Category: Notes (What’s Brewing)


The End (of the month – and year) is Near!

Filed Under: Bars, Pubs, Restaurants, Notes (What's Brewing), To-Do's & Ta-Da's by ABREWCADABREW — 1 Comment
29 November, 2011

What a week. Month. All eleven of them! And now here I am again, scrambling senselessly, desperate to get done what needs to get done done. In the last two days I’ve:

  • Bottled 12L of Ta Tart Orm, my Irish Red Ale
  • Weighed out grains and finished a yeast starter for my next brew this Sunday
  • Finally made reservations at Casa De Fujimori for the missus’ upcoming birthday

    • Tomorrow includes milling aforementioned grains, racking a(nother) Strong Scotch Ale, and making pretzels before racing off to the in-law’s to celebrate my nephew’s second birthday (wouldn’t you know, the same day as the missus’!) Oh wait, I also need to buy a coat; the nights are getting chillier and chillier!

    But wait, there’s more! December to do’s:

  • Design, print, and send out 年賀状 (Nengajō, Japanese New Year’s cards)
  • Finalize my recipe and brew plan for a December Munich Helles.
  • Sit down and work on the website. There’s some layout changes in store!

    • Did I mention the lobster? I need to cook a lobster. Yes, because there’s one in the fridge.

    But before I go, a quick shout out to my beer bretheren for a wild and wicked last Saturday night at DevilCraft Beer Pub & Pizzeria. Not only was much fun had and brilliant beer imbibed, but I also learned that my KafkaEska IPA tasted off because it was. Phenols. Infected by the dreaded Band-Aid® off-flavour. Grrr.

    Cheers until the next!

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    Always Running Into Out of Time

    Filed Under: Bun in the Oven, Magic, My Homebrewing History, Notes (What's Brewing) by ABREWCADABREW — 8 Comments
    14 November, 2011

    LIFE. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Almost a year ago I posted about being pressed for time before year’s end, and now here I am again sensing urgency – except these days urgency is compounded by exhaustion, frustration, and often feeling as empty as naked lunch.

    One thing that’s been bothering me is, well, my beers. I’ve yet to brew a batch that I’m entirely confident or proud of. Good beer? Yes. Great beer? No.

    Another thing, my Scottish Lee Heavy’s successful carbonation test wasn’t nearly as successful as I’d thought; not only was half the batch disappointingly under-carbonated, but the entire batch has also been affected by haze. Sure, it can be drunk, but it won’t be entered into any beer contests soon ever.

    Oh well, back to the drawing board.

    At least I didn’t have to dump it like my good friend and beer brother, Mark. In fact, several other brewers I know have had to chuck out recent batches. I’ll count my blessings, then. Knock wood. There’s more to groan at than an occasional flat cloudy beer.

    Something else I’ve been meaning to address, and was reminded of in an e-mail asking, “Where’s the magic? Your website says, ‘exploits in homebrewing and magic’.” I know, I know! One of my aims this year was to shoot and upload videos of me performing my favourite effects. But patience please until I’ve video editing software; I’ve no desire to amaze you with utter sh*te.

    Finally, there’s the missus. It’s been over a year and still no luck. What do you do for someone who only wants the one thing you keep failing to do? Try try again, I suppose. But the thought of her having an unhappy birthday followed by an unhappy new year is simply unbearable. :sad:

    Aye, another round of heavy sighs. I’ve gotten this far, can’t give up now…right?

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    Scottish Lee Heavy Carbonation Test: Success

    Filed Under: EVENTS, Images (What's Brewing), Notes (What's Brewing) by ABREWCADABREW — 1 Comment
    6 November, 2011

    I’m often asked how beer gets carbonated; in my previous post, I mentioned something about getting it right. There are two ways to carbonate beer, naturally and forced, I use the natural method: adding a small amount of sugar to the beer in its final container (i.e. bottle). Because enough suspended yeast remains in the beer, the sugar ferments creating CO2, and since the bottle gets capped the CO2 has no choice but to be absorbed by the beer.

    There are several ways to do this, I prefer measuring the sugar then boiling it with water; adding this priming solution to a bottling bucket; adding the beer to the bottling bucket and priming solution; then proceed with bottling. In that order. Standard stuff.

    But when I bottled my Scottish Lee Heavy the other day, I wound up having to add the sugar solution to the bottling bucket with the beer already in it. Don’t ask why, I’m not going to say, except that I was worried the sugar might not have mixed properly with the beer.

    Fortunately there’s a way to check carbonation. On bottling day I fill an empty 500ml PET soda bottle with beer, but then squeeze out as much excess air as I can, resulting in (image left). As the beer carbonates, the bottle pops back into shape. I can judge how carbonated the beer is by how much the bottle returns to its normal shape and hardness. As you can see (image right), my Scottish Lee Heavy is doing just fine. Whew!

    Carbonation Test

    Okay, no more worry, time to make breakfast and head out to the Nippon Craft Beer Festival!

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