4 brown

Monday 1 brown, 1 brown cannibalized.

Imperial Oatmeal Stout (Solomon's Oatmeal Stout - first made on my son's birthday)

15 pounds belgian pale ale malt
1 pound steel cut oats
1 pound roasted barley
1 pound chocolate malt (british 400 degrees L)

mash 4 gallons 140 degree water
Sparge 8 gallons 170 degree water

Boil to 6 gallons
Hop with 35 gm Chinook 12.1 alpha acid 45 minutes
Boil to 5.5 gallons

1056 american ale yeast

o.g. 1.082

2 brown

Saturday 2 brown

2 brown

Thursday 2 brown.
Caught another skunk. Small scavengers/omnivorous mammals seem to have had a good year for population expansion. Unfortunately they also get some increased mortality due to predation on my flock. If their range did not impinge on humans and livestock I'd be happy for their increase in numbers. As it is they are a pernicious nuisance.

1 brown

Tuesday 2 brown

Monday 2 brown

2 brown

Saturday 1 brown. Have a cold, will not be swimming outdoors in 40-50 degree rain.
Friday 4 brown.

Imperial oat stout Saturday or Sunday - depends on when I can get the beer cooler.

Inaugurator Bock beer.

13.5 pounds belgian pils malt. 2 pounds great western Munich malt (organic).
4 gallons 140 degree water - mash for 45 minutes, add 2 gallons 160 degree water, remove 1.5 gallon of initial mash water, to raise mash temperature to 150+ degrees. Continue mash for 45 minutes.

Sparge with 7.5 gallons 170 degree water.

Boil to 6.5 gallons. 42 gm Hallertau 75 minutes
Boil to 5.5 gallons. 14 gm saaz 20 minutes.

Wyeast 2487 Helles bock
o.g. 1.072 f.g 1.015 (estimations)

Ferment in old beer refrigerator initially. New beer cooler for secondary fermentation.

new 6 foot 1 inch poultry wire fence put up on Thursday, may keep birds in their yard.

electric fence on coop has lower circuit strung, need to place insulators for return to fence charge, and for the initial run from the charger. I've been reluctant to fool with it much due to rain.

1 brown Thursday
1 brown Wednesday.

Pale Ale

10.5 pounds belgian pale ale malt
3 gallons 140 degree water
sparge 8 gallons 170 degree water.
1 hour 30 minutes 21 gm chinook (2001) 13.1 alpha acid
25 minutes 13 gm cascade 5.0 alpha acid
dry hop 10 gm saaz 3.4 alpha acid
1056 american ale yeast
o.g. 1.052

I think my new mash tun and sparge system difficulties were due to not boiling wort down long enough. I racked zot d'amour wit beer today and I ended up with a bit over a gallon of extra beer. Boiled a bit longer on today's beer. I may cut back a little on the amount of sparge water next time, although my next 2 beers will be big alcohol contect - Inaugurator bock (target 8.5% ABV) and Imperial Oat stout (9.5% ABV). Grain bill is 14 pounds pils malt (+ crystal and black patent adjuncts) for the bock, 16 pounds pale malt (+ chocolate, roasted barley and groat adjuncts) for the stout.

2 brown.

americauna was on the roof of my house late in the day.

13 brown. I've not posted a count for some days - was out of town, and the continuing massacre of my flock has been big news.

The masked marauder was terminated with extreme prejudice last night via a low noise projectile. He had come around at 7:50 PM, I was preparing a meal for myself and heard the hens distress cries, went to the window and saw him attempting to enter the coop from the roof. THe first projectile convinced him to go elsewhere, second one dropped him from the top of the fence, whence he ran a short distance wimpering and expired. I think that the raccoon is responsible for the major portion of the massacre of my flock.

I got up this morning and a skunk was in the live trap. It also got the low noise projectile treatment. I hope this ends the problem. Coop will be electrified regardless, but this could be the end of the predation crisis.

Flock has 9 hens - I'd been counting them in the coop when I closed it up in the evening, one enterprising hen saw the continuing murder of her coop mates and effectively said, "screw this noise I'm outta here" - she's been roosting in a tree.

Flock is
2 wyandotte lacewings
1 americauna
1 golden sexlink
2 barred rock (young)
3 RI red... if I counted accurately, minimum of 2 of which are young hens.

Flock is down to 8 chickens, 1 duck. Less than half as many birds as I had at the beginning of November (actually it was right before Thanksgiving that the marauder began its predation).

electric fencing is a necessity for the long term, and will be purchased and installed in the next 2 days.

lost an americauna last night. I'm sad, I think she was the chicken that crossed the road.

2 brown

(Masked) marauder has been in and out of the trap. I put the last killed bird's carcass in for bait, it's been outside the trap in the morning every day. Interesting thing today trap was sprung with bait out of trap. I'm not sure how it is managing that one.

Flock has been closed up in coop at night since last bird killed on Friday morning. So far this has worked to keep marauder from getting another bird. I'm out of town for a couple of days, have a friend staying in guest bedroom which is right next to coop. He'll hear the marauder if it is molesting the flock.

3 brown on Sunday.

1 brown

Swam usual.

I was up in the chicken yard during the period I got the call Friday morning (3:30 AM until 4:30 AM). No sign of marauder.

