Brew Two!

I consider myself to be pretty lucky, being that I live only about a half hour's drive from a great homebrewing supply store. Many brewers may never see the inside of an actual brewing store, since so few exist and it may not be worth the drive when you can simply have your ingredients or equipment shipped right to your house. But if you are blessed, like me, and happen to live near a store, then you know how fun it is to just walk around in there and check out all the cool toys!

At my local store, it usually takes a couple of minutes for the owner to prepare and package my ingredients, during which time I am free to wander around like some kid in a candy store, ogling all the supplies, dreaming and scheming of future brewing projects. About a year ago while waiting for my grains to be crushed, I came across these really cool 1-gallon glass containers and I purchased two of them, along with the corresponding rubber stoppers. They have proven to be a great asset to my brewing arsenal, and I have used them to make yeast starters, brew mead, and most importantly, make small batches of beer.

At first I would only brew "experimental" batches with new, strange ingredients, thinking that if the beer came out nasty, at least it would only be 1 gallon wasted, instead of dumping a full batch. Around that same time was when I got my kegorator, so the 1 gallon brewing system was great for producing beers for competition that could be bottle-conditioned instead of worrying about the messy transfer from the keg (I don't have a "beer-gun" or other designer keg-to-bottle tool). I even built a small, 2 gallon mash tun, which worked great for these tiny batches of beer. The only problem with my miniature brewing system was the time involved to brew.

Even the most efficient, energetic all-grain brewer needs at least 4 hours on brew-day, and depending on what methods are used, up to 5 or even 6 hours! Why would you spend all that time to make 9 bottles of beer?!! So that's when I came up with the "Brew Two" concept. Since my 1-gallon system was completely separate from my 5-gallon, why not make two beers every time I brewed, one full batch for kegging, and one small batch for bottling? Any time that I had available for brewing I would barely expend the tiniest bit of extra energy, but get way more out of it. So now I have much more room for experimentation, and now I have more of a variety of beers around in case I grow tired of whatever happens to be on-tap at that moment (my kegorator only has one tap).

So the other day I had another "Brew Two" session, during which I made 5 gallons of "Graff," a sort of hybrid mix of beer and cider, and 1 gallon of "Liquid Sunshine" Pilsner. My local homebrewing club is having a Pilsner competition in October, so I figured the Liquid Sunshine would be ready just in time to compete. I know I said I was going to make Jonny's "Backyard" Bourbon-Oaked Ale my next brew, but when I saw fresh-squeezed apple juice on sale at the grocery store, my recession-scarred mind said, "hey, lets go for a more economical recipe this time." Since I already had some yeast in my fridge, I managed to get the ingredients for both batches for about 25 bucks.

I got the Graff recipe and instructions here, and changed it very slightly to this:

2 lbs pale malted barley
1 lb crystal 60
4 gallons Mott's Fresh-Squeezed Apple Juice
1/2 oz Spalter hops (30 minutes)
1 packet Safale US-05 yeast
5 teaspoons Fermax Yeast Nutrient



And here's my recipe for 1 gallon of "Liquid Sunshine":

2 lbs pilsner malt
4 ozs cara-pils
2 ozs vienna
0.2 oz Spalter hops (60 minutes)
0.2 oz Spalter hops (30 minutes)
0.1 oz Spalter hops (15 minutes)
1/2 packet Saflager S-23

My little 2-gallon mash tun filled to the brim at mash-out:



Bag of spent grains:



Left pot is pilsner boiling (I used a 100 minute boil to avoid excessive dimethyl sulfide production), right pot is Graff wort portion just about to start boiling:



Sweating over my two brew-pots, but enjoying the very first taste of the Belgian Dubbel! (came out awesome!):



After about 6 hours at room temperature, the pilsner makes it way into the bottom shelf of the fridge, active and happy:



I put the Graff into the "brew closet," wrapped in a moist towel to keep it cool. One other quick note: after using 1/2 a packet of Saflager for the pilsner, I dumped the rest into the Graff! I'm hoping the towel evaporation technique will keep my fermentation temperature in the upper 60's, allowing the lager yeast strain to add a touch of fruity character. We'll see what happens, right now both beers are fermenting aggressively and I will, as always, report back on their progress.

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.