Keggles

One of the kegs before the conversion.

I've begun upgrading my brewing process.  Since a nice 15-20 gallon brew kettle with a ball valve was like $150, I opted to make my own.  So I picked up three 15.5 gallon kegs off craigslist in the last week and have cut the tops off of them.  I then drilled holes and installed weldless ball valves to all three and added thermometers to two of them.  Most of the techniques used were from Poorhouse Brewing.  Check the December 2010 posts to get the details.  The thermometers are sweet and way cheaper than ordering professional ones.  Next up I'll build a brew tree and add the burners to them.  I'm looking forward to better efficiency and an even better brew day.  Also, I've had quite a few people wanting me to brew them some batches, so now I can do a ten gallon batch and keep half and half can go to someone else.  Let me know if you want to go in on a batch!

I cut the lids off with my angle grinder and a steel cutting wheel.  I then polished them up with a polishing/sanding attachment that smoothed them out so I don't cut up my arms when reaching into the keggles to clean them.  I still need to pick up a lid or two from goodwill.

The three final products.

The ball valves I did were simple brass 1/2 inch ball valves from Lowes.  Each one cost like $7, plus a buck or two for each 1/2 thread to cpvc adapter.  I'm going to switch the boil keggle to a copper inside fitting that I can remove to clean.  I'm a little worried about boiling CPVC over and over.  I added a rubber stopper to each inside and outside (touching the keggles) of the ball valves to provide a better seal.  

A close up of the homemade ball valve.
This thing works great for like $12 each!

The thermometers were installed with a 1/2 inch to 3/4 step up rubber stopper.  I drilled a hole slightly smaller than the thermometer stem in the rubber and drilled a hole in the keg.  I then pushed the rubber stopper into the hole and hammered it in tight from the inside of the keg.  After pushing the thermometer through, I put a pin nail through the outside of the stopper to keep it from slipping back in.  They work great and were only like $6 or $7 apiece.  Nice and cheap!

The thermometer with a rubber stopper.  This only cost $7 total.  

This thermometer is nice and big and easy to read!

The not-so-false bottom is simply a steel braided water supply line with the rubber inside removed.  I  attached this to the CPVC Tee attached to the pipe.  I guess that this should work great, according to my buddy Randy.

The not-so-false bottom for the mash tun.  

The Hop Spider is something I saw on homebrewtalk.com  I pretty much copied the one I saw on there exactly.  I still need to add the mesh bag to the bottom of the PVC coupler, but that way the hops will float freely and hopefully give off even more flavor!  This thing cost like $7 so far, plus like the $4 mesh bag I still need to get.  No more muslin bags for me!  

My Homemade Hop Spider.

So there you have it.  My brewing upgrades done for way less that prefabricated stuff from well intentioned, but pricey, homebrew websites.  The bottom line, be creative and save money which can be used for better stuff.  As my dad always says, "what good is money if you spend it?"

God Gave Wine

This is a review of Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.'s book, God Gave Wine.  I'll start by saying that I highly recommend this book.  This is a straightforward biblical study of alcohol, what the Bible says about it, and how we should treat it.

Gentry breaks his book down into 6 main chapters, with an introductory chapter and a conclusion chapter.  His primary premise in his work is that God gave wine/beer/alcohol to mankind as a blessing, and when used in moderation is not only biblically permissible, but biblically encouraged.

He demonstrates thorough exegesis with the texts used, both in Hebrew and in Greek studies.  His use of context to explain passages and willingness to allow the text to speak for itself is refreshing when dealing with such a controversial topic.  In addition to addressing the Bible Gentry also deals with other works on the subject of alcohol.  His primary opponents are Stephen Reynolds and Jack Van Impe.  Both men are quite opposed to the use of alcohol and are willing to not only misuse scripture to argue their point, but will even distort the authorial intent of the Bible and change God's Word!  This is simply appalling to me.

Gentry is adept with his writing and this is a highly recommended book.  I originally came across this book while reading Mark Driscoll's, The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out without Selling Out.  This is another recommended book, which does bring up the subject of alcohol, but that's another review I reckon!  So do yourself a favor and pick up God Gave Wine.

St. Patrick's Day

So today is St. Paddy's day.  A day of corned beef and drinking, right?  Afterall, everyone's Irish on March 17th!  So here's a few bits of info to think about while enjoying you Irish (or non-Irish) ancestry...

St. Patrick's day is a religious holiday started by the Roman Catholic Church to celebrate St. Patrick, who was a Catholic priest and brought Christianity to Ireland.  While there were later, more successful missionaries to Ireland, St. Patrick was the first and got things going.  The clover was employed by Patrick to teach the locals the doctrine of the Trinity, and green wasn't the official color of the holiday until the 17th century.

