Beer and Brewing Journal

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2008-06-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

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http://beerobsessed.com/blog

see you there!

Jolly Pumpkin: Oro De Calabaza

2008-06-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I finished my last Jolly Pumkin. I originally purchased three different 750's and a single mentioned here.

Here's a quick review of their Oro de Calabaza:

color: straw to yellow with big, puffy, billowy head like duvel.

aroma: belgian characteristic, candy sugar, tart, fruit, wood? or was I expecting that...

taste: carbonation, tart/sour belgian goldon strong, pineapple and subtle wood

after: wood (subtle), dry
overall: I like my goldon strongs straight up and drinkable: prankster, duvel, and damnation.

While this is a very well made beer, all of the Jolly Pumpkin beers are well made beers, I don't like the play between wood and the golden strong style. I like the golden strong style straight up, smooth, and drinkable. There is a reason that it is known as a great "hair of the dog" beer. A little tart is interesting but also takes a little away from what I like from the style. I have to say my favorite Jolly so far has been the Noel beer. They avoided the typical holiday jacked up spice route and went with subtle cherries and wood with nice malt (as I recall). I just remember enjoying the hell out of that beer. La Roja is very nice as well. Of the three Jollies i've had, here is my personal ranking:

noel de calabaza
la roja
oro de calabaza

...to add, I like the subtleness of the Jolly Pumpkin beers. It seems like wood beers these days tend to be over the top, too much wood. The tartness is to my liking as well (not too over the top). I would definitely drink these beers more if they were easier to get out here.

Brew day: American Amber Ale

2008-06-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

Decided that I need to start using my stash of magnum and cascade so I took JZ’s recipe, changed out the hops (calculated ~35 IBUs) and then converted to mini-mash. I figured the mini-mash would only add another half-hour to my day since the little amount of water will come to temp quickly and I batch sparged. I used light DME to make up the difference in gravity (….4.25 pounds worth).
I didn’t hit my projected OG of 1.052 and ended up with 1.056 instead. No biggy, but the seemingly wanton nature of my refractometer readings is bothering me. Supposedly the thing has auto temp control….and I cool the wort on top of it. Not sure why my readings seem to be all over the place. In the end, I know my kettle pretty well and with the immersion chiller in the pot, I need to have the water level at about 6.5 gallons. So I got close to the OG I needed...by eyeballing it.
Due to water restrictions I am now cutting over to ice water recirculation at 120 degrees (instead of 90 degrees) when chilling the wort. This saved many gallons of water and didn’t really call for too much more ice.
Since we are having warmer weather in Berkeley, I worried about whether I would need to cool the ferment or not. The basement ranges between 66-75 degrees now, so I cooled the wort to 65 degrees, got it in the carboy and let it settle. Since the carboy is sitting on concrete and I put a wet t-shirt around it, it held at 66 degrees for pitching.
Come morning the t-shirt was still moist and the yeast had started up to the tune of about a ¼ inch of kreusen. Temp was still 66 degrees. Figure I’ll check tonight when the yeast is producing the most energy. If I am still 66 degrees, I’ll move to a heat wrap and do a warm temp control when necessary, to get it to, and keep at 67 degrees. If it has moved in temp up to 68 or higher, I’ll leave it on cool temp control, which will trigger a fan that is positioned to blow on the carboy. I can also add a pump to pump water over the carboy if necessary.

UPDATE: temp was holding at 66 with an air temp of 76.....so I put on the heat temp control with a dry shirt around it. Now happily fermenting at 67 degrees.

double pot for warming mash without scorching

Gordon Biersch SF and fresh Kölsch out of the tank

2008-06-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

I have the highest respect for Dan Gordon. His mission in life is to bring the beers of Germany to the U.S. by brewing them here and serving them fresh. All done in accordance to Reinheitsgebot. 100% the way they are brewed in Germany. This includes a decoction mash for most beers that causes the brew day to be 10 hours. Dan backs up his strict guidelines with the highest level of brew education achievable in the world. His post-graduate work was at Weinstephan in Munich.....a demanding four year course where, " a passing grade is equivalent to A level work at UC Berkeley".
If you want to hear more about Dan, I highly recommend listening to any of the three times he visited the Sunday Session on The Brewing Network.

