Two beers in secondary

I've never had this before: Two beers in secondary fermentation...



On the left is the Pooh's Blustery Ale and on the right is the Strong American Ale



There's just under 5 gallons here...



...and roughly 6 here!

I'm gonna need another keg!

I like this...

I pitched that AB clone onto the yeast cake from the Blustery Ale and it's taking off like a rocket! I pitched it about 45 minutes ago and the airlock's already bubbling. Another plus, I only end up cleaning the primary fermentor half as often this way. Ditto for the secondary.

Another brew night!

Pooh's Blustery Ale has been racked off to the secondary and now a second batch of that AB clone, in this case "A Modest Strong Ale", is bubbling away on the stove. The Blustery Ale does smell like honey, so that little twist seems to have worked.





The dogs really love it when I brew beer. My wife takes the spent grain and make dog biscuits with it.

Aaarrrggggh!

The keg's empty!

Pooh's Blustery Ale

Odd how the mind wanders about some days...

"If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee."

Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey."
And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." So he began to climb the tree.

OK... So I really like that strong American ale I made about a month ago. I want to make another batch, but part of the "secret sauce" is the ginormous starter I pitched the beer onto. Last time, I used an unhopped wort from DME to make a big starter. I racked off the resulting unhopped beer and I set aside about a gallon in a vented jar. I poured a little vinegar with live acetobacter in it and now it's turning into malt vinegar. I don't need another gallon of the stuff, so why not make an actual beer instead?!

So today's recipe started out as an excuse to grow some more Wyeast 1272 American Ale II yeast. However, I also got a hanckering to make a pale ale. Thus far I've been making darker beers; nothing really appropriate for summer. So I decided to make an American Pale Ale with a twist. I decided to add some honey for a bit of spice and aroma. This is a recipe that's come straight outta my own oddyknocky. If it doesn't pan out, I have no one to blame but myself!

So today's brew day and I wake up to the sound of the wind blowing. What goes thought my mind? The phrase "Blustery day"; an occupational hazard of being a parent I suppose. So what comes next? Well, it's a blustery day and I'm making a golden bear colored yellow ale with honey in it. This must be "Pooh's Blustery Ale".

From Beersmith...

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal      
Boil Size: 6.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 5.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 44.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU      
8.00 lb       Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            Grain        78.05 %       
0.75 lb       Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)                     Grain        7.32 %        
0.50 lb       Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)              Grain        4.88 %        
0.75 oz       Chinook [13.00 %]  (60 min)               Hops         35.4 IBU      
0.25 oz       Chinook [13.00 %]  (30 min)               Hops         9.1 IBU       
0.25 oz       Willamette [5.50 %]  (0 min)              Hops          -            
0.25 tsp      Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min)                Misc             
1.00 lb       Honey (1.0 SRM)                           Sugar        9.76 %
(Added at the end of the boil)                     

1 Pkgs        American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272)       Yeast-Ale                  


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 9.25 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp     
75 min        Mash In            Add 11.56 qt of water at 164.9 F    150.0 F       
10 min        Mash Out           Add 7.40 qt of water at 201.6 F     168.0 F  

I've been writing this as I go. The software predicted the mash temperatures very closely. I like this program. I've been trying out Promash, but I think that I like Beersmith better. For those of you using Linux, Beersmith, like Promash, runs well under Wine.

An addendum: Beersmith also nailed the estimated starting gravity. The estimate was 1.057; I measured 1.056. I can't be sure with all of the foam kicked up in the fermentor, but it also looks like the program nailed the post-boil volume as well.

Wow... That keg's almost empty!

I didn't think that I could go through that much beer so quickly!

I just bottled some of that AB clone using a homemade beer gun; about 2½ 6-packs worth. I picked up the keg and it almost flew out of my hands. I guess it's time to make more!

The beer was well received at last Sunday's meeting of the Maltose Falcons. I used Wyeast 1272 American Ale II which doesn't attenuate as much as the dry English ale yeasts that most people seem to use for a beer like this. I ended up with a beer with more residual sweetness that played well with the hoppiness of all that Chinook.

Have I mentioned how cool this is having beer on tap? OK... I may have.

Beer on tap...

OK... It's only been 24 20 hours, but I really like the way that beer turned out. And did I mention how cool this is having beer on tap?

Kegging time

And by that title, you ought to be able to guess that I took the plunge and bought kegging gear.

I took that AB(-ish) clone and racked it off into the keg. There's roughly 4.5 gallons. I'm playing a trick that I read about to speed things up a bit. I've got the keg on its side and I'm shacking it until it stops loudly taking gas. This exposes more of the beer's surface area to the gas and speeds up absorption. The ideal keg, from a carbonation standpoint, would be one that's very broad and shallow such that a thin film of beer would cover the bottom. In that case, all of the beer would be exposed to the gas. In a real keg, however, the beer at the bottom of the keg is, in essence, protected from the gas by what's on top.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm an engineer?

