A quiet thanksgiving, part 2 - Let's brew!

My brother and I, as stated in the previous post, were brewers over the thanksgiving holiday. I'm impressed with him, because he dissects recipes of beers that he likes and tries to clone them. He's worked on a stoudt several times, a few other recipes, and then the Gritty's Christmas ale. Gritty's is a Portland, Maine, pub, with a homey feel and a nice selection of microbrewed beers. The Christmas ale is an ESB (extra special bitter) and has a dark color and a good taste - spicy without that weirdo spice taste to it. Good stuff. So my bro looks online at the general ingredients (not specific at all) and uses something online called a recipator to start the 'scientific' process to figure out this beer. I think this may be his third try, and I was able to be there for practically the whole process - a great education, especially for someone (me) who loves beer. We have both mused about starting a brewery, like the East End Brewing Company. Scott, the owner/entrepreneur/beer-maker started out with home brewing for many years and made the leap out of the tech field to beer-making, something he really loves. In my opinion, he's changed the landscape of Pittsburgh brewing, by offering hearty tastes of each of his beers at his open-factory brewery, offering growler bottles and any beer for $10 a refill. He also supplies many of the bars, pubs and restaurants in the area with his variety of brews. And he's a good guy. I gave different kinds of East End beer to each of my male family members last X-mas as a stocking gift. I wish I would have found Scott sooner, because I love his concept and what he's done in terms of spreading the word, events and marketing great beer to the East End and Pittsburgh.

ANYWAY. Below is the most current iteration of the Gritty's X-mas clone, with hops amounts that Matt and I came up with in the recipator, based on tweaks after the last batch. What is great is that he still had a taste of the old batch, so we could taste and compare with the real thing, to make our calculated changes. Thank god he's an engineer!!

xmas ale clone

Brewer:	hemming		Email:	-
Beer:	xmas ale clone		Style:	English Strong (Extra Special) Bitter
Type:	Extract w/grain		Size:	5.5 gallons
Color:	21 HCU (~12 SRM)		Bitterness:	33 IBU
OG:	1.055		FG:	1.012
Alcohol:	5.5% v/v (4.3% w/w)
Grain:	8 oz. American crystal 40L 1.6 oz. Roasted barley
Boil:	minutes	SG 1.100	3 gallons
	3.3 lb. Light malt extract 3 lb. 12.8 oz. Light dry malt extract
Hops:	.5 oz. Cluster (7% AA, 60 min.) .5 oz. Styrian Goldings (5.5% AA, 60 min.) 1.5 oz. Yakima Goldings (5% AA, 30 min.) 1.5 oz. Saaz (3.75% AA, 30 min.)

This web page generated by The Beer Recipator.

Here are several pictures of the process. We began with yeast starter, then moved on to the boil. We used four different types of hops, two at 30 minutes and two at 60 minutes, all in the recipator. It took 60 minutes of stirring, so it was great that there were two of us, and it made the sterilization process much easier, which is of the utmost importance.


You can see here that we gave the brew an ice bath to bring the temperature down quickly, and then transferred it to a five gallon jug. The beer then needed to be infused with O2 and the yeast starter added. Then onto the first fermentation. Matt took the beer downstairs, and being the smarty pants that he is, rigged up a fish tank thermometer to keep the temperature constant. He had to add a blowoff tube, because that thing was really blowing! The beer was active, which is a really good sign. The final picture is a shot of his beer fridge/tap - making room for new beer! The first fermentation takes a week, the second, two weeks, and hopefully in time for a taste at X-mas!

A quiet thanksgiving, Part 1

My bro and I celebrated Thanksgiving together, this year. He is in Portland, ME, and since I moved to Peterborough, NH in late June, this seemed like the best option. John went home since all of his grandparents would be there, but I didn't feel like making the 10 hour trek both ways for four short days, and plus, the idea of Matt and I cooking T-giving dinner and going to Portland (only 2 1/2 hours away) was very appealing. Here's a pic of Matt getting serious about the dinner that we prepared.

It was a quiet thanksgiving, to say the least. But not too quiet, with two dogs and a cat around. Here is Clancy on the left, Murphy on the right, and yes, Puss-puss in the middle. It was great having so many pets around, sans the hair.

Matt made the turkey, which came out quite well, the stuffing and mashed potatoes, while I made the pumpkin pie, baked cream corn and cranberry sauce. A meal fit for 10 kings, only for two!
Good, good stuff. John and I are still eating the leftovers. We also took several dog walks around the back bay, and hit a couple of spots in Portland, including Portland Pie, at their new location and Rira's Irish Pub, where I tried my first port wine. It was a good weekend. But the best is yet to come....

For anyone interested in wine, check this out

I was recently listening to Martha Stewart radio on Sirius, which is quickly becoming one of my new obsessions. Whatever with Alexis and Jennifer, Living Today with Kerry Nolan, etc. Check it out. But onto the point. I was listening to Living Today as I was driving to the bank last week and she had a dynamic guest on the show named Gary Vaynerchuk and they talked about all kinds of wine at different price points. I've started to become more interested in wine over the past few years, and especially now that I work at a fine dining restaurant. So I googled Gary's show and found winelibrarytv.com.

Gary is spirited, practical and full of humor. Every day of the work week, there is a new show posted for all of us in internet land to check out. Gary is very price conscious as well, which is great for anyone with just about two pennies to rub together. I don't know a lot about wine yet, but I'm willing to learn more and Gary makes it fun with his tastings, comments and shout outs. Anyone from the wine novice to the learned should check it out. Just click on the link in this post or to the side!