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.