A problem with Consumption Vs. Production

I pride my self in using some decent equations in order to hit my numbers on my beers. Science is a big part of being able to produce the same product (or know what you did wrong) in each batch. While I don't feel I've compromised any batch of beer, my Dirty Snowman Ale was prepped for this weekend for consumption.   The next beer I started was my Choco-de-Bock-Ale which I projected at about 6-7 weeks fermentation. Then I recently started an ESB that had about a 3-4 week ferment time. Of course when I planed them out I didn't have the foresight to plan when the two would be done. With several bottles in use with my ale, two ales ago, I guess I have no option but to drink up and free up some bottles! That and maybe recycle a few more from the Christmas Cheer.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah or any thing else you celebrate! Just be safe and enjoy! 

Growing Hops At Home

I always think about this around mid summer which is way to late to plant around here. But this year, I want to grow my own hops. As you can find very quickly, there are countless articles on this subject all over the net. I'm going to link the one from BeerSmith just because it is a easy to read, simple place to start. http://www.beersmith.com/  I'll add more to this if I get the ability to do this in the spring and will get you some pics of how it goes!

Smiles All Around

Today was the day that I took my Dirty Snowman Ale to the select Masses for a taste of an idea. And the over all was it was great! out of the 20 people I had taste this young beer. 50% said they would buy it out of a store, 20% said it wasn't too bad but not great, and the final 30 % said it wasn't to their liking.  I'll take this as a HUGE success! I had three people ask me when they could buy it in the market which is the highest compliment you can receive!  It really needs another week to mellow then I'll post another update :)

Beer of the night!

Tonight I'm trying Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale. 8% ABV and a ridiculous 102 IBU or International Bitterness Unit (i.e. Hops) The top of the stale of IBU is technically 100 making this beer "technically" impossibly Hoppy. Tasting it would make you believe the above statement. From the aroma, the beginning, end, and the mouth feel, pretty much all you get is hops. All of this said, I'm really enjoying it, and Bamforth says hops are good for you. just be prepared. It has a bite! 

A Quick Review on a Great Beer Book

Just finished this book and highly recommend it. It shows Charles Bamforth on only as the scientific brewer but also the philosopher of malted barley and hops. It was a refreshing look of the spirit of what beer is, and isn't. My next book I'm reading of his is Beer, Taping Into The Art And Science Of Brewing then I'm reading Grape vs Grain. I'll let you know how those turn out but if they're anything like what I've read so far. I'm sure I'll love them.

I'm hopefully starting an ESB on Friday, I'll post the progress on here as soon as I have any!

Cheers 

Copper Run Distillery, Bringing Moonshine Back To The Ozarks

I had the privilege of meeting Jim Blansit, the Owner and Distiller at Copper Run Distillery yesterday. I won a prize from US97 (a local radio station) from the distillery and ran down too Walnut Shade MO to check it out. What I won? The grand prize, a 1 gallon cask and 5 bottles of moonshine (corn whiskey). But really so much more. It was wonderful seeing a micro-distillery first hand and to taste corn whiskey on it's first run dripping straight out of the still. Being an old brewer himself it was great to talk about the difference between between brewing a mash of beer and mash for whiskey. After a full tour we went to the tasting room to taste the difference between an unaged whiskey and a one year whiskey. I also got to try some of the rum he makes there, it was delicious! Then, my prize.... I brought everything home along with a gallon of  filtered water, and filled the cask with the water for the past 24 hours to "condition" the cask. Then this evening, I drained it and the moonshine. If your from the area or happen to be passing through the Ozarks, defiantly go check out these folks. Just make sure you bring a DD if you plan on spending too much time in the tasting room!

IBallz to the Rescue!

