The Diggity IPA – Brewed Oct 2011

Posted on November 2, 2011 by
October 2011

October 2011

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Long overdue update

Posted on February 26, 2011 by

Hello World! Been extremely lazy writing about my beerscapades though there has not been a whole lot to write about. The GY Ale named for the Mrs turned out decent, I tried to tone it down a bit so she would like it but I just couldn’t get it to taste like the yummy Mich Ultra she likes so much; so she didn’t take to it too well, oh well, I guess I’ll drink the 2 cases myself.

The next batch was an organic Belgian Blonde Ale made from a kit I got as a birthday gift called Richards Farmhouse Organic; brew day went off smoothly as did the primary and secondary, though I did have a coat from the closet I store secondary in fall and dislodge the airlock, for maybe up to 2 days!  Bottling went off well too, the problem was that 2 weeks of aging did nothing for the carbonation; very disappointed I sought advice, one option was to open each bottle and add a little more yeast.  Lazy as I am, I never did get around to doing that.  About 6 weeks later, I was lamenting the tragedy to friends I ride with while enjoying a few GY and OJ Pale Ales; I popped a couple of the Belgians into the freezer to show them what uncarbonated beer looks and tastes like, but wouldn’t you know, the beer had a crisp white foamy head on it when poured.  Much happiness.  Maybe organic yeast is just as lazy ass as me.

Next up is a brew demo along with my mentor Doug for the folks at work who have asked a lot of questions about home brewing; we will Brew in Doug’s yard, he will go all grain while I will brew a Pale Ale from extract.  Maybe I’ll have some videos to upload too, we plan to make a party of it, so it should be fun a time.  Till that post then, hopdiggity!

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The OJ Pale Ale and two more

Posted on October 26, 2010 by

It has been a while since my last post and I had started to wonder if this blogging effort of mine would be one of those that disappear into cyber oblivion, I hope not.

The OJ Pale Ale is almost over; it never seizes to amaze me how fast I can get through beer.  I used the OJ PA recipe with a few tweaks and brewed a second 5 gal batch about 5 weeks ago; this time around I was able to do a slightly better job controlling the temperature while steeping the specialty grain though it did get up to 175F and I had to keep the burner off.  Surprisingly, the temperature stayed well above 150F even with the burner off for the 25 minutes that were left over in the steeping process.  With the OJPA I think I did the steeping at a rolling boil which could have caused the odd color.  For the record, OJPA did get a 26/50 from my buddy the judge, so I was pleased.

The twist with the yet to be named 3rd batch:

Confident from the relative success of the first 2 batches, I decided to experiment with the 3rd batch, I substituted the Perle for Fuggle hops and added a few cloves during the boil and then some when transferring to secondary; the color this time round is more of an amber color, not the coppery pale ale color I am trying to reach.  I hope to bottle this week so will have a better idea of the color, an update of the taste of batch 3 will be forthcoming in a few weeks

Batch #4:

Bolstered by the cooling weather and the seeming success of batch #3 I attempted to brew a slightly lighter PA, one which the Mrs. may enjoy, this one is sitting in the primary right now and I need to transfer it into secondary this week.  I used lighter specialty grain, 1lb. of 10L instead of ½ lb. each of 20L and 40L, so I do not have lighter color ale.  I toned down the extract from 8lbs. to 6.5lbs. and reduced the hops from a total of 2.5oz. (1.5oz + 1oz) to just 2oz.  I also do not plan to do any secondary hopping.  The OG turned out at 1048, which I understand is still on the mid side of a pale ale.

Batch #5 and more: I plan to get pretty busy in November, hopefully brewing at least 2 more batches if not more, stocking up for the winter and longer.

That’s it for this entry, comments and feedback are welcome.

