6,148

That's how many beers were entered in the NHC this year. Kind of a staggering number, no? I guess it's a testament to the popularity of this awesome, cool, and totally nerdy hobby, right?

I did my homebrewing thing this evening. Getting out of work early is awesome because I got home from work, brewed, and I'm completely done with cleanup before midnight. Knocked out an English style brown ale. It won't make it into the NHC, but I think it should be a worthy beer nonetheless.

Anyway, I entered four beers in the NHC. If even one advances to the national round I'll be stunned, flattered, and humbled. Everyone should homebrew.

F Yeast Starters

I've been through the paces with yeast culturing and growing a pitchable slurry of yeast up from an agar plate and all that. It's a lot of work. It's very time consuming and you have to be extremely careful with your sanitation practices. Quite frankly I just don't have that kind of time to dedicate to the hobby these days.

At the same time, I love to have a low gravity 3-4%ABV beer on hand at all times. I know it's completely counter to the direction that the whole craft beer movement is moving - big beers, huge beers, huger beers - but it's what I really enjoy more than anything. A nice, flavorful, drinkable beer that I can put away a few of without sitting down to take notes about how "complex" it is. And I haven't said the "S" word for a reason - I hate it, I think it's goofy.

And also at the same time, I like to re-pitch my yeast. I like to brew several batches in a row with the same strain instead of culturing up enough yeast for each different style I'm going for. Again, it's more time consuming and more expensive to brew with a different yeast every time.

So... where am I going with this....

With those thoughts in mind, I figured to hell with starters. Why not have my low gravity beer be my starter. Instead of making a starter I bought two vials of WLP007 and today I brewed an English bitter. The yeast slurry from the fermenter will be re-pitched for my next three or four batches. And instead of dumping a bunch of starter beer/wort I'll have five gallons of beer to show for it.

I worked off of the Jamil book for the recipe. Crisp Maris Otter is the base malt with 1/2 lb of Weyermann Cara Aroma and 1/4 lb of Briess Special Roast. The Cara Aroma is a dark crystal malt. 1/2 oz of Kent Goldings added at both 10 and 0 min remaining in the boil.

After this beer I'll be brewing a Pale Ale with Nelson Sauvin hops, an IPA with Centennial and Amarillo (thanks, Lee, I'll hook you up), and an English Brown and/or my Oatmeal Stout recipe.

I'm just glad to have the yogurt fork incident behind me.

Homebrew Alley IV Results

I haven't really blogged much of late because I haven't really had much to blog about. Haven't brewed in about a month. Homebrew Alley IV was this past weekend, so that was something fun. I had the opportunity to judge three flights - English Pale Ales, American Ales, and Strong Ales. Lots of great homebrew. There really weren't any duds in the bunch - and that's saying something because I drank a lot of homebrew.

Results of the competition are posted here.

Lots of people are finding this blog by looking for information on the White Labs High Pressure Lager yeast strain, WLP925. Unfortunately I can't report much good news about how my beers fermented with this yeast did in the competition. There were three of them - a helles, a pilsner (really should have been entered as a Dortmunder), and a rauchbier. None of them placed. But at the same time none of them got bad feedback. They were all kind of "eh". Although, personally, I think that the rauchbier is first rate.

WLP925 - finally an evaluation

I finally have a beer tapped up that I fermented with the WLP925 High Pressure Lager Yeast. At least one that's worth drinking anyway. The first lesson I learned with this yeast is that it's seriously non-flocculent, so with the Dunkel that I first brewed to be fermented with this yeast I had to dump the entire four liter starter into it. It doesn't taste all that swell, so I figured I'd wait until this second pitch to pass judgment on the yeast.

The recipe was about 99% Weyermann Pale Ale malt with a dash of Carafoam. Bittering hops only, no flavor or aroma additions. Fermented with the second pitch of the WLP925 yeast at around 64F under about 15psi. OG 1.053, FG 1.012 after just under two weeks. Racked it to secondary for ten days at 35F. Fined with gelatin and racked to serving keg.

