Southern Star Brewing Company

Conroe now has its very own brewery, Southern Star Brewing Company, and I am excited to taste their first batch of beer Pine Belt Pale. Southern Star is hosting their grand opening on Saturday April 5th from 3 to 6 pm, complete with samples from their first batch. Be on the look out for Southern Star beers at your neighborhood liquor store, and support local businesses. Congratualtions guys on the start of something big. Best of luck on your venture.

Click on title for link to their website.

Competition Batch #1

Well as you can see, our first batch of Weizenbock is called 11 O'Clock Bock to emphasize that this is only the 11th batch created by Whole Hog Brewery. It also happens to be the time we started the brew (and it rhymes too). Things went pretty smooth today as we wrapped up by about 3 pm. The orginal gansta...I mean gravity (O.G.) was only 1.050. We were expecting an O.G. of about 1.065. How could it be that we were off by 15 points! Especially with all that grain. Well looking back over the steps, it looks like we added too much water. I think we ended up with about 6.5 gallons in the primary fermenter instead of the 5 gallons used in creating the recipe. We need to scale up the grains by about 30% for the next batch. Also, we might try adding a pH adjustor, as the optimal pH for starch conversion is 5.0 to 5.5.

11. Eleven O'Clock Bock

Style = Weizenbock
Brew Date = March 16, 2008
Drink Date = April 19, 2008
Liquid Malt Extract = 7.0 lbs Wheat Malt Extract
Specialty Grain = 2.5 lbs German Wheat Malt
Specialty Grain = 1.0 lbs of German Crystal Malt (130 L)
Specialty Grain = 1.0 lbs of Light Munich Malt (6 L)
Bittering Hops = 2.0 oz German Spaltz [3.5% AA] hops (boil 60 min)
Flavoring Hops = 0.5 oz French Strisselspalt [2.5% AA] hops (boil 30 min)
Additional Sugars = 0.5 lb Brown Sugar (late addition)
Yeast = Wyeast #3068 (Weihenstephan Weizen)
Primary = 7 days at 68 F
Secondary = 21 days at 68 F
Secondary Additional = 3 days at 34 F to drop yeast out of supension
Keg Conditioning = Store at 38 F for 3 days under 20 psig

10. Dave's Groelsch

Style = German Pilsner
Brew Date = February 23, 2008
Drink Date = March 22, 2008
Dry Malt Extract = 6 lbs Briess Extra Light Dried Malt Extract
Specialty Grain = 0.25 lbs German Light Crystal Malt
Specialty Grain = 0.125 lbs German Light Munich Malt
Bittering Hops = 0.5 oz UK Magnum [12.6% AA] hops (boil 60 min)
Bittering Hops = 0.4 oz Czech Saaz [5.0% AA] hops (boil 30 min)
Flavoring Hops = 0.2 oz Domestic Perle [7.6% AA] hops (boil 10 min)
Yeast = Wyeast #2042 (Danish Lager)
Primary = 11 days at 54 F
Diacetyl Rest = 1 day at 60 F
Secondary = 13 days at 54 to 36 F
Keg Conditioning = Store at 38 F for 3 days under 20 psig

Acapulco Nights

Brewing has resumed at Whole Hog Brewery following a much needed retreat to sunny Acapulo to celebrate Kev-E-Kev's bachelor party. Many cervezas were consumed while playing Beruit (a verson of beer pong). Needless to say, WHB will not be brewing a clone of Corona or Dos Equis anytime soon. Check out these pictures of the trip...at least the ones tame enough to post. Next time we're definately going to Brazil. And yes Kevin, that was an earthquake!