Wine Update

Well, our 6 gallon batch of Riesling will be ready to drink in 4 days. We had been cask aging it for the majority of the time, but decided to let it finish up in the bottles for the final few weeks. Sonya and I tried it while we were bottling and we agreed that it's pretty good. However, we also agree that it may not be as sweet as it could be considering it's a Riesling.

Anyway, for our first batch, it's pretty good!

Since it's done right before Christmas, we figured it would be nice to share and give some of it as presents to our friends and family. To anyone reading that that fits in that category...sorry for the spoiler.

Since I'm a bit of an overachiever, I couldn't stop at just bottling. We went with heat shrink bottle toppers and custom made labels for the holiday. We thought it would be nice to put a little Christmas quote on them, too.

"Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it "white"." ~Bing Crosby

I think the fact that Bing Crosby said it makes it fit Christmas more than the quote itself does.

Not too shabby...eh? If you click on the images, you can see the pictures better.

Redneckery

One evening, while brewing of course, Ryan and I started talking about going shooting somewhere sometime. It then quickly turned into a much more complicated event. For those who know Ryan and I, that shouldn't be much of a surprise.

Our shooting trip turned into a weekend trip to Sonya and I's hometown with Ryan and his wife Nicole. While driving, I talked with my dad and made plans for the four of us to meet him at his shop so we could build a trebuchet for the event.

What shooting trip is complete without a spur of the moment construction project?

I have to admit, given more time and materials, we could have built something pretty amazing, however we were limited to an hour and half for construction and whatever scraps we could find in the shop, but we built it regardless. And it was awesome because it worked. Sometimes.

Sort of.

One of my favorite things about this trip was taking this picture of Sonya. When we first started dating, she told me that she saw a picture of me that she really liked. Now that I compare the two pictures, I think it is pretty funny how similar they are to each other. Coincidentally, they were taken in the same location, but about 3 years apart.


The weekend turned out to be just what we needed. An escape from the city with some friends for some fun. Redneck style.

Pumpkin Spice Ale

It took me about a week of researching, but I finally came up with my own beer recipe. I had originally hoped to have this brew ready for Halloween, but it wasn't ready yet, so it ended up getting pushed back a little. Actually a lot.

I made a recipe for a Pumpkin Spice Ale for our December batch. I know. I could have made a more fitting recipe for the month, but Sonya really likes Pumpkin beer and it seemed very challenging. Since I love a good challenge, once again, I figured "why not?"

Every time we brew, Ryan and I seem to get better at it. It goes much smoother, it's less hectic, and we figure out a solution to some problem we had before.

We had been a little nervous about this one since it was my own recipe, but we were confident and figured it couldn't be too bad as long as we didn't stray from that recipe. Except we did. Several times.

Eh, I'm still confident.

We didn't have the muslin bags we needed, so we just mashed the grains and pumpkin right in the water, then strained it all out. We'll catch the rest when it settles in either the primary or secondary fermenting.

Then we, and by we I mean I, accidentally swapped the bittering hops with the flavoring hops. It really won't matter, but I was pretty disappointed when Ryan pointed that out to me. Oh well.

The final thing that I was a little disappointed with was the fact that I accidentally used some tap water in the batch. Since it's so little, it shouldn't cause a problem, but I really like to use only spring water in the beer.

Even though we now have a wort chiller, we decided to use a natural chiller this time. Snow. It's cheaper than city water and it adds an element of ridiculousness.


I'll have to report back in about a month on the turn out.

Let's try wine

Sonya and I have talked about making our own wine since we met. Unfortunately, we haven't had the time until recently. About two months ago, we finally did it.

We researched everything we could on the endeavor, bought our equipment and ingredients and got started.

Since time has always been an issue, we decided to start with a kit. We have every intention of making a batch from all fresh ingredients in the near future, but it will probably have to wait until the summer when we can get fresh fruit or wine grapes for a better price. In the mean time, we're going to try the kits. my buddy Ryan and I are also working on the design for a fruit/grape press. That will hopefully be done soon so it's ready for our "from-scratch" batches.

As for now, our first batch of wine is a Riesling and it will be done in about 2 weeks. Just in time for Christmas.













It's ready in 2 weeks!

Honey Wheat Ale

My mom and dad are not much of beer drinkers by any means. My dad will have a beer at night once in a great while and my mom will have a half of a glass once in a very, very great while. Recently, I found out that my mom actually really likes honey wheat ales, so I decided to brew my own so I could share some with her, too.

I get the most enjoyment out of sharing my beer with friends and family. It's really gratifying to be able to brew something and have everyone honestly enjoy it.

This batch turned out very well also. I have to say I'm very happy with all of my batches so far. All of the beer has tasted great. Everyone has been having a great time brewing. We have some great stories to tell and my knowledge of beer brewing is increasing every time.

Lemon Squeeze Ale

For September's batch, Ryan chose our brew. He decided to go with a summer ale.

Even though we decided to brew this summer style beer in the fall, it actually turned out to be one of my favorites. I'm pretty sure it's Sonya's favorite so far, too.

