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Sunday, March 23, 2014

Blood Orange Hefeweizen & Beer Chicken

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

In this episode, we'll be cooking up our first batch of Blood Orange Hefeweizen... which is essentially a similar recipe to our first Hefeweizen when our least got a little excited after the first day, so we'll have to keep an eye on that... but it's basically the similar recipe with the additions of "fresh squeezed" blood orange juice & a few zest shavings. Here are some pictures...



Ooooh... a whirlwind in our hot water...

Defrosting our blood orange juice that
we had to juice last weekend...


Juice & zest...

Mmm... this would be where Smell-o-vision
would share the Saaz & Hallertau hops with you

Now, when working with fruit juices, you don't want to boil them as that'll really mess up the sugars & flavors and just produce some bad nasty stuff. However, to take care of all the bacteria, you want to get it up to about 170 degrees to kill off everything... and do it separately from the wort because that will be boiled. Here's our combination of the juice & zest in a pot...
 

Then we cool down the boiling wort... of which we had a LOT


Then siphon that liquid gold into the fermenter...

Add the blood orange ingredients to the Hef wort...


Vuola!!! You have a five gallons of
Blood Orange Hefeweizen wort...

We also did a first with a beer marinated chicken breast in the crock pot. Izzy found a recipe... so we put a few chicken breasts (luckily on sale for 70% off) and added some garlic, Cajun seasonings, and a bottle of our Irish Red Ale for it to marinate... and it turned out incredible. Here are some pictures of that process...
 
Pre-cooked... then 4-5 hours later...

Leftover juices in the crock pot...


 
The next morning, bubbling like crazy...
We'll hafta keep an eye on her...


Well, that'll do it for today. Next week, the family is visiting for the weekend but I'm sure we'll have some adventures to report. If not concerning beer, then on my other blog. Have a great weekend everybody!!!

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

FDR, SFHG & E66 Part IV

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
 
First & foremost, I’d like to congratulate Kevin, VP of the SF Homebrewers Guild, and his wife Shae on getting the financial support needed for their dream project - a Nanobrewery through crowdfunding. They needed to raise the startup capital of $50,000 in the 30-40 day timeframe, and it was looking tight a week ago, but just before the deadline they were able to pull it out thanks to contributions by many guild members (including myself) and now for the tough part… starting the actual brewery & paying back all those rewards.
 
Ferment.Drink.Repeat (FDR) Nanobrewery is going to be a 3.5 barrel (about 110 gallons) nanobrewery, homebrew supply shop, and brewery incubator located here in San Francisco. The exact location is up in the air but it’s being hinted that it’ll be in the Portrero Hill area more than likely. Now, you may be asking yourself… what’s a brewery incubator? Basically, it means they’re going to be a place where up-and-coming professional brewers (like say… Terrible Lizard Brewing) and have access to some of their equipment & facilities… and help develop their brands without having to finance all of the equipment & facilities themselves. Kind of like… how a catering company may rent out a kitchen from a restaurant during their off-hours. Also, they will be displaying some of the award-winning brews from members of the SFHG for public consumption, again so that they can spread their brand awareness (if desired) or just provide some fantastic brews at this local spot. The whole thing is very centralized to the homebrewing community here in San Francisco… but the idea itself can probably be utilized anywhere. It’s basically what I would like to do one day wherever we decide to settle and once we have sufficient (minimal) experience & resources… so I’ve been intrigued by the process & picking Kevin’s brain a few times about it since he announced it a few months ago… and will definitely continue to do so.
 
As mentioned, we did invest in FDR back in the beginning… and one of the rewards was that you design your OWN recipe, Kevin would be there to guide you & make suggestions, you’ll have lunch on brew day, and then you get a little private reserve party on the day that your craft beer makes it to the public with up to 12 friends. So eventually a Terrible Lizard Brewing brew will make it to their draft… and if you’re in the Bay Area& want to reserve a spot at the release party, let me know. Reading the blog has its privileges indeed. In the meantime, once they get started we will also have a $500 gift certificate to use at the supply shop. That’s a good chunk of change & we’re looking into a keg system… but we’ll probably take care of that before this all gets up & going. Again, congratulations Kevin & Shae!!!
 
