First State Brewers Blog

The First State Brewers have been on 2 international beer tours. The first was a trip to Germany in 2002. The 2nd trip was couple of years ago split between York, England and Marburg, Germany. Now, plans are being made for a trip to Ireland!

We are looking at possibly going around St. Patrick’s Day or Spring Break of 2008. If you’re interested in joining us, please let me know.

Here’s a Google Map that I will be updating with possible destinations. Click on the thumbnails to get a description of the attraction. Zoom the map in to see all the attractions at that location. If you know of a place we should visit that’s not on the map, please let me know so I can add it!

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I recently received an order from Libbey.com of their Poco Grande glasses which work remarkably well as tulip glasses for belgian beers. My dogfish glass bit the big one a few months back, and it has been paining me to drink my belgians out of wine glasses (I know, how snobbish). The Libbey glasses aren’t the perfect tulip shape, however they do not have crap printed on them and they were relatively inexpensive, so I won’t complain. If I wanted, I could even go out and get these ones printed or etched with a logo.

I am also entering a couple beers in Malt Madness with my buddy Brian. Two of them are my own (Travelers & Tourists and an Abbey Brown, both in the Dubbel category), along with a co-entry of our Saturday IPA and the Gnarleywine we brewed in October of last year (Which is fan-f’ing-tastic, by the way). I think Brian is also gonna enter some of his own beers - maybe the Hazelnut and another. I am interested in hearing some feedback on my belgians and our hop monster children… And hopefully I’ll be putting one of my kegs of it on tap here in the not-so-distant future.

No brewing this weekend for me - at least not beer. Instead I’ll be polluting my equipment with some dirty crustaceans - turns out a 14 gallon kettle with a false bottom is the perfect crab-steaming vessel too… Booyaa!!! We’re getting a half bushel of #1s to split between Donna, myself, one of my sisters and her husband, and my parents. While not brewing related, guarenteed we will be sucking down some suds to go with our crabs and I am using brewing gear to do the deed :-D.

Yesterday I brewed the base for another beer destined for fruiting - a darker-colored wheat. The day went VERY well - I was done brewing in under 5 hours, and with cleanup it was about 5 1/2. The yeast, an expired packet of Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat that I nursed back to health through a couple starters, took off in under 12 hours. I guess its not really a “wheat” since i formulated it with only 25% wheat malt instead of 50%, but it will certainly be wheat-ish.

Once primary fermentation is complete, I will rack it into a secondary with some of these monsters - blackberries we picked a few weeks ago at Milburn Orchards. We managed to fill a flat in under 20 minutes, these things are so huge. They are all in our freezer right now (individually flash-frozen), so I will thaw them out, mush them a little to break out the flavor, and then load up the carboy with them. I’m thinking 4 lbs (2 per 5 gallons).

This weekend one of our projects was to clean my “beer room”, the unfinished part of our basement. It has needed attention for some time, and it now looks worlds better than it did. One of the projects I completed was reinforcing the shelving where our commercial beers are aging. Its a relatively meager collection, however it was heavy enough to start bowing the 1/2″ particle board it sits on. The reinforcement slats will completely eliminate that issue for quite a while.

In addition, I made a decent attempt at cataloging the homebrew I have in kegs and bottles - the kegs were relatively easy, and I went ahead and included the 30 or so gallons I have in secondary fermenters that will be kegged over the next 2 weeks or so. The bottles were a little more challenging, but not too bad. Now I have a good idea of what bottles I shouldn’t worry about drinking, and what I need to start rationing.

Next weekend I will brew a Blackberry Wheat using some “free” yeast from Joe and Marlana at HDYB. They had a Wyeast propogator pack of their 3056 Bavarian Wheat strain that had expired, and offered it to me gratis (along with my purchase of the 3 sacks of grain). As I make starters for all my yeast strains, it didn’t worry too much - I’ve got a rockin’ 1L starter of it on the stir plate right now, that I’ll let finish out, settle, and then I’ll decant it and pitch it into another 2L of wort prior to pitching next week. I should have a good cell count by then, despite the yeast’s humble beginnings. Once the beer is brewed and fermented, I’ll rack it ontop of 4 or so pounds of the blackberries we picked at Milburn Orchards a few weekends ago.

So I haven’t been Blogging very much lately… I have been kind of busy. Doing what, you ask?

