Imaginary Brewing Co.

Adventures and ramblings of a guy learning to brew beer. More so to keep track with my happenings and brewings and mishaps and whatnot, no one else will read this.

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This picture pretty much sums up my experience at the Jolly Skull beerfest.

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Now I gotta pee, man this sucks.

Went to the Jolly Skull Beerfest here in ol' Greenville, NC, and that was one of the many delightful things said by some attendees. That particular one was preceded by "I smell collards" and "Collards are good if they're cooked."  It was truly fascinating.

Other than that it was pretty awesome.  You get to stomp around with a tiny glass and demand that who ever is behind that particular table to fill it up with whatever you damn well please.  Well, you still should be polite about it.  

I got to try a bunch of stuff I would've been hesitant to buy, and it has opened my eyes to a bunch of stuff.  My favorite was Choklat by Southern Tier. It's an imperial chocolate stout.  My previous experience with chocolate stouts tasted somewhere along the lines of old coffee with some chocolate that some one put out their cigarette in. But this was very good, my wife even liked it.  But I was soon disappointed when I found out there's no distributor for Southern Tier near me.  So I guess I'll have to try and make my own.  Should go well. Or should Southern Tier see this and take pity on me and send me some for free, that'd be awesome too.

I also tried Stone's Smoked Porter, it was pretty good as well.  It had my interest because I just brewed an attempt at a smokey tasting beer.

 I should bottle in about a week, and after bottling several batches, I just learned I should sterilize the bottle caps.  I haven't been doing this.  But hey, no harm no foul, ammiright?  and while I have everything out, I may get crazy and rack my berry mead. 

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Mead-ful Things.

See what I did there?

I've been reading up on mead. I also have a one gallon jug that I rarely use.  I think you see where this is heading.  I decided to give making mead a shot. So I commenced to mead making.  I figure if I'm growing a viking beard (I'm growing a beard by the way) I should make a viking drink.

I gathered up all the needed supplies ( except a horned helmet, sadly) and began to prepare the must.  For those that don't know, the must is to mead as wort is to beer. Knowing is half the battle. 

I used about a pound and a half of orange blossom honey, mixed with yeast nutrient and energizer.  Also I included some granny smith apples, and since I've never made it before, I decided I should just throw whatever I like into the mix.  So I added some hops to essentially dry hop it.  For all I know, I ruined it right off the bat. Now with the addition of the apples, does that make it a melomel or a cyser?  I didn't use cider so I don't think its a cyser, but I know very little about it thus far.

I used a dry ale yeast, and after the fact realized that may have been a poor choice.  I probably should've used champagne yeast because of the alcohol tolerances, but again, I'm learning, get off my back.

As always, I overestimated the amount that the gallon jug would hold and had some excess. Also the contents of the jug began to swell apparently, and filled the air lock and dribbled down the side before subsiding.  It's a sticky ass mess for those who want to know.  But it's fermenting as we speak.

I'm working on getting another jug so i can rack it off the apples and such and hopefully it'll start to clear.  But I guess I have at least a couple of months of waiting to do. 

But in the mean time, I still got my beer buckets free.  I may try my hand at a smokey beer.  I had one that tasted like a campfire, which sounds pretty terrible, but it was most agreeable.

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Crye Baby and Pumpkin Pete.

Had a Terrapin Rye ale.  That was enough for me to say, "By the gods this is good!  I shall make my own!"  With that, I went to the fields to harvest my grains and hops.  By fields, I mean internet, and by harvest, I mean buy.  I also thought it would be a good time to try making it a little more bitter than what I normally make.  It is pretty good, but its on the edge of my bitter limits. That's the title of my biography by the way, "Edge of my Bitter Limits".  Also my heavy metal band. 

It may be a tad over carbonated, that with head retention of the grains I used leaves a nice foamy top hat to enjoy, but makes it a struggle to fill the glass without sloshing the yeast all up in the bottle.   Also, only steeping a little bit of rye probably doesn't give it that full rye flavor I was looking for, but it was still pretty good.

Also for Thanksgiving ( for the none of you reading this, its been a while since I've posted) I decided to make a pumpkin ale for everyone to enjoy.  I bought a pre-packaged kit.  The reviews weren't stellar, but also weren't terrible.  Same can be said of the beer.  It is ok, it seems like it didn't carbonate at all.  Chris ( my brother in law - who has a job at a brewery now, the stupid jerk - he is also the one that looks like a lunatic in the picture below) and I both were made to think of soda when we were drinking it.  Reminded me of soda, but not quite,  My dad said wine which seems closer.  It's really smooth though, and the taste is quite pleasant, not really pumpkin-ish though.  That was a common complaint of the reviews.

