I got called out by Shockley yesterday

         I am going to attempt to get caught up on blogging and there is no better motivation than being called out by another blogger. Especially one that is behind on blogging as well, (throat clearing noise). So here is the first in a series. This one covers a fantastic day of brewing. Grab a cold homebrew and enjoy.

6-Strain Brewday

or How I spent my summer, by: Cloudy Fly 

      It all started with a trip out West to the Craft Brewers Conference. This year it was held in San Diego. This is the home of my favorite Yeast Lab - White Labs. Chris White literally wrote the book on working with yeast or at least a book. It just so happened that this year they opened a tasting room and they had a fantastic idea flowing through their taps. They had brewed the same batch of beer and finished it with a myriad of different yeast strains. The malt bill was simple and light and the hops were there only for balance. I learned more drinking 15 beers there than I have in the last two years. It really opened my eyes to the dominance of yeast in beer style. Hops and malt are definitely passengers in my most favorite beverage. I had to find a way to bring this back to my homebrew community. I knew it was going to be a daunting task. 

The glorious wall of yeast strains

One of 4 flights we tried

Cloudy and Chris White

       Fast forward to June 16th. I spent weeks working with local homebrew supplier 5 Points West ensuring that we would have everything that we need and bought six identical carboys at the last minute to keep all variables exactly the same. Sometimes Tourettes pays dividends, especially when it comes to OCD behavior. The yeast arrived from White Labs on Friday June 15th. Thanks to Alex and to the folks at White LAbs for pulling that off. We now had the freshest yeast you could get on the East Coast. I pre-staged all the equipment the night before knowing that we had to fire the HLT no later than 6:30am. 

      Shockley and Ian came walking around the corner just shorlty before 6:30. It's bad when people driving to your house almost beat you to your brew deck. Shockley was surviving on fumes. He had had one hell of a week up North in the Carolinas and had just gotten back. I believe that he had maybe 4-5 hours worth of sleep. That's a dedicated brewer! We wasted no time getting everything in order and fired up. Much to my surprise my RIMS pump had started working again and never gave us an issue the entire day. I must say, our entire day went smoothly. This was due in large part to the wisdom of Shock. We designated a person to each vessel and gave them their duties. It ran like a well oiled machine. I don't think that we have ever hit targets so efficiently. I had a minor fudge factor to play within and we never came close to either end. We ran the Daytona 500 and won without rubbing another car or the wall. It seems impossible looking back. 

        Denver and Matt arrived shortly after Ian and Shockley. I have to credit Ian with getting the whole day started. We finally met face to face at Terrapin a few weeks before and he was interested in getting a brew day going but needed it to be on a weekend. I had been mulling over the 6-Strain concept and thought it would be good to knock that day out before the heat set in. Little did we know two weeks later it was going to be 109 degrees! we wanted to keep everything as consistent as possible so if you did something on the first batch you were stuck all the way through the third doing the exact same task. You also had to attempt to do it the exact same way. Shockley milled all the Grains, Caleb doughed in every mash while Matt poured the grains, Matt watched regulated the HLT, I regulated the mash, Shockley regulated the boil, Denver handled stripping equipment down and got it ready to re-brew, and Hinson pitched each yeast strain. We made sure that pitched at the appropriate temp and time. I am proud to say, as I did already, it went flawlessly. I have never been that satisfied after a brew session. We're getting pretty good. 

         We ended the night drinking some fabulous craft beers that I brought back from San Diego. We also broke a few out of the private reserve. It made for an awesome and relaxing evening. Shockley was exhausted and had to drive to Atlanta with Sarah for fathers day. He was barely awake as the left the yard and I know he was sad to miss a few of the bottles that we broke out later on. We tried to break all the great beers out while everyone was together. It was a collaboration of a fantastic group of brewers and I can't wait to try the results. Friendship and fellowship are what we strive for at Gratis and we have made some incredible friends over the years. I appreciate the hard work and dedication of each of these great brewers and value their friendship above all else. It's a great country we live in! Here's the video: http://youtu.be/QTfW8JPy9u0 , Cheers!

