My birthday present came today!

I am so excited!  I was ready to take a month or so off from brewing.  You know, just chill and enjoy the fruits of my labors up to this point so far.  After all, I still have some Brett's Beard Bitter Ale, some New Steel Pale Ale, some Nut Up or Shut Up Brown Ale, and just bottled my BelBoh Ale which is not even ready to drink!  But now that the wort chiller that Kathy got me for my birthday has come in the mail, I am dying to try it out!

The motivation behind any brewing process or ingredient is flavor (or sometimes aroma, or being pleasing to the eye, but mainly flavor).  In The Complete Joy of Home Brewing 3rd Edition, it states:  "After the hot wort has been put into your fermenter, you may have to wait many hours, perhaps overnight, before the wort drops to temperatures suitable for pitching yeast.  Be forewarned that this procedure can result in beers that have a flavor character reminiscent of sweet corn (really dimethyl-sulfide).  It is best to chill as quickly as possible." (Papazian, 2003).

The wort chiller sends a flow of cold water (contained within this copper slinky) spiraling through your 212°F wort which will cool it down below 78°F--the proper temperature for pitching yeast.  This can be done in 15 to 30 minutes now!  I'm ready to brew again!

Very pretty!

Nut Up or Shut Up Brown Ale...in a PBR glass.

The brown ale I bottled earlier this month is pretty tasty, but I am also very impressed on how nice a head it has!  This is one 12oz bottle in a pint glass.

When I brew, I don't usually just throw out the last bit that won't fit into a full 12oz bottle.  I always bottle this amount too with the idea that I will try it after a couple days before it has time to oxidize or spoil in any way.  I tried the Belboh last night that I had bottled just recently.  It was already lightly carbonated.  I really enjoyed the hop flavor that seemed to pervade the beer well.  It wasn't overly bitter, but this was my first batch since I started brewing again that I dropped in late-boil hops.

I had been using hops for bitterness, then dry-hopping, but putting some hops in the last 10-20 minutes of the boil really does fantastic things to your beer!  I won't brew without some finishing and dry hops from this point forward.

This is for that one special person...

Usually, I don't think of you.  When I do, it doesn't last long because it's painful.  You have accused me of many things, and even though you did not use my name, it still hurts.  And all this because I did not kowtow to you last time we met and rush right over to give you a hug?  I'm sorry, but I don't worship fellow human beings.  You acted like a queen who homage must be paid to.  I'm not into that.  


You didn't ask or care that I had been driving a while with a car full of kids, who were arguing, plus people trying to give me conflicting directions.  You didn't care that minutes before I got so frustrated I said "hell with it" and let someone else drive.  You didn't care that I had then fallen asleep on the way over and was just waking up and still groggy.


Then, when you wanted your precious display of affection, and I was awake, recovered, and I finally found a moment when you didn't have a cancer-stick hanging out of your mouth--you snubbed me with "how about a hand shake...".  You call me an asshat and that's fine.  I don't care.


You say I am a rude person who only visited when it was my advantage to do so.  That is complete BS.  The reason I know is because you made it so uncomfortable to come over and visit the ex-father-in-law who I looked up to, admired, and thought of as a father that I just didn't come visit.  You were the one who I tried to be pleasant to, and you returned that by being mean and snide.  You were the one who said bad things about my daughter and said "she's going to be just like her mother and grandmother."  You were the one who made such an issue over money and made me feel so uncomfortable that I had  to fight and argue with my ex-father-in-law when I wanted to pay my bill at restaurants.


You call me insensitive and tell everyone I am the "asshat took my very fine blog and did what he does best: ruin things for everyone while yelling 'karma will get them!'."  I really appreciate the technical credit you've given me.  Perhaps I should put it on my resume "able to hack into Google accounts", but I won't do that.  Why?  Because I don't know how!


I'm happy for you that you're living a wonderful and stress free life down in Florida. But if you're so contented with your life, why do you keep bringing me up in your blog?  I check in once every three months or so, just to see what new nasty thing you're saying.  Do you notice (this sole example being the exception) that I don't mention anything about you?  It's because I don't think of you ever.  I miss my ex-dad, but thanks to you, I have had to write him off as a loss.  Hell, if he's happy in Florida and doesn't need me in his life then I guess that's what I should do anyway.  I very much want him to be happy, even if that means I still can't have any sort of relationship with him.  I continue to focus on the people around me who are good, and have the ability to care, forgive, and love.  I see you hate the word "Karma" so we'll just boil it down to this:  I am going to worry about myself, my family and my loved ones and concern myself as little as possible about you and ex-dad.  I hope he'll be happy, and if that means you being happy too, well then I hope you're happy as well.


