Kayak rolling 101

I registered for two 4 week classes on learning how to roll a kayak. Yesterday was my first class of eight. I was really excited to be going and a little scared as I wasn't sure what to expect. At least I knew there would be some people there that I would know, so that helped some. The pool was an Olympic sized pool and everyone who already knew how to roll was set up to play in the deep end. Everyone who wanted to learn was set up in the shallow end. There were a lot of new people who wanted to learn to roll white water boots but only 2 people in sea kayaks. How to feel out of place. I listened to the instructor and we started off with T-rescues as the basis behind the T-rescue can help you learn the motions of a good roll. By the end of the class, the instructor was walking around and assisting everyone through the motions of the roll. I did 2 assisted half rolls then 3 assisted full rolls. One was a really good roll but the other two I stuck my shoulder out too far and over balanced myself. The water in the cockpit that was sloshing around didn't help my balance either. But it was a good day. I think I got more helpful instruction from my friend and the DVD he had lent me then from the instructor. But I think that gave me a head start. Next week I hope I can do an unassisted roll. All in all, it was fun to finally start learning how to roll, and in the pool it was very comfortable.

So today I am feeling the pain of rolling. I am still trying to get over the remnants of my cold and whenever I cough my sides hurt, a lot. My back, neck, arms and the back of my legs also hurt. I think some of the neck and arm pain is from carrying in the groceries on Saturday but the back and side pain is definitely from rolling. I could use a good masseuse right now. If I lean to the side to emulate a roll, I can feel the pain. Good thing I have a week to recover. Guess I should try to add some stretching for those areas. The hot tub at the pool was an added bonus. I would have like to relax longer in the hot tub but I had a co-worker's housewarming to go to. It was fun and the food was very good.

Show me the honey!

So I fianlly took the time to pull out all the honey I was carefully stockpiling and made a batch of mead. It was relatively straight forward, although a little sticky. I decided not to heat the must (the technical name for the liquid that the yeast gets added to, in this case honey and water). There are two different schools of thought around this. FIrst is that you have to pasturize the honey and must to prevent things from growing in it. Second, it is best to not heat the honey as you loose some of the delicate floral aromals and nuances. Whatever, I decided to be lazy. I diluted the honey in the water, and I splurged and picked up some bottles of spring water. I added the yeast nutrient and energizer. I also found out I bought two nutrient bottle by accident, oh well. Then I rehydrated and pitched the yeast. Done.

So now I wait. Apparently mead takes about 4-6 weeks in the fermentor, with there being no reason to hurry to bottle. Then another 6 months to a year in the bottles before being fit for consumption. Sometimes it takes up to 3-5 years for the mead to fully mature. I am hoping it doesn't take that long but I am prepared for it. I am also going to bottle some of the batch as a still mead and some as a sparkling mead, meaning effervescent. I am kind of excited about this. It is something quite different from my normal beer batches and quite easy to make. Too bad the honey is so expensive but maybe I can find a local beekeeper and get wholesale honey cheaper if I decide to make more batches. I am thinking I will definitely make another batch in about 6 months and hopefully keep to that loose schedule and always have mead on hond for events.

How to make beer, pt 3

Now if the first two methods didn't sound challenging enough, the third way to brew is to use grains either as the whole sugar bill or in combination with DME. The grains will be soaked at about 155F (68C) for between 30-90 minutes and the temperature may be stepped up too. The grains are then strained out of the water so that a wort is left. The grains can be rinsed with warm or hot water to rinse out more sugars. The resulting wort will either be augmented with DME or not, but at this point the wort will be boiled as in part 2 for 60 minutes with hops and various other ingredients. Again, many brewers will do a full boil as they will have collected quite a lot of water from rinsing the grains. The wort will be cooled and the yeast pitched. Again the fermenting will go from 2 weeks to 2 months. A good way to determine if the fermentation is complete is to check the sugar level of the beer. The final gravity will be compared to the original gravity and if the difference is acceptable then the beer can be bottled or kegged. The difference between those two gravities will also allow the brewer to determine the alcohol content of the beer. The bigger the difference the more alcohol. Most brewers will have a hydrometer which they will float in a sample of beer. This will determine the gravity based on sugar content. Then the sample will be tasted. All along the process it is possible to taste the beer or the grains to get an idea of what flavour each ingredient will impart on the beer.