One of the more popular beverages on St. Patrick's day is Guinness.  This is one of my favorites personally, so I thought a bit of history on Guinness would also be in order for today.  According to the book on the side bar here, Guinness began as a way for Arthur Guinness, who was a follower of Jesus,  to provide a better beverage for those who didn't have quality drinking water.  So the brewery was started after paying 100 pounds and signing a 9000 year lease for 45 pounds a year.  Talk about a great deal!  Guinness also has antioxidants in it which make it a good beer to drink for health reasons!  The translation of the Old Irish on the poster is "Guinness is good for you!"

So pour yourself a pint of Guinness and praise God that St. Patrick brought Jesus to Ireland back in the 400's!  God is Good!


(Please note that I haven't read this book yet, but I am looking forward to reading it!)

CBHC Double IPA

It's been over two weeks since I've brewed, so I'm itching to get back on the burner.  Hopefully this will end up in a Cornie Keg once I get the kegerator going next month.

So this will be my first time making up a recipe, so I figured I needed to go all out and make some high gravity, high hop IPA.  Hopefully this turns out well.  I plan to brew this on Friday or Saturday this week.  Here's the proposed recipe:

Malts:
12lbs American 2-Row
2lbs Crystal 40L
1lb Carapils

Hops:
Boil Hops:
.75oz Centennial (60m)
3oz Cascade (60m)
.5oz Simcoe (60m)
1oz Colombus (10m)
1oz Simcoe (10m)
.75oz Centennial (10m)
1oz Cascade (1m)
1oz Simcoe (1m)
1oz Colombus (1m)

Dry Hops:
2oz Colombus for 7 days
2oz Simcoe for 7 days

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 Slurry

Extras:
1tsp Gypsum at Boil
1tsp Irish Moss at 15m

Anticipated OG: 1.082
Anticipated FG: 1.020
Anticipated IBU's: 113
Color (SRM): 8.3
ABV: 8%

I'll update after brewing to give the details....

Brewing Update 3/18/11:  Brewing went quite smooth.  My Wort Chiller is awesome, it only takes about 7 minutes to chill from a boil to 68 degrees.  The only hitch I had was the same as last time...I can't get to the target Original Gravity.  I ended up at 1.060 instead of the 1.082.  This will just be a lower bodied ale I guess...oh well.  I had to make a few changes to the hop bill as well since Amarillo is out of stock at Brew Brothers.  I also added a little more hops to make it up to 113 IBU's instead of 108.  I was also able to enjoy a tasty Steam Face while brewing as well as a Cheerilee Scottish Ale.  Both were quite good.  Hopefully I can at least get this down to 1.010 to give it a decent body...
Update 3/22/11:  Gravity is has been at 1.016 for a couple days...decent flavor and body.  I'll rack to secondary, cold crash, and add the dry hops either tonight or tomorrow afternoon.  I'm going to dry hop it for at least a week with loose leaf hops and hope it strains out ok.
Update 3/29/11: I racked this to secondary last week and added 2oz of Simcoe, loose style in the beer.  Hope this will turn out.  After a few days I moved it to the garage for a cold crash.  I should be getting some cornie kegs this weekend, so I'll just keg this one then.
Update 4/3/11: Bottled this up after 10 days secondary with hops floating in it.  That was a little tricky.  Got 17 22's and 10 12's.  Not quite as much as I would have liked, but hopefully they are tasty.  We'll find out in a few weeks.
Update 4/9/11: Tasted this tonight...still a little flat, but a BIG HOP FLAVOR!  This turned out really well.  I can't wait for this to be fully ready.

"Drinking with Calvin and Luther" -Book Review

Drinking With Calvin and Luther!: A History of Alcohol in the Church

I got this book a week or so ago from Amazon and managed to breeze through it pretty quickly.  The author, Jim West, is a pastor in the Covenant Reformed Church and has a really good grasp of Reformation Era history and theology.  He is quite extensive in his quotes and stories from Calvin, Luther, and other Reformation theologians.  He also covers quite a bit of the Puritans views on alcohol and the early church in America, although he glosses over the early 20th century aspects that brought about prohibition.  That wasn't the primary focus of the book though, so that's not too big of a deal.

West handles the historical aspects of alcohol in the church well and does a decent job of incorporating the Bible.  He divides the book into 3 parts: history, theology, and a beer & wine guide.  Not too many books about Christianity and alcohol will provide a guide to help you make better tasting decisions!

