Spring is here, Hops time!

I feel like I start every blog post by saying something like, 'Well it's been a while since I last wrote a blog post.'  And those words ring true again.

Weather is starting to take a turn for the warmer temperatures here in northwest Arkansas.  On Monday I was delighted to find a gift in my mailbox from my awesome Aunt Pat.  They were organic rooted cuttings (rhizomes) of East Kent Goldings (EKG) and Willamette hops.  I wasn't prepared to plant them so the instructions said to tuck them into the fridge until the soil was ready.

Tuesday was even warmer so right after work I started figuring out how I was gonna plant these hops.  Ashley and I love our current abode but in another year or two we will be re-evaluating and looking for more space.  So planters were the obvious choice for right now.  Once we get into a more permanent space I will be putting these hops in the ground so they can really establish themselves. 

I wanted relatively shallow and wide planters compared to most of what you can find at your regular old hardware stores.  But I found my self at that place that rhymes with 'blows' and was really happy to see that they were selling old oak half barrels.  These babies led a previous life in whiskey distilleries around the country and finally were put out to pasture as planters.  They wanted 29.99 per planter and, honestly, I thought it was a steal.  Got three of them and the truck smelled like sweet bourbon on the way home (you could still smell it in the wood!)

 

I also bought several bags of top soil, mushroom compost, peat, etc.  Tucked it all under my deck until tonight when I was able to get back to it.  I drilled some holes in the bottom of each one and started filling them up with the soil.  I had a cascade hop bine last summer that did pretty good in it's planter but I decided to pull it up and put it in a bourbon planter.  Below is a pic of each hop variety...they are tough to see but from left to right its: Cascade (year 2...you can [maybe] see the roots are a little bigger and expansive than the other two varieties), EKG (second largest of the varieties), and Willamette (a little bugger but I bet its a grower!)

 

I got them all in their own planter and put them on the south wall of our house.  Coincidentally this wall is also by far the tallest of the house with the highest point being probably 30 feet above the ground!  I have yet to figure out my twine system but I still have several weeks to get that figured out, although all of the rhizomes are budding and looking ready to roll, so I better not waste much time.

 

 At this point my only concern is that the Cascades will be negatively effected from being pulled up (gently!) and set back in fresh soil.  Only time will tell, but we might have similar yieldings to last year as the Cascades fight again to establish their root system.

Hopefully this summer in NWA is not as hot and dry as last summer.  If so, my hops might struggle in the daily beating hot sun.  

All for now!  Stay tuned though because after my wonderful wedding to my even more wonderful fiance I will be turning my eye back to brewing.  My temporary hiatus has been good for my brewing libido and I'm ready to get some mash again!

Happy Fall/Winter 2012 from the future Milliren family!

I was going to write a longer post about a recent brewing session (well at this point its been 4 weeks) of a Bock.  But the beer so far has not turned out.  Long story short, this batch went sour on me...first time ever. I am trying a trick to revive it but I do not have high hopes.  So, the only picture really worth sharing from that brewday is a pic we took to capture the fall spirit:

From left to right: Haylie (13 year old, obese, mini dachshund), Matt, Ash, and Mercedes (7 year old Yorkie)

Fermentation Update

This pic taken last night shows fermentation progress after ~24hours (48 hours for the hefe).  They are going crazy!

It reminds me of the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial.  Haha, no bratwurst in these brews though.

Again, clockwise from left: Munich Commoner, Matrimony Mild (doesn't seem like I will need the blow-off hose after all, Matrimony Wine, and Steinau Weissbier.  The towels around the carboys help prevent excessive light exposure which apparently stresses active yeast.

Hefe, Parti-Gyle, and SMaSH!

This weekend was a crazy brewing weekend.  I had promised a friend, Tom, that I would brew a Hefeweizen with him, which we decided to brew Friday night.  We seemed to have hit all our metrics but I decided to just pitch a vial of yeast (if the vial were super fresh I'd probably be ok, but it was a couple of months old).  We will see how it affects fermentation.  I didn't take any pictures of the happenings mainly because I didn't feel like it.

