Sparge

There is a LOT of terminology that is very specific to brewing.  As I'm learning some of the terms and concepts, I'll be posting them here.  There are two purposes for this; 1. writing about or explain a new concept helps it become more concrete in my mind and 2. to make this blog a good resource for a novice homebrewer. 

We have a friend who is transitioning from a homebrewer to an actual brewer by opening his own brewery with a group of friends.  He is who we ask the stupid questions.  So far, he's been super patient and helpful...  and I plan to milk that for all it's worth:).  The other day, I asked him for a good Hefeweizen recipe and he gave me one with a couple of terms that were unfamiliar to me.  The one that I'll be defining today is SPARGE. 

Let me backtrack just a moment.  When Ty decided that we were going to become homebrewers, he went to the homebrew store solo and came home with the kit, ingredients for the intial batch and two sets of instructions.  One set was the basic, generic instructions for brewing any beer and the other set was for a specific recipe (in this case, stout).  There were minor differences between them so we followed the generic recipe for the most part and the stout recipe only where it varied from the generic recipe. 

Because the generic instructions are written for novices, like us, when Jim's recipe called for SPARGING, I panicked.  We've really been doing this by the seat of our pants and I haven't read much yet (mostly because there's so much terminology that I don't understand that I just get lost and confused).  While we'd actually SPARGED both of our batches to date, I didn't realize it! 

When I asked him what it meant, he gave a very clear and concise explanation so I'll be using it verbatim: 

The small amount of grains used in the first step are crushed (not pulverized into flour, but still have the husk attached), placed into the grain bag, and steeped like tea in the hot (155) water. This is called the mash when using all-grain. The sparge is rinsing these grains and saving the rinse water (wort) for use in the boil. This is a very small step toward all-grain brewing, and opens up all kinds of creative possibilities.

Batch #1

Batch #1 has been in the secondary since Saturday so last night was time to check the specific gravity.  When we initially opened the fermenter, we thought something was wrong because the surface appeared to be covered in mold.  However, a closer look revealed that it was just some residual foam.  Plus, the smell was amazing!  The hydrometer measured the specific gravity at 1.020 and the alcohol content right at 5%.  Our recipe calls for 1.010 to 1.015 so it probably isn't quite ready yet.  We'll measure again in 48 hours - if it's the same, we're ready to bottle.  If not, we measure again in 24 hours. 

Brie Pockets

Brie pockets right before going in oven

Finished brie pockets

Last week, I stumbled across the above recipe while blog-surfing.  I didn't manage to mark down the blog but the recipe totally stuck in my head.  The post only included sweet brie pockets but, of course, Ty was having NONE of that.  So we made two batches.  Mine was sweet with brie and pear butter (see prior posts on canning - this was homemade!).  And Ty's batch was savory with brie, salami and jalapenos. 

They were delish!!  Brie pockets will definitely be on regular rotation for apps in our house. 

Brie Grilled Cheese

Grilled cheese sammies are a staple in our house.  Who doesn't love a simple grilled cheese with cheddar and whole wheat or sourdough bread?  Of course, that's even better if it's grilled in a pan with a bunch of garlic cloves and EVOO.  But what can you make with leftover Brie and rosemary bread and the last of the salami, asparagus and mushrooms?  I'd call that one gourmet grilled cheese!! 

Beer Quotes

We have a friend who is going from a homebrewer to a legitimate brewer who recently posted the following quote on my facebook page:

"Give a man a brew, he'll waste an hour.  Teach a man to brew, he'll waste a lifetime."

 A quick Google search attributed the quote to Bill Owen, whoever that is.  It made me think of the beer quote posted at my favorite bar:

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" ~Benjamin Franklin

Here's another good one:

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink.  When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day." ~Frank Sinatra

 What's your favorite beer quote?  If you have one, post it in the comments.  
 

Batch #2

Home made grain bag going into pot

And coming out of pot...  look at that yummy start to a batch of Ruby!

Used grains cooling down before being added to the compost bin

Hops getting ready to be tied up in the homemade hop bag and boiled for an hour

Batch #1

We haven't been blogging much lately for a lot of very good reasons that you don't care about.  We have found a new culinary related passion - homebrewing!  We made our first batch last weekend and it was quite the adventure...

We decided to start with a stout because the ladies at the homebrew store said it was a good starting beer and because we really enjoy stouts.  We bought a starter kit but, upon opening the box, were a bit disappointed that there was nothing to explain what each piece of equipment was nor were most of the items labeled.  After getting the water up to the proper heat to put the grains in, we realized that we'd neglected to buy a grain bag.  That was fine, though, thanks to my cheesemaking adventures.  We improvised a 'grain bag' out of a 2 foot by 2 foot section of cheesecloth.  First crisis, adverted!!

So, we steeped the grain for half an hour, added the malt and boiled for an hour.  At the end of that, you're supposed to add a bag of ice to the fermenter before adding the hot liquid...  but we seemed to overlook that step:).  So, we put the whole thing outside to get it cooled down to 65 degrees so we could add the yeast.  In the meantime, we'd had a few beers, had friends over for dinner and movies, had a few more beers...  and were totally ready for bed.  The fermenter had only cooled to 80 degrees but our homebrewed experienced friend assured us that we could just deal with it in the morning and nothing bad would happen...

True to form, Ty woke up at 3am, hungry, and added the yeast, sealed the fermenter and inserted the airlock...  or so he thought, anyway.  Remember, before, where I complained that nothing was labeled??  Well, the directions call for the airlock to be inserted and then add water to the fill line.  In our equipment, there was only one thing that could be filled with water but it had no fill line.  It was weird but we were able to get it into the grommet in the fermenter lid so we thought, this must be the airlock!  

We had so much fun brewing that first batch and we decided that we wanted to start our second batch this weekend.  Which meant that we needed the ingredients as well as a few duplicate pieces of equipment...  which meant a trip back to our local homebrew store.  And, lo and behold, what we were trying to use as an airlock was actually the bottle filler and our kit was completely missing an airlock!!!  I'm sure you veteran brewers out there will have a great chuckle at that... but it is super confusing to an newbie!!  

The lady  there said to just go ahead and transfer to our secondary and add the airlock to that and we'd be just fine.  Of course, Ty did this without reading the directions so he just poured it in rather than syphoning it.  Hopefully, though, it'll be okay.  

At this point, I'll just be happy if we get something that's tolerable to drink.  As I'm typing out this blog post, I'm waiting for the water on our second batch to heat to 165 degrees.  So, we seem to be hooked on this new hobby of ours.  I'll leave you with two pictures - our kit and the malt, improvised grain bag and my brewing beer for batch #2.