Dan's west coast man in charge of brew operations, including SF, the Northwest, and Hawaii is John Tucci. No slouch himself as he fleshed out his brewing education at Paulaner in Munich. He’s a perfect fit at GB. And thanks to a co-worker that grew up with John, we had the chance to take a private tour of GB-SF brew operations yesterday.
We started off with a couple of pints to warm us up….I had never tried the GB scharwzbier, so I did. Nice, mellow and obviously to style. I love Köstritzer and I would say the GB Schwarz is a hair mellower than that one. We were readied up to go tour the brewery and we were instructed by John to bring an empty glass with us for a tasting…most of us had one.

Down the stairs we went to the basement where all the fermentation and lagering takes place. BTW, GB-SF has a 25 barrel brew system….kind of unusual in that they have two kettles that do some back and forth. The mashtun also serves as the boil kettle. They mash, pump 80% of it to the lauter tun, then deconcoct the remaining 20% in the mash tun. When this is done, they bring the remaining, deconcocted mash over to the lauter and sparge. Then, the runnings get pumped back to the mash tun where they boil and hop. Back and forth. In the basement, we went through a VERY short door that led us to the bottom of the fermentation tanks (60 barrel tanks, they brew twice to fill it and have 10 barrels of headroom….and no kreusen blowing all over the place). I have to say, this is probably the most cramped setup I have seen. They fit this system in the spaces the best they could but there is a lot of bending down during the processes of brewing beer here. A tall guys nightmare.

From here, we went into the lagering space, in the basement right under the bar/eating area of the restaurant. Tanks were horizontal and tucked neatly into a space very short on headroom. Here is where the treat of the evening started.

John had the next seasonal in the lager tanks, their Kölsch. This is where he took our empty glasses and topped them up with some feisty young beer. Wow, it was great. Tangy and yeasty. Grainy and thick but most of all, damn good. I could have spent the rest my time there but the room was around 40 degrees and I was wearing a t-shirt. This Kölsch will be put on around the 24th of June and I can’t wait to go back and try it to compare.
After this, it was back upstairs for more beer. I pretty much stuck with the Marzen for the rest of the night as GB Marzen is one of my all time favorites.

Thank you Michael and John for the tour. It was a great time, very educational, and very satisfying on the palette. Shout out to Rich, also a brewer at GB. Met him at the Commonwealth beer event last winter and was impressed he still remembered me.

beer blogger and beer brewer

Wet Hop Ales in the Spring

2008-05-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

Wet hop beers are great style of beer that are usually only available in the fall during hop harvest time. They are called “wet hop” or “fresh hop” because they hops are cut off the vine and put in the beer within 24 hours or so. This gives the beer a very fresh and smooth hop character that you do not get from ordinary dry hops. Imagine the smell of a spice, like basil, that is dried. Now imagine basil when you pick some fresh and smell it. This will give you an idea of the difference in aroma.
Many production breweries and brewpubs will do a fresh hop ale. It is a tough brew mainly because they are only given about 24 hours notice from the hop farm that there hops are being sent out to them (at a shipping cost of hundreds of dollars), the brewers have to be ready to brew at a moment’s notice. It is a beer that is made purely out of the love of brewing.
Once a year is long time to wait for these special beers, so leave it to Sierra Nevada to source hops in the southern hemisphere, where it is now fall, so we can experience wet hops beers in the spring! Their Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale is a great beer and a wonderful example of this style of beer. It seems to be widely available in the bay area. I have seen it not only at Safeway but 7-11 as well. Here is a pull from Sierra Nevada’s website about their trilogy of fresh hop beers:

“Our latest hop experience is a trilogy of fresh hop ales representing our journey following the hop harvest around the globe. Simply said, we were in search of a way to expand our offering of fresh hop ales throughout the year rather than limiting it to just the fall season. So we scouted the planet exploring new regions to source fresh hops and also explored ways to maximize the oily, resinous qualities of the hops from each harvest as we transported them to our brewery in Chico, California.
To make this project happen, we selected hops from regions where the hop harvest occurred at different times of the year. Southern Hemisphere Harvest uses hops from New Zealand that are harvested in our spring. Our Chico Estate Harvest uses hops grown at our brewery in Chico, California that are harvested in late summer. And our original Harvest Ale uses hops from Yakima, Washington harvested in early fall. The result is three fresh hop ales that will be released at different times of the year, each providing a unique experience with hops from different parts of the world. We aptly call this trilogy of fresh hop ales our Harvest Series.”