The beer is a deep gold with a thick, tight white head. Slight haze. Tough coaxing the aroma out of it. Some grain, some bread crust. Also some light esters of the ethyl hexanoate variety - apple, aniseed. Some alcohol showing even though it's only 5.4%. Malt sweetness with some definite bready notes in the flavor. Esters and alcohol don't show as they did in the nose. Bitterness is moderate. Mouthfeel is creamy in the middle and finishes dry. Carbonation is soft, though definitely high enough to be appropriate to style.

I've got a couple of other batches coming with re-pitches of this yeast, so I'll wait to see how those come out before a final verdict, but here are some early pros and cons:

Pros:

1. This strain attenuates very nicely, which I think is important for a lager strain.
2. Capturing carbonation during primary fermentation seems to have really created an interesting mouthfeel. This beer doesn't have that carbonic bite that may or may not happen in some beers that are force carbonated.
3. Pretty clean lager beer in about three weeks.

Cons:

1. The yeast doesn't flocculate at all. Even after fining with gelatin it's still a little hazy. Also, I basically wasted the first batch that was pitched with the entire starter since the starter yeast wouldn't flocculate. I think that the next time I would use this yeast I'd just get a few vials and pitch them all instead of making a starter.
2. The beer isn't completely clean. The slight esters that it created bothered me. I had a problem with my spunding valve during primary fermentation that I corrected with a new pressure relief valve in the most recent batch. We'll see if that corrects it.
3. This is nitpicking, but I don't think that the yeast performs as quickly as advertised. I think you need at least 10 days in primary to get complete attenuation, another week or so in the secondary and to condition and clarify, then another day to settle in the serving keg. So I'd be hesitant to call it a beer any sooner than two and a half weeks after brew day.

For those in the NYCHG I'll try to bring some samples to the January meeting.

So on Tuesday I'll be entered in this homebrew contest being held by The Office restaurants. Jeff at Beer Stained Letter wrote about it a few days ago here. My Oatmeal Stout will be in full effect at the Montclair location. If I'm lucky enough to be chosen the winner on Tuesday, I'll be back there again on Saturday to face off against the winners from all of the other Office locations. The winner on Saturday has their beer brewed at High Point in Butler and their beer will be served as a winter seasonal at all of The Office locations.

Wish me luck!

Fun and games with WLP925

A lot of people have asked me about the WLP925 yeast that used recently, so I thought I'd provide an update.

First of all, I'm really treating this first batch like a big yeast starter. I had some problems with this past brew, and I don't want to truly evaluate this yeast strain based on this batch. Some of the problems were my fault - screwed up chilling my wort and didn't get it nearly as cool as I wanted when I pitched the yeast. And some of the problems were related to this yeast strain and the new process associated with using it - had some trouble getting my spunding valve dialed in to 15psi, so the pressure on the fermenter fluctuated throughout fermentation.

Also, this yeast appears to be pretty non-flocculant. I had to pitch the entire four liter starter because the yeast just wouldn't settle out to the bottom of the flask. I hate dumping starter wort/beer into the five and a half gallons of wort I've just worked so hard to create. Yet another reason I'll reserve judgement on this batch.

I actually changed up my original plan to do a helles type lager and brewed something more along the lines of a dunkel. It came in at 1.054. When I racked to a secondary last night, it measured out at 1.014. 74% attenuation is about what I would have expected, so I was happy with that result. The beer is also pretty well carbonated since it's been under pressure all this time. That's one of the benefits of using this yeast, but it also makes racking, measuring gravity, and washing yeast a bit treacherous.

As for the sample, it was tough to get a good read on it. It was very cloudy, again confirming my observations that this yeast strain doesn't flocculate well. I'll probably have to do some kind of fining in the secondary, which I'd really rather not do. Especially since the beer is already carbonated. We'll see. Maybe a week at 35F will do it some good.

The toasty malt character that I was going for in the dunkel recipe that I brewed was definitely up front, so that was a very good thing. However, it was very yeasty tasting, which made it difficult to really evaluate well. More on this next week.

Upcoming brew plans and SCH competition

A big thanks to the Stoney Creek Homebrewers whose second annual competition was a huge success this past weekend. I went down to the General Lafayette Inn with some entries and to judge. I wound up judging Belgian Strong Ales in the morning (as usual) and Amber Hybrids in the afternoon.

