I’m planning on doing something a little different for my Strawberry Witbier this year. I’m hoping I’ll have enough hops from my new vines to use in it.
And since lots of people liked it, I’m asking for your participation. If you want some of this years’ batch, give me strawberries. They should be fresh and chemical free, preferably home grown. One pound (ish) of strawberries gets you 2 beers. I’ll make as many batches as it takes to use up the strawberries.
Use the form below to make your request. Leave me your contact info and I’ll let you know where to mail or drop off the strawberries when the time comes.
Cheers!
I got an itch to make an American IPA, so this is my first attempt. It’s modeled after a local beer: Desert Edge’s Utah Pale Ale. UPA is bitter, yet malty with a lot of pine and floral/pollen notes in the nose. I’ve talked with Chris Haas, the head brewer there, and he described UPA as a “Cascade bomb.” So, there’s lots of Cascade and some Sorachi Ace (somewhat similar to Cascade). It’s my first time on this, so I’m going mostly by taste. We’ll see what happens 
I’m not going to be brewing much over the next few months, because I’ll be focusing on upgrading my equipment. I plan on stepping up my capacity to 10 gallon batches, and to meet that need, I’ll be putting together a self-contained glycol jacketed fermenter, as well as an automated all-grain rig. In addition, I’ll be putting together a keg/carboy washer from retired dishwasher. That project is already partly underway and I’ll be putting together a building guide/walkthrough in the near future. I’ll also document my process for designing and building my automated rig and jacketed fermenter.
As I am a programmer, I tend to tackle projects with the methods I am familiar with. To that end, I’ll take this opportunity to do a little requirements analysis. Why would I build an automated brew system, and what needs should it meet?
- An automated system should improve brew consistency by its very nature. The system I build should be programmable to a level such that the same inputs (ingredients) should always produce the same outputs. Of course, there will be a bit of variability, but automation and programmability should limit human error and lead to increased standardization of process to reduce mistakes.
- The system should reduce time spent brewing as the system becomes more tuned and I learn how to use it. Time spent setting up transfers should be eliminated, which should be doable with a hard-plumbed system. In addition, cleaning should be done in place (CIP) and should be automated to happen at the same time as other as much as possible.
- The system should be constructed in such a way as to limit contamination of wort. Therefore, the system should be enclosed as much as possible to limit wort contact with air. In addition, the system should contain a water input that first passes through a filter.
- The system should be as energy efficient as is feasible. I plan to make it an all-electric system. Propane systems put off a lot of waste heat, which is nice in the winter, but it gets expensive over time, and is not adaptable to green energy solutions.
- As a bonus, the system should be somewhat mobile. I plan to put wheels on the stand. Perhaps hard (no tube) lawnmower or wheelbarrow wheels.
- The system should be as cost efficient as possible, however, quality and durability should not be sacrificed. That means few bells and whistles and a focus on functionality over form.
- It should look cool and/or bad ass. A nice powder coat or paint should do that.
- Tangentially, it will hopefully be a vehicle for familiarizing myself (on a small scale) with the type of automation that microbreweries and pubs use.
Those are the basic goals. Probably nothing surprising, though it is sometimes a good idea to say the things that go without saying.
As for the glycol jacketed fermenter, the requirements will be similar to the requirements for a temperature controlled refrigerator – mostly #1. Making it a self-contained vessel (from a straight-walled 1/2 bbl keg, btw) will give me the other options.
- Maintain temperature within +/- 1 degree of a set point. We all know why this is: yeast can be touchy, and should be treated with the care of a lover.
- Be able to drop yeast and trub out of a bottom port. Leads to cleaner tasting, clearer beer. A bottom port should also allow for sanitary sampling. Something I picked up from Chris Haas at Desert Edge. Of course, having a bottom port will require it to be raised up on legs.
- Provide for sanitary transfers from boil kettle/chiller and to serving or aging vessels.
- Easily movable to wherever I need it. I plan to put it on spinning, lockable casters. This is important as I double my batch size to 10gal in order to reduce back strain. It should also help me reduce line length between transfer vessels, which reduces chances for contamination.
- Hold at least 5psi pressure, preferably up to 20-30psi. This will allow me to us CO2 for transfers, thus reducing opportunities for oxidation. I will also be able to carbonate in the fermentation vessel if I choose.
- Allow for some kind of CIP. I expect I’ll be able to find a small(ish) spray ball and be able to pump cleaner (hot water + PBW, probably) from the bottom port to the top opening, where the spray ball will be dropped in.
