Slide in like a broom

Ronald Jenkees is, in my opinion, one of the more original musicians in the last few years.  Many people would argue that playing keyboards with FL studio is not new.  While I would agree with them what I would argue is that he makes it work and does it so well.  A lot of people who I have said "hey check this guy out" say I not really into electronic music but I like this.  Nuff said!  Here is Ronald spittin some game!

Grand Cru in the Fermenter

I was able to get the Grand Cru brewed last night 6/16.  The process was smooth and I am getting more efficient with y processes so that is a good thing.  This was my first time using DME and I wasn't all that happy with it.  It is messy, scorches easily and is just harder to deal with in my opinion. This was also my first time using honey as well, I used a little over a pound of honey! I hope the results are good though.  No big hiccups to report with this batch.  Got the wort cooled down and pitched some S-33 and has vigorious airlock activity this morning.  My OG was right where I wanted to be @ 1.058. Cheers

Popped the Top on the Cream Ale and...

I get impatient some times. Last night was one of those nights. I decided to open up one of the Cream Ales that I bottled last Saturday just to make sure that there was something going on in the bottles. As I said before, I also used a different priming agent this time and I was nervous that it would not work right. I grabbed a 12oz bottle and threw it in the fridge and let it sit for a while. I popped the top and got a nice, and unexpected, fizz of Co2. Wow, it is carbed, and not lightly. The beer tasted extremely green and needs to sit, which is no surprise. What was surprising was that it really didn't have a ton of hop character which I found disappointing since I was a little more aggressive with the hops for the style and I dry hopped it with a very healthy 3oz of hops (2oz cascade and 1oz centennial). The other thing that I am not sold on at this point is the American Ale 1056 wyeast. It is a little to neutral for me and there were no esters to be found. That is why people choose this yeast but it just isn't doing it for me at this point. I will make sure to lay a bottle down for a few months and then decide for certain at that point, but as of right now I am not overly excited with it. What I am excited with is the color of the beer is spot on, the Muttons KreamyX priming agent seems to work well, I will also give the final verdict on this later, but all in all a learning experience.  I personally would be more aggressive with the hops next time as there is only a faint hint of bitterness, but once this beer ages we will see how the flavors come together.

Who needs to buy a guitar...

I have so much respect for Jack White, everything this guy does is close to genius.  I haven't seen the whole movie but it is in the queue.  Here are two scenes that are pretty amazing.  The first is Jimmy Page playing Whole Lotta Love in front of Jack and the Edge, the look on Jack face pretty much sums it up.  The second video is pretty cool, check it out!

Cream Ale Update with Pics

So the cream ale fermented like crazy. The OG was 1.044 and it has fermented all the way down to 1.004! I tasted the hydrometer sample and it was tasty, it has been on the dry hops for two days and man was it nice. I would classify this ale as a pre-prohibition cream ale as it is a little higher on the IBU's then the style and it is dry hopped. According to my calculations it is 37 IBU's and 5% A.B.V. Infection was not apparent from the chiller incident discussed in the brew day post. I dry hopped it with 2oz of cascade and 1 oz of centennial. It is going to be damn tasty. I am also going to be doing a priming experiment with the Mutton's KreamyX priming agent. I will let you know how it turns out. Here are some pics of the cream ale in secondary. Cheers!

Fercious (Furious Clone) in the glass

I will update this post as Dank Brewer and myself will be doing a tasting of my furious extract clone and his all grain clone. I just wanted to give you an idea of how tasty this looks in the glass. Pours a nice reddish amber with a nice off white head. It is tasty but still needs a little age on it for the best flavor.

