Homebrew Supplies

Over the past year or so Craig and I have accumulated a good array of different brewing equipment.  Chris has bought several kits as well.  Chris, the budding accountant in the house, put together a QuickBooks file for us so we can track our expenses.  Maybe one day if we pursue this gig professionally this could come be very useful.

There are several sites that we frequent, including:

http://monsterbrew.com/
http://www.homebrew4less.com/
http://www.brewersbestkits.com/
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/
http://www.annapolishomebrew.com/
http://www.mdhb.com/
http://www.realbeer.com/index.php
http://beeradvocate.com/
http://www.highgravitybrew.com/Index.asp

In the DC area there are 3 homebrew shops: one in Columbia, MD; one in Falls Church, VA; and one in Annapolis, MD.  We have not been to the one in Annapolis yet.  The Falls Church store had very helpful employees and it is right across from a Dogfish Head restuarant.  We obviously stopped there for some lunch and tasty brews.  The Columbia shop is probably the best one.  They also have very helpful employees and a lot of fresh ingredients.  When we make our first brew from scratch we will probably get our ingredients from here.  They have grains, malt, and whole leaf hops in addition to several different kinds of Brewer's Best kits.

We recently purchased a wort chiller, which has been pretty solid.  We've only used it for 2 brews so far but it cools the wort down very quickly and effectively.  At this point in our basement we have the following:

kegerator
mini fridge
large fridge
bottles
bottling bucket with spigot
2 glass carboys
1 Better Bottle carboy
5 mini kegs
3 plastic fermenting buckets
several stoppers for fermenting carboys/buckets
filtered funnel
thermometer
hydrometer
fermometer
large stirring spoon
2 large boiling pots
stainless steel strainer
a billion bottle caps
turkey basters
siphoning tubes

And there's plenty more to get.

Porter

7/13/2010

True Brew All Malt Porter

Start date: 7/11/2010                     bottle  date: 8/27/2010                    drink date:

BG: 1.048             FG: 1.015                             ABV:  4.33

Hop Bittering units: 5.5

Ingredients

1 can unhopped dark malt extract

2 lbs dark DME

8 oz maltodextrin

6 oz chocolate grain malt

1 oz hop pellets

1 pack of yeast

Process

·         boil 1.5 gallons water

·         Steep grains for 20 minutes

·         Add malt, hops, and maltodextrin to boil

·         transfer to fermenter

·         ferment for about a week, take hydrometer reading when fermenting is done

·         keg it

Comments

This was a standard boil process.  We made this on the same day as the Scottish Ale.  That was the 2nd time we've made 2 batches in one day.  It makes for a long, but fun day.  It was a dark, rich looking and smelling wort.  The fermenting started  a little slower than usual.  We noticed this with the European Bock and Belgian Tripel too.  Not sure if this happens with richer, fuller boils compared to lighter brews.  We are planning on transferring this to a secondary fermenter in a couple of days just when the fermenting finishes up. 

The Porter has been in the secondary for about 3 weeks now.   We are finally going to bottle it today.  We are switching it up to bottles instead of a keg to see if we're getting lackluster results due to the kegging process or due to our brewing process.  Not that this one example will give us a definitive answer.  We may have let it sit in the secondary fermenter a week too long, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal.  That's the good thing about a secondary fermenter- you can let it sit a little longer since it is not mixed up with active yeast and sediment anymore.

This was another mild success.  I did a comparative taste test with our Porter and a Duck Rabbit Porter and ours wasn't too bad.  Obviously the Duck Rabbit was very good and you knew right away that it was a typical porter.  Our porter was very drinkable.  It was very dark and tasted like a typical porter but not as robust and strong.

                

Honey Wheat

8/10/10

Listermann's Honey Wheat

Start date:  7/18/10                         Keg date: 8/18/10                            Drink date:

BG: 1.06               FG: 1.008                             ABV: 6.83%

Hop bittering units: 14

Ingredients

2 lbs honey

4 lbs wheat extract syrup

.25 lbs Carafoam

1 oz Liberty hops pellets- bittering

.5 oz Libery hops pellets- aroma

1 pack of yeast

Process

·         boil water

·         steep grains for 30 minutes

·         boil liquid malt/honey mixture

·         add bittering hops to boil (in steeping bag)

·         add aroma hops to boil

·         Transfer to fermenting carboy

·         ferment for 1-2 weeks

·         bottle

Comments

This was a brew kit from Bill Slagle's company, Listermann's.  The extract was a large bucket of wheat extract syrup combined with the 2 lbs of honey.  We had never come across a kit like this.  The directions also said to add the bittering hops in a steeping bag, which was a first.  This worked fine and I didn't notice any big difference.  It didn't prevent boil overs or anything like that.  The fermenting took much longer than usual.  The air lock was bubbling for 2 weeks, instead of the usual 5 days.  I don't know if this is good, bad, or neither.  But we will see.  We are going to bottle it soon.  We decided to go back to bottling due to our lackluster results kegging so far.  We have not really had a succesful brew since the last time we bottled, which was the California Common.  Our kegged beers have been drinkable, but nothing spectacular.  Bottling is a lot more work but we hope it helps produce a better end product.  I ordered 48 bottles online and they are ready to be put to work.

