Mini-mash IPA

Happy Holidays to all. Well having some time off from work and a little extra money in my pocket, I figured it was time to brew. So I did some shopping around at my local home brew stores, from my computer, to see who had the best deal. Since I wanted an extra bottle of CO2, Keg Cowboy was the choice. Check them out for your home brewing and kegging needs.
So back to the mini-mash, with 41/2lbs of grain, I decided to use my mash tun for the conversion. The grain bags that I had probably would hold a pound of grain at best. Grain bags, more like hops bags, I don't really know where they came from. It has been at least 3 years since I have done a partial mash. I began the boil with 2-1/2 gal of water at 165*F for my strike water. I put that in the cooler let it set for 15 min or so and rechecked the temp. With my garage temp at around 50*F, it was down to 155*F. That is close enough, recipe says 150*.I'll let that mash for about an hour or so. At this time, I began to boil another 2-1/2 gal of water to around 170* for my next sparge. After an hour, it was time to catch my first run off of wort. This is when I started having problems with my "false bottom". I had only a trickle coming out, oh no a "stuck sparge". After tapping on the valve and stirring the grains back up it began to run out a bit better. When I got all the wort out, I added my sparge water and let it set for 30 mins or so at 170*. My sparge run off was still very slow, and I knew that after this brew I was going to have to modify my mash tun.
Ok , now the boil, I have around 5 gals of wort collected. I added about another 1/2 gal of water and heated the wort to around 200*F. At this time, I added 6lbs of liquid malt extract. If you are using liquid extract, set it in hot water for 30 minutes or so before use. It will make it alot easier to get it out of the bag or can. I also added my bittering hops and resumed the boil. I let that boil for around 40 minutes, then added my flavoring hops and Irish Moss. I let that boil for another 15 minutes. One note, my last hop addition was whole hops and it caused problems with my rack while transferring wort to the fermenter. My suggestion is to use that type of hops in a bag or cheese cloth. You learn as you go, That was the first time I had ever used non-pelletized hops.
After cooling the wort, I transferred to my primary fermenter and check my gravity. It was right on, some how, with about 1/2 gal too much wort. I had hydrated my yeast in some warm water, now its pitch time. I pitched the yeast and gave an aggressive stir, said a prayer, and put the cap on the fermenter.
I was just worried, because of the excessive exposure of my wort to the air. With the almost stuck sparge, the plugging of my rack while transferring wort to fermenter, the wort was exposed way to long. Hopefully, it will be ok. One promising thing is that after 9 hours, the air lock was bubbling. I was shocked especially since this was a dry yeast. Fermentation after 9 hours is a good sign, but the finished product will be the evidence of a good brew or not. I'll keep ya posted. Cheers

Kegging Time

If you plan to Homebrew you will find out that bottling in no fun. The cleaning, the sanitizing, the drying, etc. Bottling in a messy and time consuming part of homebrewing. It is so much easier to keg and the finished product, to me, is so much better. I love kegged beer. It still maybe necessary to bottle a 6 pack or two, so go ahead and have a capper, caps, and bottles around. This way you can share with friends and family or take with you to a "get together". BBQ in this neck of the woods.
So lets keg, I start off by moving the fermenter to a elevated surface, higher than the keg, so I can siphon the beer into the keg. I do this a few hours before I'm ready to keg. Try not to disturb the trub at the bottom, we don't want this in the keg. I tilt the fermenter back a bit by putting a rolled up towel under the opposite side. This will allow the racking siphon to pick up more beer.

After sanitizing all the equipment I will need, I carefully install the racking siphon into the fermenter. I use the racking cane to fill the keg from the bottom to the top. When the siphon stops have the sanitized lid to the keg ready and install it to minimize the brew being exposed to the air. I will have my CO2 ready with the quick connect to purge the air from the keg. After putting on the lid, I hook up the CO2 with about 5 psi set on the regulator. Slowly release the pressure with the relief valve on the keg. Do this a few time to be sure there is no air in the keg.

