Monday, March 29, 2010

Brewing German Alt

So I finally decided what I wanted to brew and it was something I had never brewed before. I have recently tried a few Alt beers from Germany and I have really enjoyed them, so I figured what the hell I would take a shot at brewing one. I looked through a few of my recipe books and couldn’t find one I liked so I decided to buy a kit. Normally, I prefer to put together my own recipes, but because it is a style that I have never brewed before I decided a kit was the way to go. So here we go:

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I unpacked the kit and took a brief look at the brewing instructions and then got some water brewing. I put 2 1/2 gallons of water in my brew pot and got it heating. While it was heating up, I weighed out one pound of the supplied grains into a mesh bag.

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Once the water was at 170 F, I put the bag into the pot to steep for twenty minutes.

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After steeping the grains, I removed the bag allowed it to drain as much as possible then tossed the spent grains into the trash. A quick note about buying grains, if you are going to purchase them pay the extra 10 cents per pound to get them crushed because if you don’t own a grain mill it is a pain in the ass to get them crushed.

Then I brought the water to a boil and added both the malt syrup and the dry malt extract.

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The trick to pouring the malt syrup is to put the entire container in pot of hot water for about 15 minutes before you need it. The water heats up the syrup making it much easier to pour and mix in the wort. There is no picture of the dry malt being added as I needed both hands to sprinkle it in and mix at the same time. If you just pour the whole bag in the wort and then mix it you end up with a lot of clumps of dry malt extract that doesn’t get mixed in well.

After all of the extract is added, I returned the wort to a frothy boil:

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Once it begins to boil like this is when you start your 60 minute timer. I added 1 oz of Perle Hops at the start of the boil, then another 1 oz 15 minutes later.

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I take this long boiling break to get my dried yeast started. In a large mixing cup, I add about 1 cup of 80 – 100 F degree water depending on what yeast strain it is and what the manufacturer recommends. A little tip I also use is to add a 1/2 a tablespoon of sugar to the water. Then I pour the dehydrated yeast into the cup and mix it in well.

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Back to brewing, I keep it boiling at a medium rate for another 40 minutes then add 1 oz of Hersbrucker Hops for aroma.

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I let it boil for another 5 minutes then remove it from heat and place the whole pot right into a ice batch in the sink to cool the water. I change the water in the sink around the pot quite a few times to keep it cold and keep the pot chilling. Once this beer was temping right around 80 F (oh by the way, all of my temperature measurement are coming from a simple calibrated meat thermometer) I was ready to transfer it to the fermenter.

When transferring the beer at this stage you want to leave all the sludgy, gross junk a.k.a trub in the pot. I like to get the most out of my beers so I will try to strain as much of the beer as I can without getting a lot of the trub into the beer.

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Simple, but effective.

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What’s left in the strainer and the pot.

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All of this gets thrown out in the garbage. An important note about this trub and spent hops is to keep them away from your pets especially dogs. The spent hops are attractive to dogs, but they contain toxins that are poisonous to dogs.

Now that the beer is in the fermenter, my yeast is really starting to get active. It looks very foamy and almost creamy.

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I pour it on top of beer in the fermenter and get the water running in the sink. I get the water to 80 F and then I use the sprayer on the sink to top up the fermenter to just over 5 gallons. Using the sprayer introduces a lot of air into the fermenter which also helps invigorate the yeast and get the fermentation started.

Then I put the lid on and add the airlock and voila, I had a beautiful new 5 gallon batch of German Alt. So to keep it in a cool dark place, a.k.a the entryway closet.

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I’ll keep you updated as it progress, so let’s hope it keeps bubbling.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Busy, busy, busy…..

So I haven’t posted in a while because I have been working on a few other projects, none of which involve beer or brewing to my displeasure, but anyways.

One of the projects I have been working on is building a chicken coop, yes I said a chicken coop. I am getting chickens. 5 hens to be exact. I know many people think that I am crazy, my wife included but having chickens for eggs is something I have always wanted to do. I had a couple of choices to get chicks, I had a friend offer to hatch me up a few or I could go to Tractor Supply and buy what I wanted. I liked the idea of having some hatched for me, but I didn’t want to risk getting a rooster for a few reasons. First, if I did get a rooster, I couldn’t do him in and make him a roaster or stew, I just don’t think I have it in me. Second, because of the first reason I would have to find a home for him and while that was going on I’m sure my neighbors would be more than pleased. Those same two reasons kept me from buying at Tractor Supply too, because they don’t guarantee the sex of the chicks. So with that in mind I found a hatchery that would send small orders for reasonably priced, so I ordered 5 day old chicks and they should be here the first week in April. So I have been building a decent size hen house and coop on the cheap. So the only thing that has to do with beer is the few I have drank after busting my hump on building the coop.

My other project has been finishing my class for work. Two and a half years ago my boss suggested that it would be a good idea for me to take a course through UC Davis to help my career. So the course he wanted me to take was part of a 5 course certificate program so I signed for that with his blessings. So each course was 10 weeks long and was a considerable amount of reading papers, writing papers, quizzes, mid-terms, and finals. But now 2 and 1/2 years later I just finished my last class and turned in my final last week. So once I get my final grade, I can receive my certificate and maybe use it to get where I want to go with my career.

