Forgive the stolen images, my camera has broken, and plain text is boring. My hops did not produce this year, but that was expected, as they take 1-3 years up here before they start producing much by way of cones. I cut them to the ground, mulched them up well for the winter using the million pounds of dried leaves my new home provides, and the two remaining vines are resting until spring. This spring, I will put in 5-10 more vines (way too much for one person, but I’ve found the hops to be no muss, no fuss, and I like my friends), and within a few years, I will be producing every ounce of hops I uese all eyar long. Big, big fun! I brewed a super-easy beer with my buddy Colin yesterday, and there was much drinking. I also have the saddest story ever told about mead. Both coming this very week! G’night, hops!

-Rick

-Rick

With all of the hubbub around the holiday, my post regarding the advisability of frying a turkey in your brewing kettle is not going to be done in time for posting today. I figure at this point in time, you’ve likely already made up your mind, though, and nothing I can say is likely to change it. I’ll catch up, and let you know my thoughts and others on the subject after you’ve already filled yourself with bird, however you choose to cook it.

My wife and I are up in Maine, visiting my folks at my childhood home, and anticipating the arrival of my sisters and their significant others.  The 25 pound turkey is nearly busting out the doors of the oven, and we’re eagerly peeling tubers of various species. I look forward to falling asleep in the living room by the fireplace this evening. Wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing on this Thanksgiving day, I hope you’re surrounded with those folks that you love, and those who love you. The folks up here in Maine seem to like me alright - goodness knows why.

Happy Turkey-Day, all!

It’s been a while, and I had a very, very bad day. Let me assure everyone that I’m not advocating for the self-medication of the world population on every bad day that comes along, but this really was a doozy. I got stuck in traffic during the first bad weather of the year (two and a half hours) with a stomachache. As a result of the traffic hold-up, I didn’t get to work until 10:30, and as a result of the stomachache, I got to throw away a pair of boxers and spend a very interesting day playing commando in my cubicle at work, which, it was made known to me about mid-day, is no longer my cubicle, but someone else’s – precisely, I suspect, for the reasons that I enjoyed it. Enough about that, though. I now habitate a cube next to the most amusing Matthew, one of my first and most loyal regular readers, due – in no small part – to the fact that salvagebeer is not yet filtered by the web filter at work.

Tonight, due to the fact that I am out of homebrew for the first time in a million years, my drunk post is made drunk on commercial beer. I started the evening with Sierra Nevada’s 2007 Harvest Ale, which I shall speak of in a moment, and followed it up with a “Jamaican Style Stout” from Stone Coast Brewing in Maine, and “Beer of the Gods” from High and Mighty Brewing Company. As for the Stout, I have no freaking idea what the hell a “Jamaican Style Stout” is meant to be, but there was no sign of such a beer on my recent trip to Jamaica, and certainly a Maine brewery ought not be trusted to brew up an authentic Jamaican style brew. It was drinking an alcoholic cup of caramel. Not unpleasant, but not very “stouty.” I made up a word. Sue me – I’m drunk. The “Beer of the Gods” simply confirms for me what I’ve always suspected. The Gods are both boring, and tedious (sorry, Chris) and I have no time for them. This beer has no qualities to speak of, whatsoever, and Bacchus would be ashamed of it. The start of this small binge, though, came in the form of an unexpected guest. A beer of which I’ve read much showed up here in Vermont, where our selection really leaves much to be desired. Tonight, I drank the Sierra Nevada 2007 Harvest Ale.

The Harvest Ale has the distinction of being one of the few (and apparently the very first) commercially available beer to be brewed with “wet hops.” The image advertised is one of hops being pulled form the fields and made into beer on the same day, rather than dried and preserved in some way. Whether it actually all happened al one day, or over the course of a week or more, it’s a pretty special sort of beer. Here’s what I thought, back when I was sober:

Sierra Nevada 2007 harvest

Aroma: This brew has an amazing hops aroma, almost before the bottle is opened, just like what you experience with a hoppy beer, but somehow fuller and more natural and broad.

Appearance: Amber with hints of orange, sprightly carbonation, big, 2-3 finger grainy head, almost iridescent – the colors of this beer are pretty deep, and remind me a bit of the multi-hued shimmer of a grackle’s wings, close up. The grainy head persists throughout experience. Crystal, crystal clear with evident and lasting lacing on the pint glass.

