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Great Beer Down

June 12, 2016 Leave a Comment Written by John

I was long overdue for a good line cleaning. First pour out if the keezer was a little funky. I decided to just replace all of the lines and do a deep clean from the faucet to the keg connector. Friday night I took everything apart for an overnight soak in some cleaner. Saturday morning I assembled my new lines (btw, here is a great deal for some line at Amazon) and prepared to reinstall everything on the keezer after a final clean and rinse. I opened up the keezer lid and was met with a sight no brewer wants to see: kegs swimming in beer.

SwimmingSomehow when I was removing the line I managed to loosen the beer out keg post on my keg of 1.5 year old barleywine. Foam was coming out of the base of the post when I opened it up, so I lost a nice amount of CO2 as well. The keg that I had been planning to bottle so I could get the keg back was now empty. No more beer to enjoy let alone bottle.

Of course I had a full afternoon of errands and work planned when I was now forced to clean up this mess. I removed all of the kegs and stared at all of the beer in the bottom of the keezer as a single tear rolled down my cheek. I grabbed my autosiphon and used that to pump out the beer into a bucket. After filling the bucket once the siphon was getting too much air so I lifted one end of the keezer to get the beer to pool in one corner.

RemovalAfter pumping everything out I learned I had lost over two gallons of the barleywine. Sadly, I don’t have anymore in the pipeline which is a big failure on my part since this beer was brewed in December 2014. After everything was cleaned up and put back together I immediately ordered a socket that will fit on the Cornelius keg posts (Morebeer). I’ll be checking the posts of every keg I own when the socket arrives.

FarewellFarewell, sweet prince.

Beer Musings

2016 Brewing Resolutions

January 4, 2016 Leave a Comment Written by John

A new year has arrived and everyone is pledging to lose weight for real this time. At the end of every year I have some time off and it gives me a chance to look at where my brewing is and where I’d like it to be this time next year. I’ve already talked about how 2015 was a disaster for meeting my brewing goals. Time to change the script.

Here are my goals for 2016:

  • Fine tune my system
  • Experiment with sour beer
  • Improve yeast management
  • Improve consistency and quality of content

You’ll recognize most of these from last year. I still need to make system improvements to improve my quality of life. I still have some fittings to install on the chiller and HLT. I’ve now got a conical fermenter I need to get dialed in as well (more on that later). With the addition of the fermenter the only thing left I want to add to my processes the ability to oxygenate the wort. By the end of 2016 I plan to have my system completely finished.

Sour beer is still something I want to try at home. I have 1-gallon jugs to experiment with, but I think I will start with kettle souring and go from there. This is all uncharted territory for me so I expect to make a lot of mistakes… I mean learn a lot.

The only new addition to the list is improving my yeast management. This is one that I don’t feel is a large detriment to my brewing, but I could be more consistent and more intentional on how much yeast I use. Currently I make starters for an overwhelming majority of my beers, but I haven’t put much thought into it other than “make a starter.” I’m sure there is more to do that would improve my beer. I could even look at harvesting yeast with the conical if I get adventurous.

This site definitely suffers when my brewing time suffers. Writing about brewing slips my mind when I’m not brewing, go figure. I need to put a focus on writing even when I have down time in my brewing schedule. It is rare that I’m not at least reading about something I could share. I’m also considering some additional content formats, but I’d like to be on a consistent writing schedule before I try to add something else to my plate.

I made these goals with a focus on improving my beer and my ability to fit brewing beer into an increasingly hectic daily life. 2016 should be a great year for brewing.

Beer Musings

State of the Homebrewery 2015

December 31, 2015 Leave a Comment Written by John

The end of the year is here. It’s time to look back at all the great things I did things I wanted to do and did not. In January, I shared brewing resolutions for 2015. There were five things that I wanted to work on during the year. I failed at all five.

Get more involved in competitions: Absolutely zero progress here. I only judged one competition (and it was a pro brewer competition) and I didn’t enter anything. Even if I don’t enter anything I really want to be more involved in judging and helping others improve their beer.

Nail down a pilsner, kolsch, and pale ale recipe for my system: This one is mostly a fail, but with some silver lining. I didn’t even attempt a pilsner. Fail. I rebrewed my kolsch recipe once. It was during a heat wave and I struggled to chill properly. I ended up dumping it. Just tasted like apples. Fail. But here is the good part. I think I found my pale ale. I really liked the beer I brewed for my club and with a few reps I think I could get that one dialed in. Win.

