Back on the Hombie Horse

I finally got past that bullshit summer hangup I had, got off my ass, and got back on the Homebrew train. Actually, let me re-phrase that. Not only did I get on that train, I did it with a neckerchief tied around my mouth, and proceeded to hijack the bastard and send it straight to Awesomeville, Kick-assia.

Let's begin:

Last weekend, I ended up in Saratoga NY - basically a last minute trip I needed to take, mainly to grab some music gear from my Dad's basement for eventual transfer to The Bones' new basement Rock & Roll studio. More on that sweetness later.

Anyway, while I was there I decided to follow through on an idea I had been mulling ever since I left Boston: to brew my first Brett beer and allow it to simmer away in my Dad's basement for a year or so and see what happens. I found a new homebrew shop in 'Toga and had a good time hanging there with a couple local homebrewers. Actually, because of this random meeting I got hooked up with my first judging gig, which is something I've always wanted to do. More on THAT sweetness later.

After procuring the necessary 'ients, My Dad & I mashed and boiled a half batch of a Belgian Pale Ale.

5.5# Briess 2-row Malt
.5# Aromatic Malt
.5# Dextrine Malt.

I mashed it pretty high, around 154 or so. I wanted to create some dextrins for the Brett to work on (a trick I picked up from Vinnie Cilurzo). We hopped it modestly with Styrian Goldings, and started the fermentation off with some of the Belgian yeast we use at the Fish. (It's White Labs 530, for you obsessive types) I probably used too much, because the fermentation was a crazy mess, blowing crap out of the carboy even though it was only half full of wort. 36 hours later the krausen was dropping and I pitched a packet of Wyeast's Brettanomyces Bruxellensis. For the uninitiated, Brettanomyces is a type of wild yeast, this particular strain cultured from the indigenous micro-flora inhabiting the Brussels region. Brett is a slow working organism capable of surprising complexity and intensity given enough time and the proper conditions. Some people describe its characteristics as "sweaty horse blanket," but I think that's the most god awful disgusting thing you could say about a beer, and to be perfectly honest I've NO IDEA what a horse blanket smells like, let alone a sweaty one. So, I prefer to use words like: musty, earthy, barnyard, sour fruit, spicy. But that's just me. Gravity was 1.054 - a little lower than I wanted.
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Tonight:

12# Rahr 2-row Malt
.25# British 60L Crystal
.5# Dextrine Malt
1# Dextrose sugar

This is going to be another Russian River-esque IPA. I've attempted these in the past, but was never satisfied. I had always used whole flower hops, and with my system (boiling on the stove) I just don't think I was getting the hop utilization needed for a beer like Pliny. Tonight I'm using pellets in the hopes of finally getting that hop profile I have been looking for. Also, I'm treating my water with Gypsum to help lower my mash pH and to accentuate the hop flavor. Hop schedule is crazy...here goes

Bittering addition:
1 oz Summit 16.7 AA%
1 oz Simcoe 11.9 AA%

Followed by 3 late additions:
1 oz Columbus
.75 Simcoe
.75 Centennial

1 oz Centennial
.5 Columbus
1 oz Simcoe

1 oz Centennial
1 oz Summit
.75 Columbus

Also there will be 2 Dry additions, using similar hops.

I'm hoping to get the gravity in the low 1.07's -fermenting with my old favorite American yeast.

More details to come...I'm about to come up to a boil now.

James Brown on the computer speakers

Cyser in the glass

Life ain't too bad sometimes

Love

-Wrence

Ry's Saturday

It's been a crazy weekend for this little guy right here. To start, I had a ticket for Frday' sox game. So we went and I got loaded....thing is my cousin on my mom's side was at the game because she was up in Boston for a wedding this weekend. I regretfully met up with her at Game On. The place sucks, and that's the bottom line.

So, today rolls around. and after I finished creeping Angie out with my excessive hungoverness we went downtown. You see, I had another cousin in town. This one from my dad's side. So I met up with her, her husband, and their three kids guess where???? game on. Yes, twice in two days I went to this place more than I have been there since it opened.

After boozing at Game On, we stopped into the Pour House where our friend Eric was. Plowed through some wings and nachos there and then finally made our way home.

Once home, I realized that I needed to bottle my hefe and move my pale ale to secondary or risk drastic consequences. Well, I hate bottling, but I decided to make this time worth my while and so I plugged my ipod in while I got the work done. There really is nothing like listening to The Last Waltz under any circumstance. Earplugs plugged...I bottled my beer and did whatever else I had to do and it has never been so epic. As I type this right now I still have the plugs in my ears and Van Morrison is going through his Tura Tura Tura Tura Tura Tura Lura....it's so dope. You are all jealous.

I am gonna go now, the caravan is painted red and white after all.

