Brew Day Video

At long last, I filmed shots of brewing an all-grain batch of a Honey Double IPA and strung the clips together into an 8-minute video on YouTube.  It illustrates all the steps involved in brewing a batch of beer from milling the grains through pitching the yeast.

The beer turned out great and the honey flavors really shined through.
Cheers!

IPA Brew Day

Brewing our Eternia IPA for the National Homebrew Conference Competition.

7 types of Hops:

US Pale and UK Pearl with German Cara-Red and Carafoam.

Mash hopping and big hop stand after 90 minute boil.  Double dry hop planned.

Honey Imperial IPA Brew Day

On Sunday, we made a batch of Imperial IPA and took some videos of the action.  Once the video is edited, we will post it here.

Fat Ninja Ale Big Brew Day

Saturday was 65 degrees, perfect for a Pale Ale 10g batch. We used up the Maris Otter and used Pale US Malt, Munich, Biscuit, and Wheat malts. It came out at 1.052.

Experimental hop schedule with Simcoe, Centennial, Amarillo, & Palisade in the boil at 7,6,5,4,3,2,1...

Grains pre-mill:

Draining mash to kettle:

Boil in progress, lots of green hops:

Racking to two carboy fermentors;

Pitched yeast and set blowoffs:

One is California Ale yeast and one is English Ale yeast, both from White Labs.

Hard Way IPA Brew Day

Today was the brew day for a kegged beer to enter in the People's Choice Award contest for the Peach State Brew Off presented by the Covert Hops Society on 2/28/14.

It was a windy day, but the trusty Blichmann burner powered through.

There was a lot of steam!

After chilling, this golden beauty was racked to the carboy.

The yeast for this batch is Safale US-05 American Ale.  After it is finished fermenting and dry hopped, we will bottle a few using carbonation drops and keg the remainder.

Double Batch Brew Day

Saturday was a long day of brewing. We made a Northern English Brown and a Rye IPA

The Northern English Brown had Maris Otter Malt, Vienna, Special Roast, Biscuit, Crystal 75, & Pale Chocolate Malt.  The Rye IPA was Rahr American 2-Row, Rye Malt, Wheat, Carapils, and Carastan (C-35).  The English Brown started at 1.052 and I used California Ale yeast from White Labs.  The IPA started at 1.064 and I used Nottingham yeast from Danstar.

While the Brown Ale was boiling, we milled the grains and started the mash for the IPA.

Brown Ale transfer into the carboy:

Eagle-eye view of the IPA going into the carboy:

Cheers!

Hoppy Brew Year

Today's batch is an Imperial IPA.  We used American 2-Row base malt, Munich, Crystal 35, Carapils, Torrified Wheat, and cane sugar.  The OG hit 1.077 and we pitched it on a yeast cake from an American Amber.  We decided to hop the tar out of it and used 16oz of hops.  The IBUs calculated out at 140, so we'll see how it goes!

Milling the grains:

Measured Hops:

Vigorous boil:

Brew Zone Lighting Project

We installed 48 feet of exterior illumination on the brew patio and it looks great!

This is the new exterior weatherproof GFCI outlet, which was not too difficult after all tapping from an interior gang box.

Rope lighting hung on cup hook screws

Time for a homebrew!

Classic Ale Brew Day

American Amber Ale

Pale Malt as the base

Caramunich for sweetness/maltiness 

Melanoidin for maltiness 

Chocolate as a pinch for color/flavor

Warrior, Simcoe, Citra, & Amarillo hops 

pine, citrus, tropical fruit, orange, etc.

Mashed at 154

Heating sparge water

Next we lauter to the kettle

Going with a single batch sparge

Sparge water a little hot, mash to 175

Vorlauft and drained

spent grains

Bringing it to a boil

Warrior addition made

Next is 45 minutes of boil

Flameout, Chilled, Racked to Carboy fermentor, & Aerated

Helper Cat Arlo

Original Gravity is 1.061

Pitched yeast & added blowoff tube just in case.  Fermentation will begin shortly!

Turkey & Beer

Happy Thanksgiving!  The Blichman was on double duty today...

Two ounces of Simcoe leaf hops:

This was 50 mins into boil:

After the brewing was complete, we fried a Turkey!  It was a 14 pounder, which took 48 minutes.  It was delicious!

Black Rye Ale Brew Day

Today was an experimental brew day.  We took our Rye Pale Ale recipe and painted it black.  During the mash and sparge process, we had an esteemed guest stop by.

This was a 10 gallon batch, which tested the limits of our system.

