First off let me say that the upgrades are not going so great. The stir plate is slow going but it is coming along. The closed loop chiller didn't work out. More on this later. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on either of these yet but let's just say work has been put into both.
The brown ale was kegged on Thursday. I added the dry hops to the keg. I tied floss to the steeping bag and tied it to the outside of the keg. This will help retrieve the hops the following Wednesday. The brown ale finished at 1.020 and tasted good. Can't wait on that one.
So now I wanted to make a wheat beer for Ellie. I ordered up the German Hefe kit from MoreBeer. Ingredients:
4lbs 2row
6lbs Wheat
0.5 oz Northern Brewer at 60min.
Servomyces at 50 min.
No whirlfloc.
Hefeweizen Ale Yeast WLP300 Lot number 1300IPTPORA1.
When the kit came in the mail the yeast seemed warm and I was worried they might be sick or dead. I did make a starter for them and I noticed the next morning that they flask was warm so they were in there doing something.
I invited dad over to help brew. It was HOT. I tell you what. Poor efficiency again. I added all the DME I had to the wort at the 50min and got the OG to 1.049 which was pretty close to the 1.050 I wanted. We used to glass fermenter this time so I can fit it in the chest freezer with the keg of brown. I did turn the temp down to 62F for the first few days to keep the yeast in check. Those hefe yeast can go nuts and then we have banana beer. But so far no strong banana smells so we are doing good.
The brew day was long and hot and the only thing notable was the chilling. I had this great idea to have the March pump push ice water through the coil. This was a miserable failure. The pump just didn't have enough pressure to make this happen. I'm thinking I may be able to shorten and widen the pump lines and give it another go on another weekend that is not a brew day.
This beer should be ready in a couple of weeks and then we can have the beer party. Wish us luck.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Upgrades
"Upgrayedd gonna kill me!" Great quote from a great movie. I have some ideas of projects to improve the beer.
First idea: Upgrade the stir plate. The stir plate works but has issues. First off the badass magnet is not properly on the motor. So the stir bar is not balanced. This is an easy fix. The harder fix is the issue that as the yeast grows and sugar is consumed, the viscosity of the fluid changes. This means that when I set the stir plate to spin at the rate I want, it will eventually stop spinning all together. What I need is a control loop.
This shouldn't be too hard. There is quite a bit of clearance below the fan. In it I can place an emitter/detector pair. Then I paint part of the fan white and I can use a microcontroller to count the white stripes I see and I can change the PWM to spin the fan faster or slower. This requires a solid state relay to PWM the motor. I've got one of these. I've got emitter/detectors. I've got microcontrollers, voltage regulators, etc. I've got all I need to do this right now. What I don't got is a display of some kind and an interface to change the rate of spin if I want. But I'm sure I don't need that. I may just hard code the rate in and call it good.
Second idea: Upgrade the cooling method. Right now my method of cooling is not logistically ideal. It takes two people and it sucks. I need an easier way. I need another pump to do this though and those things are like $200 but I think it will be worth it. What we will do is after the flame is out we will start the whirlpool with the current motor right on the burner. Then we get a bucket of ice water and use the second pump to pump ice water through the chiller. The water from the chiller will go back to the bucket. So, it will be a closed system. But, the water will heat up quickly so the majority of the work will be to add more ice and empty the excess water from the bucket. This will keep us from having to move the hot pot and wort to the basin. It should cool VERY quickly though. Aside from the pump I will need the tubing, connectors, coupling, and ball valves to control flow.
Third idea: Temperature control. The latest brown ale showed me an issue with my current system. I set the temp with the temp controller. However, that is not going to be the temp in the chest freezer. After the cold temp is reached the freezer is turned off but the cooling coils are still very cold and so the temp in the freezer continues to drop. All I really care about is the temp of the beer. I am lucky in that the thermal mass of beer won't allow it to fluctuate all that much. As long as the temp in the freezer is some kind of average and doesn't swing TOO much all should be well. But what temp should I set on the controller to get the beer the temp I want? Well it changes with the temp of the garage. I sort of have to play games and tweak the temp constantly. And then there is the issue that the beer itself is sometimes exothermic and sometimes not. The beer actually produces heat when aggressively fermenting the first few days. So I need to tweak the temp controller even more so and it is even more so of a guessing game and more so of a nightmare.
