Hop Spider Build

   The local hardware store is fast becoming a favorite home brew supply store of mine despite not selling plastic spigots (not to mention they can order kegerators for sale!).  In the most recent issue of Brew Your Own magazine, there was yet another DIY project that I couldn't wait to build.  This time, rather than storing it away for future reference, I decided to build the Hop Spider.  You can read the article here, they also have many other great build projects and other helpful info.

    As a matter of personal preference, I like to keep as much sediment and debris out of my boil kettle as possible.  It not only helps with clarity, but lessens the amount of trub in the bottom of a fermentor which means more beer come bottling time.  To aid in this end I've acquired a few re-usable nylon drawstring bags from the home brew store made for holding hops or other spices and additives (like Irish Moss).  They work great, and I've not had any problem with hop utilization.

Excessive trub (troob) = less beer for drinking

   The bags are handy, and do well enough, but no matter how I tie or clamp the bag to the kettle, it always ends up floating freely in the boiling wort.  Not such a big problem until it comes time to add more hops or spices.  Then one must pull the bag out of the wort, and pull open the drawstring which sticks due to being soaked.  I've come to accept slightly scalded fingers as just another unavoidable part of brew day.  Actually adding hops, especially whole leaf hops, becomes quite a hassle as well.

   The Hop Spider solves this issue, making hop, spice, fruit, etc, additions quick and painless!  It's a quick and rather inexpensive build.  Here goes:

Parts & Cost List:

• Power drill (free! Christmas present!)
• File, emery board, or hobby knife (also free!)
• Appropriately sized drill bit (came with drill!)
• Marker (free!)
• 4" to 3" PVC reducing coupler ($4)
• 3 5/16" x 6" carriage bolts ($.74 ea, $2.50 altogether)
• 6 5/16" hex nuts to fit carriage bolts ($.11 ea, $.66)
• 6 5/16" washers to fit carriage bolts ($.12 ea, $.72)
• 1 #56 screw clamp ($1.53.  The article suggests one with a turn-key.  Unfortunately I couldn't find one.)
• Nylon paint straining bags ($2 for pack of 2.  Cheaper than the brew shop. Either 1 or 5 gallon capacity depending on boil size and hop affinity)

Total Cost: ~$11.41

   After assembling together all parts and tools (don't forget eye protection!), make three equidistant marks where you will drill holes for the carriage bolts.  If the marks aren't perfectly equidistant, the Hop Spider will still support itself fine.  I actually drilled four holes and will add a fourth bolt simply because I'm a tad neurotic and don't like odd numbers.


   I used a 5/16" drill bit as my carriage bolts are 5/16" diameter x 6" long.  Use longer carriage bolts if your pot is larger.  When drilling the PVC coupler, watch for flying hot pieces of PVC, and do so in an area where the many PVC shavings will be easily cleaned.  I didn't have much issue with it, but if there are any burrs in the holes, use the file or hobby knife to trim them away so they don't eventually fall into your wort.

   Screw a nut onto the first carriage bolt, followed by a washer and insert it into one of the drilled holes.  From the inside place another washer followed by a second hex nut onto the bolt and tighten it.  Hand tightening is all that is required and will make disassembling the Hop Spider easier come post-boil clean up.

   Next, slip the elastic banded collar of the nylon straining bag around the 3" portion of the coupler and fasten it down with the screw clamp.  The bags are reusable but are also dirt cheap so they can also be tossed to make clean up even easier (Plus, SWMBO doesn't like her unmentionables washed with hop bits)!

   Huzzah, you're finished!  Couldn't be easier right?  Thanks to BYO magazine, and author of the Hop Spider build article, John Brooke.  I rather enjoyed building my Hop Spider, so much so, that I almost wish it wasn't so quick and easy.  Now I need to find something else to build!  Can't wait for next brew day!

Blue Collar Beer Review #8: Ex Pat Brewing - Life Begins At The Hop

 

  I've found great perks in having a blog.  I don't have wide readership, this really is mostly a way to keep notes for myself.  All the same it has resulted in me getting free beer (though maybe not exclusively).  Really good beer.

   What I have here is another quality brew from my friend Paul at Ex Pat.  It's a single hop, Citra IPA.  I've been eager to try it as Paul specialises in IPAs and Pales.  This really isn't quite like any IPA I've had before.

Ex Pat Brewing - Life Begins At The Hop


American India Pale Ale

? ABV

Appearance: LBaTH pours a medium-light gold/straw, which darkens to a pale copper.  It sports a resilient, rocky white head.

Color gradient isn't very distinct, I got thirsty.

Aroma: The aroma is deliciously hop forward, yet delicate and not over-powering, with distinctly lemon-citrus and pine aromas.  A subtle malt sweetness wisps about underneath.

