Ice Coated Brewing

This past Sunday we brewed another batch of our Back Porch Brown Ale. The difference of brewing this day was that we started brewing was coated in ice.

~This was the deck, first thing in the morning, as we got ready to set up for brewing~

~We're getting set up now and you can see the ice still coating the deck. At least it's not raining, right?~

Brewing went well, despite the bitterly cold start to the morning. Several people have asked whether the cold weather makes it take longer for the water to boil, but we didn't find that there was much of a difference. Our burners are some high kickin' burners though, so maybe that makes a difference? The cooler weather DID make it a little bit quicker to chill down after the boil; which was good because it saved us some water consumption (less water needed to cool it down), and the quicker it cools down the quicker you can get it into the carboys. This equals a smaller chance for infection. Also, the quicker you cool it, the better "cold break" you will get which will reduce or eliminate the occurrence of chill haze. Chill haze doesn't affect the flavor of the beer though, only its appearance; so for those who want a nice, clear, "see-your-hand-through-the-glass" beer, chill haze is something that is a bit undesirable.

~Shannon, in his hat & gloves, helping to skim the foam off of the wort, at the end of the sparge, as it gets ready to boil~

~Here he is dumping the foam he skimmed off into a pot of water that will be dumped out on the grass~

We once again fermented 5 gallons with American yeast and 5 gallons with English yeast. We've been a little lax about keeping good records as to which yeast we prefer in the final product. Note to brewers: keep good records, all the way through!!
5 gallons we will keg and 5 we will bottle. Kegging is easy and quick, and it is hard not to keg all 10 gallons, but we're remembering the importance of bottling beer as well. Gifts, bartering, competitions, beer in bottles can be a good thing.

We'll keep you updated with what we brew next.

3/22/09 - Brewday review

Although yesterday morning when we started brewing it was barely 40 degrees out, it warmed up quickly and turned out to be a very beautiful day. Here is a review of the day for those who couldn't make it over:

~Justin, starting things off nice and properly by apparently taking a moment to say the "Beer Prayer"

~Justin checking the temperature of the water for the Brown Ale. You can see the IPA in the keg-kettle in the foreground.
This was our first time brewing our Jedhead IPA all-grain, up until now it has always been brewed as an extract. How we haven't brewed this as an all-grain yet is beyond us. The recipe we did yesterday will be completely different from our previous one: it should be a lot hoppier, with more citrus, and be more copper in color. When we brewed our All Right Then Pale Ale, the recipe ended up being similar to the extract recipe, so the new Jedhead IPA should definitely satisfy the hop-heads.
We brewed our Back Porch Brown Ale last time we brewed as well as yesterday. We're still working on our recipe, trying to get it just right. For this batch we changed up the hops used and also added some molasses to it (Shannon got to add that, along with the hops ~ he knew exactly what Justin was getting ready to do, and made sure he got to help!).

~John Merkwan, the current President of the Star City Brewer's Guild. John brought with him for sampling a nice beer from Brooklyn Brewery, Local #2. A very nice beer. We also sampled some of our stouts, our brown ale, and March's Beer of the Month from Wine Gourmet, from Avery Brewing Co.: 14'er ESB, which everyone seemed to enjoy, and Ellie's Brown Ale, which was pretty decent.

~Harry Montoro, a new member but already proving to be a very enthusiastic member & all around pretty cool guy. When we came inside to show them our new keg-freezer, Harry spotted Justin's guitar and took it back outside with him. You can see Jomo "standing guard" - Jomo has become a little hesitant about new people, but found an instant friend in Harry .. who brought over meatloaf & immediately gave some to him! The smoke in the background is from the smoker -- the food came out utterly fantastic, but not until everyone had left. Better planning required for next time!!

