We’ve got hops!
Posted by Leftshue | Uncategorized | Posted on March 31st, 2010
We planted this “native” TN variety last year, and so far they’re looking good! My cascade hops have also started sprouting, but aren’t really visibile yet.
New blog!
Posted by Leftshue | Uncategorized | Posted on December 20th, 2009
Guess it’s been long enough… We have still been brewing, and actually managed to win the coveted Ale for the Trail award with our Wheat Ale this year! I guess we can now say we’re award-winning brewers!
More stand stuff…
Posted by leftshue | Uncategorized | Posted on March 19th, 2008
I’ve been working on the brewstand some more … slowly gathering parts and piecing things together. I finished the frame for the stand yesterday:
And today I finished the shelves to hold everything:
Just after I took this picture I replaced the hose barbs on the kettles with my new quick disconnect fittings from Northern Brewer. Next up is painting and sealing, then I need to mount the water filter, pump, and chiller. After that, time to water-test it (check for leaks, see how much water stays in the tube/pump, etc), then on to making beer!
I should also consider putting sliders or casters or something on this thing… moving it around is fun at the moment. It’s pretty hefty.
Time for a brewstand!
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on March 7th, 2008
Well, I’ve started building my new brewstand! I decided that I’d like to be able to brew at least small batches without having to load everything up in the car and drive over to Clint’s.
First thing was to make a mash tun. I used a five gallon Rubbermaid beverage cooler.
Step 1: Remove the plastic spout.
Step 2: Install the new ball valve
I decided to make my own manifold for the mash tun rather than using a false bottom. It was surprisingly easy…
Step 1: Don safety glasses! Look how stylish!
I used about 2 feet worth of 1/2″ copper pipe to make the manifold, along with a couple of elbows and T.
After I made sure it fit it was time to cut some slits to let the wort out of the mash. Lots of hacksaw-ing later…
Mash tun complete! And it was relatively easy, so I decided to move on to my water filter. This is where things started to get irritating.
I got all of the stuff together, and immediately noticed that one of my fittings didn’t match up. I very specifically picked up IDENTICAL packages at Lowe’s after finding the correct piece … so someone had opened a package and put the wrong thing in one of em.
Ah well. Back to Lowe’s the next day to get the correct part, right? Not so much. I got what I THOUGHT was the right part, but ended up getting the wrong size. Back to Lowe’s again that evening! After the third trip I finally have a completed water filter. The amusing thing … when I returned the initial part I explained that it was in the wrong packaging. When I went back for the final time I found the spot on the rack for the correct part … with the incorrectly packaged piece back on the rack waiting to trap someone else.
On to my new brew kettle!
Pulled everything out of the box… huge new burner, flawless shiny stainless kettle … time to cut some holes!
So far so good … so I mounted new new ball valve and filled the kettle with water to leak test it.
Wouldn’t you know it .. it leaked.
I took apart the valve assembly and wrapped the whole bulkead with teflon tape thinking “Ahh, that’ll take care of it!” Started to put things back together and managed to destroy BOTH of the silicon O-rings, so now I get to order some more. Bleh.
After I get the new O-rings and a couple of other small fittings I’ll be ready to construct the stand itself.. more pictures to come!
Upgrades for the fridge
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on February 12th, 2008
I just got a couple of new Perlick forward-seal faucets for the kegerator… they look pretty sweet and seem to work well.
One of my biggest complaints about the kegerator-as-it-was was the fact that the faucets would get sticky after a couple of days of non-use. (Yes, it’s amazing to me too … a few days when I don’t drink beer?!) I’d have to haul on the lever and feel like I was about to break things to get them loosened up again.
The NEW faucets are supposed to take care of that. They use a different type of seal that is never exposed to air, so they don’t dry out and get sticky. They also look cooler … more of a tap-room vibe than the old ones. For comparison:
Old faucet: 
And the new one: 
I guess I was just feelin’ cheap when I bought the initial setup… the new taps are a little more than twice as expensive as the chrome ones were. But if they work as advertised I think they’ll be worth it!
(I kinda yoinked those images from Nothern Brewer’s website… but since I bought the new taps from them and continue to recommend their services to others maybe they won’t mind too much.)
Edit: Ariel points out that I forgot to list what I have on tap!
1. Ariel’s Cranberry Ale
2. Oatmeal Stout
What a day!
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on January 15th, 2008
What a day, indeed!
I didn’t actually brew today .. but I kegged 3 batches and bottled the remains of the pale ale from the competition a couple months ago. I had 11 bottles worth of beer left after kegging 10 gallons!
I tried some of the Oatmeal Stout (fantastic) and Ariel’s cranberry ale (only got a small sip, but it’s pretty good.) It’s pink!
I also kegged a pale ale that I brewed from a kit a couple of weeks ago. Kit brews are nice… everything is included and ready to roll as soon as you open the box. I’m always pleasantly surprised by how fast/easy brewing from extract in the kitchen seems after doing a couple of all-grain batches outside. I swapped out the dry yeast that it normally comes with for a nice American ale yeast, and it tastes decent. Our pale ale recipe is better, of course!
Now comes the hard decision … which beer goes on tap first?
