Beer
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Little things mean a lot
Posted on April 2nd, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer.
Yesterday I kegged a batch of smoked scotch ale I made a couple of weeks ago. My plan was to use two five gallon Corny kegs and a little three gallon one. I’d been having trouble with a connector on one of my five gallon kegs so I was planning on buying a new valve if need be. As it happened, the two fives worked just fine but the three gallon just wouldn’t hold its seal. I was at Barleycorn and Dan and I took the thing apart and put it together more times than I can count. Nothing worked. Finally I looked at the o-ring at the top of the poppet valve. It was all dried and cracked - that was the problem: a tiny rubber ring less than the diameter of a pencil. There was nothing that could be done about it is I ended up bottled a couple of gallons instead (which was fine with me). I’ll need to go to Home Depot or something to see if I can’t find a little washer that will fit the bill.
The beer, by the way, turned out great.
Technorati Tags: beer, homebrewing, keg, o-ring, barleycorn, seal
Brew Day - 3/18/07
Posted on March 20th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer, local.
I went into Barleycorn on Sunday to keg and bottle the batch I made back on the 4th. While I was there I decided to make another batch and chose a smoked Scottish ale. The ordinary bitter turned out just great. It’s a nice, simple everyday beer. The only thing I’d change about it would be to increase the finishing hops a bit.
Kegging went very smoothly. I filled two five gallon kegs and then 12 22 oz. bottles but still had more so I filled a half dozen or so 12 oz. bottles as well. It was actually more beer than I’d expected from the batch and so I was quite happy with everything.
I’ve never made a Scottish ale before (though I’ve enjoyed quite a few) and am curious how this will turn out. My choice was arbitrary but I have a rule that unless the first thing I see on a list or menu is something I specifically hate I stick with it. Stupid? Yes, but I’ve never been disappointed and it saves a lot of time in hemming and hawing.
Technorati Tags: beer, brewing, Barleycorn, ordinary bitter, smoked Scottish ale, kegs
Brew Day - 3/4/07
Posted on March 5th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer, Photography.
I’m still planning on doing this Beer-B-Q thing on April 14th so I realized I’m going to need some beer on hand. Every weekend I think, “I’m going to brew today,” but either because of the weather, other plans or the fact that I’m lazy it just hasn’t happened.
I said it to myself this past weekend too. It was in the 50s here in Boston so it should have been ideal. But . . . My kids had stuff going on in the morning and the back yard (where I brew) is a muddy snowy mess and Betty was coming over for help with a slide show, and, and, and. And so I didn’t brew on Saturday.
On Sunday it was cooler. The yard was still a mess but I really needed to get a batch started. So I decided to brew over at Barleycorn in Natick center. Barleycorn is where I get most of my ingredients and advice. You can also brew on premises which is great when you need to brew but are facing a thousand small conspiracies.
I called in the morning and arranged to come in at 1:30. Dan Eng, the owner was there and we talked for a while about recipes. I wasn’t looking to do anything fancy so just went with an ordinary bitter I’d made a couple of years ago.
I was planning to brew with my nephew Justin and friend Marcos but let’s just say things came up so I did most of it solo. Which isn’t that big a deal.
Things started with weighing out the grain. You can only do extract and specialty grains at Barleycorn so I only needed a few pounds of grain:
Dan helped grind and bag it.
After that we began to heat the water. The set up he has is very nice, big 15 or 20 gallon steam-heated copper tanks.
I was using the second to last kettle on the end up above. Here it is with the recipe.
The grain went in at 2:00 or so and steeped for 30 minutes.
While the grain was steeping I got together the rest of the ingredients. 20 pounds of light malt extract and hops (I used cascade and goldings for this batch)
Justin was around for part of the brew and did help add the extract
Adding the hops at the boil
The process is so much easier than doing an all grain batch, but I still like brewing with grain. When the boil was finished, I stirred the wort into a whirlpool just before it got pumped through the cooler and into a fermenter.
Probably the best part about brewing at Barleycorn is that you don’t have to worry about cleaning and sanitizing everything. To me, that’s the least fun part of the process but a pretty critical one.
Just before Justin left I IMed my brother-in-law James to see if he might be free to help out. He and Chesley did come but things were pretty well finished by that point. We hung out a bit, had some food and beer and then went on our way. I need to go back in in a couple of weeks to keg. I’ll end up with 12 or 13 gallons so I should be in good shape for the 14th. I’ll probably do one more batch for variety before then though. I’ll post again when this batch is finished to say how it turned out. It it’s as good as it was the last time I’ll post the recipe as well.
Here’s an update on how the batch turned out.
Technorati Tags: Beer, brewing, Barleycorn, Natick
The endless fermentation
Posted on January 25th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer.
I last brewed on 1/7 and have been waiting to move it into secondary fermentation for a couple of weeks; but the fermentation continues to be going strong. Finally last night the bubbling had slowed to only one every couple of seconds so I decided to move the beer.
The gravity for the batch - which had been over 1.070 to begin with - was still over 1.020 after almost three weeks in primary. The beer was so sweet that it clearly has more fermentation to go. It tasted pretty good at least but who knows how strong/sweet it’s going to be when all is said and done.
Technorati Tags: beer, homebrewing, gravity
Beer-B-Q
Posted on January 23rd, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer.
The best times are those weekends I’m brewing and my friend Marcos is grilling. These are almost always all day sessions running from early in the morning until late night. Every time we do it it’s a blast. We also usually end up with a good crowd on hand - usually the same people: my brother-in-law James (who has been a major contributor to my brewing activities) and his girlfriend Chesley, my nephew Justin (who has a developing appreciation for good beer), my kids (who don’t mind grinding the grain) and a few others. There are some times when there are 15 people all hanging out just brewing, drinking, cooking and eating.
A few weeks ago Marcos and I started talking about doing a Beer-B-Q on a larger scale - maybe having a couple of people over to brew; as many varieties of beer as we can muster (ideally from various homebrewers that we know), more than the Brazilian meats that Marcos grills up (a couple of smokers are being discussed) and some music.
Right now we’re planning on doing this on April 14th. It still could be a little cool here in New England though but I don’t know if I want to wait until the summer to do this (not that there couldn’t be another one this summer too . . .).
Planning began this past weekend and we’ll see if we can’t pull this together. If you’re local and want to come, let me know and I’ll be sure you get the details.
Beer Reviews
Posted on January 23rd, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Beer.
Like most people that brew their own, I think my stuff is just about the best there is - and a lot of the time I’m not even blowing smoke. But there are plenty of times when I a) run out of home brew b) am looking for more variety than what I have on tap or c) want something different. I hang out with enough other beer people to have plenty of beer recommendations but I also like to check out reviews from time to time to get other ideas.
My fave site for reviews at the moment is SevenPack. What I like most about their reviews is that they are narratives that don’t use the crutch or stars or numerical ratings to talk about the beer. Each review is a well-written little story about the beer - getting it, pouring it, drinking it and enjoying it. It’s worth checking out.
Technorati Tags: beer, reviews, seven pack