...So it's been awhile.
Tuesday morning. "Yeah, I won't be able to make it in today, I've been up all night, sick, and I think I ought to just rest" Getting up at five thirty regularly, has its upshot occasionally.
I scrambled my eggs, brewed my coffee, and milled my grain. Actually, I'd had the grain milled the day before, but lists are better in threes. Today I would brew an ESB, which, for those of you too hopped up on Cascade and Amarillo to care about what goes on outside of the country, is a mainstay in the English pub. It stands for Extra Special Bitter, and while the Bitter bit may be relative to other English beers, it is certainly Extra Special.
A malty, yeasty, copper-hued beer that rarely reaches past the five percent alcohol by volume mark, this is the beer to drink copious amounts of while rooting your Premier League team to victory. And Seeing as you'll get more beers in your gut than Wayne Rooney will get balls in the net in 90 minutes, for god's sake just keep drinking . The best part? Even with an ABV that hardly rivals water, it has SO much more flavor than its best rival here for ubiquity, the American Light Lager. America may be the land of Beers That Taste Like Green Hits, but Britons are far better off, in my opinion, living in the Land Of Liquid Bread.
But now I'm becoming tangential. Back to the first brew day in a long while.
At around one I went over to my neighbor's house, who recently caught the Brewing Bug, and is blessed with the mechanical imagination of an engineer and the pockets of Scrooge McDuck (if said duck wore pants.) Subsequently he has a brewing system that makes my not so recent MSPaint doodling look, well...like I did it on MSPaint. Three kegs; gleaming, waist-height, aluminum towers, each atop it's own propane burner, greeted me as I drove in. These were all hooked up to one propane tank via a snake's den of plumbing and a three-way splitter. To the right sat a card table, under which one of those plastic tubs mom used to put your winter clothes in and then promptly forgot where she'd hid them, dooming you to another year sans jacket, was seated. The card table had a bunch of stainless steel fittings, valves, and instruments I'd never seen so organized, having just been meticulously deconstructed, cleaned, and reconstructed. It was all very impressive.
Anyone that's brewed all-grain knows what kind of hot liquid musical chairs/hoo-doo that goes on, so when I saw the electric food-grade march pump that I'd only seen on the internet and sometimes in my dreams, I think I peed myself a little. It moves all the liquid from vessel to vessel, so there isn't any of that pouring wort into a pitcher and hot-side aerating it into the next keg, or worse, coercing your brew buddy into lifting enough boiling (and sticky) wort to fend off a siege-army over his head so you can turn a tap and... hot-side aerate it into the next keg. For those of you who don't know (again, probably something to do with the Cascade and Amarillo) hot side aeration isn't a good thing - I honestly couldn't tell you any more why it isn't, but I remember you aren't supposed to introduce oxygen into the wort until you're moments from pitching yeast.
About three beers in and an hour and a half later, it was obvious that Nick takes this brewing thing more seriously than I do. For me, it had always been a little about making beer and a lot about drinking it, but Nick has this thing down. He knows his temperatures, and what's more, he hits them. I think we were about a degree off of our mash temp, and that was an average between the four or five different temps taken from as many locations in the tun. He did things I'd never thought of, like sanitizing the outside of the pack of yeast, and (insert other things I've since forgot he did, because let's face it, he had shit under control and I was drinking more than brewing at that point.) He knew where all the tubes went, and didn't say "righty tighty" before screwing on worm clamps.
The lesson? Don't watch soccer hoping for a basketball score, and keep a smarter brewer with you at all times.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
A Saint Patrick's Day Miracle
I had written the beer - an Irish red ale I brewed for no reason other than dad told me to - off as yet another near-accomplishment. It tasted fine; grainy up front, a little chocolate, and then the slightest Fuggles underpinnings. But for the past month it had failed to carbonate. Every time a cap gave way to the leverage of my utensil drawer handle, only the faintest of hisses could be heard. Poured perpendicular to the glass, only intermittent and soapy bubbles floated like toad spit on top.
