Beer Names

So, at Labor of Love, I had some people ask about the brewery name and my beer names.  The brewery name, Steel Rain, comes from the artillery.  Artillery rounds are made of steel, and they rain down on the enemy.  Pretty straight forward.  The beer names can be more obscure, I admit.

The first beer I named was my double IPA, which I called Charge 8 Imperial IPA.  At the time, I was assigned as Platoon Leader/Fire Direction Officer for a M119A2 battery.  The M119A2 is a 105mm howitzer, and the max charge for the weapon system is normally called charge 7 (there are seven increments).  Charge 8 can be used, but rarely is, to boost the max range from ~11.5km to ~13.7km.

Here are some of the other beers and the stories behind the names:

Willy Pete Wheat – a German-style hefeweizen, named after the nickname for white phosphorous, which is used in artillery rounds for smoke screens now, but used to be an anti-personnel weapon.

Enzo’s English Ale – my only non-artillery named beer, this is an English Pale Ale named after our dog, Enzo, who is an English Springer Spaniel

D30 Russian Imperial Stout – a RIS named after a still in wide use Russian made 122mm howitzer.  Some friends on mine used them while training the Afghan army a few years ago, named in their honor.

Killer Junior IPA – Killer Junior is a direct fire (as opposed to normal indirect fire) technique where an HE round is fitted with a time fuze and the fuze is set to function over a target very close to the gun’s position.  Killer Junior referred to the technique when used by 105mm and 155mm howitzers.  Killer Senior was used with 203mm howitzers.  The name comes from the call sign of the battery that developed the technique during the Vietnam War.

Fiddler’s Green Farmhouse Ale – a Belgian-style saison, the name comes from the legendary Valhalla where artillerymen go when they die.  “Halfway down the trail to hell in a shady meadow green, Are the souls of all dead Redlegs camped near a good old-time canteen, And this eternal resting place is known as Fiddler's Green.”

Blockhouse Blonde Ale – every artilleryman knows the namesake of this beer, Blockhouse Signal Mountain, which sits on top of the most prominent point in the impact area at Fort Sill.

Canon de 12 – a Belgian Dark Strong Ale, also called a Belgian Quad.  This beer is named after a WWII Belgian medium field gun, the Canon de 12 cm L mle 1931

Redleg Red Lager – A Vienna-style lager with a red tint.  Redlegs are artillerymen.  In the Civil War, Union artillerymen wore red stripes down the sides of their blue uniform pants, and were called Redlegs.  The name endures today.

Thus ends today’s lesson on beer and artillery.

Gold Medal!!

So, I’d say Labor of Love was a smashing success for Steel Rain Brewing!  We took home gold in the Strong Belgian Ale category with our Fiddler’s Green Farmhouse Ale!  Both scorecards had great comments about the beer, especially about how dry it ended up.  I’ll be using that Wyeast 3711 on all my saisons from now on!  The only negative was one judge would have liked to have seen better head retention.

Killer Junior didn’t score nearly as well, though, with both judges commenting that it was watery and very astringent.  Since it was very good the first time around, I’ll go back and see what I might have done differently, and then try it again a third time and try to get it right!  It was really good the first time, and still pretty good, I thought, this time.  Obviously the judges disagreed.  It happens!

We’ve got Operation Bravo coming up next, at Shannon Brewing Company in Keller.  I’m entering Canon de 12, a Belgian Dark Strong Ale (sometimes called a Belgian quad).  It should be pretty much done fermenting by now, and the yeast should be working hard cleaning up after themselves!  I’ll probably try to keg it after we get home from vacation.  My plan is to naturally carbonate a handful of bottles, then the rest in the keg.  Belgians are almost always naturally carbonated, so I’m going to stick with that.  Not sure if I’m going to repitch yeast at kegging time or not yet.  That’s sitting in the pantry working away at around 78F.  There’s a new beer fermenting in the chest freezer now.

The blonde ale I’m doing for the baby show for my brother and his wife is all brewed and should also be ready for the keg when we get back from vacation.  I missed my OG by a bit, I was under again.  I’ve missed my target a few times in a row now; I’m not getting the efficiencies that I had been.  I might start trying a double-crush on the grains and see if that helps.  I really don’t care what the number is, as long as I can stay consistent, I can make up for lower efficiency with more grain.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  In case anyone reading wants to try their hand at making their own great saison, here’s the recipe I used for the gold medal winner!

11lbs Dingemanns Pilsner

Mash at 151F for 90 minutes

90 minute boil

1oz Cascade @ 60

1oz Cascade @ 15

1oz Cascade @ 5

1oz Cascade dry-hopped for last 5 days of fermentation

Wyeast 3711 starter

Pitched at 65F and kept it there for 3 days or so, then let it free rise to 76 and kept it there for another 10 days or so.  After that, it went into the house and sat in the pantry at ~78F ambient for another week before going into the keg.  Carbed cold in the keg (warm in bottles) to 2.8 volumes of CO2.

