Current Events

It's been a busy month, and not just for making beer. That's why I haven't updated this thing. Also, it's a little bit tiring to type out everything that goes on with the homebrew operation. I'm not saying that I'm tired of doing it. Whatever, I just haven't gotten around to it in a while.

It's kind of a shame, because some interesting stuff has gone on. Here's a quick rundown, in list format, of what's happened since I last posted. I won't spare the uninteresting parts.

-The dry-hopped Irish Red was kegged. While force carbonating it (a process during which the keg is under relatively high pressure) a line running to the tap blew. We lost, I estimate, a little less than a gallon of beer to the floor of my garage.

-We drank the remaining DHIR in only two weeks, which is a record. It was a really great beer.

-I ran into two issues with my so-called Lemon Wheat. The first was that somehow, the space heater that I use to control the temperature in my fermentation cabinet got unplugged. This resulted in a long, slow, start-and-stop fermentation. The second issue was that the recipe that I used- I called it "traditional" in another post- ended up coming out very different than I expected. Instead of a light, refreshing wheat beer like I was hoping for, I got a heavier, Belgium-style brew. It kind of reminds me of Hoegaarden or something. It has this bubble-gum flavor to it, as that kind of beer often does. It did not lend itself to the lemon infusion.

I hate to type this, but it's probably the worst beer I've ever made. That said, I'm the only person who has tasted it, other than Leah, who hates all of my beers, and almost everyone elses, uniformly.

-I boiled a new beer last night. After the Lemon Wheat, I wanted to get back to my core brewing interests, so I brewed the hoppiest IPA I've ever made. I used four ounces of hops, and I'm going to dry hop it with two more. The initial gravity reading was 1.054, which means this one is going to have a higher ABV than usual. Very nice.

I also used a yeast starter for the first time, but I'm going to save that for another time. Thanks for reading!

Very Hoppy IPA = Gone

Uh oh. Didn't see that coming. The keg of very, very hoppy IPA that I made before I started this blog is empty. I pulled the last glass for my folks, who stopped by earlier.

There is currently no drinkable homebrew at my house. Not cool!

My dry-hopped Irish red ale is scheduled to be kegged early next week, and it should be drinkable shortly after. I'm seriously considering bumping it up a couple of days, but I really don't like to rush things like that. I don't know. We'll see what happens.

P.S. - I know I told a couple people that I would bottle some of this IPA for them- unfortunately, that's not going to happen this time. Don't worry though, I make lots of beer, and I'll make it up to you soon.

Lemon Wheat = boiled

It's been colder than usual lately. I don't mind it- to me, it feels comfortable.

On occasion, during this damp Florida winter, I've thought about the upcoming disgustingly-hot summer with a bit of anticipation. Summer time is beach time.

I love the beach. It is, by far, the best thing about living here. You could easily argue that it's the only good thing about living here.

Of course, cold beer and summer days at the beach go together like burgers and fries, peas and carrots, batman and robin, whatever.

The beer that is probably most commonly associated with the beach is the lime-laden Corona. Mass produced corporate-light beers also work beach scenes into their ads, but it feels even less authentic coming from them.

I don't consider those to be ideal beach beers. Of course, I wanted to make my own.

I knew I wanted my beer to be light, refreshing, and flavorful. I also wanted it to have a lemon flavor. Lemonade is my favorite non-beer beach beverage, and lemon drinks typically fit the criteria I described in the first sentence of this paragraph.


A few weeks ago, I was buying beer at a convenience store near my home. This particular store has a decent selection for a low-key corner place. I decided to try Samuel Adam's "Coastal Wheat". This was an uncommon choice for me, because I'm not a big wheat guy. But then, it's also uncommon that I buy beer at all these days.

I was pleasantly surprised. This beer had a huge lemon presence up front, but overall was very mild and crisp. Usually I find that fruity beers are sort of obnoxious, but that wasn't the case here.

I knew this was the direction I wanted to move in with my summer beer.

I located a recipe for a traditional wheat beer, and boiled the wort this past Tuesday. The beer is infused with lemon zest. Primary fermentation has begun, and there is already a lemony aroma in my garage. I have high hopes for this one. Hopefully, it will hit the spot on the hot, sunny beach days that I'm looking forward to in a couple weeks.

Oops, I just realized it won't be ready in time for spring break. That sucks.

CO2 Issues

Last night, after being in school all day, I wanted a beer. I broke out the appropriate glass, went into the garage, positioned the glass under the tap at the perfect 45 degree angle, pulled the handle, and.... nothing.

What a drag.

I switched my brain from acquire/consume beer mode to troubleshoot keg system mode, and opened the door to the keg fridge. Spinning the open/close handle on the CO2 cylinder confirmed my suspicion. The sound of gas running through the system and pressurizing the keg was absent. I was out of CO2.

This was unexpected. I had filled the cylinder two batches ago. This cylinder has lasted through four half-barrels of yellow corporate beer in the past. For it to be dead after less than ten gallons of homebrew meant that something had gone awry.

And so, I disconnected all the lines, and reminded myself to take the cylinder with me the next day so I could refill it.



Kegging homebrew is the way to go, I believe. Here's my list of the P's and C's on the subject:

Good:
No bottling (which is kind of fun, but way too labor intensive). No bottle conditioning (which deducts approximately one month from a batch's time to completion). Better control of carbonation. Awesome-ness factor of having beer that you made yourself on tap in your home.

