Bluff City Brewing

New Brewery Library and Market research

2012-02-09T23:26:00.000-06:00

Okay, so my brewery is really the garage most of the time. But I did manage to get a shelf up in the BCB board room to hold my volumes of literature associated with the craft.

It's not much by carpentry standards but it'll do the job.

Tonight I took a few beers to the St. Henry Men's Club meeting and received accolades for my efforts. Most of the men who tried them enjoyed the experience. It's good to hear comments about my beer from men who really enjoy beer. Most of the feedback was positive. But it's the polite, standoff-ish reviews I'm most interested in. The "I don't really like dark beer" people are important and I want to make a beer that wins them over too. A Light Lager or Blonde recipe might bring them into the tent. Also, I want to be knowledgeable but I don't want to come off like a beer snob. If we're going to preach the gospel of full flavored, hand made beer, we need to make it a religion that can include everyone who drinks beer.

It looks like a low malt, low alcohol brew is on the horizon.

Cheers.

Session Pale

2012-02-03T16:46:00.000-06:00

I've been making lots of beer lately. The IPA I made last week will be ready to be packaged in a few days.

The bottom of the fermenter looks like that about every time. I think most of what you see there is suspended yeast but there is usually lots of break material that gets through the screen and settles on the bottom. The the fermentation process generally cuts the thickness of the bottom layer in half and I finish with about 5.5 of the 6 gallon volume you see there.

Today I made a light Pale Ale.
It's basically a scaled down version of "208," my best and most frequent brew.
Big brother's gravity is about 1.059 to 1.061. The light version is designed to be a 1.039 beer, or about 3.7 percent by volume.

This beer came in at 1.040 or maybe 1.041. It's hard to tell the level. I'll err on the conservative side and call it 1.040.
There were a couple of recipe changes as well. Biscuit malt was replaced by some Victory malt I had to get rid of. And Munich Dark was put in place of Munich Light for the same reason. I also added a half pound of C60 to bolster the flavor for such a low gravity beer.
The idea is to make the same great Pale Ale with 33% less alcohol.
This beer, I hope, will come close. I have made it three times before with moderate success.
It'll never be the same as American Pale 208. But I'll be able to drink more in the late evening without having an unpleasant morning.
Good Beer To You.

Beer Room Almost Finished

2011-12-25T13:29:00.000-06:00

This week I started putting up shelves in my new beer room.

I have three of the four shelves up. I'll do the fourth later this week after I bottle the American Stout I made on the 17th. The beer is already piling up.

I hope to have the room filled by March.

Lagers and Stuff

2011-12-05T16:10:00.002-06:00

It's time to bottle my Oktoberfest.
I'll put it in the house tonight to make sure it finishes up and package it in the morning before I go to work.

This beer tasted good when I racked it so I'm eager to get it ready for consumption.
For most brewers it's a bit late in the season to make this style but I'll enjoy this beer through March.
Besides, I'm saving at least half of it for next Fall.

The Winter Bock I made on Thanksgiving day seems to be getting along fine.
The last two times I made this beer the spices were almost undetectable so I more than doubled them this time.

The beer will definitely be more than a Bock this time. We'll see later if I should have messed with it.
Jenny and I went to Memphis this weekend for the St. Jude half marathon.

She did well in spite of having limited opportunities to train for it and I'm proud of her.
We found Ghost River Golden in the grocery store there. They've been working to get bottles into the Memphis market for a while now and I'm sure Chuck Skyepeck is glad to finally have his bottling line up and running properly.
Bluff City Brewing is cheering you on Ghost River.

Bottling, Racking and Planning

2011-11-17T21:23:00.000-06:00

I bottled the American Pale this morning and cleared out the bucket for the IPA. I have so many beers in production right now that I need to use every vessel I own.

I don't really like to use the old school bucket to ferment beer but it works OK. Normally I would not do a secondary frementation for this IPA but I need to harvest the yeast to make an American Brown tomorrow. I need the carboy as well to ferment the brown.
My other carboy is being used to lager an Oktoberfest I made on October 22nd.

I packaged 60 bottles of Pale and racked a similar amount of IPA.
I intend to perform the same operation next week with the brown.

What's Happening at BCB

2011-11-11T20:11:00.009-06:00

First, thank you, veterans, for your courage and commitment to our nation on this and every day.

