Speaker 1:
0:08
Music. Hey, what's up everybody. Good morning. Doug Pistorius here, the EZNL Aviator. We're back for another episode. Once again, thank you guys very much for listening. Thank you for all the support you guys have been giving on the social medias. I very much appreciate that. If you like what you hear today, please go over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a five star review. Even if you don't like what you hear today, be a bro anyway and please go do that. I would really appreciate that. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, or you just want to talk about the show, or if you'd possibly like to be a guest on the show, please hit me up on either Facebook, instagram or you can email me at theseenialaviatorcom. Either way works. Just get a hold of me. Let me know what's up.
Speaker 1:
1:28
Today's going to be a fun day in the studio, aka my office. I have Mr Ian Dibble with me. He's a home brewer and we're going to talk about how he got started doing that, some of the great stuff he does and some of the people he works with doing that. Ian, what's up man? Hello, glad to be here this morning. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you, let's just go ahead and start from the beginning. Man, I'll let you pretty much take the runes and I'll hop in and ask a question or two of them from there. Yeah, man, just tell me about yourself, tell me where you come from.
Speaker 3:
1:57
All right. So hometown here, Jacksonville, grew up to Navy Family. Brother and father both serve and proud of that heritage and our family. We're talking about brewing, though Dad is a home brewer as well and about I don't know 12 years ago or so he started brewing and just kind of watching and hanging out with him, picked up the bug and jumped into all grain brewing about two years after watching him and been doing it ever since.
Speaker 1:
2:21
Awesome. So with brewing, I know a little bit about brewing. I've done home brewing before. I've brewed a couple different types of beer, but you mentioned all grain brewing. Can you kind of explain what that means and go into the process? Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
2:35
So brewing, you can make it as simple as you want or as complicated as the pros. A lot of people have started out with those, mr Beer Kits, and they've had horror stories with their infital and products. All grain brewing is basically you get the barley, you're going to crush it and you're not using any extracts, or they call it DME or liquid DME, sorry. And so with all grain brewing, you're extracting the sugars yourself instead of having the factories do it for you, or distributor.
Speaker 1:
3:07
Nice, nice. So it's a little bit of a DIY process there. What's the difference between the extract and the full grain? Can you kind of give the differentiation with that?
Speaker 3:
3:16
Got it so with an extract kit. The kit's going to come with your hops and your yeast and some bags of liquid malt extract and basically, if you've ever made Kool-Aid, that's what you're doing with this kit, the extract. You're just going to pour the water and your extract liquid malt extract into the wort and boil it and add your hops and when it's cooled down, add your yeast. It's pretty dummy proof. For the setup. You only need a boil pot and a firmening chamber. You can do that in a six gallon bucket from Lowe's if you wanted to, and so if you want to get into brewing, you can make it as cheap as you want. Going that route. With all grain brewing, you're going to need a few more things. Usually you can buy your grain already crushed or you can have a mill yourself. I happen to have a mill and that way I can control the crush level and that can affect my sugar outcome further down the line. With all grain brewing you're also going to need either. There's two different methods. You can do what they call brewing a bag, and in that you have your boil pot and a large nylon mesh bag. You dump your crushed grain into it and basically make oatmeal for about an hour and that's going to convert all of your sugars into usable starches for the yeast to eat up. Again, you're having to make the sugars yourself that way instead of having the liquid malt extract already done for you.
Speaker 3:
4:42
I've got a fancier system with a grain father on one system and it's basically a brew in a bag system. But instead of a bag I've got a large stainless steel strainer. If you will, and when I'm done extracting the sugar, I'll just lift the entire cylinder out and the wart drains out the bottom strainer, leaving the grain behind, and I just pull the bag or the basket out and I can go ahead and boil them. There are three tier systems that would use a separate mash ton and that gets a little more expensive because you have to have not only a mash ton. You need a hot liquor tank and you need a boil pot and you're transferring your wart into the boil pot using a pump or gravity and, like I said, that's probably the more expensive route of going it. But most people these days are using brew in a bag or all in one systems.
Speaker 1:
5:34
Gotcha, it's funny you mentioned the Mr Beer. That's actually what I started out with. Oh man, it's probably been like 15 years ago. Next girlfriend of mine she got me that for Christmas one year ended up making an IPA with it. I'm not even really an IPA fan, but we'll get into that in a second. But IPAs are one of the more common slash easier beers to learn how to start.
Speaker 3:
5:56
15 years ago was all the West Coast IPAs for all the craze back then?
Speaker 1:
5:59
Yeah, and I do love a hazy IPA, yeah, so let me differentiate with that one. I guess I need to narrow it down. Not a fan of most IPAs, but I do love a good West Coast hazy.
Speaker 3:
6:10
IPA. I'm definitely the West Coast. The more bitter the better. I want it like turpentine, stripping the flavor off my tongue.
Speaker 1:
6:16
Wow, wow, okay, so that was going to lead into my next question what is your favorite type of beer? What types of beers did you start brewing with?
Speaker 3:
6:24
So my first beer is actually a Brown Ale. If you live in Jacksonville here you would probably have heard of Bold Cities, dukes, Brown.
Speaker 1:
6:32
Ale yes, I love it.
Speaker 3:
6:33
Very, very smooth, easy drinking beer. So that was my first beer that I tried to duplicate was kind of a Brown Ale.
Speaker 3:
6:40
Because, as we were talking about the West Coast, ipas were the big thing 15 years ago. That's what I brewed a lot of then, didn't really get into loggers or anything. I didn't have the temperature control to handle the loggering process and a lot of the yeast strains that are available now weren't available back then. So mostly ales back then and your blonde ales and think of like Rage and Blonde or something from Veterans United, things like that Nice.
Speaker 1:
7:07
So your dad's been doing this for about 12 years or so. Did you start right around the same time he did? Did you jump right on it with him? Or how long, I guess, in total, have you been doing this?
Speaker 3:
7:16
Total. I started in 2012 or so and that's when I joined our cast group here. Jacksonville's Home Brew Club called a California Ale Sharing Club, aka Cask, and this is a community of home brewers here in town that get together and we trade secrets to the craft and get the competitions, give each other's notes and tips and pointers on how to make our beer better and with this community I've kind of really grown into one of the top home brewers in our club.
Speaker 1:
7:43
Nice, Nice With Cask. Can anybody join? Is there a membership or how's that?
Speaker 3:
7:48
work. There is a membership. We have a webpage, wwwthecastorg, and it's $25 for a year. This helps pay for the two entries into the state competitions called the Florida Circuit. We also have a huge home brew festival here in town called First Coast Cup. It's going to be every July of the year and we'd get together at a hotel and we do a pub crawl. We do 450 beers of cup judging and so the money helps pay for all the things needed to put on these different competitions and that's very cool.
Speaker 1:
8:24
Very cool With the beer competition. Does everybody get to throw a batch in there, or how does that work? It's completely open.
Speaker 3:
8:31
There's a cap. Usually it starts with three beer entries and then as time goes on, if we haven't hit our 450 limit, then you can add more. But yeah, it's totally open to anybody, actually even out of state, as long as you, it's called regibeercom and anybody in the United States that's part of home brewing can put it in. Typically, though, it's Floridians that are home brewing that are entering this competition?
Speaker 1:
8:53
I only ask that question because I know there's some guys from Washington state and other parts of the country who are listening in. When I was stationed up in Washington state, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting either a brewery or a coffee roastery. So that's definitely huge up there as well, and it's interesting, depending on what part of the country you're in, the different styles of beer that really are prevalent in brewing. I know we talked a little bit about the West Coast. Obviously, they're huge in IPAs over there. If you've ever been to Southern California I've literally every brewery specializes in some sort of IPA. Up in the Pacific Northwest they were really big into stouts, really big into some quads up there. Obviously, I think, because it's a little bit cooler. But had a lot of great beers up there from different breweries, like Elysium and what would you say? Because I have my opinion about this, but what would you say is kind of a prevalent beer here in Florida.
