Low Blow

So I haven't brewed in a while. I did do a beer kit a couple months ago but it wasn't anything special. I have been trying to lose weight so I haven't been drinking much beer at all. Beer is pretty high in calories and not very good for a low calorie diet. If I brew beer I will have it in the house and drink it and screw up the weight loss, so far Ive lost about 40 pounds.
Lately I have had the brewing bug, and luckily I watched my favorite brewing video/podcast Basic Brewing, and they did a low calorie homebrew. It makes use of the body that rye adds to beer. They did a rye wit which really isnt my style but I drew up the recipe anyway and it looked like this.




Low Blow Rye Witbier
3 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 75.0 %
1 lbs Rye Malt (Briess) (3.7 SRM) Grain 2 25.0 %
1.0 pkg Safbrew Wheat (DCL/Fermentis #WB-06) [50.28 ml] Yeast 4 -
0.50 oz Tettnang [4.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 9.6 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 5 0.0 IBUs


This is a BIAB all grain 5 gallon batch. According to Beersmith it is about 70 calories per 12 oz, with an ABV of 2% or so. Now I know this won't be the best beer in the world but it's something I feel comfortable having in the house.

But as I was sitting around and thinking this morning making a list for the brewing store. I decided to try this with 2 row instead of wheat and change up the hops to be more American Pale Ale like. Which is much more to my liking. That recipe looks like this.


Low Blow Pale Ale
3 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 66.7 %
1 lbs Rye Malt (Briess) (3.7 SRM) Grain 2 22.2 %
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 5 -
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 11.1 %
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 6 0.0 IBUs
.75 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 23.1 IBUs


This one is also a BIAB all grain 5 gallon batch. This one is about 75 calories per 12oz and also about 2% ABV.

Some people will ask what's the point in a 2% ABV beer. While you cant get drunk off it but hopefully it will be good enough to keep from drinking higher calorie stuff. This is very experimental for me however, both batches will cost about 30 bucks total including yeast.

I am leaving in just a few minutes to get these ingredients from the homebrew shop and have a healthy lunch with my wife.

Cooking with homebrew

On Wednesday I was craving brats. I rarely make brats since the kids don't really eat them. I was off work and only had the youngest child with me so I decided I would make myself some brats and something else for the child. I also decided that soaking those brats in my Firecracker Cream Ale seemed like a great idea. So I put them in a container and poured the Jalapeno infused ale over the top. I let them soak in the fridge for about an hour and then I grilled them. I also grilled some green peppers and onions. The buns I used were the Kings Hawaiian hot dog buns and the square shape made for perfect toasting on the grill.

My Firecracker cream ale is over half gone and I still have lots of people I have promised bottles to. This batch turned out really good.

Recently I got the Sam Adams Hop-tology mix pack and found the beer to be pretty good. One beer that I liked that surprised me was the Tasman red IPA. I'm not a huge fan of the red ale style but this style hopped up I really liked. I had the crazy idea to make a red ale and hop it up and also add some ginger to it. I don't know if it will work but I think I'm gonna try it.

So we are finally moved and settled in to the new house. I decided a while ago my first brew would be a cream ale to test the temperature control of the basement. I did an easy extract kit from Northern Brewer. I did no gravity readings and used dry yeast to keep everything as simple as possible. I even carbed the beer with the 5 oz pack of corn sugar they sent with the kit.

It was in the primary for about 2 and half weeks. I added 12 Jalapenos to the carboy about 4 days before I bottled. To add the Jalapenos I removed the seeds and the membrane and then chopped them into about 1 inch sections. I soaked them in star san to be safe. I think I got some kind of infection from adding cocao nibs to a batch with no kind of sanitation.

The beer was around 66-68 degrees at the height of fermentation, then when things settled down the temp was around 62-64 degrees. My basement stays at 63 degrees. The hardest part of this brew was getting 12 chopped up jalapenos in a grain bag down the neck of a carboy.

I have actually already cheated and tested a bottle on Monday which was 5 days after I bottled it and besides the obvious lack of carbonation it tasted really good. Due to the low fermenting temperature this one won't need long to condition.

Here is the recipe.


Amt Name Type # %/IBU
12.0 oz Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 1 10.7 %
4.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 2 3.6 %
6 lbs Pilsner Liquid Extract (3.5 SRM) Extract 3 85.7 %
1.00 oz Cluster [7.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 18.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 5 -
12.00 Items Jalapeno (Secondary 4.0 days) Flavor 6 -

One bottle of beer.....

My wife and I are in the process of purchasing a larger house. The one we are in is only about 1200 sq ft. With two adults, 2 six year olds, and a soon to be three year old, the house is getting small. So we are getting a much larger house to fit our family.

I have decided either in laziness or a stroke of genius to drink all my homebrew and not brew anything new. That way when we move in early April I won't have to lug bottles of beer or 5 gallon glass carboys of fermenting beer to the new house.