Bottling and brewing my friends. And both in large amounts. In the picture you’ll see 10 gallons of American Brown Ale on the left that I brewed this past weekend with the help of my friend Brian. It was a 20 gallon batch we split 2 ways, and we did some experimenting with my equipment which went really well. He did a better job summarizing everything that happened than I could, so I won’t even try to repeat it here. For a change, our experimentation all payed off. I think one of my favorite points was when we shoved my squirrel mixer in the mash tun and managed to get a perfectly mixed mash within a minute or so… that squirrel mixer is just the perfect size for a 28 gallon mash tun, and I’m fairly certain our arms would have fallen off trying to mix that much grain by hand.

The middle 2 carboys are actually the starter batch we did for the ABA, our hoppy-as-hell, used 1.5 POUNDS of hops IPA. Once again, Brian did a great job summarizing that day here in his blog. I bring it up because I also experimented with this batch, and it was a failed experiement - I tried to weight the hops down using glass marbles and a hop bag. As you can tell from the picture… it didn’t work. After spending many frustrating minutes trying to shove a hop bag full of marbles and hops into that tiny friggin opening in the top, I was conviced it was a bonehead idea - but I was determined to persevere in my endeavor. Lesson learned - next time I’ll leave them in there loose and just shake the carboy every few days. And NO I WILL NOT TRY TO USE MORE MARBLES. If you tried stuffing it through a one inch hole, you’d understand too. God help me trying to get them back out.

On the right is 10 gallons of peated scottish (from the previous post) that will soon be racked ontop of several ounces (like 3 per 5 gallons) of bourbon-aged oak cubes. 5 gallons of this batch is going to a friend… so I hope it turns out as good as the last one did.

That brings me to bottling. LOTS of bottling. 15 gallons in a week, to be more precise. The 20 gallon batch of TnT that I brewed several weeks ago has conditioned enough and was ready for packaging, so I kegged 5 gallons and the rest went into glass containers of various sizes. The 1L bottles on the lower left are for Joe and Marlana at HDYB, 1 case of the 12oz bottles are going to my cousin Drew and his bandmates, and the rest …. well, I’m sure that Donna and I will put them to good use.

All that bottling certainly reminded me why I like kegging so much. I’ve got like 8 cornies sitting empty at the moment - But with 30 gallons to keg in the next few weeks - They’ll fill up really fast.

I’ve got some fat sacks. You know you want some. I picked up 3 bags of Breiss 2-row Brewer’s malt from HDYB today - Joe cut me a deal since I bought 3 at a time. Add that to the sack of pilsner and 1/2 sack of Maris Otter - I gots the goods.

My peated scottish brewed on Sunday is winding down… just in time for a 20 gallon batch this weekend of American Brown Ale with my buddy Brian. The sack of Weyermann Pilsner comes courtesy of Brian as well - Thanks a ton, man. Very cool. We’ll use the rest of the Maris Otter (top bag - about 25 lbs left in there) with a portion of Briess 2-Row Brewer’s malt this weekend, repitching yeast from our batch of Saturday IPA a few weeks ago. This batch won’t use nearly the hop bill the last one did - I think right now we’re only looking at 6 or 7 ounces for 20 gallons, whereas we used 24 oz in that IPA.

A friend of mine AIMed me and asked me to post something on the blog. I am actually a little embarrased about it, but I’m going to anyways. My friends and family are always the folks that I brew to please, and here is a bit of feedback I got from one of them. There are Kudos to all of you at the end too.

So without further ado…

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First, a little background:
I’ve had the immense pleasure of knowing Garrett since 1995, when I first moved to Atlanta. I had probably crossed paths with him before then, but it wasn’t until that time that he and I discovered our common love of industrial music, griping, and intoxication. We passed many a day in his room at the frat house, sucking down beers and blasting music that most human ears, (including his housemates) would classify as utterly antisocial. At the same time, I fell in with Garrett’s cousin Drew and a group named Order of the Beak; and after being an erstwhile roadie for them on a utterly horriffic tour through Florida, became a member of the band as well.

Many years have passed since then, with both Garrett and I eventually losing our painted, spiked leather jackets, in favor of more corporatish attire, and Order of the Beak changing names, moving to Florida, and now having been resurrected by Drew, Jeremy and I as Choking Sun. However rare our chances to be in actual proximity to each other are, I cannot imagine not having Garrett in my life.

