Beer and Motorcycles!

First, a quick update on the beer. The mocktoberfest was moved to our cooler in the closet so we could brew a hefeweisen beer the next week. That is supposed to ferment at 62 degrees, so we wanted that in the new chiller. It's been in there almost two weeks (as of Tuesday) and I think we'll do a hydrometer test at the two week point. The mocktoberfest is at 1.021 and has been there for the last week. We brought the temperature up a couple of degrees and carefully shook the yeast off the bottom. We'll take a testing tomorrow and if it's still 1.021 then we'll bottle. But if it's gone down any we'll wait and take another reading in a couple of days. When we get two in a row the same then we'll bottle. We're trying to be really careful. And I'm not sure why it doesn't want to come down just a bit (the estimated FG is 1.015), but I hope it's not because we fermented this at 64 degrees since everything I've been reading says the beer will taste better at the lower temps. And, the nut brown seems good proof. It's been bottle conditioning for three weeks now and it sure tastes good! I'll be sharing this one next week!

Now to the motorcycles. We took our CHP approved course last week. Five hours of classroom time on Thursday evening and then five hours each day on Saturday and Sunday. I was exhausted from the heat and layers of clothes from those two days. But it was a really good class. They showed you how to ride from the very beginning and how to do it right. I would highly recommend this class to anyone. And the really good part, all three of us passed the test (my husband, older daughter and myself!). Our passing certificates came in the mail on Thursday and we went down to the DMV yesterday and traded them in for a permanent license! Okay, we just got the temporary paper one saying we are licensed and the expiration date on our picture license punched out, but the final one is in the mail and we're legal to ride :-) As a matter of fact, I just got back from my run (it's been two weeks since I've been able to do one - Las Vegas and the motorcycle class) and I'm just waiting for my husband to get ready so we can do our first real ride down to the Village for breakfast!!

And I probably should have posted about Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. It was fun, but the funniest part is that I left my luggage at home! I had to buy all new clothes when we got there!

New Brew!

Brewed another ale today! This time we brewed a Mocktoberfest. To the regular kit we added just a little bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. It sure smelled good (okay, my youngest thought it stunk up the house - but Jim and I thought it smelled good!). And we put this one in our new fermentor chiller that we just made!! Here is a picture of that:

So far (just seven hours later) the temperature on the fermometer is right between 62 and 64 degrees. I'll be checking it each morning and night for the first few days. Then we head to Vegas for a few days and my youngest will change out the bottles once a day. For her help (with this and the animals), we're going to brew a wheat beer as soon as we come back. Now that we can ferment two ales at once :-) But I'm going to need more bottles! But that might work out since I just tried the earthquake honey ale tonight and it's tasting good. So now I can start sharing those (and getting those bottles back) as well!!

Here's a picture of Jim brewing this morning:

New Batch!

We bottled the earthquake honey ale on Saturday and that seemed to go pretty good. We had an OG of 1.055 and a FG of 1.011. That makes this beer a 5.76% beer. We're going to be better this time and wait the two weeks before opening one. But that's not easy! So, to make it a little easier they say it's good to have a wide variety of homebrews on hand. To learn to do some new styles, have them in the pantry, and to taste them and see what we like and what we can change for the next time. So, we brewed the nut brown ale on Sunday. This is our third brew and a lot of it went a smoother than the other times. But not the breaking of the basket we were going to store it in (you can see the blue basket on a previous post). Jim's handle broke after he picked up his side and the basket went down. I dropped my side and grabbed the carboy! We saved the beer! But we had water all over and had to find another items to put the carboy in to keep it cool. I found an old ice chest that it almost fits it(not quite level on the bottom), but it fits and it's been keeping the water even cooler than the basket did. Plus, using the towels to clean up all the water we have a very clean kitchen floor! It seems to end up cleaner (the whole kitchen) after we brew, which is a nice thing! But, we're going to try and make a fermentor chiller this week so we can brew our Halloween spiced beer next weekend (which will be on Sunday since we are going to the Stone Brewery 12th Anniversary Fund Raiser on Saturday!!). Anyhow, here is a picture of our pale ale after three weeks bottle conditioning:




















I'm still getting the hang of putting pictures in with the posts. So please excuse this entry if the pictures do not make sense next to the text you're reading!