With that said, please make the recent cards and phone calls the last contact you have with my children.  I do not feel that I can trust you to keep your snide remarks and crappy attitude toward me and the other people who love them to yourself.  Kids are hard enough to raise without bad influences, which at this point, you most definitely are.  I hate to apply this ban to ex-dad also, but I truly believe he would do anything for you.  That would be admirable to most people, but it pains me to say it is not to me.  I told my daughter the other night when we were having an argument that she and I will always be there for each other.  Even though I was mad as hell at her for a minute, I made sure she knew that I would always, unconditionally love her and that I would never turn my back on her as her grandpa did to his daughter.  I understand there are reasons that I might not be old enough to understand and that not having been through that experience, I cannot judge, so I will not.  I can only say that I love him, but I can not at this point in my life ever conceive of a reason why a parent could turn their back on their child.


Try us back when the kids are over 18 years old.  By then, hopefully, they will be able to judge you by the content of your character.  I know their mother and I do not speak badly of you, but a lot of times, you really make me want to.  I don't though, because I think "what kind of parent would I be to them if I did that?"  Whyn't you try to learn that lesson?  


My wonderful fiancee (you know the one you say is a person like that is in charge of manners and kindness) has some really great parents and step-parents who will be good examples for the kids.  I know they need to have that in order to grow up and understand how families are supposed to be, and with my parents having passed away before they were old enough to remember them much--I am so thankful for her wonderful family.  So don't worry about not being around.  I will make polite and evasive excuses for you so they don't think bad about you.  The pressure is off you there.  Have a nice life.


Note: stuff in red is quoted from you.  I guess you'll go change your wonderful popular amazing blog now.  You know--the one you made after I hacked the old one.  Sheesh.  

Belboh Hybrid Ale

The labels I ordered for my bottle caps will not easily take the name 0.5Wit Newfangled Bohemian.  When I explained this to Kathy, she gave me that look that (since we can read each other's minds) says "The name is too long, honey."  I told her that I conceived the name because it has the wheat content of a BELgian Witbier, and the Saaz hops of a BOHemian (what is now known as  Czech Republic) lager.  She quickly quipped "What about Belboh..."

So, the ale I bottled yesterday shall from this point further be known as BelBoh Hybrid Ale....  It's not ready to drink, but I am in the process of labeling the bottle caps so I can easily tell it from the other beers in my collection.    The original gravity just before pitching the yeast was 1.066.  The final last night before adding bottling sugar was 1.006.  I added some water when I boiled the bottling sugar.  I estimate the final alcohol content between 5.0 and 6.0 percent by volume.  Here's the specs:


BelBoh Ale
=============================
Brewed on: 11/5/11 with OG of 1.066
Bottled on 11/28/11 with FG of 1.006
Volume: ~6.5 Gallons
Ingredients:

• 3.0 lbs. light DME
• 3.0 lbs. extra light DME
• 2.0 lbs. 55% wheat / 45% barley DME
• 0.5 lbs. crystal malt (80L)
• 0.5 lbs. toasted malt
• 1.0 lbs. flaked wheat
• 1.0 oz. Centennial leaf hops boiled 60 mins
• 1.0 oz. Saaz pellet hops boiled 10 mins.
• 1.0 oz. Saaz pellet hops boiled 3 mins.
• White Labs German Kolsch liquid yeast (WPL029)

Shopping with Kat and her Mom

Kathy and her mom do the Black Friday shopping. Everything is very tactical and planned out.

First we spent the day having Thanksgiving with her family. I don't know most of them that well, so it's nice to get the opportunity to spend more time with them. We did a name draw then pretty much split for the start of this shopping odyssey.

Its Thanksgiving day at 4:30pm. We are currently at Michael's Craft Store.

Michael's didn't last too long. Walmart was crazy and we picked up several of the door buster items that people on our shopping lists had asked for. It is now "black friday" by a half hour.

