Last Friday marked the start of a new beginning for me in the brewing world. If you followed my last post you would know that I haven’t brewed in quite a while because of my lack of space. Some of you may say that there is always ample room, heck the guy at the homebrew store told me he brewed 5 gallon batches in a fox hole while he was in Vietnam…So I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Regardless, the room I have isn’t sufficient to brew the way I like to brew. So I’ve been doing some research and decided to give brewing 1 gallon batches a try. I feel there are two major bonuses to this. I can really test and try ingredients, in small amounts to see what they are really like, and it allos me to do all grain batches to begin preparing myself that eventual all grain cross over.

Small Amounts = More Knowledge

If your like me you desire superior knowledge in everything you do. You want to be the best and you won’t stop until you are. One reason I’m excited to get on board with these one gallon batches is it limits the ingredients that I can use. Typically, I use 1 to 3 grains and 1 kind of hops. This will, hopefully, allow me to really zero in on specific characteristics of certain ingredients.

Going All Grain…Kinda

When brewing one gallon of beer I can finally go all grain because I’m using between 2 and 3 pounds of grain, which fits very well in my 4 gallon pot. This is a great baby step towards the extra time and processes that are incurred when you decide to go all grain. Plus, I hear it makes better beer than extracts, even though I’ve had some tasty extracts…

Enough about that though. Let’s talk about my batch.

Here is the recipe.

Mike’s NW Pale Ale

Malts:

2 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt

.25 lbs 2 Row Caramel Malt 60L

Hops:

All Centennial (Its going to be a little hoppy for the style, but its the Pacific Northwest and I could only by 2 oz at a time.)

.25 oz First Wort Hopping

.15 oz (60 min)

.25 oz (10 min)

.35 oz (1 min)

.25 oz (Flame Out)

.75 oz (Dry Hop 1 Week)

Yeast:

Safale US-05 (Half packet)

Directions:

Bring 144 oz of water up to 150 – 155 degrees and drop your grain in to start the mash. I lost 10 to 12 degrees when I dropped mine in. So I’ll adjust for that next time. After and hour, pull the bag out and into a strainer over the wort and pour 112 oz of 170 to 180 degree water over the top to rinse the grain and finalize conversions. Be sure to do your best to pour slowly and not splash any wort at this point. Hot side aeration is bad!!!

Boil for 60 minutes adding hops along the way.

Cool down as fast as you can. I just put a lid on mine and put in the freezer for 120 minutes. Not ideal, but my sink leaks water and a wort chiller is not a possibility.

Rehydrate and pitch yeast. Ferment the hell out of it.

A Couple of Notes:

1. The go into the first time trying this with an open mind and know it isn’t going to be perfect. I have about 4 things I need to pay attention to next time.

2. One gallon batches prove to have their own challenges. However, cleaning and working with 1 gallon is much easier than 5.

3. It isn’t that expensive to do this. Cost me just under $60 to get the 2, one gallon glass jugs and enough class to bottle 1 gallon, along with grain bags, ingredients and a new mini auto siphon.

4. It takes just as much time to do 1 gallon as it does 5…heck as long as it does to do 7 barrels with the right equipment.

5. Learn your gear. I started with 1.6 gallons and I still ended up topping off my jug with 6 cups of water. I’ll start with 2 gallons next time. I’ve go my boil off somewhat calculated now.

To make a long story short. I’m very excited about this. I’m going to ripping up some 1 gallon batches for a while to learn my ingredients better and to hopefully develop some new, personal, recipes that I really like and can share with you. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Has anyone else done any experiments lately or brewed up one gallon batches?

Cheers!

I started brewing beer a couple of years ago with so much drive and motivation I had more beer than I would ever be able to drink. I got SO into brewing beer that I thought for SURE I would never give up homebrewing. It is just to darn fun, tasty and interesting. Alas, things changed for me.

Don’t get my wrong. I am by NO means quitting brewing beer, but I have to say that since I haven’t brewed a thing in over 6 months, I’m officially on a hiatus from brewing. Let me tell you why.

Brewing beer is by far one of the most fun things I have ever done. I enjoy pretty much every aspect of a good brew day, especially the beer . But I recently found a breaking point. I found a point as to where it just isn’t fun and pretty much turns into a super chore for the day.

I live in a tiny, 2 bedroom corner unit apartment that just doesn’t have the space I’d like for brewing. Let me walk you through a couple scenarios here.

