Half an apple per acre

Making hard cider?  Maybe not this year.

It is October now.  We should be in the thick of apple cider season but thanks to the weather extermes of this year apple cider is in short supply.

There is a 127 acre apple ochard 6 miles from my apartment.  I went to pick up some apple cider, I need like 6 gallons to make a batch of hard cider, and found out that through all 127 acres they found a total of 6 use-able apples.  They have no fresh pressed apple cider this year.

There was an irregular warm spell in late Feburary early March that was strong enough to start the apple trees blooming.  Then mid March and April the weather went back to normal and destroyed the apple blossoms.  Then were was two weeks this summer of temperatures over 100 degrees and no rain.  All of this adds up to apple cider only being availble in chain stores, and for over 6 dollars a gallon.

I am now rethinking my brewing plan, Mead is now looking like the fall brew of choice.

Whiskey Barrel Stout. Yummm!

I cracked open my first bottle of Whiskey Barrel Stout and it is yummy.  Of course I am drinking this within an hour of leaving the dentist office from a deep cleaning and my lower right mouth is still numb, but what I am tasting right now tastes really good.

The whiskey flavor is definitely there but it is not so strong to overpower the typical beer flavor that one would expect from a Stout.  Of course you taste with your nose before with your mouth and the whiskey aroma coming off this beer is really nice too.  Over all I really like the way this beer has turned out and I expect I will be trying to brew another batch of this in the future.

As you can see from the picture this is a dark beer.  I would put the IBU's rating around a 20 or so I think, it is not very bitter at all.

P.S.  I am a bit of an indoor garden fan too and those are all bonsai in the back ground.

Bottling Day, Whiskey Barrel Stout.

After 4 weeks in ferment I finally got around to bottling my batch of whiskey barrel stout Monday morning.  There was an interesting cloudy film over the top of the beer when I opened up the bucket to prime the beer; I wish I had taken of picture of it so that I could actually show what it looked like.  I have never used oak barrel chips so I am hoping that this is okay.  I have also never let a brew sit in a bucket that long before, nor have I ever exposed a brew to temperatures like we have been having. I tried a small swig of the brew before I started pouring it in to bottles and thought it had an amazing taste, even warm and flat I kind of liked the little bit of flavor that I was getting.  The whiskey smell was surprisingly strong and in fact there is still a hint of that smell around, I have not yet thoroughly cleaned the bucket. 

I have also upgraded to 22 oz. bottles.  I love making beer, but I hate cleaning bottles.  So by going to 22 oz bottles from 12 oz bottles I have almost halved the number of bottles that I need for bottling and CLEANING!!!!!!!!

I am also pretty happy that 24 bottles takes up less space then 48 bottles.

I will be cracking in to one of these maybe this Saturday, so I will be updating when I know what they taste like.  I have an extended family get-together happening at the end of the month and if this beer doesn't kill, or make me sick before then I will introduce my family to this one at the end of the month.

I also recently bought the first of two 6.5 gallon glass carboys that I need to attempt hard cider this fall.  Any good recipes for that?

Catching up the blog

In an effort to make this thing a little bit more fun for me and more interesting for anyone that would happen to stumble across this blog I bought a new Nikon to start adding pictures.

June 24 I went with my sister to Chicago for the annual Gay Pride Parade, one of the original gay pride festivals in the country.

I don't know this ladies name but this is the second year in a row that I have spend Chicago Gay Pride with her and her group.  They are really nice, funny, and a blast to be around.  See even let my sister use her chair for a while and keep some of our Gatorade cool in her cooler.

Went to South Haven Michigan, a resort town on Lake Michigan for the 4th of July.  You can't tell it but just to my right the beach was packed.  I even witnessed two fights that had to be broken up by the police.

Since I am putting pictures of total strangers up here I guess one of me couldn't hurt.  This was totally an accidental shot of me while I was working out how to use this new Nikon, but what ever I am naturally ugly and this one doesn't look half bad.

South West Michigan, Beer Capitol.

