Saturday, March 24; 2-6 p.m. Cigar City Brewery 3924 W. Spruce St , Suite A

Tampa, are you ready for another beer fest? I hope so, because this one is filled with cask conditioned beers and it helps a good cause. Win/win!

Casks For A Cause is this Saturday (March 24th 2-6pm) at Cigar City Brewing and will feature beers like Stone’s Cali-Belgique, Shipyard’s Export Ale, Tampa Bay Brewing Company’s Black IPA, Great Divide’s Old Ruffian Barley Wine and Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA! Do I need to say anything else? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

It’s just ten bucks to get in, you’ll get one free beer ($2 per beer after that), plus the first 300 people will get a free pint glass.

All proceeds benefit the Whole Planet Foundation, funding microloans to women in poverty.

Hopefully, I’ll see you there!

Casks For A Cause: Tampa Are You Ready? is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

I’m only about a half Irish, but St Patty’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. These days I tend to stay in and avoid amateur night at the Irish bars, but I’ll still break out my Dropkick Murphy’s and maybe even take it old school and find some Clancy Brothers on Pandora. Of course, I’ll drink a few Irish or Irish style beers. However, I’ll also use some of those of those beers to cook with and even bake! Yes, I’m getting all Suzy homemaker.

I always do a Guinness corned beef and cabbage. The only change modification that I’ll make, is adding a cup of brown sugar like a spice rub before I add the beer. It promises to be delicious.

This year, I’m also trying Guinness chocolate cookies for dessert.

Are you doing any cooking with beer this year?

—

Photo by La Marga.

Beer Influenced Recipes For St Patty’s Day is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

Welcome to this week’s edition of Fresh Brews. Fresh Brews is a collection of entertaining, informative and random articles from all over the beer world. As far as random, we have a robber that police caught because he left a trail of beer cans. As far as informative, check out the article on how to handle a carboy. Sit back, grab a beer and read this week’s articles. Cheers!

Five things I love and hate about craft beer festivals
I love craft beer festivals, but I have to agree with this author that there’s a lot of things that I could do without: the frat boys that are just their to get drunk, the volunteers who are clueless about the beer their serving, etc. What’s your favorite and least favorite things about beer festivals?

Big Beer, Big Lies
The Aleheads have some scathing words for the approaching fingers of big corporate beer companies on our precious craft beer. This one is a must read.

How to handle a Carboy
Tom has a solution (that I also use and recommend) for dealing with those heavy, difficult to hold and very breakable glass carboys.

NH police follow beer cans to nab robbery suspect
A tip for would be robbers. Make sure that you don’t leave a trail of beer cans, like bread crumbs. At least give the police a challenge to catch you.

Cigar City Brewing scores big in national beer championship.
Local (for me at least) brewer, Cigar City Brewing took home some awards in the United States Beer Tasting Championship Winter Competition. Congrats guys! And I think it’s another excuse to head over to their tasting room again soon.

New Tampa Bay area craft brewery to open soon: Rapp Brewing Company
Also in local news, Rapp Brewing Company is opening up in the Pinellas Park by the end of May. I can’t wait to stop by their tasting room and check out their twenty taps when it opens.

Fresh Brews: Love/Hate Relationship With Beer Fests, Beer Cans Foil Robber And More is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

The Drink: Criterium Ale From Cigar City Brewing
Type: Wheat Beer
ABV: 5%

This is half beer review of the Criterium Ale from Cigary City Brewing, half to make sure everyone knows about the Cigar City Brewing Criterium & Street Festival.

The Cigar City Brewing Criterium & Street Festival is a full day of events with a bike race in downtown Tampa. I love the bike, but I’m more interested in the beer and food trucks that’ll be there. Apparently the world’s longest bar will even be there. I’m not sure what that is, but I can’t wait to find out!

To celebrate the race and festival, Cigary City brews a special beer ever year. This year’s Criterium Ale is a wheat beer with bitter curacao peel added. It has hops from New Zealand and Australian hop varietals – Motueka, Galaxy and Pacifica.

Last night, I was able to try the Criterium Ale.

It poured an orangish, yellow color with a nice white head. It was the kind of beer that just looked refreshing.

