Thursday, February 26, 2009

IPA and Irish Red

I made my second attempt at an all-grain beer recently. I borrowed a recipe from homebrewtalk.com and made some slight variations to it. My recipe was as follows:

Irish Red Ale

Grain:
9 lbs. American 2-Row Malt
2 lbs. Crystal/Caramel Malt 40L
2 oz. Roasted Barley

60 minute mash @ 154.

Hops:
1 oz. Willamette @ 60 minutes
1 oz. Willamette @ 15 minutes

Yeast:
Irish Ale Yeast

I was a bit ambitious on this brew day. I was hoping to use my recently acquired turkey-fryer and brew outside, but the water has been shut off for the winter so the pipes won't burst. So I was stuck inside again. After the last all-grain batch, I knew to start early.

Before making my new batch, I bottled the IPA that I made just three weeks ago. Normally, I would move a beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary but because of time constraints and a "busy schedule" I decided not to. It's probably the quickest I've put a beer into bottles in a long time, and hopefully it won't suffer as a result. I tried a sample before bottling it and it was very bitter and hoppy, like an IPA should be.

I broke my hydrometer right before brewing, so my notes aren't very good. I feel like I did a better job hitting my target temperature right off the bat. The mash tun is also continuing to work just fine.

I still haven't purchased a wort-chiller, so I again left it to sit over night before pitching the yeast. I'm not sure how much this will affect the end result. We shall see.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Biographies

I've given myself a long term project of reading through the biographies of all the Presidents of the United States. It's pretty ambitious and I don't expect to finish anytime soon. I'm being realistic, and realize that I might even abandon it at some point. I'm not trying to read them all straight through and have already started breaking it up with other books in between.

Surprisingly, reading about the life of an upper-class, slave owning farmer from the 1700's is more interesting than I would have thought. I'm reading Douglas Southall Freeman's biography of George Washington. It is seven volumes long and pretty dry, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Even more surprising than my enjoyment of the books is the fact that I can actually relate to the young Washington. For this, much credit is owed to Mr. Freeman for his writing style, but I also think it has to do with where I am in my own life right now.

I'm into volume three, which picks up with a 20 something Washington who has just retired from the military, returned home to marry Martha and settle down in Mount Vernon for a life of farming. He commits nearly 15 years to this way of life before he becomes involved in the revolutionary events that would eventually lead to his presidency. I thought that this would be an excruciatingly boring part of his life to read about, but news from throughout colonial America, quotes from Patrick Henry, stories that describe Washington's ambition, and a variety of other elements that Freeman includes helps keep it interesting.

I also can't help but draw connections between the story of Wasington's life and contemporary politics. There has been a lot of fuss in the news recently about Obama's cabinet appointments and their ties to various industries. I understand the contention that arises when government officials have financial ties to a sector of the economy that they're passing legislation for, and I'm offering no defense for the Obama administration's recent nominations. If he felt compelled to impose strict restrictions on himself for cabinet appointments, then I think he should adhere to them completely. Otherwise, what's the point? I wasn't too fond of Robert Gibbs's line about "making exceptions."

But individuals in power wielding political influence to benefit personally is nothing new. It's been going on since time immemorial. One of Washington's roles in the House of Burgess was to help put forth legislation regarding the expansion of the frontier and what land would be made available to those individuals living in the Colonies. Washington's first job was that of a surveyor and he was forever interested in acquiring more land (having more than 30,000 acres by the time he was 30 is proof). His association with the Burgess certainly allowed him an edge over his peers when attempting to obtain this land. He was also involved in deciding the types of benefits that would be granted to the veterans of the French and Indian War. As a veteran himself, he had a personal interest in being as generous as possible in that regard.

It's become quite common to comment on the fact that our nation's founding fathers were predominately white, upper-class, slave owning men. And for that reason, it may seem like I'm just recycling old ideas here, but it's hard not to notice how little has changed. I do not mean to take away from the ascension of an African American into our country's highest office. I believe it will be regarded as one of the greatest milestones in American history, and I'm proud to have been around to witness it. But looking back at Washington's reason for joining the political realm of Virgina, it is clear that his motives were not entirely altruistic. I don't believe that Washington was an evil man, but he was an ambitious man who set his eyes on obtaining wealth, distinction, and "honor." He may have professed to others that his actions were selfless, but that's hard to believe when he personally benefited as much as he did.

