Water: 7 or so Gallons filtered Hillcrest tap water
Grain:

• 12.5lb domestic 2-row
• 0.5lb Crystal 10

Yeast: 0.5 gallon starter of WLP001 - California Ale
Hops: 1.0oz 5.1 AA Willamette at 60
Mashed at 152° for 60 minutes. Boiled 70 minutes.
Added 1.5 Gallons filtered water to top

OG: 1.050

So yeah, 5 gallon batch in the apartment is not necessarily the best idea. I'm basically going to write this one off as an experiment. If it turns out that'll be awesome, but if not I won't be too surprised. Basically if I could do something wrong with this batch it was done wrong. I forgot to vorlauf the first runnings, the hose slipped out onto the floor while I was siphoning it into the carboy, I broke my hydrometer (luckily Matt was home and I was able borrow his), et, cetera. And topping it off with tap water at the end just felt sorta wrong.... Eh, maybe it'll work out maybe no.

As for why it's called Bunny? Well, you try coming up with beer names all the time and see if you don't run out of ideas on occasion.

Oh. Um, yeah. This is supposed to be a blonde ale by the way. Summertime refreshment and all that.

Matt on 05.18.08 @ 09:31 PM PST [link]  [1 Comment]

Good gravy. I think someone made a typo somewhere and wrote "unseasonably warm" when they meant "unspeakably". Although it's kind of nice in a will-sapping kind of way.

So, you know I didn't realize that I actually hadn't posted anything since January. That's kind of ridiculous. There really hasn't been a lot going on that's really been worth blogging about though, at least that I've noticed. I guess we went to Disneyland at some point, and purchased fabulous technologies (new lappy for Lynnea, new monitor for me) but mostly it's been the usual going to work, watching anime, reading (comics and real books) playing the Wii, eating, sleeping, etc. Oh and they opened a BookOff down here, which is super-awesome.

Well until a couple weeks ago that is. Which was when the 2008 World Beer Cup happened and guess who were volunteers... yep, Lynnea and me. For those that don't know the World Beer Cup, it's a very large, very prestigious international commercial beer competition. I actually don't know how much I'm supposed to say about it... the organizers kind of seemed to want the behind-the-scenes stuff kept fairly private, but it was really a lot of fun. If you ever had the opportunity to be staff at this kind of event... well, it's tons of work, but it's fantastic. And you get paid in leftover beer (a case a day which worked out to 3 for us) plus all-you-can-taste-while-still-being-able-to-function during, so what could be better?

And actually that's not the only thing that's been keeping me busy the last few weeks. The Sunday before we did the WBC we went to an AHA membership rally (Lynnea and I are now AHA members, woo!) up at Port Brewing in San Marcos. And let me tell you something... Port Brewing is really, deeply impressive. Wooden barrels everywhere. And they did a special release of Veritas 002 for the rally, which I believe is a Flemish Red (can't find it on their website), but is utterly smacky regardless. And Tomme Arthur was there giving tours and the whole thing was pretty darn cool.

Then last week we had Lynnea's mom and brother come down for her cousin's wedding up in (ack) Riverside. And the wedding was nice and I like Lynnea's family and all but the whole thing was utterly exhausting. And NOW, Lynnea's friend Anesha is in town visiting for the next week, but Anesha's way more mellow and easier to deal with than the in-laws. Dare I say... fun to have around?

Anyway, I'm just working at trying to recuperate this weekend. And I'm blogging because if I didn't after the last two weeks it would be time to give up on the whole concept. That and because the purple comet levels on Mario Galaxy are hell and I don't want to play them anymore (whoever designed the level "Luigi's Purple Coins" is now officially on my enemies list).

Alright, enough of this. Back to loafing.

Matt on 04.26.08 @ 03:33 PM PST [link]  [3 Comments]

Water: 5 or so Gallons filtered Hillcrest tap water
Grain:

• 7lbs British Pale 2-row
• 6oz Roasted Barley
• 5oz Crystal 40
• 5oz Crystal 80
• 4oz Chocolate Malt

Yeast: Yeast cake from Scottish 80/-
Hops: 1.2oz East Kent Goldings @ 80 minutes

Mashed at ~152° for 60 minutes. Boiled ~80 minutes.

