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.

There are lots of posts on the web about how to fill bottles from a keg of beer.  The most popular gear heady way to do it is to buy a counter pressure bottle filler or use a beer gun.  The beer gun seems a little easy to use.

However, I only bottle the occasional 6-pack or so from the keg and I’d rather spend my money on malt and hops than a beer gun.  What follows is a short step-by-step of how I fill bottles from my keg with stuff I have around the brewery.

Filling from a Keg:

1. Keg of beer must be chilled and carbonated.  I like to over carbonate by a few tenths (0.2) of a volume of CO2 to compensate for lost CO2.  (some of that lost CO2 is a good thing as I’ll state later)
2. I use a black Cobra/Picnic tap to dispense the beer from.  I modify the tap into a filler by using a piece of tubing that will stick right over the spout of the tap (usually 3/8 ID tubing).  The length of the tubing need only be long enough to reach the bottle of the bottle.
3. I chill down the bottles I plan to fill.  This reduces CO2 loss and foaming.
4. Right before I am ready to bottle (bottles and caps washed and sanitized), I dial down the CO2 on my regulator to zero PSI, then I burp the keg to release all the head pressure.
5. I put the tap with tubing filler into my first bottle and pull the trigger.  Then I slowly dial up the regulator until I have just enough pressure to get the beer flowing at a decent rate.  But not too fast to get excessive foaming.  This can be a little tricky to manage the regulator and the bottle filler at the same time.  But once you get the pressure set and the beer flowing; that’s it with fussing over the regulator settings.
6. Fill the rest of my bottles and cap them.  Getting a little foam while filling is a good thing as it helps to purge out the ambient air and O2.  This minimizes oxidation of the beer after bottling.
7. Once all the bottles are filled I reset the pressure on the regulator to my normal carbonating and dispensing pressure to keep the beer from going flat.

This method works good for all sizes of bottles just as long as your tubing reaches the bottom of the bottle.  And it’s certainly cheaper than purchasing a beer gun.

Cooler temps are great for fermentation at home, but it can pose a problem when you bottle.

At my house we delay turning the heat on for as long as possible, so during the day the house may only be 60-65F.  This can lead to slow carbonation times in the bottle.  Here are some quick ideas for finding warmer places in your house to get bottles to “carb” up in the time you are used to.

1. Get bottles off the floor.  You’d be surprised to realize that the floor may be 10 degrees cooler than chest height in some places in the house.  Also, a cold floor acts as a heat sink and can suck warmth out of the cases if they sit on the floor.  Either get them up on a shelf or use a few old towels or blankets to get the bottles off the colder floor.
2. Where is your furnace?  Maybe set up some shelving nearby to take advantage of the heat given off from your furnace.  If you have forced hot air in your home, set the boxes near a vent in a spare room and drape a towel or blanket over the vent and cases to trap some hot air with the cases.  Rotate the cases daily to prevent uneven warming and carbing.  If you have radiators you can just place the cases in front of one rotating daily.  Just don’t lay them up agains tthe radiator as they can get too warm.  A 1ft distance should be fine.  Of course, none of these things work if you aren’t regularly heating your house yet.
3. Ever notice how much heat is coming out from behind your kitchen fridge?  Placing cases on top of the fridge with a blanket to make a “hood” will trap warm air rising up from behind the fridge and increase the ambient temp of the beer cases.  If space allows pull the fridge out enough to put the cases behind the fridge.  Set them up on a small bench to get them off the floor.  Push the fridge back against the cases for a week or so.  (Of course, clear this one with your spouse or roommates first.)
4. Use a heating pad as a heat source.  Sandwich a heating pad between two cases of bottles, set to low, with a blanket of the top is a great way to increase ambient temps.  Rotate the cases 90 degrees each day to ensure even warming.  You could even put two cases of bottled beer in the oven with a heating pad in there too…. just don’t forget to remove them before preheating the oven to make pizza.
5. Sit on the cases like an ostrich on an egg.  Of course this may require some time off from work and someone to fetch you food and water (or beer).

How soon is too soon to make the jump from extract to all-grain brewing?
This is my checklist for this you should be comfortable with before making the big move.

• Full wort boils
• Capability to chill that wort using a chiller of some sort
• Handle some basic math for calculating mash-in volumes, wort dilution, and concentration to hit final gravities and mash efficiency
• Confidence in your sanitation practices
• You can afford the addictive nature of adding more toys to your brewhouse as you get more and more involved in the all-grain process (like larger kettle and propane burners)
• You’ve read some of the popular texts and websites about sparging and mashing and have a good mental picture of how the process is going to go.

Moving up to a few mini/partial mash batches is a helpful way to get a good idea of what the issues are with trying to mash-in, hit strike temps, and sparge.  If you’ve mastered those things and feel pretty confident in your skills, then moving to all-grain should be an easy transition.  Always remember that brewing all-grain is just making really fresh diluted wort extract, but you have much more control over the final product.

BREW ON!