I've been slacking off lately in the brewing department... I haven't really gotten anything done in awhile. Just bottled the gluten free beer. Tested it about a week after starting primary fermentation, and it tasted great! Strangely, after 3 weeks in the primary I tasted it, and I didn't like it whatsover! Either chestnut/honey beer does not taste good aged, or I ended up with some problems somewhere else. The taste I got was more phenolic then anything else...which is weird because most phenols are produced during the yeast metabolism stage (something I should have been able to taste after a week).
Leah and I will be hosting a St. Pattys Day party here at the house, so I'll have to get an Irish red ready for March!
I'm always looking for new and interesting brews to make. So when my aunt Carol came to me with an idea with a gluten free beer, I loved the challenge!
Gluten free brewing is part of a small movement of brewers to provide a "beer" that would not contain barley, wheat, or other sources of gluten. Folks with Celiacs Diseasse suffer from a disorder in which gluten attacks the inner lining of their intestines. Therefore many go on a strict gluten free diet.
Needless to say, the lack of barley and wheat is completely outside the realm of a convential brewer. We'll need to think outside the box. Many of the already produced gluten free beers, are made with Sorghum. Sorghum is a grain grass which does not contain sources of gluten. Doing a bit of research into sorghum brewing yields many people complaining of the aftertaste of sorghum beers. It seems sorghum can leave a sour twang in most brews that is usually unpleasant. So I tried to look in a different direction.
After a few hours of searching, I came across a webpage, where an individual sells roasted chestnut fruit chips for brewing. I also then found a forum post in HomebrewTalk about this very subject. I decided to try a mix of both sorghum and chestnut fruit chips. For the sorghum, I'll be using Briess White Sorghum Syrup.
Chestnut Mash
The chestnut mash is going to be different then anything I've ever done before. This will be a 24 hour mash schedule. Since chestnuts do not contain enzymes to convert starch to sugar (found in barley and wheat), we will need to add an artificial enzyme to the mash. I'll be using the amalayse enzyme. I'll likely start the strike water at around 180° to 190° F, to end with a mash temp around 158°. Amalayse is destroyed by higher temperatures, so once the boil begins, the amalayse will denature. The 24 hour mash schedule should hopefully release all the sugars that I can get from the chestnuts.I"ll end up sparging with enough water to get up to near my normal boil volume of 6.5 gallons.
Note that the chestnut chips will not lend that much sugar to the wort (likely up to 1.014). It will actually add more color and flavor then anything else. Therefore we'll need to up the sugar content. I will use the sorghum syrup simillar to liquid malt extract, as well as add 2.5 lbs of honey. I will use corn sugar to up the sugar content if any of my potential gravity calculations come out wrong. With the large amount of simple sugar, there will be little body. Maltodextrine will be used to add a bit more body to the beer.
Here's a few pics from the Strawbeery Beach Blonde's brew day!
Hoppin' it up! I use a thin mesh paint straining bag to control the hops in my boil. It really cuts down on the trub going into the fermenter. There is a trade off though, with a minor decrease in hop utilization.
Mother Earth Brewing's cellerman Pete (Do you have my business card?) Frey. He stopped over to offer some great brew day advice. We had 4 people in the beer business over that brew day. It was great to get some insight on the distribution business from our neighbor Kenny, as well as Pete's friends from New Bern.
After the brew feremented out in the primary, I added 5lbs of strawberries into the secondary fermenter.
This brew is on tap right now. While there is only a slight hint of strawberries, this is a great light summertime brew!
A few of you have been bugging me to finally put up the final pictures of the kegerator. Since I finally have her cooling, serving, and fermenting beer, here's what she looks like:
I needed to find a way to secure the CO2 tank in the back of the fridge...this is what I came up with. Not the most ingenuitive ideas, but hey it gets the job done. The bungee cord pulled the legs on the table towards eachother. In order to mitigate that I attached a piece of thin angled aluminum stock to the two table legs.
Here's another view of the CO2 setup with the tank secured. This should be nice and easy when I have to switch CO2 tanks.
