For me, this brings up an interesting point because I am actually brewing a holiday favorite of mine this weekend!  I’ll get to that in a minute.  For the holidays, I would say there are three beers that stand out to me.  The first was my doppelbock.  This was a great beer and I personally credit a lot of this to the fact that I decoction mash.  Before you jump in and tell me that modern grains are modified and don’t need a decoction mash, I know.  However, I would argue that there is some caramelization of the sugars in the process that contributes some unique qualities to the flavor.  Plus its a cool process that pre-dates thermometers, how many things do you do today that do that?

The second brew for me would be the Wilford’s Best Oatmeal Stout I just brewed.  I’ve already killed a keg of it!  I don’t like that fact, but it’s a stout I am still not sick of.  This is a great beer that is easy to drink and a nice little winter warmer.

Finally, my Bobby Brown ale that was the first brew Nick and I made together (shed a tear).  This was one of the earlier beers I all-grain brewed and it was my first 10 gallon brew.  At the time, we were really happy with the brew, but about a year later we cracked open a flip top of it and it was still awesome!  That’s why I am brewing it again this weekend:

Bobby Brown this time around:

• 20.5lb US2 row pale
• 4lbd Crystal 60L
• .75lb Chocolate malt
• .25lb Black patent
• 2oz Norther Brewer 60min
• 1oz Cascade 30min
• 1oz Cascade 15min
• 1oz fuggles dry hop
• Irish Ale Yeast (reused from some of my earlier brews)

The yeast is different on this one, but everything else should be the same.  This will also be my first time using my pump and my newly installed sparge-arm so hopefully everything functions.

All of these themes were really clear in what makes us brew…oh yea, and we all like beer…A LOT.  Thanks for everyone that submitted and if I missed you in this list, please respond and I will add your post (Adam I am looking in your direction!)

• Brew Dudes reflect on why Dudes Brew: Brew Dudes
• Brewing Suds knows that patience is a great virtue especially in brewing: Brewing Suds
• Chris from Bob’s Place came into brewing for drinking, but it’s grown from there: B.O.B’s Place
• Just another Booze Blog stated brewing after a trip to Europe: Just Another Booze Blog
• Matt the GISBREWMASTER loves beer (how is it possible that reading a blog post makes me want a beer?): A World of Brews
• Awesome, a brew-lady tells her inspiration, I personally love to see women in brewing, it’s always great to diversify the pallets and keep from just making “man candy”: BrewCookPairJoy
• My post

Remember why we brew?

This is a pretty open subject, but the idea here is, what got you started?  What gets you out of bed for brewing and drinking?  Once you’ve brewed enough batches, it becomes apparent that if you’re in it for the beer, it’s a lot easier to just go buy a six-pack.  So why do we keep doing this process?

For me, it’s as much of a self-image thing as anything else.  An experience in college caused me to create an image of what ‘making it’ really meant:  One summer in college, we made a road trip out to Rochester to visit a group of alumni.  After a long day at Ten Ugly Men, we headed to Spike’s house for a beer.  Spike was another alumni that was full of life and a ton of fun.  The guys insisted that we had to stop in and visit Spike for a beer (or more).  When we visited, we were down in his basement, it was pretty cramped, just enough room for the pool table, but he had a fridge with two taps on it.  Now pool and beer on tap is pretty impressive, but when he explained how he made the beer himself, I was floored.  ‘This guy has the world by the balls’ I thought, and from that point on I decided that I was going to figure out how to make it happen.  So now I think about my house, my life and the expression of my own personal freedom that being able to brew my own beer is; something Spike has always represented to me.

In some small way, every time I wake up at 7:30 am in the snow and cold, I think about Spike and that basement.  I think about how I like it when I get to give my own brew tours, the pride I get when someone tells me they enjoy my beer.

I love to share my beer, for two reasons; one, I get to brew more, and two is that I like to have people be made happy by something I made.  Brewing is more than beer and drinking.  It’s a lifestyle and chance to be a little different, while still part of a unique group.  In some ways, it’s the ultimate example of following your desires and createing something you like from almost nothing.