Bad:
More difficult to share outside of home. No designing cool labels for your beer bottles (which is stupid anyway). And, situations like the one described above.



Most five gallon kegs used for homebrewing, like the ones in my keg fridge, have an interesting back story. These kegs have a new lease on life- previously, they were used in restaurants to dispense soda. The soda fountain business gradually moved from these kegs, which were high-maintenance and space-consuming, to disposable plastic bags housed in cardboard boxes. The old kegs were refurbished, and made readily available to homebrewers through just about every distributor in the game.

But you know how it goes when it comes to things that are "refurbished". Certain flaws are part of the deal.

Tonight, I will hook the freshly filled cylinder back up. Once the system is pressurized, I will spray soapy water on the parts that I suspect are leaking, and if bubbles appear, then those seals and gaskets will need to be worked on.


It's not the most fun aspect of the homebrewing process, but it's necessary. For me it is, anyway. The P's definitely outweigh the C's.

Irish Red = Racked

I currently have only one beer in production- it's an Irish Red. Last night I racked it from the primary fermentation bucket into a glass carboy, where it will undergo the secondary fermentation.

For those who don't know, "racking" is the process of siphoning the beer from one container to another. The idea is to leave as much of the sediment on the bottom of the container behind.

As soon as I opened the sealed fermentation bucket, I caught a huge, malty aroma. I'm pretty excited about this one. This style of beer is a big departure from the last one I made, which is an ultra-hoppy IPA. It's going to be nice having the two of them on tap at once.

To balance out the maltiness, I'm dry hopping this beer with an ounce of hops.

Wow, I wasn't kidding about poor photography on this blog. Look at that. Terrible. The beer is actually a nice red color. I'll put up some better pics in a few weeks when it's done.

The "Kegerator"

About two years ago, long before I started homebrewing, my co-worker Tim bought a new refrigerator, and was about to put his old, perfectly functioning one out on the curb. Instead of letting it go to waste, I borrowed a truck and picked it up from his house.

A beer drinking friend and I had been kicking around the idea of setting up a draft system in my garage, and a free refrigerator was all we needed to get the ball rolling.

Once we cleaned it out and got it into the garage, I went to some website and ordered a kegerator conversion kit. We gutted the fridge, removing all the shelving to maximize usable space, and cut up some pressure treated lumber to support the keg and CO2 cylinder.

The kit contained a shank and faucet, which was installed through the door. I used a one inch hole saw, borrowed from my father, to make a spot for it. The whole set up took maybe an hour.

Not only was having a draft system in my garage very cool, it was also very economical. Back then, the amount of beer being drank in my garage was pretty serious, and buying a keg for $60 versus countless 12-packs was a big cash saver.

Life was good. People were happy.

Eventually, peoples schedules changed, and things started slowing down. My garage, once a hub for extended periods of beer drinking, stopped being a "Man Room" and turned back into a "garage". It was not unlike a comic book where the superhero loses his superpowers, or something like that. For months, my garage housed no parties, only a bunch of stuff that some family members left behind when they moved away. I shut off the kegerator to save electricity.

Then, I started brewing my own beer, and I found a whole new use for the kegerator.

When planning my first batch, I realized I needed a space to ferment my beer. It needed to be consistently 70-75 degrees, dark, clean, and large enough to hold a five gallon bucket. Most things I read suggested using a closet, with fans and bottles of frozen water to regulate temperature.

Forget that mess. I turned the fridge back on.

The fridge doesn't have a precise temperature gauge, just a one through five setting where one is kind of cold and five is almost freezing. To fine tune the fridges internal temperature for optimal fermenting conditions, I bought an external thermostat, which I calibrated using a plain old mercury thermometer. It worked absolutely perfectly, and it gave me a huge advantage going into the homebrewing game.

These days, I no longer use the kegerator as a fermentation cellar. It has two taps on the door, as pictured above, and those taps only pour homebrew, no Miller, no Bud.

More on that later. I'm at work right now, and I have more important things to do than update this blog. Like check the score of the Super Bowl.

Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer Regarding Blog Photography

Hello again!

Before I get down to business here, I feel that a certain disclaimer is necessary:

The majority of the photographs that I post here- and I plan to post many- will be captured using the handiest digital media creation device that I own- my iPhone.

These pictures will generally be poorly lit, poorly composed, and low resolution.

Why am I taking the time to explain this?

Having learned the "anyone-could-see-everything-you-post-online" lesson the uncomfortable way, I want to safeguard myself and someone close to me from accusations of, uh, being crappy photographers.

Translation: If you (a reader of this blog) know me in "real life" and are (or are considering) commissioning our professional services, please don't think that the photos posted here reflect what we offer.

I'm not saying I'll never post a nice picture here, but I am saying that for the most part, I will put as much thought into these pictures as you put into picking out socks this morning. That's very little. Probably. I don't know, you might be kind of weird.

Too many words here. One last thing. I am now two-for-two on blog posts that allude to the Twitter incident. I'll never mention it here again. It is not as ominous or serious as I might have made it sound. It's actually kind of funny.

I would love to tell you about it over a beer sometime.

Now for some brew stuff.