Outdoor Wine Tastings

Years ago, here on the Northwest side of Tucson, there was a wine shop and outdoor wine bar called Brew and Vine. Brew and wine was special. It was never snooty. It was laid back and casual. And because of this, it became quite a phenomenon. Every Tuesday night, the Internet based company I worked for invaded the bar, rain or shine. Yes, it was the tech boom of the late 90s. People who were in the know went to that bar. In some ways, it was like Cheers, but with wine.

Since then, the Internet boom busted, and the shop fell on hard times. Sadly, it went out of business. To this day, the people who used to go to that bar still talk about it and the people we used to see on a regular basis.

Right now, it is boom time for wine shops again. Wine has become very popular and is threatening beer as the most popular alcoholic beverage in the US. We've seen many wine shops pop up all over Tucson. Unfortunately, none of them have captured the casualness in an outdoor setting, like the old Brew and Vine -- at least until now.

Julie and I have been visiting Cata Vinos, with friends. Cata Vinos is a wine shop with outdoor seating. They have tastings every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The tastings are a flight of six wines, of which you get a one or two ounce pour. If you purchase a bottle, you can open it there and share it with friends. The nice thing is all their bottles are under 15 bones, so they are very reasonable. I think that we are going to try and go Thursdays, after work, as it is not far from where Julie works.

For the first time in years, someone has captured the magic of the old Brew and Vine. We missed it. We used to talk about it all the time. And now, we can start a new wine tradition, at a new place. We are happy, again.

Moving the Brewery Outside, Part II

As I mentioned last time, I've been thinking about moving the brewery outside. To consider this, I've diagrammed what it might look like.

The images below show the different steps to brewing on an outdoor system, which I have yet to build. Basically, the whole setup is based upon a stepped, three tier wooden frame, built from two-by-fours and plywood, all sitting on casters. It should be noted that the bottom most tier is actually the ground, and between the top most tier and the middle tier is a shelf to hold a propane tank.

This first image shows the mash. In this image, the top tier does not have anything on it. On the middle tier is a 40 quart, Polar Ware, boil kettle, which holds the mash liquor, sitting on a BE410 burner from MoreBeer. The bottom most tier has my MiniBrew Mash/Lauter Tun.

The next image shows lautering. The top most tier is the hot liquor tank, a Polar Ware kettle, sitting on the MoreBeer BE410 burner. The middle tier is my MiniBrew Mash/Lauter Tun. The bottom most tier is a Polar Ware boil kettle that I use to collect my sweet wort. The whole thing sits about six foot high.


The third image shows the boil. The top most tier now holds an empty Polar Ware kettle with piece of plywood on it, to extend the height. On top of that is my cold liquor tank, a blue plastic tub full of ice and water. The BE410 burner has been moved from the top most tier to the middle tier. My Polar Ware boil kettle has been moved from the bottom tier to the middle tier, on top of the burner. Green garden hoses go from the cold liquor tank to the copper immersion wort chiller in the boil kettle, out to the yard. The bottom most tier now holds my conical fermenter, a Blichmann, 7 gallon Ferminator. The whole thing sits about six foot five inches.


All the images shown are to scale, so I have an idea what things look like relative to each other. This gives me an idea at to what my brew day will look like, and what I need to build. I'll definitely need a step-latter to reach the top most tier, to place a full hot liquor tank on it, or to pour ice and water in my cold liquor tank.

That is it for now. I'll keep you guys informed when it comes to building the thing.

Moving the Brewery Outside, Part I

I'm considering moving my brewery outside. This has many ramifications. Some pluses and minuses to this are outlined below.

First, the biggest plus is that I can use a burner with more BTUs. This has been a plague since I moved to the stainless steel boil kettle. I simply cannot get enough heat to get a good boil going. I've not been able to get a good hot break, which leaves some haziness in my final product. By moving the brewery outside, I can go from about 20,000 BTUs over two natural gas burners on the stove to about 75,000 BTUs on a single propane burner outside.

The biggest minus is brewing during the summer. Summers in Tucson can break 110° F, which would be miserable to spend all day in, over hot brewing equipment. Summer temperates in Tucson can last from mid May to mid October. During the hottest months, June, July, and August, I imagine that I will not be brewing. One thing that can offset this is perhaps to move indoors during the hot months.

