Adventures of a Beginning Homebrewer: Drink It, Don't Dump It!

It’s been a busy summer for this guy! I can’t complain as I have been busy with ALL fun stuff! Traveling Wisconsin with my band, Marked 4 Deletion, heading to far away beer establishments, hitting up beer festivals, and occasionally just relaxing at my cabin. It’s been great, but with being busy comes sacrifice. The schedule has to give somewhere! Sadly, I accidentally sacrificed beer....

I had brewed a couple beers this spring. I kind of lost track at how long they were in my little brewery and didn’t bottle them when I should have. That should be no problem right? As I learned with the raspberry wheat (click here) I know that I can sit on these for a bit and everything will be A-ok..... That is unless you fail to notice that the fluid in the airlock dries up, rendering the air lock useless!


That’s right, I exposed ten gallons of beer to the outside contaminated world! TEN GALLONS!!! And yep, it got infected. So time to dump it down the drain, right? Whoa, whoa, whoa... Wait just a minute here. That is a lot of beer. There has to be a way to save it.

(Infected Beer)

The good news for a slacker like me is that there IS a way to save it! Campden tablets. I discovered these little lifesavers when I had a batch of nut brown contaminated (not due to slacking). Basically these little guys kill everything and give your beer a final fighting chance.

Here’s how you save your beer. You will need to use one tablet per gallon of beer. Just crush em up and add them to your beer (make sure to re-sanitize an airlock). Now you will need to wait a week or two for the Campden to do its work.

Keep in mind that Campden will also kill your yeast. So you need to go to the store and get another yeast packet if you are going to bottle condition/carbonate. I know this is a few more bucks out of pocket, but isn’t 5 gallons of beer worth a couple more dollars? Pitch the yeast, wait another couple weeks and bottle the beer (don’t wait a couple weeks and you will have exploding bottles I am willing to bet!)

(Campden Tablets & Sanitizer)



A couple things about saving your beer with Campden tablets. Although your beer is totally save to drink, you may have some very subtle off flavors. These off flavors increase in time, so you need to drink your saved beer sooner rather than later. Aging a beer saved with Campden is an exercise in futility.... Unless you like drinking gross things.

The one time I have used this before in the above mentioned Nut Brown (I called it Slutty Nut.... because it had an infection, but luckily it cleared up with a bit of medicine!) the results were great. Weirdly it was one of the best beers I have made. I have even had requests for me to make it again! Hopefully these two turn out the same way.

If you ever have an infection in your beer, don’t just automatically dump it. Instead let your beer at least try with Campden Tablets!

Dealing With Beer Fatigue

 
Beer fatigue!  In one form or another all craft beer drinkers will experience beer fatigue, it's inevitable, it will happen.  Whether you are at a beer fest on your second trip through the tables or you are at your local liquor establishment and are starring and a wall of IPAs thinking that cascade hops is just not what you are looking for today, we are here to help!

First off lets define beer fatigue.  I define it (and have experienced) in two terms:

Beer Fatigue #1:  When you are at a beer tasting event and all the beers start taste the same, or you are not picking up the details of the flavor you were when you first started the session.

Beer Fatigue #2:  When you simply can't decide what beer to choose because "they all sound the same".

