Red Ass Ale II to the secondary.

About 5 days over due but it's finally in the secondary. Could have just bottled it I suppose but I want it to clairify some, plus there seemed to be about a half gallon of trub. I'll give it a week or so and keg it. It'll be my first keg.

Aslo put the Blonde in refrigeration, may try one tonight.....

Bottle Bomb?

OK, I've read about bottle bombs on brew boards and heard people talk about them but it's always been while the bottles were sitting and bottle carbonating (too much sugar seems to be the main cause.) Hadn't had this problem myself, but I took out a bottle of the blonde ale that is currently bottle conditioning. The last bottle I filled was only half full, I figured that would be a good one to check the carbonating progress. Didn't refrigerate, just took out a frosted mug to put it in. Applied the bottle opener and the thing started to gush! Pushed the cap down with my thumb and ran for the sink. Lifted my thumb and the thing went off like a shook up champagne bottle, almost lost an eye! Anyway, cleaned up my mess and tried the beer, not bad, tasted kind of flat for all the carbonation.

Not sure if it was the half bottle, not refrigerating or something else, I'll wait till the weekend and try another, open it OUTSIDE this time....

Smell or Aroma?

Walked into the fermenting chamber, (spare bedroom), looking for something unrelated to beer, (yes that happens sometimes), and there was a very strong sickly/sweet odor. Upon further investigation I found it was coming out of my airlock! This can't be good! Posted to the club message board and response I got was "All is well. Let it finish and drink it." OK, I'll wait. Could be the yeast I used, it was Safale 05, never used that before, also this was my first partial mash. Keeping my fingers crossed......

Sunday, Brewday!

Cooked up another batch of Red Ass Ale yesterday. Ran out of propane while I was bringing it up to a boil, no problem, I'll just get the tank from the grill right? WRONG! It lasted about 10 min. Had to use the stove. Actaully got permission from Maria! I was in a jam, gotta love that girl! Note to self...."MAKE SURE THERE IS ALWAYS A FULL TANK OF PROPANE LAYING AROUND!"

Bottled the Blonde

52 blonde's in bottles! Had a friend spend the night over the weekend while his wife and mine had a night out. The spare bedroom doubles as my fermenting chamber so when his wife was over the next day I promptly told her that her husband slept with a blond. Would have been better now that there are 52 blonds in the room now instead of just one big one!

As long as I was cleaning and sanitizing everything in site I decided to go ahead and put my helles bock in the secondary. Supposed to bring the temp up to 70' for 12 to 24 hours to get rid of some flavor, (I'll look it up and let you know what is is later.) Then crash cool to close to 32'. Dropped the temp on the basement fridge to the coldest setting, will put the carboy in in the morning.

Think I'll have a beer!

Bottles

I have heard it said "You know you are a home brewer when.... You buy bottles of beer more for the ease of label removal than the taste of the beer."

Spent last night cleaning bottles getting ready to bottle "The Blonde." Some of the bottle were "Belle" pale ales and porters, these labels were put on with some sort of epoxy or maybe cement! Soaked in soapy water, that usually lets the label slip right off but noooooo.

One had some gunk on the bottom that I scrubbed and scrubbed with a bottle brush. After about 15 minute I realized the gunk was on the outside of the bottle. Should have enough for the batch of blonde ale now, hope to bottle this week.

July Brew Club Meeting

Went to my first brew club meeting yesterday, GREAT time, would have been better if I wasn't on call for the weekend. The host brewed with his brand new home made all-electric all-grain set up. He really put some time into it, looks cool and works fantastic. Ment to take a picture, never got around to it. Lots of beer to sample and we even did a taste test on commercial American wheat beers, Don't remember what beer won.... Looking forward to the August meet, not sure if I'll enter my Hippo HellesBock in the Border Worts II competition or not. May just drink it! :-)

The Beer Store

This is a little late but I want to get it in here.

The last weekend in June my nephew got married in Minnesota. So what is my first thought when planning this trip? Stop at a couple of brew pubs on the way and make a trip to the Midwest Supplies beer store in Minneapolis! Well, plans changed and I didn't make it to ANY pubs or even a bar, but I did make it to the Beer Store.

Now I've always used the phrase 'beer store'. "Hey, I'm going to the beer store for a box of beer." Or "Wanna go to the beer store? I need a box of beer." And so forth, but now that I have started brewing my own and have been to what I here brewers call a LHBS "Local Home Brew Store" the term has a whole new meaning. I was like a kid in a candy store! Every where I turned there was something I needed! I was a little intimidated by the other shoppers, they all seemed to know what they were doing and what they needed. I was walking around with my jaw wide open and my wife kept telling me to quit drooling.

I actually did have a list and a budget to stay under, but who knew there was so much other stuff that I had to have! In the end I did stay under budget by getting this instead of that and less of the other for more of something else. Too short on time and money for a field trip like that but it saved me some shipping on the big items like carboys and bulk dry extract.

(note to self.. bulk extract is not worth the hassle of splitting up, buy what you need when you need it!)

I do have the supplies for quite a few brews now so I need to step up production. Ah well, a brewers work is never done..... :-D

Born on the 4th of July

Hippo Helles Bock, born on date: 4 July 2009

First try with a lager. Most things I've read on this style call it a "Spring Beer" I think because it's easier to hit the lower temperatures needed for fermenting with a lager yeast. But the brew club is having a helles bock / maibock competition in August so I figured I'd give it a try.

Spent Friday night splitting up a #50 bag of dry extract into smaller bags. Not sure that was worth the money saved for buying in bulk. For those who don't know what dry extract is. About the consistency of flour but gets very sticky when it comes in contact with any moisture, even just the moisture of your skin. Then it gets hard as cement, fun to clean up.

Anyway, so I brewed the helles bock, changed location to the back deck due to the fantastic weather. A bit warm so I had to stay hydrated, dug into a box of Point beer for that, bought it for the bottles. Same price as buying a case of new bottles, you do have to empty them though. Tough job. All in all not a bad beer. May have gotten too hydrated, after brewing, grilling chicken and cleaning up, Maria wanted to go see the fireworks, not sure how long after that, she woke me up and told me to go to bed. Not sure, but I think we missed the fireworks....

When I was researching helles bock recipes, it looks like there is no particular ingredients special to this beer, I was looking for specific hops, grains and/or yeast, seems everyone uses something different as long as it falls in the correct range for gravity, bitterness and color. So I used Centennial hops for bittering, Styrian Gold hops for aroma, Carmel 10L and Munich 10 for specialty grains and a dry lager yeast.

Lagers should be fermented at lower temps, around 55'. My basement is now at 60' so I've got the primary sitting in a bucket of water and am rotating frozen water bottles into the bucket, a tip I picked up on one of the online brew boards. Warmest I could get my beer fridge was 40'. When it goes to the secondary, you must ferment/lager at close to 32' so I've arranged the fridge to accommodate a carboy. There it will sit until mid August. Lagers take to much time! I want to try a barleywine someday, they take a minimum of 6 months!

Still need to write about my trip to Midwest Supplies, stay tuned.

#3 to the secondary

Blonde ale went 9 days in the primary fermenter, had pretty much stopped bubbling the airlock. Just no time, 400 lives of men and now I have no TIME! Sorry flashed to Lord of the Rings for a second there...

Anyway, looks and smells good, a little darker than I thought it should be for a blonde but I'm sure it will taste good. :-)

I'll leave it in the seconday at least a week, maybe two, by then I should have enough bottles emptied to fill them up with this batch. I know, you are all thinking, "Poor guy has to empty all those bottles." But somebody has to do it, and it may as well be someone thats good at it. I'll work on some now!