Little things mean a lot

Posted on April 2nd, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer.

Yesterday I kegged a batch of smoked scotch ale I made a couple of weeks ago. My plan was to use two five gallon Corny kegs and a little three gallon one. I’d been having trouble with a connector on one of my five gallon kegs so I was planning on buying a new valve if need be. As it happened, the two fives worked just fine but the three gallon just wouldn’t hold its seal. I was at Barleycorn and Dan and I took the thing apart and put it together more times than I can count. Nothing worked. Finally I looked at the o-ring at the top of the poppet valve. It was all dried and cracked - that was the problem: a tiny rubber ring less than the diameter of a pencil. There was nothing that could be done about it is I ended up bottled a couple of gallons instead (which was fine with me). I’ll need to go to Home Depot or something to see if I can’t find a little washer that will fit the bill.

The beer, by the way, turned out great.

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Brew Day - 3/18/07

Posted on March 20th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer, local.

I went into Barleycorn on Sunday to keg and bottle the batch I made back on the 4th.  While I was there I decided to make another batch and chose a smoked Scottish ale.  The ordinary bitter turned out just great.  It’s a nice, simple everyday beer.   The only thing I’d change about it would be to increase the finishing hops a bit.

Kegging went very smoothly.  I filled two five gallon kegs and then 12 22 oz. bottles but still had more so I filled a half dozen or so 12 oz. bottles as well.  It was actually more beer than I’d expected from the batch and so I was quite happy with everything.

I’ve never made a Scottish ale before (though I’ve enjoyed quite a few) and am curious how this will turn out.  My choice was arbitrary but I have a rule that unless the first thing I see on a list or menu is something I specifically hate I stick with it.  Stupid?  Yes, but I’ve never been disappointed and it saves a lot of time in hemming and hawing.

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Brew Day - 3/4/07

Posted on March 5th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer, Photography.

I’m still planning on doing this Beer-B-Q thing on April 14th so I realized I’m going to need some beer on hand. Every weekend I think, “I’m going to brew today,” but either because of the weather, other plans or the fact that I’m lazy it just hasn’t happened.

I said it to myself this past weekend too. It was in the 50s here in Boston so it should have been ideal. But . . . My kids had stuff going on in the morning and the back yard (where I brew) is a muddy snowy mess and Betty was coming over for help with a slide show, and, and, and. And so I didn’t brew on Saturday.

On Sunday it was cooler. The yard was still a mess but I really needed to get a batch started. So I decided to brew over at Barleycorn in Natick center. Barleycorn is where I get most of my ingredients and advice. You can also brew on premises which is great when you need to brew but are facing a thousand small conspiracies.

I called in the morning and arranged to come in at 1:30. Dan Eng, the owner was there and we talked for a while about recipes. I wasn’t looking to do anything fancy so just went with an ordinary bitter I’d made a couple of years ago.

I was planning to brew with my nephew Justin and friend Marcos but let’s just say things came up so I did most of it solo. Which isn’t that big a deal.

Things started with weighing out the grain. You can only do extract and specialty grains at Barleycorn so I only needed a few pounds of grain:

Dan helped grind and bag it.

After that we began to heat the water. The set up he has is very nice, big 15 or 20 gallon steam-heated copper tanks.

I was using the second to last kettle on the end up above. Here it is with the recipe.

The grain went in at 2:00 or so and steeped for 30 minutes.

While the grain was steeping I got together the rest of the ingredients. 20 pounds of light malt extract and hops (I used cascade and goldings for this batch)

Justin was around for part of the brew and did help add the extract

Adding the hops at the boil

The process is so much easier than doing an all grain batch, but I still like brewing with grain. When the boil was finished, I stirred the wort into a whirlpool just before it got pumped through the cooler and into a fermenter.

Probably the best part about brewing at Barleycorn is that you don’t have to worry about cleaning and sanitizing everything. To me, that’s the least fun part of the process but a pretty critical one.

Just before Justin left I IMed my brother-in-law James to see if he might be free to help out. He and Chesley did come but things were pretty well finished by that point. We hung out a bit, had some food and beer and then went on our way. I need to go back in in a couple of weeks to keg. I’ll end up with 12 or 13 gallons so I should be in good shape for the 14th. I’ll probably do one more batch for variety before then though. I’ll post again when this batch is finished to say how it turned out. It it’s as good as it was the last time I’ll post the recipe as well.

Here’s an update on how the batch turned out.

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The endless fermentation

Posted on January 25th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer.

I last brewed on 1/7 and have been waiting to move it into secondary fermentation for a couple of weeks; but the fermentation continues to be going strong.  Finally last night the bubbling had slowed to only one every couple of seconds so I decided to move the beer.

The gravity for the batch - which had been over 1.070 to begin with - was still over 1.020 after almost three weeks in primary.  The beer was so sweet that it clearly has more fermentation to go.  It tasted pretty good at least but who knows how strong/sweet it’s going to be when all is said and done.

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Beer-B-Q

Posted on January 23rd, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing, Beer.

