Rock Party

My neighborhood had a block party yesterday, for which I provided a keg of Rocky Raccoon (p.210), prepared with help from Marco and Bobby. My neighbor Shawn, who organized the party, promised to forward me at least some of the pictures he took. If there are any good shots of people enjoying homebrew, I'll try to post them here.

I made sure to take the first cup, since I hadn't tried the batch yet, and I wasn't sure if there was anything in the lines (or just in the sediment) that would result in off flavors. It's a good thing that I did, since there was definitely something not right in my first cup. It was still drinkable, but very bitter. Subsequent servings were considerably better, but even after rinsing my mouth a couple of times, my palate was still too affected by the first drink to get a good sense of the batch quality.

My dad had a similar experience between his first two servings, though his first wasn't as off as mine, and didn't seem to bias his palate as much. Everyone else who tried it had nothing but good things to say, and I hopefully have at least one new convert to homebrewing. The only disappointment was that I'd expected a block party to easily tap the entire keg. I estimate about a gallon remaining. For the sake of my ego, I'm going to attribute the "low" consumption to the cooler temperatures — yesterday's high was only 71, which isn't as conducive to drinking as the 77 degrees of just the previous day.

Snapping Ginger Ale

(Marco Cavagna and Mike Marsh)

This recipe is inspired by Carribean ginger beer, which is a non-alcoholic beverage with a very strong ginger bite. We've made an alcoholic version of this, which is based on a classic English pale ale with the hop bitterness greatly reduced. The resulting beer is light and crisp, perfect for a hot summer day.

6 lbs. extra light DME
0.5 lbs. #80 crystal malt
1 oz. Kent Golding hops (boil)
1 oz. Saaz hops (finish)
1-1.25 lb. fresh ginger
English ale yeast

Wash the ginger and trim off any bad spots, then shred in the food processor. There's no need to peel the ginger.

Steep the crystal malt for 30 minutes in a gallon to a gallon-and-a-half of water between 150 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Strain the spent grains and add the malt extract, boiling hops, and ginger. Bring to a boil and boil for an hour, adding the finishing hops for the last 10 minutes.

Strain, sparge, cool, and pitch the yeast when the temperature falls below 75 degrees. Since the ginger should dominate the flavor, this doesn't need a long bottle conditioning, and is an excellent candidate for kegging.

This first batch was good, surprisingly so for a very experimental recipe. I thought it could use more ginger (another half pound, at least), and Marco thought it could use more hops. I suspect that the amount of time for which we're boiling the ginger is muting the flavor substantially. The same amount of ginger for a much shorter time, such as the last 10 to 20 minutes of the boil, might result in a stronger flavor. In any case, this will be a fun recipe to play with in future batches.

Vicariously Pale

(Marco Cavagna and Mike Marsh)

6 pounds light DME
1/2 pound #40 crystal malt
2 oz. fuggles hops (boil)
1 oz. kent golding hops (finish)
british ale yeast

Steep crystal malt in about 1 gallon of filtered water for 30 minutes at 150-160 degrees Fahrenheit. Add DME and fuggles hops and boil for 1 hour. Add kent golding hops for last 5 minutes of the boil. Sparge and pitch yeast when temperature reaches 75 degrees.

This invention of ours took a surprisingly short time to finish bubbling, and after bottle conditioning for 2 weeks we were able to give it a try. Our initial impression was that it could use a bit more hops, both in the boil and the finish. It improved substantially after another 2 weeks in the bottle, but we still plan to use more hops for the next time we try this one. Overall, we think this was a pretty solid effort.

Incidentally, the name, "vicariously" refers to 2 weekends ago, when I was on call and couldn't drink. I brought some of this ale over to Mike's and watched him drink it while we brewed Rocky III (more on Rocky III later).

This is Beautiful

This has nothing to do with our homebrewing efforts, but it does have to do with homebrewing. I only saw part 1, and I don't know how long it'll be available, so check it out now.

A Brief Update

Since our last post was in May, you might have gotten the impression that nothing has been happening, brewing-wise. While it's true that we had a bit of a hiatus, due in part to summer travel, we've been more active of late.

Marco's going to be posting the recipe and general comments for a pale ale that we started last month, and that we finally got to taste recently. We have another Super Secret batch that's going into bottles this weekend. It'll be a couple more weeks before we can try that one and reveal the recipe (possibly as a cautionary tale).

For upcoming batches, my neighborhood is having a block party in a few weeks, so we're going to make a keg of Rocky Raccoon (p.210) for that. Since I already have a partial keg of that (yes, still), that means I'll be upgrading to a second keg.

We also have a winter seasonal that we want to try. It's another experimental Super Secret batch; one that will probably want at least a couple of months of bottle conditioning. The plan is to have it ready to drink for Thanksgiving. If it turns out well, we might have to make two or three batches for next year.

At the Mountains of Madness

We cracked the first growler of Insane Pale Ale tonight. It was a screw-cap growler, and we were pleased (and somewhat relieved) to discover that it held its seal.

The cast of characters: me, Pete, Marco, Susan, and Ranier (Susan's SO). Everyone seemed happy with the results, with the consensus being that it will really benefit from further aging. The color is more amber than pale, which isn't too surprising given the recipe.

My personal impressions were that it's distinctly hoppy, though not aggressively so. It's also strong, though not in the sharp way that some beers (or other alcoholic beverages) have that lets you know immediately that there's a lot of alcohol in the drink. In contrast, the strength becomes apparent when you're on your second glass and you notice that you're substantially buzzed. There was a lingering sweetness that indicates there's some more bottle-conditioning to be done that will increase both the carbonation (which could have been a bit more concentrated) and strength.

It's safe to say that this recipe is a success. Very tasty, and pretty much exactly what we were going for, especially with another month or so in the bottle.

Rocky II

Yesterday was brewing day for our second batch of Rocky Raccoon's Crystal Honey Lager (p.210). We modified the recipe slightly, at least in part due to ingredient availability. We used an extra half pound of DME, substituted an ounce of Northern Brewer hops in the boil, and used a Trappist Ale Yeast. That last was definitely intentional, since I tend to prefer the Trappist yeast. Here is the array of goods, which I call "Still-life with Beer Ingredients."

This time around, rather than trying to engineer a sinker for the aeration hose, we used a racking cane attached to the air hose: Marco supervised the aeration: And here I am contemplating the marvel that is aerated wort, and maybe a bit of wondering how much of a pain it's going to be to clean up the foam that's coating the outside of the carboy:

Finally, the wort was aerated, the yeast pitched, and the blow-off tube attached: That was at around a quarter past 10 last night. By this morning, there was definite positive pressure in the carboy, though it's not quite bubbling yet.