This past weekend I bottled up my Kolsch and IPA. I had brewed the Kolsch in a “Better Bottle” carboy. You may have seen or heard of these carboys at your local brew shop, or in your favorite brewing magazine (like Brew Your Own).

I only have one of these, but I love it. Primarily because it’s much lighter and significantly less fragile than the traditional glass carboys that many of us have. I strongly endorse these carboys for primary fermentation, even as a seconday container. I would still use glass if I was brewing an imperial stout for aging or something with a bacteria addition or “wild” yeast addition. But for most applications I think the Better Bottle is the best substitute out there for doing ferments in.

I have been using my buckets to do most of my fermentation in mainly because of their ease of cleaning. However, my buckets are getting tired and I think I may start to replace them with a couple Better Bottles. There is however, on small issue with the Better Bottle that I was painfully reminded of this weekend when bottling.

Because these things are plastic, they are mildly malleable. I tend to put my carboys (glass or otherwise) in a milk crate to help carry them around. This is a great way to support the carboy and pick it up when it’s full as they are difficult to grab onto. As I lifted the carboy out of the milk crate to put it on the kitchen counter, the bottom of the carboy flexed down a little bit with the weight of the beer inside it. This change in shape creates just enough of a plunger effect that a vacuum was created and it sucked a bit of air from the airlock into the beer as I lifted it!

As I put it on the counter, I said “DAMN” to myself. Brewing up a Kolsch is a bit more work than a tradition ale and I may have contaminated it right at that moment with the airlock water. The lesson learned here is that Better Bottles are great, but just don’t take them out of the milk crate when they are filled with beer because of that flexible plastic issue. The saddest part of the story is that this has happened to me before, but I just don’t use my Better Bottle often enough to have remembered that.

So I’ll just be sure to drink up the Kolsch fast enough that if there is a mild contaminant in there it won’t have a chance to spoil the beer too quickly.

Lesson learned,
Brew ON!

Check out our earlier post on Better Bottles!

So I was forced to move my fermentation bucket from my second bathroom to my basement because we had “people coming over”. No need freaking them out too with my constant airlock sniffing. Moving my fermenter to my basement did pose a problem though. My basement’s ambient temperature has been hanging around 50F due to the return of a classic New England winter.

I knew the basement temps were not going to fit into my yeast’s optimal fermentation temps (65F to 70F)…so after 7 days of rocking a constant 68F…I had to figure out a way to keep the bucket in the right temperature range in the cold basement.

First, I wrapped my fermentation bucket with a thick towel to keep in the heat the yeast was producing on its own. Then, I got an old heating pad, placed it on a chair, turned it on to the “Low” setting, and set the fermenter on top of it.

After 3 full days of using this set-up, I was able to keep the temperature of the bucket in the 67F-68F range. Nice.

Some my thoughts:

• I set the whole thing on a chair so I get away from the cold concrete of the basement floor.
• The towel also kept the heat generated from the heating pad from escaping
• The towel also kept light out…no direct sunlight in the basement but we have fluorescent bulbs that probably aren’t good for a young beer.

The more I brew and the more I strive for making beer, I feel the next step in improving my technique comes from nailing down good fermentation procedures. Not sure if my makeshift heating rig really worked, but the thermometer is giving me good signals.

Well things have been a bit hectic and I still haven’t brewed up any beer lately as John mentioned in a previous post.

Alas however a great tragedy in the brew-house this week…my beer fridge as finally kicked the bucket.  Its been with me for a good 6 years or so.  It was old and tired to begin with but becoming a dedicated beer fridge gave it new life.

So for now I am in mourning while I search for a new fridge.

The saddest part of this story is that I have a keg of Oatmeal Stout and Winter Warmer fully carbed and ready to drink.  I’ll have to just drink them up before the ambient temperature outside gets to high.

Next time you have a homebrew, drink one to my fridge.  It was a good friend and member of the brewery for many years.

I had three beers in fermentors ready to be transferred to kegs the other night. I had my Winter Warmer, Oatmeal Stout #2, and an American Cream Ale. I took some pics to outline my keg cleaning process and getting things together. Just a little insight into my brew-house operations.
First off, I had no clean kegs ready so I had to make up a quick batch of hot PBW. I generally make about 2 gallons of warm PBW (not boiling) and I put that into my kegs, seal the lid, and shake. The real annoying part about cleaning kegs is that you also need to clean out that dip tube that runs the length of the keg. I have a long thin brush for this, but taking the coupler off and pulling the tubes is a pain. So I started to use a “jumper” connection to transfer hot beer from keg to keg. This allows me to shake the kegs to clean the kegs, then I push the hot PBW through the dip tube and into another keg, which cleans the dip tube and the ball lock connectors a the same time.

Here are my three kegs lined up to be cleaned.

Here is a small pot of PBW just about ready to transfer to the first keg. Just starting to foam from the heat.

I lined up all three fermentors on my work table. Doesn’t look like much but left to right is the Winter Warmer, Oatmeal Stout and Cream Ale. I actually brought these out to the cold garage the night before. This dropped the temps down to about 40-43F, and helps to crash out more of the solids in the brew.

This is a picture of the jumper connection I use. Notice it uses two “beverage out” connectors. This means I transfer cleanser out on dip tube and into the other dip tube, so I get double the cleaning time in the dip tube. Because transfer after transfer the cleanser travels in the tube and out of the dip tube for a complete cycle. (and yes, I do transfer back into that initial keg, to be sure that tube sees cleanser twice too).

Here is the transfer set up in progress. The keg on the right (not in the fridge) is hooked up to the gas manifold (grey connector), and it is full with PBW cleanser. You can see the double ended jumper between the two kegs. The keg on the left has the lid off and is ready to receive the hot cleanser. I just turn on the gas at 25PSI and blast the cleanser through. I let the gas run for about 10 seconds, then turn it off. That builds up enough pressure to push the whole keg through. No need to over do it and waste CO2 gas.

Once the transfer is done. I seal the keg with the cleanser and shake it up for a minute or so. Then I rinse out the first keg which is now clean and ready for sanitizer. I transfer sanitizer (Star-San) the same way through all the kegs and all the dip tubes.

I go through several kegs this way rather quickly with little scrubbing or effort on my part. I just let the cleanser and the equipment do the work. Sort of like a mini CIP (Clean in place) opertation. After all my kegs are cleaned up and ready for beer I just go down the line with a siphon transferring each beer to its new keg. I take a sample for my hydrometer on each brew for my notes.

Once all the kegs are filled, I purge the headspace with CO2 and then I connect all the kegs to the gas manifold and start force carbonating. In 5 days or so I’ll have three new beers fresh and ready to drink.
After all this work I called it quits and drew a quick pint of ESB to cap off an evening of beer chores.
Cheers!

I built a stir plate a few months back and I only recently got the pics up on our photopage.

It was just a standard stir plate build out. I enhanced mine with an on/off rocker switch. Not really necessary, but it was a fun part of the project.

I wanted to throw up a post to alert you all to the photos.  Once I draw up a wiring diagram I’ll post that here as well.

If you have questions about building your own leave comments with this post and I’ll try and help you out.

Brew On! 

I brewed up another batch of Oatmeal Stout with a few minor tweaks (I’ll post the recipe separately). Got up at 5AM on Sunday morning to brew so I could hopefully finish before my wife went to work at 11.

Everything went fine with the batch except my chilling process.  I guess I didn’t clear my water supply hose well enough after the last session (Holiday Ale), because it had some frozen blockages in it.  So I had 7.5 gallons of 212F wort in my kettle on the burner and no way to hook up the immersion chiller (IC).

The only option I had was to transfer the beer directly into a sanitized bucket fermentor, add the IC to the bucket of wort, then carry the 5.5 gallons to the side of the house where I could get the IC to reach the faucet.  I chilled as usual without issue.

My concern is adding 212F wort to a plastic bucket may force some plastic like flavors to become evident in the beer.  I know from my extract days I used to put hot wort in a the bucket with out problem.  But in that case, I just added cold top off water right away.  Using a chiller, the wort cools down slower than that.

We’ll just have to wait and see.  Check back on this in a few weeks when I get the beer into a keg.

Hey, it’s the holiday time and what homebrewer doesn’t put a few pieces of homebrewing equipment on their list?

I have been eyeing a Better Bottle Carboy for a while. Here’s a picture of it:

I probably will still use a bucket for primary fermentation, but for beers that need to be conditioned I will transfer the beer into this vessel. This carboy is made of plastic so it’s lighter and easier to clean than glass. It’s relatively inexpensive too…around 24 bucks.

For twice the money, I could ask for the same carboy but one with a spigot on the bottom of it. Here a picture of what I mean:

The question: Is the spigot really worth twice the money?