A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

homebrewing

Back in the brew of things

On a cold day off, I decided to take advantage of things and brew a beer.

It’s been a while, too.

The one I chose? A kit from the Brooklyn Brew Shop – peanut butter porter. Yeah, it sounds awesome I’m thinking. And, in about a month or so, I’ll have the chance to tell you how it tastes.

Brewing day!

Brewing day!

Anyway, I did all that was said to be done, but somewhere along the way, I must have done something wrong with this batch. I’m hoping I didn’t, but it’s highly possible.

The directions from the Brooklyn Brew Shop are easy to follow.

Sanitize. Mash. Sparge. Boil. Fermentation.

Bottling will come later. But for now, everything was easy enough. I measured everything out, but in the end, I still needed to add about a quarter of a gallon of water.

Maybe my boil was too much?

I didn’t think so, but it’s possible.

I also made sure to strain everything. But in the end, I still got a bunch of excess “crap.” So, honestly, I have no idea if I am doing something wrong or not.

So, this is what I did – and maybe I did some things that shouldn’t have been done, but even when I did things in the past, it seems to sometimes end up the same. So… here we go.

Mash

One mistake I made was the size of the pot for the mash. I should have used a slightly smaller one as I think it would have heated a little more even. I ended up adding a little water to the mash as it seemed to be burning on the bottom a bit, so I think it might have been a little dry. Also, it didn’t seem to heat evenly. I’d have a good temp in one spot, and not in another. So I’d mix it all up and heat a little bit to get it to the spot.

Outside of that, the mash seemed to be ok. Things looked fine.

The Sparge

OK, this is where things might have gotten dicey – but this is the only place.

With many kits I use, the sparge isn’t done. With the all-grain brewing, it’s a necessary step. One thing I’d like to figure out is how to brew in a bag as I think it would help me with several aspects. I need to do some research to figure out how the best way to attack that would be, though. I’d also have to find some good brew bags.

Anyway, with this one I did as the instructions said. I boiled up the right amount of water (actually may have had an extra cup or two in there) and got things ready. This is where I realized I had one issue – my strainer isn’t big enough to hold all the grain. I had to figure the best way to tackle this, so I put half of the mash into the strainer and did the sparge, and then did the same with the second half of the mash.

But, my thought here is – did the mash get too cool in that amount of time? Did I do something to mess up the normal way of going? If I am going to do this the regular way, I think I need to invest in a bigger strainer. If I am going to the brew in a bag method, I might not need to worry about it.

Outside of that, things seemed find. I got a nice dark wort, and it was ready for the boil.

Some goodies to add to the boil.

Some goodies to add to the boil.

The Boil

Ok, here’s my question for those who know brewing – do I start the timer (the directions said 75 minutes) as it heats up, or not until it actually starts boiling? I didn’t start the timer until the boiling started as it made more sense and I think that’s how I’ve done it in the past (note: I haven’t brewed in a while and even longer for all-grain), so hopefully that was fine.

I did have one issue during the boil, though. I got the “light boil,” but on the low heat, it lost that low boil. So I had to crank it up (probably 10/15 minutes into the boil) to get it back to a good spot. From then on, it seemed to hold well.

Everything was added when I was supposed to (and with that peanut butter addition – it smelled good!), so it was time to continue on.

Cooling down

I put the pot into an ice bath and I had a mixture of water and ice, so the pot kind of bobbed a little. Eventually I axed the water and went with all ice, figuring that was best. I’m not sure if it was exposed too long, but that wouldn’t have done anything to the amount of liquid. Once I hit the target temperature, it was time to put it in the fermenting jug.

Fermenting

I set up the strainer and the funnel and started to pour. I loved the look of this porter. The smell was outstanding. If it tastes as good as it smelled, I will look forward to it.

But, there was a lot of junk still being caught. I thought most of it was gone during the sparge, but apparently not. It caught a lot and I think some might have even made it into the fermenter, which is fine as I can deal with it.

Still, I was looking for something a tad smoother (which is why I think brewing in a bag might be my best bet), so I got wondering as the jug started to fill – and it only got to about 3/4 of a gallon. Maybe a little less.

As per the instructions, I added tap water to bring it to the gallon line, but not sure what it will do having to add that much water.

Looks good, but we shall see in time!

Looks good, but we shall see in time!

