A new study from Spain shows that drinking six beers a day leads to a healthier heart.

Seriously, I’m not making this up.

Check the new story on this here.  Very interesting to see all the health related benefits that moderate alcohol consumption has.

Back in 1993 I took an inductive bible study class.  One of the assignments was to write an Epistle, styled after the epistles that the Apostle Paul wrote.  Well, not one to miss a chance at having a little fun, I decided to write a smart alec joke of an epistle, aimed at a certain group of men on Multnomah’s campus who vowed to stay single and avoid dating and the like.  Funny terms for these guys were “Bachelor to the Rapture” and “C.I.A. – Celibates In Action.”  These guys were perfect fuel for my comedic sarcasm.

So, without further ado, here is my epistle to single men:

Brett, a student at Multnomah by the will of God.

To all unattached men, those faithful to the single life, dedicated
bachelors to the rapture.

Grace and peace to you from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank God when I hear of your dedication to the single life, how
you have persevered in keeping women out of your life, not getting
entangled by their evil desires.

For their ways are mysterious and their devices clever, constantly
seeking to entangle us like a fly in a spiders web.  They put on make
up, arrange their hair, wear perfume, fancy jewelry and nice clothes all in the hope of securing for themselves a husband.  Like a lion on the prowl they are constantly seeking whomever they can devour.  And once they have a man slowly they begin draining his savings account and his mind.   Losing the ability to think independantly from the woman, the man begins to get wishy washy, walking around in a cloud of confusion, thinking of nothing but the woman who is enslaving him.  Some of you once lived like this, but you have been set free, redeemed from the curse of woman, called to live a holy and single life.

Therefore, brothers, I urge you in view of God’s mercy to offer yourselves as single bachelors, holy and free to God.  This is your intelligent act of worship.  Keep your mind focused on things above, avoiding evil desires of dating and marriage which you once pursued while you were still enslaved to the expectations of your peers and those in the church.   Remember Paul’s words, “It is good for a man not to marry.”  Don’t become slaves again to the evil desires of women but live your lives in freedom to the Lord.

After classes tomorrow I will come to you in the men’s dorm, for I shall
soon be going to work.  I hope not to make a passing visit but to spend
some quality time with you in male bonding.

Greet all the brothers and single men in the dorm, and give them a holy
high five for me.

May the grace of the Lord keep you unattached for life.

 

Top Drop Pilsener

Tonight I decided to bottle all my beer, which is my Pilsener I’ve had in my fridge for 2 months, and the Oatmeal Stout I did a week and a half ago with my friend Mike.

Bottled the Pilsener first, getting 46 out of it.  Final gravity came out to be 1.012, giving me an alcohol content of 4.7%.  One thing that worried me was that I was seeing a lot of carbonation in it.  Bubbles coming up to the top.  I wonder if my fridge was too cold for proper fermentation after I transferred it to my secondary.  The hop pellets had completely dissolved in the beer, and were swirling around in it, which will create a bit more sediment in the bottles than I had planned on.  There is definitely a chill haze to it, but it has a nice, light color and a smooth taste to it.  As long as it doesn’t get over-carbonated in the bottles, it should be nice.

Brett's Oatmeal Stout

The Oatmeal Stout is the one I’ve been drooling with anticipation for.  Final gravity on that came out to be 1.016, giving an alcohol content of roughly 4.5%.  Tasting it, it was dark and nutty as I remembered it, plus it had a hint of sweetness in the after taste.  Not much, just a little tease saying “Hey, there’s more going on in this beer than you think.”  This will have to sit in the bottles for 2 weeks, as that’s just the way it is with stouts.

I’ve got plans for making a mead next.  I have everything I need for it already, except the honey, but let’s just say I’ve got a connection on getting that for no cost.  I may do more Oatmeal Stout too, if I can find an investor who will front the cash, as I’m broke.

Oooh... Oatmeal Stout!

Last week my friend Mike and I went to Steinbart’s to check it out, as he’s never been there before.  Of course, I can’t walk in there without getting something, so we left there with ingredients to make an oatmeal stout.

Mikey- The Man, The Legend.

Now, I’ve made this particular stout before, and it turned out awesome!  This time, I wanted to spice it up a bit

Tracy's Framboise

Tonight we bottled Tracy’s Framboise that’s been sitting in the fermenter since March 1st.  All that time sitting there had me extremely curious as to how it would turn out, especially since the trub in the fermenter looked nasty.

Brett siphoning beer

Siphoned the beer into my bottling bucket, then took the final gravity, which came to 1.004.  Wow, talk about a lot of fermentation.  Almost all of the original 1.044 has been eaten up by those Belgium yeasts.  Alcohol came to 5.25% given that final gravity.