Brew Notes: American Wheat Beer

2008-05-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

Ingredients don't get much simpler than this: Wheat dry malt extract and Cascade hops.

Last Sunday I brewed a batch of American Wheat ala JZ’s recipe. In this, Jamil mentions a couple points that I stuck with:

Resist the temptation to add specialty grains…go with just base barley and wheat.

Use a Kölsch yeast strain for a crisper, more stand out beer.

It was a pretty standard brew day. I propagated up a 1 liter starter of the Kölsch yeast the night before and boiled up the ingredients the next day. I pretty much hit my numbers all the way through….I was targeting a post-boil gravity of 1.052 and according to my refractometer I was spot on. When I took the final hydrometer reading later in the day, it was showing 1.058. I swear the wort was cool enough when I did the refracto reading but I guess this is something I need to note and adjust for in future brews.

The boil (above) and the almost extinct Cascade hops (below), the bigger dose for bittering at the beginning of the boil and the smaller dose for aroma at end of boil. I calculated the bittering units to about 22 IBU for this batch.

DUI enforcement stepped this Memorial Day weekend

2008-05-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Memorial weekend or not, obviously you should never drink and drive. To help reinforce this, many Bay Area counties will have DUI checkpoints setup along with more patrols on the streets and highway looking for intoxicated drivers this weekend.
I had the experience of going through a DUI checkpoint this last holiday season. While I did have a couple drinks prior in the evening and definitely felt OK to drive, it was a nerve racking experience nonetheless. I was quickly interviewed by an officer and was allowed to proceed. In the end, I was glad they were out there doing their job.
Please be safe this weekend and every other day too.

Where the hell have I been?

2008-05-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

It has been over a month since I have posted The quick answer is that I have been busy with things related to beer.
The longer answer is that I have wanted to build some better web infrastructure around my love of beer. Blogspot is great but I have a lot of ideas on how I could be more involved within the beer community and it will take more tools and training to stage this onto the internet. Last month, I secured the www.beerobsessed.com domain name. I will eventually be posting to this using both wordpress, for the blog portion, and a homebuilt website for everything else I have planned.
I do have a desire to work with the internet professionally so I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in classes getting up to speed on how to build a site from the ground up, including how to develop and deliver databases to the web. These new skills will give me a lot more freedom to utilize different forms of media as I see fit. Stay tuned as I will have plenty to unveil in the future. While my friend Greg said only one sentence that got me blogging in the first place, it was my friend Brian that got all of these new ideas going. Thanks guys…(much) more soon.

Sam Adams Recall

2008-04-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

This has been posted over the last 24 hours on different blogs and newsites. I pulled this from Lew Bryson's blog:

"Boston Beer has announced a voluntary recall of bottles that may contain small bits of glass. Check all your bottles of Samuel Adams beers for the following code at the base of the bottle: N35 O-I . These are the only numbers that matter: if the bottle has an N35 code, take it back to your retailer. "

Please see the Sam Adams recall notice here.

Food with your beer

2008-04-07T15:45:00.001-07:00

Hey why pair a beer with your food when you should pair food with your beer!
One dish I love making is my italian sausage sandwich. Boil some italian sausages in budweiser, cut up some peppers and onions, fry them up, heat up some buns, and you're golden. Add a thin strip of mustard and ketchup and start eating.
I was drinking my Irish Red homebrew when I decided to cook this up. The food paired nicely with the beer. My Irish Red is not that bitter which works out great with this meal since their aren't any particular strong, overpowering flavors....mainly just sweetness. The sweetness of the sandwich marries nicely with the low bitter, malt forward ale.

My local store makes a correction

2008-04-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, as I mentioned below, I was bummed when my local store pulled a bunch of local craft beers from the shelf and replaced it with some imported beers. They have an imported beer section so it was odd to plop them in where they did. I talked with the store staff a couple of times about this and who knows, maybe others spoke to them too.
Well yesterday I go in and much to my surprise and pleasure, the imported beers were pulled (and placed with the imports) and replaced with Allagash Triple Reserve and Allagash White.
I would still like to speak with the buyer because they originally had Moylans in this spot. I don’t know if there is a distribution issue or if the buyer just wanted to try something else. Anyway, good news and glad we could help.

