rain, rain, rain ... and more rain!

We have gotten nothing but rain it seems since I first set my hop rhizomes in the ground. I know plants like water, especially when they first get put in the ground, but I am beginning to wonder if they are drowning in their bed. 

If it were a light rain, I likely wouldn't be too concerned. However, it has been coming down in buckets -- everyday! The frogs sure have been loving it, though, as they are outside just a-singin' right now. 

I did notice the other day that all my topsoil has basically been washed down the hill. I will need to throw some more down once these storms pass. Luckily, the weatherman has predicted no/little chance of rain for the next 3 or 4 days. 

On another note, I have figured out what my trellis setup shall be. It should be relatively cheap and will be convenient to work come harvest time. 

I figured I will use two different diameter gas pipes so that one could fit down inside the other in a telescopic type setup. I could drill and tap a hole in each pipe then stick a bolt and nut through to hold it at the right height during the growth period, then come harvest time, I could slide the inner pole down as I harvest the hops.

So all I would need for the setup is either 4 or 6 lengths of two different diameters of 10' pipe (haven't quite figured out spacing yet), some rope for the hop bines to climb on, some concrete, and some guy wire to keep the poles in place during windy weather. Come harvest time, I would unthread the bolts, and slide the inner pipe down, and harvest. 

Nice and simple! Of course, it looks good on paper. We shall see how well that turns out in a few months or so. 

n-ARRROW-ing in on it ....

Since I emptied out a carboy on Friday night, that meant I had an empty carboy and, of course, that means I must brew again. I have two more kits here awaiting such a task and I picked the Mighty Arrow clone kit to brew.

Mighty Arrow is made by New Belgium brewery and is billed as an "aggressively hopped pale ale". It is really good and I am hopeful that this recipe kit follows pretty close to the original. If it does, I will definitely be brewing this one again!

I am still refining my process since getting a 7.5 gallon brewpot. Trying to get a good, rolling boil out of 5 gallons of water on an electric stove has been largely unsuccessful. I have found that if I put half in each brewpot, that I have a much better boil, and a good boil goes a long way to removing impurities -- which can lead to unpleasant flavors as I have read.

I brought two gallons of water up to 160* then added the grain bag and steeped at 155* for 45 minutes. In the meantime, I brought two more gallons up to 170*. After that 45 minutes, I poured 6 cups over the grains and removed them.

This is the part I did different. I split the extract into each pot, and brought both to a boil. I have read about late additions on the extract which tends to lead to a hoppier beer. I went ahead and just kept the other pot at a rolling boil stirring frequently, while adding my hops to the 7.5 gallon pot. At the last addition of hops (15 minutes before finishing) I added the extract that had been boiling in the other pot, along with some Irish Moss, and yeast fuel.

I got a little sloppy with the ice and a couple cubes went into the wort. DOH! I am sure it isn't enough to make a difference, but am hopeful that they don't introduce any off-flavors.

I got the wort chilled down to 80* in my usual 20 minute-ish time frame, and then racked it into the primary. I took a gravity reading and got an OG of 1.050, which was a little low, but I attribute that to the late addition as I have read that does affect the OG as well as the flavor.

Last time, I had to add an extra gallon of water, post-boil, to bring the volume up to 5 gallons. This time I only had to add a half gallon.

I am zeroing in on this full boil, I think.  ; )

beer! beer! beer! beer! .... and more beer!

Okay, so tonight was a bit bittersweet! I reckon I should get used to it.   ; )

Dad and I finished off the LAST of my first batch of brew ... an English Brown Ale with some roasted nuts and mocha beans added in. It was pretty tasty from once it was bottle conditioned, so was really psyched to find what it may taste like once it matured.

It really didn't taste any better (nor worse) than when it was first carbonated.  I have heard that the longer you leave (most) homebrews, the better they will taste. I guess ales are the exception. It didn't taste any worse, just not any better, despite aging.

Oh well.

After downing the last two (each) I moved on to some of my bocks (the second batch). While drinking those I fnally was able to bottle my fifth batch (a milk stout). Of course, this meant another gravity reading and, another sampling. 

