Belgian Ale

I'm a big fan of Listermann's brewing supply in Cinci. Smaller operation, good prices, unique shop!

A view of the partial grain in the bag, getting ready to steep...

Close up of the cracked barley, ready to steep.

Close up of the hop bag, first addition.

Bavarian hefe, meet belgian ale.

All the fermentables coming to a boil, very pretty!

2nd hop addition, all parts integrated now...

Chilled down using my immersion wort chiller, into the fermenter, looks like an OG of 1.074.

Decided to go all carboy, single primary fermentation this time, no transfer to secondary. Should lend itself to a fuller bodied/hoppier brew, I'm hoping.

Took a gravity reading a couple weeks in and we're at 1.016. Roughly 7.6% ABV so far, we'll see how it plays out.

Funny story.... 20 hours into fermenting, the pressure from CO2 built up so much it shot my wort into the ceiling of the basement! Nice little stain up there. HA!

Cheers everyone!

More Pics coming soon!

Good day! I've got a Belgian in the fermenter and quite a few pics to update, but our little daughter is keeping us super busy, as she just learned how to crawl!

The belgian is registering at 7.6% ABV before bottling, so it's gonna be a humdinger. Backatchya with pics asap.

In the meantime, go out and try this brew: Full Sail Session Lager - Red or Black. Great stuff!

Honey Wheat Bottling - 03/17/10

Here is a pic of a nice half and half fermentation! Yeast cells doing their job, then falling to the bottom. Very gradual process.

Honey weiz came out a nice golden color!

Stout, meet your cousin, Honey wheat brew!

Final moments of the rack from secondary to bottling bucket...

Nice yeast cake at the bottom, pretty trippy. Bottling was same as usual from here. Ended up with over two cases which is where we like to be! Next up: Hefeweizen, the second part of this double wheatdown.

Cheers!

The Double WheatDown

Honey Wheat bottling pics and Hefeweizen pics coming soon.

Natalie's Honey Weiz has been in bottles for a week, come tomorrow. The Moriarty's hefeweizen is in the secondary fermenter and should be ready in about a month. More asap.

Cheers!

Honey Wheat in the secondary 02/22/10

Natalie's honey wheat beer in the secondary on her B-Day. Happy Birthday honey! This has a wonderful aroma to it. It looks like butterscotch in this pic, but it has a nice mellow yellow honey hue. Can't wait to try this one next month!

Withoutadoubt Stoubt

Distributing a few at quittin time today! Hope everyone will enjoy!

Cheers!

Stout pics... Aw yeah...

A nice deep brown/black coloring... Very smooth! I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Big stout, small glass! This is in the sampling glass from Alefest Columbus 2010. I called Listermann's in Cinci to ask how long I should wait and the guy there acted like I was an idiot for not having tasted it already! It had only been in bottles for a week, but I went for it and I'm sure as hell glad I did. REALLY tasty stuff.

Will be perfect to bid a fond farewell to this cold ass winter!

Cheers!

Honey Weizen boil 02/14/10

Scroll down to the bottom to see the whole process! Here is the siphon from boil pot to fermenter. Nice honey color, with a yellow hue. Hope it'll stay this color through to bottling/imbibing!
Here is the first use of my immersion wort chiller I purchased from Northern Brewer. I had a 77 degree batch of wort in about 10 minutes. Used to take almost an hour to get down to that temp. This is supposed to help make a crisper/purer brew, given the rapid cooling. Can't wait to try the results!

Heating up the Wheat LME and clover honey.

Here are the ingredients in my Northern Brewer Honey Weizen kit. Boiled on St. V day. Looking forward to a nice spring ale!

Here are some pics of the Valentine's day Honey Weizen. Not sure what we'll call it, mayber Cupidity or something corny like that. It was a really easy boil, with simply LME, an early tettnang hop addtion and a late honey addition. Hopefully we'll have a nice honey mouthfeel and aroma!

Next Generations!

Valentine's Day 2010 boiled our Honey Weiz for my honey. It's got a very viscous yet sticky feel to it, just during the boil! This is the first brew using my new immersion wort chiller from NB. I hope it makes a nice/crisp finish on the brew.

