9 Days, B1tches!

I've surpassed a full week of blogging by 2 whole days. This is by far the longest I have ever maintained a blog.

I can't really effectively write about beer tonight, given that I've spent the greater part of the evening effectively consuming beer. I do have 2 things I want to note however:

1. GO 'CUSE. Fantastic win against Nova tonight. We. Are. Number. One.
2. Follow me on Twitter. That's right, now that we've surpassed the 1 week milestone, I figure I need to start actually letting people know this blog exists. So check me out at www.twitter.com/thebeerb1tch.

Now I'm off to finish my beer.

Oh Boy! Oh Boy!

You will remember that I've been having trouble keeping my Czech Pilsner at the proper temperature for lagering. Well, that's all about to change because my freezer thermostat arrived today! It will henceforth be called the beermostat.

I haven't hooked it up yet, because I'm afraid of the garage. Or rather, I'm afraid of the mice that my husband says may or may not be living in the garage. But as soon as he gets home tonight, we're going for it.

So how does this thing work, you ask? Well, it's basically a box with a power outlet and a temperature gauge. There's a thermometer coming out of one end, and a power cord out of the other. So you anchor the thermometer to the inside of the freezer, plug the freezer into the box, and plug the box into the wall. When you set the temperature gauge to the desired temperature (Between 20 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit), it monitors the temperature of the freezer and cuts the power when it goes more than 4 degrees below your set temperature. Then, when the temperature is a few degrees higher than your desired temperature it turns the power back on again. Since air temperature changes faster than liquid temperature, the beer should hold relatively steady within it's optimum fermenting or conditioning range.

I'll be setting it to about 37 degrees, so that it hovers right between the 35-40 that I want. Mind you, this particular beer has been sitting in temperatures between 30 and 70 degrees for the past week (damn you San Jose and your crazy temperature fluctuations!), so I'm guessing the damage has already been done and that cold conditioning at this point isn't going to make a huge difference in the flavor of the beer. But I want to make sure I at least attempt to follow all the steps of the process. And I'll have something to compare to my next batch, which I plan to do right.

Stuff

Anyone who knows me will tell you, I've never met a project I couldn't start. Finishing? Well that's another story.*

In general, my favorite part of starting new projects is getting all the required "stuff" that goes with them. I'm the girl who joined a gym so I could get new sneakers and cute sweatpants. My collection of scrapbooking supplies is almost infinitely disproportionate to the number of scrapbooks I've made. 

So let me tell you, beer making is an excellent hobby to take up if you enjoy collecting stuff. Even just the basics are enough to make you want to devote an entire room of your house to the craft. (They take up a lot of space, too...so an extra room isn't actually a bad idea).

"What kind of stuff do I need?" You ask? Read on.

A large pot - Most people have this already. Any spaghetti pot or stock pot will do. Mine is 3 gallons, which is probably the minimum volume you want to work with. You can get them much larger, of course, but remember that the more you're boiling at once, the more time it's going to take to get the boil going and to cool the wort. For my beginner brews, 3 gallons is really all the capacity I need. My husband is not wild about me putting his All Clad through the ice bath step of the process, as rapidly cooling a hot pot can cause it to warp. So for long term use it probably makes sense to get a pot you can use exclusively for beer. I covet these awesome pots with thermometers and spouts, but can't really justify that purchase until I'm at least few more brews in.

Measuring cup and measuring spoons - you just always need to have this kind of thing around.

A large spoon - for stirring the wort during the boil.

Glass or plastic carboys - These are the big bottles that go in watercoolers. Mine are plastic (I have a 6 gallon for primary fermentation and a 5 gallon for secondary). Glass are generally considered better because they're impermeable to oxygen, but they're heavier and (obviously) more breakable. I went with the Better Bottle carboys from Northern Brewer, which are made with PET plastic, which is also very impermeable to oxygen--so basically these are the best of both worlds. 

Carboy Bungs - Just a plastic stopper that forms an air-tight seal on the top of the carboy. They have holes in them to hold the

Airlock - A funny little do-dad that allows air to exit the fermentation bucket without letting any air in. I have the one-piece bubbler version that you fill with sanitized water or vodka.

Thermometer - When you're doing the cold break and pitching the yeast, you want to have an accurate read on the temperature of your wort.

Funnel - How else are you going to get the wort from the pot to the carboy?

Hydrometer - This is a device that measures the potential alcohol content of your wort. I'll write more about it once I understand it better. I've read that beginning brewers can skip this, which given my challenges with getting readings is probably a good idea.

