Category: beer

Lazy Stout is Ready!

Published January 30, 2011

Here is a glass of Lazy Stout all ready to drink. It’s well-carbonated, with the ~10psi working out well in the ~40F temperature that the keg settled to. There is a slightly odd flavor to the beer that I dislike and I think comes from using all extract, but Danielle likes it and doesn’t notice anything odd. I also think it’s a bit too roasted-tasting for me, so maybe next time I’ll have to try it with both a dark and light extract. Still, overall, it’s good.

Now to finish this off and get the Area 51 into the keg and carbonating. I suspect this will take a while. Anyone want a growler fill?

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Goose Island Night Stalker

Published January 28, 2011

Earlier this week I picked up a bottle of Goose Island’s Night Stalker and tonight I’m drinking it. This 11.7% stout is a bit harsh when cold straight out of the fridge, but as it warms up it gets considerably smoother tasting. It’s just hoppy enough, but roasty and malty enough that it’s very clearly a stout. There’s just a bit of alcohol burn, but nothing unpleasant. Goose Island claims that this beer can be cellared for up to five years, and I can see this turning into something even nicer as it sits.

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Stout Blowout!

Published January 18, 2011

48 hours after pitching yeast into the Lazy Stout I arrived home to find that the krausen had blown out the airlock. This surprise me, as it’s not a high gravity beer and didn’t seem to be particularly thick. Looks like the yeast is definitely doing its job, though.

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Rebuilt Keg, Force Carbonation Test

Published January 17, 2011

When I purchased my beer kegging supplies the keg came used, complete with some flavor of Canada Dry residual liquid sloshing around inside. It’s common to buy used kegs for home brewing, and I knew that before I used it I’d have to rebuild it and replace all the o-rings to ensure no off flavors contaminate the beer.

This evening I pulled the keg apart, scrubbed all parts with a sodium percarbonate solution, then reassembled it with food-safe grease and new seals. After assembly and pressure testing I filled it with filtered tap water and set it up as seen above. This 15psi supply of CO₂ should force carbonate the water to 2.5 volumes (or so) of CO₂, depending on how cold the water actually ends up. After proving out that this method works I’ll then try it on one of the future batches of beer, carbonating it either in the garage or a kegerator, if I assemble one.

For more information on force carbonating, take a look at this article.

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Lazy Stout!

Published January 17, 2011

One week after brewing the Area 51 IPA kit I decided to use up some other beer ingredients from around the house and threw together this quick stout. I’d had a four pound can of Mountmellick “Famous Irish Style Stout” Hopped Malt Extract, so on the recommendation of the local brewing supply store I added a 3.3 pound can of Thomas Coopers’ dark liquid malt extract and set it to ferment with a leftover packet of Safale US-05 (PDF) yeast. I’d considered adding more hops, but I was told that hopped extracts are usually aggressively flavored and thus it’s probably not necessary.

With 6.5 gallons of water + extract in the pot I set to boiling it. Danielle and I took turns near the kettle so I could run in the house and fetch supplies. After an hour of boiling I was able to cool the wort and set exactly five gallons to ferment, and here it is. While this isn’t a complicated recipe, I hope it’ll result in something quick and easy that Danielle and I both enjoy the taste of. There isn’t much krausen on the beer now but it does seem to be producing enough CO₂ to be coming along well.

This should come out to about 5.25%, but we’ll see once the numbers are done in a week or so:

OG: 1.053
FG: 1.021
ABV: 4.2%

I think that next I’ll try and make some manner of Ginger Beer. I’m not sure if it’ll simply be a carbonated soda or something fermented, but ginger does sound tasty.

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Area 51 IPA Kit

Published January 9, 2011

After a ~3 year hiatus from brewing beer, I woke this morning and decided that today would be the day I brew a batch. Not wanting to take the time to put together a recipe I decided to use an off the shelf kit, and off to Cap n’ Cork I went. $48 later I had the Area 51 IPA kit seen above and a packet of Wyeast 1272 American Ale II yeast. This partial mash kit should make about five gallons of 5.6% American IPA, perfect for filling my newly acquired corney keg setup.

As he’s been wanting to try it brewing himself and curious about the process Nick came by just as I was beginning the partial mash. Everything was going great, until it came time to boil the wort and I found that the burner on the outdoor stove (burner from a turkey fryer) wouldn’t light. Troubleshooting pointed to a bad regulator, so we set off to Home Depot where I purchased a new regulator and some brass fitting to connect it all. Despite it all connecting nicely, the new regulator didn’t let through enough gas and the burner petered along barely heating the wort.

Nick then remembered that he has a turkey fryer burner available and that Marty would soon be passing through the area and would be able to drop it by. She did, and this replacement burner provided a proper amount of heat, taking the wort from the a tepid 160°F to boiling in less than 15 minutes. Then, an hour later, it was ready to cool, rack to a fermenter, and pitch the yeast.

Now it all sits in a bathtub in a warm interior room waiting for fermentation to begin. If everything goes according to schedule primary fermentation a week from Monday (or so), I’ll then rack it to secondary and dry hop it, then a month or so later I’ll keg and carbonate it. After sitting for another month or so beyond that it should be ready to drink. In the mean time I can contemplate dispensing possibilities, including maybe fashioning some manner of kegerator.

OG for this batch is 1.053, which is just 0.002 shy of the target OG of 1.055. Hopefully the rest of the batch will go as planned and it’ll come out great.

UPDATE: Racked to secondary on 16-Jan-2010 with 1oz of Cascade hops. Gravity (at this point, after degassing) was 1.012 making for 5.38% ABV. Will allow to condition for another 2 weeks to 2 months before transferring to a keg.

