Where Have You Been?

Again, I fall remiss in keeping my blog up to date. If there is anyone out there still checking in on my brewing and beer adventures, I apologize. It seems that real life is severely cutting in to me creating a digital one.

A short update then: I have completed the move to Davis. I live on the south side of I-80, away from downtown but just a short bike ride away from the extension campus where I will be spending most of my time come January. In fact, everything in Davis is just a short bike ride away. The apartment decorating and arranging have come along nicely and I will be comfortable as school progresses, which is at least one weight off of my mind.

I am sad to report that I have not been able to homebrew since arriving. I spent most of my first week in Davis waiting around my house for my internet to be installed and my washing machine to be delivered, allowing ample time to get settled and for the realization to set in that I know absolutely no one here. Luckily, before loneliness could sink in, I drove to Mendocino to meet up with some friends who were visiting their parents there. Driving through wine country, then a redwood forest and finally arriving at the coast was quite memorable. The morning after I got home from Mendocino, I got on a plane to travel to the Palm Springs area to be with my family for Thanksgiving.

I was eager to get to the homebrew shops in Sacramento this week and finally smell some mashing grains and fresh hops, but I received word that my grandmother’s basement became flooded when a pipe burst while she was away and I am being sent by the family to help with sorting out the clean-up efforts. I am glad that my life has enough flexibility in it right now so that I am in a position to lend a hand. The unplanned trip back to Spokane allows me to spend some precious time with my girlfriend and grandmother and it will also give me a chance to see some of the people I missed in my rush to get out of town.

For those of you who read this blog to hear about beer, I will resume normal missives in the near future. Just because I am not brewing it, doesn’t mean I am not drinking and reading about it. Sláinte!

Rambling Man Mead

As we traversed South Dakota on our recent road trip, my girlfriend and I found ourselves inundated with honey. Janelle’s family stockpiles the stuff and they were looking to pass it off into any open hand. About the time six or eight pounds had accumulated, the epiphany to turn all of the golden nectar into mead began to surface. Partially born from necessity (“how are we going to eat all of this honey?!”) and definitely inspired by the copy of Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher I was toting around on the trip, mead provided a perfect solution to the conundrum.

Yet, another followed: although a relatively experienced home-brewer, I had yet to try my hands at making mead. While delving into research, the general consensus seemed to be that it was less technically demanding than brewing beer but required just as much care towards sanitation and a far sight more patience. Instead of having my ales kegged within two weeks of the brew day and drinkable shortly thereafter, the mead will have to rest in the secondary carboy for months before being transferred to bottles, where it can continue to age for years (if bottled with proper care).

I had to round up two more pounds of honey and I opted to spend a little extra on some from Spokane’s south hill. A trip to Jim’s Homebrew to procure yeast and brewing nutrients followed and then Carl and I were ready to brew.

After some thorough cleaning and sanitizing, we added the honey to one gallon of distilled water and a half gallon of tap water and then brought it slowly to a boil. Carl set about cleaning the primary carboy as I monitored the mead to keep it from boiling over. Once it reached a boiling point, I started to skim off the protein foam that coagulated on the surface. Continuing my skimming regimen, I also measured out the dimmonium phosphate and the biotin wine nutrients and added them at the correct time. I decided to throw in a little irish moss as well, knowing its ability to trap bits and pull them out of my ales.

When the boil had proceeded long enough that only a small amount of protein was appearing at the surface, we removed the mead from the heat and moved it inside to an ice bath we had prepared. While the mead must was cooling, I began to prepare a yeast slurry using a combination of methods recommended on the package and ones I had lifted from my research. Once the slurry was looking happy and the must had cooled to near pitching temperatures, I began to acclimate the yeast by adding a couple of tablespoons of the must to the slurry and then letting it sit for a few minutes. Repeating that process five times, the yeast was ready to be pitched.

We transferred the must to the carboy where one and a half gallons of water at the proper temperature were waiting. We vigorously stirred the mixture periodically as we poured to introduce as much oxygen as possible for the yeast to use. The complex sugars in honey are tough for yeast to digest, even strains that are specially cultivated to deal with that hostile environment. Adding nutrients and oxygenating well ensure the best possible set of conditions for the yeast to thrive and get fermentation started off well.