Saturday morning I awoke at 6am.  I had a parti-gyle mash to do.  For those of you who don't know what that is and want more details on it, look here.  For the broad strokes, its an old fashioned approach to brewing which gets more sugars out of the grain.  You can have a big batch of grain and make two beers from it that, on average, might be slightly stronger (more sugary) than if you brewed the two batches completely independent of one another.  Sometimes that always doesn't work out.  Today it is primarily used as a way to make a really strong beer and then a weaker beer.

I've wanted to brew a Barleywine for our wedding reception (which is less than 6 months away!!) but my current system does not allow me to efficiently make high gravity beers (for the record, in this post when I make any reference to 'efficiency' I am basically talking about the amount of sugar extracted from the grain. A fixed amount of grain has a maximum amount sugar it can yield.  So my meaning of efficiency within this post is how close I am getting to the maximum theoretical yield).  So I thought that if I added a few more pounds of grain I could do a parti-gyle mash where I collect 7 gallons worth of first runnings for my barleywine, and then batch sparge with another 7 gallons of hot water to further rinse the sugars from the grain and yield a second, smaller, batch of beer. So...

For Mark and Amber's wedding I made a batch of 'Matrimoniale' that I actually was quite proud of.  Working loosely off that recipe, I made my recipe (spoiler alert for those of you who thought I would keep my brews a surprise):

20# American 2-row
4# Munich
4# Wheat
1.5# Crystal 20L
1.5# Crystal 90L
0.5# Crystal 120L

Mashed at 151F for an hour.  Remember, this is a parti-gyle mash.  So my first running gave a corrected starting gravity of 1.086.  This yielded an OG right around 1.100.  Here were the other details for the brew:

2.7 oz. Northern Brewer (10.5%AA) at 60min
1.5oz  Chinook (11.8%AA) at 10min
1.5oz Willamette (4.7%AA) at 10min
1.5oz Chinook at 0min
1.5oz Willamette at 0min

20grams of Safale US-05 dry yeast, rehydrated.

On the second runnings I was a little lower than I had hoped, but not terribly so.  The corrected starting gravity on the second batch was right at 1.039.  This gave an OG right around 1.046.  Here were the details for this smaller batch.

0.7 oz. Northern Brewer at 60min
0.3oz Chinook at 10min
0.3oz Willamette at 10min
0.4oz Chinook at 0min
0.4oz Willamette at 0min

9grams of Safale US-05 dry yeast, rehydrated.

Basically, the smaller gravity batch is a teaser for the barleywine.  I will ferment both and save the Barleywine til the wedding.  The smaller brew I will probably be drinking here very soon.  I hope it turns out.

Here are some pics of the process:

The grains. No water yet.  Mash tun is almost full!

Protein rest.  I had to do two infusions because otherwise I would have been trying to lift 11 gallons of hot water up to pour it in the tun.

And it's a good thing I did two infusions.  Turns out I overestimated the size of my mash tun and ran out of room for strike water.  SO to get to my target mash temperature I had to pull a decoction.  It was a short decotion, just enough to raise the temp in the main tun another 10 degrees.

Temperature has been obtained!

First runnings.  Tough to see but it's a pretty good color.  Nice burnt orange even in the thin tube.

Hop Spider getting it's first workout.  It has seemed to have passed with flying colors!

Racking to the fermentor.  I was happy with the color.

The hop turd from the spider.  Put it with my cascades.

Second runnings.  Very close in color to the first runnings.  Obviously, just a little lighter.

We got our first frost last night.  I thought the ice crystals on the rearview mirror were really neat.  They were standing straight up.

So after a 9 hour parti-gyle session I decided to brew another small 2 gallon batch of what the homebrewing community calls a SMaSH (single malt, single hop).  The purpose of a smash is to isolate a malt and/or hop to better learn it's characteristics so that you can make educated decisions on how to formulate recipes with more complex malt and/or hops bills.