End result

I didn’t take an ABV reading on this as I am worried I did something wrong, so I’m just going to figure it’s about (or a little less) than what is estimated for this brew. It definitely looks like a porter, so that’s good. However, you can see some floaties in the jug, but I am pretty sure that’s somewhat normal, especially for a gallon brew where I don’t necessarily do everything one might for a five-gallon or higher brew.

It’ll be about two weeks before I bottle it, then another two in the world of carbonation. From there, I’ll be able to test what this beer tastes like.

Final thoughts

I have several other kits from the Brooklyn Brew Shop that I plan on brewing up. The kits they have are incredibly excellent in regard to flavors and such, so I am looking forward to doing them (I have some stouts, wheat beers etc.), and I am hoping I can make the process a bit smoother.

For you brewers out there, any thoughts? Did I mess something up with this one, or should things be fine? Any tips for brewing in a bag? Or any other tips?

I am hoping after I finish these kits (again, I have several), I might be gutsy enough to think about going to the five-gallon brews, though I have to admit I like the smaller batches. That way, if it’s a beer you aren’t too fond of, you only have 10-11 bottles to worry about!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please Like HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

It’s time to start up again

It’s been a while since I’ve brewed any beers.

I miss doing it, too. The process is fun. The outcome is usually fun. I enjoy seeing people try my beer and finding out if they like it or not.

But I’ve gotten away from it. And I need to get back into it.

I have several kits to work on getting done. And then I have to find some recipes of grain that I have bought in the past.

I need to get back into brewing again!

I need to get back into brewing again!

Here’s my hope – said grain hasn’t gone bad. I can always pick up some new hops if I need to. We’ll see how it goes, right?

But I also want to mess around. For example, I picked up – at some point – three kits for a wheat beer. I got them at a cheap price and such, but I don’t want to brew three of the same one. So what should I do?

I was thinking of making one of them a blueberry/honey wheat … how’s that sound?

Maybe I can put some maple syrup in the other one. A maple wheat? Hmmm. Or, the fall is coming. Maybe some apples and cinnamon?

I also have a few stout mixes. I need to work on those. I’ve long wanted to do a blueberry stout. God that sounds good.

So it’s time for me to start peeking around and getting back into it. Getting some brews going. I think, eventually, it would be fun to graduate to a 5-gallon brew. The only issue there is I really need to make a beer that I’d like. I have some ideas, so we’ll see how that goes. I might get into a point where I do both 5-gallon and 1-gallon … and save the 5-gallon for times when I know a larger quantity would be good.

So if any of you are brewers … have any tips for adding fruit? I’ve done it once or twice and it was OK, but I want to make sure you get the hint of it. Any other tips as I get back into the brewing world?

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Back at it — brewing some beer for the first time in a while

It’s been a while since I brewed a beer.

So, I took advantage of a snow day to get a couple done up. And it was nice to get back to brewing. That being said, I hit up a couple of easy kits, but to me that’s fine as it got me liking things again. Which means I now need to start brewing more.

Two beers a fermentin'!

Two beers a fermentin’!

I have a bunch of things that I had gotten a while back — so I hope none of the ingredients have gone bad. I’m honestly not sure how that all works, but I’ll find out in a few weeks as these two beers start to take shape.

And then I’ll start brewing all the others.

I think what I’d like to do for the next couple of months is try to get some of these beers rotating and brewed. I only do the one-gallon batches, so it’s not too bad. This might mean a trip to a brew shop to get a couple of one-gallon jugs so I can have 3-4 fermenting at once. And I might need to get some new bottles to have them handy. The beauty of the one-gallon batch is that you only get like 9-12 beers out of it.

The initial reading off the first beer.

The initial reading off the first beer.

On the other hand, I do have a couple of two-gallon batches, so I can use the old Mr. Beer kegs for those.

I’m excited for these because I haven’t brewed in a long time. The smell on each was good and I had a slight taste of each, and liked the flavors. I’ll be excited to see how it moves along with the yeast and all the good stuff. Bring on the beer!

I’ll also have to think of the name for these beers as I like to keep the beers in my “brewery” on Untappd.

By this point, I had expected to be way further along in my brewing. I still have a lot to learn and looking at several feeds on Instagram makes me realize that. It’s amazing some of the things people know and can do when it comes to brewing.

For now, I just keep it simple.

And in about a month, I’ll get to see what these two beers taste like. Hopefully pretty tasty!

