Continue reading »]]> I got a note from a visitor to the site who was curious about how my process has evolved:

One of your earlier blogs said you moved from your Blichmann 10 gallon mash tun to a simple Gott cooler and found the going easier.

What are you using these days and how would you describe the difference between the two?

- Cory

Well, Cory, this is something I’ve gone back and forth on a few times.  I will say that if you do single infusion mashes for 5-6 gallon batches then the Gott or Igloo cooler is a nearly ideal tun.  It has low thermal mass, holds temperature extremely well, is cheap and durable, and cleans up and packs away easily.  When I was batch or fly sparging this was my go-to vessel especially because I brew outside in the evenings and there can be a chilly breeze.

Well there is one major downside of the cooler that made me switch to a 15 gallon Blichmann mash tun for my 5 gallon batches.  I have switched to doing almost entirely no-sparge brewing (see my article in the November 2011 BYO Magazine) and a Gott cooler is really only good to about 1.040 gravity for six gallon batches.  Due to the way that the ratio of wort trapped in the grain versus runoff works even a few more gallons in capacity makes a huge difference.  A 15 gallon vessel is good up to around 1.080 gravity six gallon batches.  I tried other coolers but could never find anything that matched the perfect layout of the Gott so I bought a 15 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker.

This left me with the problem that caused me to leave the Blichmann mash tun in the first place: temperature drops.  Well since I started doing no-sparge brewing I ended up with significantly more thermal mass in the mash tun.  All the liquor goes in up front so everything is more stable.  I use a pump to constantly recirculate the wort during the mash but use direct fire on the mash tun itself to bump the temperature when needed.  I typically mash in at the desired temp and then check and direct-fire at 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and 45 minutes in the mash.  At a few of those points I stir a bit as well.  The burner is set very low so combined with the recirculation there is little risk of scorching.  Many of those times I’m just a degree or two low.  At the end of the mash I just redirect the pump to the boil kettle and I’m good to go.

I’ve also found that the stirring that goes along with this routine results in a more consistent efficiency, probably because the enzymes and starches are mixed up more evenly.  And of course I love the great features on the Blichmann including the laser etched sight gauge for the liquid level, the nice ball valve, the excellent false bottom, and the ease of cleaning stainless.  I really couldn’t be happier.

Well if all of this sounds like too much work (it isn’t really) then keep your eye out for a new toy from John Blichmann that will help with dialing in a consistent temp.  His new Tower of Power will recirculate the mash and kick on the burners when needed.  I’ll have a review of this on my site shortly after it’s released to the market as I won the first production unit in a raffle at NHC in San Diego.  He’s been delayed for a while in dealing with sourcing some of the more challenging electronics from overseas suppliers so I don’t have an ETA.

I hope that helps, Cory.

- Dave.

Continue reading »]]> It’s competition brewing season so I have gotten back into bottling beers instead of just kegging them.  I also just made 10 gallons of single-decocted Bavarian Hefeweizen and put about half of it in flip top bottles to be a bit more traditional according to Stan Hieronymous’ Brewing With Wheat.  One issue that always annoyed me was draining StarSan from bottles.  It took a while to get the liquid out of the bottles and then I had to wait for the bubbles to subside or deal with foam coming out of the bottle.

Well recently I got the MoreBeer Counterflow Filler and watched the video by John Plise.  In it he briefly mentioned a tip that I’d missed on previous viewings.  When draining bottles rather than letting them glug and bubble straight out you can give them a quick swirl.  A simple motion sets the sanitizer into a vortex in the bottle allowing air to come up the middle as the the liquid drains down the sides.  The result is a much faster drain and significantly decreased bubbles in the bottle.  All of this means that I can give up the bottle tree and just use a bucket with about three gallons of sanitizer during bottling.  I invert the bottle, give it a swirl to set the vortex, and then wait a few seconds for the liquid to drain out.

Continue reading »]]> Over the years I’ve had a fleeting love affair with the idea of switching my homebrew setup to use all tri-clover fittings.  The theory is that doing so would ensure that there was not place for beer spoiling organisms to take hold on the cold side and ruin my beer.  Each time I dove in to plan out the changes I ran into two major problems.  The first was the obvious problem that switching over all my fittings would cost a princely sum.  Each hose would require two barbed tri-clover ends and each vessel or pump would need some as well.  My rough cost always penciled out to $250.

The less obvious issue was that since many of my components were threaded already (e.g. the March pump and ball valves on the Blichmann Boilermaker) then switching to a tri-clover fitting had minimal benefit.  The threads themselves potentially harbor the wort spoilers.  Threading a tri-clover fitting onto the existing components didn’t really improve the situation other than just looking cool.

