Nice Jugs!

Señor Brew™ mentioned in the last post that he has acquired some new equipment for the brewery, including these two nice shiny new jugs, I mean kegs. These were purchased from Adventures in Homebrewing on a black Friday sale for the low, low price of $69.99 each. Señor Brew™ just checked their website and they're currently on sale for that same price.

Señor Brew™ has taken to brewing some smaller batches, and splitting bigger batches, so these jugs will come in handy for holding a smaller quantity of delicious malty hoppy frothy goodness. They are listed at 2.5 gallons, but Señor Brew™ noticed that they hold slightly more. So of course, being the curious sort, he measured them. They're actually 10 liter kegs, or 2.64 US gallons. This makes sense, since they are manufactured in China.

They stack if you don't have fittings on them, which is great if you're lagering beer in a separate fridge.  They would probably stack with fittings with a small spacer in between. The posts are smaller than a standard corny keg, as is the "nut" part of the post-so you'll need a smaller socket than the 7/8" for regular cornys. I'm guessing it's 3/4", although it might be metric. Unlike a regular corny, there is room to swing a box end wrench on the posts; I just used an adjustable wrench to tighten them, which is why I'm not sure of the size.

The reviews I have read of them were mainly positive, although there have been some complaints of leaking at the posts--something those reviewers easily fixed with a new o-ring. I have not encountered any problems, although I have not been using them that long. You do have to tip them to the beer out side when you get to the bottom of the keg to empty them completely. The existing Noble Square Brewing kegs have had leaks from time to time--which is why Señor Brew™ has named them, to differentiate them and to make sure they are properly maintained.

Because the kegs need proper maintenance and care, Señor Brew™ has named his kegs after actresses and supermodels. So now BrewBuds, we need names for these new kegs. Some names that come to mind are Kate:

and Kate:

The problem is that Señor Brew™ already has a keg named Kate:

Please leave any suggestions for names in the comments section. You can include links to photos if you think it will help, but please none to weird Asian "sites" like I used to get randomly in the comments section of this blog before I started moderating them. Existing keg names are in this post.

Also, Señor Brew™ has no affiliation with Adventures in Homebrewing or the manufacturers of these kegs, and he has received no compensation to review the kegs or link to the A in H site. Although now that he thinks about it, he's going to send them this blog post--maybe they'll send him a coupon or something, especially if they like the name Kate.

The Return of Señor Brew™

Hello Brewbuds!

Señor Brew™ is back. Yes I know it has been well over a year since Señor Brew™ has posted a blog entry, but that changes right now.  There are lots of new things going on at the Noble Square Brewery, including new equipment, new methods, new recipes, and a new Señor Brew™.  Just kidding, same old Señor Brew™.  Some of the new equipment includes new kegs, so long time readers of this blog (all three of them), know what that means--time to name some kegs!

Stay tuned for more details.

New favorite LHBS

Señor Brew™ has a new favorite local homebrew shop, or LBHS. It's not the closest one to Casa Brew™, but everyplace is on the way home, if you go the right way. And it turns out this LHBS has a microbrewery and tasting room attached to it!

It's Surf Brewery, in Ventura California.  They have a number of tasty beers on tap, including their delicious South Swell Double IPA, which features ingredients from the Southern Hemisphere.  Of course they have a full assortment of homebrew supplies and ingredients.  Señor Brew™ bought some grain for his next brew while he was there, as well as the nice flight pictured above.

New way to split a batch?

Señor Brew™ has been thinking; I know, this is dangerous.  But as those loyal readers of this blog (I think we're up to 30 now) know, Señor Brew™ likes to get the maximum amount of variety out of his short amount of brewing time.  Partigyle brewing, and splitting a batch among yeasts is one way to this.

But what if you were to boil a batch of beer, say for an hour, draw off a part of it, chill it and get it in the fermenters while you're still boiling the rest of it, maybe adding extra hops to finish it out. The second beer would be more bitter, with more concentrated flavor, and a higher alcohol content due to the longer boil. It would be fairly pronounced, because with the removal of a portion of the volume for the first beer, the remainder would have a lower volume to surface area, and evaporation rates would go up. Plus while the total amount of chilling time would be about the same, each portion would chill rather quickly, and the first part would be chillin' while the second part be boilin' (A reggae song just came while Señor Brew was finishing this sentence).


I'm thinking that this would work for a pale ale/IPA, bock/doppelbock, etc.


What do you think, Brewbuds? Has anybody tried this? Pros, cons, ex-cons?

There's a Party in my Gyle! (3 beers in 1)

On August 12th  Señor Brew™  finally had some time to get a brewday together.  To make efficient use of that time, he decided to make 3 beers out of one mash, one strong beer (you could call it a barleywine), and two medium ones, an Oktoberfest and what he likes to call PseudOfest.

He did this by using different runnings from the mash to brew the different beers.  This is known as parti-gyle brewing, as Randy Mosher, author of Radical Brewing and Tasting Beer, describes so well in the linked article.