&Ry

Brewreport

I brewed the pale ale I was planning today. It went relatively well with only a few of the minor fuckups that my brew sessions have come to be marked by. I continue to suffer from mediocre efficiency...and my attempts at doing a protein rest and raising the temp through a decoction didn't pan out exactly as I planned. Either way, I am certain this will still be a very tasty brew to be enjoyed be many in just a few weeks.

I also racked my hefe to secondary today...and I cheated a little taste as I was siphoning....this shit is gonna be delicious. If it turns out as planned, it will be the third hefe I have made that I have sweated the shit out of. Let's hope. I don't think it is done yet because the grav came in at about 1.015....I think it probably has another couple of points to go before it is fully finished. Looking at bottling this next Saturday....cross your fingers for me.

I am trying something new today...more for fun than for any other reason. I have been fucking around a bit more with ProMash and I also have been diddling a bit with GoogleDocs. As such, check the brew report for today's attempt. Thoughts?

See ya...
&Ry

My week so far

So after all that busyness described below, I am in a very enthralling period of latency at the moment. I have basically had this entire week off and have been spending a good deal of time at home. I recently decided that I no longer want to be overweight and have used these days to concentrate on reading my latest book, eating right and going for runs.

Boston Organics has made the former a lot easier. I can't remember if I have mentioned them before, but Angie and I have been getting deliveries from them "on the reg" for the past few months. This week's bin had an assload of awesome shit in it. Kale, collards, three zucchini, a big ass bunch of red leaf lettuce, the biggest fucking cucumber you have ever seen...I mean seriously...THE BIGGEST CUCUMBER EVER. So far I haven't been able to get myself to chop it up and saladify it...I am afraid it is going to try to run away or start begging for its life or something. Did I mention that it is fucking huge? So, yeah...Boston Organics makes it easier for me not to eat like shit.

I took advantage of the time and brewed a batch of beer on Sunday...a hefe...and will be brewing again on Saturday. I am giving the hefe a short primary because I usually wouldn't give it a secondary at all. However, since I need the big boy carboy for my next brew I am cutting the primary a little short and will give it a short secondary. The next brew on the horizon is the first one expressly designed and brewed for Angie's sister's wedding on 9/5. I am planning on pitching onto the cake of my summer blonde ale that I brewed 6 weeks or so ago. I also have enough hops left from recent brews to bitter with those. So my LHBS trip this afternoon was solely for the purpose of grabbing some grainage. Psyched to see that they got themselves a fancy new persian-style runner-type rug on the grain/fridge side of the shop. Classes the joint up a bit. Anyway....the 'pe looks a-like this:

8# British 2-Row
1.5# Munich Malt
1# Crystal 20
.75 oz Saaz 6.8%AA (60 Minutes)
.75 oz Tettnang 5.1% AA (30 Minutes)
I might throw some whole leaf Palisades in there for dry-hopping but I am not sure yet.
The cake I am throwing it on is Wyeast 1272

Anyway, I do most of my computing on Angie's lappy...but ProMash is on my desktop (yeah I still have one). So I was feeling lazy and googled "brew calculator" and came up with this place. It's not perfect, but I am willing to give it a shot for a bit as I simultaneously keep up with ProMash. I made a profile and stuff, so I think it will be easier to access and share my recipes as I go along. Give it a try, maybe we can be beerfriends.

&Ry

Heffe the Third

So, I will be brewing a Heffe for the third consecutive year in the days ahead. I have had pretty solid success with the style my previous two times and I hope that today is no different.

Angie has a friend in town (we'll call her Sharon for the sake of anonymity) who is to be attending the Fletcher School at Tufts in the fall...so she is checking out apartments today in the Davis Square area affording me the perfect opportunity to run into the LHBS and see what kind of trouble I can cause/nerds I can run into. I have to choose very non-descript clothing for days like this because if I somehow wear something that can serve as a conversation starter I may immediately find myself in the middle of a very awkward and unwelcome conversation. For instance, the guy whose back hair connects straight up to his head-hair seems to like to talk about sports with me oddly enough...which means I should probably leave all Mets paraphernalia at home. The guy who wears the leather biker's vest, on the other hand, seemed enamoured with my assless chaps last time I was in there...so I think those are a no-go as well. I am sure I will be able to settle on something that will allow me to go in, crush the unclesniffingbullhonkey out of some barley and wheat and get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.

Oh...the name for this bad boy will be Go Heffe Yourself. Surprised I didn't think of that one last year.

Bon Tidings.

&Ry

"I am a Craft Brewer" the MOVIE

There is no February

So, you may be wondering: what the hell happened to February?

I do apologize for the lack of updates. Truth be told, I just didn't have much to say. February pretty much sucks. It's my least favorite month. Sometime around Valentine's Day, when I still hadn't been inspired to post anything, I simply decided to BOYCOTT the whole month. But for you obsessive types, I'll give you a quick re-cap:

-It was nut-shrivellingly cold, and then
-It rained for 3 days, melting all the snow and revealing the accumulated street garbage of the entire winter.

