Q&A: Homebrewing

[cdh]

Wanted to make a suggestion for you on your cooling time issues- A wort chiller is really easy to make and does a very good job of taking heat away.

Just go to your local hardware store and look in the plumbing section for ice-maker connector kits. Some of them will be coils of copper tubing with bits and pieces of hardware you won't need bundled along. Buy one of them in the 25' range, and then walk over to the coils of nylon tubing and buy yourself 2 feet of nylon tube that fits onto the copper tubing, and a pair of hose clamps to secure the nylon to the copper and the fittings to the nylon. Then walk over to the plumbing fittings section and get a connector (or several) that allow you to hook up the copper coil to your preferred water source. Mine is set up for the garden hose, yours may be set up for the sink... Then take the far end of the copper and bend it up so that it comes up over the edge of your boil pot... maybe make it hook shaped so you can hang it on the pot.

Voila! You've got a wort chiller that will bring your wort down from boiling to tap water temperature in a half hour. An ice bath will get it the rest of the way if your tap water is warm like I gather is the case in the desert southwest.

Edited June 26, 2008 by cdh (log)

[tim]

Hi,

You should also get a tube bender to your copper doesn't crimp when you make your bend. This will also allow you to bend your tubing to fit your boil pot. The tubing bender should only cost a few dollars.

Tim

[FoodMan]

Wanted to make a suggestion for you on your cooling time issues-  A wort chiller is really easy to make and does a very good job of taking heat away. 

Just go to your local hardware store and look in the plumbing section for ice-maker connector kits.  Some of them will be coils of copper tubing with bits and pieces of hardware you won't need bundled along.  Buy one of them in the 25' range, and then walk over to the coils of nylon tubing and buy yourself 2 feet of nylon tube that fits onto the copper tubing, and a pair of hose clamps to secure the nylon to the copper and the fittings to the nylon.  Then walk over to the plumbing fittings section and get a connector (or several) that allow you to hook up the copper coil to your preferred water source. Mine is set up for the garden hose, yours may be set up for the sink... Then take the far end of the copper and bend it up so that it comes up over the edge of your boil pot... maybe make it hook shaped so you can hang it on the pot.

Voila! You've got a wort chiller that will bring your wort down from boiling to tap water temperature in a half hour.  An ice bath will get it the rest of the way if your tap water is warm like I gather is the case in the desert southwest.

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Thanks for the infor Chris. I did some quick research and found these instructions to make the chiller as well. I'll look into it and see if it saves me that much money compared to buying one.

[theisenm85]

Thanks for the infor Chris. I did some quick research and found these instructions to make the chiller as well. I'll look into it and see if it saves me that much money compared to buying one.

Ready to go chillers should run about 55-60 bucks for basic ones able to do 5 gallons.

[cdh]

Well, with luck and a hardware store with older stock (pre-copper-price-spike) you can get a ice maker kit with 25' of copper in the $25ish range.... and the brass fittings to hook it up to a hose cost me about $11... add in $2 for hose and hose clamps. DIY does bring a 40%ish discount, and with prices of everything related to brewing spiking like crazy, any discount is a good discount!

I should fill in everybody on my spring brewing adventures now too--

That wit with the peel included has calmed down and is pretty nice right now, though I do still miss the late hops addition. I used both malted wheat and unmalted wheat, and that combination is giving me great haze, the cloudiness that is the signature of a witbier.

After that batch, I did an experiment with off-the-deep-end brewing techniques and made a Berliner Weisse that I fermented totally with Brettanomyces Clausenii, a different species of yeast that is proving popular in certain brewing circles recently. This was a smashing success, very quickly producing a dry tart wheaty beer. This style was dubbed "The Champage of the North" by Napoleon as he was marching his armies through northern Germany, as it is tart, spritzy and dry. Riffing on that theme, and the classical habit of dosing Berliner Weisse with fruity syrups, I couldn't resist the urge to spike it with a half gallon of chardonnay juice. It is very very nice now.