The flow of the book is okay.  There are parts, especially in part one, where the author seems to jump from quote to quote and story to story with little transition.  I suppose it is difficult to weave all the different stories and quotes together well, but I feel it could have transitioned a little better.

My only real complaint about the book is that the author sometimes make an argument for alcohol biblically from silence.  The one that stood out to me was in regards to the Acts 2 accusation of Peter and the disciples being drunk and Peter responding that "it's 9 in the morning, we're not drunk."  The author takes this passage to imply that they would do their drinking later in the day, surely not at nine.  While I don't doubt the truth in that statement, we need to be careful about making conclusions from the Bible that aren't stated in the text.

Many of the other passages West deals with are handled quite well and there were quite a few great quotes from the book.  The one that stood out to me the most is in regards to Bible translation committees changing the translation of a Hebrew word for "strong drink" in Deuteronomy 14 so that it softens it for the Church.  West responds with the following: "The Moses Stout Text (Deut 14), then, is diluted and becomes a symbol not only of translation dishonesty, but of the watered-down message of much evangelical Christendom." (page 145).

Overall this was an enjoyable read, albeit choppy in parts, but the overall message is good: that God created all things on earth to be enjoyed to His glory.

Purchasing this book from the link at the top of the page or here helps support me!  Thanks!

Deadlift Imperial IPA

I picked up a four-pack of Deadlift the other night while waiting for the Steam Face to finish carbonating.  It's still got another few days at minimum.  So I had seen this on Widmer's website before, but hadn't seen it in the store.  It's interesting that it's sold in four packs instead of six packs.  Anyways, it's a newer Imperial IPA offering, adding to their Broken Halo IPA, which has long been a favorite at my house.

Taste: Awesome.  Lots of malt with really nice hop accenting.  This would fit the double IPA category with the body and big taste.

Hoppiness:  Decent.  Not quite as much as Green Flash's West Coast IPA, but few can compete with that.

Drinkability: Very good.  Smooth and malty.

The Bottom Line:  Get some of this if you see it.  If you like big bodied Double IPA's, you'll be a happy camper (especially if you're going camping).

The Son of Man

Matt. 11:18 ¶ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’  Matt. 11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

So this is a passage that really stands out to me.  Let me set up the context before fully jumping in...John the Baptist had been thrown into jail and so he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he really was the Messiah.  Jesus sent them back to tell John about all they had seen Jesus do and decide for themselves.  After that Jesus turned to the crowds around him and rebuked them for rejecting John as well as calling himself a drunkard and a glutton.  This is what intrigues me.  

In order to be considered a glutton and a drunkard, one would have to spend time eating and drinking.  You would never call someone a drunk who never drank a drop of booze, so Jesus was definitely associating with drunks.  This is something that really stands out to me.  Jesus didn't come to teach the religious people, he came to reach out to those hurting.  He came to redeem humanity and he spent a lot of time with those society considered to be sinners.


I wonder how people who abstain because it's "sinful" deal with this passage?  How do you reconcile Jesus associating and drinking with "sinners" to mean he fully abstained?  You can't.  Drink or don't drink, that's not the issue.  The issue is that Jesus understood what it meant to reach out to humanity and to be real with them.  He met people on a common ground and then shared an eternally changing message with them.  Alcohol isn't the only way to find that common ground.  Neither is it the only way to share the Gospel message with someone.  However, Christians need to be careful that they aren't letting their 'holiness' get in the way of meeting people in the trenches to share life with them.  

This is something that I believe as disciples of Jesus we need to do a better job of. This is actually a reason I enjoy brewing beer.  I hope that by making, sharing, and discussing brews with people, I can share something of even greater importance.  I've found that people are a lot more likely to discuss God over a pint.  I don't know if the alcohol opens them up or if it beer just makes people more comfortable, but there's something about a pint and theology that just go good together.  

So brew some good beer and invite people over to share Jesus with them.  Could be the best thing you ever do for them.

First All Grain

So here's some pics from my first all grain session.  Notes about the day on the bottom.

Mash Tun in action.

Mash Tun bundled up!

Draining out the wort.

Spent grain.

One full kettle.

With the wort chiller in for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

So here's the good from today:

1. Mash tun worked great!  Almost too great though.  Got 6.5 gallons of wort.  I was supposed to get 6.1 gallons.  I'll have to keep that in mind in the future.
2. Wort Chiller worked great as well.  Went from boiling to 65 degrees in about 10 minutes.  It probably helped that it was so cold out today.
3. Got to brew.  Always a good time.

