Chat Thread - Official BotRH Beer Club

[Yates]

The only Java stout I've ever had was infected.

Oh no! That's terrible! I was bragging about how delicious this Keegan Ales JoMamma's Milk Stout was. It's a milk stout brewed in upstate NY using coffee from the cafe next door - kind of a cool collaboration and delicious. The whole keg was soured and I couldn't even serve it. It was awful!

[Krakalakachkn]

Brash makes a damn good milk stout

One of the best I've had

[Tyler Glembo]

That barrel...well, I can't say what seeing that did to me since this is a PG-13 forum.  But after having the freakin' amazing Allagash Curieux Bourbon Beer last night (and the Allagash Black, and the Popering Hommel Ale, and the Andygator, but those are beside the point)...anyways, after having the Curieux last night I am literally salivating right now seeing that barrel.

[Tyler Glembo]

[Yates]

I am literally salivating right now seeing that barrel.

The tough part is going to be drinking my 10 gallon share.

[Tyler Glembo]

I'll be there in driving time.  You know.  Cuz I'm helpful.

[Yates]

I brewed a dunkel weizen this past weekend. It's in primary now [since Sunday night]. I should be able to pull 10 oz or so middle of next week, refrigerate over night, and force carb. I'm considering adding some heading powder, since this is a partial extract beer, but I guess we'll see how it turns out in the test batch first. I may put the beer into secondary for another few days depending on the FG.

[Krakalakachkn]

I do enjoy a nice dunkel.  Ever brewed one before?

[Yates]

No this is my first. But I have quite a bit of experience brewing wheat beers. I did a pumpkin wheat last year that was phenomenal. But those have all been all-grain. I brewed this at a demonstration under a tent on a college campus while being attacked by bees with an extract kit. Not ideal circumstances but you never know!

[Krakalakachkn]

at least they weren't mosquitos

[Yates]

at least they weren't mosquitos

Or fruit flies. They were ATTACKING our beer barrel when we went to check on it the other day. They are a menace.

[Krakalakachkn]

you need to get some spider up in there

[Barmacral]

No this is my first. But I have quite a bit of experience brewing wheat beers. I did a pumpkin wheat last year that was phenomenal. But those have all been all-grain. I brewed this at a demonstration under a tent on a college campus while being attacked by bees with an extract kit. Not ideal circumstances but you never know!

 

What scale do you typically brew at? Do you work for a local microbrewery or brewpub?

[Yates]

What scale do you typically brew at? Do you work for a local microbrewery or brewpub?

No. I'm a simple homebrewer so I do 5-6 gallon batches. Every once in a blue moon I gain access to a professional system where we [as a club] can scale up a recipe. That's how we did 70 gallons for our barrel project.

[Barmacral]

Ah fair enough, I was a little confused. Was the weekend demonstration for the club then?

[Yates]

Ah fair enough, I was a little confused. Was the weekend demonstration for the club then?

Sort of. One of our club members is faculty at a college. They had a "Farm to Table" section at their homecoming and he asked us if we wouldn't mind brewing next to some local farmers that recently started growing hops and barley.

[Krakalakachkn]

How's the soil up there?

 

 

We can't grow hops for garbage down here.

[Yates]

Interesting that you should ask about the soil. NY was one of the biggest hop growing states in the early years. Then a multitude of factors combined to kill hop production in the state. The one factor that is used [incorrectly, imo] most often is that there was a pretty bad hop blight that crushed the crop in 1909. That fungus could still be living in the soil. Personally, I think the combination of that, this aphid attack that happened right after, hop prices going down, and Prohibition all conspired to kill the industry here.

 

With that said, NY is doing a better job of promoting agriculture. Part of that thrust has been to allow "farmers license" breweries to open up. In order to qualify, a certain [very high - like 80 or 90%] percentage of your ingredients must come from local NYS farms. We have quite a few hop farms opening up across the State now and even bigger players like Ommegang are starting to grow some of their own hops. There are a handful of brewers in my club that are growing hops and make rhizomes available to club members for free. It's just a boat load of work for marginal yields on a smaller scale that prevents me from growing hops of my own. That said, I found some hops growing wildly on one of my hikes. I went back with a buddy and we grabbed some for a randall that we were serving an IPA through. It was a pretty cool find.

 

So TL/DR? Yes. NY has awesome soil for hop production - as long as you aren't in an area where the blight is still alive and present in the ground.

[Barmacral]

My mother in law has a rather substantial garden with a greenhouse and all in her backyard, I think if my father in law and I keep up our brewing this winter she might try growing hops for us to use. Side note, tomorrow I'll be brewing that ESB finally. First all grain batch so I'm looking forward to it. Just spent three days going through John Palmer's How To Brew book online.

[Yates]

Awesome! Good luck, Barm!

 

Also, feel free to pm me if you have any questions. I'd be happy to help. If you are brewing tomorrow, have you considered making a yeast starter?

[Barmacral]

I think we get the 175ml packs of yeast so we just need to warm it up, no need for a starter. I just read about all that on Thursday though and haven't really had time to look into it so I'll find out in about an hour when I get to the inlaws place.

[Krakalakachkn]

Lol nice avatar, Yates.

[Barmacral]

So we were going to get all pre-crushed malts because crushing is supposed to be messy business, but I guess one of them we couldn't get that way so we have a malt mill now which is super cool. Putting together and testing all of the new equipment tonight so that we can get right to brewing tomorrow. We are fly sparging so the coolers have to be assembled first.

[Barmacral]

Lol nice avatar, Yates.

I thought it looked familiar.

[Krakalakachkn]

So we were going to get all pre-crushed malts because crushing is supposed to be messy business, but I guess one of them we couldn't get that way so we have a malt mill now which is super cool. Putting together and testing all of the new equipment tonight so that we can get right to brewing tomorrow. We are fly sparging so the coolers have to be assembled first.

 

I'd definitely recommend fresh-milled grains. Good luck Barm, first all grain is fun.