At this point, you can siphon out the trub if you want to save the yeast. If you do this I would suggest to use a 32oz pet bottle. I would I also suggest you leave a little bit of beer in the fermenter to be siphoned with the trub. After you have the yeast mixture in the bottle, store it in the refrigerator.
Ok back to the keg, it is ready for carbonating. There are many different methods for carbonating the beer in a keg. One of which uses priming sugar. This requires that you dissolve priming sugar in hot water and then pour it into the fermenter, then rack it. I prefer to use a force carbonation method. I slowly turn my regulator up while shacking the keg.I shake the keg until I don't hear the CO2 flow, and then let it set. I do this in 3 to 4 minute intervals.

When I don't hear a flow into the keg, I put it into the kegerator for it to chill. CO2 will dissolve more easily into the beer when it is cold. I set the regulator at around 18psi and let it set "chillin" for about a week of so. This pressure maybe different for different brew styles. There are many different charts and calculators on the net to help you know what pressures and temperatures are right for your brew.

This is just a very basic instruction on kegging. Again, there are many different methods for doing this so experiment and find the one that is better for you.
Enjoy

Fermentation showed signs of life at around 14 hours



By the next morning the yeast was fermenting very vigorously. At about 27 hour, the house smelt like someone was baking banana nut bread.



Around 36 hours it settled down a bit.



At 60 hours the yeast is still hard at work making a beautiful beverage.



Stay Tuned

My 1st All Grain

Welcome to my back yard brewery. I will be doing my first all grain brew. I will be making a Bavarian Dunkelwiezen that I purchased from Austin Homebrew Supply










. Before I could start with this all grain, I had to build two very important components for the brewery.


First and a must have for all graining is the Mash Tun. I converted a 48 quart Coleman cooler. I removed the old spicket saving the gasket to be later. I installed a 3/8" bulkhead fitting, using the gasket on the inside of a washer on the inside of the cooler. For the outside of the cooler, I got a waterhose gasket on the inside of a washer. With the tightening nut on the inside, I tightened the bulkhead fitting just snug enough to compress the gaskets so it doesn't leak. I leak checked it by filling it up with warm water and letting it set for awhile. But this isnt a mash tun until you install a false bottom. I used 3/8" copper tubing with holes drilled in it about every 3/4" apart. I bent it in a M shape and connected the ends with a 3/8" tee connected to the bulkhead fitting. Im not sure if this was the best approach at a "false bottom". I am thinking that it left too much space for the runnings under the false bottom, thus I left too much in the cooler. This contributed to water loss during the 1st and 2nd runnings. I actually had to do almost a gallon fly sparging to get my 6.25 gallons of wort. I think I am going to make a "false bottom" out of a 3/8" stainless steel faucet hose to see if it worked better.






Second, I had to build a wort chiller. I wort chiller is very important so that you can chill down the boiled wort quickly so you can pitch the yeast. The wort really needs to be chilled down to 80*F in about 15-20 minutes. This helps preventing a nice sugary wort for being comtaminated. I built this by buying a 20' box of 3/8" copper tubing for $25. I spread out the coils vertically to fill the brew pot evenlly and bent a 90 for the outlet. For the inlet, I bent a 90 from the bottom of the coil to run vertically to the top of the brew pot. I bent a 90 the same heighth of the top of my brew pot so I can connect to a water hose. Its easy to make just be careful to not kink the tubing when bending. I bought a bender for $12 it will do 1/4", 5/16", and 3/8" tubing.





Ok now to brewing, I used this recipe:

• 41/2 lbs German Pilsner Malt


• 41/2 lbs Red Wheat


• 8 oz ara Munich Malt


• 4 oz Cara Wheat


• 2 oz Chocolate Malt


• 4 oz Special B Malt


• 1 oz Spalt Hops


• White Labs WLP300 Hefewiezen Ale Yeast

For this recipe, I will be using the Batch Sparging method.I used a batch sparging calcutator that I found on http://www.onebeer.net/ to get my 1st and 2nd runoff water amounts. Really if you know how much wort you should end up with add .125 gal per lbs of grain being used. That will be the total amount of water and divide that by 2 and that will give your amounts for the 2 runoffs.

