Brewing with the Birthday Boy!

It's the eternal quandary - what to get the person who has everything for his/her birthday, anniversary, or holidays.  We run up against this pretty often in our family; thankfully, most of us have our basic needs met, and while there may be one or two things we have our eyes on, most of our wants are either fairly boring to others and/or hobby specific (while I'll always accept new running gadgets, for example, I generally want to buy those on my own, as I know exactly what I want, in what size, what color, yada yada yada).  We've mainly moved, then, to gifting experiences - taking each other out to dinner or to shows or on trips or something like that.  Now that one of our favorite places in downtown Bixby Knolls, Dutch's Brewhouse (hands up if you've visited us and we've taken you to Dutch's!  Yup, that's a 100% success rate!) has its Brew Your Own (BYO) system fully up and running, we figured that would be a great gift for Dad's recent birthday.

While Dad's birthday is in early April, it took another month to get all four of us in the same city and out of work long enough to put together a brew session.  What?  We were busy.  Dad and Risa made the pilgrimage to our house in the LBC and once Chris and I signed out of our work computers, it was off to DTBK (downtown Bixby Knolls)!

First, we selected a recipe to make from the book available at Dutch's; we knew Dad would likely pick an IPA, his favorite style, but he decided to spice things up a bit by adding some rye, which would give the beer a slightly different taste profile (it really makes things a bit...spicier, or sharper, if you prefer).  Chris also suggested some alternative hops currently in stock at Dutch's, and we were off and running (well, brewing)!

Our base recipe - 

Chris can give you more information

on what hops were subbed in/out.

We started by scooping out the needed grains, in the proper amounts, from the canisters onsite.

All very high tech

Expert supervision

Digging in the rye bucket

Brew kettles, all gleaming and ready to go!

Attempting an artsy shot of the grain containers

Next, it was time for the unexpected workout of the afternoon, milling down the grain (when you buy this at a homebrew shop, they normally do this for you, using an automated grinder):

Mill faster!

All our grains, milled and ready to go.

Also, my feet.

Once the grains were milled, it was time to mash!  The setup at Dutch's is kind of like a giant, much fancier version of our home brew process; while it's still partial extract brewing, you're making 13-15 gallons of beer at a time, versus our piddly little 5.  Just like at our house, brewing starts by taking your specialty grains and soaking them in hot-ish water for a bit, just like you would if you were making tea.

Making sure the water temp is right

is really essential here.

Too low, and the grains won't steep,

but too high, and you'll get all sorts of nasty, tannic flavors.

Dumping in our grains

Brewing, of any sort and on any scale, takes time and lots of patience.  We handled ours by enjoying the fruits of the labor of others, delightfully on tap nearby (like, 4 steps away):

A virtual rainbow of beer

Risa also spent some time wandering the rest of DTBK, looking at the other fun shops in the neighborhood.  Everyone's pretty darn cool around here, so they didn't mind us grabbing some snacks at Cheese Addiction, our new and outstanding cheese shop, and bringing them into Dutch's for noshing.

Mmmm...cheese!

We also enjoyed snacks from Dutch's kitchen,

which is legit - pretzel bites to start,

and once we finished up, we grabbed pizza, too.

While the grains were steeping, it was time to measure out our hops.  Hops are added at different points during the brewing process, some for bitterness, some for flavor, some for aroma, and the like.  Thus, it's important to know how much of what needs to go in and when.

Precise measurements!

This makes the engineer very happy!

Once the grains were steeped, it was time to bring the resulting liquid (we call it "grain tea") up to a boil, so we could stir in the malt extracts and hops at the appropriate times.

I can't remember if this was our batch

or someone elses, but I think we're peeking

at leftover wort here.

Wort is the grain tea mixed with the malt extracts

before the beer is mixed with yeast and becomes alcoholic.

Watching the cauldron boil

Once our boiling time was done (normally, around an hour or so), we used Dutch's fancy pump system to move it into its fermentation vessel, where it would live for the next few weeks.  

If you don't collect stickers and put them all over your stuff,

are you even a brewer?

The pump at Dutch's was being temperamental

while we were there,

so the engineer offered to have a look.

As far as I know, he didn't fix it.

All done!

Well, kind of all done.  After the beer went into the primary fermentation vessel, it's been sitting at Dutch's at the proper temperature for the past few weeks, and soon, we'll be getting ready to keg and bottle it.  Once it's either hooked up to some CO2 or the yeasties (oh yeah, we pitched the yeast into the fermenter as well - that's important) do their dirty work, it'll be carbonated and ready to drink!  

We all had a great time at Dutch's, brewing for Dad's birthday - even though the present was ostensibly for him, we really wanted to try it out, too, and it was a lot of fun.  The staff at Dutch's are all fantastic, so go see them!  If you come to visit us, we'll surely take you, as it remains one of our favorite spots in the area.

Later!

Amy