Did a count of my flock this morning:
2 juvenile RI Red
3 Juvenile BR
1 old BR
2 old Wyandotte lace wing
2 americauna
1 golden sexlink
1 old RI Red

12 hens. 1 duck.

This puts next year's chick order at:
3 RI Red
2 silver laced wyandottes
3 americuana
2 gold laced wyandotte
2 buttercups

adding 13 hens, retiring 7. flock would have 18 birds if no losses.
Unless I share chicks at feed store this is a single order, 13 laying chicks, 12 meat birds.

Just over a week ago I had it as:
2 americauna
2? barred rock juveniles
1 old barred rock
5 Rhode Island Red juveniles
2 old RI Red
2 lace wing wyandotte
1 golden sexlink

I must have double counted a RI Red (Minnesota election anyone ?) and not counted a juvenile BR. since then the RI reds have had 2 lost... and 1 old RI Red.

I secured the chicken coop in the evening. 2 hens were out in the yard in the morning anyway. I'm not going to fool myself that closing up the coop is going to end predation, but it will give a bit more time to catch the culprit.

Was kind of cool sitting and listening to the highway 100 yards away, watching a pair of mule deer run up the road at 4:00 AM. Chilly out.

3 brown

lost an older bird overnight. neighbors called about ruckus in chicken yard, i went out and culprit was gone. 4 or 5 chickens were not roosting, saw blood on ground where chicken was likely caught. Carcass was warm when I found it. I'm going to stay up, will terminate with extreme prejudice when the culprit comes around.

It looks like next year's order for laying hens will be bigger than I'd planned. 3 aracauna, probably some rhode island red and/or barred rock (want a minimum of 3 BR, 5 RI Red) and possibly a more exotic brown egg layer. Flock should be 14 strong laying hens for spring 2010, which may be a year with no chick order. Ultimately I'd like to have 5 year old hens being culled as replacements reach 1 year old. Vagaries of predation, etc may mean flock drops as low as 6 hens over a winter... I also need to give consideration predator control - maybe build a new coop that is unfriendly to predators. Electric fence is probably a good idea.

5 brown.

One of the ducks succumbed to a predator overnight. In addition the bait was missing from the trap. New bait in trap tonight. I'm pretty unhappy about the predation that has happened in the past week. 3 birds lost.

I will edit the first post when I have the true o.g. for the ESB. My recipe gave estimated o.g. - not from a recipe book... there is some learning to do as I've changed my mash set up - I had been using a 5 gallon pot for a mashtun, then duming the hot mash into a 5 gallon bay marie pan that I had hundreds of 1/8 inch holes drilled in the bottom. Bay marie pan sat in a 7 gallon plastic tub with a spigot. New mashtun is a 10 gallon water cooler with a perforated false bottom and a ball lock valve fed from below the false bottom. My estimations of sugar conversion are going to need some revision... I appear to not be getting as good a conversion as previous method. Some of that may be that the malt was crushed back in June, but I've used old malt before with the previous setup and don't see a strong correlation with conversion efficiency.

Will also give the hops alpha acid level. I generally do not calculate IBU or HBU from this info, but there are certainly calculators out there for those interested... I just go with experience and an idea of what I'm after. Since I've been brewing over 30 years, all grain for over 14 years... well I've got some idea what I'm doing.

Racking the wit beer (Zot d'Amour wit) Saturday. Will keg ginger porter and imperial stout then as well.

Brewing ESB
10.5 pounds belgian pale ale malt, 1# 40 degree L Crystal malt.
3.5 gallons 145 degree F water - mash 1.5 hours
sparge with 8 gallons 170 degree F water.

Boil to 6+ gallons
14 grams hallertau tradition 6.2 % alpha acid whole hops 1 hour
21 grams fuggles 3.2% alpha acid whole hops 15 minutes.

estimated o.g. 1.056 actual 1.050
Thames valley ale Wyeast # 1275

Another chicken lost to predation Tuesday, found late Tuesday after hearing a ruckus in the chicken yard after dark... went out to find a juvenile barred rock on the ground acting injured (scared?) I picked her up, found no obvios wounds or missing plumage, put her in a perch. Then discovered the remains of a juvenile rhode island red. I disposed of the carcass (it was cold, I probably missed it when I checked for eggs and had bee killed Monday night). I reset the trap for a raccoon, was attentive to noise from the chicken yard the remainder of the evening.

Haven't caught anything.

Wednesday 3 brown. Found outside of chicken yard. New fencing to keep birds in coming by end of day Friday.

3 brown

Found clutch of 14 eggs of unknown age - from juvenile hens that have been getting out of hen yard. I'm in process of clearing brush prior to getting a beer serving and lagering cooler which will need to be brought in via back door.

I think I will begin doing brewing blogging here too. Made a wit beer last week, ESB and pale ale planned this week. Lagers coming when new cooler is operational - 2 pils, one bock. Will be experimenting with recipes for lagers. Cooler is going to be awesome, room for 16 5 gallon kegs, 4 fermentation vessels from dimensions I was given. Will have 3 tap towers each with 3 taps - 2 nitrogen mix taps, 7 CO2 taps. 7 taps for beers, 2 for home made soft drinks - 1 root based, 1 fruit based soft drink. Going to be interesting experimenting on this as well. Will be getting sassafras from Indiana for some of the root based drinks. Possibly some Indiana ginseng as well. I think initially I'll be doing 3 gallon batches of soft drinks.

Monday no eggs

Sunday 1 brown