So for a long time I simply used brass hydraulic hose quick disconnects (email me if you want more details.)  Well I ultimately decided to get rid of the brass but still stick with fittings that took minimal effort to connect and disconnect.  My first attempt was the original Blichmann quick disconnect fittings.  They did just fine but got too hot to touch when recirculating the mash or boiling wort.  Well John Blichmann once again read my mind when he improved his quick disconnect fittings.

Recently Blichmann Engineering started offering the Blichmann QuickConnector Stainless Steel Fittings.  Basically they are silicone coated nut over various tail pieces to meet your needs:

I swapped out all my brass quick disconnects to these because I have more confidence that heat will sanitize the tailpiece and silicone O-ring assembly compared to the brass quick disconnect.  Additionally the silicone ensures that I’m able to quickly switch my hoses without burning my fingers.

Compared to the previous quick disconnectors the obvious benefit is the silicone that makes it more comfortable to use with bare hands.  The less obvious change is that the silicone O-ring stays with the nut and tailpiece fitting much more solidly.  Previously I had to watch out for the O-ring falling out and had to store them separately.  Overall the new QuickConnector fittings are winners.

Getting back to the tri-clover fittings, given that I have to have threaded connectors on the cold side of my brew setup anyway the tri-clovers simply aren’t worth it.  If I were building a nano-brewery I’d weld in threadless fittings on each vessel and on the pumps but that’s not an option.  As a result the Blichmann connectors are the right balance of features for homebrewing.  My only reservation is that when you include the tailpieces they retail for around $15 a piece, which seems too steep to me.  I went ahead and plonked down the cash but honestly think that the right price point is closer to $10 for a pair.  Hopefully John will get to this point as he increases the scale of manufacturing.

Continue reading »]]> As some of you who follow happenings in the tech world know, GoDaddy has been doing some less than great things these days.  A CEO who hunts elephants, advertising that demeans women, and a customer service team that is entirely driven to sell more has pushed me over the edge.  I’m moving over to a new server hosted on Amazon EC2.

All of this shouldn’t mean much to you as the site should continue to be stable and work smoothly.  Let me know if you find any broken links or otherwise run into any problems.

Dave.

Continue reading »]]> Sometimes process changes aren’t for the better. This fall I made a bunch, starting with the Blichmann Hop Blocker. Then came competition brewing season and I didn’t have time to evaluate the results due to my frantic schedule (1-2 batches a week for three solid months.) The good news, though, is that I’ve now got lots of data both from the NHC feedback and my own testing and I’m going to make some changes.

The verdict? Not good. Several batches suffered from mild wild yeast infections. The judges didn’t always pick up the cause but when you taste them side by side it’s easy to pick up the problem. The other batches seemed to be lacking something that I couldn’t put my finger on. Not one batch was better than what I used to make before.

So, what did I change and what am I backing out? First, I started using the Blichmann Hop Blocker. It’s a great product that really helped prevent trub from reaching the fermenter. The problem, though, was that in the 10 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker my copper immersion chiller no longer fit. So I decided to change over to a Blichmann Therminator. Of course that meant a different setup for whirlpooling and sanitizing at the end of the boil.

Long story short, I tried several methods but ultimately about a quarter of my batches ended up infected in some way or another. The ones that weren’t infected seemed duller. I’m not 100% positive of the mechanism at work but suspect it has to do with letting the wort whirlpool and sit hot at the end of the boil. Why’d I do that? Otherwise the trub in solution at the end of the boil and hop pellet material would clog the Therminator. Ugh, what a mess.

Here were the downsides I found with my use of the Therminator:

• Infections – despite back-flushing with hot PBW at the end of the brew day, circulating boiling water to sanitize before use, and attempts at autoclaving (which simply took too much effort to do regularly). I hadn’t had a problem with this before and the Therminator was the biggest change I’d made.
• Added time – all the time I was spending trying to clean and sanitize the Therminator ultimately made my brew sessions longer.
• Stuck Transfers – on two different hoppy batches I managed to clog up the Therminator completely meaning I couldn’t get all my wort into the fermenter.
• Leaving the wort hot for longer – compared to an immersion chiller, which started dropping the temp of the whole batch right away, using the Therminator leaves wort at near boiling temp for longer. The Therminator was nice and fast but I had to do a hot whirlpool and let it settle for a total of about ten minutes before I could even start the draining.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure some folks are making great beer with this gadget but I’ve given up.

So I’m going back to an immersion chiller with a whirlpool. I’ll be brewing this weekend with this change in place and will post my results. The lesson here for me is to really take a more critical look at any changes I make to see if they’re really an improvement to the end product, the beer in the glass. And I need to do that well before competition brewing season. This year I’m going to use the summer for experimentation with process and I’m going to lock down all changes by October so I have time to let everything shake out before the winter brewing rush.

Happy brewing,
Dave.

