I Think I'm A Clone Now

Sitting Friday night in an Irish Pub near Cincinnati while thoroughly enjoying a few Smithwick's Irish Ales, I decided that I really needed to make a Smithwick's clone.  Unfortunately, as an Irish Red Ale, the starter ingredient lists that are compatible with my 2 gallon brewing system all begin with an Englishman's Nut Brown Ale HME.  I have only one of those left, and no more can be had since that particular HME is no longer being produced.  So even though it means I will not be able to brew my anticipated 2nd batch of Comfy Chair, I've decided to go ahead and poach that ingredient to make this clone happen.

This means a little shuffle to the scheduled brews, since this takes away key ingredients from both Comfy Chair 2 Nut Brown Ale (BB-XII) and Yellow Reign Golden Lager (unnumbered).  But the good news is that what's left from Comfy Chair (Mellow Amber UME) and Yellow Reign (Mr. Beer's "Cowboy" Golden Lager HME) can combine to form the base of an English Bitter!  So the scheduled brews are being re-done this week.

The new BB-XII will be named Boudicca's Revolting Irish Ale, after the woman who led an uprising against the Romans in 60 AD.  The Irish have adopted her as a national heroine, dubbing her the "Great Queen".  Since this beer is an Irish Red Ale, and since she was a redhead who led a revolt and who is greatly beloved by the Irish, the name, color, and style of this beer all fit together.  Plus, it has a built-in pun in case the beer comes out badly.

Afterwards will come Wuthering Weiss (BB-XIII) and then Bitter Buzzard (BB-XIV), and then we return to our regularly-scheduled beers.

Wuthering Weiss

My "unnamed" Weizenbier (BB-XIII) has finally been christened. I am calling it "Wuthering Weiss", and I've slapped together a prototypical label via MyOwnLabels.com

I think it looks a little like a slice of bread.

The other name I was kicking around was "In The Wheat Of The Night", but I didn't feel like having to pay a quarter to the pun fund every time Cynthia or Sue caught me saying it out loud.

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Here's my updated brewing schedule:

BB-VII Unnamed Chrismas Stout: 7/8 Bottling, 11/11 Conditioning, 12/16 Drink
BB-VIII Nimblejack Blonde Ale: 6/30 Conditioned, 7/3 Drink
BB-IX Browncoat Ale: 7/1 Bottled, 7/15 Conditioning, 7/18 Drink
BB-X Ten If By Giant Robot Black Lager: 6/30 Brewed, 7/14 Bottling, 7/28 Conditioning, 7/31 Drink
BB-XI Rising Storm Red Ale: 7/14 Brewing, 7/28 Bottling, 8/11 Conditioning, 8/14 Drink
BB-XII Comfy Chair 2 Nut Brown Ale: 8/4 Brewing, 8/18 Bottling, 9/1 Conditioning, 9/4 Drink
BB-XIII Wuthering Weiss Weizenbier: 8/25 Brewing, 9/8 Bottling, 9/22 Conditioning, 9/25 Drink
BB-XIV Original Sin Dobbelbock: 9/15 Brewing, 9/29 Bottling, 10/13 Conditioning, 10/16 Drink

I am planning to start a new batch every THREE weeks instead of the former TWO week cycle.  Should prevent me from filling the basement with backlogged beer again, while giving me plenty of opportunity to brew new and tasty beers.  The dates above are merely a guideline.

Bottled Browncoats - Silent Stout

Had a minor emergency at the Brewery this afternoon - my 11 year-old dog Ginger has suddenly developed bladder control issues.  So after cleaning her (and the house) up, I had to run to the pet store to get her some doggie diapers while we both wait for her vet appointment later this week.

So with all that distraction I was not able to bottle both of the brews I had planned.  The Christmas Stout can stay in the fermenter for another week - I'm in it for the long haul and another 7 days won't hurt it a bit.  But I did manage to get BB-IX Browncoat Ale bottled and set back for conditioning.

As mentioned in previous posts, I have been having some problems with beers bottled in my Grolsch-style bottles.  Most have been fine, but a sizable percentage of them are coming out flat when opened.  Since it's only been 1 or 2 bottles per batch, with the rest being nice and carbonated, I'm pretty certain it's not the priming sugar or the process or the timing - all of that is identical for all of the bottles in a given batch.  I suspect something is awry with the gaskets, and that I'm getting inconsistent results because, frankly, some of the gaskets are losing their seal, resulting in the CO2 escaping from the compromised bottle.

When I bottled BB-VIII Nimblejack Blonde Ale, I put half into PET and half into Grolsch.  Unfortunately, I've since learned that I needed to prep the Grolsch seals before bottling, so even if any of those 4 fail to hold seal, I really won't have learned anything.  So tonight, the bottling for BB-IX Browncoat Ale included 6 PET bottles and 2 prepped Grolsch bottles.  I removed the wire cap assembly from both and plunked them into a sealed container of Star San - allowing them to soak while I did all of the other prep work.  Once the bottles had been cleaned, primed with sugar, and filled with beer, I removed the assemblies from the Star San, reattached them to the bottles, and then applied a liberal dose of Star San to the mouth of the bottles before sealing them.  Normal carbonation and conditioning is 2.5 weeks, so I plan to bust one of these puppies open on July 18th to see how I did.

I went ahead and pulled the final bottle of BB-III Dark Epiphany Irish Stout and planned to enjoy it with dinner tonight - but as I feared it might be, it was flat.  I've gone ahead and ordered the Cooper's Carbonation Drops, but I honestly don't know if they'll work or not.  Carbonation comes from yeasts interacting with sugar - the yeasts in my bottle of Stout have already consumed the priming sugar and made CO2, it's just that the bottle's faulty seal let the CO2 escape.  I have nothing to lose by plunking a couple of drops into the bottle to see if there's any residual yeast.  I have my doubts, but I'm already committed to the path.

If that fails, I have a Plan C in mind involving my SodaStream.  I read this on a SodaStream blog:

If you look on homebrewing sites, you'll read that many homebrewers "force carbonate" their beers.  I have recarbonated flat beer from a keg with fantastic success.  My friends brought over a full keg of quality Fat Tire one night and there just weren't enough of us around to make a dent in it.  So before pouring all the warm foamy beer out in my garden (works great as a fertilizer!) I set aside 4 liters of it in plastic bottles.  I later cooled this down, carbonated it 3 weeks later, and did a taste test with a fresh bottle of Fat Tire.  The only difference was that I dissolved too much gas in the recarbonated beer.  The bubbles were slightly "bigger" than the bottle of beer but the taste was exactly the same.

Of course, later on in that same thread were warnings from folks who had carbonated other non-water products with horrible results!

I tried this with a mixture of half cranberry juice and half water. At first, it seemed to work just fine. I pushed the button and heard the three buzzes. When I unscrewed the bottle, everything went to hell. As soon as the seal between the bottle and machine was released, the juice/water mixture exploded out of the bottle. More than half of the contents of the bottle had sprayed themselves onto the walls and ceiling of my kitchen.