It was a real treat to have two short flights. The more competitions I judge, the more I find that doing shorter flights (in this case eight in the morning, seven in the afternoon) makes the whole process much better. I think that it makes the day go more smoothly for everyone involved and allows the judges to provide better feedback. I don't care what kind of expert you are and how great your palate is, once you start to get into ten, twelve, even more beers in a flight, you're going to have some fatigue. So great job by the SCH crew in keeping it tight.

I was also quite pleased to place with a few of my entries. I was particularly happy with how my Dortmunder Export did, as that's a recipe that I've been tweaking and trying to perfect for a while now. The feedback from the judges was definitely very flattering.

Speaking of lagers, I've got my WLP925 yeast starter working as of last night. I plan on brewing Friday night. I'll get my spunding valve all ready to go this week in preparation. The brew will be something along the lines of a helles. I have a bunch of Weyermann Pale Ale malt laying around and I want to use it up before it goes bad, plus for the first try with this yeast I want to do a very clean, basic kind of a beer. I think I'm going to do almost 100% base malt (with a dash of cara-pils) and no aroma or flavor hops. Boring, I know, but I think that this will be the best way to judge the flavor profile of this yeast.

River Horse - Meet the Brewer Night at LITM

Thought I'd take the opportunity to post some actual Jersey City beer news. From the Garden State Craft Brewer's Guild newsletter:

Come by to LITM to meet River Horse reps and sample
great beers. The event takes place Wednesday, November 18th from 6 to 9 PM.
Featuring all year round beers plus two special releases.

There's nothing on either brewery's site yet about this, so this is all the info available that I know of at this time. River Horse makes some pretty good beers - I especially enjoy the Special Ale. They're starting to get some more distribution up in Hudson County, so check them out.

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On the homebrew front, I'm about to start revving up the WLP925 yeast in a starter for my next brew. I can't wait to see how this yeast performs. I don't really care about all of the German tradition and having to lager a beer for six weeks. If I can get good clean lager beer in two weeks, I'll be super pumped.

I've also got two versions of R's Favorite Oatmeal Stout now - same recipe, one fermented with lager yeast, the other with an ale yeast. Should be tapping up the ale version soon, so it will be interesting to see how they compare. I have a feeling that given the strong malty flavors in this beer, the impact of the yeasts on the flavor will be subtle.

I also have one of my all time worst beers on tap now, a Dunkelweizen fermented with a dry wheat beer yeast strain. It's pretty brutal. Some of it is recipe, some is the yeast. I'm about ready to give up on dry yeasts at this point.

A week and a half until the Stoney Creek Homebrewer's Amateur Brewing Championship at the General Lafayette Inn. What are the chances that they'll have the PPV of the Cotto-Pacquiao fight at the bar? Slim or none?

Awesome new yeast strain

I haven't posted anything in a while because nothing terribly exciting has been going on. Although today I'm patiently awaiting a FedEx package with two unique White Labs vials inside.

Poking around on the White Labs site last week I noticed the High Pressure lager yeast (WLP925) that's listed by them as a professional strain. According to their instructions, you can use this yeast to produce clean lagers by fermenting the whole time under 15psi. Primary for one week between 62F and 68F, secondary for 3-5 days at 35F. Of course I got all hot and bothered when I read this and set about scouring the internet to find out how to get my hands on it.

Even though it's a professional only strain according to White Labs, I found it for sale at Midwest. So it's on its way today. When I'm ready to do another lager, I'll build up a starter and ferment in a corny keg with a shortened dip tube. This will allow me to maintain the 15psi necessary and leave the yeast and trub behind in the keg when I rack to the secondary (serving keg).

I've heard that some of the mega brewers are able to turn lagers around faster by fermenting warmer under pressure. When yeast are in a pressurized environment they produce fewer esters. We'll see how this experiment goes. If this turns out to be "the one", it could be a game-changer.

Malt Madness Awesomeness

I wanted to take a quick moment to give some props to the folks in the Lehigh Valley Homebrewers club whose Malt Madness competition this past weekend was fantastic.

The compettion itself went off without a hitch. The morning session, lunch, afternoon session, BOS round, and awards all flowed in punctual fashion - no small task for a competition with some 450 entries. Absolutely great job by the competition coordinators, judge coordinators, stewards, and judges. And the folks at the Allentown Brewworks put out a really nice spread for us. I've come not to expect much for lunch at most homebrew competitions, but this was a pleasant surprise. I pigged out on salad, a cheeseburger, a pulled pork sandwich (the highlight), and some ziti.