To my understanding it's called black Friday because stores draw you in with specially priced items that they are willing to take a loss on then make their money when you pick up other items that are not on sale. I think that Wally world lost their butts on us. Besides door buster items we picked up a paper towel roll holder for $2.98 and a can of cream of chicken soup at a whopping $1.25. We even got one item for $25 less than it should have been because of a typo in the sale ad. It would have been like $50.00.

Next is Meijers, Target, Sams Club, and Menards. 5 hour energy is good food.

5am and we are waiting in line to enter Menards. technically it is a hardware store but they have some crazy stuff for a nut and bolt shop: toys, clothes, candy, electronics... Kat is such a sweetheart. Some lady in line is talking to us "The only thing I couldn't find was that tea kettle on sale...". Kathy tells her that she will look for it because she has to go find some other things too. Kat comes back with two colors for the lady to choose from right as she's checking out.

We finished off the day with Sams club, target, and meijer. Do not have the strength to blog further.

Grandpa's Blue Dog Lunches

As I prepare to break out my mom's old roaster, start cutting up apples to make her fresh apple cake recipe, and boil potatoes in the old metal pot she used for the same task, I am reminded of family again this holiday.  I miss my mom, sometimes more often than others.  Since I was too busy to take a lunch, and I forgot to grab something while I was out doing the grocery shopping, I decided a quick snack was in order.  I got the hunk of bologna out of the fridge.  Its the kind that is not cut and comes in a huge log.

"blue dog"

I am reminded of how my grandpa would get busy working on things in his wood shop and come in for something to eat when he finally realized he was hungry.  If he had time, he would fix a pan full of fried potatoes and onions.  I still love them to this day.  I think fried potatoes were a staple for grandma and grandpa, and that was passed down to my mom.  The only difference is now days I usually use a coated skillet and olive oil.

If grandpa just wanted something quick, nine times out of ten it was a saltine cracker and one of two ingredients.  To make things simple, grandma would keep him stocked with "blue dog" or sardines in mustard sauce.  Blue dog, as he called it, must have been a brand name for his bologna back in those days, or maybe days past even then.  He would slice off a hunk of bologna.  I have never been able to do it as evenly as he did.  It was pretty thick, and always without cheese.  If for some reason there was no blue dog to be had, he would go with some sardines in mustard sauce--again--on a cracker.

The other thing grandpa lived on was the 16oz returnable bottles of Pepsi.  He drank maybe three or four of them a day until the doctor told him he had to give up the sugar due to his diabetes.  Then he switched over to diet Pepsi.  I never once heard him complain about how they were different, not as good, or that he didn't care for them.  I think that's kind of neat.

So I sit here, taking a break, grabbing a bite of blue dog on crackers.  Kathy likes 'em too.  Maybe, with me at least, it's genetic.  I miss mom, but right now, I miss grandpa too.

Louisville Area Grain and Extract Research Society

Last night, Kat and I went to our first L.A.G.E.R.S. meeting and joined up.  Ostensibly I wanted to be able to use the 10% discount on home brewing stuff, but we really had a good time.  The hold the meetings once per month at the Bluegrass Brewing Company Taproom.  There were a bunch of people last night and we talked with several of them.  I met two guys who, like us, had just joined.

One was named Chris and he brought his own beer that he recently made.  It was a pale ale and Kathy really enjoyed it, so I gave him my email address and I hope he sends me the recipe.  They were doing a tasting of this Belgian beer which had all the same ingredients but was pitched with six different types of yeast.  I was amazed that even my blunt palette could distinguish differences between the batches.  Kat also tried some of the BBC Bourbon Barrel Stout and really liked it!

We had a really good time.

Bottled "Nut Up or Shut Up" Brown Ale

Tonight, Kat and I bottled the Brown Ale.  No mishaps and everything looks good!  I sampled what would not come out of the bottling bucket easily (about 2oz) and it is pretty tasty stuff!  It did still have some hop residue, but I am trying really hard to RDWHH*





*Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!

Half-Wit Newfangled Boh

Floating Hops

According to BeerAdvocate, A Witbier is: "A Belgian Style ale that's very pale and cloudy in appearance due to it being unfiltered and the high level of wheat, and sometimes oats, that's used in the mash. Always spiced, generally with coriander, orange peel and other oddball spices or herbs in the back ground. The crispness and slight twang comes from the wheat and the lively level of carbonation."

