Some thoughts on electric brewing...

You guys are totally ripped off today. Only picture you're gonna get is this lousy one of a barely out of the ground chile plant:

Clearly, of the Jalapeno variety. The peat pot says so. This little guy, and one other friend of the six total I planted, came out of the ground like three days ago. Two out of six. Not as good as I'd hoped.. but I guess there's still time. I've also got my bakup plan in place, which is also till moving along just fine.. stand by for more on that.

In other news, I was talking with a friend last night, Jeremiah B. from way down south, about breweries. He's building a new one up from scratch and he had called to pick my brain about measurements and gadgets and whatnot that I had attached to mine. Wanted to know how I'd done it, what I liked, and what I'd change if I could. Told him a bunch of stuff.. but most interesting is we talked about HLT's and their fabrication. Knowing what I know now, I'm interested in going to at least part electric heating. The HLT, in particular, is perfectly suited to being electrically heated.. this stuff has been known for a while now, as there's several people online documenting their builds. But the bug to upgrade to that has started to bite me again.. since Jer is building his as we speak, I gave him some ideas to bounce around in his head on stuff to do.. and we'll see how he makes out. Depending on what he comes up with and his particular equipment build, we'll base my next upgrade off of that. I also shot him an idea for my newest sight glass idea.. so, stand by for some more on that later as well.

Calibratin' and graduatin'.. and a darned big egg!

Not a groundbreaker here, but figured I'd update on the mod's I'm making to the brew rig. Figured I'd do something today that I've been putting off for a really long time, just cause it's so boring.. and that's measurements. Boring. But it's important stuff, really. What I mean is, I'm marking graduations on the sides of  my boil kettle so can finally get an accurate measurement of how much wort I have in the kettle pre-boil. This measurement, plus a reading of wort gravity prior to boil, will allow me to do the math to figure out what I'm going to end up with, or *how* to end up with a kettle full of wort of the strength I actually desire, or planned for, with my software. It's just boring as hell to do. Plus, I'm measuring boil off rate now as well.. you know, it's only been like, 8 years now and I haven't done it yet. Figured I'd do it since I had a kettle full of hot water anyway, right? So, the clock started about 15 minutes ago and we'll see where we end up in an hour. Check the pics:

Here's a shot of the new graduations on the kettle:

As you can see there, I'm simply using the transfer hose run up the side of the kettle as a sight-glass, instead of building a new sight glass (which I could fairly easily do...). Not having a built in sight glass leaves one less thing to get crap all boiled and hardened into. That's the primary reason I don't have a permanent one on there.. but this idea works the same way and is just as accurate. Sweet.

Here's a pic of my por hops. Darned things got blown over couple days ago in the wind.. drats.

Here's a new bread I just took out f the oven, a couple hours ago. Standard sourdough boule, with a touch of spelt powder dusted over the top just before slashing to leave a bit of a design on the top:

And finally, a huge egg! This thing measures 98 grams... 3.45 ounces. A monster! the equivalent of two full size large eggs. It's so huge, the lid on the egg box won't close. Sheesh!

That's all for now, kids.. carry on.

Big Brew 2010 update.. more pics!

Just a quick update here with some new pics I scored from Frank. Thanks Frank!

With that said, here's some import stuff being discussed here... clearly. That handy quick reference guide on the back of Rob's shirt came in handy more than once, I can say!

Jody and Alex here, up to no good. 

Mash mixing.. they like to do this manually.

Somebody's wort run off, and almost over.. believe this is Frank and Rob's.. 

The Lab:

Sa and Will discussing the finer points of IPA's..

This photo speaks for itself!

And, last but not least.. an overview of the chaos in the garage. And, Timmay! (he did show up afterall!)

Dismissed...

Krausen Commando's...

Oh yeah! And most importantly, I forgot to mention this: Yesterday at the Big Brew, we formed an actual, legitimate, fully certifiable (yeah, he said 'certifiable'..) homebrew club. The Krausen Commando's! Tricky.

Check it. We even have a domain name and .com now..

http://www.krausencommandos.com/

Ain't nuthin' there just yet.. but give it some time. We voted on some initial peep's into office as well, including Timmay P. for Prez, Geoff D. for Vice and Will S. threw his junk in the ring with a hard fought battle for Secretary/Trezurer. Yeah, I spelled that right. That's how hard core this group is. As I heard, Geoff already fired up the club on the American Homebrewers Association site to get us super-legit.. fame and fortune is just around the corner, rest assured.

That is all for now, dismissed...

Commando Mike

Big Brew 2010

Ok! So yesterday was the 2010 beginning of the year Big Brew here on Heritage Way. Check the pics for some details.. 

Rob and Frank, workin' some mill magic:

(ignore that minor in the background. he didn't have an arm band, so wasn't allowed to drink..)

Geoff and Savvas here, during a lull in their furious brewing action.. nobody in house had *any* clue what these guys were brewing in their top secret corner. It was very 'hush hush' there..

What the heck was Cory doing at this point, I have no idea.. but he appears to be happy doing it. Oh, wait, is that beer in his hand? Say no more... I believe this man was there for moral support for Rob, just in case he got nervous. I think it worked.

