Home Brewery Upgrade--Limitations of my Current Setup

I have been brewing on the Morebeer B3-200 since I started brewing all grain.  It's the most basic setup:  two orange coolers, a brew kettle, and some tubing.  The bulkheads, the spigots, and the fittings are all original--which makes them 10 years old.  I have replaced tubing, of course, and I added a 1/2" stainless ball valve spigot and bazooka screen to the brew kettle about 18 months ago but that's about it.

"Three tier Brew Stand"

Sparge arm that came with the setup.
I think it was manufactured by Listerman
or Fermentap--not even sure they're
still in business...

Original stainless steel ball valve with
a plastic barb fitting.

Runoff into the BK

Stovetop boiling.  What a mess.

This setup has served me very well up to now, but I am beginning to feel its limitations, so I know it's time to update it.  Some of the limitations I need to address:

1.  Fly sparging with the lid off = massive heat loss.  As seen in the above photo, I have no way to fly sparge with the lid on the mash tun under this current setup.  You may well imagine that after 45-60 minutes with the lid off, the temperature of the mash drops significantly (down to about 140 or below, in fact).  It's been ok up to now--just a minor inconvenience--but if I hope to improve my beer, I need to figure out a way to keep the lid on during the sparge.

2.  Can't fire the BK until runoff is complete.  Because my setup is 100% gravity driven, and because I don't have a proper 3 tier brew stand, my BK sits on the floor during runoff.  This means that I can't apply heat to it until after I've collected my full volume of wort and moved it to the stove top.  I imagine I could easily shave 60-90 minutes off my brew day just by maintaining temp during the sparge and firing up the kettle sooner.

3.  Stovetop boiling is no good.  I have gone through a few different iterations of kettle setup, but since we moved into this house 10 months ago, I've been boiling on this glass topped stove.  No good.  Can't attain or maintain a good rolling boil without the lid on the kettle, and I'm pretty sure I'm destroying this stove, which certainly was not designed to boil 10 gallons of anything for 60-90 minutes.  I need a proper heat source for my kettle, I need to get this kettle off the stove before I have to explain to my wife that I broke it, and I need a configuration that eliminates the need to carry my full kettle from one place to another.

4.  Added a plate chiller; created issues.  A few months ago I replaced my immersion chiller with a Shirron plate chiller.  Love the fact that I got the IC out of my wort, but the addition of a plate chiller without any other modifications to my process has caused two issues:
   
     a.  Cold break all ends up in the fermenter.  I understand that a little bit of break
          material in the fermenter is a good idea since it contains nutrients for the yeast, but
          I'd like a way to leave most of it behind in the kettle.

     b.  Gravity is not the best way to move wort through the plate chiller on its way to the
           fermenter.  It is possible, but tricky, a big pain in the ass.  I need a way to move wort 
           through the plate chiller that is more reliable and consistent than gravity.

That's the basic outline.  I would also like to add the ability to whirlpool after flameout.  I have already planned out my upgrades and purchased the parts and equipment that I need in order to hopefully overcome these limitations.  In the next post or two, I will lay out the plan.

Hop Sprouts!

Just a quick update:

I came home this evening to find three tiny sprouts pushing their way through the soil to sunlight!

They look like this...

See my Hops Page for the full photo documentary of my first year of hop "farming."

Growing Hops

This weekend I planted three Centennial hop rhizomes.

I'm apparently planting late in the season, and I definitely don't have a green thumb.  But, I like the thought of brewing up something this fall using fresh hops grown in my own back yard, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I planted the rhizomes in a 30" pot with a tomato stake, along with several other produce items in their own pots.  Our family decided to plant a vegetable garden this year, but since this is only our first full summer in our new house, we decided to keep it simple with a container garden.  So on the patio we now have five pots, one each of strawberries, tomatoes, zucchini, rosemary, and of course Centennial hops.

It was such a great afternoon with the kids--so much enthusiasm, not just for going elbow deep in dirt, but genuinely for handling plants that they realize and trust will yield some of their favorite foods in a few weeks and months.

I hope my hops take off, and I am fully prepared to add structure and support as they hopefully climb far beyond the 36" of this tomato stake framework.

I will update here as things progress.

2013 Strategy

It's been quite a while since my last post.  Work's been busy, and I've had plenty at home as well to keep me distracted--building a guest bedroom in the basement (a project still only halfway complete).  Fortunately I have managed to brew two batches since the new year:  A Tripel and an American Pale Ale.  The Tripel is absolutely delicious, although I missed my efficiency and my attenuation so it’s much fuller and sweeter than intended.  The Pale Ale--hopped with 100% Cascade hops—just kicked last night (wish I would have waited longer to start drinking it; the past two nights’ pulls were amazing).

Anyway, I think now may be a good time to set the focus of my brewing, and perhaps of this blog, a little better.  Until now, my brewing has been kind of random, and that’s probably reflected in my posts up to this point.  It has always been my goal to learn as much as I can about home brewing, to continue to grow as a brewer and someday to produce amazing beers that can stand up to the best commercial examples.  I think I finally understand how to achieve that, and in 2013, I’m narrowing the focus of my brewing and setting a strategy for my own improvement.  You’ll read about it shortly.

WHERE I STARTED:

I brewed my first batch in 2001, but I wouldn't say that I've been brewing that long since I took a six year hiatus when my kids were born.  In the first stint (pre-kids), I probably brewed about 8 extract batches, none of them repeats, each of them a complete mess—but at least I was making beer.  And of course I had no idea that it sucked (my family and friends are very supportive; they “love” all my beer).  Like so many other new homebrewers, I wanted to brew everything, and to brew with everything.  A fresh strawberry "wheat," an oaked IPA, a Belgian wit, and a chocolate stout were all among this first round of brews.  After a few years, I invested in a basic 3-vessel all grain system (two 10 gallon converted coolers and a 15 gallon kettle) from MoreBeer.  I thought (incorrectly) that this was the best thing I could do to improve my beers.  I stumbled around two or three all grain batches before my wife had twin boys in 2005, at which time my burgeoning hobby was shelved.

WHERE I AM NOW:

I picked up brewing again right around this time in 2011, on the equipment I bought in 2003, that had been collecting dust since 2005.  The cool thing—as I would discover—was that equipment had not changed in that time, but the quality of information available to me seems to have improved tremendously.  In the past two years I've brewed 12 all grain batches—mostly not repeating any style or recipe more than once, and my results have been varied to say the least.  I now have a fermentation chamber (able to control fermentation temps to within 1 deg F anywhere from 30-80).  I cold crash, and I fine with gelatin and my past few batches have looked and tasted great.  But I still know I have a lot to learn.

WHERE I’M HEADED:

Over about the past year, I've been reading voraciously on Home Brew Talk Forums (while not posting much) as well as in books from Brewers Publications, and also listening to podcasts (current and archived) from the Brewing Network trying to gain as much knowledge as I can.  My 2013 strategy follows advice offered repeatedly by Jamil Zainasheff on “Can You Brew It” and probably elsewhere.  This year I am focusing on:

• Repeatability 
• Understanding yeast

Specifically, I have chosen just a few beer styles to focus on and will brew those over and over—hopefully with identical results--in order to really understand my system and process, and in order to “nail” those styles (“clone” my own brews).  Styles I’ll be working on this year are:

• Scottish 80/-
•  American Blonde Ale
• American Pale Ale 
•  Imperial IPA
•  Patersbier
• Tripel

Six styles may seem a bit much for the strategy I just laid out, but I love them all so much . . .  And my goal is to brew twice a month starting in May.  I chose these styles also because they can help me with my second goal:  understanding yeast.  I will brew everything on this list with one of only two yeast strains, so that I can really begin to understand them, how they behave, what they like and don’t like, etc.  I will be able to ferment the Pale Ale and IIPA using slurry (WLP001) from the Blonde or 80 /-, and I will be able to ferment the Tripel using slurry (WLP550) from the Patersbier.

For the 80/-, the Blonde, the Pale, and the Tripel, I simply pulled the recipes from Brewing Classic Styles.  The Patersbier is based on the kit recipe from Northern Brewer, and the IIPA will probably be an amped up version of my Columbus IPA.

I might join a local home brew club, and I’ll probably also enter a few of my brews in competition before the year is through.  Having my beer evaluated by strangers trained to do so will no doubt reveal flaws I don’t detect, refining my process and my palate (my friends and family are not helpful; they “love” all my beers—they’re all just impressed that it is beer).

This blog itself is another strategy toward my overall goal of developing myself as a home brewer.  From the beginning, I've meant it as a tool to chronicle my progress.  I’m sure I will someday look back at my early posts and chuckle at the silliness.  Those early posts will no doubt expose some of my limited understanding, misinformation, misinterpretation, and otherwise general noobdouchery.  I’m ok with that.  They will stand as they were written, as what they are:  points on the map showing where I was as I continue my journey to where I’d like to be.

I Brew Better Beer

Sound arrogant?  Well what I mean is:

I have brewed some really crappy beer in my time.

Luckily, with experience I continue to get better and better.  A few changes over the years in my equipment, setup, and process have resulted in my ability to brew much better beer.

