Sanitising Oak Chips

As part of my Coffin Ship Survivor imperial stout, I was planning on adding 50g of oak chips for a week to add a subtle oak flavour to the beer. I learnt my lesson making Oak chips myself....do NOT whittle them manually with a knife. The next time I will just use a wood planer to get the shavings off the pieces of oak barrel I have at home. After reading a multitude of guides various forums and websites I decided to steam the oak chips to sanitise them. Soaking them in spirits seems to be one of the more popular methods but I didn't really want any of those flavours in this beer. I might steep them spirits for a future barley wine or something similar but not this brew.

I emptied the oak chips onto a sieve and then sieved them over the sink to get rid of any small pieces that were in the contents. I brought some water to the boil in a pot and put the sieve on top of the pot but not submerged in the water. I used a lid that was slightly smaller than the pot to allow some of the steam out the sides and to cover the oak chips fully. I left them steaming for 30 minutes to ensure that any nasties were annihilated. The kitchen started to smell like a sauna with the smell of the hot, wet wood chips.  

Oak chips added directly to the wort

The initial fermentation of the imperial stout had finished a couple of days ago and it was ready to take the oak chips directly after the steaming. I was considering a hop bag to keep all the oak chips together but I still don't have any means of weighing down hop bags so I just dumped all of them in. Assuming they are still floating in a weeks time I will just siphon underneath them to get the wort into the bottling bucket.

#26 - Christmas Ale MK2 [All Grain]

This year I decided to do an all grain version of my Christmas Ale that I previously made using extract. The previous beer had been very popular at beer tastings due to its subtle level of spicing and liberal contribution of cascade hops. I used the same amount of 'Carafa 1' grains along with 6kg of base malt and 500g of torrified wheat to aid head retention. I also added a small amount of chocolate and black malt to add some additional complexity to the beer. Given that I was using 2011 harvest (1 year old) hops I decided to up the hopping regime significantly with the addition of Columbus hops in addition to the cascade in the original recipe. 

First runnings with a much thinner mash my normal level

I have been having consistently poor efficiency since I have started all grain with efficiency's typically in the 45 to 50% region which is very low. I have spoken to other brewers with the exact same mash tun as mine and they are getting efficiencies in the mid to high 70's so it is definitely down to either the ingredients or the water that is causing my low efficiencies. For this brew I bought a tub of the PH 5.2 buffer solution as my previous all grain mash seemed to have a slightly higher mash PH of 5.9 rather than the recommended 5.2. Unfortunately it didn't make any difference as the pre-boil gravity indicated that the efficiency was still below 50%. 

Ingredients

Warming up the yeast

 

Here is the final recipe:


Recipe: Christmas Ale MK2 TYPE: All Grain
Style: Fruit Beer
---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------
SRM: 61.8 EBC SRM RANGE: 9.8-98.5 EBC
IBU: 50.5 IBUs Tinseth IBU RANGE: 5.0-70.0 IBUs
OG: 1.081 SG OG RANGE: 1.030-1.110 SG
FG: 1.018 SG FG RANGE: 1.006-1.024 SG
BU:GU: 0.622 Calories: 476.4 kcal/l Est ABV: 8.3 %
EE%: 70.00 % Batch: 19.00 l      Boil: 26.38 l BT: 60 Mins

---WATER CHEMISTRY ADDITIONS----------------
Taste of Christmas! 
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
1.00 tbsp             PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60.0 mins)       Water Agent   1        -             

Total Grain Weight: 7070.00 g Total Hops: 165.00 g oz.
---MASH/STEEP PROCESS------MASH PH:5.40 ------
>>>>>>>>>>-ADD WATER CHEMICALS BEFORE GRAINS!!<<<<<<<
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
6000.00 g             Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)         Grain         2        84.9 %        
500.00 g              Carafa I (663.9 EBC)                     Grain         3        7.1 %         
500.00 g              Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC)               Grain         4        7.1 %         
50.00 g               Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC)               Grain         5        0.7 %         
20.00 g               Black Malt (Stout) (1333.0 EBC)          Grain         6        0.3 %         


