another use for spent grains

Sunday before last I brewed a batch of Red American Wheat Ale. When the wort was in the kettle heating toward boiling, I figured I'd take a moment to deal with the spent grains. Normally I just dump them in my compost pile, but my compost pile is at the top of the hill in my backyard, through a forest of weeds, and I didn't feel like bushwhacking my way up there. I looked at the plant beds alongside my patio, saw the weeds encroaching on the bare soil there, and figured I'd try the spent grains as a mulch.

Now, dealing with spent grains is a challenge faced by every homebrewer, and I've heard a lot of ideas relating to it. Some people make them into dog treats, or try to use them in baking, but neither of those methods really solve the problem--a five gallon batch of beer leaves the brewer with around eight to fourteen pounds of grains, and I've never seen a recipe for bread or dog treats that made use of more than a pound or two. Some people just pitch their grains in the compost, and that's a pretty good solution, but you can end up with a lot of compost pretty quickly--every pound of carbon-rich grains needs to be balanced with an equal amount of nitrogen-rich greens for the compost pile to do its thing properly, so you end up with two pounds of compost material (before it breaks down) for every pound of grains you're getting rid of. In the end, a lot of people just bag their spent grains up and throw them in the trash, and that's not a very satisfying solution, either.

So why haven't I ever heard of anybody using spent grains as mulch? It seems like another decent option for grain disposal, but the fact that I hadn't heard of it being practiced made me somewhat hesitant to try it on my own.

There were two main potential problems that came to my mind. One: would the residual sugar in the grains draw pestilent levels of ants or rats or other animals? And two: would the grains decompose into a stinking layer of rotten matter?

In the end, because I've used cocoa husks for mulch in the past, and because that material has certain commonalities with spent grains--and because my backyard is hardly Sunset Magazine material anyway, so it's not like I'm gonna be screwing up a work of art if this goes wrong--I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I spread the grains about two inches thick on a 3' by 2' section of bare earth.

That was more than a week ago now, and the grains-as-mulch experiment doesn't seem to have resulted in any of problems I'd been worried about (or in any problems I didn't even think of). The spent grains do seem to behave in a similar manner to cocoa husks when used as mulch--they form into a somewhat solid mat. I'm also guessing that like cocoa husks, the spent grains will break down after a season or two (as opposed to cedar chip mulch, for example, which lasts for a lot longer than that), and if it gets really damp around here, I wouldn't be surprised if they develop a little bit of mildew.

But in the end, I feel like this is a pretty good way to deal with spent grains. In fact, there's plenty other areas of my yard that could use a layer of mulch, so now I've got one more reason to brew!

Cerveceria de Mateveza

San Francisco seems to have breweries and beer-related businesses proliferating like daffodils on a suburban lawn. If things keep up, we might reach the level of beer-absurdity enjoyed in San Diego--where they've got 33 commercial craft breweries to serve a population only half the size of the Bay Area. Last Sunday my girlfriend and I spent the morning in San Francisco's Dolores Park, and afterwards stumbled across this new mini-brewpub on the corner of Church and 18th. It's a quick and dirty conversion of a pre-existing cafe, featuring a stripped down menu of offerings focused on Argentinian empanadas and Mateveza beer. There's also a pair of fridges packed with craft brew available for takeaway.

Mateveza's a local brew-company that's been fairly visible in the Bay Are for a few years now, despite the fact that I've yet to find anybody who favors the stuff. Maybe they've failed to catch on with the beer-geek community because they feature Yerba Mate in all of their beers. Seems like the beer geeks are picky about their novelties--uber-ipa's and sour-beers are in, but using an herb associated with trendy soda-substitutes is out, and least for now.

Doesn't seem to have discouraged Mateveza's owner, Jim Woods, who's been doing his thing consistently and reliably despite the lack of big beer-geek press coverage or adoration. Despite the simplicity--or maybe because of it--Cerveceria de Mateveza struck me in a decidedly positive way. The beer was good--they offered us a sample of all three of their styles currently on tap, and the only one that didn't meet my approval was the Morpho Herbal Ale, which didn't really taste like a beer to me--and the vibe was right. I imagine they'll find their crowd, even if it isn't composed of the typical beer-geek flock.

