I’ve heard all about making yeast starters and dividing that up after adding it to wort created expressly for the purpose of breeding, but frankly, that has always sounded like a lot of work.

This lost to history web page I discovered had a simpler way to harvest yeast for re-use: simply poor the dregs of a carboy into sanitized plastic bottles after doing your kegging/bottling. Up to six months later, simply open the bottle up and dump into your wort. Even I can do that.

Anyone out there tried this method before? How did it work? For the record, the yeast I’m attempting to re-use is Wyeast 1056 American Ale.

Thankfully, Labor Day reminded me of my priorities, celebrating the American worker by capturing a piece of his paycheck, this time in the form of a new, energy efficient fridge, one whose warranty I immediately began to contemplate voiding.

Here’s how I tackled fridge to kegerator conversion. It really couldn’t have been more simple, but there was a nagging voice inside that kept asking, “You’re going to drill holes in a new fridge?” Yep, and it was totally worth it. Hopefully, you’ll see how easy and worthwhile this conversion is, and shut your inner nag up.

1. Mark holes for the taps. Have the taps before you do this, and ideally the tap handles, too. You want the taps high enough that you’re not kneeling to dispense beer, but not so high that opening the freezer door causes you to spill beer all over the floor by activating the tap handles. I suggest marking the inside, where the contours are the most divergent. The nuts that hold the taps in place need to be on a flat part of the door’s interior, so look for a flat area on the interior of the fridge.

2. Drill pilot holes. Most hardware stores carry extra-long (8-10″ long) drill bits for less than $10, but in retrospect, I think a four or five-inch long quarter-inch diameter bit would have been sufficient to go through the interior plastic, the insulation, and the sheet metal exterior of the fridge door. The important thing is that the diameter of your pilot hole bit is the same, or slightly smaller than, the bit that guides your hole saw.

3. Drill Final Holes Start by using a 1″ hole saw (just a hair larger than the diameter of the taps) to drill the plastic interior lining on the door, using your pilot hole from step 2 as a guide. Don’t drill through the metal from the inside, though – it will leave a very ragged hole. Instead, drill a little more than halfway through the door from the inside, then finish the hole from the outside. This way, both holes will be nice and neat. I thought drilling the metal would be difficult, but it’s fairly thin metal, and a sharp, new bit made very short work of it.

4. Insert the Taps. If you fail on this step, you don’t have the brain cells to lose, and I suggest you abandon alcohol consumption, starting immediately.

5. Secure the Taps. Use the nuts that came with your taps to secure the taps to the refrigerator door by tightening them from the inside. A large crescent wrench is necessary to get the nuts sufficiently tight.

6. Connect Beer Lines to Taps. Connect the beer lines to the taps using the nut-end of the beer hoses. Make sure there’s a rubber washer inside the nut; tightening the nut will compress this washer, providing a good seal on the taps (no leaks!).

7. Connect Beer Lines to Kegs. There are two places you can fail in this step, probably because you’re getting thirsty after all the man work. Do as I say, not as I did. Firstly, make sure the taps are turned off when you connect them to the kegs. Most taps pull forward to dispense, so you’ll want them pushed BACK, in the OFF position. Secondly, the Cornelius kegs (aka “Corny” kegs) used by homebrewers generally have two valves, an “in” and an “out.” The latter refers to the liquid contents, and you want the “out” valve connected to the taps. It is possible to mash the beer lines onto the “in” valve, but you will not be happy with this decision.

Remember where I said to turn OFF the taps before connecting the beer lines to the kegs? This is what happens when you ignore that advice: your precious beer all over the floor.

8. Connect CO₂ to Kegs. After hooking up the beer lines, there should be only one valve left on each keg. Hook your CO₂ up to these valves (marked “IN”), and turn on the pressure at the tank. I adjusted my regulator to provide 10 lbs. of outward pressure, a little higher than I would do for just one keg, but pushing 2 kegs’ worth of beer out seemed to require a little more.

9. Attach Drip Tray I’d say a drip tray is optional, but it was really nice of your wife to agree to this kegerator thing, and a clean, unsticky floor is something she probably values. So get the drip tray, and keep your wife happy. It looks cool, too. I attached mine with Velcro so I could remove it for cleaning easily.

