immediately headed to meet this guy and spent $30 on a 5 gallon mash tun with a sparger, false bottom and all the needed connections.  I also cashed in some Amazon gift certificates and ordered a small wort chiller.  Combine that with the turkey fryer and pot I have had in my garage for about 2 years and all of a sudden, I am already planning the recipe for my first all grain brew.

Because I like to learn all I can before jumping into things (laugh if you know me), I decided to do some research.  All grain, for someone who has been in what could be considered the “easy” world of extracts, is actually quite daunting.  It is an added degree of difficulty and this in itself makes the threat of making  a bad beer come to life before the first grain is crushed.  There is nothing a newer homebrewer fears more than making a bad beer.  I have made a couple, so it doesn’t bother me as bad as it might others, but I do have some trepidation with moving forward like this.

Luckily, I found some good information on the intertubes to share with anyone who wants to read it.  In theory and in writing, the process is actually pretty easy.  After doing my due diligence, I am truly looking forward to my Frisky Valley Sweet Sassy Molassy IPA.

Please enjoy!

You Wanna Mash?

A “Cooler” Way to Ease into All-Grain Brewing

All Grain Brewing Guide

I recently brewed a holiday Belgian ale featuring coriander, orange peel, and grains of paradise.  I did a reduced boil in my 4-gallon stainless steel kettle on the stove, using a TrueBrew kit I purchased from Epicurean Outpost in Johnson City, TN.  I decided to use spring water for this batch, since I had convinced myself that my first batch was missing something due to the use of distilled water.  I strained the beer into my 7-gallon stainless steel conical fermenter and pitched the yeast once the temperature reached close to 66 deg F.  After three days, I emptied the trub via the bottom valve of my fermenter and everything seemed normal.  Gravity readings were on par and the beer seemed to be bubbling away quite nicely.  Altogether, I think my beer stayed in the fermenter for 10 days or so.  My wife and I then bottled the beer and set it in my upstairs bathroom closet so it would not be disturbed by sunlight or our curious dogs.

Two weeks ago (which was 3 weeks into bottle conditioning) I tried one of my beers.  My initial taste was very good; I could definitely tell that this was a Belgian ale.  I then tasted the bitterness of the spices I added.  Finally, and tragically, I got a stale taste, very similar to cardboard.  My worst fears were realized.  After conferring with fellow co-worker and master brewer Steve Bellner, the final verdict is most likely oxidation.  So how did this happen?  Where did I go wrong?  Oxidation can occur due to various reasons.  According to Steve, a likely cause in my case could be a wild yeast from the spring water caused the off-flavors in my beer.  I also noticed some water from my airlock had evaporated, so this may have also attributed to my problem.

So, what is the solution?  No matter what kind of water I use next time, I am going to follow my friend’s advice and boil the water and allow it to cool before I put it in my fermenter.  I could also go right back to using store-bought distilled water.  According to Charlie Papizian in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, distilled water is perfectly acceptable to use in your beer when you’re using malt extract instead of all-grain.  My friend also suggested that I use a solution of 50% vodka and 50% distilled water in my airlock.  And finally, I will be careful not to muck around with the wort once I place it in the fermenter and before I pitch the yeast.  Oh, and also, I am waving goodbye to the use of dry yeast.  Only liquid yeast or recultivated yeast for me from now on out.

Ultimately, I am not really that discouraged from this experience.  I can’t expect to make a perfect batch of beer on my 2nd try.  Just like anything in life, you have to learn from your mistakes.  And that’s what I intend to do!  To rebound from this batch, I am going to go back to basics and brew something simple.  I have been eyeing a Fat Tire clone kit on Northern Brewer’s website for some time now, and I am going to finally pull the trigger and order it.  Hopefully this next batch will not be tainted.  But if it is, I’ll figure out what I did wrong and keep plugging away.

Finally, I plan on rating some winter beers in the next week, so stay tuned.  I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Cheers!

I meant to post this update about three weeks ago, but life happened and I am just now getting around it.  My apologies.  One of my resolutions in the new year is to update to this site more frequently.  Since I don’t have a blog of my own anymore, this is really my only outlet.  So, sit back and enjoy!

