It's Wednesday

My brewnotes are taking off, and somehow I feel like I am turning into some kind of whack-o mad scientist. I am pretty excited about controlling my carb temp. using a relatively cheap and hopefully effective method.

I am however looking into finally picking up a temp controller. This is what I was thinking of, since it says it handles both hot and cold temp ranges.  I'm going off to the beer store a bit later to pick up a new brew, and I'll pot all findings. Also I have figured out what my next brew is going to be.....

come back to me!

Time to get scientific..sort of

As I sit here writing this post, glass of Monk's Blood by my side, I wonder how scientific can I get?
I was sitting at work yesterday and thinking "How do I get my bottles to carbonate properly?" The obvious solution is to go out and buy myself a digital temp controller and a ferm wrap (which I'm actually pretty close to doing) Until I get the funds for that I need something more affordable. My answer? An old cooler. a gallon jug of hot water and a oven thermometer with a probe. I took a case of my newly bottles stout and threw it in my cooler with a jug of hot water. As long as I can keep a relative eye on the temp and switch the water out as need be I can't see how this idea won't work. Seeing as how I have no real data on at what temperature my wheat conditioned out, this should give me great insight into what works,  or doesn't work for me.

I plan on the first day or two being devoted to getting the kinks out of the system, finding the right location for the probe, and the best amount of water to make it all work, but here goes nothing. I am also leaving a case down in my basement to condition, with no real idea of ambient temperature down there. All I do know is it was 80 degrees outside two days ago and today its 45, WTF New England?

DC Trip & Bottling

I just got back from a nice relaxing vacation in Washington D.C. Unfortunately I was not able to check out much if any of the beer scene or breweries while I was down there.

I'm into you!

I did however get a chance to try some Flying Dog. I'd be lying if I said this wasn't my first beer from Flying Dog. I'm not sure why I went with it. Maybe because I had seen it recently on a episode of Drinking Made Easy, or maybe because I was in Maryland. I got me some Ragin Bitch. I've been trying to get into Belgians more often (since I seemed to develop a biased against them early on) and I figured why not. Ragin Bitch is a Belgian style IPA, interesting I thought. The taste I got from it was even more interesting. Initially you get that Belgian taste ( again, I am no beer critic or taster, but I think most people know what I'm talking about), with floral hoppyness coming in a bit later to give it  a small, but enjoyable bite. Upon further inspection I saw that its ABV is 8.2% and it is pretty hard to tell that its got that much of a bite to it.

Sooo, on to bottling. I went to order my empty bottles, and well shipping sure is expensive. I've decided to go to the local homebrew shop (really 20 miles away) and pick them up myself. I'll be posting all my pictures from bottling up on Friday hopefully.

Harpoon Brewery Tour

As I sit here and write this post, I am still amazed at how this Saturday was the best $5 I’ve ever spent.  Beer and Boston hold a special place in my heart since I was a high school senior. I tasted my first craft beer in the form of a Sam Adams Boston Lager at the tender age of 17. I was away on a camping trip with some friends and we had managed to score some beers. I remember thinking I wanted to be cool, and seem more experienced than my other friends who had chosen Heineken and Corona. From the moment I tasted it I liked it. I couldn’t pick out any of the flavors, or ingredients that make Boston Lager what it is, but I knew I liked it.

Beer Info for the nerds!

For the next 4 years, Sam Adams was THE craft beer for me, Old Feiziwig, Summer Ale, Winter Lager, Black Lager, an amazing Boysenberry Wheat ect ect. Sam Adams was something of a pride thing for me, being raised in New England and all. The first time I was exposed to Harpoon was in the form of their IPA. I wasn’t anything close to being the hop head I am today so like many others, the IPA’s powerful floral taste and aroma was a bit too much for me. Unfortunately that was enough to set me off of Harpoon until I was introduced to Summer Beer, and the fun fact that Harpoon was also based in Boston.

Fast forward to this Saturday, I went to Harpoon at 10:30am to pick up my tickets for the 4pm tour. I can’t stress enough how important it is to do this. By the time me and my friend arrived for our tour (we got there at 3 for some reason) all the tours were booked solid. I’d done Harpoons free tasting, yes FREE, 3 times or so, and have sampled almost all they have to offer. They do rotate their 100 barrel series and seasonals, so there is always something new there.

fresh out of the vessel!

Our tour started promptly at 4, and we were greeted with a glass full of their newest addition Rye IPA. Harpoons new rye IPA is in celebration of it’s 25 year anniversary. Our tour guide went through the usual water, barley ,hops, yeast and basic brewing process steps as we sipped our IPAs. It was interesting to note that they are in possession of 1 of only 2 pressure boilers in the world. It’s a pretty neat system that lets them boiler at a higher temperature under pressure, allowing them to shave 20 minutes off their brew time. That equates to an extra batch brewed a day! I also thought it was fantastic that their spent grain was shipped out to Westport daily ( I am originally from that general area) and fed to the cattle on local farms, thumbs up Harpoon!

We then traveled down the brew deck to experience something truly special and unexpected. We were walked over to the fermentation vessels, and after a quick talk about the entire process we were given the chance to sample their flagship IPA….green! Now green was a relatively unknown term to me until I started home brewing, and I’ve really only been to 2 other breweries, Sam Adams and the former Buzzards Bay Brewing, and neither offered me this chance. As a homebrewer this was such a great experience to actually taste a successful brewery’s product way before it was finished. It gave me great insight as to how far a beer goes, and I having tasted my own product throughout the process, even the big guy’s beer tastes a little funky before its done!