The best times are those weekends I’m brewing and my friend Marcos is grilling.  These are almost always all day sessions running from early in the morning until late night.  Every time we do it it’s a blast.  We also usually end up with a good crowd on hand - usually the same people: my brother-in-law James (who has been a major contributor to my brewing activities) and his girlfriend Chesley, my nephew Justin (who has a developing appreciation for good beer), my kids (who don’t mind grinding the grain) and a few others.  There are some times when there are 15 people all hanging out just brewing, drinking, cooking and eating.

A few weeks ago Marcos and I started talking about doing a Beer-B-Q on a larger scale - maybe having a couple of people over to brew; as many varieties of beer as we can muster (ideally from various homebrewers that we know), more than the Brazilian meats that Marcos grills up (a couple of smokers are being discussed) and some music.

Right now we’re planning on doing this on April 14th.  It still could be a little cool here in New England though but I don’t know if I want to wait until the summer to do this (not that there couldn’t be another one this summer too . . .).

Planning began this past weekend and we’ll see if we can’t pull this together.  If you’re local and want to come, let me know and I’ll be sure you get the details.

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Brew day 1-7, part 2

Posted on January 18th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing.

My beer has been fermenting for 11 days now and is not really slowing down that much. It erupted in the beginning and just keeps bubbling steadily away. My plan had been to cask it; but now I think I’ll end up kegging it instead. I’d like to be able to do it this weekend but that will depend on the fermentation.

One of the reasons I’m thinking about kegging vs. casking is that I stopped at the Firehouse brew pub in Sunnyvale on Monday. The staff there was kind enough to show me around their brewery, let me sample some of the beer that is still conditioning and showed me some of their equipment. The thing that caught my eye were a couple of 10.8 gallon stainless steel firkin.

I’ve been looking for casks (or cask alternatives) and the prices have just been too high - these though are $95 used so I think I’ll hold off on casking until I’m able to get my hands on one.

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Brew Day - 1/7

Posted on January 8th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing.

This past Saturday was incredible - it was 70 degrees in Natick. Warm and wonderful to be sure; but also more than a little concerning for January. Nevertheless, I decided to take advantage of the warm weather to brew a batch of beer.

My original plan was to do a rye ale and I started collecting ingredients accordingly. Unfortunately, it turned out that Barleycorn was out of everything but rolled rye so I had to change my plans mid-stream. I swapped it for some pale malt and ended up with a pretty hefty grain bill - more than 40# for a ten gallon batch.

I was brewing with the usual crew (sans my brother-in-law James who had too much work to do). Marcos had been marinating some pork and he and I grabbed some aged beer, spicy sausage and chicken hearts to round out the food.

The prep and assembly went very smoothly this time; and I made a special point not to start drinking too early. Justin and his girlfriend Mari came over, as did Lais and David. (Wendy, Ben and Charlotte were on hand as well.)

The grilling and brewing also went well - up to a point; and that seems to be the way it always goes. This time there were a couple of problems. The first was that the sight glass on my boil kettle was leaking. Marcos and I managed to plug it with a bit of rubber; but it popped out when no one was around and almost five gallons of beer were lost. That really sucked.

The second was that the hose didn’t connect properly to my wort cooler for some reason. In the end we had to hold it in place - which would have been OK if the pump had worked smoothly . . . which it didn’t.  Eventually it started to flow just fine though and I ended up with a very full five gallon carboy.  I also have a beer with an OG - 1.070 - higher than I was expecting.

We’ll see how it is in a few weeks.  I’m hoping to cask condition this batch and to pull it with the beer engine.  I have a few days to figure out how to make that happen . . .

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Trying the Beer Engine

Posted on December 20th, 2006 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing.

Yesterday I got a package with the last bits I needed to get the beer engine my father-in-law gave me up and running.  There were assorted o-rings, Teflon washers and adapters for connecting it to my kegs.

I started by opening up the cylinder and putting the o-rings in place.  The inside of the cylinder looked great thanks to the work James did to restore and refurbish the device:

Before I could put it back together I had to replace the steel washers with Teflon ones to lessen the chance of nicking up the piston shaft.  One it was all together it was time to connect some beer.

I use 5 gallon Corney kegs and have two beers ready at the moment - a bitter and a stout.  The bitter is getting a little long in the tooth so I decided to use that - just in case things went terribly wrong.  I bled the pressure out of the keg and carried it - along with tubes, hoses, clamps and connectors - up into the living room.

As it happens, the adapters I received were not the right size; but I have enough spare parts that I was able to get the now-pressureless keg connected to the cylinder.  Once it was connected I grabbed a glass and pulled the handle toward me.

It started drawing from the keg with no problem - but it was drawing a shit load of air as well and I had to keep pumping to bring the beer up to the cylinder.  I’ve tried to think of the reasons for the air and have come up with two:

The draw tube in the keg is only a 1/4″ (while the lines into the Engine are 1/2″ interior diameter) - James conjectures that the Engine is creating so much suction that it is pulling CO2 out of the beer in through the tubes.  I’m skeptical.

The connectors along the line are not well fitted or sealed and air is coming in through them.  This, I think is more likely; but it’s probably a combination of the two.