Name              Description                  Step Temperature       Step Time       
Mash Step         Add 24.02 l of water at 165. 154.0 F                60 min          

---SPARGE PROCESS---
>>>>>>>>>>-RECYCLE FIRST RUNNINGS & VERIFY GRAIN/MLT TEMPS: 61.0 F/120.0 F
>>>>>>>>>>-ADD BOIL CHEMICALS BEFORE FWH
Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 11.94l) of 168.1 F water

---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.068 SG Est OG: 1.081 SG
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
15.00 g               Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60. Hop           7        18.7 IBUs     
60.00 g               Cascade [4.30 %] - Boil 45.0 min         Hop           8        23.2 IBUs     
0.45 kg               Honey (Boil 45.0 mins)                   Other         9        -             
1.00 tsp              Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins)              Fining        10       -             
2.00 Items            Star Anise Petals (Boil 15.0 mins)       Spice         11       -             
4.00 Items            Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 10.0 mins)      Spice         12       -             
3.00 Items            Cloves (Ground) (Boil 10.0 mins)         Spice         13       -             
2.00 tsp              Vanilla Extract (Boil 10.0 mins)         Spice         14       -             
0.50 Items            Cinnamon Stick (Crushed) (Boil 10.0 mins Spice         15       -             
40.00 g               Cascade [4.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min          Hop           16       3.4 IBUs      
50.00 g               Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 2.0 Hop           17       5.3 IBUs      


---FERM PROCESS-----------------------------
Primary Start: 05/12/2012 - 14.00 Days at 67.0 F
Secondary Start: 19/12/2012 - 10.00 Days at 65.0 F
Style Carb Range: 2.00-2.80 Vols
Bottling Date: 19/12/2012 with 2.4 Volumes CO2: 
---NOTES------------------------------------
Heated strike water to 175. Mashtun already heated with hot tap water. 
Temperature a little high at 156, added ice to bring it down to 154. All day mash

#23 - Cajunga Imperial Stout [All Grain]

I have not been blown away by any of the imperial stouts that I have had to date with each drink either being too syrupy or too watery. I wanted something that was somewhere in between in terms of body and flavour. 

I Made this beer with the intention of entering it in a local brewing competition but only got it bottled the week before and thought it was probably too young to be entering it. I tried it after a couple of weeks and it was surprisingly drinkable. I had never made an imperial stout before and had assumed that they took several months to become drinkable. This didn't seem to be the case as it was a bit 'ugh' after 1 week in the bottle but after 3 weeks it tasted really good! 

The recipe originally started off as an imperial porter as I love the additional emphasis on chocolate flavours that seem to be one of the few differences that I can identify between porters and stouts. The one issue is that imperial porters doesn't exist as a BJCP style and thus an imperial porter doesn't really fit in anywhere in brewing software. To make it fit I decided to put it into the imperial stout style but of course I wanted to make the "software indicators" fit within the style guidelines which caused me to increase the base grains and the roasted grain to compensate. I added the crystal malts as they were crushed and I didn't want to leave them lying around for too long. I would regard these as optional but given how well the final beer tastes I would be reluctant to leave them out in future in case the flavour suffered as a result. 

More hops were added than intended as I wanted to use up the full 100g bags (I hate having 10g of hops left over!). Also I have been recently paranoid that I haven't been getting good utilisation from my hops as the software thinks they are fresh when in fact they could be up to 2 years old, this also influenced the increased hopping rate. I saw Junga Hops on my local brewing supplier website and thought the name sounded cool so used them. They are a Polish Hop and are related to the Saaz hop variety. This is probably the wrong style of beer to showcase these hops as there is so much other stuff going on. The Junga hops were leaf and the cascade were in pellet form. The girlfriend had to give me a hand grinding the grain as my flimsy arms were incapable of grinding constantly. 

