SR3: It's gonna be a bigger beer

SR3 is in the fermentor. There are a lot of firsts with this batch: first time I'm using live yeast (California Ale Yeast, which are good for hoppy beers), first time I did multi-stage hopping, first time I'm dry hopping, first time I'm clarifying, and the first time I'm using my own recipe.

I don't know how it's going to turn out, but I know that it will have a higher alcohol content.

As I've gone on before about Charlie Papazian's apparent penchant for lower alcohol beers (which have tasted quite good, I should add), one of the things I wanted to try was pushing the gravity of my own batch higher. Oh, it's higher.

The original gravity for Papazian's Palilalia IPA (SR2: Cabin Fever IPA) was 1.032. The O.G. for my IPA was 1.070. To put it simply, that is a huge difference.

I used the framework of Palilalia IPA for SR3, which is to say I followed the same boil time as Papazian's recipe, and added the same amount of gypsum and toasted crystal malt to the wort. Otherwise, I ventured out on my own, using an additional two pounds of dried malt extract and a few more ounces of hops I hope will play well together.

For bittering, I picked up an ounce of Warrior, a particularly bitter hop. Given the additional malt, I figured I would need to bump up the bitter to balance out the flavors. I also picked up a couple ounces of Simcoe hops, half an ounce of which were used for bittering. The rest went in at the end of the boil for flavor and aroma.

Because I couldn't just leave things at that, I added an ounce of whole Cascade hops to the fermentor. They'll dry hop in there for a week before I transfer the beer from the bucket fermentor to the carboy. The transfer should also clarify the beer a bit, which will be nice for the aesthetics.

I had an issue with the wort temperature again.

As with SR1, the wort was too hot. Even after adding three gallons of cold water, the temperature was hovering around 1oo degrees. Now that the weather is warmer, there was no way I was going to get the temperature to drop 30 degrees simply by setting it outside. Fortunately, my mother in law of all people had a great idea: setting the fermentor in the wash sink in my laundry room. I then filled the sink halfway with ice water. It took all night to bring the temperature down, but the fermentor was sealed, so the length of time didn't matter.

Now it's a waiting game. I plan to give the beer two weeks to ferment and four weeks to finish in the bottle. That works out to May 16 before it's ready to drink. Here's hoping the waiting will be worth it.

The rhizomes are in! The rhizomes are in!

My mother will fall out of her chair if she ever reads the following statement:

I was stoked to do some gardening the other day.

It's not much of an exaggeration to say that I owe my education and station in life to my absolute disdain for landscaping. Growing up, my folks got into the landscaping and irrigation business. That meant that for much of my teenage years I was on the working end of a shovel. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. There are few shittier jobs that weeding greenhouses, digging irrigation trenches and fitting PVC pipe in the Florida sun. In fact, the only job I can think that's worse is raising tilapia in makeshift backyard ponds. I did that, too. I hated that, too.

So the irony wasn't lost on me when I was picking up my hop rhizomes the other day from Maryland Homebrew and working out locations to plant them with the missus. Maybe if those damn plants of my youth were hops and the irrigation lines were full of beer I would've stayed in the business.

No, probably not.

Anyway, I bought five rhizomes: two Willamette, two Cascade and one Centennial. Since then, I've done a bit more research on growing hops -- including listening to an excellent Brewing Network show on the subject -- and realized I should've had at least two rhizomes of each hop in case one of the rhizomes doesn't take. Oh well, I'll keep my fingers crossed that I got a robust Centennial plant. Because hops are vines, I needed a place for them to climb. While I could have done something as simple as hang some twine from the roof, I decided to plant a post along my fence line and run some lines for the hops to climb.

All three varieties are primarily flavor and aroma hops. While I'm willing to grow my own hops, I didn't see the need to screw about with bittering hops, like Columbus, when hop pellets work just fine. With the three hop varieties I bought, I'm hoping to have enough cones this fall to wet hop a few batches of beer. We'll see.

I also picked up the ingredients for my next batch of homebrew. I've decided to do another IPA, but with an ABV in the 6 to 7 percent range. Rather than following Charlie Papazian's recipes, which seem to produce 3 to 4 percent beer, I'm going to use the recipe for his Palilalia IPA as a framework for my own IPA. Lucky for me, the folks at Maryland Homebrew are patient and knowledgeable people who looked over my recipe and stopped me from making an undrinkable toxic wash: apparently four ounces of Warrior hops is WAY too much for five gallons. We dialed it back to one ounce of Warrior and I'm going to use some of the Simcoe I picked up to help with the bittering and flavor. I was also buying too much amber and crystal malt.

