Brewing Math Blues

It happens to me at least once a month.  I pour someone a glass of beer, wait patiently for their reaction, analyze facial expressions and rate of consumption until–

“What’s the alcohol content?”

And then I panic.  I realize I don’t know.  I haven’t even done the math yet.  I frantically search my brew log, scour my brewer’s notes.  I thumb through those little scraps of paper and piles of old receipts with gravity readings recorded on them.  I pray I wrote the numbers down somewhere.  I pull out my phone–there must be an app for this.

What in the world is the alcohol content?

“Ah-” I say.  “Isn’t it better than Budweiser?”

I must admit, I tend to shy away from numbers.  While I like to act like I can talk gravities and attenuation and psi and whatever with the Home-Brewer’s Association elite, I’d really be nothing without my smart phone.  I’ll download every app in existence if it means I can avoid crunching the numbers on my own.  Even converting ounces to pounds makes my head spin,  decimals are a bizarre form of torture, and percentages will be the death of me.

In short, I hate math.

I didn’t always hate math.  I was actually rather good at it in high school.  I used to keep two notebooks with me during class–one for equations and one for poetry–and I never felt lost or confused.  I knew my way around a graphing calculator.  Euclid and Pythagorus were old friends.  But something happened between then and now that magically erased all my math skills, and turned my confidence with numbers into fear.

After high school, I went to college.  Emerson College, to be exact.

Emerson is better know for its Quidditch team than for mathematical prowess.  It wasn’t until I graduated and started brewing that I came face to face with equations once more and found, to my dismay, that my mind was blank.  I had lost it.  Simple numbers stumped me.  Even Sudoku was difficult.  I had learned how to write and forgotten how to subtract and multiply and divide.

In my defense, the equation for Alcohol by Volume is nothing to sneeze at.

Thanks, Wikipedia.

There are decimals and parenthesis and abbreviations in there.  There are multiple steps.  I’d have to pull PEMDAS out of my back pocket.  Sometimes it’s just more than a little writing major can handle.

So I stick with my apps, I crunch the numbers in advance, and imagine that some day I’ll be industrious enough to work on regaining my math skills.  But until then, I think I’ll just write about it.

1,000 Words

Apparently I am still on a ten-month blog post schedule. Hopefully I can change that.  So, rather than writing about the things I’ve done since New Years, I decided I would sum it up with a picture.

Photo courtesy of Shannon Harwood

Welcome back to the homestead.

Auld Lang Syne

It’s the ending and beginning of things.

This is my obligatory New Years post.  This is the post I’m supposed to write to tell everyone all the amazing things I’ve done in the past year and what I’m looking forward to in the future.

Here’s the truth: 2013 was not very exciting.

I made a lot of beer and I drank a lot of beer.  I moved to all-grain brewing.  I left Boston and my favorite homebrew supply store behind.  I helped write four drinking games.  And I didn’t play World of Warcraft at all.

And that’s about it.

At the turn of the year I find myself thinking about mistakes, about all those things I was not proud of, and I promise myself that I’ll be smarter and wiser and nicer and better looking and more sociable and obtain super powers.  But that never happens magically, as the clock strikes midnight and the calender turns over.

So last year, I decided to simply be more accepting of myself, and I think it’s been the only resolution I’ve ever been able to keep.  This year, there was no self-deprecating introspection and wondering why I’m not a better person.  This year, I greeted the new year with a beer in hand, and promised myself I would just enjoy 2014, whatever it brings.

Happy New Year!

Election Day

What did you do?

Today,  I went to the church near my house and I voted.  I voted the way I assume many other Americans before me have voted–uninformed.  I asked my mom who/what I should vote for and filled in the ballot according to her answers.  I gave a thumbs up to whoever was in the democratic slot.  I deliberated on Prop 5 for all of ten seconds.  I took more care coloring in the bubbles with my black Sharpie than I took deciding which bubbles to fill in.  When in doubt, I voted for the Common Sense party of Parma, because what the hell is that? And then I went home a brewed a batch of beer.

