Priming

An interesting post on priming:

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 11:02:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Robert H. Reed"
Subject: Malt/Wort vs. Dextrose Bottle Priming

In HBD #1229, p.shaw5 at genie.geis.com writes:

> While I'm here and dyslurking, I have another question. Other than
> spiritual and philosophical blessings, are there any real, tangible
> advantages to priming with DME orusing a gyre to prime? I'm just an evil
> barbarian extract/dry yeast brewer at this stage in my experience and while
> lots of the stuff I make is quite decent, the flavors are always strong and
> harsh, like a Ben & Jerry's beer.

Theory tells us that due to the differences in the way that yeast ferments
malt and corn sugar, that there will be differences in the beer according
to the priming technique you choose: a beer primed with DME or wort will
go through both respiration and fermentation phases of yeast
metabolism. During yeast respiration, the yeast consume oxygen on their
journey to reproduction. The corn sugar primed beer will bypass the
respiration phase via the crabtree effect. Theoretically, the malt
primed beer will have better flavor stability as oxygen has been
scavenged from the bottle during the bottle fermentation.

Some unsolicited advice: If you switch to pure liquid yeast cultures,
you can make huge advances in your beer quality. Using some simple,
creative culturing techniques, you can use liquid yeast with minimal
price penalty. All you really lose is the ability to brew on a whim as
brewing good beer with liquid cultures requires the use of a yeast
starter and its associated leadtime.

***********************************************************************
**** Rob Reed Internet: rhreed at icdc.delcoelect.com ****
**** IC Design Center Delco Electronics Corporation ****
***********************************************************************


Found at http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/1230.html.

Why Guiness Tastes Better in Ireland

While reading Jon Udell's technology blog this morning, I was pleased to run across this digression on Guiness: http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/11/22/why-guiness-tastes-better-in-ireland/

Recent Brews

We've brewed two more batches since my last brewing status report. On September 1st, we brewed a 10 gallon batch of our Celebration clone and named it Festivus. It came out very well in my opinion, very hoppy and somewhat bitter. Since we forgot to measure the original gravity, we don't have an estimate for alcohol content, but I think the vast quantities of hops provide a significant psychoactive component. A very relaxing brew.

While we were brewing the Festivus, we were admiring the Chinook hops growing in my yard, approaching readiness for harvest. We decided to brew a fresh-hopped ale and scheduled another brew date just two week later to coincide with harvest. We gathered about a pound and a half and used it all in the brew.

When kegging the Fresh Hopped IPA, we only dry hopped one of the kegs (because we only had one hop sock free). The non-dry hopped keg was tapped a couple days ago, and the dry hopped keg was tapped this evening. I definitely prefer the dry hopped version. The difference is very noticeable. The hoppines of the batch that wasn't dry hopped is so much less pronounced, it may not even qualify as an IPA when measured against the style guidelines. But it's still a good brew.

Oktoberfest in Palestine

Ran across this story on the BBC's site the other day. I found the closing paragraphs most inspiring:

At one point, a young man who has come from Ramallah confides to me that he is a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant offshoot of the Fatah faction.

This shy young man tells me why he - a Christian - wanted to join the quasi-Islamist group, branded a terrorist organisation by Israel and its allies for a string of suicide bombings in Israeli cities.

Then he looks down at the glass of beer in his hand, and around at the smiling crowds, and says it is the first day he has been truly happy for many years.

Ribbons

Our homebrew competition entries, proudly wearing their ribbons.

Recent Brews

Lots to report since the last post, here's a quick catch-up.

Went to the Evergreen State Fair over Labor Day weekend to check out the judging of our entries in the homemade beverage competition. I was pleased to learn that our IPA earned a red ribbon and our wheat beer a white ribbon. White is nothing to boast about, of course, but then neither was our wheat beer, in my opinion. The IPA on the other hand was pretty good and earned a total score of 37 out of 50 points, just one point away from a blue ribbon. I think we'll enter again next year, and hopefully go home with a blue.

Here are our display bottles at the fair:



That same weekend, we brewed a 10 gallon batch our Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale clone recipe. We're calling it Festivus Ale. Kegged it last weekend. Looking forward to trying the finished product any day now.

After recently learning about fresh hopped beer, we decided to brew again when my homegrown Chinook hops were ready for harvest. We used the Hopitat IPA recipe and substituted the fresh hops for the Magnum that would normally go in at the beginning of the boil. That was on Sunday the 16th. Racked it last weekend. Very much looking forward to trying this one.

