Started a new batch of brew last night.  Everything went fairly smooth, but I did dump roughly a pound of steeping grain into the sink on accident.  Overall, the process is getting more streamlined as I get more practice.  The recipe is below.

Cascade Brown Ale

 

Steeping Grains:

1 lb Briess Carapils

1 lb (Supposed to be 2 lbs, but had an accident) Simpson’s Medium

.5 lb chocolate Malt

 

Extract:

6 lbs Organic Light LME

3 lbs Gold LME

2 lbs Wheat LME

 

Hops Schedule:

60 min – 2 oz Styrian Golding

15 min – 1 oz Styrian Golding

10 min – 1.5 oz Cascade

0 min – 1.5 oz Cascade

0 min – 2.0 oz Centennial

 

Yeast: Wyeast American Ale

 

OG:  1.062

Whipped up the following tonight.  Should be a great summer beer if I can control the temperature and lager it properly.

Kölsch

9.25 lbs Pilsen LME

1.5 lbs Wheat LME

 

Bring 3 gallon wort to a boil

Hops Additions:

60min – 1oz German Hallertauer hops (3.9% alpha).

30min – .5oz hallertauer hops

15min – .5oz hallertauer hops.  Add 2 tsp irish moss at this stage, as well.

Used a Wyeast Kolsch variety yeast.  I’ll let this one take off fermenting then drop the temp to 55-60° and let it lager.  May try to go cooler (45-50°) for as long as 4 weeks if I can.

So the Summit IPA turned out GREAT.  By far the best batch of beer I’ve made.  Next up, I have a brown ale and a Kölsch – the latter of which will be PERFECT for the hot summer evenings here in California.

Hops for the next batches…

Since August, when I was given the great gift of a homebrew starter kit by a certain little lady, I have been brewing pretty regularly.

My first batch was a rather uninteresting pale ale that turned out a bit too malty and not enough hoppy for my taste.  Next, I made a chocolate-honey porter that turned out really thick and chocolatey – perfect for these winter months.  Also, I just finished bottle conditioning an excellent Irish Red.

This is my first recipe that is pretty much created from scratch.  I enlisted a newer variety of hop – it’s a dwarf variety that is grown around Yakima.  It’s potent, with an alpha content of 16.7%.  I hear it has a strong grapefruit quality to it.  

Here’s the recipe:

Summit IPA:

 

Steep the following in 3 gallons of water at 65 °C for 30 minutes:

     1 lb.  Briess Organic 2-row malt

     1 lb.  Simpson’s medium crystal malt

 

Remove the grains from the wort and stir in:

     6.0 lbs Northern Brewer Gold malt syrup

     3 lbs Briess Golden Light Dried malt extract

     2 oz of Summit hops (16.7% alpha acid)

 

Bring this all to a boil, then add 1 oz of Irish moss – boil the wort for 1 hour.

 

At the end of the boil, add 1.5oz of Centennial hops (10.5% alpha acid) for 5 minutes.

 

Add cooled wort to the fermenter and top with water to make a 5.5 gallon batch.  Cool to 24°C and aerate.  Pitch your yeast – I used Wyeast American Ale in a smack pack to ensure a quick fulminant fermentation.  Let it completely ferment at 20 °C until fermentation is complete.  Finally, dry hop with an additional 1.5 oz. of the Centennial hops for 3 – 5 days.

 

Bottle with ¾ cups of sugar for priming, and let it condition.  

 

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Happy Thanksgiving! I was lucky – I went in, rounded on my patients and was able to escape the hospital by 9:30am. Not bad at all.

I came home and cleaned up the garden a bit… there were a few tomatoes that were still hanging on, but most were past their prime. Also, the lemons are coming in full force. I would love to brew a hefeweizen for the sole purpose of utilizing the citrus, but it seems so out of season. The good news is that my honey chocolate porter that I brewed a couple of weeks ago is now conditioning nicely and already tastes GREAT. It’ll be perfect by the time Christmas rolls around.

Likely the last tomatoes of the year…

The lemons, coming in strong…

A mandarin orange, just starting up…

Click on the link to the right… I added a couple of photos. More later.

Here’s my first attempt in months to update this neglected thing.   Hopefully with the course of time, I can update the few people who read this thing regarding what’s going on. 

In short, all is well.  My intern year has been front loaded with lots of CCU/ICU time, which has actually been really good, though it’s left little time for outside stuff.

Regardless, I feel that I have been able to experience quite a bit that northern California has to offer.  Hopefully I can post some convincing arguments to get more friends and family to come this way – because I see myself being here for some time.

I threw my short-white-coats unceremoniously into a clothes donation bin the other day.  And so goes four years of medical school.  Now with two frightening letters soon-to-be tacked onto the end of my name, I’ll be moving to California to continue my training.

Four years ago I moved out with just two suitcases filled with clothes and a few pots and pans in which to cook macaroni.  I slept on a camping cot in the middle of an empty room for a week.  Over the course of four years I got educated, made a ton of amazing new friends, got married, and had countless adventures in this city.

Very strange and exciting to be leaving.  We’ll set foot in PDX this Saturday night.

For all of you that haven’t heard, we’re moving to California!  Look for us back west in early June.

After a meal of ceviche and mojitos on the LES last night, we ventured out to Brooklyn to a bar that I’ve been meaning to visit for roughly 3 years… Barcade.  The place was amazing – great microbrews and the walls are lined with video games.  The games are all the ones that I grew up with.  I was amazed at Christie’s Mario Bros. skills.  She remembered all the secrets – the hidden 1-ups and even the secret path on level 1-2 that lets you warp up to the 4th world.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been prouder of her.  It put my skills to shame.

Woke up severely hung over and tired this morning, but we pushed through and did an 8 mile run.  I’m regretting that now… I feel absolutely exhausted and feverish.  Last night was worth it, though!

Click here to play some 8-bit NES.  Bubble bobble is extremely addictive…