Singing Boys Brewing Blog

Winter Thoughts Turn to Gardening and Brewing

by Jim Vondracek on 01/08/11

In January, as the temperatures seldom rise above 30 and snow is on the ground, its great fun to think ahead to spring and the joys of gardening. I've been reading a delightful book called The Homebrewer's Garden and its given me some great ideas!

Beer is brewed from grains (like barley and wheat), hops, yeast and water. You can also add other adjuncts or ingredients, like fruits (I made a cherry stout once that was very good) or spices (I'm currently working on an ale with juniper berries in it.) From this book, I'm becoming inspired to try growing my own hops and adjuncts.

I brew using organic ingredients when possible, so growing my own is appealing - buying organic ingredients, especially hops, can be very expensive and the range of available organic ingredients can be meager..

Hops are a central, critical element in brewing. They give beer both bitterness, to balance the malt's sweetness, and aroma. Hop bines grow very tall and require quite a bit of work to grow, care for, and harvest, all of which gives me pause. But it would be really interesting to be able to brew a beer made with homegrown hops.

I'm thinking of growing two varieties of hops: Cascades and Willamette, an american hop developed from the English Fuggle hop. From the book, it appears that both grow well in our climate zone here in Illinois.

In addition to the hop vines, which we would probably grown along a two story side of the house, I am also thinking of growing an herb garden for brewing. I'd like to brew beers with elderberries, both the flowers (pictured to the right) and the berries. Heather is another brewing herb, traditionally used in Scotland. I'd like to experiment with adding rosemary and basil to beers also.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas for other herbs or adjuncts that I could grow that you think might be an interesting addition to beer, please let me know in the comments. I'd welcome your ideas - one of the great things about brewing your own beer is that you can work with unusual ingredients. Let me know what you think would be interesting in a future beer!

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Brewmasters TV Show - Dogfishhead Ales

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

November 26, 2010 There's a new show on Discovery channel called "Brewmasters", which focuses on Dogfish Head Beer and its founder, Sam Calagione. Sam is (in)famous for using unusual ingredients in his beers. The link for the show is http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/brew-masters/. The link to Dogfish Head's site is http://www.dogfish.com/

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Homebrew Index

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

November 7, 2010

There are many homebrewing-related websites out there, many of which are listed on the Home Brew Index at www.homebrewindex.com. If you've got a few spare minutes to look around the interwebz, this can be fun. Check it out!

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The Mad Fermantationist

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

October 23

I sometimes read a really interesting blog called 'the mad fermentationalist' - the blogger is a young guy from Washington DC who posts about "beer, bread, cheese and funk" - how can you not like that? The current blog post is about a Sour Cherry Flanders Red Beer that he began making 2 1/2 years ago! Its a fun blog to look around at - check it out at http://www.themadfermentationist.com/

Last night, I stove-top pasteurized another batch of handmade, semi-dry, bottle conditioned/carbonated cider. We love this cider - its refreshing, apple-y, crisp, bubbly and best of all - no exploding bottles.

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What is Bottle Conditioning?

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

October 17, 2010

Bottled up the Munich Munich Ale and the latest batch of cider. Decided to leave this batch of cider a little sweeter than the previous batch. It will be good to have a couple of different varieties of cider, depending on what sounds good for that evening.

Both of these are carbonating or conditioning in the bottle. That means that we do not filter out the yeast, like most commercial beers. We add a sugar solution before bottling - the yeast will eat up the sugar and produce CO2, carbonating the beer. The yeast will also help the beer mature in the bottle. A few commercial beers are bottle conditioned, with yeast in the bottle rather than filtered out; Sierra Nevadawww.sierranevada.com/, Duvel www.duvelusa.com/home.php, and Bellshttp://bellsbeer.com/ are three that I know.

Here is a link to a blog posting about bottle conditioned beerhttp://blog.beeriety.com/2009/08/03/what-is-bottle-conditioned-beer/

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Amber Ale, Dry Hopping

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

October 13, 2010

We've moved the amber ale from its primary fermentation carboy to a secondary carboy where we are using another process called 'dry hopping'. Dry hopping means adding whole leaf hops to the beer, letting them soak in the beer. This adds a brightness to the beer, adding hop aroma and flavor, without additional bitterness.

This amber ale is using an american hop variety called Cascade, which typically have a bright, clean, and flowery flavor and aroma with citrus overtones. These particular Cascade hops were grown on a new, small, family-operated organic hop farm in Colorado. Read more about it athttp://www.breworganic.com/AmericanCascadehops.aspx

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Ginger Cider Failure

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

September 27, 2010

Well, first off, the great ginger cider experiment ended in failure - it turns out that ginger and apple flavor don't really go well together. I guess that's why you don't see ginger apple pie at the Baker's Square. But, we've got another batch of regular old sparkling cider in the fermenter, this time with Windsor yeast. Also, we have a Pale Ale in a carboy fermenting, made with organic Munich malt and Pacific Gem and Cascade hops. Stay tuned . . .

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Cider and Stove-Top Pasteurizing

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

September 10, 2010

A bottle and glass of our 25th Anniversary Cider, a light, refreshing sparkling cider. For more info about cider and how we make cider,follow this link.

I've adopted a stove-top pasteurizing approach for cider and put together a tutorial with pictures on a discussion board athttp://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

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Cider

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

July 31

We've got another five gallons of cider on the way - we used apple juice from the grocery store (pasteurized but no preservatives), pectic enzyme, and some yeast I had harvested, washed, and stored from a previous batch - a Scottish variety called Edinburgh. Its bubbling away and I'll check tomorrow to see if its at the right balance of dryness/sweetness (about 1.010 sg for those who know how to use a hydrometer). .

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Cream Ale

by Jim Vondracek on 12/29/10

April 2

Two weeks ago, we brewed a Cream Ale, a beer that appeals both to folks who enjoy craft beers and those who favor mass-produced American-style lagers. It is flavorful, made with organic pilsner malt and hallertauer hops and designed to be light and crisp. Tonight, I transfered it to our bright tank - a glass carboy, where it will age briefly and probably be ready to bottle in about a week.

After transfering the beer, I harvested and "washed" the yeast (a highly attenuating american variety called California Ale), and will store it to be reused for four more batches.

Also, the Red Ale bottled a very weeks ago is really delicious - very malty, with just enough hop bitterness to balance. Definitely worth brewing again!

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