First State Brewers' Blog

Find some details here. Its on September 14th, and it's $50/person for a 5 course meal. Looks very tasty.

Ever wanted to ask fellow club members if anyone was brewing this weekend? Or had a particular strain of yeast? Or wanted to go to that beer even this weekend? Or had an urgent technical problem?

In an effort to foster increased intereaction amongst us FSB'ers, I have taken it upon myself to start the First State Homebrewers Google Group.

http://groups.google.com/group/firststatebrewers/about

This is designed to provide up-to-the-moment info that we may wish to share with each other Re: all things beer.

In addition to the blog, this allows everyone to contact everyone else, and you will have the option to receive all updates by email instantaneously, or once a day as a bundle ~ however you like !!!

To avoid spam, etc. this is an invite only page, so feel free to share this to all members and non-members within the local community and bordering areas (Delmarva, SE Penn, NJ, etc.)

Contact me directly for an invite

jbbiggins@comcast.net

See you online!

Wow. Two weeks since I've written an update. Must mean I've not been doing much, right? Heh. Well, I've been busy, and have a basement full of beer to prove it. I've got 20 gallons to get into kegs this weekend - 10 gallons of amarillo, 5 gallons of oak-aged vanilla porter, and 5 gallons of mango witbier. In addition to that I've got 5 gallons of oak-aged vanilla porter to put into bottles and 10 gallons of saison that will probably stay in the primary for another week or so...

Tonight I counter-pressure filled the last of my Bourbon-oak McBride's Strong Ale clone as well as 14 or so bottles of Hopocalypse, both of which will make a showing at this month's meeting. I'll also probably bring a growler of Hell's Bells Belgian Pale, which is actually more of a summer quaffer than anything. Hopefully folks will enjoy it.

I believe we're also going to have a counter-pressure filling demonstration, so if you want some of your kegged beer in bottles, bring an clean, empty six pack and your keg of choice. I'm going hopefully work out the details with our host, Mike, in the next day or so.

We've been playing with our new smoker - so far I've mesquite smoked three chickens, with a hickory bourbon turkey on the near horizon. What does this have to do with brewing, you ask? Smoked malt, of course!!! Yep, you got it - I'm going to try to home-smoke some malts and make some killer smoked porters or something. Not sure when in my schedule that'll happen - I've already got like 6 or 7 batches lined up in the near future.

Which takes me to my last point - I'm at 140 gallons for the year so far. I am right on target for hitting (or maybe exceeding) 200 gallons in 2006. Where the hell does it all go?!??! Oh yeah.... friends and family. I wouldn't have it any other way though.

Can't find a bottle opener around? Try using a sheet of paper.

William Benjamin Brzoska

Born August 2nd 2006 at 21:36
7lbs 3.6 oz
19 plus inches

Congratulations, guys! The Austin Zealots gain another member...

Tonight was a beer maintenance night... lots of sanitizing and racking.... with more still left to do. I kegged my Horizon Bitter, brewed several weeks ago with club member Mike Castagno... he's probably got it in bottles or kegs by now.... one of us is sure to bring it to an upcoming meeting. In addition to that, I racked my Amarillo Assault to secondaries and dry-hopped it with 4oz of Amarillo - 2oz per carboy. That's in addition to the 7oz I used to brew it... 11oz total for 10 gallons. I tried to keep the bitterness around 50 IBU, so it shouldn't be overwhelmingly bitter - but I'm hoping that the amarillo taste and aroma will just knock you out of your shoes. The mango wit should be moved to a secondary and polluted with the mango puree sometime this weekend... probably Saturday. No brew planned for this weekend - I want a little downtime. The next 4 brews wil probablyl be:

• Saison du Sevier (batch #2)
• Nasty Habit Abbey Dubbel
• Peated Scottish
• Clan Morrison Scotch Ale

Been also looking around online alot at data acquisition boards and various sensors. I'm slowly coming to realize that my dream home brewery will have to happen in stages - I'll probably implement a control panel that allows manual control of things and do that first, then worry about integrating a computer control system for the mash tun and liquor tank somewhere down the line, using the manual board as a potential "override" system if need be. Point is that yeah, it should be cool - but it has to brew good beer first. Best way to do that is to use my own skills to work things out first, then worry about adding a layer of complexity on top... Kind of a bummer b/c I kinda want to take it all on at once... but that's just not practical.