Campfire Performance

Our next backpacking trip is just five short weeks away. Three days and 30 miles to finish up the Great Smoky Mountains. Here's a short video that suggests I should own a backpacking guitar or euk!

Cocoa Wood Porter

So, sadly I seem to be finding it near impossible to keep up with homework AND my blog. I would say "Well, priorities are a must!" but Sunday found me brewing for about five hours when I could have been blogging. In fairness, I did finish some work during the waiting portions of the brew (of which there are many). I also took some pics in hopes of getting something (ANYTHING) onto my blog. So here it is...

The night before I made my very first yeast starter. To create this I brewed a small one liter batch, dropped in a vial of yeast, and shook like crazy. This allows the active yeast cells to multiply which should provide  better fermentation and better beer!

The next step is heating the water for the grains. As you can see I have fashioned a measurement tool out of an old pipe left behind by the plumbers when our house was built. I use this when filling the pot with the appropriate amount of water.

Here are the grains. I was brewing a porter - 2-row, black malt, chocolate malt, aromatic malt, and crystal malt. Nine pounds total.

It all goes into the mash tun with the 168 degree water for an hour.

Stirring up the grains so they don't clog up the filter at the bottom. The hot water extracts the sugars, not to mention the flavors,  from the grain.

After an hour it was ready to lauter. Before draining it into the pot I had to collect a few runnings and then dump them back in carefully onto the aluminum foil. This allows me to filter out the grain particles that sneak out at the front end of the run. The foil is to protect the grain bed from being disturbed when I pour the liquid (called the wort) back in.

Here it is boiling. This particular batch, like most, boils for 60 minutes.

During the boil I was invited to a tea party hosted by Ty and Ainsley. There were candles, beverages, and a three-course meal. They had saved glass bottles from dinner at the Hunter Gatherer the night before and used them to serve us "tea" (apple juice) and "beer" (orange juice). I had tea.

As you can see, formal attire was required.

Between courses I had to run back in to the kitchen to measure and add hop additions. Hops are used for both taste and aroma.

After the boil was complete it was out to the driveway for an ice bath. The wort has to cool from 212 degrees down to about 75 degrees as quickly as possible. Thanks to a plastic tub, two bags of ice, and the garden hose I had it cooled down in about 25 minutes.

As always, mistakes were made. This time, however, there were very few. The only one that concerned me was when adding the wort and yeast starter to the carboy. The bubbles from the sanitizing solution filled the spout and some of the wort came rushing back out. It was like an erupting volcano. I was more careful with the yeast - as it is extremely important. They say, "Brewers make wort, yeast makes beer."

It now sits in the walk-in closet under the stairs fermenting away. The yeast starter was great. The wort was bubbling within three hours and going crazy within twelve. It'll sit in here for a week or two before I rack it over to a different carboy where I'll add some toasted oak chips and let it sit another couple of weeks.

The end of this will be to bottle it (adding a little corn sugar to help it carbonate) and waiting another two to three weeks. Patience, as they say, is a virtue.