Although my new beer is unfiltered and will have a relatively high level of wheat.  I cannot speak to the crispness or twang yet....

Regarding Bohemian style beers, (from Wikipedia) "Until the mid-1840s, most Bohemian beers were top-fermented. The taste and standards of quality often varied widely, and in 1838, consumers dumped whole barrels to show their dissatisfaction. The officials of Pilsen founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, called Bürger Brauerei (Citizens' Brewery - now Plzeňský Prazdroj), brewing beer according to the Bavarian style of brewing.  Bavarian brewers had begun experiments with the storage (German: 'Lager') of beer in cool caves using bottom-fermenting yeasts (i.e.German: 'gelagert') , which improved the beer's clarity and shelf-life."  

Hops--now boiling!

Also, The History of Beer states: "The Czech beer industry's worldwide fame dates from the Renaissance, as does the Bohemian tavern which is famous throughout Europe.  Beer is still brewed in Rakovnik today. In the early 16th century, the Czech beer industry contributed as much as 87% of total municipal income to city coffers. Czech hops were being shipped up the Elbe to the special Hamburg hops market from 1101, and the Germans still prize Bohemian Saaz hops from Zatec today. The Czechs were even exporting their beer at this time, most notably the beer they brewed in the town of Ceske Budejovice in south Bohemia. The Bavarians who were importing this beer understandably had a hard time pronouncing the name of the town, and so they referred to it as "Budweis," a place name that is still associated with great beer today - as is Pilsner, which is derived from the place name of the west Bohemian town of Plzen."

My beer will be an ale, thus, top-fermented.  I will not dump my beer.  Quality should not vary from bottle to bottle.  There should be little dissatisfaction to speak of.  It will not be stored in cool caves...

As you can see, this ale will be a creative bastardization between two dissimilar styles of ale.  It is boiling as I type this.  All of life is an experiment, and brewing is part of life...

Wheat malt extract

I am looking forward to trying this beer.  It holds several firsts for me:

• First time using Irish moss.
• First time using toasted barley
• First time brewing with wheat adjuncts.

Typical for Boh beers (or any Czech beer) are the Saaz hops which I am using for flavoring.  I hope it comes off as well as planned.

New Steel Pale Ale

New Steel Pale Ale - The Excalibur of Beers!

I had my first half glass of New Steel this evening.  It was pretty tasty.  Really hoppy, though I have tasted hoppier brews.  I might try to reach the limit on hop bitterness, but I did not do so with this brew.

Here is my representation of the label for New Steel Pale Ale's label, had I been graced with a large brewing company and been in complete control of the graphic design and marketing departments.  Well, you know...with the limitations of picnic and picasa...

I should be able to enjoy fully carbonated New Steel this weekend in between 23 hour sessions of trying to complete my 15 page paper for my English composition class...  In the meantime, I have been slumming with some Upland Brewing Co. Wheat Ale.  It's really pretty good for some Indiana-University-Bloomington-Hoosier-swill. *grins*.

Upland Wheat Ale-Nummy Stuff

Observations on Yeast

Here you can see Nut Up or Shut Up Brown Ale in the carboy fermenting vigorously. My complete observations thus far:

Dry yeast costs around $4.00 for a packet which will be enough for a 5 gallon batch of beer. It begins fermenting in an hour or less.

Liquid yeast costs around $7.00 for a vial enough for a 5 gallon batch of homebrew. It takes 12 hours to start fermenting.

As soon as I am able to brew two batches of identical beer with the two types of yeast, I will make further observations.

Nut Up or Shut Up Brown Ale

I started brewing my next batch last night.  Ingredients are as follows:

• 3.3 # liquid unhopped amber extract
• 1.5 # amber DME
• 1.0 # corn sugar
• 0.5 # crystal malt
• 0.5 # black patent malt
• 0.5 # chocolate malt
• 1.0 oz Cascade leaf hops, boiling
• 1.0 oz Warrior pellet hops, boiling
• 1.0 oz Saaz pellet hops, boiling
• harvest spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, mace)
• White Labs London Ale Yeast WLP013

