C-Ward-O Defies the Economy and Other News

Today, Cam Ward signed a six-year contract extension worth an average of 6.3 million a year. And then he promptly laughed in the economy's face.

"Who says it's hard to get a good paying job these days?" he asks. Certainly it's not for the now 3rd highest paid goalie in the league. Personally, I believe that's about half a mil too much per year, but in terms of superstars, not too big of a deal.

What this really says, as Bubba over on Canes Country puts it, is that the Canes are here to stay and here to be competitive. It's a message to other players that may not want to play so close to the Tropic of Cancer, that this team is willing to pay for its superstars, and it's not planning on putting its fans through limbo, a la Phoenix Coyotes.

In other, only slightly related news: HOCKEY SEASON STARTS TOMORROW! It's aboot time eh! Although the Canes don't start play until Friday (in which there will be loads of tailgaiting. 70F weather here we come!) I still can't wait to be able to watch some hockey tomorrow night. It's been a long off-season, although not nearly as long as most, but it's very exciting to see how the '09-'10 Canes will stack up against the rest of the NHL.

In terms of brews, I was able to get a bit done this weekend. I ended up making a new IPA that I believe will kick the crap out of my last attempt.

First, a bit of some background. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make my hop purchasing a lot cheaper. Previously, I had been buying hops in the price range of 2-4 dollars per ounce. That can get pretty expensive when your favorite beer styles are IPA's that require several ounces of hops.

So I decided to buy in bulk. Hops Direct has a good reputation for fresh hops and very competitive prices. So I took the plunge and bought 1 pound of Centennial Leaf (it's the main hop for Bell's Two Hearted, so obviously my favorite hop), 1 pound of Cascade Lead, 1 pound of Czech Saaz, and 1 pound of Magnum pellets. For a whopping total of 50 bucks (including shipping), I've got enough hops to last for quite a bit. Now, I have hops that only cost roughly 80 cents an ounce. So, obviously it was time to throw some serious hops into this IPA.

Here's the recipe. So a total of 8 oz. of hops. I honestly can't wait to see how this one turns out. I did find out that leaf hops are pretty hard to mess with. They don't like to sink down to the bottom of the kettle and tend to hang out on the top, and need to be stirred in quite a bit.

You may notice that I'm trying something new out with the recipe. It's a bit of a gamble on my part. I tried some First-Wort Hopping for this brew. It's a technique that is usually only used when Mashing is done, but I've somewhat forced it upon my brew. It's a process where you steep some of your late hop additions in your kettle after collecting your first runnings. For some reason that appears to be unknown, the flavor and aroma of these hops are retained during the boil, and not driven off. In blind taste tests, 11 of 12 people apparently prefer the first-wort hopped beer over the other.

Since my brewing does not use any mashing, I added the first-wort hops while the brew was at about 150F after I had steeped the grains, and after I added my extract. Then with the hops in the wort, I slowly brought the brew to a boil. This technique may, or may not work, because when mashing is performed with grain, it lowers the pH of the wort and is able to use the hops better. I haven't really read anywhere that said that adding extract does or doesn't do this, but everywhere I've read about first-wort hopping doesn't know about using it with extract. If nothing else, I will have just increased the bitterness of the beer. Not a horrible thing to happen to an IPA.

As I'm writing this, I'm testing out the Milk Chocolate Porter (formerly Stout). The flavor of the beer actually came out pretty balanced and smooth. Very surprising. It's got a nice light malty and roasty smell to it, and a pretty sweet and lightly chocolatey flavor. It's very easy to drink. So I'm disappointed that it's not a Stout like I had aimed for, but I'm pleasantly surprised on how the beer came out itself. Easily one of my better tasting beers, even if I missed the mark on the style.

It's Almost Here!

Well, lookie there! It's no longer the Offseason. It is now officially the PRE-Season. And it couldn't have come fast enough.

Canes fans have very good reason to be excited about the upcoming season. In the '08-'09 season, we sat through half of a mediocre season and watched as a coaching change mid-way through the season turned the team into a dominant force that carried into the Eastern Conference Finals.

With the summer came a few changes, mainly filling the glaring hole exposed in the playoffs of team toughness. The Canes were pushed around quite a bit in the playoffs by bigger teams, but still managed to find a way to win the series.

Tomorrow night the Canes take on the Nashville Predators in a Pre-Season exhibition game. Finally, hockey is back, just as the weather starts to cool back down from scorching to warm. Unfortunately, I'll be away up to the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts for a conference this weekend and will miss the first chance to see the Canes in action. The jitters will be unbearable.

