So we made our 3rd and what appears to be our most successful batch of our IPA on Monday evening. The entire process went incredibly smoothly, from mash to sparge to pitching and it seems the few variables we shifted were the right ones producing a yield we were hoping for.

Our 2nd batch of IPA was decent in flavor though the yield fell about 2.5 gallons short producing just around 3 gallons. We underestimated how much the industrial burners we use would boil down our wort and came up short. The malt character was very nice, but frankly it just wasn’t quite as hoppy as I felt it should be. So we adjusted two things to solve these issues.

First, we added more water to the mashing process to bring our yield up, as opposed to adding more water for the sparge. I got the idea off the AHA forum where someone was inspired by some papers they read on BrauKaiser.com that more water at mash will yield an extraction with a larger amount of fermentable sugars. So instead of a 1qt/lb mash we upped it to a 1.5qt/lb mash, and reduced our sparge water equally.

The first time I noticed a significant difference was in the boil over. Our wort went crazy with it’s frothy head that seemed to not want to relent no mater how much I stirred it down. This cappucino like head continued for probably 10 minutes where in the past the boil over threatens for little more than 3 or 4 minutes.

Our second indication that something was quite different – an insanely active initial fermentation – was probably a result of two variables: the higher extraction of fermentable sugars from the diastatic activity in the mash and the fact that we used a dry yeast instead of a liquid yeast.

I was forced to use a dry yeast when I rolled up to Brew & Grow and found they were out of their American Pale Ale slap packs. I initially thought I would make a yeast starter but after some research I found that not only is a starter unnecessary with dry yeast you don’t even need to rehydrate the dry yeast to make it active. In addition, dry yeasts contain over twice the amount of yeast cells that liquid yeast packs do making the party that much more active.

About 30 minutes into the brewing I pulled a couple cups of wort out and put them in an erlenmeyer flask, let that cool and pitched in the 11.5g pack of yeast. In about 20 minutes there was a frothy head and it was clear my yeast was hungry. After chilling the rest of the wort I pitched this tastyness in and let those bad yeasties rape and pillage the beer like they so want to do. After one day our beer was in a frenzy, with a several inch kreausen on there and CO2 spitting out every second.

I added a bit more hops on the bittering end this time around in hopes of balancing out some of the maltiness, but other than that I think we should be good to go. One thing I screwed up was forgetting to take the OG, which, especially in this case of a such a strong and different reaction, is pretty disappointing.

I don’t know if I’ll use dry yeast again, but my interest is definitely piqued. It couldn’t have been easier and it’s been a ton of fun to watch the beer really lose it’s mind a bit. I feel like we’ve finally found out how to tickle the demons inside that brew and get them to bloom more of the secrets they’ve got inside them. I shouldn’t speak too soon or claim success too early, but it certainly is enjoyable to see some new and strong reactions in the lab.

So I tried our IPA (a very loose Bell’s Two Hearted Clone) and it’s just OK. It’s not fully carbonated yet so I’m sure that will improve it’s flavor a bit, but the real issue is that it’s real thin, way too bitter (even for me), and there’s a similar, very subtle flavor in there that I don’t care for, to what is in our Bitter (and works better in the Bitter).

Based on my present understanding of this stuff I’m assuming that flavor is most likely from the yeast we’ve been using or, possibly, that we’ve been using Chicago tap water. So for our next attempt at the Two Hearted Clone, I’m going to do a few things different:

1. Use distilled water
2. Use Centennial hops for the bittering (what Bell’s uses), though I’m going to stay with Cascade for the dry hopping as I really prefer it’s aroma and I’m pretty sure it’s what Half Acre uses, at least for aroma, on their Daisy Cutter.
3. Try a new kind of yeast, White Labs wlp051 California Ale yeast.

The use of the new yeast will hopefully help give our beer more body and help the taste a bit.  But, with using White Labs instead of the wyeast activator, I’ll now have to do a yeast starter in order to get the most from my vial of liquid yeast.  I poked around the internet a bit and found plenty of decent instructions on how to make a yeast starter.  I thought the nice folks over at AllGrainAles.com had one of the better and clearer instructions on how to do this.

Here’s how to make a yeast starter from your wort compliments of AllGrainAles.com:

Equipment Checklist:

- Clean glass bottle / jug (a growler works great)
- Bottle stopper
- Airlock
- 1/2 gallon spring water
- dry packaged brewing yeast or liquid yeast culture
- Funnel
- Medium-sized sauce pan
- 1/2 lb dry malt extract

As with all brewing procedures, it is crucial to maintain very sanitary conditions when handling yeast and all starting wort and equipment.

