The March meeting of the First State Brewers was held at Jerry and Joyce Carney’s home.
The meeting was called to order by Hank Keller. The theme of the meeting was Drink Guinness.
Items of discussion:
Rules for April Ale competition:
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Attendees: |
Brews: |
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Scott Bieber |
Duvel Clone |
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Hank Keller |
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Walt B. |
Czech Winter Lager (Klaster) |
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John Brannon |
(2) xmas Ale |
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Lou Gatti |
Thick Red Lager & Strong Scotfigh Italian Ale |
|
Ken Young |
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Brad & Kelly Jolicoeur |
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Marty Drinan |
Crannberry Stout |
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Jerry & Joyce Carney |
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|
Jeff Ramberg |
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John Biggins |
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Jeffrey Smith |
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Pat Huff |
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Randy Parret |
Amber Ale |
The April Meeting of the First State Brewers
Will be at the home of Marty Drinan
Friday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m.
From: Christopher John Higgins
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 3:36 PM
To: Scott Bieber
Subject RE: homebrew club
Hey Scott,
I haven’t actually used this Hop Devil Clone recipe yet but I plan to soon. I took it from a clone brew issue of Zymurgy and apparently it is Jim Busch’s original pilot recipe that he gave to Victory. It’s an all grain recipe and as I said I just started partial mashing. I dont know what your capabilities are but I think I’m going to use three or four lbs of pils malt with the specialty malts in a two step infusion mash and make up the balance of the malt with pils malt extract (which I’ll have to mail order.) I also use a concentrated boil so I think I’ll increase the bittering hops by 25%. Tell me what you think of these ideas. Anyway here’s the recipe:
8 lb pils malt
.5 lb cara vienne
.25 lb cara munich
.25 lb munich
2 oz centennial hops (~10% AA)
2.5 oz cascade (~6% AA)
.5 tsp gypsum (for soft water)
Wyeast 1056 (Cali Ale Yeast)
Boiling Time: 90 min
Primary Ferment: 3-5 days at 65 F
Secondary Ferment: 7 days at 65 F
Combine 3 gallons of water heated to 155 f with the malt and gypsum. Hold at 144-146 F for 15 minutes, then boost to 156 F for another 30 min. Boost to 170 F and lauter. Boil for 90 min. Add 1.5 oz Centennial 30 min into boil, add another .5 oz Centennial 60 min into boil. Add 1 oz of cascade hops five minutes before end of boil, and another 1 oz cascade at knockout. Chill, oxygenate well, and pitch 1 qt of yeast starter. Ferment to completion, and add .5 oz of cascades for dry hopping, or keg and add hop bag to keg. Carbonate to 2.6 volumes, or serve as cask ale at 1.3 volumes.
OSG: 1.055
FSG: 1.012
If this doesn’t get us there I don’t know what will. It would be cool to compare each of our attempts. (Maybe then I could confirm the creeping suspicion I have that I’m not too good at homebrewing.j/k)
Chris
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Scott Bieber wrote:
> Chris,
> I got you on the list! Hop Devil is one of my favorites, too. Thanks to
> Pete at the ‘How Do You Brew’ store in Newark, I used an extract recipe to
> clone Victory Hop Devil IPA. Here’s the recipe I used:
>
> 6# of powdered extract (Laaglander Plain Extra Light DME)
> 1# of Weyermann Dark Munich malt,
> 1 # of Weyermann Caramunich III and
> 1# of American Crystal 40L.
> 4 oz of Malto Dextrin
> 2 oz Centennial pellets
> 1 oz of Kent Goldings pellets
> 1 oz of Cascade pellets
> 1 oz of Fuggles pellets
> White Labs California Ale Yeast
>
> I steeped the specialty grains for about 20 minutes before bringing the wort
> to a boil. I then added the extract and 4 oz of Malto Dextrin as well. For
> hops, I used 2 oz Centennial pellets for bittering. I added a half oz of
> Kent Goldings pellets later in the boil for flavor and another half at the
> end for aroma. I did the same with an oz of Cascade pellets. Also, I dry
> hopped by adding an oz of Fuggles pellets in the secondary. I finished the
> evening by pitching in White Labs California Ale Yeast.
>
> I compared mine with a bottle of Hop Devil. They were definitely very
> different beers, but I couldn’t make up my mind which I liked better!
>
> Please give me the recipe you use, because I always like to try different
> things! I hope yours turns out as good as mine!
>
> Cheers,
> Scott
>
>
> From: Christopher John Higgins
> Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 3:38 PM
> To: firststatebrewer@earthlink.net
> Subject Re: homebrew club
>
> Scott,
> I’ve been brewing for probably a little over a year. Right now I have a
> Corni keg of porter in my basement and my version of the somewhat nebulous
> Irish Red Ale style bubbling away in my fermenter. The Irish red is my
> first attempt at a partial mash and it went fairly well. THat is until I
> realized I had lost the packet of dry ale yeast that I had just purchased
> and was forced to use an old packet of Safale I’ve had lying around
> forever. It was six months out of date but it worked like gangbusters.