I wanted the temp controller's probe to be close to where I inserted it into the fridge. I took a piece of aluminum left over from the turkey fryer parts I bought when I went to all grain. This allowed me to put a small shelf on the inside of the fridge. I have the temp probe sitting in a beaker of water. This will prevent the fridge from switching on and off more frequently.
Here's a look with the kegs in the bottom of the fridge. That's One Love Wit on the right, and Strawbeery Beach Blonde on the left. Notice the long lines. The friction inside long beer lines help to slow the flow of the beer to the tap. This allows the beer to come out in a nice slow pour instead of 15psi and all foam. For more information on balancing your keg lines, see Kegerators.com
Here's a look at a keg of Schulz Kolsch priming with CO2 on the top shelf. I'll eventually hook this up to tap #3.
The Convenience Center rocks!
Here's the final product on the front. I made the left two tap handles from some wooden figurines I found. The far right one is a Leine's seasonal. I think the wet erase markers look awesome!
Well that's my project! After a few months of off and on work, tons of gluing and polyurythane, and plenty of beer, it's all ready to serve up. It is very nice having beer on tap at your house...however this also leads you to drink ALOT more.
I've been a slacker in posting lately! The kegerator is finished, I just haven't been getting any pictures of it... (I'm too busy using it). I did a strawberry beer last month. And I have a Kolsch right now lagering in the fridge.
Here's the strawberry recipe:
Amount Item Color %Grain Bill 8.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US 3.0 SRM 51.61 % 2.00 lb White Wheat Malt 2.4 SRM 12.90 % 0.50 lb Oats, Golden Naked 10 SRM 3.23 %
Amount Item Time 0.50 oz Pallisades [6.70 %] 60 min Hops 11.8 IBU 0.50 oz Pallisades [6.70 %] 15 min Hops 5.9 IBU 5.00 lb Fruit - Strawberry 2 weeks secondary
1 Pkgs German Ale/Kolsch (#WLP029) Yeast-Ale
75 min single infusion mash 150°. Double batch sparge.
Est Original Gravity: 1.057 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.63 % Bitterness: 17.7 IBU Calories: 233 cal/pint Est Color: 5.5 SRM
I know I know.... I've been super slow on this. I keep having to wait for parts or different parts, or other different parts to get this thing together. Currently. One problem I ran into is apparently no single place in the country had stainles steel shanks in stock! I ended up having to order mine over ebay. However one of them had a bad coupling nut, so I had to send it back. I'm currently waiting on that before I can complete everything. The kegerator is starting to actually look like something other then a demolished fridge though.
I've also found a super cheap place to have my aluminum CO2 tank refilled. R & D's Fire Control in Newport fills tanks for $1.50 a pound. This would cost me $7.50 to fill my tank! From what I've read most places would charge you $10-$15.
All exposed insulation has now been covered by the vinyl flooring I got.
The fridge will need to be kept at a certain temperature for the kegs. Therefore I'll need something to control the fridge's temperature. I purchased this external refrigerator thermostat. I drilled a hole straight through the fridge. When doing this, you need to make sure there aren't any coolant lines that run through the wall.
In order to seal up the hole, I used well nuts. I had to cut a slit with the dremmel for the wire to go through.
I've fit the well nut onto the wire. I then glued this nut to both sides of the fridge to help keep any cold air from escaping.
I then took some caulk and, for an extra seal, surrounded the wire nut. Behold my awesome caulking job....
Here's the mounted temperature controller. I have it held up with a 3lb hook magnet.
Here's the holes I cut out for the shanks. The shanks are 7/8" wide, so I used a 7/8" drill bit and some sandpaper so that the shanks fit very snuggly into the holes.
Here's a closeup of the cut hole. There is about 2 inches of foam insulation in the door I had to get through, along with layers of plastic and metal.
Here are the holes from the inside of the fridge. I'll eventually use an extra piece of the composite wood I used for the table to provide a backing to bolt the shanks to.
I decided I wanted a nice black and wood look to the fridge. I decided to use these precut pieces of wood to provide a nice buffer between the faucet and the fridge.
I used a "Golden Pecan" wood stain as well as 3 coats of polyurathane on the wood to get the desired look.