Beer, baseball, and technology are pretty much my life. Granted there's a little more to me than that but... And they all go pretty well together, I can watch a game while taking notes on my iPad and enjoying a frosty beverage. The only problem I've ran into with my iPad has been in transportation. I have been known to be pretty hard on my gadgets so I'm always looking for the best way to protect my little investments from, well, myself. I also use the iPad for brewing and keeping all my brewing information with iBrewMaster. So being that the iPad goes with me everywhere, my picking of a proper case was extremely important. After being totally unsatisfied with three cases I have purchased over the past 6 months, I ran across the iBallz page. It looked to solve some of the issues that I was having with the other cases I didn't like. I think what really sold me was the modular feel of it. You can use just the "ballz" to protect the edges and incase of dropping or spillage around it (very handy when brewing). Then for an extra layer of protection they sell cases that work with the ballz and are made to where there's no fumbling and taking everything apart just to use it. I was extremely impressed of the quality of the case. It far exceeded any other case I have purchased at a fraction of the price. If you have an iPad you really need to try this system. The picture above was from the coffee house yesterday with the iLid case folded behind it. And I just went to the website and they have everything on the site on sale which means everyone I know will be getting them for Christmas. Great job of a high quality product at a very reasonable price.

Paradigm shifts and randomness

Watch out, this is going to be random. I don't get sick very often, but when I do, my life gets uprooted, I'm not my self, my environment changes, and the fan on my laptop is SO loud! But simple things like a glass of water taste sooo good. I find this is the best time to contemplate major situations and decisions. I always have a chance to take a totally different look at things I've been thinking about. Like deciding I might want to change my direction and become a microbiologist or almost putting a $400.00 brew pot on my card at 3am under the influence of NyQuil. I'm pretty sure I was looking at the air at one point wondering how my breathing was affecting all of the millions of particles surrounding me. Kinda analyzing my carbon foot print on a microscopic level.

Now granted, that alone didn't change my life, but it did flag a few questions on how I can make my beer better. So decided to start with the very basics, air and water. At our local Mama Jeans I can buy some pretty decently filtered water for 35 cents a gallon, a small price to pay to get away from chlorinated tap water. The whole air think might be a little trickier but I've heard something as simple as a "mini-max" system can make a big differen. I'm going to do a bit more research into the whole air and water before I make a final decision but I think I'm headed in the right direction.

And Now, What Not To Do.... Kinda

Every once in a while, things don't go as planned. Every once in a while equipment fails you. If you are a home brewer or a major distributor, something, sometime, will go wrong. It is your fundamental understanding of the process of brewing that will save a batch or wash one down the drain. I say all of this because such a problem with equipment did indeed happen last night.


For those that don't know the reason why you use a bucket style container as your primary fermenter and a carboy as your secondary is all simply about headroom and air. A primary fermentation is very active and produces a lot of Co2 and a lot of foam in the process. Up to 3 or 4 inches of foam on top of the brew and even more than that in some situations. You need room for this and you aren't as concerned about the air that could be in the bucket, since the Co2 is going to continue to keep positive pressure on the "Primary". WELL.... when your Primary doesn't keep a good seal and you have a young brew in it, you worry about any contaminates possibly getting into the batch, so I made the executive decision to move it to a secondary "Better Brew" container. So like I explained earlier, not nearly as much room in the top of a carboy which means not as much room for your brew head. so it can come out the trap, as long as you keep the trap clear of debris, not really a problem, Makes a little mess but the gas still escapes and you still keep everything good.

Here's the FYI... IF you are making a Chocolate Bock and you have roasted Chocolate Nibs that are floating in the top of the brew, those nibs MAY float on the foam and into the tiny neck of the of the fermentation trap and clog the escape route for all the gas produced. If and when this happens, duck, you have two possible outcomes. One. the nib is forced into the first chamber of the trap and the brew goes on. Two the Co2 pressurizes the carboy and you have a possible fermentation trap missile on your hands. The second of the two happened. It missed me but it popped had enough that it dug a grove in the ceiling. The picture above is actually what you hope for if you ever have to make this call. As long as it's still bubbling and foaming, it may not be ideal but its better than the alternative. Just make sure you keep the trap clean and it should be just fine in this stage. Right now that's about every 6 hours. Make sure you put a towel underneath it because it will make a mess!

Dirty Little Snowman Ale is Bottled and ready to Carbonate!

 DLSA is in the bottle and awaiting it's fate around Christmas. The aroma is awesome and the flavor is Great! I'm the proud dad of 5 gallons of beer! It will probably mellow a little in the bottle but like an anxious father, I'm waiting to get the final grade card of their kid in the mail... Bottling took about an from cleaning out the first bottle to capping the last. I'm beginning to use more of the PET plastic bottles which I have has good success with so far. They are NOT dishwasher safe just in case you were curious. They turn shapes non-conducive to refilling with beer! I fill at least 1 bottle of each batch with them because they are a very easy great way to gauge how well a batch is conditioning once bottled. I also love my flip top bottles. They are easy to use and clean and they have a fun look to them. This will be the first batch that I've used my printable labels I mentioned in a previous blog. I'll post pictures and a review as soon as I have some bubbles!