Beer Night at the Cal Academy

SF Beer Week 2012 came to a close yesterday, and I was so wrapped up with work and family stuff that I managed to avoid it almost entirely. The one event I made it to was the Beer Night at the California Academy of Sciences, on Thursday, Feb. 16th. Frankly, that event was a bit of a bust.

Basically, Beer Night at the Academy consisted of expensive beer sampling in the African Hall. They set up twelve tables--one for each of the 12 breweries participating--along the length of the hall. Each brewery had two beers on hand, and you could buy it by the sample (probably 2 oz) or the glass (12 oz). A ticket cost $2, a sample cost a ticket, and a glass cost 4 tickets. In other words, they were charging $8 for a 12 oz beer poured out of a bottle (and at most of the tables I saw, they didn't even give you the whole bottle's worth--they'd pour heavy so the beer foamed up, and when the foam hit the top of the glass, they stopped. Whatever was left in that bottle got used for samplers, or combined with other bottle-remnants to fill up another 12 oz glass). Add that $8 a beer price tag to the $12 entry fee you had to pay to get in (which, fortunately, I didn't have to pay, because I got free tickets from a friend), and you're talking about a relatively pricey event with relatively common beers (common enough, at least, to be packaged in six packs--with the exception of the brews brought by Berryessa Brewing, which came in kegs, and which ran out before I even got there).

To make matters worse, I had to work late that night, so I didn't get to the place until 8:30 pm. By that point, three of the breweries had already run out of stock entirely, and a few of the other breweries only had one beer left. Plus the lines were pretty ridiculous--often a fifteen minute wait for a single sample glass of beer.

Of the beers I managed to get a taste of, only one stood out, but it was good enough to lend some light to an otherwise disappointing evening (disappointing in regard to beers, at least--I did have a fine time hanging out with friends). Moylan's Dragoon Dry Irish Stout was wonderful--rich and roasty, with a hint of lactic tang in the style of the original Guinness Export (which is one of my favorite beers ever). They also brought bottles of their Kilt Lifter Scottish Style Ale, which made for a good pair of beers to showcase the diversity of their lineup--though the Kilt Lifter didn't match my particular beer preferences.

Field Trip: Lagunitas Brewery

My girlfriend and I stopped by Lagunitas Brewery on a Sunday night a few weeks back, went on the tour, and tried every beer on draft. Things were fuzzy enough after getting through the sampler, and now the passage of time has made them even fuzzier, but here are a few things that stood out:

1) The sampler is awesome! $20 for a four ounce taster of every beer on tap--a total of 16 beer samples.

2) The sampler is terrifying! Almost every beer is above 8% abv, and since they're in those little glasses you end up drinking 'em pretty fast--don't want them to warm up or go flat, you know.

3) Lagunitas likes hops. Half of the beers on tap were IPA styles, and a lot of the rest were hop forward.

4) Money is raining down on the brewery. They've got expansions galore going on, including the recent completion of what the tour guide claimed to be the largest capacity brewhouse on the West Coast (though it didn't look obviously bigger than Sierra Nevada to me), plus a new amphitheater. And they've got a customer following that's lapping the beer up--brewing is going on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

5) Culture-branding is serious business. A lot of effort, from the decor of the 'beer sanctuary' to the tone of the tour guide's spiel to the flavor of the website, is focused on giving you the impression that Lagunitas is a laid-back bunch of weed-smoking dudes that like to drink beer and thumb their noses at authority. Probably more of the tour talk focused on their contentious, thumbing-noses history with the ATF than it did with the beer itself. 'Course, this rebelliousness didn't stop them from clamping down and kicking out a bus-tour group that got belligerently drunk and obnoxious.

6) The design of the brewery is pretty weird. There are pipes running all over the place, moving things here and there. The lines that run from the grain storage to the mash tuns are very long, and include brushes that crack the husks a little more at each bend. There are also pipes stretching all the way across the parking lot to more fermentation tanks in a separate building. Doesn't seem super efficient in its design.

7) It's all about their eponymous IPA. You've probably tried Lagunitas' flagship beer--it's excellent and it's everywhere. The bulk of the money raining down on the place is probably coming from sales of this particular brew. They're brewing it like gangbusters.

8) Despite their obsession with hops, they're not whole-hop purists. I didn't see a single whole hop on the premises, and when I asked the tour guide about it, he said they use pellets and whole hops both.