Most importantly, I can't say enough about the homebrew I tasted this past weekend. In the first round I judged a flight of strong Belgian ales. We had a couple of very good trippels, but otherwise I found myself underwhelmed. However, in the afternoon session I was assigned to pilsners and amber lagers. I found myself completely blown away by some of the best homebrew I've ever tasted. We had a German pilsner, Oktoberfest, Vienna lager, and American pilsner that were all top notch. These were beers that I would definitely pay good money to drink a full glass of. As someone who loves to brew lagers and prides himself on their quality, I realize that I've got to step up my game. These eastern PA guys are really brewing some kick ass lagers.

I was lucky enough to place with a couple of brews and come away with a killer prize - a gift certificate to Porter's Pub in Easton! So I was able to treat R to a nice dinner at one of our favorite places. A great weekend!

On pH Measurement

On my most recent brew day, I took pH measurements throughout and took some pics. Not sure how much use the pictures of the strips will be - they don't always jive with what they looked like to my naked eye as I read them. I'll describe each step where I took measurements, what they mean, and how you as a homebrewer should look to take measurements as you go.

Mash pH

Much has been made about mash pH, and I won't get into it all over again. I think that John Palmer's How To Brew gives as fine a rundown on mash pH as anything out there and it's already up on the web. If you want to understand how residual alkalinity works, how different minerals affect mash pH, and how to dial your mash pH into the correct range, read up. I'll wait...

I think that the most frustrating thing about the discussion of mash pH is that nobody tells you how to measure it. I'll attempt to address that in this very space.

You'll often hear that your mash pH should be 5.2. It's a common statement that you'll hear from brewers. And there's truth to it. Palmer says that mash pH should be in the 5.2-5.6 range and this is for a number of reasons; optimal enzymatic activity in the mash, wort and beer clarity, healthy fermentation, a more pleasant hop bitterness, finished beer flavor, and more.

However, when it comes to measuring mash pH, there's a critical point that should not be overlooked. Palmer makes it himself, but for the best and most succinct explanation, I'll refer to page 75 of Dr. Charles Bamforth's Standards of Brewing:

"Remember that pH changes with temperature, and so wort at 149F will have a pH about .35 lower than that measured at 68F."

With that in mind, let's think about a couple of things:

1. Most pH meters that we homebrewers can afford are not rated to take measurements at standard mash temps (145 to 158F).


2. When you take a measurement of your hot mash pH with a pH strip, it almost immediately comes to room temperature once you're looking at it out in the air, up against the guide on the package, or against a white background of your choosing. You don't read the strip while it's immersed in the hot mash.

So, even though your mash at mash temperature should be 5.2 to 5.6, you're actually going to look to read 5.55 to 5.95 at room temperature (68F). In the case of my most recent brew day, I took a 3 oz sample from my mash and cooled it to room temperature. I took pH measurements with five separate instruments and here are the results with some pictures:

Economy wide range strip reading: 6.0 (+/- 1.0 pH)

Economy 4.6-6.2 range strip reading: 5.8 (+/- 0.2 pH)

ColorpHast pH strip reading: 5.8 (+/- 0.3 pH)

Hanna Checker meter: 6.06 (+/- 0.1 pH)

Martini meter with ATC: 6.04 (+/- 0.1 pH)

The first thing that I learned from these readings was that my mash pH was higher than what I wanted. I made an addition of a 10% phosphoric acid solution to my mash to lower the pH and came up with the following readings:

Economy wide range strip reading: 6.0 (+/- 1.0 pH)

Economy 4.6-6.2 range strip reading: 5.5 (+/- 0.2 pH)

ColorpHast pH strip reading: 5.3 (+/- 0.3 pH)

Hanna Checker meter: 5.55 (+/- 0.1 pH)

Martini meter with ATC: 5.52 (+/- 0.1 pH)








This brought me to a mash pH of about 5.2 (correcting the Martini meter from 5.53 - 0.35 = 5.18). What I learned from these two sets of data was the following:

1. The meters are simply much more accurate than the strips, both in their stated levels of accuracy and in the elimination of operator error. Which leads me to...


