Beauty Valley Blonde?

The thing about living in the country is this: you can buy a case of Bud Light or you can buy a case of Busch Light or you can spend $27.98 and buy a six-pack of a microbrew that really isn't a microbrew anymore because corporate greed took over. The beverage choices around these parts are less than glamorous. Now don't start thinking evil things about me: I'm not exactly prone to drinking on a daily basis. I just enjoy the unique flavors that only a specialty beverage can provide. So I decided, with some Danish Cowboy gift certificate assistance, to start brewing my own malt beverages.

There are entire stores devoted to the hobby. Under a law passed in the 1970s by President Jimmy Carter, home brewing of up to 100 gallons of wine or beer per year per adult was made legal. I tried the wine thing. Look up past posts for how that little ongoing debacle turned out. This time, I'm turning to home brewing with a beer kit formulated to create a blonde ale with perhaps a hint of peach flavoring. We're starting out light this time around: the face of Danish Cowboy when he sips a dark beer ("motor oil") is priceless and I want to introduce him to the delights of a quality beverage ever so slowly. The various proprietors of homebrewing equipment also offer oodles of different kits intended to make hundreds of different kinds of beer. You can make a generic version of a beer type or they even make "clone" kits which attempt to mimic the flavors of commercially produced brews (Hello Yuengling Porter!). For the more advanced, the possibilities are endless as you create your own recipes. In this case, I started off with steeping some crushed specialty grains in about 3 gallons of water.
As the water came to a boil on the stove, I remove the grains and added the hops and the liquid malt extract. A 60 minute boil was then required.
Since my kitchen is prone to boilovers and I am prone to whining when I have to clean up sticky messes, I had to stand by the stove for the entire hour. Thankfully I had purchased some interesting reading to get me started on this new little adventure that I am embarking on.
Post-boil, the "wort" (as the unfermented liquid is called) needed to be brought down to a temperature sufficiently low enough to allow for pitching my yeast without killing them. Note for the future: snow, no matter how cold it is, is an insulator. I would have been much better off just sitting the pot outside in negative 10 degree temperatures. Much. Better. Off. Also, much less sleepy the next morning.

I finally was able to add the last two gallons of water to it and bring it down to a reasonable yeastie temperature. The whole thing went into the fermenter, a lid with airlock was attached and I put it into my specially-equipped brewing room (i.e. basement) to ferment happily for three weeks. This all happened a week ago and I can bottle it in two more. Name suggestions for this blonde brew, please?

True Love

In yet another bold and surprising move, Danish Cowboy purchased another homebrewing gift certificate for me this year. I love this man!



You're probably wondering how that chianti from last winter turned out, aren't you? Not very well. It had promise, it really did. While I've tried to open a bottle every so often and enjoy it, that finally became impossible this weekend. This wine has a head bigger than that of a Guinness and a taste to it which absolutely knocks your socks off in a "Yowsers!" sort of way. Some corks have actually exploded out of the bottles. The problem may be that I got lazy and failed to de-gas it properly. Or I didn't adequately kill the yeasties off and a malolactic fermentation happened. This sort of thing is not good and can apparently lead to a beverage that reminds you of the flavor of cured meats. While I do not detect notes of ham or bacon in the wine, it still tastes like ass, much like it did when I bottled it.



So I'm turning to beer making this time around. The ingredients should arrive by week's end. I'll keep you filled in on all the juicy details.

Let Me Clarify That

Did you know that I can make wine? It's true. Last August or so, I became interested in this hobby. I researched cold weather grape vines with plans of starting a vineyard in eastern Montana. I even had a name picked out: Beauty Valley Vintners. There was even a blog devoted to this. It died a rapid death (whereas this one is dying a slow death). The name came from the creek (crick) that runs through our property and I still hope to one day make my small winery a reality, but for now single batches of wine made from purchased concentrate shall have to suffice. My first vintage was a Johannesburg Gewurtztraminer and I have yet to share it with anybody. Let me just say this about that batch of wine: My dreamy Beauty Valley Vintners logo was to start out something along the lines of "bold, dramatic vintages that capture the essence of the prairie and the homestead era of days gone by...crisp herby notes of sagebrush and wheat that will take you back to a place less hurried."The logo has since temporarily changed to "Hey! It tastes and looks like ass, but it only cost me $3.00 a bottle to make." Again, temporary.
In a surprise bold and passionate move, Danish Cowboy purchased me a Christmas gift certificate to start a second batch of wine. I immediately jumped on this and started brewing some Chianti about two or three months ago. I think it has stopped fermenting and so I am on to the clarification process. The reason that I only think it has stopped fermenting is that I broke my hydrometer a few weeks ago and Danish Cowboy is holding me hostage at the Hanging H X and I have yet to replace it. There aren't too many home brew stores in the region and I am growing weary of catalog shopping. And so I continue to live on the edge.

I decided last night that it had sat on the first clarifying agent, bentonite (clay) long enough and started boiling up diatomaceous earth and polysaccharides for clarifying round number two. Winemaking is a fabulous hobby for chemistry geeks like me. You can really get into learning about how positive and negative charges work to pull the yuck out of the wine and cause it to settle at the bottom.
I sterilized the equipment, and "racked" the wine off of the bentonite that had pulled some of the nasties out of solution and caused it to settle on the bottom. Please note the highly scientific and sterile surroundings where I work. Winter boots, hard hats, outdoor camping gear, butter churns, milk separators, athletic tape, etc. It all leads to a product with high integrity.
This is what remains after the racking: wine sludge. I considered pouring this down the drain but realized that Danish Cowboy would have no more surprise moves of home winemaking gift certificate buying if I put bentonite in the sewer. Have you ever played with this stuff? It swells up like nobody's business and I have confidence that this is not the material you want in your drainage and sewage system, unless you enjoy backed up toilets. So I left it sitting on my kitchen floor and told Danish Cowboy that it was his job to dispose of it today. He did buy the gift certificate, after all. What does he expect? I have to say that this second batch of wine seems to be off to a better start. The Gewurtztraminer had this weird cloudy acid thing going on with it and hence my old slogan. However, I think I will be able to change my slogan from "looks and tastes" to just "Hey! It tastes like ass but only cost me $3.00 a bottle to make." Stay tuned -- maybe I will have a wine giveaway in a few weeks after I bottle it. You just never know.