> Hopefully it turns out well and it will be ready for tasting come
> next meeting. So far I’ve been sticking to British style ales
> (bitters, porters, etc) because I don’t have the equipment or patience for
> lagering or aging. But I do have plans to tackle some of the more
> difficult styles in the near future. Next I think I’m gonna try to clone
> HopDevil just to see if I can. Anyway, Im looking forward to attending the
> next meeting. Definitely add me to the mailing list.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
> On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 firststatebrewer@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > Chris,
> > Your welcome to join us. (Must be 21, though!) I’ll add you to our
> distribution list. You just missed our March meeting last Friday. I
> brought a tasty keg of Belgian Ale that I brewed. We meet the 3rd Friday of
> every month at a different member’s house. I send out a newsletter (Wort’s
> Hoppening) each month with directions to the next meeting. I usually sent
> that out a few days before meeting.
> > So, what do you like to brew? How long have you been brewing?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Scott
> >
> >
> > From: Christopher John Higgins
> > Sent: Mar 24, 2004 6:28 PM
> > To: firststatebrewer@earthlink.net
> > Subject homebrew club
> >
> > hey,
> > i had no idea Delaware had a local homebrew. but then again i never really
> > looked into it. i just happened to stumble across a reference to the
> > website while i was researching partial mash brewing. anyway, i live and
> > brew in newark and i would very interested in attending a meeting.
> >
> > thanks
> > chris higgins
> >
Hello Fellow AHA Members!
The Pub Discount Program is growing by mugs and kegs! We are now up to 219 Pub Discount Participants and growing in 35 different states.
To see who is participating, go To:
http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/pubs_list.asp
Here you will get the list from the state you are interested in, followed by the complete listing of all the participants.
We thank you for your membership with the American Homebrewers Association - the Pub Discount Benefit program is one of the ways your membership is working for you.
From: Kathryn Porter [mailTo:kate@aob.org]
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 2:40 PM
Subject AHA Big Brew Registration is LIVE
For those of you anxiously waiting out there in Homebrewland, the registration site for AHA Big Brew is live. Please visit: http://www.beertown.org/events/bigbrew/index.html and then click on the link for site registration.
AHA Big Brew is the day to celebrate National Homebrew Day with your brewing and non-brewing friends alike. Host a brew session at your place and invite all your buddies! By registering your site, you provide the AHA with statistical information we can share with the media. Check www.beertown.org for results a few weeks after May 1.
Keep homebrewing alive and plentiful in your neighborhood and around the world by participating in this year’s AHA Big Brew!
Cheers,
Kate
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 5:17 PM
Subject 11th Annual BUZZ Off Home Brew Competition
Brewers Unlimited Zany Zymurgists (BUZZ) is proud to announce that the 2004 BUZZ Off home brew competition will be held on Saturday, May 22nd at Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant in West Chester, PA. For another year we will be a qualifying event for the prestigious Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing (MCAB) as well as the Delaware Valley Homebrewer of the Year. All BJCP recognized styles including meads and ciders are eligible for entry. For complete details and forms, please visit the BUZZ web site at http://hbd.org/buzz.
Entries will be accepted between April 26th and May 16th. For drop off and mail in locations please refer to the BUZZ web site. Please, do not send entries to Iron Hill.
BJCP Judges and stewards will be needed. If you are interested please contact me or another committee member (contact information can be found on the web site). All judges must be BJCP certified.
Good luck and cheers!
Christopher Clair
What are we
doing for the National
Discuss at the next meeting
HANK
Subject Kosher Beer
Scott,
I just got this from the BUZZ Club List.
Jewish World Review April 2, 2004 / 12 Nissan, 5764
Tastes great, less chametz
By Jacob Berkman
Ramapo
Valley Brewery answers the question, "Why is this beer different from all
other beers?" Because it's Kosher for Passover If we ran this yesterday, folks,
it would have been dismissed as an April Fools' gag
http://www.jewishworldreview.com
| It's 10:30 in the morning the day after
Valentine's, and a brew pub owner, a brew-master, and a rabbi are sitting at a
bar waiting for a pot to boil.
More precisely, they're waiting for a couple of thousand gallons of water to boil in the cooking vat at the Ramapo Valley Brewery just across the state line in Suffern, N.Y.
Once boiled, the water will pass into a second cooker, over a cooling element, then into each of six fermenters. Making the metal beer brewing vessels kosher for Passover will take about eight hours, said Rabbi Zushe Blech, who is overseeing the kashering.
That's right: kosher-for-Passover beer.
The brewery is making the first batch of kosher-for-Passover beer that the world has seen in about 2,000 years, said Danny Scott, who owns the bar along with Egon Linzenberg.
Kosher-for-Passover beer may sound like a stretch for a brewery that produces about 10 other varieties of beers — among them "Divine Light," "Demon Fuel," and "Horney Blonde Lager." But, Scott said, the brewery wanted to reach out to a local market in Monsey, Kiryas Joel, and New Square, which includes a number of Orthodox and fervently Orthodox residents. So it approached Blech about how to get all of its beers certified.
