Breakdown beer

Well, here it is, the end of February 2005, and spring would be in sight, if it wasn't for all the snow falling!

This evening the Intrepid rather inconveniently chose to leave me stranded by the side of the road - the left hand break-down lane of I-75, no less - after an infrequent trip into the office in Dearborn to move some data. Early indications are that the camshaft position sensor gave up the ghost after 105,000 miles of service; time will tell. At least the tow truck driver was an interesting guy, easy to get along with. I sat by the side of the road for about an hour, idly hoping that some drunk wouldn't whack into me while I awaited AAA's magic. I had the car towed home. Hell, I can fix it!

In the meantime, I used some of my birthday money to buy ingredients for a third batch of Pilsner. Running low as I am, I probably have cut things a bit close, but money's been a bit tight as of late, and somehow spending $22 on beer all at one time has been assigned a distinctively lower priority than keeping the roof over our head and various and sundry other items. So my in-laws came through with $50 for my 37th birthday...and I'm a-brewin'! So I ran down to Adventures in Homebrewing the other night with Joshie, and picked up the ingredients. Not sure, but I could swear that I ended up with less malt extract syrup than usual; when I queried the store owner on it (who relayed a sad tale of a newborn first child deep in the throes of colic) he claimed I was probably used to getting more than I pay for. Such is life, I suppose.

This evening, Angela is off to Julie's doing the scrapbooking thing, Savannah and Joshua are tucked safely away in their beds, and the Intrepid is gathering snowflakes where the tow truck left it, out on the street. The temperature outside is in the low 30s, but I'm comfy and cozy, hovering over my Coleman propane camp stove, marvelling at the wonders of LP gas heat out in the garage, which is a very tolerable 68F.

Anyway, I followed the instructions as set forth in earlier posts, with the notable exceptions that I actually got the 160F protein rest right on the money, and I also remembered to add the Irish moss *before* the aroma hops and did the fifteen-minute boil as prescribed. Leo, our new beagle, was in attendance as I variously stirred and muttered incantations over the brew, which incidently was the maiden voyage of my new 24-quart stock pot. Boy, I love this new stock pot. Larger, made out of heavier-gauge stainless steel, it seems much more thermally stable than the old stock pot. The protein rest went without a hitch, and the temp stayed within 4 degrees of target with the burner on the camp stove turned completely off. It's also much larger and hence deeper than the old one; I was unable to boil it over with 2 gallons of brewing wort in it despite several attempts. Still, it's adviseable to monitor it carefully, and control the boilovers by keeping the lid slightly ajar.

The only thing that leaves me wondering about this evening's brewing activities is the O.G. I ended up with: 1.032 @ approximately 89F. Not sure why it would be so significantly lower, unless my hunch about the lesser amount of malt extract syrup is correct; typically I see values in the low 1.040 range. So...what will it taste like??? Will it be essentially the same with a slightly lower alcohol content? (It could afford to lose some alcohol content. One 16oz pint can sometimes leave me wobbly, and that's not exactly always what I'm looking for. Hardly ever, to be truthful.) If the taste is unaffected, the body about the same, and the alcohol content slightly reduced from the approximate 5-ish percent it's normally at...I think I can live with that.

The other difference this go-round is that my friend in Dearborn has stopped carrying the SafLager brand of yeast. This has been successful for me, always working up a vigorous fermentation within mere hours of pitching, so I'm disappointed to say the least that he's elected to stop carrying it. He assures me that the Aussie brand of lager yeast offered as a replacement will be equivalent...but I'm doubtful. It remains to be seen, of course, if "Superior Lager Yeast" (Product of Australia, imported by Superior Brewing Supplies of Hamilton, ON) produces a better brew, well I wouldn't have found that out if not for the inconvenience.

So as always, there were a bunch of little variables I couldn't control for. But I had a good time anyway, and was done with everything, even the cleanup, in under 3 hours. Not bad.