Windy City Draft
by Jeff Leslie on Nov.04, 2011, under Uncategorized
Howdy to Everyone Out There….
Anybody left?
Yes? No?
I thought after getting married I’d never have that awkward “So…here we are…I haven’t called in quite some time now…” conversation, but here we are. I wish I had a compelling story to tell you, or anything better than “it’s not you, it’s me”…but I don’t really have anything better. So…
It’s not you. It’s me.
Here is what’s happened for the last year:
- Jason and I have both defeated the odds and proven that we can produce offspring. We think.
- Jason has sold his soul to the Suburban Devil to gain his white picket fence
- He still spills beer on himself though
- We have ramped up the brewing to somewhere around “more beer than we can count”. Seriously. Up to 10 gal batches, and sometimes 15g
- We have improved our recipe base and are making some really interesting brews. I can’t wait to share them with you.
So let’s use this a chance to get to know each other more. Here is where we go from here:
My goal is to reinstate Windy City Draft as a spot for our Advanced Sciences in the Art of Brewing, so you will see various recipes, and thoughts/musing on beer and life as before. No commitments on updates. I feel like the desire to keep content flowing got the best of us.
You might see articles up here from other people. You might see recipes up here from other people. We want to keep the conversation going though.
Gig ‘Em
God Bless
and Welcome Back
-Jeff
Old Man IPA 2010
by Jeff Leslie on Nov.18, 2010, under Uncategorized
So, last year, we created Old Man IPA 2009:
OG: 1.056 FG: 1.014 IBU: 66
10.50 lb 2-Row
1.50 lb Crystal 40
1.00 lb Victory Malt
Simcoe – 1 oz – 60 min
Mt. Hood – 1 oz – 30 min
Cascade 1 oz each – 15, 10, 5 (3 oz total)
Cascade 0.5 oz – dry hop 7 days
This year, I believe we will crank it up a notch…probably shoot for the 1060s. I will be using a bittering hop called Warrior…because, quite frankly, it’s an awesome hop for an IPA.
Also, I will be basically using up any remaining cascade I have…so hope bursting will happen to.
Yes…it will be excellent. Stay tuned for full recipation.
And here’s Jason spilling on himself:
A New Addition…and New Beers!
by Jason Grover on Nov.10, 2010, under Uncategorized
Welcome Tyler!
It’s been quite a while since my last post to the Windy City Draft, but I assure you that homebrewing activities have not slowed down in the Grover house. In fact, we’re busier than ever. For those of you who haven’t heard, we’ve welcomed a new future beer geek into the world! Tyler Grover was born August 17th, and since then I’ve been devoting all of my waking energy to keeping my brewing skills as sharp as possible and teaching him the ways of the homebrew addiction. Unfortunately I haven’t had a lot of time to update the blog on the most recent beer activities, but as you can see my current mission is of utmost importance. Here’s a photo from a recent “field trip” we took to the biergarten at Resi’s Bierstube in North Center (Chicago):
Don’t misinterpret Tyler’s apparent look of indifference – he’s just showing true reverence for the wonder that is fresh German hefeweizen by not looking directly at it. Tyler’s got German blood in him (from his mom’s side), so in time he’s sure to become twice the brewer that I’ll ever be. As an offering to the beer gods for their help in starting him off on the right foot, I recently brewed the New Addition Celebration Barleywine in his honor. We’ll age it for the next several years to toast on birthdays, special occasions, etc. Who knows, there just might be a bottle left when the little guy turns 21!
Coming Up Next
As things start to settle down for us, here’s a look at what you can expect for upcoming content on the Draft:
- Recipe/notes for the New Addition Celebration Barleywine
- A great deal on wholesale cider leads to a record batch of 11 gallons of Seedlings Farm Hard Apple Cider (multiple batches with different yeast strains!)
- This year’s signature maple beer courtesy of the Cross Countries Brewing Company – Smoked Maple Amber Ale
- Jeff finally posts our how-to video on decoction mashing from earlier this year…if we’re lucky
Until then, bottoms up!
Your friends at the Windy City Draft
2010 Cascade Harvest Ale
by Jason Grover on Sep.09, 2010, under Homebrewing, Recipes
The beer gods have smiled upon our humble hop farm, and thus we will have a 2010 Cascade Harvest Ale! As I mentioned much earlier this year in my first hop farm post, I’ve always wanted to use fresh “wet” hops to make a true harvest ale, in the same style as Sierra Nevada’s Harvest Ale (and Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale, and Estate Ale, etc.). The first year cascade plant in our hop garden exploded with beautiful cones, and we harvested them this past Saturday! Total yield was 7.5 oz. of fresh hops. I’m not sure exactly how many ounces of dry hops that equates to, and I have no idea what the alpha acid content of these hops is, so they’ll be added near the end of the boil to avoid any major effect on the bitterness of the beer. Can’t wait to taste this one!
