As most of us are looking for the best in everything we do, from shaving, to roasting coffee, to home made soap, I thought I'd throw in a thread on homebrewing. My friends and I got into it I guess a year or so ago. At first it was the novelty that we could brew our own beer. It has grown into much more than that as our pile of accessories continues to grow. I even made labels in one of my printing labs to go with our name of "Alefire and Brimstone. 2 weekends ago, I bottled the third batch of what we are calling our "Clemson Ale". It is a slightly orange, fairly hopped lighter summer ale. I'm looking forward to trying it this weekend before I leave for Vegas. I know there are a fair amount of other homebrewers out there, so feel free to chime in and impart your knowledge. Cheers ::
I always wanted to try making my own, but just never got around to giving it a go. I'd probably be too particular with it anyway, and spend 2 years making a bottle....
Brewing is one of those things I intentionally avoid. Until I up my income a bit I can't really take on another AD, lol I know myself well enough to know that small scale projects will be out of the question with this one
homebrewing is a real dangerous AD. The good equipment and ingredients are expensive, time consuming and take up a tremendous amount of space. I freaking love it!! I was on the verge of fabricating my own sculpture off of some blueprints, but moved to to go to school again, so it will be my next project when I am done. The homebrewing art is perhaps the finest and most satisfying hobby you could ever have, and I believe that it is the major reason why the "craft beer" boom occurred in America in the past 10 years. If you "all grain", you are duplicating centuries old methods and once you get a handle on the classics, you can really have fun. I brew a very good daily drinker brown ale (supercharged w/ cascade and fuggle hops. the cascade hop.... lord do I love that hop, pitching it three times..) ..... Other notables, a sour Belgium beer with black cherries (very subtle cherry profile, no "sweetness"), an "Anchor Steam Knock off" (lager yeast pitched, but fermented at ale temps, complex amber malt character), and I even made a "I am a Bud guy" beer to convert some hold outs. They usually end up turning into worse hop/malt heads than I am! Then, you can then go in any direction imaginable, producing just about anything under the sun that tickles your fancy. My last batch was a mead, I used champagne yeast. In about 4 weeks, it was ready to drink, at first, it was like a nice wine cooler, then it started to mature into a cider, and finally, it really started to drink like a champagne.... each time I had another one, it was getting better and better until the last bottle almost a year later (I nearly had a tear in my eye)....This stuff was amazing, and so simple to make, it was almost embarrassing.
It WAS dangerous... I started making beer and wine and 6 months later I was broke and 30 lbs heavier.. man was I happy tho.... I have been thinking pretty seriously lately about doing some fruit IPAs for summer.. blueberry, lime.... ?????? Maybe a nice stout...... or some barley wine...... I get all itchy this time of year... :drool Oh, well, I lost the weight
Our latest brew turned out to be a big success. It keeps getting better every time I taste it. Our next project is a very interesting one. My buddy and I were thinking we needed a nice light, easily drinkable beer for the summer. Something that is very refreshing and quenches the thirst. What could be better than a slight hint of mint on a hot summer day? Our plan is to basically make a blonde American ale with just the slightest hint of mint. We'll probably be using cascade hops to give it a slight citrus flavor too. We want the mint to be very subtle. It won't be anything like drinking scope . So far, we have two ideas of getting mint in the beer. First we thought of mint leaves. Either 1) soaking leaves in the water to have an "essence of mint", or 2) adding mint leaves during the hopping process. Our other idea is to use mint extract. While the extract is much stronger, we might be able to get predictable results. I was thinking of filling up the 5 gallon jug with water, and seeing how much extract it took to taste it in the water. That would give us an idea of how much we need to add so just a hint will be tasted with the beer. Does anyone else have a take on this? I tried looking it up to see if something similar has been done, but it seems like people only have interest in minting lagers and porters. If it turns out good, maybe I can make a special TSD mentholated version :: ::
If you have a recipe for minting a lager or porter, then try that procedure. I've never tried this, so I'm shooting from the hip. I don't think that adding the mint during the hopping process (steeping fresh hops?) would work because the ensuing fermentation will change the flavor and aroma. You might try adding some crushed mint leaves after the first racking into the secondary fermenter or after about four weeks fermentation time. Let it age in the fermenter a while to get the mint essence. Personally, I think that mint extract is the way to go. Start off with a couple drops in the batch, taste, adjust, taste, adjust, taste... ::
Hey, thanks for the advice. I like the idea about adding it into the secondary fermenter. There would definitely be less room for development of an off flavor, or changing aroma. This gave me an interesting idea though. If added during the hopping process, if added at the appropriate time, we might be able to get some mint aroma too. Hmm. This is going to be very interesting!
great advice on the secondary "pitch" as opposed to in the wort. Those high temps probably kill a lot of the "top notes".... I had a Sam Adams beer a couple of years ago with mint in it (a seasonal I believe). It was great. I can't imagine anything wrong with your idea. You may want to sparge your mint with boiling water, but as I write this, I know that you are already considering the potential upside of fresh mint. The extract idea is good for a general "character" analysis, and a great idea. If it comes out well, the fresh mint can be the next batch. I tend to worry about contamination when I make my beers, but everything seems to end up well enough. I look forward to hearing about how it turned out.
Well it turns out that we added fresh mint in at the same time as the aroma hops. While cooling the wort, you could smell a nice mint note. It has been in the first stage for 4 days now and seems to be doing well.
Bottled the Summer Blonde on Sunday. I gave it a little taste, and oh boy!! It has a nice minty aroma and taste which quickly fades into a refreshing light summer ale. And thats just out of the secondary. Can't wait until this is ready to drink. I ran the recipe through Beersmith, and we hit the estimated OG and FG on the head with a 5.6% ABV. Next up: Harpoon IPA Clone!
Bottled the Harpoon IPA clone today! I couldnt resist sneaking a little taste (always do at bottling time:drool). It needs to age a bit...but man it tastes good!.
Back in my drinking days I had a 1/2 barrel sized brewery in my basement with a 22 gallon brew pot fired with natural gas. I wrote an article about it that was published in BYO magazine. That was at least ten years ago. Anyway, my favorite recipe was "Wisconsin Spring Porter" which used over 20 gallons of maple sap as the brewing water. It also had a touch of spruce essence and wintergreen.
