Blichmann Boil Coil alert!!

Ok, if you have a Blichmann Boil Coil and you got it before April 2015, LOOK AT IT NOW!

My system had improperly crimped cables, and was burning up inside the connector.  I caught it before it caused a problem, but it did cause downtime in my brewing pipeline.  I'll be okay, although it does cause me some problems.

Blichmann has taken full responsibility and has sent out replacements under warranty, that is part of why they are a damn awesome company to work with.

I repeat, if you have Blichmann Boil Coil's, look at the power cables!

Anthony Bourdain, you are dead to me

Last night, my incredibly awesome girlfriend took me to see a hero of mine, Anthony Bourdain.  I have pretty much watched every show he has ever done, read his books, seen him as a guest on Top Chef, etc...

His first 5-10 minutes were blasting on Guy Fieri.  Granted I agreed with most of it because Guy is a tool.  Really though he was saying the same stuff he used to say about Emeril Lagasse back in the day.

He went on to talk about how his life has changed because of his daughter.

He was railing about some other stuff after that.

Then he pissed me off.

He started talking about how craft beer is stupid.  Hipster.

Granted Tony hates hipsters.  I pretty much do as well.  Unfortunately hipsters are associated with craft beer.

Tony said beer is meant to be a cold beverage that has alcohol in it, not some hipster driven stuff where people say "Can you tell the hop profile in this?"

Beer is meant to be a cold beverage.

Really Tony?  REALLY?  Be glad the "Q/A" session was staged for you to rage on shit you have said on your show before.

Had I gotten my hands on a microphone, here is what I would have asked

"Tony, you say beer is hipster and just a beverage to be consumed cold, then why do you showcase vineyards and care about the wine?  Would not Carlo Rossi or even MD 20/20 work?  I have seen you almost break your ankle on a show turning your motorcycle around to rail on how a Chili's is the downfall of the American restaurant, corporate swill turning eaters away from adventure from Chef driven restaurants.  How then can you say that one of the most innovative and creative industries in America (craft beer) is just about getting people drunk and not about brewmasters creating unique flavors?

I get it, you just want Miller Light when you are on tour, that is fine, but why denigrate hard working brewers?  They work just as hard as Chefs and Vintners.  Hell, probably harder as they are exploring new frontiers.

You lost a fan today Anthony Bourdain.

FUCK YOU!

I'll name a beer after you...

FUAB

Heh, seems I already had one with that name for FU Anheiser Busch, it fits...

SUPER busy!

I brewed 2 barrels in the past week, plus had to do Chef stuff.  I'm so tired.

It seems that I have an allergy to neoprene, so my knee is all messed up because I tried to take care of it with a brace.

So be it.

I've made more beer in the past week than I've been legally been able to make at home.  Got to love turning another hobby into a career.

Fireworks are going boom, my cats are freaking out.  Mac has always been skittish about thunder, this is not helping her...

Anywho, sMasH brew next week...

Big week!

Wow, this week has been really busy, but still good.  I brewed 2 times, Shep 'n Johns and the Oud Bruin that will be ready in a year, our Annivesary-Ale.  I also kegged Shep 'n Johns batch number 2.  We sold almost 3 kegs in less than a week, so it is going good!  I am really excited about the reviews on Untappd.com and the feedback I am getting from our guests.  This is a lot of hard work, but it feels good at the end of a long day when I see and hear people like my food and brew.  Would not trade this for anything!

Grand Reveal/Opening

Tonight we did the Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting for the brewery.  It was pretty cool.  I'll post a picture when I get it, I was on the back side of the ribbon.  The scissors kinda scared me, they were like 3 feet long, and sharp as hell.

Anyways, I got great feedback on the beer, everyone loved the Hefeweizen, and a local microbrewery actually asked me for advice on filling their pilot brew kegs.  Makes sense though, their big system dwarfs my production system, their pilot system is probably bigger than my system, it is all good though they are good people, and I do not mind helping.  One of the really cool things about small breweries, we help each other out.  We are actually hosting their release tap takover.

Really, we have sold like 5 kegs of my beer, and I'm already looking at what it takes to self distribute.  It is moving that fast...  WOW

BUSY!

