I made a beer time capsule last year.  I wanted to see what a year’s worth of aging would do to the honey wheat ale with real honey in it.  So I took one bottle and put a note on it.

I have kept this beer hidden away in the cellar and I am surprised it lasted this long. The beer had changed slightly from what I remember. It was light and dry but maybe a little more floral than it was when I first tasted it.

It was a good way to close out this Labor Day weekend.

Cheers.

After 4 months of growing hops in the backyard, I was able to reap the benefits of homegrown hops.  All the spiny flowers transformed into cones very quickly and grew and grew until they started to dry out a bit on the bine.

Maybe I’m lucky, but I was able to get some cones from the first year of the bine.

I have picking the cones in batches.  I started with the ones that were are the top of the bines first.  They were pretty big and seemed to be more mature than the ones lowers down…probably because they got more sun.

I still have hops on the bine to pick but I will get to them once they are ready.

Here are some things that I learned along the way:

• I watered mine with a light sprinkle every day, especially in the early months.  My bines did pretty well with frequently watering.

• I did use some plant fertilizer every couple of weeks.  The plant reacted well to it.

• Get as much sun on the plant as possible.  Find a spot where it can get 8 to 10 hours of sun a day.  We had a really sunny, dry summer this year.  I think it was the biggest factor in the plant’s success.

• Let it grow.  I did some pruning of the lower leaves in late July.  I am not sure it was necessary.  The more I just let the plant grow in all kinds of directions, the more flowers bloomed…and the more cones I got.

 If you like to follow along on this homegrown hops odyssey, start in May and work your way up:

May Hops Update

June Hops Update

July Hops Update

August Hops Update

I think the best way to get some research into beer styles is to go to a great beer pub and taste a whole bunch of examples right in a row.  That’s what the Dudes have planned tonight.  We are heading out to the Publick House in Brookline, MA to conduct some beer style research.

Yeah, that’s what we’re going to call it.

I think my plan is to have a few different saisons - just to get to know how the one I brewed stacks up.

I am sure I will taste a few examples of rauchbier to get me prepared for the next brew session.

If you are ever visiting the Boston area, make a trip out to The Publick House.  They have a great beer selection for your research needs.

I created a Pomegranate Cinnamon Red Ale for the Sam Adams Category 23 competition and got the results back last week.  I don’t have the sheets in front of me (I’ll update the post when I do), but it got a score in the “Very Good” range.  The amateur judge had some nice comments and the more experienced judge thought the flavor additions covered up the base beer.

I knew I threw it together so I am not really disappointed in the results.  I don’t think I am experienced enough to brew a category 23 beer that is going to taste great.  Thanks for the T-shirt, though.

I do have my sights set on the New England Regional Homebrew Competition in October.  By then, I will have 3 beers ready for review and will be more confident that they will come back with some higher marks.

We got a press release sent to us about the latest book from Jamil Zainasheff.  He co-wrote another one and this time it was with Chris White of White Labs.  It’s entitled: Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation.

I have to say that it’s one that I might have to pick up.  I think my beers have gotten a whole lot better since I learned about pitching the right amount of yeast and getting fermentation temperatures under control.

It’s not to say I know everything.  Hopefully the chapters on fermentation don’t just boil down to “get a fridge and a thermostat”…although that’s ultimately what every homebrewer should do eventually.  I guess I am looking for some good in-between steps.

Anyway, I feel I could benefit from learning more about the little critters and this book looks like a great resource.   

I was playing around with Google’s Insights for Search just to see how popular home brewing is as a hobby, from the search engine’s perspective.

I noticed there is a more than usual downward trend in the number of queries on the phrase ”home brewing beer” this year.

I know this chart is based on people searching for “home brewing beer” in Google, but I think it can be seen as a indication of the popularity of the hobby.  Do you think that there are less people getting into it or just less people searching for information about it? 

Are there more people that you know picking up the hobby of homebrewing? 

I can tell you it’s popular in my house.

I took a gravity reading last night to check on the progress of my Saison.

Check out the saison recipe here. 

I am happy to report that the reading on the ol’ hydrometer was 1.010 (after recalculating because of the high temperature), which is about where my final gravity should be. 

Just because I am not ready to rack it, I am going to leave it there for a few more days while I find time to clean and sanitize stuff.

After reading all the nightmares online about how long it takes to get Saisons down to where you want them to be, I didn’t know what to expect. 

I think what helped me was a mighty 2.5L starter of the platinum Saison strain. 

The sample tasted Saison-y.  It had some peppery notes and some funky fruity flavors too.  It was really light in body.  

If I can get the carbonation right, I might actually have made a good representation of the style.

Check out the saison brewing day.

I saw a recipe for Jamil’s Baltic Porter in the September 2010 issue of BYO.  It also appears in his Brewing Classic Styles book. In the recipe, he calls for Lublin hops. Having ancestors from the Baltic states, I wanted to learn more about this variety.

I believe the Germans would refer to this hop as Polnischer Lublin. The Polish would call them Lubelski.

Origin: Poland

Aroma: Herby, mild, Noble-esque

Alpha Acid: 3 - 4.5%

Typical Usage: Finishing hop for the most part. It appears they can be used throughout the boil for beers featuring them as the only variety in them.

Not sure how easy they are to get in the USA. I have never seen them online or in store. Keep an eye out for them.

Check out other hop varieties:

Saaz Hops

Tettnang Hops

Noble Hops

As I have written before, you can use a heating pad to keep your fermentations warm in the winter.  Well, you can also use a heating pad if you are in the middle of Saison fermentation. 

We have been blessed with hot weather all summer long here in the Northeast.  Of course, things start to cool down right when I need the heat most.

It’s kinda like putting snow tires on your car.  Once you put them on, it doesn’t snow…or something like that.

I have the fermentation bucket sitting on top of the heating pad.  I set the pad on the medium setting at night and the low setting during the day.

The front closet air temperatures are in the high 70s, so I don’t think it takes much to get the wort up above 80°F.

The plan is to take a gravity reading on Wednesday.  If it is below 1.010, then I feel like I can either rack it to a secondary vessel or bottle it straight away.   I think it depends on what I think I can get clean and sanitized by Sunday.

I have been fortunate with my Saison’s fermentation temperature…but let’s start from the beginning. 

I have gotten a whole lot more patient with chilling my wort.  I think I gained this patience as a product of lager brewing.  I knew I had to get my wort down to 48°F before I pitched my yeast, so I let my kettle sit in a snow bank in addition to the immersion chiller with running water through it for about 30 to 45 minutes.  I wanted to make sure there was no doubt that the wort was chilled enough.

I did the same thing with the Saison.  I let it go for about the same amount of time and it got down to 68°F with no jumping the gun.   I moved it to my basement which had an ambient temperature of 75°F.   Over the next 24 hours, the wort warmed up to 70°F and then 72°F.  At that point, I knew I had to move it.

Thankfully, the front closet in my house is a very hot place.  I put a thermometer in there and it has been 78°F to 80°F every morning and evening.  The temp. strip on the bucket has been registering over 80°F since Tuesday.

If we can keep the hot weather going outside, then I won’t need a heating pad inside.