Wood Chips and Fireball

This is coming way after the fact, but fireball infused pale ale is delicious.

Single Malt Wort Tasting Part I (mashing)

Last week I was busy with a few brewing related activities so the lull in posting will be replenished with pictures and commentary on what took place. Up first is how to mash 5 batches at once in your kitchen. 

The batches were for a wort tasting held by my brew club (Local 402 Union). The event was a great success and there will be more to come about the event. This however is to show how you can mash 5 lbs of malt, 1 pound at a time in your kitchen on a Tuesday night (and stay up too late). 

To mash the grains I took over the stainless mixing bowls in the house and set the oven to 170F. I then proceeded to mash in at 1.5 quartz per gallon targeting a 154F mash temperature. As one picture reveals I came incredible close to hitting that. I then let the mashes sit in the oven for 1 hour and slowly rising towards 170. 

The results were excellent. Do note that I did sparge and eventually collect about 0.75 gallons of wort for each of the 5 batches. As you will see I mashed roasted malt, victory, 

Kkolsch, brown, and light Munich. As expected the extraction was low for the roasted barley (in sugar, not in color).

 

Bunging the Firkin

Here is a quick video of Justin hammering the bung into our firkin for the Firkin' Good Beer festival that is coming up next weekend. The beer we brewed is a cherrywood smoked porter.

Wort Transformation

Yesterday morning DeJuan, Nick and I headed down to Nebraska Brewing Company to get a spot in the Wort Transformation project. We arrived an hour before the even was scheduled to start in order to get a beer and ensure a good spot in line. By 10:30 the bar was packed and promptly at 11 lined up an each secured our place in the competition.

So basically you pay $15 for 5 gallons of boiled and cooled wort. You then proceed to doctor it up however you desire. People choose different yeasts, add fruit or hops, and some have been known to pitch bacteria to create sour variants. A couple of months later everyone again gathers at NBC with a 6 pack for evaluation. There are four categories which will be awarded.

What is the Wort Transformation Challenge? 

The WTC is a twist on your typical homebrew competition and a bit of a collaboration between the brewers at Nebraska Brewing Company and the Home-brewer.  It starts with the brewers at Nebraska Brewing company brewing up a special batch of wort (un-fermented beer), then each home-brewer brings in a carboy or fermentation bucket and takes 5 gallons of wort home, Once at home the home-brewers add yeast and copious amounts of creativity to create a unique and wonderful beer.  

In 2013, this homebrew competition was featured in Zymurgy Magazine, a national homebrewing magazine published by the American Homebrewers Association. 

Due to the size of this year's competition and the fact that over 30% of the 2013 competitors were from outside the Omaha Metro, Nebraska Brewing Company had reorganized the registration process. 

http://nebraskabeer.blogspot.com/2014/01/nebraska-brewing-companys-3rd-annual.html 

Step 1: Arrive early and enjoy a beer.

Step 2: Wait in line with a bunch of other crazed brewers

Step 3: Pay up

Step 4: Enter contact information to schedule wort pick up

How to keg 11 gallons of homebrew in less than two minutes

Okay. It actually is sped up 16 times... Yes, this is what I did when I woke up last Saturday morning.

Beer Flavored Jelly Bean?

Today I'm posting something interesting that a friend brought my attention to. And, perhaps this is representative of the pervasiveness of craft beer in our culture. It might be gimmicky, but I think it speaks to the appeal of craft beer in the US.

So Jelly Belly has released a Hefeweizen inspired jelly bean. I recommend you eat it with a slice of lemon or orange jelly bean, preferably stuck to the side.

Read the Full Article Here

Smallest Food Grade Pump

I picked up this micro food grade pump that is rated for 29 gph and safe for liquid up to 100 Celsius.

Soon this will be incorporated into my Pico brewery. Yes, I am building an all grain system, with a pump that will aim to produce less than 1 gallon of beer at a time.

More to come in the next few weeks. Word on the street is that my mash tun will be a repurposed Blichmann Hop Rocket.

Random Hot Sauce Note

I want to take a moment to point out how much I enjoy this sauce. To give you perspective, I use Sri Racha like ketchup (buy it by the case). I'm impervious to Tabasco and anything less than a habanero is mild at best. So back to this sauce. It has great flavor and nice heat. My current favorite is a toss up between this and Dave's insanity sauce. This once is not as hot as Dave's according to my perception (I haven't checked the Scoville units). As of a few minutes ago when I finished lunch both bottles are now empty. I'm in a dire situation right now where the hottest sauce in the house is Yucatan Sunshine... I'm thinking about ordering some sauce from PuckerButt (http://store.puckerbuttpeppercompany.com/). After reading that the Carolina Reaper was confirmed as the worlds hottest pepper and hearing the back story (see said website or wikipedia) I want to try some of the sauces Ed makes (and support his business).

How I Brew Kombucha

After dangling the teaser that I'm a Kombucha brewer I had follow up with a view into my methods. Today I brewed up 2 gallons of Kombucha. I started brewing about 4 years ago after I took a class in a southeast Portland home. The husband and wife duo are now proud owner of Lion Heart Kombucha (http://www.lionheartkombucha.com/)

Over the years my method has evolved to my taste and convenience. The first thing you will notice is that I have enlisted tea jars with spigots to make dispensing and sampling much simpler. I also tend to use plain white sugar, although I prefer evaporated organic cane juice.

My method is fairly simple.