The Long Wait

The day is almost upon us.  Labor of Love is 4 days away!  Four days until the rest of the world (or at least 1000+ people who attend a homebrew festival in Dallas) is introduced to the epic wonderfulness that is Steel Rain Brewing!  I cracked open one of the last two bottles of Killer Junior last night, and it’s fantastic.  I’ve sampled both it and Fiddler’s Green from the kegs, and they’re both really damn good and ready for Sunday.  I’m getting pretty excited about it.  Between the wait for this, and the wait for the start of college football on Saturday, this has already been the LONGEST. WEEK. EVER!

I’m also looking forward to meeting other DFW-area homebrewers, and sampling some of their wares.  Homebrewers are a very experimental lot, I so expect some wacky stuff to be out there.  If you’re out there to come support me and taste my beer, be sure to stop by and check out New Main Brewing as well.  He always has good stuff on tap, and has a great blog worth checking out.

I’ve been thinking about how I want to keep my beer cold out in the September heat.  The ideal way would be a jockey box.  Those are pretty pricy, though.  The low end ones are $250 to $300 for a double tap system.  Or, I can just pick up a big trashcan at Lowe’s and pack that sucker with ice around the two kegs, and serve from picnic taps, which I already have.  Yeah, I think I’ll go that route.  If it turns out that other people actually like my beer, then maybe I’ll think about a jockey box for future events.

So, if you’re bored and have nothing to do on Sunday evening (and remember, Monday is a holiday!), come on out to Labor of Love 4 at Deep Ellum Brewing Company in Dallas.  Tickets (they call them memberships in order to be legal with the Gestapo TABC) are $35 and can be purchased at http://www.lolhomebrew.com.  You need to pick your affiliated homebrew club.  I can be found under Steel Rain Brewing (duh).

Next up on the brewing schedule is a simple Blonde Ale for my brother and sister-in-law’s baby shower that we’re hosting at the end of October.  I took a popular recipe from the HomeBrewTalk forums that has a bunch of good reviews and went with it.

7lbs 2-row

¾ lb Carapils

½ lb Crystal 20L (recipe called for 10L, but Dallas Homebrew was out, at only ½ lb, shouldn’t change the recipe all that much)

½ lb Vienna

½ oz Centennial @ 60

½ oz Cascade @ 15

½ oz Cascade @ 5

Danstar Nottingham ale yeast

See everyone on Sunday!

Labor of Love

Deep Ellum Brewing Company sent out some more info on the 4th Annual Labor of Love Homebrew Competition and Festival.  The event is on Sunday, September 6th from 6:00pm to 10:00pm, at the field across from Deep Ellum Brewing Company, at 2823 St. Louis, Dallas.

Tickets are $35, and can be purchased at http://www.lolhomebrew.com/.  Select Steel Rain Brewing as the affiliated homebrew team, of course.

I'll be serving the two beers that I entered, Fiddler's Green Farmhouse Ale and Killer Junior IPA.  The Farmhouse Ale is a French-style Saison, using Belgian Pilsner malt and Cascade hops.  The IPA is an American IPA that doesn't have the normal punch-you-in-the-mouth hop flavor, but come across very refreshing and citrusy.

Both turned out fantastic, and I can't wait to see how the judges rate them!  I dropped my entries off on Monday.

There will be food trucks and live music, as well.  Should be a great time!

Wyeast 3711

Short entry today.  Brewday for the saison went pretty well.  I think I need to recalibrate my refractometer, though.  Based on it's reading, my gravity into boil was 1.043, which would have given me a mash effeciency of 99%!!  That's insane.  Unfortunately, I tossed the sample before I thought to use a hydrometer to get a good gravity reading.  I'll be sure I do that correctly this weekend for the IPA.  OG was 1.045, a little under the 1.049 I was shooting for, though.  I might try double-crushing the grains next time, that seems to help other who are using the BIAB method.

I was able to get the wort cooled down to around 68F pretty quickly this time, though.  I got it down under 100F in a few minutes with the immersion chiller.  After it got down to around 90F, it started really slowing down, so I went ahead and transferred to the fermentor and put the whole thing into the ice chest filled with ice water.  Yeah, I'm using that method again this weekend.  It was down to 70F in no time.  By the time I got it into the fermentation chamber, it was at 68F.  Got the yeast pack and pitched at 68F.