I added a tablespoon of cocoa and a teaspoon of vanilla along with the DME that is used for priming and  bottle conditioning (awakening the yeast) to facilitate carbonation. The cocoa and vanilla were added to create more of a chocolate milk-type flavor. This stemmed from a Terrapin MooHoo stout that Dad and I had tasted a couple months ago that was just ... amazing!

Sooooo ............. anyway, tonight was *finally* the night to bottle the stout (basically an attempted replica of a MooHoo) . I was able to rack it into bottles, get a FG reading (1.020) and, of course, taste it. The chocolate flavor was a bit overbearing, in my opinion, but not horrible. I am hopeful, as I was with the previous brew (my attempted "IPA") that after bottle conditioning it (and time, in this case) it will balance out more.

Tonight, was the first time I broke a bottle during the capping procedure. I apparently had the bottle cap twisted a bit; and SNAP ... for the first time a bottle cap had the neck of a bottle (glass) attached to it. Damn! oh well, I guess it works out to more to sample.    ; )

The flavor of the stout was tasty with a very (maybe too much so?) chocolate flavor up front and after swallowing. Again, am hopeful as with the IPA I tried, and was (initially) dissatisfied with, that it will get better with time. Admittedly, it wasn't bad, just not what I had expected..

Sooo maybe with time (will know in another month) if it will be what I hoped for. This damned hobby requires more patience than I can exhibit sometimes!

At least the carboy is cleaned out and ready for the next batch (likely tomorrow night).

hop garden pt. 2

So today the weather (and timing) cooperated enough to allow me to get out and set my hop rhizomes into the ground. I set all the plants  I had in about 22 wells.

Each well was  a "square" hole the width of one shovel per side and the length of the shovel blade deep. Instead of putting the old dirt (clay actually) back in the hole, I set the rhizome in  a bed of fertilizer, then covered with the typical Tennessee clay-mud that is prominent here, and topped off with yet another layer of fertilizer.

I only did it this way as I had but two 40 lb. bags of fertilizer and waaayy too many plants compared to fertilizer. If I had gotten a third bag, I likely would've been able to fill each well with nothing but fertilizer. Of course, this was my first time, so I really didn't know what to expect and underpurchased rather than bought too much. Oh well, live and learn.

Some of those wells contained two or three of the smaller rhyzomes, but about 4 or 5 wells were single plants. When it was all said and done, I wound up with two rows of plants -- one row with 12 wells, the other had 10. Upon setting the last plant in the ground, I sprayed each down with some water.

Tomorrow we are due to get some pretty significant rain so I am pretty stoked that the ground will get wet enough to go with the heavy fertilization that maybe some growth will start occurring. Right now, it is time to sit back and wait on Nature to take her course.

Once I get some sprouts popping up, I need to go to phase 3 and put some pressure treated 4 X 4's in the ground and build up a trellis-type system for the hops to grow on (as they are basically vines). I am thinking about setting a couple 4 X 4's in the ground nailing a 2 X 4 to the both of them and then putting eye hooks in the 2 X 4 and stringing that toward the ground to allow the hops to grow on.

I wish I had more varieties available, but am glad to have what I got and am anxious to see how the first year's harvest turns out.    ; )

  

hop to it

Well since I got some hop rhizomes (roots) the other day, I now have to find a place to plant them. I spent a couple hours out on the tractor today clearing off the top layer of ground and prepping just such an area.

I cleared out approximately a 10' X 30' area. That should give me plenty of room to grow a nice variety of hop plants. If I wind up needing more there certainly is space to grow.



    















Sadly, I  didn't have much daylight left by the time we got home this afternoon, so I did not get the rhizomes in the ground before it got dark on me. That's a real bummer, too, as it is supposed to rain overnight. That would've been awesome to have them in the ground and get a bath in their fresh new hummus/fertilizer bed. After tonight, there is no rain in the forecast for as far ahead as they predict. Oh well!

a break in the routine ....

and a very welcome one, at that! Today, I headed up to Johnson City to a guy's house that I met through HomebrewTalkForums that is growing his own hops. Upon finding this out, I emailed him with the intent to purchase some rhizomes from him and pick his brain about process as I am wishing to grow some of my own. After a few correspondences I found he was planning on transplanting his hops. I offered to help and he accepted.