If I do this right, the beer should be ready to go by Sunday.

Mmmmm... Beer.

That AB clone is turning out nice. I just transfered it to the secondary. The ABV is ~7%, the color is good, and the balance of hops and sweetness is good...



I know... AB isn't really an all-Chinook recipe. But I had a freezer full of the little lovelies from my over achieving plant.

And now, let's get back to the beer

Enough mocking the Church of Warmingtology... Let's talk about beer! (OK... so the COW will have a cow over my CO₂ footprint, but that can't be helped.)

After way too long a pause, I've started another batch of homebrew. This time I'm going for an American Strong Ale (an Arrogant Bastard clone). Tonight, I got the yeast started and I plan to pitch the brew onto that yeast cake this weekend. I brewed up a gallon and a half of unhopped wort to get the wee yeasties going. After I rack off the liquid, I may try my hand at making a malt vinegar. The recipe I'm using is...

• Grain
• 12 lb. two-row malt
• 1.25 lb. Crystal (120L)
• .75 lb DME (I added this when the SG didn't end up as high as I wanted)
• Hops
• 1.5 Oz. Chinook (whole), 60 min.
• 1.0 Oz. Chinook (whole), 30 min.
• 1.0 Oz. Chinook (whole), flame out (I added a wee bit more that was left in the bag.)
• Irish moss at 15 min.
  

EPIC FAIL!

This week, the gurus of glorrible warming were forced to cancel a hearing before a U.S. Senate committee due to "inclement weather"...

UPDATE: The following Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearings have been postponed due to inclement weather this week:

- The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, will hold a hearing entitled, "Collaborative Solutions to Wildlife and Habitat Management."

- The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States."

(Yes, I bolded that last part.)

This makes no sense...

Sure, the Dems have wished for decades to impose universal health care. Each of them since Franklin Roosevelt has recognized that they'd have every American by the short and curlies if they could just pull this off. Obama is no different. He says that he's not giving up on health reform; even after the drubbings the Party has taken in elections where Republicans made health care an, or the, issue. One would think that at some point they'd realize that this is a suicide mission. I guess not.

I really ought to update this more often...

No, I haven't forgotten the password or something stupid like that. I've just been lazy.

I guess the teleprompter called "BS"...

TOTUS' favorite electronic device has finally had enough...

Why do we "cling" to our guns?

So what is it that motivates us clingy gun owners? Why the obsession with guns? This clip from Iran (Be forewarned: This is extremely graphic and disturbing. Do not click the link if you are easily offended.) shows what happens when the government holds a monopoly on violence.

Across Iran, the people have been protesting an obviously fraudulent election. Government thugs, the Basij, have felt free to employ whatever violence they please to put down this growing insurrection. This includes firing on unarmed civilians, such as poor Neda. Reports say that she and her father weren't even involved in the protests, but were merely observing from some distance when she was shot by a sniper. Neda, whose name means "voice" in Farsi, was silenced by her own government.

There are those who will say that "this can never happen here". No, it can't. But why can't it happen here? It can't happen here because our government doesn't hold a monopoly on violence or the means by which one can do violence. More importantly, it knows this and has known it for over 200 years. No American leader would even think of suppressing protests the way that a foreign dictator would. The dictator knows that his subjects are unarmed and can be beaten down in whatever fashion pleases him. In the US, any politician aspiring to similar oppression knows from the start that we aren't unarmed subjects; we're armed citizens. He knows that against even a fraction of the nation's 100,000,000 gun owners, he doesn't stand a chance; thus he wouldn't even try.

Hence the obsession.

But this can change. Gun owners won a major victory in Heller, however that victory can be lost through apathy. If we allow our rights to slip away a little at a time, there may come a time when an American father will have to watch his 16-year old daughter die before his eyes; unable to defend her, fight back, or do anymore than wail in grief for his Neda.

Speaking of beer...

My hops plants have sprouted. The Willamette in the front yard is really a happy camper this year. It's already putting out bines and it's begun looking for places to climb. The Chinook in the back yard has just come up. Pics to follow.

It's either a tribute to my patience...

...or my laziness.

Remember this batch? I brewed it on New Year's Day. Well... I finally got around to bottling it.

Obamanomics...

DOW Loves the Stimulus..Down 258

...-260 as I write this.

Crude analogies come to mind...

...about doing something "just a little", but I'll pass.

Kevin Yamamura, Steve Wiegand and Jim Sanders of the Sacramento Bee characterized the Democrats' planned $14,300,000,000 worth of tax hikes in the current budget scheme as "temporary". There is no such thing as a temporary tax increase. Do you remember the Spanish-American War Tax? That was supposed to be temporary too. It's like a frickin' zombie! It keeps coming back!!

America held hostage: Day 1

His Obammyness hasn't even been in his new crib for 24 hours and the market's taken a big crap. Off 332.13 on Obammyday.