Black IPA and Free-range Eggs

Today we were able to squeeze in a brew before Elise's parents head back to Tampa. We've got mostly malty on tap with the black lager and the Dubbel, so we decided to make an IPA. We haven't made our black IPA in a while, so we thought we would stay with the "dark" persuasion and make it a black IPA. 

This is a clone of Stone's Sublimely Self Righteous which is made with Chinook, Simcoe, and Amarillo hops. We are able to get Chinook and Simcoe, but Amarillo hops are unavailable so we subbed Centennial. I ordered more hops online than I thought, so we used an extra ounce of Centennial at the end of the boil and will add an another ounce of Simcoe to the dry hop. 

I have been having some issues with efficiency and final volume since moving to NC. Our efficiency has been a little lower and I have been ending up with a little less than 5 gallons in the fermenter. I decided to try to start with a little higher boil volume an just accept that the efficiency will be a little lower for now. During the boil I was worried I would have too much volume so I turned up the burner towards the end. I did boil more off, but over did it a bit, and finished with a tad under 5 gallons. 

We will reuse the yeast from the pale ale and expect to drink this one in about 3 weeks. It's a higher gravity beer and will be a little over 7%, so hopefully Elise will be a little more tolerant of higher alcohol beers by then (after a 9 month drinking hiatus). 

Every time we brew, I never know what to do with the spent grain. I hate being wasteful and throwing stuff away, but I never have a good use for the grain. We could make dog treats, but that only uses a cup (out of 10-12 pounds). I had read somewhere that the grain is good chicken feed, and so I decided to put an add on Craigslist seeing if any chicken farmers in the area could use the grain. I had someone respond in less than 10 minutes and made plans to hand the grains off. In return, the chicken farmer left us a half-dozen free-range eggs! I have never had a fresh egg before, so tomorrow will be an interesting breakfast when Elise makes me a biscuit egg sandwich.  

More Kegs!

Now that we’ve got 2 beers on tap (soon to be 3) and more brews planned out in the future, we are running out of kegs. To keep our pipeline steady, we need to have extra kegs carbonating in the kegerator. There is room for 5 in there, so if we have 3 on tap, we could potentially fit another 2 kegs. Those 2 beers could be carbonating (and lagering if they’re lagers) while we wait to empty the current beers. That way, when one keg is empty, we’ll have the “on-deck” beers to change out and  they’ll be ready to drink right away instead of having to wait a week like we normally do.

I recently found some cash in an old drawer and thought it would be put to good use buying some equipment off Craig’s List. I have been using Google Reader to search Craigslist for homebrew equipment over the past few years, and it was how I was able to find our kegerator. Luckily for me, the service is still operational until the end of this month (http://www.denverpost.com/technology/ci_23435727/googles-reader-is-going-away-but-you-have). I did a quick search after the brew session and found a post for some used kegs at $45/each that were posted earlier in the day. Normally, to buy online, new kegs are around $130 and used about $60 + shipping. Needless to say, $45 is a pretty good price, and most other people agree as used kegs don’t typically last long on Craig’s List.

We got another 2 kegs, which now brings our total to a modest 6. I would still like to grow that number so we could do our high-gravity seasonal beers (like our Snow and Russian Imperial Stout) in kegs. Those beers really have to be aged to get the best beer, so if we could avoid bottling and have enough kegs to age in the keg, that would be ideal. Also, in a year or 2, we are going to upgrade the kegerator to a chest freezer which will be able to support upwards of 8 kegs, but we’ll probably keep it to 4 on tap. With the extra room, we’ll have plenty of beer on deck and we can make more lagers and lager them properly for a few months before we serve. In all, we’ll slowly grow the supply when good deals pop up on Craig’s List, probably to about 10-12 kegs.

Next beer planned is going to be the Black IPA (Sublimely Self-Righteous Clone). We are thinking probably Next Saturday or Sunday. The Pale Ale is done fermenting now, and we'll give the yeast a couple more days to clean up before we cold crash and then keg. Hopefully we'll be drinking that beer in about 10 more days. 