Equipment cleaner - I use OneStep no rinse cleaner. Regular dish detergents are apparently no good because the added scents can cause off-flavors, and some of them contain chemicals that are bad for head retention (snicker).

Bottle brushes - I have a straight one for bottles and an angled one for the carboys.

Sanitizing solution - I use Iodophor. A tablespoon in 5 gallons of water is all you need to soak all of your equipment.

An Auto-Siphon - I've said it before. This thing is fun. Siphoning is apparently not an enjoyable process without it. I wouldn't know, because I've never tried it. All I can say, is that this is a pump that quickly and quietly moves the beer from one carboy to the next. There's very little agitation or aeration (which is good), and it's incredibly easy to use. 

A chest freezer - Yeah, this sounds ridiculous and expensive. And it kindof is. It didn't stop me from buying one, though. If you're lagering (or cold-conditioning) your beer, you want to keep it between 35 and 40 degrees. If you're like me and you live in an area where it's 65 degrees in the dead of winter and earthquakes prevent anyone from having basements, then the two most common storage options are not options for you.

A freezer thermostat - Of course, the purpose of a chest freezer is to keep things frozen, and 35-40 degrees is not frozen. So, this little device expands the range of temperature settings your freezer is capable of. I could set it at 80 degrees if I wanted (not sure why I would, though).

A food-grade plastic bottling bucket - Once secondary fermentation is done, you move the beer once more to the bottling bucket. These things look like 5-gallon paint buckets with a spigot on the side. 

Bottles - Duh. Most people recycle empties. Just make sure they're pry-off bottles and not twist-offs. Also remember that 5 gallons is roughly 2 cases, so you need to drink a lot of beer to collect enough bottles.

Bottle caps - Duh x2.

A Bottle capper - looks like fun, I can't wait to try it.

A whole bunch of other tubes and such - since I've never bottled before I'm not 100% sure how I'll be using everything. I'll update once I get to that part of the process.








* At this point, you're thinking "Well then, I probably shouldn't get too attached to this blog, should I?" But beer is different. I always finish my beer.

Czech Pilsner - Part 2

Primary Fermentation:
By the next evening, nothing had happened, and still nothing by mid-afternoon on day 3. I figured the yeast had probably been killed by the too-hot wort. Unfortunately, I couldn't get back to Beer and Winemakers because I was on my way out of town for the weekend. I asked Husband to keep an eye on the beer while I was on my trip, and luckily fermentation started on day 3. But it was done by the time I got home.

Everything I'd read until that point had said that fermentation lasted about 2 weeks. I clearly hadn't read much, because I've since read that 3-5 days isn't uncommon. Anyway, I let the beer sit for 2 weeks in the garage, hoping something else would happen. Then I moved it inside for a few days before moving it to the secondary fermentation tank.

Secondary Fermentation (2.15.10):
And this is where I made my second big mistake. Secondary fermentation for lagers should be done at between 35-40 degrees. My extensive internet research (read: one google search) told me that many people accomplish this with a chest freezer. So Husband and I bought a chest freezer. We'd been intending to get one anyway, and found we a good deal. But it took a few days longer to get delivered than we'd expected, so the Diacetyl Rest lasted close to a week.

The day the freezer arrived, I transferred my beer from the primary fermentation tank to the secondary. This, again, required a whole lot of sanitizing of random equipment, but was overall a smooth process. One thing I will tell you: the auto siphons is FUN.

I tested the gravity of the beer with my hydrometer, and got a 1.000 reading, which I think means there is zero alcohol. Again, I must be doing something wrong (well, I know I'm doing something wrong). I've read a lot about hydrometers and gravity, but so far most of it has gone over my head. I'm going to have to research this more closely before I start my next batch.

I set the freezer on low to prevent the beer from freezing. But it wasn't low enough. By the next day my beer was sludgy and there were ice crystals in the top of the carboy. So now my beer is sitting in the garage next to the freezer while I wait for my freezer thermostat to arrive from Amazon. I'm pretty sure there is no chance that my beer will have the crisp, cold-conditioned flavor of a good lager, and there's also a pretty good chance it will be 0% alcohol.

I'm going to keep going, because at least I'm figuring out what things I need to learn more about, and what I definitely need to change before I start another batch. I will condition this at about 37 degrees for a full month once the thermostat comes, but I'm pretty sure the damage is already done. At this point all we can do is wait and see.

Czech Pilsner - Part 1

In addition to all the fun beer making equipment that Husband got me for Christmas, he gave me two extract kits from NorthernBrewer.com. I decided to start with the Czech Pilsner.