There's some stuff happening here at BCB right now.

Since my last post I started drinking the Blonde Ale I was so worried about. Apparently the odd bubbles I saw on the surface of the wort were perfectly normal. The beer tastes good and I have no worries about sanitation.

The Bitter I made after that is pretty nice too.

I made my first Nashville lager, an Oktoberfest a couple of weeks ago. I did a decoction as always with this beer.

It's going to be in the fermenter for a while longer before I start racking and bottling.

I'll harvest some of the yeast to make a Winter Bock in a month or two.

I recently learned that while I was making an American pale last week an earlier version was earning a 3rd place in the American Ales category at the 2011 Music City Brew Off.

As I've said before, I'm thrilled to place with a Pale. Since this category usually gets more entries than most, even getting an honorable mention means you're probably making pretty good beer. What I'm really interested in, though, are the score sheets. That's where you really find out how your beer was perceived by people who know and appreciate beer.

Anyway, I racked the Pale into my plastic fermenter yesterday (because there was no other place to put it) so I could harvest California Ale yeast to make a Veteran's Day IPA.

I hit just about every measurement during the process and have strong expectations that this will be a competition beer. The color might be a bit light for some but I think it'll be within the style guidelines.

I put everything in my new beer room for the moment.
The room will look much nicer when I get shelves built and gently used carpet squares installed.
I'll bottle the Pale next week, rack the IPA into the bucket and harvest the yeast again so I can make my wife an American Brown next Friday.
Tonight after work I think I'll enjoy some of my labor's fruit.
Good Beer To You.

Yeast and Bubbles

2011-10-20T16:28:00.003-05:00

Last week's yeast problem turned out to be not much of a problem at all. I made a new starter of British Ale II intending to decide at brew time if I should pitch both samples. I discovered, as I let the new batch of yeast start, that the first batch had begun to take off and that I probably could have used the starter I was complaining about. Not wanting to over-pitch I threw the first starter away and went with the second sample, which was accelerating normally.

The beer seems to be fermenting well during the four days since I pitched. But I have noticed an odd sort of bubble in the foam of this batch.

They seem a bit large, as if maybe there is a film of some sort on the surface of the wort.
I experienced the same phenomena with the Blonde Ale I just made a few weeks ago. The Blonde tastes as it should so I guess I'm fretting too much over what is probably nothing.
However, I do expect cleaner looking Krausen on the beer I make.
Good Beer To You.

Slow Yeast

2011-10-14T11:43:00.001-05:00

I wanted to make an English Pale today but was stopped by a very slow starting yeast. I popped the inside packet of a pouch of Wyeast 1335 yesterday about 9AM thinking I was going to boil up a quart of dry malt about noon and make a healthy starter for today's brew.

About 4:30, despite the dismal growth of the pouch, and the manufacture date stamp of May 11, I made the wort and put it all in the growler I use for such things.
Late last night, nothing.
This morning, nothing.

I headed back to the brew shop and told them what happened but without the used pouch, I coud not get a replacement. I ended up buying a pouch that was made in August and a pound of dry malt and headed back home.
When I got here I shook the old yeast up one more time and got a small release of CO2.
It's still going very slowly. I think I'll pitch the second pack into the wort today and see what happens

Next time I'll remember to save the old pouch for evidence. But C'mon. I was in the shop less than 48 hours ago. I would not burn 4 bucks worth of gas and drive clear accross town just to get a free pouch of British Ale yeast.

The New Brewery Is Open

2011-09-01T13:29:00.005-05:00

Today I'm making an American Brown ale in the new Nashville brewery.

The space is larger than the one I had in Memphis and there is a cool bonus. Whoever refurbished this place built me a nice beer room right in the middle of the floor plan. It's about 6 by 6 and has a can light in the ceiling.

I can't wait to fill it up. Shelves will need to be erected first.

I've decided to taste a few beers made here before I start messing with the water. I might not need to do much of anything to it but we'll see.

The first beer I made in here was an extract pale. It's not my best work, but considering the old hops I was using and a limited control over some of the ingredients, it tastes pretty good.

The only problem with this house is that the kitchen is all the way upstairs with a sink that does not lend itself to the bottling process. It looks like I'm going to have to find a way to accomplish that right here with the cold water supply and no sink.

