I had all this ambition to get to Bacchus & Barleycorn early to set up. I don't know entirely what it is, but defects in my character make it utterly impossible for me to be in any way efficient when I brew. I'm always the last one cleaning up, long after the store has closed. It's even been dark outside by the time I've been done.
So my efforts to get there before the official start time of 10:00 (which I learned had actually been moved back to 9:30) got me there at 10:15.
Everyone else was already in high gear.
I had a hope, though. There was a guy brewing an extract batch followed by an all grain batch. Surely it would take him longer to brew two batches than it would take me to make one.
I found I was short a cinder block despite my careful counting, but Jackie saved the day by loaning me a stand and burner that held the mash tun at the proper height. The aluminum frame of his stand was so light and easy to move I realized I'm an idiot for using cinder blocks. A smart man would buy this much lighter, fully assembled deal. I even tried to buy it off him.
I might have to get over to Metal by the Foot and get some angle aluminum to build my own.
I hadn't fully made up my mind about what to brew until I had the strike water heating.
Carpe Brewski from Chixulub on Vimeo.
I made an American Stout in the tradition of Sierra Nevada Stout. Traditionally, stouts do not use finishing hops (flavor and aroma hops), only bittering hops. Sierra Nevada Stout is out of character for a stout that way. But totally in character for a Sierra Nevada product. That brewery puts a ton of Cascades in everything.
Sierra Nevada Stout is also a favorite of mine for it's all out sensory assault. Huge malt, huge roasted character, massive bittering hops, an orgy of floral, citrusy Cascade flavor and aroma hops. It's the beer equivalent of a woman who's beauty is so severe it borders on ugliness. It's a caricature of a stout.
And I love it.
So here's my take. I call it Ugly American Stout.
The recipe:
25 lbs. Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
2 lbs. Roasted Barley
1 lb. 120ยบ Crystal
4 oz. Special B
4 oz. Biscuit Malt
8 oz. Chocolate Malt
4 oz. Bravo whole hops 13.5 AAU (90 minutes)
2 oz. Cascade whole hops 7.4 AAU (15 minutes)
1 oz. Cascade whole hops 7.4 AAU (5 minutes)
1 oz. Cascade whole hops 7.4 AAU (at knockout)
Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast
According to Rooftop Brew's calculators, this hits 134.8 IBUs, but in reality it's impossible to get much more than 100 IBUs. Hop alpha acids reach a saturation point at around 100 IBUs where additional isomerization is impossible. But basically, we're talking about a beer that is literally as bitter as it can possibly be.
As you can see from the copious pictures I've peppered this post with, there were a whole gang of homebrewers on hand for this demonstration brew. And plenty of curious spectators, extract brewers curious about all grain, people who have just started out or are thinking about making a batch of beer, people who used to brew and are thinking of getting back into it.
Extract brewers commonly ask why brew all grain? Well, the grain is cheaper than malt extract for a start. But when you factor in the cost of propane and additional equipment, this is probably just a rationalization. Which is okay: anything worth doing is worth doing compulsively, and compulsive behaviors require rationalizations.
Really, this being my 98th batch, and being I went all grain back around batch 10, even allowing for thirty or forty cider and mead batches in that count, I've probably come out ahead of the cost of extract brewing. But at the three or four times a year pace I'm brewing these days (this is my first batch since August of last year), I'd be hard pressed to justify the expenditure for equipment if I didn't already have it.
The real reason all grain brewing rules is the flexibility it gives you. Dozens of grains to choose from, proportions to be set by your only formulations. Quantity is also infinitely flexible, as opposed to having to move in increments of whatever can size the extract you're using comes in. With extracts, there's no throwing in four ounces of Biscuit Malt or an extra pound of Pale Ale malt.
Brewing is a creative thing for me. I never brew the exact same recipe twice. I always experiment.
Plus, with extract brewing it's over too fast. A lot of the extract brewers out there today were packing up before I was done sparging. Granted, slow as I am, I can stretch an extract batch to six hours, but still.
The guy who was doing two batches: one of his was a spruce beer. He had these spruce cones from Alaska he added near the end of the boil.
I didn't get my act together enough to make a starter in advance, so I used an Activator pack of yeast for each carboy. This doubled the cost of the yeast for this batch, as I could have propagated this much from one pack. Hops have also gotten appallingly expensive due to shortages. About three times as expensive as a couple years ago. Still, all in, including propane and all that, we're at maybe a buck a pint cost wise.
And considering that buck a pint is for a no compromise beer, it seems reasonable enough. I liked it better when it was more like 50¢ a pint, but then gasoline was $1.40 a gallon when that was true. Homebrewing isn't necessarily frugal, per se, but it's a hell of a lot of fun and it does at least provide a decent value. A six pack of Sierra Nevada Stout retails for eight or nine bucks, which works out to about a $1.50 per 12 oz bottle, and buying their beer doesn't give you any creative expression or sense of accomplishment.
As the famous St. Louis Brews club shirt says, Give a man a beer and he'll waste an hour, teach him to brew and he'll waste a lifetime.
I did get to play with a new brew gadget. Not one I've purchased, just one I saw another guy using. It fits in a drill chuck and slides into a carboy and beats the hell out of the wort to aerate it. I use bottled oxygen already, but as a way to help it dissolve, this sure beats agitating a carboy. I'll have to get me one.
How did I do on getting out of there on time? Well, even the guy making two batches finished ahead of me. I rolled out of the parking lot at 7:15. A nine hour brew day is actually about as short as I can recall having. I really should just start the night before or something.
'The day you're not the last to finish,' Alberta said, 'I'll fall over.'
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