a faux pass?

Last night was yet another brew night. However, it didn't go as smoothly as it usually does. This was an Irish Dry Stout kit that my buddy Skip sent to me.

I got everything cleaned and sanitized and got my yeast rehydrated without issue. However, I was worried about where I was going to ferment this because the yeast for it needs to ferment between 65* and 70*. That is difficult this time of year, when your fermentation chamber is tied up lagering (at 34*) -- especially when we don't run the AC.

So while my water is coming up to temperature, I am scouting a solution of how and where I will ferment this batch. I finally decided, I could set it in the master bathroom bathtub, as Dad only uses his shower stall. I could run a fan in there and it wouldn't bother him and fill the tub with some water to keep it a cooler, more even temperature. Super! got that solved.

Problem was, the time it took to come to that conclusion, my steeping water had exceeded 155* by about 30*. DOH! Now I had to wait until it cooled. I could add some cold water but I didn't want to mess up the water:grain ratio. I could have dumped it and started over, but that seemed to be a waste. So I just waited.

Once it got to 160*, I set my grain bag in and let that help bring the temp down some. I steeped for 35 minutes instead of my usual 45 this time, as I had lost time waiting on it to cool down. Heck, I didn't wish to be up all night.

While steeping, the bag kept "sticking" to the bottom of the brewpot, if I stopped stirring it, for even a second. This is highly uncharacteristic. I can usually walk away for a couple seconds (to get another beer, or whatever) without that happening.

At the end of the 35 minutes, I attempted to pour the grain tea over the grain bag. I had the bright idea that I could hold my collander (that was too small) on the edge of my 7.5 gallon brewpot that I had my boiling water in while pouring the grain tea over the grain bag.

Heh,, that's what I get for thinking! Sure as anything I dropped the collander into the boiling water, before I even began pouring. I needed to get it out of there quickly as it was plastic and the water was boiling, so I quickly grabbed it with my bare hands. Yow! boiling water and bare skin are not a favorable match -- just in case you ever wondered.

I called Melissa in to help me transfer it over. Using an extra set of hands seemed to work a little better. However, upon pouring it all over, I had a molasses-like syrup left in the bottom of the steeping pot. WTF?!? never seen that before! Anyway, I went ahead and used a rubber spatula and transferred the syrupy goo into the boiling water.

The rest of the process went without any more trouble. I added my extracts, sugar (it's a DRY stout), and first and only hop addition and let it boil.

At the end of the boil, my 4 bags of salted ice got the wort cooled down to 70* in a reasonable time. I didn't time it, but it seemed to take the normal 20-ish minutes. I racked it, aerated, and pitched the yeast.

My gravity sample came out within .002 of what it was supposed to be and tasted okay. So despite, my "trying" to screw it up, it seems it will be fine. It was already bubbling at a good rate within 12 hours of pitching it.

garage follies -- forkin' nut

The day got off to a good start when my rear tire arrived -- again. I say "again", because I ordered the wrong size by clicking the wrong submenu thing and a moment's inattention had me a 15" tire rather than a 17" tire.. DOH!

I called up Dennis Kirk and the nice lady who answered the phone informed me customer service wasn't due in for another half hour. However, she asked if she could be of assistance and I told her of my faux pas and wanted to know how to go about correcting it. She was awesome!

She re-ordered the RIGHT tire for me (heh, take me out of the equation and see what happens?) and told me how to pack up the wrong tire and send it back. The credit card would be billed the balance of the cost of the right tire and that was it. Sweet!

Another thumbs up for Dennis Kirk!! They will see more business from me.

Anyway, that tire showed up today, so I went and got it mounted and balanced on my wheel. I got home and installed it back on the bike. I also changed the oil and the filter while at it.

So far, so good. Any of you who know of me and my experiences with a wrench, know this cannot last.   ;j

Since I was on a roll, I decided to tackle my leaky fork seals and get ready to take apart the forks to put in the progressive forks Mr. Blum sent me some time last year (thanks again Tom).

So I jacked up the bike, pulled the front wheel, and set about removing the dust seals on the forks. The right side -- the one that had been leaking -- came off without issue.Still rolling along ... until ... I suddenly remembered why I HATE fork seals.

The left one ... looked ... AWFUL! It was nothing but RUST RUST RUST! Yeepers!

I hit it with some rust buster and waited a half hour. I went back and sopped it up and fished around for the eyes of the snap rings. I couldn't find them! There was so much rust in there I could see the ring itself but never located the eyes.

A-HA! compressed air to the rescue. I blew out all the oxidized pieces that I was unable to "fish" out, and voila there were the eyes just staring at me.   ; )    I got the snap ring pliers on them and one side came free. YAAAY! but the other just laughed at me.

Dammit! I recall this problem a few years ago, here we go again. However, this time was a much better result as I was able to get it out without it breaking it or having it remain stuck in the recess. Daaannngg, still rolling!

Okay, now down to the bottom of the forks. There is a bolt in the very bottom of each of the fork sliders that needs to come out. Every ...  stinkin' ... bolt on this bike is tightened to German torquing requirements -- Gutentight!

John Fowler who sold the bike to me was a big feller. If he did use a torque wrench, I am just that weak.   ; )

These two bolts on the bottom of the slider legs were no exception. I had a hard time getting either of them to break loose. I crawled under to look at the bolts only to find that they resembled more a star torx bolt pattern than the intended allen screw. I then started knocking the next bigger allen wrench socket in the hole and was able to break *one* of them free.

