New Tool

Not a really fancy new tool but more of a re-purposed tool.

I use binder clips for holding the hop bag to the side of the boil kettle. Late in the cooling process I take the hops out of the boil kettle and squeeze the last bit of wort out of them and put the binder clip back in my tool kit or on to the side of the boil kettle again. Today I discovered another use for it:

Binder clip thermometer holder

The thermometer just sits right there with the probe just far enough into the wort to get a decent reading. I stir my wort while it’s chilling so now I can see the progress without having to re-sanitize the thermometer every time I check the temp.

It’s not really a huge advance in my brew set up but it’s a fun little one that I discovered today.

Crushed

I had been hearing from a few other brewers recently about the speed at which they run their mills. Hearing about optimum speeds and not full speed or not too fast. I’m sure I had heard this before but probably not paid attention at the time as I was getting my grain pre-milled.

Now I’m milling my own grain on the brew day and having heard these discussions about milling speed finally decided to see what the fuss was about. I did do a bit of reading over at homebrewtalk.com (this thread) and it seems that there is much discussion (surprise, surprise) about rpms vs face roller speed. I also found this quote on http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/grain-mill:

Milling should be done at low RPM (revolutions per minute) to avoid shredding the husks. Somewhere around 150-250 RPM (around 2-4 turns/second) is said to be a good compromise between the time taken and the amount of shredded husk material. At this speed it takes us approximately 2-3 minutes to mill the 15-20 pounds of grain required for a typical 10 gallon batch of beer.

I have to admit, I just wasn’t aware of that. Likely because I spent a fair bit of brewing time not having a mill. Once I did get a mill I just attached my drill and let ‘er rip… or crush, or whatever is supposed to happen.

So hearing about these points I decided to try my own rather non-scientific test to see if there was a difference. I attached my drill and did a run at it’s highest speed and a run at the lowest speed I could maintain. I then photographed the results:

Crush at highest drill speed

Crush at slowest drill speed

I don’t really notice a difference.

Now, it may be that if I brewed a batch with a slow crush grist and a batch with a fast crush grist there might be difference in efficiency. It may also be something that is far more noticeable or applicable in larger scales like a commercial brewery would be dealing with. This may be like the many discussions that homebrewers have about hot side aeration.

I’ll leave it to you to assess the results and… Discuss.

Back to the Brewhouse

And here we are again.

Grand River Brewing called me back to do some more brewing for them. I take on the role of second brewer on their double brew days. The head brewer, Rob Creighton, or his assistant, Zach, takes the first brew of the day starting early. I come in midday and take on the second half of the batch. It’s two actual brews but because the boil kettle is half the size of the fermenter they have to do two runs of the same brew to max out the fermenter.

I’ll be in for a refresher training day tomorrow to shadow Rob and then just about on my own for the next couple of days. Next week I will be totally on my own as Rob and Zach are away at a conference. That means the double brew day is stretched over two days. It also means I’m wholly responsible for the brew. :O There’s not much different from one half to the next except for yeast management on the first half. That’s generally been Rob’s domain but out of necessity will have to be turned over to me.

After next week we just go week by week. Scheduling will be pretty random but Rob is super flexible with working around my other life as a bass trombonist. If it happens that I have orchestra services on a day he wants to brew, he will generally shuffle things around to accommodate that. Fabulous!

And also on the plus side, I can buy some hops now with the bit of extra cash!

Just in time

Just in time for St. Patrick’s day, my most recent stout is on tap! It’s a Maris Otter-based oatmeal stout with some cocoa thrown into the mash for a bit of extra chocolate flavour.

I’ve done a couple of stouts before on my own and felt them to be a bit thin and astringent. This one I deliberately attempted to counter that and mash-in a bit higher than my normal. For this batch I hit a temp of between 156F and 157F for some extra body.

Nailed it!

“Happy Pils” and “MO stout“. It’s what’s on tap…

Done with filtration

Well, I took another stab at filtration. This time before running the beer through the filter I decided to try it with just water. I used boiled and cooled water to soak the pads in, assembled the filter and cycled the boiled/cooled water through the entire system. Tasted the water at first pass and got all the soapy goodness from the last time I used the unit. Let it run to flush through the pads and tasted again. Same.

These were new, in-package pads designed specifically for the filter. At $2.99 for a set I’m definitely done with using the unit for filtration and will only use it for transfers as I can bypass the filter pad/plate section.

It’s a bit of a drag but no huge loss. I have a fridge for cold crashing and I use gel in addition. It just would have been nice to filter the beer on the way into the keg saving a day or so of gel/cold crash.

Oh well.

My “Happy Pils” and a chocolate oatmeal stout called “One Stout Named MO”. It’s what’s on tap…

Cool Invention!

I’m a bit behind the times on this one but I just saw this video that someone had posted to Homebrew Talk.

 

While I don’t bottle much at all, and when I do it’s almost always from the keg, I thought this was an ingenious idea. Here is the link to the company’s website.

Just a brilliant idea (wish I had thought of that. )

Judgement Day

The homebrew club that I’m part of, GRAB (Grand River Area Brewers), recently held a friendly competition with the HOZERs (Hamilton Ontario Zymurgy Enthusiast Ring). I submitted three beers: An APA, a Stout (Vanilla Bourbon, brewed with Scott), and my LISP

There were four judges, Kevin Freer, Jason Stranak, Nate Ferguson, and me. It was not a BJCP sanctioned competition but it was run fairly similarly to one. I had never judged before so it was a real learning experience for me!

Some photos from the day:

Boxes of competition entries

Special glassware

Competition entries ready for judging

Jason hard at work

Kevin hard at work cleaning up after all the judging

Results for the competition.