Saturday Brewday - "After" Picture

After I got through blogging, I pulled the sack of grain out and added the malt extract and 12 ounces of agave extract. Then I brought it to a boil, which took some time. I added 4 ounces of Cascade and Amarillo hops, 2 ounces of each, at different times, tossing the last ounce in right at the end. I want to keep the hops strong so that I will be able to taste them when it comes time to drink the beer. The agave will add some extra sugar, and hopefully I will get a higher alcohol yield.

After boiling, I cooled the wort with my copper coil setup which I run cold water through. It cooled pretty fast, which is important to me. I heard that cooling too slowly causes chemicals to form which can affect the flavor of the beer.When it was down below 100 degrees F, I poured the whole mixture into a carboy. It was a rich chocolate brown color, and it smelled good, like a dark wheat bread. Then, I pitched the yeast, which means I dumped it in. I shook the whole thing vigorously, corked it, and put it away in a cool place.

So, that's it. 2 weeks or so for fermenting, and it will be ready to transfer.

Saturday Brewday - "Before" Picture

I'm sitting here sipping a bottle of my Red Ale. It is cold, frosty and delicious. Right now, I have a bag of grain steeping in the brew kettle outside. My basic setup is a 7-gallon stainless steel brew kettle, which is basically a big kitchen pot. It sits on a propane burner on the patio in the back of the house. I filled it with 3.5 gallons of filtered water, and a bag of pre-measured grains which came in a kit. The kit comes from a home-brewer supply store.

I heated the water to 160 degrees F, dropped the grain bag in, and put a cover on. The bag will sit in the water for about half an hour. Then, I uncapped a bottle of my previous home brew, and here I am. The next step will be to dissolve a pail of concentrated LME, which is Liquefied Malt Extract. It comes in a drum, and the brewer's supply guys put it in plastic buckets about a gallon in size. I get the pre-mixed grain, a bucket of LME, and some hops, along with an instruction sheet, which together is basically The Kit.

For this batch, I have a couple of variations planned. The grain is for a Pale Ale, and so I'm going to try to make an IPA, India Pale Ale. IPA is a class of beer once brewed for export in England. They sent it to India. Before IPA, they just sent regular ale, but it sometimes would spoil before it got there, so they modified the recipe to add more sugar in the wort, and some extra hops. That way, it would arrive intact. IPA tends to have more alcohol, and a stronger flavor of hops. Normally, the Pale Ale recipe calls for an ounce of hops, so I will add an extra ounce of hops, and some extra sugar. I'm not using malt sugar, I'm using agave extract, which is what tequila comes from. This will add some sugars, and some impurities which will give the brew a honey-like flavor.

Well, it's been about half an hour. It may not seem like it since reading this took only a couple of minutes. Writing it took half an hour. Stay tuned for my latest developments, coming this afternoon, on this same page.

Red Ale Sampling

So far, the Red Ale seems to have turned out pretty nice. I haven't done the blind test yet, but the initial flavor test and the alcohol content test came out quite favorable.. The color is a deep brown, and so it resembles a Brown Ale more than a Red Ale, but I am not complaining. Even though I have brewed quite a few batches in my 14 months of brewmeistering, I think that coming up with a flavor of an entirely different class of ales is a positive accomplishment, especially because I don't have to pour it out.

So the color is a rich brown, and it forms a nice head when poured quickly. It does stop foaming right away, at this point. It could change if it stays in the bottles a long time. It is very clear and it doesn't have any floaters drifting around.  It has a nice aroma, and a very full flavor, not very hoppy, but with a nice caramel background. For me, the buzz factor is the main reason to make beer in the first place, and so I like to drink one on a nearly-empty stomach, and see how it feels. I'm very happy with how it feels.

I also obtained a new kit. I plan to brew either this week or on the weekend, if the weather stays nice. I got the grain and malt extract for a Pale Ale, and some extra hops. I plan to add about a pint of agave nectar, and 2 ounces of citrus-tasting hops, and turn it into an IPA. This will be my first experimental beer, the only time I will have gone beyond the instructions. I will call it Margarita Beer.

I still plan to do a blind taste test on the Red Ale, as described previously, with my brewmeistress. She seemed to be surprised when I poured her a glass. I have a sampler of Widmer Ales in the fridge. She thought it was one of them at first. Anyway, I have been blogging too much lately, I guess. I'll be back to this blog in a few days, after I get my Margarita Beer in the carboy.


