Currently in ferment

Advertisement

UPDATE

Been a long time since I updated this blog.

We’ve come a long way baby! Enjoy

Down the drain.

Bacteria hitched a ride on the ginger root.

This was supposed to be a crisp refreshing apple-ginger cider but tasted like vinegar and smelled like pig slop.  Win some you lose some I guess.

Piper Anise Rye

 

Piper Anise Rye is in bottles waiting 2 more weeks for carbonation. This smelled SOOOO good when I bottled it. I can’t wait to taste

New Plate Chiller

New Plate chiller in the process took nearly an hour off the cooling step. Wort goes in at 200° in and out at 80°

Home brew VS Micro brew by the numbers

Is home brewing cheaper?

First some parameters for calculation sake

• One 16oz beer per day
• Brewing equipment and a kegerator $1000
• 10 gallon batch all grain middle of the road recipe $40 grains and misc consumables
• $4 local brew pub micro brew. (Store bought brands just don’t compare)

1st Year Costs

Micro brew. $4 X 365 = $1,460 per year

Home Brew $40 = 10 galons =80 beers

$40/80 beers = $.50 per beer X 365 days = $182 per year

+ $1000 Brewing equipment = $1182 for year 1

 

So the first year 

$1460 – $1182 = $278 Savings

Subsequent years

$1460-$182 = $1278 Savings

 

 

 

 

 

Beernola bars?

Cooked up Lemon Tree Blond on Sunday at the Columbine church of the Ustick Brew. AKA Ustick Brewing.

The by-product of beer making is “Spent grain”  which usually goes to the chickens, what they don’t eat goes to compost.

This week we went another route. Spent grains + peanuts + peanut butter + sunflower seeds + raisins = Beernola bars.

They were a hit at the memorial day BBQ potluck. We will be fine tuning this recepie

Accidental beer

Through a snaffoo in the process of making a cream ale (we forgot to boil the rice and had to add corn syrup after the boil to compensate).  We accidentally made 10 gallons of a Coors Light clone. Tyler added Raspberry conentrate to his keg and I am leaving mine alone.

Licorice squared

Yesterday at Ustick Brewing.

We have been wanting to create a licorice rye for some time.

Black Cat Licorice Rye is an all grain concoction. Tyler found a rye recipe and we cut back on hops and added 2 pounds of  liquefied licorice candy. Gravity readings predict 10% alcohol or better.

 

 

 

CHAT NOIR The all grain process left us with an opportunity to try a second run through the grains. another 5 gallons of water through the mash gave us a low gravity around 3 (only 2% potential alcohol) so We added a quart of corn syrup. We were out of licorice. So I hit the grocery store for a bottle of anise seed and Caraway seed. and Chat Noir was born.

Magnum IPA

There is a story about this label, Just ask Stacy