Attached below is a scanned image of the scoring sheet for the OJ Pale Ale:

thehopdiggity

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the HopDiggity OJ Pale Ale (OJPA)

Posted on August 24, 2010 by

It’s been 2 weeks since I brewed what looked like a deep orange juice colored pale ale, I have kept my expectations at a minimum whilst hoping against hope, the wait will continue for another several weeks.  I bottled the batch this evening and the highlights were:

  1. I recorded the process, see below;
  2. I only got 42 bottles; and last but by far not the least
  3. I forgot to add the priming sugar until after I had siphoned the OJPA into the bottling bucket!

Another batch, another rookie mistake.  Most of the process is documented in the video so I wouldn’t go into too much detail.  I can say, however, that I have become a master bottle capper, used exactly 42 caps and I impressed myself with the speed of capping.  I also seem to go out of my way to clean up after myself, the wife likes this (I think); not only did I clean up the immediate area around the bottling but the entire downstairs got vacuumed and mopped.

As with the Sid-Vicious Stout (July 2010) I greedily siphoned off a pint and a half for my early enjoyment (and of course, evaluation).  My preliminary evaluation is:

  • Aroma: nice, hoppy, pretty good for batch #2, I’d give myself a 6/10
  • Appearance: well, I did call it OJ, it seems to look a little better in a glass, like a witbier, maybe a bit deeper; I’m sure several bottles will have sediment.  A dismal 2/10 (I can’t give myself a ’0′)
  • Flavor: a few overtone of sweetness, probably too early to judge.  I did enjoy the un-carbonated pint I siphoned off but then that isn’t saying much, scored at a tentatively optimistic 5/10
  • Mouthfeel: a little lighter than I thought it would turn out, a pitiful 4/10
  • Overall impression (pre-bottling): Sid will drink all bottles even if no one else will, a confident 5/10
  • Grandtotal: 22/50, this should improve in 2-3 weeks….. I hope

Check out the edited video here:

On other fronts, I bought 2 books written by craft brewers and have started reading one of them, so far an interesting read.  The Beer School is written by the founders of the Brooklyn Brewery and Brewing Up A Business is written by the founder of Dogfish Head.  I hope to be inspired.

I have also been following the escapades of the Atlanta based Monday Night Brewing, the next time I am in the ATL I hope to stop by, and the Canadians BeausBeer; hopefully someday we will exchange tales.

On non-beer related fronts, the Mrs. got free tickets to a Sheryl Crow concert, I went with low expectations but was pleasantly surprised to find tunes that included bluesy and raggae-ish feels but most importantly she genuinely seemed happy to be playing for the audience.  At 48, she has probably been touring for 20+ years and clearly gets it; it’s a privilege to have people pay to watch you perform and not the other way around.  A year or so ago I went to a show by the Bravery and they clearly didn’t get it.

To my zero followers and fans, until the OJPA is tasted remember, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and….. hopdiggity!

Posted in Bottling, pale ale | 2 Comments

The Pale Ale – fail?

Posted on August 11, 2010 by

Ahh, bad day at work, I’m angry and motivated to post my second entry.  Encouraged by the Sid – Vicious Stout (July 2010), I brewed a pale ale two Sundays ago, recipe courtesy of previously mentioned professional-amateur home brewer; we should give him a name, how about ‘bookends’ or ‘BE’ for short?

I should have known I was in trouble when the recipe called for 8 lbs. of light extract and I bought 2*3.3 lbs of extra light from www.rebelbrewer.com and then made up the rest with DME (accounting for the density caused by lack of moisture in DME); seems a little advanced for a second try, anyway, BE assured me it would be fine and I had and have no reason to believe it should not have been, apart from user error (aka error #99).  From the minute I added the malt extract and DME and stirred it up, the color was way cloudier than I expected.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, I firmly believe I brewed per the recipe, kept the bacteria away, transferred to the primary as well as any of you out there would have yet…… Oh, wait, I did have a bit of a snafu with the yeast (1056); I bought a packet at Midsouth Malts but underestimated how hard I had to bang the silly packet to get the yeast started; on brew day when I realized my folly I checked with BE and his best advice was to just pitch the sanitized contents of the little baggie within, into the wort, which I did.  This seemed to work fine as within 18 hours my air lock was bubbling away and within 3 days it looked like I had successfully fermented the pale ale.

