Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas.

This is my gift from daughter #3 and her new husband of 5 days. They just returned from Vegas after getting married by Elvis. While they may deny it, I know the truth. O.K. focus... In addition to boiling mash, this pot can also double as a lobster and clam pot as is comes complete with strainer. I can see a lobster bake in our future.

36 Quart Boiling Pot

Running two pots will not be happening in future brews with the new gear. There will be no overflow until we get to 15 gal batches. The sensible thing to do is to brew in 8 to 9 gallon batches and to run two carboys. I prefer to leave a little room in the carboy so I don't have to run a blow off tube. Somebody once told me not to stress the yeast because they don't like pressure, and to use a blow-off tube. I'm calling BS because I have yet to have flat beer pour out of a bottle.

Overflow Capacity

Here are a couple pics of the trub rinse. Because there is oatmeal in this batch, it didn't seem to be getting fermented and the yeast looked to be running out of steam. By siphoning off the beer after the active fermentation, then adding fresh water to the primary, the yeast perked up and started bubbling at a good rate. This hack put me back on schedule because I want to be back on track for a 3 week program.

Rinse T+10 min

Without scientific instruments I can't tell if the cloudy white is just yeast or yeast and oats. I suspect the latter. Rye gives a more dramatic definition during the rinse.

Rinse T+2 Days

Sediments

This batch yielded 23 bottles and one pint glass last Sunday. As you can see, someone has been drinking a bunch of Sierra Nevada.

Bottling Day #27

A new Christmas tradition is to have Bloody Mary's with breakfast but I didn't want to start in that early. So I waited till around 11AM and started by sampling the gift six pack from daughter #1 and her husband. Founder's Porter is top shelf. Also having a Founders Scotch Ale which isn't too shabby either.

Christmas Morning Refreshments

Quaker IPA #27

Brew date: 12/7/2013

Today's recipe #18 Quaker IPA with a small tweak

10 lbs two row
1 lb flaked oats
1/4 lb crystal malt
1/8 lb chocolate malt

1 oz Gelena Amarillo
1 oz Cascade Sterling
1 oz U.S. Kent Golding

safale US-05 dry yeast

It's always good to be sipping on one from the last batch.

We are having an aroma therapy competition. Piny pine Christmas tree vs the brew house. In the beginning the pine tree had the lead. When the hop addition scents kick though, the Christmas tree will fall back to a distant second
 

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Gotta love Uncle Jimmy's mash tun. I think we're gonna need a bigger pot.

And we had a visitor today. She is lucky I'm not a deer hunter.

Will It Ever Run Again?

This is what happens when you lend your equipment. The last time I used the snow blower it was running. Then I sent it over to the neighbor so he could clear his drive way. The snow was heavy and the motor seemed to be over revving. It was returned with a seized engine.

 

For grins I tore it down the night before the giant snowstorm.

I found a bunch of broken parts in the oil sump. The oil slinger broke off and the governor threw two counter weights & broke a few teeth of the gear. So, when did it break?

The main shaft seems to have wiped but it's not totally gone. If I can get replacement parts I will reassemble it and see if I can get it to speed regulate again. The smaller shaft with the larger gear is the cam shaft. There are two cams that operate the intake and exhaust valves.

Now I have to check the forums to see if this is how the timing marks are aligned. I sure do hope that I don't need this thing to be running tomorrow because I don't know if I can improvise the oil slinger and I don't want to run without a governor.

The Imperial Blackness Is A Winner

Black IPA

Some people don't believe in mixing roasted malts with a lot of hops. I don't have any such prohibitions and as a matter of fact, I think I just knocked the Rye IPA out of my top favorite slot.

You can see one of my new Ikea quart bottles. I think I will convert to entire fleet over to this stopper type because having quart bottles in the fridge is a cool thing.

Rinse

Regarding the Hops: This time I strained most of the the hops from reaching the primary because I had two pretty good high alpha varieties and I didn't want to go too hoppy. A lot of the small stuff made it through the strainer but I would say 50% was leafy and so it didn't make it to the primary.

When I tasted this one at week one  knew I had a winner although with all the yeast in there it was hard to tell what was going on with the three layers of roasted barley and wheat. Now that the bare minimum time has past I can tell this one is really something. The spray malt has made this very sweet and would be  likely to continue to ferment if I didn't drink it all before it could reach perfection. The high alcohol content is noticeable I would guess it's at 8% and will go higher at time passes.