2. The strips can be difficult to read. The difference between 5.5 and 5.8 on the economy (4.6-6.2) strips and 5.3 and 5.5 on the ColorpHast strips is extremely subtle. I honestly don't know that my eyes can tell the difference between 5.3 and 5.5 on the ColorpHast strip.


3. The ColorpHast strips seem to measure consistently low. There's a fella who's been doing a study of the shift on the ColorpHast strips and he's determined that they're pretty consistently off by about -0.3 from actual pH.


4. Having ATC (automatic temperature correction) on the meter is pretty useful. In the case of this exercise I took a lot of time out of my brew day to take measurements and pictures. But on a normal brew day I absolutely would not want to. With ATC I only really need to get my sample into a reasonable temperature range to get an accurate reading. I don't need to get the sample to a specific temperature, which makes it easier to get an accurate reading on the fly.

Pre-Boil Wort pH

Mash pH is the most critical measurement. In theory, if you get your mash pH dialed in, your wort pH both pre and post boil should follow correctly. However, measuring wort pH both pre and post boil can be a valuable tool in troubleshooting, as was the case in my most recent brew day.

I brewed a light lager this time around, which meant a really light beer that would push my pH towards the upper limits - no roasted malts to acidify the mash. It also meant a really low original gravity, and the possibility of a weaker, more alkaline sparge. I didn't fly sparge the mash this time around - I batch sparged. So I didn't get to test the pH of the runnings throughout the sparge. That might have been illuminating. Maybe next time. Anyway, here are the results of the pH measurements of the pre-boil wort:

Economy wide range strip reading: 6.0 (+/- 1.0 pH)

Economy 4.6-6.2 range strip reading: 5.8 (+/- 0.2 pH)

ColorpHast pH strip reading: 5.5 (+/- 0.3 pH)

Hanna Checker meter: 5.73 (+/- 0.1 pH)

Martini meter with ATC: 5.76 (+/- 0.1 pH)

As per this BYO article by Steve Parkes, wort pH should drop from the 5.6-5.8 range pre-boil, to the 5.2-5.4 range post-boil. My pre-boil pH seemed to be fine. The rise in pH from mash during the sparge would be explained by basically dilluting a high gravity, highly buffered wort, with water at a higher pH. In this case I seemed to be fine. However, after a 75 minute boil...

Post-Boil Wort pH

According to the same Parkes article, the drop in pH during the boil;

is primarily due to the precipitation of calcium phosphate. Calcium ions in brewing water reacts with phosphates from the malt to form calcium phospate and hydrogen ions, which lower wort pH.

However, my post-boil wort pH measurements were:

Economy wide range strip reading: 6.0 (+/- 1.0 pH)

Economy 4.6-6.2 range strip reading: 5.8 (+/- 0.2 pH)

ColorpHast pH strip reading: 5.5 (+/- 0.3 pH)

Hanna Checker meter: 5.76 (+/- 0.1 pH)

Martini meter with ATC: 5.80 (+/- 0.1 pH)

If anything, my wort pH went up (if only slightly)!!! I wonder why? Steve...

This demonstrates the importance of excess calcium ions in the wort after mashing. For this reason, it is sometimes a good idea to add gypsum to the kettle. If your mash pH is fine, but the pH does not drop to at least 5.4 by the end of the boil, add 1/4–1/2 teaspoon of gypsum per five gallons.

And in my case, I have extremely soft water that is very low in calcium. And my wort did not drop to 5.4 by the end of the boil. What would be the impact of that? For one, higher wort pH during the boil is associated with a harsher bitterness extracted from hops. Additionally, higher wort pH usually means higher beer pH, which in turn means a "flatter" tasting beer and a beer that is slightly more susceptible to spoilage by bacteria.

So, I would reckon that this exercise was valuable from a troubleshooting perspective. I was able to monitor my mash pH and dial it in to the right range. I was also able to determine that I may not have enough calcium in my mash and wort to drop the pH during the boil.

Let me know what you think.

