Pre-Vacation Update...

Oh hey... I'm here... Since my last brewday (Fresh Citrus Witbier) I haven't had a whole lot of beer stuff going on. I have a bunch of little things to update, so I'll sum it all up tonight.

Keggle... is at a standstill. I'm ready to go, I want my next batch to be my first ten gallon. I'm getting really tired of living brewday to brewday to keep my taps flowing. One keg per brewday is mega-lame... Also, when I get a really great beer (Saison) it goes way too fast and I feel like I got kicked in the junk when the tap sputters and blows CO2... Anyway... waiting on the welder, my schedule and his are tough to sync with my buddy as the middleman, but I'm sure it will happen.

Saison... Is already gone... Filling growlers has a way of kicking a keg fast. I will def be brewing this one again this summer to take advantage of the heat.. Maybe my next brew after I get back from vacation... Ohh, maybs my first ten gallon!

60min Centennial IPA... I ended up using a swamp cooler to keep fermentation temps in check. Yeast esters is not the focus of this style like belgians and the Saison. Trying to keep things clean to focus on the hops. Have I talked about swamp coolers?? I don't remember... basically put fermentor in a rubbermaid tote half full of water, take old garbage T-shirt, get the shirt wet and drape over the fermentor. The T-shirt acts like a wick and the water evaporates pulling heat out of the water, cooling the fermentor. This works best when the air is dry, in humidity you can rotate bottles of water in and out of the freezer to keep things cool...
Aaaanyway... I dryhopped for 2 weeks, and kegged today. It smelled totally amazing going into the keg.

Fresh Citrus Witbier... Total blowoff tube action on this one... I checked on the fermentor the morning after brew day and saw this...

So... total vigorous fermentation... blowoff tube... let sit in primary for 2 weeks... didn't stress too much about fermentation temps, I kinda like the funky belgian flavors... so... tested today, 1.010, with an original gravity of 1.050 that makes 5% abv which is dead nuts for the style. I kegged, color was good, smelled belgiany, tasted a little thin but I'm hoping carbonation will add some good mouthfeel.

I have these two kegged and carbonating in the kegerator now. I'm taking these two kegs to Maine next week for Casco Days (sidenote: see the blurry carousel picture at the bottom of the website? we think that's me and my daughter three years ago...) Normally, kegs sit still in the kegerator and as they chill, all the sediment settles to the bottom and after you pour the first pint or two, you have clear beer. If you disturb the keg, you have to wait for it to settle all over again. This creates a problem driving four hours with two kegs in the trunk (probably lying on their sides) so I have to keg jump... basically I let the beer settle in the keg and then transfer to another clean keg leaving the sediment behind. I've never done this before, and I have to build a keg jumping line (maybs I'll do a quick write up) Also Casco Days looks to be a mini beer festival... I'm bringing ten gallons of homebrew to share, and the other beer geek in the family is bringing up a bunch of cellared beers to open... lots of beer, lake, boat, wakeboarding, fireworks, Casco Days wiffle ball classic, ice cream every night... should be a great week+

Also, this past Wednesday was my birthday... ugh... but check out the sweet shirt my wife had made for me... I was totally excited...

Also, total birthday beer... A nice Belgian Witbier with lemongrass... very summery... I think I am now on a total quest to try all the DFH beers... just don't call me a fanboy... thanks.

And I'm total slumming it tonight... drinking SNPA from the bottle. 

Itching to brew, but life is busy... vacation coming up, also going to Alabama for a few days to visit my Grampa (first time on a plane... at 31... lame. Also total nervous, shh...) and meanwhile I have this super huge project at work that just got kicked into high gear with a ridiculous deadline, I just hope they don't figure out that I don't know what I'm doing (I tell them all the time, but they don't believe me) There's other stuff... but... I don't want to talk about it... That's it for tonight... sorry for no lolz... Later

Fresh Citrus Witbier 2.1 brewday (also total pipedreamin')

Total zen brewing today! Not sure if it's cool to have a sentence about zen end in an exclamation mark... but whatevs...

Brewed my witbier (again) but changed up the recipe a little... Because of the low efficiency I usually get with this recipe, I increased both the barley (belgian pilsner) and the wheat (malted) by a pound each and kept the unmalted wheat the same (one pound)... glad I upped the grain bill bc, as you'll see, I got low efficiency (surprise, surprise) again...

Also, instead of using the brewstore's dried bitter orange peel, I zested two oranges and four limes and ended up with a little over an ounce of fresh citrus zest. I backed off of the spice bc I wanted the focus to be the fresh citrus... blah blah blah (amirite?) 

