Author: joe

Mary Izett & The Beer Week that Was + Group Barrel + NHC

Monday’s Meeting: Mary Izett & Beer Week

Monday’s Brewsers meeting is Cinco de Marzo (not to be confused with Cincomarzada), our annual celebration of not only beer but also other fermented foods and beverages.  This year, Mary Izett will talk about quick fermentation, including but by no means limited to beer.  If you somehow don’t yet own Mary’s excellent book, Speed Brewing, she will likely have a few copies to sell and sign.  You can also buy it in advance from Amazon or just around the corner from Brouwerij Lane at Word Bookstore (2 copies in stock as of last week; might be out of stock now).

Before Mary talks, we’ll look back at The Beer Week that Was.  Bring anything you poured or otherwise brewed for NYC Beer Week 2016, and we’ll talk and taste our way through the highlights of late February.  As part of that discussion, we’re having a mini contest of Brewsers’ beers made with the wert KelSo gave away for Brewpiphany.

Group Barrel Aged Tripel

The Brewsers’ Tripel barrel is being refilled on Sunday, April 24.  If you’d like to sign up for a five gallon share of the barrel, do so.  We have a few open slots.  We hope to place a group purchase and have ingredients in hand by Friday, March 11.

National Homebrew Conference & Competition

Registration time is almost here.  See the NHC website.

Also, if you registered for the national homebrew competition, the deadline to submit bottles is March 9. At the last meeting, Andrew volunteered to drop off bottles for folks. So, if you want, bring your bottles to Monday’s meeting, and he can drop them off at Singlecut.

Monday Feb. 1: The Packaging Geek Out!

No matter how great a beer you brew, it’s only worth drinking if kegged or bottled well, properly conditioned, and stored correctly.  This Monday at 7, the Brewsers will host Mike Steinschneider, Packaging Manager at Brooklyn Brewery this Monday.  Mike’s planning to give us a quick rundown of his job and then lead a discussion of not only bottling and kegging but also some of the last steps on the cold side of brewing—barreling, dry hopping, other late additions, and more.  Plus, rumor has it some special Brooklyn beers may make an appearance.  Mike will talk around 7:20 or 7:30.  We’ll kick off at 7 with a focused homebrew tasting.

See you at Brouwerij Lane!

Sours, KelSo, Party, Barrels, NHC, and Upcoming Events

Great meeting, Monday!  Thanks to everyone who brought sours.  Ballots/comments are scanned.

Congratulations to Paul for his winning beer, Cross Continental Tangeryne, made with 2-Row, Rye, munich, oats, wheat, carapils; juice of 5lbs homegrown california tangerines; Cascade and homegrown zeus hops; tangerine zest; yeast – 3711, Bruery Saison de Lente dregs, Orval Dregs.  Brewed 2/2/14 Bottled 3/17/15. 6.7% abv.

Also this week

Tonight

KelSo is giving away about 20 barrels of wort tonight.  It’s all claimed, but where there are 20 barrels of free wort, there will be good beer and good people.  Join the fun—which includes also the Bitter & Esters bottle swap/beer share—starting around 6:30 at 529 Waverly Avenue.

Sunday’s party

We’re celebrating at Brouwerij Lane on Sunday.  Bring beer, food, friends, pets etc.  We’ll have at least one keg of homebrew on tap.  If you’d like to contribute, email me.  It’s a kind and effective way to ensure you have an empty keg ready for whatever you’re fermenting now.

Other updates from the meeting

Barrels

We’re adding both a dextrin heavy beer and lacto to the NY Common barrel.  If your have a share in the barrel and a problem with pitching lacto, write the barrel brewers.  We’ll figure something out.  Otherwise, we agreed this should help push the acidity without a fundamental change in the character.  We also agreed that the Tripel is nearly ready.  Those with beer in the barrel should plan on pulling it in late April or early May.  In the next month or so, we’ll work out details for both pulling what’s in the barrel and refilling.  If you don’t have a share in the barrel but want to brew for the next round, get in touch.  We’ll likely have a few spaces and can work something out.  Worst (best?) case, we can explore getting a third club barrel.

NHC: National Homebrewers Conference/Competition

There was a lot of interest and good discussion.  Ian is coordinating and will send an update to the Yahoo Group list soon.

