Trail Building School

Had a good trail building/maintenance class at Wakefield for MORE trail liaisons on Saturday. Lots of good info for sure. Got to do some fun field work, play with Cannycom mechinized wheelbarrow/dump system. I'm now certified to borrow it for use on my trail work days. We also got to play clinometer's to measure the grade of slopes and to try our hand at planning good trail. I learned the 3 big rules, the 15% rule (trail grade). the half rule (of which your trail grade should be half what your actual grade is). And the 10% rule for the averaging of your trail grade over all.

After wards we did a ride of Wakefield, but i had to bail after 40 mins due to a late start on the ride. But got in about 6.5 miles anyways. We were flying, I was wondering why I was dieing. We avg'd out like 9.7 mph. On main trails at wake I usually run fro 7-8 depending on if I'm leading the casual rider group.

Hoping to hit gambrills tomorrow. I redid both derailer's cables this weekend and it needs a bit of tweaking in the morning on the rear d. Gotta pack the stand and cable adjustment tools I guess.

Finally moved Snow Day IPA to secondary. Tastes pretty good so far. Hopefully bottle at the end of next week or so. Rock Bottom beer isn't bad, the stout is got a good bit of coffee'ness and the brown is pretty good. Didn't try anything else.

I need to ride more.

The title says it all. I have been hitting the gym much more regularly than since last spring and I know my core/shoulders are definitely getting stronger, I need to start doing more leg work. My power I think is increasing but the endurance boost just ain't happening.

Case in point, I rode about 30 on Thursday night around the CCT with a tiny bit of Wakefield (less than a mile i'd say). And I went out this morning for a snow ride. Damn my legs were still acting stupid. Now I admit i haven't been eating great and that was on a pretty light breakfast, so I will head out again later once it starts snowing hopefully later this afternoon, or tomorrow I will definitely try and do 10-15.

Ultimately I think to build my endurance it's going to require my getting a road bike. Well I've been looking at some budget SS/Cross rides and i hope maybe after taxes next month I might be able to pony down. Probably something like a Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno or Mercier.

Back to cleaning for me....Brunch break in an 45 mins.

Hope everyone out there is getting in some rides.

Also this afternoon or tomorrow I believe I will finally start what will be called Snow Day Ale, a hoppy little number. Almost an IPA but not quite.

DNK Brewery - Chimay Part Duex

Today I took the first of my gravity readings from the Chimay as it had stopped fermenting visible a few days ago, after about 6 days of good fermentation.

OG I read as 1.079 adjusting to 1.080 for the temp of around 77 degrees at time.
FG I read as 1.012 at a temp of 70'ish so no adjustment necessary.

Giving Final Calculation of: 8.9%'ish Alcohol, 1.024 Real Final Grav, 6.03 Grav Plato, and 263 Cals Per 12 Oz's. A sampling of the pre-secondary beer gave it pretty close to a slightly strong hefe. I'm thinking it should smooth out in the secondary as long as I'm very careful about siphoning the beer and avoid the sediment. As I did this by myself I ended up getting a bit more of the yeast/trub sediment than I wanted.

Tommorow I think I'll start messing with some label designs.

DNK - Chimay Update

Well after a bit of worry on Wednesday at the lack of fermentation, I switched the airlocks and VIOLA last night I had a nice vigorous fermentation. I think the airlock had issues as it seemed to be losing water.

For the week I've got 2 rides in, Monday was CJ for 18.8 miles and last night I got in 17.8 ate wakefield even with having to stop run out to TBL for a tire replacement and getting back at 7. Big props to everyone who helped out as I was supposed to be ride organizer last night, Anne M from TBL ended up leading the casual ride I was supposed to lead.

Tonight I'm either going to go suffer at Fountainhead after work or hit the Black Hills Night ride tonight.

Oh yah my new front tire is a Bontrager XDX Tubeless Ready. I wish it had a bit better defined side knobs but otherwise I really am digging it so far.

DNK Brewery - Chimay Chimay

Well I fired up the brew kettle once again last night, to brew a Brewers Best Ivan's Belgian Tripel, that I replaced the regular yeast on with a Chimay. It was actually one of the smoothest brewing run's I've ever had. And considering the multitasking during, thats pretty amazing!

3 Gallons Distilled Water
4 Oz Crush Aromatic
4 Oz Carapils Malt
Steeped at 160->150 for 25 Mins
7 Lbs Pilsen Light - Spray Dried Malt
8 Oz Malto Dextrin
24 Oz Light Candi Sugar
1 Oz Kent Hops at 4.8% Alpha Acid - Bittering
45 Mins at Rolling Boil
.5 Oz Kent Hops at % Alpha Acid -
15 Mins at Rolling Boil
Cooled to 85 Degrees and let sit for an hour
1 Gal Distilled Water
1 Gal Spring Water
Add Wort
.5 Gal Distilled Water - To Bring to 5
Added Yeast (OOops)
Wyeast 1214 Bel Abbey - Man June 23 2008 - Activated but not full active.

OG with Yeast slurry measured at 1.079 at a temp of 75 Degrees in Fermenter.

As of just now I have about 0 activity observed. Grrrr I may need some yeast nutrients or perhaps to pick up another yeast kit.

DNK Brewery Update - July's End

In a case of being busy and or simply extremely slack I have only now finally bottled the Dunkel and boy was I LAZY! hheehhe. The OG came in a bit high at around 1.009 giving this batch a revoltingly lower Alcohol content of like 4.2% Eeesh! Anyways it smells pretty good but it also came out a bit lighter than I wanted.

In the end its beer, has alcohol, and will taste better than cheap schwill. So I shall share and drink it as opportunity's present themselves.

In other notes, I noticed that this will be my 100'th post on here. Kinda funny with how long I've had this. I barely use my other blog account/service much anymore. Not that I use this a lot either.

Biking wise not much new, did a quick hit yesterday on an unplanned day off taking an hour and change to ride Cabin John. Gotta remember I can get into the trail without going all the way up to the main park off Tuckerman Lane.

Previously about a week and half ago I got to the LB Friday Night Lights Ride, unfortunately I flatted out with about 15-20 mins left and had to push it the mile back. Dave the ride leader led me on the short path back. Otherwise I would have gone what amounted to a VERY long way.

Headed to the coast for a few days early sunday hoping to get in a good bit of touring around the area on the bikes.

To Race or Not To Race

Competition scares me. Or rather I'm hesitant to compete, and that sucks even in my opinion. Damn stupid childhood. I can only question myself in this and try and understand why I dislike it.

I guess I can see parts of it back in High School, especially during team stuff in Phys. Ed. I can clearly remember how frustrating I was in thinks like volleyball and soccer, with how I performed inconsistently, or when my teams would slack off. Funnily I remember not being upset for things like running competitions, or physical work.
In recent years, excluding perhaps Kendo/Iajutsu I've found myself avoiding competitive activities.

So where am I going with this you ask, today after work I headed out intending to ride. As I was driving away I had a random thought that it could possibly be the first Wednesday at Wakefield, but I dismissed it and headed on. Low and behold. I pull in and it's bike city, I head out to the far softball lot and gear up, a quick trip to the race area and I determine that I don't have any cash, so no racing today, which might have been better if I had! Less of a chance to wimp out!

So instead I rode about 16.7 miles of accotink. Nice hills and a few descents that are a bit fun. All the while pondering what would it be like to race, if I could fully set aside expectations and just go out with a desire to win, to ride my butt off and try and do as well as possible without getting frustrated at my placement. I still don't know if I can, I do know I WANT to and thats half the battle.

Afterwards I did go back to the race area to hang out. I got to see the kids awards ceremony and I saw a few folks I know but they were mostly talking with other people, the experts were riding when I was there but they were running fast and I only saw a few groups pass through.

I'm not even going to look at the results for this week regardless. And as of right now I am PLANNING on racing next Wednesday, but we'll see.

In beer news, the beer appears to be fermenting nicely, with a nice foamy head and the airlock was bubbling, pretty well.

DoesNotKnow Brewery Open - Dunkelweizen 1.0

Well, tonight I've finally reopened the brewery. And on tonight's menu, is my home grown Dunkelweizen. It's a bit of a mix in that I've taken some pieces from various recipes and a bit of advice from the local Homebrew Store.

I started out with this recipe

3 Gal - Distilled Water
6 oz - Muntons Crushed Crystal Malt - Lovibond 64.0
4 oz - Weyermann Chocolate Wheat - Lovibond 500/EBC 1000
6.6 lbs- Muntons Wheat Malt Extract (2 Cans)
1 oz - Mt. Hood Hop Pellets - Alpha's at 5.0 - Full Boil, 60 Mins
.7 oz - Mt. Hood Hop Pellets - Alpha's at 3.7 - Final 5 Mins
19 IBU Total

1 Gal Distilled
1 Gal Spring
+ Additional Distilled for 5 Gal after boil loss, spills, etc. - 3 Quarts plus a half cup.
Waste - 3.25 Cups of Wort/Hop Residue/Tube Flush
OG Sample - 1 Cup
Plus I may have overfilled originally by a cup or two.

Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat BL (15Apr08) - I am a bit worried about this as this packet sat in the fridge during a 36 hour power loss, it stayed cool, but not 40's. Unfortunetly I didn't apparently slap hard enough to break the nutrient pack. Lesson learned, final temp of the wort was 74 degree's F.

OG unadjusted is 1.049. Gotta adjust for temp

Muahahahaha!

New components retrieved from the homebrew shop. Soon the next beer will be underway, and I'm stoked. It'll be a partial mash, but the recipe is fast and loose and i'm curious to see how it turns out.

DNK Brewery Notes

Impreza Black Robust Porter -

Ingrediants -
6.6 Lbs Muntons Amber Malt (LME)
8 Oz Crushed Crystal Malt (60L)
4 Oz Crushed Chocolate Malt
4 Oz Crushed Black Patent Malt
1 Oz Cluster Bittering Hops 7.9% Alpha Acid
1/2 Oz Willamette Finishing Hops 4.2% Alpha Acid
2 Gals Distilled Water - Boil -
2 Gals Distilled in Fermenter
1.7 Gals Spring Water in Fermenter (1 to begin, .7 to bring up to 5 gallons total)
11 Grams Yeast - Nottingham Brewing Yeast

Sanitizing -
3 Gals of Water, 3 Table Spoons of No Rinse Sanitizer
Rinse Brewed Pot with 1 Gallon Boil.
Fermenter - 3 gals water, 1 and change caps Iodophor for 20 mins, then dripped dry.

Brewing
Preboiled water before steeping grains at 170'ish for 20 minutes. Temp may have been higher. Thermometer reads different at mount vs center of pot. Swished water around with spoon while trying to minimize disturbance of malt bag. Let bag drip without squeezing/etc. brought Wort back up to boil and added 2 cans of Amber Malt. Added hops and boiled for 55 Mins, added chiller with 10 minutes left. Added aroma hops with 5 mins left. At end of boil used chiller for 3-4 minutes to bring wort temp to about 80 degrees. Next time I will stop a bit higher unless my water in the fermenter is warmer as it was about 62 degrees. Set the pot up on my worktable in the basement, and put the fermenter below and the big funnel in. I still need a bigger one, the trub required I clean it out 5 times I think. Or a better way to get the siphon to not pick up the damn trub. Between a bit of line cleaner, gravity reading and trub/etc I lost about 3.5 cups after brewing. Lost about half a gallon I figure to evap during brewing. Sprinkled in the Yeast and gave it a good sloshing before corking and putting on the lock.

Original Gravity 1.049 (rated by recipe 1.050 to 1.055)

Fermentation
Good fermentation going by the next night and it's going strong now. Nice almost 2 inches of foam.

DNK Brewery in Action

Tonight, DoesnotKnow Brewery fired back up with it's latest creation. But first an important news bulletin:

Beer Updates:
DNK Brewery - Golden Altima Hefeweizen - First Bottle Opened - The first bottle of DNK's first brewing was popped tonight at about 5:45 PM in preperation for tonights brew project. Golden Altima is based on Brewers Best Hefeweizen Kit. With a modification of using SafBrew WB-06 Yeast. Notes on it.
Appearance - A bit dark for a Wheat, but a nice yellow color none the less.
Smell - A bit of banana, a bit of nutiness, and a nice yeastiness after it warmed a bit.
Taste - Banana and Clove at first, but then as it opened up the yeast flavor picked up a bit. Finished super smooth with a very nice level of hopiness so the sweetness at the front didn't over whelm you and make you only want 1.
Body - Nice got a finger and a half, after the pour the glass showed nice carbonation for a while even on the sides. Smooth drinking, not overly alcoholic on smell or taste.
Drinkability - I could certainly pound a couple of these or enjoy one of the big 22 oz'rs I've got waiting. Another few weeks in the bottle will only improve this beer I think.


New Brew - Brewers Best Imperial Stout.
Boiled 2 gallons of distilled water for the Wort/MiniMash
Let the temp fall to 160 Degrees and sunk in the Malt Bag of Sugar, Chocolate and Patent Malt. 20 Mins and let drip out. Kicked the burn back up and brought it up to a boil. Added 2 Tins of Muntons Amber LME, added 1 oz of hops. Boiled for about 55 -60 mins and added the aroma hops. 5 Minutes later fired up the submersion chiller and cooled the wort off. Inside it goes. Cleaned the Primary Fermenter Carboy with Iodophor this time. 1 cap in 2.5 gals of hot water and let drip dry upside down. 2 Gallons of Distilled and 1 spring added to fermenter then racked. By the end of racking I'd lost about 3 cups to trub, and drip loss and flushing the lines of the siphon a bit. Then had to add about 3 quarts of water to the carboy to bring it up to a full 5 gallons due to evaporation loss and the trub/etc. Specific gravity was measured at 68 degrees at 1.050, right on the bottom line of what it should have read out of 1.055. Set in the stopper, added the ferment-lock and wrapped it in the ski-jacket to keep it at a nice toasty 68'ish degrees and to protect it from the light.

