Maple Nut Brown Ale Brew Day, 10-19-2013

Saturday, October 19th was our brew day for a Maple Nut Brown Ale. This should make for a great seasonal Fall beer. There is even CT Grade A Dark Maple Syrup as one of the ingredients. We also used the 3 ounces of our own, homegrown Galena hops. 

This is the second time we used our 3 tier brew stand. The new burners and gas manifold worked flawlessly. We did not hit our target original specific gravity. We came in at 1.040 instead of our target of 1.056. After retracing our steps, I was able to figure out what went wrong.  Firstly, I broke Brewer Rule # 1. I, as the head brewer, started drinking before the yeast was pitched. Big no-no. It will not happen again. Two, we were low on the strike water temperature. I didn't account for the MLT temperature as well as the temp of the grains. This dropped the temperature under the goal of 152° and we were not able to correct it. That did not allow the enzymes to convert the starches to a fermentable sugar and dropped the OG. And lastly, I sparged too quickly. I read recently, that the sparge should take almost a hour. We were done in half that time at most. This will also drop the available sugars in the wort because there was not sufficient time to rinse the sugars into the wort. 

My hope is that the kick ass starter I made will go ape shit on the wort and bring the ABV up. It will still be a decent, drinkable beer, just not the target 5.3% ABV on the recipe. I'm OK with chalking this up to a learning experience. And I'm happy that I was able to figure out my errors and figure out exactly what I did wrong. That's all for now. Please enjoy the video and pics below. Cheers!

Our yeast starter spinning away

Starting the sparge

Sparge arm dripping away

Glenn checking out the progress

Mark and Dave hanging out, enjoying a beer

First wort hopping with 3 ounces of our own Galena hops

3 ounces of homegrown hops

A hand delivered gift from Ray. AWESOME beer!!!

Boiling away

Hoppy, hoppy, hoppy goodness post brew

Post brew day bonfire in the backyard. Nice end to a good brew day. 

Brew Stand Completed?

Glenn and I attached the two new burners to the brew stand and I ran the hoses after testing the burners. These things are serious. It sounds like a launch pad for the space shuttle with them lit. The original parts mistakenly had a 0.5 psi regulator supplying the manifold. Oh no no. That was painfully pathetic. Luckily, Big Dan was able to swap it out for a 10 psi regulator. Holy crap Batman! Much better. All three burners run without any noticeable flow issues. I can't wait to brew in a few weeks. I think the only thing we need to add now is a transfer pump, so we can move wort or water around safely, especially to the top tier. Lifting 5 or more gallons of hot water almost over your head is probably a bad idea.  Here's a few pics. Enjoy and thanks for stopping by. 

The completed stand

Close up of the control manifold 

Another view of the manifold and hoses

Brew Stand Upgrades

The past few weeks have been busy here at SBBC. Joe, Dan, Glenn and I have been working on upgrading the brew stand. Glenn and I built the stand in July and brewed on it in August. We've been planning on the upgrades since we built it. We started with a few coats of gloss black engine paint. This will hold up to the heat from the burners. The newest project is new burners and a single gas manifold to control all three burners. Joe and Dan were able to get the required parts and assemble them. The next step now is that Glenn and I need to fabricate the brackets for the burners to attach to the stand. Once we build those, we can put it all together and test it out. The last step to the upgrade is to finish converting the keg and big ass 14 gallon into a keggle and hot liquor tank. Some of the pics are below. I'll update this post once as the upgrades come along.

A few coats of gloss black paint on the brew stand

New propane manifold

New gas regulator and supply line 

Starting gas manifold assembly

Gas manifold assembled and labeled

Hopfengarten Harvest 09/15/2013

Yesterday was finally the day to harvest my meager crop of hops. My Galena hops grew surprisingly well for a first year bine. The Newport and Willamette were slow to grow and did not produce any hops this year. First years bines are not really expected to produce much, as they are mostly working on growing their root structure for the following years. 

Regardless, I was excited that Galena started blooming away and sprouted hops. Galena produced 3 ounces of hops before drying. The hops were picked and spread out onto a window screen above a box fan and a 500 watt work light to supply warm airflow to dry them. I put them into a zip-lock bag and into the freezer until our next brew day. I'm excited to see how they grow next season. Here are some pics below. 

Hop Bines

Galena hops prior to harvest

All picked

Drying the hops

Another view of our redneck drying system

All bagged up

Ready for the freezer

Red Rye IPA All-Grain Brew - 08/18/2013

On August 18th 2013, SBBC undertook a big step forward by brewing our first all-grain beer, a Red's Rye IPA clone. This is the scaled down version of the process that larger breweries use. This is more labor intensive and a longer process, but it should make better beer. This is also the first time we used the 3 tier brew stand we built in house a few months ago. It is also the first use of the HLT and MLT coolers we purchased from Northern Brewer. Overall the brew went well. We undershot the pre-boil gravity, but I was able to add 1.5 lbs of DME to correct it. The OG was 1.065 which is just under the estimated 1.066. The FG was 1.010. If I did the math correctly, the ABV should be 7.2%, up from the estimated 6.6%. I think we were successful. The beer was kegged and carbed last Sunday and it should be ready to drink this weekend. I'll post an update then. Cheers. 

Yeast Starter on the stir plate

Our 3 Tier stand put to work

Grain bed after draining the wort

Collecting the wort to boil

Getting there

Boiling away

Chilling the wort

Happy, bubbling airlock

SBBC Brew Day, Sunday, August 18th, 2 pm.

Good morning all:

We will be brewing this Sunday, August 18th at 2pm. We are open to suggestions for what we are going to brew, so please reply all with any suggestions. This will be a 5 gallon batch to try out our new brew stand and all-grain system. Once we figure the system out, we can move on to 10 gallon batches. There are many members with outstanding dues, so please get them in soon. Thanks.

Mike

Yet Another Hopfengarten Update

I'm sure everyone has had enough of my Hopfengarten updates, but these plants absolutely amaze me. All three varieties are growing well, but the Galena has taken off. I had to add a third horizontal stringer last night. Please feel free to take a look at the new photos.

My son, Aidan, checking out the hops

Galena hops reaching for the Sun

Another view

Hop cones starting to bud

Another sunny day

A view with all three varities

Galena is growing crazy

I had to add another stringer for the Galena