Beer Brewing: Brewing vs. Gardening

I decided to try my hand at small grain growing. And what better grain to grow than barley? It was somewhat of a last minute decision, so I ended up with some subideal conditions and limited choices. Ideally, I should have prepped the bed last Fall and ordered a nice, top-quality malting barley.

Instead, I ended up with a hasty bed prep and the only 2-row barley (Conlon) that I could find in small quantity with short notice. That said, it is coming along nicely. The coverage was a little thin, despite my heavy broadcast seeding. We had moderately heavy rain and unusual some cold at germination time. I didn't reseed some of the really thin areas because I kept waiting for more to germinate. Still, I think it came out pretty nice.

Beer Brewing: Oatmeal Extra Pale Ale

Time to step out on my own. It's really not too hard to formulate your own beer recipes. Take roughly 10 lbs. of grain, with the majority being pale-malt barley, add some hops, ferment with some yeast, beer. A cousin-in-law (is that a thing) went to a restaurant and asked for suggestions of beer choice based on the sign. I suggested the oatmeal extra pale ale, based on the description on the website. She opted for a different one, but I caught the bug.

I decided to make a simple recipe with 2 lbs. of flaked oats and 8.5 lbs. of 2-row pale malt. I'm going to hop this with 2 kinds of hops and ferment with Safale S-05 yeast. It should make a light blonde ale with a good mouthfeel and plenty of head retention at 5% alchohol.

Beer Brewing: The next chapter

I am a really, really bad blogger. I just realized that I started writing this post 6-ish months ago and never finished it. So, here it is... 

Apparently, it was more than a year ago that I first made beer in the modern era. If you read that post, you know that I made beer nearly 20 years ago and it was time to start again. Well, since then, I have brewed a few more beers. I did an American pale ale, an Irish red, and American red, a golden ale, and a couple others that I can't think of. All of these were extract kits with additional special grains. All of them were good, but all were lacking something...

I decided that I wanted more. One problem with kits, aside from the price is that you are limited to only what is being sold. The solution is to go to an all-grain brew. Using all grain adds complexity but it also adds flavor.

So, I went to the net to find a brew. I found a red rye recipe which looked promising. I like red beers. I like rye beers. Therefore, I must like red rye beers. I acquired all the ingredients for the beer and made it up. The process was smooth, although the sparging step was tedious. I tried a continuous sparging, which took a really long time.

The only other issue was that I had a faulty scale. I weighed out the right amount of priming sugar, but the measured volume way way too high. So, I put in the correct volume of sugar. The right amount was probably half way between, because the carbonation level was really weak. It was a nice red color, although, the floral, spicy notes of rye were burried a bit in the end product.

Beer Brewing: Phase 1

I brewed beer once before, but most of the equipment belonged to a friend's father. Over the last 5 years or so, every so often, I've had the thought that I would like to do it again. The last time I did it was during the '90s home brewing era. There were about 2 dozen dedicated stores within a 40 minute drive of my house. Now, there are a couple small places 40+ minutes away with limited stock.

Fortunately, my father-in-law has the equipment and got me an extract kit for Christmas. Otherwise, I would still be considering and dragging my feet.

The instructions were great. You start by bringing some water up to 170°. You add the bag of grain and hold the water between 150° and 160° for 30 minutes. 

After that, you add the 2 cans of extract, the package of malt and the bag of hops. You bring it to a boil and hold it there for an hour. 

The final part of phase 1 is adding the mix to the fermentation vessel (aka, a food grade bucket). You add a couple gallons of cold water, dump in the mix and the add enough water to bring it to about 5.5 gallons. A quick trip outside into the snow brought the temperature down to 75 degrees. At that point, I added the yeast, and closed the lid for a couple weeks.