Brew Day: Thanksgiving Edition
Not being ones to let a good holiday go to waste, the Backyard Brewing Society opted for a post-Thanksgiving brew day. Although it was somewhat last minute, our plans were in overdrive. There were several highlights to the day, too. Several.
The first, was the fact Dave & I decided to finally go in together on our own grain mill.
One of the "excuses" we give our spouses about our homebrewing hobby is that it's "cheaper" than buying beer. Well, on face value, this is true. However, with every new gadget, the "break even" point tends to extend…a little.
We went with the Barley Crusher, which lived up to its name. Typically, we would either order our grain pre-crushed, crush it at Brewtensils, or use Drew's "pulverizer". The problem with crushing at Brewtensils is when you buy more than your grain bill, you head home with uncrushed grain. This is great to extend the life of the grain, but problematic when you actually want to crush it for a future batch and not work in a 20 minute drive to the shop. The grain mill also allows us to buy our base malt in bulk, which saves us just about a dollar a pound.
The mill worked great. Although, since we had about 30 pounds to crush, it was quickly determined we needed a mechanical advantage. This advantage was called "Andrew and his drill".
As readers of this blog can attest, food is an integral part of the festivities. For my part, I made baby rack ribs. When it comes to ribs, I'm typically not a briner, but this time I opted for just that.
Using some homebrew ESB from a previous Brew Day, I mixed in salt to make a 5% brine. I removed the membrane from 3 racks of baby backs and placed the brine and the ribs into a 2 gallon bag, which I let sit overnight. Just before the start of brew day, I removed the ribs from the brine and rinsed them off. A little bit of a rub and they were off to the Saffire to smoke.
Outside of simply having food on Brew Day, we also have to have food "spread out". Brew Day is not a sprint, it's a marathon. To start things off right, Dave brought two fatties. After about 45 minutes on the grill, they were sliced and served before we had even started our mash.
As the mid-point meal, Eric served up some awesome Arrogant Bastard Chili. We were hungry and we were worthy.
On the brewing side, Eric and Dave each brewed a batch, while Eric and I went in together on a collaborative batch. We were lucky as well to have my neighbor, Bryan, swing by and Landon and Keith also came out to spend the day with us. Bryan is planning on brewing his own at our next get together.
Several weeks ago, Eric asked me if i wanted to brew a "Sweet Potato" beer. My typical answer to anything following the word "brew", is yes. This time was no different. Eric told me his brother recently had The Bruery's Autumn Maple and loved it. After doing a little bit of research, Eric stumbled on the Black Alley Brewing website and found they had cloned the recipe. Amazingly enough, it is made with sweet potatoes and for our 10 gallon batch, we needed 10 pounds of them.
I'll let you click over to their site for the grain bill and recipe.
Outside of adding the sweet potatoes to the mash, we later added spices, vanilla beans and molasses to the end of the boil.
I ended up substituting hallertau hops for the liberty, as I had them on hand, but everything else was pretty much by the book. The guys at Black Alley did a great job of working out the recipe and documenting their project.
The biggest challenge for me was fitting 20 pounds of grain and a little over 8 gallons of water into my mash tun.
Since we were brewing something new, Eric rightfully felt it appropriate to taste the real thing and broke out a bottle of Autumn Maple. I thought it was great. Eric breathed a small sigh of relief, when he realized the morning I spent grilling yams wasn't going to go to waste. I was all in.
The nice thing about getting the guys together, is a great chance to try other beers. Thankfully, I had some special stuff sitting around. First, was Samuel Adams 2011 Infinium Ale.
Infinium is the annual collaboration between Samuel Adams and Weihenstephan. It was great…so good, in fact, several of us want to find additional bottles to stow away. We also ventured into the Sam Adams Single Batch Series with The Vixen.
This, in my eyes, was another winner. This whole chili beer thing is growing on me.
We finished up the day with ribs. Well not just ribs, but a mountain of ribs.
And most importantly, carboys full of beer.
It really was an amazing day, and much like this post…really, really long. Brew Days epitomize my belief that the journey is often as much fun as the destination. Our final batch, still weeks away from completion, may not turn out. However, the journey it took to get there was great. Which, in my eyes, makes this a win no matter what. My thanks to The Society, Eric, Dave, Keith, Bryan and Landon for making it happen.