And, if you're interested in my favorite and least favorite beers tasted, here you go:

Favorite: A seasonal release called Holiday Leftover Sucks, or something like that. Malty and fairly sweet, but still with a very aromatic hop aura.

Least Favorite: Probably the only beer I really didn't like was their Cappuccino Stout. The flavor is overwhelmed by the coffee aspect, and the coffee flavor they've captured is reminiscent of the swill that sits on the hotplate at 7-11 until it condenses and burns into a horribly bitter nightmare.

Beware the Yellow Cat!

On Halloween I didn't go to work. I stayed home and brewed a beer instead. The original plan was for a British Pale Ale, but I drank one of our Wiccan Wheats (which I hope to write about here soon) while waiting for the wort to reach a boil, and inspiration struck! Instead of shooting for a run of the mill Pale Ale, why not go all in for an insane IPA!

In my mind, the most basic differences between a Pale Ale and an IPA are the original gravity and the amount of hops used--the IPA having more of both. To raise the gravity, I figured I'd just boil the wort down for a longer period, reduce its volume for a greater concentration of sugars. And extra boil time works with the hopping process too.

So as soon as the wort reached a boil, I threw in three ounces of Cluster Hops. After twenty minutes I threw in another ounce. Twenty minutes later, another ounce. And twenty minutes after that, another ounce. Each time I added another dose of hops, the wort took on a radioactive, pollen-yellow glow.

(I think Cluster hops are pretty interesting. I stumbled onto them because of my interest in domestic ingredients--they're an American strain, born and bred in the U.S.A. They've got a unique kick to them--some people think it's sort of harsh, and it's often referred to as 'cattiness'--that doesn't fit in with traditional views of what a hop should be. But I like that catty kick.)

I rinsed the grains an extra time, to strip out every possible bit of sugar, and threw that in with the boil too. I threw an ounce of Cascade hops in the mix, too, and kept things boiling.

After 100 minutes of boiling and hop additions, I killed the flame and started the chiller. Then I threw it in a carboy and pitched a vial of White Labs British Ale yeast (probably not the most suitable ale yeast, but it's what I had on hand).

After seven days in primary, I transferred the beer to a new carboy, and dry hopped it with two more ounces of cluster, and an ounce of Mt. Hood (another unorthodox hop for IPAs, but hey--this is an unorthodox beer!). Total hops for a five gallon batch: 10 ounces. I let it sit on those hops for three weeks, and then I bottled it.

OG clocked in at 1.070; FG was 1.016 (not as dry as it could have been, but that gives it a hearty mouthfeel--again, unorthodox for an IPA--which I like). The aroma at bottling time was pretty awesome. I'm definitely looking forward to cracking a bottle open once it's conditioned!

Fenton Smith's Sparring Spud Stout

Lord knows I love a good stout. It's probably one of my very-most-favorite styles. Full-bodied, rich and roasty, blacker than the tax man's heart. Course, stout can be a bit heavy too, and somewhat hard to drink on a hot summer's day. And some people get carried away with the roasted aspect, turning stout into a bottle of smoke. This recipe, another Parkside Original, addresses those concerns by using potatoes in the mash (to add strength without body), and Carafa Special II (for a lighter roast aspect)--sort of a welterweight version of a stout. I name it in honor of my mother's father Fenton Smith, a small man who packed a punch. Before you drink a glass, do the man an honor, and recite his traditional toast:

Here's to you
and here's to me
and if perchance we disagree
then hell with you!
and here's to me!
SLAINTE!

FENTON SMITH'S SPARRING SPUD STOUT
8 # 2 row
1 # 120L Crystal
0.75 # Carafa Special II
1 # potato
2 oz Simcoe (1 @ 60, 1 @ 30)
White Labs Irish Ale Yeast
2 tsp gypsum (1 with mash, 1 with sparge)

OG and FG unknown (broken hydrometer not yet replaced)

Dice the potato, put it in a pot with an inch of water over it, and boil it for ten minutes. Then throw it in with the grains, and mash for one hour.

