Or...Bindle Stiff Bloke Brew.
This pale, courtesy of NB, was locked in the carboy yesterday, 3/29/07. We also bottled the Cream Ale and Walter's Kolsch.
Specialty Grains: .5 lbs Simpsons Crystal (smashed and steeped in sock)
Fermentables: 5 lbs Pilsen Malt Syrup, 1 lbs Golden Light Dry Malt Extract
Boil Additions: 1 oz Glacier (60 mins), 1 oz Kent Goldings (1 min)
Wyeast #1099 Whitbread A.le Yeast
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
A Great Big Steaming Pile Of...
Nothing worth drinking, at least not yet. Although we labored endless nights, slept with pirated copies of Radical Brewing under our pillow, and Walter read 19th century French poetry and whispered sweet nothing to the wort through the airlock, the first batch of BSB was a Big Time Steaming Pile of Big...well, you get the picture. Or do you?
Where did we go wrong? Where we really there? Was that us laughing on top of the carousel? What pixie sprinkled majik dookie dust on our fermentables?
A couple of ideas...(1) I can't remember if we filtered the wort before transferring it to the carboy, (2) during fermentation the carboy was exposed to sunlight (though indirect), (3) the bottling process was somewhat half-hazard and too much air may have gotten into the fucking bottling bucket, (4) Walter got his dirty protestant germs on the clean catholic yeast.
And yet...the process was instructional. We are figuring out where we went wrong. We've got a whopping four more batches underway. We get better at sterilizing things. We've developed expensive hobby. Finally, we've oedipalized our brew diary with freudian scatological innuendo. Enjoy shitfuckers!
More soon!
Where did we go wrong? Where we really there? Was that us laughing on top of the carousel? What pixie sprinkled majik dookie dust on our fermentables?
A couple of ideas...(1) I can't remember if we filtered the wort before transferring it to the carboy, (2) during fermentation the carboy was exposed to sunlight (though indirect), (3) the bottling process was somewhat half-hazard and too much air may have gotten into the fucking bottling bucket, (4) Walter got his dirty protestant germs on the clean catholic yeast.
And yet...the process was instructional. We are figuring out where we went wrong. We've got a whopping four more batches underway. We get better at sterilizing things. We've developed expensive hobby. Finally, we've oedipalized our brew diary with freudian scatological innuendo. Enjoy shitfuckers!
More soon!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Minnesota State Homebrewing Laws
Courtesy of Beertown.
Statute:
Minnesota statute Chapter 340A, §340A.301, Subdivision. 9 permits the unlicensed manufacture of beer in the home for family use. Minnesota statute Chapter 297G, §297G.07 permits Fruit juices naturally fermented or beer naturally brewed in the home for family use to be free from state excise tax.
Discussion:
This statute is a very concise exception enabling the production of beer free from state excise tax without license or permit. §340A.101 Subdivision 16 defines Malt Liquor as any beer, ale, or other beverage made from malt by fermentation and containing not less than one-half of one percent alcohol by volume.
Special Provisions:
N/A
State Alcohol Beverage Control Agency:
Department of Public Safety
Liquor Control Division
444 Cedar Street, Suite 133
St. Paul MN 55101
(651) 296-6979
FAX: ( 651) 297-5259
Applicable Statutory Material:
340A.101. Definitions
Subdivision 1. Terms. For purposes of this chapter the following terms have the meanings given them.
Subd. 2. Alcoholic beverage. "Alcoholic beverage" is any beverage containing more than one-half of one percent alcohol by volume.
Subd. 12a. Home Brewing Equipment. "Home Brewing Equipment" means portable equipment designed for use in home manufacturing of malt liquor in quantities of ten gallons or less and supplies and ingredients for home manufacture of malt liquor.
Subd. 16. Malt liquor. "Malt liquor" is any BEER, ale, or other beverage made from malt by fermentation and containing not less than one-half of one percent alcohol by volume.
Subd. 29. Wine. "Wine" is sparkling and carbonated wine, wine made from condensed grape must, wine made from other agricultural products than sound, ripe grapes, imitation wine, compounds sold as wine, vermouth, cider, perry and sake, in each instance containing not less than seven percent nor more than 24 percent alcohol by volume for nonindustrial use.
340A.301. Manufacturers and wholesalers licenses
Subdivision 1. Licenses required. No person may directly or indirectly manufacture or sell at wholesale intoxicating liquor, or 3.2 percent malt liquor without obtaining an appropriate license from the commissioner, except where otherwise provided in this chapter.
Subdivision. 9. Unlicensed manufacture. Nothing in this chapter requires a license for the natural fermentation of fruit juices or brewing of BEER in the home for family use.
297G.07.
Exceptions
The following are not subject to the excise tax:
(6) Fruit juices naturally fermented or beer naturally brewed in the home for family use.