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Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Next up in the brew list…

I have two more beers bottled. Now it’s time to wait it out.

One of them — the White House Honey Porter — is one I’ve really been waiting to try. That will reach the two-week mark tomorrow and I plan on getting one in the fridge quickly. That one is named ObamaBrew and has an ABV of 6%.

The newest — Blueberry Red Ale — fermenting.

Then there’s the Chocolate Maple Porter (named Giddy Up — ABV 5.6%), which will reach the one-week mark this weekend. I let that one go a little longer in the fermenter, so hopefully it comes out well.

This past Sunday, I brewed another beer. This one is interesting and I’m truly excited about it.

The recipe was from the Brooklyn Brew Shop’s book (which is set for one-gallon batches, something I fully appreciate!) and it’s a blackberry red ale (not yet named). Alas, I decided to substitute blueberries for blackberries.

Yum.

Well, in theory.

I’m a fan of blueberry beers and when I started brewing, one of my goals was to brew a good blueberry ale. So I’m looking forward to seeing how this comes out.

But I’ll be waiting at least another three weeks!

This one was also my second all-grain recipe and first where I didn’t use a kit. I thought it went well, but I truly decided I need to learn more about brewing in a bag. Though I’m happy I’ve done things in the progression I have, I’ve also realized when doing a one-gallon batch, going through every step is tedious.

So if I can make it a little easier, I’d like to do that.

Brewing in a bag seems to be that way. Basically, it helps you skip a little bit of time with the sparging and all, if I am reading it all right. In the end, the real reason I’d like to do this is to make it a little more easy with the grain.

I’ve also been reading recently about using the spent grains in recipes. I’m definitely going to go that route to see what I can come up with.

Mashing away.

With this last set, I decided to make some spent grains dog treats. Now, I don’t have a pooch. But each of my brothers do. So I have some for them. It was quite easy to do.

The ingredients were the grain, flour, two eggs and peanut butter. Then, using the oven, dry them out completely. Simple, right? The recipe I looked at said it would take about 7 1/2 hours in the oven (on 200 or so) to get them set, though some ovens are quicker, especially if making them thinner. The treats I made were done in about 3 1/2 hours. The first part of it is when you do the initial cooking, with the oven up around 325. After like 30 minutes or so, you pull them out, cut them up and then back into the oven at the lower temp for another 3-7 hours.

I couldn’t figure out what I’d like to do with the rest of the grain at this point and didn’t want to double the batches of dog treats until I found out if their dogs liked them, so I pitched the rest of it. There will be plenty more batches of beer and I’ll be trying other recipes out.

In the end, it’s a lot of fun figuring out what to do with these beers and with the ingredients after. I’ve also ready one can re-use the yeast, but I’m not that far along yet. So I’ll keep going with how I am doing it.

I have several more beers in the wings and waiting to be brewed.

Next up (maybe today if I get up the energy to brew) is the Caribou Slobber brown ale. After that, I have all-grain recipes for two Dry Black Stouts (think somewhat of a Guinness), a Smoked Cherry (requires six months in the bottles!), my own concoction (2.5 gallons) and a peanut butter porter.

This has been a fun journey so far and I look forward to continued learning to hopefully keep making my beers taste better!

Though I won’t be likely making labels for each beer (tough to get the labels back off. I plan on doing small ones to identify each beer), I will still make them for use on Untappd and Facebook. I wanted to share the most recent ones here, too.

ObamaBrew

Giddy Up

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Notes from my noodle: Apr. 17

A missed day yesterday, but I haven’t had much to say recently.

Well, I always have something to say. I just didn’t have much when it comes to the blog. So, today, I’m hitting up a good fallback posting idea — Notes from my noodle!

The beauty of this is I only have a few ideas as I start and we’ll see where it leads.

So, let’s get it underway.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

If you are a blogger, odds are you’ve entered giveaways before. It’s a big thing in the blogging world. I wish I could do more of them here, but I have to keep them a little spread out at this point in time. Plus, when dealing with personal blogs, you have to make sure you give things away that are aimed a bit at a larger audience, not just a certain niche etc.

When I read and follow blogs, I’ll often enter. I never expect to win, especially as many are for some big things and attract thousands upon thousands of entries.