So what did I learn: 1. You can't just double the amount of ingredients from one batch to another; 2. hops have different amounts of alpha acids, so they can't necessarily be treated the same; and 3. when in doubt, check with the guy at the homebrew store.

I'll provide more details when I get to brewing (hopefully this weekend). But I've had some success with my first two batches, so we'll see how I do once the training wheels are off.

SR2: Cabin Fever IPA

You know it's going to be a good day when your phone reminds you to drink beer.

I got just that reminder this afternoon. It's not that I need to be reminded; rather, it was my reminder that SR2 was ready for consumption. And let me tell you, SR2, a.k.a. Cabin Fever IPA, clearly the best thing to come out of D.C.'s super shitty winter storms.

The beer pours a malty dark amber with a thick head. It's nice and hoppy on the nose, and bitter and a little bitey in the mouth. The finish could be better. I find it does linger much, but I could also describe that as "clean." When I compare it to SR1, Honkey's Pale Ale (below on the right), it's clearly a darker, yeastier beer, thanks in no small part to the toasted malt and lack of filtration (why bother filtering when the yeast bring their own flavor to the party). And the extra hops in Cabin Fever have resolved the cereal flavor issue I had with Honkey's.

All in all, not bad for a low alcohol IPA.

As I mentioned in my last post, the A.B.V. is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 percent (which really is a surprise considering how well the malt level balances out the hops). I know I said I was going to make a bitter next, but I think I'm going to take a shot at another IPA. This time, I'll use Papazian's IPA recipe as a general template, but basically double the malt a double or triple the hops.

I don't know whether that will work -- or be drinkable -- but it should result in a beer closer to the traditional A.B.V. of IPAs. If 6 pounds of malt produces a 3 percent beer, 12 to 13 pounds of malt should produce at least a 6 percent beer, right? Besides, I've looked at other brewers recipes and all of them call for at least that much malt. Hell, for things like Scotch ales, some recipes call for 24 to 28 pounds of malt in a 5 gallon batch.

So I think it's time to take off the training wheels and give a go at my own recipe. At best, it'll be a full-powered IPA. At worst, it'll taste like the stuff I brewed at Shenandoah.

One more thing; I talked to the folks at Maryland Homebrew. My hop rhizomes should be in by the end of the month. With any luck, I'll have fresh hop buds by this fall.

SR2: Blizzard bottling

After a while, the novelty of being snowed in wears off. Well, it's worn off. Fortunately, I had beer to bottle.

I was planning on bottling this latest batch on Friday. That would have given it 13 days to ferment, and it's my day off. But seeing as Tuesday was the second of three (and counting) consecutive snow days, I decided the bottling could commence. Besides, there were no longer signs of fermentation in the carboy, so the beer with ready to go.

As was the case with the wort, things went very smoothly. I sanitized and dried the bottles well ahead of time, and when I was ready to do the bottling, I pulled out and sanitized only the equipment I needed. What took me several hours the first time, required only a couple hours this time.

Like the first batch, I didn't quite get two cases of beer. For this batch, I produced 46 and a half bottles. That half bottle though, is filled with the bucket dregs of leftover yeast, malt and hops. I'm curious to see how it tastes, but I'm not expecting much. I'd like to get a full 48 bottles, but I'm afraid of siphoning up any of the gunk and the bottom of the carboy, so I end up leaving about an inch of decent looking beer behind. The sacrifices we make.

The rest of the batch looks great. The Cabin Fever IPA, named for all the damn snow piled against my front door, turned out a beautiful, soft orange color (basically, it's Charlie Papazian's Palilalia IPA recipe with more malt and hops). The color will mellow some over the next four weeks during the bottle fermentation, but it should remain a nice looking beer.

Although I'm pleased with how this batch is turning out, there have been a couple issues. Once again, the alcohol percentage seems very low. And this time, I was able to get accurate original (1.032) and final (1.014) gravity readings. But if I'm following Charlie Papazian's equation correctly, the IPA is about 2.3% ABV. That's very low for this style of beer (which should be around 6% ABV), so I'm suspicious. That said, I was researching other styles, and recipes for Scottish ales and double IPAs call for twice as much malt, or more, than what I've been using. So maybe I'm just not using enough malt. I put the question out to a homebrewing group, and will continue to research this.

