CHICKEN. Variety is the Spice of Life. NEXT MEETING: Harmony Hall 401 Stocking Ave NW Grand Rapids Competition 6:00, Meeting 7:00 March 21, 2018

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1 The RUBBER CHICKEN NEXT MEETING: Harmony Hall 401 Stocking Ave NW Competition 6:00, Meeting 7:00 March 21, 2018 Variety is the Spice of Life It is always good to try new things. Stretch yourself. Learn fresh methods. Really round out your life experience. The beer world has so much variety. It is quite astounding really when you realize there are only 4 main ingredients in beer; Water, Barley, Hops, and Yeast. Or are there? Check out these crazy ideas, and yes, they are all real beers. How about beer brewed with yeast from bee guts. New York City s Italian gourmand one stop Eataly recently paired with Dogfish Head (you will see this brewery mentioned often) to make an entirely Italian beer. As we know, fruit skins can harbor many different strains of local wild yeasts. The evil geniuses in America s first state extracted yeast, from the intestines of a hornet that had fed on grapes in an Italian winery. This yeast was propagated and pitched into beer brewed with molasses and myrrh. The result, I am told, is loosely defined as a Belgian style witbier that is quite spice-forward. They call it Calabrona, which is Italian for Hornet. Belgian you say? What part of Italy is that again? Here is another strange one from the mind of Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head. Birra Etrusca Bronze, as it is called, was a part of his historical beers series. He worked with historians that had scraped remains from pottery found in 2800 year old Etruscan tombs. The eggheads analyzed the scrapings and determined what the pottery had contained. It was beer. Sort of. Dogfish Head recreated the ancient beverage from Ethiopian Myrrh, barley malt, Italian Chesnut honey, clover honey, and wildflower honey. Tasting notes say it is Sarsaparilla-like with notes of pomegranate, and bitter gentian root. I don t even know what gentian root tastes like. There are other breweries out there known for pushing the boundaries of beer. Rogue Ales is one. Rogue has produced many off-beat brews. They collaborate regularly with an Oregon based doughnut shop known for its wacky creations called Voodoo Doughnuts (seriously, google them and check out their offerings). One of these crazy concoctions sticks out in my mind. I have actually had this one and it was, eh. The Maple Bacon Ale. Inspired by Voodoo s Maple Bacon Bar, which is a yeast donut topped with maple glaze and bacon. The beer is made with smoked malts, maple syrup, and maple-applewood smoked bacon. To me, it tasted like a sweet rauchbeer. I didn t get a lot of bacon, per se. What is very unique about this beer, and all Rogue s other Voodoo beers, is how it has this confectioner sugar flavor and mouthfeel like real donut glaze. It is an experience to seek out, but not one I need to repeat. Rogue makes the list again with this unique beer. The Beard Beer. Rogue was creating a line of Estate Beers, meaning beers made with all Rogue grown and produced products. They had their own barley and hop farms. They used local water. They needed a local yeast variety. Someone cracked the joke that long time head brewer, John Maier probably had plenty of yeast in his beard from the thousands of batches he had made over his long career. So they wrestled him down and plucked 9 hairs from the sacred beard, and cultured the yeasts out of it. As an American Wild Ale, Beard Beer most closely resembles a wild fermented farmhouse style ale. I ve had it. Its good. Luckily it does not taste like breakfast, and BO. Here is a weird one from NYC. Singlecut Beersmiths in NYC made a beer they call Jan Olympic White Lagrrr. This beer is inspired by the local Jewish custom of going out for Chinese on Christmas. It is smooth lager with Szechuan peppercorns and Matzo Flour. I am not clear why one would pollute a nice clean lager with flavors that are the opposite of a clean beer. It is apparently, citrusy, floral and cloudy AF with a very large fluffy white head. All tasting notes I have read say it is more like a Belgian Wit than a lager. Whatever, creative for the sake of creativity, right? Alright, rapid fire round. - Willy Dilly from Wachusett Brewing in Massachusets. IPA with pickle brine. Nope, just nope. - Summer Rosé from the same guys. Rosé fla-