If you must try to carbonate anything other than water, do it outside.

Sure, injecting CO2 into flat beer will make it bubbly, but if the seals have allowed the original CO2 to escape, haven't they also allowed ambient air to enter, thus skunking everything?  I might end up with bubbly, but still nasty, beer.  Lots of ways this can go wrong - but I'll do my best.  When the Coopers Tabs show up, I'll divide the Stout, putting 12 oz into a new PET bottle, into which I'll add a tablet (they're proportioned for 375 ml / 12 oz), and I'll pull 500 ml of the Stout and store it in a SodaStream bottle.  For the rest (there should be 3-4 oz left over) I'll find a recipe and use it somewhere in the kitchen.


So, if nothing else, what I end up doing with my final bottle of Stout should be interesting!  Stay tuned!

Some time this week, I'll head over to Butler Winery and get a bunch of replacement gaskets. Maybe between that, the wet seal technique, and possibly heating-up the bottled before priming/filling them, I might hit upon a combination that works.  I've bought two cases at just under $50 a case, so I'm not giving up without a fight!

Red Storm Rising

I've come up with the label for BB-XI - Rising Storm Red Ale.

Coming as it does on the heels of my experimental Black Lager, I wanted the next beer in the pipeline to be something simple, something predictable, something expected.  But I also want something I've not made before.

Rising Storm will be a stock Mr. Beer Red Ale kit.  The end product will have a mere 3.7% Alcohol By Volume, and be a Class 2 Red Ale with 7 SRM and 12 IBU.  If I keep to schedule, it should be brewed in 2 weeks - the target date is the weekend of July 14th - and it should be ready to drink one month later.

And yes, in case you're wondering, the name is a knock-off of the Tom Clancy novel.

Carbonating In Grolsch - Can I Trust It?

Okay, so when I first set out brewing at home, my starter kit came with 8 2-quart plastic screw-top PET bottles.  Clean.  Efficient.  Easy to sanitize and store.  Really ugly.

What I really wanted was something nicer to store, transport, and present my beer in.  Having heard that many brewers have had success with using bottle cap systems, while others have used Grolsch-style bottles with swing-top stoppers, I had a decision to make.

Well, not really.  Because the Grolsch-style bottles are just really, really pretty!

The first attempt at using Grolsch-style bottles was when bottling BB-3 Dark Ephipany.  You've seen the photos - those labeled bottles were darned sexy!  I happily bottled, carbonated, conditioned, and popped open my first Irish Stout, and the effect was nothing short of amazing.

So naturally, I was enthusiastic about sharing.  My ex-wife is just across town, and had been following my brewing exploits through our son, whom I have involved in the process since day one.  She's a Guinness fan, so one evening while taking the boy over I also schlepped a bottle of Dark Epiphany.  After a couple of days, I called to ask how it was.

She said it was flat.

Hmmm.... that's odd.  So I went downstairs into the Man Cave to retrieve an unopened bottle, and when I cracked it open I got the expected POP! FIZZ! indicative of released carbonation.  I supposed that perhaps her bottle got jostled during delivery and somehow the seal was compromised.  I drank my bottle, pulled another out for her and when I delivered this one I was careful to keep it steady.  She popped it open when I arrived, it decanted as expected, and all was well.

Or so I thought.

A couple of weeks later, while opening a bottle of Shaved Amadeus that had been sitting peacefully in the refrigeration unit, I found that it too had gone flat.  Of the 15 bottles I've put into Grolsch and have subsequently opened, two of them didn't seal properly, resulting in a half-gallon of wasted beer.

I've done a little research and have concluded that I need to add a step or two to the bottling process when using Grolsch.  Looks like I need to have a bowl full of Star San at the ready.  One poster on Homebrewtalk.com removes the entire wire cage assembly from the bottle and soaks it for a few minutes.  Then after filling, he removes the assembly from it's bowl, snaps it onto the bottle, sprays a small amount of Star San on the bottle mouth, then snaps the cap on - wiping everything down afterwards.  Supposedly this makes a positive seal between the rubber gasket and the glass bottle top.

This is a big deal, because I won't get a 2nd chance with the Christmas Stout.  Once bottled and set back, it'll be Thanksgiving before anything else happens.  If the seals fail, the beer will be as flat as can be.  I won't really know until I follow this procedure on a different batch - one that will be bottled, carbonated, and enjoyed much sooner than this November/December.  Anticipating I might want to have a batch to experiment upon, the bottling I did for Nimblejack was half-PET and half-Grolsch.  I have 4 bottles of each style.  I did not, however, use the wet seal technique described above when bottling, so even if I have a seal failure with this batch it won't indicate whether or not wet sealing will solve the problem.  All I can get out of this batch is either a negative result or a potentially false positive result.  When I bottle Browncoat tomorrow, which is scheduled for PET, and earmark 1 or 2 quarts to be put into wet-sealed Grolsch.  I should know by late July whether I have a problem or not.

Just in case I do have a seal failure, I plan to stockpile some Coopers Carbonation Drops.  These are used in place of priming sugar and can speed up the carbonation process.  I feel that using these are a bit of a "cheat", but if I've got a complicated batch of beer that has been screwed up during the final step and am looking at pouring it out and losing 6 months of work, these might be a workable "Plan B" to allow me to attempt a "save".

6 bucks for a bag, shipped, from Amazon.  Cheap, as insurance goes.

A Flurry Of Activity

After a relatively quiet month, where I've managed to reduce my backlog of undrank (undrunken?) beers down to a single quart of each of my four remaining varieties (BB-3 Dark Epiphany Irish Stout, BB-4 Shaved Amadeus Vienna Lager, BB-5 New World Czech Pilsner and BB-6 Farty Monk Belgian Dubbel), I've decided to go out with a bang by getting the "assembly line" started up once again.

When we last left things, there were two fermenters currently full of beer: #1 has 2 gallons of my still-unnamed Christmas Stout (BB-7), which has been hard at work since May 5th; #2 has 2 gallons of Browncoat Ale (BB-9), which was brewed on June 10th and has been fermenting for just under 3 weeks.  Both of them are ready to come out and be bottled.

Meanwhile, my Blonde Ale, named "Nimblejack" (BB-8) has been bottled for 3 weeks, carbonating away nicely, and is more than ready to be moved into the nearly empty primary refrigeration unit to begin cold conditioning.  If this gets done today, it will be ready to be sampled just in time for the 4th of July celebrations.

To round things out, today was also the day I set about concocting my first true "experimental" beer.  Until now, everything has been based on either a stock recipe from Mr. Beer, or a modification to a stock recipe made (and tried) by other users.  But for my 10th batch of beer, I felt that it was time for me to branch out in a new direction.

So today, we're going to brew a Black Lager.

