50 Billion Pints

http://www.pacificbrewerscup.com/ is the official website of the Pacific Brewers Cup. Go there to register your beers and sign up for judging or stewarding.

Some of you may have noticed some updates to the site. We have updated the Officers page as well as added info on how to get on our Yahoo Group page. The most important update though is that we now started adding new users to the site, which means you can now start your own blog. To register click Here .

 

We are filling the Bourbon Barrel again. It has been almost a month since we removed the delicous barleywine from the barrel for the So Cal Homebrew Fest. Damn was it good. This time around the club is not buying the ingredients. I have decided on BYOB, brew your own beer method in filling the barrel. Everyone who participates will brew the same recipe, but will buy their own ingredients. I managed to get a discount on the ingredients from Steinfillers. We got a good deal. we have 8 people participating in the brew. The recipe is an IPA, so it should turn out really good.

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I was having some permission issues with my blog, I couldn't add any new entries. I'm up and running now, so more to come.

 Enrique

I brewed up my annual Santa's Swinging Sack Barleywine yesterday.Everything went well  except for the gravity reading. I over shot gravity by a lot. I hit 1.116 where I was aiming for 1.104.

I did a couple of things differently from last years version.

• 90 minute boil instead of 60. I think this is the cause of the increase gravit.
• Used East Kent Goldings instead of US Goldings.
• Demerara Sugar instead of Cane Sugar.

That's about it. Will not be ready until the November time frame.

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I'm growing hops this year. I picked up 2 Cascade rhizomes from Steinfillers yesterday afternoon. After the purchase of the rhizomes I picked up some pots and potting soil from Home Depot to put them in. This small project is already running me about $50.

Here are the rhizomes

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* Classic American Pilsner
* Vienna Lager
* Schwarzbier
* English Barleywine
* Braggot
* American Wheat

 

These are my entries for the National Homebrew Competition. I'll be driving down to San Diego to drop them off along with the rest of the clubs entries. Everything is ready to go all of the caps have been blacked out, beers have been registered, fees have been paid, and labels have been attached. 

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I taught another "Intro to Brewing" class this past weekend. I made my first fruit beer, but I donated it back to Steinfillers. I had about 30 students. I shared my American Wheat, Braggot, and Schwarzbier. It was a good class with lots of potential. Hopefully I see them in our monthly meeting.

After the class I managed to buy ingredients for my next batch of beer. It is already time for Santa's Swinging Sack Barleywine to make an appearance. I plan on brewing this up within a week or two and then let age for a couple of months until winter reappears.

On the club side of things, I was voted in as the new Vice-President. Yay for me! I'll see what I can cook up this year to make the club more interesting.

Kegs, kegs, and more kegs. I spent the better part of my afternoon yesterday rebuilding the majority of my kegs. I was giving them a thorough cleaning and replacing all of the gaskets. There were a couple of kegs that had the same gaskets for a couple of years. From my experience only the "air in" outer gasket gets worn out and cracked. All the rest are fine that's why I never replaced them. So now my kegs are as good as new. Time to fill them up...

I went from laying back having a homebrew to going full bore this weekend. I managed to reconfigure my brew system to brew 10 gallons with some of my "old" new stuff I had laying around. I brewed my GEBL Dry Rye Stout Saturday. Today I kegged my USANZ Wheat and brewed a 10 gallon batch of American Brown.

I had the pleasure of brewing with  John Chape from the club today. It was a cool time. First time I brewed with someone in my homebrewing career. I learned that we both have a similar brewing philosophy, which is  not to  take homebrewing too seriously. For the most part it was a care free brewing session, no big issues. We hit our OG target (1.053). The beer was an American Brown with plenty of hop punch.  We used a combination of Magnum, Centennial, Amarillo, Columbus, and Willamette. 

 Here are some pics of my system converted to 10 Gallons.

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I still havent done much on the beer making front. I just have a lot of beer in kegs right now, so there is no pressure for me to fill them up. My USANZ Wheat is still in primary. It's probably done, but haven't got around to kegging it.

I stopped by Steinfillers  yesterday to see how the "Intro to Beermaking"class was going taught by Jim. It was interesting getting a different perspective on how someone else teaches the class. Picked up some good ideas to implement when I teach it in a couple of week. Also,  he let me pour by Braggot and talk about it.

 Speaking of the Braggot, the results of the America's Finest City Homebrew Competition are in. I won 2 awards. I won first place for my Braggot and my English Barleywine. Up next for the competition season is the National Homebrew Competition and the Mayfaire.  The NHC is the big one. I think I got about 5 entries for that one.

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Today was my first official homebrew of the year.  Did my usual all grain process, but there were a couple of ingredients that were different than my usual selection.

 1. Pacman Yeast. I had my local homebrew store (Steinfillers) order me the limited release Pacman yeast from Wyeast. This is the same exact yeast that Rogue brewery uses in their beers.

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