Beer Diary...

(left to right) Bamforth with Mark Taylor, Zymurgeeks , Dave Bossie . Charlie Banforth , chair of the food science technology department at UC Davis spoke tonight at the Bookshop Santa Cruz http://bookshopsantacruz.com/ promote his recent book "Grape -vs-Grain". From what I've read, Mr. Banforth brewed at Bass while living in England. Worked at A nheuser -Busch after coming to the States and is now at UC Davis. He has 30 years experience in the brewing industry and seemed pleased to share some along with a fair amount of humor all the while pushing the sale of his book. A fair number of Zymurgeeks were present and Banforth was kind enough to have his picture taken with us after signing our books. When asked what he considered the greatest challenge to modern brewers he said packaging and preserving the beers fresh qualities were the challenge. He also clearly stated that he didn't like overly hopped beers that many micro breweries were producing lately. He emp...

What we have here my friend is my Bavarian Weizen during high Kraeusen. As you can see, I ferment in a 13.5 gal. plastic container. This one originally had malt extract in it and I got it from my local homebrew shop. I use food grade plastic liners for the ease of clean up and I also find it very easy to salvage the yeast by pulling the bag out of the fermenter and poking a hole in the bottom, letting the yeast drain into a sterilized jar. I can then just pour the jar into the next beer I make that requires the same yeast. At the moment I have a jar of california ale yeast in the refridgerator and when this is done I will have a jar of Whitelabs hefeweizen IV, http://www.whitelabs.com/ . I usually repitch yeast eight to ten times before buying new yeast and I typically have on hand a hefeweizen, california ale and southern German lager yeast. For the most part these yeast will suffice for most of the beers that I like to brew (drink) but occasionally I will have others for special b...

Cornies I've tapped my latest brew, it's a dry stout. It's from a recipe that I have been following for a number of years and besides my pale ale, it's a beer that I like to always have on tap. Robust and creamy with a good coffee and chocolate flavor. The bitterness is a little on the high end for a Dry Stout but very drinkable and low in alcohol so it's easy to drink several pints after a hard days work. Yesterday I brewed up a Bavarian Weizen. This beer is a repeat recipe from the last one that I talked about not fermenting until I added an american ale yeast. I have high hopes for this new beer as the krausen from the hefeweizen yeast is already forming nicely 24hrs. later. In the mean time, while at the recycle center today, I saw off to the side of a dumpster a couple of 20lb. Co2 tanks. One even had a decent regulator on it. The attendant said I could take them away for five dollars. Wow! I now have three. Every once in a while you come across a good deal...

German Wheat? I was a little disappointed in the wheat beer I made in June. I brewed what I was expecting to be a light colored and low gravity German wheat. For a 10 gallon batch I used 13 lbs. of wheat malt and 6 lbs. of domestic 2-row malted barley with just 1/2 lb. of Chrystal #20. My starting gravity was 1.050 with 18 IBU's worth of Saaz hops. The brewing went without a hitch and I got an 80% efficiency from the Mash. The problems came after pitching the yeast. I pitched 2 packages of DY65 German Ale yeast, the temperature in the fermenter was 70f. and 2 days later there was absolutely no sign of fermentation activity. I waited another 12 hours with impatience before finally giving up and pitching 2 packages of US05 ale yeast. The fermentation was up and going strong by the next day, which was all good and fine except that I didn't really want an American wheat. I don't like American wheat beer. Eventually fermentation ended with a final gravity of 1.012-It didn't ...

2.5 gal. Homebrew keg with dispenser While in Mexico, Susan made arrangements through craigslist for us to house sit for a couple in Aptos , Ca. who would be going to Spain for 6 weeks. So, after arriving in Seattle we proceeded to Whidbey to get our vehicles out of storage for the trek back to California. Naturally I packed my van with some essential brewing equipment that was also in storage and a few personal items and left everything else there for a future retrieval once we found a permanent place to live. I wanted my brew sculpture and converted keg/boil pot for brewing some extract batches, my large plastic fermenter and also some kegging equipment, there was no point in bottling if I didn't have to. After a couple of settling in days in California I set to brewing 10 gallons of pale ale. The local brewing supply company www.breworganic.com/ had the ingredients I needed including liquid malt extract. I used 12 lbs. of malt extract and 2 lbs. of honey. I bittered wit...

A classic Vienna Lager We spent our last weekend in Mexico City, partly to explore and enjoy one of the largest cities in the world and also for the convenience of an easy ride to the airport. I was determined to visit the Modelo Brewery before leaving Mexico. After all, a major portion of all beer consumed in Mexico is produced by Modelo and a major portion of all the beer I consumed was Modelo . A battered V.W. bug taxi got us from our downtown hotel room to Modelo in about 20 minutes through heavy traffic. Once inside the air-conditioned and I might add 'shabby' lobby we waited. I have to say here that for a company that I suspect makes millions in profit from the sale of beer, they could have spent a few hundred at least on a new couch and some decorator items. We sat patiently on a tattered green Naugahyde sofa of the 60's era as a few other tourist (locals) joined us. Finally, a tour guide led us all through to the cafeteria for a sample of beer and cheese before...

What's in there? Well, sorry about the delay. I finally got back on line and man it's been a journey since the last posting. Susan and I are settled into a semi- permanent place (good 'til November 08) and have tentatively unpacked our stuff. It's difficult to fully commit to spreading out every little bit of my personal belongings when I may not be here for long. Our plan is to head back to Mexico when winter returns and our lease is up but repacking and putting everything in storage again is disconcerting to say the least. In the mean time, there's beer to brew and enjoy. I want to recap all the highlights of my brewing world since the previous post and catch you up on my plans for future brews but it's going to take some serious keyboard work so I may break it up into more reasonable chunks in the next few posts along with my current projects. I will say here that my proposals for teaching brewing classes at the community colleges has had good response. C...