Today we will be tackling the first type of beer fatigue

1. Eat Something to Cleanse the Pallet:  Do you know those little necklaces of pretzels everyone is wearing at a beer fest?  These are great to cleanse the pallet.  They are light so as not to fill you up (i.e. room for more beer) and the salt help to reset your senses.  Lately I have been seeing beef sticks and cheese on necklaces too, but I don't recommend these as the oily processed cheese and the grease laden beef snack can linger on the pallet masking the more delicate flavors of complex beers.  Personally when available I prefer grapes over pretzels, but this is probably more for your home experience, and not for the beer fest!
2. Drink plenty of water:  I can stress this enough.  Water is the "universal solvent" for a reason.  Not only that but the majority of your body AND beer are made of water, so guess what?  They make a natural fit!  Take it as a queue from nature and clean out your pallet with some good ole H2O
3. Take a break:  I know, with beer fests this can be tough.  You want to get to all the tables before those rare one off casks are gone.  But eventually you need to slow it down.  At private tasting events this is a lot easier to do!  Make some conversation, it doesn't have to all be about the beer.
4. Take small portions:  Want to taste more beers before fatigue sets in?  Take smaller sips.  This is why I like to host beer parties with around 6 to 8 people.  You can take one 12oz bottle, give everyone a little over 1oz of beer and your whole table can get though twelve bottle easily.  Just remember spitting is wine drinkers, suck it up and swallow!
5. Don't Smoke:  Who doesn't love a good cigar with their beer?  Well lots of people, but me I do enjoy a good stogy from time to time, and yes I have broken this rule on a number of occasions.  Save it for the end of the night.  Smoking will ruin your pallet!
6. Drink from Light to Dark:  Whenever possible drink from light to dark.  The fresh citrusy hops that are more abundant with lighter beers will actually help keep your pallet fresh.  Meanwhile the more earthy, thick stouts and porters will coat your mouth masking the flavors of the next beer.
7. It's okay to switch from analyzing to fun:  My last bit of advice is something I learned while trying to marathon through a bunch of beers for my journal.  Eventually even drinking 1oz pours gets to you.  Your head starts getting fuzzy, and soon all the pilsners start tasting the same.  It happens.  It's okay to say "Okay, now I am drinking for fun".  At this point if I am hosting I like to have something local on hand like Grainbelt of Summit EPA.  Relatively well liked by most of my circle of beer drinking friends, and less expensive because at this point you don't want to be drinking that $40 bottle of Fulton's War and Peace you have been aging for a year.

So what are your tips and tricks for dealing with beer fatigue?  Leave us a comment!

Oh what was I saying...well it seems like I am hitting some writers fatigue.  But that is a story for another blog.  Until next time!  PROST!

Brews and Reviews -Wings and Craft Beer at Pizza Luce

So Andy and I headed out to Pizza Luce last week for a little strategy meeting about the blog.  Pizza Luce is so far the best place in Richfield, MN that I have found for craft beer.  They have a cozy little patio, and the staff was in good spirits and quick on their feet.

Andy and I had a pretty good night working on Beerploma's future so we were both in the mood for celebrating.  I wasn't quite up for pizza, but their wings looked pretty good:

I ordered the spicy buffalo and the spicy peking.  Both sets of wings came out whole, with great charring on both sides.  The peanut dipping sauce was a bonus.  Creamy, flavorful and paired well.  Also both wings were ample spicy.  For those of you who want to "crank it up notch" every time you order something hot, and get something Minnesota hot (you know, like Ketchup), then these wings are for you!  After so many mediocre wings, these were a spicy treat to behold and cherish, and no, I did not share them with Andy.

There beer list was extensive and had a little something for everyone.  If I had one recommendation I would have a couple more local porters/stouts on hand, especially to pair with some of their more earthy pizza, but overall really a good selection.

First on my list of beers to try is Enki's Hootenanny Hefe Weiss (Seasonal):

This hazy golden brew serves up a thick banana/clove armoma.  It had a very smooth taste with slight spicy notes, and a great biscuit/malty flavor.  Very well carbonated.  Thicker mouthfeel then what I am used to for Hefe beers, but this seems to fit and didn't detract from the beer at all.  It was perfect for a summer day and paired best with the Peking wings.  Rating:  ** (Very Good)

Well Andy and I rarely get together and have just one.  A second one was definitely in the works.  For me it was Lift Bridge's Shadow Effect on Nitro:

This pitch black beer allowed no light to escape it.  The aroma gave off an inky chocolaty smell, and was served with a creamy head.  Smooth caramel like flavors with back hints of chocolate, and a fruity sweetness.  It had a silky medium mouthfeel.  A dry finish with a light coffee like bitterness.  This a very well put together beer, and a great choice for porter/stout beers who are looking for something different.  Rating:  ** (Very Good).

Great wings, great beer!  Who can ask for anything better then that!

Rise of the Beer Baron Pt 5: A Homebrewer Is You!

It's been a while since I blogged about the beginnings of my love for craft beer.  So when we last left off I had just gotten my first homebrew kit.

 







This was my introduction to how beer was made.  Even with the first batch I learned A LOT about the mechanics of brewing.  Here is a quick list of lessons that I learned:

1. Brewing the beer is easy, it's the pre-cleaning, post-cleaning, and bottling is hard.
2. You will learn to clean EVERYTHING.
3. Repeat step 2 in case you missed it.
4. No really, read step 2 again, it's important.
5. Having and empty plastic jug on hand for water is a nice to have
6. Don't even bother with the plastic bottles that comes with the kits.  Move right into glass
7. If you start with Mr. Beer and love it, you will quickly want to invest in a more mature kit
8. You will want to watch your beer every day, note, I didn't say need to.  You will just want to to make sure it is okay.
9. In the end, you're entire job is to make yeast cells happy.

