Harvest 2009

Saturday was harvest day at Huevos Caballos. This year, I bought grapes from Golden Oaks Vineyards in Paso Robles. I'm making a Syrah and a Syrah Port, which are currently fermenting. I'll try to keep updating the progress as I go. Meanwhile, look at these photos.

The syrah portion of the vineyard.

These stupid grapes don't even know they're about to be picked. What a bunch of idiots.

I paid a local orphan boy two bits and a stale loaf of bread to give me a hand. I forget his name.

50 pounds of grapes, one bucket.

Horsetrait. You can't spell Huevos Caballos with "Caballo."

Rusty, the vineyard dog.

Back in Los Angeles, the grapes await their smashing.

Before and after. Lauren wisely requested that I do the crushing outside. She is smarter than me. Next year, I'm going to get some kind of machine or something.

The finished grape must, waiting to be inoculated with yeast.

A Carboy of Amontillado

It was brew day, and probably the most experimental one yet. I had set out to brew a sherry/port-style beer from Radical Brewing, a great book by Randy Mosher. For those of you who aren't Victorian aristocrats, which I am assuming is at least 5% of my readership, sherry is a kind of oxidized, fortified dessert wine. The recipe was fairly complicated, and involved a specialized mashing schedule, using cooked sugar, sherry yeast, and aging for up to a year in a warm/hot place. I guess the attic won't just be for weeping quietly to myself anymore.

Brew days are normally a lot of sitting around, punctuated by moments of doing slight work. It's pretty relaxing, to be honest, but the last thirty minutes of the mash turned out to be the most hectic half-hour of my brewing career. Hell, with the exception of my photo assistant days, maybe my life.

Everything started normally enough. I mashed the grains as suggested, which filled me with hope. The recipe called for cooked sugar, which promptly set that hope on fire and filled the kitchen with smoke.

Closely following directions, I mixed sugar and water, and put the whole thing over medium heat. I kept a close eye on the situation, and everything seemed to go as it should have. Once the desired color was reached, I turned off the heat. As soon as the wort got to a boil, it would go straight into the kettle. A few minutes later, the gardener showed up.

The dogs that Lady Bullock and I harbor HATE the gardeners. And before you ask, NO, I do not think they're racist. It was actually a little racist of YOU to assume that the gardeners are Hispanic. They are, but still.

Anyway, one of the dudes shows up, and the dogs just lose it. Maybe the gardener looks like a few dozen squirrels in a trenchcoat to them. Maybe the gardener is a few dozen squirrels in a trenchcoat. I don't feel too bad about the harassment since they cut down all my beautiful hops in their prime. At any rate, bark bark bark bark.

The guy is unflappable by this point, and just ignores them. I, however, cannot. I'm trying to get them calmed down when my phone rings. This was an important call about a freelance thing that I had to take. Fifteen minutes left on the boil. I'm talking on the phone with the sound of a weed eater in one ear, and three dogs yelping in the other. The phone call went about 15 minutes, and after awhile the dogs calmed down a little, and everything seemed fine.

After I hung up, I went downstairs to find the kitchen and hallway inundated with smoke. I could barely see through to the stove, but I could tell the sugar had continued cookng, and was now a crystallized mound of smoking carbon.

This was bad.

I lifted my shirt over my mouth and ran into the kitchen, opening every window I could along the way. The smoke hurt my eyes and made me cough, which is as far as I can tell after all these wildfires around LA, is smoke's modus operandi. I couldn't open the door leading from the kitchen to the backyard, as this would have enabled the dogs to eat the gardener Ving Rhames style, and that's the last thing I need.

After a few minutes, the smoke wafted away, but the house still smelled like flaming marshmallows, and not in a wholesome, campfire way. More like a horror movie, oh no, all the teenagers are dead at the hands of a psychopath, they left their smores on the fire kind of burning marshmallow. The kind of smell that never leaves a man.

I disposed of the carbon candy and the ruined pan, but the recipe still called for cooked sugar. I ended up using half a pound of the dark belgian candy sugar I had, along with half a pound of Indian jaggery sugar (which you'll remember from the Sikander the Great IPA), and just a little bit of muscovado. I ended up hitting gravity, so we'll see if it worked.

In a year.

Yes, folks, it's my second in a row that will take a whole year to be ready. This beer should also be a good candidate for aging, so I think I'll make it every year and always save a few for posterity.

As they say, out of adversity comes triumph (or something), so hopefully this beer/sherry will be the most triumphant Bullock's creation yet.

Like a Phoenix rising from Arizona

It's been awhile, but after some summer traveling and general lie-aboutery, I'm back in the brewhouse (aka the backyard) and I have a couple of batches on the make right now. Read about them, why don't you?

