Dan's Blue Cheese and Bacon burger and stuff...

So i've been back on the brew train pretty hard for the last couple of weeks.

So hard in-fact that i managed to pitch a beer straight on top of another beers trub, which i've wanted to do for a while, and fuuuuck me it is fermenting pretty quick. I pitched it this arvo at about 2, and by about 6 it was makin' giant yeast monsters through the masses of hops. Nice!

The first beer in question was an English Pale Ale. Pretty standard, a little medium crystal and a little rye, Fuggles and EKG. Racked it off into a secondary today on top of some more EKG, and then poured my other beer, which i had no chilled, on top of the US-05 yeast cake it left.

The other beer i will refrain from talking about too much, it's been an idea that's been brewing (HA!) in my mind for a while and i don't want any bad omens. Let's just say that it's a big IPA with lots of twists. If it turns out well, i'll let you know, and maybe taste.

Also, the reason i used US-05 for an English Pale Ale and not S-04 (which i usually prefer) is because i was getting a bit sick of malty beers (not really), and wanted something dry to combat this insanely hot weather we've been having in Melbourne recently. Also, i couldn't be bothered going all the way to the brew shop to buy anything different. Also, i love English hops and want to see if i can get them to come out a bit more. Like an APA style but with English ingredients. ALSO, it will be used to pay some of the people who are helping me out with this stage play i'm writing/directing later this year, and most of my friends want Coopers, not Red Hill Scotch Ale. But that's for another blog... Which i don't have.

Now on to something important, right?! How about these fucking burgers we made while brewing RESTRICTED INFORMATION. Thanks to Dan, the Californian who has been working at Deja Vu for a few months now on his OE, we managed to make Blue Cheese and Bacon burgers, which is a concept so insane that only an American could come up with for sure.

Don't eat me, love me.

This was just, like, ridiculous. Here's what we put in it:

BLUE CHEESE and BACON burgers:

- Homemade burger patties: mince with diced onion, egg, bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce,  salt, pepper, orange rind and a bit of orange juice and paprika. (these were my creation, just so you know)

- CRISPY bacon. It has to be the CRISPYEST.

- Avocado.

- A big mushroom with Worcestershire sauce and butter, fried until soggy.

- Blue Cheese, the stinky kind.

- Green tomato relish.

Just smear the blue cheese all over those burger buns and grill them till nice and melted, then put everything together. Once your done find a good sized coffin and get someone to bury you, life's just not worth living anymore.

But before you do give your life up to the beauty of this wonderful burger, don't forget to wash it down with an Epic Hop Zombie, a Tuatara Double Trouble, an Anderson Valley Heelch O' Hops, an 8wired Hopwired and a Yeastie Boys Digital IPA.

Those were the beers we had that brew day, which Dan brought around (he is now obsessed with NZ beers), and they went perfectly with the monstrous burger.

Speaking of New Zealand again, i'm getting a bit worried. Is it tax in Australia that is hurting the craft beer industry the most? We went to the Catfish recently (great new set-up) during their Wellington craft beer event, and the beers were just amazing. Especially Garage Project La Calavera Catrina.

Nothing against the Australian Craft Beer scene, i've said it once, and i'll say it before, i think there are some of the best beers in the world being produced right here, and i know from personal experience that there are strong forces at work against it, but i want to see more variation and weirdness, it is what i believe to be the essence of craft beer.

Just as a note, this is in no way a professional opinion.

Anyway, here is an amazing picture:

Full sized picture here.

That's one of Saturn's moons, which apparently used to be a bigger planet, but has been smashed down to size.

Cheers!

Pseudoscience 101: the experiment.

A big part of beer brewing that i love is the ability to sound like you know what you are doing, and feel like you know what you are doing, but really have no idea what you are doing.

A good dose of 'science-eyes' and we have a finished product.

Time for an experiment: get a friend, brew 2 beers side by side, the only difference: the scientist behind the wheel. But first:

Sandwiches.

So the beer we decided to make was an British Pale Ale, because we were both a bit sick of american hops and yeast. We wanted something a bit dirty, something that tasted like earth. The recipe was as follows:

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Oscar/James the Pale

Grain Bill:

3.25kg Maris Otter

1kg Wheat malt

300g Crystal 60L

Hops:

15g Target @ 60 mins

20g EK Goldings @ 30

20g EK Goldings @ 15

Yeast:

Safale s-04 fermented at 18C for 2 weeks, then bottled.