That being said, I began to read about his exploits on the First State Brewer’s Blog a couple of years ago, and remember my first reaction along the lines of, “wow, I have no fricken idea what he’s talking about here, but it sounds very cool.” And then I was lucky enough to have some of the Choking Sun Stout, which, with no sense of overstatement, knocked my socks off. I will always remember the glorious shining moment when it occurred to Drew, Jeremy and I that not only were we a very exclusive group of three guys who had weathered a hell of a lot together, but we had our very own, lovingly handcrafted beer named after us.

Then, just the other week, I got to try the Traveler’s and Tourists Ale. From what I understand it’s Garrett’s take on a Belgian Ale, so when I first spied it, it seemed almost right on the money colorwise, although a bit thicker looking than a normal Belgian. However, on first sip, my lord. It was lighter than it looked, crisp, just enough sweetness and bitterness, and left an absolutely amazing aftertaste. Again, Drew, Jeremy and I sat out in the studio, savoring the greatness, and smiling. While I am always going to be loyal to the Choking Sun Stout, (kind of like one being loyal to your first love) I think the Travelers and Tourists is possibly the finest beer I have ever had the opportunity to drink. I’m not a connesieur, by any stretch, but I’d like to flatter myself by thinking that I can sniff greatness in things, and this is greatness embodied. I have had chances to taste some of Garrett’s other fine work as well, especially that Bourbon Stout (?) and it’s all touched with immense talent.

So for all those up there in the First State, I would like to heartily thank you for being such good folks to my dear friend and his family, and for any peer pressure you might have provided to keep Garrett striving for excellence, (though I doubt he needs much prodding at all, dedicated man that he is.)

Cheers…
d. battermann

While I haven’t been working much on the sculpture development platform much recently, I haven’t been idle. In fact, I’ve been getting to know the inner workings of .NET a little better by taking on some completely unnecessary and extremely difficult customizations to standard user controls. I had a large library of control modules in VB6 that allowed me to do all manner of amazing things with simple controls like Tabstrips and Edits (Textboxes)… and with .NET that library evaporated. The tabstrip and textbox are the first I’ve tried to tackle, and while they are only partly complete right now - the really hard stuff is behind me.

I started with some of my favorites - a textbox that includes a line number tray AND provides complete control over text and selection colors. The number tray is complete, as is the custom selection color. It responds to the mouse gestures as it should, and scrolls appropriately. I have not gotten around to keystroke redraws yet, but since the VB6 version has the requirements pretty much captured - I do not see it being an issue.

So what would that be useful for? In the development platform, it could be used for displaying action scripts, and when syntax checking is generated, it could help the user find the “errors” by calling out specific line numbers. In the sculpture control app, it could be used for printing out error messages or something.

The second item is the tabstrip - I don’t much care for the way a standard tabstrip is rendered, and while .NET makes ownerdrawing the “text” part of the tab areas easily, you have no control whatsoever around the “frame”. After a little effort, I figured out what it takes to override and draw the tabs, as well as the little child window that lets you scroll through them. I haven’t settled on exactly what I want the tabs to look like, but once I do - I can now make it happen.

I love how much power .NET has built into it, but I find that many of the items still require resorting to the Windows API calls, or at least that is how I have tackled (being somewhat ignorant of all .NET’s capabilities). Dealing with structures in the API calls seems a little problematic for me, but I’m sure its simply a lack of experience.

So anyways - that’s only barely related to brewing. I did brew 20 gallons of IPA this weekend with my friends Brian and Chris - turned out to be 1.074, and we used 1.5 pounds of hops… was killer. Its downstairs chugging away in the primaries.

In a couple words - wheaty, light, summery, and fruity. They best describe the flavors that I’ve focused on for the past few hot months (aside from the stronger belgians)… and they have resulted in some great batches. I realized that I have not posted any tap labels recently, and that I also haven’t talked much about what we’ve had on tap - so here’s a quick pre-independence day synopsis:

Thursday’s Tonic Black Raspberry Ale:
This was actually a starter batch for 20 gallons of Amarillo Pale Ale, but turned out to be one of my favorite fruit beers I’ve ever made. We made a relatively light ale with a weird assortment of leftover old grains (which needed to be used or tossed), including some honey malt and a touch of crystal. We then racked the beer into the secondary ontop of 2 pounds of frozen black raspberries picked back in Sept/Oct of 2006. We let it condition on the raspberries for about a month, and the beer picked up a ton of color and flavor from the berries. The beer itself was deep red (almost purple) with a strong berry taste, a long-lasting pink head, mildly tart, and a nice sweet finish. I was very disappointed when this keg blew last week.

