Get Hoppy with Hop Stands July 14 2014, 0 Comments

Want to get better hop flavor and aroma in your beer? Try whirlpool hopping, also known as hop stand hopping. After turning off your burner, either slightly cool your wort using your normal method (to 180-190F) and add the hops you'd like to use, or immediately toss them in. Using a sanitized spoon, give your wort a good stir to create a "whirlpool" effect. No need to continuously stir; just get the whirlpool going every once in awhile. You can steep these hops for anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes. If your wort reaches ~170F, it's a good idea to stop the process and to finish cooling your wort down to yeast pitching temperature.

Whirlpool hopping will add a little bit of extra bitterness to your beer, so it's a good idea to account for that when you are making your recipe. However, you'll gain big on hop flavor and aroma! Once you've perfected the technique and brewed the perfect hoppy beer, be sure to enter it into our Hoptoberfest IPA contest that we hold every fall.

Crystal Clear Wine July 11 2014, 0 Comments

Time for this week's wine tip! Pictured are two wines at different stages in their development. The Chilean Moscato on the right is very near the end of fermentation after two weeks in primary. On the left is a Sauvignon Blanc waiting to be bottled. Notice the drastic difference in clarity. The Sauv. Blanc was made from concentrate and followed the kit instructions verbatim, with bentonite added pre-fermentation and isinglass added four weeks in. Alternatively, the Moscato will be aged for six to nine months and arrive at the same clarity by adding pectic enzyme initially, cold-stabilizing, and undergoing two to three rackings during elevage in bulk. Then bottled accordingly. 

Clarity can be achieved in different ways depending on your schedule, space, style and maybe your patience level.

Is it mother nature vs. an interventionist hand of god? No. It's just your own creativity at work. 

All clear. 

Saison Season is Here July 05 2014, 0 Comments

Hey everybody. Saison Season is on us. 

Clever puns aside, now is the time to make this Belgian/French style. Notable for its estery flavor and high ABV, saisons are fermented in the 70-90 degree range, depending on yeast strain.

There is a lot of room for creativity here. I fondly remember a customer brewing a hibiscus Saison a while back and bringing in a bottle to receive some feedback. It was unlike anything I had tasted. Aromatic, silky on the palette at the same time robust with a distinct Belgian character.

There is a good amount of overlap sometimes with the Franco/Belg frontiere styles but Saisons are a class by themselves.

Partigyle for More Beer July 02 2014, 0 Comments

Party PARTI-GYLE style on your next big brew day!

"Parti-" = to divide; "gyle" = product of a brew 

A parti-gyle brew is when you run off/lauter the first volume of your mash for a strong beer, like a barleywine or imperial stout, and then collect a second volume of runnings from the same grain for a low-gravity beer. You want to calculate a much lower efficiency for the low-gravity wort, somewhere between 35-15%, depending on your system. 

So this grain may look spent, but sugars still abound! Run some more water through it, and BOOM! you've doubled your brew day output!

Make Your Sanitizer Stretch June 30 2014, 0 Comments

Brewing Tip: Have a spray bottle filed with sanitizer on brew day (or every day!). It makes sanitizing on-the-fly a breeze. I like to use an Iodine-based sanitizer in mine but any "no-rinse" sanitizer will do! 

One thing to remember if you are going to keep your sanitizer for a long time after you mix it up: make sure to use reverse osmosis or distilled water when you mix your sanitizer. If you use tap water, the minerals and such in the water will denature your sanitizer after awhile.

Planting Hops June 24 2013, 0 Comments

Hopefully you all are getting close to being done getting your hop rhizomes planted for the year. You'll definitely want to get your hop rhizomes or hop plants in the ground by mid-to-end of June, for sure. You may not see many hops the first year, but you'll definitely be glad you planted them in years two and onward.

Remember hops want lots of sun and want to climb, sometimes up to 20 feet! One trick to maximize your hop yield (as long as your hop bines are 3+ years old) is to trim all your bines down to the ground near the end of May and then keep the best two or so that come up from each node. This will give you a higher yield of hops.

Remember that you can always call us with any questions regarding hop bine planting, tending, or harvesting. And we still do have some hop rhizomes and plants left. The rhizomes have been marked down to $3.99 and the hop plants are $9.99.

Happy hopping!