I made arrangements with Melissa and Megan to tend to Dad in my absence and headed out at 7:30 AM. Yes, 7:30 AM! This put me at his house at 9:00.

I packed two of my Bock beers and two of my "IPA"s and brought them along for him to sample at his leisure. Not knowing what style of beer he preferred, I only brought two of each in case he didn't like them.

I pull in his driveway and we exchange introductions and pleasantries and then he shows me what he has going on. He is about to go full-scale production as the previous two years have been doing test runs to see what he could do and what to expect. He has a few acres on his property and about half of that is locked up in hop beds.

He has a separate bed set up for each different hop variety he is going to plant. Each bed is 15' X 30'. He has Liberty, Mount Hood, Chinook, Nugget, Spaalt Special, and a few other varieties.

Oh boy! what did I get myself into?   ; )   To further complicate matters, about half the area is full of rock that needs to be extricated.

Once the "tour" was over, he showed me what he wanted me doing and we set about getting it done. My job was to remove a row of hops from one bed to place them in another,  less rocky, bed. This was a slow process as I was using a shovel and was exercising extreme care not to break any roots.

Meanwhile he was busy excavating rocks from the other beds with his tiller and a Bobcat he rented. Once he finished with that, he brought the bobcat over and started digging up the hop plants. This made the job go much quicker as he was able to place the bucket under the plant and bring up the whole root ball with minimal damage. Sweet! this went faster and was much more effective.

We soon had about 20 plants or so sitting in the creek waiting to be put back in the ground plus the 9 I already had dug up and re-planted. That finished off one row. We put these in the ground and topped off with some nutrient-rich soil.

We could not have ordered any better weather! It was a cloudless, sunny day (boy that's just a bit redundant) and temps in the 60s although it felt warmer. What was tough to take was listening to all the bikes out playing.

Damn, it made me sooo wish my little Bandit was up and running. I wanted to go join 'em!

By now, it's a little after noon, and Chris proclaims it's beer-thirty. Me never being one to argue that premise, gladly participated in such a ritual. He tried one of my Bocks and offered me an Omegang (a NY brewery) ale that had more head on it than ale. He told me they infuse their bottles with CO2 to achieve such a thick head.

The beer was pretty good. It was rather mellow with a nice finish. He took one sip of my Bock and was nearly "floored". He really liked it and we started making deals to trade hops for beer (he doesn't brew, just grows hops ... what?!?).

He was funny. He stated that he usually doesn't like anything but Belgian ales, but that this was just *awesome* and he kept on sippin' and raving about it.  He told me next time I brewed that to set some back and I could have a free run of his hops field.  "If you're going to brew beer like this, you need to make sure you have a good supply of hops"      LOL   

We then re-planted those and dug up the next row. Unfortunately, we ran out of nutrient-rich dirt/fertilizer to continue re-planting any further. We spent the rest of the afternoon removing rocks from the new hop beds and putting landscape cloth over the hops we had planted.

After finishing up outside we went inside and he poured himself another Bock. Since it was nearly time for me to head home, I declined. While he happily sipped on it, we discussed brewing, beers, and hops.

Among the topics I mentioned that the IPA I brought was not a "true" IPA. It just doesn't have enough hoppy bitterness to make the style. This encouraged him since he is not a fan of hoppy beers. Cracks me up, he *grows* hops and doesn't like a hop-heavy beer?

After a bit of discussion, he decides to try a bit of it. Again, he is impressed!

Before I left, he set me up with the rhizomes I asked for .... and THEN some! I only wanted maybe 3 or 4 to see what they would do. He gave me about 20 of them, and loaded me down with some hops from last season's harvest ... nearly 2 1/2 pounds of hops total! So I know have some Mount Hood, Liberty, Nugget, and Spaalt select hops at my disposal sitting in the freezer awaiting a recipe to be used in.

