Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Simple present, complex future
Logged a few more hours of brewing this weekend. On Saturday, I continued my "apprenticeship" experiences with Joe and Mike as they brewed up a new batch of Oatmeal Stout. In the process we christened Mike's new carboy - he plans to slowly construct a setup of his own over the coming months. Conveniently, they happened to have their previous batch of Stout on tap for us to enjoy while we cooked - it was excellent. They also had a Belgian Ale and a Barley Wine on tap. Joe has a three-tap (2 in-door, 1 hand) kegerator. Good times were most certainly had.
On Sunday, my CO3 (which stands for "cohort 2003" - the year we began the ed psych program) group bottled our ESB and cooked the Cream Ale. We tried something new this time by using filtered water instead of straight tap. We had been given the impression that having a certain amount of minerals in the water is by and large a good thing. However, there are certainly extreme differences in a town/city's water supply. Experienced brewers seem to go to great lengths to ensure the right pH balance and mineral quality of their wort water (e.g., burton-izing). In any event, Georges got it in his head that we should try a batch with filtered water just to see what happens. The virtue of brewing with scientists, I suppose.
Another note on our approach to brewing. We have thus far only attempted "extract+grain" brewing, meaning that we use a base of malted barley extract that we augment by steeping specialty grains for different amounts of time and temperatures depending on the specific recipes. We have not yet, nor do we plan to anytime soon, attempted a partial mash or an all-grain process. Just seems a bit too complicated and messy for us right now. However, as Joe and Mike have informed me, over time the attentive homebrewer will notice that all beers made with the same brand of extract (e.g., Muntons) share a common taste. So it's conceivable that in the future when I have my own setup I'll experiment with some all-grain brewing from time to time. I look with fondness towards that future.
Enough whimsy. I have a full glass of Poor Richard's I.P.A. to enjoy. Cheers.
On Sunday, my CO3 (which stands for "cohort 2003" - the year we began the ed psych program) group bottled our ESB and cooked the Cream Ale. We tried something new this time by using filtered water instead of straight tap. We had been given the impression that having a certain amount of minerals in the water is by and large a good thing. However, there are certainly extreme differences in a town/city's water supply. Experienced brewers seem to go to great lengths to ensure the right pH balance and mineral quality of their wort water (e.g., burton-izing). In any event, Georges got it in his head that we should try a batch with filtered water just to see what happens. The virtue of brewing with scientists, I suppose.
Another note on our approach to brewing. We have thus far only attempted "extract+grain" brewing, meaning that we use a base of malted barley extract that we augment by steeping specialty grains for different amounts of time and temperatures depending on the specific recipes. We have not yet, nor do we plan to anytime soon, attempted a partial mash or an all-grain process. Just seems a bit too complicated and messy for us right now. However, as Joe and Mike have informed me, over time the attentive homebrewer will notice that all beers made with the same brand of extract (e.g., Muntons) share a common taste. So it's conceivable that in the future when I have my own setup I'll experiment with some all-grain brewing from time to time. I look with fondness towards that future.
Enough whimsy. I have a full glass of Poor Richard's I.P.A. to enjoy. Cheers.
Friday, January 28, 2005
My Turn
Though Jon and I seem to share some obsessions, he's clearly better disciplined about documenting them. That being said, I think this blog is a terrific idea and I have every intention of chronicling my future brewing experiences here - starting now. A bit of background on my current setup and past brews is probably in order.
Some friends of mine in my UM graduate program became very intrigued last fall when I started talking about brewing beer - my brother's friend Joe had introduced he and I to the glorious process - and shortly thereafter we decided to partner up and share the cost and workload of brewing some beer of our very own. After weeks of hemming and hawing (and a retrospectively hilarious "mispurchase" by Georges and I... more on that later), we finally decided to go with a bottling operation. We promptly ordered a starter brewing kit from Leener's - which came with a "complimentary" box of Red Ale ingredients - and two additional carboys for secondary fermenting (one 5 g, one 3 g). Around this time Joe was kind enough to walk our entire group through a round of coffee stout brewing at his house, where we drank (from his awesome kegerator) and learned quite a lot. Shortly after that, we brewed the Red Ale, which we named Little Red (in Russian). Cooking, pitching, and bottling went off - much to our surprise - without a hitch, and a few weeks later we enjoyed a rather nice tasting beer. For our next round, we borrowed a recipe from Joe and made a dry stout (Lame Ankle). Also turned out great. Really great. For pictures of these two rounds of brewing, check out Jonathan's camera-phone documentation.
Over the holiday break, we brewed an India Pale Ale (Poor Richard's IPA) which we popped open early this week. Turned out really, really nice - hoppy and full, but still rather light. When we sampled the ale, we were in the process of cooking up our 4th wort - an Extra Special Bitter (ESB) Ale chosen by your's truly.