Belgian Dubbel & Hop Update

Now that Elise’s parents are in town to help with the impending arrival of Cody, I was able to get a brew session in. The dubbel is now on tap and as soon as Cody arrives we’ll open the Schwarzbier for business. As both are of the darker persuasion, and neither is hoppy, I thought a pale ale would be a good Summer beer. We’ll make an IPA soon, but I wanted something a little tamer on tap for Elise as she’ll need some time to get back into the swing of things.

This grist is essentially the same we’ve done for our Double Pale Ale in the past which is a combination of  Crystal 40L and Carapils and a small amount of Crystal 60L for some more color. The hop bill will be different this time around though. The online site I buy hops from is all out of Amarillo for the season (which we normally use), so this time we’ll sub some Ahtanum hops. They are florally/citrusy like Amarillo, but a little more herby and definitely less grape-fruity than Amarillo. We’ll bitter with Chinook, then a combination of Ahtanum + Centennial + Chinook as our aroma hops/dry hop.

The brew day itself was uneventual; so much in fact, it was one of the fastest days I can remember. Normally, with a 60 minute boil, from start to finish (everything cleaned) I usually take 4-4.5 hours. On Saturday, I started at 7 and was completely done by 1040. The original gravity came out to about 1056, which should yield a respectable 5.4-5.6% alcohol in the final product. I’ll let this one ferment for about 10 days, then cold crash for 3 days, and then it’ll be kegged. Hopefully, this one will be ready to drink on tap in about 3 weeks.

In other news, the hops are growing up the house nicely. They have definitely used the extra climbing height we gave them this year as a few bines have already reached the roof. I’ve been having some issues with fertilizers (I think?) as the leaves are a little yellow, especially near the bottom. Hopefully it’s nothing to worry about and the hot weather that is coming will make for some good growing conditions. I haven’t seen any bines yet this year, but we still have a few months before harvest season starts. Looking back at old pictures from last year, we didnt have any cones until around the end of July, so we're still on track as of now. Hopefully we'll get enough hops to make a beer this year. 

Centennial

Newport 

Easing Back In

Only 6 weeks left in the residency. Working 70 hr weeks of 12 days on followed by 2 days off has taken its tole on Rowdy Reptile. The last time we brewed February (Schwarz) which we are saving until Elise can drink again. We still have the Pale Ale on tap and it is tasting great at this point. It's got a little bit of bitterness and a good hop aroma. Nothing brash and in your face, but a good beer to sip on. The Belgian Pale Ale is still there, but I think it's now past its prime and I'll probably be dumping it eventually to make room if it's not gone before then.

As I was writing about it, I decided to go pour a pale ale, and wouldn't you know, the hop aroma was getting so good because it was about empty! Now it's completely empty. Of course. Great. Back to nothing on tap.

In other news, I am going to be able to squeeze a brew in this weekend, and since I have the ingredients on hand, I am going to take another crack at a Belgian Dubbel. This time I'll use a commercial Amber Candi Sugar product (instead of trying to make my own). Otherwise, the base malt is about the same from previous batches. I made the starter tonight and will be brewing on Saturday after work.

Usually I make the starters (pic above) with enough time for them to ferment out and then cold crash in fridge. This was on short notice, so I'll be pitching the yeast at high krausen; basically when the fermentation in the starter is in full-swing. Hopefully the old yeast (Sept 2012....) still has some life left and the starter can grow enough new yeast to be able to ferment this one out like a dubbel should. I assume we'll be drinking this one in about 6-8 weeks

The hops are back again this year. The pic on the left is of the Centennials, and on the right is the Newport. The Centennials are growing a lot quicker than the Newport and the longest bine is about 10 feet high. This year we were able to string some trellis' up the side of the house to give the bines a little more room to climb and hopefully produce some more cones.

The next planned brew day is probably not going to be until around Cody is born and Elise's parents are in town to help (last week of June). With the extra help around I'll try to sneak away and brew an IPA. After that, I have a week off in July before I start my real job, and I'll brew a Summer beer: Pale, Saison, or Wit. We'll see if that even gets to happen, I hope it does as we'll need some lighter beers to balance the dubbel and schwarz.

With the residency ending and more people around to help drink, I hope that we can start brewing back up where we left off 12 months ago. Once we've got a nice stockpile going we can then start making the fun, experimental beers likes Bier de Mars, 100% Brett beers, and some stuff with oak. This year we didn't have time to make our Anniversary Barleywine or any of our winter beers, so hopefully this summer we can make some for the winter.

