Begin Brewing!

Having just made a Hefeweizen last week, I decided to follow up with a Weizenbock this week.  The BCJP guidelines describe the style as strong, malty, and fruity... something akin to a marriage between the Hefeweizen and the Doppelbock styles. I did some reading and finally decided to brew a batch based on an AHA recipe by fellow Ohioan Jim Ruper t of Germantown. Ingredients 4 pounds Dark Wheat malt 1 pound plus 11 ounces of Weyermann Pilsner malt 12 ounces Avangard Munich malt 6 ounces of Rice Hulls 3 ounces British Medium Crystal malt (65-75L) 3 ounces Dingeman's Special B malt 3 ounces Pale Chocolate malt 3.50 gallons of mash water, reverse osmosis 1.15 gallons of sparge wate, reverse osmosis Water treated with 2.3g Gypsum, 2.7g Calcium Chloride, 2.3g Epsom Salt 0.9 ounces Hallertau Mittelfruh hops (60 min.) 1/2 package Wyeast 3068 Hefeweizen yeast 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss 1/8 tsp. Brewtan B in the mash 1/4 tsp. Brewtan B in the boil 1/2 tsp. Yeast Nutrient According to Brewfather ...

One of the best batches of beer I've made in recent memory was a La Trappe Quad clone recipe.  I had a couple of ideas that I thought would improve it, so I'm re-brewing it today. I decided to swap the corn sugar for Demerara Sugar and add a couple of ounces of Special B Malt to darken the color and punch up the dark fruit flavor a little.  I'm extending using a step mash to generate some ferulic acid to help the Belgian yeast express itself, and to improve malt complexity.  A 90-minute boil is also being used to help improve malt complexity in the finished beer. Ingredients 5 pounds Belgian Pale Ale Malt 3 pounds Belgian Pilsen Malt 8 ounces English Medium Crystal Malt (60L) 4 ounces Acid Malt 3 ounces Belgian Biscuit Malt 2 ounces Belgian Aromatic Malt 2 ounces Belgian Special B Malt 1 pound Demerara Sugar (15 min.) 0.50 ounces Styrian Goldings 6.2% AA (60 min.) 0.30 ounces Styrian Goldings 6.2% AA (20 min.) 0.25 ounces Styrian Goldings 6.2% AA (5 m...

In the previous posts, I've talked about The Grainfather in general, then about mashing and sparging with it. This time, I'm going to talk about the boil and post-boil steps. The boil process in all-grain brewing is intended to accomplish several things: Extract the bittering, flavor, and aroma compounds from the hops Sterilize the wort by destroying any bacteria or wild yeast that may be in it Concentrate the wort to original gravity level Remove dimethyl sulfide (DMS) from the wort, which would impart a cooked corn, cauliflower, or parsnip aroma and flavor in the beer Stop the enzyme activity that converts starches to sugars during the mash Remove proteins that can cause a chill haze to form when the beer is cooled to serving temperature Darken the beer to the level required by the style though the caramelization or Maillard reaction of sugars The least you should boil a beer to ensure sterilization is ten minutes. Typical boil times are 60-90 minutes, depending ...

In the last post, I shared an overview of The Grainfather, recommended equipment to use with it, and an overview of the brewing process.  In this installment, I'm going to talk specifically about mashing and sparging. Having brewed over a dozen batches with it, I'm finally becoming very comfortable with the device, the mash process, and how to get what I want out of it. I don't consider myself a "master" of it yet, though. For those who have never done all-grain brewing, I want to provide a quick overview of the mash process itself. Mashing - With or Without The Grainfather The goal of mashing is to turn the starches in the grain into sugars. More specifically, you want to turn the starches into a mix of fermentable and unfermentable sugars that provide the flavor profile associated with the beer you are brewing. A sweeter beer might warrant more unfermentable sugars. A more dry beer will demand few unfermentable sugars. To a great extent, controlling the...

Late in 2015, I made the switch from extract brewing to all-grain. I had made some really good extract beers prior to that switch. Switching to The Grainfather and all-grain brewing at once was like learning to brew all over again. All-grain brewing is different from extract brewing up to the point at which you start boiling the wort. Brewing in The Grainfather is different from brewing with other equipment. I'm not saying that either is necessarily better or worse, just that it's all different. Any time you introduce a change into your process, you introduce a need to learn and experiment. I'm hoping in this post to share things I've learned about brewing all-grain beers with The Grainfather so that the rest of you won't make some of the mistakes I did. Note: This post refers to the US model of The Grainfather and may not apply to non-US versions. Let's start with things about The Grainfather itself: What else do you need?  Although The Grainfather is ...