After doing a fair amount of online research, I settled on an archived recipe for Snow Drift Dark Lager as a starting point.  This recipe uses the High Country Canadian Draft HME (which is a base starter for a very large number of custom MrB recipes), but combines it with the Creamy Brown UME and Argentine Cascade Pellet Hops to make a Lager that weighs in at 4.6% ABV, with 24 SRM (dark) and 22 IBU (moderate bitterness).  Not bad, but not quite what I want.  My modification to this recipe is to replace the hops with US Goldings Pellet Hops, to use 50% more hops than the recipe calls for, and to add 1 oz of Sinamar to darken it significantly.  If my math is correct, I should end up with a "Hoppy" beer that has 5.9% ABV and 40 SRM, but maintaining a 22 IBU.  This will make it a Class 6 Black Lager.

The name, as had previously been revealed, will be "Ten If By Giant Robot".  The inspiration came from a t-shirt design I found on Threadless, with a terrified Paul Revere riding off to warn the good folk in Lexington and Concord about the manner by which the British were coming.  One if by land.  Two if by sea.  Ten if by giant robot.

[Late Evening Update]  I've brewed Giant Robot and have moved Nimblejack to begin cold conditioning.  Bottling of the Christmas Stout (Grolsch) and Browncoat (PET) will happen tomorrow.

Keepin' Up With The Joneses

I've fallen a little behind in updating the blog, but the brewing has been ongoing!  Here's an update to get everything re-synched.

May 15 - First pour, Shaved Amadeus Vienna Lager (BB-IV).  This was a milestone, but not because I taped it for YouTube posterity. No, it just so happened that on this day I completely filled the primary cold conditioning unit and has absolutely no more room for the beers coming out of the pipeline.  I had managed to only squeeze one-half of the BB-IV batch in and left the other gallons' worth of beer in the conditioning cabinet to continue to carbonate.

More time wouldn't hurt the beer, and might even enhance the flavor, but it didn't help that I had two more fermenters full of beer that would need some place to go once bottled.
 
May 20 - 1st half New World Czech Pilsner (BB-V) into cold conditioning

May 26 - 1st half of Farty Monk Belgian Dubbel (BB-VI)  into cold conditioning

May 27 - 2nd half of Shaved Amadeus (BB-IV) into cold conditioning, and Nimblejack Blonde Ale (BB-VIII) brewed

June 10 - 2nd half of New World  (BB-V) and Farty Monk (BB-VI) both enter cold conditioning, Nimblejack (BB-VIII) was bottled, and Browncoat Ale (BB-IX) was brewed.

What's up next:

• This week: Bottling the still-unnamed Christmas Stout and setting it back for a long 6-month wait.  Of course, I need to solve my Grolsch Carbonation problem first - oh, I haven't talked about that yet have I?  Stand by, that'll deserve its' own blog post...
• Weekend after next: Nimblejack (BB-VIII) will enter cold conditioning.
• AND Browncoat Ale (BB-IX) will be bottled...
• AND Ten If By Giant Robot Black Lager (BB-X) will be brewed... my first experiment!

I may opt to let one or two of the items for the weekend of the 24th get delayed a week... otherwise I'll be conditioning, bottling, and brewing three different beers one weekend, then doing nothing the following weekend.  Need a little bit more elbow room than that!

The Sinamar Saga - Part II

Within 48 hours of my original email, I received in reply the following:

I am sorry to hear that there was damage to the Sinmar [sic] that you received with your order! We will get a replacement out to you for that jar. Sorry for any mess or inconvenience! Thanks for choosing Midwest, you can expect the replacement sometime in the upcoming week.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.
 
Cheers,

Lyndsey
http://www.midwestsupplies.com

Not only did I receive a replacement at no cost just a few days later, but it was wrapped extremely securely and the lid had clearly been checked and hand-tightened down before shipping it to me.  Not a drop had spilled out.  I went ahead and chucked the Sinamar that had come open in the original shipment, and am only a week or two away from making the Black Lager for which the Sinamar had been obtained.  Good times!

The Sinamar Saga - Part I

As mentioned in a previous blog update, one of my upcoming brews will be of an experimental nature.  I would like to create a black lager, and am modifying a known recipe by adding a liquid malt extract that is designed to darken the beer without changing its taste or any of it's outward chemical properties - alcohol content, bitterness, and color.

The product in question is Sinamar which is made in Germany and is only sold through a very small number of retailers here in the US.  From the manufacturer's website:

"SINAMAR is perfectly suited for coloring foods such as: baked goods, beer, non-alcoholic drinks, spirits, pharmaceutical products and tea etc. Use 1.25 fl.oz. to darken 1bbl of beer or wort by 1° Lovibond. [Note, "bbl" here means "beer barrel", which in the US is 31 gallons]. Unopened containers have a 18 month shelf-life. Once opened, contents should be used immediately and stored cool."

It is sold domestically in 4 oz sealed containers, and one such container is enough Sinamar to for 99.2 gallon-SRMs worth of darkness.  In other words, if I dumped the whole container in 99.2 gallons of beer, it would darken it 1 SRM.  If I dumped it in 1 gallon, it would darken it 99.2 SRM.  For my 2-gallon fermenter, the whole bottle would yield 49.6 SRM - or 12.4 SRM for every ounce.

Okay, I'll knock off the math now.

Anyway, my package arrived today.  But when I opened it, I found that the product had leaked out of the bottle.  I lost about 1/4 of the liquid, which from the photo above you can see made a mess of things.  Worst yet, the reason it leaked was because the bottle wasn't sealed.  So here I have a food additive, unsealed, and likely contaminated.  The manufacturer says it should be stored cool once opened, but the shipping box sat on my 80-degree porch all day while waiting for me to return home.

I've contacted the seller for help, but this particular bottle of Sinamar will not be touching any of my beer.

Watch for Part II when I get a response.  I've never dealt with this seller before, but they do a LOT of home brewing mailorder business - I am certain they'll make it right if given the opportunity.

First Pour of Shaved Amadeus Vienna Lager

Rock Me (again) Amadeus!

The fourth Buzzard's Brew has made its world debut tonight. "Shaved Amadeus" is a light and tasty butterscotch-amber colored Vienna Lager. It makes a nice counter-point to the darker and more dour Irish Stout that popped out of the cavernous Man Cave cellars last week.

This has an alcohol content of only 3.7% and it's color is a 9 using the Standard Reference Method (SRM) which makes it just a little lighter than a Bass Pale Ale.  However, on the International Bitterness Units (IBU) scale it weighs in at a hefty 23, making this the second-most bitter beer I've brewed thus far.  Altogether, this is a Class 4 Lager.