Speaker 3:
9:52
Go with your sour, making a huge hit right now, and anything that they're squinching. Your loggers are huge here. Your Mexican loggers are a big hit here. So anything that's going to be, you know they're squinching. So I'm thinking the lower ABVs, your blondes and stuff like that. What's ABV? Sorry, alcohol by volume. So you're going to be sitting by the pool. You don't want to be sipping away at eight beers all day long. You're going to want the four or 5% beers that are going to get you through a long hot afternoon here in Florida.
Speaker 1:
10:22
Seeing that spoken like a true Floridian right there and that's why I always get a kick out of I hope this whole episode doesn't turn in, especially because I knew you like IPAs. I hope this doesn't turn into the me bashing IPAs hour, but I always find it hilarious and it's kind of a mark of probably somebody who's not from Florida. Whenever it's a nice hot summer July day and I hear oh man, I would love to have an IPA and just hang out by the pool Like dude you're going to be spent like after a couple of those.
Speaker 3:
10:49
You say, unless it's a session or something like that, because they're hitting up 7% or on most of those.
Speaker 1:
10:55
Yeah, I've evolved in my beer drinking. I do like some stouts. I like German beers very much, my go to. It doesn't matter what time of year it is a Helles Love a Helles.
Speaker 1:
11:06
Yes, and it's just nice and light, smooth. It's your original porch drinking beer, which became the derivative of most of our loggers here in the United States. I speak in the loggers. I'll tell you about that in a little bit, but I have made a. I've made loggers before my. So my first type of beer I made that IPA and the Mr Beer and then once I actually started to get a beer kit, a couple years later, when me and Nicole were married, she bought me a full on beer kit and I started making a partial mash with the liquid extract like you were talking about earlier Steeping your specialty grains and trying to get some better character out of those.
Speaker 1:
11:42
I bet Yep, making beer, oatmeal basically, and I would just eat it in the morning too. No, but I made some. I made a brown ale and made a blonde ale and I actually did try my hand. I made an Oktoberfest, I made a Mars and in the garage over there I have a temperature regulator on my fridge.
Speaker 3:
11:57
I was going to ask you on these early batches, how are you regulating your fermentation temperatures, because that's really going to make her break your beer. That in sanitation practices.
Speaker 1:
12:07
Yes, literally I'm lazy about most things, but when it comes to beer, I'm very, very much in over 10 of when it comes to that really good quality to have as a home brewer or any brewer.
Speaker 3:
12:16
Yeah, the cleaner the better.
Speaker 1:
12:17
So let's talk about that for a second. Let's peel that back, because obviously you've been doing this way longer and way more consistent than I have. I'm looking at a list of yours because you brought me a couple today and all these sound awesome and they are all of different varieties. But since you've been doing this for so long, talk to me about sometimes some of your fails and how that's gone and how you've gone forward with that and what did you do with the outcome, etc.
Speaker 3:
12:42
I've had a couple of fails, not so much whole batches I do have one story for that but individual, like most people start off bottling their beer and bottle conditioning and with some type of corn drop tablet. If your bottles are not completely sanitized, you'll get a bottle bomb where the leftover residual sugar is going to keep getting eaten up by the yeast and it'll keep carbonating while there's a fine limit on those glass bottles on how much they can hold on pressure. So yeah, if you're not sanitized perfectly, you'll get some bottle bombs and that's never fun to clean up, especially if it's in your closet and it's a dark stout or something like that.
Speaker 1:
13:25
Honey, it smells like chocolate and alcohol in the closet.
Speaker 3:
13:29
We got a whole scale system, though. We did a cask barrel project where all of us brewed a Belgian triple and we put it into a Chardonnay barrel 50 gallons with fishwear. Our buddy, john Keane, hooked us up with it and we all brewed the same triple recipe. We all added five gallons into this 50 gallon Chardonnay barrel and I got my share back when it was all conditioned and I put it in the corner of my dining room and forgot about it. Well, apparently that keg was not completely clean and I ended up souring my beer to a degree almost like what a Bret Meissens would do to it, and it kind of funked it up even more than a Belgian triple. Already A Belgian yeast gives a spicy, kind of funky flavor to beers, if you haven't had one, but anyways, this contamination caused it to get even funkier. I was able to save the beer, though. I racked underneath the film and transferred it to another keg and it ended up being a really, really good tasting beer by accident.
Speaker 1:
14:33
That's kind of cool. You brought that up because I've always wondered that I like a lot of Belgian triples. One of my all time go to favorites is Chame. I love Chame blue. Yes, sir, that's beautiful. But I've always wondered with delirium why it had that. Just For being a Belgian beer, it had that kind of off the wall, a little bit of spice taste to it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:
14:56
It's going to be just the yeast choice. I brought you a Belgian single here. When we cracked that open, You'll discover it's got a lot of those phenols, these spicy peppery notes to it. That's no spices added. For me it's just the yeast, and what it gives off is byproducts in the fermentation process.
Speaker 1:
15:13
Nice, yes, I'm looking forward to that, and towards the end here we'll crack those open and have a little tasting, if you will. So tell me what are your favorite types of beers to brew and explain what they are, how you came about them, et cetera.
Speaker 3:
15:29
So as time has evolved, kind of changed from the brown ales and your West Coast IPAs and now I'm getting into some of the source and loggers, as my technology has changed. I use an ink bird temperature controller and I've got a chest freezer and I put my SS BrewTech fermenter inside of that and it basically keeps it within a degree of where I want my beer to be kept. So if I want to do a logger at 52 degrees I can keep it there. Now my tastes have changed so I really like just a beer. Beer. You're saying the hellest is your favorite. I absolutely agree with you.
Speaker 3:
16:02
Anything from the German side of things Love, just a really easy drinking logger. Now I make the souring, though the yeast has changed in the last 15 years as well, so you don't have to do a kettle sour anymore, which is kind of tricky to do without the technology. You can just pitch a regular Philly sour yeast now and you can have a sour I pitching it in. One of the byproducts is lactic acid, so I brought your Berlinero ice to try another German beer. It's their sour version. Nice, easy drinking 3.5% beer, but it's got that nice lactic acid tart to it and delicious.
Speaker 1:
16:37
Nice. So would you say that? Are you usually brewing something that you have in mind that you want to drink? I know this seems like a stupid question, but just the method. You're madness. Are you challenging yourself like, oh hey, I want to make X? Or you're usually brewing something that you want to make, and I asked that because you mentioned your taste of evolved. So has it gone from? Oh, I'd like this IPA? Well, you know what I really feel like drinking X now, so I'm going to make Berlinero ice.
Speaker 3:
17:06
So my choice? Because cask, because I'm part of cask we have home brew competitions and state competitions. We also have brewer rankings, and so I'm a master brewer of three, which is the highest level in our club. So in order to get that, you have to have had 40 major categories of the BJCP brew categories brewed. What is the BJCP?
Speaker 3:
17:30
Bjcp is the national recognized categories of your attributes that define what a beer style is, and so by entering them into state competitions and interclub competitions that we have in our club, I can rank up, and so my goal in the last few years was to get one degree higher each year. I'm now chasing down the subcategories, which is going to take me another decade, probably the brew. But, being said, to answer your question, part of what I brew is based on my goals as a cask member and what level I want to chase down next, and the other part is for me. So I have a two tap, a calculator, in my house and I always have one that's kind of probably competition related, and the other one's just for me.
Speaker 1:
18:19
Okay, Nice, Whenever you brew just to give people an idea who haven't done it before, I usually I have a rough idea. But your average garden variety batch, how much is that going to make in yield for somebody who wants to get into this? Just to have an idea of what to expect whenever they brew a batch of beer and basically their total in so to start those kits that you were talking about earlier.
Speaker 3:
18:45
they're a five gallon kit and that yields about 54 bottles or so for your 12 ounce regular bottles or one Pepsi keg, a ball lock keg. So yeah, five gallon batches are pretty standard. If you have a lot more friends that I do, you can obviously scale that up, do a double batch or something like that, but a five gallons is pretty typical.
Speaker 1:
19:07
Nice. Have you ventured into possibly canning, or do you just stay with the bottle on kegs?
Speaker 3:
19:14
Canning is quite expensive to do. Dad and I have toyed with the idea of investing in one together. But $1,500 for a canning system when I can pop a bottle on it's cap at myself for almost nothing, it doesn't really seem cost efficient.
