In a word - WOW - shame he built it around a plastic tub instead of a steel conical fermenter :)
For drinkers of craft beer, prices may soon be hopping
Hops and malt, a form of barley essential to fermentation, are both in short supply nationwide. The shortage is caused by poor crops, high demand, the weak dollar and the increasing popularity of ethanol, which has prompted farmers to plant corn rather than hops or barley
This is a short video of home brew fermentation in all its bubbly glory - enojy!
Seattlest: Fermentation Envy
This looks like a great compromise between bottling and kegging. I have to admit that I played with the special caps they make for two liter bottles but it was annoying because once you start serving it you release all the pent up co2. This seems to solve that nicely.
Ok you are going to have to go along with this one. It may not make any sense to you - but I’m excited so just nod along.
Part of the process of brewing involves taking samples of beer and putting them in a long tube. Into that tube you put a hydrometer. That tells you the denisty of the beer. During the course of fermentation you can use the readings you get from the hydrometer to tell two things. First, it allows you to calculate the approximate alcohol content of your homebrew. This is useful if for no other reason than to know if you have a session or serious beer on your hands. Second, it helps you determine if fermentation is truly finished.
When I started brewing I was a simple guy. I just figured when the bubbling stopped the fermenation was done. That isn’t always the case. (I learned the hard way when I let a batch get too cold and it stopped fermenting well before the process was complete).
The point of all this is that the readings called original gravity (gravity before fermenation) and final gravity (gravity after fermenation) are very important. The problem is collecting enough beer to measure the gravity once the fermentation gets going is a pain. It is especially bad because you have to open the carboy and risk oxidation each and every time you want to take a sample.
Enter the refractometer (Picutre at the top). It allows you to get these numbers with a couple of drops of wort. I read a great article on BYO about Refractometers a while ago. I thought it sounded like the answer to all of my prayers. To get the OG (original gravity) you can approximate it by taking the brix measuerment (which is what the refactormeter measures in) and multiply it by 4. That gives you a value that is a good approximation of the value.
There are much more fancy calculations taken from here
Here is the Brix to specific Gravity (useful for the OG)
Brix to Specific Gravity
Formula was derived from the 69th edition (1988-1989) of the CRC Handbook of
Chemistry and Physics, “Concentrative Properties of Aqueous Solutions:
Conversion Tables”, Table 88 SucroseMathCAD was used to curvefit the data for Degrees Brix @ 20 C (% sucrose
by weight) and specific gravity @ 15 CSG = 1.000898 + 0.003859118*B + 0.00001370735*B*B + 0.00000003742517*B*B*B
where:
B = measured refractivity in Brix
SG = calculated specific gravity at 15 C
This is all well and good. When I did it on a batch of beer I got a number that closely matched the number I was getting the hydrometer. As the fermentation progressed I continued measuring the gravity using the refactometer. The number didn’t go the direction it should. Instead of becoming less dense the tool said it was becoming more dense which made no sense. The sugar in the solution was being broken down into alcohol and CO2 which should always result in a less dense solution.
Eventually I assumed there must be something wrong with the refactometer and I went back to the old way of measuring. Since then the refactometer has sat in its case at the back on one of my drawers.
Then I stumbled on a forum post that explains that the brixing reading is effected by alcohol in a way that a normal hydrometer is not. You have to use a different formula once alcohol enters the picture.
Another formula has to be used.
Final Specific Gravity from original and final Brix
SG = 1.001843 - 0.002318474*OB - 0.000007775*OB*OB - 0.000000034*OB*OB*OB + 0.00574*FB + 0.00003344*FB*FB + 0.000000086*FB*FB*FB
where:
SG = estimated specific gravity of the sample
OB = Original Brix
FB = Final Brix
So it appears the problem was with the user not the tool. This is great news because it was so much easier to measure the wort using the refactometer! I guess the next batch I’ll be using it again to see if this time I have it right.
Now if only I could mount refractometer into the carboy so I could measure the wort at anytime without ever having to open the carboy… a boy can dream….
It looks like we’re closing in on teach a friend to brew day. Basically this is an annual event where people who home brew invite people who don’t over to drink and learn how to make beer. Usually the Flying Saucer has an event so keep your eyes peeled for announcements.
Wired News:
But Brooklyn Brewery isn’t alone in its conservation efforts. New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado, has developed a unique method that uses its waste to power its factory.