Nasty Looking Beer Trub

Brett prepping to take final gravity

The Hydrometer Reading

Once the final gravity was done I added the raspberry flavoring to the batch.

Adding raspberry extract to beer

Now, this presented a problem, not in terms of how much to add, but in terms of how much fermentable sugars are there.  If the syrup has some or a lot, then the beer can over ferment in the bottle.  If not any and I short the amount of bottling sugar, I won’t have well carbonated beer.  Doing what any trained scientist would do, I guessed.  Added all the extract, then used 1/3 cup corn sugar for bottling sugar.   A bit nervous, but hopefully all goes well.  I’ll keep checking on the bottles through the next few weeks.

Beer Yeast being pitched

Next, I pitched the yeast.  I added corn sugar to a tad bit of water, heated it up to dissolve, then added the yeast once the water got back down to reasonable temperatures.  The reason I’m pitching new yeast was that I’m pretty sure after all this time the old yeast is mostly gone from the beer, thus will need some fresh yeast for bottle conditioning.  I used Safale 33, a Belgian strain.  Thought I had a generic ale yeast instead, but this is what I had.

Bottling Tracy's Framboise

Now, it’s time to bottle.  Started bottling, using some nice, pretty red bottle caps I picked up.  The beer has a wonderful color to it, and the flavor at this point is very dry (given the amount of fermentation), and tart.  Not a lot of sweetness, which would be hard to do given my current setup, but good.  Can’t wait to see what it’s like in 2 weeks.

Framboise in clear bottle

Got quite a few bottles from this batch.  I hope Tracy loves this and treasures it!  It’s all for her!

According to Papazian, this wonderful beer should be transferred to a secondary fermenter after 2 weeks of lagering.  Given that it’s 2-1/2 weeks (roughly), it was time to do the transfer.

I desperately wanted to keep using the same fermenter that it was currently in, so I transferred it to my bottling bucket, cleaned and sanitized the fermenter, and then transferred it back into the original fermenter- all the time praying that I didn’t introduce too much oxygen into the beer.  The recipe calls for dry hopping 1/2 oz of crystal hops, but I decided to use 3/4 oz of Saaz instead.

I also took a gravity reading, and got 1.016.  After sampling the beer and cleaning out my hydrometer, I realized I didn’t let the temperature of the beer get up to room temperature before taking the gravity reading.  Oops.  Lesson learned.  Taste wise, the beer is really good.  Can’t wait till the final product.

Got 4 more weeks with this lagering till it’s done, which should put it out to October 14th for bottling, then another 2 weeks to bottle condition.  So, I won’t be enjoying this one till close to Halloween.  Sad thing is, by then I’ll be craving an oatmeal stout and not a pilsener.

Yep.  I was craving a Pilsener.  But, rather than spending money buying beer, I decided to spend money to make beer.  And with an extra fridge to lager in, I decided it’s time to break it in.

Did Papazian’s recipe for Top Drop Pilsener, settling for a White Labs WPL800, given that I went to a different home brew shop than normal.

Knowing that a clear beer is the goal, I decided to use my hops bag with my hop pellets.  What a difference that made!  Filtering the crap out at the end was a piece of cake!

Also experienced my first stuck runoff with grains on this one.  I actually sparged the grains twice, and on the second round experienced the stuck runoff.  I figured I was trying to drain the liquid too fast, created a vacuum that compacted the grains and stopped the runoff.  My solution?  I stuck my spoon in and stirred up the grains.  Not the ideal solution, but it worked.

Cooled off the finished beer in the fridge, enabling me to pitch the yeast sooner than normal.  Once I saw signs of fermentation, put the beer back in the fridge to ferment.  Right now it’s sitting between 46 and 48 degrees.

Initial gravity on this bad boy was 1.048.  In less than two weeks I’m transferring this to a secondary fermenter with some hop pellets in the bottom (not sure what I’ll use- most likely Saaz or Tettnanger’s).  Then another 4 weeks lagering.

Can’t wait to try this bad boy out!

On Tuesday the  18th my brother in law and I bottled up both batch 29 and 30.  Given that both of these recipes used Liberty hops exclusively, I decided (albeit in a hurry and forgetting the names I had previously come up with) to give both beers names keeping with the spirit of liberty.

Liberty Pale Ale

Liberty Hefeweizen

We started the bottling process around 2PM and finished around 4:30PM (of course, cleanup lasted a tad bit longer.)  We started with the pale ale, getting about 54 12 oz bottles and two 22oz bottles out of it.  Final gravity came out to be 1.010, giving an alcohol by volume of 5.25%.