I spent some time brewing, more time drinking, and a whole lot of time not-job-having.
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So let's move on.

The Mild finished perfectly at 1.011, and it tastes wonderful already at just 5 weeks of age. Chocolaty and a little roasty, and you would never guess this gentle guy comes in at a mere 4% booze-by-volume. Success!

I actually got together a 3rd "quick batch" recently. I must say, I have enjoyed brewing these low gravity beers so far; I never ventured into this territory before, back when time and space were not issues, but it has been a good learning experience for me, I think. The latest brew is a Belgian Pale Ale. I overshot my gravity a bit so this one may hit 5% bbv or so, but it's still pretty small by our standards here at 46 Tremont Street. This brew was partially inspired by Kevbones' brand new 55-pound bag of Franco-Belges Pale Ale malt. What better way to try it out than a nice Belgian Pale Ale?

7# Pale Ale Malt (MFB)
.5# Aromatic Malt (Dingeman's)
.5# Dextrine Malt
.25# Special B

Wyeast 1762, Abbey Ale II

Currently slowing down after 2 days of a wild, sulphur-throwing primary fermentation. Temps were right on so I am assuming the sulphur is normal with this yeast; I'm not worried.

Anyhoo, It's March 1st, and it's snowing again. I must admit that I will be happy once this winter is over, the weather improves, the days are longer, and I hopefully will be less unemployed than I am now. The job search continues, I am undaunted, but still it wears at one's soul in a way few other things do. Will keep you posted.

-Wrence

2009 Brewing

So, I wasn't exactly planning on doing too much brewing after coming back from California; the reason being that I am not exactly sure how much longer I will be here. But, let's be Frank, I'm going to be here for at LEAST a few more weeks if not much longer. So, Frank, I decided to brew a quick turn-around Pale Ale early this month, in the vein of a Russian River styled hoppy beer.

8.5# 2-row (U.S.)
.5# Dextrine Malt

.5 oz Chinook -60 min
.5 oz Chinook -30 min
2 oz Chinook -0 min

Dry hop#1:
.5oz Chinook
.5oz Amarillo

Dry hop#2:
.5oz Centennial

Wyeast 1056
SG: 1.051
44 BUs

Dry hop #1 went into the primary after fermentation subsided. The beer was then racked off of the hops into secondary, where Dry hop #2 was added. Both were about 5-day rests.
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That beer is in bottles now. It finished BONE dry at a frightening 1.006 - But it still tastes solid as all get out.

So last night I decided, "Shit, Frank - we will definitely need more beer than just that." The decision was made to brew up an even quicker turn-around, mega low-gravity beer that I could have in bottles within 2 weeks. The idea of a Belgian Wit reared its fruity head, but then the idea of doing a Mild Ale hit me and I didn't look back. These beers can start out in the 1.03s, for shit's sake, and still be very flavorful. Also I thought the roasted character that some exhibit would be a good drinker for the month of February. I ALSO also decided to make this a larger batch, and bottle it right out of my 6.5 gallon primary fermenter.

Here are the details:

(5.5 gallong batch)

6.5# Maris Otter Malt
.5# Crystal 120
.3# Chocolate Malt
.25# Crystal 60
(I kind of whiffed on the crystal malts when at the brewstore, RyToy style, not sure how or why I ended up with what I did - it does look a bit odd)

.3oz Chinook -60 min
.2oz Chinook -15 min

Wyeast Northwest Ale Yeast
18 BUs
SG: 1.046 (which was WAY higher than I wanted. I was looking for 1.038. So I diluted the wort the following morning with another .5 gallon of sterile water to take it down to 1.042)

The yeast choice was partially a reaction to my over-attenuated XPA, and also due to that just being what they had at the brewstore...and it was mega fresh. I knew I wanted something that was a low attenuator, and I have always wanted to try this yeast, but never would have with any of my normal gravity beers.
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So that's the update on the Brew crap. Otherwise I am just hanging out & sending out resumes. There has been some good feedback from some of these brewers, but not job offers yet. Also, Thursday night was CBC's Barleywine Fest, which is always a blast. The Greeks joined me, as well as Tom from the Balazs Clan fame. Lit is the word I would use to describe how I got.

Peace out, January.
-Wrence

Year-End Hombrew totals

2008:

10 Gallons MEAD
70 Gallons BEER

a slight drop from last years totals (105 gallons beer, 5 gallons mead)

-Wrence

January 3rd ramblings

Holiday Re-cap aXesome `09!!!!!

Sorry, I'm not entirely confident that this post will actually live up to that title, but here she goes:

AwseomeMas was pretty cool. My flight back east from San Fran was deeeelllllaaayyyyyed -like you read about; I ended up landing at 3:30am on the morning of the 25th. It was pretty dope actually, once it was all over. V, bless her Greek heart, was super-cool enough to set her alarm and drive out to the airport in the middle of the night for the pickup (and this only a day after her mother arrived for a 2 week visit). A Solid.