The one on the other side, not so much. No matter what I did, it didn't budge!

I finally yanked out a drill and figured I would drill off the head of the bolt (actually this was a suggestion from a buddy of mine -- thanks Ozzie). I got close to the recess of the fork leg slider and was concerned I may drill into it, so quit drilling and went back to trying to beat a socket in that would turn it, now that there was a new sized hole to work with.

Well, that finally did it! It came loose and I didn't do any harm to the fork leg sliders. YAAY! By this time, it is late, and I needed to refer to a schematic on my computer to see what all needed to come off the top of the forks, so I called it quits and revelled in the fact that I hadn't broke anything.   ; )

this is not your general's porter

About a week and a half ago my buddy Skip and I were chatting online about my brewing. He has been saying for a while now that he wants to come down and sample some of my brews.

I figured that I would try and brew a style of beer that he prefers. Upon asking him a preference, though, his answer was "my favorite beer is the one in my hand" -- while a good answer, not really what I was looking for. I haven't made a porter yet and had been thinking about doing one as I do like that style

He finally suggested a porter (sick minds and all that) he likes and I told him I would search for a recipe. I never found the particular one he was wanting, but apparently, I wasn't the only one searching as he sent me a link to a recipe (which I had just seen a few minutes earlier).

It was a recipe for General George Washington's Porter -- or at least a derivation of it. Some of the ingredients are no longer available and the fermentation procedure is substantially different due to better technology and overall knowledge. It wouldn't be his version, but based upon it at least. So anyway, I went ahead and ordered the ingredients for it.

I made a 1.5 liter starter for my yeast two days prior to brewing because it had been in the heat during shipping and I was concerned about the health of the cells. I never saw any action in the starter, but I didn't see any the first time I made one either.

Anyway, I did my usual setup of two boil pots -- one for steeping my grains and the other for boiling water. When the steeping pot got to 155*, I added the grains. Immediately, the water turned black. Usually it takes a few seconds for color to disperse through the water, but this time, it turned as soon as the grain bag hit the water.

After 45 minutes of smelling this roasty, coffee-ish goodness, I added this to the boil pot. I love the smell of coffee brewing, but just cannot stand the taste of it. It doesn't make any sense to me, but that's just the way it is.

Anyway, I then let the wort come up to a  rigorous boil and added my extract and bittering hops. Thirty minutes later, another hop addition, followed by one more 15 minutes after that. The recipe also called for molasses to be added at this point. This brew is dark enough already; 8 oz. of molasses would devour light.  ; )

I got it chilled down to 80* in 15 minutes time (4 bags of ice is the way to go --even for a full boil). It was then racked into my fermenter, aerated, and then I pitched the yeast. Within 12 hours it was bubbling, so there was enough healthy yeast cells to at least get started.

The gravity sample read 1.050 which was about 6 points low, but I am not worried about it. I tasted the sample and it was not the sweet syrup most worts tend to be.

This had a good flavor to it and was pure black, like a good porter should be. They say stout is porter's big brother. While both are good beers, I favor a porter over a stout anytime and this seems like it's going to be good, even if it's not what ol' George intended it to be.

Go big or go home ...

While at Tellico this year, a buddy of mine handed me a beer as a present for my birthday. It was a barleywine. I have heard of this style of beer before but never had the desire to brew one as it is supposed to be on the insane end of hoppiness. I like a hoppy beer but if that is all that can be tasted, I would rather pursue other, more balanced styles.

Anyway, the beer he handed me was a Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. These are brewed every year and many folks will allow theirs to age for a year or so prior to trying them. This was the 2011 version and it was ... just … well, awesome!   ; )

Ever since then, I was convinced I was going to ttry and brew a batch of this once I found the recipe. Heh, well, upon finding a recipe kit for it, I found that it carried a price tag appropriate for such a high alcohol, hoppy, malt-based beer. In spite of the high price, I went ahead and ordered a kit. 

The kit came with 3 pounds of grain, 12 pounds of malt extract, and 7 oz. of hops. Yup, it’s gonna be a BIG beer!

I brewed it Friday evening, but I was apprehensive at best. This is my first “big” beer – and at that cost that if I screwed it up, it’d be an expensive mistake!

This recipe called for first wort hopping which is typically done during the first runoff in an all-grain mash, which I am not setup to do just yet. I went ahead and threw the hops dedicated for this into the 4 gallons of water as it came to a boil and figured that would have to work. What else could I do?

So while that was coming to a boil, I steeped my grains (all 3 pounds worth!) at 155* for 45 minutes. At the end of steeping I managed to break my strainer as the weight of that 3 pounds of grain, plus all the water they were retaining, was too heavy for that mesh. Yippee!

I added the grain tea to the hoppy water that had been boiling. Then added the 12 pounds of extract and my bittering hops. After 45 minutes I added the aroma hops, some Irish Moss, and yeast nutrient.

Then it was ready for the ice bath and I was able to get it down to pitching temperature (about 80*) in about 20 minutes as usual. I racked it into my fermenter, aerated, and pitched my TWO packets of rehydrated yeast (after all it is a high alcohol beer, gonna need a lotta yeast!).

Within 12 hours that thing was bubbling rapidly and had a nice thick head of krausen on it. Yaaay … it’s beer!    ; )