Spiced Pumpkin Ale

With the air getting cooler and pumpkins starting to show up at the local farmers market I thought that a Spiced Pumpkin Ale would be a great brew to brew!  I developed an amber ale recipe that should have some real nice spice.  I didn't want a brew that tasted too rich in spice so hopefully this will have a nice mellow taste, just like a slice of grandmas pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving!

 So I stated off with cutting the pumpkin in half, scooping out the strings and seeds and roasting in an oven preheated at 375F for 1 hour 15 min.  I kept the seeds and roasted them separately with olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  They were very yummy!  After the pumpkin cooled I scooped the flesh and put in a bowl and blended it all up with my trusty hand held immersion blender (I couldn't live without one). 
I brought my mash water up to temp and added it to the mash tun.  I mixed the grain and pumpkin puree to the mash water and let them do some extraction.  I'll get back to you in a month on how it turns out!

Three fermenters in the brewathroom (Tucker Lupulinaide, Scottish and Vanilla Bourbon Porter) going strong.  Don't forget there are two upstairs aging as well (Kriek and Peche).  I bottled the Vanilla Bourbon Porter to make room for the Spiced Pumpkin Ale.

We also made another ton of salsa.  I added extra jalapenos, but there seems to be no heat!????? Maybe some age will help?  If not- lots of mild salsa to share with visitors.

Time for vegetables!

Fall is the perfect time to take advantage of all the delicious bounty that harvest season has to offer. (isn't this sunflower gorgeous?) I was in the mood for a nutritious and delicious soup... So, in my meal plan for the week, I decided to make this quick and easy Minestrone.  (Of course, I rarely follow a recipe... so I didn't use green beans, but did use celery. I also didn't put in orzo.  I used chicken broth instead of vegetable broth. I also added basil with the oregano.)  Put on the pot to simmer, put some beets in the oven to roast (super easy; just peel and chop, toss with oil/salt/pepper and wrap in foil, 350 for 45-60 minutes)...

...Went for a long walk and came home to a satisfying meal, complete with a slice of cheese toast. Yummy.  Eat your vegetables. They are tasty. They are packed with vitamins and minerals.  Your sister is the boss and she said, "Do it."

The soup is savory; the beets are sweet; the cheese toasts adds that chewy/crunch. 
In other news... our house is being taken over by never-ending jars of salsa... and endless rows of carboys and beer bottles full to the brim with brew... I think Connor is getting ready to add a post, so I'll shut up!

Fall is in the air

Another great weekend at the Tucker house... Relaxed with a movie on Friday night... We both worked on Saturday and did errands Saturday evening.  Sunday was our day to catch up on favorite activities at home.

Connor was excited for all of the football games.  He also brewed a Scottish Ale... He said, "Well...its a foggy Scottish day; perfect for brewing a smokey Scottish beer."  He brewed this one for Daryl.  How convenient that his brew system is portable, so he didn't have to be far from the TV. :)
Here is the recipe:
3 gallon batch
6# American Two Row
1# American Munich Lt
.5# Crystal 60L
4 oz American Chocolate
2 oz Peated Malt
.5# Carapils
Infusion mash, 154F
.5 oz Norhtern Brewer  60 min
.5 oz Willamette   30 min
.5 oz Willamette  0 min

1st runnings: 1.080
Last runnings: 1.029
OG 1.075
Wyeast Scottish yeast was used from the Vanilla Bourbon Porter.
After two hours the airlock was bubbling...Wow!!!

Marie baked banana bread, apple pie, and chicken and dumplings... Comfort food = Yum!

This evening...we doctored the cats, which means we trimmed their way overgrown claws and tried to clean their ears. They are so sweet... they get very concerned about the other one as we hold and treat. They cry like babies... You would think we were seriously injuring them.  Afterwards, they check eachother out and I am sure they say, "Geesh man, what did we do this time! Did they hurt you? Let me see your face bro. You ok?"  When they were both done, they headed to the food bowls looking totally bewildered and not knowing what else to do!

Our house smells like a Mexican restaurante!

Last night (Wednesday, Sept 14th), I arrived at home to find Connor eagerly preparing to make salsa. Keep in mind...we have a tiny kitchen... I am ravenous...all I can think about is dinner... all he can think about is SALSA! 
We have been afraid to can tomato products due to the risk of botulism.  But, with a little research and our trusty Ball Blue Book, we canned a very delicious salsa!