Note: The information presented here is to the best of our knowledge and should not be used as a substitute for legal advice specific to the laws of your state.
Cream Ale
We're cooking up another batch. This time a Cream Ale--recipe courtesy of Northern Brewer. It is described by them as "a light, clean fermenting ale modeled after the 'cream lagers' of the northeast US. Low in gravity, long on flavor, this beer is a pale thirst quencher, great for brewing and enjoying in the summertime. Dingemans Biscuit Malt gives our cream ale a warm toasty flavor that complements the light hopping."
Sounds good, huh? Here's what we put in it:
Specialty Grains: .75 lbs. Gambrinus Honey Malt, .25 lbs. Dingemans Biscuit.
Fermentables: 6 lbs. Pilsen Malt Syrup.
Boil Additions: 1 oz. Willamette Hops (60 min).
Yeast: Wyeast #1056
Process: same as before except steamed specialty grains in 1.5 gallons of water for 15 minutes prior to adding the fermentables. Note: be careful NOT to boil these specialty grains as they may release tannins that make the beer taste shitty.
Sounds good, huh? Here's what we put in it:
Specialty Grains: .75 lbs. Gambrinus Honey Malt, .25 lbs. Dingemans Biscuit.
Fermentables: 6 lbs. Pilsen Malt Syrup.
Boil Additions: 1 oz. Willamette Hops (60 min).
Yeast: Wyeast #1056
Process: same as before except steamed specialty grains in 1.5 gallons of water for 15 minutes prior to adding the fermentables. Note: be careful NOT to boil these specialty grains as they may release tannins that make the beer taste shitty.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Beer in the airlock
Here Here to the post below - - Ursa's post eloquently explains what we are all about...
Here is a quick note on a change in the Kolsch. I came home last night to the smell of bready beer and a hissing/bubbling sound! This beer is fermenting like crazy! This batches high qualiy yeast and the high quantity of fermentables is causing a yeast feed frenzy. The top 1/5 of the carboy is completely full with foam and bubbles have made there way into the airlock. No worries though, Co2 is still escaping and no oxygen is invading, so the beer is good. This morning, the bubbles subsided, but the carboy is still full of foam and letting out consistent belches of Co2. You get the sense that beer is really alive.
Another note: this wort has been covered with a blanket to keep out light that can kill our precarious yeast. The wort has changed from a dark nut brown to a light carmel color. Very interesting.
More updates coming. This batch will be bottled in approximately 12 days.
Here is a quick note on a change in the Kolsch. I came home last night to the smell of bready beer and a hissing/bubbling sound! This beer is fermenting like crazy! This batches high qualiy yeast and the high quantity of fermentables is causing a yeast feed frenzy. The top 1/5 of the carboy is completely full with foam and bubbles have made there way into the airlock. No worries though, Co2 is still escaping and no oxygen is invading, so the beer is good. This morning, the bubbles subsided, but the carboy is still full of foam and letting out consistent belches of Co2. You get the sense that beer is really alive.
Another note: this wort has been covered with a blanket to keep out light that can kill our precarious yeast. The wort has changed from a dark nut brown to a light carmel color. Very interesting.
More updates coming. This batch will be bottled in approximately 12 days.
On Cooperation
We have no illusions about cooperatives. Class war happens on the industrial front. Because capitalism is a more than simply a mode of production but an way of social organization that permeates us, each of us, through and through, we recognize that there is no outside of the battle. It will be the self-activity and organization of all workers in all industries that will produce a new world, a social revolution, from within the shell of dead labor.
Cooperation is not a solution to capitalism. Cooperatives attempt to invert a system based on profit by isolating themselves (as much as possible) from the market. But they are still wholly within a society governed by the logic of capital. By attempting to invert the logic of profit without actually inverting the logic of profit, cooperatives are like the camera obscura—the inversion of the image becomes the reality of problematic politics.
And yet, trench warfare is always a game of inches. We see our efforts as an inch. What is this inch? What to make of this negligible difference? The imperceptible inch. The catalytic of new existential constellations. What Guattari calls the molecular: “this dimension of interrogation of the relationship between subjectivity and all kinds of things, the body, time, work, problems of daily life, all the becomings of subjectivity addressed by these molecular revolutions.” Something as simple as brewing beer with your comrades valorizes our power to make our present reality different than it is without really changing anything. This seems to us to be a basic survival mechanism from the doldrums deep within enemy territory.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Bindle-Stiff Honey Kolsch
Sunday, March 9th, the year of our lord two-thousand and eight...
Today Bindle-stiff started a new batch of summer beer for backyard bbq's and all-day bass fishing...Bindle Stiff Honey Kolsch! This time we branched out a bit to make a more sophisticated and complex beer with an very different process. We also obtained a second carboy to enable larger production of the beer we all love. This recipe is courtesy of Northern Brewer in St. Paul, MN.