So Long Memphis

2011-06-24T15:55:00.001-05:00

On May 28th, my daughter, Hallie and I officially joined my wife, Jennifer in Nashville.
Jennifer started a new job here in March but Hallie needed to finish the first grade so I stayed with her in Memphis while we readied the house for sale.

We had only been gone for a few days when we received an offer and, while working out details of the sale, I have been travelling to Memphis meeting repair professionals and movers. We closed on Wednesday and I shut the door on the Memphis brewery for good.

I guess that leaves BCB a bit up in the air.
It might not be appropriate to write a blog about 'Making and Drinking Beer in Memphis' from Nashville since I will no longer be making it there, although I am excited about the Memphis beer scene and will enjoy Memphis beer when I'm in town.
I don't want to completely re-brand either. So I'll need to change my slogan to something that reflects what I'm going to do in middle Tennessee.
For now I'll just remove the word Memphis from my header until I figure everything out.
I do want to join the local home brew club here. The Music City Brewers are a really good bunch of men and women who, besides being skilled brewers, made our Home Brew Extravaganza 2011 a great success with their volunteerism and considerable knowledge. I want to be a part of such a club.
I want to make great beer here too, but that probably needs to wait until I can get the family and my equipment settled in a new house. Right now everything is buried in the small garage that came with our apartment.

I've managed to bring a bit of beer along to Nashville but supplies are running low and I'll need to make more soon.

Bottling an American Brown

2011-03-28T13:58:00.001-05:00

Bottling day isn't usually something a homebrewer looks forward to. My brown ale could have benefited from another day or two in the fermenter, but I needed the yeast for an American Pale I was to make the following day and I decided 7 days (instead of 10) to finish this beer would be just fine.
With our family in the middle of a move to Nashville, Jennifer is not home part of the week and I have to be a single dad.
Getting the job done and spending time with my daughter meant that I would have to employ a helper.
Hallie did a great job. After I filled the bottles she carefully placed a clean cap on each so that I could crown them with my capper.

This will be a good beer. Malty and bready with a strong hop flavor.
Too bad Hallie won't be able to try any of it for about 14 years.
Anyway she says "beer is not for girls."

New Logo

2011-03-23T21:47:00.001-05:00

The above logo was designed by my pal Andris Linder, whom I work with on my day job. I asked him to help me produce a logo that I could use as my brand in case I ever developed the stones to actually start my brewery project in earnest.
This was the first, and I think best, of the four he designed.

It turned out wonderfully and I'm grateful for his talent.
I'll be making a case of American Amber for him as a small thank you for his effort.

Beer In a Bucket

2011-01-09T21:14:00.002-06:00

It was a rough year, 2010.
Not all of it, of course.
Last February's competition win was about as spectacular as I had ever imagined it could be.
But since then, things have been a struggle.
I broke my hydrometer into a batch of Rye IPA and had to pour it out.
I got careless with sanitation and had to dump a batch of Belgian Tripel.
I broke my two biggest carboys on different occasions.
Got scores in the mid 20s on 3 different entries.
I sent my kettle onto the concrete with a sloppy fill of mash water.
And most recently, I ditched a Steam Beer because it didn't smell or taste right.
I guess that one doesn't count since it happened just the other day, in 2011.
So I hope today's IPA ferments well.
Since I'm using my remaining carboy to try saving an 80 shilling Scottish that seems to have stopped at 1.026, the old school plastic bucket got dusted off and re-employed.

I hit my temperatures, volumes, gravity--all the critical parameters, correctly despite the cold and a frozen outdoor spigot and hose.
I made a fresh starter of California Ale Yeast and it seems to be starting well.
I hope this batch marks the start of a good year.

The Yeast Won't Start

2010-12-15T21:42:00.005-06:00

I had big plans to make a Steam Beer tonight for a church event in February. I know it seems like a long way off but I'm making a total of 4 styles and it'll be here sooner than you think.
I want to serve well conditioned beer that is at the peak of flavor.
I think this Steam Beer recipe tastes best after about 6 weeks.
Anyway, I bought some California Lager yeast over the weekend and made a starter last night to ferment the wort I thought I'd be making tonight.