Death of the Brother David wax seal.....Anderson Valley responds

2008-04-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

In my post below about the disappearance of the Brother David wax seal, Anderson Valley Brewing Company has posted a comment:

Hi there,Thanks for writing about Brother David's. I'm the GM here at AVBC and I thought I would let you know about the wax.

Turns out there was an issue I didn't know about:
We have had complaints from people that the wax was hard to get off and was leaving a funky smell behind, so we decided to discontinue it.

and one we have all been affected by:
The price increase was due to higher cost such as transportation and ingredients. Barley is up about 75% from last year and hops are up 400% (if you can get them)Thanks for all the support and Bahl Hornin!

Anyway, pretty cool that I got a response from AVBC. I appreciate them taking the time to comment......also let's me know some folks are reading!

Gordon Biersch Dunkelweizen arrives in stores

2008-04-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

As originally reported by Jay in the Brookston Beer Bulletin, GB Dunkelweizen has now hit store shelves. I picked up a six pack on sale at Safeway for 6.99 (all GB is on sale here again for this price). It’s pretty exciting that GB has decided to do seasonal beers as now we can experience a wider range of German styles brewed fresh here on the west coast. I also appreciate the fact that they are mass producing another unfiltered beer.

Whole Foods – “whole markup”?….not for beer!

2008-03-31T14:01:00.001-07:00

On my way back to the house Saturday, I had just time enough to swing by a Whole Foods to see what they had beer-wise. I assumed everything would be pretty costly there as the nickname of the store, Whole Markup or Whole Paycheck, goes. I have to say I was pretty impressed and saw some of the best prices I have seen in a bit. First of all, Boont Amber for 7.49…..same price as Trader Joes…and I never believed that Whole Foods would equal it. Couple other deals, as the receipt shows: Red Nectar Ale for 6.49 and Köstritzer for 2.29 (hopefully it is fresh).
I guess my opinion of Whole Food's prices (for beer) have changed for now.

…oh, and Sierra Nevada Bigfoot for 8.99 a six pack. Unheard of. Must be a mistake…but one you should take advantage of.

The death of the Brother David wax seal?

2008-03-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Upon popping the top off of a bottle of Anderson Valley’s Brother David Triple, I quickly realized that I didn’t cut off a wax seal first. Previously the Doubles and Triples came with a wax seal over the top. A very nice touch. I went and looked at a recent photo (below) and there you are, I guess they are done with the wax seal?
I haven’t found any info on the web about this but my assumption is that since the Brother David line isn’t the big bread winner like Boont Amber, combined with increases in barley prices, that they decided reduce cost? The counter to that would be that they did raise the price of Brother David by about a buck. So I have no answers on this one yet.

Found on the street…

2008-03-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

Saw this bottle on the way to and from work. Didn’t know the brand so that’s what caught my eye. I’m sure it isn’t a sought after craft brew but I researched nonetheless: Looks like Regia is from El Salvador and gets so so rankings on the beer review sites. I guess in the end I could have just come up with that since you don’t often see bottles of Unibroue or Ommegang sitting around empty on sidewalks.....

Don’t buy in bulk?

2008-03-17T08:46:00.001-07:00

At some stores it doesn’t pay to buy in quantity…..
In one of my previous posts about deal shopping for beer, I mentioned to always be aware about pricing deals on quantity. In other words, the 12 pack may be cheaper than the six pack. So you might as well stock up.
Turns out it is equally important to watch this for the opposite reason as well. My local bevmo, which I have many complaints about, has made it a better deal to buy Gordon Biersch six packs over 12 packs. Note the two photos below. Six packs are $6.99 and twelve packs are $14.99. Holy crap, you get charged an extra buck for trying to buy in bulk! Watch those prices….

Reminder of Trader Joes prices...