L to R: Rye IPA,IPA,Summer,100 Barrel,
Leviathan,Chocolate Stout,Cider,UFO Ras,
UFO,UFO Pale

After walking through the bottling and kegging line it was time to get to the business end. Harpoon spares nothing in terms of their beers and tasting them. The staff always encourages you to try what they offer, and go outside of what you normally drink. I had tasted most of what they had, so I went with their UFO Pale Ale, Catamount Maple Wheat (100 Barrel Series) and the Leviathan Quad. I still can’t stress how good this tour was, and I will most definitely recommend this to anyone that asks me, Harpoon, you left your impression on me Saturday.

It's Friday!

A weekend off ahead, I'm looking forward to finally getting a tour of Harpoon Brewery and picking up some 21st Amendment Monks Blood!

I've been to Harpoons tastings three times already, and they are always good fun, especially since they rotate out their beers, and give you such a range to sample.

As for my stout, it is still just sitting in secondary, I figure in about 2 weeks I should be able to bottle. The next step is to figure out what kind of beer to make next, I was thinking of some kind of fruit wheat beer or perhaps a weis? I figure I've been pretty off with the seasons (brewing a wheat in winter and a stout in spring) so maybe I can time this right!

Batch #2 Update

So yesterday I racked my brew into secondary, despite all the things I had read about it not really being necessary. I tasted my product and it seems a bit too bitter, I'm just hoping that it will eventually smoothen out in the secondary.Looks like another 2 weeks or so to just sit and wait.

Will you be better than my wheat?

The article I found on Reddit about AB-In Bev pissed me off. I really gotta wonder what kind of tactic that is, I mean who really says the stuff AB VP was saying anyway? It definitely made me ban all AB/IN Bev products from here on out. Not that I really gave them much business anyway but I will miss my Bud Light Limes and Natty Ice! I picked up some Harpoon Rye IPA, and let me tell you, that stuff is absolutely delicious!
I was afraid my perfect pint might explode, pouring a Harpoon offering into a Sam Adams glass, but im still alive.

A good day off!

Please don't look to me to review any kind of beers in-depth giving many flavor notes and hints, because honestly if it didn't tell me on the label I couldn't pick out half of the flavors anyway.

Magic Hat excited me for the first time in a while with their Elder Betty, which is an Elderberry Weiss, but I was a bit disappointed. It was definitely light and crisp, but the elderberry wasn't as prominent as I would have wanted. I think I'll stick to Absolut Boston for my elderberry kick.

Harpoon Rye IPA was a nice aromatic IPA with a crisp finish. The label says spicy characteristic with a complex. balanced body...but to me, its just a nice clean IPA with a crisp finish.

Batch #2

With little fan-fare, and a lot of cold weather and "I'll do it later" attitudes, my second home brew batch is underway. I embarked on this journey with little knowledge under my belt other than what I had learned from batch #1 as well as tons of info from HomebrewTalk and r/homebrewing.

My first batch, American Wheat, did not turn out so well. I wasn't really sure of how to describe the off flavors, and the brew was definitively under carbonated. Was it my sanitation? did I oxidize the wort somewhere? I know with the carbonation I used carb tabs, and I wont ever be using those again. I also reused beer bottles (after washing and sanitizing of course) maybe something was left on the bottles to give that odd flavor? Anyway, with batch #2 I went with a Irish Stout,

With a little companionship from my girlfriend I was able to successfully brew this batch on a relaxing Tuesday. I even got wyeast liquid smack pack, as I had heard of all the great things you can do with liquid yeast. I think that was my problem. I only allowed about 3 or so hours for the yeast to activate, thinking "hey, I brewed it, cant turn back now, and 3 hours should be enough" Well apparently it wasn't.

I went down to check on my brew 3 days later ( I still don't know why I took such a lax approach to checking my brew this time) and saw absolutely no fermentation activity. The stick on thermometer read a cold 58, but that was still in the range for ale yeast! After doing research, I decided to bring the wort temp up ,using some gallons filled with hot tap water overnight I brought the temp up to around 72 degrees. (let me explain, I keep my carboy in a mini fridge, so I used the radiant heat of the hot water gallons to warm up my carboy) Still,  no yeast action. I decided it was time to go back to what I knew, dry yeast. I had has success in getting fermentation going with that, so why not try again? I went down to my local homebrew shop and picked up a Safale-04 dry yeast packet for about $4 and took it home, hydrated that beast and pitched it into my wort.

8 hours later and there were signs of fermentation! woo hoo! it had begun and I was felling quite happy again. Fermentation stopped about 4 days later, and now my brew sits in the primary just waiting to to racked into secondary. While I wait I have been looking up tons of stuff on the internet about benefits of secondary, pros and cons, and if it is even necessary. I really don't know how I feel about the subject, but I might as well rack it into secondary at this point.

I can say I was worried about infections and mold, especially since I let it get too humid in my mini fridge and  spots of mold developed on the outside of my carboy. I dipped a rag in Starsan and wiped it down, and left the mini fridge open to air out. I plan on spraying both the entire carboy and fridge with Starsan before moving on.