I brewed a Breakfast Stout last night. I felt a little pressured to get this brew completed, so that I could have some available for New Year's Eve. As such, my original plan was to do a traditional 3 gallon boil, and add ~2 gallons of water, as the instructions state, just so I could get it done quickly. I've only done that once, for the first beer I brewed. Since then, I've been using ~6 gallons of water in my boil, so that I never feel like I'm directly diluting the wort. The problem is, boiling 6 gallons of water takes a long time. I didn't want to be brewing all day.

Luckily, I was able to borrow a propane burner from my buddy Andy, who has just stepped up to brewing ten gallon batches of beer. I connected the burner to my propane tank in the back yard, and was able to get a healthy boil going in far less time than it ever would have taken on my stove. With the faster boil, I decided to use my normal 6 gallon procedure.

I made, in my opinion, two big mistakes last night, and I'm a little worried about how each may effect the flavor of my beer. In all reality, I don't think either is really going to ruin it. I was just in a (self-imposed) rush, and the process suffered as a result.

First, I didn't crush the specialty grains very well. I only summarily crushed the Simpson’s Roasted Barley, and didn't crush the flaked oats at all (in fact, I don't even know if I was supposed to). I don't think that will cause too much of a problem, but it's something about which I'm not really happy. I should have taken my time, and done it right.

The second problem was that I didn't account for just how much of my water would disappear in the form of steam. Brewing outside, in the cold, resulted in a lot more boil off than I had expected. When I poured the wort into my primary fermenter, I had to add an extra gallon of tap water. It's not the adding of water that was the problem, exactly. Rather, it was the use of tap water. I would have preferred to use distilled water, for a cleaner addition. I had even intended to buy some earlier that day, but my schedule got away from me. Again, I don't think this will actually ruin my beer, but it was clearly the result of me rushing through the process.

For my birthday in June my dad and my sister bought me a kegging setup, so that I can keg my beer. I've kegged two batches, and loaned the gear to a buddy so that he could keg a batch. I've decided that, in general, I would much rather keg than bottle my beer. Not only is it a lot faster to fill the keg than it is to fill bottles, it allows me to enjoy the fruits of my labors much quicker, through the magic of forced carbonation.

Usually, I leave my beer in the primary fermenter for a week, then transfer it to a carboy for two weeks. Then, if I bottle, it's another two weeks in the bottle before it's sufficiently carbonated and ready to drink. Kegging lets me reduce the carbonation period to two or three days. With my Breakfast Stout, I'm planning to leave the beer in the primary for two weeks, and skip the use of the carboy, instead transferring the beer directly to the keg. This is a marked diversion from my normal process, but it's one with which I'm comfortable for a couple of reasons.

First, I'm in a rush to get this beer to friends. If I use a carboy for two weeks, I'll miss my self-imposed deadline of New Year's Eve. Yes, I waited way too long to brew this batch: I should have started at the beginning of the month.

Second, I don't think this is a particularly complex beer. It had only a single hop addition, and not a lot of grains, so I don't think the flavors need to blend quite as much as some other recipes might. Also, it's a low alcohol beer, so I don't expect quite as much from this as I might from a higher-alcohol brew.

Third, I'm not opposed to experimenting a little bit. If I always follow the recipe guidelines exactly, I'll never really learn the kinds of tricks that may yield different results. As long as the beer isn't infected, I don't mind straying from the directions a bit: it should still be a perfectly quaffable beverage, and I'll have learned how cutting some corners effects the outcome.

Hopefully the Breakfast Stout will be an enjoyable beverage. If not, I'll chalk it up to a learning experience. Either way, I know that the next time I brew I'll be sure to plan ahead a little better.

I bottled my third batch of beer last Sunday, and brewed my fourth batch of beer on Wednesday.

The third batch was a smoked porter, the kit for which I obtained from The Winemaker's Shop. As with the previous two batches, my friend Andy helped me brew. We made a few small changes in our brewing process for this one. Most notably, we elected to use distilled water, rather than tap water, when boiling the wort. This likely won't have a very big effect on the flavor, and was mostly done from a "why not?" attitude. The other major change to our process was the addition of a digital thermometer. For the prior two batches, we'd been winging it with respect to temperature as we cooled the wort before pitching the yeast. The first time, we cooled it too much, and the yeast took longer to ferment the beer. The second time we simply got lucky. For the porter, though, we carefully monitored the wort as we chilled it, and made sure that we didn't pitch the yeast until we were within the 70-75 degree range.