Well last night I read about a thermowell. This is a fermentation cap with a build it metal tube that extends well into the beer. We can put a temp sensor down the thermowell and can measure the actual temp of the beer. Then I get a computer to control the cooling cycles on the chest freezer to finely control the temp of the beer even when fermenting. I can even wire up the controller to a wireless device and have it output the temp of the chest freezer and the beer for the last days or weeks. Again, I think I can scrounge up the digital stuff.
Fourth idea: I'd like to put a nice wood collar on the current chest freezer. I will use the current temp controller for this since I don't need fine temp control. It just needs to keep the beer cool when it is served. This nice collar should allow us to add nice tap handles. I will never need to open the fridge again to serve beer. Only to replace the kegs. There are lots of examples of how to do this on youtube and it looks like a long weekend project.
Fifth idea: New chest freezer for fermenting. This would use the new cooling system and would allow us to ferment beer in one freezer and serve it from another. It should be big enough to fit two fermenters.
That's all I've got for now. Long post. My fingers are tired!
First idea: Upgrade the stir plate. The stir plate works but has issues. First off the badass magnet is not properly on the motor. So the stir bar is not balanced. This is an easy fix. The harder fix is the issue that as the yeast grows and sugar is consumed, the viscosity of the fluid changes. This means that when I set the stir plate to spin at the rate I want, it will eventually stop spinning all together. What I need is a control loop.
This shouldn't be too hard. There is quite a bit of clearance below the fan. In it I can place an emitter/detector pair. Then I paint part of the fan white and I can use a microcontroller to count the white stripes I see and I can change the PWM to spin the fan faster or slower. This requires a solid state relay to PWM the motor. I've got one of these. I've got emitter/detectors. I've got microcontrollers, voltage regulators, etc. I've got all I need to do this right now. What I don't got is a display of some kind and an interface to change the rate of spin if I want. But I'm sure I don't need that. I may just hard code the rate in and call it good.
Second idea: Upgrade the cooling method. Right now my method of cooling is not logistically ideal. It takes two people and it sucks. I need an easier way. I need another pump to do this though and those things are like $200 but I think it will be worth it. What we will do is after the flame is out we will start the whirlpool with the current motor right on the burner. Then we get a bucket of ice water and use the second pump to pump ice water through the chiller. The water from the chiller will go back to the bucket. So, it will be a closed system. But, the water will heat up quickly so the majority of the work will be to add more ice and empty the excess water from the bucket. This will keep us from having to move the hot pot and wort to the basin. It should cool VERY quickly though. Aside from the pump I will need the tubing, connectors, coupling, and ball valves to control flow.
Third idea: Temperature control. The latest brown ale showed me an issue with my current system. I set the temp with the temp controller. However, that is not going to be the temp in the chest freezer. After the cold temp is reached the freezer is turned off but the cooling coils are still very cold and so the temp in the freezer continues to drop. All I really care about is the temp of the beer. I am lucky in that the thermal mass of beer won't allow it to fluctuate all that much. As long as the temp in the freezer is some kind of average and doesn't swing TOO much all should be well. But what temp should I set on the controller to get the beer the temp I want? Well it changes with the temp of the garage. I sort of have to play games and tweak the temp constantly. And then there is the issue that the beer itself is sometimes exothermic and sometimes not. The beer actually produces heat when aggressively fermenting the first few days. So I need to tweak the temp controller even more so and it is even more so of a guessing game and more so of a nightmare.
Well last night I read about a thermowell. This is a fermentation cap with a build it metal tube that extends well into the beer. We can put a temp sensor down the thermowell and can measure the actual temp of the beer. Then I get a computer to control the cooling cycles on the chest freezer to finely control the temp of the beer even when fermenting. I can even wire up the controller to a wireless device and have it output the temp of the chest freezer and the beer for the last days or weeks. Again, I think I can scrounge up the digital stuff.
Fourth idea: I'd like to put a nice wood collar on the current chest freezer. I will use the current temp controller for this since I don't need fine temp control. It just needs to keep the beer cool when it is served. This nice collar should allow us to add nice tap handles. I will never need to open the fridge again to serve beer. Only to replace the kegs. There are lots of examples of how to do this on youtube and it looks like a long weekend project.
