Tag: Home brewing

Calling CQ

Calling CQ is still a weird thing for me. I mostly just spin the dial and hope to find someone else calling CQ; or even better someone calling CQ DX or CQ Contest. These are great because it’s a narrow set of conversational topics. You get an RST, you give an RST, you exchange QTH and probably a handle and maybe compare equipment. Then you move on.

For an introvert like me, this is tops because I get to make a contact and send off a QSL card (and hopefully get one back) without having to stumble through an open-ended conversation.

I’ve called CQ myself twice since the HF rig went on the air at the beginning of September. The first call resulted in a nice QSO with a ham in central Pennsylvania. A bit generic, but nice. And I was so frazzled at the end of that I dropped the frequency.

Tonight I called CQ and ended up making contact with KB1TUR in Northwest Maine. It was a great QSO where we talked about home and micro brews as well as the standard ham topics. At 11 minutes, that is by far my longest QSO. Unfortunately the band started shifting and we started losing each other in the noise.

At any rate it seems there is a standing offer to boil up some lobsters in Maine if I manage to find myself in the area with a trunk full of homebrew. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

The real question—and one that wasn’t asked during the QSO—who has the better mustache?

A mustache to rival mine?
A mustache to rival mine?

Blowout

Truly nothing better than to come home from a crap day at work to learn that the Belgian Wit was fermenting with such vigor as to blow the top off the airlock with krauseny goodness. The fermentation room smelled like beer and the bucket lid looked like the closing shot from some circle jerk pr0n video.

After an awesome Circle Family Dinner and some quality porch time I went back downstairs to address the “problem”. First I pulled the airlock and cleaned it up. When I went to return it to its spot, the beer vomited another round of krausen and filled it back up. Cleaned it up again and this time stole the tubing for the bottling wand and slipped it over the top of the airlock. I put the other end into a bowl of sanitizing solution and watched the beer blow bubbles for about 15 minutes.

This morning I checked on things and found another mess. Yay! The tube and bowl were all sludged up with goo. The beer was still blowing bubbles in the solution so the thing wasn’t all clogged up. It was hard to head off to work because I wanted to sit and watch. Damn tube is going to be a bitch to clean out. I wonder what kind of mess awaits my return tonight.

Not sure what the magic is here. First four brews never got much more than six inches of krausen but the last two have been crazy messy. I did make a yeast starter this time so maybe pitching a larger population has something to do with it. This doesn’t explain the nutter’s behavior though. The only other change was the addition of the wort chiller. Could it be pitching at <70˚F really makes that much of a difference?

At any rate, awesome problems to have. Adding a second action item before the next brew day: engineer a less messy blowout tube solution.

I’ve got pikkies on my phone. I’ll try to get them posted here too.

Belgian Wit

After a fun morning of yard work (who ever heard of mowing the yard before April?), a dog meet up in the circle, and racking the peach wine we endeavored to brew up a yet to be branded Belgian Wit. Judging by the smell test administered via the airlock this morning, it promises to be yum-o!

It’s a modified Blue Moon clone recipe I found on HBT in the recipe database. We did the all-grain, BIAB version as follows:

  • 5 lbs Maris Otter Crisp
  • 4 lbs Torrified Wheat
  • 1 lbs Flaked Wheat
  • 1 lbs Flaked Oats
  • .75 oz UK Golding
  • 1 oz Crushed Coriander
  • 1.4 oz Fresh Orange Zest (zest from two average sized navel oranges)
  • 3 cups Wyeast 3944 yeast slurry from starter made on Thursday

Into the pot went 8.5 gallons of water and on went the flame. We heated to 132˚F for a strike temp shooting for a 30 minute protein rest at 126˚F. Unfortunately we missed a bit and the protein rest happened at 132˚F although it drifted down to 126˚F by the 30 minute rest.

On went the flame again and we heated to 154˚F for the starch conversion. After 20 minutes the temps had drifted down to 148˚F so we heated and stirred for a bit to get back to 154˚F. Another 22 minutes and we had our 45 minute conversion with the temp drifting down to 150˚F by the end. Really should work on an insulation strategy if I’m going to keep using BIAB instead of using an MLT.

On went the heat again and we brought the temp up to 170˚F for a final 10 minute rest. At the end we drained the grain bag and then tried a few attempts at squeezing all of the possible wort from it using various methods. It has been demonstrated that we lack a colander or grate of sufficient diameter to rest securely on the lip of the fryer pot or a bucket. So we lost a little efficiency. That’s the bad news. The good news is we hit a pre-boil OG of 1.050. This was .008 higher than the target 1.042. Looks like I can bump my BIAB efficiency to 80% based on the last two attempts. Well, given there have been exactly two attempts, last might be a bit misleading.

