What's Brewin?

[RobertN]

On Saturday, a buddy and I got our beer gear out. I had not brewed in at least three years. Got everything out of the shed, dusted and/or washed. Spent two weeks deciding what we'd brew

We decided on a mix of styles, both in beer, and brewing. I have a gravity feed 10-gallon system that can do extract or all grain brewing. My buddy has the setup for up to 10 gallons of extract based beer. In both cases, we have moved out of the kitchen and on to larger, more efficient propane burner setups.

We made a batch of Aussie styled "Red Ale". That was an all extract batch, scaled to make 10 gallons. It is a recipe another friend developed, and sold at a brewing store he owned for a while.

The second batch was a wheat style, 5 gallons and extract batched.

the third batch was a strong Scottish Ale, done all grain.

If you are not familiar with home brewing, there are two ways to do it. One, is extract. You buy a malted barley extract that has been condensed. You add that to water, add hops and some other flavoring grains to make the beer. For all grain, you buy a bunch of malted barley that has been cracked open. It sits in 150 degree water for an hour or so, to make a sloppy oatmeal. When the hours is up, you drain the water away, and rinse with additional water. This comes out as sweet barley water, and is the base for the beer.

The beer is fermenting nicely now. This weekend, we'll transfer to a secondary fermentor for final fermentation and clearing. Then, it will be in to small kegs.

 

[RobertN]

This is my setup. On the bottom is the boiler. The ice chest actaully holds the grain mixture soaking in hot water. The top keg is for heating water. As I took this picture, the boiler keg had the Aussie Ale starting to warm up, while the ice chest had the barley mash in it.

 

[RobertN]

Another view of my brew rig

 

[RobertN]

Here is 12 gallons of beer cooking. It will boil down to about 10 gallons when finished.

 

[RobertN]

It is kind of hard to see, but that is 28lbs of malted barley "mashing" in the cooler. The lid of the cooler has a sprinkler arrangement on it. The bottom has a similar setup, for draining off the sweet wort(raw uncooked beer). If you taste that mix, it's like tasting sugar(well, it is sugar...).

 

[RobertN]

After cooking for an hour, the raw beer is chilled to about 75 degrees, cool enough to pitch yeast in to . These carboys then get an airlock, and go in the house.

 

[RobertN]

This is the second setup, using a modified beer keg as a cooker. The keg is stainless steel, and makes a nice cook set up once the top is cut out. This one will be getting a valve added to the bottom to make transfering the beer to the carboy easier.

 

[gsganzer]

Robert,
I'll have to use you for advice when I decide to break out my old brewing equipment again. I was just eying it in the corner of my shop tonight and said to myself that I need to break it out and do a batch this winter.

When I put the stuff away about 7 years ago, I had just started to experiment with using cornelius kegs. I'll have to get you to give me a refresher. I used to buy my recipes from Austin Homebrew supply. They have some of their own takes on some commercial brews. I'd like to brew something similar to a Castle Lager or a Zambezi lager (both african brands)

 

[RobertN]

Corny kegs! Just remember, stick to either ball lock or pin lock; they are not interchangeable

I used to buy "kits", but started making up my own stuff(nice Sierra Nevada clone), and others. Maple Syrup Stout is good...I use Miller's book, and of course Pappazian's.

Buddies of mine opened a home brew store locally some years back. They have sold, but another gentleman has kept the business going. The store has a really good inventory.

Any time you're ready, give a holler

Robert,
I'll have to use you for advice when I decide to break out my old brewing equipment again. I was just eying it in the corner of my shop tonight and said to myself that I need to break it out and do a batch this winter.

When I put the stuff away about 7 years ago, I had just started to experiment with using cornelius kegs. I'll have to get you to give me a refresher. I used to buy my recipes from Austin Homebrew supply. They have some of their own takes on some commercial brews. I'd like to brew something similar to a Castle Lager or a Zambezi lager (both african brands)

 

[riptides]

RobertN

Thanks for sharing that. Way back when I was in another area of the world, we tried real hard to make our own beer. Even used "near" beer as a base. Tried fermenting that. Tried about everything.

It was hard work, and not very rewarding. A good beer is just that. Enjoy.

-Mike Z.

 

[BTDT]

Corny kegs! Just remember, stick to either ball lock or pin lock; they are not interchangeable

I used to buy "kits", but started making up my own stuff(nice Sierra Nevada clone), and others. Maple Syrup Stout is good...I use Miller's book, and of course Pappazian's.

Buddies of mine opened a home brew store locally some years back. They have sold, but another gentleman has kept the business going. The store has a really good inventory.

Any time you're ready, give a holler

Wow Robert, if your that talented, you should be brewing your own bio-diesel too, just don't get the two mixed up and forget which goes into what.

 

[teg]

That's a great brewing setup!!! I quit a few years back after my 600th gallon (that's a lot of memories... & calories ) Quit after becoming friends with a couple of head brewers at local breweries... The costs of their kegs were about $10/$15 more then what I spent on brewing. I ended up giving or trading most of my brew stuff away so I did not have to look at it. Kegs are the only way to go... had 16 in the height of my brewing.

 

[bigballer]

my buddy and i were going to brew up a SNPA clone tonight but he cancelled on me, we'll try it again this weekend. i've done some porters, ales, hefe's but for some reason they always come out tasting a bit odd, we're really beginners compared to most home brewers, this time we're going to use a 6.5gl glass carboy for the primary on a 5gl batch. should give it enough headroom for the full-on greusen (sp??) without busting it's cap. i think part of the problem with the last brews was that plastic primary. i would really like to get a stainless primary but at a cost of $500 for a small one it's a bit out of budget unless we were in the business of selling kegs. you have a nice setup robert. we might get into mash later but for now it's all about the extract beers.

 

[bigballer]

After cooking for an hour, the raw beer is chilled to about 75 degrees, cool enough to pitch yeast in to . These carboys then get an airlock, and go in the house.

how do you chill the wort? do you ice bath or do you have the piping with cold circulating water? i have only used an ice bath and it seems to take forever to cool down to pitchable temp..

 

[RobertN]

how do you chill the wort? do you ice bath or do you have the piping with cold circulating water? i have only used an ice bath and it seems to take forever to cool down to pitchable temp..

I have two chillers. They are just copper tube, connected to a garden hose. I did them so long ago, I can't remeber how much tubing I used. One I made for 5 gallon batches. The second uses more tube, for 10 gallon batches. I thin the 10-gallon one is 1/4" tube, and 50' long, that was wrapped around a soda keg to form it.

Sometimes, if I'm industrious, I'll put the small chiller in and ice chest full if ice and water. I'll hook the garden hose to that, then run a second hose from that to the main chiller in the beer/wort. Then a third hose for the runoff. It chills pretty quickly, but takes more setup, and ice.

I like to use glass. It is easier to sanitize. Plastic will hold odd flavors, while they can be washed out of a glass carboy.

PM me; I have a couple SNPA type recipes for extract batches...

When we brewed a week ago, we grabbed a small keg of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. It was good