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...

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.

Riesling the Body Electric, Part the Second

It's been almost four weeks since I ordered my pail of Johannisberg Riesling juice from Delta Packing of Lodi, California. My previous shipping attempts failed in grand fashion. FedEx spilled 5 of the first six gallons, but I decided to make wine out of sour grape juice. From this orphaned juice, Huevos Caballos plans to produce five bottles of wild yeast fermented Riesling Gran Reserva, perhaps the most reserva wine ever.

UPS "damaged" the next attempt. There were no survivors.

UPS was again dispatched on Monday of this week, with my shipment to arrive on Wednesday. Wednesday came and went, and Condescending A-Hole #3 at UPS said I would have to wait another day before I could put a tracer on the package.

Thursday morning, I did just that, and, surprise surprise, UPS NEVER EVEN PICKED UP THE PACKAGE. I spoke with the supervisor at the station in Lodi, who also passed UPS condescension school with flying colors, and she told me that Delta didn't put it out. I called Delta back. The guy I spoke with told me that it had been sitting on the dock, but the driver didn't pick it up. She informed me that they would not overnight it to me for no charge. I delicately told her that I found this to be disagreeable, and hung up.

The next call to UPS landed me an elderly sounding C student from UPS Condescension School who told me very nicely that it wasn't their fault and that they would indeed not overnight it to me. I asked her to cancel the order, then sighed heavily.

And then I went crawling back to FedEx. Sure, they're a hair more expensive, but I don't hate them with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

Then something amazing happened. I went to their website, scheduled the pickup, sent Delta the packing slip, and FedEx picked up the package. Then Saturday morning, they brought it to my house. In one piece.

Sure, the box was a little wet, and maybe a little less than half a gallon of juice had leaked out, but with all the drama that accompanied this juice, I would have settled for two gallons and a kick in the jumblies from Pauly Shore.

Thankfully, that didn't happen.

All the juice's numbers seemed to be correct according to my half-assed measurements. The homebrew store in Woodland Hills is testing your wines this weekends for free, so I'll be taking the Riesling and Ruby Cabernet up there for their mid-terms. If they don't pass, no PS3 for a week.

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The 2008 Wait til They Get a Load of Mead is bottled. It's a nice color, the little sip I had of it tasted pretty good, so I'm excited to see what a little bottle aging will do. Only 12 bottles were produced, so this should be in pretty high demand in fantasy town.

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In Bullock's Brewing Co. news, I've bottled Frank Shirley's Christmas Ale and Tobias Funke's Cream Ale, and will be bottling the Belgian Dubbel this weekend. I also started an Ethiopian T'ej, which is a cross between mead and beer. I made a trip to the Ethiopian district on Fairfax to buy a $10 bag of sticks that I need to make it, so good times there.

I also started a Kitchen Sink IPA, the first beer I've ever made using my own recipe. Of course I lost the grain bill and only vaguely remember what I put in there, but I can tell you that it will be a heady, citrusy IPA. I used a liquid and a dry malt extract, and agave syrup as an adjunct. Three different kinds of hops are in there, and I'm dry-hopping some Cascade for good measure. Thus the name. That and, well, it's made in the kitchen sink.

Keep an eye out for your Bullock's Brewing Company Christmas Party invitation...

A Slow Descent into Madness

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I've gone totally mental. 

Right now, I have SIX different wines and a beer fermenting, with the ingredients for another wine in the fridge and yet another on a truck on its way here from Lodi. Oh, and Lauren got me a gift certificate for Culver City Home Brewing Supply, so I'm headed out there later today to pick up more beer kits, with an eye on a beer tasting party for the holidays. Seriously, you guys. 

It's not like I even drink that much to begin with. Lauren and I rarely have wine with dinner, and even less often have ambassadors over for fancy dinner parties. "What's that you say, Count Du Rainier? Of course you can have another glass of Pinot. Why yes, that is a hint of burned ammonia on the nose."

I took a couple of days off last week to celebrate my 31st annual gestation cessation celebration, and devoted a goodly amount of time to the creation of some new wines. The kitchen counter tops ran red with the juice of blueberries, strawberries, pumpkin, and blood orange. I'll be posting more when I press the fruit this weekend, for those of you awaiting news with baited breath. 

But that's not the point. One year ago, I had ONE wine, the little Pinot that could, sitting in a plastic bucket. How then, I query, did Huevos Caballos have a 700% increase in wine production in one year? 

It all started in 1929, when my grandfather, Bernard Schneider, made moonshine. At least that's what he told me when I was younger. My mom claims that he bought it at the state fair, but I choose to believe he was a bootlegger criminal mastermind, secretly running Windthorst Texas during prohibition. 

As he snuck off into the cold North Texas night air, Ben scanned the fields around the family farm carefully for anyone watching. Once he felt secure in his solitude, he checked again. 