A bit more about our group and our decision-making process. The four of us (Georges, Marina, Jonathan, and myself) decided early on to be democratic while accommodating our respective predilections when choosing beers & beer recipes. Our solution, which has worked well so far, has been to have a rotating brewmaster who suggests 2 or 3 beers with corresponding recipes that we then vote on as a group. For example, I was brewmaster for the ESB and my other suggestion was an amber ale (recipe was a Fat Tire clone). In the event that, say, only half of the group wants to brew, say, an Oatmeal Stout then we will use the 3 g carboy and make a smaller batch. Which is, by the way, exactly what we're going to do next week (I friggin' love me some Oatmeal Stout). Incidentally, the decision to bottle instead of keg was made after we had decided to keg but purchased and moved into a basement what we thought was a fridge but turned out to be a freezer - as I suggested earlier, we can laugh at it only now. The embarrassment and frustration caused us to rethink our plan, and since there are 4 of us who do not all live in Georges' house the practicality of bottling became clear. We may soon, however, be trading our freezer for a fridge in which case kegging may again become possible for us. The decision will be a financial one. We'll see what happens.
A few more tidbits: (1) Our current setup only allows for Ales, because we can't ensure consistent cold temps for fermentation. This is okay... for now. (2) We haven't been worried too much about beer clarity, but we do need to start worrying more about head retension. Apparently there is some debate amongst homebrewers as to the best ways to ensure your beer "gives good head." Joe seems to think the use of crystal malts are important, so that's what we'll go with for the next little while.
Our next batch will be a Cream Ale, selected by Marina. Details to come.
Some friends of mine in my UM graduate program became very intrigued last fall when I started talking about brewing beer - my brother's friend Joe had introduced he and I to the glorious process - and shortly thereafter we decided to partner up and share the cost and workload of brewing some beer of our very own. After weeks of hemming and hawing (and a retrospectively hilarious "mispurchase" by Georges and I... more on that later), we finally decided to go with a bottling operation. We promptly ordered a starter brewing kit from Leener's - which came with a "complimentary" box of Red Ale ingredients - and two additional carboys for secondary fermenting (one 5 g, one 3 g). Around this time Joe was kind enough to walk our entire group through a round of coffee stout brewing at his house, where we drank (from his awesome kegerator) and learned quite a lot. Shortly after that, we brewed the Red Ale, which we named Little Red (in Russian). Cooking, pitching, and bottling went off - much to our surprise - without a hitch, and a few weeks later we enjoyed a rather nice tasting beer. For our next round, we borrowed a recipe from Joe and made a dry stout (Lame Ankle). Also turned out great. Really great. For pictures of these two rounds of brewing, check out Jonathan's camera-phone documentation.
Over the holiday break, we brewed an India Pale Ale (Poor Richard's IPA) which we popped open early this week. Turned out really, really nice - hoppy and full, but still rather light. When we sampled the ale, we were in the process of cooking up our 4th wort - an Extra Special Bitter (ESB) Ale chosen by your's truly.
A bit more about our group and our decision-making process. The four of us (Georges, Marina, Jonathan, and myself) decided early on to be democratic while accommodating our respective predilections when choosing beers & beer recipes. Our solution, which has worked well so far, has been to have a rotating brewmaster who suggests 2 or 3 beers with corresponding recipes that we then vote on as a group. For example, I was brewmaster for the ESB and my other suggestion was an amber ale (recipe was a Fat Tire clone). In the event that, say, only half of the group wants to brew, say, an Oatmeal Stout then we will use the 3 g carboy and make a smaller batch. Which is, by the way, exactly what we're going to do next week (I friggin' love me some Oatmeal Stout). Incidentally, the decision to bottle instead of keg was made after we had decided to keg but purchased and moved into a basement what we thought was a fridge but turned out to be a freezer - as I suggested earlier, we can laugh at it only now. The embarrassment and frustration caused us to rethink our plan, and since there are 4 of us who do not all live in Georges' house the practicality of bottling became clear. We may soon, however, be trading our freezer for a fridge in which case kegging may again become possible for us. The decision will be a financial one. We'll see what happens.
A few more tidbits: (1) Our current setup only allows for Ales, because we can't ensure consistent cold temps for fermentation. This is okay... for now. (2) We haven't been worried too much about beer clarity, but we do need to start worrying more about head retension. Apparently there is some debate amongst homebrewers as to the best ways to ensure your beer "gives good head." Joe seems to think the use of crystal malts are important, so that's what we'll go with for the next little while.
Our next batch will be a Cream Ale, selected by Marina. Details to come.
Beer corner. Thank God for Georges' basement. And thank God for Georges letting us use Georges' basement. 
5 gallon stock pot. She's served us well, though I can't help but think she should be used for a huge jambalaya party once in her life.
