Hurricane Ike took out the power on Sunday, and Worst Energy has not yet been able to bring it back. I think I might try to use the free time to do some old school brewing. Who needs lights anyhow?

I did manage to get to East End in Pittsburgh for growler hours on Saturday. They have a nice harvest ale on right now.

I am nearing time to bottle both my Oak-Aged Märzen and the Rye Pale Ale. I am pretty sure I can do that with no power. Fortunately, I have a gas stove.

I got the opportunity a couple weeks ago to teach a quick introduction to brewing to a group of my wife’s friends during a birthday party. I’ve never brewed anywhere except my own kitchen, so it was certainly a different experience. The house was on a small farm, and thanks to the industrious nature of our hosts, there was a kitchen built on the back porch complete with stove and sink. I went through the demonstration of making an all-extract with steeping grain kit, which makes a good beer. I did not quite get other people up to help with any of the process, but I did have someone take a large number of pictures of the process, so hopefully I can get a hold of those and put something a little more interesting together than this little description.

Also while in Ithaca and the surrounding area, I got to try the Rooster Fish Brewpub and beer from the Ithaca Brewing Company. Rooster Fish did not please me too much. They were out of much of their beer, and the beer they did have did not quite taste right to me. Next time I am in town, I will definitely give them another try. Ithaca on the other hand made fantastic beer, and I sacrificed a lot of trunk space to bring a lot home.

I also finally got Wordpress, the blogging software I use, up to date so that I can use some of the newer features. Hopefully, I can have more frequent and less novel-like posts in the future.

The hops project has to be officially called a failure. My plants are about a foot tall still and have no side shoots of any kind. I guess urban backyards with lots of fences and other buildings just are not cut out for hops growing. I believe the problem to be a lack of direct sunlight. The only location in my yard that gets sunlight over the course of the entire day is the middle of the front yard, which is not quite suitable for growing plants. This point sunk home completely while I was visiting Weasel Boy Brewing in Zanesville, OH. They are a relatively new brewery having only been in business for a year. The taproom itself was only opened in February. Unfortunately, my timing was off, and I did not get to meet the brewers as they were down in Athens, OH for Ohio Brew Week. I did, however, get to sample many of their beers and was quite impressed. The Ornery Otter Blonde was my wife’s favorite, and I chose the Blackfooted Porter. I have seen them on draft over in Columbus, OH at Barley’s Brew House, so hopefully their expansion continues into the Cleveland/Akron area. Here is a shot of their taproom bar:

I was visiting the area for the annual family reunion, which is held at Salt Fork State Park. Happily, Salt Fork’s Lodge Bar has Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold on draft, so between the lodge and Zanesville, you can get a good beer even in Southeastern Ohio. Is that progress or what? A beer is great after roaming the hills in the State Park Forest as well:

In addition to new beer in remote parts of Ohio, my wife has also taken more of an interest in brewing. Tonight we made batches 4009 and 4010, which prove to be quite interesting. The gravities were on spec and the temperature good, so I am looking forward to the yeast getting to work quickly. We are doing the primary fermentation in three-gallon Better Bottles, which I have never used before. I also purchased a Thief for taking gravity readings from the Bottles, and I am completely unsure how I ever homebrewed without one. I am not normally a gearhead, so believe me when I say that you should purchase a Thief before you make your next batch of beer. You will thank yourself immediately after using it.

I’ve never actually made a beer that required a blow-off tube, but I recently received some German hefeweizen yeast from Allen in the Lakeside Brewers’ Guild, which he said would easily clog up a traditional airlock. Because the beer my wife made was still in my plastic primary fermenter, I decided to get really crazy and put this one directly into a carboy. After some logistical errors, spilling some of the wort on the kitchen floor, and a healthy amount of swearing at the cat, I finally got the Dungaree Dunkel in the carboy with Allen’s yeast pitched on top. He was not kidding at all. While I did not get spillage into the water trap, the kräusen definitely hit the blow-off tube, which tells me an airlock would have been a bad idea on this one. Here are a couple of the prettier pictures of the set-up and the kräusen:

Surprisingly, the tea kettle worked out well for a water trap. The lid on the spout made a perfect clamp for the tube that was not too tight to pinch it off, but keeps it firmly in place even with some accidental kicking.

As for the hops, which I have not mentioned in a while, the right side is growing like mad finally, but leftv2 is still a split stem and is not doing much of anything. My third rhizome in the big pink bucket has also neglected to send up any shoots. We have been getting some good rain, so I will snap a few more pictures in the days to come to post my progress.

It finally got hot outside, so it started to make me think about getting the trellises for the hops up. In about three hours and seventy dollars, I managed to get some trellises up that should support my meager hops bed. But I am getting ahead of myself, because I really should talk about the fact that some animal, natural disaster, or bad luck murdered the hops bine I have affectionately nicknamed “left”. I could not even bear to take a picture of it. I went out there to water them, and the bine was simply snapped in two at the base. Emergency measures were called upon, and I ordered another rhizome in case this one was finished. I could not find another Mt. Hood rhizome anywhere, so I ended up ordering a Brewers’ Gold again from Freshops. However, after checking on “left” again after a couple days, it turns out that it was not done fighting yet. One small bine that hadn’t budged since I planted it has suddenly shot to life and put out leaves. I have nicknamed it “leftv2″. I will have some pictures up of the progress of the bines soon, but for now, a couple pictures of the trellises themselves.

The trellises are eight-foot long two by twos that I pounded approximately one foot into the dirt. I secured them to my backyard fence with four-inch decking screws. The eyelets at the top are just #2 eyelets screwed into the side. I used coir twine to string down to the bines and secured the bottom of the twine with a metal spike to avoid too much blowing around. They are no Andy Sparks Trellises, but I think for my limited space they will do just fine.

Also, after a fifteen day primary fermentation, I bottled the Starched Wit witbier. It went from 1.043 down to 1.005, so I am looking forward to a nice, dry witbier in a couple weeks. I used DME for the priming sugar, which gives it a slight banana-ish flavor until the bottle conditioning is done, but the sample directly from the primary was delicious.

I have two more projects in mind for brewing now. The first will be the Irish Red Ale that I am taking to a brewing class I am giving in August. I have only been doing this a year, but it will be a year longer than anyone else at the class, so it should be informational for the neophyte and, of course, fun for me. The other project is doing an Oktoberfest style, but using bourbon-soaked oak chips in a long secondary bath. Neither one has a recipe ready to go yet, but they will be up in the brewing journal as soon as they solidify in my mind.