The extract kits from NorthernBrewer are great. They include everything you need, and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. My only worry was that I hadn't refrigerated the yeast in time. I let the kits sit under our Christmas tree for a couple weeks before I actually opened them up, and when I did I realized the instructions called for the yeast to be refrigerated as soon as the kit was delivered. Not knowing how long the kits had been sitting at Husband's office before Christmas, I figured it safe to assume the yeast was bad. And of course, by the time I opened the kit, I was ready to start the brew. No way did I want to have to wait for NorthernBrewer to send replacement yeast (though according to the included instructions, they would).

So I headed to my local homebrew store. I love this place, by the way. I'll do a full post on them in the near future. This is where I learned that apparently Pilsners are not a typical beer for a beginning homebrewers. Lagers typically take longer than ales, and require refrigeration for 1-2 months before bottling. Oops. My other kit was a Double IPA, which the guys at Beer and Winemakers said was basically an equal difficulty.

But, they encouraged me to dive in and try it, saying that would make my next batch go that much easier. So off I went, with 3 vials of fresh yeast.

Brew Day (1.25.09):
The hardest part of homebrewing is cleaning all the equipment. Even the tiniest amount of wild yeast or bacteria can ruin a batch, so absolutely everything that touches the beer needs to be cleaned and sanitized. To make matters worse, our kitchen sink decided to start having water pressure trouble, and our waterflow was at about a half-trickle. Try filling a 5 gallon bucket with that.

While I was sanitizing, I had 2.5 gallons of water boiling on the stove. When that cooled to a non-plastic melting temperature, I poured it into the fermentation tank and set another 2.5 gallons to boil.

After that, I followed the kit instructions pretty much to the letter. If you have any experience with homebrewing, you know what I did. If you're more new to this than I am, I'll do a more step-by-step post for my second brew, that way it's more accurate.

Everything went well during the boil. There were no boilovers, and I made sure to time the hop and extract additions perfectly. Then came the cold break. I knew I had to cool the wort from boiling to about 58 degrees, but I grossly underestimated the amount of ice it would take to do this. I set up an ice bath in the sink, but all my ice melted within about 10 minutes, and the wort was still over 100 degrees. After an hour and 23 minutes of cycling cold water through the sink, the wort was finally down to 62, and I was ready to give up. I added it to the fermentation tank, and found that thanks to steam I was still about a half gallon away from 5 gallons. Planning: I did it wrong.

At this point, a normal person would have poured in a half gallon of water from the sink. But I was so nervous about contamination, that I really felt the need to boil the water before I added it. Of course, I had no way to cool it, so I had to wait another 20ish minutes before it was cool enough to pour in the carboy.

I tested the Original Gravity of the beer with a hydrometer, but I got a reading of 1.100. This didn't seem right at all. I know that the hydrometer is supposed to read at 60 degrees, and I was slightly higher than that, so there's probably a conversion that I'm missing somewhere. 

Finally, I was ready to pitch the yeast. The wort was hovering between 62 and 64 degrees, which I knew was slightly too warm, but I hoped that a few degrees wouldn't make a huge difference. I'd bought 3 vials of White Labs Czech Budejovice Lager Yeast WLP802, so I pitched them all. Having all that yeast prevented me from having to make a starter, which was good, because I'm still not sure how to start one. Finally, at about 2 am I sealed up the carboy, added the airlock, and stored it in the garage.

Totally off-topic

I know, I know. This is a blog about beer, and I should be writing about beer. But if I stayed on topic all the time, I'd be depriving you of pictures of my Absolutely Adorable Puppy. And we can't have that, can we?

This is Herbert. She was born on November 5, 2009.

 

Yes, I know that Herbert is a boy's name. And yes, I assure you that Herbert is a girl dog. But listen, there are people out there naming their children Kynidee and Kachina. Shouldn't we be more worried about that?

Anyway. Herbert is a blue pit bull. 

 

As you can see, she is a ferocious beast. 

Her Momma, Tilly,

  

was unceremoniously abandoned in my friend's backyard. Once they realized Tilly was in the family way, my husband and I jumped on the opportunity to adopt one of her puppies. 

We had 11 to choose from.

  

Are you dying of cute yet?

We picked Herbert up on December 26. She was just under 8 weeks, and already turning into a GIANT.

 

She was awfully snuggly though.

We've had her at home for 2 months now, where she continues to grow like a weed. She likes it here, except for when we put in her jail.

So we let her sit in the living room with us, but she's not very ladylike.