Just to see whether I could do it or not, I snapped a video of the first pour this evening and have just posted it to YouTube.  If I can't figure out how to cross-post it to the blog, here's a direct link:

First Pour of Shaved Amadeus Vienna Lager

On a related note, bottling of BB-VI Farty Monk Belgian Dubbel took place last night.  All 8 quarts are in the conditioning cabinet sitting next to 8 quarts of BB-V New World Czech Pilsner and the 2nd half of the Shaved Amadeus batch.  I'd like to say that I've set back those 4 Pilsner quarts to give them extra conditioning to enhance the flavors by allowing the hops to come forward and generate exciting esters that will, uhh, increase the manifest destiny of the beer enjoyment quotient.... Well, that'd just be a pile of BS, the real reason I kept 4 quarts of BB-IV back is that there wasn't enough room in the cold conditioning unit for the entire batch plus 6 or 7 quarts of Irish Stout.  Extra conditioning won't hurt the beer at all, so if there's no room in the mini-fridge, it can stay in the conditioning cabinet an extra week or two.

Logo Update

The original "company" logo I created a couple of weeks ago was based on an image I found on the Interwebs for the Buzzards Roost Seafood Restaurant and Grill in Key West, FL.  I cleaned up their artwork a little, and using the simplest editing tool I had available to me (MS Paint) I added a couple of text elements to update it.

Now that I've had a few minutes with a much more proper photo editing tool (MS PhotoDraw) I have done even more cleanup to the original image and have modified the text elements to make them look a little more "snappy".

This is the result. Hope you like it.

For the present, I am going to stick with this logo and use it in conjunction with my byline.... "A family tradition since February, our beers are brewed using only the easiest to find mail-order ingredients and fresh Bloomington tap water."

And On Deck....

As soon as I clear out some of the backlog - which does not means after I go on my next drinking binge - it will be time to get the beer pipeline up and running again.

Right now, I'm drinking an Irish Stout and have a Vienna Lager that will be ready to drink by this time next week.  Then the Czech Pilsner, and after that is the Belgian Dubbel.  Not counting the empty I created on the Stout's debut night, that's ONE THOUSAND OUNCES OF BEER!

Well... 31 quarts is 992 actually ounces, but ONE THOUSAND OUNCES sounds so much more impressive!

At the rate of a pint a night, it will take me two months to burn through everything.  And since it takes a month from start to finish to brew up a drinkable batch, I'm about a month away from needing to get anything started.  So most of what follows is really quite unnecessary, but I just can help it.

The next beer that I'll be making will be a Blonde Ale I'm calling Nimblejack.  Nothing special here, just a standard Mr. Beer Blonde Ale kit.  But while making more complicated dark beers, I like to mix things up so that I've got a decent variety of brewskis to drink or share. I try to avoid brewing consecutive similar beers, and since the previous beer (Farty Monk) was a Class 5 Belgian Dubbel, brewing something from the other end of the spectrum should work fine. Stat-wise, it will measure 3.7% ABV, 3 SRM, and 18 IBU, which makes this a Class 1 beer - light and nimble.  Hence the name.

Following that will be the Browncoat Ale.  It is based on a stock MRB Pale Ale recipe but will also include the Pale Export UME.  This will add color depth and kick the alcohol up slightly, and will result in a Class 3 Ale - 4.6% ABV, 5 SRM, 22 IBU.  I'm kinda eager to get to this one - I really dig the label.

And to round-out the next three, I will be going off into uncharted territory to try an experimental beer.  I have recently been enjoying Guinness Black Lager and want to see if I can brew something similar.  Based on the success I've had with the Irish Stout, I am more than confident enough to give this a shot.

The recipe starts with the MRB High Country Canadian Draft HME, then adds the Creamy Brown UME and US Goldings hops to create a Class 5 Lager with 5.9% ABV, 28 SRM and 22 IBU.  But what I really want is a 40 SRM Class 6 Lager, so during fermentation I will be adding a liquid malt extract that should darken the beer without affecting flavor, body or clarity.  Essentially, food coloring for beer.

The name of this tenth beer will be "Ten If By Giant Robot", which makes sense only if you didn't sleep through your Revolutionary American History class - the part about the Old North Church in Boston and Paul Revere's ride and how very differently the War For Independence would have gone if the Tories had successfully fielded their giant, church-smashing robots.

Fetch The Comfy Chair!

Happiness is a glass full of tasty beer.

Sadness is an empty bottle.

Thus ends the run of the Comfy Chair.  From the first bottle to the last, this Nut Brown Ale did nothing but get better as more cold conditioning time was invested.  There are a lot of other beers in the queue, but this one is guaranteed to be my first repeat brew.  Look for Comfy Chair 2 to be ready sometime in August - just in time for tailgating!

Embrace The Dark Side

Thought about the Dark Epiphany debut all day.

Worked late.

Made a side trip after work that required I drive around a whole lot of construction.

Stopped at the grocery store.

Walked the dog.

Fed the dog.

Updated my blog about the side trip after work.  :)

Fixed dinner.

Ate dinner.

Cleaned up the kitchen.

Pulled BB-III #1 out of the back of the primary refrigeration unit, grabbed one of my favorite pint glasses, and took a deep breath while I flipped open the lid.

"Ka-phwump!"

Okay, I probably should have expected a pretty powerful blast of pressure as the bottle lid was released.  After all, this was the first recipe I had carbonated in Grolsch glass bottles, and they're not exactly designed to let stuff out accidentally.  But when I cracked the seal and the lid was fairly forcefully shoved out of the way while all the gasses shot out, I was a little worried that I was moments away from having a beer gusher on my hands.  So while I immediately moved to the sink with the bottle, I completely neglected to enjoy the wonderful beer/yeast aroma that had just filled my kitchen.  Oh no, that won't happen again!

First pour (see photo).  Well, it certainly looks good!

Tasting....  <takei> Oh My! </takei>

Fantastic!  Wow. I mean..... Wow! If not for the absence of a waterfall just after pouring and a slightly "softer" aftertaste than the commercial product, I would not be able to tell you that I was not drinking a Guinness. And I've got TWO GALLONS!!!!

Good thing it's a work night. I'd hate to have to count my servings in "dog beers" this evening.

He Shoots, He Scores!

Today on SlickDeals.net I saw that someone had spotted the full Mr. Beer Premium Brewing Kit at their local Sears as a clearance item for 50% off.  This is the exact same kit I purchased months ago and contains everything you need to get started except (a) water, (b) a stovetop, (c) a spoon, and (d) a refrigerator.

Interestingly enough, though I don't need another kit - after all I have already purchased two and have a third fermentation keg now for the long-term Christmas Stout brew - my son had indicated that he might want to get a kit for my ex- as a Mother's Day or Birthday gift down the road.

I went online to Sears.com to see if my local Bloomington store had any in stock.  Yup, they sure did.  The only thing was that online it was showing as $44.99.  There was no guarantee that the deal I saw was going on at all Sears stores nationwide or if it was only at the one store that the poster had visited.  Oh, what the heck, it's only another 10 minutes tacked-on to my 40-minute commute.....