Fifth idea: New chest freezer for fermenting. This would use the new cooling system and would allow us to ferment beer in one freezer and serve it from another. It should be big enough to fit two fermenters.
That's all I've got for now. Long post. My fingers are tired!
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Ellie's Brown Ale
So here I am making beer for Ellie's beer party. We thought we would throw a party to raise money for her race in Ireland. I was thinking about what beers to make and I thought a brown ale and a wheat beer. Those are beers she likes. So we will start with Janet's Brown Ale. It was a brown ale I've made and we really liked. I've changed the recipe slightly. I thought there was too much coffee notes in the beer so I backed off a little on the chocolate malt. Could find some of the hops so I made a substitution. Not sure which yeast I used the first time but this time we are using WLP002 English.
Here's the ingredients:
12lbs 2-Row domestice
1lb White Wheat.
1lb 4oz Crystal 40L
7oz Chocolate malt (Tasty had this at 8oz)
2oz Northern Brewer 10.6%AA @60min
1oz Northern Brewer 10.6%AA @15min
1.5oz Cascade 6.2%AA @10min
1.5oz Cascade 6.2%AA @1min
2oz Columbus 15.2AA drop hop (was Centennial. Could find it at brew shop)
WLP002 - Aug-18-12 - Lot # 1002PBLSKYA1
Whirfloc @10min
Servomyces @10min
Dad was supposed to come by but wasn't feeling well. We rode with us to COH yesterday. I know it dorks up his back. He know it does too which is why he travels with pain killers. He didn't use any on the trip. I know he was hurting. But it's cool. That means that Ellie and I get to hang.
Made a starter last night. All went well with that.
Woke up this morning, ran, ate, went to store to get water, ice, and propane.
10:00am: Started cleaning.
12:30pm: Heating strike water. Wanna get a mash of 154-155F. It should be nice and malty.
12:54pm: Mashed in. Mash temp 154F. Hit it. Awesome!! Added 5.2. Half a tablespoon this time. I'm thinking I'll never need as much buffer power as they provide for the worst case with a full tablespoon. Mash tun leaking a little. Not too bad though. Just put the pitcher underneath. Should be fine.
1:17pm: Started to clean the keg. E bought a gate so Snickers can brew with papa. It looks bad ass. I've got to get that dog a brewer's assistant shirt now.
1:40pm: Heating sparge water. Hanging with Ellie.
2:56pm: Sparged. Didn't get out very much sugar. A little sad. I wanted to get 1.055ish and got 1.047ish. So I added some DME until I got to 1.055. I added a little at a time and then checked. The only thing I can think of was that the second sparge temp was low and it didn't dissolve the sugars as well as it should have. So note to self, get the sparge up to 170F.
Tuey came over. We drank beer and he helped out a ton. The beer OG is 1.069 which is where is should be. i'm glad I added the DME. Looks like I did that part right.
The boil and such went well. The cooling did not. I really need to think more about a more efficient way to move the thing over to the basin, get the pump primed, and cool the wort. Tuey was assigned to hold the pump but it got too hot. The pump needs to to be below the spigot and we put it on the mash table and it worked. Getting ice water through the heat exchanger is not easy. The whole system I got going is awkward and clumsy and it seems I always run out of ice. I really need to think harder about the process.
It's really hot in the garage. Hot and humid. Got to get inside now.
Here's the ingredients:
12lbs 2-Row domestice
1lb White Wheat.
1lb 4oz Crystal 40L
7oz Chocolate malt (Tasty had this at 8oz)
2oz Northern Brewer 10.6%AA @60min
1oz Northern Brewer 10.6%AA @15min
1.5oz Cascade 6.2%AA @10min
1.5oz Cascade 6.2%AA @1min
2oz Columbus 15.2AA drop hop (was Centennial. Could find it at brew shop)
WLP002 - Aug-18-12 - Lot # 1002PBLSKYA1
Whirfloc @10min
Servomyces @10min
Dad was supposed to come by but wasn't feeling well. We rode with us to COH yesterday. I know it dorks up his back. He know it does too which is why he travels with pain killers. He didn't use any on the trip. I know he was hurting. But it's cool. That means that Ellie and I get to hang.