Not much brewery news today.  Lost a cook a few days ago, so I have been in the kitchen, training and opening and well, working my ass off.

Brewery reveal is on Tuesday the 16th.  I also have to go to Karbach and pick out my dry hops for my special GST keg of Hop Delusion.  Then I have to get back at make the brewery look "cool" for the first round of visitors.  It is all good.  What is most important to me is the beer and food.  Not so much how it looks, it is a freaking brewery.  Stainless tables, kettles, hood, etc...  Yeah SHINY!

Anyways...  The beer is good, the food is good.  Come see me at Gordon Street Tavern!

Brewer?

So yea, I guess I'm a professional brewer now.  That is pretty cool...  I have received incredible feedback on my brews.  Am I going to challenge AB-InBev?  Nope.  Am I going to change the Greater Houston area breweries?  Probably not.  Am I liking what I am doing?  YES!  That is what matters to me.

The watermelon and pork belly salad is the same thing.  Bringing true inner loop food to Alvin.  I will make Gordon Street Tavern into a gastro pub one way or the other.  Good food brings people that will try the beers, brewing good beer will bring people that  will try the food... win win.

I'll say it again... if you find a job you love to do, you will never work again.

It is not really true, I work my ass off, but I do not mind it.  Making food and beer, what can I dislike?

Big Update

Okay, so really I have to update this more often.  Really, really, really I do.  There has been tons of stuff going on with me.  I've hinted around about this but...

Gordon Street Tavern is now a brewpub!  I've brewed 5 batches so far, and with the limited release we have had fantastic feedback!  I am working on getting the two most popular beers, a golden ale called Shep 'n John's (after Alvin Morgan's two companions a dog and goose.  Alvin Morgan is the founder of Alvin) and GST Hefe into a pipeline.  By this I mean that when a batch is done brewing, there is a fermenter vessel available.  When the batch is done fermenting there are kegs available for it to go into. It is a rolling system involving at least 3 different beers.  I think I am going to need more fermentation vessels.  I know I am going to need a better way to keep track of everything other than the postit notes I'm using now.  I need a database to do all this...

Anyways, I put a gose on tap yesterday, it was made with Galveston County Jurassic salt, so it is a bit salty and tart from the acidulated malt.  It did not come out as tart as I wanted but it is extremely drinkable and has an incredible white head.  I wanted to call it "No No No, there is one O in gose, boys" but nobody got it...  So for now it is just GST Gose.

Oh yea, watermelon and pork belly salad returns on Tuesday the 9th of June, we have Hibernal Dichotomus to go with it.  Come get some!

Cold Day!

Whew!  Cold front blew through this morning... Warmed up a bit this afternoon, so what else to do but smoke pork and brew beer!

Baby back pork ribs were on sale at Fresh Market yesterday and I bought a whole 10 lb packer pack.  It was 3 racks, so I fired up the Weber and threw them on at 2.

I had bought several home brew kits a couple of months ago from Northern Brewer in anticipation of my BrewPi fermentation chamber being ready for 5 gallon batches.  It had worked great for my 1 gallon test batches in the dorm fridge, but when I rewired it to use in the freezer, it quit working.  I spent a month rewiring it over and over, changing the Arduino, the Raspberry Pi, the temperature probes, the circuit board everything.  It still would not work.  So I put it away because I was frustrated.  It was too cold in the garage for my simple fermentation controller to work, so I did not brew.  Last week I decided to pull the BrewPi back out and figure it out.  I finally checked the 10 cent resistor that makes the temperature probes work, and it was wrong!  The whole batch I had bought at Fry's was mislabeled, so even when I started over, it was still wrong.  After a quick trip to Radio Shack (and making sure the color codes were right before I checked out!) it was working like it was supposed to.

I would have brewed yesterday, but I moved my other freezer from my house to my girlfriend's house and had to use the fermenter to hold the stuff.  So yesterday I moved everything back to the original freezer and today I brewed!

Queen Mac's Royal Scotch Ale is now in the fermenter, and the BrewPi is working like it is supposed to.

The baby backs came out great too!