Yes.  My store not only had four of them, but they were also on clearance for the same $25 price.

I bought two.

The kits include a fermentation keg (normally $15 online, though MRB has them on sale right now for $10), a standard refill kit (West Coast Pale Ale + Booster + Yeast + Cleanser, $16 online), 8 one-liter PET bottles ($14 online), plus instructions.  Heck, the bottles and the refill alone are well worth the $25 price of admission, so getting a spare fermenter (which makes my 4th) in the deal makes this a no-brainer.  Having extra bottles on hand will be nice in case I decide to give some beer away to a friend or take some to a tailgate - while I'd certainly like the bottle back it wouldn't cramp my style if I lost it.  And considering that the only real risk to using the PET bottles and fermenter during the brewing cycle is the unsavory side-effects that can happen if any of the surfaces that come in contact with the beer get scratched (hello bacteria!), having extras around just cannot hurt one bit!

As far as the 2nd kit goes - well, I can talk to my ex- discreetly to see whether she'd be interested in it as a gift.  If not (which I suspect) I can hang on to it to give to a "friend-to-be-named-later".  Or, if any of my Bloomington or Dayton peeps want it and have already tried/failed to get a kit on their own, I'm certain we can work something out.

Labels? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Labels!

Yeah, I've spent probably too much time over the past 3-4 weeks obsessing on unimportant things like names for my beers, artwork for labels, and so forth.  But considering that I only get to spend maybe a total of 2 hours interacting with any particular brew during the (typically) month-long process of turning ingredients into something I can drink, the only creative outlet I have ready access to has to do with naming and labeling. So, let me share a few things I've learned along the way.

First, there are a TON of resources on the Interwebs that can help a fledgling picobrewer such as myself to address naming and labeling.  For starters, there's the Beer Name Generator (yes, that's a hyperlink - click it to open it in a new window).  The names are complicated and convoluted, but if you don't like the one it gives you, just smash the "Generate!" button to get another.  If Manatee-Crackhouse Porter isn't your style, there's always Red Kwanzaa American Light Lager, Frisky Schwartzbier, or even Mothra's Unbefreakinglievable Amber Tribles Altbier.  Do it often enough and soon you'll have ideas in your own head begin to form.  For me, the BNG was responsible for the name I gave to my third beer - Dark Epiphany Irish Stout - the one I'll be drinking at this time tomorrow.  Play with it, I'm sure it'll inspire you as it did me.

So whether you've used the BNG to come up with a name, or have a name already in mind that you really want to see on your beer, how do you take the next step if you're not artistically inclined?  Believe it or not, there are pages that can help you generate labels on the fly.  Here are a few of them:

Beer Labelizer - This site offers 12 basic label templates, each in 3 different colors, that can be customized easily with your own text and in a few cases graphics.  3 of the templates are available at no cost whatsoever, and for a small $5 donation you can use all of the templates with impunity.  Printing and/or saving your labels as high-quality Jpegs are both supported.  Nearly all of my first six beers, and many of the others, all sport labels designed at Beer Labelizer.  (The author - Andy Biggs - also has a sister site for printing labels for jars of jam - Jam Labelizer.  There are 5 basic designs, again in 3 colors each, but alas your Beer Labelizer membership does not carry over - it's another 5 bucks if you want to use everything.  Still, the two templates that are available for free are still nice and simple. If you just want the beer to do the talking, this might be perfect for you.)

Beer Label Builder - Mindbogglingly simple to make text-based beer labels, though not very flexible. The site hopes you'll design a label and then order some via mail order, which of course you're free to do.  Some of the designs, though uncomplicated, are still pretty nice.  It all depends on whether this is your style or not.

Labeley - A java-based tool that you can use to combine several basic elements (shape, color, background texture, foreground graphic, ribbons, text, etc) to make some nice, or some fugly, labels.  You can save up to 5 labels per day and then print them out on your own, or share them with friends.  No fuss, no muss, no cost.

My Own Labels (Beer) - Another "design-and-ship" website.  They give you about two-dozen basic designs, many of which can be modified on-screen, and several that also support uploading your own graphics.  They seem to be geared more toward "event" brewing, wherein you brew up a batch of beer to give out to friends at a party or a wedding, and the on-screen depiction of the "final" label you come up with is of a lower resolution than what you get if you pay them to print and ship a sheet of them to you, but it's fun to play around with and brainstorm ideas for your own use.  And you can do a screencap and then import that into your own graphic software if you want a starting point.

Labels On The Fly (Beer) - Yet another "design-and-ship" site. Their designs are much more simplistic than MOL, but in many ways they're just cleverer or more appealing.  I counted 32 different base designs, each coming in 3 or 4 different sizes/shapes.  That's quite a wide selection of starter labels imo.

These are just the first half-dozen tools I've come across - I am certain there are others.  I've added links to Beer Labelizer and the Name Generator to my link list over in the toolbar.  If you come across one that you like that I've not listed, please let me know.

Movin' Things Around

In anticipation of Dark Ephipany's debut tomorrow night, I transferred one of my eight quarts from the downstairs refrigeration unit (the mini-fridge in the Man Cave) to the primary refrigeration unit (the Sears Kenmore fridge in my kitchen).  I also grabbed the final bottle of Comfy Chair and plan to stare at it for the rest of the week before succumbing to temptation by cracking it open on Thursday or Friday.  I sure am gonna miss that when it's gone, but I will need the bottle within a week when Farty Monk is ready for carbonation.

Both of the Mr Beer kits came with eight quart-sized plastic bottles.  Well, technically the bottles are liters and are made of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), which is perfect for this application since they're recycled/able, are chemically inert, and can be cleaned chemically or with ordinary water (provided you don't let anything dry out and cake).  The only downside is, well, they're plastic.  They're nice platic, and they're hugely practical, but they're just not as aesthetically appealing as a glass bottle would be.  Nevertheless, I have 16 of these, which means I can set back two entire batches in the bottles I have been provided.

During one of my trips to Butler Winery's downtown Bloomington tasting room -slash- beermaking supply store, I splurged and dropped fifty smackers for a case of twelve liter-sized dark amber Grolsch-style bottles.  You know the kind, they have a hard ceramic lid that is held on by a wire mechanism that allows the bottle to be repeatedly resealed after opening. I only needed eight of them for a batch of beer, leaving me with four extras.  So natrually, during Butler's recent sale, I bought another case.  This brings me to a total bottling capacity of 10 gallons - 16 PET bottles and 24 Grolsh glass bottles - which is both liberating and limiting, since it keeps me from going crazy by making more beer than I can bottle and store.