2008-03-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

With the increase in beer prices this year, it's always good to keep in your head what beer prices are at Trader Joes as they probably will not be beat in pricing....I assume they negotiate good deals because they are buying large quatities for their stores.
They don't have a large selection but they do have some key companies. I didn't include the German beers (I need to do that) or Chimay, since I am not a big fan of Chimay....but I believe it was 7.99 for a 750ml of red label. The following are six pack prices:
Anderson Valley Brewing Co., Hop Ottin' IPA and Boont Amber: 7.49
Mendocino Brewing Co., Red Tail Ale and White Hawk IPA: 6.99
North Coast Brewing Co., Acme IPA and Pale 6.79
Full Sail Brewing Co., Pale Ale and Amber: 5.99

The Junket…a great German deli and beer stop

2008-03-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

I have to thank my wife for this find! She kept telling me about it and I finally went for myself. It was tough to actually find the place, even though it is very local for me. The storefront is pretty non-descript and set near the back of the non-descript El Cerrito mall.
What’s great? They have a pretty decent beer fridge for a deli: Most German beer styles in 500ml bottles, some Fullers, and some American Craft. The wonderful thing is that the have Köstritzer on tap! Available in Schwarzbierbrauerei glassware in third, half, and full liter! Excitedly, I ordered a half liter with a corned beef sandwich. Since it was only 11:30am and I had my 18 month old daughter in tow, I of course worried that I would get a nasty look from any lurking neo-prohibitionists. No chance. I saw other customers happily taking their lunch to their tables with lager in tow. Wonderful. I ate my sandwich and drank my Schwartzbier and chased my escaping daughter around the deli.

The woman I ordered from I believe was Cindy, one of the owners. Very nice and very helpful.Can’t wait to go back next weekend and have my sandwich and Schwartzbier….or if it is hot, perhaps a Kölsch.

Nut Brown Ale…further notes

2008-03-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

Looks like spring is here. My basement can only keep my fermentations down to 68 degrees at this point. During the winter I had the luxury of being able to ferment down to the lowest Ale fermentation temp necessary. I do like 65 degrees as this keeps the fruit flavors more in check. Nothing wrong with 68 however and that’s what we’ll go with. I’ve adjusted my temp controller to 67 so that it will only cool to 66 before the heat kicks in, although I doubt it will get that low. In a couple days, I’ll start raising the temp control a degree every other day so that I’ll keep the yeast from going dormant too soon and hopefully get some good attenuation.

Here’s my daughter wondering why there are burps and bubbles coming out of that bucket.

Brew Notes…Nut Brown Ale

2008-03-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

Brew day went smooth thanks to having the entire day free (read: no stress or hurried process).Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and it definitely felt like spring. Total brew day was about five hours including cleanup.
I bought a new bucket for sanitizer when making starters. It fits in the kitchen sink and I can completely submerse my 2000ml Erlenmeyer flask in it. I felt like I needed to up the clean process a little for my starters and having this big bucket of sanitizer, instead of a salad bowl, helps.
Again, like last brew, I didn’t have enough water in the boil (gravity was too high). I need to remember not to get caught by this, especially since I didn’t measure gravity until I had 10 min left in the boil. I added about half gallon of water to get gravity to 1.056 but it took 5 minutes to get water back to boil and I had two hops additions left. So my 5 minute addition was more like a 9 minute addition….big deal. I just need to remember to check gravity with 15 plus minutes left. Good news is that I hit my numbers.
I used the WLP002 English Ale Yeast. The tube did seem like it had a lot of yeast in it. In fact it seemed to have more in it than when I first brought it home (hmmm). Tube was very thick as there wasn’t too much liquid left. The yeast itself seems thick in general. (note: after researching the yeast on the white labs website, it turns out this is very typical for this yeast strain. It is a highly flocculent yeast and coagulates in the shipping tube). When I stopped my stirplate in the morning the yeast settled out quickly and was almost a past at the bottom of the flask. When I started the plate again, the yeast starting kicking around in big chunks. The fermentation seems similar to the Irish Ale yeast. About four inches of kreusen in the morning…..no super kreusen coming out of the carboy, like the Edinburgh yeast.

Ledgers…the best in the east bay!

2008-03-07T12:37:00.001-08:00

I have to give props to Ledgers. They are simply the best store in the area for beer. Below I mentioned being lucky to find the Anderson Valley 20th Anniversary beer at a Bevmos. Just as soon as I posted that, I realized that I didn’t check out Ledgers. Of course it turns out Ledgers has a good half dozen cases of the beer.
Storeowner, Ed, is a great guy. I have had a couple of different conversations with him at the store. He is friendly and will listen to requests. A few months back, he started getting most styles from Lost Abbey. I know I asked for it! Ledgers is also the only place I have seen Ommegang’s Ommegeddeon.

It has a “bottleshop” feel to it since everything is individually priced. Ledgers is located at the corner of Acton and University in Berkeley.