Speaker 1:
19:29
No, 100%. I've been doing it. Since I've been doing it, I haven't kegged because Nicole won't let me get a kegerator and, honestly, I've tried to not let myself get a kegerator because I'll be even fatter than I am right now, so at the end of the day, to just, you know, one or two having a keg.
Speaker 1:
19:47
Just stare me in the face. I already have a mini refrigerator in the back, but at least I can say that's during summer I go run or I go jump in the pool. I earned a beer, but I've done bottles primarily. I do have a set of I call them loomies, I think, of course, like the aluminum cans. I'm wanting to try that pretty soon. I have and it's. They don't get sealed. But apparently and correct me if you know better than this the company I bought them from says you can bottle them in that and seal them up with the lids, and they will. I'm not familiar with this. Yeah, okay, no, that's fine. I haven't used them yet, so I'll let you know how that goes. If I do it, I'm probably going to come out Before to hearing it.
Speaker 1:
20:30
Yeah, I won't waste my time with a lager, that's for sure. But no, that sounds very cool. And yeah, that's I mean for an initial in for anybody who's wanting to try this hobby. I think at the end of the day, if you're willing to put in the work, you're going to come out with a quality product and it's actually cheaper in the long run vice buying 54 bottles of craft beer somewhere.
Speaker 3:
20:56
Yeah, well, you tell your wife said that it's to save money. But any home perer will know, as you advance in your practices you always want the next shinier thing and then you can. You can add up a pretty expensive setup pretty quickly. Yeah, it's like any hobby, I guess. But I figure for five gallons it costs me about $50. That's for five gallons of beer per batch.
Speaker 1:
21:20
That's not bad at all. No, so, cask, when did you start competing and how have you done with that? Walk me through your evolution.
Speaker 3:
21:32
So, as I was saying, we have our interclub competitions, and interclub is for our club members only, and the officers and myself being one of them have decided on a set number of styles that we want to have a competition on every year, and so the club members know an entire year out what months are going to be what categories, so they can plan their brew schedules ahead of time. And we get together the second Saturday of every month at a brewery around town and we have certified judges that have passed the national BJCP exam to judge, and so this coming weekend we're going to be judging Sours, for example, and so with this interclub competition, you'll get feedback, your beer, and then we win medals and it's bragging rights basically, but more importantly, you get notes from people that really know their beer well and you can make a better product next time you make this beer. So I got into it in 2012, as I was saying, but I wasn't really winning medals, metals back then.
Speaker 3:
22:35
The biggest thing that I recognized I wasn't sanitizing correctly. I also wasn't having temperature control. I was just pitching the yeast in my fermenting chamber, which was a plastic bucket. At the time was basically ambient temperature of my house, which was what? 73, 75 degrees, and that can throw off some different byproducts within, making your beer not as clean tasting as you'd like it to be. As years have gone on, obviously my practices have evolved, and temperature control is now the biggest reason that I'm winning medals. As I said, I'm a master three brewer in our club, and so it doesn't come without winning a lot of medals as well, and not modest though. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm pretty competitive. So, yeah, I've got a display case of all of them behind my calculator and it's one of my brides.
Speaker 1:
23:25
That's awesome, dude, and I feel like with a hobby like this slash, I call it a passion, because I think that's what it is. I look at it like anything else. You take pride in what you make and, especially when you're trying to yield it for somebody else to try, you're going to put a lot of love into it. I mean, I would assume the same way with people who bake stuff you mentioned sourced. That seems to be like I don't want to say the new hotness, because they've been around for quite a bit, but it seems that they are definitely becoming more and more popular. They definitely are, and especially we're starting to get towards the springtime again here, so they'll be kicking up.
Speaker 1:
24:08
I'm not too huge of a fan of the sours. I've had a couple and the one I told you about that I really like was down in Tampa I believe it was Cigar City, but I don't remember, so don't quote me on that. They had a cucumber sour and that thing was. That was really good and refreshing, but for the most part I feel like I'm drinking a warhead Like, if you remember back as a kid, those little like sour things. So what types of flavor or sour Sours have you been making or what types of flavors sourced do you like recommend for somebody to?
Speaker 3:
24:38
start with, I've made a few different sours. Dad and I did a collaboration with a Goza and with that one we did a lemongrass and I can't remember what else was in it. It was basically a lemon version of the Goza, and then, most recently, there was a raspberry one. I did I've done Kiwi Strawberry.
Speaker 3:
24:57
That sounds good. That was really really good. And there's a couple of ways of inserting your fruit flavors. You can do whole fruits that are you know, that's how I did the raspberry one recently. Or you can do an extract. I prefer to do the fresh fruit version. It's going to be even more authentic flavoring than some of these extracts. You just kind of mix in with your wort and it kind of is just artificially flavored.
Speaker 1:
25:20
Yeah, that's a. It's definitely a noticeable difference, I think with and it's kind of analogous with baking too. You definitely notice the difference between somebody putting, like, a strawberry compote on something like actual strawberries. Talking about combining flavors, I've always been kind of fascinated with this and I've never really ventured into it. I haven't been that adventurous because I was afraid of really messing it up in a debacle. But how would you take a fruit or some sort of other product and add it into your beer, for instance? I know there's coffee steps. That's actually one of my favorites. I love a good coffee step. Yeah, oh God, so tasty, it's like the best of both worlds. How do you go about doing that? How does a homebrew go about doing that?
Speaker 3:
26:07
Most recently. If you're doing fresh fruit again, I generally will add it to secondary, which is so after primary fermentation, the yeast have gone through all your residual sugars and you basically have a finished beer. Alcohol is present at that point, which is important because if you add something to it like fruit, there's going to be outside contaminants on that fruit. You're not going to be able to wash it off completely and sanitize it. So if there's alcohol present, that's going to help preserve your beer and not get anything funky in there. So what I've done I've taken a mesh bag and I boil it to sanitize it. I take frozen fruit and I add it to my mesh bag and the frozen fruit. What happens when it thaws out is the yeast not sorry. The cell walls are broken down and they give you more fruit juice to add more of that fruit flavor you're after in your beer.
Speaker 3:
27:00
And I add it to a mesh bag, right into the keggerator, into the keg, and I let it sit there for about a week. And then I take a pair of sterilized tongs and I pull the bag out and cap it and purge my CO2 to keep it fresh. And that's how I do it. There's probably other ways. But I find if you do it in secondary, you preserve most of your aromas and your flavoring, because if it's in primary, co2 is going to be given off and you're going to be blowing a lot of those aromas out and you're not going to have as much of a fruit flavor as you were after. And it probably goes for anything. If it's vanilla or coffee, if you will, secondary is the place to add it.
Speaker 1:
27:40
Okay, cool, walk me through. If I was listening to this and I was like, oh man, I've always wanted to brew beer. I haven't done it yet but I want to try. I'm going to go out, I'm going to go buy a starter kit, not necessarily a Mr Beer, but let's talk about, maybe, something we'll say middle of the road and we'll say, kind of like what I started with, a partial mash kit, talk me through roughly first off recommendations on places to get this stuff and I'll add the links in the show notes. Be what you're looking at for an average initial investment and see, walk me through the process of brewing a beer if I've never done it before.
Speaker 3:
28:21
If you want to stay local, I always say support your local businesses.
Speaker 1:
28:25
So we have just brew.
Speaker 3:
28:26
It is on Rosale Street, next to Bold City is our local home brew shop here in Jacksonville. If you're not here in Jacksonville, look up local home brew shops near stew, and that's my number one place to say start. Not only just because you're supporting a local business, but you're going to get that first hand knowledge from the owner telling you what you need, and they're going to steer you straight if you have any questions. Obviously, with the age of the internet, now you can go online. I usually go to morebeercom. There's northernbrewercom, there's adventuresahomebrewingcom, there's Midwest supplies. There's one in Austin as well. I don't remember the exact name of it, but it's Austinbrewcom or something. But yeah, I would say stay local if you can.
