Nov. Posting

Just in time to have a post for November. Brother Tyler and I bottled the Poor Richard's Ale. Tastes...uh...I guess we'll see what it's like in a couple weeks. If you google around for "poor Richard's ale extract" you'll see the recipe. The only change I made was no corn, and slightly different hops (kent goldings). I used the White Labs Scottish ale yeast. I might, might, be brewing next weekend. It would be a solo brew, and I think it will be a plain ol' stout.

Also, finished my single speed conversion/referb of my dads old Firestone "Dix Vita" 10 speed. There is not a straight joint on that cheap frame. But, it was all about learning, and learn I did. I have to un-thighten a couple of links in the chain, as it wants to skip a little, and the seat needs to go up, but asside from that I am happy with it. All told, I have $50 into it, mostly for tires and getting a new axle for the rear wheel. I guess if it really sucks, I can take it apart and build a garden cart, or something.

Howdy all. I changed the links a little. The VanOeveren Standard has been dead for a while now, so I got rid of it. To bad, it was nice to have some alternative view points linked here. Big Damn Heros went the way of the doo-doo what with Adam being real busy getting his phd in Economics. Also, I added a link to the Every Day Carry Forums. Lots of neat info in there about the stuff we do, or should, or would like to, carry with us. Everything from pens to guns to flashlights.

Brief brewing update: Brother Tyler and I have 20 gallons of cider a bubbleing away, and this weekend we are bottleing the first 10 gallons. Huzzah! Carl, Brother Tyler and I are spliting it 3 ways. We did 5 gallons each of cider yeast spiced and unspiced and mead yeast spiced and unspiced. Should be interesting.

I was over at action-squad, and the little tag thing that pops up with my link is "beer and guns...but mostly beer", and that is true. It's been a while since I had a nice gun post. Much to my chagrin, it's tougher to find the time to head off to the range then it is to putter around the ol' home stead and make beer. Brother Tyler and I are knee deep in cider season, and it will be at least 3 weeks before we get a beer going.

I did head out to the range Saturday. I wanted to test out some loads for Cousin Tyler's 7mm Remington magnum. Wow, does that thing have some recoil. Brother Tyler and I split the shooting, and both of our soft shoulders were a little sore. Even so, I got the data I needed for my reloading. Looks like 65 grains of IMR 4895 gives me 3000fps with a 140 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. That is just about perfect. So, the next step is to get some loaded up for Cousin Tyler, and hope he gets a deer.

The other goal was to test out some loads for my Model 19. FAIL! IMR4227 and .38 loads do not mix. Lots of unburnt powder. Drat! I guess I'm going to have to look else where for a hotish .38 load. I do have good luck with Win 231, and I have read reports of people going with weights up to 5 grains with good results. I'm at about 4 grains now. I really need to get the pistol metering rotor for my powder measure. Seems like that would give more accurate results a smaller weights.

In other pistol news, Brother Tyler and I are planing to take pistol class next year. I'll need to save up, and buy at least a case of ammo, but it will be good to have some formalized training. I'll need to keep the bike riding up as best I can to make sure I have the stamina to get through the class, but I don't forsee it being overally demading.

Up coming beer will be a amber of some kind most likely. Brother Tyler got his hands on some fresh hops of an unknown variety. Hopefully we can get that knocked out and move on to some Oatmeal stouts. It will require a partial mash, but we have purchased a mash tun for just such an occasion. That should take us to end of December, and if the weather co-operates Carl and I will be making some lagers. What a brave new world.

Hops

There they are! I have about six little hop cones. Hopefully next year I will have more. These are the Cascade hops, and thus far the only ones that have produced any cones. The Zeus hops have grown lots, but no cones yet. The Centennial and Fuggles, almost no growth at all. Tyler called and said that the price of hops is around $30/lb, and he thinks we should sell them locally (when we have more then 1/2 oz that is) .

FHAPA? What style number is that? 23R?

Beer first!
I tried the "APA" that Carl and I made yesterday. Well, where to start. It can't really be called an APA at this point. Because I used the CaraPils malt, there was a lot of unprocessed starch in there. And because of all that starch, I think it got a infection. Now, this may seem like a bad thing, and it could have been. However, as luck would have it, I got a "good" infection in my beer. Wether it was a wild yeast or Lactobacillus it turned sour. Good sour. So, now it tastes like a Belgian style farm house ale, or maybe a little lambic. Either way, it is pretty good. I need to drink it up fast so things don't get worse, but when was that a problem?

Note to self: NO MORE CARAPILS & GO TO ALL GLASS FERMENTORS.

