Guate Brewing

Cool. Will be in Antigua soon and will check it out.

Back in Guatemala/Belize for most of Nov-Dec, mostly at home on the Rio Dulce. Guest house is available if any of the group want to make a road trip.

 

It's 5 Ave. 9-31, zona 1

AFAIK it's still closed indefinitely, I've received no update on the state of affairs regarding the bar being sold or not.

As far as a get together, I can do it weekdays for lunch, fridays all day or saturday nights until the first week of november and then after the last week of november.

 

Guys,

I will be in Guate City from Oct 28-29. Probably leave on Thursday the 30th. I will not have been to the Rio so wont have anything to share, but be happy to buy a round of beer.

Let me know if a get together anytime on those dates works out.

 

I'm sorry I couldn't meet up, but I've been swamped with midterms, maybe we'll catch up next month.

 

Sorry I missed you. On the way back to Rio today.

Good luck!

 

One way to stay out of your brew is take off traveling for a while...about 10 months in this case. Just got home this afternoon and tapped into a "Smoky Braggot" I left conditioning...yumm.

Late last year, I made my first attempt at roasting my own grains. I shot for an amber roast using "kahun nuts" (Belizean name). These are a palm nut, about golf ball size, rich in oil, which give off a strong oily coconut flavored smoke. They fall by the truck load at my place here in Guatemala and are mostly tossed into the jungle or burnt. I use them to smoke fish too, but they are so potent you have to go light or the result is over powering. So I used a mix of charcoal and kahun nuts to roast/smoke the grains. Grain was 2-row. I hit the amber target and the grains had a nice potent smoky coconut taste. I assume a similar effect could be created by using more commonly available coconuts.

I decide to use this roast to brew a "Smoky Braggot". Brewed it in January and then we left to travel...just got home this afternoon. Of course, one of the first things I did was tap into the keg of Smoky Braggot!

Also first time to use my DIY spunding valve. Left it set at 12 PSI and the resulting light carbonation is about right for a braggot I think.

I accidently over pitched signficantly (re-using yeast slurry) so the body is thinner, and the sweetness less, than I would like, bit its still pretty damn tasty with a noticeable, but not excessive, smoky coconut finish. And at about 8% ABV, I've got a nice little buzz going.

More later, I'm busy drinking! ;-)

 

Good news: Red Star is probably changing hands and reopening within the next 2-3 weeks. Craft beer will still be on the menu.

 

Hey, maybe I can catch it this time, should be thru the City again in about 1 month.

 

Hi to all, i have started a nanobrewery here in Guatemala. If anybody is interested in malts I have a good stock of Briess malts. Price Q. 40.00/pound.

 

Cool. What's it called? What are you brewing? Where's it served? When's the tour? ;-)

 

no name, the brewery is called IXBALANQUE, I brew IPA, Stout and Red ALE. I can produce around 3000L/month, need clients.

 

Im interested in trying some of you beer and why not trying out the grains you have. Let me know how to get them.

 

I will bottling IPA at the end of the week, ready to sell at dec. 19, just a little green but drinkable. To reach a complete flavor you can give it more maturation time.

 

That's great, I'll have to swing by some day along with red star's new owner, I was holding this back for a while until I had an assured date, but they're planning on re-opening this friday with an IPA and a Scotch 80 shilling, they'll probably be interested in more variety.

 

So...I will be in Guate City Sunday night thru Tuesday night. Any chance we could schedule a brewery visit for the CA4 group one of those evenings?

 

I suppose that it is possible to arrange a visit. Maybe on monday or tuesday in the afternoon.

 

I can do that. Anyone else?

 

I could do either day

 

I'm also down for either day, Red Star pushed re-opening back to next thursday, though I should still be able to take the owner over.

 

Lube, would Tuesday afternoon work? Time?

 

Hi, sorry but I see your message right now. Today it´s little difficult because I have to do some diligences in the afternoon but tomorrow morning I plan to produce IPA and if you can visit me around 11:00 am will be great. Call me to my phone 55171006

 

I'll definitely take you up on that.

 

Is the bottled water we get here in Central America considered RO water? here in Nica, the brand is Fuenta Pura.
should i be messing with it at all when mashing? (ive finally gotten access to base grains here)
ive read that 100% RO water isnt good to use if your not adding minerals and such back in. i could cut it with some well water if thats the case. (its extremely hard water here by the beach).