The experience made me examine (after the fact, of course) what it is that’s really important to me.  I realized I spent more time with my head in the hops fridge at the brewing store deciding between US Fuggles and UK Fuggles than I ever have spent deciding who I’m going to vote for.  I think more about which yeast strain would be best for the style I’m brewing than I do about small-town political theater.  I took at least a half hour today careful inputing every step and ingredient into my brew log for posterity, while voicing my opinion at the polls took only a minute and a half.

And, at the same time, I don’t feel that bad about it.  I watch CNN religiously; I vote, informed, in the big elections.  And even though I can’t say who the superintendent of the highway is, or what the hell the Common Sense party of Parma stands for, but I sure can tell you a lot about beer.

So get out there and brew–or go vote!

Four Minutes to Fall

Autumn will always be my favorite season in Upstate New York.

I have always loved the excitement of fall, the way nature prepares itself for the winter ahead and humans follow suit.  As a child, long hours after school were spent playing in the woods behind our cabin, shaking the ash trees to make the leaves fall in colorful patterns of red and gold.  Along my street, acorns were gathered, apples were picked, pumpkin seeds were roasted to perfection.  My father would clean his muzzleloader on the kitchen table and my mother would make fresh apple sauce, while my sisters and I donned warm sweaters and tramped door to door selling Girl Scout cookies.  Autumn was everywhere around me back then.

Even now, home smells like fresh cut wood, log fires keeping the autumn chill at bay, and drying maple leaves.  It smells like hot apple cider and simmering venison stew, lumpy with potatoes, carrots, and tender chunks of meat.

And home, most of all, tastes like pumpkin ale.

I have been drinking pumpkin beer for over a month now.  I started early this year.  Formerly, I’ve thought it was a crime to start drinking it before September first, but when I found a six-pack of Red Hook’s Out of Your Gourd Pumpkin Porter in the liquor store, I knew I had to try it.  Not knowing much about the availability of beer the small town I was moving to, I rationalized, “What if I can only get this in Boston?” and bought it without another thought.

It didn’t stop there.  By mid-August pumpkin ales had started to appear on tap in the bars, complete with a fall spice rim around the edge of my glass.  I couldn’t stop–I was hooked.  So when September finally came I was a bit relieved,  I no longer had to break the rules to enjoy pumpkin beer to my heart’s content.

Around the middle of September I started thinking about my own pumpkin beer recipe.  Last year, it left a lot to be desired.  Mostly, it just tasted like a beer.  So my sister and I decided to up our game this year.  We’re going to make an imperial pumpkin ale, made with real pumpkin, and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a hint of vanilla.  This is going to be the real deal.

I thought it would be cool to make it on Mabon (the Autumnal Equinox) to give it that extra special pagan touch–if you’re into that kind of thing–and have it ready to drink for our Halloween festivities this year.  So that means I’m making it right now.  As I write.  With pumpkin-stained hands from roasting and preparing a pie pumpkin.  With only a few minutes left until it’s officially my favorite season of all–Autumn.

Happy Fall, everyone!

Brewing: Pumplestiltskin Imperial Pumpkin Ale
Primary: Apple Amber Ale, Elderberry Melomel
Secondary: Fresh-Brewed Choc
Drinking: Busch Light–Free and Cold

A Bucket of Choc and Other Adventures

One of my favorite movies of all time is Clint Eastwood’s 1976 masterpiece, The Outlaw Josey Wales.  This is something my father and I have in common.  Even so, when he asked me to brew up some choc beer, I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You know, choc, like in the Outlaw Josey Wales.”

Choc is mentioned in one scene, when Josey Wales goes into a trading post and finds a couple of trappers who are attempting to rape the young woman who works at the post.  While this is going on, the owner of the post offers Josey some “good-brewed choc,” which he declines, and instead goes to confront the trappers.  One of the trappers stands up and tells the owner “Give me a bucket of that choc!” which he knocks back before pulling his gun on Josey.

And the rest is Josey Wales being a badass.

So I hit the books–or the internet, really–to see what I could learn about choc.  I found a handful of recipes, none of which seemed like something Josey Wales would drink.  I wanted the real thing: 1800s Oklahoma Choctaw beer.

