Brewing update

I haven't made the move to all grain brewing yet. I still need a false bottom and a sparge system for the mash tun. I have designs in mind and plan to work on them this winter.

In the mean time I have continued to brew using dried malt extract (DME). The winter ale is in the bottle and should be ready for Christmas. I have a stout in a secondary fermenter with cacao nibs and vanilla beans. I also have an IPA in primary fermentation that I will dry hop with Cascade hops.

Cheers!

Pump it up

 I wrestled with how to integrate the two March pumps into the brewery. I studied how other people had mounted their pumps. I set them in place to see how they would fit. I considered mounting them together on the bottom horizontal frame tube. To make room for all of the connections and valves I would have to rotate the pump head vertically, this would require some additional elbow fittings and would also mean some connections would be very near the floor. I looked at attaching them separately to the vertical frame tubes to get them up a little higher but didn't like how close they would be to the burners. The heat may not be a problem but I didn't think it was a good idea. Finally I decided to mount them to a stand separate from the brew sculpture. This would allow me to get them up to a comfortable working height. It would also give flexibility to use the pumps separate from the brewery. Storage space is limited so I still wanted to be able to store them when not in use as part of the brew sculpture. What I ended up with is a pair of stands that break down for storage. I spaced the legs so that they would fit loosely in the frame but not allow enough movement for them to fall through.

KC Irish Fest brewing competition

I received a letter in the mail with my 2012 KC Irish Fest brewing competition results. I did not place in the top three, which are the prize winners. My feedback was mostly positive with an overall score of 38 (out of 50). The beer was deemed very good with no major flaws but not outstanding. I toast the winners and look forward to next years competition. They vary the style category from year to year, I wonder what it will be.

Chi-Town in August



Our beer selection



The wife and I went to Chicago for a short get-away. Sometimes you just gotta get outta town. I don't think it matters where you go, just go. Except for the notorious Chicago trafiic it is a great vacation destination. We took in a couple of tourist sites including the Shedd Aquarium, Chicago Botanical Garden and Wrigley Field. We also sought out a few beers that are not available in our home town.



Jelly fish at the Shedd Aquarium



Chicago Botanical Garden



Goose Island Wrigleyville



Rain delay



Winter Ale 2012

On Sunday, August the 5th, I brewed a Winter Ale. It uses my Wee Heavy recipe as the base with mulling spices added.  I brewed it a little later than I had hoped but still a couple of months earlier than last years. It should be ready by winter and maybe even in time for Christmas. The extreme heat this summer is one of the reasons I have brewed so infrequently this year. Who wants to stand around a stove when it's 105 degrees outside? The heat also seems to have raised the water temperature coming in to the house which slowed the chilling process somewhat. I created a yeast starter for this beer. Fermentation started right away and was consistent. I will leave it in the primary for a couple of weeks then transfer it to a carboy to rest for a couple of months prior to bottling.

A big step forward

It's been a while since my last post. I haven't been doing much brewing, only three batches so far this year. Unfortunately I have been preoccupied with some home and auto repair projects. I'd much rather be brewing. With the purchase of two new March 815 pumps I just took a big step, and financial commitment, forward toward all grain brewing. Of course the commitment doesn't stop with the pumps. I need three new valves, an assortment of fittings, and a few feet of tubing to connect everything together and control the flow. As I mentioned above, I have brewed three batches. The first was the Hefeweizen from previous posts. The second was a Scottish Wee Heavy that I brewed for the Kansas City Irish Festival Homebrew Contest, I will update later with the results. The third was an IPA that I have brewed before but with some changes. It is better than before but still needs a little adjustment to the hop profile. The IPA boil was also the first time I have used pellet hops and is something I will do again.

Kettle sight gauge

Before using the sight gauge it needs to be calibrated. I filled the kettle, 1/2 gallon at a time, marking the sight glass with a maring pen as I filled. I marked it up to 12.5 gallons. Once this was done I engraved on the marks to give them more permanence. Every piece of equipment added to the brewery means more set up and cleaning time. But this is really nice to have and worth the extra work. It means I can add water directly to the kettle, no more filling buckets to measure the water volume and lifting them over the kettle. Also, it will me to measure the volume of wort in the boil kettle when I finally am able to move to all grain.