Made a starter last night. All went well with that.
Woke up this morning, ran, ate, went to store to get water, ice, and propane.
10:00am: Started cleaning.
12:30pm: Heating strike water. Wanna get a mash of 154-155F. It should be nice and malty.
12:54pm: Mashed in. Mash temp 154F. Hit it. Awesome!! Added 5.2. Half a tablespoon this time. I'm thinking I'll never need as much buffer power as they provide for the worst case with a full tablespoon. Mash tun leaking a little. Not too bad though. Just put the pitcher underneath. Should be fine.
1:17pm: Started to clean the keg. E bought a gate so Snickers can brew with papa. It looks bad ass. I've got to get that dog a brewer's assistant shirt now.
1:40pm: Heating sparge water. Hanging with Ellie.
2:56pm: Sparged. Didn't get out very much sugar. A little sad. I wanted to get 1.055ish and got 1.047ish. So I added some DME until I got to 1.055. I added a little at a time and then checked. The only thing I can think of was that the second sparge temp was low and it didn't dissolve the sugars as well as it should have. So note to self, get the sparge up to 170F.
Tuey came over. We drank beer and he helped out a ton. The beer OG is 1.069 which is where is should be. i'm glad I added the DME. Looks like I did that part right.
The boil and such went well. The cooling did not. I really need to think more about a more efficient way to move the thing over to the basin, get the pump primed, and cool the wort. Tuey was assigned to hold the pump but it got too hot. The pump needs to to be below the spigot and we put it on the mash table and it worked. Getting ice water through the heat exchanger is not easy. The whole system I got going is awkward and clumsy and it seems I always run out of ice. I really need to think harder about the process.
It's really hot in the garage. Hot and humid. Got to get inside now.
100 Day Pale Ale Notes
The 100 Day Pale Ale started out way too bitter. Kevin and I must have added too much hops after the boil over. We drank some after two weeks when I moved it to the keg. The next week I gave Kevin a growler and he said it was good and that his wife liked it too. I called BS.
Later in the week I invited over Kevin and Poole to empty the keg since I wanted to get ready for Ellie's beer party and I need the space in the chest freezer. Kevin brought two growlers and Jonathon took one. Then five of us worked through at least a half gallon of what was left. It wasn't bad. The bitterness had calmed down and the citra was beginning to come through. It smelled great. Love that new yeast. It may become EKA new yeast.
So, the keg is empty and I'm working a couple of new beers to raise money for Ellie. Wish us luck.
Later in the week I invited over Kevin and Poole to empty the keg since I wanted to get ready for Ellie's beer party and I need the space in the chest freezer. Kevin brought two growlers and Jonathon took one. Then five of us worked through at least a half gallon of what was left. It wasn't bad. The bitterness had calmed down and the citra was beginning to come through. It smelled great. Love that new yeast. It may become EKA new yeast.
So, the keg is empty and I'm working a couple of new beers to raise money for Ellie. Wish us luck.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Beer to make this year
Beer I'd like to make this year.
Pumpkin beer
Milk Oatmeal Vanilla Stout
SMaSH beer - Maris Otter and Amarillo
EFA with Nugget Hops
Pumpkin beer
Milk Oatmeal Vanilla Stout
SMaSH beer - Maris Otter and Amarillo
EFA with Nugget Hops
Sunday, June 24, 2012
100 Day Pale Ale
Ellie has just come home. She needed to wait 100 days post transplant. Thus the name for the beer.
Recipe:
10 lbs. 2 row
1 lb Vienna
1oz Chinook 60 min
1oz Citra 5 min
1oz Citra 1 min
Whirlfloc 10 min
Servomyces 10 min
WLP060 - American Ale Yeast Blend - Lot number 1060ITH7347331
We bought the good at More Beer in LA area. While there I also bought a pump with the idea of creating a whirlpool for faster chilling. That thing was expensive. The pump is not self priming but will pump boiling things. Also there were out of WLP001 so the shop guy recommended we try something new. It is a blended strain. So there are actually multiple yeasts in there.