I recently, about 2 weeks ago, tried two different Founders Brew's that were on tap at my most frequented local bar.  Both brews were good although neither were for the commercial beer drinker.  The first was amazing for its ability to reveal flavor in layers.  I might have the name wrong but I believe it was called Dirty Bastard.  It had a strong initial malt flavor that had hints for chocolate and coffee malt.  As the malt gave way you tasted the initial hop flavors and as the beer finally washed past the back of your tongue there was a definite final note of Cascade Hops, those being the only hops I can currently ID by taste.  The other Founders brew I tried I am even less sure of the name, but based on what I know about the beer and the descriptions on their website, www.foundersbrewing.com, it was probably Curmudgeon Old Ale.  This beer is aged in oak barrels to give it a hint of Scotch flavor.  I was totally in to this beer.  While it wasn't as complex as the Dirty Bastard it was smooth and would probably be more palatable to wider range of beer drinkers.  I would say they were good beers, but not beers that would make my top ten favorites.  (Two of my top ten favorites are beers that I make.)
Founders is based in Grand Rapids MI.......
 BUT......

In Kalamazoo MI, there is a beer renaissance going on.  Bell's brewery, by far the largest brewery in Michigan, keeps building up and getting stronger it would seem.  The have been more and more capable of bringing live music and entertainment to their Tap House in downtown Kalamazoo, acts such as The Verve Pipe and Dark Star Orchestra to name a few of the recent bands.  http://www.mlive.com/kalamabrew/index.ssf/2010/04/kalamazoos_bells_brewery_inc_r_1.html

In the local news, however, there are two new breweries expecting to open up shop in Kalamazoo, one of them stating they expect to be open by this fall.  Arcadia Brewing, so named for the Arcadia Creek that runs through downtown Kalamazoo, announced they would build a second tap house on on the edge of the downtown area right next to the Kalamazoo River.  (Kings Highway and Michigan) Here is the news link to this story.  http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/06/arcadia_brewing_co_1.html

Another brewery, Boatyard Brewery, is set to come to Kalamazoo and hopes to be open this fall.  This one is a totally new brewery, we will have to see what their beer offerings are when it happens.  Here is the news link to their story.  http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/06/kalamazoo_to_get_new_brewery_b.html

Racking the whiskey beer

Holy Shit ya'll, that smelled amazing.  I transferred my beer to the secondary fermenter and added the oak barrel chips to the secondary fermenter.  The oak barrel chips have to be boiled in a small amount of water for about 5 minutes before being added, and man did that smell good.  My entire apartment smelled amazing. 

Upon checking the beer when I openned up the first fermenter it definately did have a much more vigorus fermentation than what I usually see.  The specific gravity reading was a waste of time for me because I totally forgot what its initial reading was and never wrote it down.

I am going to let the whole thing sit for another 3 weeks, the longer it sits the stronger the whiskey flavor will be, before bottelling.

The in kit instructions kept using the word Racking or Rack in reference to this step in thebrewing process and even though this is my 20th gallon of home brew so far this year and probably almost my 100th gallon over all, I still had no idea what Racking meant.  So I looked it up in The Joy Of Home Brewing.  Racking is nothing more then the process of transferring beer from one container to another.  It seems kind of stupid that, that process has it own name but for how often, no less than 3 times per brew, that is done I guess it makes sense to condense that idea down to one word.  I still don't understand why the word is Racking when Pouring, or heaven forbid Transfering would have been just as good a word and made more sense.

Woodchuck love!!!

Hard Cider is amazing and the only commercially availible brand is Woodchuck.  I have been a fan of Woodchuck Amber since before I considered my self a beer drinker.  I love the taste.  I love even more that they are explanding the flavors offered to more then just Amber. 

While I still like their Granny Smith flavor it is not a favorite.  I, just this weekend, tried Crisp for the first time as I went out to Clevland OH for a Dave Matthews Band concert.  I have got to say I loved it, but I drank 4 bottles out of a six pack along with like 5 cans of Lienehugle's Summer Shandy and didn't even get a buzz.  (The lack of any kind of buzz was even more upsetting when you consider that I had not eaten much of anything up to the point I was drinking and tailgating in the parking field before the concert.)

So I loved the flavor of Woodchuck Crisp, but I would recommend to anyone to mix it with a shot of vodka or you will never get there.  (There being drunk.)

