Brewing on . . . and moving on . . .

Kev, your refound interest in brewing got me moving. Just finishing off [drinking] my first batch of home-brew in three or so years - the infamous Pink Eye(I.) P. A.. No new cases of pink eye since bottling, glad to report.

Below is the view from my current place, which I'll kiss goodbye to on March 30th. Looking forward to a new place this month . . . and a much larger monthly payment (for only 200 feet more. WHY?). And a more urban view (oh dear.).

Please visit! Any season, any day.

photo

Major talent.
Another major talent.
In general.

Bunk/Omar

Brewer's Log

The Baron
of Brewer's Log is a full-flegded Homebrewer. You know how I know? Because even though he's been at brewing for a little over a year, he has brewed and all-grain beer. In the time that I've been brewing, I've never brewed an all-grain beer. But The Baron has done it. I'm jealous. I've never had the time, the patience, the space. . . But The Baron has done it. And if The Baron keeps his brewing space half as clean as his website Brewer's Log, then he's got me beat on two fronts. The Baron is a person after my own heart. Steady beer updates on each beer, recipes, advice, and commentary. . .check it out!

I almost forgot, you can click regularly on the link in the new links section just under MP3 Blogs

The Thief. . .

Oh that's hot.

Speaking of hot peppers, the Bhut Jolokia (bhut = ghost, probably due to its ghostly bite or introduction by the Bhutias from Bhutan poison chili) is currently the hottest pepper in the world and I just received my seeds today from the New Mexico State University.

"In February 2007, Guinness World Records certified the bhut jolokia (Prof. Bosland's preferred name for the pepper) as the world's hottest chili pepper."

"In 2005 at New Mexico State University Chile Pepper Institute near Las Cruces, New Mexico, Regents Professor Paul Bosland found Naga jolokia grown from seed in southern New Mexico to have a Scoville rating of 1,001,304 SHU by HPLC"

- In comparison, this is twice as hot as my Carribean Habaneros I grew last year which have a rating of 550,000 SHU.

This might make a good beer ingredient!

The Sermon

"'The ribs and terrors in the whale,
Arched over me a dismal gloom,
While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,
And left me deepening down to doom,

"I saw the opening maw of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there;
Which none but they that feel can tell--
Oh I was plunging to despair,

"In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints--
No more the whale did me confine.

"With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.

"My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power'"

--Herman Melville, Moby Dick

I'm Still Bitter!

I spent a quiet part of today following (and of course modifying) a recipe for an ESB. The actual name the creator gave it was Big Brother Bitter, and in light of recent news from the FBI (or the last 7 years in general) I found it fitting.

The ingredients (modified) are as follows:

3.5 lbs Light Extract (hopped)
4 lbs Extra Light Extract
1 lb Crystal Malt 60
1 lb Munich Malt (Special)
24 oz Clover Honey
2 oz Kent Goldings Hops (5%AA)
1 oz Nugget Hops (13.5%AA)
1 tsp Irish Moss
5 tsp Gelatin Finnings
5 gal H2O
White Labs English Ale Yeast

Place Crystal Malt and Munich Malt in seperate mesh socks and submerge in 2 gallons of cold water. Turn the heat on and bring to a boil. Remove grain socks and squeeze as much water out of them as possible before discarding them in a trash can full of empty beer bottles.

Be sure to take the trash out as soon after the process of brewing as possible because the mice you've been tolerating for the winter in your kitchen will likely find them as much a treat as you do.

Add the remaining malt extracts, honey, and 1 oz of Kent Goldings Hops and allow to boil. . .not boil over. When the wort threatens to boil over just remove the pot from the burner until the bubbles settle back down. After doing this about 8-9 times the wort magically does not boil over. There is some science behind it but I forget exactly what happens.

While the wort is boiling, go ahead and sanitize your bucket. It's likely that, even though you washed it out after your last batch, it's covered in bacteria. If nothing else, if your last batch was especially strong (7.9%) or particularly flavorful (mud) there will still be some odor (Superman) left over from before. Make sure that you have enough sanitizer (or bleach) before you start the entire process or you could be up a creek.

Don't forget to stir occasionally.