I made the starter using the same procedures I always use. I boiled 1/2 pound of dry malt. Chilled it. Sanitized a Ghost River growler and an airlock. I mixed it all up and... nothing. No bubbles even tonight after 24 hours. I usually get activity within the first hour but as of right now... nothing.

Since I have no confidence in the yeast I'm going to postpone the brew.

I'll have to get a new pack of California Lager and start again. I don't want to waste a good grist with unhealthy yeast.

The beer will have to be made another day.

A Nice Fermentation

2010-10-25T14:33:00.001-05:00

I made my Bitter on Saturday, as scheduled, but had a few problems.
I missed my mash-in target by a couple of degrees and wound up mashing at 153 instead of 151. That might make this beer just a bit more viscous than planned.
Then I under shot my target volume and overshot my gravity by 7 points. I could have fixed this with some water but decided that 1.057 wasn't too far out of the range for this beer.
In fact, the same thing happened last time I brewed it and I got 1.054 so I'm OK with it.
I pitched a liter of yeast and, so far, things are going well.
I'm looking for 67-68 degrees to give this beer the right character.
The fridge is set to 63 degrees so that I can compensate for the heat created by such a vigorous fermentation.

Bitter, but not disagreeable

2010-10-22T15:02:00.003-05:00

Last night after I got home from the brew club meeting I made a starter of British Ale II yeast.
I want to brew first thing in the morning and I won't have time to make it tonight.
Although I believe a good pitching window for a starter is usually 24 hours, I'll push it to Saturday, about 1PM.
I think it will be OK.
I'm trying to duplicate a Best Bitter I made for last year's competition.
Not all beers that win are delicious and not all delicious beers win, but this one did both, and I want to have some for the Winter.

Chicago

2010-10-13T13:58:00.016-05:00

My daughter had a Fall break this weekend so my wife and I took her to see Chicago.

Everyone had a great time. Hallie got to visit the American Girl store and Jennifer and I got to visit a couple of breweries.
After a couple of beers at the top of the John Hancock Tower we stopped at Rock Bottom on Grand. It's been a while since I visited Rock Bottom in Denver so we decided to give it a try. I had an excellent Oktoberfest and a pretty decent Red Ale. The real story here was the food and service. Bar food is probably the wrong label to give this menu because this food transcends that connotation. I had a pretzel appetizer that was absolutely delicious. Hallie had fish and chips and, although it was an adult size entree, nearly cleaned her plate. I can't remember what Jenny had but she was equally impressed. I know that this location is one of many Rock Bottom Breweries around the country, thus qualifying it as a chain, but I still had a unique experience and good service.
On Saturday we headed to Revolution Brewing on Logan Square. The food and service were good here as well. The menu was a little more eclectic. A bacon fat popcorn appetizer topped with shaved parmesan and a pizza with apples, marinated pulled pork, Gorgonzola and fennel.
The beer menu was fairly wide with at least 3 Pales, a Porter, a Golden Ale, a Stout, a Strong Ale and a Mild.
I enjoyed my Pales but was struck by the wonderfully full bodied Mild that Jennifer was drinking. This was a 1.040 beer that drank like a much heavier brown. I did not meet brewer Jim Cibak but hope to on our next trip.

There were a couple of others we did not have time to visit including a place called Piece Brewing and the Goose Island location in Wrigleyville. I've been there before and really enjoyed it.

A Cracked Carboy

2010-09-16T12:34:00.002-05:00

I've been lax about blogging for a few weeks.
And there have been things to report.
The Belgian Tripel was infected. I tossed it.
I'm a bit surprised too. I mean, I've not had an infected beer for years.
So I cleaned and cleaned. Bleached my fermentation vault. Soaked my airlocks, tubing and stoppers.
Then I made a double batch of session Pale about 10 days ago with a yeast starter I was going to pitch on the ill fated IPA.
I kegged the 2nd carboy of it last night. It tasted young and, of course, not carbonated, but pretty good.
As I cleaned the carboy, though, I noticed a small crack in the middle of the bottom.
I've heard urban legends about brewers losing fingers and hands when carboys break unexpectedly so I tossed it into the dumpster. I still have my arms and fingers.
I hope this is the last setback Bluff City Brewing will have for a while.
Good Beer To You.