We finished with mixing and transferred the full carboy to its resting place. Clean up was a relative breeze, even with the inherently sticky nature of honey. About the time we would have been adding hops to an ale, we were cleaning up the last few utensils and enjoying a homebrew. Carl and I were happy to have completed a “brew” day in just under two hours and we are excited to taste how the mead matures over the next couple of years.

As we were working on bringing the mead to life, I began contemplating where I will be when this mead will actually be drinkable. With about a month to go until my move to Davis, Carl and I have to plan a bottling session when I travel back to Spokane to visit. After the mead has reached maturity in about a year’s time, I literally have no idea where I will be living or what brewery I will be working for. The mead now signifies to me my last weeks in Spokane and it will remind me of these times whenever I open a bottle with friends in the years to come. I will also be sending a couple bottles back to South Dakota as thanks for the honey that produced it.

It's Good to Be Back

After nearly a month on the road and far too long since smelling fresh hops and wort, I was finally home long enough to brew a batch of beer with my friend, Carl. We have amassed quite a stockpile of bottles and kegs of our creations with the intention to share them with our friends during a joint Oktoberfest and Halloween celebration, but we did not have an Oktoberfest style beer to contribute. Looking to rectify our mistake, I wrote a recipe and procured the ingredients from the guys at Jim’s Homebrew.

When I arrived, Carl had begun setting up for the brew day but was sidetracked by his hungry baby daughter, so I set to work. We had utensils and vessels cleaned in no time and we began heating up the water for our mini-mash. Once it was holding temperature, we added the specialty grains and with many pauses to stir, continued to clean brewing paraphernalia.

The mash complete, we sparged carefully and began the run up to boil. We became momentarily distracted as we were chatting and nearly had to deal with a boil over, but we were able to act in time to save ourselves from that sticky mess. Chiding ourselves for growing lax in our diligence with the time off we had taken, the incident provided us with focus moving forward. We added our extracts and returned to boil, which we held for ten minutes before beginning the hop additions.

The boil complete, we dunked the kettle into an ice bath and then transferred to the carboy and topped off with water. The final temperature was a little high for my taste, so we moved the carboy into Carl’s basement and within an hour we were able to pitch. Brewing, apparently, is not quite like riding a bike. One must continually practice to keep the mind sharp.

Racking a week later, the beer seemed to suffer no ill effects as it did not display any off flavors or aromas. Nearly completely fermented, the yeast having happily done its job was our reward for being patient before pitching.

We decided we wanted to add a little something special to this beer, as it was brewed specifically for a grand occasion. I purchased some whole hops and a hop sock at Jim’s and we added them to the keg with the beer the week following racking. I have to squeeze my tiny arms into the corny kegs to wash them as Carl fears his will get stuck. One of the few advantages to my smaller stature I have encountered while brewing. After cleaning the keg thoroughly, including using CO₂ to purge the serving lines, we were ready to transfer the beer. We then weighed out the hops and carefully added them to the sanitized hop sock and dropped it in. The large glass marble we had decided to use as a weight to keep the hops suspended in the beer proved to be adequate only to a point and the hops were left only mostly submerged. Undaunted and left with little options for other means to sink the hops, we sealed the keg and began carbonating. As I was leaving town for work once again, I left Carl to do the sensory analysis to determine when to pull the hops out.

Carl and I are looking forward to sharing this Oktoberfest with our friends in a couple weeks and rumor has it that it will be incorporated into a dish prepared by our chef friend Jesse to accompany the meal. As I will be moving to Davis shortly after the celebration, I am also looking to this as my going away party and it should be much fun.

Finally We Are No One

After a couple months of dedicated homebrewing, Carl and I arrived at the point we had been dreading: bottling the last batch before I leave for a month on separate trips to California, South Dakota and then back to California. We plan to resume our efforts in earnest upon my return, but it was a sad sight to see our dry erase board wiped clean at the end of the day.

The gravity readings we took while racking already placed our Granfalloons Belgian Tripel at a whopping 11.6% ABV so we decided to bottle into 12oz bottles instead of bombers. Sharing is nice, but if I wanted to drink a bottle to myself, 22oz of strong beer is quite a commitment.

We busied ourselves with cleaning carboys and bottles and I prepared our priming sugar. Things were running smoothly and we were filling clean bottles with sanitizer in very little time. Once we had cleared the carboy of iodophor and gave it a rinse, we racked over the Granfalloons. The smell emanating from the transfer was very enticing and Carl joked that he was ready to drink a pint warm and without carbonation. We both had to settle for samples from the test tube we filled for a terminal gravity reading.

