Monthly Archives: November 2011

Kegging, Interrupted

Beer, , ,

The dubbel finally got done fermenting, after a good shake and another week in a warmer room.  So I headed down to my local homebrew shop, and picked up a used soda keg.  I was hoping to find a new one, because the price difference wasn’t that big and I’ve heard used soda kegs can have reliability problems.  But they haven’t been able to get any new ones in stock recently, and only had two used kegs left, so I picked the one that looked like it was in better condition.

Getting the beer in the keg was much easier than bottles.  It was easy to sterilize and siphon the beer into the keg.  But that’s where the smooth sailing stopped.  First, I found that I’d gotten ball-lock couplers and a pin-lock keg.  So back to the homebrew shop I went and picked up the right couplers.  Then I found that my store-bought 5/16″ gas line wouldn’t fit the 1/4″ pin-lock gas coupler.  I had never imagined that they might use different gas line sizes (I’ve been fiddling around with kegs and plumbing long enough to know better, but for some reason I still expect things to work out by default).  By the time I figured this out, the homebrew shop was closed and the Thanksgiving holiday was upon us, so the beer sat refrigerated but unpressurized over the long weekend.

Once back in town, the homebrew shop was still closed, but luckily my local hardware store helped me jury-rig an adapter.  So I hooked it all up and pressurized to my normal serving pressure (8-10 psi), but the keg was leaking CO2.  I tried reseating the lid and greasing the O-ring, with no success.  I’ve also read that increasing the pressure will help the seal (and speed up the carbonation process), so I cranked up the pressure to 25 psi.  As I increased the pressure, the sound of the CO2 leak changed in pitch, heading from a benign hiss to a worrying whine and then, just before making me truly worried, changed into a satisfying gurgle as the seal took hold and the keg started to pressurize properly.

It was then, crouched behind my kegerator, adjusting the pressure on the regular with a small screwdriver, feeling the frozen condensation on the gas line and regulator shaft, that it occurred to me that I should be worried about the whole Rube Goldberg contraption exploding.  Just in time to rock the 25 psi keg around to help the carbonation get going.  Standing on the other side of the kegerator made the CO2 canister less dangerous, so actually rocking a pressurized keg around on the floor didn’t seem so bad.  Now that’s done, and in theory we should have drinkable beer in a few hours.

Xmas Beer Roundup

Beer, ,

Our local brewery just released their winter seasonal beer, and we’d seen a few other Christmas beers around town, so we gathered a few and had a tasting.

  • We started out with Swamp Head Hoe Hoe Hoe — which they describe as their Cottonmouth Wit infused with ginger, cranberry and Tupelo honey. I like Cottonmouth quite a bit (it was the first keg in our kegerator). This beer isn’t much different — there’s just a hint of honey and spice, and we couldn’t find any cranberry at all.  It’s also unusual to make a light Wit as a winter seasonal, but I guess you have to make allowances for Florida.
  • Next up was another semi-local beer, Sweetwater’s Festive Ale.  I think this is the first Sweetwater beer I’ve had, though I often see them around town.  In sharp contrast to the Hoe Hoe Hoe, this beer is a very dark Winter Warmer.  It has a smoky coffee bitterness like a porter, but also a big malt and aromatic spiciness that provide a good counter-balance.
  • St. Bernardus Christmas Ale is very similar to their Abt (which is one of my favorite Belgian beers), but with a sharp ginger note added.  This seemed very jarring, but perhaps I should actually follow the temperature guidelines on the bottle instead of drinking at fridge temperature.  As the beer warmed up, the sickly sweet malt mellowed a bit, and the spiciness didn’t seem as sharp, and they seemed to make a better blend.
  • Affligem Noël fell into the same trap as Hoe Hoe Hoe — there was just not much difference from their Dubbel.  I like the Dubbel just fine, and the additional of a little spiciness is a nice improvement.  But I was hoping for something a little more distinctive.

The Sweetwater Festive Ale is the clear favorite here.  I really enjoyed the balance between the spicy/sweet and bitter/smoky aspects.  Though, unlike the other beers in this bunch, I haven’t had a similar beer from Sweetwater, so that could be a factor.

Why I need to do two socks at a time

knitting,

Christmas knitting season is upon me and so I may have to go dark with reports on knitting projects, since almost all of them are Christmas projects. But, I do have at least once more recent project that I can talk about.

I recently finished a pair of “wristers” for my daughter, in her favorite color:

These are from a pattern in 60 Quick Knits. Can you pick which one I did first? Here’s the funny part (and a turning point for me, I think): I did better with the first one. I just lost steam on the second, and then lost count of my rows, and then just kept on going because I needed to finish. There was at least one hole big enough to cause comment from my daughter (on the increases for the thumb gusset) – so I just patched it up with some extra yarn.

Lessons learned:
(1) I’m not ready for prime-time cabling yet.
(2) I am developing strong opinions about increases.
(3)  I need to knit socks in tandem or I will have a lot of orphan socks.

