SD Brewery Tour: Hess North Park

I have been a big fan of Hess Brewing for a long time. San Diego's 1st Nano Brewery, it makes the rest of us homebrewers think "Hey! Maybe I can do that too!" If you are so inclined...

Personally, I'm happy making my own small batches and sharing with friends. Not interested in turning my hobby into my job. Not to mention the fact that, my beers are not nearly the quality for mass production!

This is certainly not the case with Hess. As I said, I've been a fan for some time, having visited their Miramar location many many times. It doesn't hurt that they are super close to my office. So when I first heard that they were moving production to a new location in North Park I was worried. Getting my Purrowler fills will not be so convenient now! But fear not! Two things about this... First, they are not closing the Miramar location (yet) and since I first heard the news I have moved a little bit closer to the NP location. Yay for me!!

And even better yet, the new location is Really Cool! I love how, when you first walk in, it's basically an overhead walkway through the brewery. Right away you see the brewhouse and then the massive fermentaion vessels all lined up. I hope they give tours some day, because I really want to see the inner workings down there!

Then the pathway leads you to, what else?
The beer!

This was the Soft Opening, and they had 9 beers on tap! Unfortunately, they didn't have one of my favorites, Deceptio Black IPA on that day, but many other fantastic beers. I had the Pallidus, a Belgian Pale which I had never had from them before. Very tasty! I also sampled the Brunus Robustus, a Robust Porter. Also, very good.

With limited time, I wasn't able to sample too many on this day, but these are not new beers to me. If they are to you, I highly recommend stopping by this new brewery/tasting room.  The Grand Opening is this Fri/Sat, August 9/10, and as of this posting there are still tickets available for the Sat 1pm session. The $30 includes a commemorative glass and all beer during the event(excluding growler fills). Looks like they are going to have 12 or 13 beers then.
So, check them out! Yet, one more of the fantastic San Diego breweries that we are spoiled with!!

Double IPA - Bottled

Bottling is so much fun!!! Right kids?!? Right....?

Shortly after this shot, all of my helpers seemed to disappear.

Oh well, 5 gal (actually more like 4-1/4) bottled and waiting to be bottle conditioned.

Who needs kegging?!?! :-(

Beer Review: Mother Earth Brew Co (CA) Hop Diggity

 New Feature!! This is more of a personal notebook of new beers that I'm trying, rather than any real review format. Gonna share some thoughts, without getting too in-depth. I'll also give it a personal rating.

So, first up is Hop Diggity from Mother Earth Brew Co, in Vista California. I say this part only because there is another Mother Earth. Mother Earth Brewing from North Carolina. I haven't been able to try any of the East Coast brewery's beers, but I have had a few from here in SD county.

Very nice Double IPA, checking in at 8% ABV. Good and hoppy, with a balanced malt kick! I poured this into my 8 oz glass, so it took a few fills to finish and savor the whole bottle, and my last pour I didn't realize that there was a fair amount of yeast sediment in the bottom. No worries, it didn't affect the flavor too much at this point.

Overall a very tasty DIPA.

7 out of 10 pints.

New Brew Pot!!!

So, I needed some new headphones and I could find the ones I need at Target, so I decided to look on Amazon.

I forgot that I had this 40 qt Aluminum Stock Pot in my basket. $40 bucks, and with free shipping!
But I didn't have $40 bucks to spend, at least not for beer-related stuff. So I was ready to remove it from the cart when I saw that there was an offer for an Amazon VISA, sign up and get an automatic $50 gift card. So the pot & the headphones, plus shipping turned out to be $1.23. Not bad! Can't wait to start the inaugural brew with this set up which as you may have read was in bad need of a bigger pot.

SD Brewery Tour: Intergalactic Brewing

So, our plan last week was to visit Belching Beaver's new tasting room in North Park.
But since Dave's plan is to visit actual breweries, and not just tasting rooms, our plan changed. I'm sure we will go visit BB soon, but not as part of the Brewery Tour.

So, with a new plan we decided to visit Intergalactic Brewing instead. Man were we not disappointed! Nice little tastin room, with some really well-made beers. I'll be coming back here again soon. Check out Dave's full revew over at Hop-Daddy.

San Diego Brewery Tour

So, inspired by my friend Dave over at Hop-Daddy I'm attempting to visit as many breweries in San Diego as possible. I don't plan on writing any full on reviews, just more of a log of which breweries I do visit and my general impressions.

As Dave will attest, I'm pretty liberal with my reviews. I like them ALL!! usually....

Tonight, Belching Beaver's new tasting room in North Park. I've never had any of their beers, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Brew Day - 4/14/13 - Double IPA

So, today's Brew Day (which was actually over a week ago...) involves several firsts. The first first (heh) was this is the first beer that I am brewing in my new facilities (i.e. our new house). We moved in last October, and with the garage being a total mess, I have been putting off making any beer just for sheer logistical reasons. Well, 6 months later, and the garage is still a mess, but a little bit more of a controlled mess. I was really itching to make something, so I set aside some space and some time and away I went...