Another big plus to moving the brewery outside, is that it frees up the kitchen and makes SWMBO happy. To be honest, she has never complained that much, except when she wants to cook something, or I do something stupid, like not tighten down the hose to the washer hookup good enough and spill water everywhere.

A big minus is that I'll lose quick access to kitchen things, like a sink, hotpads to grab hot pans with, glassware to take a runoff sample in, and so on. When I need something quick, it is all right there.

That is about it for moving the brewery outside. Next time, I'll put up my plans I've been diagramming.

Witbier Brew Day

The day finally came. I gave all my new equipment, that I talked about previously, its first run on the Witbier recipe that I published in my last post. Let me say it was a wild ride.

My numbers were all over the place. I doughed in using 166° F mash water to settle in at about 152° F, not quite the 155° F I was looking for, but close. I added boiling water to bring it up to temp, but it dropped quickly again, to 152° F, 150° F, 148° F. I kept adding boiling water until I ran out, and I never could get the temperature back up. I'm not sure why it dropped so quickly.

The sparge was worse. I started sprinkling 170° F water, but the temp kept dropping, settling in about 133° F. I slowly brought my sparge water up to boiling, and the mash temp finally went up to about 145° F, well below the 165° F I'm used to.

With such low sparge temps, I excepted my efficiency to be low, and it was, at about 71% -- not the 80% I calculated my recipe at. Instead of a 1.050 OG, I ended up with about 1.045.

It sure was a learning experience. I'll take that knowledge into my next brew day.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Here is the new setup at work. In this picture, I'm sparging.

Here, I am moving the wort from the boil kettle to my stainless steel conical.

Witbier Recipe

This weekend I will be brewing. I had hankering for a wheat beer for the spring/summer, but did not want to do a Hefeweizen. I'm sort of sick of the banana/clove thing. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I had a Blue Moon and it hit me: Witbier, otherwise known as Belgian White Beer. I looked at my brewing notes and realized that I had not done one in over four years. So, I dusted off my recipe and went to town. The only reason I have not brewed sooner is that the local brew shop was out of bitter orange peel.

Here is my recipe:

4.5 lbs Pilsner Malt (German)
4.5 lbs Wheat Malt (Belgian)
0.5 lbs Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs Flaked Wheat
0.5 lbs Rice Hulls
0.7 oz Sterling Hops, 6.2 AA, 60 min, 17.8 IBUs
0.3 oz Sterling Hops, 6.2 AA, 10 min, 1.5 IBUs
1.0 oz Bitter Orange Peel, 10 min
1.0 oz Sweet Orange Peel, 10 min
1.0 oz Coriander Seed, 10 min
White Lab Belgian Wit Yeast (WLP400)
1.050 OG, 1.012 FG, 5.0 ABV, 19.3 IBUs, 3.1 SRM, 10.5 lbs, 80% efficiency, 6 gallons

First Infected Beer In Years, Sort Of

I've had my first infection in over eight years. Basically, it went like this: I had an oatmeal stout in the fermenter. It was going really well. Unfortunately, when I racked it to the keg and opened the fermenter, I noticed a gray-white film over the remains, with large bubbles and bright white chunks in it. That is not what I usually see when I open up the fermenter, so I thought, oh, this is not good. However, when I tasted the beer, it tasted great -- no off flavors.

I posted my plight to the American Homebrewer's Association's Tech Talk Forum. Lo and behold, David Logsdon, of Wyeast, wrote back to me. For those who don't know, Wyeast is a major provider of brewer's yeast. So, David Logsdon is one of the foremost authorities on yeast. This is what he wrote:

Hi Dave,

Saw your post on the forum. The white film is likely an oxidative yeast. Possibly a sherry type yeast, which are tenacious, but like you noted, might not affect the taste of the beer too much, or adversely. Over time however it might dry the beer out and begin to have affects on the flavor.Thorough cleaning is in order to get that out of your equipment, hoses are a likely place to start.

I hope this helps.

David Logsdon
Wyeast

Following his advice, I'm not going to dump it. I'm going to drink it and see if it changes over time. One thing I am going to do is clean the hell out of my equipment, and throw away all my hoses. All my brass and stainless-steel fittings are going to get a thorough inspection and cleaning, followed by an extended soak in some sanitizer.

That is all for now. I may revisit this later as this batch ages.