After a few hours sleep I commuter-rallied to my Mom's house in the suburbs....upon exiting the train and looking 200 yards down to the parking lot, I spotted some idiot in a full-on Santa suit. The Idiot turned out to be none other than The 'Bones himself, one of my All-time favorite idiots, waiting to pick me up at the station. Another Solid.

What then followed was about 3 or 4 days of eating & drinking. RyToy & I had a fond re-unionizing at the venerable Redbones BBQ, Toy's favorite place for stuffing beer & food into his craw. He had his new camera with him and we took about 100 pictures, most of which feature us pretending to be a gay couple for some reason. Hopefully he will post a few choice ones up here at some point. Toy & I also hit the brewstore a few days later; We met a nice lesbian homebrewer; Ry ended up brewing something and I got some yeast ready for hopefully a quick brew sesh while I'm still hanging around Boston. Will keep you posted.

I hit CBC on new year's eve to catch up with those guys. Brought Ben a bottle of Pliny the Elder, which I don't think he was expecting at all. Good times. Will gifted me a bottle of the 2008 Blunderbuss, which they bottled for limited release at their NYE party and possibly sales at the bar later this year. Very Solid. I'll be back over there next week to talk to Will about my future & hopefully come up with some more concrete ideas as to what I'm doing next. Will keep you posted.

OH: also the Balazs clan was in town for 3 days around the year's end. The typical insanity ensued. I havent seen drinking like that in a long time. And my January 1st hangover was one of my worst, All-time. They kept it going an extra day, though, mind-blowingly.

Cheers to you, readers; wishing you all the beast for Twenty o-nine.

-Wrence

Heat, Greeks, and..........IPA

So a few weeks ago it started to get REALLY fucking cold in Boston. For reals. I thought to myself, goddamit, we're going to have to start running the heat in this piece. The "piece" is our apartment. "We" is me and the Greeks. I was trying to guess which one of them would break and turn the heat on first...it was a tough call. About a week later, heat still not turned on, I mentioned to Vanessa that I wasn't going to be the one to break. Vanessa is a tough little competitor and assured me that it would not be her either. Once Gena found out about this (and that we had both placed heavy odds on her to be the first one to break) it turned into a sort of tough-guy contest, complete with psychological mind-games and much taunting. I woke up every morning this week to a 56-degree house....unreal.
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So anyway, we'll get back to that a little later.

Last night I brewed what is almost definitely the last batch of beer for 2008 (I'll be away most of the time until after Christmas) and what could possibly be the last beer I ever brew at 46 Tremont. (tear drips down face) Anyway, I figured I should go out with guns blazing. Also I figured I might want to actually USE some of that POUND of fresh 2008 hops I have in the feeezer. Do you smell Double IPA? -I do!

Here's what we did

Grains
12.5# Pale Malt (domestic)
1# Munich Malt
.5# Cara-pils
.5# Cara-malt (UK)

yeast was a slurry of wyeast 1272 from the stout I brewed a few weeks back.

Hops....deep breath, here we go:

First, here are the alpha numbers (all hops are whole flowers, 2008 harvest)
Chinook, 13%
Amarillo, 9.3%
Centennial, 9%

Bittered the beer with 1.25 ounces of Chinook for 60 minutes

3 late additions went in during the end of the boil; one at 15 minutes, at 5 minutes, and at knock-out. Each charge was the same: a sort of hop BOMB consisting of a half-ounce of each variety; Chinook, Amarillo, and Centennial. The BOMBS weighed 1.5 ounces each, so when all was said and done there was nearly 6 ounces of hop flowers in the kettle. And oh yea, I will dry-hop with another one of these same additions. (Note: each time I dropped a BOMB into the kettle, the whole house exploded with amazing aromas)

If that last paragraph did not make you want to drink beer, please stop reading this and go turn yourself into the police immediately, sicko.

The gravity ended up around 1.077 - with a good fermentation* we might hit 9% booze-by-volume, which would be perfect in my book. And my book kicks ass. When I get back from the apprenticeship at the end of December, the first thing I am going to do will be to open up one of these bros and drink the shit out of it.
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*Ah, yes -this is where we bring it all together. In regards to a "good fermentation," I like to start off at around 63 degrees and slowly let it warm up to about 67 to finish off...in my experience, and with my taste in Pale Ales, this is what gets me the best results. This morning I once again woke up to a 56-degree house....the beer had a meek Krausen going and was struggling to fight at 60 degrees. I sighed, sighed again louldly, sighed loudlier, and reluctantly turned the heat on.

You hear that, you Goddam GREEKS?! I BROKE! I TURNED THE FUCKING HEAT ON!!

Go ahead.....do your worst. I'm prepared to live with the consequences of my actions. You'll thank me this weekend when you're sitting on MY GODDAM COUCH enjoying the toasty apartment drinking my Goddam beer which I work so hard to make. But I broke, and there's no denying it.