Kegerator Supplies:

• In Portland: Let’s Brew seems to have the best stock of parts, and has very helpful and knowledgeable staff.
• Online: Amazon has cheap parts, but are mostly for standard San-Key style kegs (most pro brewers supply bars in this format). If you’ve already got Corny kegs, I suggest something like this kit from MoreBeer.
• Screw It, I Don’t Have Time to Build One: May I suggest this fine pre-made Kegerator?
• 1-Inch hole saw and mandrel (you’ll need both if you don’t already own the mandrel that holds the saw part).
• 8″ Crescent Wrench

It seemed like a good time to bring this up, because if you’re going to plant hops to use this year, you need to do it in the next week or so. (And because I stumbled across these photos and realized I never used them. Ha!)

2 oz of Cascade Hops

My expectations were low, but I used a fair amount of compost and water anyway. Every day when I got home from work, I’d wobble over to the raised beds in my bike shoes to see if there was any growth. It was a sad (and scary) site with me in my spandex peering into the dirt, hoping for some sign of life.

Growing Hops in our Raised Beds

Eventually, the hops did grow. You can see the “bounty” of the first year in the photo below. I believe that’s my Cascade hops hanging off the bamboo trellis I used.

Taking Down the Bamboo Hops Trellis

Tending your hops by using lots of compost and keeping the ground moist if you’re in a container or raised beds are the two simplest steps you can take to get a decent crop your first year.

I am convinced I would’ve had a lot more hops with a little more attention. The mistake I made was not fighting off the insects (aphids) that attacked all three varieties of hops. The homegrown Magnum hops below were certainly the most aggressive, but also were laid low by the aphids. You can see I got less than an ounce of Magnum hops.

0.7 oz of Magnum Hops

And you’ll also notice that I’m not showing the crop of Willamette hops that I grew. That’s because I didn’t get a single hop cone of Willamette hops. The aphids just knocked it down. In fact, I think my Willamette hop plant never got higher than six feet. This year, I won’t make that mistake. A little insect soap will go a long way.

So here’s the recipe for the 8022 Red I made with my fresh hops last fall:

• 1 lb 40L Crystal malt
• 1/2 lb 50L Caramel malt
• 1/4 lb Flaked corn
• 9 lbs extra light malt extract
• 1.5 oz fresh Cascade hops (boiling)
• 0.7 oz fresh Magnum hops (boiling)
• 0.6 oz fresh Cascade hops (aroma)
• Wy’East American Ale Yeast

It is, unsurprisingly, a very sweet ale. But it’s my sweet fresh hop ale, made with my homegrown hops.

Yesterday, I brewed my own version inspired by the Bear Republic one. I considered a few options for getting Chardonnay in the beer:

1. Chardonnay juice added to cooled wort: this is the option I eventually went with. It seemed like the most true to the idea of a hybrid wine/beer. I would have preferred un-concentrated juice, freshly pressed, but I don’t know of a good source for that. Perhaps another time.
2. Bottle of Chardonnay added to fermented beer before bottling. This seemed like a good option, as I could have a high degree of control in the blending, but it seemed a bit like cheating.
3. Age beer on Chardonnay-soaked oak chips. I’ve tried this successfully with Maker’s Mark Whiskey before in my “Bourbon Spice Mystery Ale,” and been pleased with the results, if not the timeline. To retain the source flavor (whiskey), the chips need to be soaked a long time, perhaps 2 months or more. Didn’t have that much time this time.
4. Adding a bottle of non-alcoholic Chardonnay to wort before fermenting. I don’t know enough about how NA wine is made to know if there is fermentable sugar in there, and wasn’t willing to take the risk of a too-sweet IPA. Perhaps another option if this attempt doesn’t work well.