Pour It Out. Start Again.

2010-08-29T20:23:00.005-05:00

I had to do a tough job today.
I had to pour well brewed wort down the drain.
I was too upset to even take a picture of it.
I mashed. I sparged. I adjusted my water with new knowledge I recently gained about ions and stuff.
Then, when I was chilling, I put my combination thermometer/hydrometer in the kettle to see how close I was getting to 68 degrees. The wort was swirling and caught the hydrometer, breaking it against the copper coil.
I shrieked. No kidding.
I couldn't believe I worked all afternoon on what I hoped would be an improved American IPA and all I could do was look at the wort and try unsuccessfully to think of a reason to transfer to the fermenter anyway.
Glass and whatever is inside a thermometer could surely not be removed with any confidence.
So I poured.

I'll start over in a week or two.

Meanwhile, the Belgian Tripel I made two weeks ago is still fermenting. I'm not sure what to think. This is the longest fermentation (except for lagers) I have ever had.
Nothing to do but wait, keg it, drink it and see what it tastes like.

Hops and a double batch of Pale

2010-07-13T21:03:00.013-05:00

The hop experiment is apparently not going to be a success this year either, for a different reason. Maybe its the birds nesting on the trellis. Or maybe being away and not watering them during our 9 day vacation from the Memphis heat was too much for these thirsty plants.

Who knows. But the results are yellow, dry leaves that are falling on the ground and a very slow growth. Its not really a big deal since I'm not going to use these hops for any substantial addition to a beer but I would like the plant to be an attractive part of the yard.

I'm puzzled by the double batch of Pale I made yesterday. This is my table beer, a session strength ale I keep for everyday consumption. The brew went fairly well with the exception of a stuck sparge. I didn't want to transfer the beer out of the mash tun so I kept cleaning the outflow tube by forcing air back into the mash from the bottom. That was a bad experience, but the extra slow sparge did help me exceed my target gravity by 5 points, coming in at 1.046. Good thing I decided on a couple of more grams of hops at the last minute.
I had made a large yeast starter the day before, planning to split it between two carboys after I'd filled them with wort.
The 6 gallon carboy got the better part of the beer and the 6.5 gallon got the rest, about 10.5 gallons total, near as I can tell. I swirled the yeast around the jug and pitched into the wort accordingly.
Same wort. Same boil. Same yeast.
So why do they appear so different?
I do know that there was lots of break material in the second half of the transfer (on the left) so that might be it. And maybe there was trub of some sort in the starter I made from last week's American IPA.
It'll be interesting to see of there is noticeable difference in taste or appearance in the finished beer.

The Hefeweizen I made 10 days ago has been brought into the house to warm up and finish fermenting before being bottled tomorrow.

Finally, I've volunteered to chair the competition committee for Homebrew Extravaganza 2011 so there will be either (a) lots of posting about that in the coming months or (b) not much posting at all.
Peace. Love. Beer.

New Beer Menu

2010-06-10T20:07:00.013-05:00

I completed a small chalkboard menu for the brewery (otherwise known as the garage) last week.
It's not much more than a left over piece of plywood, some chalkboard paint, a piece of door trim and some of my kid's sidewalk chalk. A unnecessary novelty, but I like it anyway.
Other than that, there isn't much to report from Bluff City for the Spring.

But we just got back from a family vacation and brewing operations will resume this weekend since, despite having 6 kinds of beer at my house, I feel like I need to have my basic table beer on hand for the Summer. A good old American Pale. I've had the grist for weeks and have been unable to get to it. Sunday's going to be the day, though. My excuse to make beer instead of mulching the front bushes.
Peace.

The Hop Experiment - Year 2

2010-04-13T21:29:00.017-05:00

Sorry about the lack of posts since HBE2010.
Lots of family events.

Easter.

A 1/2 marathon for me. A 5K for Jenny.
A 1K for Hallie.
The hops started to sprout again about a week ago and so I decided to, again, attach my trellis to the fence and see what happens. I have decided to limit the root system to 4 bines this year.
Last year I had 6 or 7 and the hops did not add anything positive to the beer. In fact, the beer I made with them was so mediocre that I poured it out. In the future I'll be quite shy about using hops with unknown an alpha acid content for any beer I make. This plant might be good for beer conversation only. Anyway, I have read that 3 or four bines will be about the maximum for a good hop yeild so I'll keep the new sprouts trimmed back.

