Tiny House Brewing

02/16/2018

Welp, here we are, folks. Finished sauerkraut. Two quarts of fairly tasty, crunchy, fermented green cabbage. I even drank some of the...uhh...liquor? Whatever it's called, it was tasty. What was the total ingredients cost? About $2. For comparison, the jar in the center costs almost $5 at our local supermarket, and I'm fairly sure it's been pasteurized, leaving it stripped of the probiotics that the homemade kraut has.

02/10/2018

Sauerkraut update!!! It WORKED! Tonight I took the lid, growler, and strainer off the soaking/fermenting bed of cabbage to taste it...it's great for a first successful attempt (I tried once before and failed miserably. I'm pretty sure if I'd ingested that attempt it woulda ended badly.). I was experiencing some heartburn and stomach unrest, so I ate 6 forkfuls. It worked. I will admit that it's a little salty and maybe slightly crunchier than I'd prefer, but I'll totally keep this batch. For the next batch, I can remedy the saltiness by reducing the salt and/or trying a more mineral-rich gourmet salt. To reduce the crunchiness I will more aggressively "massage" the shredded cabbage once I've added the salt. I'll also add some ingredients: caraway seed, shredded carrots, mustard seed...lots of possibilities there. I think before my next sauerkraut batch I'll ferment something else. Pickles?

02/01/2018

It's been a pret-ty long time since Tiny House Brewing has posted. Life has gone on for us as it does for everyone. I won't overshare, but there've been some obstacles in our lives that got in the way of our fermenting arts and the frequency with which we'd share our projects. We've still got lots on our plate, namely online education, job stresses, and the biggest news: we're brewing a baby who's due in August!
Anyway, I want to break our radio silence with some documentation of the current project: SAUERKRAUT! I've only got two hands, so I didn't photo the exciting part of slicing and salting two heads of cabbage (3 tbsp canning salt to 3-4 lbs green cabbage), but here are equally exciting photos of my fermentation rig. The cabbage is in a large ceramic crock, weighed down by an inverted stainless steel steamer basket and a one-gallon glass growler filled with water. Notice I've left out the weights that came with the crock. I think they're too porous and difficult to clean. Even without those thick ceramic weights, the growler mouth sticks out of the crock too far to use the ceramic lid, so I rigged up an airlock with water and an inverted large soup pot, whose handles are situated perfectly for letting the pot's rim sit just under the water level without resting directly on the crock. The ideal ambient temperature range for good sauerkraut fermentation is 65-72°F, which is where we're sitting now. Today's high temperature will probably bring the ambient house temp above 72°F, but the crock should maintain the internal temp until a cold front comes through tonight, dropping highs back into the 50s-60s through the weekend. I'll check progress on Sunday with a good old sniff test, as well as measure the pH with some strips we've got.

02/11/2017

Multitasking. Brewing a kolsch and doing discrete math homework.

11/20/2016

Today was a good day. We got to celebrate two longtime friends getting married and share homebrew they trusted us to make for their wedding. The last time we did this was over 3 years ago for our own wedding, as blissfully ignorant homebrew newbies with no idea what could go wrong. The pressure was on this time but it all worked out.
We bottled a chocolate porter and New England style IPA and had a keg of pale ale on tap.

10/15/2016

Today's brew day brought to you by:

04/10/2016

Yesterday I racked the mystery grains "porter-turned-sour-mild" beer into a keg, put it under 30 psi, and shook the hell out of it. Today, we have magic in a glass. This is a totally different beer after chilling and adding some bubbles. It's a little more tart, fairly grainy tasting (a little biscuity, or maybe like buckwheat pancakes), with lingering slightly fruity sourness and low bitterness. My goodness what a glorious recovery this beer has made from its first fermentation!
I think I'm going to name it W.C. Fields for two reasons: one is that it spent months in the W.C. (our guest bathroom), and the other is that it does actually remind me of its namesake, one of my favorite comedians. Sour, a little bitter, kind of dark, a funny story to tell, and *mildly* alcoholic!

03/20/2016

First 10 gal batch since...brewing our wedding beer maybe? Foster dog is not impressed with spent grain, but he's pretty happy about all this outside time.

02/18/2016

Ok, y'all. This is a Brettanomyces claussenii pellicle that has formed on the surface of Matty's mystery grains porter that seemed to be a disaster back in December. This fungal film is a good sign of an aerobic environment for the brett, which means healthy yeast! We are hoping for further other-worldly surface development for prettier photos in the coming weeks. Time will tell!

01/12/2016

A gal can dream, can't she?

- Matty.

We finally heard back from our winner! We'd like to congratulate Chris Tidwell on winning our giveaway! We are hoping Chris sends a picture of him and his new kettle when he receives it. Thank you again to all that participated. We will be sure to do more giveaways in the future as it seems you guys like free stuff ;) Happy brewing!!! (2/13/16)

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***Winner selected! We have contacted them and are waiting for a response. We will announce the winner once we hear back. Thank you all VERY much for participating and for your support!!!*** (2/11/16)

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**Enter to Win**

We will be giving away a 15gal mash tun this month to promote our new v3 kettles! The kettle will include sightglass, false bottom, valve and thermometer; a $485 value!!

To enter simply:
1. 'Like' our page
2. 'Share' this post

Enter by February 11th, 2016 to win!

www.SpikeBrewing.com

12/26/2015

No, that's not a prototype of Skywalker's blaster in that photo...it's a Blichmann Beer Gun! It's a magical device used for transferring liquids from a keg into multiple bottles. Today, we tested out the gun on a batch of Christina's ginger beer. Unfortunately we were both a little too overzealous to take photos of the whole beer gun assembly and bottling process, but it was relatively easy and painless. Much better than the risks involved with bottle-carbonating or the mess and guesswork of bottling straight from the tap on a keg (which also greatly diminishes the carbonation as soon as you fill the bottle). The glass contains Matty's dark & stormy made with Railean rum (San Leon, TX) and our very own ginger beer! Cheers!

12/06/2015

Like moths to a flame or buzzards to a possum carcass, these brew day sidekicks are into part of the process. Little detritovores.