Here’s the full recipe:

• 2 lbs. 40 L caramel malt
• 1 lb. 80 L caramel malt, steeped with the 40L at 150 degrees F for 30 minutes
• 7 pounds extra-light malt extract added just before boil
• 3/4 oz. Cascade hops, boiled 60 minutes (I thought the citrusy flavor of this hop would pair well with the Chardonnay, and used lightly, adds a “basic” bitter element)
• 3/4 oz. Cascade hops, boiled 15 minutes
• 2 oz. Amarillo hops, boiled 5 minutes (Amarillo is my favorite aroma hop for IPA, with a ton of floral aroma)
• 2 pinches Irish Moss for clarity (don’t see too many cloudy wines)
• 2 pinches Wyeast Yeast Nutrient (since I’d be asking the yeast to do double-duty)
• 1/2 46 oz. can Alexander’s Pinot Chardonnay Extract, added to cooled wort

I pitched Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale once the wine extract had been mixed into the wort, which I selected based on the manufacturer’s description: “Fruity nose and palate, dry, tart finish.”

I plan on oaking the beer in secondary fermentation with some new American oak chips, for perhaps 2-3 weeks. I don’t want it to be tooooo oak-y, but that would be true to the Chardonnay spirit, so we’ll see.

The Recipe

The first thing I did was search for the perfect Root Beer recipe.  This sounded easier than it turned out to be.  So many recipes included water, carbonation, and root beer extract.  It seemed like a joke.  Root beer from extract was not what I had in mind when I thought of making my own home brew.  I heard from Dave that a brewing store close to my house, Main Street Homebrew, in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon may have some recipes.  I found a great book there called, “Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop” by Stephen Cresswell.  The book has numerous root beer recipes.  The main ingredient called for is sassafras root bark.  The problem is, sassafras root bark is very hard to find.  So, while still in the store, I decided to purchase some extracts AND stop by New Seasons to purchase some herbs called for in the various recipes.  I figured the beverage would have my own unique herb twist on it this way and I wouldn’t risk ending up with something undrinkable.  So, I picked up some extracts and Main Street Homebrew and asked them if they sold any yeast for the carbonation process.

Making Bombs

When I asked them about the yeast, the man behind the counter gave me a dreadful warning that making root beer with yeast is like making bombs.  He said it was too dangerous as the bottles have a high likelihood of exploding.  He also said that they had a high likelihood of fermenting the root beer and so it was a very poor way to make root beer.  The method he suggested instead was carbon dioxide infusion.  This required a carbon dioxide tank and regulator (I borrowed this from Dave) and a cornelious keg, which I purchased from Main Street Homebrew.  It was used and set me back about $45.  With the extracts and the book, I spent about another $25. More on the carbonation technique later.

Herbs

I’ve always been mesmerized by the list of ingredients on the Virgil’s root beer packaging.  I’ve tried to let the root beer slowly pour across my tongue to see if I could taste each of the many ingredients.  I knew that I wanted my root beer to be just as adventurous and diverse.  I stopped by New Seasons on the way home and they had almost everything I was looking for.  I purchased dandelion root, licorice root, star anise, cloves, cinnamon sticks, juniper berries, and wintergreen.  This set me back about another $20.  Man, this better be some good root beer.

At home, I added all of the ingredients to a pot of water, brought it to a boil, and then let it simmer for an hour.  It smelled really good!  Even without the sassafras, it smelled like a rich, full bodied root beer.  After it had simmered, I added in raw sugar to sweeten it.  It tasted good.  It was very herbal but needed that root beer flavor.  I added in a half bottle of the Zataran’s extract, a quarter of the birch beer extract, and a quarter of the cream soda extract.  The mixture was thick and tasted great.  Now for the carbonating.

Rock and Roll

I poured the root beer brew into the keg and then added four more gallons of water.  This filled up the keg.  I closed it off and then set it in a cooler filled with ice and salt.  I don’t have an extra refrigerator so this was the best way I could chill it down.  Once the mixture was quite cold, I hooked up the carbon dioxide tank, set it to 30 psi, and bled out the oxygen from the keg.  I closed up the keg and then set the regulator to 30 psi again, set the ice cold keg on my knees while sitting down, and rocked it back and forth.  This process is what carbonates the root beer.  After about 7 minutes, I tasted the root beer and it was PERFECT.

Rich, Creamy, and Frothy

My friends and I got together that weekend.  I brought over the homemade root beer and it was a hit.  The root beer poured great.  It was rich and dark, and created the perfect amount of creamy froth.  It tasted great as each herb could be tasted every so slightly while leaving a nice wintergreen finish.  The root beer lasted another few weeks as the keg provided a never ending supply.  I re-carbonated it a couple of times but it always had a nice pour.  Even thought I did use some extract, as the sassafras root is a bit elusive, the beverage was great and I dare say even better than Virgils.

