Monday, October 6th, 2008
I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist, my glass is clearly empty.
I have been drinking my Irish Stout at a healthy pace. I don’t think I have been having too much of it, although at times, I have thought I haven’t had enough. It seems to get better tasting over time. Every so often, I go to the store to grab a few six-packs of some neat little micro-brew that I haven’t tried yet. Those are usually awesome, but I still would love having 65 of those awesome beers in the cabinet…made by me.
Since I am now running low on my home made beer, I decided to give a call to my friends over at Makebeer.net. I read a recipe on their blog on how to make “Chocolate Vanilla Stout.” This recipe intrigued me because it wasn’t your typical fairy beer, like most beers in the world. I am sure you know my taste in beer by now. Let’s see…ok, if you can throw a beer at a wall and the wall breaks, I like the beer.
I talked to the fella at the other end of the line for a while, who was pretty eager to help out. I was most appreciative for that. He seemed to understand my issue (all their beers are too light). We talked about the Chocolate Vanilla Stout. He said he didn’t care for the vanilla part of the recipe. I told him that I like coffee chocolate stout. He looked up a recipe and gave me some information on how to make that.
Basically, I need to make the Irish Stout beer that I have made before. Before I pitch the yeast, I need to mix in 100 grams cocoa powder and a quarter pound of ground coffee. The coffee has to be in some sort of a sack. I have to think about what that sack will be.
I ordered the Irish Stout beer kit and am working on the other ingredients. Remember, this is the first beer that I will be making that isn’t strictly from a kit. Sure, it’s not too involved, but I still think I’m special.
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Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
A few days ago, I took at look through Amazon and MakeBeer.net to see if the Coopers Irish Stout I have been waiting for was back in stock. It has been unavailable since before St. Patrick’s Day. I guess all the Irish scooped it up.
Guess what? I was in luck. A new shipment of ingredients had arrived from Australia. I quickly ordered the Irish Stout kit and it arrived today. This is just in the nick of time, because I am running really low on my existing batch of regular Stout.
I am pretty excited about this upcoming batch. The ingredients include some extra malt for some reason. It says that it gives the beer a better head retention and something else…I forget. Whatever…if it makes the beer better, I’m on board.
I mixed everything togther tonight and placed the jug downstairs near the boiler. It’s a warmer, constant temperature down there. The brew has to stay between 70 and 80 degrees.
Here, I took some pics…
It’s pretty hard to take pictures in the dark. I had to turn on the flash, which I hate to do.
This was going to be my favorite shot, but it came out a little blurry. I tried to clean it up in Photoshop.
Here is that familiar jug we have all gotten used to by this point.
I really hope this batch comes out good because I have been waiting for it for a long time.
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Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
The UPS guy came today and dropped off my Coopers Stout beer kit this afternoon. Now, if you remember, I was forced to get the regular Stout, instead of the Irish Stout because the company was out of the Irish Stout. The guy said something about St. Patty’s Day coming up or something like that. I guess that means people are out there brewing Irish Stout without me. I feel kind of lonely.
Anyway, I figured the next best thing would be the regular Stout. Now, just for your information, I will compare regular Stout with Irish Stout. Regular Stout is like drinking from a garden hose and Irish Stout is like swimming naked in a hot spring in Iceland. Needless to say, Irish Stout is much better. In order for the regular stout to be good, I am going to have to mix it up with some other stuff. Since this is only my second batch of home brew, I will make this one the regular way. After this and then the Irish Stout, I am going to get a little crazy.
Here is what I got today. The yeast is under the cap on the can.
Also, I am going to need those bottle…FAST.
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