The whole point of the brewday was to have an Oktoberfest ready by at least the second weekend of the official Oktoberfest festival, which happens to coincide with Senor Brew's birthday.  Since  Señor Brew™  is out of his award winning barleywine, he thought it would be a good idea to have a strong beer on hand as well.  Of  course an Oktoberfest, being a lager, needs extra time to ferment, and even a longer time to lager to give it that smooth lager finish.  And a barleywine should be aged for many months to really mature into it's flavor profile.   Señor Brew™  can be impatient, so he decided to split the later runnings, post-boil into two different carboys, one with the Oktoberfest yeast, for the Oktoberfest, and one with an ale yeast that would be ready much sooner, the PseudOfest, which is already kegged and delightfully quaffable.  The first runnings  of course were used for the barleywine.

The brewday actually went quite smoothly, unlike most where at least something seems to go wrong.   Señor Brew™  had his old propane turkey fryer burner going to boil 3 gallons of wort for the barleywine, while at the same time, the big natural gas burner was used to boil about another 9 gallons of wort for the O'fest and PseudOfest.

I've exported the recipes for the Oktoberfest and Barleywine from my brew app into separate posts, Barleywine and Oktoberfest.  (Hey I've got to hit my quota to average at least one post per week through the end of the year somehow.) The efficiency is set very low to reflect that only part of the sugars from the mash were used in each brew.  The total efficiency would have been in  Señor Brew™ 's normal range for his setup.  Purists will note a couple things--one, the barleywine's grain bill is not typical, but this is because it was an after thought to the Oktoberfest, which the grain bill is more appropriate for.  I'm going to call it German Barleywine, due to the Munich and Vienna malts.  Also, there was no decoction mash for the Oktoberfest, just a single infusion with some melanoiden malt thrown in to approximate one, even though those same purists will say it's a poor substitute.  Señor Brew™  doesn't care, it makes a fine tasty Oktoberfest.

Señor Brew™ also got a little kooky with an extra ingredient.  We had a package of wheat pasta in Casa del Brew™  lying around, which was not likely to be consumed-- Señora Brew™  is gluten intolerant, and  Señor Brew™  saves his daily carbohydrate allocation for homebrew.  So we grind it up, and into the mash it goes!  There's no entry for it in the brew app I use, so it got listed as wheat DME (dry malt extract).  Close enough for homebrew.

Finally the PseudOfest recipe is not included, because it would be redundant.  Just substitute your favorite fast fermenting ale yeast for the Oktoberfest, ferment warmer (upper 60s to low 70s), and let her rip!  No need to lager it either.

Enegren Brewery

Hello Brew Buds!

Some of you with OCD may have noticed that Señor Brew™ has updated the "What's on Tap" section of the Brew Blog in the sidebar (scroll down, it's on the right). At the top of the list is Enegren Alt, the first guest tap El Kegerator™ has been graced with. Actually that is not true, we've also had Enegren IPA on tap during the Brew Blog hiatus, but nonetheless, Enegren Brewery is the first non Noble Square brew on tap at Casa del Brew™.

"So what is this Enegren Brewery of which you write, Señor Brew™?" I can hear you Brew Buds thinking. (Yes, Señor Brew™ can hear your thoughts as you read this blog, it's part of the high level HTML* programming language incorporated in the site). It is now Señor Brew™'s official local microbrewery. Located in the adjacent town, Moorpark, CA, just 10 minutes away from Noble Square Brewing, they serve up some tasty microbewed deliciousness, including the aforementioned Alt and IPA.

Enegren was founded by a trio of homebrewing buddies who decided to go pro, the Enegren brothers and some other dude who didn't get naming rights because he was outvoted three-to-one. (We think one of the brothers voted twice). They've got a tasting room, which isn't open enough, although they just recently added Wednesday nights. It also doesn't have air conditioning, but if it is really hot in the tasting room, and you ask nicely, they may let you chill in the beer cooler for a while.

Pictured above in the tasting room are Matt Enegren, and his lovely girlfriend/employee Becki Kregoski. Becki actually works for two different local microbreweries, Enegren and Wolf Creek. She also has a great food and brew blog, Bites 'n Brews, which has way more followers than Noble Square Brewing, but Señor Brew™ is not jealous. At all. (Señor Brew™ is also very happy that the HTML* thing only works one way).



*acronym for Hear Thoughts (on) My bLog

Beer Drinking Socialists, Drinking at Work, and Eggs in Your Beer

Great article about beer and Labor Day on Slate from Troy Patterson. I get the impression he was drinking heavily while writing it, but there are way too many great links for him to finish it inebriated.

A highlight of the article includes the use of the word, "squiffy" for having a few too many.

Please note, Señor Brew is neither a communist nor a socialist, but he does appreciate the contribution of the working man to our great country, and there is a good chance he will be a quite squiffy this Labor Day weekend.

Noble Square Brewing is Back!

Hello Brew Buds!

Yes, It's true. Señor Brew is back after a long hiatus. And he plans to contribute to this blog regularly going forward. In fact, Señor Brew is going to commit to posting here at least once a week for the rest of the year.

So loyal readers (the four of you that are left), you can help out. Please comment with some ideas you would like to read about on this brew blog. Also, if any of you are using an iPad to blog, let me know what apps you are using. It will be easier if I can use the iPad while on the road to post here, but so far it has been difficult. This is being posted with Blogger+, and it isn't optimal.

Stay tuned for a real post within the week!