His was an operation with no room for error. Elliot Ness was after him, and the slightest misstep could spell doom for him and his men. 

As he crept down the rows of corn and sorghum he grew as a cover (Grandpa hated sorghum passionately. "Goddamn sorghum," I often heard him muttering around the hearth) he felt at peace.  He had fooled everyone, including his own beloved family, into thinking that he was a simple dairy farmer. He smiled to himself confidently as he saw the first glimmer of light from his massive distilling operation. 

As he crested the hillock down into the ravine that hosted his "little operation" as he called it, he heard the unmistakable click of a revolver. 

"Freeze!" he heard someone say in a voice barely above a whisper. 

He turned around slowly to see the surprised face of Armando, one of his trusted guards. 

"Oh, Mister Ben, I am so sorry. I did not realize-"

"It's all right, old friend. How are we doing tonight?"

"Good, good. Esteban has stabilized the bourbon. I think you will find it most excellent."

"Very well," he said, as they descended into the hub of the production. 

Copper tanks lined the banks of the ravine, spewing out an obsidian smoke. (Most bootleggers in those days operated with coal-powered stills) A small one-armed boy ran up and handed Ben a blue speckled granite cup, brimming with a corn whiskey that doubled as an engine de-greaser and hobo poison. Ben took a small sip. 

Most men buckled at even a whiff of the undiluted product, but he was no ordinary man.  At his funeral, a family friend told me in confidence that he once drank a bottle of Drano and chased it with a jug of 230 proof horse whiskey, and still made it to church in time to play the procession on the organ. The Knights of Columbus of Windthorst still regard that day as the finest procession ever played in their small town. 

"Good work, son." The boy, whose name no one was sure of, smiled meekly. Someone had left him at the door of Ben and Mary Agnes, and Ben told her that he'd shipped the boy off to the service back in '22. The boy rarely spoke, and did little but make spirits. His blood alcohol level, tests would later reveal, had a standard baseline of 0.30. 

Ben and Armando continued their walking tour of the operation, watching as the hooch was filtered, bottled, and boxed up for shipping all over the country. They smiled in contentment, their empire humming along like the mythical perpetual motion machine. 

They heard a cry coming from the back of camp, and rushed over. Luke, the night foreman, had a worker by the shirt collar. He was red in the face with anger. 

"What's the matter here?" grandpa said, in his stern, managerial tone. 

"I found this man stealing a slice of corn pone from one of the others. He must be punished," Lucas hissed. 

Ben took Lucas' hand off of the man, and comforted the shaking worker. Ben gingerly checked inside the man's lower lip. 

"This man has a tapeworm," Ben said, patting him on the back. "No wonder he's still hungry."

Grandpa laughed and smacked Lucas on the back playfully. The laugh grew and grew, crescendoing until Lucas couldn't do anything but laugh himself. 

WHAP. The back of Ben's hand caught Lucas' unexpectant cheek. 

"Don't ever treat one of the men like that again, no matter their transgression."

"Y...yes, Mr. Schneider. I'm sorry, sir." 

"Now see this man fed and mix up a cup of the rye and two of the malted corn. That'll take care of the worm and any other critters that might've taken residence in his lowers."

"Yes sir."

"You take care, friend. You're a good man, and we need you healthy," Ben said to the afflicted man. A caring look washed away the sternness Ben had exhibited to Lucas. The man smiled. 

"Thank you, Mister Schneider. I will not let you down."

"There's a bright future for you in our little operation, son."

The man smiled as Ben walked away, but then felt uneasy as he noticed the glare Lucas directed at Ben. 

TO BE CONTINUED. 

So you can see how I got into home wine and beer making. 

Operation Grape Expectations: A Prologue

The detour to Sonic had been a disaster. Lauren said "DisneyLand" and all I could think was "Sonic is near DisneyLand. I love Sonic. We have time!" Instead of the quick jaunt off the freeway I was expecting, it turned into a 45 minute cluster-eff which saw both my blood pressure and Baja Fresh levels rise. When we finally hopped back onto the freeway, I knew we weren't gonna make it. I had to call the woman I was buying the grapes from to ask if showing up 45 minutes or so late would be all right.

"I'm sticking around the vineyard all afternoon for you guys to buy 60 pounds of grapes," I expected her to say, with a curtness that I wasn't looking forward to. "Fine, just hurry up." I was wasting this woman's time and felt awful, but there wasn't a lot I could do.

I dialed her number and put on my customer service voice.

"Hi, is that Mary?"

"Yes."

"Hi Mary, it's Charlie Fonville, coming out for the grapes this afternoon."

"Of course. Hello."

"I was hoping that it'd be okay to show up around 4:45 or so. We're running a little late."

"Okay, no problem. See you then."

"Great. Thank you." Click.

"Phew," thought I. I'm sure they're busy, with it being harvest time. Probably a lot of work to do around the old vineyard. No problem.