It did have the wheat beer flavor, but it wasn’t just another what beer. There was the orange citrus that brought out a bit of tartness, a bunch of hop bitterness and a malty sweetness that rounded it out.

It’s full of flavor, but still light and refreshing, the perfect kind of beer for an outdoor festival with bike racing through the middle of it.

—

Fine Print.

Criterium Ale From Cigar City Brewing is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

How Long Does Fermentation Take To Start?

I remember my first batch of homemade beer. I brewed it, pitched the yeast, put the lid on the white bucket, put on the blue lid and topped it off with an airlock. I put it away in the closet, closed the door and immediately started wondering how long it would take for the fermentation to start. I saw videos online of airlocks filled with bubbles, I wanted to know when my airlock would have the same activity.

The answer is that it’s going to take at least 12-36 hours for the yeast to start showing signs of fermentation.

Before the yeast even start turning your wort into beer, they go through a phase called respiration. I know, it reminds me of high school biology too and I would’ve paid more attention if the course materials included making beer.

Respiration lasts between 4-8 hours and there won’t be much for you to see during this period. According to Charlie Papazian in The Complete Joy Of Homebrewing it’s during this period where the yeast gain and store energy for future activities and reproduction.

After respiration is complete, you’ll start to see some action. This is the fermentation, where the yeast turn the sugars in the wort to alcohol.

The exact time varies because of these factors:

• Temperature: If you’re yeast are too cold, they’re going to work slower. If they’re warmer, they’re going to work faster, just make sure the yeast aren’t too hot. If the temperature is too high in the fermenting bucket, it could lead to some problems in the final product. Make sure you keep your beer within the recommended rage on the yeast packaging or in the recipe.
• Oxygen Levels: The more oxygen in your wort, the happier the yeast will be and the faster they’ll work. Make sure you properly oxygenate your wort before pitching the yeast.
• Type Of Yeast: Some yeast types work faster than others based on their natural metabolism. However, you can’t just change to a different kind of yeast to get faster results. You need a specific type of yeast to get a specific style of beer. However, you can create a yeast starter to see better results quicker.
• Amount Of Yeast: If there’s not enough yeast, they’re going to have to spend more time reproducing instead of fermenting your wort. This goes back to the last factor and creating a yeast starter. Some yeast and some recipes need a starter.
• High Gravity Beers: The more fermentable sugars in the wort, means that there’s more work for the yeast to do. Higher gravity beers may need a yeast starter.
• Water: For more beginner to intermediate homebrewers, you won’t have to worry about your water. However, once you get into the more technical aspecits of brewing, you may want to take control of your water if it has high levels of pH, minerals, etc because they can affect the yeast, among other aspects of the beer.

If you don’t see any activity within the 12-36 hour window, don’t start worrying yet! Relax and have a beer instead. Then do a gravity reading and see if the levels have changed since you to the original gravity reading.

According to the yeast manufacturer Wyeast Laboratories, if you don’t see a gravity change, you should make sure the temperature is warm enough for the yeast, then shake the bucket or carboy to see if that will bring the yeast to life.

If there’s still no signs of life after 12 hours, it might be time to run to the local homebrew shop and pick up a new pack of yeast.

A similar question you might have is:

I Don’t See Any Bubbles Or Activity In The Airlock Is My Beer Fermenting?

Check out this blog post: Airlock Questions Answered: No Bubbles? Bubbling Done?

—

Stay up to date with Passion For The Pint via Facebook, Twitter or subscribing to the newsletter (and free homebrew ecourse).

How Long Does Fermentation Take To Start? is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

I was browsing through my beer reading today and a couple articles came up about one of Dogfish Head’s newest beers, Noble Rot. There was a beer review and on the Washington Post an article called Dogfish’s Noble Rot blurs line between wine and beer. I know that Dogfish Head gets all of the attention, but usually they can back it up.

Luckily, my fiancee loves craft beer, but I know that a lot of craft beer fans that have significant other’s that don’t drink beer. I think this could be a beer that convinces a lot of non-beer drinkers to see what can be done with beer.

