How hot is too hot?

Jalepeno Vodka? Jalepeno Beer?

So I had been planning on updating tonight about what I managed to get through last week: namely wonderful pictures/descriptions of how I racked the current beer in primary (India Red Brown Ale) to secondary. This was an interesting story because I used pellet hops, but not in a hop bag during the boil. But that happens every time we brew beer... today's subject is far more interesting... At least I think so...

Jalepenos. In a beer. A porter to be exact.

The question was how to do it?

I got a tip from another homebrewer. simply make some extracts, and them add them into the beer after the fermentation. His tip though, was to try it out on small scale before the big day.

So I went off to the grocery store for Phase 1 and picked out some different chiles to start off with.

#1: The Jalepeno:


#2: The Serrano Chile:

#3 Dried Chipotle Chiles:

Anyways... After picking out my three types of chiles I moved onto Phase 2: How to prepare the chiles to make the best extract. I figured I had two options for how to go about it. I could A) Dice them in a food processor, then put them in vodka and get an extract, or B) crush them up in a mortar and pestle (okay so I actually have one of these for food, not just science) and then make the extract. So for each of the first two chiles, the jalepeno and the serrano, I did both. For the dried ones I cut them up, and used whole ones to make the extracts.


Phase 3: Now we sit and wait for a couple weeks and then add them into some beer and do a tasting. Eventually I will be able to pick which type of peppers, how to prepare them and then how much to add per batch. I'll keep you posted!

New (okay first) Logo Unveiled!

Sorry for the radio internet silence recently, but brewing has been going well. Though today I spent most of my afternoon trying to come up with a kick-ass logo. This included having to teach myself how to use Adobe Illustrator. Which is frustrating, but its getting better. Anyways, this is my concept for Up River Ales, a slower approach to life, nice and easy. I finally racked my beer to secondary this week, so I will try to update the progress on that tomorrow!

Yeast in a Tube!

Just wanted to update how making a yeast stock went.

Today I pulled out the yeast from the incubator (30 Degrees C) after they were in over night.


Now its in the -80 for the foreseeable future!

Yeast on a plate!

So the biggest key ingredient that I have found in my (very) limited brewing experience is yeast. I started brewing with Cooper's Dry Ale yeast, but kept finding that my beer kept turning out too sweet. I now use liquid yeast, either from Wyeast or White Labs.

As a biologist, it seemed like it would be more fun to start making frozen stocks of the yeast. I had two sitting around in my fridge for my next batches... I quickly streaked out plates and left them out at room temperature over the weekend.


Two days later at room temp... colonies are clearly visible!



Today I set up a liquid culture so then I'll be freezing it down in 50% glycerol and keeping at -80 degrees C until I want to use this yeast again... Then you just streak a new plate, pick a colony and grow into a starter culture for pitching.

First Post!

So I started this blog on a whim... Anyways, hopefully it will eventually grow into a nice little blog.

And by nice little blog I mean posts about how my homebrewing is going, about the beer I'm enjoying and a variety of other things... Its not really clear what it will be about at the moment. Mostly I would like to introduce you to my newest brain-child... Up River Ales. I hope Up River Ales will eventually become a successful brewery and business, but I am still in the planning/do I really want to do this stage. If you hate the name let me know, we can always change it... (especially should one eventually want to create a lager...)

Check back for more updates!