Unstuck

Beer, ,

carboy next behind computerIt’s been a couple of weeks since we put the dubbel in second fermentation, so I checked the gravity yesterday expecting it to be about ready to keg.  Alas, the gravity was still way too high, only about halfway down to where the recipe calls for final gravity.  We hadn’t seen any bubbling at all recently, so I did some googling on stuck fermentation, and I think the problem is one I never expected in Florida: my beer got too cold!  We’ve had a few chilly nights recently, and it’s possible the beer got down to 60° or so, which can apparently make the yeast go dormant and settle.

So I moved it to the hottest part of the house — right behind my computer.  Our home office is reliably the hottest room of the house, several degrees warmer than other rooms, and we keep our aquarium in there for the same reason.  I gave the carboy a good swirl to stir up the yeast again (above and beyond the sloshing involved in getting it to the other end of the house).  24 hours later, it’s still bubbling every few seconds, but not going nuts like the initial multiplication stage of fermentation.  So I’m feeling good that the fermentation is back on track, and we’ll be able to keg it next weekend.

Pumpkin Beer Tasting

Beer, ,

Pumpkin Tasting LineupWe’ve had a couple of pumpkin beers this fall, and picked up a few more in Asheville last weekend, so we had a little side-by-side tasting.

  • Thirsty Dog’s Pumpkin Ale.  This surprised me at how light-bodied it was, since I generally expect fall seasonal beers to be malty, dark, or both.  But this was almost like a pilsner, with a little twang.  The pumpkin taste was very subdued.  But overall, I’d say this is nice, and easy-drinking.
  • Southern Tier’s Pumking.  This brew had a definite pumpkin aroma, but the flavor was overwhelmed by vanilla and spice.  In fact, I had a hard time picking up anything else.  Wind likes this much more than I do, and the ratings online are pretty high, but I find it just barely drinkable, and not very pumpkiny at all.
  • Cigar City’s Good Gourd.  This is my idea of what a pumpkin beer should be, with definite spice and vanilla notes, but not overwhelming the pumpkin flavor.  This beer has a little more sweetness and body, and has the highest ABV at 9.5%.
  • Starr Hill Boxcar Pumpkin Porter.  A decent porter, if a little thin.  Unfortunately, the pumpkin is drowned out by over-strong smoke and coffee.  Finishes a little too bitter, but with more pumpkin at least.

Overall, I’m a little disappointed.  I expected beers with pumpkin in the name to have a more pronounced pumpkin flavor.  Only the Good Gourd met my expectations on that score, and is definitely my favorite of the bunch.  The Thirsty Dog Pumpkin Ale would be the runner up, and I’m definitely glad I picked up a bottle when I had the chance.

Hat improvement

knitting, ,

Don’t let all of Redbeard’s posts about beer fool you – there is also knitting going on. (Okay, mostly along side the drinking – in fact, right now I’m looking longingly over at some lovely roving that I got from Earth Guild while drinking a Pumking as part of a pumpkin beer tasting that Redbeard and I decided to do tonight.)

I finished another Elf hat. This one is for the son of a good friend of mine (and novice knitter, another one joins the fold!). I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of joining the sides. I’m not sure I’m doing a mattress stitch, but I’ve decided that I don’t care. Here’s a close up of the seam:

Not exactly seamless, but then I don’t think it can be with this pattern. Even with the strange join, I still really like this pattern.

Another Earth Guild purchase that portends more knitting:  Melissa Morgan-Oakes Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks. I’ve been interesting in knitting socks for awhile, and there is something really, really appealing about (a) starting with the hard part first, and (b) doing both socks at once. So… now I just need some sock yarn. Yay – field trip to my LYS!

 

Just Got Back From Asheville

Beer,

Local Beer Sampler at Luella'sWe just got back from a trip to Asheville, NC.  I first visited a few years ago for a conference, and liked it so much I dragged the family up the next Fall.  Now we think of it as visiting Autumn each year, as the 80° temperatures in Gainesville grind on through October and November.  It was nice to enjoy cooler temperatures, mountain vistas with the fall colors, and of course sample several new beers and a few old favorites.

There are a bunch of great restaurants to choose from — like Tupelo Honey Cafe, Mayfel’s, Jack of the Wood, 12 Bones, and Luella’s.  The barbeque in particular is divine, and typically comes with just a little dry-rub, fantastically tender and flavorful without sauce.  All the restaurants have a ton of local beer on tap.  Even the Biltmore has their own house beer now (though I suspect it’s contract-brewed since their website carefully avoids saying they brew it themselves).

The best new discovery was probably Pisgah’s Pale Ale.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a big hop fan, and I find even most non-IPA pale ales to be over-hopped.  But this brew was nicely gentle, with a little sweetness like a cream ale.  Though I also enjoyed having Green Man ESB both at 12 Bones, and the cask version at Jack of the Wood — it’s always great to taste a beer both before and after cask treatment.  Though the cask version is dry-hopped and was right at my resiny bitterness tolerance, it definitely gave the beer some extra character.

Unfortunately, I failed on my attempt to not have the same beer twice — I broke down and had a second pint of French Broad’s Wee Heavy-er (definitely my favorite Asheville beer).  I also picked up a couple French Broad bottles at Bruisin’ Ales — along with a few of the beers I’d been trying to find for my Belgian Research Project, but hadn’t been able to find locally yet.