After about 45 minutes, toss in the second ounce of Kent Goldings Hops, watch for tendency to boil over again, but basically just bask in the aroma that is wafting through your place. After another half hour toss in the Nugget Hops and the teaspoon of Irish Moss and continue boiling for 15 minutes.

Dump the wort into your bucket, add the remaining water, and seal tightly with the airlock in place. Now for the exciting part! In the past I've been keeping the water in the freezer to reduce cooling time and waiting until the next morning, generally, to pitch the yeast. I cooled the water today and also filled the bathtub with cold water where I placed the bucket. After 2 hours the temperature was 66 degrees!! Why hadn't I thought of that before? 2 hours!!! Easy peezy. Just after pitching the yeast I remembered to take a gravity reading using my new tool, "The Thief" (formal introductions some other time):

It was about 1.068 OG. No idea what to expect regarding alcohol content. One big mistake I made, and did not mention, may have a significant impact on alcohol content. If you notice in the picture above, the product is cloudy, full of pieces of grain, hops, etc. Gelatin (and Irish Moss for that matter, but in a different way) serves to clean the beer by weighting down particles of crud and sinking them. Be aware that gelatin finnings are added just before bottling, not prior to fermentation. Why would this be a problem? We do not need gelatin latching onto the yeast and sinking it before it can produce the alcohol it so wants to produce. But what would brewing be without a little ignorant risk taking?

UPDATE: At a little over 24 hrs, the fermentationis picking up speed. Temperature has jumped 7 degrees to 75F! Not great but what can one do on a shoestring?
UPDATE: 48hrs after pitching the yeast we are off and rolling. So much so that the temp is now 77 degrees. O well, we get what we get. Esters or not. Luckily there have been no explosions!
UPDATE:
Oh geez. Last night we reached an intolerable 81 degrees, quite higher than what is acceptable, and frankly higher than the temperature in my apartment. "Esters" beware! Today, to look at it, things have slowed a bit. You watch the airlock and nothing happens for a few seconds, then furious amounts of CO2 issue from the top, then nothing for a few seconds. . . Folks, we are 72 hrs into fermentation. I give it until Saturday before it's time to re-rack. Then we'll see what happens, take a current gravity reading, and have a first sip from The Thief. . . and so on.
UPDATE: 84 hours after pitching the yeast the temp is at 75 degrees, some bubbling in the airlock about every 30 seconds. The fruity brewery smell is mellowing to a floral hoppy smell which is hopeful. It will likely have fruity esters but hopefully they will blend well with the hops in the end. I don't smell any buttery popcorn or sulphur, but definitely yeast at this point. I'm tempted to crack it open and look in, but I know better. For now I'll just have to imagine a pale brown-green Krausen. I may not be able to re-rack until Sunday. But we'll see.
UPDATE (3/18):
I re-racked the beer today. It's possible that adding the gelatin finnings prior to fermentation had an impact, I'm not sure. However, I don't think I've ever brewed a beer this clear before!!!7 days after pitching the yeast, this is what the beer looks like. The OG was 1.068 and the FG at this point is 1.018. I can't say, from looking at it, that much is going to change over the next week but the sample here had a bit of a CO2 bite to it, so maybe there is still work to be done! Wouldn't that be nice. Current approximate alcohol is 6.45%. Quite hoppy!
UPDATE (3/24): I waited about 3 days after I re-racked it and nothing at all was going on with it so I bottled it! Still a little bit of yeast and hops had taken the time to settle out, so that was good. I didn't think there was anything left to settle! At any rate, bottling went off without a hitch and it's been sitting. I admit, last night I had a few. I wanted to see if it was indeed carbonating and, well, it is. But of course it's still pretty flat at this point. Flat and crystal clear. And buttery. And hoppy. The hops are a little spicy. And it's bitter and sweet, I think from the honey. Bubbles will do it a whole world of good. And chilled too.

Shenandoah foothills, 6:30 am

On the extraordinarily rare occasions I'm not up extremely late drinking, I sometimes like to wake up at an ungodly hour and go driving.

This is about 80 miles due south-southwest from Sterling VA plus or minus a few degrees on Saturday morning just after sunrise.

This Week While Workin'

Wilco News

Six Eyes, which is not a half bad site, reports on the new Wilco news and inludes a song off the new album.

Joe and Cebar; Sales Woman Picks Nose.