Other events

Alex Hall, president of the Malted Barley Appreciation Society, repeated his invitation for Brewsers to join MBAS meetings, each second Wednesday of the month.  MBAS no longer collects annual dues but asks for $2 per meeting (no more than $20/year) to sample a lot of great pro brews.

Jimmy’s Homebrew Jamboree tickets go on sale tomorrow, January 7, at noon.  At least a few Brewsers as well as a number of other NYC homebrewers will be serving beer.  Hope to see you there!

Email caseysoloff@yahoo.com to brew for the 4th Annual Pride of Brooklyn Homebrew Festival, taking place Saturday, April 16, 2016 at Littlefield.

This week in homebrew

Monday 1/4: Sours + more

We’re meeting!  Sign up for the sours competition.  Arrive at 7 for a feedback session on Matt and Drew’s stout plus samples from the Brewsers two 55 gallon barrels.

Wednesday 1/6: Free wort

KelSo wort pick up on Wednesday.  To get free wort, you must sign up with KelSo and optionally can also add your info to the Brewsers’ sign up for our March in-club competition.  Bitter & Esters bottle swap will be at KelSo at the same time, so bring something to share if you can!

Sunday 1/10: Party

We’re celebrating at Brouwerij Lane from 2 until at least 6.  Bring food, beer, and friends.  Let me know if you want to bring a keg.  Brouwerij has offered to let us tap a few for self-service.

Holiday and Winter Beers, this Monday!

Monday, December 7, we’re sampling holiday and winter beers of all stripes.  Bring homebrew and commerical examples to share.  We’ll also make a group purchase of some examples from the shop.

After the themed, beers, we’ll move onto tasting other homebrew.  Should be a fun meeting!

Porters, Stouts, Winter Beers, Sours, and the Holiday Party

Ballots from the porters and stouts competition are online.  Congratulations to Craig for his winning Hopped Up Stout (#61 on the ballot).

Upcoming plans

Monday, December 7 @ 7pm
A survey of winter and holiday beers in December.  Bring homebrew and/or commercial beers to share.  We’ll buy more from the store to sample.

Monday, January 4 @ 7pm
The annual sours competition.  There’s still plenty of time to brew.

Sunday, January 10 @ 2-6pm (or later)
Brewsers (Post-)Holiday party at Brouwerij Lane.  Bring beer and food to share.  Brew a keg for the party, if you like.

Barrel Sours and Stouts, November 2

We’re pulling samples from each of the club’s barrels, a “New York” common ale and a Tripel, to taste at 7.  Neither is probably quite ready for packaging, but both are developing some sour and funky flavors.  From there, we’ll move onto our in-club stouts competition (now with a few porters) and keep going by tasting everything else that we bring.  See you at Brouwerij Lane tonight!

German beers on Monday + Help with this site

This Monday, October 5, we’ll taste and talk all things German beer.  Bring homebrew or pick commerical German beers to share.

After a few weeks of logistical problems, this site has been moved to a more stable server, but we lost some of our old content.  This is a lot of monochrome text.  If you want to help restore some images or other old content, talk to me.  Any help would be great!

Matt Chan’s NHC 3rd place Berliner

Congratulations (again) to Brewser Matt Chan for taking third in the National Homebrew Competition sours category!  Matt shared his prize-winning recipe.

OG: 1.031
IBUs: 1 pellet’s worth

20% acidulated malt (or enough to drop wort pH to 4.5)
40% Weyermann Pilsner
40% Briess White Wheat Malt

1 hop pellet of your choice

1L of nancy’s yogurt starter (1.020 wort + 1tbs of nancy’s yogurt held at 120 F for 1 week)

WY2124/ SafLager 34/70

[mash step 1]
1.25 qt/lbs @ 143 for 133 degrees. rest for 1 hour.

[mash step 2]
infuse to 1.7 qt/lbs to get to 150 degrees. rest for 15 minutes.
pull a decoction and bring to boil (10-15 minutes)
decoct for 20 minutes. add single pellet of hops to this stage.

[main mash]
return decoction until main mash hits 166. rest for 30 minutes.
add in acidulated malt to cap the mash and begin sparging.

[fermentation]
hold wort for 2-3 days ( or until completely soured) @ 120 in a container purged with CO2. I did it in a purged corny keg.

ferment out with yeast around 58.