Cold Room Set-Up

We finally got around to putting the cold room together. We got a little side tracked after finding out that we are going to have to install two more sinks in our space. Do you think it is a coincidence that the acronym for the Department of Health is D'OH!? I find it highly suspicious. Highly.

Anyways, we have to install a floor sink, so we had about six plumbers come in last week to give us estimates on how much it is going to cost to install one and it looks like it's going to be in the $1,250 to $2,700 range. The deal with a floor sink is when serving any sort of food or beverage to citizens of San Diego we need to have an air gap between the plumbing and the sewer, that way we don't get sewage backing up back into our sinks. A little something called "Backflow Prevention."

The cold room was really easy to assemble, it was like a gigantic piece of IKEA furniture. Just needed a bit of elbow grease to lug the pieces around into the correct position and a little deductive reasoning to determine where the ceiling pieces and voilà! Instant* cold room.

Here are some semi-timelapsed photos from the build out:

*Instant being about 4 hours + a 14 hour round trip to Phoenix.

The Cold Room.

I used to enjoy twitter, now I am a believer. It was through twitter I came across a listing on Craigslist for a walk-in cold room for cheap. It had fourteen tap handles (probably more than we'll ever need, but extra space can't hurt) and two glass door merchandisers. Really a prefect fit for our size of operation. Thanks so much @abeeraday for the heads up! 

I called up Iron King on a Monday to begin negotiations and figure out some logistics. We would probably need to rent a 26' truck from Penske and get a car trailer for the ride back. Luckily our good friends came through and we were able to borrow a 12' trailer + a full size pick-up.
He decided to take off some extra cash since we were going to drive out there and pick it up ourselves. So we began our 14 hour journey at 5:00AM on Friday.

Here are some pictures from the journey:

5:00 AM 

Don Quixote would love this place.

Raw Power.

Who?

Bummer!

Rising Up from the Ashes.

7th St, 11 AM.

Almost Full.

By the hair of our chinny chin chins.

Long Distance.

Getting Dark.

Sunset.

I'll be sure to post picture from the build out and the completed cold room. Unfortunately it is going to take us a little long to get everything up since we just talked to the DEH on monday and it turns out we need to install a floor sink, a mop sink, and a hand washing sink. So that will put as at a total of 7 sinks in our small space. We will be sure to have clean hands and pint glasses though!

Rye Imperial Stout - Experiment #1

Bottles of Rye Imperial Stout. 

Hand bottling 22 ounces of beer is a very time consuming process (even with Blichmann's BeerGun) it takes 1 minute 34 seconds to fill and cap each bottle on average. One of those $1,000,000 bottling lines is looking more and more enticing. We are probably just going to be filling kegs in the beginning anyways, so it wouldn't make too much sense. Plus, I don't have a million dollars laying around.

Appearance: Dark, almost jet black and turns a shade of coffee around the edges. It has thick, tan, bubbly head.

Aroma: Complex with a good amount of rye and hops.

Flavor: Many different flavors, standouts are dark chocolate, coffee, caramel, and toasted rye malt. Not aggressively alcoholic, but you can tell it is 7.9%ABV.

Mouthfeel: Full-bodied and moderately carbonated. This beer is thick, but not syrupy.

Overall: A very big dark intense beer.

We are still designing our logo/labels and creating a REAL LIVE WEBSITE at the moment. We are meeting with Mr. Patton on Friday to discuss this in greater detail.

I've also been discussing purchasing a used cold room from Phoenix, AZ with a man ominously/awesomely named Iron King. I'll keep you all updated on that as I find out more info, but I have to imagine that Iron King looks something like this.

All 60 Stouts in the Fridge.

The Double-Blind Taste Test

One month ago I posted about our "Experimental" Brewing Session; we recently dry hopped and kegged the two different IPAs. As you may recall one used the 1450 "Denny's Favorite" yeast strain that is known for low flocculation and not being very sweet. The other used was 1968 "London ESB Ale" yeast, which has a high flocculation and tends to have a fair amount of fruitiness.

We encountered a little trouble with these brews during the fermentation process, both of them stuck at ~ 68% attenuation. We wanted to get to about 70% for both of the IPAs, we needed some yeast, stat. Luckily our friend Johnny O' from the downtown Rock Bottom Brewery was able to hook us up with a big slurry from his propagation tank. We pitched it that afternoon and we finished out at 1017 and 1018. Right where we wanted them to be.

TASTING NOTES

1450: 7.20%
Aroma: Surprisingly light. Muted, esp compared to 1968.
Appearance: Dark & Cloudy Orange Amber. Light Beige Head.
Flavor: Tart. Crisp. Hoppy. Grapefruit.
Palate: Silky. Smooth & Light Carbonation.
Overall: This one has a bit of a bite. The tartness really stands out.

1968: 7.00%
Aroma: Strong scents of pine and citrus.
Appearance: Dark & Cloudy Orange Amber, clearer than 1450. Light Beige Head.
Flavor: Earthy. Full. Hoppy. Pine. Bitter.
Palate: Dry. Light Carbonation.
Overall: Mellower than the 1450, a fuller flavor. Not as sour.

It is pretty cool how much of a difference two strains of yeast will make on the exact same wort. The 1450 is quite a bit more sour than the 1968, which has more earthy mellow flavors. The difference in aroma is probably even more pronounced than the flavor. The 1968 has a strong scent while the 1450 is barely detectable.

The experiments and the taste tests continue! We'll be doing a much larger sample tasting on the 24th of this month at an event with about 30 volunteer tasters.

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau

Welp, we pretty much got all of our TTB paperwork in line. They ask us about everything from our environmental impact, water quality and sources, trash disposal methods, how we intend to protect our delicious beers from beer thieves and all sorts of stuff you wouldn't think that the Tax & Trade Bureau would care about. Well, I guess in the event someone comes and steals our beer we wouldn't have to pay taxes on it... and that would be a huge bummer for the IRS. This was probably my favorite piece of paperwork that we are submitting to them. I love Google Maps.

After this all we have left to deal with is the Department of Environmental Health. DEH!!! I am really hoping that dealing with them is easier than trying to navigate their website which consists of hundreds of broken links. Although, their Facebook page is pretty fun and informative. Watch out for West Nile Virus Mosquitos and Hantavirus Mice! Hantavirus AKA the "English Sweate" is something you probably do not want. Unless you are a certain Korean dictator looking for a good weaponizable virus. Then you might really like the stuff.

If you ever want to apply with the TTB you can find all the paperwork here or click on the items below:

1. The Brewer's Notice - this tells the TTB you intend to become a brewery. You need to attach a diagram of the premise, a description of the security, a legal description of the brewery, and all your corporate by-laws and articles of incorporation, and your SS-4 Employer ID number.

2. Brewer's Collateral Bond - a bond for $1,000 for the first 4,000 barrels of beer you produce. If you produce more than that you will need to obtain a strengthening bond.

3. Personnel Questionnaire - includes everything you've ever done ever, as well as how much you plan on spending to open the brewery.

4. Water Quality Considerations - you need to tell them if you are going to be poisoning any rivers near by.

5. Environmental Information - you need to let them know how much polution you plan on generating, hopefully zero.

6. Signing Authority - only in the even you are a corporation or LLC.

7. Pay.gov User Agreement - whereby you agree to use their website to pay taxes on the beer ($7.00 per barrel, which is really what all this paperwork comes down to in the end.)