Fine tune my system: I haven’t made any of the improvements that I’ve identified for my system. I did fix some wiring issues, but I am still where I was the day I finished this build. I need to make this stuff happen.

Experiment with sour beers: Another absolutely zero progress. I haven’t attempted anything. I did pick up a set of four 1-gallon jugs to do some small batch testing. I guess that is “progress.” Recently, I was talking with a buddy about kettle souring and tasted a couple of his experiments. I think that may be the way to attack this one.

Be more consistent in sharing what I learn and brew here: I actually only missed three months of posting. However, only one month of posting would I consider a success, January. Started strong and limped along the rest of the way.

Part of my issue in this past year was just not fully realizing the impact of my second son joining our family. I posted the resolutions just three weeks before he was born and immediately watched my free time disappear. I had just started getting to a more stabilized schedule when I posted and I feel I am getting there again (no kids on the way this time). So I think I can turn this around.

But this year wasn’t a total loss for brewing. In addition to the pale ale, I also had success with a coffee stout. That beer will definitely enter my rotation. Between my hops and grain, I’ve transitioned to more bulk buying. That has saved me some money, but I need to brew more to make sure I keep everything fresh.

My processes have been ironed out. As I mentioned earlier, I had some issues with equipment, but I have fixed them and the last couple brews have been problem free. Of course now that everything is working I am going to be making some changes. Everything I have in mind (and I’ll flesh this out more in the future) is quality of life focused. How do I make homebrewing work within the constraints life provides?

As I get to the end of this post it seems like this year has been mostly negative, but it is more that I didn’t stretch myself the way I wanted. I managed to stay afloat with big changes in the family and get back to the status quo. I feel like I am picking up momentum as I head into the next year. New posts are also in the works (spoilers… conical fermenter and temp control). I’m already starting to think about what I want to accomplish over the next year and that will come next week. At least some of these failures will be back to give me a shot at redemption.

 

Beer Musings

National Homebrewers Conference 2015: Day 3

June 14, 2015 Leave a Comment Written by John

After a long trek for coffee the final day of the National Homebrewers Conference began. I managed to avoid a hangover from club night and made it to a 9 am seminar. Mission accomplished!

My 9 am seminar was Mastering the Art of Hop-Fu by Kelsey McNair. Hop-Fu is a an IPA that has won McNair multiple medals in the National Homebrew Competition, including a habanero version that won this year. He detailed the evolution of this beer and his process in heavy detail of what he does to make a batch of Hop-Fu and considerations for making it for competition. I enjoyed the talk and will be trying out some of his processes to see if they work with my brew system.

My next seminar was Introduction to Experimentation by Denny Conn and Drew Beechum. The talk was an extension from their recently published book Experimental Homebrewing. They focused on the importance to understand that most of the research that is done from homebrewing is not real science and should be treated as such. It is difficult to design true experiments that would stand up to scientific rigor and even more difficult to follow through and truly isolate the variable that you are testing. It is important to experiment to find what works best for you and the way you want to brew. They presented some experiments and methods that you could try for that purpose.

After the break for lunch I skipped the next seminar session and walked around the expo floor. It was nice being able to talk to vendors during a seminar because it was not as crowded and you could actually maneuver in the expo hall. I spent that time comparing some conicals that I really should not buy but will research anyway because stainless.

The final seminar I attended was Blurring the Style Guidelines: Brewing Great, Mixed-Style Beers by Peter Zien of Alesmith. Zien was quick to point out that this talk is not meant to condemn beer styles but rather to encourage brewers to take the guide portion of guidelines to heart and try to make your own path. One method he recommended was to look at the beer styles and find where they are in common and try to play around in the differences to create a new hybrid beer. I enjoyed his talk and it didn’t hurt that they were liberally pouring Alesmith Nut Brown and Speedway Stout.