Continue reading »]]> So after using An Analysis of Brewing Techniques to help answer a question that one of my homebrew club members had about fining, I decided to check Amazon to see what kind of reviews the book has received. To my shock I found a pair of low ratings from a decade ago that seem totally out of place. How could such a great book that’s cited numerous times in other homebrew texts and the BJCP study materials have a 2 1/2 star rating?

I’ve posted a review here: An Analysis of Brewing Techniques Review. If you don’t have this book see if you can track down a copy. If you do have this book I encourage you to post a review on Amazon to balance out the ones from so long ago. I’d love to see Brewer’s Publications revive this book for a new edition if possible.

Oh yeah, and sorry for not posting for a while . It’s been a busy year. Though just recently I had my Ordinary Bitter and Kölsch place in the first round of the NHC so they’ll be moving on to the big show. Both were recipes from Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew with tweaks to match my process and with built water.

Happy brewing!

Dave.

Continue reading »]]> After doing a couple of dozen batches on my new sculpture and fighting with drifting mash temperatures most of the time I finally decided to swap back over to an insulated Gott cooler for my mash tun.

What a difference. I no longer had to pay attention to the mash temp, mess with pumps for my HERMS, run the stir motor on the hot liquor tank, or worry about grainbed compaction. Despite cool evening air temps the mash held within a degree over the course of the hour.

I really haven’t found a downside of this approach other than it means I have a surplus Blichmann Boilermaker mash tun for now. I’m going to run this way for a while and see if I can notice a difference in consistency on my beers and simplification on my brew day.

Dave.

Continue reading »]]> Once you’ve accumulated all the junk, err…, equipment required to brew beer, keg, and dispense, you start wondering if there’s anything else you can do with it all to justify the money you’ve spent. One easy and obvious choice is to make soda (or as some regions call it, pop.)

I started off with the decent and informative book Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop. It laid a good foundation and provided numerous tasty looking recipes.

Using that information as a starting point I created my own recipe for Ginger Ale. I’ll warn you in advance, this is not for soda lovers who don’t like the flavor of real ginger. This drink has a solid ginger base with an nice zing of pineapple juice and lemon. I’ve brewed it several times and have always gotten positive feedback. In fact I’ve helped some friends brew this themselves for Christmas presents just recently.

One note about safety when making a soda. Some recipes call for adding yeast and fermenting to carbonate in bottles. I strongly recommend against that because soda is filled with sugar for the yeast to consume. Even putting bottles in fridges will only slow down the carbonation. If you forget one or if you give one to a friend who leaves it out on the counter top it will explode. I always carbonate with a CO2 tank in kegs to avoid this. I sometimes will fill a carefully sanitized bottle from the keg, but only when I am sure I will drink it in the next couple of days. I did bottle one batch recently but for safety I added potassium sorbate at the correct dosing.

I’m going to assume you know how to make beer from extract and follow good sanitation practices. Without further ado, here’s the recipe:

2.5 Gallon Recipe for Dave’s Ginger Ale

Ingredients:

• 40 oz Desert Mesquite Honey (other honey will do but this is cheap at Trader Joe’s and has a nice flavor)
• 6 oz Fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 2.5 oz grated fresh ginger
• 32 fl oz Pineapple Juice
• water to top up to 2.5 gallons

Directions:

1. Grate the fresh ginger and juice the lemons.
2. Put grated ginger into a straining bag and pour the pineapple juice and lemon juice through the bag. Tie the bag up so that you can easily separate the ginger from the ginger ale.
3. Add all ingredients to a large (at least 3 gallon) pot and top off with water to 2.5 gallons.
4. Stir well so that all of the honey is dissolved
5. Heat to 180 F, let sit for five minutes.
6. Transfer to a sanitized keg while hot, put in your keggerator, and carbonate like an American Pale Ale (15 psi at 40 F)

Enjoy! It is usually carbonated by the end of the first week or two but will be very strong. It mellows considerably over the following month and then the ginger fades almost completely.

Dave.

Continue reading »]]> I’m happy to announce that a project that BJCP Grand Master judge David Teckam has finally become available to the public. We’ve recorded some of his BJCP training sessions and are releasing them as low cost DVDs to help people prepare for the exam or just improve their judging skills. Check out he new website at www.BeerJudgeSchool.com.

Dave.

Continue reading »]]> So I was walking with my wife and dog tonight and I did a double take when I saw an old woman taking an empty flip top magnum of Stone Double Bastard to the curb for recycling. She was happy to give it to us and said she had a smaller one that the former college student tenant left. Turned out to be a 2 liter growler. Both are in excellent condition.

Unfortunately the Double Bastard bottle says “not refillable” so I’ll probably just look into ways to strip the paint so I can reuse it for some special future beer of mine (hmmm, maybe some of the barrel project?) Do any of you know how to clean it? If so shoot me an email at dave@slobrewer.com. I’ve heard a good soak in muriatic acid (pool acid) can do the job.

Dave.