What's Up Wednesday (2/29/12)

Well it isn't exactly Wednesday, but we can pretend it is. It has been a busy week and there are a few new things to talk about.


What Just Happened:

Yeast Culturing - I have successfully produced some yeast colonies on a petri dish. This strain is the Thames Valley II seasonal yeast from Wyeast. I recently made an IPA and a Scottish 80 with this strain and really like the flavor and flocculation. If you take a look at the picture you can see a bunch of little white dots. These are yeast colonies that grew from a single yeast colony. The large group of them is from the spot where I first streaked the plate. I started on that side and then continued streaking around the plate. This had the effect of scattering a few yeast cells and that is why you can see the lonely white dots. These single ones are most likely to be from a single yeast cell and are the cultures that I am most interested in since they represent an isolation of the strain.

Starting last night, I began stepping up single yeast colonies in about 10ml of wort. I filled 4 autoclavable test tubes with wort, added yeast nutrient and put it in the oven with the lid loosely screwed on and set it to 300 degrees. It didn't take long to get these to a boil and I let them continue for 30 minutes. I then added the single yeast colonies using an inoculating loop after sterilizing it with an alcohol flame. If all goes well I will continue to step this culture up over the weekend and report back next week.

In addition to this, I made a first step yeast starter for the brewing we will be doing this weekend. This weekend we will be making a dry stout. The yeast we chose is Wyeast British Ale II. This is a strain that we have not used before, but are excited to try. I took a bit of an adventurous route on the wort for this one. I used my usual frozen second runnings wort from my last batch, but this time I decided to boil it in the same container that will be on the stir plate. So instead of using a pot and transferring it into a glass jug I planned to just cut out a step. Now I knew this glass jar was not made of pyrex so I was trying to be careful. As you might have predicted I did lose this jar. Everything went well until I added the yeast nutrient. This wort had been boiling in my oven for about 30 minutes when I decided to add a little yeast nutrient. When I did it boiled over immediately. The boil over cracked the top of the top of the glass, but did not shatter it. So, I carefully bulled the jar out of the oven and transferred the liquid to another sanitized container. I think the lesson here is pyrex is worth the money. And it looks like I need to shop for some more lab glassware.

What to look forward to:

Slurp and Burp Competition: I made 5 entries into the competition this year: Dusseldorf Alt, Cranberry Wit, Bohemian Pilsner, Bavarian Weizen, and Apple Cider. The judging will take place at Fearless Brewing in Estacada, Or on Saturday March 10^th from 9am-4pm. Last year there were 279 entries, so I expect every category to be competitive this year.

Brewing: We will be brewing up a batch of dry stout this weekend. We actually have not brewed one of these before, although we have done other stouts in the past. I'm thinking some of this will get a little habanero dry hop to give it some kick. Check back soon for the brew day review.

 

On the Road:

Brewery Visit - Last weekend we stopped in at Roadhouse 101 and had some brews made by Rusty Truck Brewing in Lincoln City, OR. We just happened to walk in on Thursday which means pints are $2 all day long. As we sipped on a brew and had an order of onion rings we noticed someone walk behind the bar and get a beer for themselves, so we asked the barkeep "how do you get that status?" He replied: "he's the brewer." Awesome! While we were there we tried 4 different beers in all and I would recommend the Road Wrecker IPA but I also enjoyed the Fender Bender Amber. The IPA comes in at 7% and had a nice resiny bitterness paired with a solid malt backbone. I also had the chance to taste a sip of the Moonlight Ride Blackberry ale. It had the distinctive aroma of blackberries and is sure to be popular with the fruit beer ladies (and guys). I've got to make a quick mention about the peanuts in this place. They come in large buckets and you toss the shells on the floor—who doesn't like that. I somehow missed taking a picture of the surprisingly large buckets. If you have been to Lincoln City then you know the micro brew scene isn't big and this place is definitely worth a stop.

 

Seafood and Wine Festival - I won't go on too much about the festival, although I did spend two afternoons there. Come on, winemaking is the cousin of beer brewing and I have love for the whole family. And it doesn't hurt to spend some time doing things that your girlfriend and her friends can get excited about. I will say this festival was crowded on Saturday and it draws many more people to Newport than I realized. Friday was nice because the crowds were smaller and I had a chance to talk to several winemakers and pick up a few tips. In the future I would avoid Saturday at the festival altogether. There was a divers showing of wineries featuring wines that ranged from superb to questionably drinkable. I was excited to see how many mom and pop type wineries are out there. Well, I promised to keep it short so I'll wrap it up by mentioning Friday morning was the most beautiful winter day that I had ever seen in Newport, but by 2 pm it was pouring rain—I mean really pouring and windy too. Ah Oregon, how unpredictably horrible the weather can change.

 

 

 Bier One – This place makes me want to move to Newport! Bier One is a homebrew shop meets tasting room in heart of Newport. I heard about this place from a winemaker at the Seafood and Wine festival and had to make a stop in. I had no idead that it would exceed the high expectations that were built by the friendly winemaker. When you walk in you see brewing supplies to each side and a bar straight ahead. They had 10 excellent brews on tap so I quickly moved to have the Skunk Ape IPA from Boneyard. The entire selection was awesome including the likes of Racer V from Bear Republic. This place is the best beer spot in town (short of the Rogue Brewery). You could lift this place from Newport and put it in Portland only to find there would never be an empty seat in the house. And, they are doing a pretty good job keeping it hopping in Newport. There is a side room where they have live bands and they even have a foosball table and host a plackard from the foosball competition. Did I mention they sell beer in bottles too. I am getting excited just talking about this—sorry if the excitement is scattering my thoughts. No doubt I will be back to this place again. Okay, one more thing to mention. For all the smartphone users out there, they have a QR barcode below their flat screen beer tap list. You scan the code, it sends you to a website where you can like or dislike the beer you are having. Wait for it… then your like or dislike is sent directly to the board and appears in the order sent at the bottom. I had a chance to talk with the guy who put together the system and he is really excited to see people using this. It helps them keep track of what it popular and bring more good beer to the people.