In the end it’s still beer.

Looks like my IPA came out drinkable. I classify it as a dark american IPA. It is dark reddish brown with a gorgeous, thick head. There is a nice burnt sugar malty aroma offset by the citrusy hops. It is a very flavorful brew; full and malty but equally hoppy. The finish is a bit rough but it’s still not too shabby. I’ll be toying with this recipe for a while I’m sure.

Brewing Blunders: Mistakes are part of the path of making great beer

India Pale Ale.

I am really starting to like these beers more and more. They never appealed to me much before, I guess I really like malt complexity and depth. However, I have had a few really good IPA’s in the last few months and my eyes (and taste buds) are opening.

Now that the wedding is over and the dust has settled it was time to breakout the brewery, upgrade a few things, and brew a nice beer; an IPA. I have had previous problems with my homemade counter-flow chiller on the last few batches. In fact, the last time I used it was the time was the nail that sealed the coffin on that damn thing. While I was cooling my wort the hose leading out of the CFC kinked a bit, causing some pressure to build, and a water leak (not wort!) sprung from a joint. I had to keep my finger on the leaky area to keep it from leaking like a the Trevi.

There is no way that I was going to brew another batch of beer with a crappy chiller. Instead of fixing the CFC I decided to look into a plate chiller. Plate chillers have many advantages over CFC’s or immersion chillers. First off, they are small and compact. Second, they cool wort as fast if not faster than a CFC or immersion chiller. Finally, they are usually one solid unit built out of stainless steel. Sold. After some searching, reading, posting, and more research I was offered a Shirron Chiller from a guy on the brewboard for a great price.

After receiving the chiller and adding some quick disconnects I’d thought I’d give it a try. I prepped the night before brew day as a usually do and my brew day went off decently well with the exception of my first stuck sparge. Eh. Anyways, when it came time to cool the wort I hooked everything up and starting running wort through the plate chiller. All was well for about a half gallon until the flow of the wort coming out of the chiller was reduced to a trickle. Nothing I did would make the chiller work correctly again. Giving up after 15 minutes or so, I sadly drained my hot wort directly into the carboy. With the 180°+ hot wort in my carboy pitching yeast into that kind of environment would be murder. With Rochester temperatures this time of year reaching in the 30′s and 40′s at night, I placed the hot carboy on my porch to cool over night. It wasn’t something I’d normally do but in this extreme case I really didn’t have any choice.

In the morning before work, I pitched my yeast and placed the wort into my fermentation chamber. Because I had to just dump in all of my hot wort, I had a ton of cold break in the bottom of my carboy which I wasn’t happy about. All of that cold break doesn’t only soak up a lot of beer making the final volume of beer less, it also could contribute off flavors. Regardless, the wort fermented quickly and well with proper attenuation. I transfered the beer last week into a fresh carboy and it has sinced cleared very well. Sunday, I dry hopped the beer with 1/2 ounce of amarillo hops and I’ll leave it in there until at least Wednesday.

I am irritated that the IPA may have some off flavors some my cooling difficulty and over-sparging However, it seems mistakes are the best way to learn how to do things correctly and throughly. With everything that I have done, whether it is music, architecture, art, or brewing mistakes seem to be inevitable and in the end, not exactly an unwelcomed guest.

Cheers,

Alan

Back from Italy… need beer.

Well, Vanessa and I are finally married! Our wedding day was great as was our honeymoon to Italy. Italy was just filled to the brim with cheap, really good wine. We had a bottle almost every night at dinner and sometimes at lunch. A bottle of house wine in Italy, which was fantastic usually, went for about 6€ or about 9 dollars american. Despite this, we saw many Italians drinking beer with lunch. Unfortunately, they didn’t drink anything good. Every bar, cafe, and restaurant usually offered 3-4 different beers; Bud, Peroni, Heineken, and sometimes Harp. I kept a watchful eye open for good beer but only saw one place in Rome near Piazza Campo dei Fiori. There is a lot of excellent beer in Europe, hopefully it’ll be just a matter of time before the Italians catch on.

Cheers!

Alan

Brewing Hiatus

One Thirty – One Brews will be on a short brewing hiatus until late September. It’s for a good cause though; we’re getting Married! Poor Vanessa has gone all summer long without any Jammin’ Raspberry Wheat (what is a girl to do?) . We’ll be brewing that up soon after we return from our honeymoon in Italy.

After Jammin’ Raspberry is bottled I think I will have to take advantage of some american oak cubes I have had sitting in Maker’s Mark since February. I think something along the line of an oak-aged vanilla porter would be fantastic for the winter. We’ll see.

Until I can resume brewing again looks like Italian wine will have to fill in the void.

Cheers!

-Al

Welcome.

Hello. I am going to use this blog to discuss brew days, recipes, experiments, and all things brewing related.