Despite the air annoyance, I did manage to pull myself a pint (or two) and was very happy with the results.  The beer was smoother and creamier than when forced by CO2.

I’m going to try to connect my various hoses more securely to see if that doesn’t solve the problem.  I’m also going to look for a proper cask that I can use instead of the kegs.  That should address any problems caused by the draw tube being too narrow.

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New Beer Accessory

Posted on December 18th, 2006 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing.

On Saturday we exchanged gifts with my brothers-in-law Bill and James, James’s girlfriend Chesley and our nephew Justin.  James, who helps me brew all the time and has made several items of brewing equipment for me over the years, brought in a beer engine that was a gift from him and his father.

This is something Wendy’s dad has had for many, many years - since the early 1960s at least - and that I’ve seen in his barn/garage in Sarasota.  He’d mentioned that he was planning to give it to me at some point but I’d not assumed it was any time soon, so I was pretty surprised to see it there in my kitchen.

In case you don’t know, a beer engine is a machine for drawing beer out of a cask and into a glass -  without pressure.  Essentially it is a hand pump that pulls beer.  A few places around us have cask beer but it’s much more common (or was at least) in the UK.

The one they gave me has a single handle and cylinder so I’ll be able to serve one brew at a time.  James cleaned and restored the whole thing so I’ll be able to use it.  I’m waiting for one O-ring and an adapter to arrive on Wednesday so I can test it out.  Assuming everything works as planned, I’ve gotten an initial green light to install it in the living room and run a 1/2″ line down to kegs (used for conditioning - w/o CO2) stored in the basement.  I can’t wait to try it.

[tags]Beer, homebrewing, beer engine[tags]

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Brew Day - 11-18

Posted on November 20th, 2006 by GregPC.
Categories: Brewing.

It was a perfect day for brewing. Sunny, in the 50s - just perfect. I decided to make a stout and so headed over the Barleycorn on Friday night to get the ingredients. Here’s what I bought:

16# Pale ale malt

1# Caramel 60L

1# Roasted barley

1# Flaked Barley

1# Chocolate malt

1# Black malt

1# Flaked rye

4oz. Chinook hops

1 smack pack on Wyeast 1968 yeast

I got up early on Saturday morning to begin cleaning and getting everything together. My plan had been to start at 10:00. Marcos called at 9:30 or so to ask if it would be OK for him to bring two German college students that were staying with him, I told him of course. I continued working away and 10:00 came and went, as did 10:30 and 11:00.

At 11:00 Marcos and the two Germans arrived (I can’t recall their names) arrived. We started to grind the grain and heat the water. While that was going on James and Chesley arrived. I asked their help in cleaning the wort cooler. I’ve cleaned and sanitized the thing as best I could in the past but there was still some visible debris in the cooler that I couldn’t get it out. I found out that I had only one tank of propane and so needed to run out and get more. Marcos and I also needed to get some meat for grilling so he and I ran out at about 11:30.

Our first stop was Roche Brothers to try to find some lye for cleaning the cooler. We couldn’t find any and James called to say not to bother getting the lye as it might damage the cooler. We next went to Natick Wine and Spirit to grab a variety of beers for the afternoon. After that we went to Gol, a Brazilian grocery near our house. There we got some steak, chicken wings, chicken hearts, port sausage and blood sausage. Finally we got the gas and headed home. It was almost 1:00 when we got back and we tried to get a fire going to start cooking because Marcos needed to bring the Germans to the Logan Express at 1:30.

Getting the fire started proved to be a real pain in the ass. It took ages, lots of paper and an eventual trip to the store to get some lighter fluid. Eventually the fire was going and Wendy’s brother Bill started cooking.

The brewing was going well at this point. The water was hot, the grain was crushed and we began the mash. It looked and smelled great. When it got to 148 I closed the cooler and let it rest for an hour. In the interim, we ate and kept on drinking - possibly too much as it turns out.

When the mash was done I brought the sparge water temp up and began sparging. I let that take a good long time, probably close to an hour when all was said and done. We got the boil going and kept on eating and drinking. While the boil was happening, James’ friend Dan came over bearing more beer.

I remember putting the first hops in, and working with James to sanitize the pump and wort cooler. I also remember making a drink with rum and Guarana and having more beer. Everything started to become increasingly fragmentary at this point. Filling carboys, adding yeast, etc. I remember calling my friend Sharon who’d said she was planning on stopping by. I also remember her arriving and then Wendy helping me to bed.

The next morning I felt fine - which was crazy. I got to work cleaning up the mess and was confused. There were things I couldn’t find and other things I didn’t remember putting where I found them. Later I got an IM from my friend Betty asking if I was OK - apparently we spoken briefly the night before and I’d told her I wasn’t feeling well. Still later in the day I was talking with my brother-in-law Bill who let me know that I had been pretty much a tool the night before. All of this was news to me and I felt terrible.

Well, at least the beer if fermenting away down in the basement. I need to stick to my own rules about drinking and brewing and limit it to fewer beers later in the process.

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