Yea…Buster likes snow.
Buster loving it!
I didn’t want you all to think I gave up biking for brewing, so I snapped a few pics on the commute today. My thumb is still bothering me from a few months ago, so mountain biking is being held to less than 2 hours.
Just starting out, riding along Rt.62, heading under Rt.3.
The snow started falling a little after 2:00 PM and being that most people didn’t come in to work today, I took the opportunity to head out at 3:20 PM. It’s always a good time riding in the snow when it’s coming down at a couple inches an hour.
Just riding along...
So the snow started at 2:00 PM on Friday and finally ended sometime Saturday night. Woke up this morning and we’re enjoying another storm with some white out conditions. They’re saying to expect another 6″ on top of the foot or so we already received. Guess we won’t be seeing the green grass again until Spring.
Just have to wait until the PR gets good and packed down to do some kick ass snow rides! I think we should get a set of snowshoes so we can help out with the packing, ha.
Buster and I were out for a little hike the other day around the reservoir. Early on in the hike we found a perfectly good cantine that was filled with frozen water. Sort of a pain in the ass to carry around frozen water, but hell, a cantine is a cantine.
Near the end of the hike I saw something that just didn’t look right. A closer inspection revealed the grip of a black handgun sticking out of the leaves. Thankfully, no hands were attached to it. It turned out to be an air gun, the orange muzzle tip was the give away, ha. Not being real keen on shooting myself, I removed the magazine (fully loaded) and cleared the ball loaded in the barrel. Hmm…maybe a good craigslist item!
Gun and Cantine
Saturday morning found Kristin and I waking up early to get the house ready. We needed to clean the house from top to bottom, rake a 1/2 acre of leaves, get started on the cooking, and finally mill the grain. Kristin started on the leaves, while I started in on the vacuuming. After the house was clean, I headed out to help with the raking to find Kristin had already finished putting the front yard into piles and was already starting on the backyard. We switched it up and she went on to getting the mac & cheese and caramel cupcakes together…diabetics beware! Later in the afternoon, Mike, Chris, and Jeff popped by the house to help out. We put Chris and Jeff on grain milling duty while Mike and I finished off the leaves just a little after o’dark 30. Then we finished up the grain milling, before grabbing some pizza and a Wii Kart break, which Ron conveniently showed up for just in time. After everybody left, it was just a quick basement check and barrel prep, which needed a splash more rum - you know, to sanitize it a little more. Physical exhaustion had me in bed by midnight.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Woke up early to grab some coffee and do a few last minute things. Sloan and Albert show up around 8:15 AM, just as I’m finishing up some small details like putting fresh house numbers on the mailbox to make it easier for people to find. And it begins…
Brewers Brewing
From then until around 11:00 AM brewers arrived, setup, and started up their rigs. Everybody brewed all grain (some for their first time), but the equipment ranged from 5 gallon buckets/aluminum foil/tongs to computerized 15 gallon keggles on rolling brew carts. We had a dozen or so brewers and all completed their batches and pushed through any issues there might have been. I was scheduled to brew, but keeping things organized became a full time job. Thankfully Jeff took over measuring out three additions of hops for every batch.
First addition of hops measured out
Throughout the day people showed up at the house. Some brought homebrew, some brought commercial brew, and still others brought much needed food to supply the troops. Kristin whipped up a big batch of mac & cheese and some caramel cupcakes. Kevin put together a spicy batch of jambalaya. There was homebrewed port and tons of cookies. A smoker was put to good use to churn out some ribs and we even had homemade bbq sauce that was super tasty!
As we wrapped things up, Allan setup his peristaltic pumps and counterflow chiller to directly chill the beer as it ran from the brew kettles into the barrel.
This chiller pretty much rocked and made the end of the brew day go really smooth. We filled the barrel with about 40 gallons of wort and put an extra 20 gallons in carboys. This way when the barrel reaches peak fermentation it doesn’t explode onto the walls of my basement (Kristin should be happy about that). The carboys were set to the side to ferment on their own and we should be racking those back into the barrel to bulk age with the rest of the batch.