Ursa and Walter Kurtz are at it again...
Ingredients: (Fermentables)
6 lbs of Gold Malt Extract
1 lbs of honey
1 oz of Mt. Hood Hop Pellets
Wyeast #1010 American Wheat Yeast
5 gallons of purified filtered H20
Process:
Boil 1.5 gallons of water
Remove kettle from burner while stirring in Malt Extract and Honey
Return to boil and add hops (note - use very large pot to avoid boil over when you add hops)
Boil for 60 minutes while stirring occasionally
Chill wart for 1/2 hour in a sink full of 3 inches of cold water and ice
Chill wart to 80 degrees Farenheit
While chilling add 3 gallons to primary fermenter (carboy)
Pour chilled wart into carboy
Top off carboy to 5 gallons with filtered water
Sanitize yeast packet
Pitch yeast into wart
Lightly swirl yeast for 10 seconds
Seal carboy with sanitized airlock and stopper
Ferment 7-14 days (or until fermentation is complete - i.e. no activity in the airlock)
Bottling:
Sanitize equipment
Mix priming solution (organic corn sugar) - measure 3/4 cup of priming sugar
Combine sugar with 1 pint of water in a small sauce pan
Boil 5-10 minutes
Pour priming solution into bottling bucket
Mix beer with priming solution by siphoning beer into bottling bucket, leaving behind sediment
Stir gently to mix
Fill and cap bottles
Allow bottles to condition for 10-14 days
Drink and enjoy!
Today Bindle-stiff started a new batch of summer beer for backyard bbq's and all-day bass fishing...Bindle Stiff Honey Kolsch! This time we branched out a bit to make a more sophisticated and complex beer with an very different process. We also obtained a second carboy to enable larger production of the beer we all love. This recipe is courtesy of Northern Brewer in St. Paul, MN.
Ursa and Walter Kurtz are at it again...
Ingredients: (Fermentables)
6 lbs of Gold Malt Extract
1 lbs of honey
1 oz of Mt. Hood Hop Pellets
Wyeast #1010 American Wheat Yeast
5 gallons of purified filtered H20
Process:
Boil 1.5 gallons of water
Remove kettle from burner while stirring in Malt Extract and Honey
Return to boil and add hops (note - use very large pot to avoid boil over when you add hops)
Boil for 60 minutes while stirring occasionally
Chill wart for 1/2 hour in a sink full of 3 inches of cold water and ice
Chill wart to 80 degrees Farenheit
While chilling add 3 gallons to primary fermenter (carboy)
Pour chilled wart into carboy
Top off carboy to 5 gallons with filtered water
Sanitize yeast packet
Pitch yeast into wart
Lightly swirl yeast for 10 seconds
Seal carboy with sanitized airlock and stopper
Ferment 7-14 days (or until fermentation is complete - i.e. no activity in the airlock)
Bottling:
Sanitize equipment
Mix priming solution (organic corn sugar) - measure 3/4 cup of priming sugar
Combine sugar with 1 pint of water in a small sauce pan
Boil 5-10 minutes
Pour priming solution into bottling bucket
Mix beer with priming solution by siphoning beer into bottling bucket, leaving behind sediment
Stir gently to mix
Fill and cap bottles
Allow bottles to condition for 10-14 days
Drink and enjoy!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Our First Recipe: A Steam?
The first batch of Bindle-stiff beer is in the carboy fermenting. Relatively few start-up materials were required for our start-up.
Materials:
A. Stage 1 - Fermentation
6 gallon glass carboy
6.5 gallon bottling bucket
Buon Vino 3-piece airlock
#6 1/2 Rubber Stopper
5 Gallons of purified water
2.2 lbs of light 100% Barley Malt Extract
Thomas Cooper's (Pilsner) Malt Concentrate (1.25 liters)
B. Stage 2 - 2nd fermentation/bottling
6.5 gallon bottling bucket
Spigot
Siphon tubing
Auto siphon
Bottle filter
Bottle & carboy brush
Liquid crystal Thermometer
Hydometer
Test Cylinder
Bottle caps and bottles
Beer Thief
Red Baron Capper
8 inch funnel w/screen
Day 1 - Wort & Prefermentation
Step 1 - We heated the Pilsner Hopped Malt Concentrate (unopened) in boiling water for about 7 minutes to make it easier to dissolve into heated water. Simultaneously, we heated 3 quarts of purified water in a large (14 quart pot). Heating the malt concentrate makes it easier to pour.