Speaker 1:
29:14
Awesome. Okay, so try to use a local distributor, but I have used a couple of those ones online. I've used Northern Brewer, I think. Before I was lucky in Washington State. We had a local Brewery distributor person there so that we were able to get everything there that we needed. Have you been a cultured collective here on 17?
Speaker 3:
29:37
I have Mike there. The owners used to be a cast member and that's where we're gonna be meeting Saturday. Oh really, upcoming home brew competition.
Speaker 1:
29:45
Nice. I love that place. It's nice and chill. By the way, if you're local and you live in the Jacksonville area and you haven't checked it out already Because it's on the other side of the bridge, I know most people Seem to think all the breweries are over on the opposite side. On the east side of Jacksonville, we actually have a really cool brewery right down here in Orange Park, cultured collective. That's got a nice little beer garden in the back and, yeah, mike's a really cool dude. I've talked to him a few times and we've done a few events over there. I was actually there last night.
Speaker 3:
30:15
Hey, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:
30:16
Yeah, but there used to be. There used to be a beer supply place there.
Speaker 3:
30:19
I'm gonna say that's what he started off as a home brew. Surprise, okay. So was it converted over to it? Yeah, okay. So Mike was the same guy owning same owner.
Speaker 1:
30:26
Yep, oh, wow. Okay, I didn't realize that I used to get a when I first moved down here used to get a lot of my stuff from him and I say living here in Orange Park, that was quite convenient.
Speaker 1:
30:36
Yes, yes, that's awesome. That way, I don't have to pay 45 dollars for a new bird to go back and forth somewhere. But okay, so go to local if you can. If not, there's options online. So what am I looking to buy and how much is that roughly gonna cost me just for an initial let's talk initial investment?
Speaker 3:
30:56
I'm gonna go back into my roots here for a second. So I had a big mouth bubble or plastic fermenter and it happened to have a spigot. It was a 6.5 gallon carboy and I had a spigot on the bottom which was just above where the yeast cake would fall down and leave the sediment behind. So would recommend something like that. They're about 35 to 50 dollars depending on the version you get. You can buy a plastic brew bucket, though for probably 15 bucks. I don't know a lot of people that still do that and start that way cost effective way of doing it. So yeah, either a plastic Carboy or a brew bucket up for your fermenting chamber.
Speaker 3:
31:33
You're gonna need a boil pot. If you're doing a partial one. Five gallons will probably get you there and then you can top it off. But I would, I would go big, you're gonna. I want to upgrade. I would say seven to eight gallon minimum, mines 11. So buy a stock pot Mines, buy you classic. I bought it off of Amazon, so that was probably I don't know a hundred dollars, maybe I.
Speaker 1:
31:56
Was hoping I didn't make you cringe when I was gonna say what I'm about to say here, but I Found that at least for my setup, because I have nowhere near what you have with that. What you're mentioned, some of the stuff you're mentioning earlier and for those that don't know, when he mentioned the brewmaster, think of like this thing is basically R2D2 that makes beer for you and it kind of looks like R2D2 in a sense.
Speaker 3:
32:19
Yeah, the grandfather's, basically a great father Thank you Grandfather's a really big coffee urn.
Speaker 1:
32:25
Yeah, it's huge, it's awesome, though it's very pricey, but it pretty much does.
Speaker 3:
32:30
I want to say what the entire thing off my phone using an app for the most other than the manual dumping of the grain in it. But yeah, it's all pre-programmed and I can wake up in the morning from the night before if I set it up right and my Hot water is ready to go. And yeah, other than putting the grain in and lifting it out, the rest of it pretty much takes care of itself.
Speaker 1:
32:52
Yeah, I keep in mind that that's higher end. That's a very costly investment, but I Looked outside the box with a lot of things whenever I need. For instance, I used initially starting off my boiling pot from my kitchen and, like you said, I would just top it off in the bucket. I have a brew bucket, but I also used a five gallon lows bucket as well. Everything key to key is sanitization, like you said.
Speaker 3:
33:15
As long as you sanitize everything very properly and you have a good seal, it's usable, and just make sure it's a food grade plastic container, yes, and not just your painter's bucket. But yeah, you want food grade. You could go down to a bakery or something. They'll give them away for free. Just make sure you don't get one with pickles in it, because you'll never get that flavor out of it. I Share in a pickled beer.
Speaker 1:
33:37
It might not be bad. Actually, that's giving me a good idea. What about along with?
Speaker 3:
33:40
that cucumber one, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:
33:42
So check it out. I'm getting inspiration here. What about a? What about a bourbon barrel Stout with a little hint of pickle? It's basically you'd be basically making a boiler maker beer, right, anyways, I'll shut. Okay, so you Get. You get those initial supplies. Now I get all this stuff home. Talk to me, how do I make my first batch of beer and roughly how long is it gonna take? And let's, let's start with something simple that most people Aren't gonna say oh hey, I'm making a logger today. Let's do a blonde ale pretty.
Speaker 3:
34:12
I would say a typical brew day, start to finish, be about five hours If you have everything organized and everything goes the way it's planned. I figure five hours and it doesn't matter if you're doing it at home level or average. Several breweries around town I've been at Ruby Beach, I've been at a legacy ale works and on Tabula Rasa. Coming next month I'll be at Southern swells making a saison. It doesn't matter if it's a big brewery system or at home, it's about five hours. Nice, I Figure the first part of the day you're gonna be.
Speaker 3:
34:42
If you're doing extract, you basically you have your strike water, you get it up to 150 degrees, you put your liquid mold extract in and you're gonna bring your up to a boil. A Boil typically 60 minutes for most beers. If you're doing a Belgian or something with a lot of Pilsner malt, you might do a 90 minute boil. It kind of drives off some of the DMS, which are compounds that are going to affect your overall taste later on in the finished product. But yeah, 60 minute boil and then you're gonna have to cool that war. You're at 212 degrees, or, for our European friends of you might have said zero degrees Celsius there, or a hundred degrees Celsius.
Speaker 3:
35:22
And we don't talk metric you know, I don't know if you got friends and You're in the Navy world. So hey, you got friends all over. Yeah, this is America.
Speaker 1:
35:28
They learn how to use Fahrenheit, that's good.
Speaker 3:
35:31
Anyways, you'll find, though, a lot of home brewers use the metric system though, because it's a heck of a lot easier.
Speaker 1:
35:36
It is, it is, we use it. We use it flying so.
Speaker 3:
35:40
Anyways, you got to cool that wart down and so I've got an immersion chiller. Prefer those versus the counter flow chillers and With an immersion chiller with a pump and doing a whirlpool, you're probably just paddling it around with your if you're starting out, probably a half an hour to cool that down.
Speaker 1:
35:56
I was gonna say the way I do the ghetto way I've done it is I get a giant bucket basically full of ice and I've made ice baths. That's great, but it's it'll work.
Speaker 3:
36:07
It's gonna be longer than mine, and you want to cool that work down as fast as you can Mm-hmm for a better product and get a nice cold break and drop everything out, because the cleaner the work going into your Fair manner, the better, I believe. So you want to drop as much stuff out of suspension, and I Know a lot of people that you know they wait, and they may have to to pitch several hours later and they just put it in their firming chamber or off to the corner and they wait now. If you wait, though, you're taking a risk, as we were talking about sanitation purposes. The longer you wait, a wild contaminant can get in there and take over before your yeast strain has a chance to take hold, and you can get some pretty crazy stuff going on now there's actually beers that.
Speaker 1:
36:47
Not that I recommend this because we're talking about how the common person would do this, but there's actually beers that do that. When that comes to mind's Ho-Garden, I didn't realize one of my favorite Belgian weeds, but I didn't realize they just leave the batches in a barn open. Yeah, it's open for now, Huh. Yes, I never really, until I was talking to somebody out there and they explained how it is.
Speaker 3:
37:09
Yeah, it's like literally just sitting in a bar and say I put a cheesecloth over that thing and just let it Do its thing. That's cool, that's not my family, that my my practice. I Main will return every like my sanitation and so, yeah, I'm gonna make sure that I pitch as soon as I can and a healthy dose. For most AELs it's just gonna be one packet of yeast and I recommend not a lot of the products will say to Rehydrate your yeast by adding it to warm water and sitting it up for about 20 minutes and then pitching. I just sprinkle it on top and I've never seen any adverse effects for that nice.
