CNYBrew.com: Rain or snow, we brew

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Rain or snow, we brew




In the face of blistering winds, lake effect snow, sleet, and full on up-state winter, we manned up and brewed.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BINGHAMTON NY

333 PM EST SUN DEC 16 2007

STEADY SNOW WILL TRANSITION TO BANDS OF LAKE EFFECT SNOW TONIGHT...WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGH MONDAY. ADDITIONAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONSOF 3 TO 6 INCHES ARE EXPECTED OVER THE AREA TONIGHT...WITH 1 TO 3MORE INCHES IN THE HEAVIER LAKE SNOW BANDS...

WINDS WILL SHIFT TO THE NORTHWEST THIS EVENING...AND INCREASE TO15 TO 30 MPH WITH OCCASIONAL GUSTS 40 TO 50 MPH.


But up here, this is man brewing country, not like the fellas at Monday Night Brewery. Down there the only concern is which Kenny Chesney tape to listen to while they wash down their grits with PBR.

Langunitas IPA Clone

Today we started at 7am and finished at 1:45pm with 16 gallons of brew pitched. We started off with the Lagunitas IPA Clone which went off with out a problem. We struck at about 8:05am with this at 157f. This temp held and we were able to mash out and sparge without a problem. Our pre-boil OG was 1.045 which was right on target.



This brew called for a 90 min boil so it took a little longer than some of of the other brews we have done. It was also a pretty full brew kettle and we had a boil over early on. When it was all said and done though, we were a little low on our expected OG (1.059) and measured out about 1.056. Not a big deal, but there are always places to improve.

Hairy Porter

Yea I know, it was Porterhouse before, but this was Nick's idea for a name and I like it. We also made some changes to the recipe for this one. The biggest change was the use of the kolsch yeast we have from the kolsch and the cream ale we recently brewed. This was after the realization that an Alt and a Porter have a very similar malt bill and we figured the kolsch yeast might make this a more smooth drinking dark beer. We will see.

The other big ingredient in this brew was the star anise (pronounced anus) which we steeped in during the boil for about 25min. We used 25 anis stars with the hope of giving this a really unique flavor that wouldn't fit into a specific category, but we would like.




During the process of brewing the porter, we realized that we didn't have something to steep the hops in so Nick used some screen and his Potsdam education to good use in engineering this masterful creation:




In the end we were able to hit all of our targets with the Hairy Porter and we were both very pleased with the level of anise flavor that the brew had. It should be a very interesting beer in the end.

Two Brew Weekend

One of the many advantages of living in a multi seasonal state like the Empire State is snow. What a great way to use nature to cool down your brews for you!



In the end, the schedule was everything with the two brew day. We started to heat up the water for the porter as soon as we struck for the IPA. This was a start to the process that in the end, worked out really well and allowed us to do two brews with a single mash tun.


5 comments:

Jonathan said...

I notice that in the process of "manning up," you neglected to post any pictures of the woman behind the camera. Was she just a wittle cold?

Travis said...

I have yet to teach Meatball how to operate my advanced "camera phone", once I do though, watch out!

Anonymous said...

It's days like this (a 70-degree sunny day, that is) that I'm glad I brew in Southern California, and not in New York.

We may have earthquakes, wildfires, and mudslides, but at least we can wear shorts in December :-)

Travis said...

I'm going going, back back to Cali Cali.

Yea wildfire season is when the weather people here have their happy season. They show raging fires and then report that it's going to be sunny and 75 here. Beyond that they are usually not reporting the rest of the country.

Adam said...

Nice! Two brews, improv on the steeping AND cooling in a snowbank! Rock on! I gotta try that.