We also added the concrete and 2.2. lbs (actually about 1.8-2 because we were making 5 not 6 gallons). We stirred the mixture until dissolved and added one gallon of water to the wort. When it was fully dissolved we poured the wort into the carboy (with a gallon of water already in the carboy). Then we filled the rest of the carboy with the remainder of the 2-3 gallons of water to make exactly 5 gallons. We immediately added a packet of dry yeast and capped with carboy with the airlock (filled 1/2 with clean water) inside the rubber stopper. We then tilted the carboy back at a 45 degree angle and swirled the carboy in a circular motion for 30 seconds to distribute the yeast throughout the mixture.
Usually this type of beer ferments at colder temperatures. We have stored the mixture at room temperature in order to attempt to duplicate a "steam" California style beer. We grow increasingly awed as it changes colors in Ursa's kitchen.
Materials:
A. Stage 1 - Fermentation
6 gallon glass carboy
6.5 gallon bottling bucket
Buon Vino 3-piece airlock
#6 1/2 Rubber Stopper
5 Gallons of purified water
2.2 lbs of light 100% Barley Malt Extract
Thomas Cooper's (Pilsner) Malt Concentrate (1.25 liters)
B. Stage 2 - 2nd fermentation/bottling
6.5 gallon bottling bucket
Spigot
Siphon tubing
Auto siphon
Bottle filter
Bottle & carboy brush
Liquid crystal Thermometer
Hydometer
Test Cylinder
Bottle caps and bottles
Beer Thief
Red Baron Capper
8 inch funnel w/screen
Day 1 - Wort & Prefermentation
Step 1 - We heated the Pilsner Hopped Malt Concentrate (unopened) in boiling water for about 7 minutes to make it easier to dissolve into heated water. Simultaneously, we heated 3 quarts of purified water in a large (14 quart pot). Heating the malt concentrate makes it easier to pour.
We also added the concrete and 2.2. lbs (actually about 1.8-2 because we were making 5 not 6 gallons). We stirred the mixture until dissolved and added one gallon of water to the wort. When it was fully dissolved we poured the wort into the carboy (with a gallon of water already in the carboy). Then we filled the rest of the carboy with the remainder of the 2-3 gallons of water to make exactly 5 gallons. We immediately added a packet of dry yeast and capped with carboy with the airlock (filled 1/2 with clean water) inside the rubber stopper. We then tilted the carboy back at a 45 degree angle and swirled the carboy in a circular motion for 30 seconds to distribute the yeast throughout the mixture.
Usually this type of beer ferments at colder temperatures. We have stored the mixture at room temperature in order to attempt to duplicate a "steam" California style beer. We grow increasingly awed as it changes colors in Ursa's kitchen.
Bindle-stiff Beer
Welcome to a new world. A new chapter in your life begins today. If you are sad, we will make you happy. If you are lonely, you will find friends. Yes, of course you can smoke. Here, we've got a light for you. If you're going to join us on this wild ride of life, you're going to need some supplies. That's where we come in.
This blog is for the autonomous artisan brewer that finds meaning and value in the local production of products of inebriation. We feel that autonomous brewing affirms and embodies the spirit of a cooperative worker-run economy. Bindle-stiff beer is about drinking the fruits of your own labor.
The affirmation of brewer autonomy is also the affirmation of the labor power of all brewers. One beer expresses many labors. One brew is the apotheosis of thousands of years of the refinement of capacities and tastes that we valorize by close study, duplication, and transformation at every stage of the brewing process.
For this operation we choose the name Bindle-stiff to reflect the ingenuity and talent of the hobos and the tramps of the Industrial Workers of the World. Throughout the American West, these migrant workers of the early 20th century owned nothing but their own labor power and lived by virtue of their knack to survive and to circulate among the networks of care they developed within the union. This is the spirit of our brewing effort.
Bindle-stiff beer is a worker-owned brewery. The workers make beer they like. And then they drink it. If you happen to find us, and like our beer, you are welcome to join us.
Ursa & Walter Kurtz
Brewmasters
This blog is for the autonomous artisan brewer that finds meaning and value in the local production of products of inebriation. We feel that autonomous brewing affirms and embodies the spirit of a cooperative worker-run economy. Bindle-stiff beer is about drinking the fruits of your own labor.
The affirmation of brewer autonomy is also the affirmation of the labor power of all brewers. One beer expresses many labors. One brew is the apotheosis of thousands of years of the refinement of capacities and tastes that we valorize by close study, duplication, and transformation at every stage of the brewing process.
For this operation we choose the name Bindle-stiff to reflect the ingenuity and talent of the hobos and the tramps of the Industrial Workers of the World. Throughout the American West, these migrant workers of the early 20th century owned nothing but their own labor power and lived by virtue of their knack to survive and to circulate among the networks of care they developed within the union. This is the spirit of our brewing effort.
Bindle-stiff beer is a worker-owned brewery. The workers make beer they like. And then they drink it. If you happen to find us, and like our beer, you are welcome to join us.
Ursa & Walter Kurtz
Brewmasters
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