Pitching temperature OR Breaking the budget

Back to brewing… When brewing beer it is important to cool the wort to “pitching temperature” as quickly as possible. This is the temperature where the ale yeast can thrive, usually around 70 degrees F. You want to cool the wort quickly to reduce the opportunity for bacteria to be introduced which could spoil your beer. The sooner the yeast can be added and the fermentation vessel sealed the less time the wort is exposed to potential bacteria. With a 2.5 gallon boil this was easily accomplished by setting the kettle directly into an ice bath. However, this method will no longer be practical due to the size and weight of a "keggle" with 5 gallons of wort. This means I am going to need a chiller.

The types of chillers available fall in to 2 basic categories: immersion and counter flow. I read as much as I could with special attention given to the opinions of actual users. There are pros and cons to both types but either will work. I decided to go with a counter flow chiller mostly because it seemed to be the more efficient method. Counter flow chillers range from kits to install a copper tube inside a garden hose to plate chillers. From what I could find, the plate chiller may be the most efficient and the compact package is definitely nice. They seem to be a popular choice but I decided against it due to concerns about potential blockages in the small passage ways. What I ended up getting is the “Chillzilla” counter flow chiller purchased through Northern Brewer. It is designed with a small copper tube for wort transfer inside of a larger copper tube where the cooling water flows in the opposite direction. So far it is the most expensive single item I have in my brewing system. But quickly reducing the boiling wort to pitching temperature is one of the most important steps in the brewing process.

Current events / Red-X

My posts, so far, have been about past events. I wanted to start from the beginning of my home brewing experience. This was intended to give a little background and I wanted to show that you can brew good beer with very little investment. Your brewery can grow in stages adding new equipment as the budget will allow. Once I get up to date the posts will of course be more current. With that in mind I thought I should post a few current events just to keep things fresh. … On Saturday Teri and I went to Red-X in Riverside. We went there with to check out their beer selection. I had heard good things about their liquor store and must say it was quite impressive. We spent some time looking around. If you are a Scotch drinker looking to drop a couple hundred on a single bottle this is the place for you. I am not much of a smoker, maybe 3 or 4 cigars annually, but any place with a nice walk in humidor gets my attention. There is no smoking inside our house so any cigar purchases will wait for warmer weather. Red-X had purchased a quantity of Rogue Dead Guy Ale and Yellow Snow IPA growlers. Samples of the Dead Guy were available for tasting. I am used to growler beer being drawn from a tap at the local brew pub for immediate consumption so was a little skeptical about growlers from a liquor store. They assured me this was bottle conditioned ale, just in a larger than usual bottle. The sales pitch worked and we left with a growler of Dead Guy Ale. We also picked up a bottle of Sierra Nevada Ovila. Teri and I shared the growler over the weekend and were not disappointed. We will cellar the Sierra Nevada for enjoyment at a later time. Thankfully, craft beer selection in the Kansas City metro area has seen substantial growth in the past few years. I will continue to make most of my purchases a little closer to home, but the Red-X in Riverside, MO is definitely a place I look forward to visiting again soon.

Brew equipment upgrade (2009/2010)

 Mostly because I use a propane cooker, but also because of the mess, I do all of my brewing outdoors. This means I won’t be doing any brewing for several months during the Kansas City winters. I decided that since I wanted to continue brewing I needed to have my own stove. Also, I wanted to do a full 5 gallon boil.  This meant it was time to upgrade the brewing system. I bought a Bayou Classic propane stove through Ace Hardware. It is a great stove with plenty of btu’s for a 5 gallon boil. It does not have a windscreen so a breeze can be a bit of a problem. A shield made from a piece of light gauge metal, aluminum in this case, solved that problem. Next, I made a brew kettle out of a half barrel (15.5 gallon) keg, these are sometimes called “keggles”. After finding a keg I cut a hole in the top with a 3” metal cutting disc. I removed the dip tube and valve assembly and kept the removed top to use as a lid. I drilled a couple of holes in the side of the keg and had a friend (thanks Mike) weld in 1/2” couplings. These will be used for ball valve and thermometer attachments.

Bottling the first batch of home brew

Stick on thermometer on a carboy

Draining sterilized bottles

Capping the bottles

Amber ale

Brewing up a new hobby

I brewed my first batch of beer in late summer of ’09. I started with a simple recipe boiled in a 5 gallon stock pot on a turkey fryer borrowed from a neighbor. With a 5 gallon pot I was only able to do a 2.5 gallon boil adding water to the fermentation bucket to make a 5 gallon batch. I did another brew in the fall of ’09 using the same method. The beer was good and the creation process exciting. I was hooked. Thankfully I am married to a wonderful woman, since 1988, who not only tolerates my new found hobby but actually offers encouragement. She drinks my brews and even claims to enjoy them.

Read again before posting.

I see now that I should re-read what I write prior to posting with an eye toward typographical errors and clumbsy wording. I will learn as I go.

What is this blog about?

As you can tell by the blog title, it is about beer. Or, at least my perspective on the world of beer. I consider myself a beer enthusiast. I am not a fanatic or "beer geek". I do not seek out the rare or unusual beer but am occasionally fortunate enough to stumble upon on one in my myriad beer acquisition trips around town. That said though, rare does not necessarily equal good. This blog is not intended to be about beer tasting or critiques, there are alrady some very good writers that fill that niche. I'm sure, however, that I will post about what I have been drinking and may feel compelled to give my take.

First Post

This is my fist post. This is a test to see what it looks like.