Brew Report...and Gun Report

Guns first. My mom called me Friday from an estate sale. Long story short, she found an Enfield No. 1 Mk. V, which is a kinda rare variation, only 20K made (No.1 Mk.III's made: 3 Million or so). Did some looking around and if it was mint: $600-$800. However, it was sporterized, which means some knuckle head made a "deer rifle" out of it back when. So, it's only worth about $150-$200. Also, the safety was busted, and that is specific to the rifle (big "V" on the side). She paid $50 for it, and I sold it for more then that at the gun show. She let me keep the profit! A win all around. At the same show, I found a nice 1100LT 20 Ga that my step dad wanted me to find for my mom to hunt birds with. Really nice looking gun, and I got it for $435. New, it would be about $600-$800. This one is interesting in that it has a straight "English" stock, and most have semi-pistol grip.

So, beer. Carl and I bottled the American Pale Ale last week. I'm a little concerned that my choice of Carapils as one of the speicalty grains was a bad choice. Apprently, it's kinda a crystal malt, kinda not. It's "suggested" that you mash it, but you "can" use it steeped. Needless to say, the beer is kinda cloudy with all the unprocessed starches. Should taste fine, but it may not be "on style". One more week before I can test it to find out. FG was around 1010, and it reached it before we racked. In fact, the beer fermented out between Saturday when we brewed, and tuesday when Carl checked it. Huzzah for temps.

Tyler and I racked the RIS before he left for Ireland. Gravity at the time was 1030. We are going to bottle in a couple weeks. Looked, smelled and tasted awesome at racking!

Today I made the above recipe, all by my lonesome. I used white labs WLP013 as the yeast. OG came in at 1041. Ah, session beers! Basement is around 70 deg.

Brew Report

Last week we made two beers. Carl and I made a APA, like the above recipe except I split one ounce of the cascade into .5, and did 45, then 30, and one ounce at 10. FG of 1050. Carl reported no bubbles as of Tuesday, but I think it finished before Carl got there. I'll find out tomorrow as I am going to rack then.

The RIS. Well, that thing when crazy go nuts. Tyler and I deviated from the recipe by using the Willette at 5 min, and we used Crystal 120 inplace of the British Cara. FG of 1090 I made a starter, and by Monday, the beer was busting out of the fermentor. So much so that Tyler had to do a blow-off tube.

Temps were in the 68-72 range at both places.

Had me 6 month (or so) EPA tonight. Seemed to really maintain it's flavor. For some reason, it was way carbonated, and over flowed from the bottle. Tasted fine, a really malty subtlety. Bought all the ingredients for the Russian Imperial Stout today, and sounds like an ESB or a Amber in the works also.

Heller

While I am pleased that SCOTUS found in favor of the Individual Rights interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, I'm not wholly happy with it either. My main concern is that Scalia pretty much wrote the decision for "Hunting and self defense in the home", and left lots of room for plenty of stupid licenses, permits and other constraints. Balderdash!! This gives the gun controllers far to much room to make owning a gun like running a obstacle course. Free people, who are other wise no danger to anyone, should not have to continue to prove they are not a danger. But, at least it said, at the end of the day, you can own guns. Also, I think that it allows for you to own pretty much any type of gun. Scalia gave a "common use" test to that which is allowable. I think it's pretty safe to say that Semi-auto hand guns are in common use as self defense weapons, if not the most common one. I guess we will have to wait a couple of years and see how this pans out.

IPA Done

Bottled the IPA with Brian last night. FG came in at 1020, which is a little on the high side, but maybe not off for the yeast strain we used. Man, those dry hops that Brian put in there on Sunday look GROSS! Hopefully it's worth it. The name we came up with for the beer is: Empress of India IPA, after VR herself. I kinda doubt she was a IPA drinker, but she was the first Empress of India. Here's to you Vicky!

Good luck to Brian with his car. Kinda sounds like a heater core. Those suck, ask me how I know.

Weekend Brewing Report

Went over to Brian's to brew on Saturday, along with Carl. Things went great, the only off thing was we came in a little low on gravity due to adding to much water. I think around 1055-1057. Not a big deal, for a English IPA that's still on style. Brian reported Monday that it was bubbling away. Basement temp is in the mid-60's to 70. I think I'll have him check the beer Sunday and see if it's still got krausen. If it does, we might wait till mid week to rack. Lesson from my Amber.

I'm pretty much set on getting a third Carboy, as Tyler's ginger ale is going to be in carboy 2 until doomsday.

