Brew Day bloggings

Hop shortages mean weird beers in the future

2007-12-12T13:37:00.000-08:00

Apparently, we are currently in a worldwide hop shortage. That means that hops are impossible to get.

Northern brewer, arguably one if the largest homebrew supply houses in the US has these hops (pellets) in stock: Admiral, ahtanum, boadicea, brewer's gold, galena, marynka, newport, pride of ringwood, summit, and german tradition. No cascade. No hallertauer. No centennial. I'd say the only quasi-mainstream hop in there is Galena... but they'll probably run out soon.

This is good and bad I suppose. It may lead to some really cool beers in our near future- new and different hops, could lead to really great, unusual beers.

Or it could make really shitty ones.

Weizenbock Bottled

2007-11-26T08:21:00.000-08:00

I bottled the weizenbock yesterday. I think it came out pretty good- the sourness that I had noted previously has smoothed out a little and is now acceptable to my (crappy) palate. Michele had a sip as well and liked it, which I was pleasantly surprised about. Now we wait...

What's next fellas?

On dirty beer names

2007-11-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

Ok, I noticed that Dickens and Buff have named their barleywine "Donkey Punch Barley Wine". That got me thinking about other dirty beer names. Here's a few. Most of them have to do with fecal matter.

Cleveland Steam (er) Ale
Dirty Sanchez Mexican Cerveza
Dubbel Entry
Phil McKriekin

You guys got anything?

transferred...

2007-11-12T11:27:00.000-08:00

Since this is a beer blog, I just wanted to note that I transferred the weizenbock last night. FG was 1.018, which will give a alcohol of about 7%... very respectable.

As for taste: its still a bit "sharp". There's obviously the familiar banana and clove, with a slight bready maltiness and roasted undertones. A little alcohol warmth finishes the sip. But there's also a slight tartness/sourness that I hope will dissipate with either a) time, b) not drinking it at room temperature, or c) carbonation. I think that the sourness is most likely due to the wheat malt ( I had a Schwelmer hefe yesterday with the same flavor) but I'm still not a big fan of it. Hopefully it will have mellowed in a few weeks or more.

Finally!

2007-10-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

At last we brew for the first time for the last time...

Last sunday we finally brewed again. It was good to get the whole crew together (including Paul) for a brew day. I fired up the weizenbock and its now bubbling nicely.

actually bubbbling is an understatement. I came home on Monday to a curious beery smell at the house. When I went downstairs to investigate, yeasty goodness was spouting up through the airlock and running down the sides of the carboy... suffice to say I hooked up a blowoff tube after that. There's still a nice krausen on the beer but its calmed down a little... I just wish I had hooked up the blowoff sooner.

A note about B3... and customer service in general

2007-10-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say thanks to the folks at morebeer.com for their great customer service. I ordered a stopper for my 2000ml ehrlemeyer flask (a gift) that their website claimed was the correct one. Suffice to say, it was not the correct one- it was about an inch too big to fit. Turns out they recently changed suppliers on the flasks and never changed the stopper listing. Long story short, they shipped me a new stopper at no charge the next day.

<off topic>
This might not have been such a big deal to me had it not been for some dealings with a much less effective customer service team from Dreamtimebaby.com. They SUCK. We ordered some cloth from them (Michele wanted to sew a bed skirt for the baby's room) simce tehy had the best shipping time and price. In my opinion they committed the 3 cardinal sins of online customer service:

They charged my credit card immediately upon order. This reeks of "we're going to screw you"... I've got to check on the legality of this, as now I'm waiting and waiting for
They promised shipping in 3-4 weeks and didn't deliver. When 4 weeks came around they said "it should be shipped this week". When 5 weeks came around, they said "it should be shipped this week". When 6 weeks came around I realized they had no idea when it was going to ship. They had to put a status request into their "warehouse", which means they emailed the vendor to see when they would have it in stock. Unsuprisingly, they told me (48 hours later) that it would be shipped "near the end of the month". Considering the baby is due in a week, this was not an option.
Cancelling the order was a hassle. Again I had to go through the "status request" process, this time it took 4 days (even though they told me 24-48 hours) to tell me that the order was cancelled. I'm STILL waiting to have the charge reversed on my card.

</off topic>

So the moral of the story here is keep up the good work, B3, and I'll keep shopping with you! Oh, and don't shop at Dreamtime ANYTHING.

Stirmaster 3000 + the next brew

2007-10-01T08:31:00.001-07:00

My masterpiece is finally complete- the Stirmaster 3000 has been born! muhahahahaha!

I built a stirplate (finally) using various pieces of electronics I had around the shop at home (a muffin fan, a magnet from a hard drive, and a DPDT switch) plus a tupperware container from the local crap shop near work, some odds and ends from the Shack de Radio and a power adapter I had kicking around. Amazingly, it works. (I'm somewhat stunned that I didn't start a fire with it).