I think my next round will be minus the 3 lbs of spray malt and maybe use 14 lbs of 2 row. Every thing else can be the same assuming hops are available.

Imperial

Imperial

Happy Yeast

That extra 3 lbs of spray malt must really be giving the yeast something to chew on. Using the five gallon rules of thumb: 2 lb grain per percent, and 1 lb spray malt per percent, will put us in the land of 9% abv. I better put this in small bottles.

Yeast Is Still At It

This time around it had to switch things up a bit. Normally I put the hops into the primary but this time I strained them out, the big stuff that is. The find stuff still makes it thru and leave a small deposit of sediment.

With a 90 minute boil the hop additions went like this:

0       1/3 Galena
20     1/3 Galena    1/3 Chinook
40     1/3 Galena    1/3 Chinook
60     1 Cascade    1/3 Chinook
70     1 Cascade
80     rest on burner
90     remove from burner and chill

Some recipes call for hops to be added at the end of the boil, only to be strained out immediately.  I figured since I am straining them, I may as well have some time in the mix.

Black IPA #26

Brew Date: 10/27/13

12 lb two row
1/4 lb caramel malt
1/4 lb carafa 1 500 LB
1/4 lb carafe 2 1000 LB
1/4 lb choc wheat
3 lb amber spay malt

1 oz galena @ 13.2%
1 oz chinook @ 12.1%
2 oz cascade @ 7.1%

safale us-05 yeast

Uncle Jim's Mash Tun

When I was up in NY I asked Uncle Jim if he would be brewing any time soon. He said no so I commandeered his mash tun. This is the same tun I posted about many moons ago. Well I can tell you it sure make sparging much easier but I think clean up is more troublesome.

When I first opened the valve the wort overshot the pot and went straight to the floor. And I can neither confirm nor deny the use of the kitchen sink sponge was used to clean the floor.

Hops and Extra Malt

I figure we will go for the higher gravity and to get there we are using an extra 3 lbs of spray malt. Even though I have the 10 gal tun, the 5 gal boiling pot is still a limitation for getting a full grain imperial brew.

Grist Remains

The conversion was top notch. It felt like all empty hulls. The little black specks are tiny bits of chocolate wheat.

Roo Pads

Re-soldered Post

 The horn is around 15 years old and it finally hit the ground. This post was bent half way off so I soldered it back. I cut the little dots off with a razor blade so there are two little shiney dots to mark the spot. I also buffed out some of the tarnish.

In Order Ready to Measure

I lined all the keys up in order they appear on the horn. The side keys might not be in perfect position but that doesn't  matter. I just wanted to get the measurements in roughly the correct order, for future reference.

Roo White Pads

I decided I would try these new Roo Pads. They went in fairly easily and not too many required shims.
The horn is back together and plays well although low B and Bb still need to be floated in.

Jalapeño IPA #25

Monday Night Brewing Demonstration.

I had company over last Monday evening to show them how to brew. Or better yet, how I brew. Somewhere in the middle of the process Randy said 'My wife would never let me do that in her kitchen'. Then Walt replied 'My wife would never let me bring that bucket in the house, let alone into her kitchen'. 

The interesting thing about showing people about brewing is that it is all a big controlled accident. And, you can do what ever you want, like add jalapeños.

Saturday When I saw how many pepper varieties the market had it was very difficult to decide if I wanted to stick to the original plan. So on the spot, I decided to stick with the primary plan but veer slightly off course when bottling. The little dried chili peppers will be quartered and bottled. I will probably roast them for sanitary purposes.

Wifey suggested I use parchment paper to roast the jalapeños on, so I did, at 350 deg F for ~25min. I usually set the stove timer as a reminder for hop additions. So the peppers roasted between stops. Because I didn't want to boil away any pepper flavor, I added them to the boil at T minus 5 min. 
 

 I used the wort chiller to get the temperature down to about 90 deg and because it was so late, I pitched in the morning. I needed a new method to get all the yeast in the carboy so I have started to use a piece of white paper rolled into a tight funnel to get the yeast all the way in. Grab the paper out of the center of the ream in order to be sure no one has touched it.

 

We brewed on Monday evening and I taste tested on Friday evening. There seems to be the perfect amount of heat and the pepper taste really quite interesting. Wifey said 'This is what the local microbrewery should be doing'. I agree.

The usual trub rinse is the next step and I don't want to keep the peppers in there any longer so I had to figure out how to fish those babies out. Simple enough, turn the carboy on its side after adding the rinse water and they floated right over to be scooped out.

Early indications: I hit the pepper target I was looking for. Will keep you posted. 