I heated my strike water to around 180*F to get my mash temp of 155*F. I poured the 3.75 gal strike water into the mash tun and let it set until the temp was around 165*F. I then "doughed in", poured the grain evenlly into the mash tun. I let that mash for 1 hour, and began to heat my 2nd runoff water.

After an hour of mashing, I collected the 1st runoff into the brew pot. When doing this, I used a 2 qt pitcher to catch the runoff until it ran clear. Carefully, recirculating the cloudy runoff to the grain trying not to disturb the grain bed. Once the runoff stopped, I poured my 2nd runoff water into the mash tun 3.75 gal @ 175*. I will let this mash for 20minutes of so.

After around 20min, I collected the wort, using the same method as the 1st runoff. Recirculate until the run off is clean. Now I should have around 6.25 gal of wort.

Now the fun begins, I began heating the wort to a boil. When you notice the temp getting close to 210*F and the wort begins to foam turn the burner down to prevent a boil over. Wort will boil over so be watching it very carefully as it reaches boiling point, very important.



Once you have the boil under control, add your bittering hops and set a timer for 60min.




Give it a good stir, and kick back and have a beer. If you are adding flavoring hop add them at the last 15min mark, and if you are adding aroma hops that will be added at the last minutes.









Now get your sanitized wort chiller ready. I had to use a pre-chiller because my water comes out of the ground at about 80*F in June. I just used a storage bin with the lenghth of my water hose rolled up in it. I filled th bin up half way with an ice bath. It worked great, my wort was down to 80*F in around 18 min.


Once the wort was down to 80*F, I racked it to my sanitized Primary fermenter. I also got a sample to check with the Hydrometer. It was 1.058 my target was 1.052. Yea, I was surprised. Maybe because I added a can of Mr. Beer Honey Brown malt that I had in the pantry.



Now since, I forgot to get a bottle of oxygen form the hardware store, I gave the wort a very vigorous stir.



Now pitch the yeast, and install a sanitized airlock.


This yeast likes to ferment around 75*F, so I just turned the A/C down a bit the put the fermenter in a dark place. I will post the progress of the fermentation so stay tuned.
/div>

Loquat Wine Recipe

Here in Texas there is a fruit that is very plentiful this time a year and makes a very nice wine. It is the Loquat or sometimes called "Japanese Plums". It is a yellow fruit that grows on a tree with very vascular leaves and kind of looks like a small apricot. It is very sweet, juicy, and has 3 seeds in the middle. Give it a try...

• 4 lbs loquats
• 2 lbs sugar
• 1 tsp acid blend
• 1 gallon of water
• 1 crushed Campden tablet
• 1/2 tsp peptic enzyme
• 1/2 tsp grape tannin
• wine yeast and nutrient

Wash fruit and remove seeds. Chop the fruit up finely. Pour the fruit mixture over half of your sugar, crushed Campden tablet, tannin, yeast nutrient, and enough water to the 1 gallon mark on your primary fermenter. Stir well until the sugar is dissolved and cover. after 12 hours add the peptic enzyme and recover. After another 12 hrs add the yeast and recover. Stir daily, adding 1/2 of the remaining sugar after 3 days. Ferment for another 4 days stirring daily. After this 4 days stain the liquid very well, through cheese cloth or a nylon jelly bag to extract all juice. pour the juice into the secondary fermenter also adding the remaining sugar, and install an airlock. Let set for 30 days and rack into a clean secondary. rack again every 30 days until the liquid become clear, about 3 to 4 additional rackings usually does the trick. When it is clear check for taste if it is ok then bottle it. If it is to dry add stablilizer and sweeten to taste, adding 1/4 cup dissolved sugar in a 1/4 cup of water. For best results let it age for 1 year, but this can be drank young.

Give it a try, it is a very easy wine to make, don't watch those fruits go to waste on your trees....... or your neighbor's trees.