Mango Mama Witbier:
A mostly traditional Belgian-style witbier with a twist - it sat on mango cubes for a couple weeks in the secondary. The coriander and bitter orange peel additions were relatively reserved, I didn’t bother with any chamomile, and the malt bill was mostly just wheat malt and pilsner. It is a very good witbier, and has all the right characteristics - but does not have a very strong mango flavor. Last time we pureed the mango, which I think helped alot - this time we were in a rush to get it on tap, so it didn’t condition as long as it should have - and the mango cubes didn’t flavor the beer enough. Lesson learned. But hey! It is a very good witbier nonetheless. And before you all judge me somewhat pervy, the artwork was composed by my wife. She’s so cool.

Summer Haze Wheat:
Another starter batch that has pleased me beyond all expectations - This was a 10 gallon batch of a relatively simple ale fermented with the Wyeast 3864 Canadian Belgian strain - and formulated to fall pretty close to the Belgian Pale category. The addition of a little wheat malt gives it some haze (as well as the yeast strain, notorious for not flocculating well), 1.5oz of fresh ground ginger and several ounces of Sorachi Ace hops give the beer a refreshing and crisp flavor, and the yeast strain - well, its my favorite. It pushes this beer into a whole new world of yumminess. At 5.5%, this is perfect for fortifying (not stupifying) you after mowing the lawn or working in the yard.

I had a few other batches in there that are worth mentioning, but they didn’t stick around long enough for me to even create a tap handle (yet)… one was a peated scottish aged on bourbon oak chips. It’s tentative called “Thistle Dew”… and once the next keg goes on tap I’ll post the label I come up with for it. I also gone through a couple kegs of Amarillo Pale - Man, that stuff rocks.

Been busy the last couple of weekends. I spent Father’s Day de-labeling and de-funking about 8 cases worth of bottles that I have amassed over the past 6 months. 6 cases were 12oz bottles, and about 2 cases were belgian-style 750mL bottles / Champagne bottles. It took me about 6 hours, a 1/4 cup of PBW, and a whole lot of scrubbing… but in the end, I have bottles for another 20 gallons of whatever I deem worthy of going into a bottle instead of a keg.

This weekend I broke in my new 28 gallon Hot Liquor Tank by brewing 20 gallons of Travelers & Tourists Belgian Red Ale. I won 2nd place at the Buzz Off competition in the Dubbel category, but I really didn’t intend for it to be that (it just fit that category best)…. I just wanted it to be a damn-tasty belgian-style brew, which it is. It even seems to satisfy Oliver’s picky palate. The HLT has a cool site glass on the side that shows the current liquid level, and ultimately I’ll get digital readings from the site glass too. This time around, I mostly just used it for no reason at all (Could have used my kettle)… but I really wanted to break it in.

The equipment was pretty much the same as my other 20 gallon batches - I used the pump skid to move hot water around (From the HLT on the burner up to the 10 gallon cooler reservoir), split the mash into 2 different tuns, and used my 14 gallon kettle as a measuring grant. The after first 13 gallons sparged, I pumped the remaining hot water into the reservoir cooler, put the kettle on the burner, and then pumped the wort up into the kettle. Then it was time to start sparging the second 13 gallons using the second tun.

The wort was an absolutely gorgeous reddish-brown color, and smelled heavenly. I tried to be careful not to get too much air into it during the pump transfer, but some happened anyways - hopefully not enough to cause hot-side aeration.

Boiling 26 gallons of wort is just such a cool feeling. It was a really long brew day (about 9 hours), but in the end I got some pretty great beer (and alot of it). The hop additions did a really good job of catching hot and cold break (they formed their own filter bed ontop of the false bottom), and about my only big mistake was forgetting about the Candi Syrup and Corn Sugar addition until about 5 minutes from the end of the boil (were supposed to be added around 15). I had to scramble a little and didn’t incorporate them as smoothly as I wanted to, but in the end I didn’t have any scorch marks on the bottom of my kettle and the wort was the correct target gravity (1.070 SG by hydrometer).

Fermentation is nearly done at this point - almost 48 hours later. The kraeusen has started to subside, and the airlock CO2 bubbles are coming more slowly. The yeast was pitched at 66 degrees, and rose to about 73 while fermenting. I don’t want the yeast to prematurely crash… so I have wrapped some sleeping bags around them to try to retain some of the heat and let the yeast finish up.

I love 20 gallon batches.