I thought it still might have potential so I’ve been keeping it in the wings, waiting for the right opportunity to revisit the recipe. Now, six months and six brews later, it’s finally time to give it another try. The impetus was my joining a local homebrewing collective experimenting with a Community Supported Agriculture approach to homebrewing. As a brewer, I could provide 40 bottles out of any batch I made to the group roughly once every 5 weeks. Members receive variety six packs consisting of contributors’ brews and provide feedback on each one.

Revisions

I’m starting with the original formula and making a few adjustments to see if I can improve the recipe. This time I’m omitting the biscuit malt from the grain bill and redistributing the percentages of Munich and crystal malts. The hops will also get some small changes. While my original plan was to keep with Willamette as a finishing hop, when it came to brew day it turned out that my inventory management system had fallen out of sync with what I had in stock. With no Willamette on hand I decided to substitute Cascade for the aroma addition.

I’ve also made one small brewery change since my last brew. The bulkhead and valve components of my mash tun got an upgrade. The original components had begun to show some signs of discoloration and I was starting to worry about the possibility of any negative effects on the wort. The original bulkhead that was cobbled together with brass plumbing fittings, steel washers, and rubber o-rings were replaced with a solid plastic piece with matching plastic nut and rubber washer. The fittings adjacent to either side of the new bulkhead as well as the valve assembly were all replaced with stainless steel components. All of these pieces were also upgraded to 1/2” from their original 3/8” inner diameter.

Final Thoughts

My only hope going in was that my tweaks would move the beer in a positive direction. As it turns out, that’s just the case. It’s still not mindblowing, but it’s definitely better than the original. Maybe with a few more revisions I’ll be able to turn this into something truly worthwhile. While I’ve shared my brews with friends and family before, this is the first time I’ve really put something out for critique. The reviews are generally positive, too. Comments describe a light and refreshing lager with some slight fruity notes and overall good flavor. It’s a good start, and plenty enough to keep this around for a bit more tinkering in the future.

According to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar the world is set to end on December, 23rd 2012. This would be a perfect opportunity for a commemorative beer to celebrate the occasion. Following along with the forum thread, I’d start with an imperial stout and then age it with chile peppers and cacao nibs.

The mash consists of 24 pounds of grain and 7 gallons of water. This is the biggest brew I’ve done to date, pushing the limits of my ten gallon mash tun. With such a large beer it seemed like the perfect opportutunity to try another partigyle. My goal was to collect enough additional runnings for a second 2.5 gallon batch of porter. The primary batch should have a target original gravity of around 1.110 while the smaller batch would start around 1.045.

Preparation

This would be a busy brew day. Not only did I have two boils planned, I also had two batches that needed to be transferred in order to make room for this new set. The Gun Stock Ale needed to be racked off the oak cubes it had been aging on for the last few months. The Belgian also needed to be transfered into a secondary fermenter. Plus I needed to plan ahead enough to create a yeast starter the day before. Once all of the prep work was out of they way, I would be ready to start brewing.

As luck would have it, I once again ran out of propane partway through. This time it caught me as I was heating the initial strike water. Running out of gas has become a nearly constant concern since moving out of the kitchen and trading P.G.&E.’s unlimited supply with a fixed volume of available propane. After a few sessions on a fresh tank, I start to worry about whether I’ll make it through the entire brew session without running out of gas.

It would probably be a good idea to invest inn a backup tank to have on hand for these situations. For now - once again - Jennie saved the day and drove us to the station for a quick exchange of my empty tank for a full bottle.

Rapture

I dubbed the second beer of the batch “Rapture”. The O.G. came in at 1.059 after boiling down the 2.75 gallons of initial wort. It went into a keg for force carbonation after seven weeks with an F.G. of 1.013.

Secondary

After five weeks in primary, it was time to transfer to secondary for additional aging. The secondary phase is where this recipe begins to take a significant divergence from the original. I started by roasting two habanero peppers over an open flame on the stove. Next, I chopped the peppers up into eighths, discarding the stems, but keeping the seeds and ribs. I also sliced up a few dried guajillo peppers into similar sized pieces. While the habaneros would provide the backbone of the heat, these extra mild peppers would hopefully add more complexity to the chile flavors. All of the peppers with about a cup of water - just enough to cover them - went into a pan where they were heated up to a boil and allowed to simmer for a few minutes. This would re-hydrate the dried peppers and sterilize everything reducing the risk of infection when adding them to the already fermenting beer.

Finally, the peppers and water were dumped into the secondary bucket along with 3 ounces of roasted cacao nibs. The beer was then racked on top of this. Since this brew is expected to have a long shelf life, I also decided to include an additional dry hopping with another half ounce of leftover whole leaf Willamette hops. I want this beer to still have some of its hoppy character after it’s been in a bottle for a year. Hopefully this last hop addition will push it over the finish line.

Since I planned on keeping bottles of this beer around for quite a while and wanted to give out some as special gifts to friends, I wanted to do something special with the packaging. I decided that belgian bottles with corks and wire cages would offer a nice presentation. So, I saved up suitable bottles and invested in a new Italian floor corker. The device resembles some sort of medieval torture device, but is actually a very convenient way to cork bottles. After inserting the cork, a wire cage can be affixed by using a pen or pencil to tighten the cage in place. Once the bottles are sealed, they are stored on their sides to keep the cork from drying out.

Mayan Apocalypse

Batch #15 - All Grain #10

Brewed: 04-10-11

Final Thoughts

I’ve tried partigyles several times before. The concept is always the same - make a smaller beer from grains of a bigger beer. I’ve never had a lot of luck with the results of the smaller beer. It can be difficult to plan ahead when designing a partigyle. A lot is up to what happens on the brew day. The partigyle runnings you end up with are whatever is left over that you can extract from your grain after the first beer. To be the most successful, you need to be able to take measurements throughout the process and make on the fly adjustments. It might be necessary to collect more runnings than you first plan for or to adjust your boil to hit the post boil gravity that you’re after. No matter what, you’re probably going to be winging it a fair bit. Plus, you’re going to be pushing every last bit out of your grains. There’s a big risk of extracting unwanted tannins and other undesirable flavor contributors at this point.

The smaller beer from this brew turned out to be the first vaguely drinkable partigyle that I’ve done so far. It comes off as a little bit funky to me, but others who have tasted it have commented favorably on it. It could be that the faults I find in it are simply due to not enough aging though I suspect it may have been unwanted tannin extraction from the mash. All in all, I’d call it a success. It’s also a nice filler until the apocalypse is finally at hand.

As for the primary beer, I’m extremely pleased with how it came out. I first worried that the heat would be too much, but I think for now it’s just right. The heat comes in very nicely at the end when tasting without being completely overpowering. I just hope that it doesn’t mellow out too much as it continues to age. I’m not sure how much of the cacao actually ended up coming through in the final product either. There are definite chocolate notes, but I’m not sure how much is attributed to the grain versus the cacao. It might be interesting to experiment with these sorts of additions more in the future. No matter what, this is a beer which again taught me a lot along the way.

One of the more advanced brewing process controls is water quality. This can extend all the way from very simple water source control to precise adjustments of specific pH and mineral levels. I’ve chosen to start very simply by just filtering my water. Up to now I’ve always used water directly from the tap. After all, San Francisco is claimed to have some of the best tap water in the country - I drink it every day.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize all of the water that I’ve been using for the last several batches might not be from the best source - the good old green backyard garden hose. While there may be some dispute on how the green backyard hose really affects your water and whether it infuses any of its own off flavors in the final product, I’ve chosen the safe route by introducing a water filter and getting rid of the garden hose completely.

My solution is an activated charcoal filter made to fit inside of a standard 10” water filter housing. These are commonly used in house or RV applications and can be readily found at most large hardware stores. With a bit of additional tubing, clamps and hose fittings, an effective inline filter hooking directly to your water supply can be put together pretty simply. Some brewing supply stores also sell preassembled kits.

The activated charcoal filter will filter out most volatile organic chemicals including chlorine, sediment and other potentially unwanted flavor and smell contributing compounds without affecting other water characteristics such as mineral and salt levels. As an added bonus, the same filter housing can also be used for filtering the fermented beer prior to carbonation. Charcoal filters should not be used beyond the initial brewing water step. A spun polypropylene filter should be placed inside the housing instead. These filters typically have a rating ranging from .5 to 3 microns depending on the level of filtering that is desired. A rough filter rated at 3 microns will remove large sediment while a 1 micron or smaller filter will begin to remove yeast and potentially strip out some other flavor-contributing compounds.

I’ve tried to stick with the Belgian style of a clean, simple grain bill so that the yeast can take center stage in producing the key flavor profile notes. Candi sugar also provides a healthy amount of fermentable sugar, boosting the final ABV. The sugar is split between clear and dark varieties with two thirds being clear. The remaining third is dark syrup, adding more color and flavor intensity to the final brew. While the recipe calls for less than a full pound of dark syrup, I’ve ended up using a full pound in this batch. The packaging makes it more convenient to use the entire contents rather than attempt to save the rest for future usage.

Final Thoughts

I’m finishing writing this up some time after the last of the keg has finally kicked. I’ve bottled up a dozen or so bottles of this batch to age and save for future special events. Not all of the batches I’ve crafted from my own recipes have been home runs. In fact, at least a few have been largely mediocre - not bad, just not particularly noteworthy. This is the first one in a while I feel like I’ve really nailed right out of the gate. I’ll definitely be keeping this recipe around for future batches as it stands. I look forward to reworking those other less than stellar recipes and hope to end up with something I can get as excited about as this one.

Fast forward to the following spring and I would be prepared for the next harvest. I had a recipe ready and had all of the ingredients on hand ahead of time. As soon as I began to see cherries at the farmers markets this year I knew it was finally time.

I chose a straightforward grain bill, consisting of a nearly 50/50 split of 2 row and white wheat malts plus a small percentage of light crystal malt. For hops, I initially chose Tettnang. However, these being more difficult to procure I fell back on the more readily available Czech Saaz. At just over 17 IBUs, the hops weren’t the star anyway. Any mild noble hop variety would work fine.

Fashionably late as usual, I prepped a liter yeast starter on the morning of the brew day, offering the yeast only about a six hour head start. It wouldn’t be doing much to bolster the cell count, but I hoped it would at least help the yeast ease into the main course.