My local homebrew club has monthly meetings with little mini club competitions.  Each month we pick a style or ingredient or spice/flavoring to add to a beer for the meeting two months in advance.  Brewers who are intrigued can partake and bring their brew to that meeting to go against other brewers.  So December's competition is SMaSH beers.  In the US, a lot of SMaSH beers are lighter malt varieties with high alpha-acid american hop varieties.  I decided I wanted to meet somewhere in the middle.  Loving german malts and american hops I decided to make my SMaSH out of Munich Malt and Northern Brewer hops.  Here's my recipe (for 2 gallons):

4# Munich
 Mash at high 140s for 60min

0.2oz Northern Brewer at 60min
0.2oz Northern Brewer at 10min

4 grams of rehydrated Safale US-05.   Sorry no pics for this brew, just wanted to knock it out.
I hope it turns out well and does well for me at the competition.

As you can see from this posting, I've kinda gone 'all-in' with the dry yeast.  It will either be genius or bite me in the a$s.  I plan to at least live to tell the tale.  That's all for this posting.  Below is one last pic of all carboys filled up this weekend.  17 gallons of brew!

Clockwise from left: 2gal Munich Commoner, Matrimony Mild?, Matrimony Wine, Steinau Weissbier

I obviously enjoy brewing.  But 17 gallons in 30 hours is a lot!

The Itsy Bitsy HopSpider Crawled into a Brewkettle

This will be a quick one folks.  This is a "hopspider":

It's purpose is to allow full hop utilization in the brew kettle while still allowing for hop sludge and cones to be removed easily from the wort after the boil.  I stumbled upon this on the homebrewing forums while researching other stuff.  I though, 'Gee, why didn't I think of that?'  It's so simple and functional (though I have yet to test it).  With $10 in parts from the hardware store and 5 minutes of easy labor, it's ready to work.  Here's what you need:

(1) 4" to 3" PVC reducing union
(1) 3-4" worm clamp ( I think that's the size...just feel it up in the store to be sure)
(1) 5 gallon paint strainer (I had to buy a 2pk, and you may have to also)
(3) 5/16" x 8"L carriage bolts
(3) 5/16" locking washers
(3) 5/16" flat washers
(6) 5/16" hex nuts

Construction is very easy, as long as you have a drill.  On the 3" side of the PVC union drill three holes 120degrees apart and about 3/4" down from the top.  I started with 3/16" pilot holes and then finished with 5/16" holes.  Install worm clamp on 3" side of the union below the drilled holes.  Assemble bolts into holes using a hex bolt, followed by the flat washer, followed by a pvc hole, followed by a locking washer, followed by another hex nut.  Do this at each PVC hole.  Finally feed the paint strainer bag over the outside of the 4" side of the union and then tuck it under the worm clamp on the 3" side and tighten down the worm clamp (if you worm clamp the bag on the 4" side a heavy hop bag from will 'pull' off the clamp and your bag will fall into your kettle.)

That's it!

Here's a close up of the finer points on the spider:

A pic of the spider in the kettle:

These come in handy for hoppy hoppy beers and I have read that utilization is not affected because the bag is so big that the hops basically swim free.

I will be testing it this weekend when I brew one of my wedding brews this weekend.  I'm gonna need it because the boil is going to have 9 oz. of hops.

I would highly recommend this project to any brewing friends.  It is very easy and highly praised by others who have done it.

Some might ask, 'Does the PVC cause any concern for plasticy flavors from it sitting over a steamy kettle?  Do the carriage bolts (zinc coated steel, not stainless) possibly rust up and cause issues?'

The answers are no and maybe.  No one who has used one has reported issues of plastic flavors from the strainer or union.  Though the bolts are basic steel, they are also very cheap.  If I ever see issues of rusting I'll just replace them.

Stay tuned for a report on how it works!

