Monday, February 27, 2012

SUCCESS!

In the last 36 hours, I brewed 3 batches of beer.

The empty interior of a fermentation fridge, though easy to clean, is a sad, sad sight.

Let's not dwell on the past, let's embrace and celebrate the NOW!  # happy, 5-gallon carboys are basking in the glory.

Yesterday, the brew of OxyClan for the 3rd batch.  This time, Zynthos hops.  I've not quite decided whether I will dry=hop with Nelson, Citra, or Zynthos.  That's a week away, so no worries.

Today, a double batch.  First time brewing the Rosemary IPA as all grain.  It had been extract up until now, so I'm anxious to see the difference. 

Second, "Night at the Movies" Pale.  Made with popcorn.  Yes, 2 pounds of air-popped Jiffy Pop.  I heard about the Popcorn Pilsner which won Gold at GABF and thought- YES!  I LOVE popcorn.  So I gave it a try.  I could have used WAY more popcorn though.  It "melts" down in the mash water so much that I probably could have used 5 lbs.

One thing I've thought about lately is these "big" beers.  I have noticed my beers getting higher and higher in alcohol content.  This is not beneficial.  I like to drink several beers.  Having 1 or 2 is just no fun!  SO, with that in mind I'm not going to be brewing up these high alcohol beers again for a while.  OR, I'm going to adjust the recipies to lower the alcohol.  Which should work fine.

I had to brew on the back patio tonight because it was SO windy in the driveway.  Great thing is... the triple stand loaded full, will travel through the doorways with no problem.  So I loaded it up and wheeled it through the house, and it work perfectly.

Now- sleep.  Must. Sleep.

Grains

What are grains? In this case, 7lb two row and 2lb popcorn.

Let's see what happens!


Saturday, February 25, 2012

Bonnie and Mindi want a shirt

Since they are NOT crafty girls, I have been given the task.

(though, I say they ARE crafty girls, they just don't want to admit it)


Saturday, February 18, 2012

It's AZ Beer Week!

Last night one of the servers at my gig was a homebrewer!  We had a great time chatting, adn I gave him 4 beers to take home and drink on Saturday night.

I had stocked the trunk in the morning, so he was in LUCK!

Also gave a few to the boys at San Tan brewing- I really love giving away good beer.  Bringing joy to others is always a great way to spend an evening.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

So I brewed Portly Squirrel with a slightly modified grain bill last time. It turned out to be completely different. It is the most awesome porter ever. Hooray for convenient accidents. It is toasty and delicious and awesome! So I need a name...

The name is officially Arc Porter.  Untappd it if you drink it!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Yeast interestingness

The Porter which was racked onto the huge yeast cake went CRAZY.  It finished fermentation in about 36 hours.  This is very, very fast.  It does of course concern me that I will get fusel flavors from the rapid yeast metabolization.  And I should rack it off of the dead yeast right away. Which I did not.

Right Red Rye is going along fine- the fermentation took about 30 hours to start.  That's a decent start time, though vigorous fermentation is now on day 5.  That's within the "expected" range, I suppose.

Checked the Oaked stout for oakiness, but my taste buds are shot, so no idea. I'll have to bring in an expert to taste for me.  Any takers?

Down-Time

Not feeling too well- some nasty cold.

Anyways, I took this time to look at beer labels.  I'm really struggling with a logo.

What do I want in a logo? And what about a label? I tend to mix the 2 together, so bear with me.

I want it to be able to fit onto a beer bottle CAP and still be recognizable.  I think the DaH part helps with that.

DaH Brew is about sharing, science, creating, fun, friends, and deliciousness.

I'm drawn to more industrial/scientific images than to antique/hand-crafted images

The label needs to be simple to alter in Illustrator for new brews.

Sans-serif. Stupid serifs get stuck on everything.