In hopes of entering the contest again this year, I attempted redemption, remembering something I read awhile back in “Beer: The Story of the Pint ,” an out of print history of beer. According to the book legend, the Porter style was born in attempting a re-creation of “Three Threads,” a labor-intensive 18th-Century beverage combining equal parts ale, beer and “twopenny,” aka strong ale. The author doubts have been raised as to the veracity of this legend, but the idea of mixing different beers to create something better appealed to me.

To that end, I decided to create a new beer based on the hyper-bitter fresh hop beer combining the uber-bitter with a second batch of beer, this one with no bittering hops at all. I brewed a very simple five gallon batch of wort using 6 pounds Extra Light dried malt extract that I dry-hopped with 2 ounces of Amarillo pellets.

On bottling day, I siphoned off the bitter brew into my bottling bucket first, bottling a few bottles at 100% strength to see how they’d change with some age (I suspect they will be no more drinkable in a year, but who knows?). The bitter beer filled the bucket about halfway, and I topped off with the non-bitter beer. After gently stirring a few minutes, I bottled with that mixture until the bucket was half empty, and I again topped off with the non-bitter. In this way, I created three different blends of the beer, which was kind of fun.

After letting the different blends percolate in the bottle for 10 days, I sampled the 50% bitter and 33% bitter mixtures, eventually selecting the least-bitter beer for my entry. Last Sunday, I dropped off three 12-ounce bottles and my completed entry form.

Karl Ockert (Bridgeport’s Brewmaster) and Jeff Edgerton (Assistant Brewmaster) greeted Sarah and I when we arrived at noon, and presented us with a souvenir gift bag as thanks. Sitting down at one of the linen-covered, candlelit tables, I pawed through the bag’s contents: a “Keep Portland Beered!” bumper sticker, the ubiquitous Bridgeport keychain, and three custom golf tees. The highlight was definitely a 22 ounce bottle of the 2008 Hop Harvest Ale. “A pretty good exchange for three bottles of poorly-made homebrew,” I thought to myself. A few minutes later, Jeff sweetened the pot still further with a “Keep Portland Beered” t-shirt that he forgot to add to the bags on first pass. Score!

I made my way to the bar and ordered a Hop Harvest. At last year’s reception, they had several vintages of Hop Harvest on tap, which was fun to compare, but this year they had just the 2008 version (in addition to their regular lineup).

My first sip was somewhat reassuring – the Hop Harvest this year has a pretty bitter kick, with 70 IBUs, and an alcohol backbone to handily deliver the blow. My beer, “Two Threads IPA,” had bitterness and alcohol, too! But, there was a fresh, “green” quality to the Bridgeport version that mine was lacking completely. My beer was pretty one-dimensional, while theirs had complexity and some depth.

At 12:45 or so, the complimentary buffet was unveiled. Last year’s spread was pretty incredible to this bunch of unshaven beer nerds, and this year’s smorgasbord was no different. I loaded up my tiny plate to overflowing with homemade pretzels, various works of charcuterer’s art, chicken skewers, baked brie and Old Knucklehead BBQ meatballs. I’d have taken pictures, but my hands were pretty full trying to keep the free food on my plate!

Once the crowd of 25 brewers and companions had been through the serving line, Karl gave a photo slideshow on the hop harvesting process as well as their fresh hop brewing process. This year’s Hop Harvest gained its fresh hop flavor using a hopjack/hopback exclusively, filtering the cooled wort through 220 pounds of fresh Centennial cones before diverting to the fermenter. Last year’s version got its fresh hops after primary fermentation, injecting 250+ pounds with a fresh dose of sugar and letting the beer further condition in the fermenter before bottling. It was really interesting to hear first-hand how they approach the problem, and tinker with the recipe. Apparently, this year’s version is based on an old version of Blue Heron, amped up a bit to get to 7% abv.

Karl sat with Sarah and I before the slideshow, and he mentioned his frustration with some of the blogs’ Diageo bias. According to Karl, Diageo is just 20 people in an office in Texas, and he has complete freedom to brew whatever he wants. The only limiting factor is the size of their brewing setup: Bridgeport brews in such large quantities it can be hard to “fail.” Every new beer they make is a “live fire” at full scale.