I started the boil with cold water and the grains (crystal, black pat, and chocolate) floating around.  I set out my liquid yeast to warm up to room temp like the instructions and the brewdude at MOKHB instructed.  I will admit to some concern about using liquid yeast for the first time.  Close to boiling, I began to remove the grains.  It did take a long time because my wire strainer is small, and my larger strainer is silicone and not really ideal--holes are too big.  I finally got most all the grains out.  Man, this wort is darker than I expected.  Sparging, mainly due to the less than ideal strainers was slow and tricky.  Kat was again, a huge help.  I think there ended up being quite a bit of grain and hop pellet sludge. I'll rack it to a secondary so that it's not in contact with the wort for too long.  I capped the carboy and put it outside to cool.  Since it was after midnight I set the timer for three hours and took a nap.  At about 2 or 3am (depending on how you want to look at it since it was daylight savings time to set clocks back) which was about three hours setting outdoors, the temperature still read pretty warm (too warm to register) but it felt like it was cool to the touch.  Since body temp is 98.6 and it reads up to 70 degrees, I am assuming it was around 80 degrees.

Spent grains

hops boiling

   

I set the carboy in the kitchen and uncapped it.  I shook the White Labs liquid yeast one more time and poured it into the carboy.  Some got on the inside neck, so I capped it again and agitated it a little to make sure the yeast got down into the wort.  It did not look like a whole lot of yeast.  At about 9am I got up and checked on the beer.  Had this been dry yeast it probably would have been foaming all over the place.  It appeared dead to me.  At about 1pm, there are slow bubbles (one every 10 minutes?) so I believe either the yeast is starting to do it's job, or it's contaminated.

Nut Up or Shut Up Brown Ale

Bottling New Steel Pale Ale

New Steel Pale Ale-Nice color!

Last night Kat (my little alewife) and I bottled the New Steel Pale Ale.  I had gotten a new bottling bucket from My Old Kentucky Homebrew.  It holds 7.9 gallons which is just perfect for my 6.5 gallon batches.  With Brett's Beard Bitter I got two full cases of brew (12 ounce bottles) plus some strays.  I added a little more water when boiling the bottling sugar this time.  We started the priming solution to boil while rinsing and sanitizing bottles.  I had recently found a bloke on Craigslist who had a bunch of old bottles, many of which are from dead breweries.  I got them for $6 per case, and have enough to spare if I find somebody who wants into homebrewing.  I have been cleaning them up.  I decided to try and save labels from at least one of each of the different kinds:

• Oertel's 92 from Oertel Brewing Co. (Louisville, KY)
• Wiedemann Bohemian Special Brew from Geo. Wiedemann Brewing Co. (Newport, KY)
• Falls City Beer from Falls City Brewing Co (Louisville, KY)
• Fehr's Draught Beer from Frank Fehr Brewing Co. (Louisville, KY)
• Sterling Premium Pilsner Beer from Sterling Brewers, Inc. (Evansville, KY)
• Heilman's Old Style Light Lager from G. Heilman Brg. Co. (Newport, KY/Evansville, IN)
• Old Milwaukee Beer from Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. (Milwaukee, WI)
• Schlitz Beer from Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. (Milwaukee, WI)
• Black Label Beer from Carling Brewing Co. (Bellville, IL/Frankenmuth, MI)
• Real Draft Beer by Oertel from Oertel Brewing Co. (Louisville, KY)
• Genuine Wiedemann Draft Beer from Geo. Wiedemann Brewing Co. (Newport, KY)
• Royal Amber Beer from Geo. Wiedemann Brewing Co. (Newport, KY)
• Falstaff Beer from Falstaff Brewing Co. (St. Louis, MO)
• Kentucky Malt Liquor from Frank Fehr Brewing Co. (Louisville, KY)

Raise your hand if you've ever seen the Oertel, or Fehr breweries!  I know Falls City beer has just began being produced again and you can get it in growlers at Liquor Barn locations.  I do not know if it's the same or similar to the original.  I've had it, and it's not bad.  As soon as I can scan my vintage labels, I will post them.  They are kinda cool.  This is beer and brewing history.

So the bottles were already scrubbed and ready to go, just needed sanitized.  Kat is a huge help and we knocked out bottling in fairly short order with only one mishap.  At one point Kat pulled too much on the siphon hose and it pulled out of the bottling bucket.  We probably only lost about 24 ounces between what was on the floor and in the hose which had to be discarded so I could re-sanitize everything.  Should be ready to drink in 8-10 days.