At present, seven of the PET bottles stand empty.  The entire eight-bottle run of Angry Weasel and seven of the PETs that held Comfy Chair have been used and cleaned.  Of those 15, eight were pressed into service this weekend to allow the Czech Pilsner to begin carbonating.  Since Farty Monk will be ready for bottling this coming Sunday, I am going to have to empty out the final bottle of Comfy Chair to ensure nothing gets wasted.  The 24 Grolsch bottles are already accounted for: eight are holding Dark Epiphany, eight more are holding Shaved Amadeus, and the rest are reserved for when I bottle the Christmas Stout on or about June 1st.

An interesting side note: The Pilsner (BB-V) was a very different beer than anything I had brewed/bottled to-date.  Unlike other beer mixes which combine an HME with either powdered Booster or UME, this mix required two HMEs.  When put into the fermenter everything looked great, although the mix inlcudes a large number of hop "flakes" that float in the beer for quite a while before precipitating to the bottom.  Well, when I moved the keg from the fermentation locker to prep it for bottling, I jostled several of those flakes, resulting in the final two bottles getting some in them.  I ended up with a few in #7 and a LOT in #8.  As I always do, I made a small mark on the lid of the final bottle from each batch so I would know which one was most likely to be "unusual", but I am expecting that BB-V #8 will be quite funky when I uncork it.

Quantifying Beer

You may have noticed over in the margin where I've listed the current status of the beers I'm brewing and the planned future brews I aim to make, I have listed stats for each one.  While other brewers will recognize terms like SRM and IBU, not everyone will.  And I'm confident that nobody will know what the "Class" #s mean - mostly because that last part is something I've made up.  So here's a quick rundown of what everything means.

• ABV: Alcohol By Volume.  This is simply a measure of the alcohol percentage of the beer.  The simple kits, those involving only a Hopped Malt Extract (HME) and powdered booster, will all weigh-in at 3.7% ABV.  When you swap booster for an Unhopped Male Extract (UME), you get 4.6% ABV.  Adding other elements like hops or combining booster and UME will also increase the alcohol.  The highest estimated ABV I will be brewing this year is the Christmas Stout which is 6.5%.
• SRM: Standard Reference Method.  This is a measure of the color of the beer.  The lower the number, the lighter the beer.  For those technically inclined, the measurement of SRM involves calculating the attenuation of light of a particular wavelength (430 nm) in passing through 1 cm of the beer.  For comparison purposes, a pale ale has an SRM of 2, Newcastle Brown Ale is a 22, and Guinness is a 40.  Once you get past 40 there's little difference to see - black is black as far as I'm concerned - though Imperial Stouts tip the scales at 70 SRM.
• IBU: International Bitterness Units.  The IBU is based on a scale and measures the perceived bitterness of the beer, which is provided based on the hops used during the brewing process.  The higher the number, the more bitter the beer.
• Class: This is an measure I've invented that combines SRM and IBU into a single number.  The formula is a little complicated, but in rough terms beers with low SRM and IBU will be categorized as a Class 1 beer.  Those with very high SRM and IBU will be Class 6, which is the top end.  Beers in Class 1 and 2 (Blonde Ales, Pilsners, Golden Lagers, Pale Ales and Red Ales made with Booster, and Weizenbier) are light on the palette and aren't expected to be complicated.  Class 3 and 4 beers (Nut Brown Ales, Pale Ales and Red Ales made with UME, Vienna Lagers) are darker and more complicated.  Class 5 and 6 beers (Black Lager, Doppelbock, IPA, Irish Stout, Belgian Dubbel, Imperial Stout) sit up in your glass and bark at you.

The Stout Is (Nearly) Out!

BB-III was transferred from the conditioning cabinet to the refrigeration unit today. First tasting will be in 72 hours. I also brewed the currently-unnamed Christmas Stout this afternoon - it has an Irish Stout base, plus espresso beans and brown sugar, a blend of Williamette and Palisade hops, and a mix of fermentable and unfermentable sugars to that serve to boost the alcohol content. This one will take a long time - won't be ready to drink until after Thanksgiving, but I'm hoping it will be worth it.

Scheduled to bottle the Czech Pilsner (BB-V) tonight or tomorrow. Will have to hold off on making the next batch (BB-VIII - "Nimblejack" Blonde Ale) until I get someone over here to help me drink-up the backlog. Any volunteers? :)

Current status of everything in the pipeline:
BB-I - Angry Weasel Pale Ale - GONE
BB-II - Comfy Chair Nut Brown Ale - 2Q to go
BB-III - Dark Epiphany Irish Stout - 72 hours from being drinkable
BB-IV - Shaved Amadeus Vienna Lager - 1 more week of conditioning
BB-V - New World Czech Pilsner - ready to bottle
BB-VI - Farty Monk Belgian Doppel - 1 more week of fermentation
BB-VII - Unnamed Christmas Stout - 4-6 weeks of fermentation

"10-1/2 gallons of beer in the basement, 10-1/2 gallons of beer..."

Discussion:

• Mark O. : I need to come by
• Me: Be thirsty.  Be very thirsty!
• Mark B. : Address please  :-)

Browncoat Ale Label

Even though I'm jumping ahead a little (the Christmas Stout I'll be making this weekend is BB-VII), here's the prototype artwork for BB-IX. It's patterned after a much more well-known Brown Ale.


Credit for the original design is due to Stephen Sanderson, who modified the Newcastle Brown Ale logo for a t-shirt design - I tweaked it somewhat for my own plagiaristically shiny purposes. :)

Bye Bye Angry Weasel (snif!)

The last glass of the last bottle of my first ever home brew. RIP Angry Weasel Pale Ale. :)

Buzzard's Brew - A Family Tradition

Buzzard's Brew - A family tradition since February, 2012. Our beer is brewed using only the easiest to find mail-order ingredients and fresh Bloomington tap water.

(This is my prototype "Brewery" logo - I'll work on this to clean is up and select a better font/color combo.)

Vienna Lager Bottled

The Vienna Lager (BB-IV) was bottled yesterday, joining the Irish Stout (BB-III) in the conditioning cabinet. Today, I am brewing the Belgian Dubbel (BB-VI, "Farty Monk") which will join the Czech Pilsner (BB-V) in the fermentation cabinet. That's 8 gallons of beer in the pipeline now!

Current Inventory:
BB-I Angry Weasel Pale Ale - last quart being enjoyed now
BB-II Comfy Chair Nut Brown Ale - 2 quarts left
BB-III Dark Epiphany Irish Stout - Bottled, 1 week of conditioning left
BB-IV Shaved Amadeus Vienna Lager - Bottled, 2 weeks left
BB-V New World Czech Pilsner - In Keg, 1 week of fermentation left
BB-IV Farty Monk Belgian Dubbel - Keg, 2 weeks left

Some Prototype Labels

Here are the prototype labels I'm working on for my next two beers. BB-VI is a Belgian Dubbel I'm calling "Farty Monk", and BB-VII will be named "Original Sin" Blonde Ale.