Taste: A pleasant bitterness starts right away and builds all the way through the palate just to the right level, never overmuch.  Hops are dominant, but very mild especially compared to the aroma.  Much less 'artificial lemon' tasting than other Citra focused beers I've had.  The malt sweetness is much more even in flavor than aroma.

Mouthfeel: Light carbonation, very light bodied.  Crisp, clean, very refreshing.

Overall: I've not been a fan of many Citra central IPA's I've had, due to a fake lemon flavor as mentioned above.  LBaTH has a great citrus flavor that I really enjoy.  Appropriately, it drinks like an English Pale Ale due to the delicate, light carbonation, with the flavoring of a mild American Pale Ale. Reminds me a bit of Mirror Pond, though a different citrus flavor.  It really hit the spot since lately I've been craving mild American Pale Ales that aren't a 25lb hammer of hops right to the gob.  However I think this beer could benefit from a slightly larger hop presence, maybe bigger late and flame out additions.  A bit of Maris Otter and/or Crystal malt to add more body and malt back up for the additional hop flavor.  All the same, this is just as amazing as I expected, precisely the type of beer I've been wanting.

Cheers, Paul!

Blue Collar Beer Review #7: Stubborn Agnes Rude Boy Oatmeal Brown

  The masses have been patiently waiting and the moment is here.  In ways this brew turned out just as I had hoped, and in many others, much differently.  This beer is full of surprises. Age seems to have been my friend with this brew turning it from 'meh..not too bad' to a subtly complex, surprisingly mild and drinkable beer that I'm quite proud of.  Within the first 2-4 weeks in bottle, there was a noticeable tang, some described as metallic, others medicinal.  I've found that now that's all been cleared away and the blandness I first observed has opened up to surprise with more flavor.
  This really says something about how fresh beer really needs to be.  Most people insist that beer must be fresh to truly experience as it was meant to be, that aging really does nothing for it but allow the flavor compounds to degrade.  Rude Boy is proof of the opposite.  While I agree, most hoppy beers are designed to be drunk sooner rather than later, some time can open up other flavors no one knew were possible in a given beer.
   I'm not talking about aging a beer for 18 months, or three years (though that is a very interesting concept, especially with barleywines or Belgian Quads).  A few weeks to a couple months can make all the difference. There are also many that think, especially with homebrewing, that that delay in drinking is required.  There is no hard and fast rule, and it's all subjective.  Rude Boy did better after a minimum of 1 month in the bottle, but was still drinkable after 2 weeks.  Pale ales are usually quite a bit faster to reach maximum drinkability, possibly due to a higher reliance on hops.
   I suppose what I'm getting at is that with beer, time is not always our enemy.  Like with wine, beer deserves patience, deserves to be savored.  Beer is a living entity and deserves to be given an opportunity to bloom into something amazing.

Stubborn Agnes Brewing - Rude Boy Oatmeal Brown
American Brown Ale
5.4% ABV

Appearance:  Rich, dark reddish brown pour with a creamy, off white, robust head. Light-Moderate lacing. Good clarity.

Aroma: Mineral, slight hop aroma with dark malt and a hint of caramel and molasses back up.

Taste: Raisins, caramel, slightly bitter, very slight tang, crisp.  Hops much more subdued than I had anticipated, especially after the large late addition. After some time, as previously stated the tang disappeared and the beer became more flavorful with a distinct, subtle green apple flavor, and more roasted malt flavors playing through with caramel, raisins and molasses more prevalent than before.


Mouthfeel: Medium body, lightly tingling carbonation.  Initially a short palate but it has matured to a long pleasant finish.

Overall: This so far is the best I've produced (the 2nd being my first batch, a Drop Top clone that was delicious), in my opinion.  The main goal was to make a delicious beer that really didn't quite fit in any particular category, that rides the fringes and I think Rude Boy fits this exactly.  The way the flavor opened up, it was very surprising, like drinking a different beer altogether! I definitely slowed down, and took my time with it and I believe it shows. It still needs some polishing, but I like it enough that I want to perfect this recipe.  I think a dose of CaraMunich malt will really do well in Rude Boy, I'll have to pick some more experienced brains for an amount.  I think another small late addition of Columbus, which were used as bittering hops will help move the hops a bit more forward.  This is a delicate operation because I don't want to go overboard with them.  I think it's a good balance, not too bitter, not too sweet.  It isn't heavy, and goes down smoothly and easily.  Despite it's name it's just a good mild, very drinkable beer as is.

Blue Collar Beer Review #6: Ex Pat Brewing Wunderbar Weizenbock

 

 Ex Pat Brewing is the operation of Paul May, a friend of mine who is a very talented home brewer.  Like myself here at Stubborn Agnes, Paul brews too little, especially too little of his Weizenbock (which I'm not convinced isn't a re-bottled Ayinger brew...).

   This was, to date, the easiest, and my most favorite beer to review.