# Remove your yeast from refrigeration before beginning your mash on brew day.
# Draw off some wort during the sparging process (maybe a quart) and place in a medium-sized sauce pan. Check the gravity of this liqid and dilute to 1.020 – 1.030, if necessary. You’ll need about 1.75 quarts total.
# Boil this wort for 10-15 min. Reduce temperature (let it sit for 45 min. covered) and pour it (slowly) into a sterile 1/2-gallon jug (using a sterile funnel). Cap this with a stopper and airlock to maintain optimal conditions.
# Reduce and monitor temperature (running cold water against the jug) until it reaches 72°-74° F.
# Aerate this wort and add the room-temperature yeast.
# Mix and maintain temperature above 70° until it is added to the finished wort.

I pulled this recipe from part of another recipe in issue #33 of BeerAdvocate. It’s super easy and real effective.

1 cup raw nuts
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp IPA

Whisk the sugar, salt and IPA together into an opaque syrup. Add the nuts and stir well. Place the nuts on a parchment paper covered cookie tray and put in the over at 350* for about 20 minutes. The syrup will be bubbling and the nuts nicely browned. Remove and let cool.

I bet this would be tasty made in a smoker, too.

We’ll be kegging our first batch of IPA later this week so I’ve been doing some research on how to properly carbonate kegged homebrew.

Apparently, you can do it the same way that you would a bottled beer but with about half the dextrose you would use for bottling (so about 1/3 cup). However, this is not the best way, especially if you, like me, have a kegerator set up.

From what I’ve been reading, gathering from multiple sources and many, many different approaches to this process the best means of adding carbonation to your kegged beer is to do the following:

1. Clean/sanitize your keg properly.
2. Blast some CO2 down into your keg, since CO2 is heavier than oxygen it will push that stuff out of your keg.
3. Fill your keg with your delicious homebrew and close up.
4. Run your CO2 into the liquid out port on your corny keg at around 20-30psi (this allows for a more thorough distribution of CO2 throughout the beer.
5. Release the gas out of the keg (4,5 insure that any remaining oxygen is pushed out).
6. Let the keg sit at room temp over night.
7. Put the keg in your fridge and give it around 36psi (according to this guy from the BA forum you’ll gain about 10psi per 24 hours at 36psi and 40* temp)
8. After a good 24 hours for most beers (you can use this calculator if you want to be real precise) you can bring your psi down to it’s serving pressure and begin enjoying.

That’s it.  Some people like to shake their kegs others like to tap it at serving pressure and let it sit for 2 weeks.  What I have posted above is a composite of the best ideas distilled into the most reasonable approach I could decipher from many sources on line.  Obviously, actual experience will yield even more accurate results so I’ll post back here if their is any signicant part of this process missing or inaccurate.

We’re brewing a Bell’s Two Hearted Clone this weekend for our second batch of beer. The thought on this was that with a clone we’ll have something to compare the final product to and, hopefully, have a better idea of what we are doing well and what we’re doing, well, not so well. Not to mention, if this thing is even vaguely successful it’ll be great to have a keg of our very own, homebrewed IPA clouding up my judgement.

Part of the clone recipe calls for dry hopping. I had a fairly good idea what this meant, figuring we should be throwing in some more of the Centennial hops after we pull the wort off the flame, but I wasn’t sure just exactly when after the flame goes out that we should be adding the hops. I was surprised to find out that to dry hop a beer you add your hops after the end of the initial fermentation, around 5-7 days after adding the yeast.

Here’s a nice overview of dry hopping the helped school me on this.

On October 2nd the doors to the retail store for the Half Acre Beer Company will officially become open to the public when they host the 3rd annual Festiv-Ale at their brand new north Lincoln Ave. location. And, with the opening of the Half Acre storefront, another new milestone will be set for beer drinking in our fair city of Chicago.

Sitting in the heart of the beer-loving midwest and long believed to be a town of beer drinkers, Chicago plays host to, depending on who you ask, anywhere from about 350 – 1800 bars. But, despite it’s reputation and the staggering number of places you might find yourself indulging in this heavenly concoction, Chicago has, until very recently, been a bit anemic on the craft beer tip. It’s a bit embarrassing really, what with Wisconsin to the north of us and Michigan to the east, Two Brothers out in Warrenville. Hell, even Indiana has 3 Floyd’s.

However, in the past couple years we’ve seen the rise of two new breweries within the confines of Chicago proper, Metropolitan Brewery and Half Acre Beer Company. Both standing as a testament to the spirit of Chicago and quickly becoming ambassadors for the City in their own right, these two craft beer establishments have helped put new life into Chicago’s beer scene that, for too many years, had become a bit boring being home to only one brewery, Goose Island. But, as craft beer continues to explode around the country and an undeniably exciting beer renaissance is under way, could it be we’re seeing Chicago transform from it’s pilsner induced slumber into becoming a notable contender with other great beer cities around the country? Ok, fair enough, that may be putting the cart before the clydesdale a bit, but, however you slice it, it’s an exciting time to be a beer glutton here in the city of broad shoulders.

