Brew #22 : Schwarzbier

Yesterday morning I brewed up my first lager! It’s a Schwarzbier, which is a lightly bodied and hopped beer, black in color and with a moderate roasty flavor.. so basically I’m shooting for a smooth tasting porter. :) Here’s a pic of my system with the wort chiller that Santa got for me! The wort is flowing from the kettle at about 212F through the chiller and direct to the primary fermenter carboy where it ends up a chilly 54F. Sweet! Safes my back from the old immersion chiller I had and then having to pour the chilled wort trough a strainer and funnel.

Schwarzbier #1
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Brewer: Josh Gum
Style: Schwarzbier
Batch: 5.50 gal, Mashed

Characteristics
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Recipe Gravity: 1.058 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 35 IBU
Recipe Color: 11° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.014
Alcohol by Volume: 5.8%
Alcohol by Weight: 4.5%

Ingredients
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German Munich 7.00 lb, mashed
Belgian pilsener 4.00 lb, mashed
British carastan 0.50 lb, mashed

Perle 1.25 oz, whole, 60 minutes
Perle 0.50 oz, whole, 15 minutes

German Lager yeast 1.00 unit, a 2L starter made 2 days prior
Carafa grain (1lb) 1.00 unit, soaked in 2L of cold water for 2 days, mixed into mash during sparge

Notes
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Recipe Notes:
Joel, thanks for the tip on the carafa grains!

Batch Notes:
OG = 1.050

2/4 : OG 1.010, mmmm very nice! kegged

Go action and more!

This past weekend, on 1/13, I attended the annual Salem Go Tournament..this year it was held at Lefty’s Pizzeria next to Willamette University! First and foremost, I must say that I wasn’t too impressed with the pizza.. It was decent, but the crust just didn’t seem crispy enough for my taste..

That aside, the tournament was a lot of fun! I registered as 5kyu which was a self promotion of 3 ranks since the last tournament. I won 1 and lost 2 which I’m really happy with because both losses were very very close games, so I feel good that 5kyu is just about the right strength range for me right now. Throughout the day I had a few discussions and an ad-hoc lesson from Lance (known as Shygost on KGS) who had flown in from Florida to visit Cynthia (the tournament director and good friend) and to play in the tournament. Lance does quite a bit of teaching Go online as a 6dan amateur and I really enjoyed his instruction. In fact, for the past couple of days I’ve been reminding myself of some of the things he taught me, like to play my moves with purpose (and not just a memory of seeing it played in other games), and to not fret about single stones until my groups are also secure.

I’m hoping to promote and register myself as 4kyu in the Corvallis tournament coming up in May.. I’ll be directing this tournament with help from Bob so it’ll be a little extra difficult to focus on my game.

On a totally different topic, lately I’ve been enjoying painting. I recently Netflix’d an instructional DVD on painting with acrylics and have been having a great time fiddling with it.. For Christmas, my lovely wife gifted me a complete kit to get me started with acrylic painting and its been put to good use lately! Last night I painted a scene with clouds and mountains in the background and a bright red cabin in the foreground along with a really large fruit bearing bush and Sasquatch heading toward the cabin.. hehe Sasquatch rules. Because these are just fun paintings and good exercise, I covered the canvas with white again this morning and am ready for the next painting. I forgot to get a picture of the Sasquatch painting, but maybe I’ll post a picture of a previous painting soon..

good times.. good times.

Brew #21 : Bourbon Porter

This was actually brewed on 12/31. I’ve just been too busy to make any updates. At work, a friend (and coworker) is leaving the company and I’ve been charged with taking on ownership of the applications that he built and even more that he supported.. so I’ve been a bit focused on that.

However, I’ve been enjoying Oregon Trail’s Bourbon Barrel Porter and decided it was time to make some of my own! This is a beer that you sit down and drink only one of, really robust and with a distinct kick of bourbon. My palate is overwhelmed after drinking one of these, I would typically save this to be the last beer of the night.

