Living the Dream...

Despite my promises to the contrary, I have been remiss in keeping this blog up to date with my beer adventures. There is only one thing more annoying than a stale blog and that is someone who does not keep promises. In my defense, I have been quite busy with above mentioned adventures, as well as having to be responsible with the (arguably) more important things in life.

Last week in particular was especially hectic. Monday was packed with working my day job, logging hours in preparation for the week to come. Tuesday is when the fun began, as Carl and I spent most of the day completing homebrew work. We had planned to brew a second batch of Pool-Pah Pale, but Carl finally got a taste of the first batch of Granfalloons, added his voice to the chorus of praise and requested that we try our hand at brewing a batch of it. Looking at my stock from the previous batch and seeing but five bottles, I heartily agreed to the recipe change. As we reached the various points within the brewing process where one finds oneself with a few minutes on their hands, we snuck in racking the Hoppy Happiness IPA and the Thieving Bastard. Despite the varying tasks, we kept all of our ducks in a row and had a rather smooth brew day. The Granfalloons ended up with a much higher Original Gravity, even though no recipe changes had been made, something I can only attribute to a more vigorous boil thanks to the super propane burner the Budge Brothers let us borrow (thanks again!). As long as it fully attenuates and the beer turns out anywhere near as good as the last batch, I will be satisfied. For the third batch, I will focus on consistency.

After some good brew work, I headed up to my girlfriend’s in Newport and a fire night in our friends back yard. I brought along a bottle of the first batch of Granfalloons and the reviews were unanimously in praise of its liquid goodness. After being humiliated by my lack of bocce skills, we turned in early in preparation for my next adventure.

I woke up super early in order to make the drive from Newport to Ponderay to put in a day working under the tutelage of Duane in the general operations side of a brewery (another homebrewer had already offered to help out with brewing). Our first task was to crop some yeast from the fermentation tank holding the Pale Ale. What began smoothly quickly turned to a frustrating experience as, by a confluence of small events, a hole formed in the trub cake and we began pulling beer instead of yeast. Giving the tank a little rest to settle out is the answer to that conundrum, so we set out to begin filtering and transferring other batches of beer.

Laughing Dog recently purchased a new filtration system that works very quickly because it works under heavy pressure. Having relied on racking only to clarify my homebrew, the whole filtration experience was new to me and I was excited to learn its intricacies. Before beer is pushed through, the plates within the pressure bell must be loaded with a fibrous papery substance called Cellite and then loaded again with diatomaceous earth. As beer is then added to the system, it is dosed with further diatomaceous earth, effectively creating a continuously “new” layer of filtration. The beer is then sent through a secondary plate filter as an extra measure to remove any impurities. If that sounds confusing in theory, just wait until you are staring at the eleven valves that control this thing.

As the filtration system was recently purchased, they are still working out the kinks and becoming familiar with the operation of such a complicated piece of machinery. However, the joke floating around that I had brought some inadvertent bad mojo began to take on weight.

We successfully transferred one 30 bbl batch before lunch time. After lunch, I helped with folding six pack cartons in preparation for bottling the next day and then Duane and I began resetting the machine to begin another transfer. It had seemed that a clog or two had appeared and a thorough cleaning also appeared to solve the problem. Unbeknownst to we all dealing with the problem, there was a nefarious clog hiding in the system that caused pressure spikes which forced us to shut down the system periodically and change the filter plates, a tedious process. We were able to transfer enough beer to suit the needs of bottling and kegging the following day before calling it quits on a twelve hour day. I appreciated seeing the side of being a brewery that doesn’t have to do with actual brewing because I know that will be most of my life when I become a brewer in the near future. Being a part of a less-than-perfect day at the brewery was also a good experience. This brewing thing is not all sipping rare beers and smelling hops, as some would believe. Rather, it takes a rare blend of brute strength, technical know-how, perseverance and precise finesse; namely, not a task for the weak of spirit.

Although my wonderful girlfriend did a fine job of melting the stress of the day away with a home cooked meal and her calming presence, sleep came quickly. I woke in the morning to drive back up to Sandpoint to do the whole thing over again, albeit on a smaller scale, by helping Mickey brew a batch of his porter at MickDuffs. We began an hour later than the day before and I was thankful. After admiring the new fermentation tank, we milled the grain and then set about mashing in, the most labor intensive and dirty part of the brew day there. Sweating in the muggy heat that preceded a spectacular rain storm, I began to feel gummy as the dust from the grain began to settle on my skin. After the mash and a transfer to the kettle, we began noticing that the water was not heating up as fast as it should. Mickey sent Duffy down to the boiler cave numerous times, but to little avail. The wort came to a boil, but it was not as roiling as Mickey would normally want, which I know can lead to some problems with a beer but Mickey was confident that everything would turn out in the end. We also tried a new procedure with adding olive oil to the yeast before pitching. A study that Mickey and I read proposed that the olive oil provides the same response from the yeast as aerating properly does. No word yet on the outcome, but I am interested to see what happens. Other than the troublesome boiler, the brew day went fantastic and I was paid for my work with a free growler fill and two Corny kegs! Thanks Mickey!