In the end I was very happy with my first beer.  It was a style I had never had at this point (a Vienna style ale), well carbonated, and wasn't too bad.  But I know I could do better.  I quickly moved to the next step kit from Midwest Homebrew Supplies.

I did a lot of beers with honey during this phase.  I even got creative with a batch of beer, using my Mr. Beer kit to experiment.  Here is the recipe that I used:

2 Cans of Stickey Wicket Stout (from Mr. Beer)

2 Packets of Brewers Yeast

1 pouch of booster

14 oz of coconut in the fermentor

3oz. of chai tea per 22oz bottle during bottling.

Yeah.  I know it sounds a little strange, but it was one of the best beers I ever brewed.  Not enough beers utilize coconut....

So now the fire was lit.  I was beginning to understand the basics of brewing, beer styles, and proper beer handling.  It was time to see how the big boys play, it was time to start meeting the great brewers of Minnesota!

Adventures of a Beginning Homebrewer

Back in March I decided I wanted to brew myself something special for my birthday in October. I absolutely love barley wines, so I decided I would make Ol’ 76er, a barley wine named after the year I was born… Yeah, I know... I am pretty dang old. This beer was going to have a pretty big alcohol content, so it needed a bunch of yeast. I have never made a beer with this much yeast, and I was in for a surprise!

I made my wort, pitch a boat load of yeast into it, and sealed up my primary fermenter. After that it should have been just a matter of waiting… 7 months of waiting. But things didn’t go quite as smooth as I had expected. The massive amount of yeast going crazy in the fermenter caused a massive blowout! This has never happened to me before. It looked like a grizzly beer murder scene.

 

 

 

I cleaned up the mess and resealed the fermenter just to have krausen coming back through the airlock in a matter of 5 minutes. Ugh! I pulled a bit of a MacGyver and sawed the end of an airlock off so that one end would fit in the lid of the primary and one end would fit in a long tube. I then put the other end of the tube in my brew kettle with a bunch of water to create an airlock on a bigger scale. I know you can buy things like this, but I didn’t have time for a trip to the brewing supply store as I needed to get my beer sealed and hopefully safe again.

 

 

Now I am preparing to brew an imperial stout for this year’s Merry Cherry Christmas Stout. I will need to use a bunch of yeast again (although this time I am using a starter. More on that in the next post), but I don’t want the same results as I had with Ol’ 76er.

The answer, as suggested by a staff member at Northern Brewer, Fermcap! Fermcap is an anti-foaming agent that can be added to your brew so that the krausen doesn’t get out of hand. It keeps things nice and calm in the fermenter while not affecting the yeast, fermentation, or flavors. After fermentation is complete it settles to the bottom of the bucket and is left behind when racking the beer to the secondary fermenter. As an added bonus, Fermcap can also be used during the boil to eliminate boil over.

 

 

 

Hopefully my barley wine is still good after being exposed and opened for a bit. It doesn’t look infected. We will find out next month when I drink one. One thing I do know is that this isn’t going to be a problem for the imperial stout I am brewing now!

Anybody have a beer horror story like Ol’ 76er?

Adventures of a Beginning Homebrewer: Life Moves Fast!

Life Moves Fast!

 

Things have been pretty crazy lately. The summer seems to be whizzing by. Between trips to the cabin, out of town trips for my band, and BBQs with family and friends, trying to find a tiny bit of time to just breathe can be a daunting task for me. Something somewhere was going to end up suffering because of me spreading myself too thin… I am almost ashamed to admit it, but it is the homebrewing that has suffered.  

 

Towards the middle of June I brewed up a wheat beer. I had plans of making a raspberry rhubarb wheat, I guess I still do, but with the hectic pace that this summer has kept it has sat in the primary fermenter since June.  

 

I have thought about whether it is still good. It has been sealed this whole time, so contamination shouldn’t be a problem. But, can a homebrew be left sitting in the primary fermenter on the yeast and other sludge for this long? I don’t know… but I figured the internet does!