Measuring mash, wort, and beer pH

This past weekend I brewed up a quick batch of something that will be along the lines of an ordinary bitter or light blonde ale and decided to mess around with pH measurement. I took my mash samples and measured them with five instruments:

1) Economy pH test strips (universal range)
2) Economy pH test strips (mash pH range)
3) ColorpHast test strips
4) Hanna Checker meter
5) Martini pH meter with automatic temperature correction (ATC)

My early findings are as follows, and I promise to update this soon with some more solid data:

1) The ColorpHast strips are way off, as other users have found out.
2) ATC is pretty useful on a pH meter if you don't want to bother with either bringing your sample to a specific temperature, or measuring the temperature of the sample and calculating the correction.

Berliner Weisse woes

So about two months ago I brewed a Berliner Weisse. I had three gallons of 1.032 wort, 50/50 wheat/pilsner malt ratio, which were the second runnings from my American Wheat beer. I pitched a full pack of Wyeast lactobacillus at about 78 degrees and let it sit for about three days. I didn't really see any activity in there, but then again, I don't really know what lactobacillus looks like in a fermenter. After the three days I pitched a bit of Wyeast 1007 (German Ale yeast) slurry from a previous batch. The whole thing sat in the fermenter for about three to four weeks and was bottled with some priming sugar.

Well, after letting the bottles prime for about four weeks I cracked one. I also managed to track down some waldmeister syrup - no small task - at the Schaller and Weber deli on the Upper East Side. And the final beer is more than a little disappointing. No sourness at all. If anyone has any experience with the Wyeast lactobacillus culture and can offer some advice or tips, please comment below. Otherwise I think that my next run at a Berliner Weisse will be a traditional no-boil mash.

Update, 5/29: I got an e-mail back from Wyeast who said that their lactobacillus strain is inhibited above 10 IBU. My Berliner Weisse brew was somewhere in the 8-12 range, so they suggested that this could be the reason why and advised me to give it another couple of months to see if I get some slow acid production.

First... IPA... EVER!!!

Somehow, a homebrewer out there managed to go 100+ batches before ever brewing an IPA. And that homebrewer and I share a name - Me.

When I ordered hop rhizomes a while back, I also ordered a bunch of whole hops. There was a minimum order, so I wound up ordering more than I needed. Add that to what I already had in my freezer and the Mt. Rainier pellets that were given out as prizes at Homebrew Alley III, and we're talking about a lot of hops sitting around. What better way to use up hops than brewing an IPA!

So I based the recipe around most of the high alpha hops that I had - Summit pellets for bittering, Chinook, Nugget, and Magnum whole hops for flavor and aroma. I have a love/hate relationship with the high alpha American hops and IPA's. The bright citrus aroma of Centennial hops - love it. The pungent, resinous, piney aroma of Simcoe hops - no thanks.

I originally planned on just using the Chinook, Nugget, and Magnum equally throughout the last 20 minutes of the boil, but tweaked the recipe a bit upon opening the bags of hops. One thing that I really don't like that comes across in some American hops is a catty aroma (yes, cat piss), and I kind of caught a bit of that in the Chinook. So I figured I'd boil those longer in order to minimize the effects. On second thought, I should have just sealed them back up and used something else. But what would I have done with those 2 oz of Chinook hops? Oh, what's that you say, trade them to someone who likes Chinook hops? Yeah, well hindsight is 20/20.

Here's the gist of the recipe:

Grist
13 lbs Marris Otter
.25 lb Weyermann CaraMunich I
2 oz Briess Cara Pils

Mash for 1hr at 148º. Collect 6.75 gallons, boil down to 5.75 gallons over 75 minutes.

Hops
.5 oz Summit hop pellets, 16.7% AA, boiled 75 minutes
1 oz Chinook whole hops, 13.0% AA, boiled 20 minutes
.5 oz Nugget whole hops, 12.6% AA, boiled 10 minutes
.5 oz Magnum whole hops, 14.0% AA, boiled 5 minutes
.5 oz each Nugget and Magnum added at flameout

Whirlfloc tab added with 15 minutes remaining in boil. Whirlpooled and allowed to settle for 10 minutes after flameout. Cooled to 62º and collected approximately 5.25 gallons of 1.064OG wort in fermenter. Pitched Wyeast 1007 German Ale slurry, gave it 2 minutes of O2.

I was planning on doing 2 oz of aroma hops at flameout, but started to worry that I'd lose too much wort to absorption in the hops. After consulting the Brewing Classic Styles book, which calls for 1 oz at flameout (and 3 oz total finishing hops, just as in my recipe above), I relaxed and had a homebrew.