As usual, this session was not without its share of mistakes. Near the end of the boil, the wind picked up threatening to blow out the flame on my burner and even succeeding a couple of times. I made it through the 60 minute boil, but with the extra flame outs I hadn’t reduced the total wort volume as much as I had originally anticipated. Not wanting to waste leaving the excess behind in the kettle, my carboy was nearly topped off with wort. It was questionable at this point whether the entire liter starter would fit in the remaining space.

When it came time to pitch the starter, less than half of the flask contents managed to fill the carboy the rest of the way up. Filled with a mix of apprehensive dread and just a little bit of morbid curiosity as to what sort of mess I was in for, I pressed on. I was committed to seeing through what must be an obvious string of bad ideas at this point. I went ahead and fitted in a stopper and blow off tube routed into a large plastic pitcher with a bit of star san in it.

I set aside the remaining portion of starter which hadn’t fit in the carboy and set about to a bit of rationalization. If fermentation hadn’t gotten started by the following morning or things were getting out of hand I could just siphon a bit of the excess out and pitch the remaining starter. Fortunately, the yeast did its job and the tube held, routing about a half gallon of blow off into the pitcher. Once the most vigorous fermentation had slowed a few days later and with enough head room I was able to safely replace the hose with an airlock.

I would stock up on the cherries destined to go into the secondary container the following week. In the meantime I was faced with another moment of poor planning. I didn’t have an available secondary container to transfer the beer and cherries into. I had just moved my apocalyptic stout into my only bucket and I had just the one carboy free. Even my kegs were all full. This batch would completely fill my pipeline up and I would have nowhere to transfer it for the secondary phase. While an impromptu order placed with MoreBeer for a new 6 gallon bucket was a quick and easy fix to the situation at hand, it remains a valuable lesson in the proper capacity planning of the beer pipeline.

Cherry Wheat

Batch #16 - All Grain #11

Brewed: 05-14-11

Grain Bill

• 5# White Wheat
• 5# 4oz 2 Row
• 12oz 15L Crystal

Hop Schedule

• .75oz Saaz @ FWH
• .5oz Saaz @ 30 minutes
• .5oz Saaz @ 15 minutes
• .25oz Saaz @ 0 minutes

Yeast

Brew Stats

• Strike Temperature: 167°
• Mash Temperature: 155°
• Mash Volume: 13.75qt
• Sparge Volume: 2.5gal
• Sparge Temperature: 168°

Vitals

• O.G.: 1.051
• F.G.: 1.008
• A.B.V.: 5.6%
• IBUs: 17.4

Cherry Mash

I tossed 5 pounds of cherries in the freezer the day before I was ready to work with them, thinking that the freezing would help kill any bacteria. Since I planned on heating them also, I’m not sure this step was really necessary. It may have just made the cherries a bit more difficult to work with.

First, I destemmed and pitted the half frozen cherries. Next, they went into a pot with two cups of water on the stove where they were heated to 180° and mashed up a bit further with a potato masher. They were then left to rest for about 45 minutes. Once the mixture had cooled enough, it was dumped into the sanitized secondary container and the beer was racked on top.

Clarification

When I transferred to keg, I went straight from the secondary bucket spiggot into the keg. As a result a lot of cherry pulp made it into the keg. I treated the keg with a tablespoon of gelatin mixed in a small amount of hot water. Hoping that the pulp would eventually clear out, I went ahead and force carbonated. It never really helped. I ended up with a nicely carbonated beer with a less than pleasant pulpiness to it.

I just needed a way to filter the beer out. The two most common approaches seemed to be plate and cylinder filters. Since I already had a cylindrical filter housing used for filtering brewing water, it made sense to simply modify my existing setup. All it would take was a new filter and some additional hose fittings to switch between the existing faucet connections and beer line connections.

The big problem I faced was that beer filtering is meant to be done on uncarbonated beer and here I had a full five gallons of fully carbonated beer. I was already several bad ideas deep into this brew and wasn’t about to let these little details deter me from making a few more. With some small modifications, I had a filter housing with a set of quick disconnect fittings that allowed me to interchange water faucet connections and keg beverage fittings.

I set up the full keg and connected it to an empty keg with the new filter setup in between. Then, I began the transfer doing my best to minimize foaming. By making adjustments to a pressure relief valve hooked up to the second fitting of the empty keg I was able to carefully monitor pressure and flow rate between the pair of kegs. The process seemed to go pretty smoothly if not a bit slow and with an inevitable amount of foaming throughout. I just hoped I hadn’t ruined the entire batch.

Final Thoughts

I’m sure the filtering problems probably had a large impact on the final quality of the beer. The filtering process undoubtedly contributed to some oxidation effect. This batch has definitely had some important take aways for my brewing career. Foremost, don’t be afraid to leave a little extra wort behind. A bit more careful and deliberate planning could go a long way. On the other hand, it just goes to show that there are a lot of mistakes that you can make along the way and still come out with ok beer. It might not be the greatest batch ever, but that’s just all part of the learning process.

I also initially thought that I might have used a little bit too many cherries. The cherry could stand to be a little less prominent. However, bottling and aging has helped to subdue the results a little bit. I’ve enjoyed it a bit more a few months later than I did initially. I’m definitely looking forward to experimenting with cherries again next season. I might even try a soured version next time. In the meantime, I still have a few bottles kept in reserve.

I’m revisiting the Scottish Ale style category, this time with a version of a Scottish Export / 80 Shilling Ale. As a last minute decision I’m also going to attempt another parti-gyle. My goal is an additional 3 gallon batch for my spare small carboy. This smaller variant will ultimately be destined for my new 10L (2.64 gallon) oak barrel. Hopefully this one will fare better than my last double batch attempt.

Starting Up

The plan almost last minute, it’s the morning of the brew session and I haven’t prepared a yeast starter. This particular vial of yeast has been sitting in the fridge for a few months possibly at some less than ideal temperature extremes. With maybe 7 hours before the wort is ready for pitching, armed with a fresh supply of DME and my stir plate I can still give the yeast a head start to ramp up and prepare for the main feast. The short time is’t ideal, but with two batches to feed questionable yeast, I hope the starter will improve my odds.

Preparing a starter is like making a miniature batch - boil water and DME together in a 10:1 ratio, cool, and pitch yeast. In this case I heated 1L of water in my Erlenmeyer flask directly on my gas kitchen stove, adding 100g of DME near boiling. In theory, pretty simple - and only slightly more complicated in practice.

DME is a fine powder until it comes into the presence of moisture when it begins to quickly clump. Attempting to add it directly into the narrow top of the flask turned out to be a poor choice. It also turns out to be very easy to boil over in a flask. Once the mixture reaches boiling point, a careful eye must be kept to prevent excessive foam ups from making a huge mess all over the stove.

Despite minor blunders, the yeast was finally pitched into the cooled starter solution. A folded piece of aluminum foil wrapped around the opening of the flask would keep dust out while still letting oxygen in. Finally, after a bit of adjustment, I had the stir plate dialed in to keep the stir bar spinning and provide a constantly aerated source of wort for the yeast to feed on.

Milll and Mash

While I was extremely happy with the overall performance of the inaugural run of my brand new Monster Mill with the last batch, I felt I could still get better efficiency with a finer grain crush. Originally, I tuned it to the factory default setting of 0.045”. This time I decided to tighten the gap between rollers down to 0.040”. I also wanted to try using a drill to turn the mill instead of using the hand crank. Unfortunately, the drill didn’t have quite enough power to keep the mill spinning. I was able to use it for part of the bill, but ultimately finished up the last bit of grain by hand. Still, when the drill was running it made short work of what was in the hopper.

The mash went smoothly. I did a 15 minute tun preheat, this time using slightly hotter water than last time. Following the recommended strike temperature I was able to hit my target mash temperature. With around 20 minutes left in the mash, I started preheating the sparge water. As the timer came to an end, so did the roar of the propane burner. I had just finished up my very first tank of propane. Jennie rushing to my rescue, I was able to exchange for a full propane bottle in short order. After a short delay and slightly extended mash I was back on track with the sparge and boil.

Parti-gyle Take Two

My first attempt to turn a single mash into two different beers didn’t go well. While the first batch came out great, the second was a mess. Even after six months of aging it never really got to a drinkable state. I decided this time that I would reign in a couple of the variables that might have contributed problems last time. Instead of pulling out a random mix of leftover hops, I chose a hop profile similar to the primary batch (scaled down to match the smaller volume). I also did both boils back to back.

As usual, at first everything was looking good for this one. After transferring from kettle into the primary 3 gallon carboy, I discovered I was short a stopper and airlock. Instead I used a piece of foil to seal off the top of the carboy after pitching the yeast. I made sure my next online order included the missing bits and was able to swap out the foil for a proper airlock the following week. After about a week, I checked the gravity and found it all the way down to 1.006. Having forgotten to take any gravity readings prior to pitching, I wasn’t able to do any efficiency or ABV calculations.

At this point I noticed that the wort appeared to be a very watery pale yellow. The taste of the sample wasn’t exactly pleasant either with a very sharp woody flavor. It looked like this one may end up being another drain dump. Unfortunately, I needed the carboy to transfer my Raspberry Melomel (with its own currently disappointing flavor issues). So I made the decision to dump the contents of the carboy into my 10L barrel for further aging. I had my doubts that it would improve the situation, but at least it will keep the barrel wet until I had something better to fill it with.