Ex Pat Brewing - Wunderbar
German-style Weizenbock

6%

Appearance: Rich dark brown, like thin coffee.  Very creamy, dense off-white head.

Aroma: Smell of Belgian yeast, or of that common in many Ayinger beers.  A prominent sweet malt smell with just a hint of underlying hop crispness.

Taste: Molasses, very slightly bitter at first with a wave of malt goodness after, slightly floral yeast flavor. Very sweet finish, just shy of cloying.

Mouthfeel: Rich, creamy, yet clean and refreshing.  Surprisingly a bit of alcohol heat, but only a tiny bit.

Overall:  This is the first home brew I've had that wasn't my own, and easily one of my favorite beers, period.  Home brew or otherwise. It's unfortunate how limited it is, being a home brew.  Paul is very humble, but has every right to be otherwise.  This beer is better than many commercial beers and what I, and other home brewers strive to make.  It is nothing pretentious, just a great example of the style.  Strong, refreshing, and perfectly balanced.  Along with the strong malt profile, the contributions by the yeast add subtle, but interesting complexities.  For it being 6%, it's surprisingly warming (must be a high 6%!) which makes it a great choice for a chilly fall night, drinking out of a tall ceramic stein.  I hope I can brew like Paul when I grow up!

Blue Collar Beer Review #5: Two Beers India Session Ale

   Two Beers Brewery (Seattle, WA) is a small, relatively young brewery that has only started canning and bottling this year.  They do an excellent job and have a substantial devoted customer base.  They have a well balanced year-round line up that includes something for just about everyone, a wit, brown, IPA, pale ale, and an amber.  They also have several seasonals at any given time, though some are similar styles to their year-rounds.

Two Beers Brewing - Trailhead ISA
American IPA - 4.7% ABV

Appearance: Rich, slightly cloudy gold with light, white head and great lacing.

Aroma: Green, resinous hops.  Then a few more hops.  Aroma reminds me of Pliny the Elder, little malt presence.

Mouthfeel: Soft, smooth and creamy, very refreshing.  Light-medium carbonation.

Taste: Hops again dominate, mostly bitter but also distinctly citrus, specifically lemon.  Really quite bitter on the finish, malt doesn't come through much.

Overall: Though I wouldn't mind if the finish wasn't quite so bitter, it's balanced well with aroma and flavoring hops (though I can never have enough C hops).  It's an amazingly full-flavored beer, and what a session beer should be.  Not only is it low alcohol, and refreshing, but it tastes great and it's a beer you'll want to drink more than one of because of that, not just because you can.  Highly recommended and it's placed the other Two Beers brews higher up in priority for beers to try.

Blue Collar Beer Review #4: Sierra Nevada Estate Ale 2011

 

   Sierra Nevada, out of Chico, California is one of the most well known, respected Craft Brewers in the country.  Their beers aren't over-the-top crazy like Dogfish Head, or many others.  They never try too hard.  They make consistently delicious, amazingly crafted beers that are simple, but still interesting, and very approachable.  Many of their beers are prime examples of the given style.

   Sierra Nevada has also become one of the very few Estate ale producers.  Just like in wine, the ingredients for an Estate Ale are all grown on site.  For these special release beers, rather than sourcing barley and hops, Sierra Nevada grows their own organic hops and barley.

   Estate is a wet hopped American IPA.  Wet hopping a beer is done by harvesting the fresh hop cones, and using them in the beer within 24 hours without drying them.  This changes the hop bill for a given beer because the drying process brings out the alpha acids in a hop which give that delicious flavor and aroma we all love.  A wet hop beer contains many times more hops because the alpha acids are not as pronounced.

   Why do this? Well it gives a significantly different flavor profile for one thing (I'm sure it's good for marketing too).  This is the first Wet Hopped beer I've had, and it very quickly dispelled the notion I had that wet hopping was simply a gimmick.  The higher hop content, and the fact that Sierra Nevada's harvesting operation is done by hand by a rather small workforce, means a higher production cost for this beer.  However, I found the $10 price tag for a 22oz bomber to be very reasonable.

   Some people may scoff at that which brings up a question.  I saw a couple in the grocery store looking at beer and wine.  They balked at $5-$10 bottles of Belgian Lambics and other brews, then decided "Let's just get a bottle of wine."  The bottle they chose was around $20.  Why does beer still have such a low perceived value?  What's the difference between a 22oz bottle of finely crafted beer, and a well made bottle of wine that makes it worth so much more per ounce, or at least easier to swallow the cost?  Is this just a result of how deeply ingrained the ad campaigns of the Big Boys have become?  I also wonder if this is just an American thing, or if it's a world wide epidemic.  I've caught myself doing it from time to time, but I'm learning that in beer, as in many things, you get what you pay for.  The one exception I've had lately was Name Tag lager from Trader Joe's ($2.99/6pk cans).  That was honestly a very good, interesting beer.  I suppose this should be left for another post.

