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!

Finally #3

Brewed batch #3 last night, a Blonde Ale, still workin on a name. Things went well other that the heat, it was 94' ! Had to keep hydrated, lots of BEER! Checked on it when I got home, bubbling away nicely. First try with a liquid yeast. Went with the Wyeast American Ale II.

Bottled Batch #2

Brown Eyed Honey Oat.

Went well very little waste this time, getting better! Smells good, gonna have a little taste and go to bed.

Brew Club

Met a few of the guys from the brew club I joined a couple of weeks ago, it's called Tri County Fermenters. http://www.tricountyfermenters.com/

Tim had bought hops in bulk and I was getting in on the good deal. Anyway, he said he would be brewing in the morning and heading over to Ed's after lunch and I could pick the hops up there. Ed is the club president.

So I drive down to Ed's on the motorcycle, to save on gas you know, never been there before but knew I had the right place when I saw the big cauldrons steaming out front and a couple of corny kegs in the garage.

Tim is there with his wife Tina, Jon and Ed. What are they doing? Well there's a batch of brew going of course and they are tasting beer, talking about beer, and listening to a guy talk about beer on the internet. Special occasion? Meeting? No, it's just Sunday. I'm gonna like these guys.

Anyway, they ask me what I plan on brewing. "Not a clue" says me, "I'm just getting started." So they ask if I've tried this or that, and mostly I hadn't. Next thing you know I'm handed a sampler 6pack of their homebrew. "Here take these home to try and see if you like any." Did I mention I'm gonna like these guys?

Spent about an hour there looking at Ed's setup, sampled a Dogfish Head IPA 120 min boil, (first taste seemed heavy bitter, but the aftertaste was heavy sweet?) and just talking beer and brewing. Wish my ears were working better today, could have picked up allot more.

Good group of people. Looking forward to the next time I hook up with them at the July meeting. Gonna be on call that day so I'll have to limit my tasting. :-)

Washing bottles the rest of the afternoon in prep for bottling batch #2.

Had a Good Beer?

Anyone had a good beer lately? Let me know what it was. I think I've got the comments open to everyone.

Fermenting? Nope....

Not much going on in the fermenter... may have to bottle sooner than expected. Monday or Tuesday will be my first opportunity.