In the fermentor now, I've got a batch of Saison going... a very simple recipe... mostly pale malt, with a dash of aromatic and a pound of wheat malt and a bottle of beet sugar syrup. This beer is all about the yeast... and the yeast I'm using is a custom blend put together by a microbiologist who keeps a broad library of yeast and is very generous in offering samples of his projects. This is a mixture of the descendants of a couple of limited edition Wyeast offerings, 3711, and 3726 and some yeast isolated and cultured from bottles. It's been fermenting outside in the hot weather for the past 3 weeks, and is getting close to done now. Recent samples are very very promising.

Now I've got to figure out what to do with the remaining grains I've got sitting around...

PS: I'll gladly post recipes if anybody is interested.

Edited July 3, 2008 by cdh (log)

[theisenm85]

Well, with luck and a hardware store with older stock (pre-copper-price-spike) you can get a ice maker kit with 25' of copper in the $25ish range.... and the brass fittings to hook it up to a hose cost me about $11... add in $2 for hose and hose clamps.  DIY does bring a 40%ish discount, and with prices of everything related to brewing spiking like crazy, any discount is a good discount!

I should fill in everybody on my spring brewing adventures now too--

That wit with the peel included has calmed down and is pretty nice right now, though I do still miss the late hops addition.  I used both malted wheat and unmalted wheat, and that combination is giving me great haze, the cloudiness that is the signature  of a witbier.

After that batch, I did an experiment with off-the-deep-end brewing techniques and made a Berliner Weisse that I fermented totally with Brettanomyces Clausenii, a different species of yeast that is proving popular in certain brewing circles recently.  This was a smashing success, very quickly producing a dry tart wheaty beer.  This style was dubbed "The Champage of the North" by Napoleon as he was marching his armies through northern Germany, as it is tart, spritzy and dry.  Riffing on that theme, and the classical habit of dosing Berliner Weisse with fruity syrups, I couldn't resist the urge to spike it with a half gallon of chardonnay juice.  It is very very nice now.

In the fermentor now, I've got a batch of Saison going... a very simple recipe... mostly pale malt, with a dash of aromatic and a pound of wheat malt and a bottle of beet sugar syrup.  This beer is all about the yeast... and the yeast I'm using is a custom blend put together by a microbiologist who keeps a broad library of yeast and is very generous in offering samples of his projects.  This is a mixture of the descendants of a couple of limited edition Wyeast offerings, 3711, and 3726 and some yeast isolated and cultured from bottles.  It's been fermenting outside in the hot weather for the past 3 weeks, and is getting close to done now.  Recent samples are very very promising.

Now I've got to figure out what to do with the remaining grains I've got sitting around...

PS: I'll gladly post recipes if anybody is interested.

←

Thanks for the breakdown of DIY costs!

I gotta say I'm jealous about the yeast blend. Saison is one of the coolest styles out there for me. Sounds like you're set for summer... dry crisp and refreshing all the way around.

I believe my next beer is going to be a Russian Imperial Stout for my sister's wedding. Thankfully the "research" for this beer has been and will be quite fun!

I'm gonna grab a bottle of Stone's Russian Imperial (one of the best beers around in my opinion) take a sample for a hydrometer warm it up and let it go flat to get an idea for the final gravity. After that I'll choose an OG/yeast based on desired abv. Still have to decide which way to go on specialty malts though. Any suggestions?

I'm also gonna do an ordinary bitter as the starter for it. I'll go to secondary after about a week and pour the stout right on top of the yeast.

Edited July 3, 2008 by theisenm85 (log)

[FoodMan]

Very interesting Chris. I would love to take a look at the recipe for the "Champagne of The North".

I did bottle my wit this weekend. It tasted wonderful, very mild hop and citrus character and a nice mellow sweetness. I do think it could've used some more time for conditioning, it had a good bit of foam/scum ('Krausen'??) on the surface. I also noticed that the bottles had some of that on the surfacemof the beer after bottling, but it does look like it is dissipating slowly.

As a side note, I am reading through Papazian's Complete Joy (3rd edition) and it amazes me that he does not recommend using hop bags or grain bags in any of the recipes. He mentions them, but that's it. They make everything so easy, I am just wondering why it would not be standard operating procedure to use those inexpensive bags!!

[cdh]

Here's the Brettliner Weiss recipe:

Style: Berliner Weisse

Type: All grain

Grain:

4 lb. American 2-row

2 lb. Wheat malt

.5 lb. Raw wheat

Mash:

30 minutes at 142, 30 minutes at 148.

