March Beer Update!

Here we are already in March! Wow, that February sure is short. I will be brewing my March beer this weekend, but decided to give a quick update on the January and February brews beforehand.

As I mentioned last month, the January IPA didn’t turn out exactly how I would have liked, but it’s still pretty good. My wife loves it and I’ve shared it with several friends that all appreciated it. The objective critiques are certainly being noted and I am keeping my own notes as well. Next time I jump into IPA territory, I will have a much better roadmap. When all is said and done, I have a very satisfying, hoppy, dirty IPA that packs some warmth at 7% ABV. Hell, at this point, I only have about a 12 pack left, so that has got to count for something.

The February Tripel is a whole other story. This is my first high gravity brew and the fermentation time really threw me for a loop. It sat in primary for about 15 days before I got nervous and decided to rack it to secondary. I’ve heard tales of beers getting mold or infections if left in primary too long and I certainly am one to err on the side of caution. The beer started with a gravity of 1.082 and after 15 days it was down to 1.030. I’m expecting a final gravity somewhere between 1.016 and 1.019, so I knew it had a bit to go. I racked it to the carboy and roused it to get the yeast working again and it was off.

At this point, it’s been in secondary for 12 days. On Sunday (the 7 day mark) I did another reading and it was down to 1.026. Not a big change, so my friend Rodney and I discussed possible actions. While the airlock is not bubbling, it’s still floating, so it doesn’t seem like more yeast is needed. We chewed on that one for a while. We also discussed dropping some more brown sugar in to get it working a bit faster. I’m not really sold on that one either quite yet.

My plan, for the time being, is to give it a couple more days and see where the gravity is at this weekend. 7 points isn’t a whole lot, so maybe time is all that it needs. Having never brewed something with gravity this high, it’s all pretty much 50% Google searching, 40% suggestion from friends and 10% instinct.

After all, one of the points of this project is so that I can maybe switch those Google and instinct figures. I’ll be pretty impressed with myself at that point.

Thanks for reading and more to come this weekend on brew day! Also, if you’d like to try an IPA, leave me a message before they are all gone!

-Chris

February Tripel

Brew day for the February Tripel was indeed hectic. I had some serious shopping to do before getting down to business and this trip made me realize one important thing: I need to start buying in bulk and ahead of brew day. Not only will I save myself a lot of headache, but a few dollars as well.

I created a Brewing calendar and did a layout of the first 5 months of the year, patting myself on the back for being so forward thinking. The calendar is a great addition to by process, to be sure, but it's also not the end of the line. I left my house at 10:30 with my shopping list and about an hour before I was planning on starting the boil.

One of the first things that I wanted to look for was Chinese Rock Sugar. I called Sun on Congress St. Friday and they assured me that they had what I was looking for. When I arrived, I was brought to the candy section and pointed to a box of "Yellow Rock Candy". I picked up the box, flipped it around, attempted to read the ingredients, flipped it around again... This couldn't be right. Why was it yellow? I asked again, trying to be more specific, but they had nothing else in the form of rock sugar.

I decided to hit up Mitpheap on Washington Ave. Unfortunately, I found the same situation. Odd varieties of "rock candy", but not really anything I felt safe purchasing. I gave up and decided I'd either ask Rob at Maine Brewing or just use Belgian Candy Sugar. Finally getting to the brew store, Rob had no idea what I was talking about, so I decided to just skip it and go with the Belgian*. No big deal.

The second part of my dilemma came when I arrived home. I was short on time and started setting everything out to get ready. My daughter Jasmine was coming to town to give me a hand brewing and I was already running late. That is when I noticed it: I forgot to pick up a grain bag. I couldn't start the boil without it. I considered straining it before it hit boil, but decided against it. Lucky for me, my lovely wife Eva volunteered to go back to the brew store and pick up a handful. End of crisis. Or so I thought.

Issue number 3. 2/3 of the malt extract I picked up were wrong. I needed 9.9 pounds of Light Malt, but I accidentally picked up 3.3 of light and 6.6 of Extra Light. Not much of a big deal, but it shaved off a few points on my gravity. I went with it, as I was in the middle of the pre-boil, deciding that it would work out fine.

Waking up Monday morning I found what I hope to be my last issue. I blew the top off my fermenter. I know that this happens and have heard hilarious stories from other brewing friends of this happening, but have never needed to deal with the clean-up myself. I guess it's to be expected with such a high gravity beer (1.081 measured). Fun stuff.

The rest of the brew went off fine and dandy. I bottled the January IPA after dry hopping and it's tasting pretty good. Not quite as hoppy as I thought it was going to be, but good for a first attempt. The February Tripel fermentation subsided a bit today and I dropped a pound of brown sugar into the fermenter and roused it back up. Even with the silly problems I had, I think this is going to turn out very nice. I am planning on racking it to secondary in about 10 days and seeing where it goes.

Brew #2 for 2011 is well on it's way and I'm looking forward to #3. Next up is a porter. Simple, straight forward and it should be ready while we still have some snow on the ground.

If you'd like to see my recipies, check out my Hopville account here: http://hopville.com/brewer/recipes/seavers

You can see some photos from the day here: Brew Day @ Flickr

* I eventually found out that what they had at Sun was in fact what I was looking for.

Busy Saturday

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. My January IPA has been dry hopped in secondary and ready to bottle. So far, this is tasting downright DIRTY (in a good way of course).  Once I get a taste tomorrow, I'll post more.

On the brew side, I've got my lovely daughter Jasmine to give me a hand with the February Tripel. This is going to be a good one to keep around for a while. After bottling it around 2/20, I plan on letting it bottle condition for a couple months.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Look for a couple of posts with pictures(!) tomorrow! 

First Beer of 2011

So here it is...


I decided that for my New Years resolution, I was going to brew a different beer ever month of 2011. I came to this resolution for two reasons:

• I love beer. A lot.
• I love brewing beer

To date, I've brewed three beers. My first was a ginger saison that I brewed with my friend Eric, owner of Novare Res. The second was a beer I brewed specifically for my wedding on New Years day. The third was a redux of the first ginger saison with some major changes.


This blog is mainly an outlet for my year of brewing. 12 beers really isn't that big of a deal, but for a novice brewer, I'd like to keep a record of what I do and how I do it. If you'd like to see my recipes you can find them on Hopville here: http://hopville.com/brewer/seavers


For my first beer of 2011, I decided to brew an IPA. I love the style and I figured it would make a good starting point for the year. I settled on a clone recipe for New Belgium's Ranger IPA created by Hopville user
 jlanier01 with some modifications to suit my taste. I picked this beer because I love New Belgium and I knew that if I came close, it would be something that folks around here had never had.

So, on to the brewing. I used Alexander's extract, which I've never used before, but I don't envision being an issue. I would love to do some all-grain brewing, but my living situation just does not allow for it. So extract it is. The pre-boil tea of cara-pils and crystal 60L just smells fantastic. I can already tell this is going to be a hardy beer, just by the smell of the malts.

As you can see from Hopville, I am using four different hops; Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, and Simcoe. I am using the Centenial just for dry hopping, but I think that I'll get a nice smooth finish with the Simcoe as the bittering agent.

As this is my first IPA, we'll see in a few weeks where it takes us, but I am pretty confident that this is going to be a really fantastic IPA.