Hello from San Francisco!

[Seismogenic]

Hello all!

I've been lurking around these forums and reading many many threads since I started brewing this September, but I figured I should finally post or something.

Anyway! I'm a seismologist, and like many of my other geoscientist friends, I've taken that last step from enjoying beer after a day in the field or lab to becoming an insufferable craft beer geek to actually brewing my own. This also allows me to bring more geologically-themed beer into the world, huzzah!

I'm in a tiny San Francisco studio apartment, so I'm brewing one-gallon all-grain batches for the time being. I really don't have space for anything more than that. But at the same time, I'm enjoying the fact that small batches allow me to experiment and tinker with what I'm doing.
(My next experiment will be to take the IPA recipe I made last month and simply switch the order of when I add my flavoring hops, just to see how the profile changes. Do any of you other small batch folks tinker like this as part of the learning process?)

I'll cut short the rambling. This forum has already been immensely helpful with my first three batches, and I'm looking forward to participating here in the future and learning more from you all!

 

[ArizonaGoalie]

Cheers amigo!

I did a one gallon barleywine once. Racked it over two cans of fruit cocktail in a secondary to give the effect of fruitcake. Turned out fabulous.

Tonight I'm brewing an all grain 5 gallon batch of milk stout. Will be dividing it into two secondaries - one with vanilla and one with peanut butter powder.

Happy brewing!

 

[Seismogenic]

Oh man, that's definitely adventurous tinkering! I figure I'm going to wait to get more experience with just the basic ingredients before I start adding the likes of fruit or spices, but I'm already excited to try.

Fruitcake barleywine sounds like an amazing thing to pull out at a holiday party. People would be all OH NO FRUITCAKE, and then you surprise them with kickass beer.

I'd love to hear how the milk stout experiment turns out!

 

[Seismogenic]

Oh dang, fruit cocktail? Peanut butter? That's off the charts levels of tinkering! I know I eventually want to experiment with adding external stuff to my beer, but I figure I should get more experience with the basic ingredients first.

The fruitcake barleywine sounds really awesome, and like an amazing thing to pull out at a holiday party. Just when people are going OH NO NOT FRUITCAKE, they get kickass beer instead.

I'd love to hear how the milk stout experiment turns out!

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the hobby, and the group. I love doing small batches. That way, I am more free to experiment.

Unfortunately, I made a great Chocolate Porter, and a delicious Russian Imperial Stout aged with bourbon and oak. They disappeared way too quick! Next time, big batches of those.

 

[Jaybird]

Welcome from 3 hours (depending on how you drive LOL) north!

Cheers
Jay

 

[ncc]

Wow. Another SF geologist brewing

 

[Jaybird]

Wow. Another SF geologist brewing

Its good business in the bay!

Cheers
Jay

 

[Seismogenic]

Wow. Another SF geologist brewing

A huge massive unprecedented surprise, I know!


(Or were you implying that you, too, are a Bay Area geologist-type? Right on!)

 

[Jaybird]

So Victor (my co owner of Nor Cal Brewing) just brewed a Fruit Cake Heff yesterday. The wort smelled and tasted amazing! slight cherries on the palette. Let me see if he started a FB blog about it yet. I do know we have sold several kits in the store already from people going "Ohhh YEAH That sounds good" Even before we brewed it. Well they knew they were going to be test brewers so we will see.


Ok check it out here Arazonagoalie

Our fruitcake heff https://www.facebook.com/NorCalBrewingSolutions?ref=hl

Cheers
Jay

 

[Seismogenic]

So Victor (my co owner of Nor Cal Brewing) just brewed a Fruit Cake Heff yesterday. The wort smelled and tasted amazing! slight cherries on the palette. Let me see if he started a FB blog about it yet. I do know we have sold several kits in the store already from people going "Ohhh YEAH That sounds good" Even before we brewed it. Well they knew they were going to be test brewers so we will see.


Ok check it out here Arazonagoalie

Our fruitcake heff https://www.facebook.com/NorCalBrewingSolutions?ref=hl

Cheers
Jay

Whoops, missed this reply a few weeks ago, so sorry!

I see the picture of the fruitcake wort on your Facebook page, but if there's an actual blog, I must have missed it. (Also, it's really cool that you do a demonstration brew day. To my knowledge, none of the San Francisco homebrew shops do that.)

Does adding a bunch of fruit affect the fermentation time much, or did this end up following a pretty standard hef timeline so far?

 

[Jaybird]

Whoops, missed this reply a few weeks ago, so sorry!

I see the picture of the fruitcake wort on your Facebook page, but if there's an actual blog, I must have missed it. (Also, it's really cool that you do a demonstration brew day. To my knowledge, none of the San Francisco homebrew shops do that.)

Does adding a bunch of fruit affect the fermentation time much, or did this end up following a pretty standard hef timeline so far?

Well the beer itself ended up about 8.5% so the fermentation time is in line with that. He just transfered it to secondary and my understanding (I didn't taste it) it was fairly hot and needs a little calm down time.

Cheers
Jay