Mouthfeel: The beer is actually fuller and thicker than I was expecting, given that the hops overpower nearly all malt presence in the beer. Relatively creamy with no slick or oily presence. Impressive. mouthfeel.

Flavor: EXTREME hops, almost makes you pucker, but again, somewhat less harsh than what I’d expect from an IPA with similar bitterness. Nearly overpowering bitterness along the sides of my tongue. Lingering hop flavor and bitterness, with lingering aroma in the back of the throat – warming, and at over 6%, this is both reasonable and welcome.

Overall: This beer is a wonder, not due to its quality and drinkability – though both are excellent – but due to its novelty. I would not choose this for an everyday sipping beer, but will drink it yearly when I can get it, just as a reminder of the wonder and magic of fresh hops. When I buy a house, I will immediately put in a hops bed, and may get to experiment with fresh hop beers. Until then, I will have to “suffer” though with this rare commercial example.

That’s my beer review. Tomorrow, I shall wind my way to Maine, to my folks place, to eat turkey and to play the mandolin poorly in the basement recording studio. It’s likely that I won’t post much, or at all between now and next week, though I do have a Turkey-Day message that I hope to impart to you tomorrow. Regardless, safe travels and happy holidays to all!

A quick look around online will show you TONS of creative solutions to the problem, many involving various means of insulating the keg – this sometimes reduces the advisability of applying direct heat to the keg, which in addition to scorching the wort might now set the whole damn apparatus on fire, bringing into question the choice of this vessel as a mash tun to begin with. Indeed, often the worry of scorching a mash via direct heat will give rise to complex or elegantly simple recirculating systems, again making the choice of a keg as a vessel into question. If you don’t intend to apply any heat to the keg tun directly, why not get one of those GIANT beach coolers of the kind used by SERIOUS beachgoers and tailgaters? These are available locally just about EVERYWHERE in capacities of 80 quarts or even more, and for a relatively reasonable price, and could be set up exactly like my cooler system, only bigger.

The reason for the keg systems, I think, is purely aesthetic in most cases. A serious homebrewer, willing to put in the time and effort of building a large-capacity system, gravity fed, pumped, recirculating, or single infusion, wants to be able to look at serious HARDWARE. A great big picnic cooler looks just like a smaller picnic cooler, and that does not scream “serious” or “enviable” to anyone. I’d like to be able to belittle this outlook, but with all of my noise about attractive systems, I haven’t a leg to stand on. I know why brewers want impressive things – I agree – it’s just that I want mine to be pretty, too. I was tossing all of this around in my mind as I wandered the local Home Depot, hunting for some fittings I needed for my existing system.

I love The Home Depot. I just love it. My wife can be as annoyed watching me wander the plumbing or electrical aisle for an hour as I might become after sixty minutes at Banana Republic. I love to look at all of the cool stuff we’ve invented to do various jobs, and I’m constantly thinking about what OTHER jobs they might be able to perform, as well. I’m like a kid in a candy store. Up here in Vermont, this behemoth hardware store is perhaps more seasonal than it is in may places. As winter comes on, snowblowers, plastic wrap for windows, and space heaters replace grills and mowers and mulch. Every season change, rather than pay for storage or shipping, the store will put outgoing stock on sale, allowing the shopper to save fifty percent or more on things that they won’t be able to use for six months. Buy a snowblower in April rather than in November, and you’ll pay less than half what you would otherwise. Several weeks ago, I was wandering the graveyard of summer sales when I stopped dead in my tracks, my mind racing wildly at the implications of what I saw:

Cooler

20 gallon capacity, stainless steel on the outside, plastic on the inside, with a threaded drain in place, rugged, with a bottle opener and cap-collector on the side, and on very strong casters, this thing is beauty itself. As it will only be used in the pre-boil part of the brewing process, there’s no reason to worry about the inevitable scratching of the plastic. I initially thought I’d be able to attach my manifold and valves right to the waterproof threaded chromed drain in place. In the end, this approach wasn’t tenable, as there was no threading on the inside, so I had to do away with this drain and make my own.

Drain

The drain wasn’t so hard to sort out. The drain that came on the cooler comes right out simply by loosening a single lock-nut and sliding it out.