My wife and I visited Asheville, NC this past weekend and we visited our usual spots.  Except this time, I actually was able to eat and drink at Jack of the Wood!  But first things first.  We started out at my favorite place in Asheville, the Thirsty Monk.  I had some legendary…wait for it…Belgian beers.  A few of note were the Delirium Noel (holiday Belgian ale), Brother Theolonius (excellent Abbey Ale), and a double black IPA whose name escapes me (but it was incredible!).  We ventured on to Jack of the Wood, where I enjoyed a couple of the Green Man Double IPA (definitely one of the better ones I have ever had on tap!).  At that time I realized that the Tennessee-Vanderbilt game had started, and luckily, we stumbled into the Bier Garden only to find the game on the big screen!  I enjoyed another of the double black IPA from earlier and an Oatmeal Stout (either Highland or another local brewery).  Asheville never disappoints though.  If you’re a beer lover, and you haven’t been to Asheville yet, I feel sorry for you.  For more information on all things beer in Asheville, visit the blog for Bruisin’ Ales.  It has lots of great links and information for upcoming tastings.

I haven’t posted here in some time.  I admit that I have neglected both of my blogs.  To be honest, more times than not I just want to drink beer and not think about the taste, smell and all of that so that I can write a post.  I have given into that feeling pretty often.  As well, life, work and everything else has come along and kept me too busy to post here or on QuadrantRush.com.  I sorely want to make this site bigger than it is, but I have had very little contact from people who want to write with me.  This site may dry up completely, but I will do my best to keep it going.

In the meantime, I have had time to do quite a bit of research on homebrewing and food/beer pairings.  In the last month I have really been focusing in on what I want to do as far as homebrewing.  It has been casual for about 2 years with it kicking up to a more serious state the last few months.  I brewed the Irish Christmas Stout that I mentioned previously and tastings so far have revealed that I really did this one right.  I am very happy with it.  That doesn’t mean too much given that I am biased, so I look forward to others trying it out.

My wife took a bigger role in brewing a small batch and is claiming our Blackberry Red Ale as her own.  It is in primary fermentation this week.  I will move it to secondary this weekend and add the blackberries.  It is already sweet because of the honey we added during the boil, so I expect it to be quite tasty when we are finished.  In the pipelines I am trying to decide between a Double IPA, using some of the 4 ounces of whole leaf cascade hops I was given OR a Cranberry Wit.  I do know that in January or February we are considering a mead.  So any suggestions there would be cool.

I attended my first meeting of the State of Franklin Homebrewers club last night.  It was truly enlightening and one of the most interesting nights I have spent discussing beer and, in general, getting to know some new people.  I look forward to future meetings and plan on joining the group next month.  I look forward to brewing in the coming year just because I know I will have a wealth of knowledge I can draw from going forward.  If you are local to the Tri-Cities, I would suggest you follow the link above and check the group out.

Again, if you are reading this and feel the need to write about beer, brewing or food pairing, please email me at ernpacATgmailDOTcom and I will add you to the site so you can start posting immediately.

I wanted to take a few minutes and update with a couple links that should help any of the readers of this site out and with the next beer I plan to brew.  Here goes!

Frisky Valley Irish Christmas

1 lb Chocolate Malt
1 lb Roasted Barley Malt
6 lb Golden Malt Extract
1 lb Honey
4 sticks cinnamon
1 oz Sweet Orange Peel
1 oz Corriander
1 oz Fuggles Hops

It’s gonna be good!  I cannot wait to try it out.  I will have a review for sure once it has been opened.  I plan to brew November 1st ensuring a mid-December arrival of my first stout AND my first holiday ale.

