Runo XX - Luohi Needs Beer

[tuonelan]

For all your alcohol related musings. Who knows, this might tempt Karhu back from his hibernation.

Lord Luck sowed barley
on top of Osmo's new field
barley grew beautifully
came up exceedingly well
on top of Osmo's new field
in Kaleva's son's clearing.
A little time passed.
Now hop called out from the tree
barley spoke from the field top
water from Kaleva's well:
"When shall we get together
at what time meet each other"

Of course none of them can figure out what's missing to provide the magic for the wedding beer until Osmo-daughter gets her shit together and gets it all to ferment. Gotta have that magic bear drool.

I've got a heather ale fermenting on top of the refrigerator right now and just finished drinking the batch of red ale that I brewed over spring break (not quite as hoppy as I intended).

Got a new fermenter a couple weeks back, so now I can add fresh hops to the secondary fermentation to add more flavor to the beer. The old fermenter's mouth was too small for that.

Next batch on the horizon is going to be a Black IPA (otherwise known as Cascadian Black Ale) in honor of Agalloch disbanding (Cascadian Black Metal - you see the link). Want something dark and hoppy, heavy on the resin and citrus, and a little dry on the finish. I have a hard time getting much sweetness in my beers, so the dry part should come easy.

 

[papajohnny]

Damn it, I need beer now

 

[tuonelan]

Just put my first four bottles of mead into a dark cupboard to age for a few months. Drinking the last bit that wouldn't fit in the bottles.

Way easier to brew than beer, and more cost-effective as well. Should be starting to get pretty good around Yule.

Next up to brew -- two batches of peanut butter porter. Hoping they come out better than the heather ale from May. That came out a bit sour and floral. Still have one bottle to drink as penance.

 

[tuonelan]

Washing bottles for the peanut butter porter, so it will still be a couple weeks before it is ready at the earliest. Made only one batch so far and am considering skipping the peanut butter in the next batch and aging it with some oak instead.

Meanwhile, on the mead front we are still a month and a half out from trying the first bottle, but I have also taken some pomegranate seeds and crushed them and left them in vodka for a few days to get a pomegranate tincture. I might be adding it to one of the bottles of mead to give it some variety.

It's like jazz for booze.

 

[requiem]

Washing bottles for the peanut butter porter, so it will still be a couple weeks before it is ready at the earliest. Made only one batch so far and am considering skipping the peanut butter in the next batch and aging it with some oak instead.

Meanwhile, on the mead front we are still a month and a half out from trying the first bottle, but I have also taken some pomegranate seeds and crushed them and left them in vodka for a few days to get a pomegranate tincture. I might be adding it to one of the bottles of mead to give it some variety.

It's like jazz for booze.

I'd brew my own beer (again after a failed attempt about ten years ago) but I don't think I could keep the temperature steady enough in my house/garage. It needs to be very steady, right?

 

[tuonelan]

The temperature requirements depend entirely on the type of yeast you are using and the style you are brewing. I stick to ales that don't require much in the way of coolness. All I have to do is keep it somewhere in the 18-22 C range (66-72 F) and it works great, and I generally don't have any problems with off flavors unless it gets hotter than 25C / 77F. If it gets warmer than that where you store your fermentor you can find yeast strains that will work up to 29C / 84F, but you have to limit they styles of beer you brew a bit for that to work out correctly.

If you want to brew a German style lager you will definitely have to be able to regulate your temperature, but I've brewed red ales and porters and stouts aplenty with no issues in a corner of the apartment that generally stays between 68 and 75 F, which covers all but the hottest days for us.

I also brew only a gallon at a time. Not very efficient, but it keeps me from worrying as much if something goes a bit wrong. It lets me try brewing a lot of different styles and experiment and the worst that can happen is that I lose a bit over six pint bottles of beer. Not so bad. And I can brew in the kitchen with no help required and it takes less time to clean up and less space to store everything.

 

[requiem]

You make it sound so easy. I think I could probably keep the temperature of the brewing room within a four or five degree fluctuation. Brewing beer. That would be amazing. My friends and I tried this about 15 years ago when we shared a house and it proved a disaster.

 

[tuonelan]

Brewing is easy. It's also magic...but it's Ron and Harry magic, not Hermione magic. Homebrewers tend to bang on about it and make it into a complex thing, but the basics are dirt simple. I started out brewing one gallon batches using all-grain recipes rather than starting with extracts. It's a bit more tricky, but no worse than cooking from scratch.

Check out the directions for Chocolate Maple Porter (pdf) from Brooklyn Brew Shop. It's the first beer I ever brewed. Biggest pains in the ass are sanitizing everything and keeping the mash temperature in the zone for the hour it takes to steep the grain. The first batch was also a bit of a mess because I did not have a big enough strainer to catch all the grain when I was done with the mash (the part that's kind of like making watery oatmeal). That all got sorted, though, by the third go-round. And the last batch I brewed I used a mesh bag for the grain, which eliminated the problem with the spills entirely. Leave it to you Aussies to simplify brewing to where anyone can do it. (Check out this webpage at Brülosophy to find out more about brew-in-a-bag and see how easy it is for yourself.)

Brewing doesn't have to be that complicated. The Irish did it in ditches; the vikings in wooden pails; the Finns in saunas (like everything else). No readings or fiddling about. They didn't even know what the hell yeast was or what it did, but they still managed to make drinkable brew. You've got it easy compared to them.

Go brew something.

 

[requiem]

Brewing is easy. It's also magic...but it's Ron and Harry magic, not Hermione magic. Homebrewers tend to bang on about it and make it into a complex thing, but the basics are dirt simple. I started out brewing one gallon batches using all-grain recipes rather than starting with extracts. It's a bit more tricky, but no worse than cooking from scratch.

Check out the directions for Chocolate Maple Porter (pdf) from Brooklyn Brew Shop. It's the first beer I ever brewed. Biggest pains in the ass are sanitizing everything and keeping the mash temperature in the zone for the hour it takes to steep the grain. The first batch was also a bit of a mess because I did not have a big enough strainer to catch all the grain when I was done with the mash (the part that's kind of like making watery oatmeal). That all got sorted, though, by the third go-round. And the last batch I brewed I used a mesh bag for the grain, which eliminated the problem with the spills entirely. Leave it to you Aussies to simplify brewing to where anyone can do it. (Check out this webpage at Brülosophy to find out more about brew-in-a-bag and see how easy it is for yourself.)

Brewing doesn't have to be that complicated. The Irish did it in ditches; the vikings in wooden pails; the Finns in saunas (like everything else). No readings or fiddling about. They didn't even know what the hell yeast was or what it did, but they still managed to make drinkable brew. You've got it easy compared to them.

Go brew something.

Well I'm inspired!!

 

[tuonelan]

Find a good Australian homebrewing forum to learn from and to get a good idea of where to go for your equipment and ingredients. I tried to find you a good shop that sells one gallon all-grain kits, but it seems like you undersided types are still doing mostly extract brewing for one gallon batches. Extract brewing is like making instant tea and coffee. I see no reason not to start with all-grain brewing.