A couple of retail beer faux pas…..

2008-03-04T12:24:00.001-08:00

Here is the craft beer selection at my local beer stop. Right around the corner from it is a smaller but just as well thought out selection of English, Belgian, and German imports. So overall, not too shabby for a small space.
One day they pulled what was mainly Moylan’s bombers out of the local craft brew section and replaced it with some imported German beer. Not only did they lose great beer from a local craft brewery but also they put in something that belongs in their import section around the corner. That beer hasn’t sold much from what I’ve seen (I haven't heard of Reutberger). I talked to the staff about this but no change yet.
Right to the left of this, I notice the bottles of Smirnoff ice….I guess the stocker figured that the bottle was roughly the same size as the others. Sad contrast to the wonderful Brother David’s next to it.What to do. I'll talk to them again and see if they need a volunteer to run the beer section....

Found! Anderson Valley DIPA

2008-03-03T09:13:00.001-08:00

I had some spare time so I stopped off at the Orinda Bevmo to look around. This is one of more favorite Bevmos since they seem to always have something new or unusual. They didn’t disappoint. Near the end of my browsing, I fortunately spotted the bombers of Anderson Valley 20th anniversary Double IPA! I bought two bombers but I ended up going back the next day and buying two more. On top of it, this Bevmo had a blowout on Three Stooges bottle openers….only 25 cents each! I bought five.The Anderson Valley 20th has a beautiful label that really stands out. I appreciate this because it really makes you look forward to the beer that is inside. As usual, I already had a couple beers prior to trying my first bottle, so I didn’t have the best sampling conditions. What I do remember was a wonderful aroma that was a good balance of hops and malt. The taste had lots of hop goodness with less malt taste than in the aroma. The finish was a swirl of hop flavors that were tastefully present (not too bitter) and pleasant linger. Looking forward to the next three bombers! If you can find this one, buy it!

Beer special of the week

2008-03-03T09:00:00.001-08:00

As we all know, beer prices have gone up. I have seen retail prices on six packs higher than 10 dollars. The good news is with a little thought and research, you can actually save more money and avoid the end effect of hops and barley prices going up.
Here is a shot of Gordon Biersch six packs from Safeway. Retail price of $8.29. Kind of an “ouch” but not too bad relatively speaking.

Now look at the 12 pack prices of the same beer, one shelf below (the empty slot is where the Marzen was). The $12.99 for a 12 pack translates to 6.50 a sixer for the same beer…..of course you have to commit to a 12 pack…not a stretch. So for the price of a 12 pack you are saving 3.59 over the price of two individual six packs. Hops and barley prices be damed!

This takes the use of a Safeway card to get the special price but I am still using the phone number from my wife’s old apartment….I am not sure how long the specials run but both Andronicos and Safeway last at least a week if not more. BTW, Andronico’s, as pricey as they are, had a long running special on all Lagunitas beer for $6.99 a six pack, so I never take this store out of the running.

The main point here is don't stick to your favorite six pack of beer and that's it. Be open to what is on sale and keep an eye on 12 pack and case prices. You can keep the cost of beer down this way.

...about that Koningshoeven Tripel

2008-02-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

This beer was purchased around New Years Eve.
I did manage to drink it in the past month. I have to point out that, while it wasn't a bad tripel, I was shocked that it had a gasoline taste to it. It wasn't a big put off but gasoline in general isn't something I desire in my mouth. I guess I have to say otherwise it was fine, although I probably wouldn't buy it again.

Let me add now that my two favorite tripels are: La Fin Du Monde and St. Bernardus. The two are different and both are excellent. The La Fin Du Monde is crisp while the St. B is what I call the "Orange Julius" of Tripels.....it is creamy and smooth.

Rainy Day Project....CO2 QDs

2008-02-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

It has been raining a lot the past month or so and I haven't brewed since right before the Holidays. I don't stop thinking about beer or brewing so I thought I would make my life a little easier during this "downtime" by adding quick disconnects to my co2 systems.

I now have two co2 tanks and regulators (I have been wanting to get a second tank so that I always have a backup or something I can take offsite and hook up to a keg....and still have something available at home) but since the second tank has added even more gas line management, I decided it was time for QDs (anything I can do to make my things easier).
All the QDs were purchased at morebeer.com. Part #H550.

