Honoring Mike Feltault

Yesterday another good man left our world, Mike Feltault. I knew Mike through Finnegan's beer events and other beer tasting festivals. You could always count on Mike being the man with the camera. He was a fun guy to be around and I always will remember his smile, which he always had.

I ask that you all raise a pint tonight in Mike's honor, even if you didn't know him.

Rest in peace Mike. You will be missed.

-Ryan

Happy St. Patrick's day

Happy St. Patricks day! A few things I'd like everyone to remember on this day:

1. Support your local craft beer if possible.
2. Don't drink and drive.

With the unseasonably warm temps we're having in Minneapolis today, Erin and I plan on taking our bikes out to some local pubs to enjoy a pint.

I'll leave you all with this video which was sent to me by cousin Mike. Enjoy!

Prost!

-Ryan

I caved in...

So, I did it, I joined twitter. As most of you know I'm not a big fan of social media. There's some things I really enjoy about it, but there's other things that just frustrate the hell outta me with them. So my choice to start a twitter account has 2 reasons.

1. People often say to me "Dude, let me know when you're going to brew again". Well, here's the problem. I often brew somewhat last minute. I don't feel like flooding people on my blog and I just don't really ever know who to email. Don't have or want twitter? No problem. Just let me know if you want me to email you if I'm going to brew.

2. I've been noticed with the news that you get quicker responses from companies when you blast them on social sites such as twitter. Now as ridiculous as that is, it's just the way the world is. For example (about to go in a rant) we bought a new couch. The day we got it, the way that the sectional is connects the two pieces of the couch broke. I contacted the company who we bought the couch from who they put in an order to replace the part from the manufacturer, Lay-z-boy. Lay-z-boy then informed me that it will take 2 to 3 weeks. Ok, I'm sorry but you gotta be shitting me. 2 to 3 weeks for a small piece of plastic? So it's been over 3 weeks. I call back asking about it. Oh, yeah, now they tell me it's actually 3 to 4 weeks. My thoughts, post this question to twitter, get instant part.

I'll try to keep the blog to more in-depth thoughts and writings, twitter for the more A-D-D style quick stuff. I'm also on facebook as most of you know, but I don't post on there a lot. So yes, I'm a product of the crap I normally don't care for... blog, facebook, and twitter.

So, feel free to follow me on twitter @ryansbeer

On a beer note, Haven't really done much. I need to brew again here soon.

Prost!

-Ryan

I drink ze beer from ze glass..

Happy Belated Birthday to me. 

I was not sharing that.

So I turned 30. It feels a little weird. I feel like I should be more responsible or something. So what do I do to counter that feeling? I drink ze beer from das boot. What's that you ask? Most Das Boot's are 2 liters in size, along with a whole game that you can google. Also R2 (aka Ryan J aka my sister-in-laws boyfriend) and I attempted to each eat a meter of sausage. We both lost. My buddy Tony finished the meter challenge, with a small help. Now I'm just getting hungry.

So in an attempt to update this a little more often I figured I'd throw out some updates. I tapped Bubba's brew, but it is not ready yet. Good beginning flavor but a *strong* sour note at the end. I really hope time will tame that out and that I didn't get wild yeast in there somehow. My What the Helle continues to lager in the second fridge.

I was given multiple gift cards to my favorite place, Midwest Supplies, so I'll need to find some more stuff to get :) For my fellow brewers, please be careful when moving your glass carboys. One of the employees at Midwest was seriously injured when he dropped one. Check out that story here.

I'll leave you all with these gems:

So much meat.

What the Helle is going on with Bubba's Brew?!?!

Let me begin with saying Happy Holidays and a Happy 2012 New Years!! Yeah, that's only 14 days late. So I've been meaning to update my blog for a while now, but things just keep coming up. Lame excuse. So, how about some updates then if you're too damn busy to update your blog, slacker.

Beer: What the Helle, my Munich style Helle (German for light) is coming along nicely. Being a lager beer, it takes a long time to ferment at colder temps. I had it in the basement for a month before racking it to my secondary fermentor. I then brought it to some warmer temps (i.e. my closet) for a few days so it could rest. This morning I put it in the 2nd fridge to start the lagering process. At this point the beer is done fermenting, but what the cold temps of the fridge does is allows the beer to age and drops out any leftover yeast or sediment from brewing. This style beer should be super clear in the glass. The beer that is the background to my blog is the Munch Helle, actually at Octoberfest in Munich, Germany when I went. It was there that I decided I wanted to start brewing all-grain style after talking with a buddy. I'm thinking the Helle should be done sometime around March.

Bubba's brew on the left, What the Helle on the right. 