At any rate, I will asign any and all blame to the kit and none whatsoever on me, for I am an expert craftsman.  So now on to my next project, I may make another batch of the peach I made before, but with a few tweaks.  But I've been listening to the Dark Tower series and it mentions an apple beer that has me craving a taste.  Also I've been reading about mead and might throw that ball and see if it bounces. 

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Black Betty

It's been a while, but I went with the two stage fermentation this time, and the three weeks to condition in bottle.  It was killing me.  I attempted a black berry stout.  It has turned out ok, It's pretty dark, I wanted pitch black like my jerk ass friend Brian's heart.  It's not the dark but close enough.  I used a blackberry extract, and at first it was overwhelming.  It was all you could taste and was a little cough syrupy.  It has mellowed out and I can now taste the light roasted barley I used.  I can't pick out the hop flavor yet, but I guess that means I need to sample it more.  MORE SAMPLING!

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Something about it just makes you feel all giggly. I think that it's called dry hopping is a contributing factor.

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Dry hopping, it's pretty effin good.

Skeptical, yes I was.  I generally don't like IPAs, they have bittered me towards heavy hopping (see what I did there? Comedy gold!).  I don't need a beer that is so bitter that it closes your throat and makes your tongue numb for three days. So when I ventured the thought of dry hopping a beer of mine, I was indeed skeptical. Indeed. 

But hey, if it's good enough for Sam Adams, it's good enough for me I suppose. Plus, I figured it would look pretty sweet in my tiny glass carboy ( more a jug really). It was, in fact, pretty cool to look at, like art or something. Art that'll get you drunk.

It was taste time, and I was apprehensive.  Especially since some hop particles made their way into the bottles, and I could see them floating lazily about.  But it smelled of blueberries and tasted effin good. It gave the hops flavor with out the bitter part, which I guess is what  it's supposed to do. I used a lighter alpha hop with a slight citrus taste. It is good as all hell.  When I do it again, I might dial the dry hops back a bit because it might be over powering the taste of the brewing hops a bit. I highly recommend the dry hopping.

Coming up next, A stout adventure!

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I gave that beer some dry hopping, beers love dry hopping

The pine beer was not super good, kind of blah, with a slightly piny taste. It won't be made again, maybe a variant using a piny hop instead of pine needles.  It was lot more work with very little reward. But in then end, I still got beer out of it, so it's not a complete waste.

I have since bottled up what I'm calling Georgia Red.  I racked about a gallon off to dry hop, but more on that later.  I tried it after a week in the bottle to see how it's coming along, and it's pretty nice.  It has a nice color due to the steeping of Crystal 60, and the galena hops that were used to bitter do give a candy like taste with a rough finish. It may be a little too sweet, but I'm hoping that it has mellowed after sitting another week.  Either way, it's very drinkable, and I'm very pleased.

On to dry hopping!  My inner child laughs every time I think about dry hopping, but it's hard to hear him over the Adult me giggling aloud.  On with the show...

I racked about a gallon into my glass jug and onto almost an ounce of cascade hops.  I left plenty of head space up in that jug, but it was no match for the dry hopping.  I don't think it started fermenting again but I think some CO2 was being released along with air trapped in the hops.  Now how do I put this?  My brew started to come out prematurely.  OK, that wasn't the best way to describe that but  beer was dribbling out of the air lock all on the jug.  I had to wipe it off with a towel. 

Other than that, the dry hopping went well.  The brew has been sucked out and bottled for about a week now, so I'll try one this weekend.  I'd be willing to bet that the dry hopped bottles will be gushers. I'm totally mature about this.

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bottled and brewed in one day

Well I bottled the pine brew and took my hydrometer reading.  It gave me a really low percentage, something like 3.7%.  How could this be?! I added honey to make it around 5.1%!!  Well, turns out you can't just go all Willy Wonka all the time and just add random stuff.  I didn't add it at the right time and also honey takes a while to ferment it turns out. A long while.   I tasted my sample and it was really sweet, no pine at all.  And I might get something called "gushing"(not from my person, but from the bottles - just to be clear), so I'm super excited about that. But I'll open one (over the sink) Saturday or Sunday and give it a go, its a good thing I only have 9 bottles.

Later that same day I started another brew.  Due to a miscalculation, I had less grain to steep than what I was shooting for, but that wasn't a big deal.  And it turns out, this brew is remarkably similar to my last one, but it will allow me to evaluate different types of hops.  And my last one was pretty good. 

