Starting a new blog

Well, Ive ignored this blog for a long time. My brewing has progressed into a passion and I am working on taking the next step by opening a micro brewery that specializes in wild yeast fermentation, farmhouse beer and sour beers. I am starting a new blog called The Zen of Wild Brewing. Look for me there

Overview of the all grain process

Here is a great series of videos by Chris Knight showing the all grain process. It is in 8 parts....

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Part 4:



Part 5:


Part 6:


Part 7:


Part 8:

Converting an igloo cooler into a mash tun

Here is a great youtube video showing how to convert an igloo water cooler into a mash tun....





He used a plastic false bottom. I found people more commonly use a stainless steel braided hose from a water supply line. Here it is being put into a square cooler, but you get the idea...

Thinking of All Grain Brewing

As I'm finding recipes on the Internet, it seems that most of them are all grain recipes. This means that instead of using a dried malt extract, the malt for the beer is extracted from malted barley grains. This adds an extra step in the brewing process. With extract brewing, you make a tea of specialty grains. With all grain brewing, the "tea" is ramped up with lots of malted barley and the tea is left to steep longer at precisely controlled temperatures. Malted barley has enzymes that will convert its own starch into simple sugars. With the right conditions, these enzymes will convert most of the barley starch into malt for the beer.

With this extra step comes extra equipment. I'll need a mash tun, the vessel for steeping the malted barley grain. There are several designs on the internet, and I've decided to convert a 5 gallon igloo cooler into a mash tun. I can also use this mash tun to steep my specialty grains during extract brewing. I'll post a youtube video of someone making an igloo mash tun shortly.

I'll also need a way to cool the wort that is more efficient than putting it in an ice bath in the sink. When you are brewing an all grain beer, it is more important to cool the wort down quickly than with extract brewing. I bought an immersion chiller from the homebrew store to do this.

Because I'll have to boil up to 7 gallons of wort with all grain brewing, I'll need a bigger brewpot. I found an old beer keg on craigslist for $20. I bought it, and cut the top of it off to make a 15 gallon brew kettle. I'll use a propane burner to heat it up.

Great Starter Video

This video is a great overview of the brewing process. Youtube is a great source of visual instruction for all aspects of homebrewing

Ready to Brew

My first brew was an India Pale Ale, or IPA. It wass based on Charlie Papazian's Palialia India Pale Ale. This was an extract beer which means that the sugars for the beer were in the form of malt extract. The ingredients for 5 gallons were:

• 7 lbs light dry malt extract (light DME)
• 1 lb crystal 20L malt
• 0.5 lbs toasted malted barley
• 1.5 oz Northern Brewer hops (bittering hops)
• 0.75 Cascade hops (finishing hops)
• 1 pkg Safale S-04 yeast
• 2 tsp gypsum (water conditioner)
• 1 tsp Irish Moss

Papazian describes how to toast malted barley, but I found roasted barley at the homebrew shop. Roasted barley is darker than toasted barley, but I thought I'd give it a try and substitute it for the toasted barley. I had the homebrew shop crush the crystal malt and roasted barley for me and got to work.

First you make a tea.....

I took 2 gallons of water, added the gypsum and heated it in my brew kettle to 150 degrees. I put the crushed grain (crystal and roasted barley) into a muslin grain bag and steeped it in the 150 degree water for 30 minutes. This made a barley tea that added flavor, body and color to the beer. After 30 minutes, I drained the water out of my "teabag" being careful not to squeeze the bag. Squeezing at this point can release tannins into your tea, making the beer bitter.

Next a 60 minute boil ....

Into the tea I added the DME and brought the whole thing to a boil. The stuff in the brew kettle was now wort, basically beer without alcohol. As wort approaches a boil, it foams up. You have to be careful to stir the wort and lower the heat or you'll get a boilover which believe me is not fun to clean up. Having a large brew kettle will help with the boilover because of the space in the kettle for the wort to foam. This foaming is known as the "hot break" and is important to achieve to help precipitate proteins in the beer to prevent cloudiness.

After the hot break and when the wort came to a rolling boil, I added the Northern Brewer Hops. I used another muslin bag to contain the hops as it helped keep the amount of sediment in the wort to a minimum. I then boiled the wort for 50 minutes. I added the Irish moss which is a seaweed that helps further coagulate proteins in the wort that can lead to cloudy beer. With 2 minutes left, I added the Cascade hops to the hop bag and finished the boil.

Cool it quickly...

The brew pot went into an icebath in the sink to cool to below 80 degrees. At this point, everything that touched the wort must be sanitized to prevent an infection. Infected beer smells and tastes horrible, but if you did drink it, it wouldn't make you sick.

After the wort was cooled down I poured it into a sanitized fermentation bucket. I poured the wort through a strainer to filter out the coagulated proteins and bits of hops that might get through the bag. I made sure to splash the wort around during the pour to ensure that the wort got oxygenated to ensure good yeast action.

I measured the specific gravity to estimate the percent alcohol. It was 1.070.

I opened the yeast package, poured it into the bucket, put on the lid and an airlock and into a cool spot for the next week.

Waiting...

After a week, I transfered the beer (now its beer!) into another sanitized fermentation bucket. Lid, airlock, another week.

Its ready!!...

After fermenting for two weeks, the beer was ready. The final gravity was 1.021 which meant that the beer had an alcohol by volume (ABV) of 6.4 %. Not bad.

I siphoned the beer into a sanitized keg, chilled it, put it on CO2 to carbonate and in a couple of days it was ready to drink.

The Verdict...

Wow. This stuff is great! Smooth, good balance of malt sweetness and hop bitterness. It was really good immediately, but got much better as it aged in the keg.

Time taken:

Brewing - less than 3 hours

Fermenting - 2 weeks

Carbonation - 2 days

Getting Equipment, Part 2

I went to the local homebrew store to get a brewing kit. I chose a kit because it was cheaper than buying everything individually. Here is a list of the equipment that is needed to brew a basic batch of beer:

• Plastic fermentation pail - Something to brew in. Glass carboys are also available, but plastic is cheaper and works just as well. Plastic fermentation buckets hold 6.5 gallons and have a lid that seals out air. The lid has a hole in it to hold the airlock. Simple brewing requires only one, but I found that a second one made things a lot easier.
• Brew Pot - Get the biggest heaviest pot you can afford. For a 5 gallon batch, at least 5 gallons. 7 or 10 is better. Stainless is best, but aluminum will work.
• Airlock - Allows CO2 to escape from the fermenting beer and keeps air out.
• Siphon - get an autosiphon. You'll be glad you did
• Thermometer - get an accurate one. You'll need it
• Hydrometer - an instrument that helps you tell when your beer is ready to bottle and how much alcohol is in it.
• Hop and grain bags
• Big plastic spoon
• Turkey baster - to draw samples of the wort/beer at various times
• Strainer - to separate sediment from wort
• Sanitizer - I love StarSan. It is little more expensive, but it's no rinse.

Ok. I had everything together. Time to make my first brew in 10 years!