As for my own desire to make hard cider.  I still need to buy two glass carboy's that are up to the challenge.  I also have 4 months still to go before fresh apple cider really becomes availible.  There is an apple cider mill about 7 miles away from my apartment.

 

From Blossom Music Center Chuyhoga Falls OH last night

Would you like to be cut, ripped, or put on a better gun show then Charlton Heston

So I am not going to hide it anymore.  I am fat.

I want to get in shape but everything in men's fitness anymore is about getting ripped, or cut, or developing guns.  Why isn't there just a men's fitness program for losing 30 pounds and being healthier.  I know that is probably a super gay way of looking at it, cause no straight guy really obsesses, outwardly, about just wanting to lose weight. 

But these damn macho guys are screwing up with the fitness scene for the rest of us sensible guys that just want to be healthier.  We don't all want our veins to be popping out of our arms and it really turns me off to the fitness programs that promote themselves like that.  Why isn't there something sensible, cheap, and easy to follow that we can follow that just makes the to lose weight and bring your physical fitness level in to balance.

That's never happened before

but it seems like it should of.

Saturday of the Memorial day weekend I spent brewing my Whiskey Barrel Stout.
First off I discovered that the oak chips are added during the fermentation stage, cause I really wasn't sure when they would be added.  I read something about adjuncts in beer that gave the distinct impression that this one is going to sit in the secondary fermenter for at least 3 weeks.  The longer it sits the more of a whiskey taste I will get. 

In the same book, "The Joy of Home Brewing", I was reading up on whole grain brewing when I read something interesting.  In the beginning there is grain.  (Most kits are partial grain partial extract.)  This grain behaves way differently in different conditions while attempting to leach all the sugars and enzymes from it.  Bases on what I read if I lower the temperature at which I am steeping the grains I will get a better alcohol content with a lighter body.  Since this is supposed to taste like whiskey anyway I would assume that higher alcohol content would be a good thing. 

While steeping the grains the enzymes in the grains are working to convert germ in the grain to the usable sugars and nutrients that would be needed for germination, if I wasn't about to boil the hell out of it.  The longer I let it sit at the lower temperature the more ferment able sugars will be produced and there by the higher the proof of the beer will be.

So taking this knowledge I keep the temp lower while I was steeping the grains in this kit.  I usually try to keep things about 150 F but almost always get over 160 F.  I kept the temp down to 130 F this time around although actual temp was probably closer to 135 F, I didn't keep the thermometer in the wort long enough to for it to stop moving totally but it was slowing way down by 130 F.

Now that it has been in the fermenter for 5 days the bulk of fermenting is over and something happened that was different.  The fermentation was so strong at points that I wound up with beer yeast blow off in my air lock.  This has never happened to me before, but given what I remember from the few brewery tours I have taken it suddenly seems strange that it has never happened before.  From the few brewery tours I have taken I have seen many a fermenter bubbling out foam and undissolved yeast along with the CO2 by product of fermentation. 

I would like to say that this change to something that more mimics what I have seen in bigger commercial breweries is a sign that I did right by lowering the temperature, but for late May in Michigan it has been shockingly hot, I already have had my first sun burn of the year, so the exceptional temperature of my apartment may also be playing a role in the fermentation.

P.S.  Michigan is not back to normal for this time of the year.  It is 70 during the day, 40 at night, and overcast and raining.

Why is it still flat?

I have to admit I was really anticipating my latest brew creation.  I really like Hobgoblin Ale and wanted to try my attempt at copying it ASAP, but I bottled it on a Monday and was opening up my first bottle of it that Friday.  4 to 5 days is not long enough for this beer to be carbonated and ready to drink.

I opened up a second bottle of it today, after 12 days, and this was much better. 

The beer still did not have the flavor I was really going for but it is okay.  I tell that I put in way more chocolate malt then I should have and I actually think this is a good comparison for what an extra 4 oz of chocolate malt can do.

My next brew is also going to incorporate something new that I have not tried before, Oak Chips.  This is a kit and is called Whiskey Barrel Stout.

On a related but altogether different note....