The brew went well overall, until I drained the kettle.. Notes in the recipe text below.

Bourbon Porter
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Brewer: Josh Gum
Style: Robust Porter
Batch: 5.50 gal, Mashed

Characteristics
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Recipe Gravity: 1.085 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 39 IBU
Recipe Color: 27° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.021
Alcohol by Volume: 8.6%
Alcohol by Weight: 6.7%

Ingredients
———–
British two-row 11.00 lb, mashed
British brown 1.50 lb, mashed
American Munich 2.50 lb, mashed
Crystal 120L 1.00 lb, mashed
CaraPils 0.25 lb, extract
Crystal 40L 0.50 lb, mashed
American chocolate malt 0.50 lb, mashed

Magnum 0.80 oz, whole, 60 minutes
Kent Golding 0.50 oz, whole, 10 minutes

American Ale yeast 1.00 unit, racked on top of the yeast cake from the scottish ale
Irish Moss 1.00 unit, clarifying

Notes
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Recipe Notes:
This recipe is based off of Denny Conn’s Vanilla Bourbon Porter.. I’m modifying it with a touch of Carapils to thicken the mouthfeel. I’m also using vanilla extract, next time I might try vanilla beans.
To secondary, add 4tbs vanilla extract.
To bottling add 10ml per pint of Makers Mark.. this works out to be 400ml total for 5ga batch.

Batch Notes:

The boil pot spigot clogged with hops (reminding me that I need to add a screen to the drain hole) so it was a fiasco getting the wort through the chiller and on top of the yeast. I used a steel racking cane to siphon from the boil pot, worked reasonably well.

1/20 : Transferred to secondary, FG : 1.010.. tastes rich with coffee/roasty notes balanced pretty well with the alcohol. I think adding a touch of bourbon at bottling is going to make this a high power tasty brew.

10/23: Kegged this one today.. yah, 9 months later! The taste has mellowed down a bit, and since I’ve neglected this one for so long I’m going to skip adding bourbon.

Happy New Year!

First and foremost, Happy Birthday to my mom! You’ll likely have already heard from me by phone before you read this, but I wanted to post it here anyhow!

We had a great time these past couple of weeks. Relatives from Alabama (Jere and Billie!) and Arizona (Justyn and Liz!) were visiting. We had a great time visiting, playing golf, and drinking some beers with them and hope to see them all again soon! Wendie and I spent a few days at our favorite hiding spot outside of Vida, Oregon along the McKenzie River. Talk about a wonderful way to unwind and enjoy Christmas! We also had a great time visiting our close friends Phyllis, Greg, Brock, and Stephanie on New Years Eve though I don’t know if anyone made it all the way to midnight. Wendie and I were at home and asleep at 11:30 (no kidding, I was going to turn into a pumpkin if I had stayed up any later!). Yesterday we polished off a great long weekend with 9 holes of golf at Mallard Creek with our friend Stephanie. The weather was barely drizzling and cold, but we all had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the course.
More to the subject line, Happy New Year to everyone who reads this and I hope you have a most excellent 2007. My intentions for 2007 are to lose some weight and feel better about myself. I’ve made the resolutions in the past and they seem to get lost somewhere down the line as I continue to stumble on reaching my goal.. so this year, I’m making only two resolutions (and a short list of reminders, like avoiding fast food at all costs). My resolutions this year are to drink more water and to meditate daily. To the first resolution, drinking water is going to naturally help with my weight loss efforts plus if I drink more water, I should naturally drink less soda. I would like to drop my addiction to caffiene entirely, but maybe that will wait for next year! To my second resolution, meditation will help in many aspects of my well being, ranging from stress and pain management to making better and more clear choices throughout the day. Taking a moment to avoid all distractions and to clear the mind has a proven effect on personal well-being, especially since we’re living in such a fast paced and stressful society.

Namaste!