As I said, ferocious beast. 

(Apologies for the low quality pics. Most were taken with an iphone. Once I figure out how to use the real camera I'll get some bigger shots. She'll probably weigh 60 pounds by then though, so I figured the cute was worth it.)

Everything I Don't Know

Since starting this blog, I've been on a never-ending search for post topics. I ended up spending most of my afternoon perusing beeradvocate.com, absolutely shocked by the amount of stuff I don't know about beer. But hey, that's why we're here, right?

Probably the most interesting aspect of today's research was on how to write tasting notes and how to review a beer. I've always wanted to get into beer tasting, so I'm excited to start practicing (read: drinking more). You'll know I'm at a loss for things to write about when I start posting beer reviews every afternoon.

Other subjects that caught my interest were:
Glassware - Did you know that in Belgium, almost every beer has its own glass?
Food Pairings - Was the hefeweizen I enjoyed with my ribs tonight the right choice, or should I have gone with an imperial stout?
Drinking Local - There are some great microwbreweries and brewpubs in our area, and I must try them all.
Yeast - Yes, I find this oddly fascinating.
Headaches and hangovers - This goes way beyond dehydration and drunkenness.
All-Grain Brewing - I'm a long way off from this (a year at least), but I can't wait to try it.

What other beer-related topics do you find interesting? Is there anything you'd like to see covered in the blog? Leave questions and suggestions in comments. 

Girls (Should) Like Beer, Too.

Why is it that so many women say they don't like beer? And why do basically all men assume that women don't like beer? Somewhere along the line, beer got stuck in the same category as wrestling and car racing: consumed by meat-head guys; marketed by hot chicks in bikinis. I'll take a good beer over wine any day. Liquor is reserved for airplanes and places where the beer selection completely sucks. Brightly-colored cocktails have their place...at bridal showers and sorority parties.

It's my feeling that if you need your alcohol to taste like candy you're too young to be drinking alcohol. I don't care if you're over 21. So with that, I say it's time for women to start drinking beer. It won't be an easy process. Beer is an acquired taste. It took me a good 5 years to really appreciate beer. The first time I tasted a Guinness I thought it was undrinkable. Now, it's almost too light for me.

If you're new to beer drinking, and really don't think you like the taste, I suggest starting with one of the candy flavored ones (ha!). I find that fruit lambics, especially Kriek and Framboise (cherry and raspberry, respectively) are highly enjoyed by even the most adamant of beer-hating girly-girls. If you want a little more beer flavor, a good hefeweizen is the place to start. These beers are already rather sweet, and adding a slice of orange or lemon will cut the bitterness.* And if you really want to impress the dudes you're hanging out with, Delirium Tremens is still one of my favorite beers. It's a Belgian Pale Ale with lots of character, but the hints of fruit and bubblegum aftertaste make it palatable for most beginning beer drinkers.

So go! Try something new, then tell me what you think. If you have any suggestions for good "starter beers," leave them in the comments.


* Of course, you're not actually supposed to put citrus in hefeweizens, but that's a post for another day.

Adventures in Home Brew-ery

I used to joke that what I really wanted to be was a brewmaster. When I quit my job and moved across the country with my wonderful husband, he decided I should follow my dreams. I'm not the best housewife. I mean the house is marginally clean, the laundry gets done, and we manage 2 square meals a day (who likes breakfast anyway?). But I'm not the 1950s type who greets him at the door in heels and pearls every evening, with from-scratch cupcakes baking in the oven.

So, for Christmas, he got me a complete home brew setup. My friends, my parents--and probably even my husband--thought this was a typical "get her the gift you really wanted" kind of Christmas. But it was not. I was, and still am, so excited to be making my own beer. Even though my first batch is bound to be a disaster of epic proportions (more about that in a later post), and even though I will likely have a lot more disasters before I come anywhere close to success, I am having so much fun with this.

It's kindof like getting a chemistry set when you're eight. Except instead of poisoning yourself and/or burning your fingers with acid, you just get drunk (and possibly go blind). HOW COOL IS THAT?

Of course, home brewing takes months. It's not really something I can write about every day, because it's something that I'll only be actually doing every 2 weeks or so. So the rest of this blog will be devoted to all things beer. I'm going to learn about it, write about it, and--most importantly--drink a lot of it. So pop open a cold one, and enjoy.

A Conversaton With My Husband

Husband: You should start a blog.
Me: What would I write about?
Husband: What do you like?
Me: Beer.
Husband: There you go.

There you go, indeed.