October 1994 Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsman Vol. 2 No. 10


This Issue:

Last Months Meeting 1
Retractions 2
Library 2
Club Events 2

Next Meeting 3
Competitions 3
Recipes 3
Special Note 3
Thanks! 3
Brewers Profile 4
AHA Competition 5/6


Last Months Meeting


Happy October! Ahh fall, as the leaves turn from green to amber to red to dead and lawn clutter, our thoughts once again turn to brewing. We must finally admit that summer is over, the boat must come out of the water, the cleats must get hung up and the golf clubs polished one last time before winter unless you're a true golf nut in which case the season lasts another 7 weeks. Yes, it's time once again to dust off the carboys, clean out the grain box, toss out the old hops and yeast and start stocking supplies for this years brewing season. Last months meeting was a good indication that everyone is indeed ready to start brewing again, the turnout was good and the discussions were great. The meeting started with Neal talking about an upcoming beer contest at Mt. Clemens Hardware, entries were due October 3rd. The categories were light, amber, brown, black, strong and specialty.

A group of Fermentals made it the Renaissance Festival and brewed an Octoberfest, brewers were Neal Petty, Bob Rotay, Dale Pleszko, Ted Geftos and Mike Leonard. We will be notified earlier next year and get more than one day of brewing.


The Ye Olde Brew News I s the monthly publication of the Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsman, otherwise known as the Fermentals. The club meets once a month on the 4th Wednesday at 6:00 at the Traffic Jam & Snug brewpub in Detroit, unless a special meeting is to be held elsewhere. Our fiscal year begins Jan 1st and dues are set at $25 a year for new members, and $15 a year there after, members joining after July 1st pay $17.50 for the 1st year. Joint memberships (same household only) are $40 the first year, and $20 there after.


President: Neal Petty,

vice-president: Tom Herron,

Treasurer: Sandy Bruce,

Secretary: Rich Byrnes,

Librarian: Doug Geiss,

Special Events Coordinator: Doug LeCureaux,


....Last meeting cont.

Neal then proceeded to talk about all grain brewing. He highlighted the basic premise of what all grain brewing is Vs extract brewing which is quite different! He then demonstrated a homemade Zapup lauter tun for sparging which is basically 2 buckets nested inside of each other with the inner bucket having the bottom drilled with hundreds of holes to create a strainer. I then demonstrated a Phils Phalse Bottom which is a convex piece of food grade plastic also drilled out to make a strainer but the false bottoms are designed to work with 6 gal buckets, 5 gallon coolers or 10 gallon coolers depending on which one you buy. I'm hearing that many people in the club are experimenting with all grain brewing, and many people are also building a Pico type system.


RETRACTIONS


Well, I jumped the gun a bit last issue when I announced the opening of Grizzly Peaks Brewpub in Ann Arbor, this was secondhand info originally from the current issue of All About Beer. I now know from a source that knows the lawyer handling the paperwork for Grizzly Peaks that opening is slated for years end, sorry for any confusion this may have caused.


LIBRARY


I have yet to get a complete list of the library contents but as of this meeting we do own the entire classic beer series books (9 total). The 50/50 drawings are working great for our library fund, keep up the generous contributions and congratulations to all who have won so far.


CLUB EVENTS


The recent Pico brew at Tom Herrons house was rather fun and informative. The slight drizzle didn't dampen our spirits a bit as we got underway. The brewers that Saturday morning were Dennis Raney, Tom Sieja, Dave Dahl, Tom Herron and myself. The first batch was the infamous Death by Chocolate Porter, with a few modifications, the second batch was an English strong ale with 4 lbs of caramels thrown in for flavor and sugar content, we'll see at the meeting what noticeable effect the caramels had. We learned a couple of things this time, the old screens the Pico system uses are crap! They clogged up to the point where nothing was siphoning out after the boil, we had to bail out the wort with a pan and pour it into each carboy, what a pain! We also learned that a plastic carboy with the bottom cut out makes a great grain hopper for a motorized grinder, the carboy held about 20 lbs of grain and fed it perfectly into the grinder. By 3:30 or so, everyone was beat and headed home, the woodpile was soaked and a bonfire was impossible (trust me, Tom & I tried later that night anyway) so we never did get our bonfire & sing along, maybe next time. I have gotten several calls from people asking questions about converting kegs for a Pico type system so I can think of at least 4 or 5 people in the club switching to professional all grain style brewing, that's really great to see!


NEXT MEETING


Our next meeting will be held at the Berkley Front bar (open for 1 week now!) The Berkley front bar is at 3087 12 mile between Greenfield and coolidge in Berkley (phone number 810-547 3331) The bar serves 30 different beers on tap and 30 different bottled beers, I'm glad to say none of these 60 different selections are a Millers, Coors, Strohs or Budweisers, yaaaaa!


COMPETITION NEWS


Last months octoberfest competition saw only 2 entries and congrats to Lyle Doerr for his entry, second place went to Neal Petty.

This months competition is Fruit beers and Pumpkin beers. There is no true definition for style as this is a really subjective contest i.e.

Peach porter, lime lager, etc...






WINNING RECIPE


Lyle's Octoberfest

½1/2 lb. Crystal malt

½1/2 lb. toasted malt

1/8 lb. chocolate malt

7 lb. Northwestern

Amber extract

2 oz. Tettnang hops

(60 min.)

Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager

Fermented at 50 until bottled, then lagered at 35

OG 1.045

FG 1.014


HAPPY ANNIVERSARY


Wow, we have been around for a whole year now, it was last October that the first newsletter went out, actually there was a September meeting last year but it was more of an introductory meeting, not really an official meeting. We have come a long way since that fateful gathering last fall, we now have a full cabinet of officers, a real library, a member who is an official beer judge, 3 times as many members, a treasury, a name (we actually considered beerz n the hood, wow!), 2 logo entries (come on guys, let those creative juices flow!!) and a real sense of group. Most people know many members on a first name basis without name tags and are calling fellow members for advice and help. I cant tell you how good it feels to hatch an idea like this and to actually see it work, it is really gratifying and I thank everyone who has stuck it out for the first year even when the club seemed in trouble (you have to worry when less than 5 people show up!). We now have some definite experience under our belt and can start to actively recruit to strengthen our club. Thank you again for making this club a fun thing to do, not just a chore.


SPECIAL THANKS


A very special thank you to Chris Hoggarth and Matt from Merchants in Dearborn for giving us all a Gift certificate at last meeting, for those of you that didn't make it, Neal has all the leftovers so see him.




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