CCHBS News for August 2005
- Recipe Specials for August
- All-Grain Brewing Class Aug. 28th
- Jonathon Porter's Winning Lager Recipe
- (Almost) Everything You Need for Kegging
- Spotlight on Technique - Warm Weather Brewing
Recipe Specials for August
For October Pacific Gravity will feature Amber Lagers and Ales as its style of the month. We're interpreting that broadly, so we've got four recipes on sale this month. Our first special is a My Favorite Marzen. Since Marzens are also known as Oktoberfests, this is a truly appropriate choice, and it's on sale for $26 during August. Our second recipe is Sunset Boulevard Amber Ale, which is a fine example of American Amber Ale. It's on sale for $22. Since August also means hot weather, we're also featuring a couple of beers which use yeast which thrive on warm temperatures. Near Dark Dunkelweizen is an amber colored German wheat beer. It's on Sale during the month of August. Finally we have Double Trouble Belgian Dubbel. It's rich, malty and deep amber in color. Plus, it's on sale for $30 this month.
All-Grain Brewing Class Aug. 28th
We've been promising to hold a class on how to brew all-grain batches on the Pacific Gravity club system. We've chosen Sunday, August 28 as the date. The class will start at 10AM and probably last until 5PM. If you want to use the club system, it's important to know how to set it up and clean it when you're done, so plan to arrive on time and stay all day.
Jonathon Porter's Winning Lager Recipe
In a recent Club Only competition for extract beers, Jonathon Porter took 2nd place nationally - the highest ever finish for a Pacific Gravity entrant. To celebrate he's graciously consented to making his recipe available to everyone. It's an extract recipe for a European Lager. (Almost)
Everything You Need for Kegging
We've still got everything you need to get started kegging, except for a fridge. Kegs, CO2 tanks, regulators, you name it. If bottling's got you down, isn't it time you started kegging?
Spotlight on Technique - Warm Weather Brewing
The dog days of August are upon us, which means that the summer heat is about to arrive. Sadly, most beer yeasts aren't crazy about the heat. We try to help by featuring recipe kits using yeasts that do thrive in summer heat, but sometimes you've just got to brew something besides wheat beers and Belgians. So what can you do if you want to keep brewing through the hottest days of the year?
Fortunately, there are solutions other than the obvious (and expensive) choice of buying a spare refrigerator and temperature controller. First, set up a water bath. A spare bathtub will work, but for most of us it's easier to get one of those rope-handled plastic tubs, set the fermenter inside it and pour in a few buckets of water. The water will both provide a heat sink for the fermenter and help keep the temperature from fluctuating wildly from night to day.
If the water bath isn't quite enough, pull an old t-shirt over your fermenter and make sure that it extends down into the wate r. The fabric will wick water up into the shirt, where it will evaporate, which provides a cooling effect. For an extra boost, direct a fan onto the shirt to hasten evaporation. If you live somewhere that gets really hot during the day, you'll have to get serious and use ice. A few half-gallon milk jugs filled 3/4 full of water and frozen provide a convenient colling medium. Keep one or two in the water bath and swap them out for the ones from the freezer once or twice a day. If you use all the techiques above, you'll be able to keep brewing straight through the summer, even if the temperature climbs into the 90s!