With more then 1 or 2 kegs in the fridge, you'll need a manifold to distribute the gas. I didn't really know where I wanted to mount mine. I came up with using a old shelf from the fridge. The shelves hooked on to the back wall. I 2/3 of the shelf arm off on one side, and then drilled 2 holes in it. I then used a U-bolt to secure the manifold to the shelf.
Here's a closeup of the manifold. Notice the U-bolt that goes right around the middle of the manifold to hold it up.
Here's a view of the manifold with all the hoses. One of the hoses will go underneath the table to connect the manifold to the gas tank.
I purchased a black wet-erase board online. I'll be able to use liquid chalk markers on this board. They look a lot better then regular dry erase markers.
Here's a look at the stained, poly'd, and mounted wood pieces for the front. I also have 2 of the shanks mounted in them.
That's about it for now. Still waiting on a few pieces before I can complete this baby, but I can't wait till she's set up!
I've been saving these two nice images I found on the internet to share with you guys. The first one is a generic IBU vs Original Gravity. This is a great quick reference when looking to formulate your own recipes. Depending on how you like your beer, plan accordingly with this handy tool.
The second image is something I want framed in my brew cave! This fancy ass piece of artwork is a hop reference to end all hop references. I has nearly every single hop available right now. It also provides flavors/aromas associated with each hop, and how much of those particular flavors/aromas are contributed. This is probably thee single best hop reference chart available. (Click on the image for the full scale)
Here's the new brew recipe. I wanted to put together a nice Belgian style Witbier for summer. ...something light and white.... Here's what I came up with.
My buddy Pete (local cellarman at Mother Earth Brewing) introduced me to a peppery wit that MEB had in their tap room. It was delish!! I haven't commited to any pepper yet in this recipe, but I may have to add a small bit in at the end of the boil. Here's what I got so far:
Time Amount Item Type 60 min 0.50 oz Sterling [7.50 %] (60 min) Hops 10 min 0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (10 min) Hops 5 min 0.50 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc 5 min 0.50 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
60 min single infusion mash 152°. Double batch sparge.
Est Original Gravity: 1.053 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.11 % Bitterness: 15.8 IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint Est Color: 3.9 SRM
Well some of the hardware has begun to come in. I got my stainless steel drip tray from barproducts.com. This tray is by far the cheapest anywhere. Most of the same size drip trays from homebrew supply stores are twice if not more expensive. Also, my perlick 425SS faucets came in from Austin Home Brew Supply. From what I've been reading, if you want to buy faucets, you should always buy either Perlick or the now defunct Ventmatic. Both are forward sealing faucets. Standard chrome faucets are backward sealing, and if are not used all the time, can become quite stuck.
I've also finished the shelf for the kegs. Instead of using regular wood, I used recycled composite lumber. I chose to go with this because of the moist environment in the fridge. Composite lumber will hold up better then the regular or pressure treated lumber.
Here's a few updated pics!
Here's the top of the fridge where I've cut the insulation. Instead of trying to glue the vinyl flooring, I separated the plastic from the insulation, and stuffed the flooring into the gap.
Here's a snapshot of the stand for the kegs. I can fit 2 underneath, and 4 on top. The CO2 thank should (hopefully) fit on the raised area on the floor of the fridge behind the 2 kegs.
I used 2 inch brackets to hold the legs up for the stand. I used composite deck railings. They just needed to be cut to length.
The wife admiring my handiwork!
A closeup of the back of the fridge where the insulation was exposed. There wasn't enough plastic sticking out to be able to glue the piece in, so what I did was shaped the flooring, and filled it with Great Stuff. This gave it nice stability. You can see it oozing out the top and bottom of the flooring piece.
The drip tray is a great piece to have, however eventually it needs a good cleaning. For cleaning convenience I decided to use industrial strength velcro to secure the tray down to the brackets. In case you didn't know what velcro looked like... here's a closeup!
Well, I've finally had enough with bottling. I mean we have probably 300 bottles in our house. They take up too much freaking room!! With the amount that we currently brew, bottling just takes up too much extra time. So it's time to Keg!!!
