FOOLCiRCLE

I was invited once again to judge in the first round of the National Homebrew Competition presented by the American Homebrewers Association.

I received an email today informing me that the Northeast region will be judged in Philly at Yard’s brewery this year. He is a section of the email:

The Northeast Regional judging for the 1st Round of the National Homebrew Competition will be held the weekend of April 25-27 at the Yards Brewery (www.yardsbrewing.com) in Philadelphia.

For those of you have judged this competition before expect the same great time with excellent judges and friends from the region. Perhaps the new location to be a big improvement over last year. For those of you who haven’t this is a great opportunity to judge in the largest home brew competition in the world. We expect to be judging on Saturday and Sunday, although the number of flights and time needed to judge will depend on the number of entries we receive and the number of judges who commit to judging. We may do some judging on Friday night for anyone who is available. While the details haven’t been fully worked out expect to start judging on Saturday AM at 9am, on Sunday at 12:00 and if we judge on Friday night it will be about 7:30pm.

So reserve the weekend of April 25-27 and plan to judge in Philadelphia. Let me know that you can judge. If you know someone who’d like to steward, let me know as well; we can use several.

The deadlines for entries this year are March 31st to April 11th. Our regional mail-in spot is Home Sweet Homebrew in Philly. The prices have gone up too, $9 for AHA members and $14 for non-members (ouch!).

So I slowly moved along on the path of rebuilding kegs today, I think I might like this less then bottle prep.

So, I am a little hesitant in putting these kegs back together since I essentially mixed up all the pieces. It appears as if there are different posts for gas intake and liquid output, figured those all out. It appears as if there are some posts that will only fit on certain kegs (“skinny” – 2), and some posts that fit on all the kegs (“universal” – 2). It appears as if there are two different size poppets. I still have not determined if one size belongs to gas and one size belongs to liquid or if one size belongs to the “skinny” posts and one size belongs to the “universal”. So besides even putting the kegs back together I still need to thoroughly clean and sanitize the inside (very important) and clean the outside (only important to anal-retentive types, like me). So to avoid playing with my pieces I decided to mess around with cleaning the outside of the kegs.

So, I’ve been talking to my friend Craig this week to see if he has any suggestions on how to clean the outside of these kegs since he has access to a lot of power tools – my thinking is let the tools do the work not me. He says he has an eraser-wheel (red handle above) which will clean them right up, removing the stickers, and grime, and some of the scratches. Great, I’ll give it a shot. I go over to his place to try the eraser-wheel and it works OK. It totally ate up the stickers on the kegs, but left a residue on the kegs I didn’t like. Craig said that I could use a solvent to get it off. I was still under-impressed with the eraser-wheel. So I ask if he has anything else that will do a better job. He offers me his surface grinder (silver handle above). This has a small abrasive pad on it. I initially start by targeting just the left over residue from the eraser-wheel, it seems to take it off fairly easily, but I notice that it actually scratches the keg as it is removing it. Now I have to decide: do I not use the surface grinder any more, surface grind all the kegs where the sticker was but leave a scratched/brushed finish, or try and use the surface grinder on all parts of the keg on all four kegs. I chose the last option. It took about 20 minutes per keg and one surface grinder pad only lasted for two kegs, would have been even better to change per keg.

They look OK. They definitely look cleaner and less scratched than they did before, but they also look a little amateurish. The brushed finish is nice,but it is inconsistent. I tried to go only vertically but the grinder didn’t really work that way. I don’t know if I’d do it again when I buy more kegs, but it is an option I would still consider. According to Craig I can buy finer discs which will give it a more consistent finish. But 20 minutes per keg twice is a lot of time to clear up something that doesn’t need to be cleared up. We’ll see.

So the other night I figured I’d rebuild my new to me (used) kegs that I recently had gotten. Little did I know what I was getting into.

So I thought I had everything I needed: kegs, a keg rebuild gasket kit, keg lube, deep sockets in both 7/8″ and 3/4″ (two different size keg posts), a ratchet, music, detailed (anal-retentive) keg rebuilding instructions, and motivation. I began by taking the kegs apart. I realized because of the sockets I bought I actually would need three different sockets, one of the posts had a 12 point base while the others all had 6. Luckily I had already borrowed Garret’s socket and his was 12 points, so I was good to go. After I had all the kegs taken apart I began to notice some differences in the pieces, which isn’t a good feeling when you initially thought they were universal. So now I have 3 different posts, in 2 different shapes, with 4 different dip tubes, and 2 different kinds of poppets all kind of jumbled together – great . . .

