Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Been a while

Okay so it's been almost a month since i posted to the blog. Been busy with real work travel and with school (non-beer school). I did find sometime for brewing and have a 9 gallon batch of my signature Guava Wheat sitting in secondary waiting for me to come home and bottle. Looking at the calendar I should be able to get one or two brew days in the week of Dec 27th, hoping for one at the house and one assisting at a local brewery on big boy equipment.

With the lack of free time for brewing I am think about doing a larger. I will be traveling all of January, so I won't have time until February to really tend to it in terms of bottling or kegging if I have a draft system setup by then.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Narcoossee's at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa

Went to Narcoossee's for a nice dinner with the wife tonight. Great food wonderful menu. However they have one of the worst beer menu's of any restaurant I have been too in the the last month. I mean every place I went to in Tallahassee had a better offering. Disney needs to step it up on their craft beer offerings. A restaurant like Narcoossee's should have a wine and beer pairing for each dish.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Tally & Football

Well I am in Tallahassee for the week. Drove up yesterday listening to the Bucs games. When it rains it pours in football. My Noles last in great fashion in the 4th quarter. So did my Bucs, why did Rah not let Freeman go for the half yard.

Getting away from so depressing football news. I'll spend the week with my department and my brother in Tally, training on our new systems. Hoping to talk the guys into spending a couple of night at Fermentation Lounge. I also brought a case of home-brew so I know I'll be okay.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Creativity Put on Hold

It really is for the better meant of me as a brewer. I design new recipes almost everyday, if one doesn't get fleshed out the idea is written down and desired tasting notes or some sort of inspiration. But that's why I have a huge back log of brews to brew and updated recipes, for things that I need to tweak to a finished product. Not that I believe any of my beers are really finished products even those that I am happy with, equipment changes effect beer at every level so everything is a work in progress. But I am rambling.

I need to get back to working current beers to finished products so I have a line of a half dozen or so solid repeatable beers. Not 40 awesome idea beers that all need a little work, except my Rye first time was the charm, here is hoping my notes make since next time I brew it.

But now I am working on a schedule for when the semester is over on brewing my top 6 or 8 beers at least once a month until I am happy with them. Hence my creativity being put on hold, This morning I started working on a new winter session beer and just made some quick notes instead of fleshing it out. Winter will come again next year, I can brew my Nola Stout for Dec and Jan.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Bucco Bruce All Grain v1

Well I think the flavor will still change over the next couple of weeks. But Bucco has been bottle from 3 weeks now and I cracked one open last night. Color is spot not golden, not amber but that almost orange color. Now thing take a turn. When I brewed this last I wasn't setup for all grain and I did not have a temperature controlled fermentation environment. So the yeast was not really giving it's all in the scent and flavor category.

So I used the Wyeast Belgium Strong Ale, and I get a wonderful flowery alcoholic scent mixed in with orange and very little vanilla. If that what I was trying for I would be happy. I wanted more orange and vanilla in the nose.

The taste has tons for citrus up front followed by that very Belgium alcohol bite. Again I like, but not what I was trying for.

Head retention it great think white lacy head and hangs all over the glass.

I think I hit pretty well stylistically on a Belgium Strong Ale. However, to recreate my Bucco with my current equipment and process I need to change up the yeast and find thing that does over power my spices.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween

Never got around to making my Fall seasonal, school and mostly work got in the way. I was thinking something other than a pumpkin or spice ale.

But I am looking at the calendar, during the next three month I'll be traveling to four different offices to rollout our new desktop environment and I still have 6 weeks left of school. SO I 'm thinking about doing 10 gallons of spring lager or 10 gallons of winter ale.

The lagers I'm working on designing are black lager, lemon lager and something I am calling a Cuban lager. I dad's family is Irish, my mom's family are Cuban and Scottish.

The ales I'm designing are a classic winter spice ale and a oatmeal or sweet stout.

Now back to homework before getting ready for the Bucs game and taken the munchkin trick or treating.

Relax don't worry have a homebrew, cheers

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

A new beginning.

Welcome to my first blog post. I plan on focusing on brewing, I'm a home brewer planning on going pro. I plan of this blog to cover a couple topics; home brewing, what it takes to go pro, beer tasting and beer events.

I love brewing it make me feel whole, complete like it was what I was meant to do.