OG 1.050

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The brew day was to be at James' house, since he has a bigger stove and is able to have our 2 pots on it at the same time.

Feels good.

I have a secret love affair with Mornington Pale, which is an amazing Pale Ale brewed in Victoria (in Mornington, would you believe it?). One of the reasons it's so good is that it adds a significant amount of wheat malt to give it a nice tang, which is why we decided to do the same.

Read his second book: 'How to Poo'

So, there we were, two pseudo-scientists waiting to make sweet, sweet pseudo-science together, but not without the help of a couple of good friends:

Anbrew.

and

Nick.

Brew day went well, everything went to plan and it was fun having some more people along to help and watch.

It was kind of like synchronized swimming in a lot of ways, except instead of it being graceful, beautiful people in a swimming pool, it was sweaty, hairy people stirring big pots of boiling sticky sugar and getting a bit drunk.

Pretty much the same thing.

Two methods of milling = the same product, i think.

Great foam.

Great form.

Brew in a bag is definitely the best way to start all-grain brewing, it requires much less effort, cleaning and equipment than using a mash tun and you can get just as good results. The only thing that i think is better with using a mash tun is that you have a little more control, and you can do bigger beers because of the extra space.

Time for the boil.

 First hop addition.

Second.

Third.

English hops are amazing, they are so under used in Pale Ales too. Even though i love American hops, i think they are a bit overused in most styles of beer. Recently i tried Timothy Taylors Landlord, an English Pale Ale from England, and it is incredible. It tastes so earthy and malty, and so easy to drink too. If you can get your hand on one, then definitely try it out.

Re-hydrating the shit out of that yeast.

GOD IS GREAT

And there we are, two pretty much identical beers, together at last in eternal slumber.

So, the experiment, how'd it go?

DRUM ROLL...

Pretty average to be honest. We totally miss calculated the priming sugar and they both ended up pretty under-carbonated, which really detracted from the flavour. The beers tasted pretty much the same, James' was a little bit better, but not enough to put your finger on.

ANTI CLIMAX?

But hey, that's what brewing is all about, right? 

This beer was made quite a while ago, and i have made some killer ones recently that i will blog about soon. Trying to get back into doing it regularly, so thanks if you are reading, and comment if you want, it would be good to hear some feedback.

Cheers!

I so Pale.

You can tell she's thinking about brewing a Pale Ale.

Time to brew a session beer, i thought.

While buying the grain for the Amber Ale i brewed, me and my friend bought a 25kg bag of pale ale malt because it cost less to buy over 20kg, we knew we'd use it, and it was a fucking 25kg bag of grain.

Mate.

So after brewing 2 all grain brews: the Coffee Stout and the Amber Ale, i decided to finish off the hops in the freezer and use some of this grain i had sitting around to make an awesome session beer that my friends could drink, and the idea was to make lots of it.

As mentioned previously, i have a 32 L pot, and i wanted to make 30 litres of beer. The best way to do this would be to dilute. 

The recipe was simple:

Grain:

-6kgs of Joe White Pale Malt, finely crushed.

Left over freezer hops (guess work):

-20g Chinook at 60mins

-20g Centennial at 30mins

-And a definite 30g of Cascade, dry hopped for 7 days.

It was a 20 L mash for 60 minutes from 68C down to 65C and then an hour long boil, giving me a very concentrated 15 L of sweet wort. Just before adding the yeast i added an extra 15 L of cold tap water, bringing me up to 30 L at about 1.045. Perfect!

I had a friend come over and help out on the brew day, he is the bar manager at Deja Vu, his name is Joe.

Another thing was that i borrowed my friend James' grain mill for the day, which he had recently purchased. It was fun... I got to use a power drill.

1.5L of grain = 1kg of grain.

Hamish's "power drill".

Getting better at sparging i think...

Thanks Joe!

Something something boil is finished! And this is what it looked like after leaving it to chill on its own in the bathtub for a while!

A nebula of beer...

A nebula of beer... Changing my blog from 'Smell My Beer' to 'The Beer Nebula'. DONE.

Here is the tasting of the beer about 2 weeks after bottling:

Photos and video taken by Becky Nosiara unless otherwise stated or obvious.