Box and Tap (the final chapter)

So with out revisiting the background of all this, first there was a box and then there was a tap, and now there will be a box and tap together.

This idea is all the result of a great post I saw from my friend Ben at Ben's Homebrew. I have to thank him as always for the awesome innovation that I get to fuck all up in my upstate half ass way.

Here we go.

First off, I had to cut two hole in the bottom of my fridge to have the cold air flow two and from in. Ben used a tool that he said does this very early. I couldn't find anything like this and (considering the holes had to have 3" PVC pieces in it) I could not find something to drill a hole that big. So I did the next best thing. Tin snips. They worked great. I drilled a hole big enough to get the tin snips in and never looked back. It was a much easier process than I anticipated.



After getting the holes in the metal cut out, I had to get the foam insulation and the plastic from the inside the fridge cut. Initially I was using a box cutter for this, but it was a real pain so I used the sawzall, much easier. In the end, I had two holes with PVC coming through them.



After those hole were drilled I had to drill the same sized holes in the top of my box. This was a lot harder than I thought, it was not easy to line up (but I am not known for 'exact measurement' so I probably made my own problems). But in the end, it wasn't anything a little insulation from the basement couldn't fix.

You will note below, on the right is a computer fan that I am using to circulate the air from the mini fridge into the box with. The other picture is below the mini fridge what the view is from the box to the mini fridge.






Finally I had to get CO2 into the box. I also had to get a manifold for the CO2 distribution. I did this with yet another visit to harbor freight. I picked up a 4way splitter for a air compressor and some brass barbs. I picked up three ball lock valves and was ready to go.

This is a very simple manifold that does the trick. The manifold gets fed from the CO2 tank and has three ball locks that connect to the barbed fittings. Everything is 1/4". I used the thread sealing tape that I also used for the ball lock on the mash tun.




Once I had CO2 going into the box and a line going out to a tap, it was imperative that I test it to make sure that it was going to pour a glass of brew. As you can see here, the test was successful.

When it was all said and done, two of the three taps are ready to go, I need to work out some logistical issues with the cold plate and how the external keg is going to work, but I am in no rush with that until I get another couple kegs.

Upon Ben's advice, I placed a fan to blow on the back of the fridge. It's really working hard to get down to an equilibrium temp so it's important that I make sure there is plenty of air circulating.






It's not cooling all that quickly, but it's going. In a few days it's gone from 65f down to 56f. Ideally I would love to have it at a steady 52f, but I am questioning if that's going to be possible. it's not bad now though.






If you click on the image below you can see a drawing I did of how the finished product would work. Though it is wacky, I have to say I am pretty fired up that a) it's functional and b) it was a lot easier than I anticipated.

I think in my old age I have started to do a little more planning and a little less "I have 3 hours free, I should totally re-vamp my system" which has produced some better products. Either way I am always looking towards the next step in my gadget empire. I was reading some of Adam's posts about chest fridges and couldn't help but dream. I think I am going to stop and smell the flowers for a little while with this on though, plus the wife is quickly noticing my many beer projects and starting to ask questions. It's time to come out of the basement, for a few weeks anyway.

Cheers!

Mash Tun 2.0 - Sparge Arm

So now that I have a nice new false bottom for my mash tun, it's time to go ahead and make a sparge arm that works. No more shower heads, no more hoses with holes in them. It's time for the real deal.

After working with the copper on my false bottom, I decided to go ahead and make a sparge arm out of copper. It was pretty easy to work with and only took me an hour or so to get all put together. The supplies were actually quite reasonable as well. The copper was only like $3.99 and all the little parts were $.59 a piece. Total I would say it was about $10.

As you can see from the pictures above, it's a pretty simple design. There are 3 T's all in the middle and 4 corners. Everything is 1/2 inch again. the square is 6" x 6". This makes two 6" long pieces on the sides pictured and 6 2 3/4" pieces (something like that) that fit the T's together.

As you can see from the pictures, I used a 3-way connector to make a PVC support bracket for the sparge arm. It's pretty much that simple. Cut 3 chunks of 1/2" PKC and connect them via a 3way connector. The sparge arm is pictured with rope holding it in place, but I wound up using a coat hanger. If I get a butane torch and some solder, I will make the end of the sparge arm into a hook shape so it will attach to the PVC, but this will work for now.

If you reference back to the picture at the top, you will notice that I put 1/2" rubber hose over the copper. I did this via bruit force and hot water. I am not all that confident in this aspect of the setup, but as I type this, I remembered that there is a chunk of garden hos I have been planning on using for something that might work AWESOME for this. We will see.

either way, I ran water through it, works fine. I did the vinegar thing I had reference in the previous post. Things should be pretty good. Here is the shopping list:

2' Copper 1/2" tube (should have gotten more, luckily I had some left over) $3.99
4 Corner pieces $2.20
3 T's $1.79
PVC 3 way $.20
3' 1/2" PVC (Had it, but it ain't expensive)

Total - Umm, ~$7

Feel free to shoot me a note if you have any questions.

Mash Tun 2.0 - False Bottom

So as always, as soon as I have something all dialed in, I get the itch. In this case, it was to build a copper false bottom like the ones I have seen online.

Now as much as my "bazooka screen el chepo" is working, there are obvious limitations and I can't help but feel like I am leaving something back in the mash tun at the end of the day. This little project is hopefully going to change all of that.

Now to start, I am going to review the tools and the costs that are associated with this project. This is actually a great little project for new home owners (me) and apartment folks. the reason that I say that is while this project does require some random tools, they are all inexpensive and are good to have (assuming you don't already). I say this because when I moved into our new house, I had no tools. So every time I would go and work on my beer projects, I was usually buying parts and tools. This is why with every project I try and say "do I need this?" and make something that makes sense for me. In this case, it was easy:

Tools

Hacksaw $2.50 (harbor freight)

Extra blades $4
Pipe cutter $5

Parts

5' of 1/2" copper $8.50

4 copper corners $2

4 copper T's $2.80

Cooler - Had it, but anywhere from $18-$25

Ball valve or hose nozzle - $5

So, for this project, I was making a 10" by 10" false bottom for my mash tun. So I cut the 5' copper into 4 10" pieces. After doing this, I would put the copper tube into my vice and put one of the T's on the end (so I knew where to start cutting). Next I hack sawed 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the tube with the cuts being 1/4 to 1/2 inches apart. I actually started doing 1/4" apart (below right) and moved to 1/2" (below left) because it was needlessly time consuming with a hacksaw to do all this.

After making the slices in my long tubes, I cut 6 more pieces 2 3/4" long. These will be the pieces between the T's. I made three hacksaw cuts in all but one of them and pieced it together.

Next I had to come up with a way to connect this to my spout from before. To do this, I used a very small piece of hose (I think it was from my racking cane, but I don't recall the exact size). This connects to a smaller piece of copper coming out of a hole in the side of one of the 2 3/4" pieces I cut (the one without the slices). These are all held in place with screw tight rings.

Finally to get the whole thing up to snuff I spent a lot of time cleaning it. Obviously you don't want copper in your beer, though it will improve your Hugh, it's going to hurt coming out the other side. With my immersion chiller, the directions I found said to soak it in vinegar, so since this is copper, I did the same. Better safe than sorry.

Now I considered doing the soldering, but noticed that a few of the people I saw on the new did not do this. the more I thought about it, I realized that it was not really necessary. You see, it's sucking in liquid and not grain. That's what you want right? Why make it water tight then if you want liquid to get in? Makes sense to me. If anyone has experience in this, I am open to suggestion, but I am going to at least try it this way.

In the end, this is it. I tested it and it's tighter than a dolphin's butt-hole so we are a go!!!

When I started to drain it, the flow was slower than with my bazooka screen knockoff, but I have a feeling that the flow will be consistent and pull from a broader area of the mash. that's the hope anyway.

Next up, a real deal, no holds bard sparge arm!!! This is a long time coming and this one is hear to stay.

Lost Beer Hunter

Michael Jackson

For those that have not already heard, the beer and whisky community has lost one of the great minds and writers of our time. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Jackson family.

I am sure they serve great beer in heaven.

Ode to Racking Cane

So while brewing the last few times, I had some time to reflect. What is the most indispensable piece of equipment in my homebrew operation? I would like to think of my setup as a football team, no one part more important than the next. But we all have our favorites.

While racking my brew, I was cleaning my racking cane for what felt like the 1000th time. It was then that I realized that this was at least the most under-appreciated piece of homebrewing equipment I owned. I clean it and use it and without a second thought it's rinsed and hung to dry. Never once have I stopped to thank my racking cane for always showing up and preforming a thankless, but important job.

Like the lineman on my homebrew football team, my racking cane is there every Sunday, rain or shine, batches large or small. I use it and and never look back even though this device touches my beer more times than any other.

So, with that said, this is a Haiku and a long overdue thank you for my racking cane:

Ode to Racking Cane

You move my beer

From bucket to carboy

Without praise you function

Cheers to you racking cane, cheers to you.

PS- For those friends reading from abroad who enjoy futbol, insert the sweeper as the thankless indispensable hard working warrior

A good brew day keeps me coming back!

So after the Saturday fiasco I had with my Barley Wine (I will update on this at the end of the post) I was in need of a good brew day. Plus, I didn't want to waste a good yeast. So I went ahead and planned a rare week night all-grain session. Since I had London ESB as my yeast I decided to go ahead and brew an Old Ale. Here is the recipe that I used:



Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.82 gal
OG: 1.071 SG
FG: ~1.017
Color: 14.8 SRM
IBU: 63.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
13.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 74.3 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 11.4 %
1.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.6 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.7 %
1.00 oz Centennial [8.00%] (60 min) Hops 33.3 IBU
0.50 oz Target [11.00%] (60 min) Hops 18.3 IBU
0.25 oz Pearle [8.00%] (30 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (15 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
0.25 oz Saaz [4.00%] (15 min) Hops 1.7 IBU


Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 17.50 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Step Add 6.56 gal of water at 168.4 F158.0 F 60 min
Decoc to get up to temp Decoct 1.47 gal of mash and boil168.0 F 20 min
Batch Sparge: 2 gal 168f 10 min
Batch Sparge: 1 gal 168f 10 min

This brew day went off without a hitch. I was home by about 4:10 when I started my water on heat. I decided not to treat the water this time. I thought about treating the mash directly, but decided I was going to do some more research on the Ph thing.

I struck 6 1/2 gallons for the mash at 168f, my grain bed wound up only being 150f so I drew off some of the mash and did a small decoct to heat up the grain bed. That took about 10-15 min to get up to temp. I added the decoct grains back to the tun and was at a nice 156f.

I let it go like this for a little over 45min before I drew off some more of the grains for a second decoct. I boiled the decoct for about 5 min and re-introduced it to the mash tun for the mash out temp of 168f (hold for 10 min). It worked like a charm!

I used almost 2 gallons for the decoct at a pretty thick consistency. I am willing to bet there are people out there who will tell you how thick or thin your decoct should be, but for me, I like it like oatmeal; think, but enough liquid so you can stir it around. I think the key is to have enough liquid so your grains don't scorch or burn, but dry enough so that it's not like you are boiling your mash.

Anyway, I did 2 batch sparges on the advice of my blog friends Ted and Brian (if you don't already read Ted's blog I recommend it, he really knows what he is doing) which went really well. Actually the mash out wait of 10 min was about the perfect time to heat up my first batch of water for the sparge so that's a good argument for mashing out. My first runnings were about 1.070 and my runnings after the first batch sparge were 1.052.

My pre-boil gravity was 1.052 and about 6 3/4 gallons, dead on with what Beer Smith told me I should be at! I have to say, at this point having hit all of my targets in temp, time and gravity I was very pleased. I had the wort up to a boil by 8pm and pitched a cooled wort to my London ESB by about 9:20.

Before I went to bed, I checked and it was already bubbling aggressively!

UPDATE: On the Barley Wine, I racked this over into my 2 gallon storage containers. I got an FG of about 1.010. I drank the sample I took to see what I thought and I have to say, it tasted REALLY strong. It had a definite alcohol burn. Now this leaves me with an even greater mystery; why the strange readings if all other signs are pointing to a high OG?

Who knows. As long as I keep having the occasional brew night like I had last night, I am going to be brewing for a long time. It's like a great drive out of the tee box. It keeps you playing!

Cheers!

First stab at Barley Wine

As much as it must seem that I spend all my time making beer gadgets, I still brew. Though I will admit that I have been on a sporadic summer schedule. I have some big plans, have had some success and some not-so-success. Here goes:

This past weekend I tried two new things with my Barley wine. First I treated the water to get it down to 5.5Ph before I mashed. I also used the Ph to track the progress of my mashing process. Now I decided to do all of this after reading Ted's post on brewing with Ph and reading the BYO article on Ph Brewing as well. It seemed easy enough and I had wanted to try treating my water since I heard James from Basic Brewing Radio and an interview he did with John Palmer on Ph. As much as the science was cool, I was really hoping to see a sudden jump in my efficiency.

The brew I tried all this on was a 2 gallon batch of Barley Wine that decided to brew, here is the recipe:

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Barley Wine
Brewer: Travis
Asst Brewer:
Style: English Barleywine
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 2.00 gal
Boil Size: 3.45 gal
Estimated OG: 1.115 SG
Estimated Color: 17.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 77.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.0 %
Boil Time: 70 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 72.7 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 18.2 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 9.1 %
0.50 oz Target [11.00%] (70 min) Hops 42.0 IBU
0.50 oz Challenger [7.50%] (30 min) Hops 21.3 IBU
0.50 oz Challenger [7.50%] (15 min) Hops 13.8 IBU
1 Pkgs London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) [Starter Yeast-Ale

First off, before I started I drew 4.5 gallons of water for my mash. I took a Ph test and it came out to 6.6. Since my brew shop is down the road from me and on the same watershed I asked what he recommended for treating the water and said 1-2 tablespoons of gypsum for our water. I added 2 table spoons of gypsum and took a Ph reading...5.5, good stuff.

After heating the water up and adding to the mash tun with a grain bed temp of 152f, I let it go for (what was supposed to be an hour) an hour and a half. I did not take any Ph readings while the grain was in the mash tun (forgot) and took my last reading before I started to sparge. It was reading at 5.2 so everything seemed fine.

When I started to draw the wort from the mash tun though, my gravity was only reading at 1.050 and that seemed REALLY low for the amount of grain I had in the ton. Without a clue of what to do to make this work better I just continued brewing and took what the brew gods gave me. In the then I had a barley wine with a 1.061 OG. Not anything to get fired up about.

The good news is that it tasted very sweet. I am not sure what that means in the big picture, but I hope that it means that I was either way off with my gravity readings or it's just going to have a lot of flavor.

Any advice on this is much appreciated.

In the face of adversity I don't back down, I step up. That's why I am going to pull of an "after work" all grain brewing. It's a balls out move because of how damn long they take but I think I can pull it off. I am going to brew an "Old Ale" with the recipe I will post up with the notes after I brew.

One of the factors that may have contributed to my piss poor brewing performance was that I did not mash out. Because I use a cooler as a mash ton, I have always skipped out on the mash out. However, after posting something up on Beer Advocate, I decided that I am going to do a single decoct as a way of bringing the grain bed up to temperature before I sparge. Hopefully this will help get things back on track.

As I said, any observations are welcomed. As a note, I asked my LHBS to double grind my grain this time as well.

Tap

So since the last post was titled "Box" it's only appropriate to title this one "Tap". Hopefully someday I will have a "Tab Box" post, but that's in the future.

So I cracked open the tower that I wrote about here that I got off of eBay (for $14!) and I have to say, the news is good.

After a struggle I got it all dismantled and it looks as though all the parts are there. Plus it looks like all the parts are in working order. Pictured here is the tower with the taps taken out of it. It was a really messy jot to get it all cleaned out, but now that it's clean, it does not look too bad.

There are three brass taps with 2 or 3 in shanks and all the necessary hardware. The come apart with out a problem and all the rubber seals look decent.

The one issue that I did run into is the main screw that holds the whole thing together. It as pretty stripped out and I had to drill holes in the head to break it free. I am going to have to have it back in there at some point to keep the basketball together, but I think that I will be able to come up with some solution (suggestions are welcomed).

Overall I am quite pleased still. I was a little concerned that I would get it open and not like what I saw; however, on the contrary, I was quite pleased. A little TLC and this thing will be in tip-top shape. It looks as though I am going to need to purchase some insulation for the tower (to wrap around the hoses), some daft lines, a few ball lock valves, brass polish, some paint, and I should have everything I need.

I will be posting about this one more as I get into it.

Cheers!

Box (wish I could come up with a better name for this post)

After a long time of thinking about doing this, I decided to get things started. Let me begin by explaining that I got this inspiration (and a lot of the logistics) from Ben's Homebrew and a project that he has had working with a dorm fridge. I loved the idea and happened to have a dorm fridge that I have been using for my current setup. So it seemed like a natural fit.

So, to the best of my recollection, this is how it all went:

I had the corner table (built out of old counter top donated from my in-laws) and I wanted to make something out of that instead of building something from scratch. Now because I just threw the corner table together out of wood pieces I had lying around, it's not exactly a piece of wood working perfection, but it works. Anyway, because everything on the table was a little odd, the box that I was going to build would have to be a little odd.

In the picture above is the finished product. I used most of a sheet of 1/2" plywood and a couple of 8' 2x4's as my supplies. I had wood screws lying around so it was really just a matter of measuring and cutting.

I bought a sheet of 2" foam insulation for the inside and some of the stuff you use to stick it to things (insert technical correction here). For the most part I didn't really need it, the insulation fit pretty snug (by snug I mean I was jamming crap everywhere) and I only had to stick the piece for the door on. I till have to put the piece for the ceiling in, but the rest is done. Cutting insulation sucks.

It fits two kegs without a problem and seems to be pretty tight (I won't really know until I get the next step going). It took a few hours, but in the end I am glad I did it. Now I just have to get the rest of the stuff going.

Anyway, the next steps are going to be cutting the hole in the mini fridge and getting my CO2 setup for multi kegs. I think the way that I am going to set it up is to keep the cold plate working to keep a third beer on tap outside the box. I also am going to be cleaning up the new tower I got and getting that into working condition. My goal is to have this up and running (with 3 beers on tap of course) for basketball season...GO SU!!!

Cheers!

The Next Step!

So I have been working on a few things with my homebrew setup. A while back I had a post about the next big thing. This project was going to be based on somehting I saw on Ben's Homebrew and emailed Ben about. Well this past weekend I got quite a ways a long on that project.

I am going to put in a detailed outline of what it is that I made, but just moments ago I won this three tap beauty on eBay. She is old and pretty beat, but for $14 I feel like I made out like a bandit! This will be the crowning peice on my homebrew setup. I am pretty geeked up right now.

Anyway, more to come on this project, I just thought that I would share this little development.

Cheers!

Poo Dollar Memories

This past weekend I had a few of the guys from my fraternity over. They came in Friday night and one of the guys who is now a 5 star chef and masters grad from the CIA, cooked up steak and lobster on the grill and we washed it down with the Poo Dollar IPA. (My chef friend was all sorts of impressed with the beer so that was a small victory)

As much as this was a fun get together, it was also an emotional one. We went to Rochester to say our good byes to a close friend. Chung (pictured here to the right of me) was a good friend and we are all going to miss him. The IPA was named Poo Dollar after a game that Chung made up. It consisted of taking a dollar bill and picking up a piece of dog poo with it. After that you leave the dollar on the sidewalk (poo side down of course) and let the hilarity begin. Anyway, he used to have a sinister little giggle when he would talk about Poo Dollar.

Named appropriately, Poo Dollar IPA has Chung's evil little fingers all over it. It's what we would call back in college a "creeper." One of the guys that was over was really throwing them back and kept telling me I was lying about the ABV and that it was not that strong. In fact he went so far as to pound a full glass before he wonked out for the night. Well the next morning the joke was on him. That Poo Dollar creeped up and nailed a spike through his head in his sleep. He looked (and probably felt) like shit. It was great.

Anyway, a quick review of the Poo Dollar; It has a very pinny smell right out of the tap. The head is hit or miss because I was screwing around with the PSI on my keg more than anything, but when you get a good pour, the head retention it strong with a tint of copper. The color of the beer is on the darker side of an IPA, I would say it has the color of an DIPA. The flavor profile if not what I expected. There is a flowery, pinny almost off flavor that is coming out of the hops. I am not sure how to nail it down, but it is not the kind of tastes you would expect from an IPA. Nonetheless, it's very good on the malt side of things, though most of the malt character is really drowned out by the hops.

Drinkability is dangerously delicious. These guys slide right down and weighing in at just under 8%, they really do creep up on you, like picking up a dollar bill only to find poo on the other side.

Now since last weekend put a real dent in my brew supply, I had to push up the brewing of my next batch. Instead of doing an all-grain, because I am working on some tight time schedule stuff, I am going to brew an extract batch. This is my second shot at a flavor beer and it's a vanilla cream ale. I looked into buying vanilla beans, but they are so damn expensive I couldn't bring myself too it, so I bought some pricey extract. Here is the recipe:


5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) 83.3 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) 8.3 %
0.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 4.2 %
0.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 4.2 %
0.50 oz Hallertauer [4.80%] (60 min) 9.6 IBU
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (30 min) 9.3 IBU
1 Pkgs California Lager (Wyeast Labs #2112)
1 fl oz Bourbon Vanilla Bean Extract
OG-1.043

I am brewing this tomorrow night so we will see.

Cheers!

Saturday is brew day

Today was my brew day for the doppelbock. This 21lb, 7 1/2 hour journey has whipped me out! but I am done and it was a great experience that should yield a great beer. Before I go through some of the high points on the brew day, this was my first time doing a decoction mash so I am going to go through the steps.

For those of you that have not tried a decoct mash, it's not actually that difficult, it's simply VERY time consuming. You can add an extra hour on your mashing for every decoction step in your process. A summary of a decoction is taking 1/3 of your grain out of your mash tun after you have doughed in your mash and putting it into a separate pot. The consistency should be pretty think, it reminded me of oatmeal. You get it up to 152f, give it a 20min rest at that temp and raise it up to a boil, boil it for 20 min and return the grain back to the mash tun. Mix in well and watch for hot spots. Pretty simple, right? Well it actually is. It just takes a while. Here is my time line:

Look inside the Decoc Pot

7:30am wake up, start heating 10 gallons of water for 2qt per lb of grain mix
8:30am(ish) dough in grains at 152f strike temp, 144f grain bed
8:45am take out 1/3 of the grains, add to heat get up to 152, rest 20min
9:30am get the decoc grain up to a boil, boil for 20 min
10:00 am add grains back to mash tun, grain bed temp at 152f, let rest 70min (mowed my lawn)
10:40am draw off grains for 2nd decoc, get onto heat and go straight to boil, wait 20 min
11:10am add grains back to the mash tun, get grain bed temp up above 165f for mashout
11:30am mashout, wait for sparge water to heat up
11:45am start sparge...
And so on...

The left shot is the grains in the decoc pot and the right is the non-decoc grains. It's not easy to see, but the decoc grains got a little darker.


There was a 90min boil to boot. Like I said, this was a very involved beer (did I say that?). In the end it would up being a lot more quantity than I planned, and the OG was not exactly what I wanted either. It was 1.052 before the boil and finished at 1.061. I am not good at checking quantity on my keg kettle, I could have used some more boil, but I am not sure I could have handled another minute of this brew day.


I got the idea to try a doppelbock after reading a great article on it in BYO and they indicated how difficult and time consuming this beer was if brewed in a traditional fashion. I have to agree. However, it was a great experience and I am a fan of the decoction. However, I am not sure there enough days left in my life to make a habit of it.


The other new things about the brew is that I reused my Bohemian yeast from my Oktoberfest. I basically just racked my Oktoberfest to the secondary and left the stuff at the bottom of the bucket. I added my wort and walla! The good news is that it is already bubbling, so I know it worked.



One last note- regarding my comment on the last post about being the smartest man alive; not in fact true. Come to find out my shower head sparge arm sucked ass. Back to the drawing board.

Cheers.

I am the smartest man alive!

I decided that I was going to go out and get myself up to speed with a sparge setup that made sense. I wanted to use a cooler that held between 4 and 5 gallons of water, I wanted a sparge arm that had a nice spray and I wanted something that was in expensive.


So after some thinking, I remembered that I had an odd shaped cooler in the shed that my little brother used to use for motor cross races. I planned on drilling a hole and putting a tap in it, but I found that the drain plug pulled completely out and with a few gaskets it sealed up tighter than a dolphins butt hole.

After I had my water reservoir all sealed up, I decided to move to the sparge arm. I considered some PVC contraptions to float on the grain bed and I even thought about making a copper one. However in the process of looking online to see if there were easy DIY instructions on building something like this, I found a few posts with people deciding to use shower heads.


I went to Mr. Seconds and got myself a very basic shower head (that looked chrome but wound up being half plastic, a blessing in disguise it turns out) and used some of my odds and end hose items from my other projects to come up with this.



After I noticed that the shower head as it was did not work because there was not enough water pressure, I took the shower head apart (with the water running through it) and noticed that pressure should not be a big deal. The water was forced through a tiny hole and came through the inside with pretty good force.



After some brainstorming and a 22oz of Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye (awesome!) I decided to cut the shower head in half so that the tight straight stream hit a solid spot thus creating a outward spray. Amazingly it worked.

As you can see in this picture it puts off a nice wide spray (though you cannot see it from the side view).

I am pretty pumped to try out my new device this weekend on my Doppelbock I am brewing, I just hope the plastic can handle the 170f+ temps it's going to get.

Stonch's second fermentation video

For anyone like me who uses the plastic buckets, you love to hear and smell the hoppy burps coming out when your brew is fermenting. Well I have always wanted to sit and watch it all unfold, but don't have the time or patience, so Stonch has made it easy for me and everyone else to enjoy without quitting your job.

This video is awesome on so many levels, great addition to the blog Stonch!

Brew Day- Oktoberfest

This afternoon I brewed my Oktoberfest and took some pictures of the process. The first shot is while I am heating up the sparge water and waiting for the mashtun to get done doing what it does. I Batch Sparged on this batch because I was feeling lazy. I mashed at 158f, mashed out at 160f and sparged at 170f for about 15-20min. I mashed for 60 min and mashed out for 10. This was off on some of my marks, but close enough!




The second shot here is from the boiling. I made all of my hop additions on the right time and used my grain screen for the hopps. However, there was a little bit of an issue with it this time because it seemed to hold water. This made me a little concerned because if water was not getting in, hops may not have been getting out.

My pre-boil OG was 1.042 qnd my final OG was 1.050. This is way low for my target, but I am not blaiming Beer Smith (yet) because I gave myself a 70% brewhouse effeciency (why I do not know) which would explain coming that short on my gravity reading.


I maintained a heavy boil for 90min and yeilded just shy of 5 gallons. I boiled off only .08 G though. I am not sure what that means.







