Beer Brewing Blog

Although I’ve been using the excuse that I just couldn’t make it happen in a one bedroom apartment, I finally broke down and decided to go all grain and take the next step in my homebrewing career. I ordered up a 5 gallon cooler kits from Norther Brewers and after about two weeks all the items I needed arrived.

I started process on three days ago by creating a starter wort to get the yeast going. A quarter of a 1 lb package of light dme boiled in a liter of water for 15 minutes and I then fill the sanitized flask about half way with the wort. I broke the seal on the Wyeast Belgian Abbey 1214 activator pack and let it sit. In the morning when the wort had cooled to room temperature, I added the yeast and secured the airlock in place. I was a bit worried at first as the yeast did not seem to be working when I arrived home that evening but in another day there was a healthy bubbling from the yeast and a nice layer of the white yeast cultures forming.

As the all grain setup is new, I also spent some time assembling, washing and sanitizing the gear this week. The hardest part was getting the factory plastic spigot out of the coolers but once that was done it wasn’t too bad. The assembly consisted of replacing the spigots with brass and stainless ball valve spigots and adding the false bottom to the mash-lauter tun. The final piece I was waiting for today was the sparge arm but that came preassembled, nothing more needed.

I started the day by boiling up 5 gallons of water in my new 30 quart boil kettle. It took about 25 minutes to bring the water from 115 from the tap to 172. I also did a ph test on the water and quickly realized I don’t really know how to read litmus paper. Either that or my NYC tap water has a very low ph. I think it said 4.6, but I’m not sure. I then transferred the hot liquor to the hot liquor tank and placed it above the mash tun.

I took a three inch length of hose and attached it to the spigot adapter to give the hot liquor a bit of direction on the way out. At this time I realized a had a bit of a leakage problem on the hot liquer tank but it wasn’t enough to stop me from mashing in so I began by adding about an inch of water in the mash tun and then let the water flow in while I added grain a little at a time. I alternated and put a few layers of the biscuit and chocolate malt in there and made sure to mix it thoroughly when all the grain and hot liquor were added.

I realized at this point, looking at my next step, I had overfilled the mash tun. Thirteen and a half pounds of malt just did not leave enough room to mash out and fit in the sparge arm. I proceeded to scoop out about 8 cups of the grist giving me more of about 5 inches of head space to work with. I estimated that the 8 cups of grist to be about three pounds of grain, so I would give the 5 gallon coolor more of a 10 pound capacity, not 15. I then stuck the probe thermometer into the grist and put the top on the mash tun. The temperature ended up being about 153 deg F which is right in the range I want. The mash in is to last 45 minutes, I’ll keep an eye on the temperature fluctuation to see how well the cooler holds.

The cooler held the temperature very steady at 153 F for the entire 45 minutes. I actually had to add another 10 minutes to the mash in as I didn’t time my water correctly and it wasn’t up to temperature in time for the mash out. For the mash out, I added two gallons of 192 F water to the hot liquor tank and added about 6 quarts to the mash tun. This brought the temp of the grist to about 162, which isn’t high enough as it should have been but the mash tun was filled to the brim so I couldn’t do much about it.

Next time around I’ll make sure to leave more room heat up the strike water more to create a more effective mash out. I then let the mash sit for 10 minutes while I started to heat my sparge water. Another lesson learned; I’ll have make sure to heat more water during the early stages as I was held up waiting for water to heat up a few times during the whole process.

The next step was to pull the first run wort and recirculate it into the mash tun (at this point it is a lauter tun). I just used a 2 cup measuring cup and did this about 10 times and by the time my sparge water was up to temperature the wort was running fairly clear.

By now my first batch of sparge water was up to 165 F so attached my sparging arm and placed the boiling kettle under the lauter tun. I started the flow on the sparging arm and began to collect the wort in the kettle trying to go as slowly as possible. As I was heating only 2 gallons of water at a time, I had to keep refilling the hot liquor tank but kept the sparge water between 160 F and 165 F. To keep the pressure on the sparge arm, I had to use a few more books to raise the height and make sure the hot liquor tank didn’t get below a gallon.

 

I had to keep playing with the flow levels but it was not too difficult to match the hot liquor flow with the wort flow. Initially I had a 20” length of high temp hose going out of the lauter tun but once the wort level covered the end I used a short 12” length so I could monitor the flow rate. It took about 6 gallons of hot liquor to end up with 6.5 gallons of wort and the process took about 40 minutes. I will try to go a bit slower next time as the rule of thumb is to try and runoff between 45 and 60 minutes. Here’s a couple of little sparging clips:

With the wort collected, I transferred the brew kettle to the stove to begin the boil.

