To Sparge or Not to Sparge.....

I was convinced after tasting the pre-fermentation wort for my 5-Kilowatt Blonde No-Sparge batch that this technique would help me further reduce the chance of astringency in my beer.  I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, most people would not even notice it but due to my on going battle with this issue I am hyper sensitive to it....  That being said, the English Pale ale I made before this using my standard fly sparging actually was less astringent.   Sooooo.... considering that it may have only saved me about 10 minutes of my brew day, I think I am going back to sparging.

*** Update (2/15/16)

After a bit more time, any astringency is completely gone.  The beer is now crystal clear!  Will I try another no-sparge batch?  Most definitely!   10 minutes is 10 minutes...... Besides, now that I have the giant mash tun it should be even easier.

Wee Heavy - Northern Brewer All Grain Kit

On December 15 I brewed the Northern Brewer Wee Heavy all grain kit.  Everything went as expected except for the fact that I apparently got my water chemistry under control and my efficiency went through the roof coming out at about 96%!  The highest I have ever gotten on this system was about 70 so friends....  WATER MATTERS or at least PH does...  My OG was 1.098 when the estimate was 1.083.  Using the FastFerment I had the ability to dump yeast and did so twice in the first 2 weeks.  When I hit the 4th week the yeast catcher was only half full and had been at about that level for over a week, so I took the opportunity when dumping to check the gravity.....  I found that the fermentation was stuck at about 1.031!  After a bit of reading I decided to pitch another package of yeast.  I am now going to give it another 2 weeks and then keg.  I have noticed about a quarter inch of yeast cake in the catcher since I pitched (about 5 days ago) so I am guessing something is happening slowly.  There is definitely no visible bubbling in the airlock.

*** Update (2/9/16)

The FG came out at 1.025 putting ABV at about 9.7%  The Wee Heavy I made last year came out at about 8.5%.  It is now kegged and should be carbed up by Wednesday 2/10.

No Sparge - 5 Kilowatt Blonde

**** Updated ****

Sunday the 10th I brewed my first no-sparge test batch of 5 Kilowatt Blonde!  It was a simple recipe with 9 lbs of pale 2-Row and 1 lb C20.  I hopped with Citra  at 60 minutes with .25 oz and at 10 minutes with .75 oz. I wanted some body so I mashed at 156 and did a 10 minute mash out at 168.  The efficiency was at 90% so I am not sure I will EVER sparge again unless I don't have room in the mash tun.  Even with the small grain bill in this recipe I still didn't have enough room to get the 8 gallons I need to do a full 1 hour boil, so I saved a gallon or so of the HLT water to top up prior to the boil.  This seemed to work well. My OG was on target and it kegged at 4.59% abv which was about what I was looking for.  I couldn't detect any off flavors pre-carbonation but on the next batch I may add the last of the Citra at the 15 minute mark to bring up the IBU's a little. The beer seems to have cleared up well!  Can't wait to see what it looks like after cold conditioning for a few days.  I may also cut back on the C20 a bit to bring down the color a bit.  It should be all carbed up by Wednesday evening.  I will post a pic with tasting notes then.

Well it is mostly carb'd up and doesn't taste too bad IMHO!  You can catch a little bit of citrus nose on the first sip but not much after.  The head is not as strong as I would like but may get better after being on the gas a bit longer.  The flavor has medium to low citrus a LOT of body and just a tiny hint of astringency in the finish.  The color is a bid darker than I would have wanted due to my increasing the amount of C20 at the last minute.   It still needs some time to settle out but the flavor profile is about what I expected.   I am really wanting a lighter color, a little less body, a little more hop flavor and a lot more hop aroma.  The color in this pic is a little misleading due to the lighting.  The beer is actually significantly lighter.  Things I am going to change in the next batch will be:  1) Trade 1/2 pound of C20 for an extra pound of pale 2-row.  2) change the Citra hop schedule to (.25 for 60), (.5 for 20) and (.25 for 10 minutes after flame out).  3)  mash at 153 instead of 156.  4)  add a dose of PH5.2 stabilizer to the mash to eliminate ALL astringency.

No Sparge Brewing...?!?!

This past weekend I tried a technique called no-sparge brewing in an effort to shorten and simply my brew day.  You do this by mashing with the total amount of water necessary to obtain your full pre-boil volume.   This technique is definitely nothing new to the brew-in-a-bag folks as they have always done it this way.  The main drawback to no-sparge seems to be about a 10% drop in efficiency making it necessary to use a bit more grain to achieve your target OG.  Beings I have a HERMS system I decided to go ahead and use it to maintain temperature and recirculate during the entire mash and mash-out.  The results were way beyond my expectations!  My mash efficiency came out at 90%!!!  I will definitely continue to use this technique on small session beers that require less than 12 lbs of grain.  If I had something like this I would be able to do all my beers this way!