Stout update, 02/15 - Tasted the imperial stout this evening... While it's not as boozy (yet) as we'd predicted, it's incredibly smooth. A nice banana type aroma. Plenty of balance, no bitterness at all. Another tasty brew! Looking forward to a little more carbonation over the next week or so. Pics to follow....

Cheers!

VW

Stout Bottling Day 02/09/10

Here is the finished yield! This is a Listermann's Imperial Stout. It smells pretty boozy, so hopefully it is, in fact, imperial. On deck is this Northern Brewer Honey Weiss Kit. Gonna start that this weekend. Woohoo! Scroll down to see the bottling process for the stout...

Here is the cleaning station. Had to ensure all bottles were sanitized and ready to go.

This was quite the feat; 50 some odd bottles upside down drying at once. The last time I tried this I had em all fall over a couple times. Got lucky with no casualties this time around. Booyah!

Siphoning the stout from secondary to bottling bucket. And of course, and in keeping with the tradition in homebrewing.... Having my own IPA while I brew!

Black & Decker portable workbench proves perfect for the racking procedure. Almost done here. Just tilted the carboy a bit to get the last of the brew.

Once in the bottling bucket, I used the bottling wand to transfer to each bottle. The yield this time was 46 12 oz and 3 22 oz bottles. I didn't show this process on my last brew post, so I figured share for anyone out there looking for pointers.

I'm a pretty relaxed brewer. I will eventually graduate up to all grain, but I'm really enjoying the hell out of extract brewing. It's very gratifying and as I've said before.... I owe it to homebrewing to brew a few extract brews before trying to make my own recipe!

Next up... Boiling the Honey Weiss!

Cheers everybody!

Alefest Columbus 02/06/10

Here is Alefest 2010 at The Aladdin Shrine Center in good ol' Cbus, OH.

Chris from the Columbus Gordon Biersch and his Hop Hookah!

AleFest here in Columbus, OH was Saturday, February 6th, 2010. There were about 60 breweries represented. It was a great time! Got to meet some more homebrewers and they got to try my IPA. I was very grateful to receive some pointers on my next batches and enjoy the praise for my first brew. I snuck one in for them to try!

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The central ohio homebrewers club is S.O.D.Z. which stands for Scioto Olentangy Darby Zymurgysts. I am now a proud member! I joined up on the spot.

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I sampled some delicious healthy brew from various areas, mostly local IPAs. Most notably Weasel Boy's Dancing Ferret and Gordon Biersch's crazy IPA that was infused using Chris's "Hop Hookah." Great stuff!

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I also came across a couple other different brews I'd been meaning to try; Saison DuPont belgian farmhouse ale which was very dry and fruity. I'm told this is a prime example of the saison. And La Fin Du Monde; a slightly tart, boozy golden ale. Also tried a crazy barlewine: Avery's Hog Heaven. Kinda grabs you by the booboo if you know what I mean.

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Oh and Weasel Boy has a great stout as well. And they brew in Zanesville, so I'm going to be a fan of the brewery no matter what.

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The vibe was celebratory but at the same time respectful of the venue. It was great to sample some choice ales!

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Website: http://www.alefest.com/ There are a few more this year, check em out!

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Cheers!

Birthday Brews!

Definitely a Cinci staple...

Nice belgian from Weyerbacher. It's creeping up there as a favorite brewery!

01/26/10 - Well yesterday was my 33rd birthday. We went to Cincinnati and ate at Rock Bottom Brewery. Had some red ale and their Double IPA. Great stuff! Here are some choice brews we picked up at Jungle Jim's near Cinci... You'll have to open the pic to take a look. A lot of variety!

Racking the Stout...01/18/10

Cleaned/sanitized racking EQ. Airlock, siphon, hosing, thief...

Here is the stout after 115 hours in the primary. Everything went as planned, and I decided to rack into secondary so I could see it in the carboy for the next weeks...

Regular siphoning, pretty straight forward.

Almost done...

