vw and beer.

Beer Updates:

A week and a half ago I remade the roasted roggenbier.  I used half a pound more rye malt in #2, which should bring more rye character in addition to bumping the starting gravity from 1.050 to 1.054.  I really enjoyed the first rendition, so I am eagerly anticipating the second.  The majority of the keg might end up at the Sublime Ale House holiday party though as a part of my continued effort to build some street cred...We'll see how it turns out before I get ahead of myself.

Mashing and about to remove the oil filter. 

During the mash and mash-out I multi-tasked like crazy and changed the oil in the camper.  Its had 5000 miles put on the new engine already, adds up a lot faster than you think.  Of all the cars I've owned so far, the camper is by far the easiest to change the oil.  It has plenty of clearance off the ground, and the drain plug and filter are within easy reach from the back.

The porter is done and needs to be moved to a keg.  It has a lot of roasted chocolate flavor, I am excited to see how carbonation changes and mellows out the roasted malt bitterness. 

Uncarbonated sample of saison #1(name tbd)

Racking Saison to a keg to mix with bottling sugar.

I haven't naturally carbonated a beer in a long time, and the last time I didn't own a beer gun.  I have however bottled a lot of carbonated beer, especially recently, and the beer gun is essential.  It only made sense to use a keg as a bottling bucket and bottle out of it with the beer gun.  I can still purge bottles with CO2 and push it out of the keg.  I suppose people who use a bottling bucket would call this a waste of CO2, but it really isn't very expensive, and my 20lb tank lasts a long time. 

$60 Colana Capper/Corker

My new corker along with all the necessary supplies for bottling.  I thought about doing a step by step writeup of our corking experience, but I would just be copying all the information I found here: Brew Your Own - Corking Belgians.  It is a very well written article, and is one of the reasons I bought the corker I did. 

Watch out! She has a beer gun.

For our first belgian bottling attempt, I think it went very well.  Jammie filled the bottles, I corked them, and we both went back and put wire cages on them.  I had done quite a few practice runs with the corker to get the cork in the right amount, but we hadn't tried putting cages on them, luckily you can just take it off and try again with a new one.  I ordered 100 of both belgian corks and wire cages, so we had a few to mess up.

Jammie twisting a wire cage on to hold that cork in.

Although I haven't had any of the saison in carbonated form, I am very happy with how the bottling process went.  Bottling uncarbonated beer is substantially easier, enjoyable, and way less messy than carbonated beer.  I might just do this for a lot more beers in the future. 

More beer related news:

Here is a sweet write-up from a beer blog about a beer vending machine.  Pretty awesome concept and I am impressed with the execution.  


Moped update:  The Peugeot still needs to be re-timed,  which requires a flywheel puller which I haven't ordered yet.   The pinto is running the best it has since I've owned it.  It is pulling great off the line and accelerates steadily to 40 mph.  It is very exciting to have finally tuned it to a good point and makes it a lot of fun to ride.  The idle is still a little rough, but I took it for a 4 or 5 mile ride the other day and it ran great and although the idle will go down really low it never dies.

Cheers!

Beer updates:

- Hoppy Amber - My renamed brown ale mistake.  The hop flavor, aroma, and bitterness is nice for a mellow IPA.  I am not really happy with how the malt flavor backs up the hops though.  The pale chocolate and richer malts are a little muddled behind the hops.  The hop aroma is what makes me really happy.  I was struggling with hoppy beers in Denver, and I don't know if it was water related or hops related.  I have changed both for my recent batches, and whichever it was I am very happy with the result.  My first dry-hopped beer that actually smells like hops, very exciting. 

Its a good drinkable beer, and works perfectly as a tap filler for a couple weeks.

Nice foamy head!

 
- Northern German Alt - My 2011 Temecula Valley Homebrewers Contest entry.  It is a very mellow smooth drinkable beer.  I lagered it for just over 3 weeks, so I has a very smooth lager character in its mouthfeel and malt flavor.  I remember my first version of this having a bit more malt flavor, but overall the beer is very good.  Alaskan Amber is a well known example of this style, but I don't think their version is lagered.  Jammie and I just got back from Temecula dropping off my submission, so we will see what happens.

