Brad's Brewing

I kegged half the batch of the Chocolate Rye Porter the other day, which got me thinking that maybe I should post something about my beer transferring and kegging process. All home brewers eventually develop their own procedure for transferring from one vessel to another, but "What is the best way to start a siphon?" is one of the most common questions asked by new brewers. Siphoning is probably the most common method of tranferring beer from one fermenter to another, from fermenter to bottling bucket, or from fermenter to keg. Here is the process I have developed for kegging beer.

In a nutshell, I siphon from the carboy into the keg through the beer-out corny fitting and dip tube. I use a racking cane in a carboy cap in the carboy, a corny beer fitting with a hose barb attached to it on the keg, and a length of tubing between them. I keep the lid on the keg with the relief valve in the lid open during siphoning to allow air to escape. Filling through the beer-out connection provides the benefit of having the beer enter the keg at the bottom and the keg essentially remains sealed up during the entire transfer process. I use those orange carboy caps with a racking cane in the center port.

Prior to starting the siphon, I put the carboy cap on the carboy with the racking cane in the center port and the cane pulled all the way up, so the end is in the head space above the beer. The other end of the racking tubing is connected to the hose barb on my corny beer fitting, which is attached to the keg. I then use a piece of gas tubing with a 1/4" hose barb on one end to connect my CO₂ bottle to the side port on the carboy cap (I have quick disconnects in my gas line so I can easily swap between end fittings). With the relief valve on the keg open, I turn on the gas at very low pressure to flush CO₂ through the headspace of the carboy, into the racking tube, and into the keg. This displaces air in the keg, minimizing the potential for oxidation during transfer of the beer.

After flushing w/ CO₂ for several seconds, I turn the gas off and push the racking cane into the beer. Then I turn the gas on again (at very low pressure - carboys aren't designed to withstand pressure and you certainly don't want to blow one up, especially one full of beer) the pressure in the head space forces the beer out through the racking cane. As soon as the beer in the racking tubing drops below the elevation of the beer in the carboy the siphon is primed and you can turn off the CO2 pressure and disconnect the gas tubing from the carboy cap.

Now that the siphon is started, hurry up and wait. You do need to make sure the racking cane is pushed all the way to the bottom of the carboy, and in order to waste as little beer as possible I usually push the bottom of the cane to one edge of the carboy and tilt it towards the end of the cane, supported on the handle of a screwdriver or something to keep it tilted.

When all the beer is in the keg, remove the beer fitting and close the relief valve in the lid. Next I hook my CO₂ bottle up to the gas-in connection on the corny and pressurize it to 40 psi or so to set the lid and poppets. Now the beer is kegged and ready for chilling and carbonating.

Sometimes bubbles collect in the tubing during siphoning, and if they get too big you can lose the siphon. There are a couple of causes of this. One is air getting into the racking tube, usually where it connects to the racking cane. If this is the case you can usually see a line of bubbles entering the beer right at the end of the cane inside the tubing. This is bad because it could oxidize the beer, so if it happens you need to stop it (either by adjusting the hose or with a hose clamp). The other cause is just CO₂ coming out of solution due to mechanical agitation and pressure changes as it moves through the siphon tubing. This is normal and is not a problem, although it can lead to loss of the siphon. You can move the bubbles through the tube by bending the tube around or by pinching in near the bubbles to increase the flow velocity in that area. If you do lose the siphon you can restart it by repressurizing the head space in the carboy with CO₂, but again, be very careful not to overpressurize the carboy.

The pictures below are a blown-up view of the corny beer fitting with the hose-barb and the interchangeable gas hoses I've made up for transferring and kegging. The parts for the corny fitting are the fitting, a 1/4" flare swivel, a 1/4" flare by 1/4" MIP adapter, and a 1/4" FIP by 3/8" hose barb.