-Wrence

Redbones, Stainless Steel, &....IPA

Ah, so what's happening......let's see

Last Friday Kevbones came over and hung out with the Greeks & I. We got a bit sauced at my place and then hit Redbones for some food and some of the Pacific Northwest beers they bring in to town every year around this time. It was great, though I wish I could remember more about what I drank (typical...).

Also this weekend I cowboy'd up and bought an alkali cleaning detergent for my 10 gallon stainless steel brew kettle. In the 3+ years I've been using it, it's gotten nary more than a hot water rinse & a green scrub attack at the end of each use. This has kept it mostly clean, but over time some organic deposits start to cook on to the bottom & sides, and beer stone will begin to build up as well. It also happened to be the week where we went over this stuff in brew school so I thought the time was ripe for me to tackle this project.

I used this stuff called B-Brite, giving the kettle a soak overnight and then a good scrubbing. This took off almost every trace of soil from the kettle. (TIP: use and alkali cleaner to remove organic deposits, and use and acid cleaner to remove stone build-up.) I then gave it a rinse, let it dry, then filled the thing up with a Star-San solution. I had hoped that the acidity of the Star-San would knick the remaining stone residue, and also help to re-passivate the stainless. All I know, is that now my kettle is GLEAMING like new.
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Also this weekend I watched like 20 episodes of LOST.
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So, this week is another standard week with school/work/crap. Next week is our 2nd big exam so I'll be quite busy again I'm sure. (scan back to the first week of September on Bros11 to hear about the previous exam). School will be wrapping up shortly, and while I still have not gotten final word on where I'll be apprenticing, I'm still wicked psyched and a little anxious - but in a good way.
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Heading to the brewstore tonight for grain. I'm thinking of a big, beautiful IPA for my potentially last homebrew at 46 Tremont. Anyway, I should be able to have this thing bottled by the time I head to Vermont on Nov 17th, and it will be the first beer I open at the end of 2008 when I get back from the apprenticeship.

More to come on all these fronts...stay tuned

-Wrence

Pumpkin Soup/Columbus Day

So the Stout turned up at 1.063.....that's about 16 Plato for you geeks out there. Nice indeed.

Today is the quintessentially perfect fall day, made all the more so by the fact that my hands are now stained "Oompa-Loompa Orange" and reek of pumpkin. I plan to use up some of the hundred or so gallons of chicken stock I have laying around as a result of last weeks' Chicken Carcasses: The Stockening, in which I went nuts and simmered up all the random carcasses & bones which had been piling up in my freezer. Seriously, what the shit am I going to do with all this stock?

Anyway, the pumpkin soup should be good...imagine a nice, creamy, savory soup with a touch of nutmeg hidden away...and then imagine yourself sprinkling some crispy bacon on top of it. Yea, that's how we do Columbus day at 46 Tremont.

-Wrence

Jonny Greenwood - Stout

Right now I am finishing up on a stout brew day, and listening to the Bodysong soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood. It is typically twisted and crazy...and it's somehow just perfect. Could be my hangover, or general lack of attention span, I'm not entirely sure. Right now it's on that jazzed up track that sounds like something from Coltrane, mid-sixties era. Awesome. Some of these songs ended up as part of Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood as well. But, I digest...

Anyway, about this beer. I was thinking for about a month that I needed to try a stout again. It has been years since I made one, and I've never been super stoked with my past results. So I considered taking myself to school, so to speak, by brewing your basic Irish Dry Stout. You know the kind; Pale Malt, Flaked Barley, and Roasted Barley. Simple and to the point. BUT: then I started thinking about all the 2008 hops I just got in the mail and then also remembered "Oh yea, I generally enjoy more than 4% alcohol in my beers, especially during the freaking winter." The decision made itself.

Behold, your average kick-awesome American Stout (partially inspired by the Sierra Nevada stout)

7# Pale Malt (U.K.)
1.5# Munich Malt
.75# Cara-Munich I
.5# Flaked Barley
.5# Roasted Barley
.5# Black Malt

Pacific Gems were used for the bittering charge, shooting for 44 IBUs
1.5 oz Amarillo - 10 mins
1 oz Centennial -knock out

Fermenting with my old favorite, Wyeast 1272. God, 1272, I missed you so! I swear those belgian girls over the summer meant nothing to me! NOTHING, I SAY!

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Tomorrow is Columbus day. Even though Cristobal Colon was a dick, I am still going to enjoy the day off. I think pumpkin soup will be on the agenda...

-Wrence

Coo-coo for Cacao

Today I ditched work.

This morning after coffee I roasted the cacao beans in the oven. I started them off around 400 and slowly lowered the temp to about 300 for a total of 20-25 minutes roasting time. The house smelled glorious. If you are trying it yourself, what you want to hear is the popping sound of the water evaporating from the beans. Afterward, we removed the husks, which was quite easy to do just by hand. Separating them out was a little trickier, but no big deal. Then, they were easily crushed with the back of a spoon and dumped right into the black beer, which is now 2 weeks old.