Connor scored a 20# box of heirloom tomatoes at the local farmer's market for $20.  We cored, blanched, shocked, peeled, and trimmed til my fingers hurt!  (and I wasn't even the one doing most of the work!)  Connor was busy cleaning and sterilizing our pint jars and lids.  Plus, he chopped all the onions, peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro... Juiced the lemons and limes...peeled the garlic and pureed it in the food processor.  We combined it all in a big pot with some spices and salt and let it cook for 20 minutes.  Then we used our handy immersion blender to puree it into a perfect texture.

We processed in a hot water bath for 15 minutes... It was music to our ears as the jars started to cool and the lids started to *pop*!

Our house still smells like a Mexican restaurant this evening... but we sampled our product and managed to eat half a bag of tortilla chips without any problem!  Yummy! Ven y vamos a compartir! (Come over and let's share!)

THB Lupulinaide and Widmer Oktoberfest

Saturday and Sunday September 10& 11, 2011

Sunday

Well I put the Tucker House Brewery (THB) Estate Hops to use.  If you don't remember I harvested 3oz (wet weight) of my very first season of the Chinook variety hop.  I dried them in our little bathroom with the wall heater on high for 3 days.  I ended up with 1 oz of dry weight hops.  Since I had only 1 oz of homegrown hops, I needed more hops for the brew.  If you know me at all, then you know that I love hops.  So I decided to add some hops that I got from hop school.  I developed a very simple, straight forward pale ale malt bill.  Then I exploded it with hops.  I used Chinook and Amarillo hops that I acquired from hop school as well as my homegrown Chinooks. 

I was shooting for a nice Pale recipe and ended up with an IPA that may have some Imperial strength!  I used my cooler tun and ended up getting 75-80% Brewhouse Efficiency. I couldn't believe it because with my Mash/Lauter Tun I usually only get about 60% efficiency. 

Go Coleman!!!

Recipe:
12# American Two-Row
1# American Munich (light)
.5# Crystal 60L
.5# Carapils

1oz Chinook  60 min
.5oz Amarillo 60 min
1oz Chinook 20 min
1oz Chinook 5 min
1oz Chinook 0 min
.5oz Amarillo 0 min

American Ale II  Yeast

First runnings: 1.078 adjusted
Preboil: 1.055 adjusted
OG: 1.070 adjusted
Projected SRM: 8
Projected IBU: 82

Looks like it may be another hoppy brew from the Tucker House!

THB Chinooks going in.

On Saturday...
Marie and I traveled down to Portland, OR for the 7th annual Widmer Brothers Oktoberfest.  It was a blast; Bratwurst, Pretzels with Cheese Fondue, Ruebens and of coarse BEER!   There was beautiul PacNW weather and great music.  The festival was held in the original part of the brewery.  Lots of fun.  We had VIP passes that were given to me from one of my beer distributors.  The pass included a mug for each, two free drink coupons and $6 worth of food tickets. 

 Look at the hops!

Yummy pretzel and cheese fondue.

1 down and 999 to go.  Cheers!

Who wants a Vanilla Bourbon Porter???

Last Saturday I brewed batch #16.  Its been almost a year now since my very first batch of home brew!  I got out the brew equipment on Friday and dusted it all off.  I haven't brewed a batch since June.  I may be a little rusty but here I go.  I have been trying to think of beers that I would like to drink and share this coming season.  So this winter I thought that I would like to have a Vanilla Bourbon Porter, why not?  I have never brewed a Porter so this should be fun.  I researched the Porter Ale and some  homebrew recipes.  I decided that I wanted a more chocolatey style rather than a robust roast style.  So I  developed a Brown Porter Ale recipe, a Brown Porter doesn't have as much Black Malt as a Robust or Industrial Porter does.  

I did a 60 minute mash using 1.25qt per pound of grain.  This pic is me just about to start fly sparging (sparging is when you start draining the unfermented beer(wort) from the grain and rinsing the grain with hot water to make sure all the sugar was extracted).

I collected the first runnings to take a gravity reading and to help the wort run clear.  The reading was 1.047.  I collect 6.5 gallons of sweet wort.  Now it's ready for the kettle.  I boiled the wort for 60 minutes and added three hop additions; 60 minute, 30 minute and at flame out.