CFC Upgrade

Near the center of this picture is my latest addition to the brewery.  It is called a convoluted counterflow chiller.  It is made up of a 1/2 inch copper tube that has been slightly crimped in several places down it's entire length then slightly twisted.  It is then placed inside a 7/8 inch tube and the whole thing is bent into a coil.  The two pipes are sealed from one an other and fittings are attached to allow water to flow in one direction through the bigger pipe while wort travels the opposite direction through the center pipe.  It works in a similar way to a plate chiller but the path for the wort is much larger and has nothing for particles to hang up on making it extremely easy to keep clean.  The other great thing about this chiller is that it is EXTREMELY efficient!  At my last brew day I brought 6 gallons of wort from boiling to 65 degrees in about 9 minutes!  Most people use these for single pass chilling from the boil kettle directly into the fermenter.  I currently have it set up to recirculate the boil kettle so that a whirlpool is formed as the wort chills.  This helps separate the hot and cold break before transfer.  So far I am very happy with my purchase!

RO Water Update

Pictured above is the float valve assembly I came up with for filling my HLT with RO water.  Filling the kettle can take up to 8 hours so I wanted a way that I could leave it and not worry about it over flowing.  I have been using RO water in conjunction with Burton Water Salts for my last 4 beers and I can safely say that between this change and sparging a little less the astringency problem I was having is completely gone!  Another thing that I found is that with the proper water chemistry my mash efficiency has gone from 60-70% all the way up to 90-95%!!! 

Plastic Conical Temperature Control

Cooling - My primary goal is to simply maintain ale fermentation temps (as close to 68 degrees F. as possible) on a per vessel basis.  Because of the shape and size it is difficult to use traditional means for cooling.  It would take a VERY large fridge/freezer to house them which would eat up a LOT of space in my basement.  As an experiment I purchased 25 feet of bendable copper tube and made a coil that fits tightly around the largest part of the conical.  At this point there are small stainless bolts on either side that can be used to hang the fermenter from a wall bracket.  These bolts hold the copper coil in place about 1/2 inch below the 5.5 gallon mark.  I then connected one end of the coil to a submersible pump that I placed into a 5 gallon cylindrical drink cooler.  After routing the other end of the coil into the top of the cooler I put about 3 gallons of water in the cooler along with 3 frozen 1 liter bottles of water.  By hooking the pump power cord to my home made temperature controller I can have the pump kick on any time the temperature in the fermenter goes above a set point.   I tested this by filling the fermenter with 5.5 gallons of 80 degree water and setting the controller to 70 degrees.   Within 45 minutes the temperature in the fermenter came down about 6 degrees.  I felt this was promising so I tried the test again starting with 75 degree water and putting some bubble wrap insulation around the coils and foam around the hoses going from the cooler to the coil.  This test was even better as I was able to bring the temp down to 68 degrees in about 20 minutes.  It really helps that in my basement where the fermenters are kept the ambient temp is about 66 degrees year round.   I doubt this solution will work well for lagers but I think it will work really well for ales.  I plan to keep the unit on the fermenter for about the first week during the most active part of the fermentation.  After that it would be freed up for use on the other one.

Heating - My goal in this has two parts:  1) keep the temperature up if there is a cold snap and the basement gets below 55 degrees.  2)  allow me to do a controlled warm up to 72 or so for different fermentation profiles.  To accomplish this I ordered a Brew Belt which is simply a 110v 800 watt strap that you can wrap around the fermenter and connects to itself like a belt.  Connecting it to the heating plug on my controller should allow me to maintain a temperature above ambient up to 75 degrees or so.  I have not received it yet but will post my tests.

Plastic Conical - Update!

I liked the FastFerment conical so well that I purchased a second one!   I would recommend these to anyone with two minor warnings:  1) They do not seal well.  To get them to seal I first tried lightly sanding the top with a big flat sanding block which helped a little, then I simply added a second gasket which fixed the problem.  When I bought the second one I just automatically ordered an extra gasket.  2)  You must disassemble them to get them completely clean.  The second time I used the first one I simply wiped it out with a soft sponge, sprayed it out with 180 degree PBW, rinsed twice thoroughly and sanitized by putting a gallon of properly prepared StarSan in it and shaking it up with it sealed.   Upon tasting before it went in the keg I could detect a slight tartness that continued to get worse after it was in the keg for a few weeks.  When I did the next beer in the first conical I did the standard cleaning above then removed both the ball valve and the thermowell, cleaned them with a brush and sanitized them by soaking them for 20 minutes in StarSan before putting them back on the fermenter.  This seems to have solved the problem and I have not had bugs in either fermenter since.