Thursday, August 27, 2009

Counterflow'd!

Waaaaay back, over the Fourth of July to be exact, Chris and I built ourselves a counterflow wort chiller.

Basically, we followed the instructions on the ever-so-useful RonBlog. A few changes:
  • 50' of copper tubing and garden hose (for ultimate chilling!) Copper tubing was on sale at Lowes so...why not?
  • Extra pairs of hose clamps on the garden hose input/output interfaces. I found that one set of clamps still allowed leaks, no matter how tight or loose the clamps were. Adding the second set stops all leaks.
  • 7/16" ID vinyl hose for the copper/wort interfaces. These creates a tight seal which prevents air from entering the hose.
What's a story without pictures?

The tee fittings (without inner copper tubing). The inner tubing is soldered to the caps to create a tight seal.

Shiny tubing!

Not so shiny tubing!

Here you can see the tee in place with the inner copper tubing soldered in place. It took a lot less work to place the tubing in the garden hose than thought. It did get difficult toward the end but it was still manageable.

Using a bucket, we wound the chiller into a coil, adding zipties as we went.

The mostly finished chiller. All that's left is adding the final tee and more zipties.

Finally, after almost two months of waiting and testing, I finally took the chiller for a test drive this past weekend. Here you can see it chilling an Irish red ale:

The chiller was so efficient that the chill water was turned almost completely off. Even with the chill water so slow, the output "waste" water was still lukewarm. The wort output? Cold. Colder than room temperature.

I made a hefeweizen the next day (sorry, no pictures). Now that was incredible. Hot, clear, yellow wort went in, cold, cloudy, whitish wort came out. I assume cloudiness was cold break and protein haze. Pretty awesome.

I plan on buying/building an inline thermometer to determine what the output temp is.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Strawberries

Sorry, no beer in this post but it does involve a lot of strawberries...about 3 qts to be exact.


What to do with 3 qts of strawberries? Well, make liqueur, and a nojito called Strawberry Smash.

What's a nojito you may ask? Well mojito's popularity of the past few years has created a bit of a backlash so a nojito is anything that's not a mojito but is just as refreshing.

Some pictures of the process:




My first strawberries of the season. It was very difficult to keep from eating the strawberries as I cleaned and hulled them.


The smashed together basil, rhubarb, strawberries, lemon juice and sugar. I went the extra mile and attempted to bruise/break apart the rhubarb pieces. I don't know if it was necessary but it was a great stress reliever.

These ingredients needed to chill out in the fridge (ha!) for three hours while the sugar drew out the juices from the strawberries and rhubarb and so the basil could infuse said juices.

After straining out the pulp (and adding a little vodka as a preservative) I gathered just about a pint of juice.


The final suspects.
  • 4 oz of the strawberry-rhubarb-basil infusion
  • 2 oz of Lillet
  • 1 oz of gin
  • juice from a quarter lemon
Add all ingredients and shake over ice. Note: This makes 3-4 cocktails.



Garnish with a bit of basil.

It's a bit of work but I highly recommend this drink. The basil plays background to the rhubarb and strawberry. The Lillet and gin complement the fruit flavors by adding a floral component.

Very refreshing. In fact, I think I'll have one now...

Monday, April 13, 2009

New Year's Brewing (1)

New Year's was to be a Double Feature. The double feature wasn't meant to be as the Cream Ale wasn't yet finished. I had a low OG and a sloooooow primary. As a result the cream ale was all mine.

Cream ale is an interesting beast. BJCP gets it right when they call the cream ale "(a)n ale version of the American lager style." Instead of adding maize I opted for cane sugar as my adjunct. I hoped the simple sugars in sugar would yield a speedy fermentation but, in my experience, that was not the case here: Primary fermentation never seemed to end.

I did sample the brew between primary and secondary and between secondary and keg... if ever a beer could taste like likker this was it! Tasted like straight rocket fuel. I let the beer cold condition in the keg for a month before I pulled a second taste. Thankfully the cold aging helped immensely.

Appearance -- Crystal clear and straw yellow (the picture below is off due to the camera's flash). Thin white head that dissipates quickly. The reduced head may be caused by low CO2 head pressure in the keg as I've turned off the CO2 to that keg while I force carbonate a hefeweizen.

Smell -- What smell there is reminds me of field (dent) corn and apple cider. The cider comes from the massive amount of white cane sugar I added to the boil. Big surprise: no hop aroma.

Taste -- Lots of mouthfeel, which is unusual for this style of beer (could be due to low carbonation). Very slippery (fusels?). Lots of apparent sweetness and some residual, well-balanced, bitterness from the Cluster. Some fruity, cidery flavors and a hint of alcohol heat.

Drinkability -- Very drinkable and incredibly easy to have one too many. I'm sure there are some fusel oils as the next day can be quite rough after only two glasses.


Batch Name: Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper Cream Ale

Date Brewed: 20-Dec-08

Original Gravity: 1.057

Final Gravity: 1.005

Alcohol: 7.0%

Fermentables: Quantity: UOM: Desc:

7 lbs. 2-Row Malted Barley - Pale (Rahr, USA)

4 lbs. Granulated Sugar

0.75 lbs. Honey Malt

0.25 lbs. Biscuit Malt

Yeast / Other: Quantity: UOM: Desc:

1 Pkg. Wyeast 1056 American Ale

1 tsp. Irish Moss

0.75 tsp. Gypsum - Calcium sulfate

0.25 tsp. Salt - NaCL

Hops:

Hop Variety: Alpha Acid %: Quantity: Min. Boil: HBU Total HBU: 31.86

Cluster 7.7% 1 oz. 60 31.862

Brewing Notes: Dec 20, 2008

I tried to perform a step infustion mash which included protein and saccharification rests along with a

mashout. I also altered the distilled water chemistry by adding gypsum and noniodized salt.

Protein - 20 minutes - @123F - Inufused @133 - 9.20 qts H2O (Ratio 1.15)

Saccharification - 30 min - 155F - Infused @Boiling - 5.87 qts H20 (1.88)

Mashout - 10min - 170 - Infused @Boiling - 7.09 qts H20 (2.77)

***There was no sparge!***

Collected appx 4.5 gal of wort @ what I thought was 1.024. Started boil added hops at 60 minutes. After 15

minutes I stopped the boil and added 4 lbs of granulated sugar before restarting boil. Added Irish moss at 15

min.

Left overnight to cool in garage.

December 21, 2008

=======

Transferred wort to primary. Appx 3.5 gallons of wort. Took gravity measurement: 1.090!11!!! Added water

to reach 1.057

Airated and added Wyeast 1056.


January 10, 2009
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Transferred to secondary.

January 17, 2009
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Kegged at 25 PSI