The brewing began the night before with a starter. Two cups water and 1/2 cup DME. Boiled for 10 mins and then cooled. Then pitched the yeast. I put it on a stir plate but it didn't stir very well. I think what I need to do is make a controller that will maintain the rate.
The next day I began around 10am. I started cleaning the gear and Kevin arrived with the water. He supplied the water from his place. He also supplied the Citra hops. We got to heating the water right away and mashed in at around 154F.
While mashing we continued to clean more stuff and we thought to try and clean the pump. Ok when they say that thing is not self priming they mean it. I plugged it in without having liquid in it and it sounded horrible. I was scared. But luckily Kevin was there. I don't know what I would do without him.
After mashing for 60min we added two gallons of boiling water and stirred. Vorlouf. And then drain. Then added four gallons of 180F water. Stir. Let it sit for 5 mins. Vorlouf and drain. Nice.
Then we get it to a boil and wait for the hot break to settle. After it did I added the Chinook hops and the whole thing boiled over. What a mess! Well, now I know. The rest of the boil was uneventful.
Now we come to cooling. I attach the tube to the boil kettle and we carry it to the basin. We get the pump going and start running tap water through the chiller. Also, we get ice water in the basin. This works but we are really clumsy about it. It's our first time doing this. I bet we get better. In 10 mins we cooled to 100F. Then I put ice in a bucket and ran ice water through the chiller. In less than 30 mins we were done. But it was an ordeal.
We then transferred to the carboy. Maybe we use the pump for this next time. Pitched the yeast. Cleaned up. OG was 1.056. It tasted great.
Recipe:
10 lbs. 2 row
1 lb Vienna
1oz Chinook 60 min
1oz Citra 5 min
1oz Citra 1 min
Whirlfloc 10 min
Servomyces 10 min
WLP060 - American Ale Yeast Blend - Lot number 1060ITH7347331
We bought the good at More Beer in LA area. While there I also bought a pump with the idea of creating a whirlpool for faster chilling. That thing was expensive. The pump is not self priming but will pump boiling things. Also there were out of WLP001 so the shop guy recommended we try something new. It is a blended strain. So there are actually multiple yeasts in there.
The brewing began the night before with a starter. Two cups water and 1/2 cup DME. Boiled for 10 mins and then cooled. Then pitched the yeast. I put it on a stir plate but it didn't stir very well. I think what I need to do is make a controller that will maintain the rate.
The next day I began around 10am. I started cleaning the gear and Kevin arrived with the water. He supplied the water from his place. He also supplied the Citra hops. We got to heating the water right away and mashed in at around 154F.
While mashing we continued to clean more stuff and we thought to try and clean the pump. Ok when they say that thing is not self priming they mean it. I plugged it in without having liquid in it and it sounded horrible. I was scared. But luckily Kevin was there. I don't know what I would do without him.
After mashing for 60min we added two gallons of boiling water and stirred. Vorlouf. And then drain. Then added four gallons of 180F water. Stir. Let it sit for 5 mins. Vorlouf and drain. Nice.
Then we get it to a boil and wait for the hot break to settle. After it did I added the Chinook hops and the whole thing boiled over. What a mess! Well, now I know. The rest of the boil was uneventful.
Now we come to cooling. I attach the tube to the boil kettle and we carry it to the basin. We get the pump going and start running tap water through the chiller. Also, we get ice water in the basin. This works but we are really clumsy about it. It's our first time doing this. I bet we get better. In 10 mins we cooled to 100F. Then I put ice in a bucket and ran ice water through the chiller. In less than 30 mins we were done. But it was an ordeal.
We then transferred to the carboy. Maybe we use the pump for this next time. Pitched the yeast. Cleaned up. OG was 1.056. It tasted great.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Mead/Helles update
Just bought a new mechanical switch keyboard. I don't like the silly looking fonts on the keys but I like the way it feels. Nothing to do with homebrew but I using it for the first time now.
First of the strawberry mead doesn't not taste good. It ended up too dry. Wanna know what honey tastes like if you remove the delicious sugary stuff. Well, it tastes like crap. Note to self, don't coddle the yeast. Let them leave some sugar. I took a bottle over to Ellie's sister's place. I tried it. Illeana tried it. Lucy might have. Everyone agreed it was bad. Poole and his wife cam over one day after a trip to Kern River. His wife mentioned it tasted like bubble gum. I gave them a bottle. There are two gallons or so in the bottom of the bar area. I hope to forget about them for a long long time. Maybe they will improve. Although I think not.