OG: 1.061

So for some damn reason I decided I ought to make beer today, even though deep down (and at the surface for that matter) I really just felt like sitting on my butt and playing video games. But I told myself that during the downtime I could fire up the Wii and fit in a few sessions here and there. Of course, the main reason I brewed today was so I could bottle the 80/- and not let the yeast cake go to waste (last time I saved yeast in a jar in the fridge it did not work out...), which meant that in the downtime from brewing I was busy washing bottles, filling bottles, sanitizing things, all that malarkey.

Anyway, I've been in the mood for things that are brownish in colour lately and the little store down the road where I generally buy stuff has been in the mood to sell things that are, well, IPAs lately so I decided to do a stout. And since after two batches I figure that yeast cake is probably to the point that it could eat through leather, I decided on a foreign extra stout due to the rather high gravity. And 7 or so hours later it's in the carboy and I'm tired and have played no video games. Which is a shame because I've got a decent stack to get through before the next wave drops in late March (for the non-gamers out there, all the A-list video games are basically released in big chunks all at the same time with long painful droughts in between). But I guess at least I'll have beer to drink whenever I actually get some gaming in.

Meanwhile, I gave the Scottish 80/- a taste when I was checking the gravity (and bottling and other aforementioned malarkey) and that there seems to be some good stuff. Did I ever mention that the mild is good too? Not malty enough (too low on the mash temp) but still pretty tasty. And very drinkable. Anyway, we're off to LA for a fun filled day of nerdery tomorrow, so maybe I'll blog about that if it proves interesting. For now, I gotta get some sleep.

Matt on 01.18.08 @ 11:36 PM PST [link]  [4 Comments]

Water: 4.5Gallons filtered Hillcrest tap water
Grain:

• 4.5lbs Maris Otter
• 0.5lbs Crystal 40
• 0.2lbs Crystal 120
• 0.25lbs Honey Malt
• 0.25lbs Munich Malt
• 0.1lbs Chocolate Malt

Yeast: Yeast cake from Dark Mild - WLP002 English Ale
Hops: 0.42oz East Kent Goldings @ 80 minutes

Mashed at ~158° for 60 minutes. Boiled ~80 minutes.

OG: 1.045

Alright, rockin the apartment all-grain once again. This batch we went for a Scottish Export 80 Schilling. Nothing too different this time around, although we had the system down way better the second time. It still took us a little while longer than we expected, especially the boil and cooling down the wort afterwards. But we landed right in the middle of the style as far as gravity goes which is pretty cool, and I think we hit our mash temp pretty well this time... maybe a degree or two off but I don't think much more.

And I guess because we dumped it on to the yeast cake from the previous batch (which we also bottled today), we've gotten a really fast start. I think it went into the carboy around 6:30 tonight and it was bubbling like crazy by 9 or so. Bubbling kind of annoyingly actually. Ah well. So this thing should sit until sometime after the new year at which point we may do another or we may not depending on how we feel (I've been thinking that a chocolate cherry stout in time for Valentines might be fun...).

Matt on 12.16.07 @ 11:28 PM PST [link]  [4 Comments]

Water: 4.5 Gallons filtered Hillcrest tap water
Grain:

• 3.3lbs Maris Otter
• 0.45lbs Crystal 60
• 0.3lbs Crystal 120
• 0.3lbs British Dark Crystal¹

Yeast: 1 vial WLP002 English Ale
Hops: 0.42oz East Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes²

Mashed at ~152° for 60 minutes. Boiled 65 minutes.

OG: 1.038
¹ Annoyingly not labeled as to their alpha acid content.
² Recipe called for Pale Chocolate malt, which the store did not have. I panicked and bought this because it was the same color.

So last night we finally bit the bullet and tried our very first all-grain batch here in our tiny apartment. And believe it or not, I think it worked. In fact we actually ended up a few points above the gravity I was aiming for, though we undershot our mash temp by a few degrees (which as far as I understand it means we'll have less residual sugars and thinner mouthfeel from the finished beer... which considering it was our first time, I can more than live with). And in fact it was really pretty easy, quite a bit easier than I expected (batch sparging is the bomb-diggity, yo). Sure it took a little longer than extract brewing, but a fair amount of that time was spend watching Kids in the Hall episodes while we waited for stuff to finish what it was doing. And it was even kinda fun. Of course we had actually planned to brew on Sunday but ran into various problems (such as my starter not starting and a leaky cooler) so it was postponed to Monday night, which is not quite the most ideal time to brew. But we didn't too badly and as long as I get to bed early tonight I should be fine.

