Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Green Beer for St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day takes place on March 17th of every year. It's a day that is celebrated by people around the world, but originated in Ireland as a religious day to celebrate the teachings of Christianity by St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland. Because St. Patrick is the Patron Saint, the day became a national holiday.

Although the holiday is still a tradition in Ireland as well as other countries around the world, it is the United States and Canada that added the drinking of green beer to the tradition of St. Patrick's Day. The trend has widely caught on, as has wearing green clothing, so much so that if you ask any college kid today how he or she celebrates St. Patty's and you'd be sure to hear the definitive answer: "By wearing green and drinking green beer!" But if you happened to be in Ireland for the holiday, you probably wouldn't be able to even find the leprechaun-colored libation at any bar.

The tradition of wearing green was also made in the USA, and it's said to represent people showing their Irish roots or heritage for the day. In Ireland, they don't wear green to celebrate, but they do adorn their clothing with shamrock pins to symbolize the teachings of the holy trinity by St. Patrick.

Keeping with the tradition of using St. Patrick's Day as an excuse to throw a party, it's also not uncommon in the U.S. to see green-colored foods or pot-of-gold themed desserts on the appetizer table - next to the green beer or Guinness, of course.

Making Green Beer

Luckily for any party planner (or party-goer), making green beer is incredibly simple - so simple, in fact, that you won't even need to call upon beer brewing schools to do it. Here are the necessary supplies and steps to create the popular drink.

You'll Need:

Beer (light or dark colored)
Green food coloring (liquid, not gel)
A mug or glass

Instructions:

First, place two drops of green food coloring into the bottom of your beer mug or glass. Next, add the beer. You don't need to stir as pouring the beer will mix the liquids together on its own. That's it - you've got your green beer.

Items of Note:

Although two drops of green food coloring is enough to make your beer green, you may want to add more if you are looking for a darker shade. Do remember though that a little food coloring goes a long way, so don't put too many drops into one glass. Also, if you are using dark beer, the green color will naturally be darker. On another note, be careful when using the food coloring as it will temporarily stain your skin as well any clothing it comes in contact with.

Sources

YourIrish.com

MyRecipes.com

Friday, October 28, 2011

New Site

Hey Beer lovers!


I just upgraded the site to winkbrew.com, although it includes all the old things it will be updated more regularly and have NEW exciting information. So if the Home Brew doesn't need immediate attention be sure to explore the new site as well, to make sure, not to miss any important home brewing information!

(I know that a lot
of bloggers get free content for websites from Article Writing
Services
, but I will continue to provide original posts.)

Monday, August 22, 2011

Starting my own Brewery.

Imagine walking into a store and seeing your own beer on the shelf or being at a party and watching someone drinking your beer, and then being able to tell people about it and all the hard work, dedication, and love you put into that bottle. Wow, just thinking about it makes a true brewery "wannabe"owner daze off and smile.

I've been debating to myself what would be the best plan of attack to execute one of these things successfully.
And I devised a list of things that are important to consider.


  1. Starting Size - Ok I think we all know why this is a huge complication. So here's the problem; brewing equipment is very expensive.
    If you start too big with a bunch of loans/investors you might not be able to find all the costumers right off the back and run into big losses your first few years of operations which many breweries I read about reported. Then again you
    On the other hand if your too small then you might be able to handle the demand and growing can be very costly, as well as running a pica - micro size brewery can become very labor intensive. Therefore you don't have to be pressured with high operational costs, quickly find a large audience, and forced to having a steady beer. 
  2. Brewpub - Many brewers know about the successful story of Sam founder of Dogfishead craft brewery. He started out with 200,000$ and spent roughly 97.5% of the money on the restaurant and the remaining 5K on brew equipment. (info. from book) for him luckily it worked out perfect and the Brewpub brought in many local fans that loved the beer so the beer had a good foundation to build off of and had a hometown with "stem" customers or ones that always came back.
    Brewery -
Here's an interesting site that also talks about the topic and has it's own set things to wrap your mind around.