~This is Justin's brother Matt, holding up the skirt I had been wearing. Here is the excitement for the day ---- I caught on fire! *NOTE - I told Matt to smile when I took this photo, as he had just saved my life ... so, know, he isn't just looking pleased with himself for burning my skirt or something like that.
I'm not sure how it happened, and all anyone can come up with is that it was one of those flukes - me walking past the burner, wind catching my skirt and/or the flame just right. All I know is that I was standing several feet away from the burner, facing back towards the house when I thought "do I smell something burning", I looked down and my skirt (at about my right calf) was on fire. I hollered about being on fire, swatted at the flame, and thankfully, Matt sprung into action. He quickly smothered out the flames and saved me from being burnt to a crisp.

~This is Matt sticking his arm through the hole, to show the damage done.
I did get slightly burned on my fingers and on the back of my right knee, but no worse than grabbing something hot out of the oven. No blisters, at least not on my fingers, I can't really get a good look at the back of my knee. No harm done though, except to my skirt ~ which I had specially made for me many years ago. I'm thinking about patching the hole from inside, with some fabric that has flames on it. Might as well have a good story and run with it.
A lesson was learned though. From now on, JUST IN CASE, we will be always keeping stuff outside for putting out a fire while brewing (or smoking food). Thankfully no-one was hurt, thankfully it wasn't a guest or one of our kids that caught on fire. Thankfully Matt was there to swiftly put me out, as Justin merely thought we were joking around and didn't believe I had caught on fire. Only Justin can find a way to get himself in trouble when I catch on fire!!! (He did come back to the bedroom as I was changing to make sure I was ok though).

We will be getting to keg some of the beer brewed yesterday, another first for us. So, expect another post for when that happens.

First Brews of 2009

Saturday turned out to be a very gorgeous day, so like many homebrewers across the valley, we headed outside to brew. We got started at 8:45 am, while it was about 45 degrees out. It quickly warmed up to 62 degrees though, which was quite nice.
We were especially fortunate today because of the amount that we were able to brew. We brewed two 10 gallon batches of all-grain beer: our stout, "Ruby's Deep Winter," and our brown ale "Back Porch Brown." In the top photo you can see the Back Porch Brown still finishing sparging, with the wort being collected in the bottom kettle. In the right side of the photo is our stout in it's final boil. We had decided to brew the stout, as St. Patrick's Day will be upon us soon and it just seems quite wrong to celebrate without a stout. St. Patrick's Day is not only special to us because of our love for beer but also because we were married that day ~ 2009 will be our 4th anniversary!

Here is another shot of the brown ale, March's competition beer for Star City Brewer's Guild, finishing sparging with the wort being collected in the bottom kettle.

One of the really great things about this particular brewing day was the reaction of our boys. They were both not only very interested in it all, but very excited about getting to help. In the above photo you can see Shannon helping add hops to the brown ale, in the bottom photo you can see Tristan getting his turn adding hops. Shannon has been very proud of the fact that he gets to help brew beer. And while we certainly don't condone underage drinking, teaching them about brewing beer is another matter.

We believe in being self-sufficeint and sustainable, and we practice urban-homesteading. Brewing our own beer is part of that. Since we're also homeschooling the boys, we like that in learning how to brew beer they are also learning stuff like volume measurements, some basic math skills, along with the processes of how things come to be. Shannon helps measure, weigh, and grind out the grain. In the summer we grow hops, so they learn about horticulture and caring for the land, as well as the plant. In the fall they get to see how the hops are harvested and stored. They also learn about safety, something that is every parents' concern, since there is boiling water and wort and flames on burners. So far they've managed to learn this lesson very well .. much better than the dogs who keep getting their fur singed!
All in all yesterday's brewing went pretty smoothly and much quicker than we had anticipated. Wind was a little bit of an issue, as it kept blowing out the burner. We were much luckier than some others who had not only burners being blown out, but lids being blown off, and even glasses being blown over! Both beers are now in the fermenters, chugging away like they ought to be. Our only dilemma of the day was using the "new" keg and having to pour some beer over the edge of it, into a fermenter. Hopefully this won't pose a major contamination threat. We will plan to drink that stout first though, just in case. Not like any beer, much less Ruby's Deep Winter Stout, sits around waiting to be drunk for very long here anyway!!