I hate being the over-excited homebrewer with a new toy, but I’m an over-excited homebrewer with a new toy.  Now that I have this beer fridge, I want to use it for other purposes that just storing beer.

With one week down in the Irish Red Ale‘s primary fermentation period, I am planning to rack it to a glass carboy and cold condition it for 2 weeks in the fridge.

I have been reading that taking this step will help with the clarity and also will help with the “smoothing” out of the beer. 

I would love split the batch and run an A/B test on the cold conditioning effect on the beer, but I will wait for another time.  I want to get the process down without complicating it further.

I will probably set the fridge temp up to 40°F and let it hang out for 14 days before bottling.  I think the Irish Red will benefit from the additional step.  

With the two week stay in the fridge, I don’t think I will crash the yeast so much that bottle carbonation should be affected.

Since I am brewing a wheat beer, I have been reading up on the proper mashing procedure.  One of our readers, Winn, brought up an interesting point about wheat beers and the use of a protein rest during mashing.

I have read recipes that call for it.  I have read posting that say it isn’t necessary.

What say you?

Do I need to do a protein rest for my honey wheat ale?

I recently told you about my desire to rebuild my brewery and my need to retool a couple pieces of equipment.

This post will address some thoughts on my mash tun.  I currently use a 50qt “ice-cube” cooler.  I like coolers because they are already insulated and come in a variety of shapes.  They are relatively cheap and easy to drill hole or what have you.  The biggest draw back is the flat bottoms.

I think the ultimate mashing device would truly drain from the bottom, beneath the grain bed.  Furthermore, there would be no pick up tube pulling wort off the bottom UP and OUT the side of the tun.  In my mind I have been pondering using a 15.5 gallon keg upside down.  My thought was to remove the sanke keg spear and valve assembly just leave the inch and a half throat open.  Then turn the keg upside down and cut out the bottom of the keg.  Using a false bottom and a couple tri-clover type fitting I could get a keg mash-tun that truly drained from the bottom without the need of a pick up tube.

I think its an interesting idea.  And I like the idea of building something sort of unique (although, I have heard of people doing this, I haven’t seen to many of them in pictures on posts).  The only draw back I have to the idea is that it would certain ruin the keg of any other application should I decide I want to build a direct fired tun or use it as a HLT or kettle in the future.  Kegs are expensive and sort of hard to get these days.

So I worry about not being happy with that type of design, or it not working out right.  If I build a normal keg mash tun with a false bottom and pick up tube assembly (which works for plenty of people), then I could heat mash water in the mash tun directly and not have to transfer water from a heated source into an upside down non-fired mash vessel….
Decisions decisions…
What are your thoughts?  Maybe you just want to see me ruin a keg for giggles????

BREW ON!

So I have had a few days to think about it and after reviewing my notes, I thought I would post some learnings about my first all grain brew session.

1. My converted cooler did great.  It kept the 4 gallon mash’s temperature constant for an hour.  It didn’t work well for partial mashes.  If you are going to do a partial mash, you should get a cooler that fits your mash volume.  If you are going to mash a small quantity (~1 gallon of water to a few pounds of grain), then find a smaller cooler that is closer to that volume (2 gallon cooler).  Bigger coolers just don’t do a good enough job.

2. I have to get myself a grain mill.  I need to have control over my grind.   My base malt had a very fine grind and we had a few stuck sparges along the way.  If I have my own grain mill, I will be able to control the grind and make sure I have grain that would become one hugely condensed cake at the bottom of my mash tun.

3.  I need to get another large pot for sparge water.  You never know how much you are going to need.  It’s better to have the flexibility of another kettle to heat up sparge water and be able to do it quickly.

4.  It takes a lot of time to brew all grain, but I think it’s worth it…  Well, I will really know if it is worth it when I taste the beer.  Homebrewing is a lot of fun and the time doesn’t seem wasted.

Brew on.

Check out these posts about the brew session:

All Grain Videos

Batch Sparging Tips

All Grain Brew Day

During the all grain brewing session on Friday night, Brew Dude Mike gave some batch sparging tips that we captured on video.  The tips are focused on how much sparge water is needed to hit our boil volume target.  The volume of sparge water is calculated based on how much we expect to get out of our mash tun in our first runnings.  Watch the video to learn more about what you need to keep in mind when batch sparging.

Although our mash was a little thin, our extraction was pretty high.  I think when we checked the specific gravity on the first runnings, it was over 1.080.  I think it was due to the fact that we had such a fine crush…which we talked about in other posts.

Check out more information on the brew day!

The stage is set for my first all grain brewing session.

It’s happening this Friday night.

We’ll have live coverage via Twitter and I will post videos as I make them to the site as soon as I can.

You can follow along or check back this week.

We’re brewing up this Pale Ale.  Calling it the Chelmsforder.

Stay tuned.

Brew On.

UPS delivered my shipment from Northern Brewer on time yesterday.  I got the spigot and the screen and installed them into the cooler.  Here are some pictures of the process.

The spigot was installed with no problems.  I tested it for leaks and none were found.

The mash screen was a bit too long for the bottom of my 5 gallon cooler.  I bent it a bit to make it fit.

Planning a date to brew this month to test out the new set up.  Should be good.