Onto the Helles. In short it's going to end up too sweet. I overshot the gravity. That means that the bittering hops got all screwed up making it too sweet. Also, it make is not longer a helles since there is too much alcohol. It ended at 1.012 which is about 6-7% ABV. So I guess it is a helles bock. Or a blonde bock.
It was cool to see the lager age. As this is my first I've learned a lot. First, I set the chest freezer to 50F but the first few days the fermenter was likely 53F. I really need to make it cooler to account for the exothermic properties of the fermentation.
After two weeks I sampled the beer. There was a lot of DMS and I believe I detected some diacetyl. While I couldn't taste it, I felt a slick feeling on my tongue. After another week I upped the temp to 60F for a diacetyl rest. I sampled the beer at this point and I couldn't taste the diacetyl anymore but I figured I do the rest anyway. There was still a strong DMS presence.
After another week I moved the beer to the keg for lagering. I put it in the chest freezer at 34F. After another two weeks it was very drinkable. I gave some to Kevin, Ellie, Tuey, Jackie, and my dad. Everyone liked it. At this point the DMS character was beginning to subside and it tasted like a good MGD.
Now another week later the DMS has further subsided and is almost undetectable. Now all the flaws are out there. I can tell it is too sweet. Somehow the DMS covered up the flaws and made it more drinkable. So, a cleaner lager lends to more detection of beer flaws. For it is worth though I was going for a very clean lager. I love the Blonde Bock from Gordon Biersch. There are no beer esters in that beer. It shows me just how good these lagers can be if they are done right.
I think I might be able to make a good lager here. I need to get the gravity right. I need to control the fermentation better. Then I think we got something good.
First of the strawberry mead doesn't not taste good. It ended up too dry. Wanna know what honey tastes like if you remove the delicious sugary stuff. Well, it tastes like crap. Note to self, don't coddle the yeast. Let them leave some sugar. I took a bottle over to Ellie's sister's place. I tried it. Illeana tried it. Lucy might have. Everyone agreed it was bad. Poole and his wife cam over one day after a trip to Kern River. His wife mentioned it tasted like bubble gum. I gave them a bottle. There are two gallons or so in the bottom of the bar area. I hope to forget about them for a long long time. Maybe they will improve. Although I think not.
Onto the Helles. In short it's going to end up too sweet. I overshot the gravity. That means that the bittering hops got all screwed up making it too sweet. Also, it make is not longer a helles since there is too much alcohol. It ended at 1.012 which is about 6-7% ABV. So I guess it is a helles bock. Or a blonde bock.
It was cool to see the lager age. As this is my first I've learned a lot. First, I set the chest freezer to 50F but the first few days the fermenter was likely 53F. I really need to make it cooler to account for the exothermic properties of the fermentation.
After two weeks I sampled the beer. There was a lot of DMS and I believe I detected some diacetyl. While I couldn't taste it, I felt a slick feeling on my tongue. After another week I upped the temp to 60F for a diacetyl rest. I sampled the beer at this point and I couldn't taste the diacetyl anymore but I figured I do the rest anyway. There was still a strong DMS presence.
After another week I moved the beer to the keg for lagering. I put it in the chest freezer at 34F. After another two weeks it was very drinkable. I gave some to Kevin, Ellie, Tuey, Jackie, and my dad. Everyone liked it. At this point the DMS character was beginning to subside and it tasted like a good MGD.
Now another week later the DMS has further subsided and is almost undetectable. Now all the flaws are out there. I can tell it is too sweet. Somehow the DMS covered up the flaws and made it more drinkable. So, a cleaner lager lends to more detection of beer flaws. For it is worth though I was going for a very clean lager. I love the Blonde Bock from Gordon Biersch. There are no beer esters in that beer. It shows me just how good these lagers can be if they are done right.
I think I might be able to make a good lager here. I need to get the gravity right. I need to control the fermentation better. Then I think we got something good.
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