But when they called the rabbi, Blech recalled, he told them that "if you really want a challenge, why don't you try making a kosher-for-Passover beer?"
Blech said that although most modern beer is made from some sort of grain, the art of fermenting food to create alcohol was known before even Noah's time.
"Every culture fermented whatever it could get its hands on," said Blech. "If they had apples they'd make cider. If they had honey they'd make mead. If they had grapes, they'd make wine. And in other countries, they found that if you malted grain, you could ferment that too."
The Talmud, he said, even describes four types of beer: Shechar, date beer; Pirzuma, barley beer; T'ainy, fig beer; and Asni, berry beer.
So, Blech, the bar owners, and the bar's brewer, John Caleb, got together to see if they could find a kosher-for-Passover beer facsimile.
Beer brewing, said Blech, in its most rudimentary form, is pretty simple. Some sort of sugar is mixed with water and hops — dried flowers from the vine of the hop plant — the mixture is boiled, and yeast is added, which causes the mixture to ferment.
In most beers, the sugar comes from some sort of grain, normally barley. That grain must be malted. The barley grain has three layers, the germ, the endosperm, and a layer of bran. During malting, the barley is mixed with water, which causes the germ, the only living part of the barley grain, to grow. When it grows, it secretes an enzyme that breaks the other two layers into sugar.
After the germinating process occurs, which normally takes about 48 hours, the sprouted kernels are roasted, then mashed, creating a mixture called a grist. The grist is mixed with water to create a sweet mixture called "wort".
In the normal brewing process, that wort is mixed with the hops, creating a mixture called hopped wort, and that mixture is boiled, the yeast is added, and then allowed to ferment.
The length of time that the barley roasts, what other grains are added to the wort mix, and which variety of hops is used create beer variety.
Fermenting barley — which is essentially the same process that bread goes through when it rises — is the reason that traditional beer is not kosher for Passover.
Ramapo Valley Brewery's kosher-for-Passover beer skips the malting process.
Instead of extracting sugar from a grain, the brewer simply eliminates the grain and uses molasses and honey, which he mixes with hops. He will cook the mixture in the newly koshered cookers, pass the mixture over the koshered cooling elements, let it cool in the koshered fermenters, then add yeast — which did not come from a bread product — and wait about two weeks for the whole thing to ferment, creating "a reasonable facsimile of beer," according to Blech.
And in fairness, the barley-less brew is an approximation. Without the strong taste of the barley, it tastes a bit like carbonated sugar-water with a hint of a pilsner aftertaste. Those who do not like the bitterness of beer will probably thoroughly enjoy the flavor — and, make no mistake, it has a pleasant taste. But it is no rich, deep stout.
Nevertheless, Scott says, the approximately 28,000 bottles that the brewery produced have moved, well, a lot faster than the molasses that was used to make them.
"It's like gold," he said of the beer that sells for $50 a case or $350 for a keg.
Only those 28,000 bottles will be kosher for Passover, but the brewery will still continue to use the molasses recipe throughout the year because there is a market for the beer among people with a disorder that prevents them from digesting gluten.
The Passover beer is part of Ramapo Valley's attempt to expand its market.
Though the brewery now makes all of its beer in the storefront brew system at its pub at 120 Orange Ave., it will soon start brewing at a larger off-site location.
"This just gives us something a little different," said Scott. For more information about the Passover beer (or one of Ramapo Valley Brewery's other spirits), check its Website, www.ramapovalleybrewery.com, or call (845) 369-RVBS (7827).
Scott,
Second batch will be an English brown ale. Hopefully, it will be as good as the porter, proving that wasn't just a fluke.
Thanks again for adding us to your list.
Pam
Pam,
That's great! What's your second batch? You just missed our March meeting last Friday. I brought a keg of Belgian Ale that I brewed. We meet on the 3rd Friday of each month at a different member's house. I added you to my distribution list for our newsletter, "Wort's Hoppening". I usually send it out a few days before the meeting. Directions to the meeting are included in the newsletter. Hope you and your boyfriend can make it!
Cheers,
Scott
Scott,
My boyfriend and I have just started. We made one batch of porter which came out great, and are now on our second batch. We'd like to meet like-minded people, learn more, and have fun. We only knew of one place to buy ingredients and supplies, and were happy to know there is a place in Newark as well. We'd like to go to a beer tasting and that sort of thing.
Thanks for your help!
Pam
Pam,
No problem. Tell me about yourself. Do you brew?
Cheers,
Scott
Scott,
Thanks for your prompt reply. Can you add me to your distribution list for meetings, events, etc.? Also it would be great to know when your new/redone website is up and running.
Thank you,
Pam
Pam,
Yes, we are still
around. We actually have just found a new webmaster that is working on
upgrading our website.
Cheers,
Scott
Hi. Is this club still in existance? I found it on the web, but your website (meeting lists etc.) don't appear to have been updated in a while. If you are still meeting, etc., please let me know at this email address.
Thank you,
Pam