 

I perused the homebrew forums to find an answer. What I discovered is that EVERYONE has an answer…. Correction; EVERYONE has a different answer. Some say that leaving the brew on the sludge for too long will give it off flavors. Some say that leaving it in contact with the plastic bucket too long will give it off flavors. Some say that you can leave it in the primary for a couple months with absolutely no issues or off flavors. Hmmmm…. 

 

So here is what I have learned from my research: Absolutely nothing! However; with such conflicting answers I am not going to just dump 5 gallons of beer down the drain. I like beer way too much to just pitch it. It is at least worth a shot, right?  

 

Tonight the beer is going into the secondary fermenter to clear up a bit. Then I will bottle it in a couple weeks. Then after a bit of time for bottle conditioning I WILL know the answer. Hopefully the end result is an ice cold delicious fruity wheat beer! 

 

Has anybody else let their home brew timeline get away from them? I would love to read your results in the comment section below…. And stay tuned for my results.

Adventures of a Beginning Homebrewer: Upgrade to Make Life and Brew Better!

Adventures of a Beginning Homebrewer

Upgrade to Make Life and Brew Better!

So you have made a few batches of beer now with your basic brewing kit, you got the hang of it and things are tasting good. Where do you go from here? One word… Upgrades!

There are so many upgrades you can add to your home brewery to make life easier and to make brewing quicker. The list is virtually endless. I am going to concentrate on a couple of relatively inexpensive upgrades that I have made that have helped my home brewery become more efficient. After all, brewing takes time, so efficiency opens up time to make even more beer!

The very first upgrade I made to my set up was a wort chiller. After you do your boil you want to be able to get your wort temperature down below 100 as soon as you can. The longer this process takes the more susceptible your wort is to infection by bacteria and such in the air.

When I first started brewing I had a HUGE bucket that I would fill halfway with ice, then set the covered brew kettle in the ice bucket, top with ice, and then wait…. and wait… and wait… and… you get the picture. Sometimes this could take up to an hour plus! What a waste of time, not to mention I wasted a lot of cash on 20 pound bags of ice.

So, I got myself a wort chiller. A wort chiller is a coil of copper or steel tubing you set in your wort that hooks up to your faucet. Crank on the cold water and it forces the cold water through the tubes, thus chilling your wort quickly. And I mean QUICKLY! It now takes me less than 20 minutes to have my wort to a suitable temperature. My wort is in the elements for a much shorter amount of time and I can go about my day sooner… or start the next batch sooner!



There are several different types and sizes of wort chillers. You can pay anywhere from 70 to 200 bucks for one. I purchased the cheapest one I could find and it works great and has been used on countless batches of beer. If you are rich, you can get yourself the $200 model, but if you are reasonable, just get the basic one and save your cash for other upgrades.

The other upgrade I swear by is a larger siphon and hose. Most brewing kits come with a 5/16” auto siphon. But, for a mere 14 bucks and a few bucks for new hose you can get a 1/2” auto siphon. Maybe it doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but trust me when I tell you; this thing makes racking beer a breeze! It cuts the time it takes to rack beer in half. It is worth every penny, especially for a guy like me who usually has more than one batch to rack at a time.

These two upgrades probably save me about an hour per batch and they didn’t break the bank. Anybody else out there have an upgrade you have made to your brewery you can’t live without?

Cheap wort chillers: 

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/standard-chiller-3-8-x25-with-vinyl-tubing.html

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/stainless-steel-immersion-wort-chiller.html

Larger auto siphons:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/siphoning-equipment/racking-canes/auto-siphon-1-2.html

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/1-2-auto-siphon.html

Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer - Time for Something Completely Different

It seems a bit early, but the other day a good friend of mine and I were talking about Thanksgiving. It’s got to be the best holiday. Great food, great drinks, football, no holiday shopping; you just can’t beat it.

 

I think we all know the basics of what food will be served, but what about the beer? Many first thoughts are pumpkin beers, but truth be told I can’t stand them. Never found one I liked. Stouts and porters might be a bit heavy for the type of eating that is going to go down. How about a hard cider? Fall flavors are what Thanksgiving is all about, and what is more fall than apples?

I know, I know. Hard cider isn’t a beer. But this is Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer. Beer isn’t even in the title… ok, so maybe it is implied since this blog is part of Beerploma, but bear with me just for one post.