1. Take a look at this storage area for my brewing gear. I have been sequestered to using our spare closet that my cats shit and piss in to store my gear. Yea, that’s a great place to store gear that is used to make edible drinks that are highly susceptible to infections right? So basically this means that when I want to brew, not only do I litterally have to dig out every single piece of gear, but I have to go and clean it first. Sure, you must clean your gear before you brew regardless, but the level of cleaning is much different when you know your cats shit and piss in this room and there is SO much cat litter dust on your gear it makes me sick. I cannot, and will not give someone, one of my beers saying, here is where I store my gear. Gross.

2. Aside from that, when I take the gear into the kitchen to clean, I’m forced to work in a tiny little area that doesn’t allow me much breathing room. I’ve used my tub as well, which is all the way across the apartment to clean. Brewing in the small kitchen isn’t to bad. I’ve got stove, a big sink and a couple of different levels for gravity moving the beer. So I won’t complain to much about that. Except for when it comes to chilling my wort. Did I mention my sink doesn’t hold water and the water temp only goes down to about 70? Again, I’ve tried the bath tub, which works to an extent. Good enough that if I actually wanted to brew, I’d make it work.

3. Last but not least, where my beer ferments. This tiny little closet, that as you can see is full of junk, is where my pretty little beer gets to have its private time. This is the only closet that isn’t packed with a bunch of stuff we are storing for our first house and is the only walls that are not outside apartment walls. I cannot control my fermentation temperature at all. I don’t have any AC or central air here so I suffer from 10 to 20 degree temp swings depending on the weather. Babysitting my fermentation, especially without the right equipment to keep a consistent temperature is a chore I do not want to endure.

As you can see, I suffer from many challenges that I personally can’t overcome. I want to brew beer, but I have so much knowledge about the process and expect my beer to only get better, unless of course we have accidents or experiments, that I can’t, in my right mind, brew here. I’ll be tossing batches left and right because they won’t turn out due to infection, high fermentation temps and so forth. Plus the fact that each brew day consists of two full shifts of getting gear out, washing, then washing and putting gear away right of way has just turned my favorite hobby into a nightmare chore.

But alas! I am not quitting, I’m just on hiatus. I’ve been spending a bit of time with a local brew pub, learning from their brewmaster anything he will show/tell me. I have plans to check out a hop farm this summer and I’m starting to get some exposure to the Oregon Brewers Guild. Oh, and all my birthday and x-mas money is secretly being socked away for an All-Grain system as soon as we purchase that home.

So please, feel free to still contact me in regards to brewing. I love talking about it and I really need someone to live vicariously through while I suffer in my Portland shanty.

Cheers everyone.

I know I’ve been focusing more on sharing first time homebrewing stories with everyone in hopes of inspiring those people that aren’t doing it yet to do it, and those of you that haven’t in a while to get to it!

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Beer Tools. For those of you unfamiliar with what Beer Tools is, it’s software that assists pro brewers and home brewers a like to design recipes. I haven’t dug to far into it, but I can tell you that any serious homebrewer needs to get this. It has a lot of features, recipes and information that can take your homebrewing recipes and organization up to the next level. Plus, its a modest $30, so well worth it in my opinion.

Sometime in the future, I’ll see if I can get a screen capture software and dig into it with you so you can see it. Until then, why don’t you just grab a free trial?

Anyway, so with this new tool I decided to finally take a stab at making my own brew recipe. Check out the video to see what’s up. I’ll post the recipe below.

Overall, I think it turned out decent. Many things could be better and one of them is getting myself some space to get a fermentation fridge. I can’t control my temperature in my space without it and I’m pretty sure it would take my taste up to a new level.

Download Mike’s Porter Recipe

It’s finally here! My first e-book and you bet your ass it was about beer! What else would it be about? Birds?

Seriously though, this has been a bit of a journey for me. When I started to think about brewing my own beer over 2 years ago, I was nervous, didn’t want to spend the money, had no idea what I was in for and had no one to really ask without feeling stupid about it. I figured, if I felt that way, there has to be a bunch of other people out there feeling the same way. So, if you are thinking about starting to homebrew, this is for you.

Watch the video to find out more or read on.

My free e-book, “Start Brewing Beer with Extracts” lays it all out for you. We discuss everything you’ll need to know about that first batch of homebrewed beer, that you make and enjoy. It is a lot easier and cheaper than you think. All you need is some time. This book covers it all.

• Why I Decided to Homebrew
• Homebrew Start Kits, who sells them, how much and what you get
• Extract Kits – what’s in them and why they are a good place to start
• Brewing Day – step by step what is to be expected of you along with some tips

• Fermentation – what’s going on inside that fermentor and what you can occupy your time with
• Bottling Day – what you’ll have to do, sanitation practices, tips and more
• Drinking that first beer
• Readings
• Checklists and recipe forms
• And some words from other first time homebrewers.