Jody, always a staple in my garage it seems, and a couple of knuckleheads in the background.. I think Jody brewed a Wheat beer of some sort, but I'm not positive..

Dan, the Man, my brewing pardner. During the course of the day, me and this screwball pulled together a big brown ale with a good amount of hops while assisting Rob and Frank who were also pirating half of my brewery to make their beer. Rob and Frank, btw, whipped up a classic Double IPA.  

Here's the only spy shot of G&S's secret table that I managed to get before security threw me out.. Gawd knows what's on there and how much of it is actually legal to own in this state..

Jody and Alex's rig set up out in the driveway. These guys are hard core for brewing in the sun.. especially when they didn't have to. They EARNED their beer. 

And during the course of the day, the mini-keg of the Black Bear stout, soured with Jolly Pumpkin's 'Bam Bier' yeast cultured up from a bottle of same, was killed. Really a cool treat to have 10 people on the back deck after a hot day brewing drinking up a storm of different beers, comparing notes and just enjoying the day.. and then suddenly remember that you have a mini-keg waiting for you in the fridge! Chunk that thing down on the tabel in the center and pass around the cobra tap. Good times! Wish I had a pic of that to post for ya'.. but wasn't thinking at the time. Drats...

Part 3 West Coast IPA's and some other stuff...

First off.. 'Delta' wheat, aka Jess's Mean 40th, is officially kicked. Damn, that was quick! Just over a month. This beer, tapped just a week before last month came to a close, lasted just over 5 weeks.. and then BLAM! Foam. 

Thankfully, there's a beer meaner than that 40th to take it's place. The Mighty 109! Yep, my big IPA with 109 calculated IBU's is now in the fridge. Here, introduce yourselves:

It's a standard orange colored thing, yep. It's only partially carb'ed right now, and still fairly warm.. but first impression leaves me thinking about grapefruit and oranges and ..Dogfish 90 Minute? It's got a little residual sweetness and a lot of resiny-hops in this glass to give me hints of the 90 Minute, but not nearly as sticky, and of course, Dogfish don't got no grapefruit in it. That's what, Amarillo? I think Amarillo does that.. fair enough. There's plenty of Amarillo in here. BTW, this one checks in at 7.8% abv. Keep an eye on that one, eh?

Other than that, there's news on the chile front. The what? Check it:

Chile's. Six plants total, starting out small. Three jalapeno's and three habanero's. Hope I can get some garden space! I also called around for some horseradish, my newest love, and found a place in Torrington that'll be getting them, but not for a week or three. They'll call hen they're in. Stay tuned. Apparently, horseradish is a perennial. that's what grows year after year, right? Well, that's what horseradish is. Supposedly grows like, 5 feet tall and is a nice looking plant, and then in te fall when the leaves die off, you dig the plant up and pull the roots up and grind 'em up for pickling to make horseradish sause. You keep one and replant that one in the ground and it winters there and then re-sprouts in the spring. Nice.

Now go click my google links, you jerks!

Hop stringing and Part 2 of West Coast IPAs..

Part Two of West Coast IPA's half-assed notes:

Ninkasi brewing 'Triceratops' Double IPA 8.8

Color gold, just like the rest.  Orange on the nose. LOTS of orange. Bitter background is strong, nearly stinging, but flavor hops starts to destroy that fiarly quick as they wash in.  Faint malt flavor in the finish, but hard to tell after just a few sips.  1/3rd into the pint starting to feel a little cloying.. But not sticky. Really massive hop resin flavor in the middle here.. Still not cloying, but really steps up and toes the line. Remains just on this side of drinkability from abusive.

(*Note: In retrospect, this was probably one of the best of the IPA's I had on this trip... It was truly massive!)

Port Brewing 'Wipeout' IPA 7.0

Post Stone brewing visit w/taste buds blown totally out .. Clear orange in color. Orange in aroma. Orange in flavor! Bitter backbone, but gets mostly overrun by the flavor of orange fruit hops. Very dry finish on this one compared to the rest, invites another sip almost immediatlely. Not sticky at all despite big hop presence. Starting to get just a hint of pineapple now??? Really quite drinkable and delicious ! Love this one! Great to the last drop there.. Highly recommended!

(*Note: this one probably was my favorite of the bunch, but I think it depends on your mood for the day. Do you want big hop flavor, or big hop BITE.. in which case you'd go for the Ninkasi beer. Incredible interpretation of this style, though.)

In other news, me and Frank strung up his hops and mine yesterday afternoon. Check his setup out for the one hop variety he grows. They're still kinda small and hard to see in this far away pic, but they're there at the base just in front of the trellis, on the close side here towards the camera:

Here Frank and I are back over in my yard, stringing up the twine onto the poles I built last week..

Here's a shot of the whole thing, with the spiral'd twine running up from the bottom to the top. I plan to hand guide them onto the twine and get 'em running around till they get to the top, then let them run wild up there. It'll take some work for about a month or so, but then should be pretty hands free. It appears by a rough estimate that there's in the neighborhood of about 20-30 feet of string going al the way around, so.. hopefully we'll get some good length out of the hops overall, even though the overall height will be fairly low.

This is Frank, being a total tard. He cannot resist this behavior.. way to go, Frank!

'tis all for now.. stand by the the final crappy installment of the IPA saga in a bit...