This is my brewing assistant for the day Meatball. As you can see he is doing what all good homebrew helpers do, check out the neighbors.






After a long brew day, there is only one thing left to do...

Cheers!

Quick update: Poo Dollar IPA

I brewed my first extract brew in a long time and I used Beer Smith to make the recipe. Here is what I did:

3.00 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 30.0 %
6.00 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 60.0 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 10.0 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00%] (60 min) Hops 44.1 IBU
2.00 oz Cascade [5.50%] (30 min) Hops 28.7 IBU
2.00 oz Glacier [5.60%] (Dry Hop 5 days) Hops
-
1 Pkgs
American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [Starter 125 ml]
Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.069 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG
Measured Final Gravity: SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.0 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: %
Bitterness: 72.9 IBU
Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 14.1 SRM

I named the brew Poo Dollar IPA in memory of my friend Chung B. Hua. Poo Dollar was a game that brought him a lot of joy. I really used to love to hear him laugh.

Cheers Chung, say hello to heaven.

Two Brew weekend

This weekend I am going to be using my Beer Smith generated recipes to brew up two brews. The first will likely be tomorrow night and it's going to be an Extract IPA. I decided that I was in need of a beer to have on tab while I work on the Oktoberfest (yea I know, I am late, oh well) and the Doppelbock in a few weeks.

This brewing session is going to prove to be several big steps for me. First off I am using the Wyeast #2124 (Bohemian Lager) for both the Oktoberfest and the Doppelbock so I am going to reuse my yeast! This was something that I knew nothing about two months ago and since then I had someone from my brew club tell me about it, Ted talked about it, and by LHBS owner Ed said the same thing, it's easy! Which is good news to me.

The second first for me I will get into in greater detail next week, but in my Doppelbock I am going to try for some step infusion. In fact this is going to be like a 5 stepper! But according to BYO it's well worth the effort. Anyway, like I said, I will get into that more next week.

For now, I am brewing my extract tomorrow and my all-grain on Saturday. Should be fun!

BTW- Awesome printer friendly recipes brought to you by Beer Smith, did I mention that I want to make out with that thing?

Great Fermentation video

So one of the many blogs that I watch, Stonch had this awesome time laps video of his fermentation process:

If you look on the left hand side of the page, you can watch the final
video of last week's fermentation. That's six days of yeast orgy condensed into
three minutes of fascinating viewing.

Great stuff from Stonch at Stonch's Beer Blog! This guy always has really funny commentary and great observations from an emerging brewer.



Cheers.

Beer Smith Rules!

I have to say, I was a skeptic about this whole "paying for something", but I have to admit, I am into the first day of my 21 day free trial of Beer Smith and I have to say, they had me at hello.

After another frustrating process of concocting my next recipe on my spreadsheet, I decided I would give the software thing a shot. I downloaded a few apps (I am not going to name them because I honestly gave each one about a 2 sec perusal before I removed it) and was not at all satisfied with what I saw.

So, after listening to James from Basic Brewing Radio and his April 26th report on homebrew software, I decided that I should give Beer Smith a shot. All of the reviews from listeners and other folks gave an image of an application that was built for use, not for learning how to use.

After a few minutes I figured out how to create a recipe and had a nice printer friendly 2 page doc that had my shopping list and brew day essentials all in one place. This was REALLY easy to start using.

They use a Windows based UI that has the feeling of Outlook '98. This provides the user with an "at home" feeling in the app that lets you feel free to roam around and explore. Some of the critics felt the SRM indicator left something to be desired, but to be honest, I hadn't been looking at SRM up until I started with the software so I am totally happy with it.

Overall I was impressed. I like good software and this is a nice little app. Plus I think it's pretty reasonably priced for a lifetime license. I am giving the folks at Brew Smith my enthusiastic thumbs up and I am planning on adding them to my links list.

I will have a few more posts in the next week as I prep for next weekend's two brew weekend, an OktoberFest and an IPA, both concocted on my new buddy software.

Cheers.