Finally, on Friday, in between putting in hours with my real job, I ran over to Carl’s house in order to keg the Thieving Bastard. Carl informed me that our problems with the keg that the Pool-Pah was in were persisting, despite changing the main seal. I swung by Jim’s Homebrew to pick up some more seals for the problem keg and for the two Mickey let me have (might as well be safe). After some labor and some scratching of heads, we completed our tasks for the day and I returned home to finish up some work for the day.

To wrap up this novel of a post, I will not promise a date by which reviews of our homebrews will be up on the blog, but the second batch of Bagombo IPA is almost ready to drink and the Thieving Bastard can be tapped tomorrow, so there are plenty of opportunity for reviews in the near future. Please, keep reading!

Helping Out at Laughing Dog

I woke up very early last Friday morning so that I could make it from my girlfriend’s house in Newport to Ponderay, Idaho in time for mash-in for my first opportunity to assist with brewing at Laughing Dog. I arrived a few minutes early and Skip was already there getting started on cleaning kegs. Dave and Duane were soon to arrive and after some preliminary work with the hot liquor tank, Dave and I went upstairs to open up the bags of grain and start mashing in. I made sure to keep the hopper for the mill fed while Dave tended to some other things downstairs but we switched as the mash tun was nearing full so that I could hand-stir the last bit of grain as it hit the water. Fred had arrived as we were mashing away, but he was busy preparing for a visit from a group of representatives from the distribution company based in Virginia that is handling Laughing Dog’s East Coast accounts.

Dave and I began the transfer over to the kettle, adjusting the flow rates accordingly and then I assisted Duane in reclaiming yeast from a fermentation tank. Many commercial breweries reclaim and re-pitch their yeast for numerous generations before the little guys are worn out but it is not something that I have done whilst homebrewing. A pretty straight forward but important process, the reclaiming went quickly so I was next sent up a ladder to dry hop an earlier batch of Pale Ale. When I was finished with the task, Fred and Skip were getting the CO₂ line ready to bleed off the bourbon barrels they were opening that they had been aging their Imperial Stout in for nearly a year. Meant to impress the Virginia boys, we brewers and assistants were also allowed a taste. Being warm and un-carbonated, the resiny bourbon taste was intense and the heat of the alcohol hit my ears and cheeks quickly but you could tell that things were headed in the right direction and with just a little more tender care, that beer will be a beauty.

The transfer was completing, so Dave weighed out the boil hops but allowed me to add them to the kettle. With no hops to add until the end of the boil, it was time for lunch. The Virginia crew left after a tour of the new brew facility Laughing Dog is building and will be moving to by the end of summer and I got to share a few words with an exhausted Fred. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the crew returned from lunch and it was back to work.

Dave and I set to work cleaning out the mash tun, greatly aided by the paddles. As we filled large garbage cans dedicated to the purpose, Dave would then load them on the forklift and dump them into a trailer set out back for a local farmer to come pick up. The paddles could only the get the mash tun so clean, so I was set to work with the rake and hose. I didn’t get myself too wet and the mash tun was clean in no time, but due to a slight variance in the floor lay out, I then had to squeegee the grainy water that was surrounding the mash tun on the floor.

Clean up was nearing an end as the boil completed and Dave set to transferring the wort to the fermentation tank that already had a batch of the same beer from the day before in it, bringing it to a full 34 bbl. It was Friday, so extra cleaning was in order. Donning our protective glasses and gloves, Dave and I handled the caustics and cleaned the brew house, plate chiller and all of the hoses.

Some well-earned beers were in order, so a move to the tap room out front ensued. A family was visiting from Houston, so I accompanied Dave and Skip as they gave them a short tour of the brew facility in back and finished up my pint. A little bit more beer geek talk and then I got back on the road to return to my girlfriends house, smelling of wort and hops like a good man should.

If you are in the Spokane area (or on the East Coast) in about a month and see a Laughing Dog IPA on the shelf or on tap, I invite you to sample the product of our labor. Sláinte!