So I decide at that point that maybe I was being a bit ambitious. I also notice at this point that my keg rebuilding gasket kit is missing 2 gaskets per keg, thus 8 gaskets overall. So at this point I KNOW I am not finishing rebuilding the kegs. The next step in the instructions is pretty straight forward, clean the little pieces you took apart. Well, since I already took them all apart I might as well clean them, right. So I read the instructions, go upstairs, and boil 2 quarts of water. I dissolve 1/4 cup of PBW (Powdered Brewers Wash) into the water and place all the parts into the solution to soak for at least 30 minutes. Then I stop and think (maybe for the first time that night), that sure was a lot of PBW, maybe I should re-read that. OOHHHH! Put 1 TBSP of PBW in about 2 QTS of water, not 1/4 cup – so where did a 1/4 of a cup come from? So I read ahead in the instructions and it lists using 1/4 of a cup PBW in the whole 5 gallon keg. So, 1 TBSP in 2 QTS for the parts and 4 TBSPs (1/4 cup) in 20 QTS for the whole keg – I know, I think that’d how my brain got mixed up too.

 

So at this point I’m mentally fried. I essentially let the parts soak for approximately 30 minutes and then take them out and scrub them with a toothbrush and then rinse them in really hot water. I also hunt down a couple adjustable wrenches and take apart the pressure release valves and soak them, brush them, and rinse them too. It was hectic to say the least.

Since then I have ordered the gaskets I did not have originally and have ordered more PBW just in case I get crazy and start changing the amounts to use again. Hopefully by the end of this weekend the kegs will be cleaned, sanitized, and “buffed” on the inside and out respectively. Hopefully putting them back together isn’t as bad as I think it might be.

Yesterday, 02.24.08, my brother Dave came down to help me bottle the Honey Oatmeal Stout that we brewed together about a month ago.

Everything went fine, so there really is no worries for this beer. As long as there are no carbonation problems then this beer will be ready for St. Patrick’s Day without any problems, so look out for the Uncle Tupelo Honey Stout (or whatever Dave winds up naming it). We of course sampled the beer while bottling it, remember this is a warm, young, and uncarbonated version, but I thought it was pretty good already – mostly full bodied, a little sweet, some roast bite in the back, a little honey aroma (mostly just floral) and a wish of a honey flavor in the finish (but it was there). We’ll see if the carbonation and chilling will kill any residual honey contributions, but overall I think we’ll have a solid stout on our hands.

What’s next? You got me. I’m about to re-up on ingredients and have nothing lined up so anyone with suggestions of new beers, repeats, or wanna-be Signature Series fire away!

Yesterday, 2.23.08, was the War of the Worts XIII homebrew competition, the largest local competition in the area. It was held once again at the Iron Hill Brewery‘s North Wales location.

Not only is this the largest local competition, but this was the largest this particular competition has been yet. With 554 entries and over 60 judges, the place was packed to say the least. I entered four beverages and also judged the competition. I entered my ’07 Linvilla Cider, the Vader Imperial Stout, my Tripel, and my Dubbel. I also have now earned enough judging points that I am now officially a BJCP Certified Beer Judge, versus being Recognized previously. Anyway, here are my results, but you can see the rest of the results here:

• Dubbel – 29/28 – “A good effort that needs some tweaks.” – “A nice light example that almost seams like a big Belgian Pale Ale.”
• Tripel – 31/28 – Second Place Belgian Tripel “A good effort that lacks a few key components favored in the best examples.” – “Very good base beer and an excellent start.”
• ’07 Linvilla Cider – 31/29 – “Easy drinking dry cider – could use more body and carbonation to balance.” – “This is a nice, crisp, refreshing cider that would be great on a hot summer day.”
• Vader Imperial Stout – 38/35/36 – Third Place Imperial Stout – “Great effort – loads of flavors that are in good harmony, complex like it should be.” – “Very good R.I.S., could use more fruity esters or maybe a tad bit of hops, I like this beer!” – “Very good beer. Complex. Aroma and flavor don’t match. Rich. Need a fireplace.”

So there you have it in a nut shell. I judged Scottish & Irish ales in the morning and English IPAs and Imperial IPAs in the afternoon. Somehow things didn’t wrap-up at Iron Hill until late, like 8:30PM or so, and I didn’t get home until after 10PM. So essentially a 14 hour day of concentration and judging/drinking beer, it was a very long day.

Yesterday I transfered the Honey Oatmeal Stout (HOS) to secondary.

