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.