The "Almost" Daily Beer and Bike Log April 23 2015 Brewing my Mini American IPA

I got home last night and got all my usual stuff done, cleaned up, grilled diner up, helped with our toddler also early on I mowed the lawn actually took a spin on my bike since well you know I had to move it out of the way to get the lawnmower out. Not a real ride but it was a ride.....

Anyway all this so I could try and do a kitchen top 1 gallon All Grain American IPA. Now for this first attempt I did it kind of like a Brew in a Bag, to keep the mess down and to keep it as simple as possible. This was after all my very first Brew with no guidance, it was all me. Which is not as fun as brewing with friends but on a small scale it enables me to brew once in a while.

Anyway I cleaned and sanitized everything and got set up. 

I looked through the recipe once more before starting to make sure I had everything and would not forget anything (Which I did but we will get to that later)

Got the water heated to 150 degrees

 it ended up  a little higher I was hoping it would hold the heat when I turned the burner off, unfortunately it came up to about 160 to start with. 

While I was waiting for that I went old school and crushed my grains (just wanted to say old school, really nothing old about crushing my grains with a can but it sounded cool right? No?)  

Anyway I pressed on put the bag in and stirred my grain into the pot. 

Set the timer and cracked open a beer. 

The temperature held really well on the stove top even with me opening and stirring every ten minutes.

I listened to the ballgame chased my little one around before her bedtime and got everything else lined up for the boil.

Time was up I got every bit of goodness from the grains in the bag and I started the boil.  Then discarded them

Once it was bubbling poured in some hops and waited for about 43 minutes for the next step. 

More hops, a few minutes later a tsp of Irish moss to clear it up a bit, and finally some hops for the final two minutes of the boil.

Not having a wort chiller (and now wanting one) I placed the pot in a cold bath in the sink and stirred to get the temperature down. 

It seemed to take forever and I had to fill the sink multiple times since the water would warm up, also with the wort boiled down to just over a gallon you can't fill the sink too high or your pot floats. 

Got my fermenter sanitized and ready for the wort. Poured it in through a strainer, Got the yeast in to do the heavy lifting, put the cover on. 

Placed the airlock in poured some vodka in the airlock (side note need to buy some cheaper vodka to use on this)

And put it in the storage room downstairs.

My back ached (more for the combination of mowing the lawn going for a walk working all day then brewing as opposed to the brewing itself...But well worth it, I had a good time brewing my first stove top IPA and look forward to more...Oh yeah remember I said I forgot to do something? Well I never got the original gravity of the beer. I was going to pop it back open but since I did not want to disturb the Yeast I figured forget it. I also thought well shit!!!

Now in a few weeks we will see if this base IPA (plan to experiment with it as I make more) taste great, good or like shit (see I can be a critic on my own beer, hell probably more so than other peoples beers) 

The "Almost " Daily Beer and Bike Log April 22 2015 Just a waiting game

So as My wife and I wait for our son to be born (or at least waiting for him to vacate the residence we call my wife's womb) I at the moment have plans to brew my first kitchen top one gallon All grain batch of American IPA. 

Tonight I will try to brew it up straight forward recipe for this first attempt (as in if I screw it up no other ingredients wasted) 

We will see what happens, should be fun although not as much fun as brewing with friends and it could get interesting if the wife's water breaks in mid brew. I have somewhat been putting it off since we have had a busy schedule and not knowing if our son will decide to join us....

Anyway if we get to the weekend without being int he hospital I will also make an attempt to get a ride in, which I am stoked for since it has been way too long. 

Also our batch of Sweet Stout should be ready and I got a couple of Growlers prepared to be filled. Not much else on the horizon. I think I will have my hands full here pretty soon

Beers To Try Before you Die or the Beer Bucket 52 List 33 of 52 Bourbon Aged Holy Moly

On Easter Sunday I enjoyed a very Holy Beverage...Well not exactly, but it was called  Bourbon Aged Holy Moly by Cathedral Square Brewery 

I love Bourbon aged beers and this was no different, a strong oak flavor that went down smooth, this Russian Imperial Stout was great. Granted between this and some Union Jack IPA I took a long hard nap after Easter diner, But well worth the money (if only next time I do my usual and have a glass, maybe two) 

I am going with a strong 4 beers and a shot on this one, a very tasty beer that I could enjoy on any Holy day...

Again maybe just enjoy it a little less....