I bought a 5 gallon paint bucket from Home Depot a while back and had been tossing all my spent grain, as well as orange peals apple cores and other "organic" trash, in to this bucket.  Like three weeks ago I bought some live worms from Wal Mart's fishing section to add to the bucket.  I was outside today working on my inner city garden, the planters and window boxes on the balcony to my apartment, and happened to look in the bucket to notice those worms have eaten through most of the grain and other compost ables I had in there.  In fact I scooped some of it out of the bucket to add to a new hanging planter I bought and saw worm larvae, a sure sign the worms are reproducing and healthy.

It might be a lame thing to be excited about I am excited that my worm compost idea is working.

Whiskey in my beer.

I am about to bottle my second attempt at Hobgoblin beer but had a set back when I noticed none of my friends were rinsing out there bottles after helpping them selves to my fridge.  So I spent my entire Sunday cleaning out caked on mold and bacteria from bottles and boiling them in water.  Not happy was I.

When I went to the local supply store for priming sugar I was looking around and found a new beer kit that caught my attention.  Whiskey Barrel Stout! 

I am a little unsure of when I will try to brew that one, what with mothers day weekend coming up, but I am intreuged.  I have not used oak chips in any brew so far that I have attempted so this kit is going to done very strictly by the included instructions, but I really want to know what the flavor comes out like.

Another kit that caught my attention but which I did not buy was something called Milk Stout.  I box says it uses lactose to give the beer a richer creamy body and head and has me wondering about that flavor as well.

I love Irish Cars when I go to the bars.  For thosethat don't know it is Guiness, Whiskey, and Irish Cream wish the whiskey and cream in a shot that you drop in the Guiness.  I am wondering what the Whiskey Barrel Stout and Milk Stout taste like because I am wondering if I couldn't mix the oak chips with the lactose and some coffee flavoring to make a stout beer that tastes like an Irish Car.

Mulligan, Hobgoblin Ale clone

Redoing the hobgoblin ale that I tried last month.  This time I am using a 7.5 gallon pot and I replaced the 7 lbs of grain with dry malt extract but everything else is the same.  I had an issue getting the grains in to the grain sock for the crystal and chocolate grain and some of the grains spilled in to the pot.  To fix this issue after steeping the grains I will transfer the pot contents to a short term bucket and remove the loose grain from the wort.  I will pour the wort back in to the pot to continue brewing.

Up Date on last weeks brew

The fermentation has not gone as expected.  Usually the first 2 days of fermentation are marked by rapid venting through the air lock, however I have witnessed very slow venting and not to a degree that I would expect. 

Upon looking closer in to all grain brewing I have discovered that I was soaking my grains in less water then recommended and in a pot that is too small.  I am now pricing larger, 7.5 gallon, pots and may buy one later in March.  I also have plans to change the 7 pounds of pale grain to one can of light liquid malt extract and rebrew.

I have not given up on this latest brew yet but expect to be dumping it after the first fermentation depending on what I have.  I am expecting to smell and taste a very weak flavor dominated by hops.

Hobgoblin Ale copy

First off I am repurposing this blog. I used to use this to complain about politics and other issues that were bothering me, but that was not really getting me anywhere so I have decided to scrap doing that.

Instead I am going to use this blog to share my experiences with beer making, tasting, and so on. I am just wrapping up from a very late night brew of a beer style that is supposedly going to taste llike my favorite beer of the moment, Hobgoblin Dark English Ale. Here are my steps in the process so far.


Hobgoblin clone

Heating 3 gallons of water from Meijer osmosis
Added grains at 130 degress
7
pounds pale malt
2
pounds crystal malt
About ½
a pound chocolate malt
Monitoring temperature to keep below 160 for an hour or
until Family Guy, It’s A Trap is over.
After 60 minutes pulled grain from pot and added water,
large water loss from pulling grain sock.
Increased heat to boiling before adding hops.
After boil starts added 1 oz UK Fuggle hops
After 30 minutes from first hops addition added second .75
oz styrian hops
After 20 minutes added the last addition of hops
Let boil for 10 more minutes
Set outside to cool, about 29 outside
Bleach and rinse buckets
Transfer wort to fermenting bucket
Pitch yeast, White Labs, English Ale Yeast
Cover bucket
Set Air lock
Let sit for one and half weeks, will transfer to secondary ferment
bucket Wednesday night the 7th of March.