i call this beer reefer madness not because of the weed that isn't in it, but because it was brewed on 4/20. for some reason i hadn't written the date down in my notes as to the brewing date and i started to become confused. but then i remembered. oh yeaaaaaaah...it was four twenty man.
if you were to witness the absentmindedness of my trip to the brew store for this last brew session you would surely think i was stoned. i had two items on my list of things to get while i was at the store. irish moss, and bottle caps. armed with my 80 classic styles book and the BJCP style guidelines, i was winging the rest. guess what i forgot? grains, check. hops, check. yeast, harvested from my aipa, check. yeah, the two things i had written down...the two things i forgot. i think i have some sort of disease.
LUCKILY, thanks to my new friend Jon Christiansen, head brewer at joseph james brewing, i was able to procure a bunch of caps. i really didnt want to have to drive across town for one item. but if jon hadnt come through, i would have had to. i only have one carboy. as such, i bottle one day and brew the next, to keep my equipment at its max capacity. i guess i could start brewing and then bottle while i am waiting for my water...either way, not having those caps was fucking me up. thanks jon! having a brewery ten minutes away from the pad comes in handy.
so with this blonde ale i have changed some things. first, i moved up from a five to a ten gallon igloo for my mash tun. i bought two of them when i saw them at the local grocery for cheap. i figured someone would want one eventually. or not, whatever. with this increase in volume of my mash tun i am afforded some options i did not have before in my brewing process. let me elaborate...
the first thing i can do is make "bigger" beers. since i have more volume, that increases the amount of grain i can mash, thus making it possible for me to extract worts with a higher gravity. this increases the amount of styles i will be able to brew. double ipa's come to mind, as do imperial stouts. increasing the volume of my mash tun also allows me more control of the mash. instead of mashing for an hour at one temp of say 155, i can do "stepped" mashs. this involves an initial 1/2 hour mash at a low temp. then, with the increased volume, i can add more water at boiling temp to raise the temperature of the mash and rest again for another half hour at a medium temp. finally, i can repeat this again for the final rest at the highest temp. doing these rests messes with the chemistry of the mash in a way that i don't fully understand, but supposedly is more efficient at extracting the sugars from the grain and breaking up proteins necesarry for making higher quality beer.
a five gallon mash tun simply does not have enough volume to allow for these types of rests. a ten gallon does. it all has to do with thermodynamics and how much energy it takes to raise a given volume of water a certain amount of degrees. john palmer in How to Brew, goes through these steps and provides the formulas necesarry to calculate how much water and at what temperature is necessary to make these steps. i would not be able to figure out this stuff on my own. good thing i love math.
so now with my stepped up equipment, i decided to put this to work on my blonde ale.
ingredients:
ummm...somehow i dont have any information regarding my blond ale, recipe wise. that is what i get for waiting over a month to write about it i guess.
anyway, it wasnt even that great. i have about a 12 pack and six bombers left of the batch and i havent been very impressed. i keep getting a real bitter taste, that i dont think is coming from the hops. i think its from the grain. not sure what i did wrong. i guess i could just let it sit for a while and see how it does.
hmmm...what else. i know the mormons stopped by a few times. they live next door so i see them all the time. they always seem interested in what im doing even though i know they don't drink. come to think of it, people are always interested when they see me brewing. one lady was like, "what are you doing, frying a turkey?" and i was like, "no, making beer." then she stood there watching while i gave her a little run down of what i was doing. when people ask what im doing its very satisfying to be able to reply, "making beer." im proud that i brew beer and like all brewers out there, i love talking about beer. its even better when the person your talking to about it doesn't know anything about beer because they get this look of bewildered awe that you have so much to say about it. i guess its the kind of look i must get when someone is talking to me who knows proportionally more about beer than i do than i do versus the schmo that doesn't know anything. does that make sense? and i mean "schmo" endearingly by the way.
thats it for this one.
CHEERS!
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