To view what all the ratings mean go to the 52 Beers to try Before You die Bucket list page

Disclaimer I am a beer drinker and a beginner home brewer the above is only my taste buds telling me what I enjoy, it is not the law or rule of the land, these would be the beers that I am grateful to have tried before the day comes when I pass on and meet my maker.

Beers To Try Before you Die or the Beer Bucket 52 List 32 of 52 Guinness Extra Stout

I don’t know if I would consider Guinness a Craft beer, but I would consider it a beer with flavor and not a light Lager (and if you like that that is fine, there is nothing wrong with that, I don’t, my taste, my blog) Anyway I wanted to try the Guinness Extra Stout which is actually the Original or “the one that started it all” According to their site,  it is a stronger ABV 6 compared to it’s sister beer Guinness Draught at 4.3

The taste itself does not feel as thick as a Guinness Draught and goes down so smooth with sweet notes of chocolate and toffee, I definitely enjoyed this more than the Draught (which I usually purchase around St Paddy's day, but will now grab some Extra Stout instead)

I am going to put this on the list because I do believe it is something you all should try so I am giving it a 2 Beer rating…

Worth your time go have one

To view what all the ratings mean go to the 52 Beers to try Before You die Bucket list page

Disclaimer I am a beer drinker and a beginner home brewer the above is only my taste buds telling me what I enjoy, it is not the law or rule of the land, these would be the beers that I am grateful to have tried before the day comes when I pass on and meet my maker.

The "Almost" Daily Beer and Bike Log April 20 2015 A Lesson Learned

In an interesting weekend I tried a couple of new beers, set myself up for 1 gallon batches of beer straight from my kitchen, not only so if these first solo batches suck but once I get going to experiment with some recipes. 

No Riding and I am getting anxious on that front.

 Anyway I also was able to move my very first All Grain batch from Primary to secondary fermentation. This my friends was an adventure. I want to preface this by saying I should have pulled the head out of my ass and bought an Auto Siphon (which will be purchased this week) so I went to YouTube and found a video on Racking your beer with a racking cane. Simple right? Looked simple enough. 

(now there were not a lot of pictures during this craziness actually this was the first and the last as I tried to save the beer)

So I got some sterilized water submerged the correct end of the tubing. After a bunch of water on the floor and my hands soaked I got the siphon going then in a panic (as I did not have a clamp but had my finger over the tube) I had my daughter get the fermenter up high so I could get it going but realized as I stuck my hand in the beer (side not if this beer comes out great I am sticking my hand in more often, side not 2 my hand and arm were sanitized so relax)  after switching that up and getting the beer going to get the water out I placed the tubing into the Carboy and it was underway, But oh my troubles were not over. At a certain point my tube got an air bubble and I could not get the rest into the carboy the plus is we had about 5 and a half gallons anyway so I had plenty in the carboy. Now as I went to put the bung in the hole (giggle,  Bung hole) it was slick due to all the San Star both on the Bung and in the carboy every time I would put that and the airlock in it would pop out, just like it was taunting me. I had to completely dry both and keep pressing it in until it stayed. Finally with water, beer and paper towels all over the place I could clean up.  I placed a shirt over the Glass carboy put a thermometer on it and left it…Next week (with an auto siphon) we will take 5 separate gallon jugs and further ferment with some different things in each (Oak Chips, dark chocolate, etc…) Lesson learned but wish it was a lesson learned on a cheap Grain Bill not a Big Imperial beer. Either way I am drinking it… 

Beers To Try Before you Die or the Beer Bucket 52 List 31 of 52 Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA

So I have come from not Enjoying IPAs to loving them and even making them now in my homebrew endeavors. And I think I have found one of the top ones (as of now anyway)  Firestone Walker Brewing's Union Jack IPA in a word Awesome!!! It had flavor from beginning to end and went down so easy (a dangerous type of easy as I had a bit much)

I will have to sit back down one day to drink a Dogfish Head 90 Minute and compare because I only gave that a 5 beer and a Shot rating and I remember that as being tops in the world of IPA (so I will take one for the team at some point in the future and rate them together to see what we get..I know poor me with awesome beers to try again)

Anyway for the moment I am going all in on the Union Jack and giving this one the Six pack,

 I am looking forward to trying some more of their tasty beverages

To view what all the ratings mean go to the 52 Beers to try Before You die Bucket list page

Disclaimer I am a beer drinker and a beginner home brewer the above is only my taste buds telling me what I enjoy, it is not the law or rule of the land, these would be the beers that I am grateful to have tried before the day comes when I pass on and meet my maker.

