A Warning to Solicitors

Don't come knocking on my door at 8pm. Don't tell me that you're not trying to sell me something and then ask if I have a security system. I will call the police. Sorry this warning came as an after thought, but now you know.

Save the date!

So I got the information I needed from the city about getting a street use permit for the festival and it seems like it's feasible. We just need to raise a little money to make sure it can happen. Right now I'm playing with some ideas about how to do that but I wanted to make sure you all are saving the date, August 1st. For those of you who aren't familiar with the scene you can check out a recap of last year here.

Also I wanted to give my personal congrats to Jeremy for the recent competition!!! WAY TO GO!!!!!!!

Cascade Brewers Cup

The results are in from the Cascade Brewers Guild's annual competition. There were 193 entries total and out of my four entries, two placed in their categories. I am pretty pleased with the results and feel encouraged to enter another competition. I also am looking forward to getting me written feedback sheets on the beers I entered. The unbiased feedback will be very helpful in improving my techniques.

The results:
2nd Place - Strong/Smoked/Wood Aged Ales - Barleywine (Imperial IPA)
3rd Place - Specialty Ales - Vanilla Bourbon Porter (10/2007)

Bravo IPA

I tried out the Bravo hops yesterday in an American ipa. They are 15% alpha acid so I used them as the bittering charge with Simcoe as the flavor and aroma. Both have a piney citrusy flavor profile so I think they will pair nicely. I hit all my numbers and volumes, I had forgot how easy it is to make a single infusion five gallon batch.

I also attempted to create a whirlpool during the end of the boil/chill period by recirculating through the pump. The point was to collect the hops in the middle of the kettle (bottom of the whirlpool) to prevent it from going into the fermenter, but I think the immersion chiller got in the way. It's possible to do, just needs some tweaking.

Saison!

I brewed up 10 gallons of the saison yesterday. The new thermometer addition to the mash tun helped immensely. I now have much better control during step mashing. This means better beer!

It was warm and sunny.

Draft Beer

After several long months the kegerator is back up and running. I made some access improvements and cleaned all the lines. No more going to the porch for a beer!

On tap:
Dubbel Overhead Abbey
Grand Cru

March Madness!

Alright so I finally got my brewing caught up yesterday. I got 20 gallons done. Here's how it all went down:

Round 1: Sounder IPA

This IPA was a mutation of one of the beers that I did for the Election (Biden IPA), but I mixed up the hops some and made some slight changes to the grain bill and have decided to name in honor of Seattle's new MLS team. (Go Sounders FC!!!)

Sounder IPA 10g
22# Two Row Pale
2# Crystal 20
1# Aromatic
1# Flaked Oats

2oz Warrior 60
2oz Cascade 30

Safale US-05
2oz Mt Hood 5


I've got all kinds of computer problems so I don't know what my OG was supposed to be but it came in at 1.062, which seems about right because before the minor changes it was supposed to come in at 1.063.

I also used the cake from the last pale ale for this one. I wasn't even boiling the second beer before it started to spew yeast everywhere. 24 hours later its still fermenting like a fiend. Hopefully it will be done in a day or so at this rate.




Round 2: Porter?

So the second beer I'm not as solid on, but still optimistic. Like I said I don't have the software that I usually use to write my recipes so I was kind of shooting in the dark with this recipe. It is based off the old recipe for the Pumpkin Porter (without pumpkin).



Porter?
22# Two Row Pale
2# Crystal 40
1# Brown
1# Chocolate

2oz Halletauer
2oz Fuggel
1oz Tettanger

Safale US-05

I was shooting in the dark with the gravity here and somehow came out with 1.068! That's about 10 points higher than I think I want, but we'll still make it good. I also think that I'm going to take 5 gallons of it and try adding cranberries. I have a lot of them I don't know what to do with. It could be good.

Well that's the scene here on Lucile Street. Time to think about chili.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin