Brew 1, Day 6: Temperature Woes

So far, so good… I think. I was a little concerned earlier in the week, because I’ve had a slightly difficult time keeping the temperature consistent – I never thought that I’d have such an issue keeping my apartment cool enough in mid- to- late-November, but there it is. The fermometer strip on the side of my bucket is running pretty warm, most of the time sitting just at the edge of the “Ale” range (right around 75 degrees).

The problem is the only decent place to set up camp in my apartment is in the kitchen, where the cat is most of the time locked out, so she can’t harass anything. But it’s a kitchen, so it does tend to heat up from time to time, and when we close everything up for the night (kitchen door, door to the balcony, etc.), the temperature starts to creep up. I don’t have a basement or a spare fridge or anything, so I kinda just have to risk it. I guess this brew will give me a good idea if it works or not.

If it turns out well, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing… if not I might have to improvise. We have a closet by the front door that seems to stay a little cooler than the rest of the apartment… I might need to find a thermometer and get an actual gauge of that. It might be a good place for future fermentations.

Since we have the balcony, I was sort of hoping that in the spring and fall I might be able to stick the bucket or carboy out on the balcony, but I don’t think the temperature would be consistent enough. Stupid New England - Mid-sixties in late November, with the possibility of low forties in early May.

Moving everything over to the glass carboy on Monday for fermentation week 2, and then likely ordering another kit to start up. I need to get up to the homebrew store in Cambridge to pick up some bottles, so I’ll likely take a look around there too. I’m thinking something akin to a winter warmer/spiced ale to get me through February.

Also, a buddy of mine posted this on Twitter: Paste Magazine put together a list of the top 25 American breweries of the decade. It’s a good list, and I don’t necessarily disagree with anyone on there. I just feel like they definitely left a few off, namely Harpoon. Maybe that’s just the Boston pride in me. I'd also throw Smuttynose on there if I had my way. They definitely nailed the top two, though: Allagash & Dogfish Head. Any time I can get my hands on a 60 or 90-min IPA draft, I’m a happy camper, and I would drink nothing but Allagash White and be the most content man on the planet.

The Journey Begins...

Hi. I'm about to start a new hobby. Wanna come?

For the past couple years, since I graduated college, I feel that I've done very little outside of work. I like my job, so that's not a terrible as it might sound, but I work a lot of afternoon-to-night shifts at odd hours, so it makes it hard to get out and do a ton. Lately, especially, I feel like I've gotten into something of a rut where I get up late, play video games for an hour, go to work, come home, go to bed. Because of when my time off is (mornings until about 1 PM, most days), it's not really conducive to going out or seeing people. And I'm getting bored. And cranky.

OK, there's a good chance I was cranky before I got into this rut, but it certainly hasn't helped. So I've been casually looking around for something else fun to do that will get me off the couch a little bit and give me something new to look into. And hey, if I can share it with some like-minded friends and family, even better!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my girlfriend and I figured out awhile back that we transformed into beer snobs. The term isn't really fair, and doesn't completely fit, but it's the closest thing I can think of. We both like good beer. I can't drink a lot of the mass-produced domestic swill that most people my age down (Buds, Millers, Coors, etc). If you like them, there's nothing wrong with them, they're just not my cup of tea (or mug of beer, I guess). I've certainly had them, but after having the good stuff from Harpoon, Dogfish Head, Smuttynose and a number of other fantastic, smaller breweries, I can't imagine any reason to drink the other stuff other than price. And I'm talking dollar drafts. But again, to each his own.

Last month, as a fun weekend thang, the girl and I headed to Harpoon's Boston brewery for a tour and tasting. That was fun, and tasty, but the tour was not exactly in-depth. And I wanna know the in-depth stuff. It's a version of cooking where the chemistry really comes out in force, and if you can get an understanding of what you're doing, you can really tweak the final product in every possible way. It sounded like fun, and I realized shortly thereafter that I had (hopefully) found my new hobby.

I turn 25 next week, and I made the girl blissfully happy by actually telling her what I wanted for my birthday for once. All I wanted was the tools. And since the box was sitting rather conspicuously in the lobby of our building, I opened them up this morning. She wins!

So the brewing adventure begins likely the Monday after next, since I've still got a couple things I need to pick up, and next week is gonna be a busy one. This blog was created with the best possible intent: to document the process in whatever form it takes: successes, discoveries, failures and disasters. Expect pictures, videos and rants of all kinds. I'm looking forward to it.