Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Kegerator or Keezer?

Look! Out in the garage. It's a kegerator, It's a keezer. WTF is a keezer. Thats right. It's a kegerator built with a freezer. So it's also a keezer. This is a 8.8 cu. ft Frigidaire chest freezer that we bought at Lowes. It will become our 4 tap kegerator. We bought the tap and gas hardware from Keg Connection. This will allow us to have multiple beers on tap at all times and free up the main fridge from holding the kegs. The collar was built with pine 2 x 4's and faced with 1 x 6 Red Oak. Please check back for updates as this project progresses. Cheers. 

**UPDATE** 21 December 2013: The keezer taps and gas hardware have been installed. We're just waiting on the temperature controller to fire this puppy up and pour some beers. 


New kegerator / keezer. Frigidaire 8.8 cu ft freezer 

Another view

Collar weighted down for construction adhesive to adhere

1 coat of stain and 2 coats of clear coat applied. Waiting to dry

Stain and clear coats dry. Now waiting for caulk inside of collar waiting to dry.
Tap and gas hardware will be in tomorrow. 

Perlick 525SS Taps installed

Faucet shanks and beer lines

CO2 manifold

Quick shot of the inside of the keezer

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

CT Pour Tour

Check this out. Todd is raising money for Childhood Cancer research by touring CT and sampling local beer. Please share this and visit his site. Thanks.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Brew Kettle & Hot Liquor Tank Upgrades

This weekend, SBBC upgraded our brewing equipment. The keg we were given by a FD member, was updated to a keggle. This upgrade will give us the capability to brew 10 gallon batches. We added a ball valve with a 5/8 inch diptube , a 3 inch face thermometer and a sight glass. The sight glass will allow us to see the volume in the keggle with a quick glance. We also upgraded the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT). We added a combination sight glass / 2" thermometer. This will allow us to fill the HLT on the top tier of the stand and heat it as well. This will make brewing safer, by keeping us from hoisting several gallons of hot water up onto the top tier. Each vessel sight glass was calibrated one gallon at a time and labeled with decals. We will be able to brew with the new setup as soon as we buy a pump to move the water and wort. Please enjoy some photos below.



HLT and Keggle all done 

New Keggle

Upgraded HLT

All calibrated

Keggle calibrated as well

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Three Micks Irish Red Ale Brew

11 November 2013 - Tuesday, November 5th, was a first for SBBC and myself. This brew is my first original recipe, that will be permanent memorial beer recipe dedicated to my cousin and two good friends that have passed away over the last year. 


THE THREE MICKS:
Jon Fleming was a fellow VEMS paramedic and great friend that passed away in October 2012. Jon was remembered by a one-off memorial Fleming's Irish Red Ale brew in November 2012 (http://www.starsbarsbrewing.blogspot.com/2012/12/fleming-irish-red-ale.html). I realize it is a funny story to remember a guy who didn't drink with another beer, but that's what we do; we brew beer.  Jon's passing has left a hole that can never be filled. 

Another EMS friend and fellow beer lover, Brian McCarthy passed away on September 7th, 2013, following a motorcycle accident on his way home from work. 

Both were young guys, taken too soon and they left behind lots of family and friends to grieve. 

My cousin, Matt Doyle, died 6 days later on September 13th, at home in Colorado. Matt's death was a great loss for me, since Matt and I were best friends growing up. He had moved to Colorado in 1992, but we kept in touch throughout the years. He also left behind a lot of family and friends to grieve at his passing. 

I had this idea of this brew on my way to work a few days after Matt died. A song on the radio started me thinking about him. Then I drove through the Valley, where Jon and I worked together at VEMS. I also passed the intersection where Brian was hit and gravely injured on Fountain Street in New Haven. This started me thinking about all of them and what I can do to remember them in my own little way..... A beer! But not an regular beer would do. Since their last names read like a ledger at Ellis Island during the Irish Emigration, it had to be an Irish Red Ale. It also had to be completely different than Jon's beer, but memorialize him with a permanent beer as well.


THE BEER: 
This was the first brew that was my own original recipe. I found a Irish Red Ale and tweaked it to my design. This recipe has 2 lbs of Smoked Malt, that will impart a subtle smoky flavor in the background. This beer will also age in the secondary fermenter with lightly toasted oak chips, that have been soaking in an ounce Jameson Irish Whiskey since brew day. That will add the whiskey and oak flavors to the beer as well. This was the first test batch to test the recipe. It might change depending on the outcome. I might also tweak or refine it to make it better. 


BREW DAY :
I started the brew day out right by putting on my new, kelly green, Watertown CT shirt, with a big shamrock on it. Of course, my UT kilt and boots were a given as well. I locked myself in the garage, set Pandora to my Dropkick Murphy's channel (a favorite of Matt's), cranked the volume and got brewing. It went with no real issues. I did come in a little below the OG, but well within the specs for this beer style. It was happily bubbling away the morning after I pitched my Wyeast Irish Ale yeast starter. It was fermenting while the family and I was away on vacation. I'm going to check the SG on it tomorrow to see if it's ready for racking into the secondary. Stay tuned for updates as this beer ages and finishes. Thanks.


UPDATES:
**UPDATE** 13 November 2013: I checked the SG last night and it was 1.010. Thanks a drop of .044 points. That means the beer finished out at 5.7% ABV. Not too bad. I plan to rack it to secondary tonight and add the Irish Whiskey soaked oak chips. Then the waiting begins. I'll have to periodically check it to see when the oak and whiskey flavors peek and not overpower the beer. 

** UPDATE** 17 November 2013: Beer was racked and is now in the secondary fermenter. This will allow the oak chips and Jameson Whiskey to mix and meld flavors with the TMIRA. I'll check it in a week or two. New photos below. 