As for the beer itself it's supposed to be a dark mild (BJCP style 11A for those playing at home), but I'm not sure it's going to have the toastiness that it's supposed to since I couldn't find any pale chocolate malt. Might end up more like a Southern English Brown. And as of tonight it's happily bubbling away, which is fantastic. So anyway, I'm very pleased that it actually seems to have worked. Perhaps I'll remember to actually say if it turns out... after all, with beer this low in alcohol (it'll hit maybe 4% max - which is a little too strong for the style) it should be ready to bottle in a week. Woo hoo.

Matt on 12.04.07 @ 09:04 PM PST [link]  [3 Comments]

Juice:

• 4 Gallons Treetop Apple Juice
• 1 Gallon Mrs. Gooch's Natural Apple Juice

Yeast: 1 quart starter of White Labs WLP036 Dusseldorf Alt Yeast

OG: 1.053

So, this was mostly an experiment. I'm not necessarily planning on it turning out great or anything, but I thought it'd be worth trying. A couple meetings ago, one of the guys in QUAFF (by the name of Stan) brought in some really good cider that he had made using some strain of Belgian yeast or other and regular old Treetop apple juice from Costco. I was greatly impressed by it, especially considering its origins. So, seeing as I had a vial of Belgian Wit yeast lying around, and seeing that Treetop goes for about $3 a gallon at Costco (I also decided to fancy it up with a gallon of fancy natural juice from Whole Foods), I thought what the hey. Now, it actually turned out that the Belgian Wit yeast had been lying around a little longer than I thought and was, in fact, stone dead. But I also had a tube of Dusseldort Alt yeast of the same vintage so I went ahead and made a starter out of that (figuring that it might be a goner as well), and lo and behold I now have a happily bubbling carboy of cider which may or may not be any good.

I say may or may not because from what I've heard and read that your standard ale yeast doesn't make the best cider generally speaking, often turning out rather bland. But I'm not too worried, if its not great I'll just back sweeten/applen it with some fresh juice or concentrate or something, and hey it should come out around 7% alcohol, so after the first one who's going to mind? I was thinking of spicing it as well (which is what Stan did), but instead I think I'll leave it plain and mull it if I want the spice.

On another note, I've come to realize that I can probably put together 3 gallon batches of beer at home without having to truck all the way over to Cole's house on the occasions when he happens to be free and in the mood to brew, so I may be upping my brewing frequency in the near future. Hooray beer, indeed.

Matt on 11.20.07 @ 07:41 PM PST [link]  [1 Comment]

Happy Halloween! Woo!

No, I'm not drunk or anything. It's just a rather cheerful evening in our apartment tonight, so I thought hey, why not post a little something while I'm in a good mood for once? Part of my cheerfulness is definitely due to dinner. We had bratwurst, sauerkraut, some remarkably good garlic/sour cream/paprika mashed potatoes I somehow put together (there's about a 30% chance when I make mashed potatoes that they'll actually turn out really good... they're always edible, but sometimes I manage some tasty ones) and of course a bit of beer. You know, sometimes I'm fairly certain that there's pretty much nothing that beats German food. I mean, the apartment smells like heaven right now. Literally. In fact, I think the Norse had a way better conception of a desirable afterlife than all that stupid cloud-and-harp business. A big hall full of beer and sausages sounds way more my speed. (Of course, I'm also often convinced that there's nothing better than Japanese food, or Indian food, or...) And we have chocolate peanut-butter pie for dessert! w00t!

Other than that we're not really doing anything much for the holiday... just pumpin' the JoyE. We may put on a spooky movie of some sort later, I'm not sure. Lynnea actually dressed up in her usual pink fairy costume for work today, which she always loves to do. My little H broke though, so I couldn't do my usual costume of a hologram from Red Dwarf. I did wear a little foam bat slap bracelet (not a slap bracelet with bats on it, oh no! rather the whole bracelet is shaped like a bat!) and nobody at work said anything about it. I mean not one single word. It was remarkable.

Anyway, that's all I really have to say other than that I hope everybody out there is having a fun night. Yay, Halloween!

Matt on 10.31.07 @ 08:46 PM PST [link]  [3 Comments]