Update: This brew wakes you up and then lights you up. You either love it or hate it. Needless  to say, it is gone. Next round is seeds only. Leave out the pulpy madness.

Jalapeño IPA On Deck

Looking up Jalapeño recipes. Really, all I'm gonna do is add peppers to a Rye IPA. Just have to figure out when to add them and how much.

Via photo-dictionary.com

Update:

After casually surfing the web, here's what I'm gonna do:

10 lb 2-row
1lb Oatmeal for silky smoothness
1/4lb Chocolate Wheat for color
2 lb rye for dryness

1 oz Galena
1 oz Kent
1 oz Sterling

safale us-05

Add 6 Jalapeno, slit in half, at last 5 min of boil. Leave it all in the primary for a week. On bottling day, quarter and roast 6 peppers at 350 def F for 25-30 min. Put a piece of roasted pepper in each of ~24 bombers (24 oz bottles).
 

Vanilla Porter #24

Brew Date: August 10th, 3013

Mashing In Juice Box

Keeping A Close Eye

Rye IPA & Hop Schedule

Today while I was at the brew store I was reminded that today is the Microfestivus. Wifey just showed me how to link! Although Microfestivus is a great time, I decided to stick with brewing, in the A/C. Even had a Dogfish Head 90 IPA earlier. That is where I spent all my tickets on previous occasions, .a whole 'nother story. Still have a couple Rye IPA's left, but they're are going away fast.

Today's Recipe:

11 lbs 2 row
1/2 lb Carafa 1 1000L
1/4 lb Muttons 500L
1/4 lb choc wheat

Cascade @ 7.3%
US Brewers Gold @ 10.5%

Additions at 0, 20, 40, 55 min for 60 min boil

Safale #5 yeast at cool down, later this evening

1 Vanilla bean. After 1 week in the primary, I will split the been, scrap the seeds, cut the been in parts, soak seeds and all in 4 oz vodka. Then add it to primary, tasting for flavor after ~4 days. Then another 2 weeks in secondary.

Rinse

 In a day or so there will be ~1.5 gallons of beer to add to the 3.5 gallons in the secondary fermenter.

Update: Black, Chocolaty, Vanilla, Beer. Preliminary taste test indicates this is a freakin awesome recipe, although, Wifey says she thinks she can taste the vodka. Next time will try w/o vodka. The beer was a little stronger in taste than the finished product because the trub rinse has to be added in a couple of days to make up the final volume.

Brew #23 Rye IPA #14 Take 2

Brew Date: 6/16/13

Want to recreate a dry  and flavorful IPA with and smooth finish so I went back to one of the better received batches, #14. Had to make a Hop substitution. Gelena was sold out so I went with Warrior.

12 lb 2-row
2 lb rye
1/4 lb choc malt
1/4 lb crystal #60

1 oz Warrior hops
1 oz Sterling hops
1 oz Kent golding hops

safale dry yeast

Cooling Down

Need To Be A Few Degrees Cooler

Vader Triple Chocolate

Brew Date: 5/4/13, May The Fourth Be With You.

Batch #22.

It is only fitting that I brewed Death By Triple Chocolate on May 4th.

This is the original recipe # 3, take 2. The only thing I changed was the mash temperature and the vessel mashed in. And I did have a boil over while I was watching confidence interval testing videos on youtube. So my uniformity was doomed from the start. The boil over caused a lot of the hops to end up on the stove top again. Their rightful place is supposed to be in the primary fermenter. It is good to have a glass of water standing by while boiling on wifeys stove. I avoided major catastrophe by quenching the boil over by pouring in the water. This way only a quarter of the foamy cap escaped this time. Last time I lost about three quarters.

12 lb two row
3 lb choc wheat
1 oz galena
2 oz amarillo
safale #5 yeast

Look at the chocolatey goodness.

The foam cap glistens.

Now, I only have to wait. Probably 1 week in the primary, 1 week in the secondary, and 2 to 4 weeks in bottles.

Wood Ceiling On The Porch Update

I am installing 6" wide by 10'-6" long popular boards on the porch ceiling. You might think it is not hard to do but try doing it alone. I have a cleat on each end hold the board up but getting the tongue into the groove is trying. The little cut-off from one of the boards that is use to tap in the T&G has been demolished by hammering on it.

I had to invent a better way and use a bigger hammer. I am also cheating by relieving the groove closet to the ceiling. This way I have a fighting chance of getting it in.