I decided, literally on the spur of the moment, to brew a Porter yesterday. I wasn't planning to brew, but my wife and kids went to the inlaws for the weekend and I really couldn't pass up the opportunity. I didn't have all the ingredients I needed, but I convinced Matt to swing by the homebrew shop right when it opened, buy what I needed, and bring it to my house. What a pushover. Or maybe it was the promise of sharing a bottle of Russian River Supplication (part of their barrel aged series). Or maybe he just wanted to raid my beer supply.

This Porter is a variation on the last Porter I brewed, which in turn is a variation of Jamil Zainasheff's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles. This time, though, I decided (or should I say Matt decided for me) to shake things up a bit by substituting Chocolate Rye malt for the chocolate barley malt I usually use.

Here's the recipe:

Stats

• OG=1.049
• Yield=11 gal
• IBU=~29
• Color=~28 SRM

Grain Bill

• 14 lb 2-row Pale Ale Malt
• 2 lb British Crystal
• 2 lb Brown Malt
• 1.5 lb Chocolate Rye

Hops

• 2.5 oz Fuggles for 90 minutes
• 1.5 oz Fuggles at knockout

Yeast

• Wyeast 1098, British Ale
• Wyeast 1968, London ESB

Process

• Mashed at 152°F to conversion
• Recirc'd while raising temp to ~170°F
• Sparged at 170°F to collect ~13.5 gallons
• Boil 90 min.
• Cool/oxygenate/pitch yeast

Due to the late decision to brew, and my laziness, I didn't make starters and just pitched the Activator™ packs into the carboys. The 1968 half had a nice layer of foam forming after about 18 hours. At that point the 1098 showed no signs of active fermentation. A few hours later, the head space in the 1098 half was completely foamed up and it was blowing off, and the 1968 half had about a 1 1/2" layer of foam on top. So, looks like the 1968 may be a fast starter/slow fermenter and the 1098 is a slow starter/fast fermenter. This is the same behavior I've seen w/ 3787 & 1214 (respectively) in my Belgian style beers.

The whole point of brewing the bitter and building the beer engine was in support of the Yard City Cask Fest. That's how it turned out anyway. I told Matt I'd keg-condition one of the kegs of bitter, and decided just over a week before the event that I'd go ahead and assemble a beer engine for dispensing. I ended up keg-conditioning both kegs of bitter and offered them both up for the fest. Thankfully only one was needed and the other is currently on tap in my basement.

Both halves of the bitter finished at 1.012, making it ~4% ABV. The 1098 half dropped bright much sooner than the 1028 half, which is opposite of what Matt expected. Shows how much Matt knows. I primed each keg for about 1.25 volumes of CO₂. Since they were to be dispensed by beer engine, the goal was that they would be saturated, but not oversaturated, with CO₂ at dispensing temp, which in this case was supposed to be 50-54°F. It really only needed about 1 volume, but I figured if I overshot a little bit it would be easier to adjust carbonation downward than upward (didn't want to have to cheat and force carb if too low).

Anyway, the Fest was a huge success, the beer was excellent and well received, and the beer engines worked like a charm. Next year we're going to have to make it a bigger shindig, with multiple brewers providing beer and a larger venue. Plus we can't count on the beautiful weather we lucked out with in March, so we may need to move it indoors somewhere or change the date to a more reliable month weather-wise. Nice thing about outdoors in March, though, is that we didn't need to figure out any refrigeration to keep the beer at just the right temp.

Oh, and thanks to Chris Devlin (yes, that Chris Devlin) for the pic, used entirely w/out his permission.

Here's what I spent most of my day making, in preparation for Yard City Cask Fest: a Beer Engine.  No comments about my messy kitchen.

A Beer Engine is simply a self priming positive displacement pump that pulls beer out of a cask (or keg), while air is allowed into the cask to fill the space left behind by the beer you just pumped out. This is the traditional English method of dispensing "cask ale" or "real ale." The typical kegged beer dispensing system at every bar, pub, and tavern pushes beer out of the keg, through the beer lines, and out the faucet using CO₂ pressure. Cask ale is less carbonated than kegged beer, and often times served a little warmer (around 50­°-54°F).