 

It became apparent that it's time to make a tasty hard cider. But of course, I am a beginner and have no clue how to make a hard cider. Ahhhh… Isn’t the internet great? I did some research and found out some basics.

 

The first tip I found is that there is no boil for hard cider as there is in beer. If you boil apple juice it can take on a bit of an astringent flavor. But no boil = potential contamination of the cider. I found two ways to combat this.

 
The first way is to purchase unpasteurized juice (or buy apples and juice them) and heat the juice, but not boil it. This can make things sterile, but you must be careful. Over do it and you have an off taste in your cider. Under do it and you may get some contaminated cider. Nether sound good to me!
 
The second way is the way chosen for this experiment. Purchase pasteurized apple juice. This makes it free from contaminants while keeping the juice in its same tasty condition. Be sure to purchase a good pasteurized cider that contains no chemical preservatives like potassium sulfate or sodium benzoate. These things prevent bacteria and mold growth, but also prevent yeast growth. In other words, your yeast won’t work with juice containing chemical preservatives. And if the yeast doesn’t work, you don’t have hard cider.
 

For the yeast, most will work. The guy at Northern Brewer suggested champagne yeast. It will eat a ton of sugar and carbonates well in the end. And it won’t deliver an overly yeasty flavor that may be tasty in some beers, but probably wouldn’t be too great in a hard cider.

 

After figuring that stuff out making hard cider, at least to the primary stage, is a piece of cake! Pour pasteurized apple juice into a fermenter, add yeast, and seal! The part that took the longest was sanitizing. But since I was also firing up a raspberry rhubarb wheat and bottling an EPA, it really took no extra time to sanitize a bucket, top, and airlock.

As of this morning it was bubbling away in the primary, so that’s a good sign things are headed in the right direction. I will follow up on this cider later down the road as developments come about. Have you brewed a hard cider, and if so how did it go? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer

Double Vision

A couple months ago I upgraded my brewery. I got the equipment so that I can brew two batches of beer at the same time. I like beer a lot, which means I need a lot of beer!

 

I started things off by brewing a raspberry wheat and an english brown ale. Things were going great; I was excited about the fact that I would soon have a boatload of beer… And then came an obstacle.

 

I realized after racking the beer into the secondary fermenters that I had a small problem; I never labeled the beers when I first started them and put them into the fermenters. Duh! Normally you would think that these beers would have a distinctively different color from each other, but that isn’t completely the case. When you have about 5 gallons of beer in a big glass vessel the color is pretty much just “dark.”

 

The raspberry is put in during the bottling, which complicated things two fold. First, there isn’t the obvious clue of the beer tasting or smelling like raspberries. Secondly, it left the door open that I could very well end up with a raspberry english brown ale and a plain wheat beer.

 

My friend and I had to taste the flat beer, smell it, and examine it in a smaller taster glass… And then we had to make our best guest. We racked what we thought was the brown ale and bottled it and then racked what we thought was the raspberry wheat, poured in the raspberry extract, and bottled that. Then the long two week wait until we could find out if we guessed right started.

 

The result? We guessed right! Whew! And they are both pretty good beers. Lesson learned: LABEL YOUR BEERS!

Rise of the Beer Baron Pt 2: The First Taste!

For those of you familiar with the Boy Scout of America, I am an Eagle Scout.  Scouting was my "after school" activity.  But I wasn't just any old Scout, I was a super-Scout.  Very active n the Order of the Arrow (at one point holding one of the highest youth positions in the Twin Cities area called Lodge Chief).  I was highly decorated, and loved the travels and adventures it brought.  Now some of you might be asking about what this has to do with beer.  Well I took my duties pretty seriously, and while many people might expect to hear some wild tales of underage binges, those who know me know that I am still a "Boy Scout" at heart (as far as being a goody-goody, there are plenty of current BSA policies that I completely disagree with).  Yes, my first sip of "non-parently supervised" alcohol happened shortly after my 21st birthday and a friends Halloween party.  It was some sort of fruity punch thing.  I followed it up with a beer, nothing special, in fact it was pretty awful.  I don't exactly recall which national brand light beer it was, but I wasn't impressed.  So I started out my drinking days with "fruity crushed ice" type drinks.

My next taste of beer came on a hot/muggy summer day.  I was meeting some family at the local BW3 (a place known for their chicken wings and mediocre beer selection).  I wanted something a little different so I went with a Labatt's Blue, and for about a month that became "my beer".  Compared to the other national brands I had beforehand this was hand over fist better then what I had sampled, but it was still no something I wanted regularly.