The bottling process was tedious, as usual, but working on it with a partner makes the whole thing much smoother, and far more entertaining. Andy and I laughed and giggled almost the whole time. I can't imagine bottling alone.

On Wednesday I brewed my fourth batch of beer, the Northern Brewer Single Hopped Best Bitters. Brewing the SHB2 was not particularly different from any of the other brews I've done. The big difference is that the kit included dry malt extract, rather than liquid. This was my first experience with DME. I found it to be slightly easier to deal with than LME, and plan to look for more DME kits in the future. (I'm not interested in stepping up to all-grain brewing yet, thanks.)

This batch is specifically intended to be kegged, rather than bottled. My sister and dad pitched in and got me a keg, CO2 canister, regulator, and associated hoses and couplings, so that I can enter the wonderful world of kegged beer. I wanted to brew this batch as quickly as possible so that it would be ready for consumption in time for the upcoming Habari Party.

My buddy Chris came over to lend moral support as I brewed the SHB2. He's a homebrewer himself, and has only ever kegged his beer. I picked his brain about his kegging and carbonation strategies, and learned a few good tricks: connect the CO2 to the beer out line to force carbonate faster: the beer out line goes down to the bottom keg, forcing the CO2 to rise up through the entire volume of beer. When carbonation is complete, remove the CO2 line from the beer out line and connect it to the gas in line as normal to maintain pressure. Neat!

I shared with Chris the secret of my wort chiller, which is nothing more than 50' of coiled copper tubing, some reinforced plastic hose, and a coupler to connect the hose to my shower head. One can spend a pretty penny on a commercial wort chiller, which will no doubt look nicer; but my D-I-Y chiller costs less and is every bit as functional. When my boil is done, I move the brewpot to my bathroom, connect it to the shower, and run cold water through it. It dumps directly into the bathtub. It takes about 30 minutes to bring the wort temperature down to a range suitable for pitching yeast (I'm usually impatient at this step, and pitch the yeast when the wort is still a wee bit hot.) The next time I brew, though, I'm going to immerse the brewpot into a cooler filled with ice water, and then use the wort chiller, in an effort to cool the wort as quickly as possible.

It's always an interesting experience to talk process with other homebrewers. The focus of our various interests are all over the map. Tom homebrews, and he seems to take particular interest in the science of brewing. He takes meticulous notes, and works to minimize variations in his process, so that he can have a repeatable, reproducible brew should he strike upon a recipe that he really enjoys. He's also moving more toward all-grain brewing because he enjoys the process much more. I'm far less interested in the science, and not overly concerned about reproducible recipes. I'm in this purely for the result: beer! I enjoy drinking beer, and it's fun for me to know that I created the beer I'm drinking. As Chris watched me brew, he declared that I was way more "loosey goosey" with my process than he was (particularly when I declared "Yeah, that looks like a boil to me. Toss in the hops!") Ironically enough, Chris admits that he's loosey goosey when it comes to carbonating his beer: the gauge on his CO2 regulator was broken when it arrived, so he's always just guessed at how much pressure to use. "That's too much, that's too little" he said, as he pantomimed fiddling with a dial.

Adam recently pointed me toward The Scioto, Olentangy and Darby Zymurgists. I may try to get involved with them, but I worry that they'll be overly focused on process, and science, and the fun I get from homebrewing will be absent.

My porter will be ready to drink on Sunday, August 29. My SHB2 should be ready to drink on Friday, September 11. If you'd like to taste the former, let me know. If you'd like to partake of the latter, keep an eye on the Habari Party details.

It's no secret that I like beer. I've been a beer snob for almost as long as I've been a beer drinker. I enjoy the flavor of good beer, and drink it specifically for this reason. Never in my life have I consumed an alcoholic beverage with the express intent of enjoying the effects it provides. I don't drink to get drunk; nor to get a buzz. I drink because I like the taste of a good beer.