After dumping the iodophor solution into our big bucket, the bottles were ready to be filled. Carl manned the bottle filler and I capped while pausing to stir in order to keep the dextrose evenly distributed. It what seemed record time, we had a full batch bottled and ready to be put in the cellar. The prospect of retiring to the Flying Goat for a late lunch and some fine ales on draught probably played some part in spurring us on. After some calculations and quite a bit of cleaning, we noticed how much homebrew we had amassed in our short tenure together, so we decided to limit our consumption at the Flying Goat to just one pint (imperial; being a mug club member has its benefits) so that we could head back to Carl’s and get to work on our abundant supply.

It took some dedication and fortitude, but we were able to empty what was left of the keg of Mother Night American-style India Black Ale. Honestly, that meant we each got only about a pint and a half before it blew. Our discussion included some things that probably shouldn’t be repeated in certain company, but we did decide on what to brew when I return from my journeys. We are going to attempt a double brew day in preparation for our Oktoberfest party, one batch being a replacement for the Mother Night we had polished off and the other being an Oktoberfest (go figure) that we are going to cask. In the weeks that follow, we also plan to brew a coconut porter and a saison. Our brewing window will be small, because I will be moving to Davis sometime in November in order to get settled before the holidays and school starting in January.

Enjoying the feeling of a job well done and the effects of the alcohol, I jumped on my bike and pedaled home. I tried not to lament how many weeks it would be before I return and am able to enjoy my homebrews once again. To assuage my future longing, I decided to open a bottle of our Bagombo IPA. Needless to say, my night ended well.

Down to One

As my nearly three weeks absence from Spokane draws near, I am already saddened by the downturn in homebrew work to be done. Carl and I have not brewed for two weeks and although it is nice to see our drinkable supply grow as our kegged and bottled batches condition, I find myself feeling much more complete when there are two or three carboys filled with beer in some state of fermentation sitting in the basement.

Last Tuesday, Carl and I set to work kegging the second batch of Pool-Pah Pale Ale. First, we had to undertake a sad task; dumping what was left of the first batch. While it was just passably drinkable, I did not foresee us reaching for it anytime soon with such a large supply of much more tasty homebrews on hand. The keg emptied, I plunged my tiny arms inside to give it a thorough cleaning. Meanwhile, Carl began cleaning the six bottles we were going to use in addition to the keg so that we had more easily portable options for sharing with family and friends.

As we both moved forward with our cleaning duties, we also shared in getting ready for the transfer; moving the carboy upstairs and outside, cleaning equipment and so forth. When I finished with cleaning the keg, Carl had cleaned another carboy so we began the final racking for clarity. As the liquid gold slowly transferred, I went to the kitchen to prepare the dextrose solution we needed to carbonate the bottles. Once it had been mixed and cooled, I measured out the dosage amount for each bottle using a turkey baster (cleaned, sanitized and never used for anything other than homebrewing, of course) conveniently marked at quarter ounce intervals.

Our bottles and keg ready for beer, we began filling them from the clarified carboy. As we filled the first bottle, we realized we had forgot one minor detail; caps! Carl retrieved them and they went into some sanitization solution before we applied them to the now filled bottles. I switched the tube over to the keg and began cleaning the first carboy. Carl watched the transfer to the keg and tended to his baby while I hurried about cleaning. We finished in what seemed record time and discussed when to convene to bottle the Granfalloons.

As a side note, a large contingent of my family descended on Spokane last week to celebrate my grandmother’s 75^th birthday. This gave me opportunity to share our recent homebrew creations with numerous new mouths and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Uncle Tom was recovering from an eye surgery and he said the Bagombo IPA really helped. My step-dad Alan is an “anti-hop head” but he really liked the malty goodness of our Thieving Bastard. Nothing is quite as rewarding as sharing your homebrew with people who truly enjoy it!

Finally, do not despair that with my absence will come silence on my blog. For two weeks, I will be working in California and will be making trips to local breweries and beer bars. Following that, I will be heading on a road trip to South Dakota, hitting breweries and beer destinations along the way. A slight deviation from where my blog has been heading, but a break from my descriptions of homebrewing procedures may be welcomed by some!