Shill For Hire

Batch #12 - All Grain #7

Brewed: 02-13-11

Grain Bill

• 8.25# 2 Row Malt
• .75# Flaked Barley
• 7.2oz Crystal 40L Malt
• .25# Munich Malt
• 2.1oz Black Patent Malt
• 2oz Rauch Malt

Hop Schedule

• .75oz East Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes
• .5oz East Kent Goldings @ 20 minutes

Yeast

• WLP004 Irish Ale

Brew Stats

• Boil: 60 minutes
• Mash: 60 minutes
• Mash Volume: 12.5qt
• Strike Temperature: 170°
• Mash Temperature: 158°
• 1st Sparge Volume: 3gal
• Sparge Temperature: 170°
• 2nd Sparge Volume: 3gal
• Mash Efficiency: 73%

Vitals

• O.G.: 1.047
• F.G.: 1.010
• A.B.V.: 4.82%
• IBU: 25.8

Final Thoughts

I’m still not completely happy with my mash efficiency. 73% is probably better than what I’d get from a crush at my LHBS, but I think I might still get better results from an even smaller gap setting on my mill. I may adjust the setting down a few more tenths to 0.038” next time. I’ve also noticed a part of my process that can be improved with a slight equipment upgrade. When it comes time to run the hot wort through the heat exchanger, I’ve been ending up with more hoses to manage than I have hands for. Both the water and wort return lines have to be held in place since neither have disconnect fittings on them. It finally dawned on me that a second bulkhead installed at the top of my kettle along with a pair of quick disconnect fittings will solve the problem of having to manually hold the return hose over the kettle.

I also realize the importance of a fining agent in the brewing process. It’s been a while since I’ve remembered whirlfloc as an addition during the boil. Even though I’ve had the tablets in my inventory, I keep forgetting to include them in my recipes. This time I finally remembered to toss a half tablet in the kettle during the last 5 minutes of the boil. The difference is clear in my final hydrometer sample. There is good clarity compared to similar samples taken in the last few batches where I haven’t used the whirlfloc.

Somewhere in all of the inventory calculations I’ve managed to miscount the number of stoppers and airlocks I need in order to cap all of my fermenting vessels. I’m short a #7 stopper and an airlock for my last 3 gallon carboy. Since I’ve already committed to the batch and have the wort ready to go I compromise and cover the top of the 3 gallon carboy with a piece of aluminum foil. The next day, I have extra stoppers and airlocks on order. Even if they don’t arrive soon enough for this batch, I’ll be prepared for the next session.

I can’t say I’m terribly disappointed with this run. Compared to the last batch, evidence of fermentation was significantly sooner. I was able to see airlock activity within a few hours. Being able to use my new plastic carboy also allowed me to see what was going on. I can gauge the process by more than just airlock activity.

Tasting Notes

Update 05-17-11: I’ve had this one on tap for a few months now. I can’t say it’s nearly as good as I remember my first Scotch ale being. I don’t find a lot of smokiness coming through. I would definitely bump up the Rauch malt next time. I think that the Pacific Gem hops played a significant role in the flavor profile last time too. Overall, the final beer is definitely highly drinkable, but I’ll be looking to tweak the recipe a bit in the next iteration.

Instead of my usual internet recipe search, I’ve decided to take another big step and develop my own recipe. I began planning this recipe early in December with daily high temperatures temperatures in the low 50’s and the thermostat in the house reading 57-59°F each morning. The cooler weather seemed perfect for trying out White Labs’ San Francisco Lager yeast. This is a lager yeast which ferments at the lower end of the ale temperature range (58-65°). Using Ray Daniels’ Designing Great Beers and my copy of BeerSmith as guides, I came up with a what I hope is a suitable California Common style recipe.

The Granary

In ongoing my ongoing brewing research, I came across a blog detailing the construction of an all electric brewery. While I doubt I’ll be taking on that sort of project any time soon, it did cover several other helpful topics. Especially helpful was a section covering milling grains. From this I learned that a six gallon bucket could easily store around 25 pounds of grain. The other important discovery from this blog was Gamma Seal Lids. These lids consist of two components, an outer ring adapter which snaps onto any 5-7 gallon bucket and the inner threaded lid which easily spins closed to provide an airtight seal on the bucket.

I already had a spare 5 gallon homer bucket from home depot. I ordered an additional 6 gallon bucket from MoreBeer along with two of the Gamma Seal lids from Amazon. Included in my MoreBeer order was enough grain for my next two planned brews. Since my plan was to maintain enough grains in my inventory to brew something whenever I felt without a trip to the store, my order included more volume than what I needed for each brew. If I needed a pound of biscuit malt for a planned recipe, my order might instead be for three pounds. This strategy would hopefully give me a selection of base and specialty grains already on hand to pick from when planning future brews.

In all, my initial grain order added up to around 38 pounds of malt. When the packages arrived, I labeled each vacuum sealed bag with date, grain type and weight using a sharpie and stored it in one of my gamma sealed buckets. Grains which came in paper sacks and not sealed plastic bags were transferred into gallon sized Ziploc bags. These bags were also labeled with series number and overall grain weight. Each 1 gallon bag can hold around 5 pounds of grain. My 20 pounds of 2-row base malt was split into four numbered bags. Once the smaller vacuum sealed bags were opened, any unused grain in these bags also gets placed in gallon Ziploc bags labeled with dates and remaining quantity.

Mill Mishaps

In the past I’ve had a bit of bad luck with grains milled by my LHBS. They weren’t always crushed very well and have led to poor efficiencies on more than one occasion. All of the grains I’ve purchased this time are unmilled. Grains which haven’t been milled have a much longer shelf life than those which have already been crushed. While crushed grains might become stale after a few weeks, the unmilled grains should be fine for at least several months. Since I don’t know when I’ll be using some of these grains, I want to make sure they’ll remain as fresh as I can for as long as possible.

There’s just one problem with my plan - I don’t have a grain mill. My first idea was to fabricate a cheap DIY mill out of a pasta maker. I was able to pick up the pasta maker from a Chinese kitchen supply store for $20. After a bit of disassembly I was able to knurl the rollers with a dremel. The idea is that this should provide a surface with enough friction to grip the grains and push them through the rollers to crush them. After reassembly, I fabricated a crude hopper from scrap pine lumber.

As it turned out, my tests were less than ideal. The first hopper build didn’t work to contain and direct the grain as I wanted. Instead I tried a quick hopper built up from cardboard and tape. While this hopper proved to be much more effective than the initial wood and screw construction, the mill itself showed its weaknesses. As evidenced by extensive forum threads there are many people putting these together and getting great results. I just couldn’t seem to make it work for my needs. Some of this could be attributed to my usage of the hand crank instead of adapting the system over to a drill operated mechanism. It could also be my lack of DIY construction skill. Ultimately, I abandoned the DIY mill and settled on a commercially built Monster Mill.

The Commoner

Batch #11 - All Grain #6

Brewed: 02-05-11

Grain Bill

• 8.75# 2 Row Malt
• .5# Munich Malt
• 1# Crystal 60L Malt
• .5# Biscuit Malt

Hop Schedule

• 0.5oz Northern Brewer @ 60 minutes
• 0.5oz Northern Brewer @ 30 minutes
• 0.5oz Northern Brewer @ 15 minutes
• 0.5oz Willamette @ 10 minutes

Yeast

• WLP810 White Labs San Francisco Lager

Brew Stats

• Boil: 60 minutes
• Mash: 60 minutes
• Mash Volume: 3.5 gallons
• Strike Temperature: 165°
• Mash Temperature: 154°
• 1st Sparge Volume: 2 gallons
• Sparge Temperature: 168°
• 2nd Sparge Volume: 2 gallons
• Mash Efficiency: 72%

Vitals

• O.G.: 1.053
• F.G.: 1.016 (Est.)
• A.B.V.: 4.87% (Est.)
• IBU: 35

Final Thoughts

It seems like things in my brewing sessions are starting to smooth out now. I’m finally starting to get the hang of the mechanics of the brewing processes. I was still a little disappointed with my mash efficiency, but I think tightening the gap on my mill a little to get a bit finer crush will help out next time. It’s great just knowing this is a variable I now have under my control to adjust.

I also had a little bit of trouble getting my mash temperature right at first. It took a couple extra infusions of hot water to get the correct temperature. Hopefully I’ll get better at judging my strike temperature with more practice. I was at least able to successfully monitor the temperature and make the appropriate adjustments to recover the situation on the fly. Also, with the help of a mesh bag to hold the hops in the kettle I didn’t have any post-boil pump clogging issues. The wort cool down and transfer went quickly and easily. Overall, I managed to get pretty close to my target volume and gravity numbers.

At the end of the day my final concern came down to yeast viability. The vial sat in the bottom drawer of the fridge for over a month with the temperature controls on the fridge at one point being turned completely off and then completely on. I didn’t get around to making a starter and just pitched and hoped for the best. Then there was the usual long wait and wondering if I would need to place that inevitable emergency yeast order if the airlock didn’t start showing signs of life within. Eventually after a nearly 24 hour lag, the airlock bubbling started and I knew I’d have beer.

With my usual lack of experience and equipment, I set off on my typical path of recipe research and online shopping. First, I need to pick out a recipe. I quickly settle on a fruit mead combining honey, citrus, raspberries, and Earl Grey tea. Individually, these are all ingredients I like. What fault could I find with them all combined into a single beverage? My next stop is morebeer.com for 3 gallon carboys, bulk honey and mead yeast. The remaining ingredients I can easily source from my local corner grocery.

Among firsts, this was also my first experience using morebeer.com as a vendor. I’ve had mixed experiences dealing with other local and online homebrew supply shops and have been looking for other options. MoreBeer looked like it offered everything I was looking for - Bay area local, wide inventory selection, online ordering, cheap shipping, and convenient home delivery. So, I made a bulk order including a variety of grains and hops for my next several batches of beer along with the equipment and ingredients I needed for this mead recipe.

Unfortunately, it turned out that parts of my order were out of stock. This included the 3 gallon carboys which took three weeks from my initial order placement before finally shipping. However, due to my proximity to the fulfillment center, packages arrived promptly on the next day after shipping. There was also a minor issue with a leaking container of Star San in part of the shipment. Luckily, the MoreBeer support staff were helpful and happy to quickly replace the damaged merchandise. Despite the fulfillment and packing issues, I’ll definitely keep this vendor in my pocket for future orders.

Raspberry Melomel

Brewed: 01-13-11

Ingredients

• 4 lemons
• 4 limes
• 1/2 cup Earl Grey tea
• 24 ounces raspberries
• 7.5# honey
• 3 gallons water
• WLP720 Sweet Mead/Wine Yeast

I’ve chosen a blend of three different types of honey as my basis for this mead. I’m using 3 pounds each of bulk raw unpasteurized California and Orange Blossom honeys for the first 6 pounds. The last pound and a half are grade A orange blossom honey from a neighborhood market. Also from the local market come 4 lemons, 4 limes, and four 6 ounce containers of raspberries.