I found several articles on the beer that was originally made by people of the Choctaw nation–courtroom accounts of people arrested for making it during Prohibition, a few that described the look of it, some quotes from people who made it or drank it–but no documents that said, definitively, what was in it.  I gathered it was made with barley and hops, of course, some wheat, corn, or whatever was around, and often spiced with berries or herbs or even tobacco.

Well, my dad was all for using tobacco as an adjunct, but I wasn’t looking to kill anyone, so I settled on a modest grain bill, some good old American hops, and the closest things I could get to fishberries and bitterroot (elderberries and milkweed),  So it’s not entirely authentic, and I’m sure there are a bunch of experts or old Oklahomans who would say I’m way off, but here’s the recipe I came up with.

Fresh-Brewed Choc – 1 gallon

September 8, 2013

1 lb US 2-Row
.75 lb White Wheat
.25 lb Flaked Corn (Maize)

Steep grains in 1.25 gal at 155 degrees for 1 hour.
Sparge with another .75 gal.  Bring to boil.

Add:
1/2 oz Cluster – 60 minutes
1/2 oz Cluster – 30 minutes
A palmful of dried elderberries – 5 minutes
A bunch of young milkweed leaves (boiled ahead of time) – 5 minutes

Remove from heat.  Cool and transfer to the fermenter.
Pitch yeast.  1/2 a packet of Safale US-05, rehydrated.

OG: 1.040 – I wished it was higher.  I think if I do it again I’ll use more 2-Row just to give it the extra kick historical Choc reportedly had.

So, with my bucket of choc happily bubbling, I went onto my next adventure–finding a job.  I’ve challenged myself to apply for one job for every gallon I brew, and hopefully something will pan out.  I have a few irons in the fire so far.

In an effort to make my unemployment somewhat useful, I decided it was time to network with some of the brewers in my area.  That brought my lovely sister, Shannon, and I to our first ever Upstate New York Homebrewers Association (UNYHA) meeting.  They were doing a homebrew tasting and a masters class on cider making.  Walking in, we definitely got some looks, being two of just five or six women at the meeting.  I felt awkward, of course, because I’m always awkward, but we met a few guys who seemed pretty cool and admitted to us “We don’t see many women around here.”  So we were a novelty, but they made us feel welcome.

And now I’m off to Beer School.

Prost!

Primary: Choc and Elderberry Melomel

Empty Promises

Two weeks ago, I decided that I drink what some (mainly my mother) might term an “unnecessary” amount of beer.  The realization came on a hot sunday night, when we brought home a twelve pack of Brooklyn Summer Ale.  The girls had been drinking vodka cranberries, and I already had two pints of homebrew in my belly, the dandelion ale I’d taken quite a liking to and was consuming at a surprising rate.  Nevertheless, we cracked open a couple of cans on the front porch to escape the heat of the kitchen, where I had five gallons of wort cooling on the stove for a batch of knock-off Blue Moon.

To my defense, it was a brewing day.  Most homebrewers will tell you that, on a brewing day, we naturally drink more.  It’s bad luck if I’m not nursing a pint and listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Dropkick Murphys, with a navy blue bandana tied around my forehead.  The brewing gods are not pleased.  And after brewing, sweaty from the kitchen, I want to drink even more.  Nothing sounds sweeter than the hiss of a cold beer after a long day of mash-sparge-boil, and sanitize, sanitize, sanitize.

So, when the time came to transfer the wort into the fermenter, I was feeling pretty warm.  I was into my cups.  Still, I reached into the fridge for another Summer Ale and found, to my dismay, that the box was empty.  A twelve pack.  We had demolished a twelve pack in the time it took my wort to cool to a reasonable yeast-pitching temperature.  What’s more, I don’t really even like Brooklyn’s Summer Ale–not enough to enjoy guzzling a twelve pack of it, anyway.  Overall, it was rather unnecessary.

I decided I needed an intervention.