One observation that I’ve said and have heard from others is that brewing is an escape from the daily grind.  But the beauty of brewing is that it’s not just the act that’s an escape, but talking about brewing and beer is as well.  I am always glad to talk at length with want-to-be and “newbie” brewers.  I like to talk anyway, but bring up beer and it’s all over.  Brewing is an opportunity for me to escape another conversation about the weather or politics.

So, visions of being Spike in the basement with my bro’s hanging out playing pool and drinking my great brews have shaped my introduction into brewing and still drives me today.  I love to share beer and conversation; brewing fuels that as well.  The act of brewing is an escape, but so is thinking and talking about it.  In all, this is a fulfilling hobby, both personally and socially.

So tonight, I am going to tip back a pale ale and offer a toast to my lost friend Spike.  In every beer, there is a little Spike to make me smile.  Thanks as always to Adam for being the man behind the idea.

First Round of FF Submissions (I will also do a full post with all submissions this weekend so please share your link):

• Brew Dudes reflect on why Dudes Brew: Brew Dudes
• Brewing Suds knows that patience is a great virtue especially in brewing: Brewing Suds
• Chris from Bob’s Place came into brewing for drinking, but it’s grown from there: B.O.B’s Place
• Just another Booze Blog stated brewing after a trip to Europe: Just Another Booze Blog
• Matt the GISBREWMASTER loves beer (how is it possible that reading a blog post makes me want a beer?): A World of Brews
• Awesome, a brew-lady tells her inspiration, I personally love to see women in brewing, it’s always great to diversify the pallets and keep from just making “man candy”: BrewCookPairJoy

Since it’s my chance to choose the topic, I decided to go with something a little more thought provoking than useful.  This month’s topic is:

“Remember why we brew?”

Whether it’s the inflated sense of independence that the smell of mashing malt brings or just some image of yourself as a beer artisan that brewing creates, I want to hear about it.  No limits here, it can be what started you down the path, or what inspires you to lug 15 gallons of water out of your basement at 7am.

Now the natural reaction may be “it’s the beer stupid”, but I think it’s deeper than that for most.  It is for me at least.

See you next week.

a. What part of the your brewday brings you the most JOY?
b. What part particularly brings out a good deal of STRESS?

This is great to think about.  I love to think about all the reasons I brew.  The smell of the grain, the sound of propane running, the thoughts of beer.  It’s a great thing. 

For me, the part of brewing that brings me the most joy is when I strike and take my temp and I am spot on.  This is like striking a 7 iron from 150yrds out and dropping the ball in the middle of the green on the last hole of the day.  This is what keeps me coming back.  The aroma of the grain brewing, sugars, conversions, steam…ah that’s good stuff.

The most stressful part of the brew day for me is the clean up.  I know that’s kind of a cop-out because no one likes cleaning, but the whole process of trying to close out the brew day when I am tired and really concerned about making sure my brew starts bubbling, really tests my patience.  It feels like no matter how many things you clean and take to the basement, there is always more crap to clean and then take to the basement.

Happy Fermentation Friday.

With the snow melting and hops starting to sprout, this is a good time to think about brewing beer (I know, it’s always a good time to think about brewing beer).  This month’s Fermentation Friday is hosted by HomeBrewBeer.net and the question is:

“How will you grow or change as a homebrewer this Spring? How will you embrace your Spring fever and channel it toward your homebrewing endeavors?”

First off, in Central New York (the CNY of CNYBrew for my southern visitors) it’s tough not to get jazzed up about spring.  Syracuse is in prime basketball season, the snow is (hopefully) gone and Liverpool Country Club has been open fro three weeks.  As far as how that impacts my brewing, it means no more carharts and boots for brew days.  It means breaking out the back yard hose for colling instead of snow.  All good stuff.

