Author Archives: Michael McIntosh

Picking Up Gavin

Posted on by

I spent this past weekend on Oahu picking Gavin up from his short week with Granny. Saturday was my only full day on island. We started off slow and lazy. Just the way a day should start. On the down side, my knee was getting worse. It had been hurting me for about a week at that point and then as I headed out to go to the airport Holly wished me a safe trip, and I immediately slipped on the top stair and braced myself 3 steps down with my bum leg. That didn’t help any.

Knowing the beer store closed at 3, we finally started to get serious about the day somewhere around noon. Unfortunately for me, this meant being productive. That made it time to put the saddle bags on the motorcycle. It wasn’t a hard task and really only should have taken 20 minutes, except it involved a small number of tools. And for some reason, no matter what the project is, we always have every tool but the one we need. So after a few improvisations and a little too much time, we got the bags on and admired their beauty. They really make the Rebel look more complete and proper. The final touch will be a sissy bar. Anyhow, as I put the tools away, I looked at my watch (I don’t really have a watch, so thank goodness an iPod can tell time) and realized the beer store closed in 10 minutes. Oh well. It kind of frustrated me that we didn’t get to the beer store. Now that I think about it though, it doesn’t really make a difference. Now that the airport charges for luggage, it won’t cost me any less to buy it in store that if I order it online and have it shipped to me. It might even cost less to order it online. So that is what I will do.

Not having to go to the beer store, we headed to the mall where we could go to T-Mobile . Our cell phone mysteriously disappeared (good job Leif) and we can’t even call it to find it because it’s battery is dead. Now we’re on the search for a new cell phone that will make us happier than we were owning our crap free phone. Haven’t found one yet.

Po eagerly awaits my return

Mary had a buy 1, get 1 free coupon for Ruby Tuesdays. Guess where we went for dinner? And leave it to us to order the most expensive thing on the menu. For me, a 9-ounce Cowboy Sirloin with secret seasonings, seared to perfection then topped with blue cheese crumbles, onion straws, and our house-made Boston barbecue sauce. For Mary, a 9-ounce Peppercorn Mushroom Sirloin topped with sautéed baby portabella mushrooms, black pepper, and Parmesan cream sauce. And lastly, for Gavin, fried shrimp with fries. That was a delicious dinner. And of course they came with the all-you-can-eat salad bar. Yeah, we took home leftovers. I wanted to finish it, I really did. So good.

We’re back at home now and all is well. Holly is back to work, Gavin is back ti school, Leif is happy to have his family back, and I’m back to being a working house husband*.
* Being a house husband is not a job. I actually have a job as a web developer and graphic artist. Therfore I am a house husband who works.

Priming Your Beer

Posted on by

We all know that making beer can be a complicated process, or it can be a simple one. It all depends on how involved you want to get. The more involved you get, the more control you can have over the end  results. So every time I whip up a batch of beer, I try to learn something new to help give me more control of the outcome of my beer. This batch my focus was priming and carbonation. Let me share.

Priming is the addition of sugar to fermented beer immediately prior to bottling or kegging. The added sugar ferments in the sealed package, creating the carbonation for the beer. Sounds simple, right?

Most of the recipes I started with would tell me to add 3/4 cup priming sugar per 5 gallons at bottling time. Not surprisingly, the results always varied. Other recipes would say to add 1 1/2 tbsp  priming sugar per bottle. Again, results varied. These methods are based on a volume per volume basis. Measuring this way can lead to different results. When you consider that not all sugars are not manufactured the same way or  that 3/4 cup of packed sugar is not the same as 3/4 cup lose sugar, you’ll realize that measuring this way is not ideal. What makes more sense is to measure your sugar on a basis of weight sugar per volume beer. So now that we’re going to measure our sugar by weight, we need to know how much sugar to use.

        -------------------------------------------
        Beer style                      Volumes CO2
        -------------------------------------------
        British-style ales              1.5 - 2.0
        Porter, stout                   1.7 - 2.3
        Belgian ales                    1.9 - 2.4
        European lagers                 2.2 - 2.7
        American ales & lagers          2.2 - 2.7
        Lambic                          2.4 - 2.8
        Fruit lambic                    3.0 - 4.5
        German wheat beer               3.3 - 4.5
        -------------------------------------------

Above is a handy guide to carbonation levels in a range of styles.

Before continuing on with measuring sugar, lets talk a little about carbonation. During fermentation, the yeast converts the sugars in the wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide. What this means is that when your beer is done fermenting, it already contains small amount of disolved CO2. How much carbon dioxide is in the beer already is dependent on  the beers temperature during fermentation. The lower the temperature, the more carbon dioxide can be dissolved into the beer. Because we are trying to determine how much sugar to add to acquire our desired CO2 levels, we need to know how much carbonation to add. How much carbonation we need to add is actually the target CO2 level minus the amount of CO2 left in the beer from fermentation. Below is a table of carbonation levels at various temperatures before priming.

Temp      Temp                  |     Temp      Temp
(degC)    (degF)    Vol.CO2     |     (degC)    (degF)   Vol. CO2
------    ------    --------    |     ------    ------   --------
   0        32        1.7       |       12        54       1.12
   2        36        1.6       |       14        57       1.05
   4        40        1.5       |       16        61       0.99
   6        43        1.4       |       18        64       0.93
   8        46        1.3       |       20        68       0.88
  10        50        1.2       |       22        72       0.83

This would be a good point to find out exactly how much sugar it actually takes to produce 1 volume of CO2 per gallon of beer. After all, how can you find out how much sugar to add to your 5 gallons of beer without knowing the conversion rate of sugar to CO2?  A very simplified way of showing that conversion rate is written as follows:

C6H2O6 + yeast = 2CH3CH2OH + 2CO2

Now, you don’t need to know how all that works. Only that it means that yeast will convert one unit of glucose into two units of ethanol and two units of carbon dioxide. So if we want one unit of CO2 we would use 1/2 unit of glucose, or .49 oz glucose per one gallon off beer. So if we wanted to add 1 volume of CO2 to 1 gallons of beer, we would need 1 (vol CO2) x .49 (oz glucose) = .49 oz of glucose. Still following?

So what if we wanted 2 volumes of  CO2 in a gallon of beer? We would need 2 x .49 = .98 ox of glucose. And 3 volumes of CO2? 3 x .49 = 1.47 oz glucose. Are you sensing a pattern?

Let’s think back about what we are doing. We want to know how much sugar to add to our beer to achieve the level of carbonation that we want. We’ve determined what our target CO2 level should be using the handy CO2 level guide above. We know that a certain amount of CO2 dissolves in the beer during fermentation, which we’ll have to subtract from our target CO2 level. We also know that it takes .49 oz of glucose to produce 1 volume of CO2 in one gallon of beer. Using this information and the formula above, we can create a precise formula for finding the amount of sugar/glucose needed to achieve the desired levels of CO2 in your beer.

Using the chart above, find the saturation level for the temperature of your beer. Let’s call that V0. Then choose the CO2 level that corresponds with the style of beer you are making. Let’s call that V.  Now we can subtract the two and add it to the formula from above.

Priming rate (oz/gal) =
(V-V0) x .49

or for the non-oz version

Priming rate (g/L) =
(V-V0) x 3.7

Then all you have to do is multiply that by how many gallons of beer you have. So let’s say we are going to make 5 gallons of Belgian Ale that fermented at 50?F. Our target CO2 volume level will be 2.1 vol (V). From the above table we know that 1.2 vol (V0) of CO2 has  been dissolved in the beer during fermentation. Therefore:

(2.1 – 1.2) x .49 = .441 oz glucose/gallon

Multiply that by our 5 gallons of beer and you get 2.2 oz of glucose that you would need to add to your Belgian ale to get your target CO2 level of 2.1.

Carbonation levels in a beer can tell you quite a bit about a beer. It can also tell you quite a bit about a brewer. The beer style chart at the beginning of this article is a relatively short list. It is also relative. As home brewers, we have the capability to adjust the CO2 levels to appease our own palette. Knowing how to reach the carbonation level that you want for your beer brings you one step closer to making a beer that is truly your own.

Charge Your Glasses

Posted on by

It’s 10:10 pm new years eve. I’m lying on the couch myself New Years Eve watching The Taking of Pelham 123. Leif woke up for the second time looking for Holly to nurse him back to sleep. She may not be back out. No biggie though. I celebrate my new years at 7pm anyway. That’s when the ball drops in NY, and we all know that is when the real new year begins.

I called my mom 4 minutes before midnight ( NY time) and wished her a Happy New Years. We’ll be going to NY in 2 months, but I don’t think that is soon enough. I miss my mom and I know she misses me. Mom, we’ll be there soon.

Gavin is over on Oahu with Granny. I think they will be watching fireworks if they can stay awake long enough. I’ll find out in the morning. Until then I have a cat at my side, John Travolta and Denzel Washington on tv, and a beautiful Leif and Holly waiting in bed. it’s been a good day and a decent year. So charge your glasses for a toast. May 2010 bring happiness, laughter, and joy to everyone and their loved ones. Happy New Years one and all.

11:10PM

Holly came back out to lie on the couch with me and we finished watching the movie. With only 50 minutes left, we snuggled on the couch watching Kathy Griffin tell funnies about Whitney Houston and Miley Cyrus until 11:55. Now only a few minutes away, we flip over to FOX to watch the ball drop “Live” from NYC. I got to snog Holly for the first time on New Years in 4 years. We ran out onto the porch to kiss under the full blue moon with the sound of fireworks and showering neighbors off in the distance. How romantic.

12:12AM

We consider having one final drink (first drink?) before heading off to bed. Our sweet comfy bed. With the new 3″ memory foam mattress topper. I hear it calling. Time for sleeps. Good night and happy new year (with no “s”).

Birthdays

Posted on by

Thanksgiving was full of deliciousness. We had a small-sized turkey with a few casseroles, pumpkin pie, and booze. Oh yes, and birthday cake and presents. Yup. This year Holly’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving. Nothing wrong with a little cake on Thanksgiving right? Besides, she got to eat her most favoritest breakfast made my me (eggs benedict), a beautiful shiny new tea kettle and we all got cake. Mmmm. So good.

Gavin’s birthday has come and gone. He is seven now and with that, the privilege of riding on my motorcycle with me. He’s been talking about that for months now. We threw him his first ever friends-over birthday party. There were a total of 10 kids, thereabouts, and about 4 or 5 parents. We had cupcakes, a candy cane shaped piñata, home-made pizza, balloons, and presents. It was rather successful. The kids all went home with bags of candy from the piñata and smiles on their faces.

The piñata was harder to destroy than we expected. Of course that might have something to do with the fact that we filled it (max-load: 3 pounds) with 7 pounds of candy and goodies. The kids went through about 3 rounds and one wooden stick before letting the grown ups have a go. We went about 2 rounds before the owner of the second piñata stick finally made the candy pour out in an explosion of sweetness. The kids all swarmed in and gathered candy for the winter. It was great.

Re-Breaking in the blog

Posted on by

I keep intending to write an entry here and for one excuse or another, I just don’t. Now here it is two months later. So much has happened since then and I don’t know how to write it all in a short post. So I’ll start by just blabbing then I’ll move on to life later.

The holidays are over and with them the wait gain. It’s time now to deflate. Lose those 5 pounds (give or take) that I’ve gained. It also means that we can finally  clean up the house a bit. It’s been getting to me having a messy house. It’s just one of those things that come along with holidays. But we can fix that now.

I also have some inspiration for cleaning. We bought a new computer desk this past weekend. A real one. Not a coffee table. So we’ve taken down the tree and christmas lights tonight. It took me two days and I’ve finished assembling the desk. It looks verra  nice. I can’t wait to put the computer on it. I must finish cleaning though so everything is in place first. It will be nice though. It will solve the issue of having wires spread all over. I can move the phone the modem and the computer back to a localized spot. Good deal.

So with the house cleaner, the chocolate all piled together, the toys consolidated, the new desk in place, the tree put away, and the couch being so warm and comfy, I will enjoy my evening, watch more “Peep Show” and maybe enjoy a nice cold beer.

‘Til next time …