Craft Trip to the Northeast

      I finally finished the video for our trip up north. I got a new GoPro to start documenting these craft journey's better. It allows me to film continuously without worrying about the battery life on my phone. I still get to take loads of pictures and I get continuous video to boot. I need to work on steadying the shot a little more and I might need to rig up a tripod. It would help with the time lapse sequences if the camera was a little more stable. I'm going to work on getting better sound bites as well. This one is 15 minutes but it was shot over a 5 and a half day period. We toured 15 breweries on this trip and hit some fantastic brewpubs. Pop some popcorn and enjoy the show. Cheers!

 

                                 Video Link:  Northeast Craft Beer Trip - January 2012

Gratis Fest, Terrapin Fest and Classic City Brewfest

     Where to start? Well this incredible weekend all started with a leftover can of truck bed liner. It made the perfect brew-deck sealer. Re-painting the brew-deck twice a year was getting to be a hassle. Luckily, that will soon be a thing of the past. We had leftover paint from the kegbox refinish that we tackled the week prior. Unfortunately, we weren't done with the keg box in time to have draught beer at Gratis-Fest. That probably was for the better.

       We started Gratis-Fest the day before with a quick run to the brewstore. I had ordered super fresh lambic yeast and they had to ship it in. It arrived Friday afternoon and it is a funky looking yeast!

       I started setting the brewery up at 6am. This time I had gotten smart and hooked the hardware up the night before. This meant that I could start the burner at 6:15am. That was awesome and really helped us keep on track. We were mashing by 8:30am.

       We had a fantastic crew of folks. Every time someone moved or breathed we tweeted it. You can see the smart phone team in action here. They were busily texting, tweeting and facebooking the entire day. Well done team Gratis.

      The above picture is the initial Dough-In. Jeff Hall, one of the original Misty Mountain Cloggers, is up top stirring and Puddin' is pouring the grain. These guys got up at 4:30am to make it down in time to brew. The Mash process for the lambic was intense. It required five steps to get to sparge and they were averaging 20 minutes per increase point. 

     We started at 122 degrees and held that for 30 minutes. We hit that target right on the nose. That was impressive for a chilly morning. Our grains were basement temperature but the outside air was hovering in the 40's at this point. 

        The next mash steps were: 139 for 20 minutes, 144 for 15 minutes, 162 for 20 minutes and 172 for 10 minutes with a sparge at 172. I've never sparged over 170 for fear of off flavors. This might just be the key to a successful Lambic. The wurt was very grainy. I question the step process using modified malts, it seems unnecessary but so does having to age hops in your garage for three years. 

         Here's everyone at the lunch whistle. Let me add at this point that Jen Roth did an incredible job of taking care of all of us all day long. That woman was a machine. I would also like to point out that our "Rawlph Haus" sign does kind of look like "Rawlph Balls", hilarious! 

       Here are our three year old hops. They are dry and brittle and only slightly aromatic. They are perfect for a lambic, but they are useless for most modern styles.

        Here we are chiiling the wurt and adding it to the ceramic fermenter. Why not use the conical? Well. brettanomyces is a super agressive wild yeast that likes to hide in every nook and cranny. I don't want to risk having an infection that would require a day to get rid of. So we will keep all "brett" beers in the glass carboy and ceramic fermenter. This fermenter is designed for suerkraut fermentation so it is perfect for lambics. This beer will take one to two years to finish. That's a long time to tie up a vessel. 

 Here is the whole crew on our way to Terrapin's 10th anniversary party. I surprised the guys with Gratis shirts and they surprised me by choosing to wear them to Terrapin. We looked like an official brewery. We were locusts about to descend on a barley field ad we were about to have a great time.