Tuesday night was the monthly meeting of the SF Homebrewers Guild at Anchor Brewing… and our special guest was Jay with Rare Barrel Brewing in Berkeley. He gave a great little talk about making sour beers & how their business came to be because they had a passion for them… and it’s kind of a niche market due to its lack of availability & die hard fans. Now… I’m not a HUGE fan of sour beers… but I’ve tried a few & they’re pretty nice in moderation. However, I can see how you can be in a market like the Bay Area where just about everybody who really wants to have a brewery is opening one up… or gypsy brewing… or whatever, so to stand out in the market without a huge advertising budget, you can specialize. Rare Barrel makes exclusively sours. Trumer makes just about the perfect pilsner. Anchor just makes f**king liquid gold & obsidian, but they’ve also been doing it for a long, long time. For upstarts, you almost have to try to find a good market that isn’t saturated… or specialize.
 
Another thing that Jay mentioned: He was asked how the transition from passionate homebrewer to professional brewer changes your view, he replied something along the lines of “When I’m a professional brewer, it’s doing about 10% of the stuff you love to do as a homebrewer.” Basically, as passionate as you might be about making beer… that’s only about an hour or so a day of your job. The rest is getting out there, handling paperwork, cleaning, running the business, hiring people, firing people, working out your marketing strategies, taxes, bills, customer complaints, partner complaints, mortgages, all that stuff that you didn’t really have to deal with when you were just cooking up brews in your basement. Now… where that may sway a lot of people… it kinda made me feel good that I had already thought that far ahead before even considering doing a brewery. It means I probably have a good head on my shoulders & am willing to work hard in many different facets of my life to make it work… so we’ll see.
 
We also brought some of our homebrews for a little Taste Testing by the Guild & though we only had about 5 or 6 subjects stop by, they all really liked our Bourbon Barrel Porter & Winter Warmers. We also got to meet a few more members that we hadn’t before… including one gentleman that lives a street away from me there in the Presidio. Small world here in San Francisco. After the meeting, I congratulated Kevin in person on his crowdfunding & let him know that we look forward to working with him… and then the President of the Guild (Chris) invited us to have a drink at Steep Brew a block away, where we shot the sh*t for a bit and… honestly, drank a little water for the drive over to Izzy’s place. Don’t drink & drive!!!
 
Wednesday morning, we woke up again dark & early to help out with another big batch at Elevation 66 Brewing with Super Dave & Big Ben. With our experience, we’re getting more & more duties to do… almost to a point where they are just kind of telling us where to attach the hoses, etc. while they watch. Obviously they’re still doing a lot of the hands-on stuff when it comes to the actual beer, but we’re doing some good cleaning… and a lot of heavy lifting when it comes up. Still, we’re learning so much… and I’m always excited to help out… even at 5 AM. Let’s see… one different thing this time was that I was a part of my first transfer from the fermentor to one of the storage tanks that they have for the time from the beer is ready, until they have a tap ready for it. Since business is kinda boomin’, they go through beer pretty quickly (especially their IPA & vanilla stout) but we got to see how the transferring & storage is done. It’s pretty much what you would expect… but here are a few pictures anyway…
 

Cleaning the fermenter...

Some spent grains for making bread
to share with Super Dave & Big Ben

Jack in the Box afterwards...
Not sure if it's art...
or just a very delicious new food item
Anyway, that was the groovy past… 30 hours or so in our little world. A fellow homebrewer’s dream came true, Terrible Lizard’s first official brew is coming soon, rave reviews from our homebrew by the Guild, drinks with the Presidents, helped with a legitimate batch of award-snubbed IPA, and all the time networking with some great brewers & overall great people! Oh… and I get to spend time with my ladyfriend & enjoy her company as well. I think she really likes me… and that’s good… because I kinda like her too. Have a great day everybody!!!

Monday, March 17, 2014

Honey Amber brewing

As mentioned before we made up a delightful honey amber ale batch. Here are some of the shots from brew day that  didn't get a chance to get posted yet! 








Quick Cider

So this post is late and I apologize. But a few weeks ago we made quick cider! 4 gallons of apple juice, yeast, brown sugar and some cinnamon, add 5 days and you have a light, refreshing bubbly drink. 





Sunday, March 16, 2014

Honey Amber Transfer & Steve-Toberfest!!!