As is pretty standard with rectangular coolers, I eschewed the use of a false-bottom and build a manifold system. I could have built the manifold out of PVC, and it would have been much cheaper, every bit as effective, and taken much less labor to construct. There is absolutely no benefit that I know of to doing this in copper, other than aesthetics. The plastic might get scratched up or stained over time, but would be easily replaceable, and at little cost. Despite all of this, I went with copper, and am thrilled with the decision. Something about it just feels RIGHT. It’s bomb-proof, and once I sweat the pipes together into just a couple of removable chunks, the whole thing will hold together no matter how vigorously I stir the mash.

Overall

I approached this project to be attractive, sturdy, and modular, and I think it is all three of those. I intend to pick up some stainless steel wipes and shine it up nice, removing all of the fingerprints and making it gleam. I’ll be sure to post pics when I do. I may also construct a trickler for fly-sparging, but there’s no need to rush that – the system is ready to go as a batch-sparge tun today, and I prefer that, anyway. Soon, this mash tun will be moving over to my friend Rich and Leslie’s basement, where it will play a prominent role in brewing large batches of beer for their upcoming wedding. We’re looking at low-gravity, and I think we can probably fly-sparge 20 gallon batches in this sucker. I’ll let you know.

I’m a bit disappointed – but not because of the actual scores I got, which are okay, given that this was my first foray into competitions. My disappointment stems more from the presentation and judging itself.

I received my results in a manila envelope with no return address. That’s all well and good, I suppose, as I could easily just open the envelope and the mystery is solved, but the score sheets themselves contain no indication as to which competition they come from – they’re the generic BJCP score sheets from the website. As I’ve entered a couple of competitions with these brews – something I’m sure happens with some frequency – some indication, insert, or cover letter would have been appropriate. I had to use the actual postmark on the envelope to determine what I was reading.

My second gripe comes down to experience and certification. Of the seven “judges” that evaluated my beer, only three were BJCP certified, and two indicated that they were “novice” level non-BJCP judges. This could easily indicate that they are simply some joe off the street. Given that there is an “Experienced (but non-BJCP)” category, a novice level judge must truly lack training and skill. A small competition put on by a club might reasonably lack sufficient qualified judges, but this is the NEW ENGLAND REGIONAL COMPETITION we’re talking about here, and sending novice judges to the table is inexcusable. I’m not trying to cry foul here, and whine that my brews deserve a higher score than they received. I’m happy with my score, and find the feedback to be relatively consistent (whether that’s due to judging skill or guidance provided by the head judges, I don’t know). I’m just saying that I expected more for my entry fee from a large regional comp like this one.

Judging-wise, I’ll start with the Porter. My final score is a 29.5 out of 50, putting the beer at the top of the “Good” category. As a score of 30 would have popped me into the “Very Good” category, I feel that the judges are making a pretty assertive point with this score.

“Good” means:
A satisfactory beer that generally fits the style parameters. Scores near the upper end of this range may have only a few minor flaws or be slightly out of style and also may be lacking in balance or complexity. Scores near the lower end of this range tend to have more flaws and are likely to have stylistic inconsistencies as well.

This is born out in the judging sheets, the gist of which can be summed up through examples:

Two judges out of four checked the “astringent” box.
“Smoke aroma definitely dominates the profile.”

“Body is mild…”

“A good drinkable beer overall, but the smoke flavor and aroma overpower the beer.”

“Smoky flavor is good – a little more base beer character would be nice.”

“…sourness in finish…”

“…left with a bitter finish that is somewhat distasteful.”

From a National ranked judge:

“Flavor has lots of hops and some malt to balance. Smoke is evident and pleasant, though a bit of a clash with the hops bitterness. Some sourness (acetic acid like) indicates an infection. Phenols may be due to so much smoked malt.”

“Body seems a little thin for the style…”

“…good try and keep tweaking your base porter recipe.”

I keep telling you, dear reader, that I’m not an expert in this stuff. Overall, I expected to see slightly better scores for this beer, but I see what the judges were saying. The body could have definitely been stronger, and I do have a bit of an acetic house-flavor going on that I’m attempting to remedy through cleaner practices. That said, I think I like a little more acetic tang in my beer than the average judge, and I would do well to keep that in mind when brewing to compete (not that I’m claiming to have done it on purpose, just that I really appreciate a mild sourness, and would likely be far more enthusiastic about this “flaw” than most).