      Cheers to all the guys that came out to help brew and a big Cheers to Julia and Dustin at Terrapin. They added us to the VIP guest list and we felt like Rock Stars! The event was incredible and the beers were awesome. Tree Hugger was great and it bested itself in the casked, oak version. We parked in the cask tent and had a great time catching up with old friends.

       Like these dudes! Russ Yates, Charlie Meers and Owen Ogletree. Owen is responsible for creating what I think is the greatest craft beer festival in America. Classic City Brewfest is awesome and it was happening the next day. Three truly great beer dudes. 

     Here's Denver and Caleb on the ride home. You can see that we all look like the Joker from Batman. We couldn't stop grinning. That's how awesome the day had been up to this point. 

       We got back to Gratis by 7:30 after picking up pizzas on the way back. This is shortly before we all headed to the fire pit for a relaxing evening. It was a great time and we "gestungled" every beer imaginable. That's where you take a hot poker and jam it into your beer. It caramelizes the sugars in your beer foam and heats it up like a marshmellow. The bottom stays cool and refreshing. It's a lot of fun.

     Here is tent city the following morning. We did some urban camping to cap the an already great day. Luckily they kept the pit going all night and stayed super cozy.

     This is a picture of me drinking Easy Rider on Cask. This was the beer to end the weekend. We were tired and had just finished attending another incredible brewfest. Spike is the brewer, and cofounder of Terrapin, he is responsible for this great cask beer. 

      A quick video of the German sauerkraut fermenter in action. It has a really nifty water-lock rim that I poured Starsan into. That's why it' s foaming so much. I love this sound. Much more vocal than a blowoff tube going into a bucket. 

       We also threw a portion of the batch into a carboy. I did this mainly because I wanted to watch the pellicle form. The pellicle is a microbial laver that forms and helps to make the lambic sour over a long period of time. It's a symbiotic relationship. One day in the fermenter and it already looks funky and sour. I hope your weekend was as great as ours!

Gratis Brewing and Falling Shoals Collaboration

3-14-2012

           We've been trying to keep a punch list of actionable needs/fixes after each brew session. The greatest thing about having multiple people over is that other people focus on different flaws. I have my pet peeves and comfort zones. Those comfort zones mean that sometimes I don't mind screwing up the same way over and over. You could call that lazy on my part. So when people come over and point to those issues it makes it tough to over look them. We used to run oxygen to the wurt straight out of an oxygen tank, without a regulator. That made for all kinds of headaches. Regulating air that way is nearly impossible. Time Winters did a great job of pointing out the ridiculousness of using a vinyl hose hooked directly to the tank. I had been meaning to fix the situation but it wasn't high on my list of things to do. That razzing put it at the top of the list and so i put together a professional system and we now have an insane degree of control over the airlfow. 

 Our fancy new regulator

           The hops rhizomes arrived from hops direct along with some nice fresh hops from the 2011 crop. Hops are only picked once a year and we like to only use hops from the previous growing season unless we're doing a style that benefits from aged hops. The Lambic that we are tackling in April will utilize 3 year old hops. It's amazing how fast these rhizomes are growing. We'll have them in the ground very soon. It will take a good three years to get a full crop but we already have three vines growing in the vine and it's their third year. 

 Hops Rhizomes from Hops Direct

       The brew day ended up being hot. It was the perfect day to brew. The morning started off clear and slightly chilly. The brewdeck peaked at 85 degrees around 4pm. Best winter ever! Setup went fairly smooth. A short in the RIMS system meant for some mild entertainment. We bottled this same day and that lead to a mash hiccup. I cut the burner on to pull the heat up until the coil could maintain the temp. It caused a spike in temp at the 30 minute mark that raised the mash to 160. I like to mash at 152 and it always makes me nervous when we climb over 158. Technically the higher you get the sweeter the final product. That's because sugars become harder to digest by the yeast so the attenuation drops. Lagunitas mashes at 160 so I know about what the end result will be. We're blending a Belgian Triple recipe with an American IPA and I think the sweeter liquid will play well with a higher bitterness. 