It's a process I am woefully under-read in, natural carbonation (also known as bottle conditioning.) I understand the theory: whatever yeast is still in suspension after the bulk of fermentation is complete begins to metabolize newly introduced sugars under pressure in a capped bottle. The two by-products of this second fermentation are alcohol and carbon dioxide. Now that the CO2 has no place to go (earlier, during the real fermentation, an airlock allows gas to escape but not enter) it stays put, carbonating the beer and creating the bubbles responsible for the prickly feeling on your tongue.
But while I understand what is happening (in those batches that do manage to gas up), I rarely am able to cause carbonation with any degree of consistency. I've used carb-tabs, little pills dropped into individual bottles, but those tend not to disintegrate and then re-integrate with the beer, and instead sits like an impregnable fortress of sucrose at the bottom of the bottle. I've tried priming sugar (sold in baggies and resembling extremely cut dope) which is boiled in water and added to the bottling bucket before racking (brewspeak for transferring) in hopes of a uniform dilution and therefore carbonation. This never happens. Most of the time, three-fourths of the bottles will pour like I've described above, two will sport a nice head with tight bubbles, and the rest are gushers (which, as the name implies, causes me to rush for the sink lest I spend even more money renting a carpet vacuum.)
These beers had done nothing but fail me. I didn't feel confident to give them to any real beer-drinking friends, as the shortcomings of a poorly-carbonated beer are a considerable cause for embarrassment, but most of my non beer-drinking friends (you caught me) wouldn't be drinking them anyway. However, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I had not only an Irish beer, but an Irish beer I had made.
I took the 22 oz bottle out the the fridge, made an about-face towards the counter, and placed the neck at a forty-five under the drawer handle.
Psst.
A haze floated out of the bottle, drifting in whatever draft the kitchen had picked up. I didn't allow myself to believe that I might have a beverage passable for beer. I poured it directly to the floor of the glass, not redirecting it to the wall in an attempt to quell a carbonation that I dared not trust was there.
It foamed. I enjoyed.
It's a process I am woefully under-read in, natural carbonation (also known as bottle conditioning.) I understand the theory: whatever yeast is still in suspension after the bulk of fermentation is complete begins to metabolize newly introduced sugars under pressure in a capped bottle. The two by-products of this second fermentation are alcohol and carbon dioxide. Now that the CO2 has no place to go (earlier, during the real fermentation, an airlock allows gas to escape but not enter) it stays put, carbonating the beer and creating the bubbles responsible for the prickly feeling on your tongue.
But while I understand what is happening (in those batches that do manage to gas up), I rarely am able to cause carbonation with any degree of consistency. I've used carb-tabs, little pills dropped into individual bottles, but those tend not to disintegrate and then re-integrate with the beer, and instead sits like an impregnable fortress of sucrose at the bottom of the bottle. I've tried priming sugar (sold in baggies and resembling extremely cut dope) which is boiled in water and added to the bottling bucket before racking (brewspeak for transferring) in hopes of a uniform dilution and therefore carbonation. This never happens. Most of the time, three-fourths of the bottles will pour like I've described above, two will sport a nice head with tight bubbles, and the rest are gushers (which, as the name implies, causes me to rush for the sink lest I spend even more money renting a carpet vacuum.)
These beers had done nothing but fail me. I didn't feel confident to give them to any real beer-drinking friends, as the shortcomings of a poorly-carbonated beer are a considerable cause for embarrassment, but most of my non beer-drinking friends (you caught me) wouldn't be drinking them anyway. However, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I had not only an Irish beer, but an Irish beer I had made.
I took the 22 oz bottle out the the fridge, made an about-face towards the counter, and placed the neck at a forty-five under the drawer handle.
Psst.
A haze floated out of the bottle, drifting in whatever draft the kitchen had picked up. I didn't allow myself to believe that I might have a beverage passable for beer. I poured it directly to the floor of the glass, not redirecting it to the wall in an attempt to quell a carbonation that I dared not trust was there.
It foamed. I enjoyed.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Relax. Don't Worry. Have A Chicha.
Mi hermano poco y yo caminamos en un cabana-
Lo siento.