This is another beer that I want to try (and hopefully soon.) Of course, I’ll do a review of it when I do find a bottle. Have you tried it? What did you think?

Dogfish Head’s Noble Rot: Beer Meets Wine is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

Why You Need To Cool Your Wort

Hot wort That Needs To Be Cooled Down

First off, a little bit of a background. Wort is the pre-fermented mix of water, malt and any other ingredients that you use, that will turn into beer.

Second off, there’s a few reasons why you need to cool your wort.

The yeast that we use to turn our wort into beer are picky and will only work when they’re in a temperature range that they like. For ale yeast, they like a range that’s between 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit. Those lager yeasts like things a little cooler, about 45-60 degrees. The actual temperature varies depending on the yeast, so make sure you check your recipe instructions and/or the yeast packaging so you know exactly what temperature they really like.

When you cool the wort, it reduces the risk of infection from bacteria that want to ruin our beer. The bacteria love the warm temperatures (pretty much anything below boiling), so the quicker we can chill our wort and pitch the yeast, the less we have to worry about bacteria.

The quicker the wort is cooled, the clearer the final product will be. The rapid chilling forms a “cold break,” a group of proteins that are thermally shocked and fall out of the wort, to the bottom of the kettle. If we cool down the wort slowly, we won’t get that cold break and the final product will have the dreaded chill haze. Chill haze is caused when you refrigerate your beer and proteins form a haze in your glass. The haze fades away as the beer warms, so it’s mostly a cosmetic problem, although some people say that beers without a cold break go stale faster.

How Beginners And Extract Brewers Can Cool Their Wort

Top It Off With Cool Water

Us, extract brewers are only brewing 2-3 gallons of wort, so we have room to add cold water in the primary fermenter. Adding water does more than just increase the volume to five gallons, it also cools down the wort.

Tips:

Cool the water in the refrigerator over night in a clean, sanitized and sealed container to keep out bacteria and aromas from other items in the fridge.

Aerate the water before adding the wort. You can do this by shaking the pail or carboy for about a minute.

Don’t add the hot wort to the carboy first, the intense heat can crack it. Instead, add the cold water to the fermenter first, then add the wort. Finally add more cold water to bring it to five gallons, if needed.

One drawback to just mixing water with the wort is that it will leave the proteins in with the wort. The way around this is to transfer the wort to a bucket that already has cold water in it, then transfer that mix without the proteins and sediment to the primary bucket to ferment.

Cool It Down With An Ice Bath In The Sink

An ice bath is putting the covered brew pot into the sink and filling the sink with water and ice. The cooler water absorbs the heat away from the wort. The quicker you cool it down, the better of a cold break you’ll get, so this is an upgrade from just topping your wort off with cool water and can be used in conjunction with adding the wort..

Each homebrewer has their own version of an ice bath. I like to do a mix of ice and water up to almost the top of the brew pot, changing the water whenever it starts to get warm.

I know other brewers that like to add just cold water first, then after that warms up replace the water with ice.

Tips:

You’ll need three to four pounds of ice per gallon of wort. Don’t add those ice cubes directly to the wort, add them to the sink around the brew pot.

Keep your brew pot covered when you’re adding the ice and the water, but once things settle down, you can keep the lid off and gently stir the wort with a sanitized spoon to cool it down quicker. Emphasis on gently! Stirring the wort pushes the hot wort from the middle of the pot to the cooler spots near the edge of the brew pot.

Don’t worry about checking the temperature until the brew pot is cool to the touch.

If you’re cooling the wort with an ice bath, then adding extra water in the primary to top it off, you don’t need to cool the wort down completely to the target range. Just cool it down to where it’s cool to the touch, then transfer it to the fermenting bucket or carboy.

Use A Wort Chiller

Wort Chiller

A wort chiller is a small investment (about $50-$150 for most models), so it’s something you don’t have to buy if you’re just starting out. However once you have a few batches under your belt, I have a feeling that you’ll want to get one of these for yourself.

A wort chiller is quicker (only about 15 minutes) than the other methods and is easier than maintaining an ice bath.