I still plan

Tasting Time!

I  now have two cases of Red Ale to drink. The time from bottling is now over two weeks, so I will stick a couple of them in the refrigerator to get them good and cold, and on Friday evening, I will crack open a cold bottle and do a taste test. I have to go to the store and pick up a couple of commercial Red Ales for comparison. I will get Killian's, which is a tasty brew. I had a couple on this past St. Patrick's Day, kind of going along with the whole Irish theme. The other will be Red Tail. The plan will be to blindfold my brewmeistress and official taster, Shannon, and put three Reds, in glasses, in front of her, and see which one she likes best.

I also want to get started on my next IPA, which I want to do this weekend. I just need to go buy a kit, and get the equipment out. The amount of work involved is a real deterrent.. However, the weather is cool, and that makes  good time for fermentation to take place.

Racking is a term for taking the wort out of one container and putting it in another container. The first container can be a brew kettle, a carboy, or a keg. Usually, I don't try to pour the wort or the beer itself from one five-gallon container to another. It is better to use a siphon, in my opinion. I went out and bought a new siphon, because my old one was developing a few cracks. It wasn't leaking or anything, just a tiny fracture. My old siphon is the type known as an auto-siphon, which has a valve that only lets the liquid go one way. I like an auto-siphon. I bought a stainless steel siphon of the non-auto-siphon type, which turned out to be a problem for me. I can't figure out how to start the fluid moving. I went back to using the old siphon.

The siphon lifts the brew to a plastic tube which acts as the siphon hose, in the same way that you siphon gas out of  ca for your lawnmower. I found out that I can get the tubing at a Home Depot or Lowe's. It is important to change the tubing for the sake of cleanliness, and some people have told me they use new tubing every time they rack. I'm okay with every third time, once for the trip from the kettle to the carboy, then for moving to the second carboy, and the third time for moving the beer to a keg or bottling bucket.

Coming up: Taste test results.

Bottling the Red

Last weekend, I bottled the New Year's first batch, which I brewed during the first days of the new year. This was brewed with Merced River water, taken from the Merced River in Yosemite National Park. The water sat in a bottle for several months before use. This was the second batch of beer brewed from the Merced River water which I collected last September. My previous batch was an IPA, but I ended up pouring the last 20 bottles down the drain because it was too frothy. There was so much carbonation that it couldn't be poured into a glass, and as soon as the bottles were opened, it would start gushing out.

I discussed the foaming problem with a couple of experienced brewers, who suggested it might be contamination or the cleaning agent I was using to prepare the bottles. Contamination was actually ruled out by the fact that the beer tasted just fine, and bacteria will make beer taste acidic like vinegar or sour milk, depending on the contaminating organism. My thought is that the fermentation didn't complete, leaving too much sugar in the wort, and when the bottling sugar was added, the yeast became active and fermented some more in the bottle.

The other brewers suggested it might have something to do with the cleaning or rinsing part of preparation, particularly the cleaning agent. I was using OxyClean, a non-sudsing oxygen bleach, which is a household cleaning agent popularly added to laundry. My brewer supplier said it was just as good as PBW, Professional Brewer's Wash. I have since stopped using OxyClean to wash my brewing equipment. I will say that up to that time, I had used OxyClean on every batch from the third one on, until this latest one.

After fermenting for about 4 weeks, I put it in a cold place, and let it settle for another 3 weeks. On the last weekend, I put it in bottles, with the help of my lovely Brewmeistress, Shannon. I used PBW to clean the bottles, and decreased the bottling sugar slightly. It should be ready to drink by St. Patrick's Day. I should be getting ready to brew another batch, but I'm holding off until this one is ready. I want to see the amount of carbonation that is produced.

For a future brew, I have been thinking of a custom recipe. I plan to take a standard Pale Ale kit, and add some extra hops and sugar to make an IPA. Instead of making an IPA with extra sugar, like my first IPA, which was the frothing monster from Heck, I want to use agave nectar. I also want to add some lime peel to the wort for flavoring. I want to call it Margarita IPA. We'll see how it turns out, whenever I get the adventurous spirit.