Boil: 20 minutes SG 1.056 3 gallons

Whirlfloc added at 15

Hops: .5 oz. Willamette (3.8% AA, 20 min.)

Yeast: 2 qt starter of Brett C. (White Labs WLP645)

Dilute to 4.5 gallons, and add .5 gallon of chardonnay juice.

Carbonate to 3.3 volumes CO2. (make sure to use sturdy bottles)

[cdh]

As a side note, I am reading through Papazian's Complete Joy (3rd edition) and it amazes me that he does not recommend using hop bags or grain bags in any of the recipes. He mentions them, but that's it. They make everything so easy, I am just wondering why it would not be standard operating procedure to use those inexpensive bags!!

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Just noticed I'd not commented on this...

Papazian is a fantastic starter book for getting into the right mindset... but his brewing techniques are a bit idiosyncratic... he famously only uses one yeast, which he's kept going for many many generations (and which Wyeast released as a special release yeast over the winter). You must remember that he got this whole homebrewing thing off the ground in the 70s, so his thinking and his technology are a bit old skool.

Nobody that I've found besides me has published anything recommending using a grain bag and a cooler for all grain brewing. I don't know why. Folks seem to like the sense of accomplishment that follows building a straining apparatus out of other things and attaching them to a cooler. Maybe they're more efficient... I've admitted I've not taken a hydrometer reading in years, and have no clue what my efficiency is other than 'good enough for me'. I like the bags for precisely the same reason you mention-- they're easy. They make clean-up a breeze. They're cheap. And they work.

[FoodMan]

As a side note, I am reading through Papazian's Complete Joy (3rd edition) and it amazes me that he does not recommend using hop bags or grain bags in any of the recipes. He mentions them, but that's it. They make everything so easy, I am just wondering why it would not be standard operating procedure to use those inexpensive bags!!

←

Just noticed I'd not commented on this...

Papazian is a fantastic starter book for getting into the right mindset... but his brewing techniques are a bit idiosyncratic... he famously only uses one yeast, which he's kept going for many many generations (and which Wyeast released as a special release yeast over the winter). You must remember that he got this whole homebrewing thing off the ground in the 70s, so his thinking and his technology are a bit old skool.

Nobody that I've found besides me has published anything recommending using a grain bag and a cooler for all grain brewing. I don't know why. Folks seem to like the sense of accomplishment that follows building a straining apparatus out of other things and attaching them to a cooler. Maybe they're more efficient... I've admitted I've not taken a hydrometer reading in years, and have no clue what my efficiency is other than 'good enough for me'. I like the bags for precisely the same reason you mention-- they're easy. They make clean-up a breeze. They're cheap. And they work.

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Heh..very interesting about using one yeast only! I did not know that. In the 3rd addition of the book he does say that a cooler is a very good tun for mashing and straining though. I do think the lack of bags use, even though he does mention it for grains, is odd.

[FoodMan]

Sharing a picture of the latest brew, the Honey Wheat mentioned up-thread. It came out very nice, but has a bit more 'additional' flavor than I'd planned, probably because the yeast was pitched at a higher temperature that it should've been. I'm hoping to have a wort chiller for the next beer...eBay looks very promising for that.

[tim]

Hi,

This stock pot is almost perfect for home brewing and under $56 at Sam's Club.

Link to 24 Qt Stainless Stock Pot with Disc Bottom

24 quarts

12" Diameter

12 1/2" tall

Riveted Handles

18/08 Steel (Yeah, it will corrode in 25 years)

18/10 lid

Thick aluminum disc base

Only $55.42. an incredible bargain

The base is approximately 5/16" thick. That means the aluminum core is approximately 1/4" thick. That would be the same as the Carlisle Signature, Lincoln Centurian or Chaudier lines.

The pot weighs 9 1/2 pounds. The lid weighs just under 2 pounds.

The sidewalls are about 0,037" thick.

The bottom of the base is magnetic. I assume that this implies induction capability, but, I may be wrong.

The interior lining is non-magnetic 18/10 across the bottom and about 3" up the sides. Above that it is magnetic 18/8 stainless.

With some minor topping up after the heat break, any home brewer can achieve a full 5 gallon brew.

I'll go back and weight the stock pot and measure the thickness of the base.

