Too much foam?

I just kegged my "Home-malted Pale Ale" the other day and, surprisingly, it didn't taste too bad - very hoppy with a bit of a honey aroma. It will take a little time to chill and force carbonate, so I'll have to wait just a bit longer for a real test, but overall I'm pretty pleased considering what I went through and what found it's way into that weird beer!

As I was sanitizing my corny keg, I remembered a cool trick that I use to reduce over-foaming when I pour beers from the kegorator tap. I've been using it for a while, so I can't remember what website I actually found it on, and I can't give the proper credit that is due, but I'm sure a lot of people out there are using something like this anyway.

Basically, to avoid over-foaming, you need to either have a bunch of extra line between your keg and the tap, or you need to lower the CO2 pressure so that the beer comes out slower. But if you lower the pressure too much, then the beer doesn't stay as carbonated. Many styles of beer require a high amount of carbonation, and I personally really enjoy a slightly higher carb on all my beers anyway, so what you need to do is figure out a way to slow down the rate of pour without reducing the CO2 pressure. Some people have devised smaller hard plastic tubing that they jam into the keg's dip tube, but I read somewhere about a better solution.

They are called "Bayonet mixer nozzles," and you can purchase them from a company called McMaster-Carr. Here is the link directly to the one you will need, which is the 5.3" L, 1/4" blunt tip model. Basically, this thing is a special tip designed to be attached to some kind of epoxy gun that will mix two substances as they pass through the nozzle housing. Inside the nozzle is a twisty-looking plastic mixer insert that you can remove and slide easily into the dip tube of your corny keg. You can even put more than one in there for more resistance, but I wouldn't recommend more than 2. With 2 in my keg and no extra line involved, I can keep my pressure as high as 14-16 psi and still get a nice, slow pour - perfect for the carbonation I desire.

They only cost $1.38 each (plus shipping) and come in this cool little bag:



Here's what one looks like when they first arrive (see the mixer part inside?):



Use something small to push out the mixer (I used the inside of a pen):



Pull out the mixer insert:



Then pull out another one so you have 2 total. Unscrew the bolt around the "out" valve on your keg, exposing the dip tube. Slide in the mixers. That's it! When you are cleaning and sanitizing your keg and lines, the sanitizer will pass through the inserts and clean them as well, so you never need to remove them. However, they are really easy to remove if you want to clean them better. Also, you can remove and add mixers according to how much carb you desire in different beers. If you have a bunch of kegs and brew a lot, you might have some kegs with no mixers, some with 1 or 2, etc. They are very cool, cheap, easy, and amazing - just one of the little tricks I'm so happy I found out about.

Keeping it cool

By now it's probably pretty obvious that I'm all about cheap, easy solutions to common brewing issues, and since currently I am just waiting around to taste these two screwed up beers I made from "home-malted" barley, I thought I would talk a little about regulation of fermentation temperatures. For me, living in Florida, that means cooling down the fermentation vessel, since I will never need to warm one up as long as I live here. Cooling is something that I need to consider every time I brew, except for maybe those 1 or 2 lucky batches that get brewed in the middle of winter.

Most of the year, we have central air conditioning that keeps our house at a steady 76 degrees, which is already at the high end of desirable temps for ales. But then you also have to take into account the fact that the fermentation process itself generates a small amount of heat, so at that point you end up with your ales being fermented in the high 70's or even over 80 degrees - not ideal. So I use the cooling effects of evaporation to keep my ales chill. All you have to do is wrap a moist towel around your carboy, and the evaporation will keep the beer anywhere from 5-8 degrees cooler than the surrounding air. You can even place a small fan next to the carboy and it should provide even more cooling - depending on the humidity in your house, even as much as 10-15 degrees! You can remove the towel every day and re-wet it, or you can just spray it down every so often - that's what I do:



When it comes to lagers, the only option I have is to ferment them in my regular fridge. If I turn the temperature control all the way up, my fridge stays between 49-51 degrees (a few degrees variation is pretty normal). This can be just a tad low for some yeast, but if you wait long enough it eventually attenuates. I always use a diacetyl rest, which means when the primary action is mostly over I remove the fermentor from the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature over the course of 24-48 hours. This re-activates the yeast and allows it to eat up diacetyl, a compound that is naturally produced during fermentation and tastes like butter - not a good flavor for most beers. After that, I lager the beer by putting it right inside my kegorator - it fits alongside the keg and CO2, and stays around 30-35 degrees (in this picture the CO2 is hidden behind the keg):



I know this may sound crazy, but the only lager fermentor I have that will fit in my fridge is an old 5-gallon kerosene can! I got it a long time ago when I had a salt-water fish tank. When I used to refill the tank with fresh water, the pet store would sell me the water in these plastic kerosene cans, so nothing has ever been inside there except for pH balanced salt water! I basically just drilled a hole in the top, and then inserted a rubber stopper and blow-tube. It fits perfectly on the bottom shelf, and is relatively easy to pull out:



So, even though I don't have any fancy cooling equipment, I still manage to keep my beers as close to ideal temperatures as possible without expending too much time or energy. That's what it's all about, right?