Chilling beer into barrel
It was a phenomal day! The weather cooperated bringing sunny skies and warm temperatures. Everybody did their part and more to make the day a smashing success. We were shooting for a 1089 gravity and hit 1085 - not bad for how many batches we had to combine. I’d try to name everybody who took part, but I’m sure I’d screw it up. The Wort Processors homebrew club really out did themselves. When it was all said and done, Kristin and I were able to clean the house one more time and sit down for good right around 6:30 PM…can’t ask for more than that. Oh, and the beer…I’ll let you know how it turns out…in a year.
For additional stuff, check out Kristin’s photos here, David Bond’s photos here, Ron’s video here, and Ann Cortissoz’s article in the globe here.
Last week was mostly spent getting ready for the weekend. The Worts recently purchased a rum barrel from Newport Storm, a brewery in RI, who also happens to distill and makes Thomas Tew rum. The rum barrel was originally used to age Tennessee whiskey. The plan was for the Worts to get together for a day and brew 60 gallons of Strong Scotch Ale, aka Wee Heavy. I volunteered my basement to keep the barrel for the year it will be aging the beer, which means everybody would be coming over to our house for the brewing - Kristin was thrilled with this, ha!
In addition to hosting, I took on getting the ingredients for the massive grain bill since I’ve recently started doing bulk grain buys for the club. The clubs order came to 21 sacks of grain. The grain arrived on a pallet to my work (amazing what a little beer bribe can get your shipping department to allow). Next was loading all that grain into the Subaru to get it back to the house. This was the challenge:
Grain to be loaded
Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long to get it all in the wagon, only about 30ish minutes. The shipping department had the truck delivery guy drop right in the parking lot, so I wouldn’t have to carry it off the loading dock and could load it directly into the wagon. The tough part would come later…
Lowriding
So now I know, 21 sacks is pretty much the limit of a Subaru Outback…in case anybody was wondering. Once home, the rain really picked up, so I put off the inevitable until 10:00 PM that night. At that point I grabbed the rain jacket and headed out into the dark wet driveway. Opening up the back, I was greeted with this:
Ready to unload
An hour later, all 21 bags were safely down in the basement. Check done! Just a quick shower and then it was time for bed.
The hops proved to be a little daunting. If you brew beer at all, then you know there is/was a hop shortage. This can make something like buying 2 pounds of hops a little difficult. Luckily there is Fresh Hops, who just so happens to have a 2 pound limit per type of hop. Ordered on Monday, shipped on Tuesday, hope like hell it actually shows up on Friday. Friday evening, about 5:00 PM, I get the message from Kristin…the hops have landed! Buster was psyched!
Mmm...Buster approved!
2 pounds of Goldings delivered, not to mention a bunch of others!
Box o' hops!
Now the only thing left was to make sure the house was in order, but it would have to wait until Saturday.
A quick picture from walking the dog around the reservoir.
Smoke on the Water
Works been pretty crazy the last week or two. The leaves have been peaking all around us and I just haven’t been able to get out on the bike during the day, since it’s dark by 6:00 PM now. Things are going well though! Kristin has more freelance work than she ever has before and more keeps getting added every week. Buster is loving the New England Fall weather and all the animals that are in a flurry at this time of year…watch out squirrels and deer!
We all managed to get a quick hike in at the beautiful Blue Hills Reservation and Kristin took some fantastic photos. The hike was labeled moderate, but damn, it was pretty tough. Probably as tough as any of the sections I’ve hiked on the Appalachian Trail. A few sections resemble bouldering more than hiking, but it was definitely worth it -
Boston skyline from Blue Hills overlook (photo by Kristin)
I don’t know who had more fun, but I’d probably venture a guess that Buster had the best time…
Happy Busterman
More updates to come!
Mike and I brewed up our annual batches of Pumpkin ale on Sunday. Mike picked up some small sugar pumpkins on Saturday (about 6 pounds worth), quartered them, and roasted them in the oven at around 400°. After letting them get nice and soft and letting a bunch of the sugars begin to caramelize, he scooped out the pulp, which we blended up in the food processor just before brewing. We added the pumpkin directly to the mash and it was super tasty going in. Pulled off the mash, which gave off a beautiful deep amber color. Brought to a boil and added our single hop addition. Pretty easy going brew day, as the only thing left was to add a mixture of spices a few minutes before the end of the boil. Chilled and poured into the fermentation buckets and pitched some rehydrated Safale S-04 dry yeast. Headed down to the basement Monday, only to see this -
Pumpkin Ale fermenting
Damn! Guess I forgot the one thing I always remember to do…put the buckets on a towel. Oh well, it’s all cleaned up now and fermenting vigorously. With such an easy brewing session, we took time during the boil to refurbish a few corny kegs (new poppets and o-rings all around). After the refurbish job, we ended up racking Mike’s IPA, my Oktoberfest and my Blonde ale into the fresh kegs. Good times.