I start things off by boiling up some water in my tea kettle. I’ll steep one Twinings Earl Grey tea bag in a half cup of boiled water while I move on to the other steps. The raspberries get a good rinse under cold water in a strainer in the sink and then are soaked in a bowl with 4 cups of the rest of the hot water from the tea kettle. Next, I juice all of the lemons and limes. Giving each fruit a good roll around on the counter under the palm of the hand before slicing them in half helps to release the juices in the fruit.

The lemons are easily juiced by hand, however the smaller size of the limes proves to be slightly more difficult to attempt to juice by hand. I decide to use the juicer attachment on the food processor for the limes. It would definitely be worthwhile to invest in a hand citrus juicer if I decide to do this again in the future. Finally, I strain the juice to remove any pulp and seeds to end up with just over a half cup of lemon-lime juice.

The last step of preparation is to heat up two gallons of water in my 5 gallon brew kettle. My plan is to mix the honey into the hot water and then transfer it into the carboy. I’ll top the carboy off with whatever additional cold water I need to complete the 3 gallon volume. I don’t heat the water all the way to a boil. It only reaches around 160 degrees. While the water is heating up, I take the time to transfer the raspberries, soaking water, tea, and citrus juice into the sanitized carboy. There is no quick and easy way to get the raspberries into the carboy. The only way to do it is to transfer them a few at a time by hand. Once I’ve mixed all of the honey into the hot water, I use my racking cane to transfer the solution into the carboy.

Final Thoughts

Over the next few hours after transferring the honey and water solution into the carboy, the must is still well over 95°F. With a glass vessel full of warm liquid, I don’t want to attempt any sort of temperature equalizing solution such as a ice bath. I finally decide to give the must until the following morning to equalize with the ambient room temperature before pitching the yeast.

Once the carboy is filled and the yeast is pitched, there isn’t much room left in the carboy. From my research, I’ve determined that mead fermentations don’t produce high krausen and hope that my volume won’t result in any sticky messes on the counter. Over the next couple of days, I find that the CO2 produced by the fermentation pushes berries and liquid up into the neck of the carboy and airlock, necessitating the removal of some amount of liquid. For this I use a bulb turkey baster style thief to remove hydrometer sized samples from the carboy.

After 3-4 samples I eventually remove enough volume to prevent expanding into the neck of the carboy. Once the fermentation eventually begins to settle down a bit, I add the first of the staggered nutrient additions. Normally, beer contains enough nutrients for yeast to complete fermentation. However, mead lacks some of the complex sugars necessary for completing fermentation. The additional nutrient addition provides a blend of chemicals which is necessary to keep the yeast healthy enough to continue feeding and complete its job without overly stressing itself.

The early samples taste something resembling the liquid version of a sweet tart. The gravity reading from the initial sample compared to a sample taken a day later is wildly different, increasing from 1.081 to 1.093. I’m really not sure why the reading changed so drastically. My guess has to do with the juices extracted from the raspberries over this time contributing to the additional gravity points.

The plan is to transfer the liquid into a secondary carboy in about a month or so to continue aging and then to bottle the mead a few months after that. I will then leave it to bottle condition for a few more months before tasting the final product. This should equate to 4-6 months from start to finish. Even this amount of time is fairly young for mead. The longer it continues to age, hopefully the better it will be - if it comes out any good at all.

This year’s brew is the 11-11-11 series. It will be brewed around one year prior to November 11th, 2011 and age for a full year before consuming. The chosen recipe is the 11-11-11 Gun Stock Ale formulated through a social collaboration on the HBT forums. It is in the style of an Old Ale and fermented with a seasonal Wyeast blend of yeast which combines two different yeast strains.

For sourcing the ingredients, I decided to try out Brewmasters Warehouse. This recipe has a few ingredients which many suppliers don’t stock. The Wyeast Private Collection strains are limited edition releases that are fairly hard to find. Brown malt is also difficult to come by. Amber malt is slightly less rare, but it can also be problematic to track down. Luckily, Brewmasters Warehouse carries all of these ingredients. They also have an online recipe crafting tool which allows anyone to build and share their recipes. Simply input a recipe using their available stock of ingredients and anyone can instantly add them to their shopping cart with a few simple mouse clicks. Another HBT forum user was kind enough to post this recipe for anyone who wanted to do their shopping here.

Overall, I can’t say I was disappointed with my experience ordering from this vendor. I chose to have the grains milled for a nominal extra fee and the crush appeared to be quite good. The packaging was also top notch with the grains split into two durable vacuum sealed plastic bags. There were only two downsides to my order. First, while I’m located in northern California, this vendor ships out of Georgia. This is a long journey for any perishable item such as grain or yeast to travel without incident. I’m not terribly concerned about this in the fall when temperatures are moderate, but I would probably think twice about ordering here in the thick of summer or dead of winter. It also took a few days longer than I expected for the order to be fulfilled and shipped compared to some other vendors I’ve dealt with. However, I can chalk this up to the difference between dealing with a small regional company and the efficiency of a massive highly optimized enterprise like Amazon. It’s definitely a pretty minor complaint. If I were still living in the Midwest, they would definitely be in the running for more of my business.

11-11-11 Gun Stock Ale

Batch #9 – All Grain #5

Brewed: 11-26-10

Grain Bill

• 14.5# Marris Otter
• 12oz Brown Malt
• 12oz Amber Malt
• 8oz Molasses

Hop Schedule

• 2.5oz Target AA 8.6% @ 60 minutes
• .5oz Target AA 8.6% @ 5 minutes

Yeast

• Wyeast 9097 Private Collection Old Ale Blend

Vitals

• O.G.: 1.083
• F.G.: 1.020 ?
• A.B.V.: 8.3% ?

I’ve done a Scottish ale which used a first running reduction before and it was one of my favorite brews. The rich caramel and toffee flavors added from the reduced syrup add a great flavor complexity. Any time you’re doing a reduction of this nature it is very important to use a large pot with lots of extra head space. Even boiling down a gallon or two in a five gallon pot can produce a full pot of foam at a rigorous boil.

When it comes to the yeast, this is the first time that I’ve dealt with either the Wyeast brand or multi-strain blends. Unlike the vials of White Labs I’m used to Wyeast liquid yeasts come in what is called a smack-pack, a liquid foil packet which contains a small nutrient pouch suspended inside. A few hours before you are ready to pitch the yeast you smack the pack, breaking the inner pouch and releasing the nutrients into the yeast. As the yeast feed on the nutrients and begin to propagate, the pack will begin to swell. The pack should be fully swollen after 3-6 hours indicating that the yeast are healthy and ready to be pitched.

The Wyeast Private Collection is a special release series of strains which varies from year to year. The 9097 strain was made available for a limited time from October through December of 2010 before being retired. This is a blend of a normal attenuative ale yeast mixed with a small amount of a Brettanomyces strain. The ale strain ferments out as normal while the Brettanomyces feeds on the complex sugars left behind after the primary ale fermentation over a much longer period of time (months as opposed to weeks). The resulting flavors produced from this secondary fermentation process should hopefully add subtle sour and cherry-like notes to the final beer.

Final Thoughts

Before the brew day, I did research on various brewing worksheets and collected a number of references in order to develop my own worksheet. While I haven’t yet come up with something that works perfectly for my needs, I have managed to find a few samples to help me out. I printed a couple of these out for the big day to use as guides along the way to make sure I was recording as much data as I needed throughout the process and not forgetting any important steps along the way. This was quite helpful and I feel I have more data points in my notes for this batch than for the last few. It’s still not perfect, but it’s definitely a move in the right direction.

It will be a while before I know how this one turned out. After a month, the primary ale yeast strain had done its job, producing an 8.3% ABV beer and I transferred into a glass carboy. Over the course of the next several months, the Brettanomyces strain of yeast will slowly do its work and hopefully add to the overall character of the beer. I will also be adding oak cubes at some point during this secondary phase in order to add another layer of flavor complexity to the final beer.

This is my second major brewhouse upgrade. The first upgrade included an MLT and larger brew kettle, allowing me to move into the world of all-grain brewing. With that also came an extra 2-3 hours devoted to each brewing session. Part of this is due to required mash time that can’t be factored out, but I know there are some other time inefficiencies in my process that I can fix. With this in mind, my goal for this set of upgrades is to address some of these issues and to begin automating some of my processes. Hopefully some of these changes will eventually lead to better recipe reproducibility and ultimately a better finished product.

To start with I’ve identified a few weak points in my process that can be easily improved. My primary focus is on the heating and cooling of liquids. Even though I’ve been lucky enough to have access to a nice gas kitchen stove top, there is still a significant lag time involved in heating 5-7 gallons of liquid to a boil. It also takes a long time to passively cool this same volume using only an ice bath.

First, I’ll be adding a propane burner and tank to replace the kitchen stove. A dedicated high-pressure propane jet burner will provide a significant BTU boost and reduce the amount of time needed to boil all of the water and wort volumes I have to work with. Next, adding an active wort chiller will significantly reduce how long I’ll be waiting for the wort to cool before being able to pitch the yeast. That’s also less time that the wort spends in the dangerous temperature zone where it is most susceptible to contamination.

There are three primary wort chiller designs. All three are based on the same heat exchanging principle. Hot wort and cold water are passed across a thin copper metal membrane with the heat being transferred from the hot liquid into the cooler liquid. The first design is an immersion chiller - a large copper coil with cold water circulating through it is immersed directly into the kettle of hot wort. Next, is a design which encases the copper coil inside of another hose. Instead of immersing the chiller into the wort, the wort is pumped through the inner copper coil while cold water is pumped through the outer jacket. The final design is known as a plate chiller. Resembling the size and shape of a common house brick with hose connections on its top surface, this design uses a stack of rectangular brazed copper plates to provide the greatest possible surface area for heat exchange to take place in the most compact amount of space. Common plate counts range from 10-40 plates.

Up to now I’ve been hesitant to move to using an active wort chiller. While I know there are kitchen faucet adapters, I’ve been concerned about the amount of water I’ll be wasting in the cooling process. However, after research I’ve concluded that the amount of extra water I’ll be wasting isn’t significant enough to worry about. I can also collect some of this runoff to use for cleanup. I’ve chosen to use a plate chiller design containing 30 plates. This is the most compact and efficient cooler design and should require the least amount of cooling water to do its job.

