Belgian Beers

Belgian beers can be very unique and tasty.  I enjoy them very much so!
Polished off a bottle last night of Gouden Carolus - Cuvée van de Keizer - Blauw , an awesome special beer from Het Anker Brewery.
check them out! http://www.hetanker.be/

Late Update 2011

well blogging is not my cup of tea. No time to deal with posting and what-nots.

Beer production is sparse, 2011 Pumpkin Ale is in bottles and tasting good. Two saisons to tickle the palate this year, a nice typical saison with some homegrown barley, coriander & lemon verbena. The 2nd saison was rack on to raspberries & blackberries. This is a winner, tasted good at bottling and calculate to over 10% abv but who real knows what it is. Lambic is setting there another year plus and it will be time to do something with that. Got Mead? I do, bubbling in my living room going strong for a couple months now.

Thats it for now....

2011 the year of beer

Well every year is the year of beer. This year starting out to be good with 2 brews in progress and 2 more on the way.

Currently in the primaries are A lambic/sour ale and a bock. The lambic/sour ale is from Northern Brewer.

Chateau Northern Lambic Grand Cru Partial Mash Kit

Disclaimers up front: if you plan to bottle this beer before it's at least 12 months old, you might as well not bother making it. If you age it for 2-3 years before packaging, it will only get funkier (which is to say, better).

This is fermented with the Wyeast 3278 Lambic Blend, which contains a blend of different bacteria to create a funky, sour ale in the style of Belgian Lambics.

This is going to be a long brew but should be well worth it once the first bottle is drank!!

The bock is a repeat of last years bock. Another partial mash brew how ever this 2011 version is using a priviate collection yeast from Wyeast.

Wyeast 2487 Hella Bock, Direct from the Austrian Alps, this strain will produce rich, full-bodied and malty beers with a complex flavor profile and great mouthfeel.

All these brews should great to drink!!

Butternut's Porkslap Pale Ale

Hung out with some friends in the South end. We all went to Myers & Chang, an awesome Asian food servered kinda linke dim sum/tapas style, but I had an excellent beer out of a can.

Butternut's Porkslap Pale Ale. Great flavor and smooth delivery from a canned pale ale. Cool graphics on the can!

http://www.butternutsbeerandale.com/ check them out

Beer on tap??? WhawhaWHAT??

The fridge is positioned and has holes filled with metal slugs called shanks. These shanks connect to a keg on one side and your glass on the other. Pull the handle and watch as liquid bread fills your glass. Shown above is the first pint poured from the fridge/kegerator. For you beer geeks, I switched from a "Cobra" picnic style tap to the normal draft tap or faucet. I also downsized the liquid line to a 3/16" ID from 1/4". Huge difference! 1/4" line does not offer enough "head" or pressure drop on the beer where as 3/16" gives you approx. 2 psi drop per ft of line. Serving pressure is typically around 10-12 psi so at 5ft of line your beer should flow ever so slowly out of the faucet to produce a perfect pour. As seen above, the stout has a nice 1/2" to 3/4" head.
Here's the front, 2 taps, only one handle right now. I cut a camshaft from a 1979 Chevy Camaro to use a handle. Wicked Boss, Guy!
The guts....keg of homebrew stout, C02 cylinder, C02 lines (red) coming from a 3 port manifold. Also seen are random bottles of brew and a Helles Lager still in the secondary fermenter.

As the plan comes together I get warm fuzzies!

Obtained an old fridge that came with an overpriced temperature control unit for free! Going to jazz up the fridge and get the "Kegerator" up and running.

Oh the keg!

1st keg kick this past weekend is was A German Bock. Oh so good, even the wife loved it! Next experiment is to "carbonate" a standard ale with Nitrous Oxide (N2O). Should be funny!

Kegging - Part Deux

I have aquired a filled CO2 tank and regulator. Almost there!

Cask is sealed!

Cask is filled with pale amber colored brew. FG is somewhere near 1.016 which was a little higher than estimated but expected. Dry hopping with Willamette hops from the US. Should have a wonderful hop aroma. See recipe below:

Recipe: Pale Rider
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: Extract

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 3.00 gal
Boil Size: 3.27 gal
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG Actual 1.068 SG
Estimated Color: 12.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.3 IBU
Boil Time: 30 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
1.75 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) (Late addition) Dry Extract 41.18 %
1.50 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 35.29 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 23.53 %
0.25 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (Dry Hop x days) Hops -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (30 min) Hops 25.4 IBU
0.75 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 4.9 IBU
0.50 tsp Burton Water Salts (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

Mash Schedule: None
Total Grain Weight: 4.25 lb
----------------------------
Steep grains as desired (30-60 minutes)

Oh Boy, Oak!

I got me a 10l Oak Cask that will receive some Pale Ale in the very near future. This Pale Ale will also be dry hopped. I'm excited to see the results!!

Kegging

Bottling homebrew is a process, when your done you have a backache and beer all over the place. I started with only 12oz bottles then moved to 22oz bottles/12oz bottles. Once I split a batch of cider into a 2.5gal oak cask and 22oz bombers. Next step....KEGS!

5 gal corny kegs is the easiest way to go. Get the kegs, get a CO2 tank and regulator setup, plumb it all up with tubing and viola! beers is kegged.

Over the next (insert time period) I will compile all of the necessary components to keg. Including a cold storage unit (fridge, freezer,etc) and probably make a bar to facilitate this dispensing method.

Time is money...less time spent on bottling = more money spent on house projects. Weird equation but its a mathematical truth.

"Bottling time equals $/house project X Scf (your spouses correction factor) X 2 days(Saturday & Sunday prime project time) divided by your weekly salary. "

I will be looking for willing volunteers to help drink the beer.

Technology, internet, life, beer.

So many media outlets to chronicle your life! All made possible with the internet! Here is a ditty about my homebrewing adventures and other related things.

More useless info to follow.

New Blog we'll see how it goes!