Still having a problem cooling my wort.  I thought I had it down, but once fermenting started it was around 80 degrees F.  From what I've read, that's not that good.  It was at that temp for over 12 hours so I hope nothing too terrible has happened to it.  That morning I put some wet paper towels around the bucket, and that seemed to work like a charm. It is now around 70, which is acceptable, actually cooler than what it has been in the past.

At any rate, the damage has been done and hopefully it is minimal. Only time will tell I suppose.

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Brew #3 - you piny bastard

I received my 1 gallon jug, so I can now brew small experimental batches, or separate batches for stuff like dry hopping, extracts etc.  But for my initial go, I decided on a beer that uses pine needles.  When I tell people this, they ask if it was on purpose.  But I figured if some hops impart a piny taste, why not pine needles. I mean people use spruce, why not pine? 

Despite initial fears of not cleaning the pine needles well enough ( but they were boiled so I guess that will help), and trying to figure out how much to cut down the yeast, and what if tastes like crap, so on and so on, I got it into the jug, air locked and the fermentation began.  I was worried about head space in the jug, then checked on it a day later to see foam spewing out of the air lock.  I guess that's what blow off tubes are for.

It has since calmed down, and I do believe it is complete, but I will wait a few more days and bottle what should be around 10 bottles.  Then I'm sure I will learn why people don't make beer with pine needles.

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Bottling again.

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Back to Bottle

After driving back from Busch Gardens ( where I saw a clydesdale who was clearly just showing off,  -scroll down, you'll know it when you see it  http://hangerme.tumblr.com/) it was time to bottle my second batch.  So I set about cleaning and sanitizing buckets and bottles.

I snatched the bucket lid off and it smelled like beer, so far so good.  The peaches floating around in there looked kind of gross, but also gave off a " i must squeeze those with my bare fists" vibe. I didn't squeeze them with my bare fists.

Next all the liquid was siphoned into my bottling bucket.  I primed it with table sugar since i didn't have priming sugar and commenced to bottlin'.  Used my fancy yellow bottle caps and all.  All in all i got about 50 beers worth. Not a bad haul.

I was a bit concerened with using the table sugar to prime, So I cracked one open after a week after capping.  It was carbonated beautifully, but it was still a bit hazy, but that might have to do with not cooling it quick enough off the boil. The taste however was not what I was shooting for, not bad mind you, just not what I was after.

There wasn't any really strong flavor too it, and only a hint of that tangy peach taste at the end.  It may be do to the fact that I used hop leaves, instead of whole hops or pellets. I don't know, but it's still nice and smooth. And maybe if I mash the peaches up, they will impart more flavor.  Maybe next time, and its right decent, so there will be a next time.

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Local celebrity David Blanks sampling my first beer out of tiny hotel room glasses.  This was mere moments after he clogged our toilet horribly and had to make the call of shame to the front desk for a plunger.  Also my lovely wife in the background.

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Taste 3 and peaches

Went to see a buddy ( local celebrity and radio personality David Blanks) in Boone, Nc over the weekend and took a couple of bottles of my first batch to share.  Now I don't know if it was the fact that the bottles have sat longer or maybe the 4 hour car ride jostled them just right (but being sealed bottles, I don't see how it could affect it much), but the beer was much, much better.  The bitter bite was gone and it was really smooth.  Quite nice actually.  This weekend I'll crack open a few more and compare.

When I returned, it was time to add the peaches to batch number two.  I wasn't able to get a secondary fermentor so I just added them into the primary.  It splashed a little and I got beer in my eye.  As of this morning the air lock was bubbling so its fermenting again.  Two more weeks then its bottle time!

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Re-Taste and Brew #2

After venting all the bottles and then tasting it all over again, I am fairly pleased. The acrid after taste is now absent, and although still a tad bitter for my taste, it was drinkable.  It also made my evening playing Xbox with my pals fairly enjoyable ( a bunch of jerks all of them).  I'm not saying it helped me keep a positive Kill/Death ratio in Call of duty, but I'm not saying it didn't either.

And now for my second round of brewing.  I found a clone recipe that I thought I'd give a shot.  And since I've made one batch already and didn't get violently ill, I'm all cocky and think I can adjust the recipe as I see fit.  So since I don't have apricots, I'm going to use peaches, and since peaches are sweeter, I made adjustments to the hops additions.  Also, this is my first time using specialty grains.  It should go well, after all I'm an old hat at this.

So I'm getting started, warming up the water so I can steep the grain and also cleaning and sanitizing stuff. As the water starts to warm up, I try and get the temperature with the 5 dollar thermometer I bought for this specific purpose. 