Finally, everything will be connected together with one final series of plumbing upgrades. My boil kettle will be fitted with a weldless ball valve assembly and the inner bulkhead will be attached to a mesh steel hop strainer. A magnetic drive high temperature march pump will be used to facilitate transferring hot liquid between various vessels throughout the brewing process. The connections between the kettle, pump, and chiller will be managed using 1/2” high temperature hoses outfitted with polysulfone quick disconnect fittings.

Build & Brew

Before placing an order with Northern Brewer for all of the various fittings I’ve spent a bit of time in photoshop creating diagrams of how each of the parts will fit into the overall system. This greatly simplifies the task of knowing what parts I need to order and helps make sure I don’t inadvertently leave anything out. Once the parts arrive I’m able to refer to these reference images again to facilitate assembling the pieces in the correct sequence.

As with most aspects of the brewing world there is no one right way to do things. Especially in the homebrew segment, the DIY ethos is strongly encouraged and embraced. This can make things challenging if you’re dealing with an unfamiliar subject. When you’re building your brewing system, it’s easy to find lots of opinions and advice on how to do it. Ultimately, you have to decide what works best for your needs. Of course, those needs will change as your brewing evolves and you should be prepared to modify, adapt, and extend your systems to match that growth.

At last, the parts arrive. I tediously drill, tape, assemble and test all of the new components. Everything looks good and the brew day is here. This is a monumental session with a lot of new unknowns. For as seemingly complicated as my setup has gotten, everything goes amazingly smoothly. Heating water and wort progresses in less time once I get the hang of running the new burner. The pump makes moving liquid through the pipeline a breeze. There is only one instance when I momentarily have trouble getting the pump primed and flowing. There are no sparging issues. The chiller is able to cool the wort down in a fifth of the time of my usual ice bath procedure while using only around ten gallons of water.

Shambler Amber Ale

Batch #8 - All Grain #4

Brewed: 11-06-10

Grain Bill

• 8# Pale 2 Row
• 1# Rye
• 1# Flaked Rye
• 8oz Biscuit
• 4oz Roasted Barley

Hop Schedule

• .25oz Columbus 14.8% AA @ 60 minutes
• .33oz Chinook 12.6% AA @ FWH
• .33oz Cascade 6.4% AA @ 0 minutes

Yeast

• WLP001 California Ale

Brew Stats

• Boil: 60 minutes
• Mash: 60 minutes
• Mash Volume: 3.5gal
• Mash Temperature: 154°
• Sparge Volume: 4gal
• Sparge Temperature: 168°

Vitals

• O.G.: 1.040
• F.G.: 1.009
• A.B.V.: 4%
• IBU: 32.7
• Efficiency: 53%

I seem to do a good job of hitting all of my temperatures and volumes. Still, I’ve made a few mistakes along the way. I get distracted and fail to get an accurate measure of the pre or post boil volumes. I don’t remember to get a pre-boil gravity reading. I forget to add whirlfloc as a fining agent near the end of the boil to clarify the wort.

When I finally measure the original gravity at the end of the session, I discover that I’ve come in significantly below my target gravity. Since I missed measuring a couple of key data points in the process, it’s a bit of a guess as to what exactly went wrong. Once clue came when I went to clean the spent grain out of my mash tun. I noticed many whole uncrushed grain kernels left behind. My suspicion is that my LHBS has done a terrible job of milling my grains. With so many new variables added this time and a few missing data points, I might not ever know for sure. Just to be sure, I’ll make sure to do the milling myself next time.

Another deficiency that has become apparent is the amount of steps I’m continually forgetting in the process. To address this, I’m planning on creating a worksheet to use for future brews. This worksheet will include all of the recipe ingredients, quantities, temperatures, times and steps for the brew along with spots which can be used to record all of the data points throughout the session. Hopefully this will give me a solid guide so I won’t forget any important measurements or steps.

Final Thoughts

Primary fermentation only takes about three days to finish off. Given my disappointment with efficiency, I don’t have a lot of confidence with this brew and decide to skip secondary and go directly to keg after only 6 days. In that period of time, the gravity has gone from around 1.040 to 1.010. The final calculation is not quite 4% ABV from around 53% efficiency. Finally, I’ve decided to force carbonate the keg at 20 PSI for 24 hours before dropping the PSI down to a more reasonable serving pressure around 12 PSI.

I learned a lot of new things here. My equipment upgrades have altered my brewing procedures in significant ways. Despite the issues, I’ve also turned out a drinkable brew from kettle to glass in around seven days. This is record time compared to a previous average time probably closer to a month or more. Even with mistakes I’ve ended up with something wholly drinkable. As it continues to age, the rye character comes out even further. While I might not make this exact recipe again, I’ll definitely look for a way to work rye into a future recipe.

Grain Bill

• 15# Pale 2 Row
• .5# Aromatic
• .5# Biscuit
• .5# Caramunich
• .5# Special B

Hop Schedule

• 1oz Chinook 11% AA @ 60 minutes
• 1oz Chinook 11% AA @ 45 minutes
• 1oz Chinook 11% AA @ 2 minutes
• 5/8oz Chinook 11% AA @ 2 weeks

Yeast

• WLP001

Misc

• 3.5oz. American Oak Cubes @ 1 week

Brew Stats

• Boil: 90 minutes
• Mash: 60 minutes
• Strike Temperature: 162°
• Mash Temperature:154°
• Sparge Temperature: 168°

Vitals

• O.G.: 1.062
• F.G.: 1.011
• A.B.V.: 6.6%
• Efficiency: 56%

This begins as a clone of Oaked Arrogant Bastard by Stone Brewing Company. The brewers at Stone always seem to be challenging traditional style categorizations and their most popular brews tend not to fall precisely into any single category. That seems to be one of the core tenets of the craft brewing world - to continuously defy the standards and push beyond the existing boundaries of the beer world. The closest match in style for this one is an Imperial IPA. It’s a big hoppy beer featuring just a single hop variety as the central star.

In my decision-making process I’m taking into consideration that I have two empty kegs to fill. My first inclination is to create two individual grain bills and proceed with two consecutive brewing sessions. Worried about this degree of ambition and without additional time, space, and equipment I begin to consider other options. Having picked such a big brew to start with, I settle on using a parti-gyle technique in order to produce two beers from a single grain bill. I will brew the first batch using the base Arrogant Bastard recipe and then collect the wort from the additional runnings of same grain bed to create a second smaller beer. While the first batch is targeted as a clone, the second will be much more experimental. I’m using all of my Chinook hops for the main batch. The second will use whatever I have leftover in the freezer - probably a mix of Centennial, Cascade, and Pacific Gem.

Knowing that I’ll be brewing a double batch, I’ll need to create a yeast starter so that I’ll have enough viable yeast to pitch into both batches. The mix for a starter generally follows a ratio of one pound of DME to one gallon of water (or alternatively, one cup per liter). Smaller quantities can easily be scaled based on this ratio. In this case, I’ve used 1/3# (5.3oz) of DME mixed with 2pt and 2/3 cups water to start out with. I’ve made up this tiny batch of wort and pitched the yeast into it the day before my brew day so that it has time to build up. Ideally I might have done this a few days earlier and built up the yeast with a larger starter, but hopefully this small head start will suffice.

Kitchen Stove-top all grain brewing presents a unique set of challenges. With a limited amount of space and BTU output you are limited in the amount of liquid which can be effectively heated at once. Sometimes it means juggling multiple kettles on multiple burners while trying to maintain temperatures across them all. With my limited amount of space and BTU’s, my only option is to boil the batches sequentially rather than simultaneously. By the time I’ve finished the boil of the first batch, it’s late into the evening and I just don’t have the energy at this late hour to start a second boil. I’ve already collected the runnings for the second batch and they’ve been sitting in a covered kettle on the side the whole time. So I make the decision to keep the kettle full of wort covered up on the stove and hope it won’t spoil overnight. I’ll start the second boil first thing the next morning.

The larger batch goes into the ale pail as per usual while the smaller second batch goes into the glass carboy. Since the plan is to age the primary batch with the oak cubes in secondary and I don’t have any other fermenting vessels, I’ve decided to transfer the smaller batch directly from primary to keg to free up my carboy.

Tasting Notes & Final Thoughts

This turned out to be a vaguely successful clone. My all-grain efficiency is still very low - seemingly around 55% for this brew. The resulting beer is not as strong as the original yet it ends up being highly drinkable and reminiscent of one of the first west coast beers I came to know and love after first moving to San Francisco. The oak cubes spent only a few weeks in secondary so they ended up not imparting much oak flavor. For a stronger oak character I could have either used oak chips for the short period or increased the secondary aging time. Despite the flaws, this is one I’m overall very pleased with.

The secondary small batch is another story entirely. Having only a short primary before hitting the keg, the small batch is ready to sample much sooner than the primary batch. It’s pretty much undrinkable. It has no body, is watery, and has strong pungent grassy flavors. Over the course of a couple weeks, each sample remains as awful as the last. Something has apparently gone terribly wrong with this one. Did it need a secondary stage? Was there a problem with the old frozen hops I used? Did the overnight pre-boil delay affect the flavor? Did I try to push the grain bed too far and extract undesirable compounds? Does it just need a longer time to age? I’ll probably never know for sure, but my guess is a combination of low extract efficiency and overuse of mixed hops past their prime are the primary contributors to the flaws. I seriously doubt any amount of aging is going to fix this one. It’ll stay in the keg until I need it for something else and then it will probably get poured down the drain. That’s just how these experiments go sometimes. They can’t all be winners, but you can always try - so goes the craft brewing ethos.

My brew day actually took place on the next day. Due to lack of prior planning and time constraints, I didn’t source the recipe ingredients until the actual Big Brew event day. There were three recipes available to choose from for this year’s event, each available in both extract and all grain variants. The options were an American wheat, a Scottish 80 Shilling, and a Rocktoberfest. I had just kegged a Scottish ale in the last week - my Easter weekend brewed batch. The Rocktoberfest was a Lager requiring controlled low temperature fermentation which I am not yet equipped for. This left only the recipe simply titled American Craft Beer Wheat All Grain. I’ve named my interpretation of this recipe ‘El Jefe’.