Close up of the female end. These QDs will shutoff and hold pressure when disconnected.Now here are the "ends" I have to choose from. From left to right, general purpose....usually for pushing beer to secondary or bottling bucket, sanke tap, and corny keg....or in my case I use for pressurizing plastic bottles with carb caps:

Jolly Pumpkin Galore!

2008-01-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

A month ago I never imagined that I would have such a great representation of Jolly Pumpkin beers in my “cellar”. There are many mid-west and east coast beers I would love to try but they don’t have distribution to California. Jolly Pumpkin has always been high on my list.
Between http://www.liquidsolutions.biz/ and Healthy Spirits in SF, I have been able to get their Farmhouse, Amber, Noel, and Golden Ales.
I will be trying these soon and reporting back.

Brew Notes: Irish Red Ale

2008-01-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

I brewed the http://www.more.beer.com/ Irish Red Ale kit a little over a week ago. Here are a few notes about that session.
I did hit my OG of 1.054. In order to accomplish this, I had to add about 1/2 gallon water back to the boil, near the end of boil. This brought me up to about 6 1/2 gallons. I had started my one hour boil with about 6 1/4 gallons, added 7 lbs. of LME and by the end with the 6 gallons left, the OG that was a little higher than I wanted. Bringing it back up to 6 1/2 seemed to do the trick. Note that with this amount it looks like I will only yield about 4 1/2 plus gallons in the bottling bucket.
I need to remember to put no more than one ounce of hop pellets in the small sized fine mesh bag. I had 2 oz. in one and the bag was pretty maxed after taking on liquid. Hopefully I didn't lose too much utilization there.
Air temp outide was about 55 degrees that day. One thing to note is that I siphoned when wort temp was 65 degrees. By the time I had the carboy settled in and temp control plugged in, wort temp was 58. Need to remember about this drop when brewing in the winter. Temp slowly came up and I ended up pitching at 64 degress. Good news is that is got to proper temp of 68 within a couple hours (starter temp was about 70 degrees). By morning, a nice krausen had formed.
My basement gets as low as 51 degrees this time of year but with a couple of towels around the carboy, it seemd to have no problem holding 68 degrees for fermentation. I will probably go straight from primary to bottle after about 2 1/2 weeks. Other responsibilities in life depending.
Not too much protein settling on the bottom so it should be a clean transfer to bottle bucket.
A couple of shots:

Steeping grains - about 2 lbs. total. I always try to make these bags no more than half full for better utilization:

I pitched at about 6pm. This is the krausen about 12 hours later at 6am:

Notice the basement temperature on the left and the temp controller on the right sitting nicely at 68 degrees. The basement gets as cold as 50 degrees but I have no trouble holding 68.

Great beer store find

2008-01-02T11:47:00.000-08:00

On my way to a New Year's eve party, I managed to stop at a great shop named Healthy Spirits, located at 15th and Castro in San Francisco. This place rated well on beeradvocate and I am glad I made the stop.

It is a typical SF corner store, small in size. When you go in and have a look at the beer coolers going down the left side, your jaw will hit the floor. This was the first place in the bay area where I have seen Jolly Pumpkin. There were many, many others but my time there was short. I did also notice some magnums (and larger) of beer as well. I purchased a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and a La Trappe Tripel (the seventh out of only seven Trappist Monestaries to produce beer).

I talked to the owner, Ron, who was very cool. Him and his staff of two (at the time) all seemed to have good knowlege of beer.

I rated this place on beeradvocate a 4.5 out of 5 stars....ony because I was in there for such a short time. I can't wait to get back there!

Yeast notes

2008-01-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

In the short time since I returned to brewing I have used three different White lab yeast strains

WLP001 California Ale
WLP028 Edinburgh
WLP004 Irish Ale

While I can't yet comment on the affect Edinburgh and Irish have on the taste on the end product, it is important to note how they act during fermentation. Cal Ale and Irish were similar for me in that that have a quick frementation. After the first two to four days, they start slowing down quite a bit. After about a week you may have a bubble in your airlock about every 20 seconds.

Edinburgh was quite different. While it started off with a vigorous ferment, it didn't slow down like Cal or Irish ale. When I went to an airlock after about 4 days, I was getting a bubble or two every two seconds......it stayed this way for two weeks! After two weeks, it started to slow some over the course of the next week. I racked after three weeks and bottled after four weeks. This was for a scotch ale BTW.