Finding blogs recently through the North East Bloggers Network led me to a giveaway. And it only had a few days left. So, of course, I opted to enter. Basically, you earn entries by following, tweeting, liking, commenting etc. So I went through and did things, found a few new blogs to read and so forth. and that was it.

Until yesterday afternoon, when the site’s owner sent me an e-mail entitled “You’re a winner!”

This, of course, I already knew.

But Rachel apparently meant for the giveaway! Out of 3,692 entries, my name was drawn.

Score!

What did I win? A $50 Target card and a $10 Starbucks card, as well as one month’s worth of ad space on four blogs. I’ve never done blog ads and was curious about them, so hopefully this will help me understand it a bit more. Thanks to Krystal, Courtney, Jamie and Rachel for giving ad space as part of the giveaway!

Either way, I’m obviously quite excited about winning the contest. It’s pretty cool to get notifications like that out of the blue saying you’ve won something.

Brewing, brewing, brewing

If you remember a post I did a week or so ago talking about my next plans in homebrewing, I’ve completed two.

The White House Honey Porter and the Chocolate Maple Porter are now fermenting!

Two beers, fermenting away.

The Honey Porter is the one I brewed first. It was a Northern Brewer kit, so pretty straight forward. In the end, it took about an hour and a half and I had it in the jug and going to town.

The Chocolate Maple Porter, well, that was my first foray into doing things a little more in depth. See, this was a full all-grain setup. The mash, the sparge, the whole nine yards. All told, it was a bit more than three hours to pull this one off. But I liked the process. I liked doing it as the kit, one from Brooklyn Brew Shop, said to do.

This one also has a little local flavor.

At the end of the brew, I needed to add maple syrup to the wort. The syrup is some that was just made this year by Gid, a local and friend. I’m super stoked to see how this one tastes. I have to use more maple syrup when bottling, too, so I’m excited to see what the taste is like.

Speaking of brewing and such, I’ve decided to abandon the labels. I’m going to put smaller labels on the bottles to show what the brews are, but I’ll save the bigger, more elaborate ones for online use on Facebook or Untappd. It’s really just a pain to try and get it all set and everything and then have to worry about getting them all cleaned up and such. I think I also might have to start posting here when new ones are done and ready so I can keep track of them.

But these two fermenting now… I’m really excited for.

Bark, bark, bark

I have no true issues with dogs. But man, why do owners have to allow dogs to stay out when they constantly bark. As I write this, some neighborhood pooch (not sure where as there are many) is out — or at least close to a window/door and has been non-stop barking for a good hour. At least. It’s an ankle-biting dog, too, so it’s that yap, yap, yap bark.

Ugh.

I know I am not the only one who thinks this is annoying. I have a few neighbors with these dogs and most of the time, they are all good about it and make sure the dog is in or something if it barks too much. But this dog has not stopped.

Have some control. Train your dog. My lord. When it starts to annoy people all the time, it’s time to realize your dog needs some training. Enough.

OK, I’ve barked about that long enough…

iMessage

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad or something, iMessage is probably something you wouldn’t care about.

Alas, for those who do…

For some reason, lately, I’ve been having  hard time with it. Sometimes, iMessage works. Other times it doesn’t. At the same time, it will work for one person and not for another.

Annoying.

52-week project

Fifteen weeks are done of this year’s 52-week photo project — the HooHaa 52.

One of my favorite shots so far from the HooHaa 52 — Week 3, Night.

It’s been a fun group so far this year. There have been some fun themes and some really good images. And, for the most part, those who started with us are still going strong. And that’s a good thing.

I’ve been pretty solid so far, but a few weeks gave me fits and I had a hard time figuring what I wanted to do.

We still have a long way to go, but it’s nice to know that people have seemingly made their way through some of the colder months and we are now moving to the warmer months, which hopefully means some more great themes and images.

I know when I see weather like this, I feel like there is more to take photos of and it’s more fun to go out with the camera.

I’m involved with a couple of other photo challenges and I look forward to seeing where they all lead this spring and summer.

Relay fundraiser reminder

I am a little more than a week from the Relay For Life and there’s still time for you to enter the fundraiser for the lap quilt. Don’t miss your chance — this thing is truly amazing!

For the information on how to enter, click here.

Fundraiser: I am, again, trying to raise money for the Relay For Life. If you donate to me — a minimum of $5– you will be entered to win a super-sweet quilted lap quilt or pillow. Click here for all the information!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!