Meanwhile on the Trails............

Okay time is not on my side as far as getting out to the trails, but I will try and fill in the mountain bike posts here and there, with some funny memes or Mountain Bike babes.......Here is a two for one this week.

Tales From The One Gallon Brew...The Final Edition....Brew Dog Punk IPA

As I started on this journey to learn how to brew, I  tried to perfect..well at least sharpen my skills by brewing on my stove top.

 It was fun had a few brews that taught me a couple of things, but all the work amounted to about 8 beers......8 fucking beers!!! 

Do I regret the stove top brewing? No, but the expense and time to do it for minimum output as they started to taste better was not worth it.

 So we have stepped up our beer brewing game to at the very least 5 gallon batches and as we perfect those we will jump again. But I had a single gallon batch left over from all those stove top recipes (this one being an all in one from the Brooklyn Brew Shop.

If you are looking to learn how to brew and want to take some of the work of coming up with recipes, brewing huge batches that sometimes don't come out so well (as I have had) and want to refine your All Grain skills they are a great place to start. About 15 bucks for a beer in a box like this one....

Or if you need the initial products like a fermentor, airlock etc...You will still need a pot You can purchase a kit for 40 bucks...

Although shipping comes out to about 15 which makes sense to purchase 3 recipes or a beer making kit plus an additional recipe and get free shipping on all orders $45 and over

Anyway as we prepare to brew our first batch on our new system I had some time on a Saturday night and decided to finish off the final One gallon brew. 

Trying to keep our kitchen cool I decided to go for it with our burner outside and use a bag and Cooler as a Mash Tun.

Although this almost screwed things up. We have a car port so if we had to we could have taken cover to brew.

We heated up the water I used some extra 2 row I had aside and needed to clear out also, hoping to get a bit more than a gallon.

We had some hang ups on this as we needed to raise the Temp to 170 on the mash out, so we collected the wort and started to raise the temp. We used a strainer and collected the amount of 170 degree water to start on the boil.

Grabbed a few beers (an old Standby Sam Adams Double IPA and a nice Hoppy Brown Ale that Katie my sister in law brought back from Public house Brewing)

As the boil pressed on we added the hops....

Finishing off the boil at the 0 minute mark adding the remaining hops and cooling the beer to get it into primary.

I had purchased a yeast starter and did it that morning (since this was a last minute decision to brew.)

 And as you can see the bubble from the Star San still in there...they say don't fear the bubbles..well I hope not. I will give you all an update weather this came out good or not. We hit most of the temperatures but missed a little bit initially (a bit too hot) and this box was sitting in the basement storage for a good year so , might be good might not be...We will see. But this is the end of the One gallon brewer journey. Time to move on to Five gallons at a time.

s always this disclaimer I am no expert only a guy who likes to brew and drink beer, these are my opinions and we all know what opinions are like...Yes Assholes...So this is just one assholes opinions, and the way I am learning to brew, my personal journal for the 2 or 3 of you to see. When and if I find the perfect way to brew and can pass that info along I will..But my best advice learn from who you can, your own mistakes, and you are brewing beer...have fun for crying out loud. Cheers and Beers

Second Annual Memorial Day Veterans Brew 2016 Imperial Strong Scotch Ale

After a long, long hiatus from brewing, due to a busy home schedule with one daughter graduating and a two and one year old to keep occupied, I finally jumped back in to keep our hopefully now annual Memorial day Brew alive. My sister in law Katie a Navy Veteran and one of my best friends and Air Force Brother Rob got together last year for our first Brew ha Memorial day session. 

Yep! that is me...a face for radio

Creating a great Kolsch. One of only 3 beers so far to make it into the Great beer recipe book for a do over.

Last year was fun both Katie (my sister in law) and myself were still very much learning. It was only my third brew and her Second. (the first one together was another pretty good recipe our Imperial IPA 

So Rob took the lead but let us each put our touches on it teaching us how to brew the All Grain way.

This year after numerous stove top brews,

 like this one Tales from the One Gallon Brew or Our Bitter Sweet recipe (which was just Okay)

But we were learning what worked, what did not, the process etc...