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
 
It has been a little bit of a busy week… but you know that’s how G’s do it. During the week, I went apartment hunting with Jackie D to help her try to do the impossible… which is find a reasonably sized one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco for under $3,000 a month… preferably under $2,000 but let’s not get too crazy. This IS San Francisco that we’re talking about. The city were the average selling price of a home went up over 30% this year when the national average was 1.4%. F**king insane… For what I pay as my share with three roommates in a townhouse… The Wingman pays less than HALF for a six-bedroom on acreage in Utah.
 
Anyway, we checked out a few places… and they were mostly in the Tenderloin the first few days… and they were pretty ridiculous. About 400 square feet studios… for about $1,800+ a month… and not exactly the finest amenities… and crackheads abound on every single block in that area. We were still optimistic with the search… but yeah, she was definitely looking into the roommate thing for a moment... and then on Friday, she luckily found a place that was half-decent... and "only" $2,300 a month... so yeah, she jumped all over that a few hours before she flew back to Philly. YAY!!! I'm excited for her... and I think she is too... but she's also running numbers in her head... I can tell. So excited for her return!
 
As for my apartment, the bathroom is still being redone… in fact, now COMPLETELY redone like even under the floorboards and everything since they found a bigger leak problem… so I should have it back by the end of next week. Fingers crossed… and in the meantime, all of my stuff is now in about a third of the space since the workers need to be able to walk entirely through my bedroom to access the bathroom… but yeah, it should be even better when they’re done. Allegedly they’re going to jack up the shower head to suit my six-foot-eight frame… but we’ll see if they even raise it to accommodate your average six-footer. Before it was… I don’t know… Asian influence? So yeah, fingers crossed.
 
Saturday, Izzy & I had some homebrewing duties to tend to… starting with the transfer of our future aware-winning Honey Amber Ale to the secondary fermenter…
 

Fancy bubbles from cleaning secondary carboy...



Mmm... look at that gorgeousness...
and the beer color...


How does it get that color?
This is the sediment taken out during
primary fermentation


Cleaning activity...

Then, since we had an open primary carboy, why not fill it up with our next batch - Blood Orange Hefeweizen!!! Based on a recipe from Dogfish Head Brewery’s owner in a Popular Mechanics article, it sounded pretty interesting… and since we were able to pick up some blood oranges in Watsonville last weekend, and the rest of the ingredients at homebrew shops, so decided to give it a try. The recipe is obviously pretty similar to our first batch of Bavarian Hefeweizen that we made in November… but with the addition of blood oranges into the wort & fermentation for a different colors & taste components… as well as about double the hops of our Bavarian Hefeweizen.
 
However, due to a few factors, we were simply NOT feeling it... and it wasn't essential... so we decided to not make the new batch & then we spent the weekend dogsitting for Izzy's aunts because... well, they have a teenage daughter who could do it but... she was busy... by being there 90% of the time... except when she went to Target... allegedly... let's face it, she's a teenage daughter who just doesn't want to do anything. Good for her. Regardless, we had fun anyway. We did squeeze the blood oranges from last week & got some zest... so it'll be well preserved for next week's batch to be brewed.
 


Now we will soon have the Oktoberfest Lager, Honey Amber Ale AND Blood Orange Hefeweizen doing their thing… and they should all be ready in time for our next big party. What is the party you ask? Why… it’s $TEVE-TOBERFEST!!! What is that? Well, it’s going to be my 33rd birthday celebration… complete with ample beverages (like the 15 gallons of previously mentioned beer that I currently have fermenting& about 20 more gallons in other kinds of booze ready for drinking), some oompah music, Falco, and Izzy & I are going to try to make some amazing German foods like pretzels, spaetzle, some legit brauts and all that kind of stuff too. There will also be the triumphant return of… DAS BOOOOOOOOT!!! Details will be coming soon… but prepare thy selves for Epicness!

