What's been brewing!!!

Hello everyone, just thought we would update you on what beers we've been brewing, whats available for trying and what's coming up.  Here's the list

Whats drinkable!

Belgian IPA
Honey squeeze my lemon
Blue moon clone

What will be ready shortly

Magically delicious red ale
More Honey squeeze my lemon

Currently brewing

Razzel dazzel raspberry wheat
Zeke freak's strawberry wheat

The Hop Trellis

We’ve been growing hops for two years now but this will be the first year we have a full and sturdy structure to support real growth.  In years past we’ve simply strung up some twine to a tree branch and let the hops grow as they may.  Well last year hurricane Irene ended that by taking down all available tree branches within a reasonable distance to the hops.  So, this year we’ve decided to make it official and build a permanent structure that will allow us to expand how much we can grow.  This structure as you will see from the pictures below will allow us to grow many more bines and will, thus produce a lot more hops for the year.  

I started out by getting 2 16 foot 2x4's and screwing them together to make one long stable beam.

Next I drilled multiple holes in another 2x4.  This one was only 8 feet.

I also had to dig a nice deep hole in the ground.  I got about 20 inches down give or take.  I've been told your supposed to go at least 2 feet but I hit a giant rock when I got this far and decided it was good enough.

I then screwed the 8 foot board with the holes in it to the top of the beam I created.

I added some support beams in there just to be on the safe side.  I know they're a little lopsided but I think they'll serve the purpose.

Next I ran the twine threw the holes so that I wouldn't need to do it after the post was already in the ground.

All that was left was to mix the cement and put the pole in the ground!!

In a couple weeks when the hops start growing up the pole I'll post some pictures of the progress.  I have some sprouts right now but we also might be getting a dusting of snow this weekend so I can't say for sure they'll survive or not.  If they don't I know more will be up in the next couple weeks.

Keg to Kettle Part 2 (adding the valve)

Back in January I posted an update about how to convert a keg into a kettle.  In this post I will show you how I added a valve to the kettle.  The valve makes life a lot easier and safer for brewing in a keg.  I bought a stainless steel weldless valve from the homebrew store. My best friend Jim came over to help with installing the copper uptake pipe that we connected to the valve.  That part of the process involved some soldering, and I didn't have any experience doing that.

This is Jim drilling a small starter hole to make it easier for the step bit to get going

This is the step bit.  It made the job much easier but was also really expensive.  That one bit cost $45

The step bit allows you to drill the hole one size up at a time making it a lot easier to judge how much more you need to go.  This is useful in making sure you don't make the hole to big, because there's not much if anything you can do if you make the hole to big.

Here is the hole with the inside half of the valve sticking out.

We used the vice grip to hold the valve while we soldered the copper in place.  

 I wish I had taken more pictures during the soldering but I was busy learning, and I forgot.  You may notice that between the steel and the copper it appears to be white in the middle.  This is Teflon tape which you wrap around the the thread to help it stick in place.  It also helps prevent leaks.

I attached a hose with a clamp to the valve so that I can have it drop right into a fermentation bucket.  It's so much better than picking up the keg and trying to pour the wort into the bucket.

Honey Lemon now on tap!!!

After much waiting and some expenses, the keg is finally set up and running!  I now have Honey Squeeze My Lemon on tap.  It was a bit of a process figuring everything out but now that it's up and running, nothing could be better. 

This is a 20lb CO2 tank and a 5 gal Cornelius keg (often called a Corny keg for short)  

For all of this to come together I ended up buying practically every piece from a different person.  I got the CO2 tank off of Craigslist and the keg from a homebrewer from another homebrew club.  The regulator came from a catalog from Blue Hills brewery and the fittings and tubing came from the Homebrew Emporium in Cambridge.

This is the regulator the gauge on the top tell you the pressure your putting into the keg and the gauge on the far left tells you the pressure inside the CO2 tank.  The red lever on the bottom that looks like it has a screw coming out of it, is actually a valve and that's not a screw its called a hose barb and you hook up your tubing to that and that's where the CO2 travels to your keg.

It's a little easier to see how it works now that its set up.  The tube running from the CO2 tank is running into the keg and the other tube is running from the keg to the tap.  That's not beer though, this was just sanitizer that I ran through the lines to make sure everything was clean before I added any beer.

Time to brew and have a brew

There it is, the Honey lemon from a tap! Mmmmm beer!  The green pellets that every one tells me looks like rabbit food is actually hops and that is lemon peel next to it.  This was taken during the brewing of the next batch of HSML.

I currently don't have a refrigerator yet so the keg is residing in the bulkhead area of the basement where the temp is a nice cool 55 degrees.  It would probably be colder if it wasn't so darn nice out side but you won't hear me complaining.