Oktoberfest Party 2012

My brewing hobby of 2012 has allowed my to brew a lot different styles and utilize a lot of different brewing-methods.  The highlight of my brewing year has to of been back in March when I brewed a double decocted all grain Oktoberfest.  It was a long and tiring brew day, and I barely got to taste the beer before this past weekend.  You see, I was saving it for a special party, Ashley's and my inaugural Oktoberfest!

For the event I brewed two batches of Oktoberfest, a Raspberry Hefeweizen, and a Belgian Dubbel.  20 gallons in total.  I wanted to share these brews with my brewthers and brewisters before the party.  Sadly they could not be in Arkansas for the party so I sent them some samples and we had a google hang-out a few nights ahead of time.  After drawing the samples, I was probably down to about 17 gallons of brew, or just a little more than a full sized keg.

This party also served as an event to officially break-in my kegerator.  If you remember, I got this kegerator over a year ago.  While it has served me well in holding many bottles of beer and also being a great fermentation chamber, I had yet to serve any brews from the classy brass draught tower.  So all my Oktoberfest offerings were kegged for this momentous occasion.

Ashley and I had a lot of fun (and a little stress) doing all the prep-work for this party.  We wanted the house to be very welcoming, the food to be tasty, and beer to be perfect.  We re-arranged the living room to open up the space a lot more, de-cluttered, and got everything cozy.  We made fresh baked soft pretzels, German potato salad, beer dip, pumpkin dip, pigs-n-a-blanket, chips and salsa, etc.  Friends brought chili cheese dips, casseroles, sauerkraut, dessert cakes, and festive spirits.  I had Thurn's Specialty Meats out of Columbus, OH air-mail me some delicious bratwursts for the grill.  Ashley made a tasty Sangria for those not to keen on brew, and I made a quick batch of root beer for all the kids who would be at the party.

The party kicked off around 3pm and went for several hours.  The homebrew and food was very well received.  We kicked both kegs of Oktoberfest and put serious dents in the RaspHefe and Belgian kegs.  Though originally thinking we had way too much food, there was very little left behind when all was said and done.

It was really a great party and all the pre-work leading up to it was certainly worth while.  Though we missed being able to party with our distant friends and family, we were grateful for all the locals who came and helped us eat and drink and celebrate a wonderful Oktober.  All for now, enjoy the pics!

The google hang-out veering off-course as usual.

House Outside Compliments of Ashley

House Inside also Compliments of Ashley, though we
picked the couch and rug together!

Mercedes woke up ready to party.

Mixin the pretzel dough

Pretzels formed

Pretzels baked

Sangria fruit ready for some wine

One of Ashley's best friends, Lara, came to party from OK city.

Raspberry Hefeweizen (ended up being a little to Razzy...almost like a wine cooler).

My good friend, Dustin, enjoying a liter of Muhleisen Extract Oktoberfest

And that right there is a liter of Muhleisen Hochkurz Double Decocted All Grain Oktoberfest.  I was really happy with how this one turned out.

MHDDAGO in the boot (for me) and a friend's MEO liter half gone.

The pretzels were really very tasty and all 36 disappeared pretty quick.

Nathaniel, a crazy Aussie, exemplifies the joy of the Oktoberfest party.

The vinyls only turned for about 15 minutes because I drank too much and didn't stay on top of it.

Engagement Party

So, we are a couple of weeks behind posting this but we wanted to write a quick couple of paragraphs about our engagement party.  The party was hosted by Ashley's mum, Pam, and her matron-of-honor, Maggie.  Festivities went down at Pam's house which is an ideal home for entertaining.  Pam and Maggie really out did themselves with all of the delicious food and decorating.  Everyone who showed up just stuffed themselves on everything from individual 7-layer dip cups to homemade beef jerky.