Brought the wort to boil and let it roll for 30 minutes. In went the hops and we let it run for another 50. At 15 minutes to flame out we added the chiller and with five minutes on the clock we added the zest and coriander.

Damn it smelled nice!

Forgot to time the chiller (again) but we went from rolling boil to 70˚F inside of 15 minutes. Dumped the wort into a sanitized bucket via a paint straining bag. This kept out the zest and coriander (boo) but also left out a softball sized lump of trub and break material (yay). Post boil OG was a whomping 1.061. If this thing ferments down to the target FG we’re looking at a 6.4% ABV. Kind of a cross between a wit and a dubbel…Double wit? Do we have a brand name for this one now?

Down to the dungeon where we dumped in the yeast slurry, capped the bucket and sent off to the fermentation room. Within three hours the airlock was burbling away pleasantly. Checked on it again this morning and no blowout yet even though the airlock is going crazy. You can really smell the orange being carried along with the CO2 exhaust. I hope some of that odor/flavor stays behind!

Fermentation room is hovering in the middle 60s which is on the cool side for the 3944 so we won’t pick up the esters as much as one might like, but the orange and coriander should still spice it up nicely.

So the remaining tasks are to wrap up the post-brew cleaning (everyone is a-soakin’ today) and come up with a clever name for the Belgian Wit sitting in the cellar.

That and to thank the staff for their yeoman’s work yesterday. Butter was awesome on fire duty–not a single missed regulator reset! He’s also stepping into some management roles nicely even if he forgot to clock out for his lunch break. Doug was great with all facets of water management. If I weren’t so worried about him opening a competing bar next door he’d be pegged for management. Gavin makes a pretty good hop guy and since it’s not technically beer until we add the yeast, I don’t think his age presents a problem.

On the flip side, management has heard rumors of a coup. This must be quashed with extreme prejudice!

Goal: Make Beer

This weekend I want to brew but I cannot decide. We’re 3 for 5 assuming something strange does not wreck havoc on the Son of Nutter. The two failures were a Belgian wit and an oatmeal stout. I love a good wit and I also love a good stout.

I’m leaning wit right now for some reason. It’s been a while since I’ve had a tasty Blue Moon. Not complaining, really, because that means the pipeline is limping along enough that I’m not compelled to drink store-bought yet. I’ve also been watching the fermentation chamber (read: coal room) temps since the weather became unseasonably warm little over a week ago. With outdoor temps in the 50˚ – 80˚F range the coal room has climbed out of 60˚F range into the 66˚F range.

Yeast strains appropriate to stouts are still within that range, but I don’t see things cooling off in the near future. I’m hoping the coal room can be kept in the upper 60s and would even be okay with nothing higher than 72˚F. These are good temps for wits and saisons as the styles encourage fruity esters.

Ultimately I’ll have a temperature controlled fermenting environment. I’ve been pricing used fridges and freezers. Mixing in an external temp controller allows one to tightly manage ambient temps. At that point I can even entertain lagering.

….mmmmm….Czechvar…..

Anyway—I guess I’m just declaring my intent to brew. Going to try stopping by the LHBS during lunch to see what yeasts and grains are actually available. This will probably be the deciding factor in which way I go on Saturday.

Nutty for nutter!

Courtesy of Butter, we brewed up another batch of the Black Squirrel Nutter. The first one was such a hit and it was gone far too soon. Everyone agreed that we needed to do that again.

So after sufficient recovery from the previous night’s festivities had happened (and thanks, Jeremy, it was awesome to be included in your birthday festivities) we all trucked down to LHBS and picked up some essentials.

Butter grabbed another nut brown ale kit. I grabbed some C-Brite and 5/16″ tubing. Elizabeth tried to grab the mayorship, but I’m still a few steps ahead on that count. The high point of the trip being when I was presented a “key” to the store in honor of my Foursquare mayorship!

I love that place.

So on to brewing. My notes are pretty sparse, so it was probably a good time. Dan was great on the regulator button–we only flamed out once and that was due to him being pulled in several directions. Doug was appointed to the waterboy position and did yeoman’s work with the wort chiller.

Oh, yes, it was the debut of the wort chiller. 25′ of 5/16″ copper tubing with sweated connectors for garden hoses. PHENOMENAL! We went from full boil to 70˚F in less than 15 minutes. Yeast was pitched and it was burbling away when I peeked in this morning.