Michael Jackson, 1942 - 2007

The New York Times reports that Michael Jackson has died. I'm not as familiar with his work as I should be, but he is well known as a friend of beer. More on his passing and his legacy is at beerhunter.com.

From the caption to a photo on flickr :

Michael liked to joke, "They say abstaining from beer will make you live longer. It's not true. It just feels like it."

Homebrew Competition

We decided to enter the homebrew competition at the Evergreen State Fair this year.

Our entries ended up being Batch #3, Hopitat IPA, and Batch #5, Denny Creek Wheat. Didn't enter Batch #4, Weihenstephan Wheat, due to various factors, basically lack of preparation.

On Saturday, Thorly and I bottled up as much of the #4 and #5 as we could, given our somewhat limited bottle supply. But the end result of our efforts was a brew fridge chock full of kegs and bottles.



Here are the display bottles we submitted to the competition:



And here are the actual entries containing the beer to be tasted by the judges:



Judging is this coming weekend, and results will be available when the fair starts later this month. Looking forward to hearing what the judges think of our efforts.

IPA Bottled, Wheat Tapped

Robert and I bottled the rest of the IPA last week. Although we can actually fit all three kegs in the refrigerator, that doesn't leave room for the CO2, so it's really not very practical. It was good to empty one of the kegs.

We filled eleven 22 oz. bottles and two 12 oz. bottles. The latter are for entry in the upcoming homebrew competition at the Evergreen State Fair. We're now down to five bottles of the IPA on site here.

The wheat beer has been tapped. I'm not too impressed with it. It doesn't taste bad, but it seems to fall short of what a good wheat beer should be. It doesn't seem to want to accept enough carbonation, and the head retention is not that good. It almost seems closer to a commercial American lager than a wheat beer. Despite any shortcomings with regard to style guidelines, it's still a refreshing summer brew. A little lemon is a welcome addition.

Wheat Ale Kegged

Kegged the two batches of wheat ale yesterday. Here they are en route to their next abode:




Despite the odd extended fermentation, I think the Weihenstephan batch may turn out OK. It still has a rather sour taste, but that seemed to diminish quickly as the sample of proto-brew breathed over an hour or so.

We barely have room in the refrigerator for all three of our kegs, and they are each almost full. There are probably over 13 gallons of fresh homebrew being kept cold on site now.



I can hardly wait to taste a fresh, crisp wheat ale straight from the keg on one of these hot summer days!

Fermentation Problem?

I'm a little worried about batch #4, the wheat beer using Weihenstephan yeast. The fermentation had slowed down to a normal level before I racked last Sunday, but since then it seems to have increased. There is a good layer (half an inch or so) of krausen in the carboy.

The gravity at racking was a little high (1.017), but this much fermentation after 11 days is like nothing I've seen before. The proto brew had a bit of an off taste too, I thought. We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out, I guess.

Fortunately, batch #5 with the American yeast seems to be performing more or less as expected. It's a little active too, but nothing like #4.

Here's what the brews looked like just after racking:




Here's how they looked yesterday:



That's a lot of krausen in the carboy!

New Brews

Despite the lack of posts, there's been a lot happening at Denny Creek Brewing. I guess we've just been too busy to post!

Our third batch, a variation on the Hopitat IPA, just passed a week in the keg. This time we used the 1098 British Ale yeast instead of the 1028 London. Had the first sip on Sunday evening. A prodigious brew!

The weekend before last we brewed our first wheat beer and our first 10 gallon batch! We invested in a new brew kettle that morning and decided to go for it. This will be batches #4 and #5. We split the boiled wort between two 5 gallon fermenters and used Weihenstephan yeast in one and American in the other. More details to come as the brew progresses.

Welcome!

Welcome to the official Denny Creek Brewing blog!

Unlike my personal brewing blog, JBrog, I don't think we'll be publishing brewing notes directly to this blog. That was always a bit more of a chore than it should have been. Normally I log ongoing events and data for a batch of brew in a text file as the brew progresses, then I would transcribe the completed notes to a blog post.

Rather than transcribing the text file, the new plan is to post the text file directly to the server. Then, we can link to it from a page on the main web site. Also, we can add a post here with a link.

This should make the brewing notes better organized and make it easier to find information about a specific batch.

Also in the spirit of better organization, we're planning to number our batches. Batch #1 was the Amber Ale, batch #2 the Hopitat IPA.

Look for another post soon as our little brewing operation continues to evolve!