As far as embracing spring, I would like to use the nice weather to brew in the evenings a few times this summer.  A lot of my neighbors have shown an interest in brewing and I would like to get them involved.  Brewing in the evening will be a more social time to brew and have a few brews.

Thats it for now.  Cheers.

My take on this is going to be short and sweet.  We all have our ways of doing things and that’s fine.  One of the first things we learn as brewers is to clean and sanitize.  However, after a few brews and a general comfort with the process, we all begin to examine the question; does this really matter?

The sort answer is “yes, next question”.  “Why?” do you ask?  Because while in all likelihood you could brew in a total germ infested hellhole with no cleaning or sanitizing and have beer come out on the other end 9 times out of 10.  However, that one time out of ten that your precious brew is spoiled sucks so much that it’s worth the hassle of cleaning and sanitizing.

That’s it, plain and simple.

Cheers.

I would say that my resolutions are more brewing based:

1. Take better notes
2. Learn more about specific hops types (flavor, alpha acid)
3. Come up with a good use for my spent grains
4. Get my sparging worked out, I’ve exhausted a ton of thought cycles on this with no real solid resolution
5. Build something for my hops to grow on – They are going to be big this year and I want to reap the rewards!

Finally I would say that I will join Ten in resolving to be a better member of the beer/brewing blogging community.  Cheers.

About half of the hops are ready to go, so now I get to pick and dry them so that I can see how much I’m going to yield. As anyone that has been into drying herbs or anything knows that I’m going to lose 70-80% of the weight of my harvest as the hops dry so keep that in mind when you see the pictures.

This is just a gratuitous hops shot that I thought all the hop heads would enjoy.

After doing some reading, I discovered that there are two basic concepts in drying hops. One is heat based and the other is airflow based. When push comes to shove, it’s up to you beyond that. the things to be sure to avoid are situations where your hops are going to be sealed up while still moist as this will lead to everything from off smells to mold. You also want to keep an eye on them because you don’t want to over dry them so that they are too brittle to use.

With all that said, it’s drying stuff so don’t get too worked up about how you do this. Just keep an eye on them and you’ll do fine.

As you can see from these pictures, I used the airflow based method where you ensure that there is a steady flow of air going over the hops to remove the moisture. To do this, you are going to need to have the hops in a warm place.

I took a screen out of one of my windows (ghetto?) and placed it over a plastic bin. I have a small fan in the bottom that is face down turned on. My thought here was that the fan air is pretty intense so by facing it down the airflow will be broken up by bouncing off the bottom before flowing over the hops. I also placed another bin over this one to keep anything from landing on the hops from in the air, but it’s not a huge ordeal of you left them open.

As you can see, I spread them out so that there were no hops on top of one another and let them be for a few days. They were done within five days and I put them in zip lock bags to store them in the freezer. My total yield for this first picking was 2 ounces so I am a little disappointed, but I sill have another harvest that is about half as much as that so I should wind up with three to three and a half ounces of hops. I was thinking of using all my homegrown hops in a batch with some organic malt and call it hippy juice or something.

One quick note is that with my second set up hops I am going to try and dry them on the vine. I have heard of doing this with other plants and I thought it might work with hops too.

Cheers!

“What advice would you give people that are getting into beer?”

Well for me, it’s just dive right in. The biggest mistake I made in brewing was not getting started soon enough. I have learned so much more from doing than I ever had from reading when it comes to beer.

While I think there are some basics it won’t hurt to read about, if you have access to a brew club or you know someone that brews, there is so much more to learn from watching and doing that will be helpful. I made the plunge into all grain only after a guy from my brew club invited me over one Saturday to watch. I had been reading about this FOREVER and suddenly I saw it in action. It was a lot easier than it sounded.

I love reading about beer and brewing, but from my experience, there is a lot of extra information that is not needed in brewing. This is really a pretty simple process; hot water, crushed grain, time, hops and yeast. That’s it. It’s not fusing atoms. Just breaking down complex sugars into simple sugars and letting yeast eat’em.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. Hope it helps. Cheers!