Grist:

1. Pale Malt
2. Rye Malt
3. Vienna Malt
4. Biscuit Malt
5. Honey Malt
6. Crystal 75L
7. Melanoidin Malt
8. Carafa II Special (added to mash tun prior to sparge)

Hops:

• 60: Warrior
• 30-15: East Kent Goldings
• 15-0: Amarillo & Cascade
• Dry: Amarillo & Cascade

Yeast:

1. American Ale
2. American Ale II

Notes:
American Ale showed signs of finishing at about day 5, where American Ale II still had krausen, but little airlock activity at day 7.  This turned out pretty dark; hopefully it gives a touch of roast like a black IPA.

Group Brew Day

Today was the "Teach a Friend to Homebrew" Day sponsored by the American Homebrewers Association.  Several local homebrew clubs and individuals set up in a tailgate-like event in the parking lot at Beer & Wine Workshop next to Three Taverns Brewery in Decatur, GA today. We made a 1.062 OG American Brown Ale.

It was a cold and windy day.  Despite having to fish out a few leaves from the brew kettle, everything worked out well and we got to meet a lot of new people and compare processes and equipment.

Extra Special Bitter Brew Day

We brewed an English Pale Ale (aka ESB) today using White Labs 005 English Ale yeast.  The color looks great and we can't wait to try the finished product.

This is the kettle with the chiller and auto-siphon after racking was complete.

The color looks very caramel/toffee:

We are looking forward to this one!

Rye Pale Ale Brew Day

Today was the brew day for a Pale Ale with Rye, inspired by Spike Buckowski at Terrapin.  I am happy with my current process and wanted to photo document the many steps involved during Brew Day.

Heating the strike water is always first.  We always get that going early while working on the recipe formulation, gathering ingredients, and other things.

Next is milling the grains.  We usually do this during the 30 minutes the strike water is heating up to the calculated temperature ranging from 165 to 170.  Once the water is at temperature, we pour the hot water into the mash tun, add the grains, stir with the mash paddle, and establish the mash temperature.

Mashing.  This is an hour long process, so you will have some time to take care of a few other chores.  About 30 minutes in, we light the burner to get the sparge water heated to 170-180F.

Vorlauft and Lauter First Runnings.  After the hour is up, we run some wort off the mash tun into a pitcher, which helps catch some grain husks and proteins.  I pour that back into the tun using a colander strainer, then attach tubing to the mash tun ball valve, then transfer (lauter) all the wort into the boil kettle.

Vorlauft and Lauter the Second (and possibly Third) Runnings.
This is a repeat of the first lauter, but first adding either half or all of the sparge water.  I will do a single batch sparge if I have a big grain bill and a double batch sparge if I have a small grain bill.  Pour in the water, stir it like you mean it, vorlauft, and let it ride.

During this transfer, I light the burner to start heating the wort up to 212F.

Dispose of Spent Grains.  They did their job with the enzymes from the grain converting the starches into fermentable and unfermentable sugars during the mash.  Now, I clean the mash tun and usually spread the grains out in the yard somewhere.

Clean out the Mash Tun.  This picture shows the new plumbing with the false bottom, which is easy to remove and clean.  This is a 10 gallon cooler, which I maxed out with about 23 pounds of grain once and ended up being a pain.  If I do more 10 gallon batches, I will either need to double mash or find a larger or second mash tun.

Boil Away.  This is the fun part!

Add Boil Additions.  Hops, Whirlfloc, Irish Moss, etc.
It's 5:30, how bout some Fuggles!

Sanitize Wort chiller by placing it in the boil with 15 minutes left.  Add some Gypsum, irish moss, whilfloc, & East Kent Goldings hops.

Lots of steam on this 60F degree day!

After the hour-long boil was up, we extinguished the burner and turned on the hose for the wort chiller.

The mash tun got a bath in our wheelbarrow/outdoor sink.  We collect the water from the chiller and use it to pre-wash the equipment.

Here's a shot of the wort transfer from kettle to carboy fermenter.  Racking is the term for moving wort/beer, so you can insert many "nice rack" jokes!

The kettle gets a bath in the salvaged water as well.  Batches with lots of hops make this a messy endeavor.

Prior to pitching the yeast, the wort needs to be aerated well.  We will eventually get an O2 tank and diffusion stone to inject pure oxygen for the yeast, but now we shake, rattle, and roll it.

Now the wort is ready to be inoculated with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is the scientific name for brewers yeast.  We are using White Labs yeast today, which conveniently comes in a test tube-like container.

Usually, one to two days later, we will start seeing CO2 activity on the airlock and a krausen forming on the surface, which means the yeast are converting starch to ethanol and carbon dioxide.

Cheers!