Monday Night recap: “User error” edition
We decided to give our double IPA ? codenamed Blind Pirate ? another go last night. The Brew Gods were apparently not pleased with our choice. I think they are Drafty Kilt fans. We started the night by spilling approximately 200 tons of unmilled base malt on the garage floor. So that was fun to clean up. Also, by “we” I mean “I.”
Things started getting better, until we experienced a mysterious boil-over, despite adding Fermcap-S, our trusty anti-boil-over agent. Or should I make that EX-trusty anti-boil-over agent. This boil-over clogged up our burner, which we had to turn off, dismantle, clean, and reassemble. I’m not sure if the boil-over was due to user error, but given the events of the night, I wouldn’t put it past us.
Last, this happened:
Yes friends, it IS possible to melt a flashlight. Salvador Dalí, eat your heart out. Learning for the evening: If you leave a crappy flashlight next to a hot burner, it will melt. At least we weren’t trying to impress anyone. Like my fiance’s entire family, who came out to brew with us for the first time last night.
Despite the countless user errors, we ended up with what we think will be a great beer. Time will tell, if it doesn’t melt first. Thanks to all who came out ? it was cold. And we appreciate you.
Oh, I also burned my hand pretty badly. Stupid Brew Gods.
Monday Night recap: “Workhorse” edition
This special edition of “Monday Night recap” is dedicated to Scott Williams, showing his best side in the above picture. Scott does the work of three Joels combined (which isn’t saying a ton), freeing up the rest of us to do things like drink beer and talk to newcomers. Thanks for hopping, cleaning, popping, and locking.
We brewed a roasty toasty IPA last night ? a little bit of an experiment, and a tweak on a toasty IPA that will be served in coming weeks. There was some Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale on tap, though it went super fast. Which we take as a good sign. We also sold some t-shirts. They’re selling out, folks, so bring a crisp $10 bill next time you come. We also accept other denominations of bills, checks, and trades for web developing services.
OH OBLIGATORY ARTSY SHOT BOO YA. Consider yourself cultured. You’re welcome.
Monday Night recap: “Nothing more exciting than a new hose” edition
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is literally nothing more exciting than a new garden hose. The ice debacle of last week broke one of our old hoses, so we amped up the party with our new rubber baby from Ace Hardware. Fortunately last night was relatively warm. We brewed up a new porter recipe which we’ll be experimenting with a little bit in secondary fermentation.
Needless to say, we hit our target gravity on the nose. Which probably has something to do with the fact that Joel didn’t help at all.
Despite Joel’s insolence, it was good to get back in the swing of things. Last night was the first Monday we’ve met since 2009. Frankly, we’re still a little disappointed that the world didn’t end when we brewed on a Saturday.
We also had a bunch of homebrewers bring their wares last night. It’s always great to try new beers. And someone brought some amaaaaazing chocolate cookies. I don’t know who you were, but I ate one. It was like a thousand chocolate fairies were dancing on my tongue. I hope they didn’t have any roofies or razor blades in them.
No, seriously. Did those cookies have roofies in them? I don’t remember falling asleep last night.
Saturday Morning recap: “OMG IT’S FREEZING” edition
We won’t be brewing tonight because we brewed this past Saturday. The 10:30am start time coupled with the icy roads scared many people away from brewing. But “many” people is not “this” people:
Russ was the only one who came out. We’re not bitter about it. We’re just disappointed. Regardless, we choked back our tears and brewed an updated version of the fresh hop IPA we brewed in the late fall. This was a lighter-bodied IPA compared to the Eye Patch Ale, and it turned out quite nice. We wanted to see if we could replicate it without using fresh hops, since these aren’t available year-round.
Brewing took a little longer than anticipated due to developments such as:
- Having to thaw our hoses
- Only being able to clean things with hot water, which had to be carried from inside
- Jeff’s sprinkler pipes bursting mid-brew
- Joel being an idiot
In summary, thanks to all who came on Saturday. Namely, Russ.
Monday Night recap: “Eye candy” edition
Sometimes forgetting to do a yeast starter can be a good thing. Last night, for instance. We couldn’t do our regularly scheduled brew so we got to experiment with a hoppy Belgian pale ale which we will add smoked applewood chips to next week. Our OG, for those interested, was 1.049. Some of you might be asking what our target OG was. It was 1.049 too. That is what makes us ballers.
In other news, esteemed wedding photographer and MNB regular Matt Altmix brought his trillion-dollar camera last night to take some shots. He got some great stuff. I’m going to include some of my favorites here, but be sure to check out the entire set on Flickr.
Thanks to everyone who showed up last night, it was a fun time. Now sit back and enjoy the eye candy. NOTE: I have added exclamation points to each caption for emphasis, not because my keyboard had a seizure.
Watermelon!
Empty beer bottles!
Jonathan cleaning a fermenter with a bunch of people in the background!
Hydrometer clearly reads 1.049! The camera is just at a weird angle! I swear!
Jeff, Joel and Jonathan smiling probably because Joel made a fart noise with his mouth!
Joel monitoring our new cooling system! And he’s also trying to get that hose to make another fart noise!
Milk Stout, Take 2!
Last night we gave our milk stout a second swing after underpitching the yeast in our batch a couple of weeks ago. It was no walk in the park – the obstacles facing our attempt were numerous and horrific. No oats. Low propane. Frigid cold. Malfunctioning fermentation chamber. And most dire, Joel alone at the helm for the better part of the evening, thanks to late nights at the office for Jonathan and me. By some miracle, we ended the night with 10 gallons of milk stout dead on our target gravity of 1.068.
In other news, the fermentation chamber continues to be finicky. Rather, we continue to find ways to inhibit functionality of this remarkably simple contraption. This time, the heat lamp somehow came unplugged from the temperature regulator, and the air in the chamber had dropped to a chilly 52 degrees from 67. It can’t have been that way for long, because last week’s IPA still managed to attenuate about 50% – we’re hopeful the yeast can finish the job with the aid of our now-functioning heat lamp.
Monday Update: The Election, Our Lactic Stout, and Jeff’s Recipes
Yesterday was a big day with lots going on for MNB. Highlights are as follows…
Election Update (just when you thought you’d gotten enough)
We at MNB care deeply about the community we (literally) serve (beer to) here in Westside Atlanta. While you’ll notice we stayed far away from federal politics on this blog our local politics are a different issue. I’m proud to inform our readers that I officially launched my political career last night. That’s right, I was elected as an “at-large” board member of the Berkeley Park Neighborhood Association. Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal and if my meteoric rise tracks anywhere close to that of Obama or Palin they just might need to watch out for me in 2012.
Lactic Stout
We brewed a milk stout last night and despite the frigid weather had nearly forty people come out. Although Jonathan shared his thoughts on this beer in a previous post I think the real reason we were doing it is because Jeff is about to have a baby (well, not him literally but his wife). I think he read somewhere that a milk stout can be substituted for baby formula so he wants to perfect this beer long before the baby arrives. For those of you who think babies don’t enjoy a good beer I refer you to a previous post.
Jeff’s Recipes
Jeff has been hitting the books lately. Although we give him a fair amount of crap about it he has managed to come up with a few decent recipes and some that were not quite as hot. While I won’t go into the details here I uncovered some major deviations from MNB SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) last night and on top of that he was complaining about having to wash out a few kegs (he doesn’t do well with “manual labor”). What Jonathan and I have finally realized is that we need to embrace Jeff in his full Harvard-book-loving-excel-crunching glory. We love you Jeff.
120 Minute IPA
This is how we finished the evening.
Yummy.