Discussion:

• Urraca Y: Maybe the blonde ale should have a woman who looks blonde or at least some blonde color in the snake. The Farty Monk label just doesnt do anything for me. The rest of your labels have been very attractive, but this just doesnt say "Beer" or "Fun" or "Tasty" or anything.
• Me: The Monk label was originally in the style I used for my Irish Stout - the only fundamental change there was in terms of color. I decided recently that I want a unique looks for each type of beer, so I struck out in a new direction. I guess this one was just a little too generic. Perhaps if I add little fart clouds under the tails of the lions? Naaah. Will keep on working on that.
• Me: I came across the art for Sin a couple of days ago and am eager to get it onto a label, but perhaps waiting for a dark beer would be more appropriate. I have a Dopplebock I'll be making, but that's scheduled to be BB-XII... I'm not even halfway there yet!

 

• Me: Here's an alternate name/design for the Blonde ... "Nimblejack"
• Urraca Y: I like it.
• Me: And an alternate for the Dubbel... not sure about the palette yet but you get the idea about where I'm going.

From The New World...

New World Czech Pilsner (BB-V) was brewed today and is currently in the fermenter. That means I have some of 5 different batches currently in the pipeline.

Pale Ale (1Q) and Nut Brown Ale (3Q) available to drink, Irish Stout (8Q) was bottled yesterday and is carbonating... will be ready to drink in 3 weeks, Vienna Lager (8Q) will finish fermenting next weekend and will be drinkable in 4 weeks, and the Czech Pilsner (8Q) is 5 weeks away. That's 7 gallons of beer!

Now I gotta decide when to brew the Belgian Dubbel.....

Pretty Bottles

Man, I sure hope the beer tastes good, because these are some great-looking bottles! P and I will be bottling the Dark Epiphany Irish Stout this weekend, then 17 more days before I can crack one open.

• Mark O: Yes. Great looking bottles. A long way from the days of Blatz and Maxx beer at the Oldham castle/

Angry Weasel Label

The Teal color template was the winner, and I fixed the drop shadow and the "BB-1" legibility issue. Can't get the kerning to take, but I can fix that later. The only major change I've made is to swap "Buzzard's Brew" and "Bloomington, Indiana" from top to bottom. I think it's more balanced this way. What do you think?

• Cynthia D: Nice, except I don't like the swap of BB and B,I. The BB is part of the name/brand and should be given the prime space at the top of the label, while the location is more appropriate with the other details at the bottom.
• Me: Concur.  I will swap them back for the new "Final" version.

Label Options

Though I never expect to ACTUALLY slap any labels onto my beer bottles, I need some help because I'm not all that artistically inclined. Which of these two possible labels for my first beer, the Pale Ale, do you prefer?

Discussion:

• Urraca Y: I like the color scheme on the right better. I think you should move the drop shadow under "Angry Weasel" closer to the main words (as in the label on the left) so the the "y" shadow is not touching the "L" in "PALE". Is it "BB-L" or "BB-J" ? Blackletter caps make it hard to tell. Bold block letters might be better. You might also consider tightening the kerning on each side of the apostrophe in "BUZZARD'S".
• Mike W: Will there be any left in July
• Me: Not of this batch of Weasel, but I plan to make another before then. I actually plan to make several other batches of different styles before I get back to the Pale Ale
• Me: @Urraca: good tips, all. I'll go with the right label, but will fix the drop shadow and the kerning. The "BB" element is the batch number, in roman numerals. It should read BB-I but with that font I can make it BB-1 and have it appear as I want it.

Oh No! Not the Comfy Chair!!

(Later...)

Made this one for the Nut Brown Ale I'm currently enjoying. Down to 3 quarts - gotta slow down or it'll all be gone! :(

Rock Me Amadeus!

Here's the name and the label for the Vienna Lager I just whipped-up yesterday.

The name originated in the style of the beer.  As a Vienna Lager, I wanted to name it after something Austrian. The most well-known person I could come up with was Mozart, who while technically was born in and lived in Saltzburg, which was an independent somethingorother at the time, it is now part of Austria... and the Austrians claim him as one of theirs, so who am I to argue with a nation full of German-speaking Anschluss-loving Austrians?

"Shaved" came from the armpits of my model, and because to those unfamiliar with what an "Amadeus" is it sounds naughty.

Online Label Makers

I've been messing around with a couple of online tools. The first is a random beer name generator, the second is a bottle label maker. Whaddya think of this for the Stout that I'll be bottling next weekend? :)

Comments:

• Mark O: Want!
• Me: Not gonna be drinkable for at least 24 days, but I'll save you a quart if you're gonna swing by. But on a positive note, the 3.4%/Vol alcohol content on this label is incorrect. It should be 4.6%.
• Scott D: Brillant! Needs a trademark!
• Bev R: Brilliant!  You need a Spanish Inquisiiton beer, too. (because, you know, nobody expects....)
• Me: Good idea! Inquisition IPA, Torquemada Red Ale, Comfy Chair Pilsner... the options are endless!

Vienna Lager Update

The Vienna Lager has been assembled and is in the keg.

Lots O' Beer!

Wine and Beer update! Down to 1 quart of Buzzard Brew I (Pale Ale) and 4 quarts of BB-II (Nut Brown Ale). BB-III (Irish Stout) was brewed last week and has another week in the keg to go before bottling, and BB-IV (Vienna Lager) will be brewed tonight and stored in keg #2. Heading to Butler Winery tomorrow to hit them up for their semi-annual homebrewing sale (need more Grolsch bottles, and several accessories), then to Oliver Winery to pick up my Spring Wine Club shipment and to hang in the new/old tasting room. Phew - talk about fun with fermentation!

...and I have enough supplies to make 2 more batches of Irish Stout, plus 1 more batch of all of these: IPA, Czech Pilsner, Pale Ale, Canadian Draft and Weizenbier. I *still* think it's gonna be a busy/fun summer.

Local Brewing Supply Sale

Woo hoo! Need to stop at Butler for some brewing supplies BEFORE I go to Oliver for my half-case. Need some hardware (a bottle washer, draining tree, and some replacement Grolsch bottle gaskets), and I want to look into their Nut Brown Ale malt extract.

Butler Winery
We're having our annual Spring Beer & Wine Supply sale all this week at our downtown Bloomington location! Get up to 15% off all brewing & winemaking supplies and ingredients now through next Monday, April 16th!

Nut Brown Ale - WOW!

After four more days of cold conditioning, the Nut Brown is tasting FANTASTIC! I can see myself making this with every-other batch all summer long. Stop by if you want to sample it, I've got 6 quarts left..... well, five now. :)

Nut Brown - First Pour

This is the 2nd batch of Buzzard Brew - a Nut Brown Ale. Tastes remarkably like Newcastle... not quite as good, of course, but plenty good enough to drink. And I've got 8 quarts to go! Next up, BB-III: Irish Stout.

My First Beer!

