5 gallons of cider brewing

So as I said before, I want to provide some details about brewing cider. Nick picked up 13 gallons of UV pasteurized cider from a cider mill north of us (I will spare sharing their name because according to NYS law, they are not supposed to sell us unpasteurized cider, stupid NY laws).

The plan was to make 10 gallons of cider that would have an OG of 1.060 and finish at around 1.011 using an American Ale yeast. We brewed the 10 gallons together by adding Camden tablets to both of the 4 gallon buckets. There was 2 gallons left over for the cider and another 3 gallons that Nick was using for another project. With the 2 gallons we put it on the stove and got the temperature up to 170 and added 6 cups of cane sugar, 6 cups of brown sugar, and the zest and juice of 2 lemons.

We held the two gallons at 170 for about 20 min and added a gallon each into the 4 gallon batches. Because Nick is much better at math than me, we hit our OG dead on!

So far it has been bubbling away for about 8 days and it's still at 1.030. It's making it's way down to 1.011 so I am just going to let it run for a while. After it's done with the primary, I am going to let it sit in secondary for a while, maybe a month or so, and I am going to bottle it carbonated in my growlers.

I would like to age some of this because I am not ape shit about cider as a whole. With that said, I am excited to try this and I think it will be a really fun drink to break out with my friends. I don't think it's going to be my "coming home from a long day of work" brew, but that's okay.

Cheers!

Something smells like sulfur!

This past weekend I went over to Nick's place and we worked on our pumpkin ale. We also did a cyder that I will write a post about as soon as I get the details from Nick on what we used and what we did.

What I am writing about today though was the pumpkin ale. To bring you up to speed, it was racked twice after the primary to help get rid of some of the traub that developed and in the end, we both had a full 5 gal batch because we planned ahead.

However, when I went to rack my beer from the carboy to the keg, I noticed a distinct surfer smell that permeated the spices. Nick had said that there sulfur smells coming out of the primary fermenters when I was gone, but on our first racking, I had not noticed anything.

This time though, I definitely tasted a distinct sulfur flavor.

After some consulting, Nick advised adding some yeast nutrient to the brew to help get rid of the flavor. He said that he had done some reading and that was one of the suggestions. When I got home, before I pressurized the keg, I added 2tbs of yeast nutrient and then pressurized the keg at serving pressure and let it sit until tonight.

Tonight was going to be my big night of tasting the brew and immediately I noticed something was not right. The brew had a distinct salt water flavor that threw everything off. I decided to take the keg off the tap it was on, shake it around and try it out of my party tap. The flavor was gone (for the most part anyway).

What I think happened was that the yeast nutrient settled at the bottom and when I was drawing off the keg, I was getting a very concentrated amount of that nutrient. The plan is now to shake it around some more and let it sit for a while longer to get fully carbonated.

In the end, I am sure it's going to be great, but it was hard to judge because I cannot get the salt water flavor out of my mouth. It kind of feels like it coats the tongue.

More to come on this!!!

**The story behind the picture was that I have had a few brown ales and I was looking for a "pumpkin carving of Nixon" because I thought with the election season in full swing, it would be fun. However, with little luck on that, I remembered these pictures and decided to include them just the same. That's a little window into how my mind works, scary.

Pumpkin Ale

A few weekends ago, Nick and I brewed up a pumpkin ale. I will make an update on where we are to date with the pumpkin ale but for now, I want to give some input on the brew day that was:

First off, Nick was good enough to volunteer for "pumpkin prep". This consisted of buying, gutting and scooping 8-10 pumpkins. Nick bought 20, because he was not sure what the weight would be after they were all gutted. In the end, we has 12lbs of pumpkin, so 8-10 pumpkins make for 12-14lbs of finished pumpkin product.

To prep, Nick carved the pumpkins in to 6-8" chunks. He placed these chunks on a cookie sheet at 350f for 1 hour (of until beginning to brown). After this he peeled the skin off and was left with the orange mass of the pumpkin. Nick took care of this a few days before our brew day and had it in the fridge. This was good because the process would have been a brew day in it's self.