I definitely want a QR code on it.  I'm not a big QR'er, but I do think it is good- at least to give the drinker a potential introduction to the blog.  If I'm clever, I could link it to the "Untappd" page for the beer... hmmm...

Also the DahBrew.com web address somewhere, because when you are drinking a homebrew, you don't naturally think "oh, I should check out the website for this beer!"

Those are my thoughts at this point.  I've been pinterest-ing interesting labels for quick reference.

I also "claimed" my brewery on Untappd

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Re-Using Yeast

DO NOT DO THIS!

OK, now that you read the disclaimer, let's talk about what I did.

I brewed the Cream Ale for grilled lemons, then racked off into a separate carboy for the fruit addition.

Saving the carboy, I racked a new batch (Portly Squirrel) directly into the same carboy. This, friends, is not good.

Oh sure, it worked out fine for me.  But it's ABSOLUTELY not the "right" way to do it. The right way is outlined in many places- you pour off the yeast, select the best ones, etc etc etc.

Since I KNOW it's not the right way to do it, I naturally decided to do it again.

Last night I racked a porter directly into the same carboy.

Pretty stupid, I know.  However- the carboy was already exploding out into the fermentation cooler at 7:00 AM so it seems the yeast are pretty dang active!

I am afraid of autolyzed yeast puking into this beer, so it will definitely be the last time I do this.

For Right Rye Red, I pitched the yeast from a half- gallon cream ale int it.

Because I'm cheap.  Oh, I mean- experimental

Bourbon Stout Experiment

I brewed a very tasty coffee stout.  It's the second time, and after fermenting for 10 days- it's yummy.

Can I leave it well enough alone?  Of course not.

After listening to Basic Brewing Radio podcast regarding a bourbon stout experiment, I decided that my absolute love for Full Sail Black Gold has overwhelmed my brain.

I split the coffee stout- 3 gallons in a small carboy with 2 ounces of Oak Chips to ferment for another 10 days.

I added 3 ounces of Evan Williams to the 3 gallons of Coffee Stout in the bottling bucket.  Then I bottled half.

Next, added 1 1/2 additional ounces (essentially doubling the bourbon) to the remaining gallon and a half.  Bottled that.

Looking forward to results in about a month. Or 2.

Because Sean tells me I need to learn patience.

Oh what a night....

When leaving work, I decided to go get another 50# bag of 2-row, So I made my way over to Brew Your Own.  Plenty of chatting- good times.

On the agenda for the night, I may have gotten a bit aggressive. I decided to brew 2 batches (one extract, one All-Grain), perform a bourbon stout experiment involving bottling and a secondary, bottle the Grilled Lemon Cream Ale, and bottle the Portly Squirrel.  This took 11 hours.

I started at 3:30.

I went to bed at 2:30.  I didn't even clean up all my equipment, so I have that to do today.

Kind of ridiculous.

Well, I also did homework with the kids, made dinner, etc.  And I actually started heating water at 3:30, so there was no "ahead of the game" as I typically set myself up.

I realize that I need to cut more slits in my mash manifold.  It drains continuously, but is very slow.  I cut slits for half and did drill holes for half as an experiment, and - yeah, I need to expand the drill holes into slits. Slow sparge, everything worked out fine.

Still digging the brew stand- it works so nicely.

Despite the long day, the only real problem I ran into was that I ran out of crown caps at 1 AM while bottling the 4th set of beer.  I have plenty of the larger, "champagne bottle" caps.  So I had to go through all my bottles and find all the champagne bottles which take those caps.  Many champagne bottles take regular caps.  Luckily, I had EXACTLY the right number of caps and everything is set.

Last month, I moved my bottle storage out into the garage, from the hallway.  Since brewing and seasonal beer collecting has been big this month... I have now filled up the garage storage area AND the hallway again.  This is not a good thing ;)  Though it is a good problem to have.

SO- I need to organize the entire garage this evening since I trashed it yesterday.

I think I'll brew while I'm cleaning. BWAHAHAHAHA!