The conference was capped off with the banquet and awards ceremony for the National Homebrew Competition. People started lining up for the banquet an hour and a half before the doors opened in hopes of getting their preferred table. About 40 minutes before the doors opened word started spreading that they would not be allowing homebrew to be poured in the banquet hall. This was due to California law that requires separation of homebrew and commercial serving areas, but really was not handled well by the AHA. What they didn’t say was that you could have homebrew, but you had to pour it outside and bring it in. However they did not make this announcement until after everyone either opened their beer in line or sent their beer back to their room.

The dinner was excellent and was served with Lagunitas beer. Beef short ribs highlighted the main course and were very tender and delicious. The Lagunitas beer provided with the dinner was good, but a bare minimum of beer was placed on the table for dinner. At tables of sixteen, eight twelve-ounce bottles were provided for each of the first three courses and the dessert course brought three bombers to be split by all sixteen people. Because of this there was no beer left in the room after the first hour and a half of what was supposed to be a four hour event. This is usually the time when people start sharing their homebrew and commercial beers they’ve brought but people were told they couldn’t have anything so the event was essentially dry. This is a beer conference and I consider this a failing on the AHA’s part to adapt to the California law. I don’t think they needed to provide enough beer for everyone to get plastered, but at least think ahead to make sure we can have something in our hands throughout the event.

Overall, the conference was a big success. The seminars were excellent and the nightly events were done well despite outdoor lighting issues and the banquet beer situation. This was my favorite conference since Seattle in 2012. I look forward to Baltimore next year.

Beer Musings

National Homebrewers Conference 2015: Day 2

June 13, 2015 Leave a Comment Written by John

The weather seems to be getting worse in San Diego, but that’s not stopping anyone from enjoying the conference. Everyone seemed to recover from the welcome reception for another day of beer and brewing fun.

My first seminar of the day was Blending and Post-Fermentation Adjustments for the Homebrewer by Kyle Kohlmorgen. He comprehensively covered his methods for blending beers and altering the flavor profile of a beer. Kohlmorgen gave tips on getting started with blending and was quick to point out that these are methods to enhance your good beer not fix your bad beer. I really enjoyed this talk and recommend checking it out when released by the AHA.

The next seminar was my favorite for the day and possibly the conference so far. Jamil Zainasheff’s Managing Yeast: Better Fermentation at a Lower Cost talk was full of actionable information and he is a wealth of info regarding yeast. His presentation demystified the process of harvesting and repitching yeast. It is something I will likely start trying out this year.

I almost skipped the next session of seminars, but on a whim decided to go to Tasting Beyond the Scoresheet by Master Cicerone Rich Higgins. The description of the talk seemed a little out there and abstract, but I’m glad I went. It was a very interesting talk about deconstructing the way to experience a beer as a drinker and can build a beer as a brewer. He broke down the way we experience the aroma and the taste to create flavor and how we can use that to create the desired drinking experience as a brewer. I recommend this recording but you can get away with only listening to about the first two-thirds of the talk. Once they start pouring the beers to taste it will probably lose value without tasting along.

My final talk of the day was Send in the Clones: Sensory Analysis and Recipe Formulation Techniques for Homebrewers by beer writer Amahl Turczyn and guests Mitch Steele and Jamil Zainasheff. This seminar was a bit of a disappointment. The information was very general and quite a few times we were just told to read or listen to another source. At the start of the talk Turczyn pointed out that he was going to have an article in the next printing of Zymurgy magazine. I don’t know if he just stripped too much information out of the article for the presentation or maybe just didn’t organize the presentation well. If you are interested in the topic you may just want to read the article. To his credit, Turczyn did get really close on his best guess clone recipes (Stone IPA and Heretic Evil Twin) as confirmed by Steele and Zainasheff. So I think the knowledge is there and hopefully it comes out in the article. If you are interested in some of the techniques and processes used at Stone and Heretic there is some info from the two brewers sprinkled throughout and may be worth a listen.

As usual, club night did not disappoint. Southern California is host to some of the oldest and largest clubs like the Maltose Falcons and QUAFF. I truly believe I had more good beer at this years club night than previous conferences. The Arizona Society of Homebrewers had printed up their own beer-centric version of Cards Against Humanities cards and had a game running at their booth the whole time. My favorite beer of the night was a mild with coffee from the DOZE club. I wish I could remember the brewer, but, hey, its club night… There was beer involved.