Stupid Sexy Flanders is my Flanders Red Ale, an old Belgian style that relies on a variety of bacteria and yeasts to make the signature sour flavor. Duchesse de Bourgogne is the most famous commercial example, along with Rodenbach Grand Cru. They're really complex interesting beers, and take a little while to get used to. They're also great to cook with, which I'm looking forward to.

Stupid Sexy Flanders
Flanders-style Red Ale
Batch Size - 5 Gallons
OG - 1.055
FG - 1.016
abv - 5.2%
Color - 14.0 SRM

Grain Bill
Belgian Vienna Malt
4lb 0oz
Belgian Pilsen Malt
3lb 0oz
German Munich Malt
2lb 0oz
Belgian Aromatic Malt
8.00 oz
CaraMunich Malt 60
8.00 oz
Belgian Special B
8.00 oz
German Wheat Malt
8.00 oz

60 minute boil

Hops
EK Golding - 5.0% AA - 1.0 oz - 60 mins
Bagged Whole Leaf

Mash Grains at 154°F for 60 mins

Pitch WLP001 California Ale Yeast, Ferment at 70°F. Rack to secondary when SG is in 1.020s, add oak cubes and Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Belgian Blend. Age for 12-18 months, bottle condition.

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On a recent trip to BevMo, I saw a bottle of Traquair House Ale for $5.49. I had to see what a $0.46/ounce beer tasted like.

I wasn't disappointed. Rich, caramelly, malty taste. Drinks really easy for a 7.2% beer. I imagine this is what Groundskeeper Willie drinks in his hovel on special occasions. This should be quite the winter ale.

This recipe is based on the BYO magazine clone recipe, with a couple of slight tweaks. I cold-steeped the roasted barley instead of mashing, as I was going for a smoother flavor without the harsh coffee/chocolate flavor. Cold-steeping is the process of setting apart darker specialty grains and soaking them in room temperature water overnight before brewing. This extracts the sugars and color without the overpowering edge. The other secret to this beer is the drawing off of the first gallon of the first runnings, then caramelizing that gallon for 30 mins before adding it back to the boil kettle. This does a bunch of boring science stuff that even I find too uninteresting to repeat. Suffice to say, boiling make beer taste prettier.

Traquair House Ale Clone
Scotch Wee Heavy Style
OG - 1.076
FG - 1.022
abv - 7.2%
Color - 16.2 SRM

Grain Bill
Golden Promise
16lb 8oz
Roasted Barley
8oz - Cold Steeped

120 minute boil

Hops
EK Golding - 5.0% AA - 1.5 oz - 90 mins
Loose Whole Leaf

EK Golding - 5.0% AA - 1.0 oz - 30 mins
Loose Whole Leaf

Mash Grains at 153°F for 60 mins

Cold-steep Roasted Barley in 1 qt room temperature water overnight, add back to 1st runnings

Remove one gallon of first runnings and Caramelize it (boil down for 30 mis & add back to boil).
Collect another 7 gallons and begin boil. With 90 minutes left in the boil, add the caramelized wort and first hop addition.

Primary 8-10 Days, 2 weeks in secondary, 8-10 weeks conditioned in bottle

Oak in secondary

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With all this beer activity, don't think I've been slacking off over at Huevos Caballos, kids. I just bottled Jerry Reed Cherry Mead in a few different iterations. There's the regular flat cherry mead, two bottles that have been fortified with honey liqueur to make a dessert mead, and three bottles of what I hope will become sparkling mead. It could explode, it could be flat, or it could be perfect. Or some combination of all three...only time will tell.

Also there's a gallon of garlic cooking wine fermenting away. I really have no idea what to expect from this, but I had a bunch of garlic and even more free time.

What's next, you rhetorically ask? I have plans for a Smoked Altbier, a 14.5% abv Russian Imperial Stout, a TOP SECRET dessert beer, the 2009 edition of Trappist John MD, and Carbon Nation is gonna keep on rockin'. If you're lucky, you might even be invited to the Oktoberfest party...

If you can't make good beer...

At least make good labels. My Aztec Ale label won Editor's Choice in the 2009 Brew Your Own Magazine Homebrew Label Contest...

Spring Awakening

For those of you that thought I went out for a pack of smokes, never to return, I am here to soothe your frazzled nerves. I did all sorts of crazy things like lose my job (which seems to be really weighing heavily on Richard Branson), switch to all-grain brewing, and start Carbon Nation Homebrewing with some friends. It's been an interesting couple of months, so I'll catch you up with what I've been making.


First, I bottled the 2008 Riesling, which was chronicled extensively in this space. I won't get into the difficulties of getting the raw materials, but I will say that it was worth the effort. I haven't tried the Gran Reserva version of this wine...saving that for a special occasion where I need a wildcard that could either send everything over the edge into sublime perfection or crash the plane into the mountain.

2008 Riesling has some nice fruity character, light body, slightly spicy. It's a perfect summer wine, and Lady Bullock and I sampled some this weekend. I am actually not ashamed to give this to people

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Ctrl-Alt-Delete was the first batch of 2009. Altbier is a German-style, malty ale that's lightly hopped. I like this quite a bit, but some bottles came out undercarbonated. Nice deep copper color, good flavor with a little tinge on hop at the end.

This beer was devoid of drama in all stages of brewing, which makes for good beer, but poor blogging.

Let's just say that I had to fight off a gang of undead shaolin monk grave robbers while I brewed to make it more interesting. It was difficult, but I did it.

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Ol' Murderin' Prospector is my attempt at the California Common beer style, of which Anchor Steam is the prime example. This was the first batch that I screwed up royally, only to find that the beer kept evolving after fermentation and is now my favorite.

When I racked it out of secondary, I was sure that the beer was ruined. It was still sweet as all hell, but I accidentally added priming sugar before I checked, so the only thing I could do was bottle and hope for the best.

At first tasting, the beer was still very sweet, but drinkable. It was after a month in the bottle that it really came alive. Still has a little sweetness, but it's not overpowering any more. This has turned into a really nicely balanced beer. Too bad I'm down to only 8 bottles left.

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Aztec Ale was my first big experiment. I'd been reading about non-barley grains to use in beer in Radical Brewing, and thought I'd give it a try. The Aztecs didn't have beer, per se, but if they did, it might go a little something like this.

My base recipe is an American Amber Ale, but I replaced about 10% of the base grain with amaranth and quinoa, two ancient grains that the Aztecs used like they were going out of style. I also added a healthy dose of honey, agave nectar, blood orange rind, and vanilla beans.

I tried this beer out properly for the first time last night, and it came out pretty well. Good amber color, highly carbonated with a good head and nice aroma. It's smooth with a hint of bitterness, which I think comes from the quinoa...definitely not the hops.

I also used some crazy New Zealand hops like Pacific Jade, Nelson Sauvin, and Pacific Sunrise. I will spare you a discussion of their properties.

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I will spare you a lengthy discussion on these two beers. The short version? They suck. They were to be my first two on-tap beers, but alas, it was not to be.

Tobias Funke's Cream Ale became Light Cream Ale when my wort chiller broke mid-chill, sending about 2 gallons of water into the beer after the boil. Ruined.

Pilkington's Pub Ale was a recipe I got out of a book called Beer Captured. I will not brew anything from that book again.

Behold Mr. Roper, the Kegerator. Soon he will be dispensing Sikander the Great IPA, Brother Seamus Irish Red, and Baby Got Bock. It will indeed be a proud day.

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For those of you who haven't had DeuS, you're missing out. It's brewed in Belgium, then shipped to France to be carbonated in the Champagne method. The end result is pretty amazing, with a nice dry beer that has the fine carbonation of a sparkling wine. It's worth shelling out the $30 for a bottle, believe me.

Naturally Pat, Brian and I decided to make some of our own. We had some good times and some bad times along the way, but we ended up with some awesome beer.

The brewing and fermentation went just fine. Since this is a huge beer in terms of alcohol, it took almost a month for fermentation to be completed, then another month in secondary to clear. We bottled it in March, using champagne bottles with regular beer caps. The idea is that you store the bottles upside down and use a process called riddling to move all the yeast to the neck of the bottles. It would have worked had the caps actually fit the top of the bottles. They didn't, though, and we had to cork prematurely, but that happens to everyone, am I right?

So everything went just magically until the day we were to remove the corks and yeast plugs. On the advice of some jerk on the internet, we used acetone and dry ice to freeze the bottles. This turned out to be a poor decision. I will let the video speak for itself.



Needless to say, we quit trying to do that, and are very happy with our yeast in the bottle, thank you very much. But you can look forward to a new ongoing segment we like to call "What horribly dangerous thing will we do next."

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Here's what's fermenting and bottle conditioning:

Sikander the Great IPA is a traditional English IPA. It seems like every craft brewery in the world makes it their purpose in life to make the hoppiest, biggest IPAs under the sun. I'm not down with that. This does have quite a bit of hops in it, but after drinking it, the inside of your mouth doesn't feel like you just acted as the grass clipping bag on a riding lawnmower.

This also has two pounds of jaggery sugar from India, just to see what it's like. It's a little mapley, but smooth.



The Beast of Gevaudan is a big English Barleywine, and the first brew from Carbon Nation, a group of friends who get together once a month to brew.

It looks great and the bottles are awesome. No idea how it tastes or even what it will taste like. Should be ready to drink in 2-3 weeks.






Stairway to Hefeweizen is the second Carbon Nation brew. It's an American-style Hef. Hopefully it tastes like one. Should be ready in 2-4 weeks.










Being made next: Brother Seamus Irish Red, A Rochefort 10 Clone, and many, many more...Don't you go a'changin'.

Hydrometer, used to measure specific gravity, dies at 22 months

Hydrometer, a well-liked member of the Huevos Caballos Vineyards/Bullock's Brewing Company team, passed away last night after being dropped on the kitchen counter by an unknown party.

Mr. Meter was born in rural China in March of 2007, and promptly shipped to the EC Kraus Wine Making Supplies company of Independence, Missouri. In August of that year, Mr. Meter was sent to Chas. Fonville of Huevos Caballos Vineyards along with a kit to make rancid Pinot Noir wine.

Co-workers called Mr. Meter a joy to be around, and noted that his 60 degree Fahrenheit calibration temperature was ideal and easily converted to an ambient temperature reading. He never complained about being dropped into any liquid, be it beer wort, grape must, or unfermented mead. Close friends say that his favorite starting gravity for beer was 1.056.

EC Kraus issued the following statement:

"(HY110) Our most popular hydrometer. Used for both wine and beer. Allows you to keep track of your fermentation`s progress and determine the finished product`s alcohol content by taking readings before and after fermentation and comparing them. Also, allows you to verify when your batch is ready to bottle. Shows Specific Gravity scale from .990 to 1.170, Balling degrees scale from -3 to +35 and Potential Alcohol scale -2 to +22%. Comes with complete instructions."

Services were held this morning at the blue Los Angeles Sanitation department recycling bin. HCV/BBC representatives purchased a replacement for $8 at Culver City Homebrew Supply.

Hydrometer is survived by his life partner, 6 gallon food grade plastic bucket, and over a dozen batches of wine, beer, and mead.

Bullocks 2008 - A Year in Review

Well, old man 2008 has but a fortnight left in his belly before he falls, breaks his hip, and expires. We, on the other hand, only have one more year until those stupid "Happy New Year 200x" where the zeroes are the eye holes go away, unless some asshole decides to cram the "1" in 2010 between your eyes. I'm trying to stay optimistic that it won't come to that.

We're only a couple of days away from the Bullocks's Brewing Co. Company Christmas Party as well. All six BBC styles will be available for tasting. I sampled a little of each this weekend, and here's a brief rundown.

Tobias Funke's Cream Ale
By far the lightest of the 2008 batch. It is, as the name implies, creamy. It's a little hoppier than Bud or Miller and their ilk, but overall a very enjoyable beer.

Frank Shirley's Christmas Ale
Shirley's is a little darker than Funke's, and has just a hint of cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace, mostly because I put cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace in the beer.

"Hey. If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, fore-fleshing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?"

Hopped Up on Goofballs I.P.A.
The very first beer I made from my own recipe, which consisted of me grabbing a bunch of grains and malts and hops and hoping for the best. In retrospect, it's a little hoppy for my taste, but I did use three different kinds and dry hopped for the first time. I'm not sure it's technically an I.P.A., but whatever.

Trappist John, M.D.
This is the crown jewel as far as I'm concerned. It received rave notices at the Thanksgiven party I went to a couple weeks ago, and I have to say it's my favorite. Brian Palatucci, a prominent beer drinker, said "I might describe TJ, MD as 'exceptionally smooth.'"

T'ej Dancin'
Named by esteemed punnist Jeremy Lott, T'ej Dancin is a take on the Ethiopian Honey Wine t'ej, made with orange blossom honey, light malt extract, and some sticks that cost $10. This was the most suspect, as it was almost undrinkable after secondary fermentation, but after chilling and carbonation, it actually tastes pretty good. It will be interesting to compare it to the Huevos Caballos Wait til they Get a Load of Mead.

Mississippi Barry Phlegm's Vanilla Porter
This beer is as interesting as the author who inspired it. This is from a fairly robust porter recipe I got from the Home Beer Wine & Cheese shop up in Woodland Hills. The "experts" said to add two vanilla beans to the secondary, but I've never been one to read instructions or listen to people. I used six. And I still have over 120 left. That's right, everyone. I'm a vanilla magnate.

See you Saturday.