Then one of my good high school friends had a Birthday, and was given a gift from out of state.....

To Be Continued....

 

Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer: The Outcomes

It has been a bit since I have had time to post anything on here. But don’t think I haven’t been brewing! Since I have blogged about the Merry Cherry Christmas Stout and the caramel mocha porter, which I dubbed Red Eye Porter, I figured an update on how they turned out was in order.

  

This year's Merry Cherry Christmas Stout turned out pretty good. It was very dark, but had a somewhat light taste to it for a stout. The cherries came through pretty well which added a sweetness to it that was very enjoyable. This stout came out a bit overly carbonated when compared to a typical stout. I think the lightness, sweet cherry taste, and the slightly over carbonation really made this beer what I wanted it to be; a beer everyone can enjoy together for the holidays, even the light beer drinkers. Sadly this drinkability has made it so this beer is completely gone… I already can’t wait for Christmas!

 

Red Eye Porter, which was my first 100% original recipe, came out great! The espresso really came through in this one. It is a big dark porter with about the perfect amount of carbonation in it. For a dark coffee type porter it was really drinkable. Every time I cracked some open for friends we all wanted another! The roasted chocolate malts added decent chocolate flavor. My only complaint would be the caramel didn’t quite do what I was hoping for. With the caramel grains and the caramelized sugar I made, you could taste the sweetness, but not quite enough of the roasted burnt type caramel flavor I really wanted it to have. All said though, this is the best beer I have made so far. Again, I must have done a good job as I am out! (Don’t worry Will, still have a bomber squirreled away for you)

 

 

All in all, two pretty darn good beers!



Rise of The Beer Baron Pt. 1: Where we are going!

 
First off who is the Beer Baron?  Well the answer to that is easy.  It is no one, but it is who I strive to become.  I want to be in the middle of the Beer Revolution that has sprung up all around us in the Great Midwest.  I want to be a teacher, a mentor, a resource, I want to be YOUR buddy who hands you a cold one.  Yes, I want to be THAT Beer Baron.

Part of that is why I started this blog.  I knew I wanted Beer Reviews, Homebrew News, Beer Studies, but I felt there was something missing.  So I thought about the blogs that I read.  One of them is called Making Magic.  Its a weekly post by Mark Rosewater, Lead Designer for the game Magic: The Gathering, a game I haven't played in over three years.  But I keep going back to read this article.  He puts a great personal twist about how is personal life helped to shape the game, and how the game shapes his personal life.  He tells these great stories that suck you in, and helps explore human psychology.  He identifies and recognizes the mistakes he makes (both personal, and in his job).  I am mesmerized by how this man writes about everyday things. I realized this is what our blog needs to go from good to great.

So here is my introduction to that personal twist.  In these articles we will talk about how I became involved with beer, why I drink it, and I might even share some of my personnel favorites and failures.  So kick back and enjoy a cold one, because it is time for the Rise of the Beer Baron!

Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing back from you!

Will

Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer

My First Original

 

In the past I have always brewed with recipe kits. You just buy the box of goodies. Everything you need is in there and in the correct quantities; grains, hops, malt, yeast, etc… I have manipulated these kits, like adding cherries to a stout or vanilla beans to a porter, but have always started with a kit. But, for this round it was time to go it alone! I decided I would invent my own recipe and make my first original beer.  

 

I wanted something different. I didn’t just want to make a stout or a red or something boring like that. I wanted something a bit more complex. So, I decided to make a Caramel Mocha Porter.

 

I have made a couple porters before, so I get the gist of it on a basic level. I really wanted the sweet caramel, espresso, and chocolate flavors to jump up front. Too many beers have that flavor you just barely notice as a hint during the aftertaste. I wanted more out of my beer.

 

I started the beer by steeping 1 pound of grains. I used ½ pound of Caramel 120L and ½ pound of roasted Chocolate Malt. I hope that with using caramel and chocolate grains the beer will take on… well, the taste of caramel and chocolate!

 

(Caramel on the left Chocolate on the right)

 

After about a half hour I tossed in 6 pounds of dark unhopped liquid malt extract. I brought that to a boil and tossed in an ounce of Willamette hop pellets. Then the fun began!

