Happy B-Day Aunt Trixie

I usually don't like to brew fruity beers, since I don't really like to drink fruity beers.  However, my little sister in law turns 21 in June, so I'm going to break down and brew her a McMenamin's Ruby Clone, which is a raspberry pale ale.  I should be brewing this tomorrow morning.

Recipe:
5.5 gallons

Grains:
8.8lbs GW 2-Row

Hops:
I think I'll use like .5oz of Colombus for 60minutes.

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 slurry that keeps on giving.

Anticipated Results:
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.036
Post-Boil Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.011
ABV: 4.4%
IBU: 21

Extras:
I'll boil about 2 pounds of raspberries and strain the extract and add to secondary.  That way it won't affect the gravity or add too much more fermentation.

Strike: 3 gallons @163
Sparge: 4.6 gallons @ 176

I'll post actual results as they occur as usual.

Brewing Update:  Man, five gallon batches are really easy!  Including cleanup the whole process took about 4 1/2 hours.  Everything went super smooth.  Possibly the smoothest brewing day yet.

Actual Results:
Pre-boil Gravity: 1.036
Post-boil Gravity: 1.040
Collected 1.85 gallons from strike and 4.5 gallons from sparge.
I think I'm missing my temps on the strike cause I'm not pulling the gravity's I'd like to be.  I'll raise them and see what happens.  Either way, this will be a good session beer gravity, which will be good for a 21 year old!
Update 5/13/11: Gravity down to 1.009.  Really good flavor too, and I don't even like beers like this!  I'm going to try to bottle this up tonight.
Update 5/15/11: Finally bottled this.  Got 35 12's and 9 22's.
Update 5/23/11: So my wife said this is her second favorite of anything I've made so far.  Looks like I'll be brewing this again to make her happy.  The raspberry is a nice subtle aftertaste.  This is probably a really good ale for the summer time.

Chico's Finest Export

or should I say Chico's only export?  Anyways, I'm pretty excited about this one.  Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is one of the first brews that I really liked, so I figure it's probably the best pale ale to start with.  I've done a few IPAs and some Bitter Ales, but no true pale ales, so here goes.  I found this recipe online somewhere a couple weeks ago and plugged it into my brewpal app on my phone.  Well worth the $.99 if you have an iphone.  I subbed out some Nugget (which I already had) for some Perle, but otherwise I guess this is straight from the brewer.

11 Gallon recipe so I'll hopefully fill a Cornie Keg and split the other half with someone.  5.5 gallons seems to end up at 5 gallons after losing the yeast cake and secondary transferring.  So here's the details.

Recipe:
11 Gallon Recipe

Grain:
25.3lb of GW 2-row
1.65lb of Crystal 60L

Hops:
1.5oz Columbus @ 60m
1oz Nugget @ 30m
2oz Cascade @
4oz Cascade @

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 American Ale Slurry

Extras:
2tsp Gypsum @ boil
2tsp Irish Moss @ 15m

Details:
Strike 10.1gal @ 163
Sparge 6.9gal @ 183
Anticipated Preboil Gravity 1.058
Anticipated OG 1.068
Anticipated FG 1.017
IBU 42
Anticipated ABV 6.6%

I'll post details and results tomorrow night or Saturday.  Cheers!

Brewing Update:
Everything went relatively smoothly.  The counter flow chiller continues to get dialed in a little better.  I got 7 gallons from the mash and another 7 from the sparge, which meant 14 gallons boiling to start in a 15.5 gallon keggle.  The pre-boil gravity was 1.046 adjusted (1.032 @ 132*) and finished up at only 1.054 adjusted.  I was really hoping to hit closer to my target of 1.068, although since I ended up with close to 12 gallons despite a 90 minute boil, I guess that's part of the problem.  Hopefully this at least gets down to 1.014 or so.  It's blowing off like crazy right now, so that should help.  So this may be a SNPA Session clone.  As long as it's tasty, I'm not too worried.

Brewing on the tree is super easy though.  If you're thinking about upgrading your system, I highly recommend building a tree.  The only problem is having to get out the ladder to fill the HLT, but that's not too big a deal.  The ease of everything else makes it totally worth it.