Grain Bill

• 4.65# 2 Row Pale Malt
• 3.35# Wheat Malt
• .2# Munich Malt

Hop Schedule

• .25oz Chinook Pellet Hops - 13% AAU @ FWH (First Wort Hop)

• White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen Yeast

Steps

• Mash @145° (Strike @ 155°)
• Rest @60 minutes
• Mash Out @169°
• Rest @15 minutes
• Sparge @173°
• Boil @70 minutes
• Primary @ 7 days
• Secondary @ 7 days

Profile

• O.G. 1.045
• F.G. 1.008
• ABV 4.82%
• IBU 13.8

I prepared the yeast starter on the day before the brew day. To do this I first boiled 600 mL of water with 3oz. of DME for 10 minutes and then cooled it down to a pitching temperature below 80°F. Then I pitched the yeast vial in my 2L Erlenmeyer flask with the starter wort and fitted it with a #10 drilled stopper and airlock. About 28 hours had elapsed by the time I had completed my brewing session and was ready to pitch the the starter. The generally recommended amount of time for propagating a starter is 24-72 hours. Of course it depends on the particular strain and size of the starter. Another important factor for creating a successful starter - and one which can speed up the process - is proper aeration of the wort. This is best accomplished using a stir plate. Not having a stir plate, I simply shook up the mixture every few hours.

After the first all grain disaster where the manifold separated from the spigot, some repairs needed to be made. Securing the manifold with additional zip ties and taking more care when stirring the mash prevented the same problem from recurring. While the manifold stayed in place this time, wort flow during the sparge was still not moving at a rate I was happy with. Still, I was able to slowly collect the necessary pre-boil wort volume.

It wasn’t until a day into fermentation when disaster reared its ugly head. Strong fermentation managed to clog the airlock. Pressure continued to build inside the bucket during the day while I was off at work. The seal in the lid eventually gave way to relieve some of this build up. The real disaster of an exploding bucket of beer was narrowly avoided. I was instead greeted with a sticky mess of overflow where the seals had given to the pressure. The primary fermentation phase was finished off with a proper blow off tube.

Admittedly, wheat styles are not my favorite to begin with. When I bring home a bomber or six pack from the store, I hardly ever bring home a wheat variety. Even so, I found this batch to be refreshing and easily drinkable. It was a great introduction to the style and as usual I learned a lot throughout the brew process. Even so, I probably won’t make this particular recipe again. Besides, there are plenty of other wheat variants I still haven’t touched.

These write ups after each session help me see weak areas in my process that need improvement. With each subsequent session, I’m able to slowly address some of those issues. Hopefully, this leads to more consistent results and ultimately better beer. This time around, one area I tackled was boil kettle volume measurement. I purchased a cheap metal yard stick at the hardware store. I calibrated it to my brew kettle by recording the measurements of known quantity increments of water. I now have a simple rudimentary dipstick that can be used for measuring the pre and post boil wort volumes. Having these data points available can help with the reproducibility of the process along with calculating things like actual kettle boil off rates and overall brewhouse efficiency for my particular equipment configuration.

Grain Bill

• 9# 2 Row (UK)
• 1# Aromatic
• 8oz Crystal 60L
• 4oz Roasted Barley
• 4oz Special B

Steps

• Strike @ 165°
• Mash @ 156° 60 minutes
• Sparge @ 170°
• Boil @ 90 minutes

Hop Schedule

• 0.25oz Pacific Gem 15.3% AA @ 90 minutes
• 0.25oz Pacific Gem 15.3% AA @ 20 minutes
• 0.5oz Goldings East Kent 5.3% AA @ 20 minutes

The transition from the world of extracts and partial mashes into the world of all grain brewing requires a slightly expanded set of equipment from what I already have. The old 20 quart kettle which worked for concentrated malt extract boils isn’t big enough to support a full 5 gallon boil. When working with concentrated malt extracts you can use a smaller kettle to pre-boil part of the total volume of water separately and combine it with a smaller volume of concentrated higher gravity wort in order to produce the total volume. The all grain brewing process requires the full volume of water to be mashed with grains in order to get the equivalent original gravity - and hence a larger kettle to support that extra liquid. The smaller kettle can still come in handy for tasks such as heating extra sparge water, but my primary boil kettle will be replaced with a 7.5 gallon stainless steel kettle.

For new equipment, I need a MLT (Mash Lauter Tun). This is the vessel in which crushed grains are steeped (mashed) with hot water to produce the sweet wort. With just a few simple modifications, any cooler of sufficient size can be turned into a MLT. I’ve chosen a round 10 gallon Igloo water cooler with a few additional modifications for this job. This is the same style of big orange water cooler which is often seen strapped to the back of construction crew trucks.

The primary concern when considering cooler designs is how the wort will be drained from the container. The first step usually involves replacing the standard spigot with a brass/stainless steel bulkhead assembly and ball shutoff valve for easy on/off liquid flow control. These parts are easily picked up from your hardware store’s plumbing department. Some sort of manifold or false bottom is also necessary in order to promote efficient draining of the wort from the grain bed. For my purposes, I’ve chosen a simple DIY design based on a braided stainless steel hose attached to the end of my modified inner bulkhead fitting. Parts assembled, I have everything I need to begin my first all grain brew.

One of the key characteristics which define Scottish ales are the caramelized and burnt toffee notes. In this recipe, these flavors are produced by boiling down and reducing a small amount of the first runnings before combining them with the remainder of the wort. The first quart or two of the wort drained from the MLT will be reserved and boiled separately until it is reduced in volume by around half before being combined with the remainder of the wort in the boil kettle.

This time out, I sourced everything from a different LHBS than usual. Oak Barrel Winecraft in Berkeley is well stocked with friendly, helpful staff. Their prices are occasionally on the high side, but if you happen to live in the East Bay area, they are definitely worth checking out. Parking is easy and the store is spacious and well organized.

My procedure is begun by boiling up an initial gallon of water which I then pour into the MLT. I then seal up the cooler and give it a good shake. I’ll leave this alone while I’m heating up the strike water for my mash. When it’s time to start the mash, I’ll dump the water from the cooler and have a sanitized, preheated MLT ready to go. My target mash temperature is 156°. Given the amount of grain, the volume of mash water that will be added and the equipment I am using, I need to heat my initial strike water temperature to 165°. Once all of the water has been added, it should cool down to the target mash temperature. It will then rest for 60 minutes before sparging with 170° water. Sparging is simply the process of rinsing the mashed grains with additional hot water and collecting the resultant sweet wort for boiling. The higher temperature of the sparge water is meant to stop enzymatic activity in the grains and increase the flow of liquid through the grain bed.

This being my first foray with a number of new styles, techniques, equipment, and methods something is bound to go wrong. Almost immediately when I begin sparging, I end up with a stuck sparge. Even though the valve is opened all the way, no liquid flows out of the tun. Running a sanitized wooden skewer through the bulkhead fitting I am able to clear the blockage and begin slowly draining the wort. After further inspection of the spent grains later on, I discover that the braided hose has come loose from the inner bulkhead fitting. Inadequate fasteners or excessive stirring of the mash are probably to blame.

The first S.G. reading is 1.069. The second reading is 1.061. After 9 days in primary, I rack the beer into the secondary glass carboy. At the time of racking to secondary, the S.G. reading is 1.014. After 12 more days in the secondary the F.G. ends up at 1.012. At this point I transfer the beer into a keg and force carbonate it at 12 PSI at 48°. It should be properly carbonated and ready to drink within another week.

So, after everything is this a delicious quaffable brew? Every beer I’ve made has been a good beer which I’ve enjoyed drinking. Unfortunately, not every brew is one I’ve felt is one that I would want to consider making more than once or adding to a regular rotation list. That’s just part of the adventure of exploring new style territory. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be my favorite, I still learn a little more about how different ingredients and preparations come together and affect the flavor of the final beer. As it turns out, this is the second brew I’ve done which I would consider on the esteemed regular rotation list. (The Bell’s Two Hearted Ale clone was the first to place on this list.) Needless to say - and in spite of the problems along the way - I’m extremely pleased with this brew and look forward to having a chance to make the next batch.

This particular recipe comes from the replicator column in the December 2009 issue of Brew Your Own magazine. It’s a clone of Great Lakes Brewing Co’s Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. This is a small regional brewer located in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve never actually had the original and have never seen it distributed on the west coast or even anywhere west of the Mississippi. I chose this recipe based only on my recent interest in the porter style. I can only judge the results against my experience with other porters and not whether it stacks up as a successful clone.

Original Recipe

• 6.6# Coopers Light Unhopped Extract
• 1.1# Light DME
• 12oz Crystal 60L
• 8oz Chocolate Malt
• 8oz Roasted Barley
• 1oz Northern Brewer 9% AAU
• .5oz Fuggle 4.75% AAU
• .5oz Cascade 5.75% AAU
• WLP013 / Wyeast 1028
• Yeast Nutrient

Profile

• OG 1.060
• FG 1.015
• IBU 37
• ABV 5.8%
• SRM 34

Notes

I’ve quickly found out that my LHBS introduces yet another unforeseen factor into the mix as well. They’re a very small shop with limited space for warehousing the vast array of ingredients that recipes can call for. As a result, ingredient substitutions are sometimes necessary. In this case, I’ve been forced to substitute Safale 04 as the yeast and Styrian Goldings in place of the Fuggle. Additionally - though probably less notable - I used a generic pale LME rather than the Coopers branded light extract. I’m not entirely sure about the exact name or brand sold at my particular shop. They simply measure requested quantities out into 1 gallon buckets from a much larger unmarked 55 gallon barrel.

Stats

• Brew Date: 11-15-09
• Actual O.G. 1.060
• Actual F.G. 1.020
• Actual ABV: 5.3%
• Actual IBU: 31

Schedule

• Steep grains in 1.5 gal water @ 155° 30 minutes
• Northern Brewer @ 60 minutes
• Fuggle @ 30 minutes
• DME @ 15 minutes*
• Yeast Nutrient @ 15 minutes
• Cascade @ 0 minutes
• Primary: 3 days
• Secondary: 11 days

*One final deviation I’ve made to my version is to use late extract addition and with the DME. This leads to a slightly higher IBU due to greater hop utilization. It could also potentially reduce the effects of extract caramelization which include a higher SRM (darker color) and off tastes. In the case of a dark beer such as a porter, these aren’t significant issues anyway.