Bottling beer requires that the beer be moved off any sediment into a clean bucket, then some corn sugar, DME or honey (actually any number of sweet things) will be added. The beer is mixed gently to incorporate the sugar but without incorporating too much air. The beer is then siphoned into the bottles. The sugar will give the yeast that one last little kick which will cause them to carbonate the beer. Carbonation can also be done in the keg but one of the beauties of using a keg is that you can chill the keg then pressurize it in 2 days thus having drinkable beer sooner without all the capping. The draw back is that you don't have bottled beer to share, it is all on tap. It is possible to bottle beer after the fact but care has to be taken to not lose the carbonation from the beer. Bottles are pre-chilled then cold beer is placed in clod bottles and capped immediately.

Now if all of this sounds fun the best way to get started is to look for a local homebrew store and they will help you get started. The most basic equipment list would include a fermenting bucket, a top and regulator for the bucket, tubing to siphon with, the bottling tube, and a store beer kit. The store beer kit is something that is guaranteed to work and if there are any problems the store owner can help. One of the biggest problems people have is either not cleaning things correctly, or they are not waiting long enough for the beer to age. Young beer can be a little sharper then new brewers expect and they think the beer hasn't turned out. Waiting a few more weeks to allow it to bottle age helps with that. And remember the brewers mantra: relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!

How to make beer, pt 2

So making beer is easy right? Well, the next step up on the difficulty scale is to obtain either a can of malt or dried malt and to do an extract brew. Ingredients for this will include malt, DME (dry malt extract, basically sugar from barley), hops and yeast. The DME will be the cane sugar substitute. Everything will be added to a large pot of water and boiled for 60 minutes. Many brewers will do a full boil at this point but not all, a full boil would be the full batch size, so 5 gallons for a 5 gallon batch. At the beginning of the boil some hops will be added, this will add bitterness to the beer and offset the sweetness by the DME, more hops will be added at the 30-45 minute mark for flavour then more will be added at the 55-57 minute mark for aroma. The whole mess, now called wort, will be cooled then brought up to 5 gallons (which is the standard sized batch). Yeast will be added. At this point the beer will ferment about 1 week in one bucket, then get moved to another bucket for another week at least then be bottled for 2-4 weeks. With this process, other things can be added to the beer that may require that the yeast take longer to break down sugars so the beer may stay in the secondary fermentor for up to 6 weeks possibly even longer. Honey takes a long time to break down and will slow the fermentation, also lagers are fermented at lower temperatures and that will affect the speed of the yeast to ferment.

There will be one more post after this. I will go into bottling and kegging a little as well as how to make beer straight from grains.

How to make beer, pt 1

So I have had a few people inquiring lately into how beer is made so I thought this would be a good place to let others know too. As there are several basic ways to make beer I will cover each type in a seperate post.

The easiest and simplest way is to obtain a can of liquid malt, a large bucket, some sugar and a bunch of bottles. Mix everything together in the bucket, and add the beer yeast that was supplied with the can of malt. Loosely cover the bucket so air can escape but nothing can get in and let the thing ferment in a warm place for 1-2 weeks. Most fermenting buckets come with a small hole on the top for an airlock which allows for the bucket to be properly sealed while still allowing the air to escape. Let contamination means better beer. Once the fermentation is complete, the beer is moved to a bottling bucket, basically a bucket with a spigot on the bottom. The major reason to move the beer is that the yeast will form a sediment in the bottom of the bucket that you don't want to have end up in the bottles.

On to bottling. A little sugar is added to the beer and the beer is bottled. The small amount of yeast that end up in the bottles will start to ferment the sugar down and give off carbon dioxide. It is this by-product that will pressurize the beer in the bottle. This process takes about 2-4 weeks depending on temperature. The flavour will continue to develop as there is still yeast in the bottles so the longer you can hold out the better the beer will be. As there is still some yeast there will be a little sediment in the bottom of the bottles, in most cases this should not be consumed. I think the sediment is called trub and it may give a slightly off flavour to the beer. Best to leave it in the bottle.

The next step up is to use dry malt extract (a barley sugar), and hops. Stay tuned for part 2. I have been listening to Basic Brewing Radio and they have a great show that talks all about beer adn how to brew. The show covers the basics as well as going in depth for more experienced brewers. I have really been enjoying the show and learn new things all the time, definitely worth checking out if you are interested in brewing. They also have a video podcast feed that is worth watching too.