I was particularly proud of myself for a few reasons on this:

I didn't kill myself or others while building it,
I designed it to be run off of either a power adapter or a 9v battery so it's portable, and
I added an auxiliary power output on the box so it can be used as a controller for any other electrical brewtools, like, for example, a continuous hopping machine.

I'll try to post some pics of the Stirmaster 3000 soon. If any of you guys want me to build one for you, lemme know.

The reason for the completion of the stirplate is the next beer I will brew- a Weizenbock. I'll need to make a starter (I'm estimating an OG of 1.075 or so) and I'm hoping to harvest the yeast out of a bottle of Aventinus. I've ordered the ingredients and I'll post the recipe in a few days when I finalize the hop and grain bill.

Oh, the name for the new brew? Neuesvaterweizenbock (German for New Father weizenbock).

A call to arms... and the next beer

2007-09-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

For all of those 2 people that read this blog, I say unto thee: We should brew... preferably prior to a very small version of myself making its debut.

For the next beer, I am toying with a few things. I thought about doing a gluten-free, but after doing a bit of research, I don't really feel like purchasing all new equipment to make sure that gluten cross-contamination doesn't occur. Instead, I think I'm going to try an experiment: a black alt.

Picture a delicious Altbier, with a bit of carafa to darken the brew and give it a little roasty flavor. I'm hoping to be somewhere between schwarzbier and alt... and have it not taste like a porter. We'll see. I'll have to start formulating a plan. Muhahahaha!

What to brew... what to brew...

2007-08-01T07:19:00.001-07:00

So I'm currently hemming and hawing (sp?) about what to brew next. An Aventinus clone is on the list (although I may do that in September to let it age for the winter), as is an IPA or an XPA... Also, I need to brew a gluten-free beer for my sister's birthday... but I don't know if I want to do that now or later.

Buff and I also have a secret project underway... more on that later if it works out.

At Wit's End

2007-07-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

Well, At Wit's End (formerly 2wit- those of you who know what's going on at my house know why I changed the name) is done! I drank one yesterday- a nice creamy head, noticable but not overpowering orange and coriander, and a hazy blonde color makes this one a keeper. I passed out a few at work, we'll see what the boys say. I'll have to give one to Buff as well. I think I may enter it into the NJ state fair homebrew contest as well.

2wit- bottled

2007-07-17T14:13:00.001-07:00

I bottled the 2wit on Sunday. It looked good, hopefully I won't have the carbonation problems I had with the Pale Ale...

Brew Day: 2wit- a partial mash witbier

2007-07-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't been keeping up with this blog (unsuprisingly) I decided to get going again. So, without further ado, here is today's post. First, the recipe, then some spiel.

2wit (2.5 gallon partial mash)

Brewed 6/1/2007

Grain/sugar:
3 lbs Alexander's wheat extract (liquid)
1 lbs light wheat malt
1 lbs flaked oats

Hops:
.5 oz Czech Saaz (2.3 AA%) @ 60 m
1 oz Czech Saaz (2.3 AA%) @ 15 m

Other Ingredients:
.25 oz cracked coriander seeds @ 15 m
.25 oz bitter orange @ 5 m
1/8 tsp irish moss @ 15 m

Notes:
This beer was my first foray into partial-mash, and quite frankly, I had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully I had a book to read, otherwise I would have totally screwed the pooch. Anyhow, since I didn't have a real mash-tun or lauter tun with a spigot on the bottom, I mashed in a spaghetti pot that has a removable strainer. Obviously not the best, but what're ya gonna do. I think the mash went well, although since doing a vorlauf was impossible, I think I ended up with a lot of nasties in the kettle. Also, there was a lot of gelatinized crap at the bottom of the "mash-tun" (I use that term very loosely) which I unceremoniously dumped into the beer (it was sweet so I figured it would be ok) Hopefully the flavor won't be too affected and I'll rack off the beer from the big clump of trub in primary.

The beer is bubbling away nicely now (at least it was yesterday as I was ripping wet carpet up in my basement- long story) and a beautiful silky krausen is forming. If that is indicative of the type of head I will get on this beer than I am a happy man.

The one thing that really bothers me is that the beer in the fermenter is baby-sh*t brown. Hopefully that color will improve so I don't feel like I'm drinking diarrhea later on.

Welcome!

2007-03-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first of (in theory) many chronicles of my homebrewing experience.

I'm relatively new to homebrewing, so I'm hoping to use this blog to keep track of my thoughts, ideas, and questions that I might have. I'll probably share some recipes as well (if they're good) or anything else beer-related I find interesting.

So, as Charles Papazian would say, relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew!