Homebrewing adventures: Pale chocolatey stout part three -- Bottling day!

I have to confess something. Last week, when I wrote that I was never going to write about homebrewing on a Tuesday, I was lying. I have a bunch of really good excuses too! Plus, I got an email yesterday saying something sure to stimulate the arteries was shipped to my house and it will definitely make up for this.

But what's more important is that 49 bottles of pale kinda chocolatey stout are now carbonating in bottles in a basement in Redford, Michigan. The best part is that the beer smells like Count Chocula. A non-carbonated room-temperature taste test indicates a mild chocolatey, sort of creamy flavor with very little hop bitterness. If our calculations are right, it's around 6% alcohol. Oh and we're probably going to call it Count Chocustout.

Sanitize your bottles (no twist-offs!), bottling bucket, racking cane, bottling wand, etc. Properly sanitizing everything is a huge pain in the ass and wastes tons of our precious time takes patience and is a very important step!


Syphon the beer from the carboy into the bottling bucket, which in our case is the "deluxe" fermenter. See how much beer you can spill on the floor.


Here's the bottling wand. It has a flimsy valve in the bottom that likes to stick, giving you more opportunities to spill beer on the floor. It's also nice because your hands will smell like beer for about 12 hours after you use this.


The bottling wand in action. Pretty exciting. Leave 1.5 inches or so of air at the top of the bottle when filling it.


Cap your bottles with this device that looks sort of like a Snood character with long arms. Make sure that you've sanitized your caps and you have more caps available than bottles in case some of them get messed up.


Take a little sample while you're at it.


Look for a review of my own beer in the coming weeks.

Hot D Wake Up Juice Bloody Mary + Energy Mix

Before you even take your first sip, you need to know that it is a complete coincidence that this review is being published the day after "Bloody Mary Day," whatever that is.

The Bloody Mary has been my drink of choice lately. I have been known to consume them in bars where the waitress wasn't even sure if they had the mix on hand. Last winter, I was at Meijer and saw a shelf tag under some empty real estate that was called Hot D Wake Up juice. I laughed hysterically. I took a photo.

Months went by with nary a thought of Hot D Wake Up juice, then it randomly came into my head one day. I immediately hopped on The Google and found the Hot D web site. In a more conservative office, a site with such a title surely would have been blocked from my computer, but access was granted. I was directed to Pzazzsauces.com to place my order from Cowboy George, "Director of Deliciousness." A few days passed and my shipment arrived in a Styrofoam box plastered in "Fragile" stickers. I felt like the father in A Christmas Story when his leg lamp arrived in a large crate.

Sunday morning came soon enough and this meant Bloody Mary time.

I extracted the bottle of Hot D from my refrigerator, opened it and took a whiff. "This smells familiar," I thought. Two seconds of contemplation revealed the resemblance: Cocktail sauce. As a shrimp lover, this was OK with me. Next up to be evaluated was the color. For some reason, I was expecting this to be bright red because, you know, it's made from tomatoes. But no. The color was more like that of A1 steak sauce. So was its texture. Thus answered the question I had about "does it look brown because it's in a brown glass bottle or is it brown liquid in a clear bottle?" It's brown liquid in a brown bottle.

For my first time experimenting with Hot D, I decided to mix some Smirnoff into it, straight up, over ice. No garnish or anything. This would reveal the true flavor of Hot D Wake Up juice. Plus, the ingredients indicated that the mix came with most of the accoutrements one normally applies to tomato juice, and then some:
Compare our premium ingredients:
Tomato juice
Honey
Horseradish
Lemon juice
Tomato paste
Celery salt
Worcestershire sauce
Red wine vinegar
Taurine
Hot sauce
Vegetable base
Cocoa powder
Cayenne pepper
Ginger
Caffeine
Black pepper

Allergens: Fish, wheat

The texture was very odd as far as Bloody Maries are concerned. As opposed to being a semi-thick liquid with random spice chunks floating about, it was more of a sludge with some thicker globules throughout. Again, it resembled A1. Perhaps I will add some A1 to a future Hot D Bloody Mary mixture.

I soon realized I was doing myself a disservice by not jamming this thing full of pickles, olives and celery. The 1.33 shots of vodka I had out into the almost eight ounces of mix were imperceptible. I added another capful of Smirnoff. I could now taste the vodka a bit but the flavors were still wimping out.

The burn I have come to love just wasn't there. Prior to adding the extra vodka, the heat was nonexistent unless I did some post-sip mouth smacking. Even then, I could only perceive a slight tingle at the sides of my tongue. After the extra booze was added, I began to detect a slight "after shock" -- a bitter taste in the back of my throat that I'd sooner affiliate with some bitter medicine than with a spicy drink.

Perhaps this was due to the blank "expiration date" field on the label. Maybe I was drinking a bottle of the very first experimental batch. Or maybe the taurine prevented expiration.

Admittedly, panic was beginning to set in. The bottle of Hot D indicated that there were only four servings available to me, and I now had only three left. It would take lots of experimenting to perfect my drink, which is sad considering that this mix supposedly contains all the items you'd put in a Bloody Mary to spruce it up.

At this point, I had no choice but to finish my drink while watching Mad Men, which is appropriate since the characters on that show are always drunk. Drinking in the morning and writing about it ... I was now a true writer.

As I sipped onward I began to ponder my situation. "Round two will feature a Claussen Kosher Dill and some hot sauce," I thought. "Maybe I'll squeeze a lime section into it."

But wait!

Sure, some garnish would be OK, but unless that pickle brine really did the trick, the fact that I had to add more to this already complex mix meant that Hot D was a failure. There was no saving Hot D. It couldn't stand alone. Now I had to experiment in order to serve my taste buds and get the most out of my $10 plus shipping.

Two thirds of the way through my first drink I was feeling pretty OK -- My typical Sunday morning nap craving had been put to rest.. I'd been up 'til 2:30 AM with a generous quantity of Pabst Blue Ribbon in me and I only got seven hours of sleep. Despite the sub-par taste, Hot D truly D woke me up. Perhaps my next spin on this drink would give me some afternoon delight.

For all intents and purposes, this review should end here -- Hot D Wake Up Juice is not an all-in-one Bloody Mary solution. But with three servings left, I had to find out how it fared as a foundation for a more complex mixed drink. A few days later, it was time to get serious.

I assembled my reinforcements:

• Claussen kosher dill pickles


• Frank's Red Hot sauce


• Garlic-stuffed olives


• Garlic powder


• Black pepper

All of these ingredients were combined in a mason jar with ice, Smirnoff vodka and Hot D Wake Up Juice. I screwed the lid onto the jar and agitated the mixture. Shaken, not stirred, my good man.

Despite the inclusion of all my favorite Bloody Mary fixins (I usually base my Bloody Maries upon V8 juice), this new drink continued to be unpleasant. If I were served this drink in a bar, I would honestly consider sending it back. There was some sort of sludgy sweetness that came up from behind and overtook all other flavors. Perhaps the use of honey instead of high fructose corn syrup was making Hot D flaccid. Perhaps the cocoa powder was causing performance anxiety. (Update: My friend Shaun suggests that this taste is likely the taurine ... a logical explanation). The only improvement for this round was the fact that the harsh after shock had somehow diminished despite the addition of more hot sauce.

It's official: Hot D Wake Up Juice hits the gag spot, not the g-spot.