For completeness sake:

Fermentables

  • 1/2 lb UK Dark Crystal
  • 3/8 lb US Dark Chocolate
  • 1/8 lb Crisp Roaster 2-Row
  • 3.3 lb Hopped LME
  • 1 lb Light DME
  • 1 lb Amber DME
  • 1 lb Muscovado (Dark Brown Sugar)

Hops

  • 2 oz UK Fuggle

Mash Schedule

Put specialty grains into the muslin bag and added to 7 gallons water. Heated to 160˚F and then rested for 30 minutes. Removed specialty grains and squeezed bag for maximum extraction. Flame on to near boil then added can of LME, both pounds of DME, and the sugar.

Brought to boil and started timer for 45 minutes. At 45 minutes, put the wort chiller into the kettle to sanitize. Always smart to connect the chiller to the hoses before dropping into the kettle. That bastard gets hot quickly.

With the chiller in the boil, boil another 15 minutes. Add hops and continue boil for another 2 minutes.

Cranked on the faucet and watched the temp of the wort drop to 70˚F in less than 15 minutes. AWESOME!

Drained chilled wort into sanitized bucket and pitched Cooper’s Ale yeast–1 packet dry yeast. Covered and put in the coal room. Looks like almost 6 gallons of beer (whatever happened to my 1.5 gal/hr boiloff?) with an OG of 1.048. This is a few points lower than the predicted 1.050, but we’re also a bit higher on the volume. I think this will all work out wonderfully in the end.

So…like I mentioned, we all want to fast forward about five weeks from now which is when this should be chilled and served. Thanks again Dan and Doug for the help.

Grain rich, beer pour

Stopped by the LHBS while oot and aboot today and picked up the following:

  • 10 lbs US 2 Row
  • 1 lb US Crystal/Carmel 80L
  • 1 lb UK Chocolate Malt
  • 1 lb UK Black Malt
  • 1 lb UK Torrified Wheat
  • 1 lb US Flaked Wheat
  • 1 lb CN Flaked Oats
  • 1 pkg Danstar Nottingham Dry Yeast
  • 1 oz Fuggle Loose Pellet
  • 1 oz Nugget Loose Pellet

Combine that with some brown sugar and spring water to be acquired from the grocer and we’ve got fixing for the next Circle Bar Brewery batch. It’s to be an oatmeal stout based on a recipe I found online. That one had a slightly more complicated grain bill and called for Cluster hops for bittering. I collapsed the UK Pale Ale and Pale malts into a bog standard US 2-Row malt. I also subbed out Nugget for the Cluster. With a much higher AA content I’ll cut the amount of hops by 25% at the bittering addition. I’ve christened this one Toasted Otis in honor of the late Otis “Oats” B. Toast, Esq.

Currently the recipe looks like this:

Fermentables

  • 10 lbs US 2 Row
  • 1 lb US Crystal/Carmel 80L
  • 1 lb UK Chocolate Malt
  • 1 lb UK Black Malt
  • 1 lb UK Torrified Wheat
  • 1 lb US Flaked Wheat
  • 1 lb CN Flaked Oats
  • .25 lb Muscavado (going to substitute dark brown sugar)

Hops

  • .75 oz Nugget loose pellet
  • 1 oz Fuggle loose pellet

Doing BIAB for this one. Plan is to heat 8.25 gallons of water to 158F and dough in. Cover up and let it sit for 45 minutes. Give her a stir or two, verify the temp is okay, and then cover and rest for another 45 minutes.

Mash out at 170F by lifting bag and letting it drain and do a bit of squeezing to get all the goodness we can out of this. I’ll probably sit the bag in a bucket and collect a little more wort to add at the 45 minute mark.

Start the boil timer at 60 minutes when we clear the hot break. Add Nugget hops at this time. Add the Fuggle at 10 minutes to flame out.

Cool wort in water bath until we hit 70F and pitch yeast.

Looking at three weeks in primary before even checking on SG readings. Carb to 2 volumes and serve some time near the end of March if we’re lucky. BeerAlchemy shows we should expect:
5.5 gallons
OG: 1.064
FG: 1.014
ABV: 6.6%
IBU: 38.1
SRM: 37.2

Pretty much right on the high side of the standard across the board.

The biggest problem right now? It’s a tie between not having my bad sewn (so improvising) and finding the time to run this batch. I can improvise a bag by cutting a largish piece of voile and just folding in the corners. Not sure I can fit this in around an auction that I want to attend tomorrow. There are a few Guinness plastic crates and an “Antique Grain Mill” advertised. Werry interested in the mill if it looks serviceable. A bit interested in the crates because it’s nice to have crates I’ve found.

