Heavenlyfire Homebrew

Well, here it is the night of my birthday.  I didn't get to brew because the wife had a wedding cake that was due, but that is ok.  I did get a 55 gallon aqarium out of it so I really can't complain.  My family (mother and grandmother and so on) are so materialistic that it just drives me nuts.  I got a card from a friend and all my mother could say is "what's in it".  That drives me crazy.  I don't expect gifts just because I was born on a particular day.  I had no say in the matter.  Yes I do believe that it should be considered a holiday by your employer but really it's not that big of a deal.  I am one year older and even more sore than I was last year.  My wife and kids all remembered to tell me happy birthday and that made my day. Other than that, it's a bonus.  Just to have people remember you and think about you for a day is special enough.  I think that people think about money and posetions way too much.  I will have to admit that I am guilty of this from time to time as well, but I am trying to get better about it.  I am just pleased that my immediate family remembered and took the time to say something to me.  Maybe I will brew next weekend, maybe not, who knows.  All I can say is that I am very blessed with the immediate family that I have.  It makes life worth while.

As some people here know, I am a truck driver.  Sometimes I have extended runs to other states.  This week I went to Kansas and the trip took me about a week.  When I got home I had one heck of a surprise.  My loving wife had gone and put together a new fish tank for me.  I love my fish tanks.  I don't know if anyone else feels the same about them but I feel so calm and peaceful when I am looking at my tanks.  I can get lost watching the fish.  Anyway, I have always wanted a bigger tank.  Right now I have 2 ten gallon and 1 twenty gallon tanks.  The main problem is that my 20 housed a pleco that is over 12 inches long.  He was only about 2 inches when I bought him.  He really needed more space and I was starting to feel bad for him.  Well, loving wife to the rescue.  I am so happy and so is he.  We are going to combine 2 tanks into this one and then put a couple of the other fish in one of the 10 gallon tanks that sits on my bar.  Here are a couple of pics of the tanks.  The smaller one on the left is the 20.  We will be moving it and puting the 50 in it's place.  The 20 will become my wifes new tank for her schooling fish.  She loves to see them move around together.  Now they will have more room too.

Well next sunday i will be 40.  Another year has come and gone and about the only real things that have changed are that my beer is getting better, one more of my kids moved out, and we lost a couple of pets that we were very close to.  Other than that, I felt old last year and I still feel old this year lol.  I know what you will say "40 isn't old, you just wait".  Well I kind of helped out the years by being a very stupid kid.  Everytime my grandfather turned around I was doing something that made him say, "your going to regret that when you get older".  Ya, I should have listened lol.  Oh well, as I like to say, I am forced to grow old but I refuse to grow up.  I still enjoy playing with all the toys in the store that make noise and move.  Although I usually get hurt doing it, my wife catches me and I get smacked lol.  Well this year my wife says she is going to get me 2 recipes for my birthday, I can't wait.  I am going to brew my latest recipe again.  My NLO turned out to be a big hit with family and friends but I am still waiting on a member of the forum to get his and give me an impartial opinion.  I look forward to any adjustments he has to suggest.  Personally I don't think there is much but there is always room for improvement.

I hate to blow my own horn but in this case, WOOHOO!!  I am going to brew it again to make sure but I think I found a winner in this one.  The color is a beautiful redish brown.  Good carbination, which is new for me.  And very little bitterness.  I really wanted to get a beer that had great flavor but less bitterness, I did it.  It has a great hop aroma but with very minimal bitter to it, perfect.  I am really exited about this one.  My better half says I should send it in to a compitition but I wouldn't know what catagory or anything else, but I would like to have it judged just to get the results.  Any way I think I need to go get another one just to make sure lol.

Ah yes, another Sunday with a big screen tv and the NFL Sunday ticket.  Got some homebrew in the fridge and chops to go on the grill for supper.  AHHHH, lol.  After working 6 days this week (almost 70 hours) it is time for some relaxation.  So far 2 of the 3 teams I want to lose have and I am watching my favorite team to hate do their best to lose with penalties.  I don't want to offend anyone here because we are all friends I would hope, but I grew up a die hard Broncos fan.  Anyone who is a true Broncos fan has 2 actual favorite teams, Denver and whoever is playing against the Raiders.  Most know that there is no love lost between the teams and us fans follow through with it.  Oh well, I am going to finish watching the half and then pop the first top on my latest brew.  GO JETS!!  lol

I really hate spammers, they just waste your time.  If I was looking to buy there product I would look for them.  I really don't think I am in the market for "wow gold" or "ball valve plumbing" or even "thistle weed milk".  It really makes me wonder if these people find enough people who really don't need their products but buy them anyway.  I know websites are not free and it does take some effort and time to spam that much.  Even if there was a service out there to do it, you would think it would be too costly.  I wish I had nothing better to do with my time than harrass people with a bunch of useless items that are not even worth half of what they are charging for them.  Oh well, I guess that is the way the world is heading and personally I think it is a bunch of crap.  I logged in today and saw all the comments and was really looking forward to some good input and all I got was a bunch of advertising. 

 

Well crap, sorry I waisted your time on my rambling.

Well, I waited a week and took my sample today.  The FG turned out 1.014 after 7 days.  I love the flavor and the color is exactly what I was looking for.  I am going to bottle this one so the antisipation is going to get me some more, lol.  The hops in this are just at the right level that I was looking for.  I like to taste the other ingredients as well and I have noticed that a lot of homebrewers seem to think there is a competition to see how hoppy they can get it.  I don't mind a big hoppy beer once in a while but for just sitting around and enjoying I like the less hoppy.  Anyway, here is a picture of the sample I took just to give you an idea.

