The Classic APA

I brewed up a classic American Pale Ale for my Memorial day mashing session. I dumped the cooled wort on the yeast cake from the blond that I brewed last week. I nearly sliced off the tips of my index and middle fingers on my right hand when my 14.6 gallons conical fermenter slipped out of my hands. Oh the ouch, and the blood. Luckily no stitches were required.
Close call.
This evening we enjoyed a cookout over at Carl's house with some great BBQ and some fine Belgian Ales.

All fun and games til Granddad shows up

My father and brother showed up and surprised me last night to help me celebrate my 40th birthday. Hank, Carl and my sister also showed up as well as my in-laws. Much fun was had by all. As you can clearly see the girls were quite excited to see their Grand Dad.

Meanwhile, I got to blow some candles out, eat some ice cream cake, and enjoy some fine Belgian style beers for Rob Todd and the fine brewers at Allagash.
Thomas, Grace, Iz, and I also went to all-school sing this morning to hear Winter's class perform "Hang on Sloopy".

Forty it's the new thirty

At least that's what it said on the inside of the birthday card from my Sister this week. While it sounds cliché, there apparently is some merit to this statement. As the photo albums came flying out on Saturday night everyone had an opportunity to review the kodachromed documentation of my forty year history. While reflecting I can honestly say I have enjoyed very many rich experiences in this life with minimal scat.

I guess I'm very fortunate to have a loving family, and have made many good friends over the years, as well some very good beer.
So after two children, and nearly ten years of marriage I'm full on back into brewing and riding my bicycle, as well as my snowboard.

Joyeux anniversaire!
Here's to forty more years of enjoying the ride.
By the way if forty is the new thirty, I certainly hope that I don't try and pee in my closet tonight.

Yeast Harvest

I top cropped some 1056 American Ale yeast of off the Blond tonight. The Trub tripel appears to be done. The krausen has finally subsided. What to make next?

Sunday brew

I was planning on brewing the blond over in Bennington on Sunday, but this party go in the way. Instead I decided to brew at home. I had everything ready to go. I ran into a few small obstacles like finding a mouse turd in the mash water, and running out of gas while heating my sparge water.

After dumping the water and cleaning the kettle I was ready to brew. I always keep a spare tank on hand. It took a few minutes to swap out the propane tank, and we were back in action. My friend Dave and his kids stopped by, and ended up coming back for dinner with the rest of his family. Funny thing about this weekend was I didn't get my swerve on until Sunday night. With that said I was a little worn out this morning.

The blond came out great. Hit my gravity, but missed my volume. I'm losing almost a gallon of wort to trub. I will need to come up with a false bottom in my kettle so I can reclaim more wort out of kettle. My ghetto set-up continues to evolve.

A suprise for me

It poured buckets of rain Friday night, so Carl and I decided that a road ride would be in order instead of the originally scheduled mtn bike ride. We rolled out at 1:00pm from Greenleaf St. and headed towards Collins Road in West Halifax. Thirty seven miles later and 2500 feet of climbing we rolled back to Carl's house to hose off and sit in the hot tub.
We got cleaned up and then headed over to my house for dinner. Well much to my surprise when we arrived there was a party waiting for me. I'm turning forty in a few days, and Iz decided to throw me a low key party. It was a perfect event complete with BBQ from the Top of the Hill and Beer supplied by my friend Ray. Needless to say I would not be joining my friends in Bennington to make beer Sunday.

National Bicycle Week

Along with it being national bicycle week, today is National Bike/Walk to Work Day. While I didn't ride in today, I will be riding home. I usually take the bus Fridays so I can slip in a ride home on Thursday or Friday. I'll be heading out for my first mtn bike ride of the year with Carl Saturday, and then big plans to brew beer in Bennington on Sunday with my scary internet friends

Mothers day Mayhem

All fun and games until Grammy gets the accordion out. We spent Mothers day down at Grammy's house enjoying a cookout, fine music, good beer, and naturally the marakas.

Another stone in the wall & some racking

My good friend Jim and I rebuilt the granite retaining wall out in front of the house today. We are in the process of landscaping it. With some more love and hard work the house will slowly become an asset to the neighborhood again.

