While readers, I made it. I wanted to shave off that stash a few different times but Erin was always supportive and told me to remember why I'm doing it. In the end I raised $195. I want to personally thank my brother Scott, Brian G, and Nuong. Also I'd like to thank my coworker Emilo who grew a stash with me. While I know mine isn't very noticeable, I can't help I have blonde hair. Enjoy some pictures.
On a brewing update. I brewed Sophie stout again. Of course the thermometer gods once again were pissed off at me. I had yet another one break on me and I didn't notice until too late. Totally missed my numbers. Fool me once, shame on you.. Fool me twice, shame on me. Time to start running multiple thermometers. I can understand why people drop big cash on nice digital ones. Think I might have to ask for something like this for Christmas, or the Thermapen that I know lots of people run.
So I figured I'd give a little Movember update. If you didn't remember I'm growing a mustache in honor of a friend and fellow reader for the month of November. I'm also taking donation to the Movemeber organization, which is a tax write-off. So, If you're looking to donate please go to my Movember website located at: http://www.movember.com/m/1889342
Here's a picture from last night:
So, I'm sure many of you are saying "Dude, I can't even see it!" Well, let's solve that problem then. Here's my offer: if my readers and friends donate a total of $500, I'll go to the store and buy just for men brown. Yup, I'll dye it brown. Now, you guys and gals donate a total of $1000, I'll dye it black. Erin this morning asked how long I'd keep my 'stash for. Answer: Until the end of the month. Not going to lie, it's driving me nuts. On another note, Midwest Supplies is offering their Hopstache Black IPA which $5 of the price goes to the Movember organization. Yet another way to get involved if you're too sally to grow a stash.
Beer Updates:
On a sad note, I dumped my first beer. As many of you remember my Grandfather series, I had to dump my Grandpa Giles beer. It became really nasty smelling and I wasn't even going to attempt to taste it. After thinking about it for a while, I question if it was the honey that may have tainted that beer, or the fact that it exploded over my basement. I plan on taking another shot at this one come spring. With winter coming (Insert "Game of Throwns" reference here) I'll be switching to my staple Sophie Stout as I've already had multiple people asking for it.
Wet Ted 69 is coming along nicely. I forgot about it for a while but I tapped it about a month ago. Has a lot of floating hop matter in it from all the fresh hops. I know I could clear it out with gelatin, but I just haven't done that yet.
Otherwise I need to get off my ass and brew again. I've got an empty keg. Plan is to hopefully brew this Saturday, though the weatherman said it should be snowing. Almost ski season!
I write this with some sad news. I found out that a long time reader and supporter of my blog, Andrew Ferrell passed away from cancer. While I only meet Drew a few times some of his lessons will always live on for me, like how to make correct buffalo sauce for wings. Drew worked with Erin back in the day and I was honored to have him to my house for dinner.
So, in his honor I plan on partaking in Movember. Movemeber is when you grow a mustache during the month of Novemeber to raise awareness of male cancer. Sorry ladies, no pink ribbons or red dresses here. So guys, who's with me? Don't be a sally. Check out more information at http://us.movember.com/
So I've been so excited about creating this post that I just couldn't wait any longer. I went home and quickly filmed this. Like I've said before in the past I try not to post non-stop for you guys, but I think you'll really enjoy this. Video is a little over 9 minutes long. Sorry for the crappy editing but I'm not a film major. I filmed everything myself using a oint-and-shoot camera. Enjoy!
Here's a first draft of what I plan on brewing, upholding to all of the requirements set forth by myself. I did want to give myself some control so I picked my own hops along with the grain weights. I should explain the name: Wet for undried fresh hops, Ted for the person this beer is in honor of, and 69 for the amount of minutes I'll boil for.
Amt
Name
Type
#
%/IBU
9 lbs
Pale Malt (Weyermann) (3.3 SRM)
Grain
1
81.8 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz
Caramel Malt - 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM)
Grain
2
13.6 %
8.0 oz
Caramunich III (Weyermann) (71.0 SRM)
Grain
3
4.5 %
Amt
Name
Type
#
%/IBU
1.00 oz
Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 69.0 min
Hop
4
45.6 IBUs
1.00 oz
Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min
Hop
5
34.1 IBUs
1.00 oz
Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min
Hop
6
6.2 IBUs
2.00 oz
Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 8.0 min
Hop
7
10.3 IBUs
1.00 oz
Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 7.0 min
Hop
8
4.6 IBUs
1.00 oz
Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 3.0 min
Hop
9
2.1 IBUs
0.50 oz
Nugget [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days
Hop
10
0.0 IBUs
I hope you all have enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed making it. Plan is to brew on Saturday. If you want to join just let me know and I'll keep you up to date.