I’m not going to ramble on about it. If you are thinking about starting to homebrew, this is a great place to start! Check it out!

Also, if you need any assistance, questions, comments, concerns or whatever, shoot me a message and we’ll tackle it together!

Good luck and I’ll be checking up on you!

Cheers!

This weekend I brewed up my first batch of beer in a few months. With the move, limited space and lack of cash, I’ve had to hold off on brewing. However, the New Year brings new hope! So I brewed up a batch. Instead of writing about it to much, I made a video diary of the brew day for you. Check it out to get an idea of what brew day was like. I had some ups and downs. The main problem I had was the fact that I didn’t remember that my wort chiller has no tubes on it, so it was worthless. On top of that, I found out my sink doesn’t put out cold water, just warm and hot. So my ice bath melted right of way. I ended up covering it up and putting it in the fridge for 5 hours. All in all, I think its going to be ok. Fermentation started within 12 hours.

Aside from this being my first batch in Portland, it was the first batch I made with a custom recipe. Jesse, a reader of MBR gave me a porter recipe through Facebook. Also, this last week, Beer Tools hooked me up with a free copy of their software to check out. So I took the recipe into Beer Tools and made a few alterations and additions. I’ve got a Baltic Porter by style, but I decided to add in some Nestle Cocoa. I’ve never used Cocoa in homebrewing so this should be interesting. I did some research and decided to put 10 TBSP, in 5 gallons. The wort was a bit sweet, but I’m hoping my other ingredients will come together and meld it out and all I get is some chocolate. I’ll keep you up to date on that. It was an experiment and one of the best ways to learn right?

Here is the recipe. If it turns out good, I’ll edit it and get a link together for you guys to download if you want. Otherwise, check out the video to see more detail about the brew day.

Mike’s Porter (Working Title LOL)

Speciality Grains:

8 oz Domestic Black Patent Malt

8 oz North American Crystal Malt 60 L

8 oz Chocolate Malt

Fermentables

7 lbs Amber LME

1 lbs Light DME

Hops

1 oz Fuggle 4.0 AA (60 min)

.5 oz Willamette 7.6 AA (30 min)

.5 oz Willamette 7.6 AA (10 min)

1 oz Willamette 7.6 AA (5 min)

Yeast

Safale US-05

Adjuncts

10 Tbsp Nestle Unsweetened Cocoa (30 min)

Directions

The usual. Steeped at 155 degrees or so for 20 minutes, then added in all my fermentables. Bring up to a boil and add the hops after the hot break. Add the hops during the schedule above. Tossed in 10 Tbsp of Cocoa at 30 minutes into the boil. Cooled it down to 70 ish degrees and pitch my yeast.

Your house smells of a fantastic brew, boiling a way in your kettle. Your primary is awaiting the glorious pour of freshly brewed wort and you are anxiously awaiting pitching your yeast and watching fermentation take off. What, wait…your smack pack is not inflating or you accidentally knocked your starter over and spilled all of your yeast on the floor…Your wort is almost ready to go…what do you do?

Rehydrate yeast. Rehydrating yeast is a pretty simple thing to do that can maintain quality in your beer. Dry yeast is not always the first yeast of choice. The strains of yeast are somewhat limited, but there is no reason you can’t and shouldn’t use them. I prefer to use them in standard beers like a Pale Ale. But the main advice I can give to anyone who brews, is to keep a package or two of dry yeast on hand. They are small and keep really well in a fridge. If it just so happens that one of the above scenarios or something else should happen, you can still get your beer fermenting without skipping a beat.

It’s not always the main consideration, but dry yeast is cheap. Less than $2 a package, which can save you a few bucks every batch of beer. You sacrifice choice, as I mentioned before because of the lack of different strains, but if your recipe is simple or doesn’t need something special, dry yeast is a good choice.

Why Do I Need To Rehydrate Yeast

In my first batch of beer I ever made, I had a package of Muton’s dry yeast. When I was ready to pitch, I just sprinkled my yeast on top of the wort and waited. Waited, waited and waited. I waited 6 days before anything happened. Sure there are other factors involved with this. My brewing practice at the time, outdated ingredients or yeast could be the culprit as well. But what I do know is had I rehydrated my yeast, I would have either known they were no good or would have had a quicker starting fermentation.

In dry form, yeast are dormant awaiting to be awakened to help you make some beer. By rehydrating the yeast, you wake them up and get their metabolism going. When you just pitch into the wort you run the risk of the yeast not being able to rehydrate because the high concentration of sugars in the wort can make absorbing water difficult. That is probably part of the reason my first brew took 6 days to get started fermenting.

Rehydrate yeast, they will thank you for it.

How To Rehydrate Yeast