What a great day! It was topped off with a shake and a chili dog from Cook Out. I haven't seen one of them in years and absolutely *love* their shakes ... they are awesome!

As great a day as it was, I must admit that I am moving around really slow and I have to put *my* rhizomes in the ground tomorrow!   ; )

Citra IPA

Last night I tried the IPA (my third batch) since it had been sitting in the bottles for the past two weeks and by now it should have had enough time to have carbonated. I put two bottles in the fridge the other day -- one for Dad and one for me.

I was quite impressed, actually. The last time I tasted it, I couldn't make out much hop flavor at all. It was still a bit too citrus-driven for my taste, but after bottle conditioning and carbonating, it tasted much better. It is a pretty tasty beer. As mentioned above, the two weeks in the bottles really helped bring out some of the hop character that IPAs are known for. 

It is still subtle in hoppiness, but at least it is finally present. I think I would call it a "mild" IPA due to the fact the hops aren't as prominent as I desired. Still, not bad for a first attempt, especially since I went outside the box (meaning I added stuff that was not part of the kit).

I was kind of bummed I only put one bottle each in the fridge after tasting it.

an all-nighter of sorts

Yesterday, Dad and I headed over to Knoxville to get a couple things. Some stuff that was ordered through Woodcraft came in and I was in need of yet *another* hydrometer (why can't they make those things out of plastic?) and since we were already at the beer store, I lobbied for one more primary fermenter so that I could have two batches going at the same time.

Once back, I did a little computer stuff, and shortly thereafter, I watched my Vols get humiliated on the hardwood by the Kentucky Wildcats. Since it was a 9 PM tipoff, it was now nearly 11 PM. I had already committed myself to brewing since I now had an empty carboy and had purchased ice and had my yeast setting out at room temperature for hours now.

Sooo ... I finally got started brewing about 11:30. These new kits from Austin Homebrew Supply suggest steeping the grains for 45 minutes rather than the 20 that Brewer's Best kits did, so that just made the night that much longer. This kit was a clone recipe of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat. It is a tasty wheat beer that Dad and I both like.

This would be my second full boil (basically boiling a 5 gallon batch instead of boiling half of that and adding the rest later -- brewpot size determines the volume boiled) and last time I did it, I didn't get a good hot break nor a good boil trying to do it all at once on the electric stove (damn, wish we had a gas range).

So this time I thought I would do something different. I brought my two gallons up to 155*F to steep the grain. Meanwhile, I used my other brewpot to bring 3 gallons up to boil. Once the grains were steeped, I removed from the heat, added the extract, stirred, and put back on the stove.

*Then* I added the 3 gallons of hot water instead of trying to make the stove bring 5 full gallons to boil at the same time. This worked out much better as I had a good hot break and a nice rolling boil throughout the remaining hour. The thermometer indicated so as well, as it was right at 95*C throughout the boil.

After the hour was up, it was time to set the wort in the ice bath. It is now 1:50 AM. I managed to bring my 5 gallons down to 80*F in about 10 minutes. I was quite pleased as I think that is the quickest I have gotten it down to pitching temperature -- and this was a full 5 gallon batch (well, 4 as I later found out as I must've lost a gallon to evaporation. note to self: next time start with 6 gallons of water).

I then transferred the brew into my new, cleaned and sanitized primary using a wort aerator that a buddy of mine clued me into. This helps get some oxygenation into the wort and it worked great, as it had a nice 1" thick "head" of foam by the time I was done transferring. I set aside enough for a gravity sample, pitched the yeast, and gave the carboy a good shake before setting it in the closet where it will stay for the next few weeks.

Then it was time to test the gravity and clean up. I got a reading of 1.060 (the kit recommended 1.051, but it had an option of adding an alcohol boost, which I did so that likely accounts for the difference). As usual, I took a taste of the wort only to find I did a poor job of racking, as I had a mouthful of hop sludge. Yuck! it maybe time for new hop bags.   ; )

By the time I got everything cleaned up, it was a bit after 3 AM. I was feeling it a bit from standing in one place for all that time so am sore, but am *wide* awake. I sat on the couch for a bit, hoping the eyes would start to feel as heavy as the rest of me did and finally went to bed about 4 AM expecting to read myself to sleep and that didn't happen until nearly 5 AM.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz ...

the warden ...