So both of those things have been taking up a large part of my time. However I still managed to order some ingredients for another beer, and half of my hops order showed up. So I will be posting soon about these two things. So until then keep those taps pouring.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Sweet, Sweet Redemption

So last night, I was moving some wood into the house for one of the last few fires of the season and I came across my cases of Bock that I had made. I had put them in an out of the way, warm place and covered them with a blanket so they wouldn’t get lightstruck (a.k.a skunky) and in doing so completely forgot about them. It was like Christmas morning, I put the wood down and pulled back the blanket and there they were in all of their glory. Shiny in their brown bottles, and most likely still flat, but I figured what the hell and pulled out a bottle and put it in the freezer to chill it down.

I finished what I was working on, got Ava all settled for bed and Lauren and I got settled on the couch to watch some TV. It was the perfect time for a beer. So I pulled out a pint glass, pulled the beer out of the fridge and popped the top. To my pleasant surprise there was a definite psssssssssssst. Huh, maybe the beer had finally carbonated itself, I thought, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. Then I started to pour her out into the glass and it was beautiful, it almost brought a tear to my eye.

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Look at all of that delicious off-white creamy head. There was actually a bit more of it, but I was so caught off guard that I had to run around and find the camera to take a picture of it and by then some of it had dissipated. But just look at it, there was so much carbonation you can see bubbles clinging to the inside of the glass. Yes, that’s a patch of bubbles not a dirty glass.

I feel so vindicated and redeemed by this beer. So it would seem that I just wasn’t patient enough and had thrown in the towel a little too early on this beer. Man, am I glad that I didn’t give all of this stuff away. Sweet, sweet redemption is mine.

Well, I just thought that I would give everyone a little update. Who knows maybe I’ll do a little youtube pour of the beer to show everyone how glorious it really is. But until then I’ll let you go, I have to pull another two bottles out of the freezer to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, and because I’m thirsty, LOL.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Choices, choices, so many choices

I have gotten that old familiar itch again, and no I’m not talking about anything that has to do with the anything that would be covered by a loin cloth, if I wore one. Again. No, I’m talking about brewing beer, as usual. Luckily for  me, a Northern Brewer catalog showed up in the mail. It was all new and shiny and crisp looking, it was beautiful. See for yourself:

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So I cracked it open and started flipping through the pages searching for something new to brew. Normally this is a long process for me as I like to look through beer recipes online or in a few different books I have, but I figured I would see what NB had to offer. I flipped through the ingredients pages as I like to order the raw materials and craft my own beers from the recipes I find or I use my own recipes that I have crafted through trial and error, but this time I wanted to see what was different that was out there to brew, so I looked at the kits pages. I started out brewing beer using these pre-packaged kits and they are very useful when brewing a style that you have never attempted before. So as I went through page by page I came up with three choices. They are as follows:

Choice #1:

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Now this one looked really interesting from its description, but it does look a little pricey. One thing that worries me is the name is a little too close to Magic Hat’s Number 9, which is a good beer but not one of my favorites.

Choice #2

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Now I really like German beers and the Alt is a classical style that I really enjoy and I think that I would enjoy brewing.

Choice #3

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I am in the heart of the Northeast and the home of Genesee and Cream Ale. I am partial to the style and I really do enjoy Genny Cream Ale when I am drinking for quantity. So I know that I really couldn’t go wrong with this beer, but it is a little too familiar for me at the moment I think.

So those are my three choices, I think that I will stew over them a little longer before I make my decision. I’ll keep you updated, but I do know one thing I have to get something in the fermenter and quick. So until next time, Prost!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Take me back to the Motherland

It has been a hell of a week this week. Its just been busy and it seems like one thing happens on the heels of the next, so I am just now getting to this review. I had to go to Wegman’s to pick up the essentials for the ladies in my life. That would be apple juice, slo-melt popsicle mighty minis, and a quart of chocolate almond ice cream. So as long as I was there and I was already back in the frozen section which is directly adjacent to the beer section, I figured I would pick up myself a little something. So I was feeling nostalgic about my heritage, so I decided I would make my selection out of the German section. So here it is:

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Reissdorf Kolsch, straight from Germany. Its so legit it even states the “Reinheitsgebot von 1516”. For those of you who don’t know what that is, here’s the history. The German’s were so hardcore about their beer and brewing that they enacted the above law which means German Purity Law and it was legalized in 1516. It states that beer can only be made from 4 ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, and Yeast. It was put into effect because of a few reasons, competition over ingredients and also they didn’t want brewer’s using other ingredients that could potentially be harmful or lethal to the beer drinking public, hence giving beer a bad name.

But anyway onto the review:

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The Kolsch was very light in color and crystal clear. It produced a generous head that was bright white. I also noticed immediately the effervescence of this beer, it just kept bubbling the whole time it was sitting there.

Aroma: The first thing I smelled was that skunky Heineken smell. You know what I am talking about that mixture of cabbage and cat piss. Not really a good start.

Flavor: First hit is the bitterness from all of the CO2. It is very light, but no noticeable hop or malt notes. Just a lot of “burn” from all of the CO2.

Overall, it was a refreshing beer to drink. It was light in everything, color, mouthfeel, flavor, the works. It was a beer that would have appeal for drinking it in mass quantity. It isn’t full of flavor like a stout or porter where you drink one bottle and that’s enough. I would buy this beer again for a hot sunny day on the back deck, but other than that it wouldn’t be my first choice.

So pick it up and give it a shot and let me know what you think.

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