One of the things you have to understand about brewing is that it's an adventure every time. Sometimes things go exactly the way you hope and plan. Other times, you have to learn from your mistakes. Unfortunately, this time turned out to be one of those learning experiences.

If you've ever brewed, you know that the number one most important thing is cleanliness. Everything that comes in contact with your brew must be sanitized.

This was the first batch since the wort chillers construction, so we were excited to try it out.

Like I said before, this brew turned out to be my favorite so far, but you can probably guess where I'm headed with this.


Turns out, when we sterilized the wort chiller, we didn't do a good enough job. The beer was perfect for about two weeks. Then we noticed some things growing in the beer. Some clumpy, weird things.

We've learned.

It really did turn out great and everyone loved it so we plan on brewing this one again for sure. Next time without the chunks.

Wort Chiller

When you don't have a big professional setup for brewing, a lot of the brewing time is just waiting. Particularly when you're waiting for the wort to cool. Your objective is to cool the wort, which is basically beer without yeast, from about 170 degrees down to around 75 degrees. This is so you don't kill your yeast when you add it.

It's highly recommended to cool it as fast as possible so you don't get off-flavors, but unless you want to pay a good deal of money for what's known as a wort chiller, you only have a few options.

I consider myself to be a bit of a handyman, so when I was presented with this dilemma, I decided to build my solution.

I headed to the local hardware store and picked up about 25' of 3/8" copper tubing, a few random fittings, a garden hose, and some solder.

Here is what I ended up with...




My brewing pot is about 16" in diameter, so I wanted my coil to be about 8" in diameter so that the wort would cool evenly. I can explain more about this if anyone is actually interested how my logic works. It's actually pretty simple.














Here is my coil before I applied the intake and outtake lines.












I decided to solder the fittings outside on our porch so I wouldn't stink up the house and/or burn it down. All went well.



The complete set. The idea behind the intake and outtake being on separate sides is so I can hang the chiller on the rim of the brewing kettle so it is suspended the wort. Not sure if it matters, but why not?

If you've been wondering how this little setup would work. Here is your answer.


Simply.

Attach the garden hose sections. One to each side. One hose connects to an outside faucet and the other goes out into the yard. The cold water travels through the copper tubing and chills the tubing from inside. Copper takes on temperature very easily. The cold copper cools the wort from inside.

Surprisingly, it worked very well. It cut our cooling process down from about an hour and a half to nearly 20 minutes. It also cost about a sixth of what I would have paid to buy one.

Problem solved.

Belgian Dubble

Back in August I made a Belgian Dubbel. I've always really enjoyed Abbey Ales. For this batch we made a bit of a party out of it. A few friends of mine joined in for the fun. So we had a pretty big crew.

A Belgian Dubbel is basically a brown ale. It's a little stronger that a pilsner, yet milder than a triple. Seems obvious, I know. It was originally brewed in the Trappist Monostaries. The first one was in Westmalle back in 1856.

In case you wanted to know.












Mashing











Tony dissolving the DME











Adding the Styrian Golding Hops














Ready to be bottled


Everything turned out really well with this batch. It had a great aroma and a wonderful taste. Everyone who tried it said that would love to have it again, so I was very proud. I'm sure I'll make this batch again in the near future.

Let's get started

I've always wanted to write a blog about something, but could never come up with the two main things necessary. Those being a) something to actually write about and b) the determination to write about it.


Today I found myself in a writing mood, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I can't guarantee that this will be the longest lived endeavor, but if nothing else, I've tried.

So here are my thoughts:

I've always had a great love for everything beer. Not in the lush sort of passion, but in the artistic creativity of it's creation and it's many unique facets. Over the past few years, I've developed, in my opinion, a very broad palate for the beverage. The more unique in flavor, aroma, and brewing process the better. I'm not much of a main stream commercial beer drinker, but I guess that's alright. I favor what is known as micro or craft beer.

Years ago, I started to homebrew and I fell in love with it. I brewed for about a year, but then made a sudden move to Florida and it was put on hold. I continued to brew there as a microbrewers assistant at a local bar in Fort Lauderdale. I have to admit that I didn't learn that much while I was there since we did more drinking than we did brewing, but that's alright because that meant that I got to try many, many new beers. Great experience. That bar is responsible for my admiration of Belgian style beers.

Once I moved back, I took a little time off, but recently got back into brewing. I can't believe it took me so long. I missed it so much.

I've brewed three batches so far since my restart and they have all been wonderful in their own way. Not just in flavor, but in experience.

I'll post a little info about each later on.

This definitely won't be a beer brewing only blog, but since it is something that I'm super excited about, I'm sure it will take up a big part.

Sonya, my fiance whom I'm sure I will talk about a lot, and I also added wine to our "do-it-yourself" list recently. Our first batch will be done just in time for Christmas and it is looking very good so far.

Like the beer, more on that later.



*currently drinking a homebrewed honey wheat ale. very proud.