My little brother and I walk into a hut, dried earth bricks ascending from a packed earth floor. Purple plastic bags shaped like a flower hangs above the doorway, the universal sign in rural Peru for "welcome Gilliam boys, you've found us." We take a seat at the sole table, and a stout elderly woman in the Andean garb walks out of the adjacent room to greet us gringos.
"Dos chichas, por favor" my little brother Lee says. He's been studying Spanish in Cusco since January, and this is easily the least impressive thing he's said so far (the most impressive was, upon arriving in Cusco, watching him talk a cabbie down from 14 sols to 4 for a ride into the city ["CATORCE? No, vivo en Cusco, cuatro.])
The woman smiles and shuffles into a corner where two 30-gallon earthenware pots sit, one covered with a towel, the other un-lidded. She doubles the towel over itself, unveiling what is undoubtedly to my homebrewer's brain a krausen, the foamy cap that tells a brewer that fermentation is taking place. She takes a ladle (brushed aluminum, a stark juxtaposition to the very homely surroundings) and spoons out two huge glasses. Seriously, something like thirty ounces (I wonder how many milliliters that is?)
For two sols apiece (about seventy cents) Lee and I cup massive glasses (really, these put the Taphouse to shame) of a lukewarm drink resembling a yeast starter. It kind of looks like a beer; it has a substantial head on it, although not from carbonation, but rather the yeast still metabolizing whatever had been mashed (my guess is corn or maybe chocle, which is a massive corn.) It takes a moment for both of us to summon the courage to taste this, and I take the quiet before the storm to sniff.
Tangy. Yeasty. Not at all like any beer I've ever wanted to try. I feel around with my olfactory, trying to push past the deep sour edge to find anything floral, grainy, or bitter. No such luck.
Oh god, this beer is horrid. I want desperately to enjoy this, but as it explodes down my gullet in a mushroom cloud of tepid greenness, I can't help but wonder if this was a good idea. I have to channel Mr. Papazian (there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer, there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer, there are no known pathogens...) to calm myself.
Lee is watching me. I hold a thumb up, trying to hide the grimace peeking around my fist, and gulp a bit before telling him "try some, it's good." He does not seem convinced, but pinches his nose and takes a sip.
"Pah-guh-pih-suh-pap" come the noises that are the Gilliam signal for "this is something foul." We giggle. I tell him not to pinch his nose, that he needs to really appreciate it. He does not take another sip.
I begin to gulp the starter (which is beginning to settle out, though the krausen is still bubbling) in a manner that would make a frat boy proud, although I can't imagine any polo shirts leaning against dried mud bricks. I feel smug satisfaction at my ability, my experience.
Lo siento.
My little brother and I walk into a hut, dried earth bricks ascending from a packed earth floor. Purple plastic bags shaped like a flower hangs above the doorway, the universal sign in rural Peru for "welcome Gilliam boys, you've found us." We take a seat at the sole table, and a stout elderly woman in the Andean garb walks out of the adjacent room to greet us gringos.
"Dos chichas, por favor" my little brother Lee says. He's been studying Spanish in Cusco since January, and this is easily the least impressive thing he's said so far (the most impressive was, upon arriving in Cusco, watching him talk a cabbie down from 14 sols to 4 for a ride into the city ["CATORCE? No, vivo en Cusco, cuatro.])
The woman smiles and shuffles into a corner where two 30-gallon earthenware pots sit, one covered with a towel, the other un-lidded. She doubles the towel over itself, unveiling what is undoubtedly to my homebrewer's brain a krausen, the foamy cap that tells a brewer that fermentation is taking place. She takes a ladle (brushed aluminum, a stark juxtaposition to the very homely surroundings) and spoons out two huge glasses. Seriously, something like thirty ounces (I wonder how many milliliters that is?)
For two sols apiece (about seventy cents) Lee and I cup massive glasses (really, these put the Taphouse to shame) of a lukewarm drink resembling a yeast starter. It kind of looks like a beer; it has a substantial head on it, although not from carbonation, but rather the yeast still metabolizing whatever had been mashed (my guess is corn or maybe chocle, which is a massive corn.) It takes a moment for both of us to summon the courage to taste this, and I take the quiet before the storm to sniff.