I place the thermometer in the water and after about 3 seconds it cracks.  I guess that's why its a 5 dollar thermometer.  Now I'm dumbstruck because I am at a loss as to what to do now.  From what I've read the temperature has to be fairly specific to steep properly.  So at this point I'm searching the internet to see if the numbers on my stove knob correspond to temperatures. Instead I found a bunch of btu equations. Not helpful, so I resort to guessing at the temperature.

Right off the bat, I have possibly ruined everything. Awesome. But I soldier on and clean and sanitize, but I can't find the turkey baster I bought earlier. So I look and look but can't find it.  By this point the steeping is done and I remove the grain, drain the grain bag, and squeeze it out.

After doing this, I've read in several places not to squeeze it out.  But I've also read it doesn't matter as long as it has been steeped at the right temperature.  But I'll say not to squeeze it because its effing hot, and it will burn your hand.

At any rate got the brew up to boil and added the extract and the hops.  I also found my turkey baster in the parking lot while I went to check the mail.  I'm still having problems cooling my wort, so I suppose I'll invest in a immersion chiller next.  It may have been a tad too warm for the yeast initially, but now around 68 on the third day of fermenting.  But after a week it'll be time for adding the peaches.

Yeah, I made a few more mistakes, but I guess now I know, and knowing is half the battle. YO JOE!

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It begins...

So I was looking around on the internet and came across an article about home brewing beer. Now I've been interested in doing it for a while so I began reading said article. It didn't seem too bad, but still figured it might be beyond me, so I just kept on reading and pretending that I might do it one day. While reading, my jerk ass buddy Brian texted me. I told him I didn't have time to talk to him because I was reading about home brewing. But we began to talk about how we've always wanted to try it, and it seemed pretty cool and how grenade launchers and knifers ruined call of duty (that was off the subject). And we proceed for some time about how we are going try it one day, but at this point I realize that I just turned 30. So I decide to quit putting off stuff that I wanted to try and just go for it, it's not super expensive and it's not super time consuming ( a lot of waiting around is involved).So I said eff it, did some research and got the equipment and ingredients on the way. Now I admittedly don't know that much about about beer. I haven't had much drinking experience outside of Anheuser Busch. Some I like, some I hate, others fall in between. I didn't bother taking note of names or styles, because I would still buy whatever I normally do. I know people talk about light beers, and how they are junk and all that, and it may be true. But if you say anything bad about natural light I will punch you in your damn mouth. Whatever you say may be true, but it's like trying to get someone to convert religions. Sure Jesus is great and all, but I'm not coming to your church so shut the eff up, you're just making me angry. I respect your opinion, and will gladly listen to it, but get snobby or insulting and I will punch you in your mouth. Back to brewing! So I get all my stuff (extract only - no grains), get it all set up and get ready to start cleaning and sanitizing. The sanitizer said to mix with 5 gallons of water, not a word on how long to let stuff sit. So that was blind guessing. But I feel fairly confident I got the job done. And now comes time to boil the water. I see why people use propane burners now, boiling 3 gallons of water on an electric stove takes roughly half of your lifetime. At any rate, it got all brewed up and dumped into the fermentation bucket. After a small set back with almost punching the airlock and o-ring into the wort, I got it sealed up and it was fermenting and bubbling away. I have never been so fascinated with air bubbles. Now, I have about 4 different sets of instructions, and they all say to ignore all the other instructions out there. So I kind of mixed and matched based on gut feelings and blind ignorance. Until bottling... Against my gut, I went with the kit's instructions and bottled after one week. All the others said wait at least 2 weeks, but I was excited. I got everything bottled and capped and sealed and let them sit for 2 weeks or so. And now the big day of tasting! I was nervous, I won't lie. But I popped the cap off, it hissed. That sounded right. It smelled like beer so that's good. Poured it in my glass, looked like beer if not a bit foamy. Now lets just hope it doesn't taste like a stewed dog turd. So I take a drink, and its a bit bitter for my taste, but as I've mentioned, my horizons are not that broad. Its bitter, but not bad, until the after taste. Its really bitter, almost astringent. But the longer the glass sat out, the off taste subsided some. After some research, I'm hoping its over carbonation from bottling too early. I read if I vent the bottles and recap them, it might help. Or it might ruin half my batch. Or it might not have anything to do with carbonation. But I have vented half my batch to see what happens. What ever it is, its a learning process and I'm kind of digging it. Also the first bottle did not give me diarrhea. So that's a plus.