Field Trip: National Homebrew Conference 2011

It's more than a month behind us, but I figured I'd take a brief moment to reflect on my experience at this year's National Homebrew Conference, which was held in San Diego on June 16-18. I'd gotten wind of the event through my friend Danny, the master brewer for Deeper Roots brewing. He told me he and another friend, Chris (master brewer for Lewy Brewing), were planning on attending the event. Sounded like fun, plus a chance for me to visit friends and family in my hometown (Chula Vista, which lies to the South of San Diego), so I bit the bullet and bought a ticket.



I drove down on my motorcycle the day before, taking a backroads route that lead me through Hollister and Coalinga, and then on through Interstate 5. Beautiful drive, but it takes a bit out of you, and there was some concern about whether I'd be able to rally for the fest the next day.

Well, when Danny and Chris and I got to the conference the following morning, I was feeling pretty good. I'd slept well, and I'd gotten a charge out of seeing my old friends, and then in the registration area they had beers on tap, and the first beer to hit my tongue (at 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning) was an incredible lager that might have been the best beer I'd ever had in my life (and normally, lagers aren't really my favorite type of beer). Then Danny found a way for me to get on the Volunteer list with him, which made it possible to get in to certain seminars I'd been wanting to see (but had been too cheap to pay for). Things seemed to be going so well that I was starting to feel giddy.

And geezus, all the beer didn't exactly put one in a sober mood, either. There were literally thousands of different beers available during the three days of the conference, all for free, from professional breweries and amateur brewclubs alike.

Really, it started hitting me while I volunteered in Randy Mosher's seminar. Randy is the author of my favorite brewing book (RADICAL BREWING), and his seminar was sort of a travelogue of visits to breweries all over the world. He brought along sample beers too, so that the people in the audience could drink what he was talking about. As a volunteer it was my job to help pour samples of those beers. There were seven samples for an hour long presentation--at least three of which were incredibly good--and I made sure to pour my self one of each (after pouring for everyone else, of course). I was rolling by the end of it.

Fortunately, the next seminar I wanted to attend was a drier event--Christ White of White Labs yeast was giving a talk on different yeast strains, and he didn't bring any sample beers. It gave me a chance to clear the alcohol haze out of my head, and to fill it with a fog of information instead.

After that seminar I took off my volunteer shirt, transforming to "civilian mode," and met up with Chris and Danny for more free beers out on the back patio. It was a beautiful evening, with all the beer you could drink, and how can you say no to that?



By the time they opened the main ballroom for the Professional Brewers Night, which featured free beer from dozens of different breweries, I was in the danger zone. Danny and Chris grabbed a table, and I made a point of anchoring myself there for a while, only going for samples every ten minutes or so. But if I was trying to pump the brakes, Danny was rolling full steam ahead, and Chris was gung ho going for it. I must have seen them drink 50 samplers each. And all my caution turned out to be for naught--I was a wreck when I got home that night.

Poorly rested and slightly queesy, I wanted to take it easy the next day, and did. Chris hit it hard right from the start, showing up at the conference at 8 in the morning, and staying and drinking all day long. I'd already seen the seminars I wanted to see, so I caught a ride with Danny toward the latter part of the day, in order to attend the Amateur Brewers night.

If the Pro Brewers' Night had been impressive, the Amateur Brewers' Night was positively mind-boggling. Brew clubs set up all around the same ball room the Pro Breweries had occuppied the night before, and they had outrageous setups and dozens of taps pouring every imaginable type of beer for free. Toward the end of the night they awarded the Golden Urinal to the homebrew club that brought the most kegs, and the winner this year was San Diego based QUAFF, with 160+ kegs (or some ridiculous number like that). I limped along, trying a beer here and a beer there, but I wasn't really in the condition to take advantage of the situation, or to fully appreciate what I was drinking. Danny and Chris, on the other hand, were making the most of it. If Chris drank 50 tasters the night before, this night he must have drank 100. I have no idea how he processes so much beer. The scientists should study him!

On the bright side, I didn't end up such a wreck that night. Still, I'd reached my limits, and skipped out on the conference all together on the last day. I know Danny went for the Banquet at the end of the day, and Chris, for the second day in a row, was there at 8 am, with sample glass in hand.

In the end, the main thing I took away from the experience was the thought "Geezus, that's a lot of beer!" And then, on the ride home, I crashed my motorcycle up near Hollister, and ended up in the emergency room. Sorry to say it, but this year's National Homebrew Conference really kicked my ass.