January Marzen
Today was brew day! I finally, after nearly 8 years of absence from this hobby, brewed 5 gallons of Märzen/Oktoberfest.
Everything went well and all the equipment is working fine with no hitches. I don't like brewing on the stove top, but I don't have my outdoor cooking rig ready to go yet. I still have to build my immersion chiller and get a propane tank. Does anyone have a 20lb propane cylinder that you want to donate to a great cause?!
This is how you have to cool your wort when you are cooking partial batches on the stove top rather than cooking full batches outdoors and using an immersion chiller.
This is my hydrometer test jar and the yeast starter I used in this batch. The yeast was going nicely when I pitched it to the fermenter and my original gravity reading was 1.054, which was just a tad higher than my estimated 1.051.
CLICK HERE to view my brewing log. It contains the details of this brew...
Getting Ready to Brew
Tomorrow is the day... I'll be brewing my first batch of beer as I re-enter the hobby of home brewing. I have all of my ingredients in place, and I made a yeast starter this afternoon. I'm a little worried about the yeast starter because I haven't seen signs of activity in it yet after about seven hours. Hopefully it will take off soon and get bubbling so I can be confident that my yeast is good. If the yeast is not good, I'll have to delay pitching the yeast, but I'll still be cooking the beer tomorrow afternoon.
I'm making a variation of a Marzen recipe that I found in Charlie Papazian's "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" book a few weeks ago. The ingredients are as follows:
7 lbs BierKeller Unhopped Light Liquid Malt Extract
1/2 lb Dark Crystal Malt
1 cup of Roasted Barley
1 ounce Glacier Hops (bittering)
1/2 ounce Amarillo Gold Hops (bittering)
1/2 tsp Irish Moss (clearing)
1/2 ounce Amarillo Gold Hops (aroma)
1 vial White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch Yeast
Tomorrow night I should have some pictures and/or video to go along with this adventure :)
Beer Waffles
The saying goes.... Beer... It's not just for breakfast anymore. That doesn't mean that it can't be though....
Beer Waffles
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
1 12 oz beer of your choice (see notes)
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 pinch of sugar
1/4 cup oil
Beat the egg yolks and egg with the beer until completely mixed. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix completely. Bake on a hot waffle iron until done.
This recipe makes 5 full-sized waffles...
Notes:
As with any other recipe containing beer, the choice of beer will have an impact on the flavor of the food. I used Lost Coast Brewery's Alleycat Amber in this recipe and it was delicious. I do, however, wish I had a bottle of the Paulaner Hefeweizen on hand. The sweeter beer would have been even better...
Popa Chubby
Here's another artist I have recently discovered in my never-ending quest for the hottest of the smokin' blues... Popa Chubby is not the 'average' blues guitarist. I have been listening to a good bit of his stuff in the last few weeks, and there is a real twist to his own style. I recommend listening to some clips from iTunes or amazon.com on some of his various CDs before you buy anything. The only CD I currently have from Popa Chubby is "Booty and the Beast" and I like the entire disc.
LIVE music also creates a different sort of appeal. I have listened to some artists on CD that don't seem so special until I see them live... I love live entertainment :)
Duck-Rabbit Brown Ale
Traditionally, I'm not a huge fan of brown ales, but this one is OK. The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery's Brown Ale is nice and smooth with a decent hop punch and a smooth malty flavor right behind it.
From the website:
The Duck-Rabbit Brown Ale is an American brown ale brewed with loads of hops from start to finish (it’s hoppy and beautifully bitter). Amarillo hops in the boil provide a spicy citrusy bitterness. Saaz dry hops in the fermentor provide a refined flowery aroma. These hops are supported by a grain bill of seven varieties of malt. Oh yeah!
The 'loads of hops' don't really punch me so hard in this beer, but the hoppy aroma from the dry-hopping is definitely present.
This is my last sampling from an assorted six-pack from the World Market. I'm out of un-tried beers! I'm gonna have to make a run back down there sometime soon or try to find some local sources for singles. My only great local source for singles is rather expensive. I think their singles start at $3.99 each and run up to about $12.00 or so depending on what you get. Most of those singles are 16-24 ounces and there are some really great selections to choose from, but I can't let beer sampling break the bank...
Bell’s Oberon Ale
Someone commented to me earlier that the Bell's beers were really good. So, in my next assorted six-pack, I tossed in a Bell's Brewery Oberon Ale for a sampling. The Oberon Ale is tagged as an American Wheat Ale and Summer Ale on the back label. Like the Bell's Amber Ale I sampled previously, this beer is bottle conditioned and contains a light sediment in the bottle that provides the cloudy appearance in this wonderfully fruity and refreshing beer. Oberon will be on my very short list of favorite summertime refreshing and thirst-quenching brews of choice. The Paulaner Hefe-weissen that I sampled earlier is also high on this list.
I'm going to be brewing my first batch of beer on Sunday. I have everything in place to make that happen, and I'm out of school on Monday and Tuesday, so I'll be posting some stuff from the brewing experience the first part of next week. I'll probably make some photos, or I may even shoot video instead since I haven't used my video camera lately.
After tasting this Oberon and the recent sampling of the Paulaner, I might just brew a wheat beer as my second brew...
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