Brew Day

With two batches now under my belt, I’m beginning to feel a bit of confidence in the basic processes. There are three simple tenets to the mise en place of the brew session - sanitizing, cooking water, and measuring hops. Anything that touches the wort after the boil must be properly sanitized. Since this is a partial boil extract recipe, additional top off water must be first boiled and set aside to cool. More water must be heated both for steeping and rinsing grains. Finally, the hops additions need to be measured out for adding during the boil as well.

Everything seems to be going smoothly. Then, disaster strikes. Knowing the risk of burning undissolved extracts, I’ve made sure to turn off the stove’s burner while the malt extract is poured and mixed into the kettle. Regardless, I’ve still somehow managed to burn it. Either my boil is too vigorous or the extract just isn’t fully dissolved before turning the burners back on. Large black flecks begin to circulate in the boil. I’m not sure exactly what has gone wrong, but what resemble large flakes of peeling paint are threatening to ruin my brew. I try to reduce the damage by lowering the heat while still maintaining a boil and using the brew spoon to attempt to collect and fish out these burnt extract confetti bits throughout the hour long boil. My only hope is that anything I can’t manage to get out of the wort is going to settle out into the trub during fermentation. It’s a gamble, but the only choice I have given my limited experience and resources.

Final Notes

Had this been another style, the problems during the brewing session could have been much more devastating. Luckily, any off or burnt flavors or darker color produced from the scorched extract are able to blend well with the porter style. Additionally, the material has mostly settled into the trub and been removed from the final bottled product. Having prepared a yeast starter instead of simply relying on un-rehydrated dry yeast might have also increased attenuation and helped to get closer to the expected final gravity.

Despite these shortcomings, after priming and bottle conditioning it still ends up being great beer. It might not be anything resembling a proper clone of its namesake, but I don’t much care. Successful recipe cloning and reproduction may certainly be a display of technical brewing expertise. I’ve taken a slightly different path here. Using one interpretation of an existing successful commercial recipe I’m continuing to follow the ethos of the craft and homebrew worlds and created something that is my own.

Bell’s Two Hearted Ale is an IPA brewed by Bell’s out of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Unfortunately, it isn’t available on the west coast. My first introduction to it was through a visit to the Patton Alley Pub during my vacation back home in Springfield, Missouri. It’s a straightforward dry-hopped IPA brewed with all Centennial hops. Having enjoyed my sampling and not having any access to it back home, I decided to attempt a clone. After a quick bit of Google research, I had a base extract recipe and shopping list.

Ingredients Shortlist

• 6# Extra Light DME
• 12oz. Wheat DME
• 8oz. Aromatic Malt
• 8oz. Crystal 10L Malt
• 3.5oz. Centennial 10% AAU
• WLP001 Ale Yeast
• Whirlfloc Tablet

Hop Schedule

• 1.5oz. @ 60 minutes
• 0.5oz. @ 15 minutes
• 1.0oz. @ 5 minutes
• 0.5oz. Dry Hop @ 6 days in secondary for 7 days

The clerk at my LHBS recommended sticking with a cheaper single liquid extract instead of two different more expensive dry malt extracts. Taking his advice, I replaced the six pounds and twelve ounces of dry extract with eight pounds of pale liquid malt extract. According to BeerSmith’s calculations, this seems to produce a slightly darker, lower A.B.V, and more bitter beer. The difference does not seem to be significant, though. There is a bigger difference in stats due to using the late extract addition method. Less extract at the beginning of the boil means increased hops utilization and a higher final IBU.

Vital Stats

• Target OG w/ LME : 1.063
• Target OG w/ DME: 1.064
• Target FG: 1.014
• IBU w/ LME: 76.7
• IBU w/ LME w/o LEA: 50.9
• IBU w/ DME: 72.8
• SRM w/ LME: 10.2
• SRM w/ DME: 6.4
• Expected ABV w/ LME: 6.35%
• Expected ABV w/ DME: 6.51%
• Actual Measured Session OG: 1.060

Session Recipe Summary

• 6 quarts water @ 158 degrees
• 4 quarts water boiled, cooled and set aside in primary
• 8oz. Aromatic Malt +
• 8oz. Crystal 10L Malt @ 155 degrees for 30 minutes
• 12 quarts water @ boil
• 2# Pale LME @ 60 minutes
• 1.5oz. Centennial Pellet Hops 9% AAU @ 60 minutes
• 6# Pale LME @ 15 minutes
• 1 Whirlfloc tablet @ 15 minutes
• 0.5oz. Centennial Pellet Hops 9% AAU @ 15 minutes
• 1.0oz. Centennial Pellet Hops 9% AAU @ 5 minutes
• 1 WLP001 Ale yeast
• 0.5oz. Centennial Pellet Hops 9% AAU @ Dry Hop 7 days in Secondary

The brewing session went along fairly smoothly and without any major hiccups. The process started with boiling and then cooling an extra gallon of water that would complete the partial boil when mixed with the wort in the primary fermenter. At the same time another gallon and a half of water was heated up to 158 degrees. Once heated, the pound of milled malt grains, combined in a grain bag was steeped for thirty minutes. This rest period presented a good opportunity to sanitize all of the remaining equipment and get the various ingredients measured out in the appropriate timed addition quantities.

The session picked back up with the main boiling period. I’d decided to continue to use late extract addition with a small amount of extract added at the start and the bulk of the remainder near the end. So there were two extract additions and three hop additions along with the clarifier tablet before flameout. The kettle then went into the ice water bath in the sink to cool down below 80 degrees. Once cool, it was mixed with the remaining water in the primary fermenter and the yeast pitched. The last step was sealing it all up with the lid, stopper, and sanitized airlock.

Fast forward twelve hours later to the next morning and there was still virtually no airlock activity. Was the wort hotter than I thought? Had I not aerated it enough? Would I need to go back to the store for more yeast and repitch? I gave it a bit more time and worrying about and by mid-afternoon, the little brewing droid finally began to show signs of life with it’s dutiful bloops and gargles. Within around 36 hours after pitching, yeast activity had kicked into high gear, pushing foam and solid material up into the airlock. Not wanting to switch my worrying over to a clogged airlock and a huge mess, I swapped it out with a sanitized blow off tube and run off bucket.

There are still a few areas in my process that need improvement. I forgot to take a hydrometer reading until almost an hour after I pitched the yeast. This should have been done right before pitching. Also, I might have been able to aerate the wort a bit more by pouring the first batch of water in the primary fermenter a bit more. I don’t think I’m getting very good conversion of my steeped grains. The slightly lower than expected O.G. reading seems to suggest this. I didn’t cover the kettle during the steep so I probably lost a lot more temperature over the course of the half hour than I should have. I also should have rinsed the grains with hot water at the end in order to extract more wort goodness from them.

One of the things I learned coming from the Porter session was how to better handle adding the malt extract. During that boil, the extract hit the bottom of the kettle and scorched and burned. This time, during each extract addition I turned off the heat and then mixed a bit of the hot liquid into the extract before adding it into the kettle. (You could think of this sort of like tempering an egg mixture when making a custard or some egg based sauce.) When working with liquid extract, this loosens it up and makes it easier to mix in. Plus, you can get all of it in the kettle without leaving a thick layer stuck in your measuring container.

All in all, it was a positive session. I’m continuing to learn new stuff every time and still have fun in the process. I’m looking forward to the dry hopping procedure after I rack to secondary next - and of course to tasting the final product in the end. This will also be the first batch that I keg. That’s the subject of another upcoming post…

Addendum

S.G. at the time of racking to secondary was at 1.015 for an A.B.V. of 5.74%. Everything looked good and I tossed the half ounce of pellet hops directly into carboy right before sealing it up with the airlock assembly. Airlock activity is down to one or two bloop per minute now.

• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup crumbled Bleu cheese
• 2 tbsp finely grated red onion

• 1 lb chicken wings
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper

• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp hot sauce
• 1 tbsp chipotle chili in adobo, pureed or finely chopped
• 2 tsp chili paste
• 1 tbsp mustard
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper

First, prepare the dipping sauce by combining the bleu cheese, yogurt and onion. The onion will probably resemble closer to a puree when grated. Refrigerate the dip so the flavors can combine while the wings are prepared.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Prepare the wings first by trimming the tips at the last joint with a knife or kitchen shears. These tips are mostly skin and bone without any real meat good for eating directly. They can still be stored in the freezer for making broth to use in other dishes. The second preparation step is to separate the wing at the first joint into two pieces. This will create an individual drumette from each wing, making each an ideal hand-sized snack.

Combine the flour, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge each piece of chicken in this mixture and place on a baking tray. Bake for 35 minutes, turning the chicken once partway through.

Prepare the glaze by combining the red wine vinegar, hot sauce, and chipotle chili with adobo sauce in a small sauce pan and bringing to a simmer. Whisk in the honey, sugar, butter, mustard, chili paste, salt, and pepper.

Toss the wings in the glaze and then bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, applying additional glaze part way through.

Serve wings with dipping sauce and mixed vegetables (celery, carrot sticks, jicama).

There are a number of variations that can be done. Bottled bleu cheese dressing or even ranch dressing can be substituted as a dipping sauce in a pinch (Although the yogurt sauce is highly recommended). The glaze is also very flexible in its composition and can be based on ingredients on hand. The mustard can be plain yellow, dijon or honey variety. Sriracha could be substituted for the chili paste. Molasses could be used instead of brown sugar or honey. Different kinds of hot sauce and chili powders could also be used to alter the flavor and spiciness of the glaze also.

The final product can be tailored to individual tastes and based on how hot you like your wings. The core recipe is meant to be a guide to creating something moderately spicy with tangy and sweet notes. Customize and alter to suit your tastes and spice comfort zone and call them your own.

After much contemplation and searching on various home brew recipe sites, I eventually settled on a Belgian golden strong ale known as “Blonde Bombshell.” Weighing in at around 8.3% ABV, it’s a surprisingly straightforward ingredient list that leads to a big favorful Belgian style beer.