The address was on Grape Street, which lead me think that they themselves had named the dirt road leading to their sprawling, picturesque acreage.

Nope. Two bedroom house at the end of a cul-de-sac with Norteno music blaring from all different directions.

An old pickup parked next to an even older van held the driveway down, and a varitable maze of succulents, pomegranates, and other landscaping made it clear that some serious greenery had gone down here.

"This can't be right," I said to Lauren.

"No, it can't," she replied. "Are you sure this is the right address?"

"Not at all."

I checked my e-mail, and sure enough, it was the right address. The numbers were the same, there was an "N" before the word "Grape," and the zip code matched.

"Ooooooookay," I said, with a specific gravity of skepticism well over 1.100. (If you knew what specific gravity was, as well as normal SG levels, you would find this hilarious). Actually, probably not.

So we rang the doorbell, half expecting to find a kindly woman to take us to the real vineyard, and the other half expecting to get shot in the face.

May answered the door, a kindly woman indeed, but she did not offer to drive us to the real vineyard. Nor did she shoot us in the face.

"Nice to meet you. Come around to the side gate and I'll let you in."

We grabbed our buckets, with a look of confusion still etched on our faces. An old wooden gate swung open, and May beckoned us to come through.

And there it was. A fully-functioning, mini-vineyard.

This delightful couple produced 1,000 pounds of grapes anually. Just for themselves. May's husband, who was in Hungary setting up their retirement vineyard, decided not to make wine this year, leading them to sell the grapes for only fifty cents a pound. Ruby Cabernet grapes aren't the most sought after, mainly due to consistency problems, but I figured that it would be no huge loss if there was a catastrophic incident in the winemaking process, which there almost undoubtedly will be.

Lauren and I dutifully picked grapes, filling up three large buckets amongst the vines and bees. After we were finished and weighed up (70 pounds of fresh grapes, $35), May invited us in to clean up (grape picking puts a gunk on your hands that is damn near indescribable, but I will try - it's gross) in the house and have some of the 2005 Ruby Cabernet that they'd made.

When we stepped back outside, May had laid out a jug of wine along with a plate of brie and crackers. After shrugging off my normal "this woman poisoned this wine and is going to eat us while we're still alive...oh my god why isn't she having any? 'Lauren, head for the car. I'll take care of this.' Wham wham whap. Gunshot. 'You must* have messed with the wrong people, lady.' Walk off into the sunset to the sight of cops pulling up and digging out countless bodies" delusion, which I think we've all had while picking grapes in a stranger's backyard, I had some wine and cheese. And both were excellent.

A glass of wine later, May told Lauren and I how they landed, of all places, in Escondido, California, selling grapes to a weirdo and her boyfriend. She and her husband owned garnet mines in Alaska that they had just sold to buy a retirement estate in Hungary. After he got laid off from his job as an industrial photographer, he and May drove from the northernmost part of Canada they could get to all the way to the Panama canal. Oh yeah, and he escaped a concentration camp.

We asked her about how she found her way over here, and I have to say, her answer was not what I was expecting. It turns out that when May was 18 or 19 or so, she moved from Ireland to London, and through some girlfriends found out about the bars where the American sailors hung out. Nearly every night, she said, she and her friends would go down there to "meet" some "nice" sailors. Please note that she was not doing air quotes as she spoke.

Ladies and gentlemen, we bought grapes from the most interesting people I'd ever met.

*Must (from the Latin vinum mustum, “young wine”) is freshly pressed fruit juice (usually grape juice) that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit.

What a load of Bullock's

Friday night not only marked the first presidential debate, but a much more historic moment in the grand context of our nation's history. While the first African-American presidential nominee debated the oldest mother-effer since Methuselah, I bottled my first batch of homebrew. It'll be another 2 weeks before it's carbonated and ready to drink, but still, a huge day. 

Here's my marketing slogan: Bullock's Red Ale is a dark, hoppy brew that features notes of lemon, honey, wheat, and plastic bucket. 

You learn something every day in homebrewing, and that day I learned that beer (at least this beer) is carbonated by putting sugar into the beer just before bottling. The yeasts, now close to death, drunk, and abusive, set their sights on this new sugar and start gobbling it up, producing C02 and just a touch of sediment. The result is the familiar and comforting "pssssch" sound of a beer cap being popped off, signaling that the trapped carbon dioxide has escaped the gulag of the bottle. 

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In other Huevos Caballos Noticias, I should be receiving my wine press today or tomorrow, after which I'll squeeze all the juice from the Ruby Cabernet must, and secondary fermentation will start. 

I just started malolactic fermentation, in which some bacteria who love malic acid eat the stuff by the bucket-full and turn it into much nicer tasting lactic acid. According to Wikipedia, this process often leads to "nicer mouthfeel," which is something I think we can all get behind.