A Great Week for Beer!

I have 20 minutes left for my boil of my latest homebrew, so I thought I'd do a quick write-up on what's been happening on the beer front this week.

Last weekend I headed west to Ohio for our niece's 5th birthday party. While I was there staying with my parents, my thoughts turned to beer of course! Unfortunately the nearest brewery was closed on Sundays, but the next best thing was close by.

We made the short drive from Caledonia to Delaware, Ohio and and to Barley Hopsters. A pretty nice little bottle shop/homebrew store. I needed to get some yeast and then I took a look at all the beers they had, with a big focus on Ohio beers.

Part of my haul from Barley Hopsters

The next day it was time to make my long drive back to Rochester, but my parents gave me a pretty sweet parting gift. A new sign for my garage/homebrewery! They had picked it up and were planning to give it to me for my birthday, but they decided to give it to me early. (I think so they didn't have to keep track of it for the next 5 months!)

New Smuttynose Sign!

Wednesday came and it was time to start thinking about my next brew, so I grabbed my yeast and got a yeast starter going. This next beer was going to be a big one and it was going to take lots of healthy yeast to get through it. A Belgian Golden Strong Ale was to be brewed.

And brewed it has been. It was nice to not be shivering in the garage while this brew was going on, I guess Spring has finally gotten to Rochester. Speaking of which, my boil is coming to an end so I'd better get ready to finish up. 

2.5 Pounds of Cane Sugar for this Brew!

Hopefully you've all had a great beer week and have lots of great beer related things planned for the summer. Let us know what you're looking forward too as the weather warms and trips are planned.

Cheers!

Tapping New Kegs and Rochester Beer

The last few days have been pretty eventful in my world of beer.

Over this past weekend, the wife needed to go pick up some wine club packages down in the Fingerlakes. The sun was shining, even though it was brutally cold. Keuka Lake had even frozen over, the first time since 2004 according to our host at Ravines Wine Cellar. We grabbed our wine, and I made a quick dash to the closest brewery!

Our first stop was at Abandon Brewing, a place I've been many times now, but still stop at almost every trip down to the lakes. Something about their beers that I really like. They had a pretty good crowd of people there Saturday afternoon and I did a tasting flight of four beers; Harvest Saison, Grape Dubbel, Farmhouse IPA, and their Pale Ale.  

Afterwards, we were in need of some food, so we made the long drive over to CB Craft Brewers for another flight and some dinner. I went with the reuben (which I always do, anywhere a reuben is on the menu!) and four beers in my flight. 2 that I'd never had, and two that I really like. Poor Richard's Ale and the Night Owl Cream Porter were the new ones. Caged Alpha Monkey IPA and the Joe Latte Vanilla Coffee Stout were the ones I'd had before.  I was really impressed with the Poor Richard's and whats not to love about a vanilla coffee stout?

Sunday night was another day of mourning. I had the final pint of my American Amber Ale, which meant I got to put my new keg washer back to use. This was a sad occasion because this beer was a pretty big milestone for me in my brewing. This Amber Ale was my first all-grain batch! (Special thanks to my dad who was my assistant brewer that day!) But as beer goes, when a keg runs dry, another needs to be ready to take it's place. So that's what I did yesterday. I kegged up my Belgian Pale Ale and hooked it up to the CO2 so it should be ready to go by this coming weekend. 

As a reward for my hard work I enjoyed the first taste of the last keg I hooked up, my Belgian Dubbel I mentioned in a previous post. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, filled with beers that helped keep you warm on these cold nights. Keep your spirits up, the days are slowly getting longer and the end of this winter is in sight....behind all those piles of snow!

Cheers!

Empty Kegs...Farewell Christmas Ale!

This week marked the end of my latest keg of homebrew, I drank my last pint of Willow Valley Scottish Winter Solstice.

Scottish Winter Solstice

After finishing my pint, my thoughts turned quickly to my next keg of homebrew. A Belgian Dubbel that has been on deck for quite some time now. The next morning I hooked up the new keg to the CO2 and started counting down the days until it's carbonated and ready to drink.

The only problem I had now was that I needed to clean this dirty keg. What I needed was a keg/carboy washer, and that required a trip to Harbor Freight and Home Depot. I still have a few tweaks to make to it, but the design is straight forward enough and should be easy to change as needed.

Heres a few pictures and a little video of it in action. Let us know if you have any beer projects lined up for this year.

Cheers!

1/3 HP Sump Pump

Down into a Home Depot Bucket

Use it with a Carboy

    

Or with a Keg

A Few Beer Updates

This week has been a cold and snowy one. Luckily there have been some good beers to keep me warm!

This past Wednesday I headed into the home brew shop to get a couple more vials of yeast for some upcoming brews. I picked up one each of the White Labs 400 and the 500 (Wit and Trappist yeast)

Later that evening I got a call from our UPS driver asking me to come down the driveway and sign for my package. My next shipment of beer-of-the-month had come in!

I got beers from Smuttynose (FinestKind IPA and Robust Porter) and Mustang Brewing (American Lager and Winter Lager) So far I've gotten a chance to try the Robust Porter and the Winter Lager. I was really impressed with the winter lager. Dark and chocolatey, but had that smooth easy drinking lager characteristic. The robust porter was really good too. A nice rich style that I enjoy quite a bit, and Smuttynose never disappoints!

Friday it was time to brew again. It was crazy cold outside, but I stayed warm inside the garage, mostly.        I milled my grains, mashed-in, sparged, boiled, cooled, and pitched my yeast. At the end I had 5 gallons of Witbier ready to ferment.

My recipe was:
45% Pilsner Malt
41% Flaked Wheat
9% Flaked Oats
2% Munich Malt
3% Rice Hulls

31 grams Hallertauer Hops for 60 Minutes
I threw in some Coriander, Orange Peel, and Chamomile at the end of the boil too. It smelled pretty awesome!



(I didn't take any pics of my brew day, it was too cold! But heres my dueling carboys)

The yeast is working it's magic on both of my beers, so hopefully I'll have them ready to drink soon!

Hope your all staying warm and having a great beer filled week out there!

Cheers!

First Brew of 2014!

Yesterday I got my first brew in of 2014!

My lovely wife got me a gift card to Northern Brewer for Christmas, and I knew exactly what to get. I ordered up a grain mill and my first order of bulk grains and started planning my first brew.

Deciding I'm going to focus on Belgian styles this year, I decided my first brew would be a Belgian Pale Ale.

My grain bill was:
91% Belgian Pilsner Malt
7% Caramunich
2% Biscuit Malt

Next it was time to mash. I overshot my temp a bit. I mashed for 60 minutes at 154 (was supposed to have been 152)

I collected my wort, started my 90 minute boil and added my hops. (East Kent Goldings. 1.22 oz 60 minute and .29 oz 0 minute)

Now it's up to the yeast

I can't wait for this to finish up so I can try it out. Hopefully if any of you are into brewing you've had a chance to brew something up this year. Let us know what you've got fermenting!

Cheers!