Tim

Edited for additional measurements

Edited July 28, 2008 by tim (log)

[cdh]

Sharing a picture of the latest brew, the Honey Wheat mentioned up-thread. It came out very nice, but has a bit more 'additional' flavor than I'd planned, probably because the yeast was pitched at a higher temperature that it should've been. I'm hoping to have a wort chiller for the next beer...eBay looks very promising for that.

←

Did you use some honey malt? Your extra flavor might be from that. A little goes a long way.

[cdh]

Wow, tim! That pot does appear ideal for brewing! Thanks for a great pointer.

[FoodMan]

Sharing a picture of the latest brew, the Honey Wheat mentioned up-thread. It came out very nice, but has a bit more 'additional' flavor than I'd planned, probably because the yeast was pitched at a higher temperature that it should've been. I'm hoping to have a wort chiller for the next beer...eBay looks very promising for that.

←

Did you use some honey malt? Your extra flavor might be from that. A little goes a long way.

←

No, I did not use any Honey malt.

[cdh]

What sort of additional flavor did you get? Is it solventy? Medicinal? Band-Aids? Spicy? Fruity?

I'm sort of surprised, since it was a wit... Wit yeasts are quite good at warm temps.

As a matter of fact, I just did a batch of the 4-grain saison and used a blend of wit yeast and saison yeast, and let it ferment outside during a heat wave when the daytime temps were in the mid 90s. I'm not detecting any funny yeast-based flavors from that... though I may be unlucky enough to have gotten a vinegar infection in it, as some beasty came by in the night and ripped the airlock off of the bucket and broke it into pieces... leaving the little hole in the top of the bucket open to the air... which means that fruitflies may have gotten to it... and fruit flies carry acetobacter.

That should be under control, at least... acetobacter needs access to oxygen to turn alcohol into vinegar, and within half a day of the airlock going missing I moved the beer into a keg and purged out all of the air, so even if acetobacter is there it can't do anything.

Edited July 28, 2008 by cdh (log)

[tim]

Hi,

I have measured the 6 gallon $54 stock pot at Sam's Club and it looks pretty decent.

The pot is labeled: Baker & Chefs, NSF, Part #STM-24/SSTP, Made in Indonesia.

The base is approximately 5/16" thick. That means the aluminum core is approximately 1/4" thick. That would be the same as the Carlisle Signature, Lincoln Centurian or Chaudier lines.

The pot weighs 9 1/2 pounds. The lid weighs just under 2 pounds.

The sidewalls are about 0,037" thick.

The bottom of the base is magnetic. I assume that this implies induction capability, but, I may be wrong.

The interior lining is non-magnetic 18/10 across the bottom and about 3" up the sides. Above that it is magnetic 18/8 stainless.

Tim

[FoodMan]

What sort of additional flavor did you get?  Is it solventy? Medicinal? Band-Aids?  Spicy? Fruity?

I'm sort of surprised, since it was a wit... Wit yeasts are quite good at warm temps. 

As a matter of fact, I just did a batch of the 4-grain saison and used a blend of wit yeast and saison yeast, and let it ferment outside during a heat wave when the daytime temps were in the mid 90s.  I'm not detecting any funny yeast-based flavors from that...  though I may be unlucky enough to have gotten a vinegar infection in it, as some beasty came by in the night and ripped the airlock off of the bucket and broke it into pieces... leaving the little hole in the top of the bucket open to the air... which means that fruitflies may have gotten to it... and fruit flies carry acetobacter. 

That should be under control, at least... acetobacter needs access to oxygen to turn alcohol into vinegar, and within half a day of the airlock going missing I moved the beer into a keg and purged out all of the air, so even if acetobacter is there it can't do anything.

←

Wow...quiet a story Chris. I hear racoons love beer.

I would say the flavor I am talking about is more fruity than anything. Like I said, it is really not a 'bad' flavor at all. It's just something I did not expect I guess. The beer is drinking very well. I have not had any of this brew in about a week, letting it condition a bit more. I'll need to do some more testing and report back if any other flavor comes up...

[Jon Savage]

What's everyone's experience on shelf life of kegged homebrew?