I'm not done yet--my beer still has plenty of room for improvement, but here's where I've gotten so far . . .

WORT AERATION
Yeast need oxygen to develop healthy cell walls, which are key to their surviving the rigors of fermentation.    Unfortunately, boiling actually drives off oxygen, so a well aerated post-boil wort is a must for healthy yeast.  I use a small plastic aeration tip at the end of my hose while transferring my cooled wort to the fermenter.  A small cone in the tip spreads the wort into a thin sheet as it exits the hose, introducing lots of oxygen along the way.  I also rock the fermenter for about a minute after pitching, just to make sure.

Aeration Tip:  possibly the best $2.59 I've ever spent on a
home brewing gadget

YEAST STARTER
Pitching the right amount of yeast will greatly improve your beer.  You can grow your cell count by pitching your yeast into a small amount of 1.030-1.040 unhopped wort a few days before brew day.  There are several means available for determining the amount you need based on yeast type and gravity of your beer.  Popular online pitch rate calculators can be found at mrmalty.com and yeastcalc.com.  Some beer design software packages also include pitching rate calculators.

I enter all my beers into BeerSmith, whether designing my own or simply inputting a popular recipe I'd like to try.  The "starter" tab in the software tells me how many billion yeast cells are ideal for the given beer's starting gravity, yeast strain and age, and also tells me what size starter I need in order to achieve the required cell count.  This is a very good thing--the less "math" I have to do, the better off my beer will be, I'm sure.

These days, all of my starters go on a stir plate.  This device creates a vortex or whirlpool effect in the starter, which helps the yeast grow healthier and more plentiful, more quickly, by constantly aerating the wort (remember how much yeast love oxygen in the growth phase?) and by keeping them in suspension for maximum exposure.

Magnetic Stir Plate:  It's because of stuff like this
that my kids think I'm a mad scientist.
My wife just thinks I'm nuts.

WHIRLFLOC, KETTLE SCREEN, A 15 MINUTE REST
With a strong rolling boil, certain proteins and other compounds will separate out of your wort as solids. Don't worry, you don't need them in your finished beer or even in your fermenter, so this is a good thing.  Boil strong.  While we're on the subject, there are also plenty of volatile nasties that you don't want--good news is these will evaporate away with a good rolling boil as long as you let them, so leave the lid off.  As for the solids separating out of the boil--"hot break" is what it's called--there are a few clarifiers that you can use in the boil to help prevent it from transferring to the fermenter with the wort.  I use whirlfloc, just a little white tablet that goes into the boil 15 minutes before flameout.  It dissolves into smaller particles that bond with the hot break and drag it to the bottom of the kettle like a bunch of evil little mermaids.  This, along with a long, strong stir at flameout (trying to emulate a whirlpool) and a 15 minute rest afterward seem to do a great deal toward depositing all the solids in a tidy pile at the bottom of the kettle.  With the help of a kettle screen, I am able to leave much of it behind when I transfer.

Kettle Screen:  This bad boy gets quite dirty during transfer.

FERMENTATION TEMPERATURE CONTROL
My beer quality took a solid jump forward when I gained the ability to control fermentation temps.

I used to just chill it down as much as possible post boil (maybe mid 70s to mid 80s), then pitch, throw it in the basement, and let it naturally drop to whatever it would drop to (maybe 70-75ish). What's the worry? We're in the ballpark, right? Wrong. Stressed out yeast.  Bad things happened.  Bad beer, actually.

Then, last year as a most awesome Christmas gift, my wife bought me a 7 cubic foot chest freezer and a Johnson temp controller.  The true purpose for this was and is to be converted into a keezer for my draft home brew.  That will happen someday. In the meantime, I'm content to lift the lid and pour a pint from my picnic tap, and the freezer doubles as a fermentation chamber.  Now with every batch, I pitch my yeast at the low end of its temp range, then as the most vigorous period of fermentation comes to an end, I gradually ramp it up a few degrees to facilitate attenuation.  Much happier yeast; much better beer.

DIALING IN

REPS
Besides possibly fermentation temp control, this is probably the most important factor contributing to my journey toward better home brew.  Practice.  Repetition.  The more I brew, the more comfortable I become with the process and the better I understand the effect each decision has on the finished beer.  When I first started out, I did things a certain way because the directions said to, or because I read in a book that I should do it that way.  When I stopped making decisions based on what I "knew" based on reading in favor of what I truly "understood" based on experience, my brewing rose to a whole different level.

WATER TREATMENT
This is the latest development in the evolution of my brewing.