2 vored wheat beer. - Un, Kono Kuro Sankt Gallen Brewery in Japan (Mikeller does this now too but these guys were first) Coffee Stout with Black Ivory coffee beans. Forget about civets, this is from elephants. Google it. - Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout from Wynkoop Brewing. The name says it all. 3 bull testicles in each barrel is the slogan. What s the weirdest stuff you have ever put in a beer? Maybe we should make this a monthly style sometime. Call it Category 35 Weird Shit That Doesn t Belong in Your Mouth, Let Alone in Beer. Bonus points for drinkability and weird factor. --DT BETWEEN TWO BEERS BY DICK THUNDER The Vikings fan. Try not to hold it against him, it is the way he was raised. Chef, hockey coach, sales analyst, tent camper, juggler, brewer, and life liver. This time around it is Paul Fitzgerald s turn to be interrogated. to drink Founders beer. Really, you can t go wrong with that. Back in his home state of Minnesota, he says Surly Brewing and Indeed Brewing are the spots to hit. Should he ever be limited to one beer to drink for the rest of his life, he loves the vanilla and coffee flavors in Bean Flicker from Oddside Beers in Grand Haven, MI. Wally, as he is sometimes called, and his wife Chris Anne are avid tent campers. Humans have developed some pretty comfortable and sophisticated forms of shelter over the eons, so I do not understand why anyone would lay awake on the ground in the woods under a piece of plastic. Apparently there are other people that like to be uncomfortable because the Fitzgeralds often camp with friends. His one concession to civilization is that they try to huddle near a bar or brewery on their camping trips. I would need to be altered to sleep in those conditions too. I m glad you like it Paul. Before he was a sales analyst with Blue Cross, Paul was in the restaurant industry for years. He developed his skills in the kitchen as a sous chef. Paul still enjoys cooking but appears to enjoy it more now that it is a hobby rather than a job. The skills in the kitchen have carried in to brewing a bit as well. If Paul were to suddenly be ungodly wealthy, he says he would probably open a small brewery. Not a big production, just a small local community focused operations catering to family and friends oriented clientele. That restaurant experience would likely be handy, and you could juggle for your patrons. Yes you heard right, Paul is a juggler. Though he says he would need to practice up a bit before he juggles knives or anything dangerous like that. Like a rat off a sinking ship, Paul came to us from Grand Rapids Homebrewing about a year ago. After the dissolution of that club, fellow rat Ian Purvis encouraged Paul to try out PTB, and now he is here and loving it. Even though he has taken some breaks from the hobby over the years, he has been brewing since Through the years he is still a messy brewer. He leaves valves open, spills stuff, and often has to re-sanitize things because he dropped them or otherwise sullied his tools. Don t we all. The beers Paul feels most confident brewing are Porters and Stouts. He likes the dark, rich flavors of these styles and is most proud of his homebrewed examples of these styles. Typically, he avoids Belgian and Farmhouse styles. The funky, fruity flavors in these beers do not agree with his tastes. While he does enjoy a nice clean Lager, the style was stymied his efforts to recreate one at home. If you ask him, IPAs are overdone. He is over them. A finely crafted IPA is fine but, lets focus on some other style. There are many other things to beer than hops. If Paul couldn t ever drink beer again, he says he would be a mess. He would have to turn to Bourbon. He says he has recently been developing a taste for the American varieties of whiskey. Fortunately, he can drink beer, and he prefers He disappointedly says there is not a single person in his life that he would consider a hero. That hurts Paul. He is, however, impressed by the likes of Larry Bell and Jim Koch for making it where they are. I hope that Paul was a hero to some of the players that he has coached in hockey. Paul spent several season coaching