So, next? Koelsch maybe. I don't see any extract recipes, but I think I could do a close approximation with the right yeast and hops. Dead on? No, but I find that a lot of how one defines a flavor in a given beer comes from the yeast. The difference between my wheat and Cody's first one was the yeast, I'm convinced. Plus, I think Carl would love to make a Koelsch.

Recipe for Brew-Day on Saturday

Here is the recipe for our English IPA on Saturday. I made a yeast starter for it, as it's on the high side for gravity. I've never done that before, so we'll see how it works. I guess if it completely craps out on me I can just buy another vial of yeast on the way to Brian's. The yeast, by the by, is White Labs WLP005 "British Ale Yeast".

Amber done

Came in at 1010. Smells great, and no issues bottleing. Should be ready to drink in 2 weeks. Due to a delay in getting together with Brian for our IPA, I'm thinking about making a Special Bitter. Should be quick and cheap. We'll see.

Green Facism

I think that this column by Jonah Goldberg is very descriptive of the potential evils of environmentalism. It also kind of reflects his new book Liberal Fascism, a theory I always held, at least in concept if not in a defined thought. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a self proclaimed lefty say "Oh, I'm open minded, unlike you mean old conservatives" I'd be rich. The sentiment underlying that is so fascist. "Everything I think is right and 'open minded', everything you think is wrong and 'closed minded'" Ah, irony. The truth it seems is that we are all more or less closed minded about most things. I would hope I'd never say I'm "open minded". I'm not on many, many things that do not require an open mind. Child abuse and cold blooded murder don't really have any good qualities. A better way to have a manufacturing system however, I'm all ears.

Amber Progress

Tyler and I racked the amber into the secondary today. Oddly, there was still a lot of krausen (foamy yeast) on the top. I've never had that before. I think the temp in my basement was pretty low for the WLP001 California ale yeast, so it's in my closet now. Seems to be bubbling along fine at about 1/10sec. Gravity was 1021 or so, and I'm shooting for 1017-1012. The krausen returned to the beer shortly after being put in the primary. I guess that I will leave it in the closet unless it looks like it's going to blow, but there isn't much more sugar to eat. Uummmm....

Amber Ale

Amber Ale recipe of my own making. Pretty straight forward, simple. I've never used glacier hops before, so this should be interesting. Brew day is Saturday, the 12th.

2.5 gallon 60 min boil
5 lbs Amber DME
1 lb British 40L Crystal Malt (Steeped)

1 oz. Glacier 60 min
1 oz. Glacier 5 min

Should come in around 1047 o.g., 32 IBUs

California Ale Yeast WLP001

Total cost was $35, or $0.72/beer.

EPA

My english pale ale really came into it's own this last week. After a few days in the bedroom closet, the carbonation really hit. Man, this is a good beer!! I'm really happy how it turned out. I don't have anything in the primary or secondary right now, just Tylers ginger ale. I'm thinking about brewing either a Steam Beer or a Amber Ale. They aren't really all that different when you look at it from a malt profile. It's the yeast and hops that make them distinct. I think that the clock is running out for making a steam beer, and maybe that is best left for next winter at my place. Amber then? Greedo is on board for a IPA after that, and then Tyler and I start work on our Imperial Porter for next winter. Next? Brown ales, porters and stouts for the fall I guess.

Beers in the works

I'm writeing this down here so as not to forget.

English Pale Ale. EPA Kit from Northern Brewer. Brewed by my self, Brother Tyler & Greedo
O.G. 1050
F.G. 1005

Brewed on 09 Feb 2008
Racked on 16 Feb 2008
Bottled on 25 Feb 2008

Comments: Still waiting on this one to carbonate correctly. Looks good, and the taste is nice, but as of a week ago no CO2 to speak of. Brought the bottles upstairs and put them in my closet (warmer), and gave each one of them little stir to get those yeasties going.

Wheat Beer. Weizenbier kit from Scilliano's, with the addtion of 1 lb Wheat DME, 1 lb crushed wheat malt specialty grains, 1 orange peel, and 1/2 oz corriander. Brewed by My Self, Greedo & Der Sieger

O.G. 1054
F.G. 1018

Brewed on 08 Mar 2008
Racked on 17 Mar 2008
Bottled on 29 Mar 2008

Comments: Looks and smell are dead on for a Weizen/Hefe. Has some nice Banana aroma, but not overwhelming like Bell's Winter White. I'm letting it rest in the basement for a week, then then I'll put it in the closet. It's really starting to be apparent to me that waiting longer is better. 6 weeks is killer to wait, but it seems to be worth it.