The 2BrewDudes

If only we put this much effort into brewcasting

We are back!

After a longer than expected delay, the brewdudes are back! We have regrouped and decided on a new format that will hopefully bring a ton of new content. We will regularly post beer reviews, and we will the return of the brewcast will happen soon. We look forward to getting this started again!

-Bd2

Please Excuse Our Progress

Nevermind the mess of test posts here and there, we're just getting things straightened out for the website. Thanks for your patience.

Nut Brown Update 3/15/08

We're officially one step closer to drinking our first batch of 2BrewDudes homebrew! With one of the brewdudes absent, and the help of a brew dudette (my prim and proper lil sis), I took a gravity reading. Our target gravity was 1.015, we hit 1.016. Freakin' close enough! That gives us 4.3%ABV, perfect. After the successful gravity reading, we cleared room in the fridge for our carboy. That thing is damn big, especially when you try to cram it in a refrigerator. We had to take the whole top shelf out! Anyway, the idea behind refrigerating (crashing) the beer at this point, is to put our little Yeastie Boys who have worked so hard for us into a peaceful sleep. The Yeastie Boys can't party in the cold temperatures in the fridge. So, they fall out of suspension and go into a little microscopic coma, helping to clear our unfiltered beer. Next step, bottling. We've tenantively scheduled bottling for Monday night, March 17th. That's St. Patty's Day, so we might not get to bottling, but for sure we'll be doing some sort of beer related activity. I'd be willing to bet our St. Patty's Day activities will be better suited for the Beer Tasting section of the blog. See ya next time and have a great St. Patty's Day!    

Nut Brown Update

Well we got together this weekend hoping to use the fridge to chill the brew, ease up any cloudiness and then bottle up our first batch of brew. We busted out the hydrometer to take a SG reading and we were only at 1.020 which is not quite where we need to be. We decided to let it sit a few more days and check again to try to hit our target gravity of 1.015.  

We did sneak a little taste after we finished with the hydrometer tube, and damn we think this is going to be a nice brew!  Stay tuned for more updates!

Nut Brown Ale, Brewed 2/29/08

  Well here we are, our first official 2brewdudes brew session.  We decided to take it easy in the beginning, choosing an intermediate kit, for a couple of reasons. First we want our brewery, and our skills to grow with the blog, so everyone can watch the transformation from a kitchen extract brewery to a full fledged all grain system. We'll talk more about this later. Which brings me to the next reason. By starting out small, we'll have lots to write about. So on to the brew.

      For the first beer style, we chose the True Brew Nut Brown Ale Kit. This is an excellent choice for brewing beginners. The style style is pretty forgiving when it comes to mistakes. By being a somewhat dark and flavorful it beer tends to hide minor flavor mistakes and clarity problems, like suspended yeast, that can be hard to remove without filtration. I always like to recommend that a novice brewer start with a kit like this one. This kit comes with specialty grains, which means its a partial mash kit. Being a partial mash kit, it allows a beginner to experience basic brewing techniques, rather than just buying a no boil kit which essentially just requires mixing it with water.

     Nut brown ale, for those new to beer styles, is typically an English style ale. A good commercial example of this is Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale, which we sampled of coarse, while brewing this batch. (Read about our thoughts on Samuel Smith's on Our First Tasting post). I like to drink a good example of whatever it is I'm brewing, while I'm brewing it. It inspires me.

Here are some Nut Brown Guidelines according to BJCP:

• Aroma: Light, sweet malt aroma with toffee, nutty and/or caramel notes.  A light but appealing fresh hop aroma (UK varieties) may also be noticed.  A light fruity ester aroma may be evident in these beers, but should not dominate.  Very low to no diacetyl.

• Appearance: Dark amber to reddish-brown color.  Clear.  Low to moderate off-white to light tan head.

• Flavor: Gentle to moderate malt sweetness, with a nutty, lightly caramelly character and a medium-dry to dry finish.  Malt may also have a toasted, biscuity, or toffee-like character.  Medium to medium-low bitterness.  Malt-hop balance is nearly even, with hop flavor low to none (UK varieties).  Some fruity esters can be present; low diacetyl (especially butterscotch) is optional but acceptable.

• Mouthfeel: Medium-light to medium body.  Medium to medium-high carbonation.

• Overall Impression: Drier and more hop-oriented that southern English brown ale, with a nutty character rather than caramel.

• History/Comments: English brown ales are generally split into sub-styles along geographic lines.