Through the slideshow, he dropped a few more tidbits, talking about the severe, and largely silent malt price increases (doubled in 2008 and will likely double again in 2009), as well as the his prediction that the hop shortage should be largely over in 2009 as new acreage comes online.

Finally, it was time to reveal the winners. From 28 brewers and 41 entries using 12 hop varieties, the folks at Bridgeport selected 5 prize winners:

• Honorable Mention: Mark Easton, “IPA Lot,” featuring Cascade, Crystal and Willamette Hops
• Honorable Mention: Steve Brainerd, “Wet Cascade IPA,” featuring Cascade Hops
• Third Place: Tom Litwin, “Chicken Creek Fall Classic # 2,” featuring Cascade, Simcoe and Amarillo Hops
• Second Place: Steve Munch, Ray Berardinelli, Dean Duncan and Steve Carter, “Harvest Gold,” featuring home-grown Cascade and Willamette Hops
• First Place: Krisen Lunden, “Felony Flats Fresh Hop Ale,” featuring home-grown Goldings and Willamette Hops

Predictably, my beer was not selected as a winner, but it was again a lot of fun, and I really thank Bridgeport for putting such a cool event on. I will definitely enter again next year.

If I could provide one critique (since they apparently listened last year and pushed the entry deadline back!), though, it would be this:

Sam Adams’ Longshot contest is not as awesome in either the prize or reception department, but one thing I do like is that they provide entrants tasting notes and feedback. It’s not often we get direct access to some of our favorite brewers, and it would be nice to hear some tips from the Bridgeport gang on where we went south. To Karl’s credit, he took notes on the beers he tasted and willingly shared his thoughts after the presentation to those who asked, but he only tasted the top 12 entries and so had incomplete notes. Of particular interest, Karl mentioned in his presentation that there were some infected beers and some that went too far in the opposite direction: they were infected with sanitizer. I hope I wasn’t in either category, but I don’t have any good way of knowing.

As the days get shorter and the hop cones start to weigh down your vines, it’s time to plan your fresh hop homebrew. A few tips from the woefully ill-informed and hungover.

Just to set the scene: We met over at Dave’s, since he has the most mature vines. We also made the second voyage of the converted-keg, all-grain homebrew set up. The false-bottomed all-grain was our brilliant downfall.

Tip 1: Bag the fresh hops. Unless you have some brilliant method for avoiding the stuck run-off, (Yes, we had a false bottom. Yes, we tried stirring.) the fresh cones come apart and clog your drain. We ended up pouring it out of the top of the keg into the carboy, which was pretty lame, messy, and probably unsanitary. If you DO know how to let the cones swim free in the false-bottom keg conversion without causing a clog, please leave us a comment below. Seriously.

Tip 2: Pace your drinking anytime you’re brewing all-grain. Extract brewing takes what? Two hours? With all-grain, you could be out there six hours or so. Mix in some highly potent homebrew and archive beers, and when those hops get stuck, you’ll be in no frame of mind to figure a smart solution.

Tip 3: Don’t plan anything for the next morning. I think this tip comes from Dave.

Tip 4: Don’t talk politics, especially at the end of the night.

Tip 5: Don’t be afraid of the canned bacon. As the fresh-hop homebrew festival fell at the end of Bacon Week, we sampled:

• Bacon brittle
• Bacon cookies
• BBQ bacon
• BLTs
• Bacon burgers
• Canned bacon

Tip 6: Do be very, very afraid of the intestinal aftermath of combining lots of homebrew, BBQ bacon, BLTs, bacon burgers, bacon brittle, bacon cookies, and canned bacon. Be prepared to sleep on the couch.

Tip 7: Do not use homebrew to put out a BBQ bacon grease fire.

Tip 8: Use the mostly green hops. The scent was not as hoppy as I would’ve expected considering we picked and dropped fresh hops into the boil for nearly the full hour. What type of hops were they? If you know how to identify hops, please call us. Operators are standing by.

In all, another great day in Dave’s backyard. I believe the girls from FU Cheese even made a cheese press in Dave’s woodshop, but that tale will have to wait for another day.