Open Fermentation

After our visit to Geary's Brewery in Maine, I got inspired by the open fermentation and decided to try one for myself.  The results turned out fantastic I must say.  I made a Black butte porter clone for my friend Jim.  He's coming home from the army after 8 years of service 2 tours in Iraq and 1 in Afghanistan.  I think he deserves a good beer don't you?  Anyways I made this beer like I would most other beers except for fermentation.  I decided to oxygenate the wort after pitching the yeast.  I used a regular aquarium air pump with a clean and sanitized tube and airstone.  The tubing and airstone are fairly cheap at the pet store.  I added the air for about 15 min.

That is not yeast yet, its just foam from the wort.  Though it does look the same.  The yeast was added before I put the tubing in so that the yeast could get a good start.

This was taken about 8 hours later you can see all the yeast already on the sides. Success!!

 It's hard to see in the next 3 pictures (I should have taken a video) but as I lowered the lighter towards the foam you can notice the flame getting dim and going out.  This is because there is no oxygen on the surface of the foam.  It's putting out so much carbon dioxide that it forms its own little atmosphere.  Pretty neat huh!

This next picture was from the third day.  You can see a ton of yeast working hard to make that beer!!

We recently tasted one beer before Jim's arrival to make sure it turned out okay and boy did it ever.  Probably one of my best batches to date!! When I first looked into this method many books and experts say its a big giant no no.  However if you have lots of experience and your able to keep your brewing area very clean and you have the time to transfer as soon as the primary fermentation finishes, I think you'd be alright to try this out.  As Charlie Papazian always says relax don't worry have a homebrew!!

Keg to Kettle

So I know it's been a long time since the last update, and while I hoped to be completed with this project it is still in the works.  I acquired a keg from someone recently and I've been in the process of converting it into a kettle.  I also wanted to polish the keg to make it look good.  I still need to drill a hole in it and put a spout in to make it an official kettle but I don't know how to weld and I'm a little reluctant to try a weld free fitting, though I've been told they can and do work.  For now I've been concentrating on learning to use my angle grinder and polishing supplies to cut a hole in the top and shine this bad boy up.  These are just some of the results thus far.

Here is the original keg

Here I am dousing the stickers with paint thinner to make them easier to remove.

For the next step we put the keg in the shower and turned the water on.  Our thoughts were that the humidity would help with removing the glue and other crap off the sides.

We used a razor blade to get the job done.

 

Next I took the grinder to the lettering on the sides.

I then began to sand down the sides of the keg to get rid of all the scratch marks.

I also cut the hole in the top of the keg. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

I'm checking to see if the cord will reach and decide to use the extension just in case. Also note the safety glasses and ear muffs.  It might look silly but the grinder is loud and dangerous and I'm not very experienced so I take full precautions.

The final result

Notice how rough the edges look?  I'll fix that by sanding it down with both a sanding wheel that comes with the grinder and some 220 sanding paper made for this type of situation.

 

The budlight is not mine I swear

 I have also managed to put the first layer of polish on, but it's a 3 step process and I've had trouble finding the time to do it.  You have to go over the whole keg with the polish and it can take a while.  I plan on finishing sometime in the next week or two.  When I'm finished with the polishing I'm going to fill the keg with water and heat it up to a full boil to make sure I don't have any leaks or problems.  I'll probably drill the hole for the spout sometime later down the road.  I'm anxious to get this thing up and running and I have a pump to get the wort out after the boil so I don't really need the spout at this time.  I'll try to have more pics up soon!  I hope you've enjoyed!

Fun surprises in Portland Maine

These past few days my family and I went on a mini vacation to Maine.  We planned on spending the days freezing and only braving the temperatures and elements to find the necessary food and drink, however; we ended up finding some great microbreweries and a distillery!  We toured Allagash  Brewery, Geary Brewery, and an up and coming distillery.  And the convenient thing is they were all within a half mile radius of each other!  Allagash was a larger brewery than we expected but they use and take pride in local suppliers. 

SP seemed to enjoy the brewery!

We then happened to stumble upon the up and coming New England Distilling, right next to Geary's Brewery.  The owner, operator, distiller, and basically one man show, Ned, was kind enough to give us a private tour.  Although he was in the middle of setting things up he showed us his layout and explained to us his plans for the first years. He will be distilling rums, gin, and whiskey, including one that is 110 proof and triple distilled.  Ned hopes to be up and running by this coming January.

Our last tour of the day was that at D.L. Geary's Brewery.  I had not heard much of them or their efforts but apparently they distribute to a vast area.   Steve, a brewer there, gave us a private tour.  Here they use brick covered kettles, open fermentation, and brew solely English stylish brews.  We sampled their Hampshire Ale (we highly recommend).

Summer label scholarship entries.

Who will win?  Find out Summer 2012!

Bottle line

Flaked hops

Open fermentation.

We ended the day with a sampler of brown ales and nachos at The Great Lost Bear pub that hosts over 50 brews on draft!  So in conclusion, we highly recommend stopping in at any one, or all, of these great spots if you find yourself in Portland.