We've Moved!!!

We've moved to Gorillafistbrewing.com Come check it out!!!

Super Sunday!

The day has finally arrived, and what better way than with a Superbowl featuring none other then my Green Bay Packers. Daniel and I decided that a Gorilla Fist tasting would be best during halftime, where we could enjoy our beer and try and forget that Fergie exists.

The Verdict.....Success!!

Our beer tastes great! very light and not very complex, but it's exactly what we expected. If I had to compare it, I'd say maybe similar to Yuengling. We did add a bit too much priming sugar (you have to add that to bottles to carbonate the beer, also called Bottle Conditioned Beer) which caused the bottles to foam up a little, but it also gave it a great bubbly taste; And, judging from my alcohol barometer (My lightweight tolerance) as well as our hydrometer (actually used to measure alcohol content) I've determined Gorilla Fist American Lager to be between 6-7% alcohol by volume. Not bad.

To make things better, the Packers WON  THE SUPERBOWL!! One small step for the Packers, one giant leap for Gorilla Fist Brewing! 

Bottling the American!

So after much waiting, we were able to bottle our American Lager! except now we have to wait two more weeks for the beer to bottle age... The process was pretty easy, just wash, fill and cap. We had to get a little creative at times to be able to fill the bottles. Here are the pics:

 

The bottle washing process proved to be the hardest. We first soaked the labels in really hot water and hoped the labels would just peel off; not the case. We got some of the labels off but a ton of them tore and they all left the glue behind. I know I wouldn't want to drink out of a glue covered bottle, so I had to find a better way.After some research, I learned from BrewingKB that some baking soda added to the water should do the trick; and.... success! I could literally wipe the labels and glue right off the bottle.

Now that we got our bottles clean, time to put some beer in em!

We were told to use a bottling tube (Basically a siphon hose with a valve for quick shutoff) but, in lieu of that we decided that pouring out beer back into our cooking pot and scooping it up with a mixing bowl to pour would have to do.

We learned quickly that Dan was our bottling guy. I tried on the first two bottles and they weren't TOO bad, however, Dan flew through the bottles faster than Noto and I could fill them.

The First Fist!

Noto and I realized when we were coming to our last few bottles that we didn't have nearly enough bottles, but we kind of knew that from the start. Our trusty guide told us we'd probably be making close to 45 bottles, but we only had 32...So, we decided to make at least one more bottle. I can't think of a more poetic way than with a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. That gave us one more bottle, and we still had a ton left to bottle. Time to get ghetto, real ghetto. We had some empty 40's in the recycling which we didn't hesitate once in using. Don't worry we sanitized them, but capping may turn out to be an issue. As some of you may know Hurricanes have twist tops; not ideal for reuse. So We've decided we're going to use those as our testers to make sure the batch is ready for all of our friends and family.

Threw those suckers in a box and now we wait. The unveiling night couldn't be more exceptional either. Super Bowl Sunday. Not to mention I'm a Packers fan. This is going to be great.

So, get excited! and throw down a comment if you want to try some, if you're lucky we'll let ya!!

American Lager Brew.

Sorry for the late update everyone. Dan and I have been busy with our last semester at school but we managed to get our American Lager Brewing! The process wasn't hard except for a mouthful of siphoned wort and a sticky floor.

This is all the gear we used. the ingredients are at the top; and we had  a coarse and fine strainer to strain the wort into the carboy (a 5 gallon water jug), and a siphon tube to get the wort into the carboy.

These are some specialty grains we steeped in our pot of water at 167 degrees for about 15 minutes, before adding the rest of the hops and malt.

This is Dan mixing in the hops and malt. It was just like mixing a bunch of really thick flour into a lot of water, and took us about 10 minutes to do.

Now we let it boil for an hour...

Then we needed to chill it 75 degrees. being that all we had was a sink and a handful of ice that took about an hour also.

After the wort chilled we needed to siphon it into our carboy. We didn't take any pictures of this because it involved me sucking a big tube really hard, which is bad enough; aside from getting a bunch of preconceived beer in my mouth and on the floor, which is still sticky I think. But we got it in! 

There she blows! Once we got it in the bottle we added a yeast packet, put an air lock and here we are!

Here is a video of the beer just a few hours after. its churning itself, which it did for about 5 days. all those bubbles coming out of the air lock is C02, which needs to be released or else the bottle would blow up, which is the last thing I need. the air lock lets gases out with out letting harmful bacteria in.


So, its been about a week and a half since we started the brew. Since then the bubbling has stopped and we transferred the beer into another carboy. We did that so we could get more of the sediment out and let the beer "clean" itself up. now we're preparing to bottle! Which should happen in the next few days.

Stay tuned for more pictures of the secondary carboy, and bottling updates!!! coming very soon!!!!

Starting a New Brew.

So today, Daniel (My roommate and business partner) and I will be starting a new 5 gallon batch of American Lager. I wanted to do an American Lager because it is a more basic brew. This batch is more to understand the processes to go through rather than to actually brew righteous beer. (Obviously, a righteous brew will never be unwelcome). I have a much more general, big picture mindset; and this project is to try and understand that brewing is a more of an exact science than my personality wants. I want to teach myself to understand when little things are happening so they become my general understanding, rather than just throwing stuff together.

I will post again within the next few days to show how everything is looking, there may be a picture or too :) and I also hope to get on a regular blogging schedule now that the holiday season has settled down,

Its A Christmas Baby

Welcome all!

My name is Will, and I'm starting this blog because I want to make beer and I want you all (my friends) to be a part of it. I also think that by starting a blog I will be kept accountable and won't be able to slack or be terribly stupid.

I'm not a total amateur brewer. I have made one batch before this... I made a batch of hard cider, and learned quickly that home brewing isn't a Betty-Crocker  cake in a box, its a Bill Nye science project. I learned quickly that you can't throw a bunch of stuff together and get the right result. you have to measure meticulously, and check often to make sure things haven't gone south.

Which brings us to the name. Gorilla fist. 

The name started as a theory I had that any beer company could be successful with a name consisting of a an animal followed by a body part. think about it; Lion's Head, Parrot Head, Dogfish Head, etc. Also, the opportunity for innuendos and inappropriate marketing is vast; so if you have any innuendos or inappropriate ways to market Gorilla Fist, please feel free to comment below. 

Now, as you can tell, to day is Christmas! I got some dress clothes and ties for the professional world I will inevitably enter in about 7 months. But I also got a bunch of home brewing equipment. a hand capper, bottle caps, thermometer, and two home brew kits. the American Lager and the Brewer's Choice Amber Ale. both come from homebrewery.com.

I plan on starting the American Lager in about two weeks when I get back to my apartment, until then, Merry Christmas!