I'm wondering because we started brewing again this weekend after a 5 year hiatus and I discovered that a 5 gallon batch of steam beer (brewed in 03/2003) had been sitting quietly neglected in a corner of the garage since it had been kegged. I chilled it and it is actually fine.

The IPA and Steam we made Saturday are burbling away quite happily.

Edited August 4, 2008 by 6ppc (log)

[cdh]

Kegs are a great way to store beer for long periods of time. They're airtight, so no oxidation happens. They're easy to clean, so you're unlikely to get an infection.

As beers age, the hop bitterness mellows out, so if you're a hophead, old beer is not up your alley. Otherwise, letting beer get old in a keg seems like a totally reasonable thing to do.

[Jon Savage]

Kegs are a great way to store beer for long periods of time.  They're airtight, so no oxidation happens.  They're easy to clean, so you're unlikely to get an infection.

As beers age, the hop bitterness mellows out, so if you're a hophead, old beer is not up your alley.  Otherwise, letting beer get old in a keg seems like a totally reasonable thing to do.

←

Put that way it makes perfect sense. It was a most pleasant surprise to have a little keg on hand to drink while the batches we made this weekend ferment and then condition. I guess I never considered that scale of keg aging before. Bottle aging, sure. We've got some imperial stout that is at least 6 years old in bottles that is coming along quite nicely.

I'm drinking a bit of the old stuff now and you are absolutely correct in the assessment of what happens to the hop bitter notes. Those are largely gone but the aromatic top notes remained.

We'll do another couple batches this weekend so as to have a little reserve supply in the pipeline.

My wife's diagnosis with BC in early '03 and subsequent surgery/chemo is what derailed our brewing in the first place. She just passed the 5 year milestone and thinks that batch we kegged maybe a week prior to her initial surgery is a great way to commemorate and celebrate being cancer free.

No wonder we forgot about that keg - we had a good bit of stuff going on in our lives around that time.

On a more brewing related note- I was shocked to see that many hop varieties are currently unavailable; those that are have probably quintupled in price. We actually had about 5 lbs still vacuum sealed in oxygen barrier bags in the freezer so we have a supply in the meantime.

Still looked/smelled good and hopeful that the results will be OK. We did up the hop quantities a good bit to compensate for their age.

[cdh]

You're just full of good news today: tasty aged beer, lots of leftover hops, and somebody to drink your beer with!

Keep us informed about what you're making.

[theisenm85]

As far as the hop situation...

Yep, there's a hop shortage. Mileage varies depending on who you're getting your hops on, but it's a relatively expensive situation no matter where you go. We'll see what this year's harvest can bring us... but I've heard that the problem won't really be resolved until another year. And even then, who knows?

Bad growing seasons can affect quite a number of things. There was also a warehouse in washington that burned down... losing about 4% of the national hop production right there. The weak dollar doesn't help, we're apparently exporting some of our crop to europe (who had a bad growing season from what I hear), and their brewers are getting taken care of for their native hops before we are.

To add insult to injury... there's not a grain "shortage" per se, but prices jumped. In Europe/australia, terrible growing seasons drove prices much higher than usual.

In the US, some overagressive business has caused the malting industry to go a bit conservative. Domestic grain prices rises weren't too bad, but they're still there.

Then again, as long as you can brew beer there's something to cheer about.

[Jon Savage]

Keep us informed about what you're making.

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Thanks for the great EGCI course Chris - it (and the Q&A) made for a most enjoyable read.

Informed you ask? OK hopefully not TMI:

The beers we made this weekend are both favorites of ours, ones we always liked to have a keg or two each on hand back when we were brewing most every weekend.

Links to recipes below; we adjusted the grain bill up by 10% since we batch sparge.

The steam is Sweet Hitch-Hiker Steamer - that is the one that held up well for over 5 years in a keg.

The IPA is Sister Star of The Sun; this is certainly a "big" IPA but very tasty indeed and also a favorite of my wife and I. The Sister Star might be a little tricky if you don't already have a stash of Chinook hops on hand; those too seem hard to come by probably because of the high alpha.

This re-incarnation of our brewing commenced around 10:00 Saturday morning - not with any sense of mise en place on either of our parts but rather with my wife's announcing "I want to brew beer today". Seemed like a good idea at the time. A couple hours of scrambling around in the garage later we'd located everything we needed except for grain, fresh tubing (the old stuff had become grody) and of course yeast.