Commercial beer engines cost upwards of $350, but you can build your own for right around $60. I followed the basic instructions found in Brew Your Own magazine, both the May 1997 and Jan/Feb 2005 issues. Essentially, you just build a box to house a hand pumped water faucet, like you might find in an RV or a boat.

I used the Valterra Rocket Hand Pump, which you can find online for $25-$40. I didn't want to wait around for it to be shipped, so I found it at the local RV parts store for about $40. I had some scrap oak-veneer plywood lying around and bought a few feet of beer line and a corny beer-out fitting at my LHBS. That, some screws and glue, and a few hours in the garage w/ my table saw and drill are about all it took. It was so simple that I won't bother to describe the construction. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Click on any of the pics for a larger view. The dimensions of the box are 12" high, about 5 1/2" wide and 6" deep.  I definitely could have gone with a shorter box, as short at 5" or so.  I may actually cut it down at some point, but it will probably be clamped to a table at YCCF, so it may be just the right height.

I notched both the back of the tower and the base, so I can run the beer line out the back or the bottom.

Brew day went off without a hitch yesterday. I hit an OG of 1.042, which is lower than I formulated for but within style and I was more concerned about being too high than too low on this one. With that in mind I assumed a pretty high extraction eff of 85% in my calcs. This is quite possibly the smallest beer I've ever brewed and next time I'll know what my system's efficiency is in this gravity range for recipe formulation.

I mashed right at 150°F for about 75 minutes. Woulda mashed shorter, but it took that long for my sparge water to heat up. Recirc'd while raising the temp to 170°F then rolled right into the sparge. Collected ~13 gallons, boiled 90 minutes, and chilled directly into two carboys. Oxygenated for about 30 seconds per carboy with pure O₂, then pitched an Activator pack of 1028 in one carboy and 1098 in the other.  1098 half was foaming up after about 14 hours, and 1028 about 3 hours after that. Nice thing about these small beers: there's really no need to make a starter.

This beer should be done in a week or less, and according to Matt I'm going to naturally condition half of it in the keg, so it will be ready for Yard City Cask Fest-YCCF- (or the "Yard City Real Ale Party" as I like to call it) in early March.

I'm planning to brew this Saturday, February 6, and decided to go with a style I don't have a lot of experience with, BJCP Style 8B - Special/Best/Premium Bitter.  I've brewed several ESBs, but never it's smaller cousin. Why am I brewing a Bitter, you ask? Lately I've had a craving for sessionable, quaffable, beers that I can drink two or three pints of without feeling the effects. I've got gallons of big beers, commercial and home brewed, taking up space in my basement but all I ever feel like drinking lately are the session beers. Go figure.

Matt helped a little bit with the recipe formulation, and here is what we came up with:

Stats

• 11 gallons
• 1.046 OG
• 36.5 IBU
• 9 SRM

Grain Bill

• 14# Maris Otter
• 1.5# Carastan
• 4 oz. 80L Crystal
• 4 oz. Aromatic

Hops

• 3 oz. Fuggle, 4.9% AA (90 min.)
• 1 oz. Fuggle, 4.9% AA (30 min.)
• 1 oz. Fuggle, 4.9% AA (2 min.)

Yeast

• Batch split between Wyeast 1028 & Wyeast 1098

Procedure

• Mash ~152°F until converted
• Mashout @ 170°F
• Recirc until wort runs clear
• Sparge @ 170°F to collect ~13.5 gallons
• Boil 90 minutes, adding hops at the appropriate times
• Chill, split into two carboys, oxygenate, pitch yeast, and ferment @ 68°F

That's about it. Here's a link to the recipe on the club's BrewBlogger site, where you can download the recipe in BeerXML format: Brad's Premium Bitter. I'll post an update after brew day, and after tasting to let you know if it's crap.

OK, so beer isn't the only thing we brew around here. We also brew (and roast) coffee. Here's a snap of Sweet Maria's Espresso Monkey Blend, roasted to about the Vienna/Light French roast range. Maybe a little darker. I tell ya', I didn't mean to go that dark but I got distracted and it seemed to progress from first crack to second crack in a heartbeat. By the time I got there to hit the cool button second crack sounded like a Snap! Crackle! and Pop! convention and smoke was pouring out of the Behmor. Good thing I had it under the range hood with the fan on high.

Click the pic for a high res version.

Yes, it has been many many months since I have posted anything on this website.  Who's got the time?  But Matt's recent proliferation has me feeling guilty about the neglect, so here goes.

November 7, 2009, was the AHA sponsored Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day.  As a West Sound Brewers club event, I hosted several people at my house for an All-Grain demonstration. The intent was to expose extract brewers to a couple different approaches to all-grain brewing. With that in mind, I brewed a batch on my 10 gallon single tier rig, and Matt brew a batch on my old 5 gallon converted cooler rig.

I thought I'd try my hand at a dubbel this time around. Matt helped out a bit with the recipe formulation.  Here's the recipe:

Specs
Style: 18B. Belgian Dubbel
Yield: 11 gal
OG: 1.067
FG: 1.007 (Wyeast 1214)/1.010 (Wyeast 3787) (1.5L starters in each 1/2 batch)
Color: 14.8 SRM
Bitterness: ~26 IBU
ABV: 8%

Grain Bill
19 lb Belgian Pilsner Malt
1.75 lb Melanoidin Malt
1 lb Special B

Adjuncts
1.56 lb Corn Sugar
1.5 lb Dark Candi Syrup (I used D2)

Hops
2 oz Saaz, 5.1% Alpha Leaf, 90 minutes
1 oz Saaz, 5.1% Alpha Leaf, 30 minutes

Procedure
-Mash at 148°F until converted
-Mash out at 168°F for 10 minutes
-Recirc until wort runs clear
-Sparge at 168°F
-Boil 90 minutes
-Chill to 64°F, oxygenate, and pitch yeast

Fermentation
Batch split into two 6 gallon carboys. Split batch between Wyeast 1214 and Wyeast 3787, pitching slurry from 1.5L starters of each. Started fermentation at 64°F, increasing 1° per day after active fermentation started up to 72°. Trasferrred to secondary after fermentation complete and cold conditioned at 35° for at least 3 weeks.

Packaging
Kegged the 1214 half. Bottled 3787 half using Wyeast Pasteur Champagne (4021) at bottling. Conditioned bottles at 68-70°. Beer was well carbonated after two weeks.

Tasting notes
I have had a love/hate/love relationship with this beer.  I loved every sample I took during fermentation, up until the last. They were spicy and flavorful, especially the 1214 half. After fermentation was complete it just seemed blah. Mildly spicy, no complex "dark" flavors I'm used to tasting in commercial dubbels. The 3787 half seemed to be even more boring. I even sat down w/ a bottle of Westmalle Dubbel and my beer and compared them side-by-side. That just made me more discouraged.

Then one day my in-laws were over and I gave my F-I-L a sample.  He doesn't typically appreciate Belgian styles, so I wasn't expecting him to like it. To my surprise he really liked it. That forced me to change my perspective. It's a good beer. It may not taste like a Belgian Dubbel, at least the commercial examples available, but it's a good beer. Maybe even a good introduction to Belgian styles for people who don't typically like them. So I broke out of the "it's a dubbel" paradigm and now I'm just calling it an abbey style beer. It is tasty, very drinkable, and you'd never guess it was 8%, so be careful.

Next Time
OK, so I still want to brew a dubbel that tastes like a dubbel. I'm thinking maybe half pilsner/half munich for the base, and Matt suggested maybe all dark candi syrup instead of half corn sugar. Also, I think it attenuated just a tad too much, so maybe up the mash temperature to 150°, or add a little more Special B.