Washington used that term, "honor," a lot and it no doubt had more than one meaning for him. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that at times the words "prestige" or "fame" could be used interchangeably with it. I believe that these qualities are shared by the vast majority of those who have held the seat of the Presidency.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Practice IPA

10.5 lbs of 2-row
0.50 lbs of Crystal 120
2.0 oz of Galena at 60mins
1.0 oz of Kent Goldings at 30 mins
1.0 oz of Kent Goldings at 15 mins
White Labs English Ale 005 Yeast

Above is a recipe for an English IPA, borrowed from John Palmer's How to Brew. The extract version of this recipe was the first I ever brewed with, so I thought it would be fitting to make it my first all-grain recipe as well. I ran it through BeerTools after doing the actual brewing, and was surprised to see the bittnerness level. It was basically twice as much the amount that is recommended for an English IPA.

I purchased the recipe ingredients the day before and created a yeast starter. I approximated 6oz of Munton's Light DME which I boiled in 2 liters of water for ten minutes. Then I added about two pellets of Galena hops to the boil in order to make the mixture slightly acidic so the yeast will be better prepared for the next day's wort.

I checked on the yeast the next morning and it was churning away, looking healthy and vigorous.

I used the afternoon the next day to clean and sanitize the materials I was using. They soaked in bleach water for 20 minutes and then I let them air dry. I had some errands to run and wouldn't be able to begin brewing until later that night.

Starting with the actual brewing, I brought about 4 gallons of water to 165 degrees. The 4 gallons is not an arbitrary number. It is calculated by taking the amount of grain (10.5 lbs) multiplying it by 1.5 (the suggested ratio of water to grain) to find out how many quarts of water to use (10.5 * 1.5 = 15.75). Convert quarts to gallons (15.75 / 4 = 3.9375), and you got about 4 gallons. Precision is always appreciated, but not exactly necessary when brewing beer.

Prior to heating these 4 gallons, I brought about a gallon of water to boil and dumped that into the cooler beforehand in order to preheat the mashtun. This would prevent a drastic temperature loss later on.

I poured all 4 gallons of water into the cooler and then dumped the grain in slowly. Palmer recommends dumping in 1 gallon and then gradually mixing the grain and water in together, but I'm an indepedent.

The temperature of the grain bed came in a little too low (145 - 148). So I added some hot water from the tea kettle to bring the temperature up. It was more difficult to bring up than I had expected, which might have been a problem for my brewing process. It eventually capped out at a little over 150. I think. I need to invest in a better thermometer.

I let the grain steep for an hour in the cooler, and then began to vorlauf. I took about a gallon off and poured it back into the cooler, and it began running clear. I was pretty happy with how the mash tun I constructed turned out. Thanks Keith Brown.

As the wort began to run out of the mash tun and into my fermenter, I started to transfer the 6 gallons of hot water I had ready onto the grain bed. The wort got lighter and lighter in color, and was pretty clear towards the end. I didn't actually finish pouring in all 6 gallons, as I was worried about having too much water in the pot. I took a gravity reading at this point and it registered at 1.030. To calculate the efficiency of the sparging, I multipled the gravity points (30) by the amount of wort collected (6 gallons), and then divided by the lbs of grain (10.5). I got 17.5, which is not good. I'm told you want around 30.

After that, the brewing process was back to normal. The only difference was that I had to bring 6 gallons of hot wort to boil instead of the 3 I normally do. Using the stove in my house took forever and I'll definitely be using some new equipment next time to speed up the process.

A turkey fryer is one piece of equipment that should help bring the wort to boil much faster. Another cool (no pun intended) brewing toy that many home brewers use is a wort chiller, but I have yet to shell out the $80 to buy one. Instead, I put the brew kettle in the snow outside for a while and then added ice directly to the wort. It was still really hot an hour later, so I left it until the morning (probably a bad idea). This is why it's recommended to give yourself plenty of time to brew. It got so late, that I just wanted to go to bed and deal with it in the morning.

The next morning, I took another gravity reading. It came out to 1.042 (better than before, but still under target). Then I pitched the yeast, closed up the fermenter and called it a day. I checked on the fermenter the following day and the airlock was bubbling away, which is a sign of healthy fermentation.

This is not meant as a guide for others on making beer, as there are too many of those already in existence. Instead, it's a place where I'm keeping notes to myself for future use. Things I've learned from this brew session and from additional research afterwards:

  • Bring the strike water to 170+ before doughing in.
  • Invest in a better thermometer.
  • It's ok to leave the wort for a while as it chills. This will allow the trub to settle at the bottom of the bucket, and then you can siphon the liquid off the top which will result in a clearer wort.
  • I need to read more on batch sparging and get a firmer grasp of that process.