Speaker 1:
37:47
So it is. Basically it's a lot of front-loaded work and it's it is very attention to detail in the front-loaded work. But once you have it sitting and let's talk about primary and secondary rest, I think you're getting into that. Explain that, because you didn't mention we talked about some other stuff, just so people understand what secondary is.
Speaker 3:
38:07
And what that is. I'm gonna say primary is going to be like your initial pitch and the first run. It's gonna stay in your first firming chamber. It's usually 14 days for two weeks. But what you want is to have two readings, specific gravity readings with the same number. That's gonna tell you that your yeast are done chewing through the sugars and then it's stable. A couple ways of doing. I've got a refractometer and if you don't have one of those that can be pricey, just a regular hydrometer will work and you just take a graduated Sample, measure it out and you get two readings of the same. You know you're good to go.
Speaker 3:
38:45
For me, 95% of the beers I just leave in primary and I rack it right into a keg or bottle it. For fancier ones where I'm adding things to it like fruit or spices or whatnot, I'll rack into a secondary and I guess that I just did it right in the keg. But a lot of people have a smaller vessel and they rack it from their primary fermentation Vessel into the second one. It could just be another glass carboy or plastic carboy, but Typically most brewers don't do a secondary unless they're adding something to the final product.
Speaker 1:
39:20
See, I've always done a secondary with my logger and I don't know if it was ever necessary.
Speaker 3:
39:25
I think you every time you do that and you put it in another vessel, you're taking a chance on introducing something that could contaminate it, and so I say Don't, unless you actually have to okay.
Speaker 1:
39:39
Well, that's good to know. I'll keep that mind, definitely next time I you're also exposing oxygen to your beer too?
Speaker 3:
39:44
Yes, unless you're doing a closed transfer, and most new people are not Doing a closed transfer because that takes extra equipment. But yeah, you don't want oxygen into your beer once Fermentation is finished.
Speaker 1:
39:57
All right, so probably it's gonna take about a couple weeks. Move it over to either kegging or bottles. Most likely, if you're just starting this off, you're probably not kegging.
Speaker 3:
40:06
Yeah, most of us are bottling, so you need about 54 bottles and a capper if you can afford a floor capper. It's like a press. They do make these butterfly ones, but they're finicky and Kind of a pain in the butt. Yeah, I've almost shot my eye with one of those before I have you broken a bottle because I've done that too.
Speaker 1:
40:23
Yes, it is fun, though, getting the 54 bottles, because that's a good excuse to go buy other beer and drink the beer. You just need to make sure you sanitize them out very Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:
40:34
Correct. So talk about bottling. There's a couple ways of going about that. They make carb drops, which are basically it's corn sugar, that are made into hard candies. They look like lemon drops and you put one of those in each of your bottles and then you rack the beer right on top of it and you cap it. That's the way I do mine. You can also transfer your beer into a bottling bucket, and that's got a one that's got a pressure release valve on the bottom of it. It goes into the bottom of your bottle and then, when you press on the spring in the bottom, the beer is dispensed into it and you would mix up a solution of corn sugar and water and then mix the entire beer together with that, and that would prime your beer as well. I don't do that because you're oxygenating your beer again and that's gonna Possibly give you oxidation later on if it doesn't get drank soon enough.
Speaker 1:
41:27
So once it's in the bottle, takes a couple weeks in primary sitting in the main car boy. Once you get it in the bottle, to me this is always the part where I get the most things.
Speaker 3:
41:37
This is the hardest part.
Speaker 1:
41:38
Yeah, I'm staring at it. I know it's ready, but yeah, give everybody an idea. How long do you want to keep them? Where do you want to? Where do you want to?
Speaker 3:
41:44
store them? I'm gonna say excellent question. So yeah, once you have your final beer, I can have a. I put it into a case carrying case, stack them in my closet and Leave them there in my closet. It's what? 73 degrees, it's dark. You don't want any light on your beer at this point and if you put it right in the fridge it'll never carbonate because the yeast have to go through whatever residual sugars left and they will eat up those carb drops or corn sugar and Primit with CO2. So I figure about two weeks is the minimum. I like a month. So the bottles that I brought to you are carbonated this way and they're about a month old and they should be good to go awesome.
Speaker 1:
42:27
Well, do you want to crack open one or two of these and do a tasting? Absolutely walk me through them. Sweet, let's do that then. All right, so what is? What are some of your favorite breweries, local and just all around? Who do you feel are doing really good things or who do you just really enjoy?
Speaker 3:
42:47
I'm gonna say I always enjoy art wolf. I love Belgian ales and they do a lot of those over there. Michael Payne's a brewer and he was started off as cask as well, so I always like going over there if I bring my family out and about. I love wicked barley. Their food is top-notch.
Speaker 3:
43:04
Yes, and they've got a great entertaining space out back for my girls and they've got a ton of variety and so I love it. Wicked barley those are probably my two favorite ones. I'm looking for kind of I like Vrage and Blanc, so Veterans United is another one of my favorites, and, paying homage to our military here, I love that whole theme that they've got going on.
Speaker 1:
43:25
Yeah, that's really cool. They got a really cool tap room too with all kinds of neat stuff up. I really like wicked barley. That's probably one of my favorites. Like you said, the outside it's very family friendly, great food, and the outside is really nice. Their beer garden area, a lot of cool things like cornhole, a lot of tables.
Speaker 3:
43:44
And I say this weekend they're kicking off a three-day celebration for the season, opening up, if you will, yeah, and so I think they have music going on this weekend and it's a big party down there right now.
Speaker 1:
43:55
Nice, that'll be cool. Unfortunately, it's probably not gonna be another couple weeks, but that's good for me, yeah, and I really love them during October Fest. Around that time of year they do a big october. That's my hands down bar none. Probably, if I had to choose one beer to drink for the rest of my life, it would be a Mars, and I can probably drink a Mars in here around you, gone over to Germany, to the Munich's October Fest or no, I need I.
Speaker 1:
44:21
So I've been to Munich. Me and Nicole went there for our honeymoon. We won all around Germany did, but it was during Christmas, so we did. The Christmas markets, um no going to October just.
Speaker 3:
44:32
But you've been to the Germany and had their beer, right.
Speaker 1:
44:34
Yes, I sat in the Hofbrow house and I've had some beers there that's outstanding, very jealous. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But, man, I you do not need to twist my arm to get over to October Fest.
Speaker 3:
44:44
I you gone to Buckner's beer hall over Edgewood? They've got in that October Fest every year. I have a little speak easy, but it's all authentic German, everything, the entire place. They're all dressed up in their leading hosin and the women are, all you know, hell good up and it's Outstanding. I've never heard of this. I'll shoot you the link when we're done here. Yes, they are my favorite they're. They don't make their own beer, but it's all German beers, all German food. It's all authentic and, yeah, it's like a little speak easy off of Edgewood.
Speaker 1:
45:16
That's awesome. Yeah, please, I would love to check that out sometime. Do they do that? Well, obviously it sounds like they do the October Fest big bit. Do they do like German style stuff during the year, or is that just kind of?
Speaker 3:
45:28
it's.
Speaker 1:
45:28
German themed.
Speaker 3:
45:29
Oh, that's all it is. Oh, okay, let's. It's like walking into the past that the gentleman got their little caps on and stuff like that, and it's like walking Into, like a 1920s bar.
Speaker 1:
45:40
Okay, so the next time we do this, we're gonna do this live and we're gonna do that there with a couple liters of beer in hand.
Speaker 3:
45:46
That'll be fun.
Speaker 1:
45:48
I love October Fest beers and, it's funny, my my beer tastes. You kind of talked about your evolution I don't know, everybody's different, I guess, in their alcohol journey. I hate to say that that sounds very bad, but you know, yeah, if you enjoy drinking, you've had an alcohol journey or an alcohol evolution. And I started. I think you're about the same age me, right, I'm 41. I'm 41. Okay, yeah, cool, I know this from my email address. You had the. You did the same thing with that, I did with mine. Good, so this is perfect that you're on the Xenia laviator podcast Because you fit right into the generation I. When I started out drinking in my late teens, we didn't have any varieties of craft beers and obviously you're just getting what you can get a hold of, so it was mostly Bud Light anyway going back to have a magic hat number nine magic number nine, one of the first OG yeah, the apricot.