When I began the hobby, I just used straight tap water, whatever the fine Borough of Hanover saw fit to send through my kitchen faucet. Eventually, I migrated to carbon filtered tap water, then more recently to store bought spring water.

I finally feel consistent enough in my process that I've decided it's time to sweat the water profile.  Still brand new at it, so I can only work from "knowledge" I've gained through reading, or through listening to interviews of experts like Gordon Strong.  No real understanding yet--that can only come with experience.  Only after enough reps will I begin to understand the effect that small adjustments in water chemistry might have on the finished beer, and which might play best to my own preferences.

For now, I'll have to rely on published wisdom, and the consensus seems to be that a good basic water profile can be achieved by starting with a distilled or reverse osmosis water (either one effectively a zero value, neutral baseline), adding 1 tsp calcium chloride per 5 gallons brewing water, and adding 2% acidulated malt to the mash.  So that's what I did.  My first brew using treated water is in the fermenter now, a 60 minutey IPAish kinda thing, so I also followed the guidance for hoppy beers and added half a tsp of gypsum.  Don't know why, just that its what others who do understand brew water chemistry better than I do suggest to add.  We'll see how it turns out--hopefully a bit brighter, cleaner, and more flavorful, with a hop presence that just pops.

So that's it.  Pay attention to your yeast; give it what it needs. Get some reps in; practice practice practice. If you're a beginning home brewer looking to take your brew quality to the next level, I'd say those two things would be the best place to start.

Project Clone part deux: Tasting Indian Brown

So I'm a few weeks late with this, but I wanted to record some tasting notes on the commercial example.

Part of my research, of course . . .

Pours deep mahogany with 1/2" tan head that dissipates quickly.  Clarity is evident by the scarlet highlights around the edges and where the light peeks through.

Nose is complex.  Piney hop aroma, followed quickly by yeasty sourdough, caramel, maltiness and a hint of...smoke? 
A touch of alcohol sweetness at the end.

Taste is toasty, bitter but not coarse.  A satisfying bitterness seems to come from both the hops dosage and the dark malts at once.  Malty/ smokey to follow the nose.  Very smooth.  Some alcohol heat, but complementary, not sharp or boozy. 

Finishes with "burnt" dark roast malts--again not at all coarse.

Except for that fleeting hint of pineyness on the front end, no real hop aroma or flavor.  Bottled on date is 8/2/12.  I wonder if a fresher sample would have shown greater evidence of the dry hopping claimed on the website?

Enkel

The Trappists are a branch of the Cistercian order of Roman Catholic monks.  In addition to their vows of poverty, silence, etc, the members of each Monastery must work to support the Abbey.  This means producing a commodity to sell in the outside world.  Some Trappist Monasteries are famous for their complex, stinky, delicious cheese, while others are famous for their beer.

Trappist breweries, once found all over the European countryside, now number just seven:  six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. When the American Craft Beer Revolution began and beer lovers found ourselves looking across the globe for evidence that beer could be more than fizzy yellow swill, names like Chimay, Corsendonk, and Orval put Belgium on the beer map.

Even today, for many people, the term Belgian Beer means Trappist styles and flavor profiles.  And why not?  Imagine a life in which all of your time, attention, and energy was spent brewing (when not praying or meditating) in the name of God.  What beautiful expressions of yeast, malt, hops and water could you knock out in complete and utter silence?

Styles like the dubbel, tripel, and quadrupel are so satisfying with their depth of flavor and complexity.  There may be no other style in the world with such complexity, mainly because there may be no style whose character is so yeast driven.  And these MFers know how to elicit all the best yeastiness out of their yeast--fruity esters, spicy phenols--which can even improve a beer with time like a fine wine.

Each of these Monasteries brews a style which, unlike the others, rarely --if ever--makes it outside the walls of the Abbey.  In his book "Brew Like a Monk," Stan Hieronymus refers to this as a Patersbier.  Brewed by the monks for their own daily consumption, this beer both nourishes and hydrates them.  With no beet sugar or added fermentables, brewed with a lighter grain bill for a lower abv and lighter body, this is a monk's session beer!  Still, its no less flavorful, as the lighter grain bill and crazy fermentation temps really allows the house yeast to shine.

I call my version Enkel (single); it's brewed with 100% Belgian pilsener malt to an OG of 1.052, then fermented with WLP550 (the Achouffe strain-not Trappist, but it's what I had on hand) to about a 5.2% abv.  Bottled two days ago, and the sample I drew was absolutely delicious:  spicy, phenolic, with a bit of banana on the dry biscuity finish.  Can't wait until this one conditions and I can start drinking it!