A Chef's Beer

[cdh]

Bottled yesterday. Well... put 6 L into my aforementioned Tap-A-Draft thingy and force carbonated it, and put the rest into 24 500ml swingtop bottles and 2 crown capped give-away bottles.

So far, three 8g CO2 charges have been blasted into the beer in the Tap-A-Draft, and it has picked up a nice light carbonation. Very tasty indeed. I'm getting no chalkiness like Theakston notes...

Am quite pleased. Can't wait to try the bottle conditioned variation. Have to wait two weeks for that.

[paul o' vendange]

I won't chime in too much here, except to say I am a former professional (Goose Island), and religious home brewer - my own dedicated 1/2 bbl stainless brewery, lovingly nicknamed "Ugly Betty" for my lousy welding, has been a solid workhorse over the last several years, kicking out 10 gallon batches I am very happy with. I have a home micro lab, and brew a great deal. I just finished bottling an Imperial IPA (at 7.75% abv and 90 ibu's), I am cold crashing an ESB tonight after two days dry-hop, and am about to launch my robust porter, "Cloakstone." All in anticipation of my grandfather in law's 85th b.d. - a lover of beer, god bless the man. I have also trained to some extent through Heriot-Watt University's brewing program.

All of the above to say, if I can be of any help with anything, please ask away.

Cheers,

Paul

[iain]

In case anyone's keeping notes at home, I finally got some caps and will likely be bottling sometime this week. I also picked up some more extract and yeast so I can use my leftover grains and hops. I'm not sure if they'll be at their peak, but I hate to waste.

I also picked up the new third edition of "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" which is still quite good, but I must say I'm hard pressed to find much difference between this and the second edition.

[theakston]

I won't chime in too much here, except to say I am a former professional (Goose Island), and religious home brewer - my own dedicated 1/2 bbl stainless brewery, lovingly nicknamed "Ugly Betty" for my lousy welding, has been a solid workhorse over the last several years, kicking out 10 gallon batches I am very happy with.  I have a home micro lab, and brew a great deal.  I just finished bottling an Imperial IPA (at 7.75% abv and 90 ibu's), I am cold crashing an ESB tonight after two days dry-hop, and am about to launch my robust porter, "Cloakstone."  All in anticipation of my grandfather in law's 85th b.d. - a lover of beer, god bless the man.  I have also trained to some extent through Heriot-Watt University's brewing program.

All of the above to say, if I can be of any help with anything, please ask away.

Cheers,

Paul

Likewise if I can be of any help in drinking all of that please let me know

Maybe you'll join us on the next batch?

BTW not sampled mine yet but I expect to do so before we leave for Tortola on Saturday . Will post again then. I hope the chalkyness was just because I was sampling from the dregs at the bottom of the carboy where there was probably a lot of suspended solids.

[iain]

Paul,

You should us the next time we brew a group batch.

[paul o' vendange]

Sorry, I've been lazy - gathering that the group batch is sort of a local gathering on the web? Sounds great, if so.

Paul

[cdh]

How would you feel about leading a bunch of extract brewers through their first all-grain brew? That was the next project on the agenda...

[paul o' vendange]

Sure - is this a "real time thing," as in posting as the brew progresses, or ahead of time, planning out and resolving questions?

[cdh]

Lead... and we'll each follow in our own time. Maybe with questions.

[paul o' vendange]

Well, perhaps I can just give a sample brew from my own system - including parameters like my system efficiency, etc.?

[theakston]

Paul, Perhaps you could do an EGCI on homebrew? That would be fantastic if you have the time.

And I think they give you yogurt.

Edited February 4, 2004 by theakston (log)

[paul o' vendange]

Theakston (great name - the Apostate Paul is one of my favorite brewers - love Black Sheep products) - sorry, been out of the egullet loop for awhile - EGCI?

Whatever helps, I'd be glad to do. If you guys want a basic recipe and technique breakdown for say, a basic english bitter, you bet. Just need to know what would best do for all of you.

Things will change depending on equipment, water, yeast, etc. - of course, a million variables. But I can share what I have learned over the years. Just let me know what you all want.

Paul

[Chad]

Paul, the eGCI is the eGullet Culinary Institute -- kind of a volunteer-taught online cooking school that started late last year. You can see it here. There are about 40 classes so far, ranging from basic stock making to Indian cuisine. Very cool. As a matter o' fact the eGCI just got a huge writeup in the Washington Post.

If you'd be willing to do a homebrewing course, that'd be pretty damn nifty. E-mail or PM Andy Lynes. He's coordinating the new semester.

Chad

[paul o' vendange]

OK Chad, will do!

Cheers,

Paul

[iain]

Excellent. Glad to see this beer project is really picking up some momentum. Bringing it to eGCI should help attract a much larger brewing group - which will translate to more questions and more learning all around. I'd like to see this happen.

Still haven't bottled, by the way. Good thing I used a secondary fermentation!