EDIT: i mostly brew IPAs and American Pale Ales.

 

First off I'd like to thank Lube for having me over today, he's a most gracious host and I very much enjoyed our chat.

Regarding RO water: most commercially available bottled water is RO water with a few salts added, most of the time it'll have some sodium nitrite or nitrate, magnesium sulfate and calcium chloride, so it's not like it's "mess with your osmotic pressure" RO water.

That being said, for IPA's and APA's you'll want medium hardness with "lots" of sulphate and medium chloride: See the attached file.

What I usually do is use either straight RO water (from an RO filter at Red Star Bar) or filtered (ceramic sediment cartridge and activated charcoal cartridge filter), sometimes I'll add some epsom salts for a more pronounced bitterness or calcium chloride if I want a clearer maltier beer. I won't usually add anything though. No need to bother cutting it with well water

Since you're mashing I'd also recommend adjusting pH with food grade citric or phosphoric acid to somewhere around 5 (ideally 5.2-5.4), since it affects the reaction speed for amylase (5.3 is the sweetspot for alpha and beta amylase activity)

 

Lube, sorry I was not able to visit today, but we were travling back to Panama. Hopefully I, and more folks from the group, can catch you next time.

 

Re RO/soft water. I have very soft well water. One advantage of that is it is great for brewing lighter beers like Pils, but you can also adjust it for other styles. Its harder to remove mineral, but very easy to add them.

 

thanks for the feedback, i just checked out a bottle, looks like:
calcium 25mg/l
magnesium 8mg/l
flouride .5mg/l

my first go round i wont add anything to see what im working with but will pick up some gypsum or epson salt. i have some citric acid on hand but currently dont have a way of testing pH, will also have to get a meter or strips

 

I've gotten a hold of a couple of the water reports from the water system in the community I live in. what do you think?

 

If at all possible, use water only from well M-6, it-s still pretty hard, but it's lower chloride than M-3, M-6 seems to be somewhat close to Dublin water according to the values I've found, it would benefit from acidification, either with citric acid or roasted grains; or RO/ion exchange treatment.

M-3 is all over the place with (bi)carbonate, sulphate and chloride, it'll muddle the malt flavor to nothing.

 

Yours truly was partly featured in an article by siglo21 (Guatemalan news paper)- In case anyone's interested.

 

Cool. Link to the article?

 

http://www.s21.com.gt/artesanos/2015/03/15/artesanos-cerveza-salen-luz

 

Wayne is famous! Good stuff, have not been able to visit yet. Congrats!

 

Que paso en Guate?

Very quiet on this thread. What are you guys brewing?

Has anyone been by to visit Brew Master Wayne and try his beers?

Sounds like a great venue for group meeting!

Seems I'm migrating to Panama...spending more and more time here. Hope to get back to Guate long enough to do a little brewing this year...and then probably migrate my brewing to Panama also.

 

Unfortunately after only participating in one Guate Brewing gathering I've migrated far from Guatemala all the way to Istanbul. I wish I was there to sample some of Wayne's brews. Istanbul is pretty dry on the beer front.

 

It's been pretty quiet on my end as well, I got another job and I'm wrapping up with my studies this year, so I haven't had much time to brew at home any more (it's been like 4 months already). Hopefully once I'm done with school I can get into it more seriously again.

 

Wow, big move. What took you to Istanbul?

 

Is the craft brew pub still open? A different job than that one I assume?

I'm gradually migrating to Panama. We are trying to figure out how to fit some time back in Guate this year into our plans and its looking tight. Not much point in going back just for a short visit.

Anybody wanna buy a cool place on the Rio Dulce? ;-)

 

Yes, it's still open.

 

Hello all, I live in Guate and am sorely missing brewing my own beer although I have turned out a pretty good mead. Instead of sifting through the 60+ pages of this group I though that I would ask about how to get malt and hops. Yeast is not a problem for me since I culture my own. I am really glad that I found you guys and I hope to maybe meet you in the future. Most of my homebrew equipment is still in the US but I have a serviceable settup. Looking forward to hearing from you guys! Cheers!