I never had much interest (or opportunity) to drink beer before I was of the legal age to do so, which may account somewhat for some of my tastes. I drank a little bit of Natural Lite in college, and a fair amount of Rolling Rock and Miller Genuine Draft, before I discovered Samuel Adams Boston Lager. This quickly became my de facto beer, because it actually tasted good, unlike the swill I had been drinking before. Throughout college I continued to explore additional craft beers, and took a liking to many of them. It was an expensive proposition for a poor college student, but I felt it was worth it.

A couple years ago Tom tried his hand at homebrewing his own beer. I watched from afar as Tom got more and more into the process, and I thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of his labor. I was somewhat intimidated by the process, but helping Tom brew a couple of batches gave me enough experience that I was finally motivated to try it for myself.

Tom recommended How to Brew by John Palmer, which I studied. I discussed technique and style with my friend (and now neighbor) Adam, who also homebrews. I've since met a handful of other folks who also homebrew, and have picked their brains to varying degrees.

I went in with my buddy Andy, who also wanted to start homebrewing, and bought all the necessary equipment from The Wine Maker's Shop. Last month we met at my house and brewed our first batch. We selected a simple IPA, and followed the kit instructions fairly carefully. It was our very first time, so we made a few mistakes, and weren't quite as thorough as we should have been. We were confident, though, that we had managed to avoid infecting the wort so we weren't overly worried about any of the mistakes we made. The biggest problem we had was that we chilled the wort too much before pitching the yeast, which meant the yeast took a lot longer to activate than normal. As we put the lid and the airlock on the fermenting bucket, we congratulated ourselves on a relatively successful first batch of beer, and prepared ourselves for the tormenting wait until the beer would be ready to drink.

Andy came over two weeks later to help me rack the beer from the primary into the secondary fermenter. We struggled with the siphoning process for a bit, but finally transferred our beer into the carboy. Two weeks after that Andy came back to help me bottle. Of all the stages in our process, this was the most fun; probably because Andy's wife Beth, as well as Adam and his wife Julie, also joined us. The mood was silly, and the bottling process was sloppy, but we all had a great time. At the same time that we were bottling, we were brewing our second batch (another IPA). We were a little more thorough with the directions this time, and made a few modest adjustments to our process. The end result was a wort that smelled much richer than our first attempt. Needless to say, we're even more excited about our second batch than we were our first.

Once bottled, the beer is supposed to sit ten to fourteen days in order to "bottle condition". During this time sugar added before bottling carbonates the beer, and completes the flavoring. Andy just couldn't wait, and cracked one of his beers after a week. I waited until the tenth day before succumbing to curiosity.

The carbonation process wasn't quite complete, and although the beer wasn't entirely flat, it was duller than I prefer. The flavor is light -- much lighter than I had expected for an IPA. There's not much hoppiness to it, but it's not at all an unpleasant beverage. All in all, I think it's a roaring success for a first time brew!

Andy and I are both looking forward to gaining sufficient experience and comfort with the process of homebrewing that we can veer away from kit beers and explore more sophisticated recipes. We learned a lot just in the short time between our first and second batches. For example, the kit instructions tell you to boil 3 gallons of water for the extract, and to add 2 gallons of plain water to the wort in the primary fermentation bucket. This, I think, accounts for the lighter flavor of our first batch: we basically watered the whole thing down before ever getting started! For our second batch, we boiled all five gallons with the extract, and needed to top off the primary fermentation bucket with just a little bit of water to make up for what had boiled off. This should produce a much richer flavored beer. Also, we learned that an autosiphon is truly a wonderful device, and well worth the money.

While our first batch of beer was fermenting, Tom and I attended Beer Wars, a documentary about the craft brewing market. It was an interesting examination of the fundamental differences between craft brewers and the major beer labels in the U.S. It was a highly motivating film, and I left really wanting to brew more beer, as well as to continue to purchase quality beers from passionate brewers. If you haven't seen the film, you should.

If you have a beer recipe, do please share it. If you want to join me to brew some beer some time, let me know. Or, if you just want to drink my beer, let me know that, too! ;)

Most of Saturday was spent sitting at the FreeGeek Columbus booth, spreading the word about what we do. We didn't have quite as much interest this year as last, but there was still a sufficient flow of traffic to make having the booth worthwhile.