I used my new (and fourth, I think) auto-siphon which worked like a charm to transfer the beer. Not very exciting, but one step closer to consumption. Here is the extra lovely description I sent my brother about it: “I also transfered it to secondary and of course sampled some. The sample came in at 1.020 SG which basically means it still has some nice body to it, good. So far, two weeks old, warm and uncarbonated I smell and taste: bubble-gum, honey, tire, roast, toast, bitter, crust, leather, prunes, cotton-swab, band-aid, chocolate cake, sneaker, flowers, and grapefruit. Take that for what it is.” Man, does that sound oh so tasty. Hopefully this beer will be good to go in time for St. Patrick’s day and maybe we can even make some nice Carbombs out of it 😉 .

So I cleaned the bottles in preparation for the Honey Oatmeal Stout (HOS) yesterday.

I know, overly exciting. The HOS isn’t going to be bottled until the 24th when Dave is going to come down and help me, but I figured I’d get the “dirty” work out of the way so when he does come down it will move quicker and be more enjoyable. Originally he was going to come down on the 23rd, but that is the date of this years War of the Worts. So most likely I will be busy judging at the competition. I tried to give a heads up to the First State Brewers group about the competition as early as possible since the excuse often is ‘if I had only know’ to see how much we could all represent DE, but I guess I was being “snarky” and have thus decided to keep my mouth shut instead. Also there is the Cure For What Ales You homebrew showcase / competition coming up in April which had it’s deadline for entry today. I signed up for that too, but with an open-ended I-don’t-know-what-beer-I’m-bringing type clause. Nothing special, but with a sour taste left in my mouth.

So today a got a small shipment in from Northern Brewer of mostly small things I needed / wanted.

One of the things I received were the pieces to attach a Bazooka screen to the inside of my kettle. The theory being that adding the screen will be a safe way to filter my wort from the kettle to the carboy thus producing brighter beer. I know these thing work well for mash tuns because that is what I use, and I’ve heard they work well with whole hops which is cool that I can now use them more easily, but I’ve heard mixed reviews about them working with pellet hops which is what I use. I know it is asking for a big stuck mess, but I am hoping instead it is one of those ‘why didn’t I do this sooner’ moments. We’ll have to wait until the next batch.

One thought I had if it does begin to clog is the next time to wrap the screen with a stainless steel scrubby and double filter the wort. I think the scrubby has a lot less chance to get clog, especially now after using it twice (held in place with a spoon) to try and help filter my wort. I guess we’ll see.

So with a little cheer-leading from Karen I bottled the Dubbel tonight.

Everything seemed to go fine. The final gravity looked fine, I got two full cases of bottles, I wasn’t so nervous about adding bottling yeast this time – it was a pretty non-descriptive adventure into the bottling of homebrew. If only everything could be this simple.

Oh, BTW, even right now it tastes pretty good! 😎

Let’s take this one back to December of 2004, maybe even before that, that’s how long this beer has been in the making.

Back in December of 2004 Dave made his first homebrew with his own equipment, an Amber Ale. Since then he has wanted to do a joint brew that he dubbed (originally) the Uncle Tupelo Honey Ale. He wanted it to be a stout with a lot of honey in it if I remember correctly. Richard even bought him ingredients to make the beer as a thanks for trying to set up Richard’s original website. Well, the website was never used nor the ingredients to make the beer. So I bought fresh ingredients to make a Honey Oatmeal Stout. If Dave brewed it with me, it would be his (three years plus after the fact), if not I would have a homebrewed stout ready in time for St. Patrick’s Day – win-win.

OK, enough of busting Dave’s balls, onto the beer. So we started around 9:30ish and wrapped up a little before 4PM, pretty average brew day. This was Dave’s first time helping with an all-grain batch so I tried to let him help as much as possible with everything before the boil. So I had Dave measuring the water, measuring the grains, milling the grains, mashing in, moving several gallons of very hot water around, you know all the fun crappy stuff. I think the only two delays (which weren’t major) were that we over heated our mash-in water and ran the boil about ten minutes longer than it was supposed to go. The over heated water was no big deal, we just took the lid off the kettle and left it outside to cool down while we took a break and had coffee and bagels. Similarly, the ten minute over boil was no big deal, I actually chose to do that because I was waiting for Dave to come back from running out to get lunch and he took a little longer than I anticipated and I wanted to wait for him so he could add the final hop addition and the first addition of honey. We’ll also be adding more honey tomorrow or Tuesday directly to the fermenter to hopefully preserve as much of the honey aromas and maybe some flavors too. Honey is highly fermentable so it is actually quite difficult to get any honey characteristics to carry through to the finished beer. But overall the day went great and I think Dave had a good time, we should try to do this more often then every three years!

 

I tried lightly to convince Dave to add a small portion of coffee to the stout to have a full on breakfast stout thing going on, but it didn’t happen. I think between some of the roasted barley and chocolate malts that are a part of the recipe it will have coffee-like characteristics anyway. Can’t wait to try this one!