Nothing goes better with a cold homebrew than a couple grilled pizzas! I did the first two of the year a couple nights ago. First ones on my new grill too. I used to be able to only do one at a time on my old grill, but with the new one there was enough space for two with room to spare!

If you haven’t tried grilling homemade pizza, it is well worth the effort. Take the pizza dough, we like making whole wheat pizza dough, roll it out in an oval or so, brush a side with olive oil and put that side on the grill with low heat. Cover and let that side brown, flip it over, brush with olive oil, add your toppings, cover it up and let it go until the cheese is warm and melty. Its easy to burn, so be careful!

Some of our favorites are buffalo chicken ‘za and steak fajita ‘za. The new grill was double convienient that I could turn off the heat while I added the toppings. It gave me a little extra time.

Cheers!

This sad little article is from Michigan. What a cool business plan to offer your customers a beer with their hair cut. If my old barber offered me one with ever cut I’d be in there every month! Of course my new barber lets me drink whatever I want when I get my haircut, but thats because its done in my kitchen, and she happens to be my wife.

State Rep. Kevin Green says he doesn’t see why Martin’s clients can’t have a beer since no one is looking to get drunk. The Wyoming Republican has asked the Michigan attorney general’s office to research whether giving customers a beer violates state law.

The world needs a lot more representatives like Green. I have no idea about his other politics, but he seems like a straight talking reasonable fellow!

Cheers!

I’ve got my primary in the laundry room. Its been bubbling so sweetly the last couple of days, it is really almost enjoyable to go in there! Laundry is not one of my favorite things in this world and usually I turn on the local metal station while I’m in there doing chores, but for some reason I keep walking in there just to listen to the gurgle gurgle cadence of the airlock!

Now that two days of fermentation are done, I totally spaced putting a thermometer in there to monitor the temperature and see if there is much fluctuation.  Bummer, that.  Hopefully though, the changes that I have made will show through. I’m hoping to run another batch this weekend re-using the yeast. I’ve had great success with rapid ferments that way.

I’ve got a few kegerator thoughts gurgling away in my head too, I should get them typed up in the week. Its also been a while since I’ve done a review, perhaps I’ll take a gander through the local beer store and pick up something interesting.

Cheers!

It has always been my understanding that a hydrometer measures the amount of dissolved solids in a water against water itself. So a gravity of 1.0000 is water, and 1.014 has some dissolved solids in it. The temperature can of the liquid affects the reading but there are tables that can be used to correct the value. Most hydrometers come with the chart, in fact.

In the case of brewing, that dissolved solid is mostly sugar. We can get a very accurate idea of how much alcohol beer contains by taking an original gravity prior to pitching yeast and then taking a final gravity after the fermentation is complete. The difference from OG to FG is directly related to the sugar the yeast ate, which you punch into a calculation to get the alcohol from that sugar. Or you take the lazy route and put the values in BeerSmith and have it tell you the ABV.

It stands to reason that suspended solids like hot break or hop trub would not affect the value because they are simply suspended, not dissolved. Hopefully I can rule that out as a cause for strangely high OG’s. I am left with a conundrum as to why my OG from brew day two days ago came out to 1.080 when the kit says 5 to 10 points lower?

The only thing I can come up with is not swirling the carboy enough after topping up. It is plausible that perhaps the sample I took was from a pocket of sweeter wort than the rest. Its not a volume issue, I topped up to 5.5 gallons, if anything that would lower the value. Hmmm.

Oh, indeed I did brew on Saturday!

Cheers

I’m going to try and brew a batch today and I’m hoping the advice I was given in previous posts will help my end product. I simply cannot forget the Whirlfloc tablet! I’ve also installed an under the sink water filter, not quite an R-O filter, and am hoping that will also help distinguish the flavors.

I plan on making use of Google calendar to send me reminders when to rack, and this time I will even use my hydrometer to check initial gravity. The last time I’ve done that has to be nearly twenty batches ago!

This last batch that I brewed with Whirlfloc and kegged turned out ok, and was certainly lacking in the gastrous  side effects that the previous stout had.

If I don’t light the fire this afternoon, I’m hoping to do it tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll go smack that pack and make it certain that I brew.

Cheers!

Wow, it seems like the winter has been especially hard on my ambition this year. I have been trying to keep at blogging at least once a day but somewhere along the line I’ve slipped. I haven’t even brewed in three months! Kind of hard to pass on brewing information when I haven’t even brewed in so long!

This weekend perhaps. I’ve still got some tips to try out from my call from help a week or three ago. It is supposed to be near above freezing Sunday, perhaps I’ll fire up the kettle then. My wife and I fried the last kegged batch while playing Wii the other night. Since we can’t go to the bowling alley and drink beer we might as well put the kids to bed and bowl with beer in our basement right?

Perhaps with this thaw coming up next week I’ll get the writing bug back and regale everyone with my wondrous wit and cunning insights into the beer world.

Well, at least I’ll be writing again.

Cheers!

A while ago I asked for some advice about my batches of beer turning out less than ideal.  I just thought I’d give folks a quick update about what I’ve found.

I brewed a batch before I asked for help, using a Whirlfloc tablet in the brew. It sat in primary for three weeks and secondary for well over a month. The good news is obviously its clear as a bell and the even better news? It doesn’t produce the gas side effect that the stout on tap does. I’ve even been able to drink more than two pints in one evening and not have my night’s sleep interrupted by major gaseous eruptions.  (Sorry if that was too graphic, but I’m happy that my homebrew is at least not going to be rued for its side effects.)

Flavor, though, is still not quite where I would want it to be. I’ve installed an under the counter water filter* designed to strip the chlorine/chloramine out of the water (among a host of other things) but not go the reverse osmosis route. I’ll do another batch using that, and following the advice from the “help” post to see if I can pin down the flavor issues.

I’ll not feel embarrassed serving the current beer thinking about what will happen a couple of hours later, anyway, but am still not overly proud of the flavor. I’ve got a pumpkin ale and a double IPA sitting in the garage begging to be brewed, we’ll see how those turn out.

Cheers!

*No, I didn’t pay that much for it.