The process went a LOT simpler this time and prep and cleanup was much better. Tomorrow I just have to really finish drying everything. I cleaned up all the gear, and sanitized the major stoff for storage. To speed up the process a 2nd person would be a huge help. The trub blocks my funnels filter a bit and my attempt to pre-filter didn't cut it as the mesh on the strainer was still to big for most of the trub. Not bad, 4 hours or so fully start to finish. In the future I bet I can ram it down to 3 or maybe even 2.5 with a bit of help.

Full Notes to come tommorow. I'm pooped.

Sparging Away

Not that I'm there yet, I've been reading up on All Grain brewing over the last 2 day or two and I'm definitely intrigued. I've got at least a good portion of the gear to do fly style sparging/mash. However after reading I'm thinking I might want to go for a more batch style.

So in consideration of that I've got a few idea's on deck,

Fermenter - German style Wheat Beer - Ready for bottling, hopefully tonight/definitely tomorrow.
To Brew - Imperial Porter - Extract with some Malts/etc to steep in it.

Next Beer to Brew - Since I've got at least 2 weeks from when the stout goes in the fermenter till it hits the 2nd fermenter. I've got 3 weeks to plan my next beer after that. My goal is to always have 2 beers in some state of progress. My next beer question is what to brew:

Another Wheat - Maybe a raspberry, dunkel-berry, Blood Orange Hefe.
Stout - Something like a Oatmeal or Guinness
Amber - A cherry-amber

Any suggestions? Dunno if I want to go more than partial mash at this point, but for the right thing I might try a full mash. Who knows.

DNK Brewery Update

Well Well, yesterday I finally pulled the airlock/stopper from the fermenter and took a sample of the brew. Turns out its already in the Final Gravity target zone of 1.014 to 1.010, it was reading at 1.011.

So after removing the gravimeter, I promptly poured off a bit of the sample to a cup. And yep, its beer. Took a few sample sips and it has a nice wheat-y-ness and should be really good here in a few weeks after bottling. I might try and bottle Tuesday or maybe Wednesday evening.

Ugh, that means sanitizing bottles I suppose. I guess I'll do at least a case of 12's and probably a case of 20's and see whats left.

Cleaning the bottles now, very dusty with bits of crud in them from storage, fortunetly they are clean of residue so far it seems after a brief inspection and sniff test.

Brewery Update

DNK Update

So yesterday morning I checked on the fermenting beer and found it to be slow going, nearly 12 hours later. I attributed it to a couple of factors. My basement runs around 60 degrees right now. And will until into July when it finally hits the 70's. Also my basement gets some ambient light during the day. So I decided to warm the carboy. After searching my basement I found my wife's ski jacket. I wrapped it up nice and tight and left it alone. A check last night and things were progressing nicely, nice big gas bubbles releasing every couple of seconds. And a bit faster even this morning. There was at least an inch of "stuff" ontop of the brew from where it was a light film the morning before.

Ahhhh. Beer.

A co-worked mentioned his brews coming out a bit more bitter than they should and after discussing their brew-procedure I figure I had it pretty well figured. After a re-read of CJHB I confirmed my thoughts. Turns out they aren't straining the wort before fermentation. Ewww. I know how much crud I removed. I do need to find a better strainer setup. Mine was way to slow.

DoesNotKnow Brewery Now Open!

Thats right folks! Does Not Know Brewery has opened in my backyard in lovely, chilly, windy Bethesda, MD this morning.

I started brewing my first batch of beer this morning on the newsed rig I got earlier this week. I started out with a Brewers Best Wheat Beer. I'm using a different yeast to give it a more German/European styling than american. The wort smells great and only has about 20 minutes left. So here is my log:

Start around 1pm

2 Gals Distilled Water in Wort/Brew Pot
2 Cans of Muntons Wheat LME (1.5 Kg)
1 OZ Mt Hood Bittering Hops at 5.2% (28.35g)
Boil for 55 Minutes

1/2 OZ Mt Hood Finishing Hops at (5.2%) (14.17g)
Boil for 5 Minutes

The submersible wort cooler will go in at 15 mins total left, and will be hooked to my outside cold water line, which is FREEZING cold. Probably 40 Degrees.
Chill to 70 Degrees.
Siphon to Carboy through filtered funnel to remove and trub.
At 70 Degrees Take Original Gravity Reading

Original Gravity Reading: 1.044 - 1.041's
Fermentor Temp: 59-61 degrees.
Primary Fermentation Started 3:15 PM (Yeast added)

1 Packet Safbrew WB-06 - Dry Wheat Beer Yeast (11.5g)

Pitch yeast directly to wort in fermenter and agitate

Damn it smells good in my basement.

Siphoning could really use to be a 2 person job. Or a better anti-trub tip on the siphon!