Tangy. Yeasty. Not at all like any beer I've ever wanted to try. I feel around with my olfactory, trying to push past the deep sour edge to find anything floral, grainy, or bitter. No such luck.
Oh god, this beer is horrid. I want desperately to enjoy this, but as it explodes down my gullet in a mushroom cloud of tepid greenness, I can't help but wonder if this was a good idea. I have to channel Mr. Papazian (there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer, there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer, there are no known pathogens...) to calm myself.
Lee is watching me. I hold a thumb up, trying to hide the grimace peeking around my fist, and gulp a bit before telling him "try some, it's good." He does not seem convinced, but pinches his nose and takes a sip.
"Pah-guh-pih-suh-pap" come the noises that are the Gilliam signal for "this is something foul." We giggle. I tell him not to pinch his nose, that he needs to really appreciate it. He does not take another sip.
I begin to gulp the starter (which is beginning to settle out, though the krausen is still bubbling) in a manner that would make a frat boy proud, although I can't imagine any polo shirts leaning against dried mud bricks. I feel smug satisfaction at my ability, my experience.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
I should have worn a wire (and Matt is my alter-ego)
Sometimes he wondered about his drinking, whether it was funny or embarrassing. While his roommate told him "...and then you tried to put Claire and Molly in a chokehold at the same time" his soul cringed, but with a stupid, satisfied grin on his face.
"Yeah, they yelled at you for awhile, so you left."
"I don't even remember Claire"
"You were probably on your third barleywine by the time she showed up." That would have been after a scotch ale and an oatmeal stout, two twenty-ounce glasses lacking foam or good decisions.
"So how many people did I put into chokeholds?"
"Everyone? I don't know. A lot."
He had woken up this morning to the acidic smell of tomato sauce and hops, regurgitated in his sleep in a fanned-out pattern from his mouth to the bedspread, his phone slid out to text-mode on the floor beside the bed.
Of course he had texted people too late at night; texts with no grammar or spelling or, in some cases, with any semblance of language at all. He looked at his alarm clock, and for a full fifteen seconds panicked over being an hour late for work at the airport, before realizing this was a Tuesday, and he didn't need to be sober for another six.
He stripped the bedspread, which was clean relative to his post-birthday morning, and downright spotless compared to the morning after Barack Obama became President-Elect, and balled it up (tomato in the center) into his clothes hamper. The pillow would need replacing, but this too he tossed in with the spread.
He couldn't be bothered with making a new bed, and he couldn't stomach sleeping on something that smelled so sharp. His attention turned to his phone, upside down and foreboding.
Why did he always text his second cousin Ben whenever he'd had too much to drink? It was as if he wanted the engineering grad student (with a scholarship, provided he work for the navy at something like 60k a year after graduation) to know exactly how much better he was than Matt. One of the texts simply said "footboallz"
Scanning through messages he found that he had sent one to his parent's land line, a couple to girls he hadn't seen in months (one message utterly unintelligible, the other expressing to the girl how much he didn't need her anymore) and dozens to Molly. He shouldn't have done that.
He knew better than to think that as the day wore on he would get a clear picture of what had transpired. He had glimpses. Chokeholds. Talking to (but what about?) a gay couple. Wiping a little tomato sauce on Molly's jeans. Several instances of stealing her hat and mashing it onto his head. Apologizing to a guy that had directed what was to be Matt's final play for being such a whiny, unprepared bitch.
As he lay on the couch, unable to nurse his hangover with any efficacy, he realized that he would be in a self-imposed seclusion for at least a week before he went out again.
"Yeah, they yelled at you for awhile, so you left."
"I don't even remember Claire"
"You were probably on your third barleywine by the time she showed up." That would have been after a scotch ale and an oatmeal stout, two twenty-ounce glasses lacking foam or good decisions.
"So how many people did I put into chokeholds?"
"Everyone? I don't know. A lot."