- Should be cost-effective. There are plenty of conical fermenters out there that would perform better that a converted keg in some ways, specifically #2 and #6. But it gets expensive once you start adding cooling and heating. So my build should be less expensive than a conical fermenter with similar features.
That’s about it. I’ll post build pics as I develop the fermenter as well. First the keg/carboy washer, though.
This is the first all-grain version of Freyja Sweet Stout. Maris Otter for base grain, with pretty straightforward specialty grains for color, flavor, and body. I also increased level of hopping a bit to see if I like it. I think I’ve settled on EKG for my main British beer hop, I just love the flavor and aroma.
The primary fermentation on this was strong and fast. In fact, that’s been the case with the past few batches I’ve made with Wyeast smack packs. I think I’ll stick with them for a while, as I like the results I’ve been getting. I’ve also gotten away from making starters. Yeast isn’t that expensive, and I’d rather have a temperature controlled, enclosed environment for the starters. Would be healthier for the bugs than the kitchen counter or on my desk in the computer room, I think.
I should be transferring to the aging keg and nibbing this one today (3/10/2012) – another experiment – so I’ll get a taste and final gravity.
This is a typical dry stout, based largely on the recipe in Brewing Classic Styles. I made some modifications to the grain bill and hops. Overall, there’s nothing surprising about this beer. FG was a bit higher than I’d like, but seeing as I just put this in a bucket in a corner – due to the Ferminator holding Maibock R1 - I couldn’t expect all that much.
I like this recipe, so I think it will be part of my regular rotation, and get a name. I think I’ll call it “Longship”. As in “Stout Longship.” Har har.
I got introduced to Maibock last year (2011) paired with bratwurst. It was so awesome both with the sausage and by itself that I decided I needed to make a great one. This is my first recipe (obviously), so we’ll see how it goes. It’s based on a lot of searching on the net and looking through Brewing Classic Styles and Designing Great Beers.
Update 2/27/2012: Moved this to a corny keg for lagering on Friday 2/24. Gravity finished a little higher than I’d aimed for, but oh well. We’ll wait for aging to make any final judgments on taste, but so far, so good. A good balance between malt and hops. It’s a little muddled right now, which I hope will clear up as it ages.
Another experiment in Gluten Free Beer. I was really trying for something dark and roasty this time, since I have never seen a gluten free stout or porter. It’s been easier to get closer to Belgian styles with these gluten free experiments, so I sort of targeted this at the Belgian Strong Dark Ale category. It might pass for a lightish porter or dark Belgian in color, but certainly not a stout.
I tried getting roasted buckwheat (AKA Kasha) at the local grocery stores, but had no luck. So I settled for buckwheat groats and trying to roast them myself. I wasn’t able to get them really dark with the time I had. I started at 200 F for 2 hours, and then another hour at 350, but that only got them to the 20-30 SRM range. I think I will try it again, and kick the temperature way up to 400-500 F and see how that goes.
Unfortunately, I can’t get SafBrew S-33 dry Belgian yeast strain at the LHBS, so I went with the trusty US-05. So there won’t be any of the flavors indicative of Belgian beers, but that’s ok for this experiment.
I also found out that my temperature controller had burned out the day after putting in the ferminator when I saw the temperature was only 54 F. The yeast was still fermenting (good ol’ US-05), albeit not aggressively. I was able to fix the temp controller, so things are back on track with the yeast still fermenting strongly a week later. So no harm done, it seems.
Update 02.02.2012: Sampled the Forced Fermentation Test today. It has hit an SG of 1.015, which gives around 7.5% ABV, which is better than expected. I’ll test it again tomorrow to see if it has stabilized, and probably bottle on Sunday regardless. Yay!
This is my first attempt at brewing a good ESB. It’s pretty much like the one in Brewing Classic Styles, with some grain substitutions. Mostly, I’m just playing around and seeing what I come up with.
I also brought my all grain equipment in from the cold to see how well it did. Not as good as outdoors on the burners with the HERMS. Oh well, guess I’ll be getting some good use out of the coat I got for Christmas. Probably a good idea to run a test boil next weekend to see if I can even get water up to temperature when it’s 30 – 40 degrees outside.
I also pulled two wort samples. One chilled pre-pitch 8oz sample to test for sanitation. Another 800 mL post-pitch in a spin test. Everything looks good 28 hours later.
