Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Cleaning Beer Lines

On August 13, 2014

One thing we never covered in our kegorator series was how to clean your beer lines. After a while you vinyl beer lines will get coated in beer stone. Beer stone is a deposit of calcium oxalates and various dextrins and sugars. If left in the lines too long it can cause excess foam issues regardless of how well balanced your gas is or how clean your glassware is. Worse case is that dirty beer lines will change the flavor of your beer. Giving it stale or sherry like notes. Never good. Here’s how I deal with cleaning out my beer lines.

My first step is to make a good gallon of cleanser. I have found PBW to work great. However there are other products available specifically for cleaning beer lines. Cleverly enough that product is called…Beer Line Cleaner.
Next I remove the black beverage quick connectors from the ends of the beer lines. Being careful to not let the beer drip out. Having screw on ferrel type connections makes this chore a bit easier. I will eventually change all my lines to this type of connection.
The reason for not letting the beer drip outcomes next. I put the open ends of the lines in the pitcher of cleanser, placed above the height of the faucets. This allows for natural siphoning of the cleanser through the lines and faucets. Once you have completely pushed through the beer with cleanser you simple let the product sit per the manufacturers instructions.
Five star chemicals recommends 20-30 minutes of contact time for routine cleaning.
After the cleaning is done I like to run some sanitizer through the lines as a rinse but also to kill any microbes that might have snuck in there during cleaning.
Hook it all back up and you are good to go. Expect some foaming at first if you start pouring right away. This is natural due to the warming of the lines and faucets.

Next time you can’t seem to control foaming; or are I wondering why your newest beer tasted great from the hydrometer but is awful in draft be sure to clean those beer lines!

Cheers and happy pouring.

2014 BJCP Beer Style Guidelines

By John Krochune

On August 11, 2014

In General

I posted some IPA recipes recently based on the new expanded India Pale Ale category from the draft of the 2014 BJCP style guidelines. Now, that section is just a small part of the full guidelines, which have many categories expanding and/or changing.

For this post, I thought I would take a closer look at the draft and discuss with you some of the changes.

The changes have some solid implications. For one, we have to change our beer recipes page. I mean, isn’t that huge? Ok, it’s not.

The biggest impact the changes will have on these brew dudes and others is beer competitions. With the changing categories, it means you can submit more sub-styles of beers that were not recognized before.

Mike and I are brewing up beers for the New England Regional Homebrew Competition, which is taking place this October. I wonder if the new guidelines will be finalized by then and if the organizers of the competition will be following them. How soon will other competitions make the change?

Not that it matters much since we will brewing styles that are still current with the 2008 guidelines, but looking at this new set, it’s amazing to see how many new kinds of beers will now be recognized by this organization.

Styles like Gose, Kellerbier, and Sahti were not ones you could enter into competition outside of the specialty beer category. I know I have learned about these styles within the past 6 years – It’s cool to see that the BJCP has researched them and has some notes about each.

The other great things I am picking up from the new guidelines is the expansion of categories. Beyond the IPA one, Czech Lagers now have a category all to their own with 4 styles in it. There are some switching around of styles too using geography as a guide. One category that stood out to me was the Irish Beer category. If these guidelines hold, then your Irish Red Ale will be going against someone else’s Irish Stout or Irish Extra Stout.

Not sure everyone is interested in the expansion of the cider and mead categories, but now each of these beverages has more detailed styles within them.

If you haven’t been on the BJCP site to see them, go there now and look through the PDF or for a quick reference of the changes, there is an excel sheet too.

What are your thoughts? It’s a big change if you’re into following the org’s standards of beer styles. Check them out and leave a comment below.

Dealing with Stale Beer

By Mike

On August 6, 2014

In Videos

Sometimes you try a new recipe and things don’t turn out quite right. Other times you get on a brewing tear and you have more beer than you can consume. Or maybe all those dark beers you made in the late winter have held over into Summer. Regardless of how we get there some of us as brewers end up with more beer than we can drink at times, GASP! This week we talk about what we do to deal with stale beer.

I for one am not ashamed to dump out beer. If I get through half a batch of beer and I have more beer that I want to drink or if I need the space to get new beer brewed, I will pour out a batch of beer that isn’t up to snuff.

Sometimes, I’ll bottle a few bottles for comparison if I am planning a re-brew the recipe with a couple tweaks.

Another option is to give it away. The danger in that is that if the beer isn’t the greatest representation of your efforts you can taint your audience as to how good of a brewer you are. Or worse, you can taint their view of homebrew altogether!

John bottles much of his beer but his beer fridge space is limited. He also isn’t afraid to start popping caps and pouring beer out when its past its prime.

So, how do you deal with staling beer?
Do you find yourself dumping beer in-order to make room for more beer?
Or maybe you are fortunate enough that you have a group of friends that don’t care and will drink anything!