Remember, beer and candy are supposedly recession proof…at least I got the first half covered.
It’s back and it’s fabulous! This is where I’ll be tonight -
Belgian Beer Fest
Steve was going to try and make it up here, but we just couldn’t put it all together. Mike and Notte will still be joining me, but if the weather keeps up, it looks like I’ll be the only one biking in tonight. We’re currently experiencing a so called Nor’easter that is dumping continuous rain on us through the weekend. Maybe it’ll let up…yea right, ha. It will only make the funk taste even better!
The local Boston homebrew club, the Wort Processors, had their September meeting this past Sunday. I made the trek down the Minuteman Bikeway, getting off in Arlington and heading over into Medford to lend support for smoking some ribs. I’m guessing I was the only person on the path that day with a growler of IIPA and a hatchet, but hey, somebody had to provide the tools to cut up the apple wood for the smoker.
Ron adding charcoal and apple wood
So what exactly goes on at a homebrew club meeting? Well believe it or not, it’s not just a bunch of fat guys hanging out and drinking beer. We managed to cover a lot of club doings, like the 25th Anniversary brew, a big barrel brew, and Ciderfest (spontaneously fermented cider, hell yea!). Of course it’s not all business, we also manage to taste a few homebrewed beverages throughout the meeting. Schwarzbier, 4 year old Cider, Blonde, IIPA…a lot of quality brews out there. People critique the brews and offer suggestions or in some cases offer nothing but praise. If it leads to a better brew, then it was worth it. Kristin made it out for the meeting portion, as did bunch of other brewsters and significant others.
Some of the Wort members
As far as the club goes, I’m fairly new to the group, but I haven’t had any problems getting in there and mixing things up. The club will only be as good as it’s members and it’s up to the members to speak out on what they want the club to “be”. In that regard, the club is very open to differing opinions, which is great in my book. There’s also a good variety of brewers in the club, from novice to profesional, which makes it educational for everybody. Anyway, I’m looking forward to more club action and watching the club develop over it’s next 25 years.
Fat Boy Deluxe Brewing has gone organic. It was a pretty easy decision, a sack of organic grain is about $5 more than non-organic and that comes out to around 10 cents a pound more to go organic. The next question is probably is it any better? Well I can’t say just yet, I’ve only made a couple of batches using the organic grain. There’s been a IIPA and a super hoppy Red that both used organic grains, but regular old hops. Both turned out really well, but I think the Red turned out pretty exceptional. There was also an Imperial Belgian White brewed- known as Caustic Wit. It came with a nice little bill of spices and a 10% ABV to keep you in check.
Brewing IIPA in Maine
There are three all organic brews sitting in their fermentation buckets and carboys as I type. A Belgain Triple, an American Blonde, and an Oktoberfest syle ale. I’m hoping to get a chance to clear them up a little this week and rack them into kegs to be ready for the weekend. I’ll need to pick up some of the new 2008 organic hop crop before making anything too hoppy and I’ll probably need to a get a couple pounds of organic specialty malts before making anything else. But with Fall approaching, it seems to be a good time for whipping up a Brown ale and maybe a couple of stouts (both regular and imperial, because I know how much Steve likes the Old Rasputin clone).
Over the summer, we finally had a chance to show Kristin’s Mom what this whole brewing thing was about. Took the opportunity to brew up a Flanders Red sour ale that should take anywhere from 6 months to 3 years to be ready, ha. It’s sitting quitely in their basement, hopefully maturing well. For the brew session we brought out the lawn chairs in true Maine fashion.
Flanders Red in Maine
Fall is the best time for brewing. Cooler temperatures that are really great for clean ale fermentations, the harvesting of the new hop crop brings super fresh hops to market, and the changing of the leaves make it all the more enjoyable to enjoy a pint outside. Make sure you get your beers brewed for the 3rd annual Bootlegger’s Bliss, the weekend of November 1st…
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