Half Acre Beer Company bills itself as a “community based brewing company” and boasts a steady line up of 4 delicious beers from their very solid Over Ale to it’s amazing Daisy Cutter Pale Ale which, in my estimation, stands just atop the Surly Furious as the tastiest Pale Ale I’ve been blessed to wrap my big fat fish lips around. In addition to brewing a roster of beers that challenge you not to drink them Half Acre also supports a competitive bike team and a number of socially conscious organizations helping to make good on their claim as a “community based” organization.

In anticipation of the opening the Half Acre storefront at 4257 N. Lincoln Ave, which will be opening the first week in October, we shot some questions over to the brains and brawn behind Half Acre, Gabriel Magliaro, which he was kind enough to answer:

As far as I’m aware Chicago now has 3 local breweries to the city proper – Goose Island, Metropolitan, and you guys, Half Acre. How do you fit into this collection? Do you see your roles as competitive, or adding to a growing Craft Beer community both in Chicago and nationally, or both?
GM:I don’t see us as competitors. Chicago is a big town and there’s room for all of us to exist. If a bar has 10 beers on tap I’d rather see locals have one and let the out-of-town breweries fall into the remaining slots.

How do you differentiate yourself from Goose Island and Metropolitan… or any other Craft Beer for that matter?
GM:DIfferentiation comes in a bunch of forms, I suppose. We like to think our vibe has a different feel. We’re a young company, both in existence and how old we are as people. I think we have a level of sophistication, but also have younger edge to our identity. Beer wise, Metro is brewing Lagers, and they’re committed to that, which is great. Goose has dabbled in everything and has a huge portfolio that’s easily accessed. We brew beers we want to drink and try to make them as interesting for us as possible – we hope that carries out to the consumer.

There seems to be a very strong sense of local Chicago pride to Half Acre which shows, most obviously, in the Beer Hunt’s that you host. What is it that makes you so proud to be in Chicago and why did you choose to show that through something like the Beer Hunt?
GM:Chicago is a great town, and I think most Chicagoans are very proud of their city. The Half Acre has various levels of meaning for us, and part of that is the natural inside this urban juggernaut that we live in. The hunt is a great way for us to explore the city, get outside on the motorcycle and have fun, then pass that on. Getting people out and about and enjoying themselves, we feel, is very positive.

Clearly Half Acre’s passions extend beyond the brewing of delicious beer. You also sponsor a competitive bicycle team and involve yourself in socially conscious activities like the upcoming Brews Not Bombs. Do you see a common thread between these interests, something that drives you to each of them however disparate or seemingly unrelated they are?
GM:We try to pair up with people that are motivated and having fun. We try to support as much as we can while not putting ourselves out of business. Half Acre Cycling is a great group of people who race to have fun and get better at it. It’s an easy fit.

Right now Daisy Cutter has a deep and rooted hold on my liver. It’s presently the finest Pale Ale I’ve been able to taste. Which is your preferred Half Acre Brew? What kind of brews should people be looking forward to in the future from Half Acre?
GM:I drink a lot of the Daisy, as well. We have a number of specialty brews coming out and have been trying to step out with new beers as much as possible. We have specialty release coming out in October called Magnus, a big Schwartz that we’re hoping will be delicious. Our goal is to release a specialty beer once a month and sell it in our store and other spots around town.

What’s the most memorable (flavor, location, event, and company all considered) beer you’ve ever drank?
GM:There’s been a lot of those, but one that sticks out in my mind right now was drinking some Ellie’s Brown at Avery in Boulder. I had had numerous beers before and the weather was clutch. I was drinking this beer, which is a great brown beer, when Ellie herself came running out of nowhere and basically landed on my lap. I love dogs, I love Colorado and beer.

You’re opening your brew pup here in less than a month. What should people expect from the Half Acre brew pub? And, of all the restaurants and bars in Chicago, why should they come to yours?
GM:We’re not opening a brewpub. We’re opening a retail store where people can buy beer directly from us. It should be unique. There will be offerings here that you can only get here. We will also carry beers and spirits from other companies that we admire.

Is there a Half Acre philosophy that is applied to your beer creations?
GM:Brew beer you want to drink.

When you’re not drinking your own beer what do like to drink?
GM:I drink the beer of others all the time. I try to support the locals and seek out the latest and greatest from those who I respect.

If there was one piece of advice you could give people to help them enjoy beer even more thoroughly than they do now, what would it be?
GM:Stop thinking so hard.

If these videos of the guys from the Surly Brewing Company dumping 50lbs of fresh hops into a kettle for the brewing of a new, limited run, wet-hop IPA gets you hot, then you are definitely a beer geek. And most likely an alcoholic, too.

“1400 pounds of fresh hops picked from the vine, put in a refigerated truck and delivered to the brewery. This wet-hop beer will be draft only and released in early October. The aroma at the brewery the day of the brew was like walking in a hop forest, amazing.”

I know, I know. Shhhh. I know.

Hey, if you’re in the twin cities area and you can shake your money maker, maybe you can scare up a couple of the sold out tickets to the Surly Fest this weekend. I’m sure it will be sick.