Final Update For 2015

Brew-wise its been a whirl-wind fall of collecting and cleaning long lost gear, configuring the home microbiology lab and generally re-learning what had in the past almost been muscle memory, but the first batch is safely in the bottle and conditioning. This is always a relief even if I did manage to waste nearly a gallon (about 10 bottles) by not giving a siphon hose the attention it deserved; gravity, damn gravity! So far no signs of contamination.

Fortunately, all of the old gear was still functional although I did miss my kegging system at several points along the way (being able to gas purge carboys and do pressure transfers, doing secondaries and dry hopping in stainless, etc.). The only new gear of any significance was a couple of PETE carboys to try out and help free-up the glass for a future mead run.

Brewery status as of today:

1) Boar Snout Amber Ale (my everyday house ale): in the bottle and due for a first taste on January 16, 2016.

2) Son of Weihenstephan Dunkelweizen (my seasonal dark weissbier clone): is in the secondary fermenter and smelling spectacular. We shall see.

3) Culture and freeze-down of Wyest Labs #1007 and #3068: German Ale #1007 is my go to house ale strain for many different beer styles. It is of low flocculation but high attenuation making for vigorous quick-start pitches and clean after-taste. Alcohol tolerance is up to 11%. Weihenstephan #3068 is rumored to have originated from the Weihenstephan brewery (circa 1040) although after all of that time I doubt it could be of the exact same genetic background. It has a similar profile to #1007 but in the presence of wheat malt and with proper pitch rate and fermentation temperature will produce the classic ester flavor profile (particularly the clove-like taste) that weissbiers are known for. As with all Wyest products both strains were clean and I now have several vials in the chest freezer to get me through 2016. I will be missing access to an ultralow freezer for long-term archiving.

Skol!

Yeast Culturing

Basic yeast culture for homebrewing is a bit more complicated these days as I'm no longer a bench scientist working in the lab. Gone are the days of autoclaving media at work and being able to archive strains in the ultra-low freezer for years on end. I've had to make do at home with surplus glassware I've collected over the years and my backpacking stove doubling as a Bunsen burner. For now I'll be keeping my two main brewing strains on agar tube slants in the frig for short term use and backup vials in the chest freezer for long term storage.

First Brew In Nearly Ten Years!!

(Full Mash Amber Ale; Sam Adams Boston Ale Clone). I took a rare picture-perfect Sunday to finally get my brewing legs back under me and do a batch of my house amber after nearly ten years of inactivity. I should have been out on the trail or on my bike but all of the ingredients were in store and the yeast pitch was at full kraeusen so it absolutely had to be done.

Things came back to me fairly quickly although it was a bit different working with 6-row malt in comparison to all my past experience with 2-row (the initial dough-in was a bit scary as all of my volumes were way off).

It was nice to have the scent of hops and malt in the air as the weather was perfect in temperature with no wind. As I now brew exclusively in my garage I need to keep wind in mind as it is a potential contamination source.

And as of this morning the primary is showing good yeast activity so we'll be keeping fingers crossed for the rest of the week. Once this is in the bottle I'll be posting a complete analysis/run-down.

The Reinheitsgebot; Live It! Breath It!

Things are moving along slowly in my attempt to re-enter the home brewing hobby. For my first batch, I've decided to concentrate on pulling off a good run of my old daily staple beer: Boar Snout Amber. This is a basic but rich pale ale reminiscent of Sam Adams Boston Ale.  I figure it will be best to have a few cases of this in bottle for the early winter as I contemplate a couple of specialty ale recipies for after the holidays.

I just got in an order from my old hop supplier, Fresh Hops. In the inventory was 8 oz of 2015 Cascade (8.2% alpha acid), my main bittering hop; 4 oz of Mt. Hood-2014 (7.5%) and 4 oz of Willamette-2014 (5.1%) both for aroma hopping. I actually prefer Hallertau for this but it doesn't appear to be available anymore. In the past I would put in my yearly order in the late fall to take advantage of their new harvest. But now that their storage bags are oxygen free, it looks like they sell certain hops from the previous year's vintage. We will see what the quality is like.

I'll definitely be missing my stainless steel kegging system and being able to do my secondary and tertiary fermentations in steel and transferring under CO2. But no matter. They were making very good beers for centuries even before the invention of the thermometer so no need to be worrying about this sort of thing now. I plan to concentrate on the simple things I can control like the yeast pitch and quality of ingredients. I've always tried to stay as close to the Reinheitsgebot or German beer purity law as I could. I states that beer can only be made from water, malt, and hops. Generally that's all I include although for my Boar Snout Ale I do use "clean" adjuncts like white rice to boost the alcohol content and Irish Moss to help with the hot break. I just pulled out for review my old copy of Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer". Although I'm not a lager brewer this book contains one of the best technical descriptions of the all grain mashing process around and is very useful for the ale brewer.

Now to start analyzing my very hard well water!

A New Beginning

Welcome to the Oak and Iron Nano-brewery blog. I am planning to make this my weblog for documenting my future home brewing activities. I began brewing in the late 1980s, just before the microbrewery revolution really hit hard in the mid-Atlantic region. Back then the only unique craft beers that could be found were mostly from California (Anchor Steam, various Sierra Nevada offerings, etc.). And these tended to be fairly expensive. I began brewing not just to save money but for the quiet satisfaction of knowing that the beer I drank regularly was made with my own two hands. It also helped to have a scientific background specifically in microbiology which made sanitation practices and yeast culture a bit less daunting.

I followed the normal transition that many home brewers do today; malt extract brewing from a kit followed by enhancements to the boil and fermentation set ups, eventually incorporating specialty grains and then finally going "full brewer" via whole grain mashes following Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Home Brewing like it was the bible. I bought stuff from my local brew store, The Flying Barrel,  originally operated by Bob Frank in Frederick, MD. I also attended meetings of the local brew club, F.O.A.M back when it really didn't have a name but consisted of local home brewers who would meet at Bob's stall in an antique emporium.

Competitions began in 1989 when I entered a Porter in the Great Frederick Fair. Back then they didn't have a dedicated home brew category but would take entries under their wine category, sub-heading "barley wine". I took second that year and the die was cast. Shortly after I had to leave the area and in 1990 decided to enter my first national competition, The American Homebrewer's Association National meeting. That year I only got a bronze (27/50) for my Boar Snout Amber mainly because I submitted it to the wrong category. Because I used white rice in the mash to boost alcohol content, I put it into the Specialty Category. Big mistake since this was the category for the odd styles/ingredients. However the highlight of that entry was having it judged by Papazian himself! I returned to the area in 1991. By then the Frederick Fair had a dedicated home brew category and I entered my Boar Snout Amber. It took first place and Best of Show earning a perfect 20/20 score! From then on this was my standard house ale.

After that, life became complicated. The kids came along, work became more complex, and life just got in the way. I sold off my kegging system but kept the basic gear for doing all grain mashes. The years flew by with only an occasional batch of my beloved house amber and a yearly dunkelweizen to celebrate the change of seasons.

But a few weeks ago, a local brewer asked if I could help out with one of his home brew classes at our local beer fest. It was great to be in a large crowd of beer aficionados again, something I hadn't done since the early 1990s. It got me thinking; beer prices are creeping up again. I tend to eat low carb so I only drink an occasional beer on the weekends. Why not dust off the gear and get back in the game?

So stay tuned. I just put in my first order to Fresh Hops in about fifteen years (thank goodness they still are in business). And I'll need to start collecting ingredients. But if all goes well, i should have something bubbling in the basement for Christmas. Or at least that's the plan (maybe New Years).
 
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