As I was choking down the Chocolate Milk Stout I brewed back in November, I found a lone bottle of Nanci's Brown Ale. This has been by far the best homebrew I have made in a while. So I decided to save the brew and have it be my first beer in my new house.

Speaking of the new house I will have a fermenting room in the basement. I haven't taken temps down there yet but I assume the basement should stay a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house. So I should be fermenting at 65 degrees or so without temperature control all year round.

The first beer I plan on making when I get to the new house is my Jalapeno cream ale. Which I am going to rename Firecracker Cream Ale. Which will imply that it is a good summer beer and also that it has a bit of kick from the Jalapenos. I will make a 5 gallon batch so it will have to be extract. I normally do this is in small batch because I'm hesitant of the Jalapenos, but I always love it and wish I had more.

Chocolate Milk Stout Gusher Infection

2011 Brewing Stats

Stealing an idea from a beer buddy Sheppy, I am going to attempt to do some sort of end of year brewing stats. I am not nearly as organized as he is but I'll give it a go.

About an hour later....

See I am very unorganized. I was going through this and noticed that I had skipped two batch numbers in my Beersmith numbering system. I assign each brew a number which is just the number of batches I have brewed. So for example my 1 hour PA is #54, which is the 54th batch of beer I have brewed. So I went back and found two batches of hopped extract kits I made and didn't enter into Beersmith.

Lets try this again...

In 2011 I brewed 13 batches of beer for a total of 47.1 gallons

4 were 2.5 gallon BIAB all grain batches. All of which were brewed by February 15th.

7 were extract recipes with a hop boil of some sort. Two 2.5 gallon, Five 5 gallon

2 were hopped no boil kits. (One 2.1 gallon Mr. Beer and one 5 gallon Coopers)

I had one mishap when a spigot broke on a Mr. Beer fermenter. I lost about a gallon of beer all over my counter.

I went a span of 98 days between brew days. 7/27/11 to 11/5/11. My homebrew pipeline was completely empty for a while.

Of course I want to brew more in 2012. I would like to do more all grain BIAB, but I'm not set up to do 5 gallon batches which is the size I prefer. I would also like to try a lager.

1 Hour Pale Ale Brew Day

Today I brewed a 1 Hour Pale Ale that is a kit from my LHBS. It supposed to be a clone of DFH 60 Minute. Yesterday I bottled the Brown Ale. I was a little hesitant but the gravity hadn't changed since Monday. I also found out how tough carboys are to clean inside. But after a little Google search I found a suggestion. It said to add a 1/4 cup of rice and a few tablespoons of baking soda to the carboy. Then fill with just enough water to make a sort of past. Then just shake the crap out of it, concentrating on getting the paste around the krausen ring. It was clean after just a few minutes of shaking. Plus the baking soda deodorized the carboy.

I am also making some dog biscuits from the spent steeping grains. I learned of this from some beer friends on the Mr. Beer forum. I took about 4 cups of spent grain, 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of peanut butter and two eggs. Mix it all together and then spread on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes and then cut into biscuits and spread them out. Mine stuck to the bottom of the pan, so I may spray some olive oil to help next time. Then bake for about 2-3 hours until completely dry. I took my temp down to 300 for this long bake. Then keep them in an airtight container. Not sure how long they last, but my dog really enjoyed the one I gave him. So I don't think storage will be an issue.



54 1 Hour PA
American Pale Ale
Type: Extract Date: 12/30/2011
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal Brewer:
Boil Size: 3.50 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Brew Pot (4 Gallon)
End of Boil Volume 3.21 gal Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal Est Mash Efficiency 0.0 %
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients

Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7 lbs DME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM) Dry Extract 3 93.3 %
4.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 3.3 %
4.0 oz Amber Malt (22.0 SRM) Grain 1 3.3 %
0.50 oz Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 19.8 IBUs
0.75 oz Hop Mix [7.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 6.9 IBUs
0.75 oz Hop Mix [7.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 6 5.0 IBUs
0.75 oz Hop Mix [7.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 7 2.8 IBUs
1.50 oz Hop Mix [7.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 8 0.0 IBUs
0.75 oz Hop Mix [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml] Yeast 9 -
Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.063 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.066 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.3 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.7 %
Bitterness: 34.5 IBUs Calories: 223.2 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 5.6 SRM
Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Bottle Volumes of CO2: 2.3
Pressure/Weight: 3.93 oz Carbonation Used: Bottle with 3.93 oz Corn Sugar
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 70.0 F Age for: 30.00 days
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage Storage Temperature: 65.0 F
Notes

This is a kit that my LHBS put together. It is a clone of DFH 60 minute. The "Hop Mix" is a total guess on AA. They dont list the exact AA on the kit. The kit does list amarillo simco and warrior as the hops used.

Brewed 12/30/11 OG 1.066
Created with BeerSmith