Currently on tap:
1) Holiday Ale
2) Rye Porter
The new kegerator is cooler than I thought!
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on December 12th, 2007
I can fit 3 kegs and 2 CO2 canisters in the fridge… meaning I could have 3 beers on tap. Woo!
Currently 2 on tap and one chilling for a party this weekend.
Ariel and I transferred our beer yesterday. Both of them came out right around 6% ABV. We added about four pounds of cranberries to Ariel’s beer, and they’re floating merrily along. Both of em taste pretty good, though I think my stout will benefit from a nice long secondary fermentation. It’s nice and roasty though!
Currently on tap:
1. Holiday Ale
2. Smokestack Porter (competition entry)
2.5 (’cause it’ll be on tap this weekend until it’s all gone) – Weed Weasel Pale Ale (another competition entry!)
Competition and brewdays
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on December 2nd, 2007
Been a while since I actually posted anything… heh.
At any rate, I have continued to brew even if I haven’t written anything about it. I have a new kegerator (bigger and easier to get stuff in and out of … can even get 3 kegs in it!) Clint found us a huge chest freezer that I bought a thermostat for, so now we can make lagers in addition to our ales … lots of cool stuff.
We even had a homebrew competition in Cookeville! Something I never thought I’d see… It was a fundraiser for the Rail with Trails project (a long hiking/biking/etc trail being built alongside a renovated rail line). There were 8 to 10 brewers that participated, with 15 different beers for people to vote on. My rye porter recipe came in second! All in all, it was an awesome day. I served beer to people for two hours and was completely surprised when they announced that our time was up… it just flew past. We entered 4 recipes: our pale ale (made with some homegrown cascade hops), the rye porter, an amber ale, and an ESB. (See? Told you we’d still been brewing…)
We brewed again yesterday, as a matter of fact. Ariel even brewed a batch! Clint and I brewed a batch of oatmeal stout which is supposed to be pretty close to Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, and Ariel started a batch of a cranberry cream ale. I’m really looking forward to trying them both.
We also brewed a batch of Russian Imperial Stout back in August. I’ve snuck a couple of bottles since then, and I gotta say that it’s awfully good. It was brewed to be a Christmas present for some folks, so the plan has always been to age it. Our original gravity hit 1.125 (Which is HUGE) and finished up at 1.035 … pretty darned close to 12.5% abv! We had to make it as a 5 gallon batch since our mash tun (a fairly large cooler) wasn’t big enough to hold all of the grains needed for a 10 gallon batch… and we’ve made some pretty hefty beers in that cooler. Only problem is, it’s too strong for the yeast we used so it’s just baaaaaarely carbonated. Next time I’ll either use a champagne yeast to carbonate, or I’ll keg it and force carbonate before bottling.
Maybe I’ll even get better about posting!
Now on tap:
1. Holiday Ale (spiced brown ale)
2. ESB (competition entry)
BeerCation!
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on October 18th, 2006
Mango and I went on a beer vacation this past weekend! It was a load of fun, and we got to try tons of new beer.
Day 1: We loaded everything up in the car and took off for Knoxville, TN for the Knoxville Brewer’s Jam.
Basically, you pay $20 for a ticket and they hand you a small (4 – 6
oz) sample glass that you can get filled as many times as you
can! If that’s not a good deal I’m not sure what is.
There were about 38 different breweries represented there, of which we
sampled around 24. We tried to hit as many of our “local”
breweries as we could … anything from TN or NC. We only found a
very few beers that we didn’t really like; most were good to
excellent. Sunday morning was … a little rough.
Fortunately we had a hotel around three blocks away (the Hotel St.
Oliver in downtown K-ville) so there was no driving involved.
Day 2: Popped a couple of generic Aleve and a B-vitamin
along with about a half gallon of water and walked down the block to a
little diner for a nice big greasy breakfast. Once we were
feeling relatively human again, we set out for our final vacation
destination: Asheville, NC. It’s just a couple of hours
from Knoxville, and the scenery made for a great drive. The
leaves were starting to change up in the Appalachian Mountains, so we
had some awesome views as we climbed up and over.
We arrived in Asheville without incident and checked in to the
Renaissance Hotel (Thank you, Priceline!) We were still feeling
pretty beat, but we did eventually manage to drag ourselves out of the
hotel room for a hike around the downtown Asheville area. Lots of
neat old buildings, and the city felt a lot like our trip to
Portland. After a while we got hungry and decided to look around
for our first brewery destination. We eventually settled on the Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company. I gotta tell you … Cookeville needs
one of these. It’s a pizza place … a brewery … and a movie
theater, all in one. We paid $2 each for the movie and watched
“Barnyard” while we drank a pitcher of ESB and munched on one of their
very tasty pizzas.
On a semi-related note, I have decided that one of our next brew days
needs to include an ESB. I had so many good ones on this trip
that I’ve basically been craving them for about a week now.
Day 3: We woke up nice and late and had a leisurly
breakfast at a little bakery that we found on our ramblings. We
also loaded up a black-bean-and-rice salad along with a big ol’ roast
beef sandwich for a picnic and headed out to the mountains.
We drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway and into the Pisgah National Forest
looking for a particular trail that was supposedly about a 4 mile round
trip. Despite semi-carefully writing down the directions from the
park service’s website we were never able to actually find the trail we
were looking for … but we did eventually locate a trailhead. It
was around this time that we were glad we packed “heavy” .. an extra
jacket each with hats and gloves. It was probably 40 degrees out
with the wind gusting around 30 miles per hour. It even started
to sleet on us at one point. We did around 3 – 4 miles and sat
down to eat our picnic lunch on a concrete picnic table … which
promptly stole all of our body heat through our posteriors. We
pretty much gave up on hiking any more at this point… game called on
account of frozen butt and impending rain. We cruised around the
parkway a little more and then headed back to Asheville.
That night we decided to head to a brewpub called Jack of the Wood.
(The brewery is actually called Green Man.) I’d heard a little
bit about this place from a friend that lives in Knoxville, but wasn’t
entirely sure what to expect. This was a really cool place….
lots of Celtic style artwork and such on the walls, and a bunch of neat
looking wrought-iron artwork all over the place (even in the
restrooms!). It was in this brewery that I found what was
probably my favorite beer of the whole trip … their ESB was
awesome. This is in no way meant to say that any of the other
beer I had was bad … but wow this was good. We hung out and ate
dinner and tried to play a trivia game along with the other patrons…
and quickly discovered that we were no good at this style of trivia
game.
Day 4: It rained on us all day, which pretty much spoiled
our last change to go out and hike around in the mountains. We
also decided that we had several breweries left to visit, and only one
more full day to check them out, so we started early. Relatively
early, anyway. We hit a small restraunt for
breakfast-lunch-whatever at around 11:30. I tried an organic nut
brown ale from Vermont which was pretty tasty but seemed kinda
thin. I think I have a picture of it which I hope to post to
Flickr later as I don’t really remember what it was called.
After lunch we walked down the street to Barley’s Taproom, a bar that sits pretty much directly over the brewery for the Highland Brewing Company.
Walking up to the door we could tell that Highland was in the middle of
a batch .. a powerful smell of malt and hops permeated the entire
area. Just like when I brew stuff at home, but multiplied by
about 100 and over a couple of city blocks. We tried a couple of
Highland’s brews as well as some others (Catawba Valley, for instance)
that we probably wouldn’t be able to visit. We even tried to go
downstairs to check out Highland’s operation, but they were in the
middle of shovelling grain out of their mash tun and didn’t have a lot
of time to talk with us. We peered in through the open doors and
admired the brewing setup (at least as much as we could see.)
At this point we decided to go visit the French Broad Brewing Company
(the site plays music when you open it, so don’t be surprised.)
We even got to sit down and drink a couple of beers along with some of
the brewers, who were all there for a double brew day (2 15 barrell
batches to mostly fill a 35 barrel fermenter) – a process that they say
takes around 18 hours. We didn’t stay quite that long, but we did
play with the brewery dog (named Melee … quite a set of jaws on that
puppy) and try a sample of everything that they had on tap. The
ESB at French Broad was mighty tasty as well, so I was forced (forced,
I tell you!) to have a pint of it after we’d finished off the samples.
We decided that we’d had a lot of beer and not much food at this point,
so we headed over to a Sushi/Thai place for lunch (this being 5 or
6pm). Of course I continued with my beer sampling along with
lunch … tried an Asahi (which their website lists as Japan’s #1 beer)
… pretty tasty for a light lager, but not really my favorite type of
beer.
After lunch we headed back to the hotel to chug down some water and
hang out for a bit… apparently drinking beer can be quite
exhausting! We did muster enough energy (mostly because we got
hungry again about 9 I think) to head back out to the Asheville Pizza
and Brewing company for a late showing of “Talladega Nights,” a pitcher
of Golden Ale, and another tasty pizza.
Day 5: The end of a wonderful vacation. We loaded
everything up and bid Asheville a fond farewell. All in all a
great vacation!
F.H.I.P.A.
Posted by | Uncategorized | Posted on August 13th, 2006
First off, the FG of the brown ale was 1.018 … ABV of around 3.9%.
We brewed yesterday for the first time in quite a while. We
decided to call this one F.H.I.P.A., for … er … “Freakin” Hot India
Pale Ale. It was rather warm when we started brewing.
Anyway, here’s the recipe:
- 20 lbs US 2-row
- 2 lbs crystal (40L)
- 2 lbs flaked wheat
- 2 lbs munich malt
- 2 lbs rye
- 2 oz Warrior hops (pellets) (60 minutes) 16.4% AA
- 6 oz Centennial hops (pellets) 9.4% AA
- 2oz 15 minutes
- 2oz 5 minutes
- 2oz dry hop
We got an OG on this one of 1.063. Clint also started playing
around with Promash,
which told us that our beer is going to have an IBU level of
107.8! (A “normal” IPA is 40 – 60.) I was honestly kindof
worried about this one… but an initial tasting shows that it’s going
to be pretty darned tasty. At first there doesn’t seem to be much
hoppiness to it … it’s ok, but nothing special. Then come
the hops! Quite impressive.