Here are some photos from harvest day (click to zoom), and click here to check out the video!
Brew Date: 9/4/2010
Style: American Pale Ale (click to see the official description of the style)
Batch Size/Boil Volume/Boil Time: 5.5G /7.7G / 60 min
OG/FG/ABV: 1.047 / 1.011 / 4.6%
Color (SRM): 8.9 IBUs: 50~60
| Color |
Planned Mash Temp: 154F (single infusion)
Bottle or Keg: Keg
Conditioning: 1-2 weeks primary fermenter, 2 weeks cold in keg
…Beer Should be Ready: Around October 1st
Amount |
Item |
Type |
% or IBU |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 lb | Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) | Grain | 83.33 % |
| 0.5 lb | Caramel Malt – 20L (Briess) (20.0 SRM) | Grain | 4.17 % |
| 0.5 lb | Caramel Malt – 40L (Briess) (40.0 SRM) | Grain | 4.17 % |
| 0.5 lb | Caramel Malt – 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM) | Grain | 4.17 % |
| 0.5 lb | Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM) | Grain | 4.17 % |
| 1 oz | Citra [13.4 %] (60 min) | Hops (pellet) | 50 IBU |
| 3.75 oz | Cascade [? %] (10 min) | Hops (fresh, leaf) | ? IBU |
| 3.75 oz | Cascade [? %] (1 min) | Hops (fresh, leaf) | ? IBU |
| 1 Pkg | American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [Starter 2 L] | Yeast-Ale |
Yeast Starter: Making a 2 liter starter using light DME and yeast nutrient at ~1.045 OG. Pitched 1 package of yeast and let ferment for 2 days at 70F before chilling and decanting. Pitching approx. 2 cups of yeast slurry.
*New Techniques*! This batch introduces two new elements to my brewing setup! First of all, I’ve never used fresh wet hops before, as I mentioned above. 
Second, this batch marks the debut of my brand new Bayou Classic SP10 20PSI propane burner! It outputs upwards of 150,000 BTU, which made a HUGE difference in my brew day. Between my strike water, sparge water and initial boil, the new burner saved me over an hour compared to the kitchen stove. It also improved the vigor of the boil, and gave us an excuse to get outside on a beautiful summer day. With camp chairs, beers in hand and a TV pulled outside to watch the opening Saturday of college football, my deck became an excellent brewing space. I found the burner on Amazon for $39, which is a great deal if anyone else is looking for one.
Brew Day Notes:
Mash in: Added 15 quarts strike water @170F, added 12lbs grain, initial temp is 154F. Mash tun is approx. 0.5″ from full. After 30 mins, temp is 154F and pH is 5.1. No mash out infusion due to tun capacity.
Mash runnings roughly 2.5 gal. Mash runnings gravity is 1.064 (1.052 corrected for temp of 129F).
Sparge 1: 2.7 gal @ 180F to achieve ~168F grain temp. Stirred up the mash and let rest for 10 minutes to settle.
After 10 mins, drained sparge 1 into the kettle and added sparge 2 to the mash tun, returned the kettle to the stove to keep heating towards a boil.
Sparge 2: 2.6 gal @ 182F to achieve ~172F grain temp. Stirred up the mash and let rest for 10 minutes to settle.
Preboil wort: 7.65 gal @ 1.044 (actual reading was 1.030, adjusted for 134F temp). Apparent mash efficiency into boil is 78%.
Brought the wort up to a boil for about 10 mins to generate as much hot break protein as possible before adding the first boil hop addition.
After boil, chilled wort using an immersion copper chiller and ice bath at the same time. After it cooled to ~80F I transferred to the fermenter, oxygenated and pitched the yeast starter. Took a gravity reading (forgot this step before pitching the yeast, but I figure there’s minimal difference), and I ended up with 5.5 gallons at 1.046, right near the target gravity of 1.047. Since I only ended up with 5.5 gallons, my total brewhouse efficiency is only about 59%, but as I mentioned earlier I was expecting extra absorption in the fresh hops so things worked out fine.
For fermentation I placed the carboy back into the keg tub (with cold water from chilling), and let the beer warm itself up to about 68F before periodically adding ice to keep the temp regulated.
Fermentation Notes:
Fermentation started about 12 hrs after pitching. Since I used my big 6.5 gallon carboy, the temp was fairly regulated below 70F, and the original gravity was only 1.046, I didn’t think I’d need a blowoff tube and instead just used a normal airlock/stopper. However, on day 3 I opened the door to my storage unit to find the airlock clogged with yeast and the stopper about to blow off! I removed the stopper to relieve the CO2 pressure (getting a nice splatter of yeast in the process), cleaned everything off and replaced the airlock since fermentation had slowed. Everything’s good now, but if this batch had been a higher original gravity, the ceiling of my storage unit probably would’ve gotten a fresh coat of beer.
.