Schwarz and Pale Ale Update

Today I was off and was able to squeeze in a brew. We don't have much variety to choose from the malty-persuasion, so I thought it would be a good time to brew a Schwarzbier. We are going to do the same recipe that we had during my graduation and I hope this one is as good as that one. The water here in NC isn't as favorable for brewing dark beers due to the softness of the water, but hopefully the added carbonates to the mash from the baking soda and chalk that I added will make up for that. We probably won't drink this one for 4-5 months when Elise can start drinking again, so hopefully it will be very smooth after the long aging process.

As for the pale ale, it is a decent beer. It took a little longer than expected to carbonate and was therefore lacking any crispness, but now that it is carbonated properly, I am much happier with it. It's not overly bitter, but for a pale, I would like a little more "bite" next time.

I think the next IPA we brew will be much different than past ones. After reading a book about IPA, I saw a water profile a pro brewery uses and was surprised by how high their sulfate and calcium levels were. I am definitely going to start playing with higher levels of those minerals in our hoppy beers to hopefully accentuate the hoppy profile. We are also going to brew a few recipes from the IPA book like Firestone Walker and Stone before we try our hand at an original recipe again.

Hopefully we'll be able to brew 3-4 more times in the next 5 months before the little one is here. I am thinking an IPA, a dubbel, a brown, and maybe another saison, but who knows how much time we'll have.

#TeamDietrich

2012 In Review

Each year I like to do a little review of some of the data we keep about our brewing. This year, surprisingly, was pretty similar to previous years in the amount of beer we brewed, but our costs were higher overall as we bought the kegerator and all the parts that go along with that. This was the first year in which we have had to dump a beer. Because I didn’t clean the new kegs well enough, we had to dump a Schwarzbier and a Brown Ale. I counted those beer’s volumes, but not as separate batches of beer.

2012:
Beers Brewed: 19
Gallons: 94.25 gallons
Cost/bottle: $1.61
Cost/bottle (ingredients only): $0.62

Last year’s cost/bottle: $0.97 (ingredient only: $0.60)

Overall, not a bad price for good beer, when you consider that a decent 6-pack of beer is running about $9/six pack.

For 2013, I don’t think we have any specific brewing goals in mind. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with our beers right now. I think that several of them could use a tiny bit of tweaking to take them from good to outstanding, but time’s not really on our side right now. Our friends and family enjoy our brews and that is what’s most important. Hopefully in the Spring we’ll be able to add a little variety to the lineup with something malty (like a Dubbel) and something refreshing for the Summer (like a Saison).

#teamDietrich

Last brew of 2012

It’s December, and the residency will be calm for the next week and a half, so I had some time to make a quick post and update everyone (if anyone is still reading after the hiatus) on what’s been going on at Rowdy Reptile. Over the past 3 months I have completed rotations in the Surgical/Trauma ICU, Emergency Department, and the Cardiac ICU; needless to say, I haven’t had any time to think about beer. The family has been so busy we haven’t brewed a beer in over 4 months! We knew not brewing for that long would eventually catch up to us, and it finally did last week. Previously, we had the Porter, BPA, and Gatorbait Pale Ale on tap and everything was fine. Then the Pale Ale kicked. A few days later the porter was empty, and 1 day after that the BPA kicked.

No beer on tap? At the Dietrich’s? Maybe the Mayans were right…..

Anyway, we’ve got a few bottles of the Saison left and plenty of the RIS and First Snow to last for a while. However, all 3 of those are big beers (7.3, 8.9, and 8.9% alcohol) and none of them are hoppy. And you always need at least 1 hoppy beer, right? Right. #America.

With family coming into town, and the relative “break” in the residency, we will have time to squeeze in a brew day on the 23rd. We are planning to make our Double Pale Ale (now for the 4th time) with the only modification being in one of the hops. Amarillo hops are now $3.80/oz (normally they are about $2), so I subbed those out for Falconer’s Flight. We’ll still keep the same timing on the hop schedule, and then dry hop with an ounce of Falconer’s Flight. Hopefully this one will be ready to drink by mid-February.

#teamDietrich