 

Like I said, I wanted the flavors of a caramel mocha to really pop in this beer. So, I asked my friend, Mark, to bring over his espresso machine. He cranked out 2 cups of espresso while I got started making a caramel by cooking some sugar with a little water. With just a few minutes left in the boil I chucked in the espresso, the caramel sugar, and some fuggle hop pellets.

 

After cooling the wort I tossed it in the primary fermenter, aerated it a bit, and added yeast. I have only used dry yeast before, but since this was my first recipe I made I splurged and got an Irish Ale Activator pack from Wyeast. I figured I kind of went all out on this recipe, why blow it on budget yeast.

 

(Irish Ale Yeast)

 

As we speak the airlock is bubbling and things are on their way! The verdict will come in a little over a month… Stay tuned!  

 

Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer

The Christmas Beer Miracle and the Gift of Easier Bottling

To me, the most tedious part of brewing is bottling. You have to sanitize bottles, the bottling bucket, all its parts, the siphon, the caps… And that is just the first step. Then you have to boil the priming sugar, rack the beer, fill the bottles, and cap each one of them individually.

The boil process in the beginning takes a bit longer, but that is inactive time while the stove does the work. In bottling it is all you, all the time. But there is some hope. You can make the process go by a bit faster. The trick? It’s all in the bottles.

When I made my first beer, my Ragin’ Red, I stupidly sanitized, filled, and capped 48 12 oz. beer bottles. It took forever! I did the same thing for my second beer. Then came the Christmas Beer Miracle and my home brewing life was changed forever.

When I brewed my first Merry Cherry Christmas Stout I had an idea. I wanted to have a beer with all of my friends and family for Christmas. Obviously this is impossible with the hustle and bustle of the holidays. My solution was to give everyone a Merry Cherry Christmas Stout that we would all crack open at exactly 5:00 pm CST on Christmas day so that no matter the distance between us, we would all have a beer together for Christmas. This is known in my circle as the Christmas Beer Miracle!

I decided it would be a nice touch to use 22 oz bottles so that everyone could not only have a beer together no matter where we all were, but also everyone could share the Christmas Beer Miracle with someone special they were actually spending the holidays with in person. That is when I realized the math.

 

(22 oz Merry Cherry Christmas Stout bottle vs 12 oz Ragin' Red Ale bottle)

Here is the deal; bottles come in all shapes and sizes. You can sanitize, fill, and cap about 48 12 oz. bottles, about 24 22 oz. bottles, or heck, you could even just fill a few half gallon jugs I suppose. I use nothing but 22 oz. bottles now. I basically cut my bottling work in half by only needing to sanitize, fill, and cap half as many bottles!

One quick tip: I have noticed that sometimes the bigger bottles may need a little extra bottle conditioning time to get the desired amount of carbonation. But we are just talking a couple days if it is needed.

 
Let’s face it; if your beer is tasty there is no one who will complain about their bottle having an extra 10 oz. in it!

Adventures of a Home Brewer

Don't Fruit the Beer? Forget That!

 

Remember those Man Law commercials for Miller Lite? One was “Don’t fruit the beer!” I broke that law yesterday. Send the beer police if you need to, but if anyone should be arrested it’s the brewers of Miller Lite for trying to make us think carbonated water is beer.

Yesterday I started making my annual Merry Cherry Christmas Stout. I make this every year in order to facilitate the Christmas Beer Miracle… I will explain that a bit closer to Christmas.

Merry Cherry Christmas Stout was the first beer that I brewed with other types of additives. When I brewed my first one it was just a recipe kit from the beer supply store. It was a cherry stout that used cherry extract during bottling. It was good, but I knew I could do better.

Year two I decided to step things up. I wanted that cherry to really sing! So, I decided to, “fruit the beer,” and add some actual cherries in addition to the extract. I did a bunch of searching for info on beer forums and Yahoo! as I had no clue where to start. Here is what I learned.

The biggest thing in brewing is that anything that goes in the bucket needs to be sanitary. This applies to fruit as well. You can’t just grab a bunch of cherries from the produce section of your local grocery store and chuck them in there. You will more than likely infect your beer… I did that once with a nut brown and it is a headache.

Some home brewers on forums indicated that you should put the berries in with your beer at the secondary fermentation stage. This seems illogical to me on two fronts. One, you have to boil the berries separately to basically sterilize them. Some people are fine with throwing frozen berries straight into the secondary, but I am not willing to gamble on 5 gallons of beer getting infected. And two, you will lose some of the clarity of your beer, which is kind of the whole point of secondary fermentation.