This is the first time I've used a Wyeast yeast pack, and the first time for the French Saison strain as well.  Last saison I used WLP565, which is the Dupont strain.  The Internet tells me that it's a very vigorous strain, and will ferment quickly and end up attenuating way down.  I kept it set at 65F for 3 days, then bumped it up to 75F.  Took a sample on Sunday and checked the gravity.  It's already down to 1.010, which is 78% attenuation (Wyeast claims 77-83 is normal)!  I'm going to check again Thursday to see where it is.  I'm hoping it will finish around 1.004, which would be over 90%.  If it's not done by Saturday when I need the fermentation chamber for the IPA, I'll just move the fermentor into the pantry, probably, and let it sit for another week before kegging.  That will also give the yeast a chance to clean up after themselves, and get rid of any off flavors.  I might have to get a second 6.5 gallon fermentor, though, for that.  I'll see what they have at the homebrew store tomorrow when I go for the ingredients for the IPA.

That's it for now.  More to come in the next few weeks as these start to get finished and ready for Labor of Love!

New Name and Labor of Love

Greetings loyal readers!  It’s been a while since I’ve made an entry, and if you’re here, you’ve probably noticed a new name in the URL.  Since there is now a commercial brewery called Texas Ale Project (and it probably existed before I started brewing, considering how long it takes to get a license), I figured I should come up with something new, and more creative than Texas Ale Company for my home brewery.

After much thought and internal deliberation, I came up with Steel Rain Brewing.  As you may have noticed, most of my beer names have been artillery-themed, so it made sense to go that direction with the brewery name.  Unfortunately, the very obvious Redleg Brewing is already taken by a brewery in Colorado.  I came up with a handful of ideas, but to me, Steel Rain had the best ring to it.  Now, I just need to come up with a logo!  Any artistic people out there want to help me with that…for free? :-)

So, now that I have a new name, I need to enter some contests, so people will come to know and love the Steel Rain beers!  Deep Ellum Brewing Company has such a contest every year, their Labor of Love.  The name comes from the fact that the festival that accompanies the contest is held Labor Day weekend.  Brewers (or homebrew teams/clubs) can enter up to two beers each for the BJCP-sanctioned competition, and can serve up to five beers at the festival.  The Best in Show winner will have their beer featured as DEBC’s 2016 Labor of Love beer, and it will be entered into the Pro-Am Competition at the 2016 Great American Beer Fest!  Since this is my first homebrew competition to enter, I’m not expecting much, but I still have high hopes, especially for my IPA.

So, on to the good stuff-what I’ll be entering into the competition.  The last IPA I did, with Citra and Mosaic hops, was immensely popular with my regular brewday crowd.  It was gone very quickly, so I’ll be brewing that again with no tweaks.  For the other beer, I’m going to try a new recipe, but one that’s pretty simple, a SMASH (Single Malt And Single Hop) dry-hopped Saison.  I’m going with Belgian Pilsner 2-row malt and Cascade hops, with mostly late additions and dry hops to give it plenty of aroma.  In keeping with my theme, I’m going to call it Fiddler’s Green Farmhouse Ale.  The IPA remains Killer Junior IPA.  Hopefully I can logistically pull off getting two beers brewed and finished by the August 17th deadline to submit them for entry.  With my National Guard AT in there, it might be a tight squeeze, but I'm confident that I can do it!

The recipes for the beers (both 6 gallons into the fermentor):

Fiddler’s Green Farmhouse Ale

11lbs Belgian Pilsner (Dingemanns)

1oz Cascade @ 60 minutes

1oz Cascade @ 10 minutes

1oz Cascade @ 5 minutes

1oz Cascade dry hopped in the keg

WY3711 French Saison yeast

Killer Junior IPA

11lbs 2-row (Briess)

2lbs Munich 20L (Briess)

1lb Crystal 10L (Briess)

1oz US Magnum @ 60

1oz Citra @ 15

½oz Mosaic @ 5

½oz Citra @ 5

1oz Mosaic @ flameout

½oz Citra dry hopped in the keg

½oz Mosaic dry hopped in the keg

WLP001 California Ale yeast  

The festival is September 6^th, time TBA, but I believe last year it was late afternoon/early evening.  Last year it was $30 a ticket, and it sold out pretty quickly from what I hear.  Homebrewers can get their team of 4 people in free.  There were bands and food trucks last year, as well.  Hope to see some of you out there, and make sure you stop by Steel Rain Brewing and say hello!

I'm Alive!

So, it seems that my posts on here have slowed down quite a bit since I started.  I’ll try to be more frequent with updates, at least post some recipes up for anyone who is actually reading this and interested.

In my last update, I posted the recipe for the IPA I wanted to enter into Brew Riot.  Well, good news and bad news, and a small screw up.  Good news, beer got brewed on 2/28.  Bad news, I put off entering Brew Riot too long, and it was full when I finally got around to it.  The screw up I’ll talk about in just a second.

