Beer Diary...

Earlier this month a couple of students attended a beginner brewing class at my house to learn the fundamentals of beer making. This particular class is structured to be three to four hours long and so we needed to jump right in to get things going and accomplish a successful brew in the limited time. We started by going over the basic equipment needed to brew a first batch of beer and the ingredients that we would use that day, including hops, dry malt extract and steeping grains. I teach a slightly modified version of a the full boil method with steeping grains. The modified part is that we placed our bag of steeping grains in the boil kettle just as we began heating the water. Thus allowing the grains to leach their flavors and colors into solution during the water temperature rise from 65f. (my tap water temp.) to 170f. At 170f. we pulled the grain bag and continued the temperature rise to boiling. I have not fo...

Is it an uber pale ale, an imperial pale ale or just nomenclature madness? This has been on my mind lately and I've got no good answers. Included in the 'swag bag' that was passed out for participants of the National Homebrewers Conference this year was a bottle of Stone's 'Double Black IPA'. A beer that comes in strong not only in flavor and bitterness but also alcohol. As I drank in the bold flavors I began to wonder why one wouldn't call it a Russian Imperial Stout? I'm making an assumption here but, when using brewing ingredients that have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years, it's been tried before and the beers that we are enjoying today are because they have withstood the test of time. The recent exception is the Cascadian dark ale (black IPA) but (as in the above example), when you amp it up to a double, it then becomes another style. I looked up the style guidelines from the BJCP online resource and did some comparisons. ...

This Summer's five week comprehensive brewing course at Cabrillo College was cancelled, not enough students. I don't think this was caused by a lack of interest in the community, the Spring class filled to capacity with a handful of students on a waiting list. The lack of students seems to be directly related to the economy. Because of budget cuts at the college, Cabrillo did not publish or mail the catalog listing the extension program. This has a big impact on registration as most students signing up for the brewing class are finding the course by way of the catalog. Hopefully, the fall catalog will be printed as usual and I expect to fill the class again. In the mean time, I have students signing up on-line for the private classes that I offer and I just happen to have five Sunday's in a row in which to teach from home. If you're in the area or will be visiting Santa Cruz during the month of July, consider a one day class with me. Each class wi...

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I really hate it when my lovingly brewed beer doesn't fully attenuate. Especially after doing my brewing best. But these things happen and there will be plenty of opportunities to brew another batch, but what does one do with that seemingly 'bad' batch that sits lonely in a quite fermentor staring back pitifully from its cool dark corner of the room? My recent Cascadian dark ale had that expression. It didn't fully attenuate like I wanted. Starting at 1.060 and completely stopping at 1.020, a mere 66.6% attenuation, or as I saw it, the sign of the devil. I felt a little disappointed, o.k. very disappointed and frankly a little angry on top of that. I looked back at my notes trying to figure out what caused the stalled ferment. Granted, I did mash high at 154f. but that's not unusual as I try to keep the workhorse yeast US05 from drying out the beer, but it's possible this was cause for part of the problem. Everything else I did during brew day w...