Category Archives: wort

Homebrewers’ Meeting!

     I have been very lax with my camera use these past few days. By lax, I mean I haven’t touched it, so for today’s post I’m going to recycle a few from the past year.
     I had my first homebrewer meeting on Sunday and my beer, Dos Beckis, was kindly received. I informed them that it was bottle-conditioned right as they tipped the entire growler upside-down and let all of the yeast sediment mix together in the pitcher. Oops. I still enjoyed the taste, and I made everyone healthier by giving them an extra dose of Vitamin B thanks to all that mixed-in yeast. 
Goooooo HEALTH!
     
     We had a tasting of five beers from the San Francisco area, followed by TWENTY tastings of members’ beers. I got through ten of those tastings before I had to cover my glass. I just don’t have the stamina, or the body weight to handle all that! 
     Now I have to head to work, so I’ll leave you with my beautiful recycled pictures of…. BEER!
Wort – not quite beer, but getting there!
Redemption.
Efes.
Weasel-$#*& beer.
Old Monkeyshine by Nimbus. AKA “Face-punch” beer.
Longmont Milk Stout.
Muchas Cervezas.
Punkin Ale by Dogfish Head. 1554 by New Belgium.
Tasting with the boys. Old Rasputin, Napa Smith’s Amber, Moylan’s Porter, Boont Amber, and Franziskaner.
Good ole Anchor Steam – sponsor of my homebrew club 😀
A simple, and wonderful, kind of life.

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Filed under Anchor Steam, beer tasting, Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, Dos Beckis, Efes, homebrewing, Mikkeller Geek Brunch Weasel, milk stout, New Belgium, Old Monkeyshine, Redemption, Weasel Crap Beer, wort

Brewing with the Boys!

     My boys from college are INTENSE brewers and invited me up for a brew day on Saturday. I was out the door by 8am and when I arrived, they’d already gotten started! Post-college guys getting up before noon on a Saturday? 
That’s dedication to the craft!
Frank the Tank already had his mash (the grains are submerged in water and raised to a temperature that breaks down the starches into sugars) ready to sparge.
Sparging is when the wort (the liquid that contains the sugar from the mash) is drained from the mash tun (a big pot with a false bottom where you heat the mash) and water is poured over to extract as much of the sugars as possible. 
Grayson demonstrates here:
Grayson the Scholar sparging his mash in a studious manner.
When brewing, it’s important to have a homebrew on hand. This was one of Frank’s latest kegs – de-freakin-licious. If I wasn’t sure about homebrew quality before (which I was), I sure would be now! This had lovely notes of toffee and happiness.
It’s also important to be well-fed. Grayson and I ran out for propane tanks, jugs of water and burritos. I got a grilled veggie burrito (NO CHEESE/DAIRY FOR A WEEK NOW!) that was so succulent (heehee, succulent) it made me giggle. 
I placed it in a cup, which makes it taste better.
It’s also important to have beer glasses on hand. I don’t know why, but I trust Frank and Grayson when it comes to this stuff.
Frank’s Scottish Midget Ale (yes, that’s really its name) boiling away!
Chillin’ the wort with a wort chiller – an apparatus that connects to a hose or other water source that sends cold water in one end and out the other. When you place it (after sanitizing it!) in your wort, it cools it down much faster.
I will repeat – CLEANLINESS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING when it comes to brewing beer! Grayson knows this, as you can see.
Everything was going just great.
Until…
Beer pong. Oh, dear Lord.
Time ceased to mean anything.
Growlers, homebrews and six-packs covered the table.
It was a good day.

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Filed under beer, beer glasses, beer pong, burritos, college boys, homebrewing, mash tuns, sanitization, Scottish Midget Ale, sparging, UCSB, wort, wort chiller