The technical name is an immersion wort chiller, but you can call it wort chiller for short and most homebrewers will know what you’re talking about. It’s made out of metal, usually copper and is shaped in a coil. You add it directly into the brew pot with the hot wort (so make sure it’s sanitized). One tube leading to the coil is attached to the faucet. When you turn on the faucet, the cool water flowing through the coil absorbs the heat, taking it with the water as it drains out through the tube attached to the other end.

After the boil is over, turn on the faucet and send water though the chiller. Use a clean pot holder or ove-glove to hold on to the top of the wort chiller, push the wort chiller through your wort a few times. This gets the wort circulating and you’ll have better results. Make sure the pot holder doesn’t come in contact with the wort.

Once the outside of the brew pot is cool to the touch, check the temperature to see if it’s in your target range with a sanitized thermometer.

Tips:

Put some sort of weight on the end of the tube where it drains into your sink so that it doesn’t move around.

You can keep the lid on to prevent bacteria from getting into the brew pot, but it will cool down quicker with the lid off.

Use the draining water to water your plants, fill up your washer. It’s clean since it stayed in the copper tubes, so you don’t have to worry about it making a mess.

Do you have any wort chilling tips or tricks for other homebrewers?

—

Stay up to date with Passion For The Pint via Facebook, Twitter or subscribing to the newsletter (and free homebrew ecourse).

Homebrewing Beginners: How (And Why) To Cool Your Wort is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

Do you use a secondary when you’re homebrewing? Or are you totally against using one?

Beers Fermenting In Carboys

 Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

For a long time, the standard operating procedure was to transfer the beer to a secondary fermenter like a plastic bucket or carboy after the initial fermentation dies down in the primary. It’s a theory that’s published in many of the original and most common homebrewing books. However, it’s a theory that some are saying is now out of date.

There’s a growing number of homebrewers that argue that transferring the beer to a secondary isn’t beneficial and it can be downright harmful to our beers. They suggest that transferring it to a secondary increases the risk of a beer becoming infected or off flavors developing because of accidental oxidization.

I’ll admit that I’m torn on the subject. I’ve used a secondary fermenter since my second batch of beer that I brewed. It’s almost like second nature now, but I can understand the arguments against using a secondary.

The Pro-Secondary Argument

To me, using a secondary make sense. It prevents the off flavors that are created when the beer sits on the sediment (in-active yeast, gluten from the barley, malt and other grains) too long. I don’t want my beer absorbing those flavors, nor do I want that sediment making it’s way to the beer in my bottles. I’d rather leave it behind when I’m transferring my beer from the primary to secondary. Plus, using a secondary does seem to lead a glass full of clearer looking beer.

The Anti-Secondary Argument

However, I can understand how using a secondary could be just a waste of time or even do harm to my precious beer. The books were originally written a long time ago, the ingredients have improved since then and experiments have proven that letting the beer sit on the secondary for extended periods of time doesn’t lead to off flavors and bad tastes. And wouldn’t “cold crashing” the wort with a wort chiller be more effective to clearing the beer? Quickly chilling the beer would cause the proteins and other tiny sized particles to drop out of the wort before they even made it to the primary.

My Current Thoughts On The Secondary

And I reserve the right to change my thinking at anytime!

Currently I use a secondary in just two situations. The first situation is when I’m brewing a beer with a high ABV (alcohol by volume) and it needs to ferment for over a month. The second situation is if I’m dry-hopping or adding ingredients after the fermentation has slowed down.

What’s your thoughts on using a secondary? Do You use one?

—

Stay up to date with Passion For The Pint via Facebook, Twitter or subscribing to the newsletter (and free homebrew ecourse).

Photo by RepoMan84.

Poll: Do You Use A Secondary? is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

I’d much rather be brewing than reading about homebrewing, but there’s only so much brewing that can be done. That’s when I turn to reading about making beer. I read a lot of homebrewing blogs, but there’s times when I want to go more in-depth. I have a growing library of homebrewing books and today I’m going to share with you some of my favorites:

Homebrewing Books For Beginners

Homebrewing For Beginners
I’m a little biased towards Homebrewing For Beginners. This is my book and the book I wish I had when I first getting into brewing. It’s a simple and to the point ebook that all novice brewers could use. It covers only the basics so that the reader can make their first brew day a success. The guide includes required equipment, the basics about ingredients and a step by step walk through for making their first beer. Available here or via Amazon.