For the mash, I hit two degrees lower than I planned (152 instead of 154) but I let it ride... After a half hour temp had dropped to 149, so I boiled up two cups-ish of water and added to the mash, which brought it back to 152. I think I might be ready to try decoction mashing... I'm tired of struggling with this recipe, and decoction might be the way to do it right. Decoction, in a nutshell, would let me step the mash at different temps. For example... I could mash in at 130, let it sit, then remove a measured amount of the mash, heat to boiling and return to the mash tun. This would raise the temp of the whole mash to my next step (150ish)... I've been intimidated by moving on to this next step, but I'm getting so frustrated that I'm ready to say F-it and go for it...

So I held 152 for an hour, I even let it go longer bc I was so totally chill... mash out, sparge twice.. and my kettle was...

...this full! Total boilover waiting to happen. I took some back out and held aside to add to the boil after some had boiled off. Not ideal, but it was a 90 minute boil, so I was thinking whatevs... I boiled for the first 30 minutes and right before I was going to add my bittering hops, I ran out of propane (wah, wah...) really was good timing though, I ran to hardware store for a quick fill up and was back to boiling in less than 15 minutes.

 all my late spice additions: citrus zest, corriander, and aroma hops

 While brewing, drinking my Rye Saison... omg... so good. Also... omg... total danger zone. I had two at lunch time (forgot to eat again, oops) and was total accidental buzzed. One more would have probs been disaster...

Aaaaanyway... finished the boil, chilled, and took gravity reading... 5.5 gallons @ 1.050 which means 65%-ish efficiency. Not disaster, but not great either... Also, when pouring into the fermentor, holy citrus aroma! I might have overdone the zesting... (there's a total corny pun in there somewhere, but I'm too tired to pull it out)

After brewing, I filled my new growler (that I picked up as a souvenir on my first trip to NYC last week) with my Rye Saison to bring to a cookout. I felt like a total pimp walking in with this badass growler full of homebrewed beer... Total great reception, all the guys (I didn't really know any of them) surrounded me and wanted to try my beer, then after trying, all telling me how great it was... One guy starts telling me he is in the wine business, and if I ever want to get real...

sigh...

That would be nice... total pipedreaming now... quit my job, brew everyday... totally have someone else do all the legwork, just hideaway in my own brewery and zen 100%... sigh again...

But that's it for tonight... airlock is already bubbling on the wit... and I gotta go to work in the morning... Later.

Quick update on Saison and 60min IPA...

so... idk why, but I've been procrastinating brewing stuff lately. 

I had the Saison (which I'm super stoked about) sitting in the fermentor for 4+ weeks! I can't believe I waited so long to keg this, but I have a feeling this might be A+... all that extra time will help things settle and condition, also the yeast can chill and clean up after themselves.... when racking it was crystal clear, smells awesome, all tasting samples were great, I've been tempted to fill a glass or two of lat beer just to enjoy... but I didn't... I transferred to keg tonight and I set up to fast carbonate. I should be able to enjoy this Sunday-ish?? Idk if I can wait that long...

Also, the 60minute IPA has been in fermentor for... hold on let me check... almost 2 weeks? I took a gravity sample last night, 1.009... kinda low, like I predicted, but I think it will be fine. I'm pretty sure it's done bc it is already starting to drop clear. I added dry hops... I totally went over the top too... when you buy hops it's in whole ounce bags. I took all the leftovers from the partial ounces used in the boil and added them to the whole ounce of Amarillo that the recipe called for dryhop... I probs doubled the amount of dryhops that the recipe called for, but that's totally cool... It will just add more awesome citrus (Centennial FTW) hop aroma!

Also, also, I have an active starter sitting on my counter, totally ready for brewday this weekend. Belgian Witbier  2.1! I'll get into the changes to the recipe in my next post... That's it for tonight... Later.

When in Maine, drink like the Mainers do...

On mini Maine vaca at family cottage for the holiday weekend, and I wanted to stick to drinking local Maine beer for the duration.

On the way to the cottage I stopped at the Shaw's in town and picked up a mixed 12 pack of Shipyard... Pale Ale, IPA, Export Ale, and Brown Ale... was ok... nothing super exciting...

 View from the back deck...

But! I moseyed across the street  from the cottage (yeah... I mosey... what of it?) to the general store. Browsing the small beer selection I spotted an interesting looking six pack of Baxter Brewing Company's Stowaway IPA in cans. I'm no stranger to craft brew in cans... New England Brewing Company back in CT cans exclusively, and their Ghandi-Bot IPA is amazing...

I popped one of these cans open, took a sniff and a sip... so fresh!! I checked the date on the can, "canned 6/21/11" That's just ten days ago! I poured the second one, pouring from a can is tricky... thick fluffy head that dissipated slowly and left thick lacing, hazy golden honey in color that I associate with my fav IPAs (NEB Ghandi-Bot, Stone Ruination), nice hop aroma, strong malt background, with the perfect amount of bitterness for me... perfect balance for a hophead's IPA. Overall, total A+, this was a great surprise and a highlight of the weekend.