Happy New Year at Oroville California

The Western Pacific Brewing and Dining is a brew pub, restaurant and bar in downtown Oroville, California. Built in a converted railroad station, it sits right beside the tracks. The restaurant features a full menu of the standard fare served in most restaurants. They have steak, burgers, seafood and the rest, with a full soup and salad bar. The bar is a full-featured bar, with beer, wine and hard liquor, and a cozy fireplace. They have enough space for a dance floor, making for a versatile and well-rounded establishment.

I visited with several friends on the eve of New Years, and so we didn't get to try the fish and chips or burgers. The special menu for the evening was pretty high-end, with filet and lobster, but there were some less pricey items. I tried the chili and the shrimp fetuccini Alfredo. The chili was a bit on the sweet side, and tasted as if it was made with canned tomatoes, but was otherwise tasty and satisfying. The Alfredo was actually very good, with really excellent shrimp, generously portioned. The bread which was served was very fresh and warm, with a nice sourdough taste, yet soft and moist.

But the real reason I went was to sample the brews. The selection was no as varied as many brewpubs I have been to. Possibly the fewest choice in a sampler I have ever tried was seven. This sampler featured only six selections. The first was a blond ale, followed by a pale, an Irish red, an IPA and a stout. The sixth was the brewer's featured beer, at this time a double IPA.

I sampled the blonde ale first. It was clear, crisp, very smooth and not bitter. I was thirsty, and it was cold, and my impression was very positive. I was pleasantly surprised. I tried the red next, and it tasted pretty good too. It was a dark-colored brew, with some body to it. It was a good red, in my opinion. My third was the stout. It was chocolatey and somewhat smokey, a little thicker than the red, but since stout is not one of my preferred brews, I wasn't as thrilled as with the blonde.

Then, I tried the pale, the IPA, and the Double IPA, in succession. The pale was great, but by this time, I was feeling the effects and couldn't keep up my objectivity. The IPA was remarkable. It was clean and hoppy, and delicious to drink. There was no aftertaste whatsoever. The double IPA was really good, and I believe this was the first time I had tried a double IPA in a brewpub sampler. I was very happy with it, and so I had two more pints of it before heading home.

Being new year's eve, I didn't go to bed right away, but I also didn't drink any more that night. It was a long ride home, and I was thankful to have my wife there to drive me home after indulging myself. I woke up the next morning feeling fine.

Western Pacific Brewing and Dining Is located at 2191 High Street in Oroville, California. Oroville is about a half-hour from Chico, in Northern California. It is worth a stop in if you are in the area. The beer will not disappoint you.

Happy Brew Year!

It has been almost a year since I brewed my first batch of beer. Since then, I have brewed up quite a few batches of beer. Eight is the number that jumps to mind, but give or take one or two. I thought I was pretty successful until my IPA came up in September. It was good tasting but didn't have the buzz effect that I expect from an IPA. That, and it was quite foamy.

I have some theories as to the reason it got so foamy that I poured out the last eighteen bottles. First was the fact that I brewed it late in the summer when it was hot outside, and thus also warm inside. I put ice packs an a water bath which it sat in for three weeks while fermenting, but I may have missed a day or two. I am thinking that the yeast died off before it was supposed to, leaving a high sugar content which gave the excessive carbonation. The first few bottles had been quite good, but as I drank the beers over a few weeks, it got to the point that as soon as I opened the bottles, they would foam up like bubble bath.

Excessive foaming happened to me once before. My pale ale from last spring, as detailed in a previous post, was like that. I surmised the bottling sugar was the culprit, and so I cut back on the amount in the next two batches. That ale was quite good to drink, in spite of the foaminess. I have considered bacterial contamination, but the fact that the beers tasted pretty good and not vinegary, leads me away from that conclusion.

I have held back from brewing for a few months. Just this weekend, I started a batch of Red Irish Ale. It is a mixture of light amber malt extract, with a sack of grains that made a very dark wort. This was also the first time I tried liquid yeast, and I must say it is already shaping up nicely. Within twelve hours it was swirling in bubbling in the carboy. It is 36 hours later, and the bubbling has slowed somewhat. The color is also a bit lighter than when I first transferred it to the carboy.

This will be the last brew of 2010 and the first of 2011. Happy Brew Year!