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First. BOTTLING. Dear Reverend Revvy of Homebrewtalk.com. His holiness is one of the most concise and patient jedi’s of homebrewing, always willing to take a n00b under his angelic wings. You need not get weirded out by the fact that he is a man of the cloth, check out his threads…As the venerable homebrew talker Madman says on his signature, “Revvy’s one of the cool reverends. He has a Harley and a t-shirt that says on the back “If you can read this, the bitch was Raptured”‘. Revvy’s tips for bottling, first time or otherwise…
I totally agree with Revvy. And for those going through the daunting process of bottling…his advice is sound. Second. KEGGING For those of you with 200 bucks to spare, you can make your life a lot easier by kegging. Bottling’s a pain and the ass, and the sooner you can make the jump to kegging, the more hair you’ll die with and the more often you’ll brew. It’s a proven fact. That being said, if you want to compete in competions, if you care about that sort of thing, you’ll have to bottle your beer one way or another. Either way, the day you start kegging, the consistency of your beer will improve, and the inevitable chore of disturbing your beer will seem less daunting. Sanitizing one vessel as opposed to 50 bottles will make your day funner and thereby make you more likely to do it AGAIN. The folks at MoreBeer.com have an excellent deal on a first time keg setup with picnic tap. MoreBeer.com’s great deal on first time keg setup. And what’s more, MoreBeer has some excellent pdfs that walk you through the whole process. MoreBeer’s Homebrewer’s Guide to Kegging And as long as I’m tooting the MoreBeer horn, I might as well plug my new favorite method of siphoning beer in a sanitized fashion…whether your bottling or kegging, this trick is the cheapest/easiest/foolproof way to siphon beer.
You can buy it for a great price here: More Beer Sterile Siphon Starter The only thing you have to add is a refrigerator, which you can buy on craigslist for a pinky toe or so. All this being said. If all of this looks complicated, you can always just drink your beer right out of the fermenter. Now that’s a party. Of course, soon we’ll post about the way MEN serve beer… FIRKIN.
 Mrs. Beaglethorpe enjoys chicken ON THE BONE. IPA cloudy due to massive dry hopping. It’s another weekday evening at home, another valhalla viking feast, another reason to fire up the coals and get your grill on. Everyone seems to think they know the secret to great grilled chicken, and yet so many have no problem serving rubbery tasteless hunks of withered breast. Nickra, Cockale’s resident celebritannica chef, has eight fool-proof designs for the mouthwatering cock in your life. Refridgerate ziploc bag for 2-12 hrs. Wrap 2 or 3 legs in foil, crimping the sides. Cook over moderate coals for 20-25 minutes. Remove from foil and crisp the skin over the coals, ~4 minutes. #1: Legs in hot sauce: Put legs in a ziploc with enough hot sauce (I use Louisiana, but Frank’s is good, too. Really, whatever Costco is selling for $2/gallon.) to cover and pool in the bottom of the bag a little. #2: Oil and Vinegar: Put legs in a ziploc with black pepper, olive oil, lemon juice or vinegar, oregano and rosemary. #3: Brown Sauce: Put legs in a ziploc with Heinz Chili Sauce, chopped or pressed garlic and some molasses. Watch these as you try to crisp the skin, the sugar wants to burn. #4: “Asian:” Chili oil, ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce optional. To make chili oil, put a cup of red pepper flakes in 2 cups of peanut oil with 1/4 cup of sesame oil mixed in and warm over low heat (~240 degrees) for about an hour. Don’t burn the chili oil. Then, use a funnel to pour your oil into an immaculately clean Grolsch flip-top bottle (Or other bottle with rubber stopper mechanism) . 5: “KyoChon” soy sauce, black vinegar, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, brown sugar. 6: “Montego Bay” allspice, chopped habanero, thyme, cinnamon, black pepper, espresso ground coffee (don’t do these in foil, these need to be done over indirect coals. the foil technique is for when you need hot coals to do burgers/steaks too and you only have the 1 weber). 7: “Kerala” crushed coriander seeds, black pepper, red chili, garlic, salt, turmeric powder, vinegar, coconut milk, ginger, onion. You have to pay for #8, that’s “premium content,” just like Rupert taught me.
Within moments of their removal from the vine, we tossed about half of the harvest into a batch of american pale ale to allow the volatile aromatics of the hops to go directly into the brew. Wet hop harvest ales are lil’ funk sticky. I’m used to brewing with consistent dried lil’ pellets. Whole hops soak up a 1/3 qt per ounce of wort (nearly a gallon for this brew) more than pellets, and dried hops weigh about 1/4 their wet weight, so predicting dosage and bitterness can be a little tricky. This is compounded by the fact that I don’t have the lab equipment or wherewithal to accurately assess the Alpha Acid percentage of my hops. I went ahead and used the recipe below as a guideline, and added nearly double the wet hops to compensate. Moreover, I’ve been enjoying ninety minute boils these days, and I have still yet to figure out how the longer boil effects the bitterness of when I roll with first wort hopping (the technique where you put hops into the boil kettle right as the mashtun drains into the kettle so as to round out the bitterness and preserve as many volatile aromatic compounds as possible, while still getting the full boil’s backbone). That being said, I kind of just relaxed, guessed, and listened to the beer gods a la Charlie Papazian, the man who taught me to relax, and brewed this APA by the seat of my green jeans. The brew was finished with glorious generous hop helping at flameout for maximum aroma. A thousand thanks as well to Jamil Z. aka Mr. Malty for teaching me the secrets of big hop aroma and so much more. She tasted great going into the fermenter. I’ll let you know how she turns out.