The next day, while nursing a hangover and brewing a batch of cyser, I made a promise to myself that I would no longer buy beer to bring home and drink.  I could buy beer ingredients, of course, and pints at the bar, but I would not be buying any more Brooklyn Summer.  This also did not exclude me from drinking OTHER people’s beer, if it happened to find its way into my fridge.  But for the most part, I decided, I’d only be drinking homebrew.

That lasted about a week.

By the next cookout, I was buying a twelve pack of PBR to share, lest we go through too much of my beloved dandelion ale.  The week after, rationalizing that if I used the money I received from returning our empties, it wouldn’t technically be me buying the beer, I brought home a pack of Cisco’s Summer of Lager.  And I enjoyed every sip.

Call it brewing research, call it a bottle drive, call it homebrew preservation–homebrewing just wouldn’t work as well without commercial beer in the fridge.  And why fight it? I’m not drinking a twelve pack by myself, in the darkness of my room.  I drink beer the natural way–with friends, with family, as a celebration, as relaxation, as ritual.  I keep the brewing gods happy.

Prost!

Primary: New Moon Belgian Wit
Secondary: Peppercorn Saison
Drinking: Dandelion Ale, ApriCat Wheat, and everything else.

Sunday Morning

To brew, or not to brew.

And what to brew?

Yesterday turned into a Lone Ranger day when the girls and Bro took off on their various adventures and left me to fend for myself (ice cream and beer for dinner, of course).  Lone Ranger day then turned into a bottling day which forced me to clean out the brew cave after many weeks of just stacking empties against the wall and hoping my other rubber glove will just magically reappear.  To my surprise, I found I have 10 cases of ready-and-willing homebrew currently at my disposal.  And yet I sit here sipping coffee.

And yet I still want to brew more.

I have two more months left in this city.  I have one more month of rent to pay.  I have 120 beers to drink.

Challenge accepted.

Leaving Boston is bittersweet for me.  I’ve loved and hated this city ever since I moved here four years ago.  I made something of a patchwork home here, in the bars and the subways and the manicured bits of nature.  Boston taught me street smarts and pub culture, what love is and how to catch a free ride on the green line.  She taught me how to kiss and how to say no.  She taught me how to drink.  Most importantly, she taught me that she is not mine, and never will be.

My place is trees and roots and sky–log cabin homes and beer on the back porch.  My place is a place where everything smells like earth, like grass and leaves and rain and snow, like dirt, like dogs.   It smells like childhood, like my father, his motor oil and Old Spice scent, his sweat from chopping wood and fixing cars and working on the roof.  It sounds like my sister singing the blues and my mother’s airy laughter.  It tastes like innocence, looks like a painting, and feels like home.

New York.  That’s what puts the home in homebrew.

I’ll miss it though–the MBTA and the parks and Brendan Behan’s.  My Boston family.  My students.  The Homebrew Emporium.  Shakespeare on the Common, Haymarket.  Spare Change Newspaper and cannoli from Mike’s.  Evacuation Day.  And beer–all that beer.

Best make the most of the time I have left.

Primary: Peppercorn Saison
Bottled:  ApriCat Wheat, Dandelion Ale

Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day, to the man who taught me what beer was all about.

Prost!

Up and Running

After a ten-month hiatus, Harwood Homebrews is officially up and running.

Here’s what you’ve missed:

September: Punkass Pumpkin

October:  Smoked Apple Ale

November: Maple Nut Brown Ale

December: Chestnut Porter, Mocha Stout

January: Forever Alone Raspberry Porter

February: Rat Bastard Red Ale

March: Catcher in the Rye IPA, Night’s Watch Belgian Dark Ale

April: Boston Red Ale, White Wedding Belgian Witbier, ApriCat Wheat Ale

May: Undead Pilot Ale, Dandelion Ale

June has been pretty uneventful so far.  With only two months left before the big move back to Rochester, I’ve decided I need to get some homebrew stockpiled for a Goodbye Boston party.  Next on the list is a Peppercorn Saison and another Belgian Wit, and maybe something with chili peppers in it.  I’m all about the spice, lately.

Well, see you in another ten months!