Well, we are stupid and lazy and kept putting off bottling the Honey Wheat.  We ended up kegging it.  We let it sit in the primary fermenter for about 3 weeks though.  I can't imagine that will help the taste.  The good thing is it is 6.82% ABV.  It is unacceptable that we let it sit for so long.  It's just laziness and that ain't going to cut it. 

It actually tasted okay.  Definitely one of our better kegged beers.  It didn't really have that syrupy, wort-like taste like some of the others.  Now I don't mean to say it was a complete success or anything.  People still weren't super eager to have a glass or two every night.

European Bock

4/9/2010

Brewer's Best European Bock

Start date: 3/17/2010                     Keg date: 5/1/2010                          Drink date: 5/15/2010

BG: 1.08               FG: 1.048                             ABV: 4.2%

Hop bittering units: 22

Ingredients

6.6 lbs Munich light malt extract

2 lbs Golden dry malt extract

8 oz maltodextrin

8 oz crystal 120L grains

4 oz chocolate

4 oz Carapils Dextrine

.75 oz bittering hops

.5 oz aroma hops

1 pack of yeast

Process

·         boil water

·         steep grains for 20 minutes

·         boil malt and maltodextrin

·         add bittering hops to boil

·         add aroma hops to boil

·         Transfer to fermenting glass carboy

·         ferment for 2 weeks at lager temps (48-58 degrees)

·         transfer to secondary fermenter and ferment for 3-4 more weeks at 35-42 degrees

·         keg it

Comments

We brewed this on the same day as the double IPA.   Everything went smoothly when we were cooking up the crack.  When we transferred the brew to the fermenter and put it in the fridge is when we ran into some issues.  The air lock was not bubbling, which indicates that the fermentation is working.  We didn't have a secondary glass carboy to use after 2 weeks, so we are going to transfer it to a new carboy we just got.  It has been 3 weeks.  We will keep it in the fridge for another 3 weeks.  We will need to take a hydrometer reading when it is done fermenting.  At that point we can keg it and let it sit for a month.  This batch may have been screwed up, but we will find out.  This is definitely the longest process for a brew yet, so we will have to be patient and hope it's alright.  I don't know much about bocks, but craig read that lagering at colder temps slows down the fermenting process, so maybe it'll be okay.  We could have fermented at ale temps, but since we had the fridge to use we figured we'd give it a try.

We transferred the bock to a clean secondary fermenter on 4/11/2010.  We put it back in the fridge and will let it sit for 3 more weeks.  We then kegged it in early May.  It's been sitting in the fridge until now, mid July 2010.  We just hooked it up to the keg and pumped some CO2 into it.  It should be ready in about 2 weeks.  This has been in the works since freaking February.  I really hope it's tasty.  It's only 4.2% ABV which is kind of weak for this type of beer, but considering we thought it was completely ruined I guess we can't complain too much.  I expect it to be dark, kind of sweet, and hopefully delicious.

The European Bock was a pretty big failure.  Definitely our worst yet.  It wasn't even really drinkable.  We stopped drinking it and eventually dumped  it out.  It was a sad day.  It looked amazing pouring into the glass.  It was dark with a nice head.  It smelled good with a sweet aroma, which is what it should be.  However, it was just too sweet tasting.  It had some carbonation, but probably not enough.    We originally thought we screwed this one up and I guess we did.  Of course, I have no idea what went wrong.  Back to the drawing board.

Belgian Tripel

4/12/2010

Brewer's Best Belgian Tripel

Start date: 4/12/2010                     keg date:                             drink date:

BG: 1.074             FG: 1.018                             ABV:  7.35%

Hop Bittering units: 24-30

Ingredients

3.3 lbs light malt extract

3.3 lbs Amber malt extract

3 lbs Pilsen dried malt extract

1 lb light candi sugar

8 oz maltodextrin

4 oz aromatiz grains

2 oz bittering hops

.5 oz aroma hops

1 pack of yeast

Process

·         boil 2.5 gallons water

·         Steep grains for 20 minutes

·         Add all malt, candi sugar, and maltodextrin to boil

·         add bittering hops and boil some more

·         add aroma hops

·         transfer to fermenter

·         ferment for about a week, take hydrometer reading when fermenting is done

·         keg it

Comments

This recipe called for 2.5 gallons of water to boil instead of the 1.5 gallons we had done previously.  We almost overflowed the brew pot because of this and all the ingredients required.  It was a lot of stirring to keep it from foaming and overflowing but after a few minutes it kept a rolling boil for the majority of the cooking time.  I screwed up the steeping of the grains by putting the bag in before the boil had stopped and the water had cooled down a bit.  Some grains came out of the bag.  Hopefully I didn't leech tannins into the wort and give it a burnt taste.  Other than that it was a good cooking session with more ingredients than we have ever used before, but not as much hops as we have come to like.  The beginning gravity range was 1.083 - 1.086 so I'm a little disappointed that ours is only 1.074.  Hopefully it's still a nice strong beer. 