We embarked on our vision quest fortified by home roasted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee accompanied by some cut off ends of grody vinyl tubing, a list for the hardware store and 2 grain bills.

After a fairly brief stop at Lowes for tubing (and bleach) we promptly got lost en route to the homebrew store but discovered a great little breakfast/lunch place whose menu promised "food we don't screw up". The food was excellent (and not at all screwed up). A quick map consult on my Iphone got us back on track to Steinfillers, a nifty home brewing store here in Long Beach that we were glad to see was still around since the next nearest store was 45 miles away. When we plan ahead we call them Friday morning and our crushed grain is ready to pick up on the way home from work.

We picked up 2 batches of grain for each brew, were duly appalled at the hop prices and made our way back home, first stopping @ a supermercado to get some pork butt, some vegetables and.... a 52 quart tamale pot for the princely sum of $32. Heck I always wanted a bigger brew kettle.

Once home Carrie grabbed our 3 ring beer binder and pulled the notes for the last two batches of these beers we'd made. Great to have the notes at hand which for the most part were really helpful to our rusty old selves. I never did write down the temp offsets for mashing (water onto grain in Igloo cooler) but a quick Google search indicated that circa 10-11 F over our target mash temp would be a good place to start (and so it was). Note to self: Write everything down. --footnote did each of those pages really mean 5 gallons of beer... Good thing the ATF does not enforce homebrew quotas!

While the first mash was well... mashing away I got to work cleaning and sanitizing everything. I moved all 8 corny kegs onto the patio wishing I'd cleaned the lees and sanitized them oh... 5 years ago instead of throwing them in a corner. OK we were stressed at the time and that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

One of the kegs felt full which was a relief since when I was on my game I'd rinse lees out when the keg was spent, refill with water and sufficient iodophor to sanitize and seal until the next time to fill. I cleaned and sanitized the first 7 kegs, thought I'd eyeball the full one just to make sure. I hit the pressure relief on that keg and noticed it was under pressure. Odd as I'd not habitually stored these under pressure. Then I saw the painter's tape on it "Sweet HH Steam 03/03". I threw a tap on it and sure enough that keg was full of beer. Kind of cloudy and nasty - not off just nasty like the first pint off of a cask conditioned keg of beer is wont to be. We decided to put that beer in the fridge to cool off a bit and settle. As already noted it turned out to be just fine.

Slowly but surely we both found our rhythm. Notes and google eased our process and by the end of the evening we were decidedly less rusty in our brewing skills than we'd been that morning.

Between the late start (we did not actually start brewing until 1600 or so) and fits and starts and thankgodforwirelesslaptopsandgoogle moments we pitched the second batch, and put same to bed, in the wee small hours (0230 Sunday morning). It felt freaking good.

Since we ferment at ambient which this time of year is in the high '70s both beers should be ready to rack into kegs for secondary + conditioning next weekend. We did *exactly* hit our target OGs which just goes to prove that this is not rocket science. We'll do another two batches of the same beers using reserved yeasts from the current batches.

We've had great success in the past training yeasts to be happy in our micro climate. It may well evolve to something altogether different than the strains we started with but having one's own pet yeastie beasties is a good thing. Alas our "beserker" strain of years gone by is thus far unrevivable - maybe I can culture some from the lees of the keg we are drinking now. The sample in the fridge was dead dead dead.

What's next after those? Maybe a Wit, a WeissBier or a Saison. Probably a dry stout as well. Carrie is eyeballing something that includes fruit.

Edited August 5, 2008 by 6ppc (log)

[Jon Savage]

Great News. The yeast I thought to be dead lives. It took 1/2 a mason jar of wort to something tasty and beery, just slow to start. Stepping it up into fresh wort tonight for use in stout this weekend.

All hail the return of Jon and Carries beserker yeast .

This weekend will be a simple stout - looking at my notes I made many many batches of this one.

Fitzpatric's Celtic Stout (all grain) The recipe as written is (probably) for fly sparging. I've always scaled up grains by 1.1ish to account for the less efficient batch sparge process.

Speaking of back from the dead-

This is a glass of the 5 year old steam beer we discovered a 5 gallon keg of last weekend. Tasty!