We started the brewing process of the beer for our wedding on Sunday. We managed to get everything done in the 3 hours it didn’t rain.
This was the largest batch of beer we’ve ever made - it was 10 gallons of Hefeweizen. It will end of getting modified later to transform it into the sublime Sip O’ Honey ™. But for now it is a gurgling mess in our bathtub.
Everything went incredibly smoothly, with one small exception. I recently aquired a Better Bottle carboy. I was excited because it seems like it would be an ideal primary fermenter for us. Especially since it makes raking to the secondard so easy. There is just one small problem. The universal bung (Yes I said bung) doesn’t fit. Of course I didn’t realize this until it was time to put the air lock on it.
Actually it got a little worse than that. This Hefe really likes to foam up. This isn’t a bad thing as long as you have a blow off tube ready. Apparently our last one got so crummy we threw it out figuring I would buy some more before we got around to brewing. So now I had to rigged up the air lock to a small 1/2″ tube. Which means if the blow off clogs there is a risk that the whole glass carboy could explode! (Assuming the universal bung doesn’t blow out first - which has happened before so I’m not ultra worried).
Since we did the brew day on Sunday the home brew store was closed and I figured it wouldn’t be that bad. Normally you get a 12-24 hour lag before things really get going. That didn’t happen this time because I actually took the time to make a yeast starter. So it started fermenting in 6 hours - which means if you go into the guest bathroom - all you can smell is beer.
The glass carboy is happily expiring (I had to shut door to get some sleep since it was actually that loud). The Better Bottle is mostly just leaking around the rigged up top. Hopefully today we’ll get it all sort out and it won’t be too worse for the wear.
The craziest part is that I already have to get ready for another batch since this weekend I have to do the second round. We’re planning 20 gallons for the big day.
And before you worry - I checked - a family can produce 200 gal/year for personal consumption. So we still have a lot of room left for the year - which is a good thing because once this is finished I’m going to start working on a Flemish Red - ala Rodenbach.
Looks like Pierre Celis is coming back to Texas to make beer again. There is a lesson in there some where about naming your company after yourself and then selling the rights :)
A Skunk Walks into a Bar . . .: Science News Online, Dec. 3, 2005
Props to Droth for forwarding this along.
Couple of notes about the article:
1. The hop additions can be a little more complicated than described since you can add a bittering hop, flavor hop, aroma hop, and dry hop. The distinction is when you add it to the process. Bittering hops are added at the begining of the boil while flavor and aroma hops are added at the very end (much like adding spices to a stew). Dry hops are added during fermentation.
2. Although all beer does go bad eventually - there are certain styles which are prized as they get older. Thomas Hardy barley wine can apparently be aged up to 30 years. Most of the high alchol belgians can be kept for up to 5 years. And a lot of your Christmas Ales can easily be kept a year or more. There is no doubt that the flavor changes during this process. In many cases the over powering hops and other spices that are so dominant in fresh brew “roll off” - allowing you to taste a much more complicated beer underneath.
We just did a vertical tasting of Stil Nacht from Du Dulles (Beligum) with a 2004,2003, and 2002. The 2003 ended up being my favorite - mostly because it was less assertive and pungant than the 2004, but more full bodied than the 2002.
Since there are much fewer guidelines for how long to age the beer it is a dicey business. I’m currently following the system of trying to put away a number of bottles and then opening them on a 6 month or so cycle. Hopefully that way I can get them at the peak or just behind th peek before they go bad. Which is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a beer that you’ve been holding on to.
3. They are right on about the obsession about oxygenation. At every turn the guide books warn you about keeping it to a minimum. I didn’t think about how quickly it would be absorbed into the liquid itself. I was usually looking at the gap at the top of the fermenter when I was thinking about the oxygen. On the other hand you are a little caught because when you brew the wort in the first place you boil out all the oxygen and the yeast apparently needs it to get down to business. So before you add yeast you end up putting a lot of oxygen into the wort. Once you add the yeast the rest of the time is spent trying to avoid letting any O2 in.
4. The creation of furfuyl alcohol was one of the most interesting things to me. Since it seems to be triggered by a long very hot boil. This is somewhat counter to everything I’ve learned so far. I have always been told that you wanted a very hot boil to make sure that certain compounds that could build up other wise and will ruin both the taste and look of the beer would be there. So now I want to do an experiment where I do two batches with different boil temps just to see how much of an effect it has.