• Boil one-half gallon of filtered water with 3/4 cup of sugar
• remove the boiling pot and steep the tea for about to minutes
• fill the jar will one-half gallon of filtered water (cold)
• remove tea bags from steeping water and carefully pour the hot, sweet tea into the partially filled jars
• drink down until no more Kombucha will flow from the container
• Repeat, removing excessive layers of SCOBYs as needed

A few technical details:

• I do measure pH. The pH on this batch was 2.8 before fermenting
• The specific gravity before fermenting was 1.020
• I typically use 6 tea bags per gallon (pictures above reflect 2 x 1 gallon batches)
• I sometimes use as much as 1 cup of sugar
• I ferment in a cool basement (~53 degrees in the cold of winter) which is why you see a seed heating mat under the containers. I target high 60s to low 70s for fermentation temperature.
• The coarse cloths on top of containers are needed to allow airflow without allowing contaminants in

Sneak Peak: Golden Rod Brewing

Here is a behind the scenes look at the newest brewery in Omaha. It's so new it hasn't even opened yet.

They just took delivery of their brewing equipment and plan to open in about two months. You week notice that they had to knock out part of a wall just to get the equipment into this room.

The fermentation and brewing space is actually located below the bar and restaurant. So we're standing in sorry of a cellar basement. The business front is on one street level and the back is a losing dock which is a level lower.

The pictures are a little dark since construction is in progress and lighting is minimal. We've had the pleasure to taste a number of their beers that will go into production including a kettle soured cherry and a Keller. I'm anxiously awaiting for this brewery to open.

Brewing with Nick

I stopped in on Nick's double batch brew day last night. He was making a Scottish for the Empyrian Beer Quest competition and a blonde for himself.

For the Scottish he pulled done of the running from the mash and boiled then separately to caramelized before adding it to the rest of the wort. Unfortunately a tough lesson in scorching using a non-clad pot was learned abd the process was started over. Well it was started over after putting done serious elbow grease into chiseling of the burnt ring of sugar. The batch went on otherwise without a hitch.

The second batch was mashed in around 11:30 pm. Yes, this is how it goes when you do a Friday night double batch after work.

Here's a few pictures of Nick's setup. Notice the hammer drill which allows site rpm crushing and provides for an excellent crush.

Whirlpooling

Here's a look at the new copper plumbed and pump assisted brew stand getting it's whirlpool on.

 

Cognac Stout II

Here is a sneak peak of the Cognac stout wood chips we are preparing. In about a week we will add threes chips into secondary fermentation. Then we will sample the beer frequent as data pass until it tastes perfect. We are using 1 ounce of light American oak chips with a bottle of Cognac. The Cognac and chips will be separated before addition. This is the sequel to DeJuan's original that took 3rd place at the Benson Homebrew festival in October of 2013.

Kombucha & Kvass

I have never disclosed on here that I new Kombucha, but it's true. Today I was in a natural food store and couldn't resist browsing the selection of fine fermented and low alcohol drinks. Now, I thought Kvass was made from old bread... what is this stuff?

Update [1/17/14] : The store I was at is on Dodge street in Omaha near 80th on the south side of the street. Follow this link to learn more. I highly recommend this store. They have an incredible selection of all things wonderful. I walked out with a bottle, an organic apple and some organic tahini.

Oh Crap

I was surprised less than 24 hours after pitching British ale yeast into a cherry wood smoked porter to find such a mess. I switched from a bubbler to a blow off tube and filled a gallon jar in about an hour. This was all at a controlled temperature of 70 degrees F. I wasn't expecting this and I'm hoping not to much viable yeast was lost. If you haven't used Yeast 1098 before, proceed with caution. And, lots of head space!

Pulling Some Yeast

Last night I pulled some yeast from my conical fermentor and racked off 8 gallons of Kolsch. This strain doesn't style quickly (low flocculation). It's been cold conditioning for 2 weeks already and it still looks quite cloudy in secondary.

Anyway, I'm going to give it time to settle and I'm the meantime I'll be re-pitching this yeast into a Dusseldorf Alt Bier. Here's a few pictures and a video of the yeast pull.

Malt Substitution

Today I was looking at a recipe that we will be brewing next weekend and saw amber malt on the bill. I've been brewing since 2006 and somehow amber malt never appeared in my brewing world until the last month or two.

A friend of mine made a dogfish head clone and used amber malt. I asked him to save me a handful of the malt so I could taste it. I sample each component of a beer from grain to glass and I'm always excited to taste another malt or smell new hops.

The short story is that this malt tasted something like victory malt to me. It's a little nutty and dark but not sweet. The other thing is that the brew stores around here do not typically stock this malt for some reason. Perhaps because this malt is underutilized? Well, now that I have a recipe that calls for this malt, I am looking for it. And, then I thought about substitutions.

When it comes to hops I am weary of substitutions. I remember as a new home brewer walking into Steinbarts in Portland and finding out that they did not have the hops I was looking for. They were quick to offer alternatives based on a substitution chart. Little did I know at the time just how different hop varietals can be. I now have a full appreciation for the differences in hops mostly because IPA is one of my favorite styles. But, what about malt?

I know the basics when it comes to malts in terms of base malt versus crystal versus roasted. The color ratings are helpful too. Overall all I think I understand malt, but the more I think about it I realize that I don't really know that much at all. It's a little crazy how much focus in brewing goes to hops and yeast. I recently became infatuated with water chemistry so the last frontier is malt for me.

Where is the malt book? How do you substitute malts? Hmmm.... I don't have the answers.... yet. I have a simple substitution chart that I found online, but I know there is a lot more to learn about malt. Stay tuned for a future series on understanding malt. Until then it looks like victory malt is a reasonable substitution for amber malt according to this chart.

 http://www.brew.is/files/malt.html