My first brewing failure

If you've had a chance to read my previous entry on malting barley at home, then you already know how much time and energy I recently put into making my own fresh malt. After finally completing the malting process for the first time, I was dying to brew my first "homemalted" batch of beer - a hoppy pale ale. I decided to use a double decoction to really bring out the fresh barley flavor and balance the hops, and I decided to order organic Cascade hops (why not keep this beer 100% organic?) from Seven Bridges Cooperative, along with some Safale US-05 yeast. I always use this yeast for my American Ales since it has a nice clean finish and the perfect moderate attenuation that I desire for this style. I usually end up with a final gravity around 1.010-1.015 so I get nice flavor and body without going too dry or too sweet.

So the first thing I needed to do was crush my freshly malted grains. The only problem is that I don't have a grain mill, nor do I have an extra $150 to blow on one right now. I also have to admit that I felt a little uncomfortable asking my local homebrew store to mill it for me, since I hadn't purchased it there, and wasn't even planning on getting my hops and yeast there. So I got some Zip-Lock freezer bags, put a small amount of grain into one (maybe about 1 pound), and began crushing it repeatedly with a wooden rolling pin.



Okay, so it turns out that this method really sucks. Within the first couple minutes I broke a sweat, and after getting through about 3 or 4 bags I was cursing like a sailor and had developed a really bad pain in my left wrist. Also, I wasn't really getting the quality crush that I've always been accustomed to when I purchase grains at the store or online. I held a few kernels in my hand and analyzed them - they looked cracked, so I assumed all would be well.

So to make a long story short, I spent the next five hours performing the most meticulous, well executed and well documented brew session ever. After chilling the wort I took a small sample to get my first gravity reading - the moment of truth! In hind sight, I should have taken a test before the boil, but I was so excited and it smelled so good I simply didn't even think of it. So I dropped in my hydrometer, hoping for the best, and watched in horror as it sank to 1.010!!! Horrible! Unbelievable! Now I had managed to waste the whole day, all those delicious hops, and, good Lord - all the time spent malting that barley! On top of that I had already pre-boiled water and dumped my yeast in to re-hydrate! I really wanted to do something, anything, to make beer out of all this mess. So I started rummaging through all my brewing supplies. I found a couple pounds of dry malt extract that I keep in the back of the fridge for making yeast starters, about a half a pound of corn sugar for when I do small or gift batches and I need primer, and a three pound container of clover honey. I was desperate, okay? I've never had to throw away a batch before, and I wasn't about to make this my first time!

So I poured all that random crap into a pot, boiled for about 15 minutes, chilled in an ice bath and then dumped it all into my stupid weak wort. I tested the gravity again and came up with 1.045. Whatever, it would have to do. I aerated again just to be sure and pitched my very well hydrated yeast.

When I look back on this experience, I really feel that I wasn't able to get a good crush on my grains, and that was probably the cause of my extremely poor mash efficiency. So I have begun malting my next batch of barley, and I am going to try again, except this time I'm going to crush the grains properly. However, for some reason I now feel even more adamant about doing this myself - as if I have something to prove! So I have to find a cheap grain mill or another reliable method for milling barley.

This is my quest - I will report back when I come up with the solution! Also, I'll post again when I have my first taste of the "swampwater" concoction I brewed. Do you think I can even call it "beer"???

My first blog!

Hey everybody! Welcome to my brewing blog. This is the first time I have ever tried blogging before, and I'm really excited because I think I have a lot to share about brewing beer at home. One thing I can tell you about brewing is that each person who brews inevitably develops their own particular techniques, has their own favorite types of equipment (usually homemade), and over time has acquired certain brewing habits that they believe can make their brewday easier and more productive. So in many instances there is really not a right or wrong way, as long as the finished product has your friends begging for more. And in the end, we all have one common goal - to make the freshest, most delicious and interesting homemade beer in the world - and we all believe we can do it!

My personal brewing arsenal is limited by my finances, but I'm lucky enough to have a bunch of different fermentors of different sizes, the usual bottling and siphoning tools, two homemade mash/lauter tuns (one 5 gallon and one 2 gallon), a propane burner, 4 and 7.5 gallon brewpots, a homemade 2-stage wort chiller with sink adaptor, ProMash brewing software, lots of clean bottles, and the best thing ever - a kegorator with cornelius keg conversion that can fit my secondary fermentor in it at the same time as a the keg and CO2, so I can lager (cold age) beer at the same time as enjoying beer from the keg. The only thing I would really love to do is convert the kegorator to hold two kegs with separate taps, but really I'm just overjoyed to have cold homebrew on tap at all, so I'm not about to complain.

I am strictly an all-grain brewer now, so I make all my own recipes and never use any extracts or kits, and I would say that I'm much more of a practical, hands on type of brewer. What I mean is that I am obviously interested in learning as much as I can about the science of brewing (and believe me, there is endless knowledge to acquire), but I am much more excited about the spiritual aspect of brewing. My goal when I brew is to have fun, learn, and just be happy. I try not to stress too much about the hundreds of mathematical formulas and calculations that are needed to produce good beer, and more on the experience of brewing itself. I like to smell the malted barley and hops, feel their texture in my hand, taste the beer at every little step during the process, and ponder the activities of my yeast. I always play my favorite music while brewing (usually Sublime), and I always try to be positive around my yeast, as if these tiny one-celled organisms will actually be affected by my mood. No, I'm not crazy, I'm just really into it, and I can tell you that when I make a beer that I'm really proud of, I close my eyes when I drink it, and each sip fills my soul. I hope that I can impart just a bit of that passion to anyone who cares to read this blog, and maybe even get some more people interested in this amazing, rewarding, ancient art.