California Red
California Red – sounds good already, doesn’t it!?
So on Sunday (11.02.08) I brewed at my house for the first time in for-ev-er, for real. It felt good. It still kind of feels like I used “valuable” weekend time to brew and would be better to “waste” a weekday night, but hey, it is what it is. Anyway, I brewed a California Red. Yup, that’s right. I bet this will be an official style whenever they next re-do the BJCP style guidelines. A prime example – Bear Republic Red Rocket. Basically you take an Amber Ale and push the limit West Coast style. Yeah, I know I just brewed 20 gallons on Imperial Amber Ale (IAA) with Garrett, doesn’t matter, different beer, next song. So we got some yummy hoppy love coming up at the Casa de Calhoun.
While brewing, which went perfectly smooth, I also did some other brew chores. I dropped some clarifier into my two ciders, so theoretically within a week we will have crystal clear cider – one batch heading to be kegged immediately an the other off to experimentation world to try the whole back-sweetening thing, we’ll see. I also transferred the IAA into secondaries, and dropped whole homegrown hops into the secondaries. I was stoked to see whole hops in my secondaries, but I was a little bummed to see where the SG reading was, 1.022 – yikes, sweet, oh well. It’ll be bangin’ regardless, mo’ fillin’ fo’ tha chillin’.
Why the brewing spurt? Well, I wanted to, I needed to, brewing with Garrett two weeks ago inspired me, and I just got a shipment of grains in! So what’s in store? A Cream Ale, an Irish Red, a California Red, two Pale Ales, an Toasted Oatmeal Stout, and a “Bourbonized” American Stout, hopefully all brewed by the end of the year and hopefully all ready by St. Patrick’s Day. What else is on the horizon for Fool Circle? Well, I’ll give hints: Mo’ Results, Mo’ Chillin’, and Mo’ Spinnin’. Word!
November 7th, 2008 at 7:09 am
dumb question after looking at that photo…do they make screens that keep the hops on the bottom of the tank so they are fully immersed, so as not to waste the top half of the hoppy goodness? or do they always float on top?
November 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I do not know about hop screens, but the hops tend to float at first but as they absorb beer they will submerge themselves. Fortunetely I do not think there is any hoppy love wasted!