One snag in this whole plan came about when I went to buy the cherries. I was wondering a few weeks ago when the cherry "season" officially ends, so I went out to whole foods and was happy to see that there were cherries in abundance there. For some inexplicable reason, I DIDN'T BUY ANY, somehow confident that they'd still be there for me when I eventually needed them. Turns out, the end of cherry "season" was approximately now.

SO, after futile trips Wednesday night to 2 or 3 different Whole Foods stores, and also the Harvest Coop, and even after Vanessa drove me around to Shaw's and Stop & Shop, I finally gave up and started re-thinking the whole plan. But it was quite evident that I needed to press on with the original idea. I thought about getting dried cherries and re-hydrating them in some brandy or something, but the ingredient lists for same always included some kind of vegetable oil, presumably to keep them from sticking together in one gross congealed cherry orgy. As we all know, lipids do not play nice with beer, so that idea was written off. I ended up finding jarred sour cherries, not a pie mix, mind you, just pitted cherries in a sugar water brine, with the only other ingredient being food-grade citric acid, which I am fine with. So I chopped the shit out of them and added I think about 1.5 pounds. Oh, also a vanilla bean got in there as well. Here is a video of the first blurp from the airlock after I sealed the fermenter back up.




(Yea, I was rocking Dark Side while all this went down -Cheers, Richard Wright). Normally at that point in the day, I would have been at work, just finishing my coffee and reluctantly getting around to checking my voice mails. This was a much better use of my time, I think.
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In about 30 minutes Diesel & Liz are expected; tonight we are seeing Sigur Ros at the Bank of America Pavilion (or whatever the shit they call it these days) which is probably my favorite venue in town to see a show. Should be tight. I've never seen this band though I've been a fan for a long time. Also, it should be noted that while I'm not POSITIVE, I think The Bones and I have totally kick-awesome seats. More to come on that later

Peace
-Wrence

Our Amazing World, (science-style)

This will be the first of a new regular column here at Bros11 (no, it won't) dealing with topics in current science (don't worry, it won't).

I'm sure we've all heard much about this new particle accelerator thingee all those physicists have built out in Europe somewhere, and to be fair it IS realy impressive, but the name....come ON, guys: the name needs some work.

Behold, the Large Hadron Collider

One would think, given the truly unbelievable amount of sheer brain power it must have taken to conceive of, design, build, and operate such an amazing piece of equipment, that they could have come up with something, ANYTHING more creative than that. Those guys must have just burned out that part of their brains while spending so many years studying freakin bosons or leptons or whatever.

This reminds me of some other names I've come across over the last year or so that have given me a laugh.

These are all real:

The Very Small Array

The Very Large Array

The Very Long Baseline Array (at which they engage in "very long baseline interferometry" -no joke)

also, I came across something called, inexplicably: The Large Millimeter Telescope -oh, it's a LARGE millimeter....I get it now.

My only guess is that eventually we will see such marvels as the "Wicked Tall Ladder to the Moon" and the "Freakin Tiny-Ass Robots "

Keep it coming, science!

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Anway, enough of that crap.

Last night, I dry-hopped my latest pale ale; I plan to bottle it Sunday. Also I fed my 1056 starter that I am building up for the new Mead (a Cyser, specifically), which I also hope to put together Sunday. I just have to get that black beer out of the fermenter first, but it should be ready for secondary by then anyway. Also, I just came back from the farmer's market (gov't center) where I bought about 4 pounds of locally-grown peaches & nectarines, upon which I'm going to age the new mead. Thirsty?

-Wrence

The State of the Brew-ion

Just thought I'd get up a quick update on all the beering, seeing as how my last mention of hombrew was over a month ago after I had made the Rochefortesque beer.

So, Rochefortesque has been in the bottle for about 3 weeks now. I am not in a hurry to open one for a few reasons: 1- it is a pretty strong beer at around 9% booze by volume and will probably need another month or so to really come into its own; and, 2 - it was somewhat under-attenuated finishing at 1.019 - which would be nice for a barley wine or even a huge double IPA, but for a delicate Belgian beer I would have liked to have seen 1.015 -at most. Also, while I didn't taste it during bottling (I was WAY too hungover to even sip any of it) it still smelled strongly of the syrup I used, which in my experience takes 3-6 months before it starts to fade into the background, even then almost grudgingly so. I plan to throw one in the fridge tonight so we can try it this weekend.

And yes, I did brew that Belgiany-IPAish sort of beer to which I made a passing mention. Really the only reason for this brew was that we were running low in the house and I needed to make something immediately, but it was still just too warm (early August) to ferment with American yeast. But I took an American approach to this, aiming for a sessionably hoppy beer. The Achouffe yeast was selected based on its kick-assitude and also how it drops wicked bright right away. Domestic malts took me to about 1.048 and then generous whole flower Summit, Liberty, and Crystal hops got involved at all points. Looking at about 40 IBUs for that one...it has been in the bottle for 2 weeks and should be ready now. And because I'm a dork, I named it "Houblon Belgique." I'll throw a few in the fridge tonight as well, hopefully this weekend will see 2 new drinkables for us. That is, once I finish my first major exam for brew school (no drinks until I get this thing done - it's a BEAR).