So, for those of you in the DFW Metroplex, you might remember that on 2/28 we were in the middle of our snow/ice-pocalypse of 2015.  It was a balmy 25°F on brew day.  I had a few brave souls make the trek from around the neighborhood (and one from all the way down in Bedford) to join me in the garage.  As you can imagine, on a brisk day like that one, it took a bit to get my mash water heated up.  Finally got it done though, and had no more issues through the mash and boil.  The one small hiccup came when I accidentally knocked over the table and spilled sanitizer all over the garage.  Unfortunately, the hops that were set aside for dry hopping were also on the table, and they got pretty much ruined, so there were no dry hops in this batch.  Everything else went fine, though, and to wort cooled to pitching temps very quickly, thanks to the cold weather.  Lesson learned: don’t try to lift one leg of the table to get a dog leash attached to it.  The dog can stay warm and lonely inside on brew day.

This beer was the first to use the new chest freezer fermentation chamber.  Man, how did I ever make beer without this?  It simplifies that process so much.  All I had to do was set the temperature controller and let the beer ferment happily away at 63°F, regardless of how hot or cold it was outside.  The cool side was hooked to the freezer, and the heating side to a lightbulb-inside-a-paint-can setup.  It never got more than a degree away from the target any time that I saw it, and was usually within a half degree.
Once it hit FG, I cold crashed for a few days to help with clarity, then racked over to a cleaned and sanitized keg, and into the fridge and onto CO2 to carbonate up for a few weeks.  Sampled it after a week, and it still needed more carbonation, but the flavor was awesome.  Let it sit until last weekend when we went to a Cards Against Humanity (awesomely un-PC game) party, and I took a growler full.  It was very well-received.

Meanwhile, during my March drill weekend, some neighbors had a crawfish boil, and Erin went.  The host, Scott, and his neighbor, Lloyd, were at the 2/28 brew day, and both raved about all three beers I had on tap at the time (hefe, stout, IIPA), so Erin came back and got a growler of both the stout and the hefe (the IIPA keg had kicked a week or so earlier) to take back.  That finished off the hefe keg, so I was down to one keg (two, once Killer Junior IPA was ready).

I figured it was about time for another brew day.  I asked Facebook what to brew, putting forward a few options.  By far, the favorite was the red lager idea.  I really wanted to brew a lager, since I haven’t done one yet, and with the chest freezer fermentation chamber, I’ll have no problems getting down into the low-50s needed for lager fermentation.  I came up with this for a red Vienna-style lager:

7lbs Vienna malt
3lbs Dark Munich malt
0.25lbs Carafa II Special malt

The Vienna and Munich malts are pretty standard for the style, and are both give a good malty flavor to the finished beer, with the Munich being a little darker, and giving a little more pronounced malty and grainy flavor.  The Carafa II Special is a dehusked version of Weyermann’s Carafa II malt.  Since it’s dehusked, it add the rick color, flavor, and aroma of the husked version, but without the harsh flavors and astringency you typically see with darker grains.  It’s supposed to contribute to a nice reddish-brown color when used in smaller amounts, and that’s what I’m hoping for from it.

The hop schedule is pretty straight forward:

1.5oz Tettnanger @ 60 minutes
1.5oz Tettnanger @ 10 minutes

Yeast is the Saflager W34/70 dry yeast.  2 11.5g packets rehydrated and pitched at 50°F.

Brew day was 4/18, and had a good-sized group come out this time-both neighbors and friends who live in other parts of the Metroplex came.  Erin made some awesome mint chocolate chip brownies, as well.  The only issue with the day’s activities was that I overshot my strike temperature by about 10° since I wasn’t paying attention.  It was solved by getting rid of a gallon of hot water, and adding in a gallon of cold water.  Mashed for 60 minutes at 152°, then removed the grains and heated to boiling.  Added the hops (forgot the Whifloc, I’m just realizing, but hopefully the cold crash and lagering will help clear the beer) and cooled the wort down to around 60°.  Racked to the carboy and into the fermentation chamber it went, set at 50°.  Once it got to about 52°, I pitched the yeast and left it to do its thing.  Once it’s close to FG, I’ll bump it up to 60° to 65° for a quick diacetyl rest, then I’ll cold crash and keg, and let it carbonate and lager at the same time.  I’ll probably check on it around Memorial Day to see if it’s ready to drink yet or not.

I’m definitely learning more and more every time I brew.  Using different grains allows me to see how they affect a beer’s taste, aroma, and color.  Next up, I’m thinking I’ll do something darker and a little higher ABV to replace the stout once it’s gone.  Something I can age until the fall or winter.  Maybe a Belgian quad, or even a tripel, even though it’s a paler beer.  After that, I’d like to do a saison that will be ready for the heat of July and August.  Depends on how long the IPA and stout last.  The IPA turned out so good, it might just become a sort of “house” beer, and on constant rotation!

Well, that’s it for now, hope you enjoyed reading.

Slàinte!