For the other thing we did this weekend - we practiced riding our motorcycles. I don't know if I mentioned it, but we (my husband, older daughter and myself) got our permits last month and then we bought a couple of motorcycles. I really like mine (V-Star 650) and it's the one we are learning on. I've made a lot of progress (starting with walking it while playing with the clutch, going straight and walking it to turn it around, to going around the neighborhood block). This weekend we not only went around the block, but down the street and around a culdesac. And I learned not to go around that corner in second gear! It felt like it wanted to stall so I went faster than I was comfortable and as I do when I panic, I pulled in the clutch! I made it around (with a foot down once) and went back up the street. It didn't occur to me to downshift to first since I turn other corners in second. But, since I've upshifted to second and third, I haven't downshifted. So my next learning lesson will be to go down the street and downshift until I' comfortable. Then I'll try that culdesac again! And we are taking this really slow (Jim did the same route as me, but added a bit more the second time. He's doing really well!). Dee finally rode the bike up and down the street and even did some u-turns! We're just trying to get a little familiar and comfortable with the motorcycle before we take the certified class in September! And here is a picture of me on my new bike:

Earthquake Honey Ale

Okay, this one started off good. We had the cleaning and sterilization down and we knew the procedures better. But, since we knew the procedures better we realized we did a couple of things wrong the first time around. So, we fixed them this time, and that meant that the wort took longer to cool down (no lifting of the lid this time). But, we did everything as best we could and tried a liquid yeast. Okay, looking back and reading more I realize now that even though the packaging says we can pitch one vial for 5 gallons, we really should not have. We should have made a starter. It took over 24 hours for our fermentation to start. That, and we are doing it at cooler temperatures this time as well. We bought a large bucket and have put in water, ice, and a black t-shirt around the carboy. It's a lot cooler than last time :-) But, we've already bought the ingredients for our next beer (a nut brown ale), and again we're using a liquid yeast. So, I read up on making a starter and I ordered the necessary items to do that. It looks like as long as you have good sanitary procedures it should not be too hard. It just requires a little more planning ahead. But we think it's worth it! Also, we tried our pale ale after a week and a half (we put it in the refrigerator for 2 days), and it was pretty good. Still a little green and needs more carbonation, but it's a decent ale! I can't tell you how excited I am about all of this!! And here, for good measure, is a picture of our newest earthquake honey ale fermenting (it's called earthquake honey ale because we had the 5.4 earthquake just two days after it started fermenting!).

Oh, and I'm still running and working out! Okay, the gym is down to two days a week, but I plan on increasing that as possible. But I'm still running. I need to - it not only helps my physical health, it helps my mental health as well!!

Beer bottling day!

Just a couple of pictures from our beer bottling day!

More Beer!

Okay, things are progressing really well with the beer. We've gone through the first and second stages of fermentation; taken our hydrometer readings; and are at the point that we are going to bottle tomorrow morning (my daughter wants to help and she had to work today). The bottle have been sterilized and capped with foil and I'll be sterilizing the bottling bucket and all equipment in the morning. As well as getting the corn sugar ready (boil water, add, cool down) and such. I'm rather excited about the whole thing. For for the last two hydrometer readings we tried the left over beer, and it tasted like a decent beer that was left out too long (warm and no carbonation). So, I think (knock on wood) that it's going to be a decent beer! Hopefully I'll be posting in the next 2-3 weeks after we try our first one :-)

Beer!

Not only have we made cheese (twice) since coming back, but we started our first batch of beer! I think it took us an hour just to clean and sanitize everything; a good 45 minutes to bring the water up to a boil (we started off too slow with our grain, worried it would heat up too fast); cooked the wort for an hour, adding the hops at the proper time; cooled it in the sink until it was cool enough to put in the fermenter (oh yeah, and started the yeast before that time), topped off the wort with fresh water (not tap) and when it was cool enough we added the yeast. Put it in the pantry in the middle of the house and turned the air on so it would be below 75 degrees in that room (which we may need to cool more. We'll figure this all out). Anyhow, a day later it started to foam and work! It was cool to watch the progress. The wort was churning, the foam was coming up on the top, and the airlock was working away! Now it's been three more days and it's been fairly quiet, but I see a pop now and then. We took an original hydrometer reading before adding the yeast (it was a lot lower than we expected) and we're set to take our next one this weekend. I'm quite excited about all of this and hope it will turn out okay. I ordered enough 22 ounce bottles to bottle it, but I've also been saving good 12 ounce bottles. I plan to wash and sterilize those this weekend (and make some more cheese)!! And my husband and I had so much fun doing the first batch, he already ordered the stuff for a second batch! But we agreed not to start that until we've had a chance to try our first beer and see where we need to improve our technique. In the meantime I've also been doing the mozzarella cheese. And I ordered supplies to make a couple of other kinds of cheese. If that works out, and I hope it does, then I'll be buying the pattern to make a cheese press and trying my hand at some hard cheeses as well. But also, I need to make room for some more toys in my garage so I've been going out there and cleaning up a bag of trash every other day. At this rate, my part should be done in a couple of weeks and it's just a matter of my husband cleaning up his tools (I will put them all close to or on his work bench) and him and my daughter cleaning up some of the car parts that I can't move. I'm rather excited about it all.

Oh, and a new Belgium Pub opened up in our town in a little alley by the theater. We've gone there the last three weeks and enjoyed some very good ale and then twice went to the movies afterwards (my husband loves the movies)! I'd have to say that I've been enjoying myself :-)

Now, if the beer turns out any decent, I will also put up a few pictures along with my comments!