Beer Musings

National Homebrewers Conference 2015: Day 1

June 12, 2015 Leave a Comment Written by John

The National Homebrewers Conference in San Diego is underway. Although the weather has not been up to par for San Diego (where is the sun?), the conference is pretty much hitting on all cylinders. The Town and Country is a nice resort, however it is starting to show its age a bit. Getting around the grounds seems a little daunting at first, but we quickly learned our way around.

I attended two seminars on the first day. The first was on brewing with coffee. The seminar was put on by the folks over at Modern Times brewery and Michael Tonsmeire. They not only covered brewing with coffee, but also some information on home roasting. It was nice for me since I’ve started to dabble in home roasting as well and I picked up a couple tips there that I can put to use when I get back home. As for brewing with coffee, their recommendation was to dry-bean the finished beer with whole beans for 12-48 hours. The amount of coffee is what surprised me the most. They only recommended using 2-3 ounces per 5 gallons. I definitely recommend anyone who is interested to check out the recording of this seminar when the AHA posts it for members.

The second seminar was titled Brewing with Experimental Hops and was paneled by Jason Perrault of Perrault Farms, Karl Vanevenhoven of Yakima Chief-Hop Union and some guy named Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River. The talk centered around new hop HBC-438, code named Ron Mexico. Using this hop they gave information on hop breeding and what it takes for a new hop to come to market. The seminar ended with Vinnie Cilurzo talking about brewing single hop beers and how they do it at Russian River.  If you are just looking for practical tips on brewing single hop beers then you can skip the first half of the recording when it is posted. At the end of the seminar they passed out packets of HBC-438. I’ve picked up a couple other hops so far and I think I will brew an IPA featuring NHC hops this summer.

The keynote address was delivered by Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing/Lost Abbey fame. Arthur focused on the passion of homebrewing and how it has shaped his life. He gives credit to homebrewing for everything good that has come to fruition for him over the past 20 years (including meeting his wife). Arthur also confessed that he had never brewed an all-grain batch of beer when he got his first professional brewing job. He urged us all to follow our homebrewing passion and take advantage of the opportunities it presents us.

The first day was capped off with the welcome reception. About 50 breweries came to pour their beer for the homebrewer masses. Many of the breweries were from the San Diego area. The event was held in the courtyard areas of the resort which was great for the first couple hours. At the end of the event it became hard to read what was available at the different breweries. Apparently the availability of lights was not thought through. It will be interesting to see what club night brings. A couple beer highlights from the night were a Prost, a Kolsch from Old Hangtown Beerworks, and Jackie Tar, a brown stout from MacLeod Ale Brewing Company.

Beer Musings
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The Value of a Dump

February 8, 2015 Leave a Comment Written by John

Yesterday I dumped 2 batches of finished beer. Over 7 gallons poured down the drain. I didn’t dump the beer because I felt a need to punish myself, but rather because the beer didn’t turn out how I wanted. Both batches had been neglected when I got busy at the end of the year and ended up oxidized with plenty of off flavors. Just because I brewed it doesn’t mean I need to force myself to drink it.

When a commercial brewery has to dump a batch of beer it usually means thousands of dollars in lost revenue. That is a much bigger penalty than a homebrewer. As a homebrewer we likely only have about $30-40 tied up in a batch. While I don’t want to suggest that $40 is a meaningless amount of money, there are benefits to dumping out beer.

The benefit I am most grateful for is I don’t have to drink bad beer. If I had not dumped the beer yesterday I would have been stuck drinking 3 cases worth of bad beer. That’s not why I started brewing my own beer! Of course I didn’t start brewing my own beer to make bad beer either.

The other big benefit is it allows us to quickly learn from our mistakes. Tasting the two beers gave me notes on what was wrong and now I can try to correct it next time around. More importantly, dumping these beers freed up resources for me to keep brewing. In my case I got a fermenter and keg back. Now I have a fermenter I can brew a beer into and a keg I can fill with another beer that is waiting.

Having to dump a beer is never fun, but if we take advantage of the opportunity to get better than it won’t be a complete waste. Have you ever needed to dump a beer?

Beer Musings

2015 Brewing Resolutions

January 2, 2015 Leave a Comment Written by John

The new year always brings with it promises and high expectations of bettering ourselves (usually centered around the size of our stomachs). I am usually not one to make resolutions, but each year I like to assess where I am with my brewing and look ahead to where I’d like to be or things I want to try. As a new dad my time is at a premium so to move forward with my brewing I have to stay focused.