 HLT, Mash Tun and Coffee Pot

         We bottled the Karrot Kaboom the previous week and like we do everytime we brew we set up a taste panel to pick it apart. We also tried Ryan's first beer which is now called Private America's Brown Ale, and Richard Shockley's two new Beers: The Lemon's In It and the Orange Bee Hive. Ryan's first try was well done. He is well on the way. Richard's beers were very well balanced and the Lemon's In It had a fantastic subtle quality that played well off the hops. The Karrot Kaboom comes in three iterations. The far left has been infused with a tea made from curry and szechuan pepper flowers. The middle in unadulterated. The far right has been infused with Herbes De Provence (rosemary, thyme, savory, lavender and basil). It was great to see how much the aroma and really influenced the flavor. All three are carbonating at different rates which is interesting considering that they have the same amount of priming sugar. Note the subtle differences in the color.

 Karrot Kaboom in it's three forms.

         On to the Rhuberry bottling. This was a collaboration between Gratis and Chops and Hops co-founder and Head Chef Richard Miley. There are 16 pounds of blueberries and 4 and 1/2 pounds of Belgian Rhubarb in this Kolsch. The color is amazing and the fruit is there but the Kolsch still stands on its own. I must say that I love this beer. The sourness is well balanced and lends to the drinkability. We have been doing so many over the top styles that this is a refreshing change. We will definitely revisit this one. I need to grow some rhubarb!

 Rhuberry in all it's ruddy glory.

        Here are Richard and  Ryan working the grist mill. You'll notice that Ryan is on mill probation after he broke the hopper (while it was full of grain) during the Karrot Kaboom brew day. Luckily his daughter Sarah (who served as his grain mill for the Private American Brown Ale) pointed it out to everyone. We'll forever be saying "Momma, Daddy broke it" at Gratis.

Private America and Shock on the 

       All in all it was a fantastic day at Gratis. We went over schedule by 2 hours due to a few technical issues and a lot of talking. That's what I would expect for a lazy kind of brewday and the second brew of the season. This weeks punch list added a new base and handles for the grain mill (idea via Tim Winters), a chill bucket for the wurt chiller to increase it's efficiency (Richard Shockley) and tracing the short in the RIMS wizard. 

Here is a link to Richard's Blog :http://craftbeerathens.wordpress.com/category/homebrew/ 

He does an awesome job keeping up with all things beer.

Cheers Y'all 

Blueberry Rhubarb Kolsch

Seems like we're becoming a fruit beer homebrewery. The last three beers have incorporated fruit and this next one will feature fruit prominently. They have all come about by accident.

The Bumpkin (I guess pumpkin is a vegetable and not a fruit) happened because I never really cared for pumpkin beers and it seemed as though most pumpkin beers aren't even brewed with pumpkin. Turns out that it ended up being one of our better beers last year and we're planning on doing it again this fall. Brewing in a pumpkin kicked ass and I now like a handful of pumpkin beers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXSwWQgy9Ds

The GingerNaut contained enough ginger to be considered a ginger beer or a ginger ale. Technically ginger is a root or a rhizome. Rhizomes are known for containing strong flavors. Hops plants are grown from rhizomes, hmm. Since it is a root it is considered to be a vegetable. Maybe we're becoming a vegetable brewery. This beer ended up being one of my favorites. It's a dry stout that finished like you've just eaten a ginger snap or a gingerbread cookie. People that don't like stouts or ginger should avoid this one at all costs.
http://youtu.be/R7GjpVURCPA