I did get down in the brewery today for racking and final packaging. I put four gallons of the Belgian Strong Golden ale on tap and finally racked the Trub Tripel to secondary fermentation. It's present gravity is at 1.020. I'm hoping to get is down a few more points. My friend Emily's father is going to let me borrow his floor corker so I can bottle up these beers later on this summer. The Tripel will likely remain in secondary for a month or two,and then will be cold conditioned for another month. So it will likely be around August when this gets bottled.

Stalled operations

I decide to hang with Winty instead of brewing on Wednesday. Needless to say my brewing operations have stalled out this week.

The Blonde

I'm brewing up a classic Blonde ale this week. Wednesday I will attempt to brew after I pick up Winter from school. This can get very tricky, as I will also need to pick Grace up and make dinner Wednesday night. As long as my mash doesn't get stuck I think it will all work out. It's certainly is nice to see the fermenters filling up again.

Tripel still in active fermentation

I checked the gravity on Trub Tripel Saturday and it has dropped to 1.030. I'm hoping this will finish out somewhere between 1.010 and 1.014 before it gets racked to an extended secondary fermentation. I have a very good feeling about this beer turning up as a medal winner.

Otherwise it was quiet in the brewhouse this weekend. Mostly cleaning up and racking beer to final packaging. I had big plans for a Blonde Ale on AHA homebrew day Saturday, but lacked motivation so I'll likely brew this one up on Wednesday this week.

Farmers Market in the rain

We ended up walking to the farmers market in the rain . I converted the bike trailer into stroller mode and we took off to get the greens. They had a maypole set up and Winter's music teacher was orchestrating the maypole dance. The maypole isn't so much fun in the pouring rain.
My sister showed up and chased the girls around while Iz grabbed the greens and I got everything in order for this years CSA.

Recipe Designs

I have recently found myself branching out beyond the usual ales & lagers I typically brew. This has lead to an increased interest in brewing more German style beers that may include one or more decoctions. As a result I have found myself researching and reading up on brewing styles that I haven't tinkered with. It seems I can never get my hands on enough brewing literature.

Four

Grace hit four years today. Wow, hard to imagine how quickly they grow.
Happy Birthday Gracie!

Trub Tripel Going Ape

So anytime I ever use a five gallon glass carboy for a primary fermenter, I always stick a blow off tube on the cap. In the end I'm always pleased with the results. The fermentation of these beers seem to always go crazy. I went down to the basement for some airlock sniffing this morning and found the catch basin for my blow-off tubes overflowing. This is a really good sign of some healthy fermentation going on. It looks like the yeast are really enjoying the trub. Go yeast go!

Trub Tripel

I went ahead and brewed up a Tripel on Sunday. It seems as if I have been working on this recipe for a very long time. Well it all came to fruition today. Iz got called to work at the coop, and I had some free time to kick around in the basement since I wasn't going to be riding my snowboard today. I ended up dumping the wort on the cake from the Belgian Strong Golden Ale that I recently brewed with the WLP 550. I also added a tube of WLP 500 to one of the five gallon carboys just to see what would happen with addition of another yeast.
The brew session didn't come off hitch free. As it turns out there were several small children playing in the basement. As a result my attention was turned periodically to them. While transferring the chilled wort to the carboys I ended up with a little more trub then I wanted. So much so, that i became gravely concerned with the possible outcome of having to much trub in the fermenter. I did a little research on this, and discovered that trub is good. Yeast like it, and apparently people like the end result as well.
So there you have it my Trub Tripel. This sucker might be ready to drink by the new year. See link for recipe.

Butterfly Conservatory

Winty, Grace and I made a trip down to Deerfield today to visit the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory. We saw very many different butterflies, ans well as some poisonous frogs and a bearded dragon. If you have an opportunity to visit this place, I would highly recommend it.

Sushi experiment

Grace and I made sushi last night. It turned out quite good, and oddly enough it was painfully simple to make. Grant it I didn't use any of that fancy fish. I'll need to quiz up the fish monger for the right tuna to use.

First Rate Week

This past week gets my overall vote for the number one rated week of the year for me. I got to go on a date with my wife, ride my bike, make beer, get to Fenway, play with the kids, and ride my snowboard. More brewing on the docket this week.