I cooled the hot brew down and strained it while it went into the carboy.  I pitched Scottish yeast and aerated it for three minutes on my knee, the old fashion way. The gravity reading was 1.066 before I pitched the yeast.

I racked it to secondary last night, 1.016.  It only took 6 days to ferment out.  I racked it onto 2 vanilla beans and 1 oz of American Oak chips soaked with 2oz of Wild Turkey Bourbon.  I will leave it for 2 weeks in secondary, then bottle.
Here is the recipe:
11# American Two  
3.5# Munich Lt
1# Crystal 120L
.5# Crystal 40L
.5# Chocolate Malt
2oz Black Patent

1oz Northern Brewer Hops    60min
.5oz Cascade    30min
.5oz Cascade    0

2000ml starter from Wyeast Scottish Yeast

Come over to our place this December and we can sip on one by a toasty fire!!!

When racking I washed the yeast and stored them in mason pint jars. I will use these to make a starter for a Scottish Ale in a few weeks.  I'll keep you posted.

A Lovely Labor Day

Since we both had Monday off, we decided to spend the day relaxing and counting our many blessings.  We had Mark-bear pancakes for breakfast... did a few chores... then packed a picnic and headed to Blue Creek. This is a tributary to the mighty Cowlitz.  The fish were running, but not biting.  It was so gorgeous... a perfect day.  Sunny, warm, blue sky, light breeze. 

The river is very powerful. It looks so peaceful, but it is flowing hard and fast.  Plus, it is icy cold!  Connor has worn waders and gone in up to his waist... but this time he just walked along the banks and posted on the logs.  Marie sat on the shore and read her book...wrote a note to her grandparents...and generally enjoyed the scenery (Connor Crush included!).  She did try to go for a dip... but it was way too cold for her!

We came home in time to hang out with the kittehs and for Connor to take a long nap.  Ate some leftovers (from our big cookout with Daryl on Sunday) for dinner. And finished the day with the annoying Bachelor Pad.  What a day! What a weekend!
Hope you all had a great weekend too.
xoxox

Brandied Cherries

We got a recipe for Brandied Cherries from the Fall 2011 issue of Beer West.  Since cherries are a real summer treat in the Pacific Northwest, we had to give it a try.

Pitted the cherries. Made a syrup from cognac, red wine, water, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, orange peel, and lemon juice.  It smelled like a holiday treat.

Packed the cherries in the jars, covered with hot syrup, and water-bathed for 12 minutes. 

They looked really pretty... we will see how they taste in a few months.  Anyone care to join us for a holiday visit.... we'll share our cherries over vanilla ice cream... Come on. You know you want to.

Hop Harvest 2011

August 31, 2011:  In honor of my Brewther's 27th birthdays. 
This is the first year that I tried to grow hops and we had our first successful harvest. I purchased 2 varieties of rhizomes (Chinook and Cascade) and planted them in April.  After worrying at first, it wasn't long before they were really growing.  Most rhizomes spend the first year developing their crown; they usually don't produce hops.  But, we got lucky!

The Chinook variety was ready to harvest this week...The Cascades have fairly small cones, but we'll see if they are ready in the next week or so.

Pulling the cones off the vine. They sure are sticky!! And covered in a yellow resin called lupulin.  They smell delicious.

We ended up with 3.6 ounces wet... After drying in the warm Brewathroom for 3 days, we had 1 ounce of dry hops... Can't wait to use these next week!

BTW.... dried hopvines make beautiful wedding ceremony decorations.  I'll take orders now.  Hint. Hint.

What's the Dilly?

August 28, 2011: We pickled our 2nd annual batch of delicious dills.  Connor picked up 10 lbs of pickling cucumbers on his way home from Yakima.  We used our own home-grown dill... 

You can also see our gigantic sunflower in this pic....but the dill doesn't show up too well.

 We put a slice of sweet Walla Walla onion in the bottom of each jar..along with garlic and spices.

We packed each jar with as many cucs as we could fit and a fresh dill flower.  Connor made a few jars with jalapenos and red pepper flakes.

Voila!  12 beautiful quart jars full of salty dill pickles.  Since we still had some spicy dills left from last year, these should get us through the winter... We will gladly share with anyone though - Just come by for a visit!!