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Carbonating / Kegging Supplies

Published December 28, 2010

While planning a New Year’s Eve party I realized that it’d be particularly handy to have supplies for dispensing kegged beer with CO₂. Well, after a run to Cap n’ Cork I now have everything needed: a CO₂ tank, regulator, thick-wall PVC line, a corney keg, picnic tap, keg rebuild kit, and ball lock fittings. I also picked up cherry and cream soda mixes and a special cap that allows one to carbonate things in plain plastic bottles. Now I can make carbonated water, juice, milk, or anything else whenever I want. Hmm. I think I could even try carbonating fruit…

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Vegetable Biryani for Boxing Day Dinner

Published December 26, 2010

For Boxing Day dinner I made vegetable biryani for Danielle and I. I ate mine with a bottle of Rogue Yellow Snow IPA and Danielle had hers with Magner’s Cider.

I used this recipe from the wonderful Manjula’s Kitchen; an outstanding online resource for both Indian recipes and videos showing them being prepared. Despite leaving out the mint and not preparing any raita it was quite tasty, and roughly half the dish is left. It’ll be excellent for lunch this week.

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Massive Fallout Marking, Racing, etc.

Published October 15, 2010

This has been a busy week or so. How, you ask?

Saturday was the 6 and 12 Hour race at Addison Oaks, where our team (Nick, Marty, Erik, and I as the East Side Stepchildren) took second place out of third in the 4 Person Open Sport category, winning nice fleece vests. We rotated through taking turns doing one lap each, until the end when Erik set out to do Marty’s final lap. (Photos of the start: 1 · 2)

Sunday I did a bunch of work out at River Bends and managed to poke myself in the eye with a stick. The white of my eye is a bit bruised on one side, but otherwise fine and getting better.

Work has been busy (yet satisfying) this week, which makes the day go by quickly. Monday I fixed a GPS (yes, another Garmin Edge 305) and got some things done around the house. Last night (Wednesday) was time spent at Sherwood with friends to enjoy half-off hamburger night.

Tonight Bob and I went up to Bald Mountain to mark the trail for Massive Fallout, a huge group ride taking place this Saturday. We went through 2.5 cans of spray paint marking the route in and out of the park, and all potentially confusing corners along the trail. Unfortunately we got caught in the rain and cut out early, leaving one intersection still to be marked. In retrospect it only would have been another 15 minutes in the rain to mark this corner, saving Bob another trip tomorrow, so now I feel bad about making haste back to the parking lot in reaction to the storm clouds dripping on us.

At least the weather should be good for the ride itself on Saturday and the weekend’s plans.

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2010 Tree Farm Relay: Mud!

Published July 24, 2010

Today was the 2010 Tree Farm Relay, a quite-nice relay race in Novi’s Lakeshore Park. I was on a team with Martin, Nick, and Bill, with my lap being the third out of us four (Martin: 1, Nick: 2, Me: 3, Bill: 4). Our team, Heck’s Angles, came in 17^th out of 36 (Sport Men results), a middle of the pack standing.

It had been raining all morning and throughout the start of the race, but with the rain letting up just before my lap the light rainy mud began drying, smearing the entire course with peanut butter-like goo. Prior laps had a much thinner, rain-addled mud left on bikes, and the later laps had denser mud that mostly just packed into people’s tires and made things slick. Mine packed into the entire drivetrain, clogging the chain and filling the bottom bracket, adding a good five pounds to the bike. This slowed everything down, yet despite it the race was still fun.

While riding I didn’t have any real mechanical problems, but my rear wheel was starting to slip a bit in the dropouts, causing my rear tire to just barely begin rubbing a chain stay at the end of the lap. More thankfully last night’s replacement of the fork and brakes didn’t cause any problems and the new brakes performed as hoped (and became bedded in nicely) and the air fork did it’s job. I think the fork may need a bit more air for me, but it was otherwise quite a bit nicer than the super-steep rigid fork.

After the race and at Marty’s suggestion I took a quick dip in Walled Lake to clean myself off, then settled in for a few pints of the Dark Horse, Original Gravity, and Liberty Street (local, tasty, Michigan) beer available on site.

I’m looking forward to seeing some other people’s photos of the race, particularly as someone got one of me going into the crater, blue liquor shot in hand (they are obligatory and handed out mid-course, you know) and I’d like to see how it came out. In the mean time, here’s some select photos that I took today:

· Me standing with my bike right after finishing my lap at the 2010 Tree Farm Relay as part of team “Heck’s Angles”.
· Other Dave and Hodaddy (Joe Foy) immediately after Joe finished his lap.
· Nick’s bike received only a light spray of mud on the second lap.
· My bike caked with mud from the third lap, as the trail was drying out.
· Seat stay bridge and seatpost caked with pudding-like mud.
· Detail of the mud and grass caked bottom bracket before washing it off.
· Detail of my bottom bracket after removing the large chunks of mud.
· Nick hosing off his bike to remove the mud from it.
· While riding the rear dropouts slipped slightly and at the end I was getting some tire rub.
· In Walled Lake some people demonstrate the wrong way to wash a bike. I feel bad for the hubs and bottom bracket.
· Looking through the finish line, including the bamboo gate made by Loren.

A good time was had by all, except for maybe the rider who broke a derailleur (or something similar) and schluffed back to the finish line. He handed off his lei (the batons for this race) to his team mate, then angrily shoved/threw his bike only to have the front wheel dig in and make the bike circle around to hit his team mate right as he was setting out.

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