I was scheduled to start my shift at the Jazz Bar at 8 PM, but I decided to get to show up at 7:30. I was put to work refilling tokens for the cashiers. The basic workflow was this: customers exchange cash for tokens at one end of the tent, then get back in line to buy beer. Customers give their tokens to the bartenders who in turn place them in big buckets. It was my task to empty these buckets, sort them by color, and redistribute them back to the cashiers, to ultimately go to new customers (and back to the bartenders; repeat ad infinitum). After several hectic iterations of this, I was put on one of the taps and started serving. I served beer almost non-stop for the next three hours.

As with last year, the line nearly evaporated around 11 PM, and then surged again right before we closed up at 11:30. Unlike last year, I didn't have any trouble with any of the customers. Everyone was in good spirits, patient, and very understanding of our need to double-check IDs. Last year I got a lot of grief for checking people's IDs just after they'd been checked when they purchased tokens. No one really complained, or was unpleasant in any way, and everyone smiled broadly when I exclaimed "Happy ComFest!" as I handed them their drinks.

There were four taps on each block: one specialty beer (Columbus Pale Ale, where I was), one tap for Labatt's Blue Light, and two taps for Labatt's Blue. During the busiest times, all four would be in use. We often ended up playing Twister, reaching over, under, and around one another to reach a vacant tap to keep the beer flowing. The most interesting pour of the night for me was when a young woman presented me with four mugs at once. I was able to grasp, and then fill, all four using only one hand, which surprised several of my coworkers.

My coworkers on Saturday night were a mixed bunch. One fellow and I got into a very comfortable rhythm, communicating effectively about what we were doing so that we could either get out of one another's way, or help expedite their pour by leaving a tap on, for example. There were two women working in my section, too, and they had trouble all night long getting a decent pour. At first, they seemed terrified to spill any beer, despite the constant slopping of foam and beer going on all around them. Then they couldn't grasp the concept of tipping the cup or mug as they poured, despite repeated reminders. Then they complained frequently about the CO2 mix. The first time it was a valid complaint, as the beer was pouring very, very slowly. After that, though, they complained that it was too high, and causing too much foam. At several points I offered to pour for them, just to get them out of my way.

The only real ruckus that occurred happened early in the evening: while pouring a beer, I heard indistinct but raised voices behind me. I turned around to see a lot of people speaking toward one fellow at the front of the line. He claimed to have dropped his tokens while his friends were ordering, and wanted to scoot to the head of the line in order to get his beer right after them. The folks nearby all yelled that he was jumping the line. The police officer on duty next to me told me the story, but was unable to say whether this guy did, in fact, ditch. Thankfully, one of the cashiers was able to confirm that the guy did ditch, so I politely refused his beer and sent him to the back of the line. The crowd erupted in cheers, and several customers offered me high-fives.

Late in the evening one of the shift supervisors approached me and said "See me, after that pour." I was immediately overcome with fear. Had I served a minor? Was there a problem? What did I do? As it turned out, the supervisor wanted me to stand at the end of the line of people buying tokens to close it off. I was charged with turning away folks who wanted to buy tokens, so that the cashiers could close up. Again, to my surprise, no one was particularly agitated about being denied. They weren't happy, but no one caused any trouble.

It's a lot of fun to work the late shift. It might be fun serving an afternoon shift at a beer tent, but I think I'll stick with the late shift: the cool evening breeze helps a lot, most of the people aren't miserable from having stood in line in direct sunlight for ten minutes, and many of the people have reached that comfortable buzz that keeps them in good spirits. I barely heard the bands, playing not more than 100 feet away, but I still had a great time.

Sunday afternoon Carina and I went back down to enjoy a last ComFest beer for the weekend. We found Lisa and Jeff, and spent several hours milling around, chatting comfortably. I saw several of the shift supervisors I'd worked with the previous days, and they all invited (or nearly begged, in one case) me to volunteer again next year. There's no question about it: as long as I'm in town, I'll be volunteering at ComFest 2008!