Homebrewing For Dummies
Homebrewing For Dummies is one of the books that I read very early in my career that really helped me. Like all of the For Dummies books, is easy to read and loaded with information. It answered a lot of the questions I had as I was going though my first handful of batches of beer. However, if you’re pass the beginner stages, I would skip this book.

Homebrewing Books For Every Brewer

The Complete Joy Of Home Brewing
From the father of homebrewing, Charlie Papazian wrote The Complete Joy Of Homebrewing. It’s one of those books that every homebrewer I know has read and it’s one of those books that I think everyone who makes beer should read. It goes from the basics to covering more advanced topics, all in an easy to read and fun way.

How To Brew
How To Brew by John Palmer is another must read book. It covers a lot of the same topics, but gives you a different point of view. It’s a handbook that beginners to more advanced brewers should have around.

Homebrewing With BeerSmith
Brad Smith has made a name for himself with his homebrewing software and podcast, but he also has a book. The book is like a greatest hits from his blogs and is pulled together to help a brewer advanced their skills. A great book if you’re looking to get into the more scientific and technical aspects of brewing.

Not Exactly About Homebrewing

Brewing Up a Business
The founder of Dogfish Head brewery, Sam Calagione a homebrewer turned entrepreneur shares his stories from the misadventure of his first attempt of brewing to running one of the most popular craft breweries in the country. A fun read for homebrewers dreaming of running their own brewery or entrepreneurs that love beer and business.

Side note, about the links in this blog post. They link to Amazon where I buy most of my books now. You can buy the books anywhere you want, but if you buy them through these links, I get a small commission that helps keep this blog up and running.

What are your favorite homebrewing/beer related books?

The Homebrewer’s Library is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog

The Quick Answer

The simple answer is about five ounces (or ¾ of a cup) of corn syrup for a five gallon batch of homemade beer. It’s the amount of corn syrup that comes in most recipe kits. It’s the amount that’s mentioned in most homebrew books in the beginner sections.

However, like most things in life, there isn’t always one simple answer. Five ounces of priming sugar will get the job done in most cases, but when it comes to my beer, I don’t always like to risk something that will just get the job done. In some of my beers, that’s led to batches that didn’t have enough carbonation and in other batches so much carbonation that half of the beer foamed out when I opened it.

The Advanced Answer: Using A Bottle Priming Calculator

That’s why I switched to using a bottle priming calculator determine exactly how much priming sugar I need to add. No, you don’t have to buy a TI-83 graphing calculator, you can just one online. I like the calculator at TastyBrew.com and know a handful of other homebrewers that use it too. It’s simple to use and gives me the exactly amount of priming sugar to use, plus it’s free!

First, I just select the style of beer that I’m making in the drop down box. They don’t have every single style out there, but they usually have something pretty close to what I’ve brewed.

That fills in the volume CO2 box, so I don’t have to worry about that.

I enter the number of gallons that I’ve brewed. I try to be fairly accurate, if I end up with just 4.5 gallons, instead of five, I enter the 4.5 gallons.

Then I enter the temperature that I’m going to store the bottles at while they’re conditioning.

The calculator does the tough job, it does the calculations and tells me exactly how much corn sugar I need. It gives me the option to use table sugar, and a few types of dry malt extract, if I want to use something other than corn syrup.

It all takes less than a minute.

Of course, you don’t have to limit yourself to those options, there’s other things you can use to carbonate your beer, brown sugar, honey, or any other fermentable.

And you don’t have to limit yourself to this calculator, I know many homebrewers that use brewing calculators like BeerSmith, which calculates the amount of priming material you’ll need along with the rest of the calculations for the recipe. I even know a couple of people that do the math by hand. I’m not a fan of math, so I stick to the Tasty Brew calculator.

—

Stay up to date with Passion For The Pint via Facebook, Twitter or subscribing to the newsletter (and free homebrew ecourse).

Photo by Nicholas R Horne.

How Much Priming Sugar Should I Add? is a post from: Passion For The Pint: Homebrewing Blog