Sunday, September 07, 2008

Hop Harvest


The hop flowers were getting paper-like and slightly brown near the bottoms, a sign that it was time for a hop harvest. 2 minutes later, harvest was complete.

I put the hops in a paper bag and left them in the sun room where they will dry out for a few days. This was the first year so there weren't many flowers.

I think I'll have enough for one dry hopping, I guess I'll have to make a pale ale next.


I put some fresh hops in my beer as a garnish. Squeezing the hop flower in my mouth like a sponge elicited a wonderful hoppy taste.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Hopalicious

I couple months ago I happen to be at my local brew shop and they were selling fresh hop rhizomes. I thought hell why not? In a couple years I could be brewing homemade beer using home grown hops ! I bought 3 cascade and 2 golding rhizomes which were all they had of these particular types. Turns out 1 golding died when the vine somehow snapped at the base, and 1 cascade was eaten by an animal. Still I managed to grow 2 vines per type. My first hop cone grew in a few days ago on one of the cascade vines so I had to take a picture. I'm really glad I decided to plant these.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Smoke on the Porter (Frankenstein II)

I threw together a recipe using all my left overs... strangely enough the ingredient list resembles a porter recipe I found online that used rauch, peat, chocolate, black patent, and flaked barley. I just bought the London Ale III and hops and I was ready to go. The foaming, chocolate brown wort tasted delicious.

ingredient list
3.0 lbs. rauch
2.0 lbs. munich
1.0 lbs. 2 row
1.0 lbs. caramel 20L
1.0 lbs. caramel 60L
1.0 lbs. peat
1.0 lbs. chocolate
0.5 lbs. black patent
0.5 lbs. cara pils
0.5 lbs. vienna
0.5 lbs. flaked barley
1.0 oz. pearle 60 minutes
1.0 oz. kent goldings 30 minutes
1.0 oz. fuggles 15 minutes
1318 Wyeast London Ale III

I bought a plastic bucket with an attached spigot, which came in handy while sparging since now I don't need to siphon the sparge water.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Smoked Malt (Rauchbier version 2)

I'm making a smoke beer today, using the smoker I bought! May the smell of apple wood fill the air. The recipe I used is posted below, followed by instructions for smoking your own grain.

Classic Rauchbier
(5 gallons, all grain)


This is a Bamberg-style reddish lager, sweet and substantial like a Marzen, with the distinctive smokiness of a beechwood fire.

3.0 lbs. lager malt
2.5 lbs. rauchmalt
0.5 lbs. carapils malt
0.5 lbs. Vienna malt
4.0 lbs. light malt
1.0 oz. Hallertau hops (4% alpha acid, 4 AAUs)
1.0 oz. Tettnang hops (4% alpha acid, 4 AAUs)
Munich lager yeast slurry (Wyeast 2308)
3/4 cup corn sugar or 1 cup light dry malt extract for priming

Heat 10 qt. water to 164 F. Crush grains, mix into liquor and hold 90 min. at 152 F. Runoff and sparge with 14 qt. at 168 F. Add the dry malt to kettle, mix well. Raise to boiling, add Hallertau hops. Boil 60 min., add Tettnang hops, boil 30 min.
Remove from heat, cool and add to fermenter along with enough chilled pre-boiled water to make 5.25 gal. When cooled to 65 F, pitch yeast. Seal and ferment for two days at 55 F, then move to cooler place and ferment a further two weeks at 45 F, rack to secondary and condition six weeks at 38 F. Prime with corn sugar or dry malt extract and bottle. Condition six weeks at 35 F.

Instructions for smoking your own grain:

1. Soak the wood chips of your choice in clean fresh water for a minimum of 1 hour. Longer if you are using very large chips.

2. Light a small charcoal fire in a kettle-type charcoal grill. Use enough coal to keep a good fire for about 1½ hours (or longer if you're doing a lot of malt). You can avoid using charcoal altogether if you have one of those gas fired (or electric) smokers that looks sort of like R2D2 from "Star Wars."

3. Soak about 2 lbs of malted barley in clean fresh water for 15 minutes. This step is simplified a lot if you first put the grain in a mesh bag or nylon stocking. If you don't use the mesh bag you will have to strain out the grain with a kitchen strainer.

4. Place a large piece of screen on the grill. Plain old hardware store variety window screen will work quite well. (HINT: Bend up the edges to help keep the grain on the screen. If you don't, a lot of your grain will fall into the fire.) (ANOTHER HINT: Make sure your grill is clean. Leftover grease will mess up your malt.)

5. Remove the wood chips from the water and place them directly on the hot coals.

6. Place the screen covered grill onto the kettle grill and cover with as much grain as you can and still be able to easily stir the grain around without knocking the grains into the fire.

7. Put the lid on the kettle grill and adjust the vents to get maximum smoking.

8. I usually stir the grains around a bit every 15 minutes or so. Also at this time I can check for dryness.

9. The grains are done smoking when they return to their original dryness.

10. After smoking I put the grains in a 5qt plastic pail with a lid and let them sit for a minimum of 2 weeks. This seems to let the smoky flavor mellow a bit.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Mash / Lauter Tun

I feel like my last few all grain brews have been on the lighter side, meaning they were a tad bit watered down for my liking. I think it has something to do with my batch sparging process. I feel that I'm not getting a very efficient sugar extraction, and so I am in the process of making a mash and lauter tun, which I will use to fly sparge.

I borrowed some instructions on how to convert a water cooler from here: How to make a cheap 10 or 5 gallon MLT with a Rubbermaid Cooler. After reading the instructions I decided I wanted a false bottom rather than using the braided stainless steel hose, so I only followed the instructions for assembling the bulkhead.

I bought a 5 gallon cooler from Wal-Mart for 20 bucks, ordered Phil's Phalse Bottom 9" online, and the rest of the parts from Home Depot. The assembly was not difficult. When I was done I filled the tun with water and let sit for 20 minutes, and there was not a drop leaked (Don't forget the teflon tape or your tun will leak)!

I have not yet received the false bottom in the mail, but the 9" bottom supposedly fits perfectly in a 5 gallon Rubbermaid cooler. Then it should be as simple as connecting the false bottom to the barb adapter with a hose and clamps. I still need to buy another pot for sparge water and build the sprinkler system for the fly sparging, and when I do I'll post the details.




P.S. Check out my links to Chris Knight's kegging videos and all grain brewing videos.