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In other news, I cracked open a bottle of 2000 Brooklyn Monster right before the Pacquiao-Hatton fight on Saturday night. Sadly, it was very well oxidized. Basically all caramel and sherry. I have one more bottle, which I'll hang on to for a little while longer and hope for better things.

Maybe I should have chugged the other one to try and feel like Ricky Hatton at 2:59 of the second round (sorry, no video).

Getting awesome at the Lambertville Shad Festival

Taking a trip with R this weekend down to Lambertville, NJ for their annual Shad Festival. For those who have never been down that way, we'd totally recommend making a day of it on any weekend when the weather is nice. Lambertville is one of those quaint little river towns where you can have a nice day just walking around and exploring. Plus, New Hope, PA is an easy walk right across the bridge. Between both towns there are plenty of antique stores, sight-seeing opportunities, and restaurants to take advantage of.

But what does that have to do with beer, you ask? Plenty. Located in Lambertville is the River Horse Brewing Company, a craft brewery that within the last year or so received a sizeable investment and is now producing more specialty beers in addition to their regular lineup and is also expanding distribution. We've seen them on tap in JC, Hoboken, and NYC recently, so they're getting out there. And in New Hope, you've got one of Triumph's three brewpubs. The food is excellent at Triumph (if a bit pricey) and they always keep the rotation of taps interesting. We always find more than one beer on there that we've never seen them serving before.

We'll also probably hit one of our favorite spots in Lambertville, the Swan. And check out a new one recommended by Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie in their New Jersey Breweries book, the Inn of the Hawke.

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I transferred my oak aged old ale to a keg to carbonate a few days ago. It tasted fairly awesome. Super oaky, which I'm actually hoping mellows out a bit with time. It's about three months old now, and the hot alcohols already seem to have aged out. Probably going to bottle it tonight.

Do to a household-wide bottle shortage, I'm probably canceling plans to brew a Biere de Garde. I'm going to keep the German Ale yeast slurry going with an IPA. And then it will be on to another lager and a saison. I'll need all of the bottles I can get my hands on for the old ale, berliner weiss, and saison.

Beer Wars Tonight and Home Brewery Troubles

So tonight is the Beer Wars Live movie/live-simulcast-panel-discussion-thing and I will be seeing it, along with R, at the theater in Union Square. Earlier in the week I looked over this FAQ post on the movie's web site. The very fact that this post is even there would indicate that the movie's director/producer has been taking some heat and decided that they'd take the time to address some of the more frequent or pointed questions thrown their way. I'm pretty surprised that they'd get so many questions about the cost and the decision to have Ben Stein host the panel discussion.

First, $15 is not a heck of a lot of money these days. And when you consider that this movie is only being shown in theaters on one date, at one time, AND they're satelite feeding some discussion, I would have expected it to be more than $15.

Second, on Ben Stein... I completely agree that he's a piece of crap. I watch the Sunday Morning show on CBS with R on the weekends and his rants about the economy, politics, and whatever else is on his uber-capitalist mind, are really annoying. But to boycot the movie over it (see the comments section on the FAQ post)? Seems a bit rash to me.

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Some potentially troubling news out of my home brewery. I think I may have an infection. I'm noticing that my last three batches seem to have a mild bit of sourness in the finish. Unfortunately, living in an apartment in an Urban Area, I don't really have the ability to separate some of the functions of a brew day. For example, I have to crush grains in the same room where I store all of my gear. I do a pretty good job of minimizing the proliferation of grain dust, but it's not remotely possible to contain it all. So I wouldn't be surprised if I got some kind of lactic acid bacteria infiltrating my gear. Frankly, I should be surprised that this hasn't happened sooner.

So what does this mean? Tomorrow night, everything that comes in contact with wort post boil is getting replaced, autoclaved, boiled, and/or thrown through some kind of multi-step sanitation regime of bleach, star-san, and iodophor.

Also, I used gelatin for the first time the other day to clarify a beer. That stuff stinks! After dumping the gelatin solution into the keg, I caught a whiff of the mason jar that I mixed it up in. Smelled like feces. Like an actual shit. Granted, the beer has no doodoo off-aroma at all. But I don't know if I can bring myslef to use that stuff again.