Tasting Update:

Well Dank Brewer and I had a bit too much fun with the tasting as we were tasting well into the night.  I lost my pics of the side-by-side comparison so I will get them from DB, but here is what I can piece together from the tasting.  First off, neither of our beers tasted like furious when compared at the same time, furious is so hoptastic and malty that it will take several go's to get close to it.  The interesting thing that we noted was that both of our beers had some tropical fruit overtones on the finish from the yeast.  We both pitched Wyeast 1335 British Ale smack packs.  That was very evident in both the all grain and extract clone.  To be honest, I didn't notice a ton of difference between the AG and EX version, the one thing that does stick out is that all or most of the extract beers have the LME twang, but it was not overly apparent.  The color of the extract was really close to the real thing, the all grain was close as well but a little lighter.  Dank brewers clone had some really nice malt flavor and the bitterness was there, the extract tasted less malty but also has the bitterness.  All in all, I think that both clones were tasty even if they were not spot on.  On an A to F scale I would rate Dank Brewers clone a B+ and my extract clone a B.  Cheers!

August Alpine Valley..Can't wait

Cream Ale in the Fermenter - Updated with Video

So I got the Cream Ale brewed last night.  This was the first time I brewed completely outdoors in the garage.  What a night, minus the light rain that began falling about half way through!  The boil went well and I really boiled it hard, it was a huge rolling boil.  My thought here was increased hop utilization.  I love hoppy beer and I was brewing this one for people who aren't really into the hoppy stuff, but I still wanted it to have a kick that lighter commercial ales don't have.  I ended up with the following hop schedule:

1 oz Cascade 7.5% AA @ 60 min
.5 oz Cascade 7.5 AA @ 20 Min
.5 oz Cascade 7.5 AA @ 5 min

I just went with the flow, I intended to split it into thirds for the aroma hops, but I dumped a few too many in at 20 min so I just thought go with it.  I ended up with a SG of 1.044 which is right about where I wanted to be.  I will be dry hopping this with  2 oz Cascade whole leaf and 1 oz of centennial whole leaf hops!  I hope that they really come through.  The only thing that I am worried about is that when I started the chiller I started the water really slow, too slow, so I ran back to the hose and cranked it up, when I got back I had water leaking off the intake of the chiller into the sweet wort!  I am thinking that I am a sanitation freak and that all will be well but keep the finger crossed. I need to get another worm clamp on the hose of the chiller so I don't have this problem again. I didn't have this problem last time so it caught me off guard.  I also used my new aeration tool last night, I bought a paint mixer and hooked it up the the drill and aeration was a snap, no more pouring and shaking!  Got the wort chilled down to 78 and pitched a smack pack of Wyeast 1056 American Ale.  Fermentation was extremely active this morning and I am thinking that I may need a blow off tube for the bucket by tonight but we will see.  Cheers!

Brew Pub...

The family went northeast to the Hayward WI area over Memorial Day weekend and on the advice of Dank Brewer we hit up the Angry Minnow brew pub.  This place was really nice.  A nice old brick building with a nice beer garden in the back.  A nice bonus was that I am pretty certain that they were brewing at the time as the entire place smelled of sweet wort.  The server wasn't sure, so I didn't push it, but if she would have been certain I would have asked to see the process and meet the brewmaster, but I didn't push it and we didn't really have the time as we were on our way back to the cities.  The food was really good and the beer was great.  My wife went with the Wit, that was really tasty and had a nice funkyness that Wits should have.  I went with the Tre-Svends Imperial IPA which was fantastic, I had to pick up a growler of that!  If you are ever in the area, this place is worth the trip.  Here is a picture of the lunch I had, a really good pork sammy.  Also, the sippy cup is not for me!  You can see the DIPA and the Wit in the picture.

Up Next...

Hopefully my final extract brew. I will be brewing up the liberty cream ale kit from Midwest Supplies. I am going to change it up a bit, I am going to keep the base the same and I am going to stagger the last hop addition, instead of the schedule of 1oz of cascade @ 60 and 1oz of cascade @ 1 min, I am going to stagger the aroma hop, split it into thirds and do 1/3 @ 20, 1/3 @ 10 and 1/3 @ 1 and then I am going to add a a healthy amount for the dry hopping. I think that I am going to add 3oz of whole leaf cascade for 14 days and I may stagger the dry hop schedule a little and may even go a little longer, we will see what I decide.