DISPATCHES - A PROGRESS REPORT

Hi everyone,

As I'm sure you can see from the shitty picture above, nearly everything has arrived successfully over the last couple of days. I had a bit of a nightmare with missing the odd delivery as I work shifts (the poor fella driving the Parcelforce van had to lug a fuck-off crate of bottles to my house not only once, but twice), but asides from a custom-made bung to fit the glass carboy, a 10 inch funnel and a clip-on thermometer, everything has arrived and I'm busting to get going on the debut brew. 

I've been putting some finishing touches on making my first IPA recipe my own, and getting the boring bits out of the way (converting metric to imperial and so forth). I also spent an evening earlier this week reading up on yeast and all the fascinating shit that can be done with it. I had a mini-panic after browsing several home brew forums and thought that I might have to cook up a batch of yeast starter, something which was a little bit daunting as I haven't done a proper brew, well, ever (pouring lager malts into a bucket with a pile of sugar and yeast nearly ten years ago doesn't count, does it?). What started as a frustrating, almost boring internet sesh (seriously, it's yeast for fucks sake) turned out to be quite informative and educational. Yeast starters is something I will definitely be experimenting with in the future. 

On the subject of yeast, I've got myself a batch of White Labs' WLP001 liquid yeast currently chillin' all dormant in the fridge. White Labs seems to be industry standard in growing liquid yeast, and the Californian variety seems perfect for the IPA recipe I am trying to achieve. The fact that you can even get different types of yeast for different types of beer fries my head (as above, it's yeast for fucks sake) but it opens up a whole can of worms of potentially harvesting and cultivating my own yeast from past brews if it's something that I *really* want to save. I also read about a guy scraping the yeast out of the inside of bottles of Westmalle Tripel, which really got me thinking...

I was drinking a Lagunitas IPA recently and it got me thinking of how lagery it tastes for an IPA; it's got that really heavy feeling to it, like Stella Black or some of the higher-end Peroni stuff. That got me thinking what to do about my second brew. It might be jumping ahead a little, but after the first batch I should have approx. 60g of Cascade hops and 70g of Chinook hops left, and almost a whole jar of pilsner malts from Briess. I had the idea to do an experimental lager, brewed with Chinook and then dry-hopped with a few Cascades; essentially the opposite of the original brew idea, but I can't seem to find anything online (yet) about these types of hops being used in a lager, so I'll get back to you on that. 

Time to wrap up this quick post. Hopefully, by the time you hear from me next, there should be five gallons of *something* festering away in my glass carboy. 

As always, thanks for reading.

Peace,

Sean

STEEGAN BREWING CO. IS BORN!

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November..."

Greetings earthlings and welcome to the Steegan Brewing Co. website. I've set up this blog to document my various escapades, hopeful successes and inevitable failures in the world of brewing beer. Brewing beer has always interested me and is something I have dabbled with in the past, so the time has come for me to take a proper swing at it!

One of my parents dogs, Paisley. I don't think he's particularly fussed on beer. 

What/who is the Steegan Brewing Co.?

Well, it's the name I've given my home brew set up (with obligatory puffed-up delusions of grandeur, of course). The Steegan Brewing Co. is currently run alone by myself, in my house with my long-suffering girlfriend/best-friend, Joanne. I ought to thank her in advance for letting me turn the kitchen into some mad fuck-off lab. 

The name however, is derived from a band I somehow accidentally formed when I was 19, called Start! Start!. The band has kinda fizzled out over the years but we've all remained very good friends. A fairly savage group chat has survived to this very day, and somewhere along the lines the name mutated from Start! Start! to The Steegans. The entire thing would appear to be written in an alien language to an outsider; The Steegans is steeped in inside-inside-jokes (the Inception of jokes) and a form of colloquial phenomena that we call Burra-isms, which is somewhere in-between Cockney rhyming slang, expressions local to Newcastle and the dialog from an Irvine Welsh novel. 

This all may seem like utter, utter nonsense but the three other lads who make up "The Steegans" are integral to the foundations of this crazy idea. I expect many brews and methods will deeply reference and pay homage to the years of ridiculousness I have extracted from the group. 

You're actually going to do this then?

Yep. It's all set. With a down payment of approx. £236, I have established my own home micro brewery and the ingredients required for my first batch, which I intend to be an IPA/APA kinda thing. It's all due to arrive over the next couple of weeks, and I will upload photos of the entire set up when it arrives. 

What equipment are you using?

I bought a standard £40 home brewing kit with a few vital additions which are not exactly extravagant but should go a long way in making the brewing process smoother and greatly improving the chances of me actually making a decent brew.

The 5 gallon glass carboy which I ordered from Amazon

The initial kit consists of two tapped fermenting buckets and all the gubbins, air locks, pumps, sanitisers, bottling equipment, etc. etc., and the main additions to said kit where a solid glass 5 gallon carboy for first-stage fermentation (those things just look so solid and reliable, I had to get one over plastic) and a 20-litre stainless steel modern equivalent of a cauldron, in which the initial magic will happen. I didn't feel the need at this point for propane burners or more industrial-sized cooling systems, so for now I'm going to take my chances with my sink or bath and a fuckton of ice. 

What have you got planned for the first brew?

I'm probably biting off a bit more than I can chew by attempting my own adaption of this "basic" IPA recipe found here. Wanting to keep things fairly straight-forward, this initial brew will consist of a base of Cascade hops and two malt extracts rather than an all grain mash. I plan to ferment for two weeks before racking across to a different container for a second stage of fermentation, in which I will dryhop the living fuck out of it with heavy, piney Chinook hops (as found in Steegan-favourite "Blue Label", more famously known as BrewDog's Punk IPA). 

If successful, the first batch will consist of approx. 60 330ml bottles of 6-7% APA which I will most likely name after some local band or something. 

So I think that's about it for now. I'll post an update when things start to arrive. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy joining me on my journey into the world of brewing beer. If you're bored in the meantime, I periodically update my Instagram with beer-related stuff, amongst other things. 

Best,

Sean