The hefeweizen we got a lot less bottles, 44 12oz bottles and two 22oz bottles.  When we started transferring the hef, I noticed the sediment wasn’t very compact, and there were a few bubbles rising.  Uh, oh.  Looks like it didn’t finish fermenting.  To compensate, I only added 1/2 of my corn sugar I normally would for bottling.  Final gravity came out to 1.016, but given the unfinished state of the fermentation I would guess it would be closer to 1.014.  With the 1.016 figure the alcohol would be 5.8%, with the 1.014 figure it would be 6%.  Either way, it’s stronger than the pale ale.

I’m giving these guys a week and 3 days in the bottle before I start serving them, due to an upcoming get together with some friends on the 29th.  I’m hoping they’re good enough to drink by then, cause I’m drinking them then.

Today had some friends over and we brewed two beers simultaneously.  Been thinking about what to brew for a few days, knowing today was coming, and was having my normal difficulties of deciding.  I knew I wanted a pale ale but didn’t care for the recipes I’ve seen, and I wanted to use my Liberty hops.  So, I made my own recipe for a pale ale, plus I decided on doing a hefeweizen ala Widmer style.  But, none of the pseudo Widmer clone recipes I cared for, so I made my own, since I wanted to use Liberty hops in that as well.

So, here are my recipes:

Brett’s Liberty Pale Ale (6 gallon batch):

7 lbs light malt extract syrup
1 lb British crystal malt (40 l)
.5 lbs Munich malt
.75 oz Centennial Hops (60 min-bittering)
.5 oz Liberty hops (15 min left- flavor)
.5 oz Liberty hops (5 min – aroma)
Safale US-05 yeast

Brett’s Half A Weizen (5 gallon batch):

7 lbs wheat extract syrup (60 wheat/40 malt ratio- thanks, Steinbarts!)
1 lb white wheat malt
.5 lbs Munich malt
1.5 oz Liberty hops (60 min – bittering)
.5 oz Liberty hops (5 min – aroma)
Safale WB-06 yeast

Doing both batches at the same time went well, especially since I had two helpers, Jeremy and Mike, both of whom thoroughly enjoy my home brew, and Mike in particular is displaying interest in doing it himself.

We mashed the grains in about 1/2 gallon of water at 150 degrees for 35 minutes (at one point we got to talking and the temp spiked on both, so we quickly added a bit more water to bring the temp down quickly).  We sparged the poor lazy man’s way, since there weren’t enough grains in the pots to justify dirtying my lauder tun.  Then we added more water, added 1/2 the malt extract syrups, our bittering hops, and away we went.  Once both batches had 15 minutes left we added the rest of the malt, and I nearly burned myself when the malt bucket handle broke and dropped into the pale ale.  Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt badly by the water splashing on my foot.  Also added the flavor hops to the pale ale at this time.  With 5 minutes left, added the aroma hops on both.  Once the boil was done, removed the heat, strained the hop pellets out, and poured into the fermenters.

Tomorrow morning I will aerate both, take the gravity, and pitch the yeast.  Then, will need to come up with clever logo’s for the bottles.  I’m having a get together with a bunch of friends on the 29th, so hoping these beers are good and ready by then.

Update:  Initial gravity on the pale ale was 1.050.  Initial gravity on the hefeweizen was 1.060.  Both smell wonderful and taste pretty darn good as they are.  Going to be some fine beers!

After re-reading my last blog, I realized I omitted some very important notes.  First, I failed to list the initial gravity (1.044), and I also failed to note my accident with the water.

Normally, after your wort is finished and in your fermenter, you top it off with water to the mark specified by your recipe (normally the 5 gallon mark).  The last time I brewed this I topped it off to just below the 6 gallon mark, mostly because I used more extract and sugar than originally called for, and because I wanted to stretch it out longer.  Well, this time I was distracted while topping it off, and I topped it off to 6 1/2 gallons.  Oops!

Today, while bottling, I sampled the overly-watered weizenbeir, and it tasted like the original, only lighter.  Now, the lighter is definitely due to the additional water, but the corn sugar I added to the wort was more than the last time I brewed this, which will also make the flavor lighter.   So, note to self:  pay attention when topping off your beer.

The final gravity at bottling time was 1.010, bringing the alcohol content up to 4.46%, definitely lighter than the last batch.

With the weather supposedly hitting 100 degrees this weekend, my only wish is that this beer was ready to drink a week ago.  I’ll need a nice light drink like this to fight off the hot weather.