NYCHG vs. BJCP

The New York City Homebrewers Guild is sponsoring a BJCP class for homebrewers who want to become beer judges. The first meeting is tonight at Jimmy's No. 43 at 7:30PM (I know, three hours notice). But the real classes don't start until next Tuesday, April 7th, at Burp Castle. The topic will be Malt and we'll be covering light lagers and pilsners. Discussion lead by none other than yours truly.

This is a great opportunity for any homebrewers in the area who want to get more involved in competition judging, to check out the Guild, and get more involved in the local homebrewing scene. You can pick up a lot of great pointers from the experienced brewers in the Guild, no matter what your personal level of experience may be. So come by one of the meetings or check out the NYCHG Yahoo Group for more information and up to the minute discussion.

Latest homebrewing plans

As a fairly frequent homebrewer - about twice a month here - you eventually succumb to the yeast. Unless you want to spring for a new pitch of yeast every time you brew, you have to get a strain that you want to use for a little while and re-pitch from batch to batch. (And if you're really out of your mind you bank agar slants so that you have your favorite strains at the ready and (with some serious planning) can brew with them whenever you wish.)

I had three beers in mind that I wanted to brew - a German Alt beer, a Berliner Weisse, and a French Biere de Garde. How forunate that all three are perfectly suited to the Wyeast 1007 strain! So last night I smacked a smack pack, innoculated some agar slants, and made a 3 liter yeast starter. This weekend I'll brew the Alt.

Two weekends after that I'll brew up a parti-gyle batch - one big mash, the runnings of which will create a hoppy American style wheat beer and a Berliner Weisse. The slurry from the Alt will be divided to pitch into both wheat beers. The Berliner Weisse will also get a dose of lactobacillus (which will also innoculate an agar slant, thank you very much).

Then a few weekends after that I'll brew up the Biere de Garde, pitched with the slurry from the American Wheat. I know I can squeeze a few more beers out of that slurry, so I think I'll experiment with a Pale Ale of some kind fermented with the German ale yeast after the B de G.

Here's the Alt recipe, just in case anyone is interested. We'll see how it turns out:

Grist:
5lbs Weyermann Lt. Munich
5lbs Weyermann Dark Munich
.5lb Weyermann Melanoidin
2oz Weyermann Carafa Special I

Mash at 150 degrees until starch is converted. Collect 6.75 gallons, boil down to 5.75 gallons over 75 minutes.

Hops:
1oz Mt. Rainier hop pellets, 6.2%AA @ 75 minutes
.25oz Mt. Rainier hop pellets, 6.2%AA @ 20 minutes

Whirlfloc tab with 15 minutes remaining. Going for OG 1.052. Pitch yeast from starter described above and ferment at 60 degrees until done.

You like?

Kitchen condensation

Here's one that I posted to the Norther Brewer forum. Any clues, please chime in below...

"The kitchen stove that I brew on, unfortunately, does not vent to the outdoors. The problem that I have is that condensation really builds up big time in the house during the boil. There are some spots in the house (downstream from the kitchen) where condensation will build up at the ceiling and then drip down the wall, creating some annoying streaks. Does anybody have experience with this problem and have any advice on what I can do to avoid it? We rent, and putting in a vent through the wall is not an option."

Dollar tacos are back

Been a while, right?

Before last night's NYCHG meeting, I stopped by the Hop Devil Grill on St. Marks Place and was pleasantly surprised to find that dollar tacos are back on Tuesdays. So now you know where you can find me on the third Tuesday of the month some time between 6 and 7:30. And in addition to beef, chicken, and vegetarian, there's now an option for chorizo too. Are they the greatest tacos in the world? No, they're not (that distinction belongs to Taqueria in downtown JC (sorry, no web site)). But for $1 apiece and with a nice selection of micros on tap, it will definitely fit the bill for the pre-meeting ritual.

Last night's guest speaker at the meeting was Dave Hoffmann of Climax Brewing. Always entertaining, Dave brought along some of his stellar beers for the club to sample (ESB, Nut Brown, Porter, IPA, Helles, and Doppelbock) and shared some of his secrets. Thanks, Dave!

I'll try to be back soon with some stuff that happened over the holidays - motorized my grain mill, picked up some interesting beer books, brewed a few times...