Airlock in place and we've got our stout in the secondary glass carboy. This will help with pure flavors and a better tasting beer. I'm quite glad I took this step with the IPA. There would be an unfavorable aftertaste (due to spent hop residuals resting in the beer) had I not done so.

Cheers!

A word on glassware...

Now, I'm no snob... I love all beer. But these days, I try to put the good stuff into my belly out of respect for myself and for the brew.

I like to imbibe using the proper vessel whenever I can. Particularly when I'm in my home! Here are a few choice pieces of glassware:

From left to right:

Big ass mug, for Marzen/Oktoberfest styles.
Flared pint glass I use for stouts.
Ale glass (Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale commemorative).
Standard pint glass (Sierra Nevada).
Strong ale glass (Ommegang commemorative) not sure what else to call it... Small mouth snifter?
Sam Adams commemorative lager glass (which is great for any beer).
Standard snifter for any hefty beer with a big nose.
Standard pilsner glass.

I don't get these out every night or anything, but I figured I share. I like to make an event out of every good beer I drink!

Cheers!

Life and Limb and 120 Minute IPA

01/14/10 I finally found Life and Limb at a wonderful place called "From the Vine" in Lewis Center, OH. Someone reserved it a few months ago, but never picked it up. Blasphemy!

And Hallelujah! Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada are quite possibly my two favorite breweries in the U.S. So glad I was able to snag what could very well have been the last bottle for sale in Cbus!

Some other choice brews: Overbooked IPA (my homebrew), Bell's Best Brown Ale, Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA (elusive little bugger!), Life and Limb by DFH and Sierra Nevada, White Storm Cream Ale by Mad Brewer (Cleveland based, came highly recommended by Jaimie at From the Vine) and Saranac Black Lager.

Cheers!

Imperial Stout boil 01/13

Scroll down to the bottom and make your way up to learn about the newest batch!

And here it is down in the basement, in the fermenter. I'm typing this 24 hours after boil and we've got crazy bubbles going on in the fermenter. It's the perfect temp down here at 69 degrees. Not too cool, not too hot.

The "head" will do some cool things when chilling. Chemistry at work!

Here is the chill station, just a few feet away. Gotta get it cooled down as quickly as possible to combat exposure.

Enjoying the process! IPA, meet your cousin Imperial Stout.

The boil takes about an hour, so I had some time to take a couple shots... Here is my IPA in all it's glory being imbibed while we're brewing the next batch.

It's a rule, you have to drink a homebrew when brewing the next batch.

Another view of the "halved" boil.

Here is a very interesting part of the boil. The froth on top will pick a "side" of your pot to rest. This works in your favor, as the portion that's actually bubbling needs an open top for steam to escape. Not paying attention to the froth forming will absolutely lead to a boil over. moving the froth around, lowering heat and removing from heat will combat boil over.

The hop bag (nugget hops) has been added in and we're raising back up to boil.

Raised temp to a boil, removed from heat and added LME... Here' s a tip for anyone taking notes... Start with a very slow increase on stovetop heat when following instructions. Too fast and you'll burn your sugars and/or LME.

After steeping for about 30 mins...

Here is the view of the LME in the bucket with the label for anyone's reference that might need it.

Watching the black grain's "essence" integrate into the water was cool to watch. Trippy movement in there. Looked like cream/coffee...

Steeping the specialty grains as normal.

Here, I was transferring 5 gallons sanitized water from bucket to carboy so I could mark the 5 gallon level on the glass. Turns out I have a carboy best suited for secondary fermentation. For the time being, I'm gonna use the Northern Brewer bucket as my primary.

Imperial Stout! Listermann's. They're a brewing supply company down in Cincinnati, Dana Avenue exit. Coincidentally, just 1 exit away from my bro-in-law's place. Very friendly, very cool! This is a place that you can buy kits directly from where they're made. The joint that's here in Columbus order's theirs from a place just like this. Listermann's has more of an authentic, personal feel to it.

The LME (Liquid Malt Extract) came out of a big ass tapped vat. Very surprising to see! I'd recommend a trip down there for any homebrewer.

Will certainly come away with a T-Shirt next time.