I take the comments on body and malt flavor very much to heart, and I think that the beer truly could have been a bit less thin. The addition of some flaked grains, oatmeal, or maybe even some unsmoked munich would be an improvement.

Regarding the smokiness, I really did go for broke with this beer, choosing to smoke almost all of my grain, rather than the pound called for in the recipe. This surely pushed this beer into the “extreme beer” category, and out of the comfortable range. This is the single aspect of the brew that was judged as a negative that I feel came out just the way I wanted it to, and even if it cost me some points in judging, I wouldn’t change a thing in regards to the smoking of the grains.

On to the cyser, my apple mead. There’s no reason to quote big blocks of text, as the judges all pretty much said the same things: could use more honey, a bit harsh, pretty dry, and not carbonated enough. Even so, I scored a 33, Very Good:

“Beers in this range have a minor flaw (technical or stylistic), or may be lacking in balance or complexity”

I entered the cyser under semi-sweet, as that’s where it seemed to be the last time I drank much of it. It’s gotten drier, and would have been better entered under the dry category. I intended the cyser to be still, which is apparently not true to the BJCP style. Ultimately, I knew that this was not a world-class cyser when I entered it. I do expect that it will improve greatly with another couple years in the bottle. I should have entered my 2005 mead.

There it is, folks, my first competition. I’m really happy with the feedback, and to have entered the competition game. I’m kind of looking forward to the end of the experiment I’m working on, so that I can get back to brewing different styles again.

I followed the plan with an hour boil after the first hops addition, we used my immersion chiller to cool things down, and I again opted to ferment in a corny keg. Fermentation was vigorous with this batch, and I had to clean out my airlock a couple of times on Sunday. I also racked batch #1 over to a secondary fermenter, where the fermentation kicked back up more than I’d expected, bubbling away at about one bubble every six seconds or so. I may go to a tertiary conditioning keg for all of these brews, just to reduce the impacts of any remaining trub.

That’s pretty much how things went for brew #2. I’ll be brewing batch #3 this weekend, before taking a week off for Thanksgiving. Batch #3 will be batch-sparged in my plastic picnic-cooler mash tun.

Endurance exercise like running takes a pretty solid toll on the body, draining it of water, glycogen and other sugars used to fuel all of our daily functions. Athletes and sports scientists have come up with a number of ways to minimize these impacts. From sports gels to Gatorade, science has brought us a number of products that can help the body to refuel quickly, retain energy, and recover quickly, both during exercise and afterward.

The 30 minutes or so after vigorous exercise are critical, in terms of recovery and nutrition. During this recovery window, your body efficiently uses the fuel that you give it to restore glycogen - the fuel your muscles burn. There are a whole bunch of anecdotally-supported aids, like gummy bears, tootsie rolls, and fruit roll-ups, and some scientifically-formulated products produced to be recovery-specific. I read once that chocolate milk is a near-perfect blend of proteins and sugars for effective recovery, but I don’t think I could ever bring myself to sit down to a big glass of chocolate milk after a hot, long run. What I do crave after exercise is an ice-cold beer. It’s the one time I’ll throw style recommendations out the window: I want my post-run beer as cold as is humanly possible. Professor Manuel Garzon in Granada has great news for me - it turns out that beer is another excellent recovery beverage, and will actually do me more good than water. Sweet!

Garzon’s study was conducted on a group of about two dozen students over four months. The students were asked to run to near-exhaustion on treadmills in very warm conditions (temps over 100 degrees). When they were done, researchers conducted a number of tests on the students, measuring hydration levels, motor skills, and mental acuity. A sad control group was given a pint of water to drink, and the lucky kids got beer. Both groups were then allowed to consume as much water as they wanted. Apparently the beer-drinking students were rehydrated more quickly than the control group and the sugars and CO2 helped to refresh the students and recover calories. Apparently the alcohol in a single pint of beer isn’t enough to cause any dehydration.

To my mind, the benefits of beer after exercise surpass nutrition and hydration. A beer is relaxing, both due to the alcohol present in the beverage and in a more Pavlovian way – we relax with beer habitually, so beer forces us to relax as a conditioned response. Relaxing tense muscles after exertion can ease blood flow, speeding both refueling and the removal of lactate – both resulting in a speedier recovery period. Today, I like science very much.