Article Under construction - my B 

Additionally, take advantage of online business
programs
.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Beer TV

For someone that deeply enjoys the craft of brewing it is always exciting when a beer show, movie, or documentary turns on. For some reason its hard to stay off your toes and get deeply into it and become extremely judgmental of everything that goes on.
So if you just got done brewing or are to lazy to keep brewing but still got the crave for some good Beer amusement grab yourself a Ice Cold One and watch one of these.

TV - (Of course Netflix makes this process a little easier..)

Internet Based



These are just some from the top of my head, I'll be adding more all the time


And remember the best thing after you drink an Ice cold beer...
                                                                       ... Is Another Ice cold beer :)


Saturday, July 2, 2011

Speidel's Braumeister Pros and Cons

Not sure if you have heard of this nifty brew system but its is an All-In-One Brew Machine that does it all! I came across it when I was looking up information for my electric brew system but after that I have seen it many more times on Home brewing websites and magazines such as BYO.  


Here's my quick take on it, I'll definitely be adding onto this article whenever I here more about it.

Pros
  1. Reduced brew time 
  2. Cuts extra equipment and space in half 
  3. Makes cleaning a breeze
  4. Electronic settings for precision
  5. Stainless Steal material
  6. Made in Germany (you know its not going to break on you after one brew day)

Cons
  1. Cant specialize to the degree a typical 3 tank brew system can (hot water tank, mash-tun, boil tank)
  2. A bit pricy..  Wont get away with it under $2,000
    1. There Site.                                                                                                           http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/index.php/cat/c1_Braumeister.html/XTCsid/6j0ljr8nu8uhc2vjqgaedck3d6
    2. A familiar Home Brewing site. http://morebeer.com/search/104232/beerwinecoffee/coffeewinebeer/Braumeister_Electric_All-Grain_Brewing_Systems



Overall i feel like a sales person when I'm writing this post. 
I'd love to get my hands on one and try it out.

I'll keep adding to this post the more I learn about it.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Fermentation

This is a pretty interesting topic.
When I first started brewing I knew so little about the fermentation stage... and now when I look back at it, it seams that I must of went wrong on every level. Horrible. So heres some basic's.

Ales 

  • Temp: 65-75 deg. 
  • Primary: 10 days normally is enough; 2-3 weeks in primary is another option too if you want to skip a secondary stage.
  • Secondary/Conditioning: 7-12 days of cold conditioning (35-40 deg.) helps most of the remaining sediment drop out and give you a clearer, fresher beer. This is important even for dark beers. More time will only improve the beer too.


Lagers 

  • Temp: 55 deg. 
  • Primary: 10 days normally is enough too, depending on how active the yeast is but normally it will take longer then ales. After most of the fermentation is done and I'm a few points away from my TG I raise the temperatures for 2 days to about 65 deg. to preform a diacetyl rest. I would advise to do a secondary since after the diacetyl rest there will be plenty of sediment which is unwanted in the final conditioning stage of the beer. 
  • Secondary/Conditioning: same as ale.

Also I'd advise getting an auto-siphon if you don't already have one because it will make your racking experience literary a million times more enjoyable.

Let me know if theres anything you have a question about or more information you'd like me to add about a certain part in fermenting.

Check out
California Culinary Schools for more info
.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Measuring your beers alcohol

You can find our your home brewed beers alcohol content by simply plugging in your measured OG and FG and plugging it into this equation.

     *Copy the equation to Google search to quickly get your answer.

 (((1.05 x (OG - TG)) / TG) / 0.79)*100 = Your beers alcohol content.
ex) OG = 1.059
      FG  = 1.015

Plug in the numbers. (((1.05 * (1.05900 - 1.01500)) / 1.01800) / 0.79) * 100 = 
and your beers alcohol content will be 5.74469672 or about 5.8%.  Mmmmm...

Don't forget to measure your Gravity when your done brewing; it is too easy to forget and before you know it all your wort is mixed with the yeast in the fermenter that has no spigot. Great.
And you should be good to go!

Let me know if you have any questions!!