[theakston]

Great - glad to hear you can help us!

Theakston (great name - the Apostate Paul is one of my favorite brewers - love Black Sheep products) -

Well the name is for my border collie - pictured - who in turn was named after Paul's family's beers. I mis-spent a fair portion of my youth in pubs in the yorskhire dales so Border collies and Theakston seem to go together. Sadly he died this Summer . We are planning to get another one soon. He will have to be called Riggwelter for obvious reasons. I read recently that the Theakston brand has been returned to the family after years of abuse by S&N.

Edited February 5, 2004 by theakston (log)

[paul o' vendange]

Ah, to have riggwelter at the source. Love the humor, and just about everything, in the beer.

My brewhouse is set to emulate Yorkshire water. Fine, fine area. We only got as far as Stoke on Trent when we were in England, and enjoyed many of Titanic's excellent beers. Hope to get back.

I am very sorry to hear of your loss - I hope you and your family heal soon, and are gifted with another pup before too long.

Cheers,

Paul

[iain]

Ok... something seems to have gone wrong. I bottled a week ago yesterday (saturday) and, as of last night, the beer hasn't achieved any carbonation. As mentioned in an earlier post, I used PrimeTabs for priming sugar. I used a combintation of 12oz. and 22oz. bottles. For the 12oz. bottles, I used 3 tablets. For the 22s, I used 5 tablets. To sanitize the bottles, I used 1/4 teaspoon of OneStep in each bottle and filled with hot water. I didn't rinse before bottling, just dumped the solution. Anyone have any thoughts? I realize I could let this go a few more days, but I was expecting something....and got nothing. Not even a slight fizz when I uncapped the bottle.

[wnissen]

Where are the bottles? If they're somewhere chilly it could take a while for the yeast to get started. It's unlikely that all the viable yeast cells settled out. One tip I have is to use one soda bottle (water bottles are a bad idea -- I have video that backs this up), so you can do a carbonation check with a squeeze.

Walt

[iain]

The bottles are at room temperature. In my apartment, that can fluctuate wildly, but often is too hot rather than too cold.

[Jim]

I finally got around to bottling yesterday, having kept the beer in secondary for about 4 weeks at 50 F. I used a quart of the saved gyle that I started refermenting for a few hours and then mixed with the finished but unconditioned beer. It's now sitting in my garage at about 50 F; I expect it will be carbonated in a month's time. Though flat, it tasted pretty good, though it paled in comparison to the IPA I sampled from an earlier brew this year.

I'm thinking of naming it Geordie Champain after Newcastle Brown's nickname.

We should give some thought to distributing the beer for a tasting; obviously, those who have beer to trade have the first call for beers.

[iain]

I'll gladly distribute, assuming the carbonation perks up a bit...

[cdh]

I've only got a pair of give away bottles... the rest is in big heavy swingtops that I'm loath to part with... so those at great distance have priority on the two 12 oz crown capped bottles. Those closer are welcome to meet up and trade some brew in person.

I'm actually having a similar carbonation issue to iain's. I bottled the five gallons into 1 6 liter PET bottle that I force carbonated right away, and the brew was quite nice and actually quite good with a good charge of fizz in it. the remaining 3.75 gallons got primed with a half cup of corn sugar, aiming for a little more fizz than a standard british beer, and bottled in 20 oz swingtops and a pair of crown capped give away bottles. It's been two weeks and the three swing tops I've opened have been barely fizzy at all despite some yeast sediment appearing on the bottoms of the bottles. Very strange. If it keeps up like that, I may dump a bunch of the swing tops' contents into the 6L PET bottle and fizz it up that way.

Edited February 17, 2004 by cdh (log)

[iain]

CDH - you like the tap-a-brew bottles with forced carbonation? Ever just use priming sugar in them? How do they compare to glass bottles? As much as I like the aesthetic of glass, I find cleaning and sanitizing and filling them all a pain in the ass.

[cdh]

Love it! The tap a draft gadget is wonderful! A batch of beer fits into three 6L pet bottles with maybe a couple of overflow bottles. I have primed and conditioned in the PET bottles and it worked just fine, though left yeast sediment on the bottom of the bottle that made the very last pours a bit cloudy. This batch I syphoned directly from the primary into a 6L, and carbonated purely by gas charge, and it was great. Wonderfully fresh flavor to the beer, and the fizz level is adjustable, so that you can taste it along the way and stop charging it when it gets fizzy enough for you. There is certainly a difference between bottle conditioned and beer done that way, but you can condition in the big bottles too, depending on your tastes.

I'd highly recommend that you pick one up, provided you've got a fridge big enough to hold it, and a willingness to dedicate a third of a shelf to it. It fits into most ordinary suburb sized fridges, though might be problematic in city sized fridges. This toy is a stepping stone between bottling and kegging, and has a lot of the benefits of both, and few of the detriments. And it is reasonably cheap.

Edited February 18, 2004 by cdh (log)