We here at Beaglethorpe Brewing Co., astounded by civilization’s false promises, ridiculous riddle traps, and infernal chicanery, are laughing at our good fortune. We here at Cock Ale are aware of the convivial possibilities that come with each passing day. We spit vehemently on the draconian puritans marching passed our doorstep rank and file, trying to sell us on a fascist ethic, credit card or four, a heaven beyond these mortal coils. We say, seize the day, till the soil, sow the wild oats, seize the bottle of farmhouse ale and stinky cheese, take them with you and a lover, family, and dogs to the beach, and marvel together at wonders of this oceanic life. Today, we here Beaglethorpe Brewery and Cock Ale would like to remind you that you are alive and well.
ABV: 7.5% Original Gravity: 1.072 Hit Points: 999 Armour Rating: 0 Alignment: Abberant Gonna make a beer inspired by this beast next. I got this 5 gallon recipe from carnevoodoo at homebrewtalk.com. 12 lb. maris otter Mash at 154
Hop Schedule 1 oz galena @ 60 White Labs Abbey ale yeast (WLP530)
Nothing brings out a saison’s shimmery pepper succulence better than a plate of pâté, foie gras, sausage, or confit. Just hearing the word Charcuterie gets my mouth watering. In French the word literally means “pork butchery” but to the initiated, it means oh so vast spectrum of spiced, fermented, and preserved animal bits. Homebrewing and the art of aged meat have gone hand in hand to fetch a pail of decadent offal since the dawn of civilization. Lately my cured animal kingdom fantasties have been inscribed by Grant Van Gameran of Toronto and his blog Charcuterie Sundays. A talented butcher, he chronicles his quest to open a Charcuterie Bar with ecstatic devotion, meanwhile inseminating me with desires I didn’t even know I had for foods beyond my wildest deepest belly dreams for beautiful creations like Monkfish Liver Terrine, Brain Carpaccio, and Smoked Jowl Rilette. Basically, he’s got the only blog I know of that can drop such pearls as “I harvested some really nice horse with clove and chili yesterday so look for it on your board this week.” American Wild Beer specialists Jolly Pumpkin Brewery have won my heart with their single-minded quest for sour, open-fermented, oak-aged, farmhouse glory. To my knowledge they are the only brewery in the U.S. of A. that ages every single bottle of beer in open tankts and then transfers them to oak barrels before conditioning them in the bottle. Gueuze, Lambic, Oud Bruin, Saison, Abbey, Grand Cru…these cats have know no fear when it comes to fermenting and blending some of those most acidic, complex, arcane, and daunting brews in the Belgian canon. Not only that, their labels are so jaw-droppingly beautiful, I want to tattoo every one on my tongue with a pediococcus pen. Do yourself a favor and check out their website and prepare to drool. They even keep a bottle log so you can see the blending history of that one you scored and now hold in your grubby little hands. As a humble homebrewer, it brings a tear to my eye to watch them do their thing. Patience, patience, patience, and trust. The only other brewery that comes to mind that has even remotely the same-sized testicles is the Russian River Brewery of California. Watch this and I dare you not to be inspyred.  Image Credit: blogs.creativeloafing.com It’s 5:37 am, and my newborn son has been awake and rooting around for a hiccup party to attend for a good couple hours now. As his mother sleeps, his father is cooking up a little morning sustenance, avec beer. Thanks to the Accidental Hedonist for reminding us that well-balanced breakfast need not be a puritanical affair and for their recipe for a scrumptious scramble with gouda, ham, and a hefeweizen. It’s simple…you basically mix and the eggs, pig, and beer together and drink it through a straw.
As I sleepily threw this monstrosity together, was impressed by the amount of beer that this recipe calls for…10 freaking oz. per 3.4 eggs. Was I gonna get buzzed BEFORE the sun came up? Really, the beer doesn’t really get a chance to cook off all the way…the eggs kind of braise themselves in the fermented cloudiness. You pull it out of the pan with a slotted spoon when the eggs are done…which is little disconcerting, evoking memories of what the eggs looked like back at camp from the vantage of a hair net. I proudly presented the steaming Killer Keller to my wife, still asleep in bed, and asked her to name the secret ingredient. She rolled over, said “beer” without even opening her eyes, and took a small skeptical bite before giving me a look that said The Killer Keller Weizen Scramble worked out pretty well. I used a delectable Sierra Nevada “Kellerweiss”, an authentic, if slightly thin, Bavarian Hefeweizen from the ringers over in Chico, and a winner in every category. It certainly carried the beer flavor well, though I shouldn’tve been as shy with the cured pork. Make a note…double the oink.
 Kellerweis, best Hefe in Westy |
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Our faithful Canadian readers have asked for advice on bottling and/or kegging beer for the first time. I’d like to direct these readers to some of the best resources on the internet for bottling and kegging.
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