Monday, March 10, 2014

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
 
Thursday night, Izzy, her aunts & I had dinner at Elevation 66 Brewing for the first time… and it was fantastic. Super Dave was even there just doing his brewmaster / owner thing, helping run the place. I got there first (because I'm a man) and had a Coast 66 Double Rye IPA while waiting. Dave stopped by & we chatted it up for a minute or so, but then he was off doing owner stuff. The ladies showed up, we ate some GREAT food including house-made sausage (probably the best I’ve ever had) with spaetzle that was incredible…  fish & chips with three full large pieces of fish… a delicious Reuben sandwich… and even the mushroom Panini sh*t that one of the aunts got was pretty good. Of course their beer that we helped (in a small part) to make was great as well. Super Dave even stopped by a few times to say hi & introduced us to his wife Esther, the namesake for their vanilla stout. That's cool as well. Best part: With four full meals (ladies had leftovers) and two rounds. and even some snacks & tremendous beer & cheese soup while I was waiting… the total came to like $85. Not bad at all for a bit of a fancy night at the pub. I highly recommend it if you’re in the El Cerrito area. It’s just two blocks from the BART station for El Cerrito Plaza, check it out.
 
Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of the food... but here's something that Izzy & I made... it's flat steak marinated in soy sauce, Worcester & Mangria... wrapped around bleu cheese and slow roasted in a crock pot. It wasn't perfect... but yeah, delicious.
 



 

Saturday, we went on a little road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway towards Harley Farms in Pescadero. If you remember from a few weeks ago, we went out there & took the tour… and they mentioned that the farm was expecting dozens to hundreds of baby goats around this time of year… and with Izzy being such a HUGE fan of goats and all cute four-legged creatures, we thought we’d go check them out. We would’ve went on another tour… but they’re pretty much booked up for the next few months… so we just went on the cheap (free-99) and saw a few cute guys. Here are some pictures…
 




Next stop was a brewery that I had heard great things about called Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola. They pride themselves on unique brews… and using a variety of different methods of brewing to kind of experiment with flavors. For example, they had cask-conditioned IPAs & porters… along with a variety of saisons (farmhouse ales) with mixed types of fermentation & yeasts available when we stopped by. I admire their determination to try new things and to go into the unknown wholeheartedly… however, I just didn’t particularly care for the beverages that were on hand. Now, that being said… I not a huge fan of saisons in general (see Beer Talks) nor cask-conditioned ales unless their more suited for cask-conditioning. For example, English Ales & some of the maltier choices (porter was much better than IPA) work well with the cask method… but for me personally, it just tastes like flat lifeless beer otherwise. Again, if you like saisons & cask ales, then I highly recommend that you check this place out if you’re in the beautiful area of Capitola. The proprietor of the establishment is a wonderful bearded man who came out to greet me & share in height-advantaged conversation for a few moments… it has a good vibe full of dog owners… and the beer is okay… but perhaps I’m just spoiled by constantly being surrounded in AMAZING beer, that I felt this stop was just okay. Again, go check it out for yourself… and stop by some of the other sights down there by Aptos, Santa Cruz & Watsonville like we did.
 
Speaking of which, here are some of our stops along the way while down there… including an okay BBQ joint called Sid’s Smokehouse… and then back out to Aptos to see the beautiful Seacliff State Park...
 



Saturday night, we stopped by Izzy’s friend Peter’s Birthday Bash at his house… and as is usual with his house parties, they’re amazing & awesome!!! Dozens of people filling the place, enough booze to poison an elephant’s liver beyond repair, dance floor competitions, live entertainment, just a great time. We also brought some of our Hefeweizen & Nut Brown Ale bombers… and our 5 Day Cider which was ready for consumption. We had tried it Friday night & it was pretty splendid… basically just like sparking apple juice but cloudier and maybe 3-4% ABV. You could easily drink it all day. Anyway, several guests wanted to try our beer… and they all seemed to like it, with most LOVING it. There was even one drunken guest who offered to help with financing a brewery if we started one… but we’ll see in a few months when he sobers up & we come to collect. Regardless, it was a fantastic time with good peeps & everybody made it home safe thanks to public transportation & designated drivers like me. Yup… that’s right… I was drinking coca-cola most of the night… cuz that’s how a G do.
 
My bathroom in my apartment is getting torn up & remodeled (leaking pan) so hopefully when it’s all said & done, I’ll have a new bathroom with a raised shower nozzle (you know, for a man of 80 inches in height as opposed to 60). It’s a bit of a pain sharing the bathroom with the other three lady roommates but… whatever. I’m low maintenance & plan ahead. Also, Jackie D is in town again… and we’re going to check out some apartments while she’s in town, getting ready for her move back. Have a great day everybody!!!