Alas, last Sunday when I transferred to the carboy I found absolutely no clarity in the beer.  The Irish Moss was supposed to do this during the boil, but it failed.  The Perle hops and abundance of Cascade Hops had left a lot of sediment; the transfer to the secondary went mostly without mishap, a few spills, caused by having to use the sanitized back-end of a drill bit to plug the tube instead of sucking on it in a ‘sanitized’ (read ‘vodka shot’) environment, apart nothing had changed.  The beer was a deep orange, I would classify it as a very dark orange juice.  I was so disappointed.

Pale Ale transfer to secondaryUh-oh! This doesn't look much like a pale ale (siphoned during transfer to secondary)

In a bid to avoid too much sediment getting into the carboy I left about 2 pints of orange juice pale ale in the primary which I, after sealing the carboy, proceeded to siphon off in an extremely unsanitary environment into 2 pint glasses.  I chilled these pint glasses expecting the worst but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they tasted more like beer, in fact pale ale, than the orange juice they looked like.  I did catch quite a buzz; FYI, the O.G. (on brew day, of course duh!)was 1056, which I understand is spot on.

Uh-oh! This doesn't look much like a pale ale (siphoned during transfer to secondary)

Well, I will have to wait another 4 weeks (maybe 6 since I am off on vacation in Sept.) to taste what the blended flavors of my OJ pale ale taste like, needless to say, you shall be the first to know.  In the meantime, besides the now legendary Sid-Vicious Stout (July 2010), I have been enjoying the Sierra Nevada Torpedo (which I think is a steal @ $9.99 for a 6-pack) and the 90 minute Dogfish Head Imperial IPA (not so much a steal at $10.99/4-pack).

The weekend is almost upon us folks, keep it real and hop diggity!

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Hello world! I just brewed my first batch, a yummy Stout

Posted on August 9, 2010 by
The past few months have seen me obsessing with learning how to brew.  I’ve always loved beer, who doesn’t, and then I ran into a co-worker who is a brilliant home brewer.  To make a long story short, after several chats with him I convinced myself I could brew good brew for personal pleasure.  The first time round or my first batch was brewed under his watchful eye in his backyard; a kit stout, he was none too happy to be using a ‘kit’, a professional home brewer and all he is.  Anyway, the kit stout turned out pretty decent, I transported the wort back in my primary ‘ale pail’ the 20 miles from Germantown, TN to Mud Island, managed the transfer to the secondary without much contamination and even the bottling process without upsetting the Mrs. too much.  Of course, I could not wait 2 weeks watching ‘em silly bottles, so on the first night of music after the bottling (approx. 6 days) me and the guitarist bust into a couple of stouts, I called them the Sid – Vicious Stout July 2010; they weren’t too bad, had a bit of a front end bite presumably from the high Memphis temps during fermentation.  Buddy professional home brewer scored them a 26/50 per the official judges score sheet.  I will admit, I was quite happy for he doesn’t seem easily pleased by imperfections.  

Some of the crazy stuff I ran into and learned from includes siphoning is not as easy as it seems, it’s a lot cooler to take off the bottle labels of reused bottled before putting your Sid – Vicious Stout in them, brewing in the Memphis summer is not so much fun, iodophor tastes kinda flat but I’ve been told does no harm, my garden hose is out of control, hops smell and taste quite yummy, yeast is weird, the air lock will have a mini explosion within the first 2 days, my electricity bill will increase by $100, the Mrs. is very patient, etc.

I am down to the last 90% of the second case, clearly I am enjoying it; since, I have brewed a pale ale batch, I am a little concerned about it but more of that on my next post.  Till then, hop diggity!

Posted in Brew day, Stout | 1 Comment