• Ingredients: English mild ale or pale ale malt base with caramel malts. May also have small amounts darker malts (e.g., chocolate) to provide color and the nutty character.  English hop varieties are most authentic. Moderate carbonate water.

Vital Statistics:                        

OG:  1.040 – 1.052

IBUs:  20 – 30                           

FG:  1.008 – 1.013

SRM:  12 – 22                           

ABV:  4.2 – 5.4%

    

      Our brewery as it sits now, is really a compilation of parts that we have collected over the years. For this session we used about a 9 gallon stainless turkey fryer pot on a propane burner, a 6 gallon glass carboy for fermentation, and various brewery specific items (hydrometer, iodophor, hoses, etc.)

    We read the directions that came with the kit, but decided to vary some. The brew session started with the partial mash (steeping) of the specialty grains that came with kit. They included chocolate and caramel malt, and roasted barley. We brought 2 1/2 gallons of bottled spring water to 165 degrees F, put the grains in the cheese cloth sock that came with the kit, and steeped them for 30 minutes.

Once our water reached 165 F, we turned the fire off and put the lid on to maintain the temperature. Although it was about 50 degrees outside, we only lost about 10 degrees after 15 minutes. We re-lit the fire briefly to regain our temp. At this point we were well into our beer sampling evening, and I suggest that you too take advantage of a 30 minute mash to sit back, shoot the shit, and have another beer. Remember this is fun time not science class!

      After 30 minutes and another beer, it was time to get on with it. We removed the grain bag from our now beautifully dark wort like substance, added another 2 gallons of water, and brought the temperature up to just below boiling before turning the fire off again. Then we added the can of prehopped extract, both bags of dry extract, and the brown sugar. Its critical that the fire is off when adding the extracts so they don't stick to the bottom and scorch. Stirring is essential as to completely dissolve the sugars. We then fired the burner back up and brought her to a boil. It is necessary to leave the lid off during the boil. It not only helps prevent boil over but also allows undesirable DMS compounds to escape with the steam. Not to mention it's cool as hell to watch your creation boil and take in the smell. At this point, our liquid is now called wort, and the potential for a foaming boil over is ever present. We watched closely, and reduced the fire a bit as the foaming started. In less than a minute the foam subsided, where's my beer? We've now got 45 minutes to kill. The wort needs to be at a hard boil to produce a good quality beer, so we made sure to turn the fire back up. Not too hot, we don't want to scorch the wort, just enough for a hard boil.

       45 minutes later, bullshit in the air and at least a couple more beers down the hatch, it was time for the finishing hops. Our kit came with 1 oz of UK Fuggles, which we pitched at the last 2 minutes of the boil. It was at this point we melted the hydrometer tube. Oops, maybe our judgment was a little impaired, but it happened so fast, and there was 200+ degree wort! Well we needed to get a specific gravity reading so we would know how much more water to add. It was as simple as adding really frickin hot wort to the tube and watching it melt in my hand. Cool, I know, but really hot! Luckily, after some choice words and heavy laughter, Mike was able to reshape it as it cooled, sort of. Well good enough for the night, but we'll have to replace it. We ended up almost adding too much water. Our target gravity was 1.049-1.053, we luckily have 1.049.

        

Sometime during the hydrometer fiasco, we decided to alter the dry yeast instructions a bit. Instead of using 1/3 cup of cooled boiled water, to rehydrate the yeast, we used 1/3 cup of cooled boiled wort. This ended up being a cool idea. Within minutes, the yeastie boys were jammin out in their new little home.

Mike decided to take a picture of our new growing friends, also a great idea. Right up to the point he bumped the yeastie boy's fly pad and spilled some of them to their horrible death on the counter top! Oh the agony! Anyway, hopefully that didn't infect the yeast.

The water we added to the wort was kept in the freezer during the brew process, so it helped drop the temperature, but not enough. We wanted to get the wort down to the low 70's, but the instructions on the yeast said you could pitch at 90. It was 12:30am by this point, so with our wort at 90 degrees we pitched. I know I forgot to mention it, but yes we did stir the piss out of the wort, which helped settle out the trub, and oxygenate. I know, I know, oxygen will absorb into the wort better at lower temps. Maybe we'll build an immersion chiller for our next post.

         As of  March 1st, 2008 at 9:30pm, less than 24hrs later, our wonderful nut brown ale is fermenting like a champ. Fermentation had a very strong start that I attribute to starting our yeastie boy's in wort rather that water. 

         I hope our first brew blog was halfway informative, and halfway entertaining. I guess if you've read this far something must be interesting to you, or you're just really frickin bored. I look forward to many more. Peace out homey's!