Interesting meeting and lots of great beer. I found out that there is a local brewpub that will sell wort to homebrewers for them to ferment with whatever yeast, dry hop, or whatever else they can think of. The call it their "open source" beer. What a neat idea!
So I'm sitting here thinking...CACTUS BEER. Agave? Then it dawns on me, if I can do a hickory smoked beer for Carolina...why not do a mesquite beer for Texas? Now we just have to find a house so I can get my system down here!
Not in brewing, in location. That's right! RCBC is now headquartered in San Antonio, TX! I hope this explains the lack of updates. Problem is, all my gear is still in NC, so no brewing news until we find a permanent home (we are currently renting).
Tuesday was double brew day. Brown ale and a new recipe for a traditional bock. I went bock with the intent of a) getting a good yeast slurry together, and b) I accidentally bought too much pilsner malt, so I'm going to do a double bock too and try to clean some of it out!
I used to blame my lack of posting on being blocked through work, but I'm not blocked (haven't been for a while now) and still no posts. They say when you are busy some things get pushed aside. Sorry folks...
On Tuesday I took the day off and brewed up two batches of beer, hopefully to be ready in time for a guys weekend in August. Another cream ale and a new recipe, hickory smoked robust porter. I smoked the malt myself for one hour using my grill as a makeshift smoker. It worked well, but I was a little worried about getting too much smoke in the final product. I ended up only putting 2lbs of the smoked malt in a 12.5gal batch (most recipes call for ~3lbs for a 6gal batch). Hickory is a strong flavor, hopefully it will come out good!
So tonight I am "planning" to do my first filtered beer. I have a keg of brown, a keg of Pale, and a Bohemian pilsner, all of which I am planning to run through my new filter. I'm interested to see how it changes the taste profile...
Summer heat is beating me down! Did get two more brews done, brown and (almost done) my first pale ale. We shall see how it turns out! Anywho, Drank Tank and I worked out a beer run through Greensboro. 5.5mi through the blazing hot sun and 4 bars (plus a homebrew at Derick's). Successful save the closed dive bar, but we adjusted fire and made it to the next place. Good times!