The other snafu I had was during bottling last night: I dumped a good few ounces of beer on the floor. The siphon isn't the easiest tool to use. It's necessary to get the beer flowing from the carboy to the bottling bucket, but it's tricky. As I was screwing around drawing beer out of the carboy, I didn't notice that the other end of the hose popped out of the bucket and was dangling over my foot. Well, I didn't notice until my foot started getting wet.

Other than that, everything seemed to go well. As with so many things, practice and repetition help tremendously. So now it's a matter of waiting another four weeks (March 10) to see if the beer is as smooth as the process.

SR2: The second batch begins

(It's yeast.)

My second batch of beer is burbling away in the carboy. Taking into account what I learned from SR1, I moved right through the wort and transfer to the fermenter last night. Everything went very smoothly, so I'm nervous. Last time, I knew I was kind of screwing things up. This time, I don't think I did, which means I might have overlooked something. I guess I'll know in a month.That's one of the first things about this batch that's different from the SR1 pale ale; SR2 is an India pale ale, which requires a longer bottle fermentation. That means the beer won't be drinkable until March 12. That's a long time to keep my fingers crossed.

Anyway, things that worked really well this time included keeping all the water in the refrigerator until I needed it and having all the equipment I needed (you can make a batch of beer with the stuff from the kits, but extras like funnels, screens and hydrometer tubes are a huge help). Refrigerating the water easily saved me four hours (based on the amount of time I wasted trying to cool SR1). After sparging the boiled wort with the cold, filtered water, the wort was a perfect 68-70 degrees. No muss, no fuss. I was also more familiar with what I needed to produce the wort and get it into the carboy. So I didn't bother sanitizing every piece of brewing equipment I own, just the equipment I needed last night. In fact, I only used a few pieces (two pots, a hose, funnel, filter screen, paddle, hydrometer and thermometer). And thanks to the hydrometer tube, I was able to get a correct reading on the original gravity (1.032), which will help me determine the final alcohol content of the beer. The filter and screen, which I bought on line from Maryland HomeBrew, shaved a bunch of time off the process last night because I wasn't trying to use the small cooking strainers and one-cup funnels to sparge and transfer five gallons of wort.

For this IPA, I sort of followed Charlie Papazian's recipe for "Palilalia India Pale Ale." Sort of. When I was picking up my ingredients from myLHBS, I had to buy two three-pound bags of malt extract, rather than just the 5.5 pounds the recipe called for. When I asked the guy how I could measure out 2.5 pounds from the 3 pound bag without a scale, he told me to just use the whole bag. I did. I also tossed in a half ounce of Cascade and half ounce of Glacier Leaf whole hops I had left over from the beer class I taught a while back. Aside from all that, though, I followed Papazian's recipe to the letter.

Last weekend, I had a few friends over to taste SR1. The reaction was excellent. With any luck, the IPA will go over just as well. However, one thing that bothers me about SR1 is the relative lack of carbonation. It's carbonated, but there's no head. I'm not sure if that's just the beer or something else. I suspect that it might be due to loosing some yeast in all the overflow I experienced when I left the cap on the bubbler. Now that I know to remove the cap, I'm curious to see if I experience an overflow problem again and if the carbonation will be better in the final product.

On a side note, I just joined the mailing list for the DC Homebrewers Club. Mike Dolan, one of the club organizers, was working the register at myLHBS when I stopped by on Friday and talked to me a bit about the club. I suspect that this might be the same Mike Dolan who writes for DC Beer, but I didn't get his last name until I got home and looked at the card he gave me. Interesting if it is him. Apparently, the club members meet once a month to do tastings of each other's beers and talk about homebrewing. I'm not sure how many of these gatherings I'll be able to make to in the near future, but we'll see.

I'll check in on SR2 in about two weeks. Hopefully by then it'll be ready to bottle. Oh, and I'm a

lready thinking of my next batch: a bitter.

SR1: It doesn't suck!