- Saison #1 - I went to hydrobrew the other day to get a few yeast vials and I also made sure to get a champagne yeast packet for the saison.  After testing it I didn't need to get a champagne yeast.   The beer has finished out to 1.010 which puts it right around 90% apparent attenuation.  Attenuation is a measure of the amount of sugar the yeast actually consumed compared to how much was available for it to eat.  Apparent attenuation is a technical word for I can't measure the actual attenuation because the alcohol now present in the beer has an affect on the accuracy of the measuring device.  Either way 90% attenuation is remarkable, and I certainly didn't expect the saison yeast to go that far.  I am calling this beer done and moved it to the kegerator to cold crash.  I have been using my heater blanket to keep this beer warm as the saison yeast performs the best and produces the best flavors at warmer temperatures.

I have ordered some more equipment for an exciting project involving the saison and the champagne yeast I bought for it.  Check back in a week or so for an update on that.  

- Porter - The porter has been progressing a little slowly.  I am having a good problem in 'winter' carlsbad, its too cold in my garage, or maybe its just right.  I started the fermentation of this beer in a water bath, which is a large tub that I put the carboy in and fill with water.  The water acts as a big heat sink and keeps the beer at a relatively constant temperature.  A stable temperature is very important to yeast health and the resulting beer flavor.  The problem I'm having is the temperature that it is stabilizing to is around 64F - 65F, which is a little low for some ale yeasts.  After a week in the water bath the beer was only halfway done.   Now that the heater blanket is available from the saison primary I moved the porter out of the water bath and attached the heater to it.  I have started to slowly raise the temperature on it and will do so about 1 degree per day for the next week to finish it out.  My initial taste test, although a little sweet still, was spectacular with a delicious chocolate roasty finish.

Porter with heater blanket...

- Kegerator - I have expanded my beer tap capacity by 30%!!!  Well almost.  I added the tap to the kegerator although there isn't a 3rd beer ready for it yet.  ALSO in my search for some cheap small tap handles I came across a very clean/simple solution.  It is called a threaded coupler and is basically a really long threaded nut.  The best part is they cost $1.17 at True Value, which is good with me.  They also provide the perfect amount of leverage on the taps, making them easy to operate without being big.  The big handles I have are extremely bulky, often in the way, get bumped (which wastes beer), as well as providing the operator with way too much leverage on the little tap assemblies.

Third tap and new handles.

I only have one of the middle tap, which is also the nicest of the taps I have.  I have 3 that match, I just didn't want to go through the work of changing it out.  Expect to see a better picture of 3 matching taps/handles in the near future. 


VW update:  It is running. Though the idle bouncing drives me crazy...

Moped update: They aren't running.  More on this soon.

Bike update: I put a pair of BMX pedals that I've had for a while on my fixed gear.  It required some new small fasteners to attach my feetbelts to them, but they are nice and big and very comfortable to ride with.  They are also plastic and lighter than my metal ones; I saved at least 10 grams.  haha.  I have no idea, but I'm sure they're lighter.  next is some front brakes for the fixie. Although I've been riding it a lot more and I am pretty sure my legs are getting in better shape.

Other:

I got glasses again.  I haven't had a proper prescription for my eyeglasses for quite a while(say 4 years?), and I lost my most recent pair of glasses a year or two ago, so I have been blissfully floating though life with much less than perfect vision.  My parents came to Carlsbad last week, where our long time optometrist has an office, my mom has been having some weird problems with one of her eyes..not good. I decided to piggy back their appointment and get my eyes checked out.  Dr. Fitzpatrick seemed a bit put off by the fact that I didn't have any glasses at all, and after an eye exam his frustration seemed justified.  My eyes are pretty bad.  SO long story short I have a new pair of glasses.  I let Jammie have input on the style of frames I got and although I was skeptical at first, if glasses have to be a full time part of my life, then they might as well be visible and stylish.

Sorry for the poor quality picture.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea.  I like them, and although it is very different, being able to see really well is also pretty different.  I drove at night for the first time tonight and I felt like there was a significant improvement in my night vision.