Life happened, things get in the way and time flies. So as I saw Memorial day coming around I wanted to make this an annual thing, if nothing else a date we got together and made a beer. 

Our first choice (or my "go big or Go Home" choice) was an Imperial Oktoberfest. I found a few recipes (to which a lot of people would say well that is just a double Bock. Well Double Bock or not Imperial Oktoberfest sounds cooler. 

Well after looking it over and realizing we needed to let it ferment at about 35 degrees for 7 weeks and the options of buying another refrigerator etc... We changed gears last minute, but keeping with my Go Big ideas I screwed us yet again. I found a Heavy Scotch Ale that had a Grain bill of about 24 pounds. (to put it in perspective our Imperial IPA had 17 pounds and that pushed the limits of our (Rob's) equipment. 

Here was the problem. I had already picked up the grain and it was mixed so I could not even cut it down to say a 4 gallon batch at that point. So we all got together went to a couple of brew shops, as Katie and I decided to bite the bullet and get some brew gear  that would both help in a large automated system with Robs, let us brew when Rob could not make it and enable us to brew normal size batches without having to load up all Rob's gear every time. 

The biggest issue with this brew was the Mash Tun Rob's 10 gallon was not large enough for the grain and water. 

So we looked at both getting a larger cooler, a larger pot and all of the hoses connections, pumps that would give us all the options above. Those being this Brew, and future brews no matter the size.

Well we decided on a cooler for the time being. Katie and I would get our own Pot after shopping a bit for the best deal, But we needed our own Mash Tun anyway, so this would work out in the long run.

Well with the best intentions Katie found a great 20 gallon cooler at a going out of business sale. But......

The hole for the ball valve was too long and would put the screen at an angle that would not be the greatest for the Mash. 

Our Brew was supposed to begin at 10 am..... Well after a trip to Loews and as I washed everything to prepare it. 2 hours later we had a very nice, very large Mash tun. Now we could begin.

First thing was getting the water ready and Crushing the 23-24 pounds of grain....

And no Brew day would be complete without trying a new beer..this one from Main Street 4202 in Belleville Il  Their 2-Hop  IPA is a West coast style IPA with Cascade and Legacy Hops. It went down way too easy and could have been a disaster from a too good to not keep drinking standpoint...But We had work to do.... 

And when I said we had work to do not only were we brewing, Rob brought some tools over to cut a tree down that was growing in some power lines (do not try this at home)

 Anyhow...We were ready to Mash in, and thank the good Lord, Rob bought a heavy duty Mash paddle we needed it....

As thick a ratio as I have seen in my short brewing career...

But when we Mashed out we were also able to squeeze out another gallon and a half, 

                                             

I threw my small pot on a burner and used up all the left over hops I had in the freezer from the past year...

It may taste like crap, or as Rob said it could be a small batch that taste better than the large one.....Either way we got another gallon out of this. Waste not, Want not.

The rest of the Brew went pretty well. This was also the first time I made a Yeast Starter the day before and may do that again as, the airlock was extremely active for 2-3 days.

I put all the beer over into secondary and now we wait. 

Meanwhile, Katie and I have purchased a new 20 gallon Brew pot and some accessories. 

We plan on making a few clones beers first to get used to the new equipment (the first beer will be Sierra Nevada's Torpedo extra IPA  

If we can get it close, we will try one more clone, if it is awful maybe two more

After that, start to experiment this fall. The goal is to brew once a month. If we can go at least every other month I will be happy with that...We will see.

As always this disclaimer I am no expert only a guy who likes to brew and drink beer, these are my opinions and we all know what opinions are like...Yes Assholes...So this is just one assholes opinions, and the way I am learning to brew, my personal journal for the 2 or 3 of you to see. When and if I find the perfect way to brew and can pass that info along I will..But my best advice learn from who you can, your own mistakes, and you are brewing beer...have fun for crying out loud. Cheers and Beers

Back in the Saddle again?

I know it has been a while but not much was going on, so not much to write about be back soon with some brewing

...I have to admit have not touched my bike in over a year now, but more brewing is on it's way along with some beer reviews

..... Stay Tuned