Once I figure out how to better hit my targets as far as the proper amount of wort to start the boil with, things should be better.  Also, I need to move the banjo burners closer to the keggles to speed up my heating and boiling times.  It's taking like 30-40 minutes to get my boil started.
Update 4/25/11: Gravity is down to 1.012.  I'll give it another day or two and then move to secondary.  Good taste.  Another winner.
Update 4/28/11: Racked to secondary.  Gravity was down to 1.010, so ABV should be about 6%.  Really smooth flavor.  I'm going to have to do a side by side with this one.  Also, I was able to split the two jars of yeast slurry I put into (one into each bucket) into four jars.  So now they should last even longer!
Update 5/7/11: Bottled half of it for my neighbor.  Got 48 12's for him, and 3 22's for me.  The stem that I got for my cornie (for my half of the batch) is too short, so I need to switch that out before I can keg it, otherwise I'll lose over 1/2 gallon of it at the bottom of the keg.
Update 5/9/11: Decided to just keg it and I'll pour the bottom dregs into a half gallon jug if need be once it gets down all the way.  I'll hopefully add the second tap to the kegerator in the next day or two.
Update 5/24/11: Really enjoying this one.  This is a tasty pale ale.  Brought my neighbor his half of the batch last night and he was super stoked.  I'm sure I'll brew this one again!

Update: 5/27/11: Did a side by side comparison with a SNPA.  Flavor was really really close as was the hop flavor/finish.  My color was much darker, but this was the dregs of the bottom of the keg.  Next time I brew this I'll do a comparison a little sooner.  Pretty good though!

Angry Canadian

This is a second take on the "Bitter American" clone I had previously brewed titled "Why Are You Yelling At Me?"  Bitter American is a session ale from 21st Amendment Brewing in San Francisco.  The first time I didn't get the efficiency I wanted from the first mash tun I had made, so I had to use some DME the next day to raise the gravity and try to save it.  Luckily it turned out awesome.  So awesome, I had to make more since I keep drinking it and giving it all away.  This time my buddy Gregg (with 3 G's) came over to help out and split the batch with me.  We did a ten gallon batch, so 5 gallons each coming our way!  This was a nice break in for the new Brew Tree.  Here's the important info you're dying to know...

Recipe:
Grain:
7.5lb GW 2 Row
8lb Golden Promise
1lb Crystal 40L

Hops:
2oz Centennial @ 60m
1.5oz Centennial @ 10m
1.5oz Colombus @ 10m
1.5oz Centennial @ 5m
1.5oz Colombus @ 5m

3oz Centennial for 7 days in secondary
4oz Simcoe for 7 days in secondary

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 Slurry (that thing keeps on giving!)

Extras:
I meant to add 2tsp Gypsum at boil and 2tsp Irish Moss at 15m, but I forgot.

6.2gallons Strike @ 163
8.3gallons Sparge @ 176
Collected 4 gallons from mash and 8.5 gallons from sparge.
Pre-boil gravity adjusted to 1.038 with temp at 140.
Post-boil gravity was 1.043
Anticipated post-boil gravity was 1.043, so I nailed it!
Anticipated final gravity: 1.011
IBU's: 68

Notes:

Gregg modeling the brew tree.  Very nice.

Brewing went super smooth.  The only hitches were forgetting to add the extras and we ran out of propane while trying to get the boil going.  So a quick run to the store down the street and we were back in business.  Otherwise using the Brew Tree is so nice.  Easy to transfer, easy to mash, the keggle mash tun works great, and I can boil 10 gallons and not have to move it to use the counter-flow-chiller.  The 100,000 btu burner's are pretty awesome.  I recommend them.
The counter-flow-chiller wasn't quite as efficient this time, but I still finished right around 75.  I think I need to get the counter-water flow dialed in.  But, the Canadian is fermenting away right now as I type....

Counter-Flow-Chiller in action. 

Update 4/14/11: Gravity is at 1.016 and 1.014 in the two fermenting buckets.  Another day or two and I'll move to secondary.

Update 4/16/11: Racked to secondary and added the dry hops.  However due to my cheapness I only added 2oz of Centennial and 2oz of Simcoe.

Update 4/25/11: I kegged 5 gallons a couple days ago and now I'm waiting for it to be fully carbonated.  Since this is my first keg set up, I'm still figuring it out.  Hopefully it'll be ready soon.  I'll be bottling the other five gallons with Gregg tonight...Bottled it up and got 12 22's and 29 12's.  Pretty good amount and everything went quite smoothly.

Brew Tree

So after coveting Randy and Scott's brew trees, I jumped on the banjowagon, ordered some banjo burners and welded me up a brew tree.  Well, by I welded I mean that me and Randy told our good buddy Dean-O-Rean-O how we wanted it and he made it happen.  It's good to have friends.  So anyways, it's about 90 inches tall including the caster wheels to make moving it easier.  The base 'H' is 42 long on each side and the center bar is 21 inside length, or 24 total.  It's super solid!

We welded each 'U' to the center vertical pole and gave it an extra support piece.  Under those we added banjo burners from agrisupply.com to each about 4.5 to 5 inches below the bottom of the keggle so I can be boiling/heating in a jiffy.  I had to cut the burner and pieces I could use from the base, but that was cheaper than ordering just the burner and then having to get regulator's and hoses.