It doesn't suck. That was my single biggest worry about this first batch of beer. Given all the sanitizing (and dire warnings about what would happen if I didn't keep everything absolutely sterile), screwing up the recipe by adding too much hops (I guess I did end up making Honkey's Pale Ale), and my prior experience with my batch of beer from Shenandoah, I was certain I had a solid 50/50 chance of pouring out this batch of beer.

As it turns out, the beer wasn't too bad. In fact, it's pretty good. Sure, I've had better pale ales and the malt flavor is a little too prominent (resulting in a faint cereal flavor), but overall the beer goes down easy, so I'm happy with the result.

I'm also ready to take what I've learned and move on to the next batch. But let me close the book on SR1 first.

When I finished the wort and transferred it to the carboy for fermentation, the dark color of the beer threw me off. Because I was making a pale ale, I was expecting a golden color to the wort, not the dark brown that it was. As you can see from the photo, the color lightened up nicely. Still, I did burn the malt extract a bit, so I need to watch that next time.

Another thing, I have no idea what the alcohol percentage is for the beer. Given it's final gravity, 1.022, and based on Papzain's equation for calculating ABV, I figured the beer was around 3 percent. This didn't seem right, so I did a little research and discovered that it maybe around 5 percent ABV, but I have no way of knowing. I can't trust my initial hydrometer reading because of the stupid rig I had to put together in order to take it. And then I took the final reading after I added the finishing malt, which is a no no (thanks for not pointing that out, Charlie). So the ABV on this batch will go in the books with a big question mark.

I shouldn't have that problem with the next batch thanks to the hydrometer test jar I bought from Maryland Homebrew, and the tips I've since picked up.

Speaking of Maryland Homebrew, I also just ordered five hops rhizomes from them. This spring I'll be planting Cascade, Willamette and Centennial hops in the backyard. These aromatic hops are supposed to grow well in all climates, so we'll see how they do. The best case scenario is a couple big batches of wet hop ale next fall. The worst case is five more plants die by my hand.

Alright, that's it, I gotta go drink my beer.

SR1: Bottled and capped

I've decided that brewing isn't all that hard, but sanitizing everything sure is a pain in the ass.

I got started on bottling this morning around 8 a.m. By the time I cleaned up the last bit of brewing equipment it was just after 3 p.m. That's nearly a full-day's work, and only about an hour or so of that involved moving the beer from the carboy to the bucket and finally to the bottles. I know there are areas that I can save time on, like getting the bottles cleaned and dried ahead of time, but the rest of the process takes the time that it takes.

Before I finish discussing my nearly complete first batch, let me back up. Earlier I mentioned the overflow I was experiencing out of the bubbler. Well, I now know why it was happening: I kept the damn top on the bubbler. Now, this isn't as dumb as it sounds. The goddamn cap is perforated, therefore I assumed you left it on and the excess carbon dioxide would exp

el through the little holes. Nope, the foam and yeast kept getting backed up until it belched out all over my closet. Once I took the cap off the bubbler, my problem was solved. So if the cap isn't supposed to stay on the bubbler, why is it perforated? Unless it was done to befuddle and irritate novice brewers, I can see no reason for the little holes. None.

The other thing I was wondering about was the color of the beer. Early on it was looking darker than a pale ale should, and I was assuming it was a result of some caramelization that occurred when I added the malt to the wort. Well, it turns out there was nothing to worry about. The beer came out a beautiful golden yellow, just as it should.

However, the beer seems to be a bit lower in alcohol than I expected. According to my final hydrometer reading of 1.022, the alcohol content is around 3 percent. I guess I've made a session beer. Also, it's a bit more bitter than Charlie Papazian intended. Although I decided to skip the brewing kit and handle the ingredients myself, it appears

I've accidentally added three-quarters of an ounce more of hops than the recipe called for. I guess I shouldn't have just dumped the pouches of hop pellets into the wort without confirming the amounts I needed. When I tasted it, the beer seemed a little bitter, but not too bad. My first thought was that it needed more malt. Turns out, it just needed less hops. Anyway, I'll know what the final product tastes like on Jan. 21. Before bottling, I added an additional cup and a quarter of malt extract to help with bottle fermenting, so that might help the bitterness some. We'll see.

I got a bottle shy of two cases of beer from this batch, which sure beats the five cases I had to plow thought after Shenandoah. Once I finish off a case, I'll start on the next batch. Hopefully with this first batch of beer behind me, the next one will go smoother.