Last night Ted invited me out to his place to help harvest his hops. He told me I could take home anything I picked as he was swamped in hops. He wasn't kidding! Below are some pictures from last night. By the way, I forgot my camera at home so all I had to use was the crappy cellphone.
That's a lot of hops. Stuff on the ground is what we had to pick.
My Friend, the hops bundle
Ted the Hops Zombie is here to bitter your beer!
As a thank you to Ted for giving me close to 3lbs of cascade hops and an unknown amount of Chinook I plan on brewing a beer in a Ted fashion. Don't know what I'm talking about? Well enjoy this episode of brewing TV that he and my other friend Paul we're on. Brewing TV - Episode 44: Dice-Hopped IPAs Check back soon as I'm going to have a lot of fun making this Ted-Style brew!
On Saturday I finally got around to brewing my next brew of the grandfather series. This one is dedicated to my Grandpa Joe.
Grandpa Joe had a small farm in southeast Montana where he and my grandmother June raised a small amount of cattle, suger beets, and 2-row barley for Coors beer. There may have been other things, but that's what I remember.As time moved on they sold the farm and moved into the city. Grandpa Joe didn't drink beer that often (once again, from my memory) and when he did it was typically something like Bud Lite, which I often gave him crap for. With those things in mind I started on my quest to create a beer in his honor.
First thing on my list was sugar beets. I remember hunting near the family land and seeing sugar beets all over the road. For those of you who don't know what a suger beet is, it's a very large beet which they make typical white sugar out of. If you go to the store and buy sugar that doesn't say cane sugar on it, there's a good chance it's beet sugar. Of course if you want even more info on sugar beets, follow this link to Wikipedia. Ok, continuing on. So sugar beets aren't something people really grow. It's not a crop that people really use without being refined. My idea was I would find a sugar beet, shred it up and use it in the mash. After going to a few local farmers markets and google searching, I accepted the fact that I was not going to get my hands on a sugar beet without driving to somewhere like Montana and stealing it from some farmer's field... Or picking one up on the side of the road during harvest. Well, crap, my main idea just went out the window.
Let's talk barley. Barley is a very common base malt for almost all beers. I use 2-row barley in most of my beers. I was recently out east in Massachusetts for a friend's wedding when I had an all pilsner malt beer. Pilsner malt is just another form of barley that's malted a little differently. This was a really good beer which changed my mind on my approach for this Grandpa Joe beer. Knowing that Grandpa Joe liked lighter beers, I thought I'd make this beer only out of 2-row barley (like he grew) instead of having all different kinds of grain in the beer. Grandpa Joe was also a 1st generation Czech, so I wanted to incorporate some of that also into my beer.
In the end I used 2-row barley, a mixture of Czech hops & American hops, a little beet sugar (table sugar because I couldn't find anything better), and European style Ale yeast. The beer will have a very light color and should be a very smooth drinking beer. Something I feel Grandpa Joe would have enjoyed.
Now, like my other Grandfather beer, this one too had it's only little issues which I feel was grandpa givin me a hard time :) Unlike last time, this one has not and will not blow over, but the yeast was going so strong that I had a hard time keeping liquid in my one-way air lock. The air lock is used to keep unwanted items that float in the air, such as wild yeast, out of the beer. It was so fast and crazy I actually took a video clip of it:
Normally there would be more liquid in there, but it kept bubbling out. The liquid I used is sanitizing solution which does bubble up. Due to the bubbling action being so quick, I had to switch to something that would kill any yeast that could fall in, but wouldn't be harmful to the beer if for some reason it fell in. I picked vodka. So, after re-filling the airlock with vodka which doesn't bubble like my other solution, the beer was set. As of 6pm today (Sunday) the beer was looking great. Hopefully I'll have it ready in about a month or so.
Grandpa Joe, I miss you a lot and with I could share this one with you.
I love octoberfest. No, seriously.. I love it. I'm writing this from Logan international airport in Boston, Ma. I'm enjoying the first run of Sam Adams octoberfest. The bartender who's a very large clearly Boston native informed me it came out 3 days ago. I'm stoked. Other then that not much new on the brew front. The honey wheat has some odd issues with taste that I'm hoping 10 days of sitting will clean out. I think it has to do with the blow-over. I've been out east for 10 days now on my way home. Delta oversold our original flight home. Being in no rush Erin and I gave up our seats for a nice $300 voucher each plus first class on the next flight (6 hours later). We grabbed our gear and headed into Boston. Wonderful pizza and a cannoli. I'll have a hops update here soon. Also I'll be looking to brew very soon here if anyone's looking to join.
