The Irish Stout at 2 years

I found several bottles of the Irish Stout that we made two years ago.  I took them over to my neighbor and popped them open.  Wow nicely preserved and still a great head, color and taste. Sweet.  I have to make some more!

I have to get busy!

Sorry for the laziness of this blog, but I have not brewed any beer in quite some time. none! Boooooo. I'm thirsty. I have been drinking the following:

Acme:

and Ranger:

My neighbor is a homebrewer!

My new neighbor's truck had a home brewer sticker on it and we discussed our brewing experiences. He gave me a Imperial Double Chocolate Stout that he brewed and boy that was good. It foamed a bit but the taste was fantastic. I told him that the next time he brewed that I would help clean up or something. Maybe I can get some more of this Imperial Stout.

Today we are trying to clone Guinness

@punkass @sphamma and I are making a dark Guinness like stout, @sphamma brought over a new recipe for a Guinness clone. OK lets get started.
After cleaning the all the buckets and tools we stearlize with the iodine which make great photos.

@sphamma brought over his new wort cooker, a converted keg.
We decided to use a bag to hold all the barley and malt.
@PunkAss had some of the stout that we made a year ago. It was still great.
Sparging the bag,
Next we added the malt extract. It tastes sweet and malty. Mmmmm.
Add a little magic.
and Pray to the beer gods.
oh, just a random photo.
Here I am!
Now that all the cooking is done, we start cooling off with the wort chiller (just a copper tube hooked up to the hose).
Add a little more magic.
Here we are taking the gravity reading to be used later for measuring the alcohol in the beer when it is finished.
add the air lock and we are all done except for the cleanup and waiting.

Making small batches of brew

I have been looking around the net to see if making batches of beer that are 1-2 gallons rather than the 5 gallon normally that we make. I thought this would be a good way to get more practice in and get my taste buds something different to try. Anyone out there who has done this? If so, let me know the results. I'm getting thirsty! -yo

video from BasicBrewing.com

In reviewing those video podcasts on BasicBrewing.com, I found a great video from the event Hop Madness 2009. Ever wonder about how hops are grown, harvested and processed - http://cdn2.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbv09-21-09madness.mp4?nvb=20091127143456&nva=20091128144456&t=04914e2c061876869a660

Be sure to visit their website for great stories on brewing. http://basicbrewing.com/

I found a Video Podcast form home brewers http://basicbrewing.com/ I was looking around on TIVO and found it. I have watched several of the videos and it has some recipes I will review. The last for Thanksgiving was a sweet potato beer, not really my style but I'll dig further.

What to brew?

Hmmm... What to brew? I've been thinking about our next brew. Send me some suggestions. I can't wait to see what you all want.

A taste test after work

(Updated as it made no sense) I went over to Dean's (PunkAss) place to taste our latest batch of Sierra Ale + Extra Hopps after work. It was dark out as this week is the first week since the Fall time change and we hung out in the garage and gave toast to this great brew. After I poured my beer from the keg, I noticed that it had a great color so I tried to photograph it with some back lighting. I think it made it too orange but you get the feel. After that we geek-ed out over taking more photos and agreeing that this is one of our best batches of beer that we ever made.

Here are some of our photos.

We thought a photo of the work bench and the laptop with our site was appropriate.

Dean tastes the first taste from our new beer.

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Finally a brewing day is here!

Well it has been a long long time but today we are starting
a new batch of Sierra Ale.


A trip to Reno Homebrewer is always an adventure to start the process.

Damn that moose, his eyes are always following me!
We found some friends looking to also brew some beer.

They have everything for making beer and wine!
Retired soda kegs are now the new home brew beer keg.
A good selection of yeast is available.

We opened some of the Irish Stout that we made in the Spring. Mmmmm good.

We have added an extra 2 ounces of Cascade hops and 2 lbs of extra Light Malt Extract for a hoppier, higher alcohol beer.

We are trying a new yeast, White Labs Pure Brewers Yeast WLP001 California Ale Yeast.


WLP001 California Ale Yeast
This yeast is famous for its clean flavors, balance and ability to be used in almost any style ale. It accentuates the hop flavors and is extremely versatile.
Attenuation: 73-80%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Fermentation Temperature: 68-73°F
Alcohol Tolerance: High



Sterilizing the wort chiller with iodine.

PunkAss is adding the extra 2 lbs of the Malt Extract
Waiting for the boil over. The hops are floating at this point.
wait
wait
wait
done

Here I am chilling the wort.
A rather high starting gravity of 8% compared to the previous brewswait
wait
wait
...

I need to make some beer

All the beer is gone and we don't have any current plans to make some more. I wonder what sounds good? Hmm..... Let me dream.

Brewing a Porter

To start the day we pour a draft from our last batch. Very good.

@PunkAss and I went to the Sierra Peak tap house in down town Reno to get a sampling of different type of beers for our choice today. Today's batch is a Porter.

This is the draft from our last batch.


Here is the recipe of the Porter that we selected.


We continue with the non-city water experiment though we are trying a different brand.


We replaced a leaking valve on the carboy.


We start the day by cleaning with bleach and a sterilization of all the tools and containers with iodine.


Here are the ingredients for the Porter.



While boiling we had a few boilovers.


When all is cooked and cooled we add the yeast.

Kegging the beer.

@Punkass kegged the latest batch of Sierra Ale and sent the following picture and information.

"New ale seems nice. Obviously flat right now, light and clean tasting. Could be hoppier but that might pick up after carbonation. I purged the keg 3x to replace oxygen with CO2. Pressured to 15psi and put in fridge to cool. Once cool (tomorrow), I'll up pressure to 30psi and it should be ok within hours."