Sauerkraut and Kombucha

It has been awhile since I've made any Sauerkraut or brewed any Kombucha.

I really like homemade Sauerkraut on brats and sometimes other things, but I just have not made any in awhile.

So ... my wife was entering a grocery store order and I asked her to add cabbage and jalapeños. She did. I used it to make jalapeño sauerkraut.

In case you're not familiar with the process, it is pretty simple.

Shred up the cabbage and cut of the peppers.

Add a couple of tablespoons of salt to the cabbage and knead / massaged it, mushing it together. The juices from the cabbage will come out and combine with the  to make a nice brine.

Foothills IPA vs Odell IPA

So ... about a month ago ... I brewed Foothills India Pale Ale, the second beer in my Homebrew Colorado 6 pack.

The recipe's base comes from the AHA's Zymurgy Clone recipe of Odell Brewing Company's IPA and was designed as a homebrew tribute to Odell's beer.

I kegged on the 8th of May, and added gelatin to help clarify the beer. On the 14th, I felt I was ready to give Foothills India Pale Ale a side-by-side comparison with Odell Brewing Company's IPA.

Of the Homebrew Colorado 6 pack, Odell IPA is one of the few that is available commercially year-round, so I had to take advantage of that.

May 14th ... hazy

Visually, the beer had not cleared up as much as I thought it would, but the color was actually pretty close if I took the haze into account.

T.Ra.Sh. Light Mexican Lager (batch 256)

In this whole environment with COVID Shelter-in-Place, I find myself brewing a lot.

But, after having a huge amount of inventory earlier in the year, I took a month off. I found myself running a little low.

Now, I have quite a bit of beer, but I still find myself wanting to brew.

So I do.

At some point I'll have to figure out how to drink all this beer or find out ways to give it away.

One way to smooth out my pipeline is to brew something that might take little longer to brew.

For example ... a lager.

This past weekend ... I brewed ...

T.Ra.Sh. Light Mexican Lager 

5th Season Blackberry Saison (Batch 255)

As you probably know if you follow SheppyBrew Brewery, we brew at least 4 saisons every year.

Winter Spring Summer Autumn.

I call them my Seasonal Saison series of beers.

From time to time, I add in different saisons as well. Usually, I call them "5th Season".

I have made a Blood Orange Saison, and now in mid-May, I found myself wanting another beer to replace a rapidly disappearing beer supply.

I had some blackberry extract sitting in my cabinet. It smelled good. I decided to use it in a "5th Season Saison".

5th Season Blackberry Saison

Latest on my Anvil Cooling System

In my Wild Cow (sort of) Kölsch blog post, I mentioned that I was using my  Anvil Cooling System for Bucket Fermenter to help keep my temperature in a range appropriate for Kölsch fermentation.

Last time I used the system for a lager, I was using Glycol stored in my deep freeze pumping through the system to cool. It didn't quite work out how I envisioned. If you would like to go back and see what I wrote at the time ... check out Anvil Stainless Bucket Fermenter with Cooling System (Part 2).

This time, I went back to the low-tech ice water in a cooler method with a couple of small modifications.

The first was really something I kept telling myself I should do and never took the 5 minutes to do it.

I drilled holes in the cooler to allow the tubes and power cord to run through. This way, I could close the lid of the cooler.

Grapevine Loop From Morrison

If you follow me at all ... you probably know that I do a fair amount of biking ,,, especially over the past year.

I'm not particularly fast, and I'm not great on hills. I'm not in danger of hitting any Strava KOM's. Usually when I look at a Strava segment, I'm not anywhere close to the top of the leader board. 

But, I do like to see myself hit PR's on Strava. It makes me think that at least I'm improving. 

Wild Cow (sort of) Kölsch (batch 254)

Years ago, when my wife (aka the SheppyBrew Beer Model) and I lived in Illinois, we were camping with a group of people in a campground in Southern Wisconsin.

While sitting at the campfire, one of the campers came back from wherever he had been.

He was very excited.

"Wild Cows!" he said. "There are wild cows in the forest around us".

It was funny. Or at least the consumption of alcohol and the general mood of the group made us all laugh.

Much more recently, we were visiting my family in Wisconsin, and we had a few Spotted Cows.

I mentioned that I could probably find a clone recipe for Spotted Cow and make it to be ready in time for my son's High School graduation.

Remembering the camping trip years ago, I thought "Wild Cow" would be a great beer name.

Wild Cow (sort of) Kölsch

April Progress on #5000MilesIn2020

If you follow this blog fairly regularly, you might remember that I've made it a goal to ride 5000 miles in 2020.

If you don't know what I'm talking about ... you can catch up by checking out Sheppy's Blog: #5000MilesIn2020.

Now that April is complete, I thought I'd give another quick update.