• 18B. Strong Belgian Ale, Tripel
• OG 1.074
• FG 1.012
• IBU 26
• ABV 8%
• SRM 4

• 1 vial WLP550 White Labs Belgian Ale Yeast
• 7# Light DME - 4# @ pre-boil + 3# @ 20 minutes
• 1# Candi Sugar - @ 15 minutes
• 1# Carafoam - steep 30 minutes in 1 gallon water @ 150° for 30 minutes
• 1oz Hallertau 4.2% AAU - @ 60 minutes
• 1oz Styrian Goldings 4.2% AAU - @ 30 minutes
• 0.5oz Styrian Goldings - @ 15 minutes
• 1 tsp Irish Moss - @ 15 minutes
• 0.5oz Styrian Goldings - @ 0 minutes

An average yeast packet contains around 100 billion active cells. Higher gravity beers such as this require about double that amount to hit the target gravity in a 5 gallon batch. Rather than buying two packets to reach the necessary number of cells, a simple starter can be used to increase the cell count of a single packet. The starter is essentially a mini-batch of low gravity beer that the yeast is pitched into in order for it to feed and multiply to the required volume. Before preparing the starter, the yeast should be removed from the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature for a few hours. The closer to equilibrium temperature the yeast is to the wort it is being pitched into, the less initial shock it will undergo and the better chance it will have of doing its job.

I began with preparing a yeast starter the evening before the brewing session. The wort was prepared by mixing 1 cup of the DME into 2 pints of water and boiling it for 15 minutes to sterilize it. The boil pot was then quickly cooled in an ice bath for about 10 minutes before transferring the liquid to another container and pitching the yeast. The container, a funnel, large stopper, and airlock were all sanitized beforehand. A stopper and airlock are then placed into the container to seal it. The airlock should begin bubbling as a sign that the yeast is doing its job. The cell count should now double within the next 12 to 24 hours.

A large erlenmeyer flask is often recommended because it can be used directly on the stove without requiring a separate boiling pot. However, Any food grade plastic or glass container can be used to hold the starter. A bottle or jug into which a standard stopper fits works the best. I used a plastic 1/2 gallon orange juice jug. The same stopper which fits in a glass carboy fits tightly in the opening.

It is also important that the yeast gets oxygen in order to improve its efficiency. This can be accomplished most effectively by using a stir plate. Though not as productive, the container can also be shaken every few hours to aerate the wort.

When I purchased the hops at my LHBS, the AAU’s were slightly different from the recipe. The Hallertau was only 3.6% and the Styrian Goldings were just 4%. As a result, I adjusted the recipe slightly and included an extra ounce of Hallertau in the bill. Half of it went in with the original scheduled hop addition and the remainder was added at flame out.

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At this point, the ingredients are sorted out and I’m finally ready to begin the brew. Once everything is organized, it’s actually a pretty simple process. Boil, steep, boil, add ingredients, sterilize items, stir, etc. From the notes taken in my log book during the session, this was my procedure:

1. boil 1 gallon water
2. heat 2 gallon water to 150 °
3. place carapils in grain bag
4. steep grains in 2 gallons of water for 30 minutes
5. in the meantime, sterilize bucket, stopper, airlock
6. discard grains
7. add 2 gallons of ‘grain tea’ + 3qt cold water to kettle + 3# DME
8. heat to boil
9. start 60 minute boil timer
10. @60 minutes add 1oz hallertau + 0.5oz hallertau
11. @30 minutes add 1oz styrian goldings
12. @20 minutes kill heat
13. mix in remaining DME
14. return to boil / restart timer
15. @15 minutes add 1# candi sugar
16. @15 minutes add 0.5oz styrian goldings
17. @15 minutes add whirlfloc tab
18. in the meantime, prepare an ice bath in the sink
19. @0 minutes (flame out) add 0.5oz styrian goldings & 0.5oz hallertau
20. submerse kettle in ice bath and quickly cool wort temperature below 80°
21. pour into primary fermenter with 1 gallon water
22. take hydrometer sample - OG 1.074
23. pitch yeast starter
24. seal fermenter with lid, stopper, and airlock

Within a few hours, the airlock began fervently bubbling, indicating that the yeast were healthily doing their job. It also quickly became clear that the airlock need to be replaced by a blowoff tube. For the next few days while the fermentation remained fairly violent, a clear plastic tube leading to a bucket of clean water replaced the airlock. After things settled, a fresh airlock was put back in place.

One full week after the initial brew session, I pulled a sample for a gravity reading and moved the primary fermenting bucket to the counter in preparation for transferring the beer to the secondary carboy for additional aging. Doing the move ahead of time allows any sediment stirred up by the movement to settle back down before the actual transfer. The gravity reading at this time comes in at 1.014 - indicating that the yeast has nearly reached its full attenuation. It is only a couple of points off from the target FG for the recipe. Hopefully, it will drop the final point or two over the course of the secondary conditioning period.

Several days after moving the primary fermenter, it’s finally time to transfer to the secondary carboy. This is a pretty quick and simple process that involves nothing more than attaching a tube to the spigot on the primary bucket and then opening it up to drain. Another gravity reading shows that the gravity is still at 1.014.

It’s finally time to bottle. The easiest way to bottle is to use a short piece of rubber tubing to connect the bottling wand to the end of the spigot of the primary fermenter. In this way, the primary fermenter also doubles as a bottling bucket. All that needs to be done then is to prepare the priming sugar solution and put it in the bucket. Next, start the auto siphon and gently transfer the beer from the secondary carboy into the bucket, being careful not to splash or disturb things to introduce any additional oxygen into the beer.

With a collection of empty sanitized bottles and new caps prepared, the bottles can be quickly filled and then sealed. Filling the bottles is simply a matter of raising each bottle up onto the wand and then removing it once the bottle is full. Each bottle can be filled all the way to the top. When the wand is removed, it will leave the correct amount of head space in the bottle. Finally, cap, label, and store the bottles for a few weeks of bottle conditioning.

Unfortunately, there is no FG reading as I’ve closed a drawer on my hydrometer, making a mess of shattered glass on the floor. I can only guess it has held within a point of the last reading a month ago.

The final yield count of batch #2:

• 20 bombers
• 5 12oz stubby’s
• 1 1pt 0.9oz

Even as I opened with the fact that I was a first time brewer, everyone in the shop was eager to provide helpful advice. In fact, The homebrew community on the whole seems to be very open and welcoming of newbies just starting out on their first brew. Local shop owner ‘Griz’ discussed various tips and helped me with my first recipe. After a bit of conversation about what kind of beer I liked and wanted to make, Griz began scrawling a list of ingredients out on one of the shop’s special premade recipe template sheets. His shop hands then fetched the various ingredients and pieces of kit as he called them out.

Also highly recommended by the shop (and included with the price of the kit) was a free introductory class taught every Monday evening packed with useful information about proper sanitization, boiling, and bottling techniques. Among the helpful advice given during my short visit to the shop was to ignore all of the helpful advice on the internet - this information fell into either of the categories of boulderdash or that which made things much more complex than they needed to be. The parting tip was to just not turn it into an anal retentive process and just enjoy it. And if I happened to screw anything up, by all means call them up ASAP for help.

Once back home with everything from my trip unloaded in the kitchen it was time to organize and start the brewing process. With my various bits of kit and ingredients sorted out, I began poring over the included instructions. While I’m sure they aren’t the worst out there, with several sections scribbled out and margin annotations in my printed photocopied version, I’ve definitely seen better. Luckily, even with the many subtleties and nuances available to complicate things, the basic brewing process is pretty straightforward.

The procedure consists mainly of cleaning and sanitization followed by various cycles of boiling water and adding things to it. Without having a large enough brewing kettle to accommodate a full 5 gallon batch, either a partial boil or 2 step process must be used instead. The simplest method is the partial boil where a double strength wort is made with half of the volume of liquid and then added to the remaining half of water at the end. After the first half of water is has been boiled, cooled, and added to the sanitized primary fermenting bucket, it’s finally time to get down to making the wort.

The recipe I used was for a simple I.P.A. composed of:

• 2# Munich Malt
• 1/2# Aromatic Malt
• 1/2# Oats
• 6# Liquid Malt Extract
• 1oz. Galena Hops
• 1oz. Cascade Hops
• Safale US-05 Dry Ale Yeast
• 1 whirlfloc tab

Some of the exact ingredients are just a guess. I’m not even sure of the actual beer name. Griz’s handwriting is almost impossible to read most of the time. Fortunately, the recipe sheet is laid out well enough to get the gist of which ingredients go where. It just might be difficult to get the correct ingredients to ever repeat the recipe exactly elsewhere.

First, the specialty grains are placed in a mesh grain bag and steeped in 155° water for 45 minutes before being removed from the wort and discarded in the compost bin. Next, the liquid is brought to a full boil with the addition of the Liquid Malt Extract. The boil period lasts a full 60 minutes with this schedule of additions:

• 1 oz. Galena Hops @ 60 minutes (beginning of boil)
• 1/2 oz. Cascade Hops @ 30 minutes (halfway through)
• 1 tab whirlfloc @ 30 minutes
• 1/2 oz. Cascade Hops @ 10 minutes (almost done)

The boiled wort is then subjected to an ice & water bath in the sink to quickly cool it down below 90°. Once it has cooled, it is pitched in the primary fermenter with the yeast. While the instructions indicate that the yeast be added directly to the wort, I activated the yeast in a bit of warm water early on in my process. Since the kit only included a single yeast packet, I wanted to make sure I had good yeast before I became invested in the wort production. Finally, after everything is mixed up, a hydrometer sample is taken and the bucket is sealed up with the lid, stopper, and airlock.

Within about 6 hours, the airlock has started to gurgle with a frequency of every 5-10 seconds, indicating that fermentation is well underway. While the recipe calls for an original specific gravity of 1.062, I landed at 1.050. I’m not sure what I did in the process to affect this, but I suspect it may have been during the grain steeping step. It should ready to rack the brew into the secondary fermenter in about a week. In another two weeks, it should be ready to bottle with another 2-3 weeks of bottle conditioning before it’s finally time to find out if I’ve successfully homebrewed my first batch of beer.

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