The Start Of a New Week!!!

Up For a Ride Anyone?

Ride? Hell we will run!!!

 We Are in!!!

Let's GO!!

Beers To Try Before you Die or the Beer Bucket 52 List 3 More Honorable Mentions

So I was really excited over the Sam Adams Double Bock I could not locate it for a couple of weeks in the stores I frequent, and finally while food shopping I came across it in the beer cooler. I bought it and already had plans to try some other beers that weekend (See Dogfish Head beers here) so I put it in the fridge and held off till this past weekend. 

Now if you have followed my blog you know some of my favorite beers come from Sam Adams. There are very few I don’t like as a matter of fact only one Sam beer have I ever not enjoyed (it was back before I started this blog) Anyway I poured this beer that I had been waiting to try and the first sip was outstanding, but then the aftertaste was not the greatest, not bad but just not as good as the initial sip. Don’t know if it was I expected more in my initial expectations, or just was not feeling it that night. Double Bock is still a very good beer I almost want to give it a shot (a half rating) just to keep it on the list, but that would not be fair to the many other beers out there I think are outstanding beers. So I give this one an honorable mention (Don’t fret Sam Adams, you have plenty of beers that will appear on this list) I can say if you are a fan of Bocks you may really like this beer. So give it a try anyway.

A few weeks earlier I had tried a few beers during one of our monthly UFC events. I came across New Belgium and 3 Floyds Gratzer Ale. It was kind of strange. This was the night I hit my Skunky beer which was not fun See Post here But this one was not a skunky beer or a bad beer just fell short of being a great beer. The only way I can describe it was the taste was almost there like it was missing something. It had the potential to be a really good it was almost irritating that I would take a sip wait for ta taste to hit me that was missing. The taste that I did get the only way I can explain it was fresh cut grass on a spring day (No it did not taste like grass but that was what I imagined) So I can give this an honorable mention, if they tweeked it a bit and  added some more flavor,again not sure what, more hops? Some type of Citrus? With anything I think it would have potential.

The final Honorable Mention was East Side IPA from Excel Brewing Company. It was a decent IPA, but with some of the IPAs I had been drinking it was hard to measure up to the taste of those. Again a good beer and that is why it is in the Honorable mention category, if you like IPAs you may enjoy this one it is smooth and easy to drink

To view what all the ratings mean go to the 52 Beers to try Before You die Bucket list page

Disclaimer I am a beer drinker and a beginner home brewer the above is only my taste buds telling me what I enjoy, it is not the law or rule of the land, these would be the beers that I am grateful to have tried before the day comes when I pass on and meet my maker.

The "Almost" Daily Beer and Bike Log April 15, 2015 Busy Week for the Beer Side

Been a very busy week in the Beer side of my world, unfortunately still not much to report on the bike side, other than I got it out of the shed rode it in the back yard as I got it out of the way of the lawnmower.

Anyway Last Thursday I visited Friendship Brewery inWentzville MO. 

Brian Nolan one of the owners was still plugging away at building his Brewery out of a 100 year old building. As I walked in his hand was in a cup of ice as he had just dropped a very large piece of wood on it smashing his fingers. 

We talked beer for a few moments, and I set up the interview. It is so awesome to hear a history of someone who has been doing this for almost 30 years and hear about the same feelings I am getting just starting out. I don’t want to go too much into detail as I will slowly put together this documentary after speaking with some other local brewers.

This past weekend we went all in on a All Grain Brew.

 In my infinite wisdom I decided let’s do an Imperial IPA. 17 pounds of grains into a 10 gallon boil (the pot size not the water) and a 5 gallon fermenter…

Lesson learned need a bigger fermenter for a bigger beer.

Anyway the brew started out great, we had a great day outside,

Rob (my friend and mentor I suppose on this brewing journey) bought his new Grain mill and we milled our own grain

 (get the drill attachment especially on 17 pounds)

We went through step by step

And in the past Rob tends to boil off a lot more water so when we were filling the fermenter it was a bit of a surprise to find we were over 5 gallons.

Got through the rest of the Brew had some beers to end the night off.......

 We took the chance and about 24 hours later I had to change out the airlock as it appeared the bucket was going to explode. 

When I went to put the dry hops in the next day the airlock again was clogging. I also may have screwed this batch by forgetting to sanitize the nylon bag.

Anyway we will see if it completely screws the taste up either way I am drinking some of it for 17 pounds of grains and hops 60 bucks…

You betchya ass I am drinking some