South Union Brewing Update

Well winter has finally passed and sadly we had no spring this year which stinks because spring brewing is the best! Last weekend I was finally able to find time to brew and was able to do so out doors! I have found that my switch to all grain has resulted in a much better home brewing product however it also takes a lot more time. This winter when it was so cold I had to modify my brew day and do a lot of it in doors. This means I was running in between the basement,the kitchen and outside and it was taking me 6 to 8 hours to brew a batch. When I was able to move everything outside the other day I got it all done in four hours!

My brewing setup all in one place outside where it belongs

So my brew day Saturday night went smoothly I brewed a Copper Ale which gets its name form the rich copper color it has. It will be a nicely hopped ale with additions of Cascade and Willamette hops. It should be a perfect summer beer!

Here it is boiling in the kettle.


I have also been busy ordering supplies for summer brewing. I am looking forward to brewing a lot of nice refreshing easy drinking beers this summer! On deck right now I have a Saison,La Petite Ala Orange is making a return appearance and a double batch of Raspberry Wheat! I brewed the La Petite this winter and Loved it so I wanted to do it again. Also I made a batch of the Raspberry Wheat last summer and two cases vanished in a matter of days so this time I am going to double up on it and add a bit more Raspberries to.

My beer fridge has more grain in it than it does drinkable beer right now!

On tap right now is a Belgian Triple which I have been talking a lot about lately! This was by far the biggest beer most complex beer I have made to date! It took close to four months of aging to become drinkable and I am still wondering if it needs more time. I would say the ABV is close to eight or nine percent meaning one or two of these and you really need to sit down or have a nap. When you taste this beer upfront it has a nice Caramel taste and then leaves a warm alcohol/booze feeling all over your tongue. I had a mug the other night and when I finally got to the bottom of the glass it was warm. What I tasted at the point reminded me of a very smooth sipping whisky??? I am not into strong beers but it was fun to brew and it will to nice to have around and age a bit! Hopefully I have some around this fall because it will be perfect drinking by then.

A picture of the Triple and check out my brewery label on the bottle! Thanks Dad!

Looking a week or two ahead I should be able to find time to turn out another batch as well as bottle the copper ale. I am also looking forward to once again raising the bar quality wise some newly acquired equipment! I just I ordered a few pieces of lab equipment so now I have two Erlenmeyer flasks and a stir plate. This will allow me to grow stronger and healthier brewing yeast which is the back bone of every great beer. By making a simple yeast starter and leaving it on the stir plate for 12 hours you can double your yeast cell count. Having a large amount of healthy yeast to add to your beer at fermentation will give you a stronger fermentation and leads to a cleaner better tasting beer.

Here is the stir plate in action. A magnetic stir bar  is placed in the bottom of the flask. Magnets in the stir plate rotate the stir bar causing a vortex in the flask. This vortex or spinning keeps the yeast in suspension and gives them a steady supply of oxygen so the cells can multiply. Having a large healthy population of yeast is key to making great beer!

Well that about does it for this update! I cant wait until the next brew day and until then cheers!!!! 

                                                                   

South Union Brewing goes Belgian

So as you can see from the picture on the right my first all grain brew an Amber Ale is close to bottling! I moved it into the fridge tonight to cold crash it for a few days before bottling it. Cold crashing is when you cool the beer down between 30 and 40 degrees and keep it this way for 3 to 5 days. Cold crashing causes the particulates in the beer to drop out and gives you a better looking finished product. After all this isn't Coors and I cant afford a million dollar cold filtering system so this method will have to do for now! So when will this beer be ready I will say 2 to 3 weeks from Sunday. I am hoping this turns out well for my first all grain beer. 

So whats up next you may ask and if not I am going to tell you anyway! I am going on a Belgian brewing binge!!! I love Belgian beers they are complex in taste,easy drinking and they tend to have a higher alcohol content this is an added bonus and not my reason for brewing this style. Also there is no denying Belgian yeast strains make great beers!!! 

So tonight I hopped online and ordered my next 2 kits. The first is kit is La Petite Orange here is the description right from the website    

 A Belgian Dubbel without the deep dark chocolate maltiness, the Orangé is rich with caramel sweetness and a full body that hides the 6.1% ABV very well.  

So think of this as Fat Tire only its not brown it will much lighter in color like amber or orange! With this brew I will also be adding crushed Coriander and orange zest to the boil to enhance the over all flavor of the beer.

The last beer is a Belgian Tripel which is a pale yellow brew with nice hop flavors and high alcohol content! This is one of my favorite styles  and I have been wanting to brew this for a while now. I had to wait to brew this one because all grain is the only way to do this beer justice. All the pieces are coming together now I cant wait to fire up my kettle and fill up my empty fridge with great home brews!!!! 