Once we finally saw some cooler temperatures in Boston towards the end of August, I got in another session ale, this one featuring all whole Crsytal flowers and my standard American yeast. It's about to be racked and dry-hopped tonight. I plan to harvest and "wash" some of the yeast from the fermenter bottom for use in the next batch:

Black Forest Ale

I've long wanted to make a black beer with that de-husked caraffa stuff, which is supposed to give you nice color and chocolate-like aromas WITHOUT the harshness or astringency usually associated with the dark roasted malts. We shall soon see for ourselves! I've ordered some on the internets!! It ARRIVED VIA UPS!! Why all the excalmation points?!?!? I DON'T KNOW!

I'm planning on a Maris Otter base, up to about 1.060, with some Munich and perhaps a touch of regular old chocolate malt (depending on how things look in the mash tun), and hopping will be super-minimal as I plan to subject this base beer to a mad scientist-type flavoing regime: In secondary will go several* ounces of cocao nibs, and a touch* of vanilla bean for balance, and then several* pounds of sour cherries. Have you ever had Black Forest cake? Well, there you go. The key to the whole thing either sucking or kicking ass will be the requisite sweetness of the base beer, as I adamantly refuse to use lactose sugar to sweeten this brew (I'm talking to YOU, Southern Tier Creme Brulee Stout) I'll keep everyone posted - this should get boiled at the end of the week current.

Also somewhere on the horizon is another batch of Mead; this time probably a Cyser to celebrate probably some sort pagan harvest kind of thing that may not even really exist but does in my head each year at this time. Basically I dance around my apartment wearing a burlap bag, making batch after batch of chili, drinking brandy in ecstatic enjoyment of cooler weather and fresh autumn produce. For two months. I might dump in some peaches into secondary on that bitch as well, just because I like to party.

PS: If you talk to RyToy, ask him how The Boss is doing. Just ask him.

-Wrence

*These are of course, incredibly accurate measurements - NEVER question the brewer

Pandora, Elvis, and IPA

So, as I might have mentioned, I've been rocking pandora.com lately. Especially at work, now that I have this geektastic headset thingy which handles all the sounds on my compy (and also acts as my phone). Anyway, a band that keeps coming up, The Decemberists, has been on my mind all day. When I first started hearing about these guys last year I kind of just tossed them on "the pile" of whiney, fake-angsty, midwest, tortured, white middle-class guy-kind of bands, but now I'm not so sure. Like, I'm listening to this track called "The Engine Driver" and it's nearly making me cry...which could appear odd, seeing as how I'm supposed to be investigating commercial claims right now. Anyway, I just can't tell if they are actually really good, or just another one of these cliche "alternative" bands that really have nothing to say....I mean, you might as well be Coldplay for christsakes. Someone once told me that they thought "Yellow" was a great love song - I nearly puked on my lap! You want to hear a love song by a guy who is actually in love? Check out "Still" by Elvis Costello. But, I digest...

(yea, he's serious)

So - the last week was slow. I don't think I've discussed this here yet, but I'm in Brew School now. It's pretty freakin' splendid.* I tend to spend a good amount of time on schoolwork every night now, so these posts may get even MORE infrequent (if that's even possible), so I apologize. But don't worry, there will still be ample opportunities for me to further embarrass myself on the interwebs, I'm sure.

As far as the adult beverage production goes, we are very active at 46 Tremont this summer. There has been a lot of consumption and subsequently a crap-load of brewing as well. I pulled off that Rochefortesque beer a few weeks ago, and this weekend I'll be cooking another Belgian, probably more hoppy, almost IPA-ish, but lower gravity. The goal there is to have a nice, late-summer session brew but have it still be interesting. I'll post the recipes for both later tonight; I'm heading to the brewstore after work for grains & yeast. I know the suspense must be unbearable, but please just try to go about the rest of your day as if everything is normal!

-'Wrence
* this is the first time I have ever used "splendid" in such a sense. please tell me if it should also be the last

Of Rose Petals and Lobster

Brewed the Persian Spice beer last week. On hand was the venerable KevBones, who hadn't been to my house since, well....New Years day 2008; also the Deboras joined us halfway through the session. Things went well. Here are the essentials:

(all the grain used was from Dingeman's Malterie -straight up Belgian, BITCH)

5# Pilsner malt
4# Pale malt
12 Oz Aromatic malt
12 Oz Cara-Pils

.5# Honey (added at last minute of boil)


White Labs 530 (abbey....someone.)




