Brewing a West Indian Pale Ale on the New River

Our view of the New River from near the brewing spot.

My wife and I spent a nice weekend this past Labor Day up in the NC mountains at my in-laws' cabin on the New River.  The in-laws started the first of an annual Labor Day Party they plan to host there each year from now on, and I took advantage of the trip up to brew a new beer, NuclearRich's West Indian Pale Ale.

I've wanted to enjoy sitting out there in the mountains and making some beer since I started homebrewing, so Mark and I hauled our brewing equipment up the mountain and setup shop not fifty feet from the New River.  It was a beautiful day, and we had a nice time relaxing, drinking a bunch of good beer, and making some of our own.

Cracking grains in the new grain mill.
Yes, that's half a Coke bottle.

We started out by cracking the grain for the recipe.  This was the first time we've cracked our own grain or used the grain mill.  Mark commented that something about it was really satisfying.  I agree.  I felt like I was getting in touch with my ancestors a little.  But, then again, I'm prone to thoughts like that up in the mountains anyway.

Mark and I had a short discussion about the relative merits of cracking your own grain.  Unfortunately, we don't have any specific way to measure benefits or drawbacks.  I would assume it would maintain the freshness of the malt to crack it just prior to using, but then, they're packed in air-tight bags.

I initially thought it was cheaper, but Bull City Homebrew, our local homebrew store, cracks them for you for free, if you like.  Northern Brewer (I won't lie, I like them and send a lot of my business that way) charges the same amount for a pound of crushed or un-crushed.  So, yeah, no great savings there.

So, really that just leaves negatives, right?  You have to crush them.  Well, before I bought a grain mill, that was a problem.  Now that I have one, well, it was easy and I enjoyed it, so there you go.  For no good reason, crushing grains is fun, and despite being extra work, will continue to be a part of my brewing experience - though, maybe the night before, so I don't force Mark to enjoy my strange new hobby.

Mark pondering the manifold
problems of the universe.

After cracking the grain, Mark noticed that the cooler I'd recently acquired for a mash tun didn't have a manifold or filter in it.  Vaguely I could recall having seen several PVC pipe segments packed in with it that, in retrospect, were probably what we were looking for.  DISASTER!

Mark with his ingenious solution.

Well, not exactly.  Necessity is the mother of invention, and Mark was inspired by the half Coke bottle we were using as a funnel for the grain mill.  Mark disappearing into his car for a bit, and returned with a plastic water bottle possessing a neck that fit PERFECTLY into the drain on the mash tun.

After slicing a bunch of tiny holes in the plastic with a knife, he was able to attach the bottle to the cooler, and voila! - makeshift filter.  It worked so well, and was so easy, I doubt we'd go back to any other method, if it weren't for hot water and crappy plastic, and the fear of mutation-causing chemicals.

We dubbed it safe for a single batch, and tried not to think about all the free radicals (or lack of free radicals? - I'm no doctor) that would be attempting to tumor-ize us in the finished beer.

Assistant brewers Zeva (Right) and
Calli (Left), making sure the relaxing
gets done efficiently and with precision.

So, we moved on to the rest of the process.

The Beer Gods demand a sacrifice
 of flesh for supplying Mark with
the inspiration for his makeshift
mash tun filter.

Boiling water at higher altitudes takes more time, but I don't think we were prepared for just how much more.  I'm sure we used twice as much propane as usual to heat our strike water.

Well, no matter.  It gave us plenty of time to relax and try some new beers that had been released by some of our favorite breweries.

I'd like to say the rest of the afternoon was uneventful, but it was not to be.  Unfortunately, after draining out the wort, we forgot to close the spigot on the mash tun, and some of the 191 degree sparge water we then added poured out onto Mark's foot, burning him pretty well.  He spent the rest of the weekend in some decent pain with a good size blister.

Hot water and malted grain -
a good start to the day.

After that, though, things went pretty much according to plan.  We hit all the right number for temperature and OG, but then ran into the effects of altitude, I suspect.  When all was said and done, we were almost 1.5 gallons short on wort volume.  I'm assuming the extra time it took to boil contributed to a higher amount of water loss.

Despite the issues, it still turned out to be a good day on the New River, and NuclearRich's West Indian Pale Ale looks to be a nicely hoppy, but dark (all that rye and caramel malt) pale ale.  It smells great, and it's fermenting well.  In six weeks or so, we'll get to try it out.  I'm excited to see how it tastes.

Our trusty brew kettle, steaming away in front of the canoes.