South Union Brewing goes all grain

Well one year later it is safe to say that Home brewing will be a life long obsession of mine. After a year of kicking tires and brewing 45 gallons of extract beer I decided it was time to take it to the next level. So 3 long weeks of getting all the pieces together I finally have a decent all grain set up that will some day allow me to brew with exception of the kettle 10 gallons at a time vs the 5 I do now. 

My new system contains the following an 8.5 gallon stainless stockpot, a 10 gallon water cooler or as brewers call it a hot liquor tank for storing hot water, and a 70 quart Coleman extreme cooler or mash tun for soaking your grains. To start I removed all of the drains on the coolers and replaced them with 1/2" ball valves this allows you to easily transfer hot liquids from place to place in a nice controlled manner without burning yourself!   

A picture of the stainless steel braid used
to filter water out of the grains in the mash tun.

My first brew a multi grain amber ale  taught me a lot. For one make sure you have a good thermometer the one I was using was way off and I was 3/4 of the way though my brew day before I realized this! Keeping everything at the right temp at the right time is key to making great tasting beer. I was so worried the bad thermometer readings might have ruined the batch. But in the end when I took my readings it was only off .004 which is awesome for my first stab at all grain.

Here are the crushed grains and
hops I used for my first brew

So the next phase of worry was when I transferred it to my glass carboy for fermentation.This recipe used a liquid British ale yeast which I had shipped to me in a kit from Northern Brewer. When you have yeast shipped there is always the possibility that the shipping will kill it all off. So after adding the yeast I tossed and turned all night hoping that it was good. I spent close to 6 hours from start to finish brewing this beer yesterday so it would of been a giant waste of effort if I had to dump it because of bad yeast! When I got home from work tonight I was pleasantly surprised and found a good strong fermentation in full swing! Now we just have to wait a long 6 weeks and then finally there will be home brew back in the fridge once again!                                                    

A picture of the fermentation  in full swing! 

South Union Brewing goes on hiatus

As we speak my good friend for life Ross Anderson is en route to help me bottle my batch of Speckled Heifer. This was my second attempt at this beer it is a partial mash cream ale that is a clone of the popular New Glarus  Brewing's Spotted Cow. While their beer and my first attempt at it were bright yellow. (like it should be) my second attempt is amber in color!! I took a little different approach from the directions and instead of using a mesh bag to mash my grains I went head first and dumped the grains in the water then mashed and sparged using a strainer. This made the gravity of the beer skyrocket and thus I  think I will have a beer that has a lot more body and color to it than it really should. No worries here though that's what this is all about it you win some and lose some.
It is also with a very heavy heart that I have to announce I will be taking a break from brewing for the next few months. With the holidays coming up and other obligations I just wont have the time that this hobby deserves. But no worries I plan to resume brewing some time after Christmas. I was really pumped to brew a batch for my family's Christmas but sadly that's just is not going to happen. Just writing this is depressing me but hopefully after the holidays I can come back with some upgraded equipment and take my brewing to the next level. Until then Cheers and get out and drink as many different beers as you can! These are exciting times we live in and there is great fresh beer coming from new brewery's every where! ENJOY THEM!

And so it goes

Wow I have not posted since April? That cant be right can it? Any way the adventures in brewing continue and I have been able to brew a few beers during the summer. I also joined the IBU or Iowa Brewers Union. This is the local home brew club here in Des Moines. I hope that my club experiences will help me become a better brewer. I look forward to the monthly meetings which are a lot like AA only in reverse. About 50 people show up so there is lots of other home brews to try and the conversation is always informative!

Most of the beers I made this summer were good one was great and one was meh. The main thing is not to lose focus and try harder next time and thats how brewing goes when your just getting started. I am really starting to learn my system and with a few tweaks here and there I feel that soon I can brew consistently good beers. So far for 2012 I have 8 batches under my belt for a grand total of 40 gallons! Yesterday while recovering from an unplanned and very painful dental procedure I found the strength to bottle my 8th batch. This beer is an extract kit from Northern Brewer called Lefse blonde. It is loosely based on a recipe that was supposedly brewed in Lutheran monasteries in Minnesota. Fact or fiction I think this is going to be a nice easy drinking beer. Next up is Speckled Heifer which is an clone of Spotted Cow A popular cream ale that is only available in Wisconsin it will be my second brewing this one. This is a partial mash kit so the brewing process is a little more involved and thus I am waiting for the right time to brew it.