Not wanting to add to Pam or Maggie's stress, but desiring a decent beer spread, I volunteered to make the beer buying round.  My only requirement was cans because empty glass bottles in bulk make for a much heavier trash bag in the morning.  Luckily several craft breweries now release beer in cans.  The spread was 50/50 with the big three (Miller, Cooers, Bud, all light) sharing the stage with craft and smaller macro breweries (Shiner, Fat Tire, Avery).  For the non-beer drinkers, Pam and Maggie made a couple of delicious Sangrias for the red wine and white wine fans.

We are grateful for everyone who showed their support and were able to come celebrate with us!  We are also thankful for the awesome hostesses Pam and Maggie.  We look forward to April, 20th of 2013 and hope everyone that follows this blog can make it NWA for a celebration!

Enjoy the pics.  I was outside tending the beer cooler and didn't think to take a single pic all night.  As you can see, the people inside had a better mind to snap some shots.

The Spread

The coozies

Ashley with some of her employees (Left to Right: Whit, Lex, Ashley, Shelby, and Michayla [?SP?])

Matron-of-honor Maggie w/ Ash

Pamfab and Ash

Hostesses Maggie and Pam getting lovee-dovee with Ash

Ash with Matt Mulehorn (that's me)

Ash and Casey

Little cakes, they were good.

The centerpiece with all the food around it.

Another food shot.  The 7-layer dip cups were tasty.

A Decent Proposal

So life has been very exciting and busy here in Northwest Arkansas.  But one very special thing has happened recently.....WE GOT ENGAGED!

It has been over three weeks already and most everyone has found out and heard the story.  But for those interested to learn more of the event we wanted to write a quick little story.........

I had been shopping around for a ring since the end of April and it just took time to finally find something I was really happy with (I got a lot of help from a friend of Ashley's that works in the jewelry industry so she steered me straight, thanks Molly!)  Once I decided on the ring I wanted I had to wait over 5 weeks to have it made and shipped to Fayetteville.  I got the ring on a Thursday night and knew as soon as I inspected it that it was 'the one' for 'THE one'.  I had no idea to go about proposing but I didn't want to sit around for too long so I started thinking...

Originally I was thinking I would take Ash on a weekend getaway...but that is too obvious and I figured we would want to be near some friends and family to celebrate.  So then I started thinking of taking her to the highest lookout point in Fayetteville called, Mt. Sequoyah. But after driving past on two separate occasions and seeing it jam packed with people I knew it would not be private enough.  So Friday afternoon rolls around I still have no idea what to do.  I'm starting to think I will have to wait another week.  Then her mom texts me and says, 'I know!! Bells Gable Chapel! Google it'.  So I did.  Long story short it is a beautiful chapel in west Fayetteville that was handbuilt by a husband for his wife.  It used to be open to the public but now is only available upon request by the proprietors.

Ashley's mom gave me the man's name to call and I did.  He told me to come by after work to see if the chapel was something I would be interested in using.  You will need to look at the photos below but all I can say is that the chapel is a little slice of heaven and architecture in NWA.  It was the perfect place.  The gentleman said when I brought Ashley back that he would look for my car and close the gate behind us.

So Ashley thinks that Friday night we will just be going out to dinner and relaxing.  She had heard of Bells Gable before so I decided to play dumb while she was getting ready (for dinner).  I told her a friend lived near this little church where he and his wife wanted to baptize their son....how it was a cool little handbuilt church that looked like it was ripped out of England and put in Fayetteville.  I continued to play dumb with Ashley and asked her if she knew what my friend was talking about.  She said, 'Yeah, Bells Gable'.  And I said, 'Is it really that neat?' And she said, 'Yeah, it is really really pretty'.  So I said, 'well let's just drive past so I can see it before dinner'...........

On the way out to the chapel I continued to play dumb by asking Ash if she knew how to get there.  We eventually found our way and to our surprise (wink wink) the gate to the property was open!  We pulled in and saw a pretty little chapel...