As this is the first 6 gallon boil I’ve done, it’s a bit intimidating seeing the huge pot filled with so much wort but it should be fun. The boil is straight forward with hop additions as such:

• 30 minute pre-boil
• 2 oz Willamette hops (60 minutes)
• 1 lb Belgian candi sugar, clear (60 minutes)
• 1 lb brown sugar, (60 minutes)
• 1 tspn Irish moss (15 minutes)
• 1 oz Tettnang hops (5 minutes)

One important item to note is that 6 gallons is the very limit of what I can boil on my apartment’s gas stove. It took an hour to get it from 140 F to a rumbling boil and a rumble is all she had in her. Even after the addition of sugars and hops, it took several minutes to get it up to that rumble again. While I’ve proved it can be done on a regular stove, a nice butane outdoor model is really what you need.

This batch I’m also trying out a new cooling method. I purchased an immersion wort chiller and placed it into the boil with the Irish Moss giving it 15 minutes in the boil to sanitize it. I also leave my stainless brewing spoon in the boiling wort to sanitize it, as well.

So I stopped the boil and turned the water on to begin flowing through the chiller. The logistics of actually use an ice water bath with this size boil kettle would just not work. Simply put, the boil pot doesn’t even fit in the kitchen sink so my only other alternative would be the bathtub. Do you know hoe much friggin’ ice that would take? Do you also know how much bagged ice costs? Nope, my only real option is the wort chiller. It took about 30 minutes to bring the temp down to 78 F. I then took out the spoon and wort chiller began stirring the wort to create a whirlpool thus collecting particulate matter in the center of the brewpot.

I then attempted, and I do mean attempt to transfer the wort into the 5 gallon carboy. As this batch was at room temperature and theoretically much of the leftover hops and such were in concentrated in the center of the brewpot, I tried to rack the wort using my auto siphon, funnel with filter and additional small hand held strainer. There was so much crap in the wort that after about 30 seconds I had to scratch that method and just pour everything directly into the funnel and strainer. Even with this, it quite some time and much too much hands on with the cooled wort. I poured in the wort but could only do so in small amounts as I had to keep cleaning out the strainer and funnel filter. The batch had a particularly large amount of sediment which tells me I probably should have recirculated the wort much more and maybe slower to give more initial clarity. A closer inspection of the wort when racked in the carboy proved my theory although it seems to be settling with the rest of the trub in the fermentor.

This batch is a series of firsts for me so my next item was to aerate the wort to improve yeast production. Rather than just shake the carboy for a few minutes, I broke out my new little toy, an aerating stone attached to a fish tank air pump.

I’m not sure how effective this will be but it all about having fun, right? At this point I took an initial SG reading of 1.078. I then added my .5 liter of starter wort and yeast. After aerating for a minute, I set up a blowoff tub instead of an airlock. After my last batch, I realize that you do need this when using a carboy for the primary fermenter.

That that ends my first all grain bath of homebrew. I tasted a bit of the wort and noticed it was much sweeter than any of my previous batches. I’m hoping this leads to a nice fermentation .

Update: After less than a day in the fermenter, a nice healthy fermentation is taking place. Good thing I did the blowoff:

Before:

After:

 

Here is a small clip:

The video doesn’t really do it justice as the crappiness of my camera with the crappiness of compression make for poor quality viewing.

Here are the Beersmith Notes:

Drunken Monk - Belgian Tripel

Belgian Tripel

Type: All Grain	Date: 6/16/2007
Batch Size: 5.00 gal	Brewer: David J. Snow
Boil Size: 6.02 gal	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: My Equipment
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0	Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU 11.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 77.2 % 0.75 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 5.3 % 0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 3.5 % 2.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (60 min) Hops 32.1 IBU 1.00 oz Tettnang [4.50%] (5 min) Hops 2.6 IBU 1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc   1.00 lb Brown Sugar, Dark (50.0 SRM) Sugar 7.0 % 1.00 lb Candi Sugar, Clear (0.5 SRM) Sugar 7.0 % 1 Pkgs Belgian Ale (Wyeast Labs #1214) [Starter 125 ml] Yeast-Ale
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.083 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.078 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.020 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.006 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.2 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 9.4 %
Bitterness: 34.7 IBU	Calories: 349 cal/pint
Est Color: 22.7 SRM	Color: Color
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body	Total Grain Weight: 12.25 lb
Sparge Water: 2.13 gal	Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F	TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE	Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Name Description Step Temp Step Time Mash In Add 15.31 qt of water at 170.5 F 158.0 F 45 min Mash Out Add 6.13 qt of water at 196.6 F 168.0 F 10 min
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).
Carbonation and Storage
Carbonation Type: Corn Sugar	Volumes of CO2: 2.4
Pressure/Weight: 3.8 oz	Carbonation Used: 4
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 60.0 F	Age for: 28.0 days
Storage Temperature: 52.0 F