Yeast starters and stir plates

2008-01-02T09:44:00.001-08:00

One question that concerned me about stir plates is understanding if your yeast is alive and working on your DME based starter. Without a stir plate, you will see a krausen develop and movement within the wort. Since the starter is in constant motion on a stir plate, the krausen never develops. I guess you could check the gravity but that seems like a lot of extra work, plus you may have a small starter (1000ml or less). One easy indicator to determine good activity is a fairly dramatic lightening of color after 12 hours (I make my starter the night before and then check it in the morning), this is a good sign that your yeast is working:

Particulars of my brew setup

2008-01-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

I am a full boil extract brewer who recently just started brewing again after 15 years. I am sticking to extract for now because I need to get my brew process down and I have a lot to learn still. I also have family considerations and spending time with my wife and daughter are my priority.

My process is somewhat of a "power user" of extract brewing because I have gone almost as far as I can hardware-wise. I have a 7.5 gallon stainless brew pot, outdoor burner, Immersion chiller and pump for brew day. For fermentation, I have a variety of glass carboys along with a Ranco temp controller and fermwrap heater for winter. For summer, I will put together a temp control system to regulate the heat. Yeast starters are very important, so I have some flasks and a stir plate in order to build up my yeast numbers prior to brew.

Here is the brewpot in action. I have just finished steeping grains and now am bringing up the temperature to boil.

Here we are post boil. Extract and hops have been added and boiled for an hour. I do an initial chill down using constant running tap water from the garden hose. Once I get down to about 100 degrees, I switch to the pump and recirculated ice water. This gets me down to 70 degress quicker that the tap water would.

Wort has been transferred to the carboy. The heater wrap and temp controller have been attached and turned on so that wort temp can get fine tuned (68 degrees in this case). The carboy is sitting on top of a piece of styrofoam to keep it off of the cold ground. The carboy is then wrapped in a couple of blankets and yeast is pitched once the wort gets to the proper pitching temperature.

Note that all the foam in the carboy is star san sanitizer. The foam is OK since and will be food and nutrient for the yeast.

Upcoming Topics

2007-12-31T11:19:00.000-08:00

In January, I will be posting the following:

My Winter/Seasonal favorites and misses of the year
Beer and brewing year end wrap-up: where I started and where I ended up
Particulars of my brewing setup
Brewers Notes: Irish Red Ale
Yeast Starter notes

A new year and the start of a blog

2007-12-31T09:24:00.000-08:00

I sent a friend a review of two beers, complete with photo. He said that I should "do a blog". Soon afterwards, blogs started to make sense to me. Why not legitimize my interest in beer and brewing a little more? Why not archive all of my beer and brewing notes for me and maybe others to learn from? There are many other ideas...meaning more reasons to do a blog.
So my first posting will be that review I sent my friend:

Leffe and Affligem Blondes
The question has been bugging me lately and the only way to understand two beers that are similar in style are to put them side by side. So last night with beers in hand and my 15 month old daughter below (who was rather unappreciative of the inattention...I did make up for it) I decided to explore these to blondes.

Leffe is 6.6%. Affligem is 6.8% ABV.
Apprearance:
The photo captures this fairly well. Both are of a golden color but the Leffe is darker, closer to an amber. The Leffe is quite clear while the Affligem has a cloudy appearance (perhaps wheat malt? unfiltered?).
The Affligem poured with a thicker head, about one inch while the Leffe poured about a half inch head.
Aroma:
Leffe seemed to have more. First smells were of continental malt and candy sugar. The Affligem had less aroma, I could pull out some smell of continental malt and a hint of spice.
Mouthfeel:
Both were a medium mouthfeel.
Taste:
Both were similiar taste wise with a slight bitter note in the after taste. The Affligem seemed balanced and smooth with a little spice, a little fruitiness and a hint of spice on the finish. The Leffe was spicier with a touch of clove being present as well as some fruitiness. It had a spice finish with a slight taste of candi suger.
Conclusion:
I enjoyed both and they are drinkable for sure. The Affligem was smooth and more subtle. A pleasure to drink.
The Leffe had spices that were more present but definitely not obnoxious. They mixed will with the slight candy sugar smells and tastes. I think it stands on its own. Actually an excellent Blonde for the Christmas season.