Recently, I've been trying to "dial in" settings in BeerSmith and Beer Tools Pro so that I can do a better job getting my actual brewing results to match up to the figures in the software. Below are some of the figures I've worked out with my US Grainfather. Given manufacturing variances and possible measuring errors on my part, these might not match exactly to yours, but hopefully they're close enough that it will help you. BeerSmith Equipment Profile: Brewhouse Efficiency: 83% (based on my experience, yours may vary) Mash Tun Volume: 8 gallons Mash Tun Weight: 8.82 pounds Mash Tun Specific Heat: 0.12 Cal/gram-deg C Mash Tun Addition: 0 gallons Lauter Tun Losses: 0 gallons Top Up Water for Kettle: 0 gallons Boil Volume: 6.25 gallons Boil Time: 60 minutes Boil Off: 0.40 gallons per hour Cooling Shrinkage: 6% Loss to Trub and Chiller: 0.53 gallons Batch Volume: 5 gallons Fermenter Loss: 0.40 gallons (yours may vary) Whirlpool time: 0 minutes B...

In extract brewing, there is no mash step. The brewer may choose to steep some specialty grains to grain the flavors they offer, but the mashing was done by whoever created the malt extract used to produce the beer. The benefit of extract brewing is that you save time and don't need as much equipment. The down-side is that you have less control over the flavor of your beer. For all-grain brewers, it's all about the mash. This is analogous to extract brewing's steeping and stirring in of malt extract, but is considerably more complicated. I won't go into all the complexities here, because to be quite honest I doubt I know or understand them all. There are a number of ways to perform a mash. These include: Decoction mashing: A portion of the mash is drawn off and boiled in a separate vessel, then added to the mash tun to heat it up. In this style of mashing, there's no heat applied to the main mash vessel - only to the portion drawn off and heated separatel...

I had pretty well mastered extract brewing in late 2014.  My recipes typically came out right at the target gravity and volume, with little or no variance.  My beers were good, and I had only ever tossed two batches, which were made without an actual recipe and turned out so sweet as to be undrinkable. I received iMake's The Grainfather RIMS brewing system in August 2015 as part of the Kickstarter.  In September, I started using it. In retrospect, this was a lot to change at once.  I went from extract to all-grain.  I swapped out my kettle, immersion chiller, and other equipment for The Grainfather, all-grain brewing, and all-new recipes.  I did this without any help or guidance from others, apart from my own reading.  It's kind of surprising that I haven't had to toss a single Grainfather-made batch. A recurring problem for me was that my final post-boil volume and gravity were rarely close to my recipes.  If my recipe was supposed to yield 5...

As I've mentioned several times on the blog, I acquired iMake's The Grainfather RIMS brewing system in August 2015 through their Kickstarter campaign that began in March of that year.  The system and its excellent counter flow wort chiller is pictured at the left. When I first got The Grainfather, I was frustrated with it.  In part, this was because I had based my expectations on reviews of the non-US version of the device, which has a lot more wattage and voltage flowing through its heating element.  It could heat mash water a lot  faster than mine and get the wort to a much more rolling boil a lot more quickly. In experience to date, the US version of The Grainfather takes about a minute to heat a five-gallon load of water or wort 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit.  So heating mash water from my current (January 2016) tap water temperature of 57F to a typical mash temperature of 151F (a 94F change) takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 90 minutes.  If you compa...

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced The Grainfather and discussed how to use it for mashing and sparging.  In Part 2, we talked about boiling and chilling the wort with The Grainfather and its included counterflow chiller.  In this final segment, we'll discuss cleanup and overall thoughts about the device and its usage. Cleanup Once you've pumped the wort from The Grainfather into your fermenter and pitched your yeast, you're well on your way to a delicious batch of homebrew.  Unfortunately, you've still got some cleanup work to do. The cleanup process in my experience will take 20-30 minutes.  It involves the following tasks: Removing and discarding the grain from The Grainfather's grain basket Cleaning the grain basket, kettle, recirculation tube, and wort chiller Cleaning all the other implements used in brewing (scale, scoops, mash paddle, etc.) At the end of the brewing process, there will be hops bags (if you used them), grain and other residu...

In Part 1 of this series, I explained a little about iMake's The Grainfather RIMS brewing system, walked through the mashing and sparging steps, and shared some recommendations.  In this post, we're going to talk about the boiling and chilling steps. Boiling Wort with The Grainfather Being a 120V 1600-watt electric device with a standard US 3-prong electrical plug, you can use The Grainfather indoors provided you aren't in such an enclosed environment that the escaping steam will cause you problems.  I'm able to brew in my basement without any need for fans or other ventilation.  In a small apartment kitchen, I can imagine that the steam might condense on the walls or ceiling and cause an issue - but that's only speculation on my part. When you've finished the mashing and sparging effort, starting the boil is a simple activity.  You remove the grain basket from the kettle, then switch the heating element mode switch from Mash to Normal (if it's not alr...