Sierra Nevada - Estate Homegrown Ale

American IPA, Organic - 22oz Bomber

6.7% ABV

Appearance: Deep amber, copper color with a thick yet light off white head.  Head is VERY vigorous, and resilient, pour gently.

Aroma: Much like unfermented wort after hop additions.  It's a particular smell that I've never found in a finished beer.  Slightly earthy, slightly citrus hop aroma, a clean green aroma.  A rich, sweet malt aroma follows.  You can really smell the grains themselves.  If you know what barley smells like prior to, during, and after boiling, that is the aroma exactly.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-full bodied, rather creamy and quite smooth.  Despite the very vigorous head, carbonation is just right.

Taste: Delicately bitter and citrusy hops come just a hair before the pronounced flavor of barley. Slightly more bitter on the finish.  As it warms, the hops and bitterness become more pronounced and while the overall palate is not very long, the bitterness lingers subtly.  The taste, like the aroma is earthy and very similar to unfermented wort.

Overall: Ahhh.  Never have I had a beer that tasted quite like this.  I know many people enjoy the taste of unfermented wort, I don't.  I don't dislike it, but don't particularly care for it enough to drink it.  However, this tastes much like unfermented wort: Sweet, malty, with just enough hoppiness and bitterness to cleanse the palate.  If my wort tasted more like this, I'd have a hard time getting it to the fermenter.

   All this talk of wet hops (hops which are picked and used in the boil within 24 hours, without drying), I figured it was all just a gimmick.  The difference in a finished beer is obvious.  I wouldn't say one is better than the other, but there is a significant difference.  I love the fact that this is an Estate ale, and is organic.  This is one of the most perfectly balanced beers I've ever had.  It's well worthy of the fancy packaging and the reasonable price.  I would buy this beer again, and would love to brew it myself.

Rude Boy Oatmeal Brown: Part 2

   Before I get started on the brief second half of this post I wanted to mention a couple points that I left out in the previous post.

   The first being, that with my larger fermentor, out of habit I added a bit too much top off water which put me at  6 gallons in the fermentor.  Not a problem, it simply lowered the gravity of the beer to 5.4% ABV.  Still far from a session beer so A okay.

   Also, be sure not to forget you've got a jet blast bottle washer attached to the faucet...

It feels nothing like this.

   My original gravity into the fermentor was 1.051 (due to the above mentioned dilution).  Usually, with a gravity above 1.040 it's best to make a yeast starter to make sure the yeast cells don't work themselves to death, literally.  However, the Wyeast Smack Pack is a starter in and of itself.  It produces enough healthy cells to handle anything up to 1.060 which is perfect for Rude Boy.  It was a little slower to get going than I'm used to with my usual yeast tubes from White Labs, but within 24 hours a healthy, thick, if mellow Kräusen (In this context: the thick foam, meringue-like head formed during the initial fermentation stage, pronounced KROY-sen) was formed.

   Within 7 days, the Kräusen had fallen or settled back into the beer and it was time to rack to secondary, and at this time a specific gravity reading was taken.  A very healthy fermentation had brought us down to 1.010 after primary fermentation, that's an apparent attenuation of 79.6%.  Pretty efficient Yeastie Beasties.

   Rude Boy sat in secondary fermentation/clearing/conditioning for 14 days, and then was bottled.  I had planned to put half of the batch into a Party Pig but was unable to find replacement gaskets for my other two nameless Pigs.  It's the first time I've actually bottled a full 5 gallons.  Usually one loses 1/2 a gallon to trub (fermentor sediment), and other amounts between transferring, and gravity testing unless a refractometer is used.

   It's been sitting in bottles for a week, with one more to go, and seems to be carbonating well.  One thing that seems a regular, minor issue in my brews is head formation/retention.  It's a common issue for many homebrewers, especially towards the begining.  However it is improving for me and is purely astetic so I'm not too worried.  Though I have to admit, since I put more work and effort into this brew than any of my others, as well as more time, 5 weeks total from grain to glass, I'd like it to be very good quality.

   The extra care and patience (knock on wood) seems to be paying off.  A preliminary tasting during bottling showed a strong, clean hop aroma as expected from the large 3.2oz Willamette flame out addition.  However the hop flavor plays a definite back seat to the sweet, though not cloying, malt with hints of coffee and chocolate playing through slightly.  It's still got some conditioning to do, but it's the first brew I've done that I actually enjoyed drinking before it was carbed.

     I can't wait to see how it opens up with two weeks in the bottle and some carbonation.  As it stands, it may be the first brew I repeat, regularly.  A Blue Collar review of Rude Boy will be posted next Monday (if I have the patience to wait that long!)  SWMBO even said it would be one she would sit and drink regularly.  High praise for a yet unfinished brew.