Craft Brew's Mad Genius

I have gained a new respect for Dogfish Head after reading this New Yorker article. Ty sent it to me a while ago, but I finally got around to finishing it (long article is loooong). It is a fascinating look at a man who has refused the conventional notions of what beer should be.

I've tried a lot of DFH beers and have yet to find one that I would drink again if given a choice. Clearly I'm not ready for 'extreme' beers. But after reading this article, I can see why DFH is a hero to many beer lovers and most home brewers.

Batch #19 - Whitetail Holiday Ale

Brew Date: 12/6/08
Recipe: See Brew Sheet


I brewed up five gallons of this holiday ale for a friend's snow-tubing party that takes place in February.

This, my second all grain batch, went much more smoothly than my first attempt. My new thermometer worked well and I generally fumbled around less.

Shawn had built a top for our kettle (with an adjustable steam port) out of lexan which worked great. It took much less energy to keep the boil going and we didn't loose so much wort to boil-off. The only problem: the lexan started to loose rigidity due to the heat, sagging almost an inch. We'll have to start over with another material.

The big lesson I learned was this: I get tired by the end of a 7 hour brew day and start making mistakes. More experience will help but having a brewing partner on Saturday for the next batch will be great.

Brew Day!

What a day it was. Overall it was an exciting experience and went OK, but it had its moments of panic for sure.

First of all everyone in the house was sick. I was just feeling run down, but Jess and Mia were both down for the count. In addition my brew-partner Shawn was also sick and could not make it. I was on my own and dragging ass. It was also freezing out and raining.

Near Major Disaster #1 - My digital thermometer is full of hate and lies. It nearly had me attempting to mash at 110 instead of 152 degrees. New thermometers are a must-buy before the next session. Update: Done!

Near Major Disaster #2 - Stuck Lauter. I'm not sure what happened, but I think our braided wire filter in the mash/lauter tun collapsed. Or floated to the top. Or both. I don't know. I got the wort out eventually after much shenanigans. We'll try the big MLT next time and see if that works better. Update: The FOAM guys say that when mashing a recipe that includes wheat malt, rice hulls should be added to the MLT to help prevent stuck mashes. We will try this on the next batch.

Near Major Disaster #3 - Too much boil-off. Even with my awesome homemade lid (tin foil over plywood, yeah!) we lost too much wort during the hour boil I suppose due to the massive surface area of the liquid. Need a better lid and probably need to adjust recipes to allow for more boil-off. Update: Shawn is working on an awesome lid!

Near Major Disaster #4 - Wort chiller full of water when I dropped it into the boiling wort to sanitize it. It was full of cold water so it instantly stopped the boil. Oops. I cranked up the heat and recovered in about 8 minutes.

Near Major Disaster #5 - Not using a hop-bag when planning to siphon out of a very wide pot. I lost at least a gallon of wort and got tons of hop matter in my primary buckets. Hops in the primary is not a big deal but loosing a gallon of beer is.

I ended up with about 8 gallons of wort split between two primaries instead of the planned 10. Possible major disaster #6 - the airlocks are not bubbling yet... Update: Everything is fine!

On the upside our mash efficiency was above 80% which is awesome.

Also Shawn's wort chiller was incredible taking about 9 gallons of boiling wort to 80 degrees in 12 minutes and down to 65 in 20 minutes. The thing is a monster!

I'm not going to bother posting a brew sheet for this batch. Even if the beer comes out great I could never reproduce the parade of missteps that made it happen.

More Gear

All the new gear is coming together in preparation for the first All Grain batch on Sunday. You can tell by looking around my basement that we crossed the line from hobby to obsession at some point. Hooray Beer!

The Secret Recipe Is...

Uncle Tyler's
Reddy's I.P.A.

This recipe belongs to my Uncle Ty who, years ago, gave a copy to my mother in a letter (yes - a snail mail letter). She held on to the letter for a long time and recently passed it on to me.

This is a true India Pale Ale that is both hoppy and malty. In the early 1800s, I.P.A.s were 'amped up' pale ales that contained more alcohol and hops (both natural preservatives) so that the beer could survive the long trips by ship from England to the colonies in India.

Highlights of this recipe include over 4 ounces of hops (in a 5 gallon batch) and Oak wood chips in the primary and secondary to impart that barrel-aged taste.

Ty's letter to my mother states that this recipe was originally brewed on March 3, 1989 - almost 20 years ago! It was brewed for a friend named Reddy who was from India and missed the strong beers from home. These were the days before the microbrewery explosion in the U.S. and finding anything other than Bud/Miller/Coors was nearly impossible, so Ty created this beer to fill the gap.

I will see my Uncle Ty over Thanksgiving weekend and I hope this batch of beer will be a nice surprise for him.

Mother of All Chillers

Built by Shawn, our Immersion Chiller is 50 feet of 1/2" copper constructed in two nesting coils that can be used separately or together in series or in parallel. Shawn designed it to work specifically with our huge (and wide) boil kettle but still be useful in other situations.

Like everything else the scale of it makes me smile every time I see it. Bring on the hot wort!

Hop Harvest Update

Ralph Olsen of Hopunion left an encouraging post over on ProBrewer regarding this year's hop harvest. I'm not getting the feeling that prices are going to come down, but maybe we'll be able to find the hops we need in the coming year. This is good because out of the 17 batches I have brewed so far, I've had to substitute hop varieties in about half of them due to the shortages.