That brings us to the next first (second first?). My new Mash tun!!

I've finally got a proper 10 gal MT and now I can start making full 5 gal All grain batches. Cool!

I need to focus a little bit better on my calculating because my mash temp was higher than I anticipated. I think I assumed that my grains were colder and adjusted too much. I'll be sure to get a better read next time.

Now I just need to get a bigger boil kettle because it's REALLY hard to prevent boil-overs with this "7.5" gal turkey fryer. I say "7.5" because that's how it's advertised, but I measured it and it's closer to 6.2-6.5 gal. If you look closely at the next picture, you can see the residuals of the boil-over... Oh well, one more piece of equipment to look for. This will make a nice HLT some day. BTW, I have found some great deals for 10 gal kettles over at http://www.homebrewfinds.com/ .

Ok, so the next first for this brew day is this is the first time I've used the super-hyped Mosaic hops. I was surprised at how fruity these smelled. A lot of pineapple and mango. I was expecting more citrus and pine for some reason. I don't know why. In any case, they smelled AMAZING before and after throwing them into the boil.

So that's pretty much it. I also used my new refractometer for the first time this day, but I didn't get any pictures of that. For the most part the brew day went pretty well. My OG was a little bit lower than I was shooting for, I think that is because of the higher temp in the mash. Not too bad for a day of firsts!

Recipe:

The recipe is based on a Ruination clone I found on homebrew talk. I used the same malt bill, but replaced the hops with what I had on hand.

Malt bill

14 Lbs Pale Malt (2 row)

1 lb. Crystal 20L

Mash - 152 Est OG - 1.077 (I hit closer to 156 and my OG was 1.071)

Hops

1.75 oz. Cascade hops (60 min boil)

1 oz. Citra hops (30 min boil)

1 oz. Citra (10 min)

1 tablet Whirfloc (15 Min Boil)

1 oz. Citra (1 min)

1 oz. Mosaic (1 min)

1 oz. Citra (dryhopped)

1 oz. Mosaic (dryhopped)

Hydrated US-05

14 days ferment @ 62

Then DryHop 7 days @ 65

Est FG - 1.013

Wilco play Conan

Brew-Weekend Re-cap.

Ok, so In know it's already Wednesday, but I'm just now getting around to posting about this past weekend.

As I said before, my plan was to bottle the stout on Friday, and then brew two batches on Sunday.
Well, I'm happy to say that both of these items were accomplished, right as scheduled! :-D

First, Friday.

Bottle-time went well.

This is an Oatmeal Cream Stout, and I decided to add cocoa-nibs to the secondary. I also added some raspberry extract to half of the batch (the smaller half, on the left).

I hope this wasn't a mistake, as the raspberry was very sweet and almost cough syrupy. We'll see over time if this mellows out. If I don't like it, maybe some of our friends will.



Next we fast forward to Sunday, Brew day!!

Since this was my first attempt at a lager, I was a little nervous that this would all go as planned. For the most part all went well. I had a little issue with my digital thermometer. The temp seemed to hit pretty quick for the mash, and about halfway through, I decided to check it against another thermometer that I knew was correct. 15 degrees off!! Oh no! So my mash that I thought was 151 was actually more like 136!! Fortunately I had some near boiling water ready for the sparge, so I added some of that and got it up to about 145 for the last half hour. I probably could have left it in for longer, but I had a deadline!



Time to boil, and as you can see I'm using a hop bag. I've never done this before, but hopefully this will make for a clearer beer. This first batch is a Schwarzbier, a German Dark Lager. And for the next batch I really want it to get as clear as possible.

Finished the boil, chilled nice and quick thanks to the wort chiller, and pitched the yeast at about 62 degrees. I forgot to do a hydrometer reading before I pitched so I did one right after. Will it make that much of a difference that soon? Anyhow, it read at 1.051 which I think is right at the range I was looking for.

Next, the Premium Light Lager.



Here's a pic of the mash. As you can see I'm using my analog meat thermometer now. Sorry I didn't get more pics, but I was pretty focused on making the beer!

Again, mash and boil all went well. Hit all the temps that I wanted to hit. The recipe for this calls for Halertau hops and the WLP840 American Lager Yeast. But I wanted to use Amarillo hops because I've never used them before, and a lot of IPA's and Pale Ales that I like use them, and the LHBS didn't have 840 so I substituted it with WLP802 Czech Budejovice Lager Yeast. I don't know what difference this will make, but it ain't going to taste like Bud!

This time I did throw in the hydro before I pitched and the reading was 1.070!! Can that be right?
I need to look over my grain bill again to see what happened there.

