Zen and the Art of Brewing

Some days, it just doesn't make sense to get out of bed.  Those are the days that when I happen to have a brew scheduled, I really look forward to those few hours.  Brewing, for me at least, has become a very relaxing and meditative activity.  The very nature of the process builds in periods of time where there isn't much to do other than sit and watch sugar water boil.  On days where everything is nuts and you are being pulled in 12 different directions at the same time, it is nice to just sit and brew.  It's made even better since I can't brew at my home (apartment dwelling was not made for brewing) so I don't even have chores or other distractions pulling me away from the process of making beer.

Yesterday was one of those days.  My day job really wasn't too bad, but things didn't start to go belly up until after I left work.  I was planning on making a beer that I designed for my girlfriend's birthday and graduation.  I had already come up with a name, Sweet Celebration, and gathered the ingredients.  On my way to pick up some sushi for her I realized that I had forgotten to get a grapefruit (a rather important ingredient since it is supposed to be a grapefruit beer!).  So, sushi in hand, I make another stop at the grocery store to pick up my fruit.  I rush in the store, head to the fruit section and carefully select the very best grapefruit I can find (after all, this is the one piece of fruit that will flavor this beer...it had better be a good one!).

By now I'm pretty late already, but I still had to run back to my place to pick up a propane tank and get it exchanged for a new one.  There is nothing worse than having your propane peter out in the middle of the boil, so having a spare is essential.  I run home to pick up the forgotten tank, realizing now that I don't have time to change out of my work clothes.  On my way out the door, I realize that I was just about to go brew without even a copy of the recipe I created!  Now, I've been working on developing this recipe for about 3 weeks so I have a pretty good idea about what I'm putting in and when...but when a day starts going like mine was, brewing without the recipe is just asking to produce a rotten beer.  So, printed recipe, propane tank and empty growler in hand I rush out the door and into the car.

There are several places where I could get propane on the way to Brandon's and I stopped at the one I believed would be able to get me in an out the quickest.  Of course, there is only one employee behind the counter when I go to pay for the exchange and a quickly growing line of people behind me.  She politely tells me that as soon as she is done helping the people behind me, she will be out to unlock the storage container and get me my full tank.  Not wanting to wait out in the rain, I go and sit in my car which I had parked right in front of the container (I don't know a better word to describe those things...cage?  receptacle?  pen??).  I see an employee coming out of the store to help me so I start to get out of my car.  Just then, a newly licensed 16 year old in a shiny new Chevy parks next to me.  And by "next to me" I mean she parks within about a foot of the side of my car.  Now, those of you who know me know that I am not short nor am I, how do you say...flexible.  Looking back on it now, I would really like to see the surveillance footage of me trying to extract myself from my car.  I should have just asked her to open her windows so I could climb through them...might have been easier!

Propane in the trunk (cause there was no way I was going to get it into the back seat without putting it through the windows!) I get back in the car (much easier this time since I knew how I got myself out) and head to Brandon's ready for some relaxation.  Halfway there I start cursing myself because I realized that I forgot my mother's zester back at my place.  I know Brandon's wife has one, but hers is small and a grapefruit is a rather large fruit to zest...and I have a kick ass one back at home (chalk that up to "things I never thought I would hear myself say" before starting to brew..."I have a kick ass zester".  Really??).

So, ready to finally get this brew underway I pull into Brandon's place.  While describing the recipe and laying out the plan for him he looks at me and says exactly 5 words that make it crystal clear that my journey is not anywhere near over...."You sure that's a grapefruit?"  Crap.  I ‘thought’ it was a grapefruit since I went to the grapefruit section of the fresh food area of Hy-Vee.  It was carefully inspected for firmness and a good, clean rind.  I was charged for a grapefruit and I obtained said “grapefruit” from the grapefruit section…silly me to think I had actually walked out of the store with the fruit I planned.  Oh well, fortunately there is another grocery store close to Brandon’s so I could go get an actual grapefruit. While the hot water was working on extracting the sugar from the raw grain, I took my little trip to get a grapefruit.  Upon my return I had it verified that this time I succeeded.

Next on the schedule came the boil.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the process of making beer, after soaking the grains in hot water and draining to get all of the sugar out of the grain and into the water, this liquid (called wort) is boiled for a predetermined amount of time based on the desired characteristics of the final product.  When the boil first begins a chemical process takes place where many of the proteins in the beer coagulate and fall out of the beer.  This is desired, but has a noticeable effect on the beer.  It foams like crazy!  Unless you have a very large kettle, you have to monitor this stage very carefully or the pot boils over in a sticky mess.  I have taken great pride in never allowing a boil-over.  Until yesterday.  I had managed it fine initially, then realized I hadn’t extracted as much sugar as I had hoped.  To balance this, I added some dry malt extract (essentially a product where wort has been evaporated and the solids that remain are purchased and added to beer.  Some people make beer exclusively from this extract).  Unfortunately, the addition of this extract caused more foaming and my spotless record is spotless no more!

The next step in the process (after adding hops, grapefruit zest and quartered whole grapefruit) is to cool the beer.  This coagulates more proteins and helps produce beer that is clear.  To do this, we have a copper coil that Brandon made that we run cold water through.  In order to make sure that this coil doesn’t contaminate the beer, we put it into the kettle with about 15 minutes left in the boil.  Spending this time in the boiling wort sanitizes the coil and kills off any bacteria that might be on there.  I’ll post some photos later, but since copper is somewhat expensive and plastic tubing is quite cheap, we have a long plastic hose attached to the outlet side of our coil.  So, as we’re waiting for the boil to finish a friend of Brandon’s who joined us for the brew day said, “That tube doesn’t look right.”  Upon inspection I discovered that when I put the coil into the kettle, I allowed the plastic tube to sit directly on the propane burner stand.  My long piece of tubing was now two separate pieces with nicely charred and melted ends.  Seriously??

Back to the point of this entire post.  While normally brewing is a very relaxing and meditative experience that helps me escape from the rigors of everyday life, yesterday’s brew was more of a demonstration of Murphy’s Law.  I think I did a better job of helping Brandon, his wife and friend relax than I did myself due to my bumbling nature yesterday.  What will make every bit of it worthwhile is if, in a month or two, I crack open a nice cold beer that tastes outstanding and know that if I can make a great beer while floundering around like an idiot the entire time, imagine what I can do on a good day!!

For now, however, I think I’m just going to go back to bed.