So what do I do? I throw them in the boil. I am not saying its the end all correct way, but its how I do it. And it works! I mash up the berries to release more of the juices and then just chuck ‘em in during the last 15 minutes or so of the boil. This makes them sterile, saves me a whole separate boil later on, and helps my beer keep its clarity as I don’t bring the cherries along for the party when I rack the beer into the secondary fermenter.

 (Cherries in the Boil)

With most fruits you will want to use approximately one pound of fruit for each gallon of beer you are making. I have played with that a bit for my Merry Cherry Christmas Stout though because I still like to throw that extract in during bottling for a final kick. I try to make this beer palatable to my friends and family who are not into thick dark beers. The extra cherry taste and sweetness helps to accomplish this. No complaints yet!

Here is another tip; use frozen fruit. Using frozen fruit works the best because the freezing process breaks down the fruit. This helps release the juices into your beer to give you more of the fruit flavor. I found this tip online when I first decided to use cherries in my stout. Admittedly I have never used fresh fruit, so I can’t swear by this. But, it makes sense to me and I am happy with the end result. Why fix what ain’t broke, right?

Anybody else out there ever break this unjust man law and, “fruit the beer?” If so, leave a comment below with any tips you might have for the rest of us!

Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer

Starter Kits: Single Stage vs Secondary Fermentation

Let me start by saying I am a beginning home brewer. I have only been brewing a few years, so I’m not here to be your “expert” on home brewing. But, since I am still basically a beginner, I suppose I am an expert beginner home brewer! Adventures of a Beginning Home Brewer will be a place where I will offer guidance, share my successes, laugh off failures and struggles, and heck, maybe occasionally go off topic and just talk about beer stuff in general. So, crack open a bottle of your favorite craft beer and let’s get started!

So, you want to be a home brewer… Well, let’s start things off by talking about starter equipment as this is where any new home brewer needs to start. There are many pieces of equipment you will need to brew your own beer. The add-ons and upgrades are endless! But let’s not get confused with all that yet; we are beginners after all.

Here is what I suggest; buy a starter kit! Why confuse yourself with trying to get a pro kit put together with countless trips to the supply store? Depending on a couple factors, you could be set up and brewing beer for around 125 - 200 bucks. That is including the ingredients for your first batch, bottles, caps, everything! Most even come with an instructional DVD.

When buying your starter kit you basically have to make one choice; do you want a single stage fermentation set up or do you want to have secondary fermentation in your rig. So, what’s the difference?

 

(Single Stage Fermentation Start Up Kit)

 

 

 

(Start Up Kit with Secondary Fermentation)

 

 



In a single stage fermentation set up, you have one bucket that your beer ferments in. Like the name says, a SINGLE stage. In a set up with secondary fermentation you will do everything the same as in a single stage, but after the beer is done with the primary fermentation you transfer the beer into a glass vessel called a carboy for the secondary fermentation. Secondary fermentation is kind of a misleading name as the beer is pretty much fermented after the primary fermentation is done. The secondary fermentation is basically a place where sediment is removed to give your beer clarity and where your beer can age some. This is also where you would add hops for dry hopping when or if you eventually decide to do that.

My vote; go with the secondary fermentation. The whole brewing process takes weeks (mostly inactive time on your part though) and you have used quality ingredients. Not having the best beer you can in the end seems silly to me. It really doesn’t add much time as the only additional work is a little bit of equipment sanitizing and about 10 minutes of transferring your beer to another container. So pop for the kit with the extra equipment to make your beer as good as you can.

Here are a couple of kits you can buy that will have you set up and ready to go!   

 

Single fermentation kits:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewing-starter-plus-kit.html

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/beer-equipment-starter-kits/essential-brewing-starter-kit.html (Does not include bottles.)

Kits with secondary fermentation:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewing-starter-plus-kit.html (This is the set up that I started with and still use today.)

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/deluxe-brewing-starter-kit.html (Does not include bottles.)

 

There are additional components that you can purchase to add to your starter kit to make things a bit easier, but for now I would say you should just start with a starter kit and brew a few batches to see if you like home brewing. After that you can start dumping money into pimpin’ out your home brewery with fancy add-ons… We will address those add-ons down the road.