 

Prost

John

Well I think I may have done a booboo.  Usually I only have 2 X 1 liter bottles of ice in with my primary to keep the temps just under 70.  We have had a little bit of a warm streak to I went ahead and put all 4 in.  The bubbles stopped and it is only day 4.  I am not sure what the temp is right now as my thermometer has a dead battery.  I am really hoping that once the temp rises a little that it will come back to life.  I really doubt that it could have finished in just 4 days so I am not even going to take a sample yet.  I will be taking a sample on this saturday (day 7)  just to see where it stands.  I am planning on letting it go for 14 days in the primary and then bottling it.  I guess I will just have to wait and see what the beer has to say about that.

Well tonight I tried to go for an Octoberfest that I didn't have to lager.  Here in AZ it is real hard to lager unless you have the excess cash to buy another fridge and set it up with a thermostat and all that.  I love the flavor of Octoberfest beers and was shooting for it.  I don't think I got it but I do think I got a very drinkable beer.  I always drink the sample I take for the gravity reading and this one was pretty dam good.  No fruity flavor, not a whole lot of hops and really just a great flavor.  The yeast I used is a very light flavored yeast which should do very well for what I am attempting.  The color of the beer was perfect in my opinion.  It has that copper red color that I feel is very attractive in a beer.  I steeped the grains for about 55 minutes and then did the rest to regular standards.  I will post again on this one in 7 days when I test the gravity again.  I plan to leave it in the primary for 2 weeks and then bottle unless the gravity says otherwise.  Here is the recipe and if you try it or even if you see something that doesn't strike you just right, send me a message and we will go from there.  As I have said, I still consider myself a beginner and I look forward to constructive critisism. 

Prost

John

 

No lager Octoberfest

Oktoberfest/Marzen

Well things might be looking up on the financial side of life.  I have gotten a promotion from level 1 driver to level 3.  The loads will be bigger and more stressfull but the pay starts about $3 more an hour than I make now.  Hopefully this will enable me to have a little bit of free time pleasure.  I would love to be able to brew every weekend.  I have enough equipment to have 2 batches going at the same time.  I would probably need one more to allow fermentation time on the first batch.  One more carboy and one more cooler.  Not too hard to come up with I think.  As of right now I have 2 kegs and enough bottles for 2 batches so that would work too.  Maybe things are turning the right way for me for a change.  I might be able to do more than work and sleep.  This could be a very good thing.   I will have to be patient though and wait to get the first check.  A couple of weeks, just enough time to do some research.  I think my next batch will be just a simple hefeweizen but I am looking for a particular taste.  I really love to drink Erdinger and would like to get close to that.  If anyone has any ideas let me know.  Post up some recipe ideas and lets see what we can come up with.

Well here goes another weekend without brewing.  It always seems like every time I think I have a few extra dollars and might be able to brew a batch, somebody else in the house has an immediate NEED.  You know I don't mind taking care of my kids and my wife, thats my other job.  It's also my priviledge.  I love my family very much and would do anything for them.  Now because of that the kids get to go to Dairy Queen and the pizza place with their friends and I sit home drinking store bought beer and being bored.  I love to brew, I love everything about it.  I look forword to trying new things and finding new flavors.  I like it when my friends come over and my brew dissapears quickly.  That usually means it was a pretty good batch, my friends are pretty picky and like me they enjoy good beer.  Oh well, I guess working 65 hours this week wasn't enough so next week I will try to get a few more in and maybe I can brew then. 

I am usually so careful abut what sites I go to and what links I click on.  So much for that now.  I know, I am a moron because I didn't have any protection.  Well like some of my friends said, guess I just didn't pull out in time.  I got nailed and bad.  There was a new blogger on here and I went to look at it.  Next thing I knew I was connected to Porntube and bam, got an STD in my pc.  Well, now Norton is working it's little tail off to try to fix it for me.  Just wanted to warn folks about it before it happens to you.  I don't remember the name on the blog but it looked like it was in German maybe.  STAY AWAY!!!

 

John

Well I am going to start researching a recipe today and hopefully next weekend I will be brewing it.  Since it is a 3 day weekend I might even try to get in 2 batches if the money will allow.  I am really going to try to get a german style dunkel hefewiezen this time.  All of the others that I have done just didn't cut it.  They were great beers but just didn't have that german flair to them.  I am not sure what to add (or subtract) but this week will give me some time to study.  If anyone has a recipe they would like me to look at please feel free to comment and I will post it and see what it looks like.  Happy brewing.

It has been a while since I have had the time and money to actually brew a batch.  I am really wanting to get back into the swing and maybe next week I will have the time and money.  Anyway, I really wanted to talk about hops.  I purchased some Spaltz hops for my last couple of batches.  I had never tried them before so I was a little scepticle but willing to give them a go.  The alpha rating was very low, 4.50% and they have a great arroma to them.  I have been looking for a hop that would give me the flavors and arroma without all the bitterness and I think I found a good one.  Typically these are only used for arroma hops but I will be using them for bittering as well.

I have a few friends who have been asking me to make fruit beers and all of the fruit beers that I have tried I have not liked.  I do like Wit beers with their hint of orange but it is just a "hint".  I tried some differant craft brews lately such as Kona, Sam Adams and Leinenkugels.  I like these breweries and figured that their fruit beer should be pretty good.  I was wrong, atleast in my opinion.  Maybe I will just stick to the beers I like best and buy store bought for them.  Maybe I will play with some ideas this weekend.