Speaker 3:
46:42
Yes puree was added to that same Adams, maybe yeah.
Speaker 1:
46:46
Yeah well, sam Adams was like fancy people beer that was hoity-toity. I didn't know anything about that and I started out drinking those type of beers, but Normal beers. I just was kind of like, yeah, these are all the same. So then I moved over to liquor for a couple years and there was what's your flavor there? So back then, from probably years of 19 till, I'd say, probably about 23 years old, you could probably slit one wrist open and get Yeager and slit this wrist open and get Red Bull.
Speaker 1:
47:17
Me and my buddies went really hard in the paint when it came to Yeager and Red Bulls, like that was our drink of choice and it sucked because it was so expensive in the bars, right, so what we would do is, we would pregame what, and every week we one of us would be on Yeager duty, one of us would be on Red Bull duty, so one person would get a case of Yeager or sorry, a case of Red Bull, and then one person would get the giant $50 bottle Yeager. And we would do. We weren't doing shots, we were doing like half and halves.
Speaker 3:
47:46
So like yeah, it's. You're so right vodka was mine back in those, yeah. So that was yeah, you're amped up from the energy drink, but then, but you drunk and you know you're drunk.
Speaker 1:
47:56
Like it's weird, it's it. But then the next day you just feel like your soul's been sucked from you.
Speaker 3:
48:02
Yeah, for me to be. I love Manhattan's. My grandfather Got me into those. I loved having a drink with him by the water and and doing some grilling, and lately it's been old-fashioned man.
Speaker 1:
48:14
I love it, so I evolved in that one. So I, after, after having those and kind of during my part of years, was right around the advent of craft beer. So yeah, two thought. So it's probably what around 2000.
Speaker 1:
48:28
Yeah, 2005, six around there. I'm thinking like it was right around the time I got out of the Navy after my first enlistment. There was a couple they weren't craft beer places opening up, but there were beer bars basically they had so like world of beer that you know that. Okay, they had a bunch of different beers on tap that you could try and that really opened my eyes to Beer. I guess and not knowing, hey, I don't have to drink this to my Yeager and Red Bull Like, have you been over?
Speaker 3:
48:53
to the beer 30 in San Marco.
Speaker 1:
48:55
I've not been there.
Speaker 3:
48:56
Now I've got a big cooler and you can buy anything you want. It's all chilled and you Try it right there at the bar and they also have stuff on tap. But yeah, if you're interested in type that type of idea, beer 30 at San Marco is an excellent place to check out nice.
Speaker 1:
49:10
I like that, and it's the local place too. Again, I well used to go to world of beer. It was local to Florida, but they had different venues all over the place. Once I got out of the Navy I had one Probably about a half a mile from my house, so it's dangerous. Yeah, that was very dangerous. I'd run there and they had a beer club where, like, you'd hit milestones like 50 beers.
Speaker 1:
49:31
You got a t-shirt. I think 250. I got a stein. I was gunning for 500, because if you hit 500, they would give you a all-expense paid weekend vacations.
Speaker 3:
49:41
Wow, yeah, similar to my college it's. Our bar downtown was called Alex's and they had 300 and, like I said back then, you're right that the craft beer wasn't a big thing. But this guy was way ahead of his time. He had beers all around the world and they were into that craft stuff it then. So I got kind of exposed to it early on. You know, I wasn't brewing back then.
Speaker 1:
50:01
Yeah, that's kind of how mine went. We and it sounds like we both had the same experience. We we got in a little early on the craft beer revolution because I don't know about you, but by the time I was, I had an idea of what my palate was at this point. So now, reaching my mid 20s was when I would hear people be like to your point about that magic hat like oh. Hey have you tried this blue moon?
Speaker 3:
50:21
or this magic hat. I'm like yeah, I'm like you. So I had a roommate. We had a keggerator right off my my Right off my couch. I did not have to get off my couch to reach for that craft beer, but we always had something on there and that was pretty awesome in my 20s.
Speaker 1:
50:36
Dude, my best man at my wedding, buddy of mine, jason, his nicknames cheeser. Like all my redneck friends, for some reason I'll have random names cheeser, beaver, scooter, they all have their names, but then they all have nicknames. I never. It's a Florida thing, I don't know. But anyways pilots as well.
Speaker 3:
50:53
No, no, so they're not a call sign or anything like that.
Speaker 1:
50:55
No these are just good old boys from Florida. And cheeser made us a keggerator and Very much redneck ingenuity. So he built up the box from some 2x4s. He put casters on it Through the keg inside there, but inside there he sprayed it with rhino liner, hmm, and he threw ice in there. Dude, this thing kept ice and kept cold, I kid you not, for over two weeks. That's insane. Like he put a lid on it.
Speaker 1:
51:27
Engineering here yeah dude, it was very much redneck ingenuity and yeah, same deal, we kept that at his place, so we had that keg tapped and ready to go and we would just swap it out and I mean that thing stayed cold. So yeah, that was definitely a lot of fun. But All right, we got a couple beers here. We're gonna try that. Ian made I picked out a few, so let's talk about these here.
Speaker 3:
51:50
This is a Belgian single. I made it back in January and so Belgium single is with the monks and the Monasteries would drink for their daily drinks. It's a low ABV this one's probably sitting around 5% but it's got that Belgian funk, spicy. No, it's character going on, and there's no extra fruits or anything added to this. But the estrus because it's it's fermented kind of warm. By warm I mean like 68, I think. I finished up at I don't know 75 or so, which is on the warmer side, and that was a nice pop there. I heard that nice fizz as you cracked that open, which is what I want from a Belgian ale which you should typically have it over, almost over carbonated, it seems like for most styles. Excellent pour there. Look at that head.
Speaker 1:
52:36
I've been known to pour beer or two in my town.
Speaker 3:
52:43
But yeah, if you smell that you're gonna get some earthy hops, you're gonna get the spicy funk from the, the phenols and from yeast and this is a kind of the bitter side, I think, of a pale ale bitterness, calm IBU, and it's a way of measuring the hot bitterness of a beer. Your West Coast IPA's are probably sitting up there 75 maybe we kind of like beer beers if you, whether you're hellas and that's, you know, 25 or so. So this is in that 25 30 range. So it's not overly hoppy but it's hop assertive. Nice, cheers, cheers.
Speaker 1:
53:22
Yeah, that's very good. So the initial smell I got there I could smell those Belgian spices like you were talking about and kind of what we talked about earlier on when I mentioned with. It always comes to mind delirium, because that's the most extreme example I can think of. For those of you who haven't had that, go try it out in a bar sometime. You'll know the bottle because it's got pink elephants on it. Whatever spices and whatever yeast they're using, there is a very extreme version of a bell have you had talked about kind of famous Belgians Duvel.
Speaker 3:
53:52
Duvel is a golden strong, that's my top one. And they do variations of it with different hops and dry up like Citra hops and stuff like that, but their original one is my favorite and, yeah, you can't beat that in my book.
Speaker 1:
54:03
No, I've had Duvel said Saint Bernardus, saint Bernardus. Yeah they're not too shabby, and what we used to love talking about, like how we got into this hobby early on, when we would go to, when we would go to liquor stores or we would go to these places. Since we didn't know anything about the beers, we would just choose ones that we thought was on the labels yeah, based on labels. And Saint Bernardus has this job. This jolly monk just sitting there Dancing. And why would you, why would you not want to drink this?
Speaker 3:
54:32
beer, I would say from state, but I like their darker ones, their quads, or you may, dark strong.
Speaker 1:
54:38
Yes. That's ones I typically like from them speaking of so you mentioned you like IPAs, and this is probably one IPA that definitely put some hair on my chest. Have you ever had Pliny the elder?
Speaker 3:
54:51
Yes, I have, and that one is been voted I don't know how many times as the the best beer in the United States.
Speaker 1:
54:58
Yeah. So give me your, give me your thoughts on that. Do you really? You know, I Don't know how, fresh.