This past weekend, I bottled the Milk Chocolate Stout (Porter). It shall be known from henceforth as the Milk Chocolate Porter. It is simply to light to be called a Stout, and will more than likely have a roasted character that is closer to a Brown Porter style, rather than a Stout(which means less roasty). Overall, I'm pretty disappointed in how this has turned out. I haven't tasted it yet, but the coloring of the beer makes me wonder if there is a way I can improve my technique.

Since the coloring and most of the flavors come from my steeping grains, this is the area I will focus on. I am beginning to think that my grain bags may be too big to allow proper "steeping." I normally put about a pound in each bag, and they get pretty big and round. This may prevent the grains deep on the inside of the bag from getting their sugars rinsed by the water. So they may not be contributing to the wort at all. The next beer that I brew that requires a large amount of steeping grains, I will probably put less grains in each bag. If it means I use 10 bags, so be it.

I want my beers to come out the way I expect them to.

The Beauty of the Beach and HDR

For the past week and change I've been vacationing down at the beach again. For the most part, we had cloudy weather, so the fantabulous pictures didn't flow as freely as they would have if it were sunny.

But, I do have a few to share.
Since the weather wasn't great we decided to go down to the Fort Fisher Aquarium and check out the fishies as well as the old Civil War Fort.


We did have one night where we were able to get some good sunset shots. Here's some regular shots along with some HDR sunset shots.

For the brews update, the Milk Chocolate Stout (Porter) is currently being cold-crashed for the next week to try to clear it up as much as possible and get as much sediment out.

Update

This past weekend I bottled the apfelwine and also transferred the Milk Chocolate Stout into the Secondary.

Observations:

1. Apfelwine tastes exactly like white wine, just with apple flavor. It's really dry and pretty smooth, you barely even notice that it's 9% alcohol. This will do nicely to give out and have on hand when someone doesn't want a beer. Since it's being carbed, it'll be more like a champagne almost, rather than a flat wine. But it's pretty good, especially for not even being aged at all.
2. I might experiment with putting cocoa in more beers in the future, depending on how this one comes out. It smells good, and is really easy to mix with water and pour the beer on top of.
3. The Milk Chocolate Stout is looking like it's going to be more of a Milk Chocolate Porter. I can already tell that it's just not going to be dark enough, and quite possibly roasted enough for it to be a Stout. I think it may have something to do with my grain bags that hold my steeping grains. I think they may be too big to allow for all the sugars to be properly extracted from the grains they hold. I'll have to experiment around with smaller bags.
4. I've found out that my pipeline is built up a bit too much. I need to clear out some bottles for the stout in a few weeks. I need about 48 bottles in 3 weeks and I don't want to get extras from outside. I want the beer I have drunk. So come on over and help me make some empties.

The Milk Chocolate Stout

This past Saturday was a big one in terms of brewing for me.

First, a week before I got a new toy.




A brand new Turkey Fryer! This thing will be great. No longer will SWMBO's nose curl from boiling wort in the kitchen. Boiling outside will cut that out. Plus, with a 30 quart pot, I can do full boils now.

With full boils, I will get better hop utilization, which means I need less hops for more bitterness and flavor. Plus, there will be less off-flavors from the extract I use.


Win/Win/Win.


So, this past Saturday, I kicked the outdoor brewing off by starting up my Milk Chocolate Stout.


Here's the recipe.

• 4.5 lbs of Extra Pale Dry Malt Extract.
• 1 lb of Chocolate Malt
• 12 oz. of Crystal 60L Malt
• 4 oz of Roasted Barley
• 1 oz of Black Patent Malt
• 1 lb of Dextrose
• 1 lb of Lactose (Milk Sugar, which is unfermentable, and will leave the beer sweeter)
• 1 oz of Cluster hops at 60 min.
• I used a starter of Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast.
  

The whole process started with making the starter a few days before:

Then steep the grains for 30 minutes at 150 degrees. Here's how we looked after steeping.

Here's the hot break after the boil started. Fortunately, I use Fermcaps so I won't be having any boilovers.

The one and only hop addition at 60 minutes:

My starting gravity was actually a bit high at 1.061. I, along with Beersmith, had expected it to be closer to 1.055, but we shall see where the final gravity ends up. Hopefully, somewhere in the 1.014-1.019 range. It wouldn't be bad for this beer to have a bit of body to it.

In another week or so I'll transfer the Stout to the secondary and add in some baker's cocoa. Probably about 3 or 4 ounces. Hopefully, this should be a pretty sweet, chocolaty and roasted tasting beer.

Cheers!