Next came the Green Tomato - Carrot Belgian. Green tomatoes are fruits but carrots are vegetables. This recipe read like a v-8 lable but it drinks like a Belgian golden. Turns out carrots and green tomatoes make for very cloudy beers. I love this one the most as of late. I think it's because it turned out completely different than anything I had expected. It tastes fruity but the tomatoes added a wonderful sour note. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNf3QDxI670&context=C3e61f2fADOEgsToPDskLmW2UJI2CYpfjcpOTjO68i

Now comes the beer we are planning on brewing this Monday. It all started when Richard Miley threw rhubarb into a cask of Hopsecutioner at Charlie Meers going away dinner. The tartness seemed to really mellow the hop bitterness and I was amazed at how much the rhubarb managed to shine through. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of rhubarb is strawberry rhubarb pie. That would be the obvious recipe.

Richard ended up with a sizeable amount of rhubarb recently so we conspired to use it in a recipe. He also had a sizeable amount of local blueberries. *We used blueberries to make a porter over a year ago and I really liked the result. The only problem is that the blueberries hid behind the chocolate and coffee notes. Since then I have wanted to use blueberry's for another recipe with a lighter malt bill. This would allow the color and flavor to present itself better.

I started brewing Kolsches after last years Germany trip. It's a great base recipe for..., well the skies the limit. Oddly enough the Kolsch recipe has also been the local favorite. There can be a slight match head quality but it's always welcome and very subtle. So we are going to take this great base recipe and ramp it up with rhubarb and blueberries. I expect great things. The color should be crazy and the tartness form the rhubarb ought to play well with the bleuberries.

We'll post the results after Monday's brew session. This will be ready to drink by the spring and a light refreshing fruited beer sounds perfect for spring weather.

Cheers,
Cloudy

Green Tomato - Carrot Belgian Amber

         Several years ago I thought up an idea for a Green Tomato Beer. I thought it was crazy back then and I was terrified to try it. It just doesn't sound like it would be tasty when you really think about it. My curiosity finally got the best of me on Sunday. I researched a lot of old world recipes for fermented beverages. I never found anything for a Green Tomato Beer but I did read a lot about Green Tomato Wine. It's not uncommon for people to make a wine from an abundant crop of Green Tomatoes. Tomatoes by themselves didn't sound enticing. This recipe needed a little something more. I love how Carrot juice looks. It's shiny and pearl like. It seems like it would be a nice addition to what was already a vegetable beer (even though Green Tomatoes are a fruit, right?) so it was added in to the recipe. We set a date and sent out an invite to our brewing friends and started a journey into uncharted territory.

        As luck would have it one of our brewing friends is an outstanding chef. Richard Miley was given the task of dealing with the vegetables. He set to work on four and a half pounds of Green Tomatoes and two pounds of Carrots. We added the Tomatoes to the mash. The Carrots would be added in to the boil, along with a Gallon of Organic Carrot Juice.

        Richard Shockley is an avid homebrewer and he is always willing to come out and help do the heavy lifting during our brews. It's a huge help to have someone this knowledgeable help on brewday. He often keeps us on track and helps us adhere to the schedule. He's a boil-over hawk and has saved our kettles from viscious boil-overs on many occasions. The above picture is Shock adding maters to the mash.

        Sachin stole the show on Sunday with a gourmet lunch menu. We had shrimp, lamb and quail cooked on a giant flat wok. It was an amazing sight and the food was incredible. By far some of the best Indian food I have had in my life. The day saw a few wrinkles. We lost a pump on the RIMS system, the target gravity required an addition of brown sugar that we didn't expect and fluid dynamics were chalenging when we transfered into the fermenter. Cooler heads prevailed and we still came in under time for a normal brewday. I love these days. The food is incredible and the fellowship is unbeatable. We look forward to the next big brew and we are so thankful for such wonderful friends and family. Cheers and good health!

Click on the link below to see the video.

First Beer of 2012 video.

Gratis Brewing Informational brewday banner

Here is the information side of our new sign. This seems like it will help reduce on clutter during brewdays. It looks fancy none the less.