Speaker 3:
55:03
The one I had was, I'll be honest, and I've only had it once or twice and I've tried to make it, or so dad and I did a collaboration with this one and the amount of hops that go into that is insane. Mm-hmm, I'm talking was like a whole pound of hops for a 5-0 batch. But I liked it. But I don't think the one I had was the freshest version. And with West Coast beers, with West Coast IPAs, we're any IPA. If you want the fresher, the better. You want those hops is new, so they don't start to fade. And then you want them bright and crisp, and then my West Coast, I like them. Dank, if you will yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:
55:39
Yeah, yeah, because it's West Coast, you have to throw a word like that in there for shizzle.
Speaker 3:
55:43
But I don't know if it's what the reputation is Out there, as I don't know.
Speaker 1:
55:49
Yeah, that's kind of where I was at with it and, like I prefixed before, I'm not the hugest fan of IPAs. I'll try them out and everybody hype this thing up to me like this was yeah the end, I'll be all so it's hard to do. You have it that in Southern California? Oh, absolutely, yes, I pretty sure I was gonna say I'm pretty sure I had a pretty fresh bottle of it, because it's hard to come by here on the East Coast. It's actually really hard to come by extremely hard yeah.
Speaker 1:
56:14
The only way I managed to get it was I was over in Ventura for doing military stuff for a couple weeks and the whole foods there, dude told me come back on Tuesday morning.
Speaker 3:
56:23
We'll get a better sell pretty quick.
Speaker 1:
56:24
Oh yeah, yeah, like me, and some other hipster were waiting there for it, so I was able to snag two bottles. I got one for a buddy of mine and I got one for myself, and I remember taking that back to the house that afternoon and I cracked it open. I was sitting there playing destiny on PlayStation and it was. I will say one thing like yes, it was very hoppy, it was good, it was strong, though. It was very strong.
Speaker 1:
56:46
I remember sitting. I was sitting down for probably about 30, 40 minutes and I remember trying to stand up. I was gonna go get a snack and yeah, I was like, oh, okay, it's a little rough and I say yeah, for what I like.
Speaker 3:
56:56
Have you had bells too hard it no, bells too hard it is, but by far my favorite IPA and it's actually their Malt bill is what I use for all my West Coast IPAs. I just changed the hop schedule but they use a hundred percent centennial start to finish and I just exchange. I like citra, I like mosaic Galaxies another one of my favorite ones but yeah, their mobiles about as perfect as an IPA is, I think I can find.
Speaker 1:
57:21
Where is a bell's located? Again, do you?
Speaker 3:
57:23
want to say it's. Is it Oregon, michigan, michigan?
Speaker 1:
57:26
I want to say yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 3:
57:29
I'll look it up. I could be wrong. I'll look it up. Yeah, that's my go-to.
Speaker 1:
57:33
Yeah, yeah, plenty, plenty was, plenty was special, that's for sure. I think we just recently had me and Todd, tried a smoked Quad all right from Germany I can't even pronounce it like it was very. Was it a roush beer? I?
Speaker 3:
57:51
think so. Yes, see, that's what I just got into this year into. In addition, talking about Sours being unique and new, I, like you, evolve as a you know, a drinker. Yes, so an acquired flavor is smoked beers and the Germans, germany's, got a one called a Roush beer.
Speaker 1:
58:07
Yes and it can be so cool, like it can be up to a hundred percent smoke malt they use like smoked beechwood.
Speaker 3:
58:12
I, when I make mine, I do about 50 50 between smoke ball and regular barley.
Speaker 1:
58:18
Oh, so you've made, you've made a smoke beer before. Absolutely nice and, yeah, drinking campfire man that's awesome.
Speaker 3:
58:24
Yeah, that's exactly, but it's an acquired flavor. Like I said, it's not for somebody just jumping into the craft beer sink probably when we tasted it.
Speaker 1:
58:32
We let Nicole and Michelle taste it and they both just kind of rolled their eyes and me and Todd were like it's like drinking smoked meats. Yes, this is awesome, yes it, but it is a very much acquired taste and it's cool. We brought up the smoke beers. I totally forgot about those in Germany. That was one of the coolest things. We went to one of the Christmas markets and they used a Augustine or beer.
Speaker 1:
58:54
It's just basically kind of like one of. They're just like running the mill hella spears over there but so good, it's like one of the best beers in the world. But it's just. It's basically their version of Bud Light over there and dude was taking a hot iron and just like sticking it in the glass and smoking it.
Speaker 1:
59:11
I totally forgot about that for about a good what 10 to 12 years now and Year or two ago, talking about the evolution of drinking, I've now gone into Now whiskeys and bourbons and I. I like those a lot, I do.
Speaker 3:
59:25
You have a smoker kit, so I do for Christmas got me a smoker kit for my bourbon and my drinks, and now a smoked old-fashioned is the way to go. Yes, I Like the pecan and I also like the apple wood.
Speaker 1:
59:37
I like the apple wood. That's my go-to with it. I haven't tried the pecan yet. I've used hickory once. Those little two would, I'm gonna say that the oak and the hickory.
Speaker 3:
59:44
It's almost too much, it's too. I don't have to describe it bitter, almost. Yeah, it's a. I know it is a description of beer, but like you get it on the nose too and it wasn't sweet. I like the sweet, smelling woods, so sweet when touches lips.
Speaker 1:
59:59
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:
1:00:01
Harsh, I guess is another way of looking at it.
Speaker 1:
1:00:02
No, it's totally so Cool thing about that. I got the bright idea I Used the smoker on a glass of beer. I took yeah, so I've not done that. I took the. I took a gust in her, because they sell the six packs of total wine Through it in a glass, and I popped it on there, sure enough.
Speaker 3:
1:00:24
So they try that the next, except make a lot of German loggers and kind of cool to take a house or something like that and you almost turned into a fake rush beer.
Speaker 1:
1:00:32
Yeah, yeah, I figured it was no different than what the dude did. All he did was stick a poker in it for me, so, but yeah, that was, it was a really tasty beer. So, talking about dive offs and derivatives, we have this mead here talk, talk to me about like your brand, your branch off because I, so I'm talking a lot about beer today and over the last decade or so.
Speaker 3:
1:00:53
First I got kind of it about five years ago or so I got into ciders.
Speaker 3:
1:00:56
We had a cider competition and cask and I thought that was pretty cool, really easy to make, because it's basically like making Kool-Aid again that with my ciders I make, you know, by a brewer's best bag and mix it with some water and pitch the yeast and let it do its thing. That led me to mead, which is basically honey wine, and About a year ago I was talking with my father and both of us are shooting for that, that Grandmaster 3 title, and in order to get it we had to make meats. Is your father part of cask? He is, he is yes, yes, he's actually the one that got me to sign up for it. But anyways, to get our next level we needed to make some meats and I knew nothing about never even try to commercial example of a Mead before I made it one. So I got done making and it was just a traditional. I just mixed honey and about three pounds of honey per gallon and Got done with it and I couldn't tell you if it was good, bad or indifferent.
Speaker 1:
1:01:56
I never had an example of it and I feel like most people haven't like initially and I think it's funny that like it's become a thing now, because it was Completely taken off man. I didn't know what me was like. I read. The only Reference I've ever knew of me was if you read the book bail of, like they mentioned.
Speaker 3:
1:02:13
So, yeah, I love the Viking show is one of my favorite TV series and they're always drinking, obviously, there, and so the one I brought you today to try out is a kind of an homage to the Vikings. It's called Viking blood and it's a biscus and juniper berry, and so I took orange blossom honey and Some water and I fermented it and then I transferred it to a couple secondary jugs and there I added a biscus and juniper berry tea that I had steeped and and kind of made a tincture out of it and added it to the to the wine.
Speaker 1:
1:02:50
So tell me, for those that don't know, what a tincture is, because I got a good story about that good.
Speaker 3:
1:02:55
Yes, so a tincture is basically you're soaking up. Right now I've got one going with vanilla beans that I scraped and cut up and some Cocoa nibs, and so I'm soaking them in vodka and basically making my own homemade extract, and you can then measure it out In middle leaders with an eyedropper, if you want. You can either treat an entire keg or you can treat it to the individual bottles if you don't want to treat the entire thing, and you can kind of almost have specialty beers or one-offs if you will and so you, you totally reminded me that I've done it.
