Finally...

...after a month and half of fermentation, the stout has been bottled!

Jason's been using the bottling bucket to hold homemade wine for about as long as I've been fermenting my beer, so I've been avoiding bottling because of the cleaning involved. I spent a good hour and half simply siphon off the wine, dumping the trub, and cleaning the bucket. It wasn't pretty.

So, eventually I sanitized everything and transferred the beer into the, now clean, bottling bucket and got to work. I used every clean Grolsch bottle I could find and finished up with Sam Adams bottles. After everything was bottled, I cleaned EVERYTHING again. Which took another hour. I figure today, I spent roughly four hours cleaning and sanitizing - not so much fun.

In the end, I have 20 - 16oz bottles, 16 - 12oz bottles, and a liter bottle all filled with delicious brew. I worked out the math, and that's about 545.8oz - or 4.264 gallons. Not bad - considering Jason, Taylor, and I broke into the a few weeks ago and each had a pint or two.

Whew...it's good to finally have that done...what not?

Bottling Day

Tomorrow marks 2 weeks of fermentation! That means it's about time to bottle! I suppose I should run to Eats and grab a bottling tube, but I doubt I'll have the time to actually get around to bottling everything until Thursday. I'll update once it's done!

Irish Stout

When Brittany came up last weekend, my roommates and I were talking about brewing and making wine and she said she wanted to learn to how to make her own wine, so I took her to Eats, Blacksburg's organic produce and brewing supply store. While I was there, helping Britt Britt get everything she needed to get started, I broke down and bought myself a can of malt extract. I know, malt extract, but I don't have a lot of time right now, so I figured I'd just make it as simple as possible on myself.

I decided on a stout instead of a porter, because I plan on brewing a Pumpkin' Porter here in the next few weeks. On my way back from Physics on Tuesday, I realized I had about four hours of downtime before I had to head over to Lauren's and begin studying for Statics, so I decided that I had the perfect opportunity to get some brewing done.

I set up and got everything sanitized and ready. My new equipment at Tech consists of nice 10 gallon (I think) brew pot, a siphoning hose (no racking stem), some old sanitizing agents, a lot of empty bottles, and a Red Baron capper. Jason got all of this from his neighbor, who's son used to brew. But I digress - so everything's clean and I start boiling the can of extract. I added about two cups of brown sugar and a one cup of white sugar to try and raise the gravity of the boil. After it began to boil, I decided that I didn't feel like I was brewing if I just sat there and boiled the extract, so I ran to Eats and picked up an ounce of Fuggle hops to use as flavoring and aroma hops. I added 1/2 ounce with 15 minutes left and a 1/4 ounce at knockout.

I cooled it in the bath tub and then siphoned the wort and water into the carboy until it was at the 5 gallon mark. I mix the wort thoroughly and then pitched the yeast. I didn't have a blow off hose, so I capped the carboy using a rubber stopper and a S-airlock. Hearing stories of airlocks being blown off due to pressure, but I figured it'd last through the night. I was wrong. I woke up the next morning to find foam and wort all over the utility closet. Fortunately, it was still fermenting and the CO2 it was produces is enough to protect it from bacterial infection. So, after class, I ran to lowes to buy a blowoff hose and got back into place.

And now, it's still fermenting. It's Day 4 and it's still kicking off CO2 everyonce in awhile. Primary fermentation should be done soon and I think I'll rack it and let it ferment for another week or so. Can't wait to try it! (This is #5 total, #1 in Blacksburg)

Cheers!

A New Direction

So, I think I've finally figured out what I want to do with my blog, and I've decided to turn it into my Beer Blog! I can write down brewing notes, recipes, plans, and whatever I feel like writing about beer.

I guess here goes...

On Perceptions

We are always judging everyone and everything around us. Comparing this to that and ranking everything on the Master List of Our Minds, which is just a carbon copy of Society's Do's and Don'ts, Goods and Bads that we try and pass off as our own. It's full of things we should and shouldn't do, and if someone deviates, then we bring them to trial in our minds.

We are not perfect.

So why do we look around at everyone else, assuming we're better than them and justifying it with our skewed perceptions of the world and how it works.

Because it's all about us. All about what we want. No one EVER lives their life completely and fully in an effort to fulfill everyone else's hopes and dreams.

We are selfish, self-promoting, and so wrapped up in our own self-interests we really only let people into our lives if we get something in return.

And we like it this way, don't we? And those who think "Well, I disagree. I helped someone out the other day and never expected anything in return" you're lying to yourself. When we help others, don't we feel better about ourselves? It makes us look good to everyone else. Regardless of the situation, it's always about me. Everyone thinks it's about them.

It's like when we watch some political scandal on TV and say "Politicians are such sleazy bastards. They lie, steal, and cheat." and we judge them. Judge them hard and never think of them the same way ever again. We do the same thing to everyone else too. But come on! Seriously, have you never fucked up? Never gotten into a situation, that now you think "Man, that was a bad idea. What was I thinking?" We all have our own personal scandals in our lives. The times where we mess up and one person finds out, then everyone finds out, and then everyone judges you. It sounds a little hypocritical of me judge someone for something when I know I've been in the same situation before and I just want everyone to understand what happened and hear my side of the story. So what's the difference between you and someone on TV who messed up? Simply the size of their Life Stage is much much larger than yours and when they mess up, millions of people find out, instead of 50. And I'm not defending politicians here, I'm just saying we lie to ourselves and live through perceptions where we assume we're better than that person or that person or that person when really we are no different than anyone around us. The only thing different about us is our own little perceptions of the world and how it should be.

So if the only difference between us is perception, then why do you sit around all hypocritical like and gossip about he-said, she-did? Because it makes us feel better about ourselves and as previously stated, we are self-interested, selfish beings who are always looking to make #1 look as good as possible. So we are constantly try and proof to the world and ourselves that we are better than Girl A or Guy B by tearing everyone else down around us.

And I don't pretend that I'm not guilty of it either, because I am. When I say "We" I'm always including myself, in front leading the charge. I doubt I will change, and don't expect anyone else to either, because we won't, all I'm trying to get at, is that we need to look at things from more than one perspective before we make a judgment or decision about everything and everyone around us, because everything appears differently depending on what light it's in or what angle you look at from.

I don't really have a reason for writing this, other than I felt like it. I know it's not going to accomplish anything, but it was enjoyable to write and think about for me.