Anyhow, both brews are bubbling away happily in the fridge. I'll take a pic of that tonight and post soon.

Homebrew Weekend!

So if all goes as planned, I plan on bottling my Chocolate "Stout" tonight, and then making two lagers over the weekend. Either one on Saturday, and then the other Sunday, or both on Sunday. This of course all depends on whether or not my ingredients show up in time. Estimated delivery date is 3/19, tomorrow.

This is the first time I have ever ordered from Brewmasters Warehouse and it was a pretty cool experience. They have this thing called the Brew Builder™ and you enter the ingredients, build your recipe and save it for later. It's got other cool options, so I suggest you check it out.

Anyhow, If all goes as planned I'll report back on Monday with a Brewday recap!

Lorraine Bowen - Crumble Song (Bombay Mix) Feat. Rajesh David

I dare you to watch this and then not sing it to yourself ALL DAY!!!

Best Rare-Bird Pictures of 2010: National Geographic

Some really cool photos of rare and endangered birds like this one.

New Zealand's large, flightless Kakapo.

Best Rare-Bird Pictures of 2010 Named

Toddlers & Tiaras with Tom Hanks

How to add a link on Mothering.com

Visually!!!

Click on the pictures to make biggy...

First, type how you want the link to look.

Then select what you typed

While text is still selected, hit the LINK button

A pop up window tells you to add your URL. DO IT!!!

Then it should look like this...

And you post will look like this!

Thank you and have a great day!

Brew Day! Extra Pale Ale!

So I had a very nice brew day today. Hit my temps, cleaned everything up nice, just an overall good brewing day.

I think the primary reason that my session was so successful is my new grain bag.
This being my 3rd attempt at a partial mash, I finally hit my target mash temperature, and held it for most of the 60 minute mash. Previously I had all of my grain in my small steeping bag, and it just sat in the middle of the brew pot. Today I bought a 5 gallon fine mesh paint strainer bag and it was so nice! It fit over the top of my brew pot, and I just poured the grain in, mixing it well before making sure my temperature was correct.

I feel this made a huge difference, where my previous attempts made it much harder to gage the correct temperature. The only snag I had was I forgot to add my extract! I've started to employ a late extract addition (last 15 minutes) and everything was going so well that I forgot to put it in! I placed the pot in the ice bath to cool it down, when I noticed the large plastic tub sitting on the table. Doh!

Oh well, I added the extract, boiled for a few more minutes and all was well.

Can't wait to try it!!

Recipe:
-------

4 lbs Pale LME
2 lbs 2-row
1/2 lb. Caramunich
1/2 lb. Belgian Carapils
1/2 lb.Crystal 20L

1 oz. Willamette hops (60 min boil)

1 oz. Willamette (30 min boil)

Add Extract (15 min boil)
1 oz. Willamette (15 min boil)
1 tsp. Irish Moss (15 min boil)

1/2 oz. Cascade (End of boil)
1 oz. Willamette (End of Boil)

2 oz. Cascade (Dry Hop)
1/2 oz. Willamette (Dry Hop)

WLP001 yeast, from a 1000ml starter

Behold! Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA

Stone Brewing Co announces their 14th anniversary beer.
Behold! Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA

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10 days!!!

It's been 10 days since my last blahg update!!

Well, that's not saying much because before this I was going months without any sort of info here at the dunnspace. So, what's going on with me? Mirror time.

You know, when you take a moment to look in the mirror and really evaluate what you are, who you are and what you're doing with your life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking at any drastic life changes. I'm not "sick of my life, my job, I need a change!". I'm talking about looking at yourself, and making sure you are on the right path.

Every day is a battle. We need to look at each day as a victory or a setback and take account for what's happening. At the end of the day, did I do all I could do to fend off Satan's attacks and show that I am on the right side? It takes a daily review like this when the battle is being fought and there's no time to slack. Because he's going to take the first opportunity he sees and there's no room for slipping up this close to the end.

So a good preparation is a look at the Daily Text. Yesterday was exceptionally timely with Ecc 7:2. Today is very encouraging at Ps 71:12. Take the time, evaluate yourself and what you are doing during the course of the day, and WIN the battle!

Frog Fail

Hee hee...
I don't know why I think this is so funny! I think it's the little arms reaching for what's not there. Maybe it's the dragonfly thinking "Ha! I got away!!".

Or maybe it's the sound I hear in my head. The combination of "whooop!" and the sad trombone.

Squirrel Fishing!!

"No Squirrels were harmed in the making of this video"


"To catch a squirrel is much like catching a monkey. It takes patience..."

Did you see LOST last night?

I did, but Karin fell asleep so I won't say anything about it yet.

I know it wasn't a Desmond episode, but I wanted to make this picture and found this site that can do it for you! Quick and easy, check it out at: Obama Icon ME.