Fat bottom girls

I’ve been thinking about putting up an RIS because I really like a big, malty beer. My problems are twofold however. First, I need to actually make my BIAB bag. Second, my pipeline is still a bit narrow for the level of consumption being engaged in.

I brewed what probably qualifies as a Blonde Ale that will makes its way to bottles next weekend. It was a slightly more voluminous brew than I had anticipated because my BIAB is not yet dialed in. I also used a three (five?) gallon paint strainer as my bag. I had to stretch the elastic to near its breaking point to fit it around the lip of my kettle. The smaller–roughly eight and a half pound–grain bill fit more snugly than I would have liked. To do a proper RIS, I’d need to double the bill so want a much larger bag. I’ve got the voile. I don’t have the nylon thread or the patience to sew this myself. This may change this weekend as I could be brewing if I had all the equipment.

The second problem is less of an impediment but more painful. I have maybe a rack of the Nutter left to get me through the three weeks until the McBee’s Blonde can be served. (McBee’s–a play on BMC–designed to appeal to several BMC drinkers in the neighborhood) While there is more of the McBee’s by volume, I think it will also go quickly. I try to farm out at least a sixer to folks who stop by to help out on Brew Day. I tend to offer one to anyone who stops by the house. There is a party coming up next weekend which should decimate any remaining stock. McBee’s will be ready just before St. Patrick’s Day and I imagine I’ll bring a bunch to the neighborhood party. There isn’t anything else in production at the moment.

And an RIS is easily a three month project to drinkability. Six to respectability. Twelve to reach its zenith.

I’d like to have two in the fridge before I take on something with that kind of lead time. On the other hand, if I put an RIS up now it will be peaking for the 2012 holiday season.

So this weekend I resolve to either sew my bag and/or do a smaller stout, either a dry or an oatmeal if LHBS has chocolate roast in stock. If they don’t then I guess make an online order and then wait until next week where it will be difficult to fit in a brew day.

Pouring and details

Here’s the end result. 2012B01 A.K.A. Black Squirrel Nutter. She’s lovely, brown, and crisp/sweet with a moderate nuttiness.

Stats:
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.016
ABV: 4.7%

Bottles remaining: 21 as of right now. Yikes! Between gifts, graft, and personal consumption, that’s half the batch in less than a week.

Time to make more beer! Maybe this weekend?

Released into the wild

It’s been a bit of a wait, but the first reviews of Black Squirrel “Nutter” have been favorable.

This is the second ever batch brewed by Circle Bar Brewery, which is a fancy way of saying me and my compatriots. Special thanks to Dan, Doug, and Gavin who stopped by and helped while away the hours. The day was a bit warmer than the first ever batch, which helps explain why we were accidentally smart enough to keep the lid off the kettle.

Nutter is an extract recipe for a nut brown ale and the first that used LME. The full recipe:

  • 1/2 lbs UK Dark Crystal — steeped
  • 3/8 lbs US Dark Chocolate Malt — steeped
  • 1/8 lbs Weyerman Crisp Roasted 2-Row — steeped
  • 3.3 lbs Hopped Light Liquid Malt Extract — in boil
  • 1 lb Light Dried Malt Extract — in boil
  • 1 lb Sparkling Amber Dried Malt Extract — in boil
  • 1 lb Muscovado — in boil
  • 2 oz Fuggle Loose Pellet Hops at 10 minutes to flame out
  • 1 pkg Coopers Ale Yeast

Specialty grains in muslin bag at flame on, heated to 160F. Rest for 30 minutes and then removed bag and squeezed into wort. Boil for 60 minutes with hops addition at 10 minutes to flame out.

Of note: No boil overs this time! Kit called for a partial boil of 3 gallons and then a top off. Since I have the kettle space I did full volume boil. I believe we used 6 gallons which after boil off and trub loss netted almost 5 gallons of beer. We did get to the 80F pitching temperature (yes, too hot) within 45 minutes. Pitched dry yeast on top of cooled wort (now beer) in a 6.5 gallon carboy. Airlocked and off to the fermenting chamber for three weeks. Ambient temps ranged from 58 – 64 over the period.

Bottle conditioned using 5oz DME (probably 1oz too much given carbonation) and rested at room temp for two weeks.

Tasting notes: Nice pour with possibly too much carbonation for the style. Head retention is passable but not great. Wonderful nutty taste with sweet/spicy finish. At 5.5% ABV, highly drinkable.

I’ll post the pour pictures and additional notes later. Would definitely do this kit beer again but am more interested in moving to all-grain doing BIAB so it may be a different path to nut brown goodness next time out.