This trip, I spotted something unusual amidst their already-limited macro-ish taps: Budweiser’s new American Ale. The things I do for science …

I’m no Bud-hater, but I’m not a lover, either. I drank a lot of Budweiser in high school and college, and still reach for one in certain situations. It’s more flavorful than its “lite” counterparts, and it brings some nostalgia along with it. Still, I have developed a reputation as a beer snob around the office, and this wasn’t the only picture taken of me swilling a macro.

How’d it taste? Like Bud, but Bud-ier. I actually got a Bud bottle for comparison’s sake. The lager was more effervescent, and certainly lighter in color, which you could tell even through its brown bottle. The American Ale was a bit less carbonated, fuller bodied, and definitely left a hop-ish finish in my mouth, which the lager has never done.

I read some books when I was a kid about a boy named “Homer Price” that were amazingly-illustrated and full of fun. In one story, someone brings an automatic doughnut-making machine to town, and it runs amok, making WAY too many doughnuts. In the one that I loved best, a salesman comes to town selling vials of a product called “Ever So Much More So.” The idea is that you sprinkle a bit of it on things you already like, and it makes them taste like that, but ever so much more so. That’s what American Ale is like to me: it’s Bud, but Ever So Much More So. More flavorful, more deeply colored, and thicker. But it’s still Bud.

I would drink both beers again, but I’d be less likely to seek out the American Ale than I would the Bud lager. There are too many other ales widely available that I’d prefer (even Fat Tire) to this one. But Bud is … well … Bud. Always has been. Always will be.

Only one bottle broke in shipment, but unfortunately it was a Westvleteren 12. Everything else fared well, if a little sticky. A quick rinse, and these babies are headed for the basement. I’m planning on archiving the Westvleterens for awhile, but I will probably do a sour beer tasting of the others at some point in the near future. Here’s a complete list of what I sent myself, from left to right:

• 4 bottles Westvleteren Blonde
• 4 bottles Westvleteren 8
• 3 bottles Westvleteren 12
• 1 bottle Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze
• 1 bottle Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze Vintage
• 1 bottle Echt Kriekenbier
• 1 bottle Rodenbach Vin de Cereale
• 1 bottle Rodenbach Grand Cru
• 1 bottle Hanssens Oude Gueuze
• 1 bottle Struise Pannepot 2006

Also, I posted our trip photos to Flickr yesterday. The ones tagged BSBrewing are beer-related, but you can peek at the whole set if you are feeling voyeuristic or enjoy photos of ruined castles and chateaus.

Well, I have to say, “carboy happily bubbling away” would be music to my ears. On Saturday, I brewed a brown ale, from the Charlie Papazian’s lesser-known, but equally, if not more awesome “Microbrewed Adventures.” In it, he shares with the reader tales from his years of beer travels, with each beer providing both a short story and an accompanying recipe. Unfortunately, the index isn’t well “cross-linked,” so I can tell you nothing about the origin of the beer I made, save for its title in the recipe section: “Puritanical Nut Brown Ale,” which I clocked at 1.058.

I’d had the ingredients for this beer since sometime before Christmas, including the yeast, which I’d stored in the fridge for the day I brewed. Unfortunately, in the months between purchase and use, the yeast (White Lab’s Burton Ale Yeast), passed its “best by” date. Bruce and Thom have both shared their unhappiness with this particular strain, but I can’t blame it completely – it was expired. But as of tonight – not a single gurgle from the carboy at all, which seems a little strange to me.

I had an Imperial Stout from a few weeks back (1.090) that needed moving to secondary, so I decided to play a new game I call “musical carboys.” I sanitized an empty fermenter, and transferred the stout into it, adding some toasted oak chips (I was drinking some amazing birthday Top Sail from Todd as I concocted this plan, so it felt right).

Once the original stout carboy was emptied, I racked the brown ale onto the stout’s American Ale (from Wyeast, my trusted, yeasty ally) yeast cake, hoping that its American can-do attitude will do what the boys from Burton couldn’t. Genius, no? I think I’ve read about this technique on the internets before, but I thought it was more than a little MacGyver.

The true test will come tomorrow – what will I hear? Bruno Allegro, or Bruno Adagio? I’ll report back in 24 bars.