I often wonder why I am doing what I am doing.  I justify it to myself (and others) as it is the right thing to do ...  

but damn, I wonder if it is. I often get called the "warden" ...  a term i detest ... in the worst way. I think I am doing the right thing, but have no way of knowing until subjected to the same situations. So no matter how I choose to self-glorify things, I constantly wonder if keeping Dad going, even tthough he is physically not (and yet mentally) able, is a good thing.

*I* can do things for *me*, but he is unable to do (simple) things for himslef. It totally fuckin' sucks! I cannot even begin to explain how I feel. let alone him.

I totally wish I could trade places with him, since I am used to physically fighting through isssues more than he is and mentally prepared to face said issues. It's a different mindset. In this instance, I think I could survive better than he. SAD!

Ever since he has succombed to this frail postion, I have been referred to as the "warden"... That irks me! in many ways!  

He is *not* the only prisoner here ............. so am I .... so is my wife (now that the kids have gone off to their "own lives" and school --- even moreso), as well as my relationship with ANYone other than him!

I am not pleading for sympathy, but am struggling for "me" time, to be sure. Hell, if that independent soul would succumb to the fact that he needs occsaisonal physical help, he wouldn't be so constrained to his chair and a TV. Pisses me off!

To be called a "warden" (implying keeping his sorry ass alive for *my* benefit )only pours salt in the wounds. That burns me up! Luckily, it hasn't happened much lately, but it still hurts!

I don't know what the point of this blog is, other than I see other friends out playing in >30* temps on their bikes .... today it was 50+ and sunny. Guess where I would've been today sans Dad? and we sat here and watched fuggin' TV. PATHETIC!

Why ? Because he believe he cannot do anything else! I have told him countless times that I am here to allow him the physical side that he can no longer conjure. I understand the independence thing and *hate* asking ANYone for ANYthing! Yet, we sit here because all he can do is press buttons on his remote and piss in his urinal.

So I am a  warden! I keep an otherwise useless contribution to society alive ....

why?  "because it's the right thing to do" ... is not the correct answer here.

just a taste ...

I got to try my second batch of brew last night in its fully finished state. There was plenty of carbonation and the color was pretty much what you would expect out of a bock, as you can clearly see.

The taste is what got me, though. It had a "roasty", almost smoky flavor. I didn't add anything to this kit and it had no roasted grains at all (as a matter of fact only one pound of grain total). It may get that from the Munich LME (liquid malt extract), but it was unexpected. Nonetheless, it is a tasty brew to say the least, and I am pretty happy with it.

Now, the IPA I brewed (my third batch), well I am not sure. I bottled it up last night and, of course, set enough aside to sample. It was very citrusy, which I was kind of targeting, but it only had a *slight* hint of hops.

It's an IPA! It should be loaded with hop flavor, but the citrus taste took over.

I did add 15 oz. of lime juice (to 5 gallons of wort) to "enahnce" the citrusy flavor I was hoping for. I may  just want to step that down a bit for next time.    

It was drinkable, but just wasn't what you would expect from an IPA. The kit came with only 3.5 oz. of hops, which, I know now, is low for an IPA. I have seen quite a few IPA recipes that require more than double that.

I did add 2 oz. of Citra hops to the secondary to give it some more hop flavor. Citra, which the name implies, is a citrusy type of hop. This and the lime juice just took over the beer.

However, it still only has a -hint- of hoppiness. I wish I would've added another 2 oz. of a different style hop to counter the overwhelming citrus flavor.


Sooo ... with the excess lime juice, lack of hops, and dry hopping with the wrong hops, or not enough of another style ... it's fermented grapefruit juice (wine?).  ; )    Again, it was drinkable, but not what I expected. Dad really liked it, though, so that is good.

Maybe once it carbonates some of that overwhelming citrus flavor will be subdued some and it will be a little more balanced. Time will tell.