A Starting Point

Hello Everyone

Happy Leap Day to you all. Today is a day to be excited about. We are all currently working on preparations for our first Competition Season. This will be our first opportunity to have our beers judged to see how they stack up against other brews from around the North West. There are several competitions that we are looking to enter into. The AleChemist Challenge, Sasquatch Brewfest and a Heart of the Valley Homebrewers competition through Calapooia Brewing.

The first competition is the AleChemist Challenge through Corvallis Brewing Supply. The recipe this year is for a Biere de Garde which is a traditional Farmhouse ale from Northern France. Typically these beers were brewed in early spring and then aged until the warmer summer months. Today is a very fitting day to be brewing this beer. We awoke to snow on the ground and it has continued throughout the day. I was thinking about how the early Brewers in France would be feeling when they created these beers. It seems to me that they would be thinking ahead to the summer. Longing for the warmth and cheer of the sun once it returned from it's southerly wanderings. This being the last day in February with several months remaining until we see the sun again I too am daydreaming of the days of warmth.

The beer that I have chosen to brew is called The Garde-ian. It is a strong Blonde that I am hoping will come in around 7.5-8% ABV. It should have a sweet, malt dominated flavor with just a hint of Magnum hops to balance it out. The Garde-ian will be aged on French Oak chips while in the secondary to bring out a barrel-aged character in the final product. I am planning on bottling the entire batch and cellaring them all until mid-summer or so. I look forward to carefully guarding these beers so they may develop into their full potential.

I will be entering The Garde-ian into all three competitions and we will be brewing several more batches of different styles soon to enter as well. We will keep you updated on the upcoming brews and the competition results as we get them. Don't be discouraged, the sun will return soon enough. Until then enjoy a pint and see what you can find..

Peace
Travis

Double Batch Day. Biere De Garde & Imperial IPA

So I started my brew day Saturday night. I was doing some reading on the White Labs website about their Yeast. Which I'm sure many of you dont know White Labs(from Hood River) is the company who produces of the yeast we use currently to ferment our beer. They suggest you create a yeast starter for any beer with an Original Gravity over 1.060. They suggest this for a faster and healthier fermentation of your beer, so that you get the best tasting finished product and a full fermentation.  This starter is supposed to give the yeast enough sugar to reproduce and make more yeast cells to handle a beer with an Original Gravity over 1.060. Both the beers I brewed today had an O.G. of 1.078 and 1.076. Sorry for the long winded explanation but I hope it helps if you know nothing about brewing beer or yeast. If you are confused please leave a comment and we will answer your questions to the best of out abilities. With that said. More pictures!

Here are all my supplies needed for the brew day. About 30 pounds of grains in the bucket and the bag behind it. 

 Here is a photo of our Hot Liquor being heated. Hot Liquor is really just water being heated to add to our Mash Tun for the extraction of sugars from the grains we add.

I was brewing most of the day by myself which was nice accept for the fact that I didn't take as many photos as I wanted to. Here is the Hot Liquor draining into our Mash Tun to preheat the mash tun to a specific temperature. I add 10 Gallons of Hot Liquor then after about 10 minutes I drain the water out to get my mash volume.

Here is my sidekick for part of the day. Kevin The Dog working really hard. He's a trooper. 

 I brewed the Imperial IPA first and man did it have a lot of hop additions. I ended up using 7 ounces of hops. The majority of the hops being Magnum hops which have and Alpha Acid percentage of 20.5% which if you dont know is really big. Making for a bitterly great beer. 

It ended up being a really long day of brewing for me especially since I'm recovering from a really gnarly cold... Things didn't quite go as I had planned. I ended up short on the Original Gravities for both of my beers. I think this is because I didn't achieve the boil off I had planned even though I had a very rigorous boil going for each hour long boil. As my Dad would say "I was close enough for horse shoes and hand grenades." Which is ok with me. After all I have to remind myself not to be too hard on myself first of all. And secondly I'm brewing beer for fun in a garage! Couldn't be any better. I plan to enter both of these beers when they are finished in a couple competitions that are coming up this spring. Hopefully I will get some good feed back from the judges and make adjustments to my process and recipes for the future. Cheers and don't forget to ask questions and add comments for feedback on the posts.

Barleycorn

I present to you, John Barleycorn.

A traditional English folk song. 

There were three men come from the [North]West*

Their fortunes for to try, 

And these three made a solemn vow: 

"John Barleycorn must die."

They plowed, they sowed, they harrowed him in,

Threw clods upon his head,

Till these three men were satisfied

John Barleycorn was dead.

They let him lie for a very long time, 

Till the rains from heaven did fall,

When little Sir John raised up his head

And so amazed them all.

They let him stand till Mid-Summer's Day

When he looked both pale and wan;

Then little Sir John grew a long, long beard

And so became a man.

They hired men with their scythes so sharp

To cut him off at the knee;

They rolled him and tied him around the waist, 

And served him barbarously.

They hired men with their sharp pitchforks

To pierce him to the heart,

But the loader did serve him worse than that, 

For he bound him to the cart.

They wheeled him round and around the field

Till they came unto a barn,

And there they took a solemn oath

On poor John Barleycorn.

They hired men with their crab-tree sticks

To split him skin from bone,

But the miller did serve him worse than that,

For he ground him between two stones.

There's little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl,

And there's [beer] in the glass*

And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl

Proved the strongest man at last.

The huntsmen cannot hunt the fox

Nor loudly blow his horn

And the tinker cannot mend his pots 

Without John Barleycorn.

*I took some liberties... North is not included in the original and beer is supposed to be brandy (they're both made from barley). 

Beer Post

This is just a test. I repeat. A test. Lets get some beer posts brewing!