Brian's Beer

I See a Brewin’ on the Horizon!

brian — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:32:32 +0000

That’s right. This weekend we’re making the Peanut Butter Cup Porter! I ordered the ingredients so everything is set. I’ll be running some of the new equipment I got for Christmas. I will probably use the new kettle and the new burner. And I’ll probably use Urgo’s grain mill, as it’s the same as mine. I guess I should probably install the spigot into the kettle, right?

I had to make some changes to the recipe though. I had planned on using PB2 but after a scale test I realized that PB2 won’t cut it. It just floated to the bottom of the glass. I suppose I should have boiled it to make a real actual test. Maybe I should still do that. But otherwise I bought a jar of natural peanut butter and have been draining the oil out as frequently as I can. I followed the advice from this blog. Hopefully it gives the beer good flavor without bringing a lot of the oil with it. We shall see.

I had a tough time finding the hops I needed. Ended up having to order from Grape and Granary, a site I haven’t ordered from in a long time. But they had what I needed, so they got my business this time. Hops are getting expensive. It sucks.

New Equipment

brian — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:24:03 +0000

So for Christmas I had a haul in terms of brewing. My awesome wife got me a 15 gallon kettle with a lid. It’s HUGE! One of my sisters got me a spigot for the kettle and my other sister got me a nice big burner. Finally, my parents got me a grain mill. I am very excited to use it all.

I have a few things I need to buy myself yet to finish the “system”. I have a 25′ immersion chiller. It’s perfectly sized for my old 4 gallon brew pot and fit nicely in Urgo’s 7 gallon kettle. I’m afraid it might be too small for the wide 15 gallon cooler. Plus, it has a tendency to leak where the rubber hoses meet the copper pipe. I can probably fix that with some caulk or silicone or something. But in the near future I think I want to buy a plate chiller. Just seems like a nice way to chill down larger batches quickly. So that’s on the list. Also, in order to brew batches larger than 5 gallon, I am going to need a bigger cooler to use as the mash tun. I’ve seen them pretty cheap at Walmart or Target, so that shouldn’t cost much. And I’ll just reuse the hardware I used for the smaller mash tun. I think the remaining items I want will run me about $125. Not too bad I think.

I guess I’ll also need a new carboy. Some new kegs. Bigger fridge to hold the kegs. A lagering fridge! Oh man, it’s so easy to geek out over brewing stuff.

I’m back!

brian — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:05:30 +0000

It’s been a while, but I’m back now. Lots has changed, so maybe I’ll update in a few posts over the next few days. For now, I’m on a new cheaper host so that’s good for me.

New Recipe!

brian — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:43:35 +0000

Over this last weekend, Lauren sort of jokingly said that she thinks our next beer should be a chocolate and peanut butter beer. I’m not sure where she came up with those flavors, but it made me wonder if it could be done. I’m no expert by any means, but I started working on a recipe for it. I know that chocolate flavors along with nuttiness will blend better in a darker beer. So I went with a porter base. I then looked at some other people’s recipes for chocolate porters and peanut butter porters and worked out the details.

Sort of. No one really knows how to get peanut butter into a beer because the oils in the peanut butter will kill your head retention. I am currently considering a powdered peanut product called PB2 as it is made by pressing the oils out of peanuts. Maybe that’s the key for putting peanuts in beer.

Anyway, I don’t really know what I am talking about, but I think I’ve pretty much finalized the recipe. It’s on the right over there. I also added BeerXML files for anyone who is using an app that supports those. Maybe I’ll start adding in the BeerSmith files as well. Maybe if someone asks.

Strawberry Wheat Impressions

brian — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:58:42 +0000

I was going to post this with the last post but decided to do it separately instead. I was eager to try the beer that Lauren made (with my help) so during the course of the weekend I pour little samples to see how the carbonation was coming and then adjusted the CO2 accordingly. By Sunday afternoon it was pretty well carbonated, though it will probably get a little better. Pretty well was apparently good enough for me though because I drank two small glasses of it just to make sure it was okay.

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Strawberry Wheat Kegged

brian — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:21:05 +0000

On Friday, Lauren and I moved the Strawberry Wheat into the keg. Awesome blogger that I am, I neglected to take pictures of it. Though honestly, what would I show you? The carboy was pretty clean. By the time it finished sitting in the 3rd vessel, most of the chunks had settled out so not much left at the bottom. And the keg is stainless steel so what would you see there? When the beer is ready I’ll pour a glass and post a picture of it.

Strawberry Wheat Moves to Tertiary

brian — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:31:02 +0000

Today Lauren and I moved the Strawberry Wheat to the tertiary fermenter. This is a step I’ve never taken, but after seeing the goo left behind in the secondary I see why this is important.

So here’s what the beer looks like now.

It’s still really cloudy, which is normal for this type of beer, but I think it’s worse from the fruit in it. I’m hoping to see a lot of that settle out before we keg later on this week.

Next Beer

brian — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:01:25 +0000

In a few weeks I plan on making a second beer. I mean, my kegerator has two kegs and two taps, I need two beers. I plan this beer to be my first foray into the world of All Grain brewing. I’m sure this will be a disaster, but I’m doing my research and reading everything I can find about the process. It’s a bit harder and a bit more time consuming, but in the end it should be worth it.

The end may not mean the end of the brewing of this next beer, but eventually I should get better results. This next batch might taste like pee. Anyway, the beer is going to be an Ordinary Bitter (style guidelines) and I’ll post the recipe on the sidebar shortly. You know, for anyone interested. The point of this brew is that it’s not going to require a whole lot of grain so it will fit in the 5 gallon cooler I bought. More on that later.

Blow Out!!

brian — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:14:00 +0000

Holy smokes! This morning I woke up and the airlock was bubbling like crazy! More than it did in primary, if I remember correctly. I took a peek and the kreuzen (foam on top of the fermenting beer) was almost to the top of the carboy. Awesome! I was so proud of my yeasts.

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We Put the Strawberry in Strawberry Wheat

brian — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:46:42 +0000

The idea for this beer came from Lauren who, when asked what kind of beer she’d like to make, answered “Strawberry!” I did some research about how to do this and found that a beer light in color and flavor would do the best job at bringing out strawberry flavor. I also learned that strawberries are a mild flavor and that to get any kind of flavor out of them, you need about 2 lbs of strawberries per gallon of beer. Since we brew in five gallon batches that means we need 12lbs of strawberries.

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