ALL GRAIN, I've made the move to all grain!!!

I can't believe it's been so long since I've been on here, I guess life has gotten in the way, new jobs new adventures, new beers.  I've brewed a ton of beer over the past year and a half and have entered into some pretty big competitions, while I haven't won anything yet.  My beers have gotten some pretty good feedback that I've been able to incorporate into other beers and recipes.  Today marks the first day of my all grain adventure.  Thanks to President's Day and my company loving presidents, I was given the day off, perfect for brewing two all grain batches. 

I kicked off the morning with a hoppy IPA using a pretty aggressive mixture of Amarillo, Chinook and Centennial Hops.  The OG of this beer ended up at 1.064 so we're looking at potentially a 6.5-7%ABV brew.

In the middle of the brew day, I had been toying around with BrewSmith and a Brown Ale recipe, my wonderful girlfriend Kelly offered to sacrifice her lunch hour to run to the brewshop for me.  She came home with a newly crafted Brown Ale recipe... below are some pictures of the brewing process and the addition to the basement brewery.  More space, more storage, bigger, better beers!  Cheers.

 

First Homebrew Comp!

So I entered three beers into a homebrew competition over the weekend at Uptown Market, Orange Wheat, Imperial "82" IPA and an Oak Stout.  In all there were 26 beers entered into the competition into 7 categories.  My Oak Stout didn't place in the stout category but my Imperial "82" IPA took second (by a measly .5 points) in the IPA category and my Orange Wheat won the wheat category.

The Orange Wheat went onto the best of show competition and took second place overall (this time by a measly 1.5 points).  While I won more bragging rights than anything, It was pretty awesome to see a beer that I created, with hops grown in my yard, do so well against many much more accomplished brewers.

As a tribute to the Orange Wheat, I'm brewing it this weekend again and will be kegging it for the brozone, with a new "award winning" label.

For those of you wondering I won 2 growlers and could fill them with any beer on tap and got my selection of any brewing book from their library of books...

Justice!

Labels and New Brews...

So I got bored and found a few label making websites... so naturally I decided to create a few new labels for some recent brews I've done.... So check it.  I've got three new recipes that I'll be brewing in the next month or so, so I'll upload some more pictures and logos then.

New Labels...

Some oldies but goodies...

so the final two got messed up but look good on the tap handles... I'll upload pictures of those at a different time.

Back with an IPA... and a recipe

Josh and I brewed up an IPA tonight.

IPA Recipe
9 lbs Light Malt Extract
12 oz Crystal 60
2 oz Zeus Hops
2 oz Cascade Hops
Nottingham Yeast

Hop Schedule
1 oz Zeus @ 60 min
1/2 oz Zeus @ 20 min
1/2 oz Cascade @ 15 min
1/2 oz Cascade @ 10 min
1/2 oz Cascade @ 5 min
1/2 oz Cascade @ end of boil
1/2 oz Zeus dryhop

Honey Wheat Ale

Alright, so here's my first shot at blogging an entire recipe and the brew process.  I scoured the internet to get different ideas for a Honey Wheat ale, picked a few different ideas, and settled on this...

Recipe:
7.5 lbs Wheat Malt Extract
1 lb Clover Honey
2 oz Amarillo Hops
1 oz Cascade Hops
Safale US-05 yeast
Whirfloc Tablet
3/4 cup - 1 cup of corn sugar for bottling

Hop Schedule:
60 min - 1 oz Cascade
30 min - 1 oz Amarillo
15 min - Whirfloc Tablet
10 min - add Clover Honey
5 min - 1 oz Amarillo

let temp drop to 78 degrees and pitch yeast.  Since I just brewed the beer this evening I'll update later with the days I let the beer ferment in the primary and secondary fermenters.

The ingredients are nicely displayed prior to the brewing process...

After the extract was added and the first hop addition...

The beer brewing process is complete, the wort chiller is connected and we're chilling the wort...



Yeast is pitched and now we wait, should be 3-4 days in the primary, another 2 weeks in the secondary, then two weeks in bottles... this should be drinkable mid-June, just in time for summer!

The beer sat in the primary fermenter for 5 days before I racked it to the secondary.  I'm thinking I'll leave it in the secondary for 10-14 days and then bottle.  Since this is my first attempt at brewing a honey beer, I chose to bottle it, rather than keg. Below is the honey wheat in the secondary and in the foreground is the black IPA sitting in another secondary.

Building a Wort Chiller... via Home Depot/Lowes

So I decided to attempt to move away from the ice bath method of chilling the freshly boiled beer to using a wort chiller.  Problem was, I didn't want to drop $60 bucks on something that looked like it could be fairly easy to build and definitely not cost $60.  So I did some research, read some other blogs, and figured out the parts that I would need.  I headed to Lowes and picked up all of the components for just around $30.

Parts needed:
20 ft 1/4" od copper tubing
10 ft 1/4" id vinyl tubing
Hose adapter fitting
3 #4 clamps

I used one of my Cornelius Kegs as a mold to wrap the copper tubing around, because its much thinner than my brew kettle and primary fermenter, using the Cornelius Keg makes it fit nicely.

After molding the tubing, I attached the vinyl tubing and attached the clamps, after that I used a couple of zip-ties to connect the incoming and outgoing openings.

After attaching everything, I had a quick trial run in the utility sink, didn't find any leaks, and we have a finished product.  All for around $30 in materials and 15 minutes of work.  Not too shabby.

Origins of the Brozone, and Building a Kegerator out of a Freezer Chest

Pat and I were talking one day last year about what I could do with my basement, it was a big, open space that really was only being used for storage and a garage space/woodshop... and the dream was born.  After multiple pitchers and cigars at Greater Trumps (our local and one of our favorite cigar bars) we came up with the idea of building a man cave of sorts... complete with wired in surround sound, ceiling ventilation for cigar smoking, flat screens on the walls, and a bar to enjoy our delicious homebrews.

                                                (The space before we started construction)

Now the plans changed multiple times before we started construction, and in the end we still ended up with a phenomenal space, we just nixed the air filtration station, moved the bar around, and decided to add kegorator so we could start kegging our delicious beers.

I found a freezer chest at Lowes that was large enough to fit 3 Corny Kegs, Kegging components, plenty of bottles of beers, and hops for future brews.  I took the top off of the freezer chest, spray painted the body black with appliance paint, and covered the front with wainscot.

After the wainscot, I added a riser with 2x4's to attach the tap handles and lid, and stained it with a red mahogany strain.

After completing the kegerator, it was time to frame out the bar, set the slate tiles, build in a custom slot for a mini-fridge, wrap in wainscot, and stain with the same red mahogany

The finished product, stained, lacquered, and the slate is covered with a protective coating.  I initially put in slots for three tap handles, for the time being I have two taps and have plugged the third hole.  There is a heating duct that looked like a waste of space, so I added some blackboard paint and put in a blackboard to list all of my bottled and kegged beers.

Currently I have 5 types of bottles and three different brews on tap, the picture above was taken right when the brozone was completed.  I got to break in the room with the BCS National Championship game... unfortunately we all know how the game ended, regardless watching the Ducks play for the Natty was a perfect way to break in the room.