Over the past year I made a commitment to myself to be more regular when it comes to be days. I tried to gradually increase my pace to get to the point where I was brewing once every 2 weeks. This was largely my only goal in 2014: get back in the saddle after welcoming our son to the world. Despite a few lapses I was largely on schedule by year’s end (Not that you could tell by this blog. More on that later). This success and brewing regularly has me excited for the new year and what’s to come.

Without any further delay here are my goals for brewing in 2015:

  • Get more involved in competitions
  • Nail down a pilsner, kolsch and pale ale recipe for my system
  • Fine tune my system
  • Experiment with sour beers
  • Be more consistent in sharing what I learn and brew here

Thankfully these goals are not mutually exclusive. Getting more involved in the competition scene will be beneficial for getting recipes right. Anytime you can get some unbiased feedback on your beer its a good thing. I want to get more involved in competitions on the judging side as well. This will help me hone my own skills for evaluating beer.

As I  work through the different styles I want to push myself to try new things. Trying for the pilsner and kolsch will also challenge me as a brewer because there is nowhere to hide in these styles. I could brew IPAs and big stouts all year and never figure out that I’ve been doing something wrong the whole time. Doing more styles of beer also makes me want to dabble with sour beers. However, this is the one I’m most hesitant of due to the risk of cross contamination. I keep my equipment clean and sanitized, but the risk is still present that some bacteria could cross over to normal beers.

I have identified a few changes I want to make to my system.  Most are just small tweaks that will make things go more smoothly during brew day. The biggest effect any of these will have on the beer is making fixes to my chiller. Due to how I had to mount my counterflow chiller I could not counterflow with it. Defeats the purpose, huh?  A simple fitting should fix it, but I just have not taken the time to deal with it. I want to take care of this and some other small changes to the system.

Lastly, I want to be more consistent with updating this site. Part of the lag in updates was my decision to stop posting brew day recaps until I have the finished beer. This was done mostly for the beers on which I was making my first attempt. It does not help anyone to get a recipe if it turns out to be a terrible one. Documenting what I am working on and learning throughout the year will not only be helpful to me, but hopefully can help or inspire someone out there make great beer. My little way of giving back to a wonderful homebrew community that has helped me immensely.

Like normal resolutions, I’m sure this list will be fluid, but this is how I see the year right now. What are your brewing goals for 2015?

Beer Musings

Why Brew Beer?

May 29, 2014 Leave a Comment Written by John

People sometimes ask me why I brew my own beer. Why don’t I just buy it from the store? To me the answer is pretty simple. Brewing is fun and rewarding. I like handing someone a beer and being able to say, “Yeah. I made that.”  Hopefully they get the same enjoyment as I do!  For me brewing is also a stress reliever. When I am brewing, it doesn’t matter what happened at work this week or anything else that is going on. I can just focus on the sweet smells coming from the kettle.

Brewing beer also scratches that creative itch while satisfying my geeky science side.  The mix of science and art is something that can’t be found in many hobbies.  For example, hops can give you different flavors and aromas and the timing of those hop additions will affect what you get.  The science behind hop isomerization melds with the art of blending the right flavors to create a magical experience.

There are plenty of other reasons that people homebrew. Maybe they can’t get good beer near them. Maybe they discovered their new favorite beer while travelling and want to be able to drink it at home (don’t forget to ask the brewer for tips!).  Some brew to have beer cheaper than they can buy it for. Others brew for the pride of making something better than they can buy at the store.

There is some aspect of brewing that will appeal to just about anyone. Here are a few examples:

Artists – brewing provides a creative outlet to make a delicious beverage to share with friends and family or selfishly enjoy on your own. You can use endless combinations of ingredients to bring together wonderful flavors and aromas.

Scientists – brewing involves thermodynamics, chemistry, and biology. Many choose to ignore the science behind brewing and still enjoy the hobby.  But for others, diving deep into the processes and reactions that brewing entails is a big part of the fun.

DIYers – building homebrew equipment is a large component of the hobby for many homebrewers. There are projects large and small that can make brewing easier or just plain cooler.

Why do you brew?

Beer Musings