Bubba's brew was an interesting beast. I made the yeast starter as I showed in the last post. Being that I've never worked with a Belgium yeast before I didn't really know what to expect. Christmas day after being out with the family the whole day and out of the house, I came back and opened the door to the office where I keep my ale beers when fermenting and there was a **VERY** strong brewhouse smell. Now, I love the smell of a brewery, but this my friends was a little too much. I was actually scared that my work clothes which I keep in the closet in the office would smell like a brewery. I know some of my coworkers wouldn't mind (Lee, Christian, Walski), but I don't think my boss would care too much for that. Lucky for me after another 24 hours the smell went away and my cloths did not smell like a brewery. After hanging out in that glass container for a little over 2 weeks, I pulled the gravity reading on it to see if it was done. Yes, it was very done. Final ABV: 7.8%. Wow. This is my strongest beer to date. Let's hope it tastes good. Its been sitting in the keg carbonating now for a week. I just moved it to the lower psi of CO2 and I'll start the aging process. Should be ready to brew just after my birthday (End of January).

Other Things: So, why not give an update of what I've done since brewing Bubba's Brew. The holidays were "classic" to say the least. Christmas Eve we go to my mom's, Christmas Day we go to Erin's parents, then Christmas Day Dinner we have with both families. I really enjoy that our two families really are one. Needless to say I wasn't at my house a lot, which is fine. I'm sure we all feel a little crazy around the holidays. With starting the new job I no longer have shutdown week like I did at my last job. Shutdown week was the week between Christmas and New Years which they gave that week off. Years past I've spent that time with my brother who would fly in from out of town. Due to travel issues he was not able to make it this year, which I guess was good being that I didn't have any time off. Instead I was very deep into my work project which involved digging deep into my brain for my Java programming skills that I did 10 years ago in college. It's amazing how quick you can pick some of that stuff back up again. New years eve we went to Green Bay to visit Erin's cousin and go to the New Years day Packer game. More about the game in a minute.

New Years Eve is when I meet Tim Ek. Ok, ready, prepare yourself.. Tim is Erin's cousin's fiance's sister's husband. Tim is a big time biker (peddle, not vroom vroom) and also runs a blog: http://timekchronicles.blogspot.com/ Tim just so happens to be sponsored by the bike company I've been watching for a while, Salsa Cycles. I've wanted to build a bike for a while, but never really pulled the trigger. He informed me that the frame I've been looking at for some time was no longer made, the Ala Carte. Well Tim, I found a frame on ebay, brand spankin new and I pulled the trigger. Along with his help I plan on getting back on the mountain bike more and a little less on the street bike. Don't worry Erin, I'll still ride the street bike with you. I'm sure I'll update this blog with the bike build info.

Sexy bike frame is Sexy

Some people might ask "Why the hell do you want to build a bike when you can just go out and buy one?". If you haven't figured out from my blog yet, there's some things I just like to do on my own. I've been building my own computers since I was 15. I've actually only had 2 computer cases my whole life, but I've ran more parts through them then I can count. Even with beer, I could go to the store and buy beer, which I do, but I still enjoy the fruits of my labor in brewing it myself. So, me wanting to build a bike from scratch shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone. If I had the space, funding, and time I'd build an old car ('68 Mustang Fastback or '43 Willys Jeep). 

Getting back on track, New Year eve was good times. The Packers game was wonderful (we won) and overall it was nice seeing the Green Bay people. I'd post pictures but I spent the last hour searching Erin's computer for them while she's sleeping with no luck. On a side note I did finally setup nightly backups for her laptop and realized that my nightly backups profile somehow was erased. Not good. Needless to say after 2 weekends of lots of travel, I was ready to relax and not leave the house. 

I still have yet to figure out my next brew, but I know Sophie's Stout is already half gone and the Wet Ted is cached. I'm guessing I'll do another Sophie's stout, but I'll need to figure out a few more ale's. Any suggestions?

I'll leave you all with this year's holiday card photo:

From my family to yours, Happy 2012. 

Prost!

Ryan 

Twas the day before the night before Christmas.. Bubba's Brew

A few months ago my friend Lauren asked me to do some work on her car. She offered to pay but I gave her the standard friend price of "just buy me some beer". Being the bitch she is, she also got me a gift card to Midwest Supplies. Her request was to brew a beer "with a kick ass name". After a few ideas, I came up with Bubba's Brew. My typical recipe design process goes: Style of beer to make, Name, Research and build the recipe. Let's go back to the beginning of August.