Download this recipe: Promash | Beer XML (you may need to right-click & "Save As" the Beer XML file)

I entered two beers in the National Homebrew Competition this year; an Imperial IPA I brewed on New Year's Day this year (New Years D'Ale), and a barleywine I brewed on MLK day 2007 (I.H.A.D. Barleywine). The IIPA was thoroughly panned (hey, I thought it was good), but the barleywine advanced to the final round by placing 2nd in the Northwest Region in Category 19. I entered it as an English Barleywine (even though I formulated it as an American BW).

Category 19 Strong Ale Sponsored by Northern Brewer
1   19b   Michael Boos of Seattle, WA, Mountain Top Mashers [AZ]
2   19b   Robert Ginn of Poulsbo, WA, West Sound Brewers
3   19c   Mark Beck, Joe Germani of Walla Walla, WA, Blue Mountain Brewers Club

And here are a few stats from Cat 19 in the NW Region:

Max Score: 39 Min Score: 17 Avg Score: 31.3 # of Entries: 19

I scored 39, but since they use a mini-BOS to determine the winners the first place beer isn't necessarily the highest scoring entry. The barleywine had an OG right around 1.100 and didn't attenuate as well as I'd have liked. I think it stopped around 1.028. I bottled it and it never really carbonated to the level I wanted. Due to the higher than desired residual sugar the beer is a little more malt-forward than I was shooting for. That and the lower than desired carbonation level explain why it fits in the English category better than the American. In any event, it is aging well and was good enough to get past the first round. I don't expect much out of it in the finals, but I was surprised last year by how well my Tripel did, so who knows. Anything can happen. Here's the recipe, in both Promash .rec format and HTML: Promash | HTML

I wanted to give a little more detail on some mods I've made to the brewing stand. The first is a mod I made before I ever brewed on it the first time but haven't specifically mentioned. When I first built the rig I had hard piping everywhere, even connecting to the brewing vessel outlets. It became obvious right away that hard connections to the vessels required tolerances in pipe cutting and soldering that are very difficult to achieve in a garage without any special equipment. So shortly after assembling the completed plumbing system I cut out sections of the hard copper piping below each outlet valve and replaced them with high temp thermoplastic tubing. This reduces stresses on the pump heads and eliminates the need to have everything perfectly aligned when assembling the rig. The flex tubing below the hot liquor tank, mash tun, and kettle can be seen in the picture at the left.

The other modification is that I finally added switches for my pumps. Up to now I've been plugging each pump into an extension cord to turn it on and unplugging it to turn it off. Cumbersome at best, and confusing at worst when I'd get cords mixed up and plug or unplug the wrong one. So I bought a 2-switch switch box with switches, three cord grip connectors, and a cord. The cord grip connectors thread into the switch box and have a rubber grommet and compression nut that squeezes the grommet around the cord where it passes into the box. The switches are regular light switches and the faceplate of the box has actuators that flip the switch on the inside of the box when you operate the lever on the outside of the box. I bought all this stuff at Home Depot for around $25.

I cut the plug ends off the pump power cords, drilled holes in the plywood bottom shelf of the stand so I could run the cords beneath it inside the framing channel, mounted the switch box to one of the vertical pieces of framing channel, and wired everything up. Here are some details about the wiring. There are 3 wires in the pump cords; black (hot), white (neutral) and green (ground). The power cord I bought has the same three colored wires. The hot wires are connected to the switches so when the switch is open nothing in the pump is energized. If you wire the neutral wires to the switches they will function and everything will seem alright, but in this case the switches interrupt the circuit downstream of the pumps, so there is live voltage in the pumps even when the switches are in the off position. This isn't a particularly safe way to wire a circuit. All 3 white wires get connected together with a wire nut. All three green wires, plus a 4th which is connected directly to the switch box, get wire-nutted together as well. The 4th green wire ensures the switch box is grounded and is necessary for safety in case something shorts out. Also, since the box is screwed directly to the metal stand, the entire stand is now grounded. If you are wondering about a GFI, the outlets in my garage are GFI protected, so I didn't see the need to add a GFI to this circuit.

The switches work great and I'm looking forward to my next brew day and being able to start and stop pumps with the flip of a switch.