He had woken up this morning to the acidic smell of tomato sauce and hops, regurgitated in his sleep in a fanned-out pattern from his mouth to the bedspread, his phone slid out to text-mode on the floor beside the bed.
Of course he had texted people too late at night; texts with no grammar or spelling or, in some cases, with any semblance of language at all. He looked at his alarm clock, and for a full fifteen seconds panicked over being an hour late for work at the airport, before realizing this was a Tuesday, and he didn't need to be sober for another six.
He stripped the bedspread, which was clean relative to his post-birthday morning, and downright spotless compared to the morning after Barack Obama became President-Elect, and balled it up (tomato in the center) into his clothes hamper. The pillow would need replacing, but this too he tossed in with the spread.
He couldn't be bothered with making a new bed, and he couldn't stomach sleeping on something that smelled so sharp. His attention turned to his phone, upside down and foreboding.
Why did he always text his second cousin Ben whenever he'd had too much to drink? It was as if he wanted the engineering grad student (with a scholarship, provided he work for the navy at something like 60k a year after graduation) to know exactly how much better he was than Matt. One of the texts simply said "footboallz"
Scanning through messages he found that he had sent one to his parent's land line, a couple to girls he hadn't seen in months (one message utterly unintelligible, the other expressing to the girl how much he didn't need her anymore) and dozens to Molly. He shouldn't have done that.
He knew better than to think that as the day wore on he would get a clear picture of what had transpired. He had glimpses. Chokeholds. Talking to (but what about?) a gay couple. Wiping a little tomato sauce on Molly's jeans. Several instances of stealing her hat and mashing it onto his head. Apologizing to a guy that had directed what was to be Matt's final play for being such a whiny, unprepared bitch.
As he lay on the couch, unable to nurse his hangover with any efficacy, he realized that he would be in a self-imposed seclusion for at least a week before he went out again.
Monday, February 15, 2010
No amount of inspiration is going to to get me through this post.
I've resigned myself to the idea that, without persistence, this will be a short-lived blog. And how can the nine of you properly express interest in my life if I can't properly express my life's interests? It's called a quandary.
So which beer would be most fitting to signify this uphill battle I'm currently engaged in?
(Pregnant pause.)
It could be Dubbel. Certainly I had to make a concerted effort to enjoy it, with its dried fruits, funky yeast, and low hop profile. I had been on an IPA/DIPA/IIPA/DEA bender, although less in the sense of puking-blood-loss-of-eight-days-consiousness, and more in the sense of I-can't-get-enough-lupulin-on-my-tongue. Oh alpha acids.
But that isn't good enough, because after I quit my predisposition towards the beer, and probably just as much after the IBUs I'd inhaled had a chance to lose their grip on my palate, I enjoyed it. Hell, I'm planning on drinking this when I get off work in ten minutes.
It can't be anything with wheat as a majority of the grist, because... fuck wheat.
Faster.
Dogfish 120 Minute isn't a bad idea; it's impossible to drink one in less than an hour. But god, isn't that kind of passe? I don't know how many people (of the dread-locked, Birkenstock variety) have told me the beer was "complex" (one.)
I'm sure you feel that way, Grateful Dead. Does it open up with some Hindu Kush, leading to AK-47, finishing with a deep edge of Cinderella 99? Or do you just know that complex is a positive term to use when describing a beer?
This shit is dank - I mean, complex. bra.
So which beer would be most fitting to signify this uphill battle I'm currently engaged in?
(Pregnant pause.)
It could be Dubbel. Certainly I had to make a concerted effort to enjoy it, with its dried fruits, funky yeast, and low hop profile. I had been on an IPA/DIPA/IIPA/DEA bender, although less in the sense of puking-blood-loss-of-eight-days-consiousness, and more in the sense of I-can't-get-enough-lupulin-on-my-tongue. Oh alpha acids.
But that isn't good enough, because after I quit my predisposition towards the beer, and probably just as much after the IBUs I'd inhaled had a chance to lose their grip on my palate, I enjoyed it. Hell, I'm planning on drinking this when I get off work in ten minutes.