Hoppage was a modest .5 Oz of Summit at 45 minutes, just to provide a balancing bitterness. No late kettle additions were needed due to the spice mixture added at knock-out.

The spice mixture was interesting; I made it directly from the recipe in Chef Ana Sortun's great book. My initial guess was that I'd use 1/4 to maybe 1/2 of the spice mix, but once it was combined, smelled, and weighed out, I decided that I'd start with half and see how the wort took to it. We ended up steeping for about 10 minutes before we began chilling. The spices were very mellow and subdued so I added about another 1/4 of the mix into the kettle and then started chilling. We shall pray to Ninkasi that I didn't take a cool idea and completely fuck it up.

Fermentation was ideal, I must say; starting at 68 and slowly creeping up to 74 over the course of 5 days. When all is said and done half of this will go into a case of those nice 330ml Trappist bottles, and half into a case of Champagne bottles which I will cork finish for kick-awesome presentationery. If the beer is actually worth a damn, a few bottles will go down the street to Oleana as a gift.


So that was Wednesday.

Thursday night, DG Lewis showed up at my place fresh from San Francisco CA, via New Hampshire, in a rented Ford Mustang that was so stupidly sweet we couldn't help whipping donuts and peeling out everywhere we went all weekend; which ended up being to Waldoboro, Maine. I had never been before. It was.....remote. Peaceful. Bucolic I believe was tossed around as well. Anyway, we spent about $200 on seafood, local beer, and fresh produce; then spent the better part of the next 24 hours swimming, cooking, playing tunes on about 10 different musical instruments that were laying around DG's Brother's house up there, and ripping down this zip-line they had set up between some trees on their property (like I said, REMOTE) as this was the main form of entertainment these guys have up there. If you're lucky I might be able to post a video of my virgin zip down this thing. Stay tuned for comedy.

One last thing; we here at Bros11 have had a crazy flurry of hits lately, from all over the fucking place - neither RyToy nor I are quite able to explain what happened. Anyway, new to our ever expanding list of internationals: France (Bonjour, mon ami!), Greece, Israel, Slovenia, Germany, another Aussie, and last but not least impressive, Saudi Arabia. WELCOME CITIZENS OF EARTH. WE LOVE YOU ALL!

-'Wrence


(ps: I forgot to mention the American Craft Beer festival where I, in addition to getting completely butt-drunk, also had the most geeky awkward conversation ever with Garrett Oliver, who's like the coolest guy in the world. I suck!)

Je Suis Beer-ing

(the title of this post is an actual sentence that appears on my fridge via magnetic force)

Busy busy with the beer already

Weather has been kind, just warm enough during the day and cool enough at night for me to put my stupid A/C unit back on the bench. It's nice. Even got in another swim at Walden Pond this weekend, and another session with Smokey Joe in the driveway.

But on with the adult beverages:

Friday night: after catching the replay of Holland/France (the Orange look so sick right now) I got to bottling the Summer Wheat beer alluded to here. Final gravity was a bit low at 1.008 or so, but it tasted awesome, dry and almost cracker-like, yet still an almost sweet suggestion on the palate (likely due to the low IBUage). Me so happy.

Sunday: after the making and stuffing into my face of eggs benedict, the kitchen was cleaned and I was off to the brew store to redeem a free White Labs vial; the species was 530, "Abbey Ale." Back at home, I blasted through another bottling session with the help of a few of the Greeks; it's amazing how much easier and faster bottling is when you have 2 people to help/do all the work for you. This was the new Mead which was mentioned back here. The bastard fermented down to 0.996! On normal beer yeast, none the less -OMG!1! I was colored quite impressed. The only thing here was, I couldn't enter anything lower than 1.000 on amateur mash when I tried to calculate the booze-by-volume (unsing the refractometer trick) so It's somewhat of a guess to say that this one is hovering around 9-10% bbv. Oh yea, it tasted awesome, and is still only 5 weeks old. Then I racked the pale ale brewed last week, and dry-hopped it with another ounce of Sterling flowers. Ohh yea, also I started the shit out of that abbey yeast and we are...

Onward to the next brew

While discussing the idea of using rose petals in a beer, Gena mentioned a Persian spice combo they use at Oleana, which is sort of their take on a Chinese 5-spice or an American pumpkin spice mix (by the way, check out Chef Ana Sortun's awesome book, Spice for details). The basic gist is mostly dried rose petals and cinnamon, with some other stuff like coriander and black pepper, all of which I could imagine going well in a medium-bodied Belgian Ale, which is exactly what I decided to do. More on that later in the week as I'm still finalizing & conceptualizing at present. Please just leave me alone for a few minutes while I conceptualize, I beg you.

Also - Donald Gordon "A.O. Smith" Lewis is scheduled to appear at my house later this week. I fear for my poor, poor roomates. As an added bonus to this post, since Donnie does not read blogs, I leave you with a shirtless photo of him listening to me serenade him on his porch in San Fransico (and no, he does not live in the Castro).

-'Wrence