R3, on tap NOW
Sorry about the delay in recent posts, I guess I’ve just gotten caught up in other things. Anyway, Roby’s Red Rye (R3) is now on tap, so if you want to give it a shot, now’s your chance.
On tap with the R3 right now is the Cluster Wheat which is about to kick and the Sum Bra Pale Ale. The Cluster Wheat I actually stopped drinking for a while because I wanted to make sure there was enough left to reserve a couple bottles. Fortunately I got around to bottling on Saturday so everything is OK there. Have I tried to briefly describe the R3 yet, … I don’t think I have … Any way, in brief, the R3 is slightly darker than anticipated, thus skewing the true desired ‘red’ nature, though I have to admit that is a hard color to nail (for me anyway), it is also more hop forward and less malt forward than we had originally planned. Originally we really wanted to showcase the rye (50% of the base malt) but as time went on more and more hops were being added to the recipe. Honestly, it is pretty balanced, it’s just not what we had originally discussed. The rye is more subtle than I had anticipated, there is a slight spice note, a slight bread note, and a slight licorice note, but other than that nothing too dramatic. Some people say rye contributes a slickness on the palate, I did not detect that. It’d be interesting to see what some others say, I may have become a little jaded with it by now. BUT, after what sounds like a bunch of criticism, the beer turned out great and is a full flavored easy drinking brew. Above in the picture is “Aye”, he is the tap handle for the R3, pretty funny.
Today I brewed one of two batches to use up the ends of a bunch of older grains. Today’s was dubbed the Kitchen Sink Amber and the other is the Kitchen Sink Dark. I know they’re both real descriptive, yeah right. Today’s brew day was a little late start, not until almost 1PM, but other than that things went pretty good. It was beautiful weather, nothing tragic happened, and I was able to clean up and organize the brew area for the first time in a while, thanks to Karen for scoring me a nice shelving unit that I was desperately in need of. I did over heat my water for the HLT to so I had to let that cool some, and I couldn’t get my wort below 80’F after an hour and fifteen minutes of cooling. So right now I’m doing the carboy in a tub with some water and a wet towel and fan method to help cool it down via evaporation. Last time it helped almost 10 degrees in like 12 hours, so by tomorrow morning I should see some changes. I honestly don’t know if that’s just the surface area of the carboy that gets cooled that well, but it least it’s doing something. I’m thinking for the KS Dark about adding some Chinese 5 Spice Powder too it, sounds interesting to me. I was eating some stir fry the other day that had some in it and I thought it be good in a beer, first thoughts were a stout, a dubbel, or a saison.
Finally, looks like there is an interesting little web site that could be fun to watch on a weekly basis. Myself and two friends have a year long bet going and we decided to document it with a web site. So if you have any interest in checking it out or following along for the next year, check out this web site and bookmark it: Roby vs. The Razor. Basically it is a dollar a day bet with my friend Robert that he can’t go an entire year with out shaving. Too funny, go check out the website.