Speaker 1:
1:03:28
I didn't think about it, but I've done it before. One of the. So when we first moved here was 2017, 2018 we had a Christmas party and I made a special beer for the Christmas party. I did a. I did a holiday spice beer, so I took a. I took a chocolate stout because that was gonna be easy to make, and then I Made a tincture. I had to learn what a tincture was and I took vodka, a little bit of brandy and Cinnamon and nutmeg, put that aside and, yeah, a little bit goes a whole Long way, dipped it in but yeah, man, it came out. It was. It had a nice little chocolate cinnamon.
Speaker 3:
1:04:02
It was a very holiday type.
Speaker 1:
1:04:04
Thanks flavor.
Speaker 3:
1:04:04
But cool, I was saying I'm in the middle of. I've got a split batch right now with another mead and I've got part of that Vanilla tincture. I have another glass Mason jar and it's vodka and I've got the vanilla bean and cinnamon. And my father just won a gold medal on a cinnamon and vanilla mead that he made. So I kind of Stole his still his idea and I'm trying my own and so, as you were saying, a little bit of cinnamon goes a long way. So yeah, I just use an eyedropper and I'm like I'd do a little bit into it and then I'd take a small sample with a straw and just kind of siphon off a little bit and kind of did that trial and error Until I got it right where I wanted it. Nice, very cool.
Speaker 1:
1:04:50
Sweet. So next up we got this Viking blood to try. You kind of talk to me about the process that you went through to make the mead. How hard was that to branch off from brewing beer? Because I feel like this is a I think of this is like a rock and roll analogy. You start getting into brewing beer, you know, you drop your first album, you make a few beers. You know what you're doing. I feel like meads and ciders. It's like making a concept album.
Speaker 1:
1:05:16
So it's a little bit different and off the wall. Explain to me how different was it for you to do that?
Speaker 3:
1:05:20
I'm gonna say the basic concept of making it was easy to understand. But making a drinkable mead and making it an outstanding me that's gonna score Well or that you're proud to share with anybody, it's two different things it really is. I had to basically Re-learn how to make the whole process and there's just different steps involved in a mead that are Not involved in the beer beer process. That I kind of ignored on the first because I didn't know any better. And so, yeah, trial and error. But the first few batches were kind of rough and I didn't share those with any of my friends, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:
1:05:55
Fair enough, okay. Well, let's crack this open and see. By the way I meant to mention, I like the idea that you used Gina for berry in that being is that's a Nordic type berry, so are you a?
Speaker 3:
1:06:05
fan of gin I am. Yes, I'm gonna say, if you haven't been to st Augustine distillery, their gin is actually pretty damn good really that's okay.
Speaker 1:
1:06:16
That's okay. I've I've tried to not use f-bombs on here, so like. But yeah, you can use four letter words. That's fine. I tell Apple it's explicit.
Speaker 3:
1:06:25
I like the color this is a nice red color, pink, yeah, and excellent clarity it's. It's basically brilliant in color. This is a still, so there's no bubbles or carbonation at all, and it's a semi sweet. Most of the sweetness I did not back sweetness, like you do, some means the sweetness that you're gonna get is from the flower, from that tincture that I added to it.
Speaker 1:
1:06:51
So how long does a mead take to make? We talked about making just a run of the meal beer, roughly about probably month, two months. So how does the mead take from start to finish?
Speaker 3:
1:07:00
So that's gonna depend on your ABV. Your higher alcohol Meads are gonna take a lot longer to smooth out and mellow. They can be upwards of a year plus. Okay, this one comes in around 10%. That's kind of on the lower end, and so I would say six months probably would be a good spot to start something in this area. If you have a hydromel, which is even a lower gravity mead, those ones are like six, seven percent and you can have those in a couple months. So kind of depends on how patient you want to be. Mm-hmm, the trick is to get a healthy rotation started so that you always kind of have one up and ready, and I'm just getting to that point now where it's been a year now. So I've got some that I've made earlier on in the year that I can start cracking open and enjoying, while I've got some new ones that I'm starting to make. So next year will be set to go nice.
Speaker 1:
1:07:50
So once you get into the game, once you get a rotation going, if you're doing it.
Speaker 3:
1:07:54
So you just gotta be patient for that first few for sure, the waiting is the hardest part.
Speaker 1:
1:07:57
Cheers man.
Speaker 3:
1:08:00
That went right in my eye, my gosh, you okay, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:
1:08:10
Yeah, I love the smell of this, almost like a wine smell. Yeah, oh.
Speaker 3:
1:08:20
It's like cranberry juice. Yeah, it's got that, yeah, that tartness that the cranberries have it, mm-hmm, but it it smooths down.
Speaker 1:
1:08:27
I like that as well. That's good, that's really good it's, it's smooth, like I Don't think I could crack this open and be like you know, yeah, I'm gonna crack a few meads open, but this is like it's sneaky.
Speaker 3:
1:08:39
Like I said, it's coming in at 10%. Yeah, it's not hot and or boozy, so I'm a very situational and seasonal drinker.
Speaker 1:
1:08:48
I don't know if you find yourself in the shoes, but I Most people probably not. I'm a little quirky when it comes to this, but I Find myself during the summer drinking a lot of beers, like we talked about. Your porch beers are going on to the river, just lighter beers. The fall once October fest season kicks off. I'm I'm in full effect Mars and things like that Up until probably December. Then I start cracking open. I mean I'll do, I'll drink bourbon drinks all around, but I very much get.
Speaker 3:
1:09:19
Right now I'm like Guinness is my go-to right now. We do trivia every Wednesday night over at these pizza and that's what I was drinking last Wednesday as a Guinness. Okay, so yeah, after state Paddy's case case, I'll probably switch over to something lighter.
Speaker 1:
1:09:32
Okay, so you do just sort of the same thing I do. Yeah, I don't like do it intentionally, but I just find myself as a seasonal drinker and the reason I bring that up is because you know this me. Like I said, I couldn't see myself just sitting there like I'm gonna crack a few of these open, but this seems like a very nice sharing drink like this is something like. In most means I've noticed you come in larger bottles. This is something like you got a couple of these over. Who crack it open? Everybody gets a little bit.
Speaker 3:
1:09:56
You said, yeah, most of my means I put in the 12 ounce bottles. So, yeah, I usually pour half in at once and then, so I get two glasses out of one bottle. And yeah, if you want to share with the friend, it's a perfect sharing size.
Speaker 1:
1:10:07
No, this is perfect. This is perfect, this is really good.
Speaker 3:
1:10:10
Hey, get your six ounces, which is a serving and, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1:
1:10:17
Awesome man. Well, hey, this was a lot of fun, ian, I really appreciate you coming in. I appreciate talking about beer and what you guys are doing. So Real quick. I know you mentioned a few things. Give everybody a recap on cask links and I'll put it in the show notes how to get in touch if they want to. They're just in joining or getting more information as well as any event, you guys got coming up here soon, yeah we're always looking for new members, so the caskorg is our website.
Speaker 3:
1:10:45
We're also on Facebook. Look up cask a simple search we'll pop up for Jacksonville homebrew clubs and we would like for you to meet us at our next spot. It's check out our website. It'll tell you where win second Saturday of every month and cheers.
Speaker 1:
1:11:00
Awesome dude Cheers. Well, hey man, thank you very much. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you, I appreciate being here once again. Everybody, thank you very much for listening today. I hope you guys had fun. Please head over to Apple podcast once again and leave that five star review, whether you liked it or not. I'd really appreciate it. I need to beat the mom's in the car podcast and also Frugal shopping at IKEA. That would really help out. So Once again, thank you guys. Have a good day, see ya.
Speaker 2:
1:11:57
Oh, he claimed to be the best. He insisted that we play some chess. As the evening shed his gambit like a robe. His life by now leads me to Interpol, smiling silently. His fish will catch my palm. I've decided this is gonna look too long. I go for my gun. Yeah, you and I.