NAIA Hockey, then switched to coaching the Kentwood travel hockey team. Eventually he got out of that because the parents at the youth hockey level are, uh, crazy. Parents, in any youth sport, are crazy as I am sure anyone with children that did sports can attest. Over a Scotch Ale from his cellar, Paul shared that he was super uncomfortable with the interview. That s OK, you re not the first person that is uncomfortable with Dick Thunder in their house. He warmed up to it though. You did fine Paul. --DT BREWING YOUR OWN BREWPI (PT 2) By Thomas Malkewitz (This article was copied from his website. The website article is full of useful links & full size pictures. I did not take the time to include all the links, so if this article interests you, please visit the web page. Part 1 was in the February RC. dotps1.github.io/homebrewing/2018/01/22/brewing-your-own-brewpi.html ) Clone the BrewPi source code repository from my GitHub, I have fixed some dependency issues that have not been merged into the parent repository. git clone ~/brewpi-tools sudo ~/brewpi-tools/install.sh

3 You will see a bunch of things going accross the screen, just wait until it prompts you to answer some questions. Follow the on screen prompts. Default values or perfectly fine (just hit enter with the exception of over writing the /var/www/ html directory, you need to put a y in for that one). After it is complete, you can browse to the system and check out the dashboard by going to brewpi (replace brewpi with what ever you called yours.) Next before I glued everything, I cut holes for the specific outlets I purchased (link in shopping list section) in the lower right hand side, below the removable panel (sorry, the best picture of this I had was from the finished product). Thats it for setting up the Raspberry Pi! WIRING AND CONSTRUCTION Next, lets take a look at the general power schematic, The only thing missing from this sketch, is the Raspberry Pi. This part just hooks up via USB to the Arduino. The Raspberry Pi is the web server, its how you will interface with the BrewPi, setting temperatures and building profiles. Credit to FuzzeWuzze from HomebrewTalk for the schematic. After I got all the outlets in and secured, I then ran wires long enough for them to reach the relay, then I glued all the components and put the panel back in. I did some other little customization, such as the usb cable from the Raspberry Pi to the Arduino Uno, I filed a little notch and ran that behind the panel, because it was a 5ft cord that needed to go 10 inches. You can make yours as nice or as neat as you d like. Here is the finished product: One other thing I did, was if you go look at the case I suggested you purchase from Amazon, it has a built in outlet. This has many benefits, basically if you go power into that outlet, and then piggy back off it as the source in, you can then keep the power supplies for the Raspberry Pi and the Ardunio Uno inside the case, else you are going to have two temperature probes, and three power cables hanging out of this thing. So you don t have to go with that case, but I suggest you do. One other perks, is it has a compartment below the panel, this gives you a place to hide wires. So, I just played around with the layout of all my pieces inside my sprinkler case, until I got everything to kind of have a place, then I used small dabs of hot glue to hold everything in place. Here is what it looked like before I glued everything in place:

4 CONFIGURING THE BREWPI AND ARDUINO If you d made it this far, congratulations, you re almost done, and its almost time for a beer. The only thing left to do is to actually configure your BrewPi to talk to the Arduino Uno. Here is an IPA I have fermenting right now: First you need to roll back to the legacy version that supports the Arduino Uno sudo ~/brewpi-tools/updater.py --ask Select the legacy branch (option 1). Confirm your selection with a wack on the enter key! Select the legacy branch for the web interface as well (Option 3 this time). Wack enter again to confirm. Say n (no) to check for the firmware you already did this with when you flashed the hex file to the Arduino Uno. Now if you go back to the web interface, in the top right, the script will be running (this may take a few minutes). Now, the only thing