One the day of brewing, Nick came over with the 12lbs of pumpkin and put it into my 5 gallon bucket and cooked it on the grill. We added enough water to cover the pumpkin chunks and stirred pretty aggressively to prevent burning. This took an hour and in the end, the pumpkin was a chunky orange paste.

We added the pumpkin to the mash tun just after we struck the mash. This got a little complicated because the pumpkin held a lot of heat and made a lot of "hot spots" in the mash. With a little ice and some aggressive stirring, it worked out in the end. However, for people looking to brew this, take into consideration the temp of your pumpkin because there is enough of it there to throw off your reading.



We let the mash sit for 1 hour. We were not able to add water to the mash for a mash out because the mash tun was too full so we pulled some off and did a quick decoction to elevate the temp.





In the end, we hit our 154f for the mash and had it up to 170 for the mashout. We batch sparged and had a little over 13 gallons in the pre boil (the brew kettle was REALLY full). Our goal was to have 12 gallons in the end because of traub loss.

Regarding the spices, we did not have "pumpkin pie" spice so we used my wife's Betty Crocker Cookbook and increased the amount as we saw fit. We were concerned initially because the amount of spice versus the amount of wort seemed as though you would not taste the spice. However, once we added it, we realized that a little spice goes a long way.

We used a London ESB for both brews because my American Ale yeast that I was going to use did not take the way that I had hoped.

Currently, both 5 gallon batches have been been racked over twice. There was a lot of traub from the primary to the secondary, and from the secondary to the third vessel, it was much less. We had both seen a lot of input from folks saying that the starch from the pumpkin caused a lot of yield losses that we didn't want. In the racking from primary to secondary, Nick took the extra and put it in a 3 gallon carboy he had and topped it off with some DME wort he threw together.

We did that Sunday and we are considering bottling/kegging this Sunday while we brew a cider (cyder?).

In racking it over I had a few little sips, this is a damn fine brew. It's pretty dark for the style, but not too crazy.

The OG was 1.048 and the FG was 1.011.

More to come...

1 Week hiatus

I know that I have not written anything about the pumpkin ale brew day, I am going to post pictures and details in the very near future. I was out of town for the last week in Jamaica enjoying the fine local lager Red Stripe. I have to admit, I was kind of a hater on this beer before going to Jamaica, but after having some both out of the tap and out of the bottle, it's a pretty damn fine brew.

Anyway, while I was out, Nick racked over both his and my Pumpkin Ale's into secondary. He said that there was quite a bit of traub (slurry?) at the bottom, so it was good that we brewed extra. We are going to rack it a second time Sunday to help clear it up before we bottle/keg it.

There were some good questions and comments on the original Pumpkin Ale recipe so here goes on answers:

Adam said...
Good luck! Never did brew one a them there
punkin' ales. (Not sure why I'm slipping into country bumpkin' speak.) Sounds
interesting.I like the idea of using two different yeasts. I've done that and I
couldn't believe the difference between the California Ale yeast and a German
Ale yeast. Worlds apart.

Adam - Unfortunately I was not real confident in the American Ale yeast I tried to get out of the secondary from my Brown Ale because I dry hopped with leaf hops. there was so much lost that I thought I would not get a good, usable yeast. They were both pitched with the London ESB. Another experiment for another day.

Brian said...
Really looking forward to hearing about how
yours turns out. I actually hit up the local homebrew shop yesterday and picked
up my grain/hop bill for my first pumpkin beer as well, should be brewing this
Sunday.Cheers!

Brian -Yea it's nice when there are a bunch of brewers all working on the same thing. It's great to read about how people do things differently.

Ted Danyluk said...
Hi Travis,I've been wanting to do a
pumpkin ale for 2 years now. Still haven't gotten around to it. Perhaps next
year. I did find a recipe and procedure that's pretty detailed that includes the
pre-roasted pumpkin in the mash.It is very important to use the right kind of
pumpkin. I noticed in your photos some big carving pumpkins. Did you use those
in your brew? My manager at TJ's confirmed that those aren't grown for cooking,
and that they will simply turn to water if cooked. Not much flavor at all from
those.The small "pie pumpkins" are grown for culinary applications. They have
lots of flavor and texture. Did you use these in the brew, and then carve some
pumpkins on the side? Just curious? Please let us know how this one turns
out.

Ted - As always you have some good observations. The picture that is associated with the recipe is just something that came up when I Googled "Pumpkin Ale" on Google Images. I thought it was pretty funny.

Anyway, I will have to ask Nick, but I am assuming we used the regular carving pumpkins. I am not positive though. I am also going to ask him to detail how he treated the pumpkin before we brewed.

It actually made for a longer brew day than normal, but if Nick had not prepared the pumpkin ahead of time it would have been 12hrs (no exaggeration).

Nick is a food buff so he very well may have gotten cooking pumpkins, but I am not sure. One thing I can tell you is that once we started the runoff into the brew pot, there was not much to smell. It was not really much of anything. However, once we added the spices it was CRAZY how much it smelled.

Adam said...
Mmmmm...pumpkin. I think most pumpkin ales are mostly spices
and not much pumpkin. I'd love to taste one that was fermented pumpkin.Does
anybody really know what pumpkin tastes like or is it all nutmeg, cinnamon, et.
?

Adam - I would say it's 80/20 at least (80% spices, 20% pumpkin). Like I said in the previous response, the pumpkin didn't seem to lend much to the brew until we added the spices. With that said, you could smell it in the mash a lot and the smell became more pronounced as the boil went on. With that said, the spices really took over once added.

After making this brew, I totally understand how people can make a pumpkin ale using spices alone. As much as the pumpkin adds character and a good story, it's natural flavor is like any other gorde.

That's it for now, more to come once I get my self back on track!

Cheers

Smashed Pumpkin Ale

Tis the season for a nice harvest pumpkin ale! This weekend Nick and I are going to be brewing our first vegetable beer.

Nick is in charge of preparing the pumpkin. He is going to cook chunks of 15 lbs of pumpkin for a while, peel the skin off and make it all into a chunky, loosely held together pumpkin mash.

Saturday, we will break out the pumpkin and add it to the mash like an adjunct. I have added rice hulls to the mash to hopefully prevent a stuck mash because I guess the pumpkin is pretty thick. Nick said that he has heard that brewers loose a lot of volume in traub with these beers, but I am assuming that must be when it's added to the boil because if it's in the mash, it shouldn't change the traub volume dramatically (at least I think, any input would be greatly appreciated).

So here is the recipe as we have it now:

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 12.00 gal
Boil Size: 14.84 gal
Estimated OG: 1.041 SG
Estimated Color: 17.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
0.50 lb Rice Hulls
12.50 lb Pilsner
5.40 lb Wheat Malt, Ger
2.20 lb Munich Malt
0.75 lb Roasted Barley
0.40 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine
0.25 lb Carafa III
2.00 oz Mt. Hood
1.00 oz Hallertauer
0.36 lb Brown Sugar, Dark
0.25 lb Maple Syrup (pure)
**1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) and London ESB


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 22.00 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 6.88 gal of water at 170.5 F158.0 F 45 min
Mash Out Add 2.75 gal of water at 196.6 F168.0 F 10 min


Notes:
------
The .36 lbs of brown sugar is 1cup. 1/2 cup of maple syrup. 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice mix (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, mace)

**I have proposed that since we have two yeasts that we are considering reusing, one of us use the ESB and the other the American Ale. Then, since they are both from the same batch, we can observe the characteristics of the two yeasts head to head.

We are using a pretty basic single infusion so this should not be a big deal. Since Nick is preparing the pumpkin, we should be able to brew in our normal time.

Sounds like a fun one, cheers!

Loose Change

So since we are not brewing this weekend and I don't foresee myself doing any fun beer projects, I figured I would do a single post about a bunch of random odds and ends. Later this week I will post up the final recipe for the Pumpkin Ale Nick and I are going to brew up this weekend.

So here we go:

First, I have probably mentioned this in a previous post, but the Old Balls Ale is going strong. The pictures below are from when I took it from secondary into the keg. As you will note, there was some really odd "stuff" on the bottle that had me a little concerned at first, but in the end the beer was fine so it must just be traub or something.

The Old Balls Ale is hands down one of the best beers I have ever brewed. You will note that I used a double decoction on this brew as a way of dealing with raising the temperature in the process. I think the decoct gave the beer a very distinct, but complete malt profile. You can definitely tell that some of the malts were caramelized during the decoct and it made for a great beer.


I bottled up a couple of bottles of this to take to a competition because I think this one will do well and I am interested to hear what the judges will have to say.

This brings me to the second point of loose change, my first beer judging came back!!! Though I didn't place or get any awards (except the participation ribbon pictured below) I did get some really valuable feedback.

The beer that was judged was the California Common I brewed called Californication. All of the feedback I got said that the recipe was kind of bland and lacked character. Both judges recommended stepping up the hops and putting some more punch in the grain bill.

After getting the forms back, I revisited my recipe and noticed how simple it really was. It probably could use some spicing up. Although I have to say I really enjoyed it and I think it's a great session beer.


Finally, today I made some adjustments to my kegging setup. When Nick was over, he mentioned that I might get better cooling if I piped something directly from the coolest place in the fridge (the freezer) to the fan. We made some minor adjustments at the time, but I decided to go all the way and duct tape it all into place. This is what I have now.

You will also notice that I filled the fridge with foam insulation. This was also one of Nick's suggestions. He said that it would help keep the temperature where I want it if I fill the empty space. Ben from Ben's Homebrew has suggested this as well. We will see if all these changes work.

That's it for now, cheers!

Sunday, Brown Ale Sunday

Well it was really Saturday, but who's keeping track?

So today we brewed a 10 gallon batch of American Brown Ale. I am leaning towards doo doo brown ale, but we will see if that will end up as the name. We started this morning at 7am and pitched at 12:30 making it a 6 hour brew day (with cleanup). Not too bad.

This was the first time I have had a fellow brewer so I was pretty fired up. With a 10 gallon batch it's a must. There was no way I would have been able to lift the kettle on my own. For the second time we hit all the vitals for this recipe (1.041 pre-boil OG, 1.051 pitching OG) and got through all the heat infusions without a problem.

One thing that caused a problem was that the sparge arm I just made had some "technical" and engineering issues. First off, because of the way that the sparge sat under the water reservoir, the hose kinked causing a pretty light flow. The engineering issue was caused by the fact that I used a chunk of garden hose that could leave funky flavors in my brew. Not the end of the world, just some tweaking.

Now for this brew we used American Ale yeast from Nick's last IPA batch that he just bottled last night. To increase the volume that we were working with, Nick boiled up some corn sugar and made a little starter. We split the starter this morning into our buckets are we are hoping that it works out.



This is the largest batch that I have done with this larger brew kettle and we had a boil over early on in the brewing. This was something I never would have imagined, because the kettle is so big, but it did. No big deal though a little time to rest and some cleaning of the propane burner and we were as good as new.

This was an American Brown Ale recipe I made up:

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.12 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 25.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
20.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 80.4 %
4.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 15.7 %
0.75 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.9 %
0.25 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.0 %
2.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50%] (60 min) Hops 30.3 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50%] (30 min) Hops 7.5 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50%] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50%] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
American Ale Wyeast


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 25.50 lb
----------------------------

Mash In Add 7.97 gal of water at 170.5 F154.0 F 45 min
Mash Out Add 3.19 gal of water at 196.6 F168.0 F 10 min
----------------------------

Overall I was quite pleased with the brew day. We hit all of our times and temps as well as gravity readings. Other than the boil over it was a pretty flawless brew session.

This was Nick's first shot at all-grain brewing. He is kind of new to brewing in general, but as a science teacher, he should take to it quickly.

Good stuff. Cheers!

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!