And here's the bad from today:

1. Broke my thermometer when it fell off a table.  At least I was all done for the day.
2. Because the mash tun was so great and I got more wort, gravity came out at 1.032 instead of the targeted 1.041.  I should have let it boil longer.  That's just my mistake though.
3. The hose I got for the wort chiller was crap.  It had a dented end so hopefully I can return it.  Also, the attachment for my bottle cleaner that was on the faucet is not stuck to the hose.  So there's another thing I'm going to have to buy.

All in all it was fun as brewing should be.  Hopefully this beer turns out good.  It's supposed to be a session beer, so a lower gravity will definitely help that aspect!

Why Are You Yelling At Me? -American Bitter

So this is going to be my first all grain batch, which I plan on brewing this afternoon (supposing everything works out today).  It's a clone recipe of Bitter American, which is an American style Bitter made by 21st Amendment Brewing.  Here's a review I did of the beer.  It's a session beer, so it will have a lower starting gravity and lower ABV.  I hope that this turns out well!  Here's the recipe and details:

Grain Bill:
3.75 lbs 2-Row
3.75 lbs Golden Promise
.5 lbs Crystal 40L

Hop Schedule:
1oz Centennial for 60min
.75oz Centennial for 10min
.75oz Simcoe for 10min
.75oz Centennial for 5min
.75oz Simcoe for 5min

2oz Centennial for 7 day dry-hop
2oz Simcoe for 7 day dry-hop

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 American Ale slurry from previous batches

Anticipated OG: 1.041
Anticipated FG: 1.010
Anticipated ABV: 4.1%

Hope to brew this today!

Update from the brewing:
Gravity came out at 1.032.  I ended up with 1/2 gallon more wort than I should have, so that's probably why the gravity is lower.  Oh well, it's a session beer which should have lower alcohol, so that should help.  Things went so-so.  See my other post from today to check that out.  I have about 5.5 gallons fermenting right now with the dry hop happening as I type.  Gotta love the hops!
Update 2/25/11:  So since the gravity was so low I decided to try to fix that after talking to Old Dirty Randy at Poorhouse Brewing.  He recommended using some Dry Malt Extract and boiling it into a couple pints of fermenting beer.  So I did the math and added 1.25lbs of DME to a couple pints.  Pre-boil gravity for the batch was 1.012.  After the boil it was 1.022.  So it worked.  After a huge mess with boil overs and malt catching on fire on the stove and lots of smoke, it worked.  Hopefully it saves the batch.
Update 2/28/11: Gravity is at 1.011 with a good malty flavor.  Looks like the DME saved this batch.  I'll rack it to secondary after I bottle the Opening Day Amber Ale in the next day or two.
Update 3/1/11: Gravity at 1.010.
Update 3/3/11: Gravity at 1.010.  Racked to secondary and cold crashed in the garage.  I hope to bottle this in a couple days.
Update 3/6/11: Bottled it up.  Got 48 12's and 1 22oz.  Pretty good!
Update 3/22/11:  This stuff is really good.  It's not quite as malty as the Bitter American, but it's got a great hop flavor and is plenty smooth.  I may up the Golden Promise next time and see if that increases the malt flavor.

Tasting:  Outstanding.  Great hop flavor...really smooth.  I'm really enjoying this one and will be making it again soon!  I'll add a little more golden promise next time to try for a little more malty flavor, but this is great as it was.

Review: Beer Wars

This is a documentary I watched a few months ago on netflix.  It had some good points that I learned and really enjoyed, but also had some elements that just didn't meet my expectations.  Here are those points:



The Good:
1. 1 out of every 2 beers sold in the US is owned by Budweiser.  Help out the small guys and support micro-breweries!
2. There's some really good breweries outside of Portland/Oregon.

The Bad:
1. A big part of the focus was on how evil Budweiser is.
2. Focused a lot on Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware.  This isn't bad in itself, but they really failed to come out west to where the real brewing action is.
3. Didn't focus on one single brewery in Oregon.  How can you do a documentary on micro-brewing and not include Portland or Oregon?  This is the capital of the micro-brewing world!
4. Focused a lot on an energy drink beer that seemed kind of lame.
5. The narrator lady was a little annoying.

Overall there were some good points made in the documentary, however their failure to engage outside of how evil Budweiser is and a couple small breweries on the East Coast made me really question their agenda.  Since the film came out though it really seems like Dogfish Head is thriving, so good for them.  If you still want to watch it or buy it, here's a link to Amazon.  Buying it through this link helps support me.  Thanks.