It can't be anything with wheat as a majority of the grist, because... fuck wheat.
Faster.Dogfish 120 Minute isn't a bad idea; it's impossible to drink one in less than an hour. But god, isn't that kind of passe? I don't know how many people (of the dread-locked, Birkenstock variety) have told me the beer was "complex" (one.)
I'm sure you feel that way, Grateful Dead. Does it open up with some Hindu Kush, leading to AK-47, finishing with a deep edge of Cinderella 99? Or do you just know that complex is a positive term to use when describing a beer?
This shit is dank - I mean, complex. bra.Maybe it's the beer I haven't had, the beer that can't inspire because it hasn't been tasted. I like that idea; there's always something I haven't had yet, and there's is always a source of inspiration.
How's that for a tidy ending?
How's that for a tidy ending?
Friday, February 12, 2010
I Can't Stop Talking About Wheat Beer
I'm ready to eat words now. No, my own please.
Thanks.
I spent an afternoon recently expounding on the sins of drinking wheat beer all year, smugly sipping on an ESB or other comparative low-alcohol, all-barley beer (coincidentally, the replacement of wheat for barley, a different yeast, and about a million other miniscule variables; you've got a hefe.) I stand by that. I don't believe that any (beer drinker's) life would be complete simply drinking a cloudy, citrus-laden beer (which may or may not be integral to the taste of said beer.)
However, upon both not re-reading the post and having a rather astounding (wheat based!) beer, I've decided that there was snobbish tone to it. I don't hate all wheat beer. I don't hate any wheat beer, unless it isn't any good (in which case I hate it.)
I'm currently enjoying a Leipziger Gose (and man, I don't know if that's right; there are about twenty names on this thing) and damn. Just. Damn. There's a tartness that doesn't quite make your jaw hurt (like this one) but smacks of intense sourdough bread. It's bone dry, highly carbonated, and scrubbed the shit out of my tongue as I ate some of my roommate's chili. Which you said I could have, Sean. I'll buy some more tortilla chips. And some trash disposal strips.
THIS IS WHY I HATE WHEAT BEER. Sorority chicks come in to the shop (more on that LATER!) and won't freaking shut up about how good Starr Hill The Love is. I don't care that you like phallus shaped fruit and clove cigarettes. I don't want your review on how easy it is to have five of them and then give head to the nearest guy (intriguing as the story was, Corrinne.)
I don't give one damn how cute the label is, no matter how cute you are. And you really are cute.
(This was a wee-bit ramble-y.)
Thanks.
I spent an afternoon recently expounding on the sins of drinking wheat beer all year, smugly sipping on an ESB or other comparative low-alcohol, all-barley beer (coincidentally, the replacement of wheat for barley, a different yeast, and about a million other miniscule variables; you've got a hefe.) I stand by that. I don't believe that any (beer drinker's) life would be complete simply drinking a cloudy, citrus-laden beer (which may or may not be integral to the taste of said beer.)
However, upon both not re-reading the post and having a rather astounding (wheat based!) beer, I've decided that there was snobbish tone to it. I don't hate all wheat beer. I don't hate any wheat beer, unless it isn't any good (in which case I hate it.)
I'm currently enjoying a Leipziger Gose (and man, I don't know if that's right; there are about twenty names on this thing) and damn. Just. Damn. There's a tartness that doesn't quite make your jaw hurt (like this one) but smacks of intense sourdough bread. It's bone dry, highly carbonated, and scrubbed the shit out of my tongue as I ate some of my roommate's chili. Which you said I could have, Sean. I'll buy some more tortilla chips. And some trash disposal strips.
THIS IS WHY I HATE WHEAT BEER. Sorority chicks come in to the shop (more on that LATER!) and won't freaking shut up about how good Starr Hill The Love is. I don't care that you like phallus shaped fruit and clove cigarettes. I don't want your review on how easy it is to have five of them and then give head to the nearest guy (intriguing as the story was, Corrinne.)
I don't give one damn how cute the label is, no matter how cute you are. And you really are cute.
(This was a wee-bit ramble-y.)
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