Last night's shift as roving safety was an informative, and enjoyable, experience.

I was partnered with Richard, a Vietnam veteran who had attended all but one ComFest. He signed us up for the Gazebo shift, because he wanted to hear Willie Phoenix play at 8 PM. The territory we had to cover spanned from the Park St. Street Fair west to the Live Arts stage, and from Buttles Ave. south to the main park walkway. It was a pretty broad space, and it was divided almost cleanly into two types of people: those who were there for ComFest, and those who were there because of ComFest.

The former group were what I started calling "the professionals". They brought blankets and chairs and coolers, and took care to be respectful and mellow. Most of them had their own plastic mugs (almost always a ComFest mug from a previous year), and if they had brought their own booze into the park they all poured it into their plastic mugs. The bulk of these people were clustered around the gazebo stage, and were clearly there for the music and events of the evening. These folks were friendly, and almost everyone smiled at Richard and I as we walked past them.

The latter group, who I quickly dubbed "the amateurs," sat on the sloping lawn to the west of the pond. There were several small clutches of trees there, and people would sit in small circles. These were mostly teenagers, and they almost all sat rigidly upright when Richard and I strolled through their midst. They tried -- lamely, I thought -- to hide their pipes and bongs. Several groups had gigantic hookahs out. It was in this group that we found the most people drinking from bottles or cans, and to whom we distributed plastic cups. The conversations I had with these people was repeated so frequently that you might think it was scripted: I would approach a group of people drinking out of bottles or cans. Some of them would try to hide it; I don't know whether it was because they might be underage or because they didn't want to get caught with BYOB. I would say, quietly and politely, "Hey guys. The park rules don't let us have bottles or cans. Could you please pour your drinks into these cups?" I'd hand them a few plastic cups, and they'd say thank you. Richard would say "Please remember to recycle those bottles and cans!" We would start to walk away and then one of the kids would call to us "Hey, can I have some more cups?" This happened the same way almost every single time I approached someone. It got to be the running joke between Richard and I.

One kid I approached resolutely denounced that the can of Bud Light sitting next to him was his. I offered to recycle the can for him, and picked it up. It was nearly full. I can't be sure, but I think a look of sadness crossed over the young fellow's face. We walked off toward the nearest recycling station, at which I emptied out the beer. When Richard saw how long it was taking me to pour it out, he observed "That was that kids' beer!"

Our entire shift was quiet and easy-going. Richard and I engaged in the kind of story-telling that happens when two strangers are passing time together. He was a great partner to have, and I wasn't bored at all during my shift. We had only one altercation, and one false alarm. While walking around the "amateurs" by the pond, we heard a scuffle behind us. Turning, we saw a couple of guys posturing and yelling at one another. Richard calmly walked up and settled everyone down. One of the fellows decided he just couldn't make it to a Port-O-Potty, so he urinated on the side of one of the trees. The other fellow decided this was a disgusting thing to do, so he spit upon the first guy. As we got involved, both of them surprised me by quickly saying they weren't trying to screw up the Festival, and they both loved ComFest so much, and they'd be happy to just walk away from one another. We made a point to pay extra attention to that section over the rest of our shift, but nothing else ever happened. I spied the guy who spit on the other guy several times, and he was always calm and well-behaved, hanging out with his group of friends.

While chatting with one of the roving supervisors, we heard a distress call on the walkie-talkie that Richard was carrying. "Crowd control emergency at the gazebo!" The roving supervisor took off running toward the gazebo. Since it was within our territory, I quickly followed, with Richard right behind me. When we got there, no one could tell us what the emergency was -- everything looked completely under control! As we later learned, some of the folks in the front row wanted to dance on the stage, and were encroaching on the band's space. One of the ComFest volunteers panicked and called in the emergency without coordinating with the stage manager. Everything was well under control, and we ended up wandering off to resume our roving safety duty.

I'm glad I signed up for the early evening shift. The weather was superb, the crowd was pleasant and not yet drunk, and the route was nicely varied in terms of landscape and demographic. I don't think I'd want to do roving safety at night, when people are more likely to be out of control, and when you can't see as much of what's going on. All in all, I think I did a pretty good job of maintaining the mellow!