**UPDATE** 20 November 2013: I sampled the TMIRA last night. Beer is good. Solid malt upfront. Smoky finish. Oak and whiskey seem present as well. I'm going to check it again next week to see how it's progressing. 

**UPDATE** 24 November 2013: I pulled a sample to test and share on Sunday (11-24-2013) while we were brewing a clone of Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale. the TMIRA gets better the longer it sits and mellows in the secondary. Glenn, Dad and Joe were very impressed with it. I must say that I am as well. We let it sit and warm up a bit and the vanilla, oak and whiskey notes shine through. I'm going to check it again on Thursday to see how its progressing. That will mark two weeks in the secondary and I will see if I feel it's ready to carbonate. 

**UPDATE** 01 December 2013: TMIRA was racked into the keg today for carbonation. It should be ready in about a week. there was about 1/2 gallon left, so I put into a growler with some priming sugar to bottle carbonate. We shall see how that works. 



PHOTOS: 



Grains, hops, oak chips and yeast, all ready to go

Mmmmm, Jameson Irish Whiskey will be a part of this brew (no shots were involved in this brew...yet)

Brew stand ready to go

Heating the strike water

Grain bill and hops all layed out 

All ready to brew. And yes, it was cold in the garage

All mashed in

Wort draining into the boil kettle

Sparging


Wort ready for boil
Boiling away

Boiling away. Wort chiller all set up

Getting ready to finish

Wort chiller being sanitized



**UPDATE**  Photos - 17 November 2013


Oak chips soaking in Jameson Irish Whiskey

Oak chips and leftover Jameson in secondary fermenter

TMIRA racked in secondary with oak chips and whiskey

Into the fermenter for a few weeks or more 

All set to go. See you in a few weeks




Looks good and tastes even better (11-24-2013)



**UPDATE Photos** 01 December 2013
One beer going into secondary and one going into keg

TMIRA into the keg for carbonation

Racking into the keg

Friday, November 15, 2013

SBBC on Untappd

SBBC is now on Untappd. What is Untappd you ask. Good question. It's like Facebook for drinkers. Connect with other beer lovers. See what beers that are trending locally and around the country. I'll be adding beers to our beer list as we brew them. And yes, there is an app for that. 

Check it out. https://untappd.com/StarsBarsBrewing

Monday, November 11, 2013

Maple Nut Brown Ale Kegged

The Maple Nut Brown Ale (MNBA) was kegged up last week and has been carbonating all week. It should be ready to drink tonight. I'm sure the SBBC members will be happy to test it out ASAP. 

Racking the MNBA to the keg

Mike's idiot beer racking selfie

Cleaning the carboy with hot water and PBW 

All kegged up and carbonating

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Maple Nut Brown Ale Update

Glenn, Dad and I racked the Maple Nut Brown Ale to the secondary fermenter on Sunday. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of the Grade A Dark maple syrup, boiled in two cups of water for 10 minutes. Then cool it down and the mixture to the fermenter with the beer. We decided to up it to 1 full cup of maple syrup. It won't make a huge difference, but we will know its there. Good news is that the yeast starter did its job and made beer. The biggest surprise was that it did more than we expected. The SG was 1.042 instead of 1.056 like the recipe showed. The FG ended up being 1.002. That's a .040 drop like the recipe said it should be. That means the beer is 5.2% which was the target ABV on the recipe. Perfect! So now the beer will sit in secondary until Sunday, then it will be kegged and carbonated for a week. We will tap the keg shortly after. Until then, cheers!




Terrible photo of Mike racking the beer to the secondary fermenter

Another photo of Mike's arm racking the beer to the secondary fermenter

Beer looks and smell awesome

Friday, October 25, 2013

Maple Nut Brown Ale Brew Day, 10-19-2013

Saturday, October 19th was our brew day for a Maple Nut Brown Ale. This should make for a great seasonal Fall beer. There is even CT Grade A Dark Maple Syrup as one of the ingredients. We also used the 3 ounces of our own, homegrown Galena hops. 

This is the second time we used our 3 tier brew stand. The new burners and gas manifold worked flawlessly. We did not hit our target original specific gravity. We came in at 1.040 instead of our target of 1.056. After retracing our steps, I was able to figure out what went wrong.  Firstly, I broke Brewer Rule # 1. I, as the head brewer, started drinking before the yeast was pitched. Big no-no. It will not happen again. Two, we were low on the strike water temperature. I didn't account for the MLT temperature as well as the temp of the grains. This dropped the temperature under the goal of 152° and we were not able to correct it. That did not allow the enzymes to convert the starches to a fermentable sugar and dropped the OG. And lastly, I sparged too quickly. I read recently, that the sparge should take almost a hour. We were done in half that time at most. This will also drop the available sugars in the wort because there was not sufficient time to rinse the sugars into the wort. 

My hope is that the kick ass starter I made will go ape shit on the wort and bring the ABV up. It will still be a decent, drinkable beer, just not the target 5.3% ABV on the recipe. I'm OK with chalking this up to a learning experience. And I'm happy that I was able to figure out my errors and figure out exactly what I did wrong. That's all for now. Please enjoy the video and pics below. Cheers!





Our yeast starter spinning away

Starting the sparge

Sparge arm dripping away

Glenn checking out the progress

Mark and Dave hanging out, enjoying a beer

First wort hopping with 3 ounces of our own Galena hops

3 ounces of homegrown hops

A hand delivered gift from Ray. AWESOME beer!!!

Boiling away

Hoppy, hoppy, hoppy goodness post brew

Post brew day bonfire in the backyard. Nice end to a good brew day.