The side by side fridge that we picked up last year will be the kegerator. However, the problem with a side by side fridge, is that you have this big ass wall halfway between the freezer and fridge section. It takes up a lot of space! Solution? As Ronald Regan probably would have said it:
"We welcome beer and soda; for we believe that carbon dioxide and malt beverage go together, that the advances of brewing beer can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign that Jeremy can make, that would be unmistakable; that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. Jeremy Ryan Schulz, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for Eastern North Carolina, if you seek liberalization, come here to this refrigerator. Mr. Schulz, open this door. Mr. Schulz, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!"
Can't argue with Reagan!
Here's a bunch of pics from the build!
Here's the refrigerator before anything is done to it. Time to demolish!!
The first step was to cut through the wall. I used a dremel for most of it, because the plastic was quite thick. For touching up later I would eventually use a utility knife.
The insulation was in there pretty good. They must use a ton of glue at the fridge factory!
All of the center insulation has been removed. I left about 2 feet of wall to support a second level on the fridge side.
The ice machine remnants were the next to go. Screws started coming out of this thing left and right! Since we've had the fridge, there has always been an annoying rattling noise when fridge shuts off. I always attributed this to issues with the compressor (perhaps a loose bolt). However with the ice machine off, I could see the problem. The evaporator fan motor was the problem. Upon removing it, I found that the bearings were shot.
So with a ton of digging (thank god for the internet), I was able to find a spare motor/fan assembly (Our fridge is not what you would consider "name brand"). I found the assembly from Timer King. It turns out Timer King is a family owned business up in Superior, WI! Yeah Sconnie! Represent! (Plus the free shipping rocked). Here's me holding up the defunct motor/fan next to our shiny new (quiet) one.
The ice maker dispenser in the door had to go. Not only is this thing barely insulated, but the mildew growing up inside it was turning my stomach. Here's the back of the assembly.
Since removing the assembly left a ton of empty space that was not covered by insulation, I sprayed a ton of Great Stuff into it. This helped to seal it up, and provide some strength to the gap that was created.
The nice thing about having the left over Great Stuff was that I was able to fill the lids to my mash tun and hot liquor tank. This allowed me to up the R-value, so my mash temps would stay more stable. Bonus!
I sealed the inside (where the ice would normally fall into the ice dispenser with a spare chunk of plastic that I had previously cut out of the middle.
I was tempted to take the front of this off, and replace it with plain plastic, however I just couldn't due to the words on the front. "Convenience Center". Well the "Convenience Center" will now be a convenient place to set my beer! I'll eventually sand the excess Great Stuff out of there and seal it up with some caulk.
Next I sanded and smoothed all the insulation/plastic where I had previously cut.
Proper attire is needed when sanding insulation. Proper attire is also needed when robbing banks. I'm set for both.
I used Gorilla Glue (best glue ever) to seal the insulation back to the plastic. Gorilla glue requires clamping of the materials for about one hour.
I wanted something that would seal up the bare insulation. I thought about using plastic pieces from hole I cut, but I wouldn't get a good enough seal. I ended up going to a local carpet/flooring store, and asking for some old vinyl flooring. They let me peruse their dumpster, and I found some pieces just the size I was looking for. Color on the other hand....is a bit off, but oh well it's free!! :-)
I removed the back of the fridge door in order to put on the braces for the drip tray. Holy mildew Batman! Get the bleach!
I picked up some corner brackets from Lowes for a few bucks. Using 3 inch bolts, I secured them to the door. The drip tray will sit across these brackets.
I used fender washers as well as an extra bracket I cut in half for the back of the door.
Well that's all I have finished so far. As parts start coming in, and more time allows I'll post the new updates! Thanks for reading!
On Deck: Granola Brown Ale The Hop Doctor (Good for what ales you)
Bottled/Kegged: Gluten Free Beer Schulz Kolsch Strawbeery Beach Blonde Ale One Love Wit Organic Blueberry Wine Blueberry Ale IWPA (Indian Wedding Pale Ale) Inspired by Manan's Wedding Brother John's Abbey Ale Honey Chocolate Smoked Porter
Beer Brain Limbo: Nuannaarpoq Duppy Conqueror
Beer Gone But Not Forgotten: Brewers Best Kolsch Brewers Best Red Ale Brewers Best Weizenbier (Ale)head Turtle Man's Best Friend (All Grain) Earth Day Organic Brown Ale (All Grain)
.JPG)
.JPG)