Let us know your thoughts.
Cheers. BREW ON!

Black IPA Recipe

By John Krochune

On August 4, 2014

In Recipes

Did everybody decide we were going to start calling these beers black IPAs? I know there were a few different names for the India pale ale with a bit of the dark roast backbone. Cascadian Dark Ale and India Black Ale were the other names that I know. There may be a few more. Anyway, the BJCP is, or at least close to, naming these beers as black IPAs officially. If they say so, then we all should fall in line, right?

To be honest, I am not in love with the style. If you follow us on Twitter, we got into a discussion about how dark roasted malts and strong hops don’t really mesh all that well. Just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean that the style needs to be avoided. Rather, I think you can pull off a good example of the style with some grains to get the color but are restrained in their roastiness.

The way I see it – a Black IPA should have more to do with a black lager than a stout. If you catch my drift, follow my recipe and I think you will be able to crack the case of how to make this style right.

Try this Black IPA Recipe:

Boil size: 7.0 gallons
Final batch size: 5.5 gallons
Volume for fermentation: 5.25 gallons

Ingredients:

12.0 lbs. American 2 Row Malt
1.5 lbs Caramel Malt 60°L
1 lbs Blackprinz Malt from Briess or some kind of debittered black malt 500°L
1 oz Nugget hops 13% AA – boiled for 60 minutes
0.5 oz Centennial hops 10% AA – boiled 15 minutes
0.5 oz Amarillo hops 8.5 %AA – boiled 1 minutes
0.5 oz Amarillo hops 8.5 %AA – dry hopping
Yeast: White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Instructions:

Mash your grains for 60 minutes at 150°F. Run off enough wort for a 7 gallon boil and boil it for 60 minutes. Add the hops when you are supposed to add them. See the times above. Cool to room temperature and rack the wort to a fermentation vessel and pitch your yeast. Ferment at 72°F for at least two weeks. Rack to a secondary vessel and add your last half ounce of hops. Bottle or rack after 3 days.

Predictions:

Original Gravity: 1.068
Final Gravity: 1.014
Color: 28.97 °SRM
Bitterness: 63.5 IBUs
Alcohol % of volume: 7.1 %

The key is to ferment it cleanly enough so the resiny, dank hops come through and the roastiness in the background. I think with some refined malt flavor, this style can break through the specialty label and become more common.

Brew on!

Belgian IPA Recipe

By John Krochune

On August 2, 2014

In Recipes

International India Pale Ale Day up in a few days. This year, it’s on August 7th. It seems to move around from year to year, but in 2014 – it’s this coming Thursday.

Though we could wait for the powers that be to pick a date for IPA Day and stick with it every year, let’s turn our attention to the present and think about Belgian IPA.

A true international style, taking the roots of a British beer with the American take of hoppiness and fermented using a classic Belgian beer yeast strain, this recipe will take you on a world tour in a pint glass.

Some notes on this type of IPA: It’s going to be a challenge to keep all the flavors in balance. To accomplish your goal, you will need to keep the malts light and use hops that have citrusy- floral notes. With these two guidelines in mind, you can make an IPA that flavors will be balanced with what the Belgian yeast brings to the party.

Here is my recipe for a Belgian IPA recipe:

Boil size: 7.5 gallons
Final batch size: 5.5 gallons
Volume for fermentation: 5 gallons

Ingredients:

12.0 lbs. Belgian Pilsner Malt
2.0 lbs. Belgian Pale Malt
.5 lbs Caramel Malt 60°L
0.75 oz Warrior Hops (16% AA) boiled 60 minutes
.5 oz Ahtanum Hops (6% AA) boiled 10 minutes
.5 oz Willamette Hops (5% AA) boiled 5 minutes
.5 oz Ahtanum Hops (6% AA) boiled 0 minutes
.5 oz Willamette Hops (5% AA) boiled 5 minutes

Yeast: White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale

Instructions:

You want to make as fermentable a wort as you can so mash your grains at 149°F for 90 minutes. Go ahead, add that extra half hour to your mash to ensure you’re getting all those starches converted. After that is over, collect 7.5 gallons of wort and and boil for 90 minutes. Yes, this beer will take a bit longer to brew but that’s ok. Use a timer and toss the hops in following the times in the recipe. At the end of the 90 minutes, turn off your burner and chill the wort to 66° F and aerate. Pitch a large amount of yeast and ferment between 66° and 72° F for three weeks. Check to make sure you have met your target final or terminal gravity. Bottle or rack as usual.

Predictions:

Original Gravity: 1.066
Terminal Gravity: 1.013
Color: 10.81 °SRM
Bitterness: 54.5 IBUs
Alcohol % of volume: 6.9 %

You’re looking for balance in this beer so it should be a bit tamer than the other IPAs that you have come across. The yeast flavor will bring an interesting twist to the hop fest you are used to enjoying.