As for the beers I made this summer the one that was meh it was a Honey Weizen. Adding honey to beers will give it a dry wine like finish. While this brew has that then it quickly vanishes and leaves a very blah after taste. I have thought about bringing to the next club meeting and see if someone can tell me what went wrong!  The other brew that was fantastic a simply American Wheat extract kit that I aged on a bed of frozen Great Value brand frozen Raspberry's man that was good! Its almost gone so I will have to brew another batch soon! I also brewed a Rye P.A. which I thought was great but a few club members thought it needed more Rye however they also said it tasted good the way it was. The sad part was this beer was also a bit over carbonated and the bottles had some hop flakes in them as well. This batch taught me a lot of valuable lessons about quality control. Even with those issues it turned out to be a pretty solid beer and it has a great hoppy taste to it so we will put this in the win column as well!

So where does my journey take me next? Well I really want to start kegging my beers sometime this winter as bottling beer by hand SUCKS! That will be a big investment for me but will also be a time saver as bottling can take 4 to 5 hours and you don't have to wait 2 to 3 week to drink it like you do when you bottle! I am also looking at 10 gallon brew kettle so I can make larger batches. Right now I am limited to 5 gallons batches but with a 10 gallon pot I can brew 5 gallons for me and 5 gallons for you. I think this will be a lot better than what I have going on now. I say this because the best part of home brewing to me is sharing and most of the time there just is not enough to go around. One other benefit of having a 10 gallon kettle is that I can finally move to all grain brewing and from there the sky's the limit! All grain brewing will let me not only brew a lot higher quality of beer but also wider variety of beers as well!  Until the next time CHEERS!

Wow what a busy week here at South Union Brewing having a week off has been very good for getting things done! Last Saturday I started my week off right with a tour of Peace Tree Brewing in Knoxville. http://www.peacetreebrewing.com/

Peace Tree is located in downtown Knoxville in an old Nash Rambler dealership. The brewery takes its name after a tree that is now half submerged in Lake Red Rock. It was a meeting spot for Indian tribes back when they controlled what is now Iowa. They have just celebrated there 2 year anniversary on march 17th. I will have to say they have a very impressive operation for there size which I believe was 20 Barrels I could be wrong it seemed like a little more than that. There brew house had 4 glycol chilled fermentors which says there very interested in Turning out a high quality product. Most brewery's this size don't have this  kind of set up. There brew house was running at full capacity every tank was full! Also let it be noted that the sound of bubbling fermentors was competing with our tour guides voice this is the most beautiful sound ever!!

A shot of the 4 Chilled temp controlled fermentors

Now I was shocked to see there fermentors but what really blew me away was every beer geeks dream! Peace tree has a lot of barrel aging going on in there brew house right now! There were at least 2 types of barrels they were using. A small set of Rum Barrels from Cedar Ridge distillery and a bunch of Templeton Rye barrels. The T.R. Barrels are full of Red Rambler and will be released in July  I cannot wrap my taste buds around this!! We also got to sample there Rye Porter which had been aged in bourbon barrels for 1year it was FANTASTIC!!!

Look at all those barrels!

After the tour we spent some time in there tap room which is a nice place to sit back on sip on there selection of beers. I would love to go back and spend a late afternoon/evening there it has a great atmosphere. You may  be asking yourself  is this worth the drive? The answer is YES!

A shot of  the tap room

And a picture of the rowdies who came with me 

And this is where the magic happens!

After the brewery tour we came back to Des Moines I invited my travel companions over and we liberated my beer fridge of  the Kolsch that was taking up space. Since the kolsch is gone now that means South Union Brewing has space to fill up with new beers!! This week off game me plenty of time to do just that!!  I got my Surly Cynic Saison bottled this week and brewed 2 more beers.The partial mash Spotted Cow clone from Norther Brewer and a Honey Wiezen. Here are a few pictures of  Saturdays brew day.

Speckled Heifer boiling away 

My wort chiller in action

And of course the brew master with his lovely assistant brewers

Well there is sure to be lots of racking and bottling in the days hopefully the end product will be well worth the time and effort until next time CHEERS!

Thought I would give a little update! Next week I am taking a much needed vacation!  Federal regulations state that I must take a week away once a year and well my week has arrived! I will be kicking off my Vacation by taking a tour of Peace Tree Brewing in Knoxville so look for a Blog on that. I also plan on brewing my Speckled Heifer Kit from Northern Brewer. Last but not least I ordered 2 more kits tonight both from Northern Brewer. The first is a Rye PA which is now my new favorite style of beer. Founders Brewing which is new to Iowa as of last week makes a great Rye PA.  (you can pick it up at your local Hy Vee). I also ordered a Honey Wiezen Kit this should make for a nice easy drinking beer on a hot summer day. I can't wait to get them brewing !  CHEERS!!!