The place that changed it all

Back in August Erin and I did our East Coast Invasion to visit our friends Bobby and Heather for their wedding. Part of the east coast trip was to go up to Maine to visit a large amount of breweries. As many of you know, I hate(d) Belgium beers. I think it was the fact that I never found one that I actually liked. I also really didn't care for the after-taste of most Belgium beers (called "spicy"). When the four of us walked into Allagash Brewing I quickly noticed all the beers were Belgium style beers. Shit. It was our first brewery of three for the day. I always try to go into new foods and beer with an open mind. Even though I thought I'd hate the beers, I tried them anyways. Allagash's staple beer is called "Allagash White". That beer changed my beer life. Seriously, no shit. I finally found a Belgium I liked. Hell, I loved it. It was love at first sip. The more and more I had that beer, the more and more I loved it. By the time we left our vacation I was on a mission to find something like Allagash out here in Minnesota. Nothing quite like Allagash White, but I've found a few good brews (Avery White Rascal is up there).

Allagash Test Brewery and where it all started for them. Looks like my buddy Ted's setup. 

Fast forward to now. So, Bubba's Brew. First off, let's have a look at that big boy. 

Bubba and Lauren aka Mom

Bubba is a white miniature bulldog. Being an all white dog, it made it easy for me to decide to make a Belgium White with Allagash White as my inspiration. Now, if I thought that Allagash White was a tasty beer, I got a lot more respect for it when I started researching and figured out how tricky it is to make a quality Belgium beer. I'll tell you this much, to do it right this shit is not easy. Longer mash times, longer batch times, longer boil times. Everything just takes longer. So after googling around I found a thread on some forum where someone actually contacted one of the Allagash brewers to find out the grain bill for their white. Awesome! Now I have a great plan of attack for making mine. Some of the other tricks to a quality Belgium is using ingredients I've never used before such as bitter orange peel and coriander seed. Before starting any of this, I need to make a yeast starter. 

Yeah... dirty desk. 

I made the yeast starter 2 days before. I started the brew day knowing that things would be longer. With some changes to the brewing setup to fix my thermometer issues, I found that I'm actually able to heat up my strike and batch water quicker. I was very happy to see everything moving smoothly. I also ran with two thermometers to make sure everything was correct temp wise. I was very happy to see everything was spot on. 

Temp Gauge mounted to side of the kettle. I should have done this a long time ago

Brew day setup. Hot Liquid tank on the burner, Mash tun (orange cooler) and the boil kettle on the ground

Items used on Bubba's Brew. White bag is Belgium Rock Candi

Inside the mash tun. Smells great

First run off of the mash

Another shot of the first run off of the mash

The boil

Now, from my last entry you all read about how I was happy I was finally able to hit my numbers again. Well everyone, for this brew not only did I hit my numbers but I actually did better then I expected. I pulled more sugars off the grains then I expected. There's something called brewing efficiency which I believe I've talked about before. I have my brewing software setup for a 70% efficiency. I actually hit 75% which made me happy. With hitting the better numbers, Bubba's brew is looking to be a strong beer. I had an original gravity (O.G.) of 1.064. Depending on how the beer finish out, I'm look at what could be a 7% abv beer. Damn. Strongest beer made by me yet if it does hit that number. 

I think your beer will taste better ;)

Prost!

-Ryan

Back in Business

Greetings All

So after taking a year and a half off, I've once again brewed a helle. I finally got off my ass and brewed my "What the Helle". I designed this recipe shortly after switching to all grain, yet never got around to brewing it. I do want to dive in a little deeper why. I'm going to apologize now for going emo on you all. 

As I may have explained in some of my past posts along with emails to brewing friends and talking to others, I've been having major temperature issues. Why this is such a big issue is because temperature of the grain during the mash process allows the grain to convert to sugars. Too high temp or too low temp and the sugar conversion either won't happen or won't have as much sugar converted. Sugar conversion is measured in what's called gravity. The brewing software I use will give me an estimated original (beginning) gravity. It's not a big deal to be plus or minus say 5 points or so, but I've been low. I'm not talking 5, 10, or even 15 points low, I'm talking 20 to 40 points low. This is just horrible. Honestly this issue has been playing games with my head and been kind of bumming me out on my brewing ability. What is causing this temperature issue is my thermostats keep crapping out on me.

I went a little overboard to compensate for my problem. I installed Blichmann Brewmometers in my hot liquid tank and brew kettle. Along with that I've been running two thermometers while mashing. 

Shitty cellphone picture. Up yours broken thermometers

Well, that fixed my issue. "What the Helle" had an est original gravity of 1.056, I hit 1.054. You have no clue how good that makes me feel. I actually have a new found urge to brew more. I'm actually pretty excited. 

On a side note I just kegged up the Sophie Stout. Should be interesting to see how it tastes. I'll do another later this winter that isn't messed up. 

Prost!

-Ryan