The directions say you can ferment for a week and then transfer to a secondary fermenter for another 2 weeks before kegging it.

We kegged it and let sit for a few weeks in the fridge.  It is still sitting in the keg fridge and we will hook it up to the CO2 after we finish the European Bock.  This is supposed to be 7.35% ABV, which is by far our strongest brew yet.  Needless to say we are excited.  I've never had this type of beer so I don't really know what to expect.

The taste test reveals that it is average.  Belgian Tripels are supposed to be a little sweet and extra carbonated.   We got that part down, but it just doesn't taste phenomenal.  Maybe it's just because we don't know what to expect with this type of beer.  It's definitely strong though.  Not to the point where it is tough to drink, but you can tell it's higher in ABV than normal.

Scottish Ale

7/13/2010

Brewer's Best Scottish Ale

Start date: 7/11/2010                     keg date:                             drink date:

BG: 1.04               FG: 1.012                             ABV: 3.68  

Hop Bittering units: 15-18

Ingredients

3.3 lbs Amber LME

1 lb Amber DME

4 oz Crystal 60L grains

4 oz smoked grains

4 oz chocolate grains

1 oz roasted barley grains

.5 oz bittering hops

.5 oz aroma hops

1 pack of yeast

Process

·         boil 2.5 gallons water

·         Steep grains for 20 minutes

·         add malt to boil, then bittering hops

·         add aroma hops and terminate boil

·         transfer to fermenter

·         ferment for about a week, take hydrometer reading when fermenting is done

·         keg it

Comments

I was not here for the start of this brew as I was on my way home from Rochester.  Craig, Chris, T, and Scott took care of the boil.  Craig said this was the most grains we've steeped so far.  I'm not sure what effect that will have.  I arrived home when they were letting the wort chill.  We took the hydrometer reading and sealed the fermenter to let the yeast gobble up the nutrients.  This is supposed to be a fairly weak beer, but it was darker than I expected. 

The brew is in the keg now waiting to be enjoyed.  This could be the last one that we keg for a while.  We are planning on going back to bottling for a change.  We just have not had as much success as we thought we would with kegging.  It is much easier but we have not had a successful beer since the California Common, which was the last time we bottled.

The brew was pretty weak.  It had a similar syrupy, wort-like taste that most of our brews have had.  It obviously wasn't no Sam Adams Scottish Ale.  

Summer Ale

7/13/2010

Brewer's Best Summer Ale

Start date: 7/4/2010                        keg date:                             drink date:

BG: 1.052             FG: 1.018                             ABV:  4.46%

Hop Bittering units: 18-20

Ingredients

3.3 lbs Pilsen LME

1 lb wheat DME

1 lb pilsen DME

8 oz Carapils grains

1 spice pack- dried orange and lemon peel

.5 oz bittering hops

.25 oz flavoring hops

.25 oz aroma hops

1 pack of yeast

Process

·         boil 2.5 gallons water

·         Steep grains for 20 minutes

·         Add malt to boil

·         add bittering hops and boil some more

·         add flavoring hops and spice pack

·         terminate boil and add aroma hops

·         transfer to fermenter

·         ferment for about a week, take hydrometer reading when fermenting is done

·         keg it

Comments

This was a standard boil process again.  The new wrinkle was the spice pack.  It smelled delicious.  It was dried chips of orange and lemon peel.  We discussed adding real fruit to the boil, but we'll save that for when we create our own brew from scratch.  We don't even know if adding fresh fruit would work.  Research time!  After we transferred to the fermenting bucket we let it cool in the fridge overnight because it wasn't cooling down to 70 degrees quick enough.  Due to our brews being kind of weak so far we didn't add as much water to the bucket this time.  It's only a 4 gallon batch, but hopefully it'll be a little stronger.  Our specific gravity was above the listed range and it ended up being 4.46% ABV, which should be good.  After about a week we kegged it.  It is in the big fridge now waiting for us to consume it.  We obviously want to crack it open before the summer ends.  

This Summer Ale was another average homebrew.  It was definitely drinkable and refreshing, but not like a Sam Adams Summer Ale.  This average-ness is getting kind of frustrating.