After two boards I am wiped out. Time for one of these:

And, one of these:

This porch project has to be put to bed before I brew again. Better make quick work of it.

Update:

I wish I had thought to use a brace earlier. Somewhere around the fan fixture hole I figured that if the board is supported in the middle, the tongue and groove engage with minimal effort. Had I done this from the start, I would be brewing by now.

Rye IPA Batch #21

#20

 I found a 24oz bottle of #20 in the mash ton. It was a pleasant  surprise to be sipping on this while brewing #21.

Boiling

No chocolate or roasted malts for this batch.

Hop Additions

Added hops at 15 minute intervals.

Rye IPA #21

I have been leaving room in the carboy so I don't have to worry about a blow off tube. This batch developed a 1 inch cap but after it stirred it up on day 3, a 6 inch head developed and then settled down.

Will do a trub rinse and get back to 5 gal later.

9 lb 2-row
1/2 lb cara-pils
1 lb crystal at 50 L
2 lb rye

1 oz norther brewer @10.6%
1 oz cascade @ 3.2%
1 oz sterling @ 7.0%

safale us-05

Exploring the cara-pils malt in order to develop some extra body. When you have a low crystal malt content, your beer can taste perfect yet have a hollow mouth feel. To add some body, throw in some non fermenting malts. Will comment on this as things progress.

Hops were added strongest to weakest. Cascade was divided in 3 parts, the other two were divided in 4 parts.



Update 3/31/13 Happy Easter

Next Batch revisions

9 10 lb 2-row
1/2 lb cara-pils 1lb Oatmeat for mouth feel
1 lb crystal at 50 L 1/4lb Chocolate Wheat
2 lb rye

1 oz norther brewer  Galena
1 oz cascade Kent
1 oz Sterling

safale us-05

After sampling a bottle I am not happy with the crystal and cara pils. To much caramel for the hop load.

About The Tools & Just In Time

Here are a few comments about the tools I needed to clean the manifold and drop the oil pan on wifeys car:

The intake valves were all closed because I pulled the intake cam shaft. When I wasted several cans of carb cleaner, brake cleaner, starting fluid, and anything else I had into each inlet port, I needed a way to empty each valve cavity of the primordial black ooze that was just created.

I tried using an old turkey baster and it lasted one suction. The chemicals went into the bulb and melted a hole through the bulb sidewall. This anti-freeze checker turned out to be more reliable than the old turkey baster. The next time I am in the market for a turkey baster, I'm heading to the auto part store.

Who has never used a turkey baster for some odd job around the work shop? I could have used my shop vac but it is in the land fill after I destroyed it while using it to clean the furnace. This is a whole 'nother story.

I could have used compressed air, but this would deposit carbon black on everything, including me, so I settled for the  more conventional approach.

After each pool of black goo was suctioned out with this make shift boogie puller, then I deployed the compressed air. As I was air lancing out each inlet the counter flow of air, pointed in my direction, pelted me with grit containing grains of sand sized black paint balls. My glasses and field jacket took the brunt of the splatter.

Here is a pic of one make-shift work table. At the end of the day or after a major task was complete, I would carry the tray of tools and parts into the basement. Then I would come back outside this a new empty board. This occurred four times.

Moving on to the oil pan removal, things went along smoothly. The re-installation, however, was different. There were three bolts that were at nearly impossible to get back in the holes. I would get a bolt in but it would immediately cross thread. I always wondered why they made ball end Allen wrenches. Now I know.

Except I didn't have one. But I did have a file. The car is all metric but I needed a slightly smaller wrench so the clearances wouldn't be too much of a pain when tilting the wrench sideways in the socket. So I sacrificed my 3/16" English wrench because the next size lower in metric was too small.

The most used tools were the telescoping magnet and the grabby thing. I fished out more tools and bolts than I can count. One bolt went down the air line to the turbo. The grabby thing has magnets so I was able to retrieve the bolt w/o taking the whole turbo air line apart.

 

The car is back together but the mess in the basement is a disaster area. I know there is a grace period for  cleaning up such things. I am thinking by next week end. Wifey will overrule this, I can predict with absolute certainty. Nuclear physicists say you can only predict velocity or position of charged particles. I can predict both the speed and position of this cleaning operation.

The car rolled out of the bay with minutes to spare. An hour passed and then the global warming moved in. You can see the tire tracks if you look closely.

A heated garage would be nice. In the next house maybe. This gives me an idea. Garage with room above on my side. Kitchen with other rooms on her side. Possibly, even someplace even warmer than here.