left to do is identify and configure your temperature probes and heating/cooling elements, to do this go to the maintenance panel (top right). Your temp probes are going to be on the A4(One Wire) pin. Your going to have to just hold one in your hand and then wait for the temperature to change on the LCD panel display, and then mark one the Chamber Temp and then the other the Beer Temp (I keep a piece of duct tape around one wire so I can keep track). Next mark your heater and cooler controller pin 5 and 6, and be sure to mark both as Inverted. And change the Function to Chamber Heat and Chamber Cool. You ll have to plug something in to see which is which. You can go to the Advanced Tab and change the mode to Test Mode to help you identify which is which. And thats it, you ve made your BrewPi! You can control temperatures via Beer, fridge, or a profile. So go have some fun! A New Regime February recap: Bank balance: $2,236 January expenses: $0 Active members: 35 The club transitioned from its old regime to new. Prime- Time s account at Independent Bank was closed in favor of a new banking center. Lake Michigan Credit Union was chosen by club officers, thanks to its multiple city branches and ease of use. Sadly, the new business account opened is non-interest bearing, but we do have a shiny new debit card itching for use. PrimeTime has moved into the 21st century and upgraded to free digital bookkeeping software. Look for Quarterly financial statements to drop in the near future. An updated club membership roster was completed, and we are currently showing 35 paid members. Come speak with me if you need to renew your club membership for Obligatory Tasteless Accountant joke: What s the accountant s favorite drink? MACRS Mark (if you don t get it, just ask) Treasurer Moss January Meeting Notes: Thank you to Joel Bierling & Bier Distillery for hosting the meeting & teaching us about the distilling process & the accuracies of the TV show Moonshiners. A big shout out to Coldbreak Brewing Equipment & Michigan Hop Alliance for donating pounds of Centennial hops. And thanks to Boyd Culver for dropping them off. If you were there, you cold take as many ounces as you wanted. Jeff delivered his last treasurers report. Thanks again for the years of service, Jeff. Big news for our monthly competitions. Roughly every quarter, the winner of the monthly competition will get to collaborate with one of our sponsors. The winner of the March competition will get to brew with Railtown. The July competition will be Thornapple, & the October competition will be Gravel Bottom. Send PayPal payments to: primetimebrewersmi@gmail.com

5 PRIMETIME BREWERS COMPETITION PAGE 2018 Competition Schedule January: Oatmeal Stout (16B) February: Best of Cellar Beer (1-34) March: New England IPA April: Best of Cellar Cider (All) May: Wee Heavy (17C) June: Beer and Food Pairing Dinner July: Standard American Beer (1A-D) August: Best of Cellar Mead (M1-4) September: Pilsner Extract Beer any style, no barley products but the extract. Corn, Rice, or Rye adjuncts allowed. October: Marzen, Vienna Lager, and Festbier (6A, 7A, and 4B) November: SMASH Beer any style December: Christmas Party Non-PTB Competitions can be found at: Brewer of the Year Results Jeff Carlson 12 Matt Moss 12 Chad Zomerlei 12 John Applegarth 8 Jeremy Gavin 8 Ian Purvis 8 Jessie Colclasure 4 Tom Malkewitz 4 Future RC or Food contributors: Paul Curran Jessie Colclasure Ric Brown 2018 First Thursday Destinations Jan City Built Feb Founders Mar The Mitten Apr Railtown May Osgood Jun Cellar Jul Thornapple Aug Gravel Bottom Sep Two Guys Oct New Union Nov Pike 51 Dec Brewery Vivant SAVE THE DATE(S) Club Officers President: Jeremy Gavin V. P.: Ric Brown Treasurer: Matt Moss Sec & RC Editor: Chad Zomerlei (jabrews@gmail.com) (ricbrown67@gmail.com) (mossford11@gmail.com) (zomerlcp@gmail.com) SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS THEY SUPPORT US!! March 19 Siciliano s Homebrew Comp registration begins May 5 Big Brew Day with Siciliano s at Trail Point April 21 Siciliano's Homebrew comp judging May GLINTCAP Other events at: February Best of Cellar Club Competition Results: 1st Matt Moss & Jeff Carlson 2nd Ian Purvis & Jeremy Gavin 3rd Tom Malkewitz

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