Teach A Friend to Home Brew day

We held the yearly TAFTHB day at Blue Ridge Hydroponics & Home Brew Supply on Williamson Road on the 22nd and despite getting rained upon twice not counting sprinkling, a good time was had by all. Two of our members (me included) brewed all-grain beers, and one brewed an extract beer. We also gave out samples of beers that members had made and explained to visitors the doings of making your own legal alcohol, namely beer. In addition to beer, I took my last bottle of mead, but I didn't put it on the table for tasting. Just didn't.

At least I didn't wind up with a horrid sunburn on my neck as happened at Big Brew on the 1st of May. I brewed another batch of (14B.) American IPA and followed the rule: Don't drink while you are brewing and thusly didn't forget any of the five out of six hop additions that the recipe calls for. The final hop addition will be an ounce of Cascade hops in the secondary for dry hopping.

The store owners supplied the ingredients for brewing and so this was a 'Free Beer' for me. I'd brought my own grist to save time and was reimbursed with the grain bill after things had quieted down. Chris said that business was good that day which is why he is willing to supply the ingredients to the brewers for the soiree. So, now I have grist for another batch of 14.B and only have to wait for a open carboy for fermenting. I'll bottle the Big Brew beer tonite, but have to wait for the TAFTHB to go to the secondary before I start a new one. Only need to buy the hops for the next one. Woo-hoo! We're on a roll this spring!

Racked American India Pale Ale to secondary

Racked the 14.C v1.0.0.1.0 to secondary this AM, just about forgot to add the dry hops. 24 days in secondary, that should be 3 June 2010 for a bottling date. This is probably the batch that I will take to the 'fambly reunion' type unit that Georgia has planned out for the end of July. It oughtta be just ready to put into the fridge by then. Bwa-hahaha! 14.C = American India Pale Ale alpha numeric designation.

Cheers!

CyberDave

Big Brew is upon us

To celebrate the day that Jimi Carter signed the law making home brewing beer legal once again, brewers gather on the first Saturday in May to brew - and to raise a glass to Jimi. (And thanks, Billy!) Brother Billy was probably the man on the inside tormenting Jimi for that action.

And so this Saturday we will gather at a home brewer home boy's home to brew, eat, drink, and be festive. BeerTown has the state by state state:

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/events/national-homebrew-day

...and The 'Guild has registered as the local site. Word around the campfire is that the hosts are making Gumbo... using a recipe from their native Louisiana. Oh is it good.

I will be brewing a five gallon batch of American India Pale Ale, beer number 14.B in the panoply of beers spec'd out in the BJCP Style Guidelines. Look it up.

More after it occurs....

American IPA bottled.... only one thing left on my Bucket List...

I've decided (after discussion with my Home Brew Home Boyz) that all of my American Amber Ale, the last two batches, should have been Brown Ales. OK, and so be it. POOF! Ain't gonna change the labels on the survivors, tho; I can scrape 'em off when I share with friends and tell them the tale of adventure.

So, I was at the store the other nite and an Island Boy, trying to assimilate after coming to America, came to the counter with his American girlfriend. He was wearing the always present hip-hopper's flat brimmed baseball style cap, a shirt with some rap artist's visage emblazoned across the front & back, bling, and a grille on his teeth. I was wearing my always present Hawaiian motif shirt. The chap began laughing and GF asked him what was the cause of his gaiety... He said, "He looks funny! His shirt makes him look funny!" No malice intended, he was just truly struck with amusement. I smiled and sold him his Hennessey without comment, for this was a rare occurrence at the likker store: The black calling the kettle 'Pot'.

Secondary... and a report on the 10.B's...

Racked the American IPA to the secondary yesterday... and not only did I use the 5 gallon carboy instead of the other 6 gallon carboy (wasting about6 40 cl of beer) but after I had gotten it all buttoned up with a towel wrapped about it to keep the light out and was cleaning out the primary carboy, a waft of Hops aroma arose from the primary - reminding me that I was supposed to dry hop the AIPA with an ounce of Cascades. Double D'oh! And so... I cleaned the other 6 gallon carboy, dumped in the hops, and racked the beer into it. Well, I guess that it was a good thing that I forgot to dry hop the beer after putting it into the second 5 gallon carboy... there would have been that much more hops wasted in the transfer.

And the two batches of American Amber Ale have been tasted and deemed potable. The v4.0.0.0 batch tasted and looked more like a porter as I didn't have any toasted barley for the grainbill so I used about a quarter lb. of a dark specialty malt (350 L.) to add some color... and it added some coffee taste as well. Not bad. I'll tell people that I was shooting for a Porter....

Brewing an American IPA today...

12 lbs. grain, 68 IBUs, haven't done an IPA before, unless I had documented it on the hard drive that went ka-blewie. Don't think that I have.

Flame on at 11:20; Mashing began at 11:35. I have 6 gallons of hot sparge water in the cooler ready for lautering. The time is 11:50.

12:55 and the lautering has begun. The wort looks very clear: it didn't take much time at all to remove the particulate from the flow. When I was cracking the grist, I was concerned that the mix would be too fine, that there would be a lot of particulates in the runoff. Knock on wood, I guess it was OK. I'll add a gallon of sparge water at 1 gallon runoff. (I actually started adding sparge water at ¾ gallon of runoff: the top of the grain bed in the lauter tun was beginning to become visible. I added 1-1/2 gallon of hot water. Make a note of that.) Time: 1:05; one gallon runoff took 10 minutes. After dumping two gallons into the boiler and starting another 2 gallon measure, I looked into the Mash Tun at one gallon and again saw the grain bed... so I added another gallon and an arf. That's 4 gallons so far.

Added another gallon of water to the lauter tun; Need another two gallons of runoff to begin the boil. I should begin weighing out the hops for their additions. After flame on I let the runoff continue to flow and got about another gallon and an arf at like, zero gravity. I'll keep it in case there are... problems... If no problems I'll ditch it.

Flame on 2:30 I let it boil for about 10 min before I added the first hops. Ok, I forgot to add the hops when boil began... Alarms on my cell phone will remind me when to add hops 2-5.

I put a 4-pack of my American Amber Ale 4.0 into the fridge to celebrate the finish of this brew session, and we will see how that goes. V3.1.1.1 was almost ready to swill when I tried it Friday night, could use another week for sure. This one, v4.0, was bottled with 5 days less in the carboy... I wonder if this one is better carbonated. Tonite, tasting will be the telling tale.

4:00 - Ten more minutes of boil and then I add hope #5 and cut off the gas, then turn the cold water on to chill.

4:50 - Still chilling... chilling while I chill. I think that I'll close this up here and now. More later...