I also had a primary fermenter malfunction and went ahead and moved the Choco-de-Bock-Ale into a Better Brew Bottle to insure that the seal is good. I look forward to buying a new Primary on Friday. Not sure where the air leak was but I'm confident that the amount of Co2 being produced in it's first days would have kept positive pressure in the primary until I moved it today. I went ahead and added 2 more ounces of the cocoa nibs since this is kinda sorta not really a secondary? But as far as color goes, it's chocolate through and through! And I just checked on it and it seems to be very happy with it's new home. It may blow out it's trap tonight....

Augmented Reality, the beer label?

I found this video on Facebook and it blew my mind! Being an aspiring brewer I would love to come out with the first beer label that incorporated this technology! But I probably wont have the resources to pull it off so I'll just say it here! Very cool Tech, watch for it coming to a beer bottle soon!

Here's to My Readers

My blog just went over 1000 page views! That's actually a pretty small number as far as blogs go but being only 2 months old, I'm thrilled. So I decided to list my favorite beers in the list of the most page views on the blog by the country..... Pageviews by Countries United States -917 There's too many craft breweries to list here Canada- 21-Fosters! HAHA it's an old joke, actually Unibroue Australia -14-We don't get too many of yours here, VB? United Kingdom- 14-Fullers, but there's a lot more great beers Spain -12-San Miguel maybe, not sure German- 7-Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier look it up before you try this one! :) Singapore -6-I would like to try Tiger Beer Denmark -4-Carlsberg is about the only one I've tried Italy -4-Birra Moretti Russia -4-Not sure but I want to find out the brand if this Beer can if you might know(sexy beer cans)   Thanks to everyone who stops by to read!  If you need my mailing send me a six pack of your favorite beer to try, email me at itskeeton@gmail.com  and I'll make sure you get it!  Cheers!

The Choco-de-bock-ale Is Fermenting Away.

My latest beer creation went into it's primary fermentation yesterday after about 3 hours of cooking and prep. I went with a partial mash on this one per Todd's recommendation from the Home Brewery in Ozark. Todd is the only guy I have ever bought ingredients form and there's one simple reason, customer service. I didn't have my recipe for this beer at all nailed down before I got there yesterday. I knew what I wanted to make, just not real sure how to get there. Todd took my ideas and turned them into something real, had everything in stock that I needed, and went through  the steps that I needed to follow which were slightly more technical than the brew style I've done in the past. If I'm buying a plastic case for my iPad, I usually shop on the net. but when I'm buying ingredients for a brew I buy local from a brewer that knows whats going on! That's Todd...


After I mashed in and got the the DME dissolved,  (note to self, need a much larger brew kettle to dissolve 10 pounds of dry malt)... I brought the sweet wort up to a boil and immediately boiled over for 1 brief second but I got it under control. Everything else went like clockwork. I also racked all the other brews, The Snowman Ale is in it's secondary and is about a week away from bottling. The two meads have about 7 more months to go. Now to come up with my next brew idea... 

The Night Before Brew Day, And All Through The Brew House...

Twas the night before brewing.... I'm not feeling quite that creative at the moment, or at least to finish the conversion of that whole story. Tonight I'm digging for the final details for the beer I'm brewing tomorrow. I know a few details... 1. It will not only be a Bock, it will be a Chocolate Bock, 2. it will be an ale not a lager yeast? "but you can't make an ale bock" you may say? why not? 3. I'm using cocoa nibs from Askinosie Chocolate to be the Choco in my Choco-de-bock-ale. I need to head to bed now so I can get over there when they open and get the nibs, then head to Ozark and get the rest of the ingredients form Todd at the Home Brewery then it's home to sanitize, and brew, and rack other brews, and clean all the equipment and clean myself, to go out and see my favorite local band tomorrow night! And I really need a haircut. SO, full schedule, I'll post picture tomorrow after I get everything kicked off...


Cheers