The top tier is 22 inches below the top, and the next one is lower and the next one is lower.  If you want the specifics I can get them, I just don't want to get off the couch again.  We put the bottom tier high enough so I can fit my counter-flow-chiller under it and the fermenting bucket below that without having to lift up the keggle to something higher.  That way I can do 10 gallon batches for friends when they can't make it to help or be here for the whole time.

I still need to sand it and paint it.  I got some 2000 degree black paint so it'll look nice.  I'll probably do that next week.  Here's some more pics and close-ups of the details.

I'll break this thing in tomorrow with my buddy Gregg (with 3 G's, not 2).  We're going to make some more of the Bitter American Clone.  I'll post about that later....

Close up of the banjo beneath a keggle.

The extra support for one of the 'U's.

Easy Rollin!

Breakfast in a Bottle Stout

This is actually a recipe I've done already, well sort of.  I did this extract style a couple months ago and it was awesome.  So I'm going to do an all grain this time and break in the keggles.  This is pretty much a clone of Rogue's Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout.  Also, I'm going to do a 10 gallon batch this time since a couple guys want to go in on it with me, so hopefully the new equipment works well!





Recipe:
Grains:
22lb American 2-Row
1lb Crystal 120L
1lb Chocolate Malt
1.5lb Flaked Oats
.5lb Roasted Barley

Hops:
2oz Cascade @75min
2oz Cascade @ 60min
2oz Cascade @30min
2oz Cascade @flameout

Yeast:
Pacman Slurry from Poorhouse Brewing.  I plan to split the slurry when I return it, keeping half so I don't have to keep stealing Randys.

Extras:
2tsp Gypsum at boil
2tsp Irish Moss at 15min

Anticipated Post-boil gravity: 1.070
Anticipated Final gravity: 1.018
Anticipated ABV: 6.8%

I'll update after brewing tomorrow and add any notes.  Maybe some pictures as well.

Brewing Notes:
So I brewed this on Saturday, April 2.  I should have done this on the 1st, cause the day felt like a giant April Fools joke on me.  There were some good things though that I'll touch on first, then the bad things.

Wort draining from the Mash Tun.

The Good:
-The hot water keggle and the mash tun keggle both worked great.  I got good sugar out of the mash tun and it stayed plenty warm (after an hour it was still at 152 degrees, right on target).  It will be easier once it's all on the brew tree, which hopefully will be going down this week.
-The new Counter-Flow-Chiller worked great.  Dropped 10 gallons from boiling to 62 degrees perfectly.  The entire flow out for the 10 gallons to run through was about 25-30 minutes.  There was a tiny leak in the epoxy for the water, but I'll add some more and hopefully it will be good.
-The Hop Spider worked well.  Hopefully the hop flavor is increased in future brews.
-I got to brew.



The Bad:
-I still didn't get quite the targeted gravity, so I'll need to fine tune some more.  I wasn't off too much though, but more than I would have liked.
-The ball valve decided to start leaking on the boil keggle right when I added the wort.  That meant moving the wort to buckets while I ran to Home Depot to get a new rubber seal.  Works fine now though, but it added like an hour to the brewing day.
-I also managed to catch the propane hose on fire due to having it too close to the flame as well as wind coming at an inopportune time.  Luckily I was able to see it quickly and shut off the propane line.  That meant running to Home Depot again, and when they didn't have it nor the next place I checked, I resorted in buying a new burner so I could get the regulator and hose from it.  I guess at least I'll have three new burners on the brew tree (once my banjo burners arrive).  So I managed to not blow up my garage or kill myself, so that was good, but it made my 4-5 hour brew day turn into a 8-9 hour brew day.  I was rushing out the door to make it to our Saturday Night Service.  So I still actually have to clean the boil keggle and the hop strainer.

So I was able to save the brew and my life, but it was a stressful day.  Hopefully next weeks is better, supposing I get the brew tree finished.  I don't think I'll brew again until I build that, which will hopefully be this Thursday.

The Stats:
Pre-boil Gravity: 1.040
Post-boil Gravity: 1.062 (I wanted it to be 1.070)
Collected 6.25 gallons of wort from the strike.
Collected 5.75 gallons from the sparge.
Boiled 12 gallons, ended up with 10 after a 75 minute boil.

Update 4/6/11: Bottled this up.  Adam and Daniel came over to help out since they're splitting the batch with me.  We had a good time and got 93 bottles out of the 10 gallons.  They each took 24 leaving me with 45.  Final Gravity was 1.013.  ABV ended at 6.6%, pretty close to the target.
Update 4/11/11: Tried a bottle of this for fun.  Turns out it's pretty much ready!  Good body and flavor.  I can taste the oatmeal much better this time.  Quite enjoyable.

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!