As for the linkage:

I love when I @ reply to someone who is “famous” on Twitter and they take the time to respond.  It’s odd that this happens.  Many poker personalities do not.  However, Charlie Papazian who wrote the book (literally) on homebrewing took time out of his day to respond to a request I had for holiday beer/food pairings.  Check out what he sent me if you are interested in matching great holiday foods to some of the more interesting beers you can get during the winter season.

http://seasonalbeerandfood.org/

I got wind of these guys through Twitter as well when someone shared their site.  They are on Twitter and have an interesting idea for homebrewing…something I have been falling towards more lately, that being the small batch.  The great thing is that you can actually “try before you buy” in a way if you “think” you wanna try homebrewing.  They supply almost everything you need (you will need bleach or some sort of sanitizer) along with the equipment for $40 and you can make 1 gallon of craft beer.  If it sucks, you are not out the $200 that a 5 gallon kit can cost after buying the ingredients and equipment and if it doesn’t suck, you can turn around and make about 12 bottles of beer per batch.  How awesome is that??  I sent them a question I had and they responded that day and added some humor to my night.  Great couple and I am sure the product is great as well.  After the Irish Christmas, I plan on doing 2 small batches from them.

http://brooklynbrewshop.com

I am a huge fan of homebrewing my own tasteful delights.  I currently am priming an apple cider and a Dunkel-Weisse.  I am secondary fermenting about a gallon of the Dunkel-Weisse after adding about 4 oz of honey to it.  It should push the yeast into producing a little more of an alcohol kick and provide some sweetness.  2 weeks from now I will get to open the DW and taste it in its bottled primed glory and it just might suck, but I always enjoy making them.  If the yeast works well, I will bottle it in a couple weeks and am a little over a month away from seeing what the experiment rendered.  Again, it could suck completely…who knows!

There are a couple things that people like me forget to tell people when they ask that inevitible question “So…can I homebrew?”  Our answer is always “Yes!  Anyone can!” and it’s true.  However, there are some strict caveats that you must consider before you decide to get in on the goodness of brewing your own beers.  Whether you start out with a Mr Beer or go the way of straight extract brewing with a kit or whatever, you have to consider these things before you start doing it.

1.  You have to enjoy cleaning.  Well, not really enjoy, because I HATE it, but you have to be willing to do it.  It is tedious, monotonous and sucks.  Cleaning the equipment, boiling this and that, sanitizing everything that will touch the beer and keeping it all laid out on the counter so you don’t knock crap over while working is very important.  If you don’t clean it right and keep it clean and then sanitize it, the beer suffers.

2.  You need room to move both on brewing day and on bottling day.  I have done this in tiny kitchens and now in the largest kitchen I have had and I still find myself struggling for space.  I understand why hardcore homebrewers create an area in a garage or elsewhere to do this.  Bottling requires you be able to put your bottling bucket above the level of the bottles so that the siphoning works and it requires that you be able to lay out enough bottles for your batch.  This is one reason I moved to smaller batches until I can put a sink and some counter space in the garage.

3.  You have to be both deliberate and patient.  Being deliberate in measurements, watching temperatures and preparing things for the boil is necessary and what you end up boiling isn’t a drinkable beer, so you have to be patient.  Some beers can take 3 months or more to be ready to drink.  The quickest you will have a beer is 3 weeks or so.  Be ready to wait.

It doesn’t matter if you have a Mr Beer kit (which by the way is a great way to learn and does produce some decent results) or whether you are an all grain mash brewer with top of the line equipment.  You will have these same expectations.  The only way it changes is that the bigger your rig gets, the more you can make, experiment and clean. 

I am glad to see Clint has posted something.  Be sure to read his great post touching on Octoberfest in Cincinnati.

As for the site, I have been in planning and deciding mode.  I very nearly decided to shut this sit down and move it to my home blog, but if I can get enough help, I plan on keeping this site open.  Here is the deal:

If you want to post reviews or thoughts here on this site, I am officially opening it up.  Here is what you can do.

1.  Click the Register option on the bottom left of the page and register.  This will be basic viewer permissions.

2.  Send me an email to ernpacATgmailDOTcom and let me know and I will give you Author permissions.

3.  You can then post and after the post has been reviewed, it will go live on the site.

So help me out here!  Keep the site alive.  I cannot possibly drink enough beer to keep reviews rolling in on a constant basis.  I am dedicated, but not that dedicated!