Victory !!

2010-02-21T21:23:00.014-06:00

Well, not total and complete victory but way better than expected.

With 10 beers entered into 11 categories I came home with 7 medals.

Gold for Bavarian Wiessbeir.

Gold for American Brown Ale.

Gold for Best Bitter.

Silver for American Pale, Bock, Oktoberfest and California Common (I think,... frankly it was all a blur).

I am especially proud of the Brown and the American Pale. These two beers got the top two spots in a category that had 20 entries including a beer made by Phil Kane that got a 44.

If you don't know anything about beer judging, a 44 is an absolutely fantastic score. Phil deserves it. He's a splendid brewer.

I also won Best of Show with the Brown and 3rd Best of Show with the Best Bitter.

I only dreamed about getting BOS.

I never imagined that I'd have 2 of the 3 BOS beers.

I want to see the score sheets for the other beers I made.

I knew the Christmas beer lacked the spice character it needed (it got silver as a Bock) and the American IPA, while a great tasting Pale, was not an IPA. But I did have high hopes for the American Stout and the American Amber. Both are in tough competitive categories.

I could not be more proud to be part of the Bluff City Brewers. I won some medals so, of course, that's cool. But this competition was run first rate. The judges were trained and refreshed over a period of weeks prior to the event so that the score sheets would be accurate and useful for brewers who want to improve their beer. There were lots of sponsors and prizes so that everybody could go home with something. Mike Pierce, J.L Thompson, Ben Pugh, Doug Mengwasser and Mike Lee, to name a few, really made it happen. It was a great time all around.

Now, after taking a 1 day holiday from my lenten sacrafice, I'm going to try not to have any beer for the next 36 days. Wish me luck.

Finished!!

2010-01-21T20:51:00.030-06:00

After six months of work I finally finished brewing the last beer for competition today. An English Pale. The unavailability of certain malts and yeast changed the recipe but the session went well. I was 3 points heavy on the target gravity but efficiency was good.
My assistant brewer was not helpful.

Yesterday's Weissbeir is fermenting away in the fridge despite being set at 63.

I'm trying to follow a rule I learned from Ray Daniels' book. The sum of the yeast pitching temperature and the fermentation temperature should total 30 degrees centigrade. I could only get the wort chilled to 56 degrees F and the yeast specs say 64 is good for this strain so I'm a little long at 31 or 32C. It looks very active in the carboy. I've never really come up with a fantastic Hefe so I have high hopes.

I'll bottle the American Stout this Saturday and package the two I made this week on the 30th.

That's a total of 11 beers to enter into Homebrew Extravaganza 2010.

I want to win a few this year but we have several talented brewers in the club. The competition is going to be tough. I'm more interested in the score sheets.

My wife is pleased that I'll be concentrating on painting the bathroom and the office/playroom for the next couple of months.

Of course, there will be plenty of beer to help the projects along.

Packaging Day!

2009-12-15T22:28:00.006-06:00

For every Yin there is a Yang. Bottling beer is as much a grind as making it is fun. Sanitizing bottles. Boiling dextrose. Siphoning liquids while conserving sanitizing solution. Today I had two beers to get ready for competition. All the Winter Bock went into bottles along with a 12-pack of the American Pale. The rest of the Pale went into the keg since it will be consumed quick. Much of the Bock will be around for most of next year.

The only good thing about the experience is a chance to take a gravity reading and taste the beer.

Both tasted good although it's hard to tell since they're young and un-carbonated. But the Bock was surprisingly under-attenuated. This means that the yeast was not quite finished yet when I decided to package it. I wanted to get down to 1.014 or so but 1.021 is what I got. This was also supposed to be a holiday beer with notes of nutmeg, orange peel and cinnamon.
It just tastes like a Bock.

Of course, since I just wanted to get it done, I bottled the beer anyway. I hope this beer isn't too sweet.

But the side bathroom was getting crowded with last week's IPA and Saturday's American Amber fermenting next to it so I had to move some beer to the garage to let the newly packaged beer finish.

Jennifer, I think, will be happy when the competition is finished and she can have her house back.