Buzzard Brew, Batch I, West Coast Pale Ale. This was made from the stock Mr Beer starter kit. I was pleasantly surprised by it's NON mediocre taste! Sure, it resembles a domestic BMC (Bud-Miller-Coors) but it is bubbly and tasty! Looking forward to how the other 7 quarts will taste as they continue to cold condition. Overall a 7/10.

And as soon as I finish dinner, I'm off to the Man Cave to bottle Batch II - the Englishman's Nut Brown Ale. This is also a stock Mr Beer kit, but this one includes Unhopped Malt Extract instead of the powered "Booster". Should be a completely different experience.

Follow-up:

I will not be able to begin Batch III any time soon. Not enough empty bottles.... but when I get ready I'll have to decide what to make - Canadian Draft, Vienna Lager, Irish Stout, a Wheat (Weizenbier), or another Pale Ale. Gonna be a fun spring/summer!

Happy Buzzard Day

Now that they've been bottled for 12 days, I moved all eight quarts of West Coast Pale Ale from the cool dark basement closet into the mini-fridge. This should begin the final cold conditioning phase - the longer the beer stays there the better. I plan to open a bottle on Sunday to see how I did, but the rest will stay refrigerated for several weeks to let the hop and malt flavors come to the foreground. Sunday will also be bottling day for the 2nd batch - the Nut Brown Ale that folks claim tastes a little like Newcastle.

2nd Batch Made

With the 2 gallons of West Coast Pale Ale I set back 2 weekends ago brewed, P helped me today with the bottling. 2 more weeks to fully-carbonate, then a couple of days of conditioning, and I should have my first batch of brewskis on March 20th (give or take). I began brewing my second batch - a Nut-Brown Ale advertised to be a poor man's Newcastle. Should be drinkable sometime in early April.

Let's Make Some Beer!

Gonna try to whip up a batch of beer tonight. Rather than invest hundreds into a setup just to find out that I don't like it at all, I'm gonna get my feet wet with a Mr. Beer kit. Even if it turns out to be mediocre, I figure a $20 investment to find out whether I'm even interested in the process is a good way to start.

So tonight, I'll be setting back 2 Gallons of Pale Ale. Won't be ready for bottling for 2 weeks, and won't be drinkable for another week or 2 after that. Not in time for St Patrick's weekend, but perhaps the weekend after that.

Why "Picobrewing"???

Well, a microbrewery is defined in the US by the American Brewers Association as making 15,000 US beer barrels (1.8 million liters) of beer annually, while a nanobrewery is one that has a brew system that can make a maximum of 4 USBB (470 liters) at a time.  My system can make a maximum of 2 gallons (8 liters) at once, and even with two systems operating simultaneously I can crank out a maximum of just under 800 liters a year.  So if not a microbrewery, and not a nanobrewery, I guess I've got a picobrewery!

Adventures in Picrobrewing!

There's also a limit somewhere in Indiana law regarding how much I can brew at home in a year, but with my system being only 40% the size of a traditional 5-gallon homebrewing system, and with folks running multiple carboys at a time in that type of a setup, I am confident that I'm well WELL under that cap.

Revisionist History - Or, Making The Past Make Sense!

It has been, oh, 10-11 weeks now since I've begun brewing beer here at home.  It all started back after Christmas when I purchased two Mr. Beer (MrB) kits from Woot - one for myself and one to stockpile as a gift to give to an unspecified someone later.  I went with the embarassing $20 (cheap!) all plastic 2-gallon mass-produced homebrewing-lite kit because I was passively curious about the hobby and because it was tons cheaper than buying everything needed for a decent 5-gallon home setup.  Sure, I might be a little shy when talking about opening and dumping two cans of premade beer mix into a goofy-looking plastic keg thing, especially when doing so with co-workers who had "honest" setups at home and who were involved in actually putting together measured ingredients and doing things more akin to "brewing".  But as long as the end result wasn't terribly suckish, I wouldn't complain.
[Note to readers!  I have manually adjusted the date/time of this post to force it to the beginning of my blog, even though I actually composed it on May 6th 2012.  Sorry for the deception!]

So in mid-February, I cracked open the first kit, which came with a can of Hopped Malt Extract (HME) labeled "West Coast Pale Ale", a packet of yeast, a 1-lb bag of powder labeled "Booster", a packet of powdered cleanser, a plastic keg and 8 plastic quart screw-top bottles.  While there were extensive instructions regarding sanitization (which I'll get into later), the actual brewing process was a no-brainer...

Step 1 - Dissolve the Booster in water and bring to a boil
Step 2 - Open the can of HME and stir it into the Booster/water mix (and now it's called "wort")
Step 3 - Put the wort into the keg, add yeast, stir
Step 4 - Cap the keg and stick it somewhere dark for a week (and now it's called "beer")
Step 5 - Pour the beer (flat and yucky) into bottles with sugar.
Step 6 - Cap the bottles and stick them somewhere dark for another week.
Step 7 - Refrigerate for a few days, then drink!

Okay... sounds simple.  Let's give it a try.

Well, before I jumped in, I scoured the forums at the MrB website to get a few tips from folks.  The one thing that was consistently emphasized was to NOT SKIMP ON SANITIZATION!  Ignore the assembly steps above, if you didn't take the time to follow the instructions regarding making and keeping everything sanitary, your product would suck.  So if being safe and clean was important, that's what I'd do.  Heck, I ended up overdoing it.

Bottles:  Before doing anything at all, I took the eight plastic bottles and 2/3rds-filled them with warm water, mixed in a teaspoon of OxyClean, and after capping I shook the bejeezus out of them and set them in the window.  The OxyClean bubbled for 3-4 days, but it eventually stopped, which gave me the green light to rinse the bottles, place a small piece of cling wrap over the mouth of each, and cap them.  Overkill?  Heh, without a doubt.

On brewing day, things went pretty smoothly.  My spoon, measuring cup, and manual can opener all went in the keg and sat in sanitizer for the requisite 10 minutes.  4 cups of Bloomington's finest tap water went into the pot, then I slowly (and I mean s-l-o-w-l-y) poured in the Booster, stirring the heck out of  the mix as I went to try to get it to dissolve.  It was a pain!  And I noted that I was using my metal spoon in my teflon-coated pot, which meant I was probably ruining the pot.  (Have to use a metal spoon - nylon, wood, and anything else can't be sanitized properly).  Oh well, in for a penny....  It took about 20 minutes to get the entire pound of Booster to dissolve - while it felt as if my right arm should have swollen up to Popeye-esque proportions in the process.  Phew!  Raise to a boil, remove from heat, open/stir the can of HME, the pour everything into the keg.

Yeast, check!  Final stir, check!  Capped, check!  And off to the dark pantry for you, with a nice thick beach towel draped over the gizmo to ensure the light is blocked.

The instructions indicate that 7 days in the keg are needed for fermentation, but everyone online recommends doubling that time... so two weeks march by.