Always trying to be adventurous I said, 'I wonder if the chapel is unlocked...maybe we can look inside'.  To which Ash said, 'I think we might be trespassing'.  I said, 'let's try to go in'.  Fortunately, Ashley played along and walked up to the door with me.  When I opened the door (which just so happened to be at dusk with the sunset coming through the stain glass windows) we saw all the candles lit.  This is the point where Ash started to get a little suspicious.  We walked inside and I played dumb for a few seconds longer until we were up front near the altar.

BTW, these pictures were taken a week later when we revisited so they don't capture all the beauty...but most of it.

At this point in the story there is a small gap because we were both so excited and nervous and happy that I forget some of the stuff I said (what I do remember having said will be just our memories).  But at the end of it all I asked her to marry me.  She said YES! And then I remembered I hadn't shown her a ring.  And she loved it!  And we are both super happy.

The above photo was the only pic we thought to take that evening.






So that is the story or how two lovebirds got engaged.  We loved the chapel so much that we decided to have our wedding there as well (details to follow).

We hope you enjoyed the story and we are thankful for all of you and your support. 

This super sweet love story blog post coincidentally is being written on our 3 year anniversary.  It was three years ago tonight that I met a beautiful little southern belle named Ashley.  And she met a tall, handsome (her word, I was thinking brute was a better descriptive) fella from Ohio.

Looking forward to seeing all of you when the wedding bells ring! If not sooner!

Kegging, A New Frontier

There isn't anything I can say to excuse my absence on this blog.  Life in NWA has been very busy and I lack the discipline required to keep this space updated.  I haven't brewed since the end of April, but in 2012 alone I have brewed 10 batches of beer.  I will try to post a short blog at some point with a photo of each brew but here is a short list to refresh your memory:

1. Hoppy New Year/2Heart2 (India Pale Ale)
2. Muhleisen Pilsener (German Pilsener)
3. Pig Trail Ale 2 (American Brown Ale)
4. Willie's Helles Yeah (German Helles Lager)
5. Big Boozy Baltic Porter (Baltic Porter)
6. Wedding Brew (Split batch for two different fermentations to make an amber ale and an amber steam)
7. Muhleisen All-grain Double Decocted Oktoberfest (German Oktoberfest)
8. Muhleisen Extract Oktoberfest (German Oktoberfest)
9. Steinau Weissbier/Muhleisen Hefeweizen (German Hefeweizen)
10. California Common (California Common) <---wasn't feeling creative to come up with a neat name

All of these beers, except for my Oktoberfests, have had their final packaging into bottles.  I recently bought some kegs and decided that I would keg my German Oktoberfests for an Oktoberfest party to be had this fall.

Kegging is a new frontier and one that scares me a little (a dirty bottle affects 12 oz of a 5 gallon batch).  A dirty keg ruins all 5 gallons.  My cleanliness and sanitation has been on point recently and I think I have nothing to worry about.

The kegging process (aside form ensuring a clean keg) is super straightforward.  Siphon the beer into the keg and pressurize.  There are some finer points but that is basically it.  Below are some pics in the process.

This is me kegging the 'All-grain' batch.  Looked exactly the same for the extract batch.

I will discuss the differences in more detail below but check out the color difference between the two batches.

Putting the pressure on the kegs.

 As evident from the photos, my brewing hobby has transitioned to Ashley's house.  I recently moved out of my house and into a one bedroom apartment that cannot support all of my equipment.  Anyways, the two batches of beer are really vastly different.   I won't say which is which in the photo above, but even the flavors and aromas are different.  I would say they are both true to style for an Okto but just different within those style parameters.

It will be interesting to see how these beers age in the keg.  I will take great joy in forcing my friends and family into picking their favorite between the two after a blind taste test.  They will both be good, but they are bound to divide the masses.

I welcome all who read/follow my blog to be at Ashley's house on September 22, 2012.  There will be two Oktoberfests and probably a Hefeweizen on tap for the occasion.  Soft pretzels, bratwurst, potato salad, German polka records.  Who wouldn't want to be there?  RSVP.