Making Beer at LBC Step 3, the bottling

Actually, we bottled at the Greenville Arms. First, as with everything beer, I had to sanitize everything to within an inch of its life. That's what I'm doing above.

The next step is to transfer the beer from the fermenting bucket to the bottling bucket. This is called racking. The bottling bucket has the priming sugar in it. The priming sugar is what will give the yeast that have not been racked, the live yeast, the food to make the bubbles. This is very similar to how you make champagne. With champagne and wine, you're racking off the lees, with beer you're racking off the trub. Both of these means dead yeast cells and other solids at the bottom of the barrel. This helps clarify your beverage. Don't forget, we are making real ale, live ale, with active yeast in it and it will condition as you let it age. I had four yesterday from this batch, still young but a lovely beer.



Stooping over to fill bottles, which I started out doing when I was sanitizing, got old fast.



Ah, now that's the ticket. Yeah. That's the way to go.

Look at that happy face.

After putting the beer in each of the bottles I capped.





Isn't that lovely?



What did I do with the left over yeast? I made bread. The yeast looks like sludge but I can make bread with it. I had to put in a little bit of live baker's yeast to get it to rise fast enough. I wasn't patient.



From sludge to bread and what a lovely hoppy bread it was.



Go to the City Brewshop and learn how to make beer. I'm on my second batch and will do one more before the season begins. Next year I'm going to make mead.

Making Beer at LBC Step 2, the cooling/pitching

To cool the wort, we decided to put it out in the snow. A bad idea. Not only is it unsanitary but it just doesn't work. I was nonplussed when John suggested this but later when he mentioned that he normally used a bain-marie I asked him why weren't we using a bain-marie instead of the snow since we had to cool the wort down as quickly as possible.

As it turns out, he was trying to save me the cost of ice. John and Carla live in Brooklyn and so for them, ice is dear. I reminded him that we were a restaurant as well as an inn and an art school and we produced about 100 lbs of ice with a 90 minute recovery time. So, we switched to using a bain-marie and that is the way to go to cool down your hot wort.

When all was ready, we strained the beer and added the appropriate amount of water to bring it to 5 gallons. Remember, this is a 5 gallon recipe.



The we had to aerate the beer and pitch the yeast.



Just as with my chocolate recipes, my confections, if you don't know how to make beer, you probably shouldn't even attempt this. However, one quick class at City Brewshop and you'll be golden.

Up next will be the bottling. At this point we are waiting three weeks to ferment the beer. Enjoy.

What is a Hoob and where do I find one?

When I lived in California, my wife, Kim got for me a birthday present a lesson to make beer at the same place that brewed Pete's Wicked Ale. I went and tried to make a beer I called The Finger of God, a very, very alcoholic, almost barely wine, type of beer with plenty of fermentable. The people at the Make-Your-Own-Beer place ruined it when they put it in unsanitized carboys. I know. WTF? (As in a class 5 Tornado is The Finger of God. So, a super alcoholic beer would be like that, oh yeah.)

So, on my birthday last year, John, my brother, bought me a beer making kits. He sells them at the City Brewshop. He also gives you lessons, too. Take one and start brewing. You wont stop.

When we were little, I walked into a convocation of John's friends, I think it was a band practice or something, and I said, "Who believes me?" or something like that because of something that I've completely forgotten so they started calling me a Hooble as ine Hooblee me.

I loved it and started calling John and anyone else that was acting goofy a Hooblee or for short a Hoob. So, when Johnny gave me the kit, he provided the recipe Finger of Hoob, which came out delish. And it's a chocolate stout because I'm a chocolatier.

Finger of Hoob. LOL. Enjoy.

Making Beer at Life By Chocolate Step 1, the boil

Brother John.

Actually, it's making beer at the Greenville Arms. My amazing brother John, talented musician and now beermeistermeister extraordinaire has gotten into making beer and also selling beer kits and giving classes at his store City Brewshop in Brooklyn. Brew, Drink, Repeat! So, for my birthday, he gave me a beer kit and showed me how to brew beer. I'm on my second batch. The following pictures are from the first batch which I have yet to taste but i know will be terrific. We made the Finger of Hoob (see recipe), a chocolate stout using LBC chocolate and some natural and dutched cocoa powered.

The Manual. RTFM!

First we had to make the wort, basically unfermented beer, and boil it and the various specialty grains, malt and specialty additions, such as chocolate.



Way back when, when I was a younger man and lived in California, my wife Kim got me a present of brewing beer at a special beer brewing school. I then attempted to make Finger of God, a VERY strong ale. This, Finger of Hoob, is a childhood nickname that we have for each other, which in and of itself is a LONG story.

While doing all of this, we had to sanitize the equipment. That is something we do very well here at the Greenville Arms.



After sanitizing and doing everything we had to in prep, we mostly drank beer.Let me just mention I am more of a wine drinker than a beer drinker and when I drink beers, I like dark beers and ales. Finger of Hoob is a very dark chocolate stout. Right up my alley.



I am currently doing a Peat-Smoked Porter. And will end with a very light and fruity ale called Saison d'Été, which means Summer Season (ale).

BTW, in all honesty. I did taste the beer several times while checking the alcoholic content. It reminded me of Rochefort 10, a good sign. But I have yet to taste the finished beer because it is still conditioning.

Finger of Hoob Recipe

Finger of Hoob, is a chocolate stout. A very chocolate stout. I am not going to teach you how to brew beer. For that, you need to take a class at City Brewshop in Brooklyn. If you know how to brew beer, please feel free to give this a try and tell me how it came out. The original recipe said an alcohol of 5.5% but because of the introduction of one pound of 74% Dark Chocolate, it came out move like 6.5%.

John modified a Milk Stout, taking out the lactose because I cannot tolerate it and we added 1 pound of 74% Dark Chocolate, one Tablespoon of Dutched Cocoa Powered and one Tablespoon of Natural Cocoa Powder. You will also notice that this is an extract kit.



Size 5 gallons
Color 47 SRM
Bitterness 27 IBU
OG 1.058
FG 1.015
Alcohol 5.5%/Volume

Our OG came out to 1.062 and FG was, I think, I lost the reading, I know, bad, bad, bad, 1.010. We had more fermentable than the original recipe, namely the chocolate.

Ingredients

Grain

1 lb American chocolate Malt 330L (crushed)
1 lb Crystal malt 60L (crushed)
.5 lb Roasted barley 450L (crushed)


3.3 lb Light liguid malt extract
2 lb Light dry malt extract
1 lb Dark dry malt extract
1 lb 74% dark chocolate (last 10 minutes of the boil)
1 T Natural Cocoa Powder (last 20 minutes of the boil)
1 T Dutched Cocoa Powder (last 20 minutes of the boil)

Hops

1 oz Perele (Bittering) (8% AA, 60 mins.)
1 oz Kent Goldings (Flavoring) (4.5% AA, 30 min.)

Yeast

We used liquid yeast, not the dry.


1 Pkg (11g) Danstar Nottingham Ale Dry Yeast.
(We used Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale)

6 Gallons of water

5 lb bag of ice (I have an ice maker and just used what I needed to use

5 oz corn sugar. We actually used Priming Sugar 5 oz.

We strained it btw.

OK. If you know how to brew beer, this should be more than enough for you to brew it. Normally, this beer required a primary fermentation of two weeks and secondary fermentation of two weeks in a carboy but we just fermented it for 3 weeks in the beer bucket. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in contact with me via this blog. More to chocolate beer posts to come. Enjoy.