Grinding

I made a 1L starter with 3 days on a stir plate and pitched it at a warm 27 degrees. I have pitched at this temperature the last 2 or 3 brews and I haven't noticed any adverse affects. I mashed low at 150-151F to get a lighter body as I am not a fan of syrupy stouts. This was an all-day mash as I didn't have time to do everything in one day. I mashed in before I went to work and did the boil when I came home. 

Original gravity was 1088, final gravity 1016.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com

Recipe: Imperial Cajunga Stout 

Brewer: Shane Phelan

Asst Brewer: 

Style: Imperial Stout

TYPE: All Grain

Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Boil Size: 25.34 l

Post Boil Volume: 22.71 l

Batch Size (fermenter): 19.00 l   

Bottling Volume: 17.00 l

Estimated OG: 1.083 SG

Estimated Color: 116.5 EBC

Estimated IBU: 67.2 IBUs

Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %

Est Mash Efficiency: 69.0 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:

------------

Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         

6000.00 g             Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)         Grain         1        69.0 %        

1000.00 g             Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC)               Grain         2        11.5 %        

600.00 g              Black Malt (Stout) (1333.0 EBC)          Grain         3        6.9 %         

500.00 g              Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (78.8 EBC)    Grain         4        5.7 %         

500.00 g              Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC)   Grain         5        5.7 %         

100.00 g              Chocolate Malt (1050.5 EBC)              Grain         6        1.1 %         

40.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min          Hop           7        42.6 IBUs     

30.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 30.0 min          Hop           8        24.6 IBUs     

95.00 g               Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min          Hop           9        0.0 IBUs      

25.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 0.0 min           Hop           10       0.0 IBUs      

1.0 pkg               California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35. Yeast         11       -             

115.00 g              Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days      Hop           12       0.0 IBUs      

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Single Batch Sparge [Shanes AG]

Total Grain Weight: 8700.00 g

----------------------------

Name              Description                  Step Temperature       Step Time       

Mash Step         Add 19.50 l of water at 166. 152.0 F                60 min          

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 17.05l) of 168.1 F water

#19 - 90 Minute IPA (Continually Hopped) [All Grain]

Given the great taste of my 60 Minute IPA, I decided to try my hand at making a clone of the Dog Fish Head 90 Minute IPA. The main difference will that this will be an all grain batch so should make a much better match to the original. I spent more money on this brew than any other due to the rarity of the ingredients. I had to get Amarillo hops from the US, Simcoe and Warrior hops from different UK stores and Special Amber malt from the UK also. I wanted to make a real effort to replicate the original style.

Given that this was going to be a high gravity wort I needed a starter. I hadn't been brewing in about 6 weeks so in that time I built my own stir plate and got a 1 litre conical flask. Upon further investigation I discovered that a 1 litre starter would be nowhere near enough for this beer as according to Mr. Malty I would need a 4 litre starter at the very least. I had 1 vial of White Labs WLP007 which was due to expire in 3 months. I had no idea as to the viability of the yeast in the vial as it had been exposed, several times, to warm temperatures both during the delivery to my supplier and also from the supplier to me.

Starter on stir plate ready to be transferred into larger vessel

I decided to make a small 800mL starter using the stir plate to increase the cell count to the 100 to 150 billion yeast cell range assuming that the current cell count was 50 Billion or less. I used the rough method of adding a 10 to 1 ratio of malt extract to water, in this case 80g for 800mL.  I used the same principal for the larger starter which was approximately 400g for 4L. This should give a gravity in the 1040 to 1050 range. 

I ran the stir plate for about 24 hours after which point I transferred the wort into a 1 gallon demijohn to increase the cell count further. In hindsight I should have done all this about 24 hours earlier as the yeast only got about 12 hours in the demijohn which I don't think was enough time. I put the starter in the fridge to encourage the yeast to fall out of suspension but this didn't happen due to time constraints. 

Dual 2kW elements heating 22L of strike water 

I was excited to see the performance of my kettle with the additional element I added last month. I was getting impatient waiting for the contents to heat up. I needed to heat this volume of water to around 73 degrees which will take into account the temperature drop when the grains are added. I had already instructed BeerSmith to allow for the fact that I would have already preheated the mash tun which hot water. 

Mash in with 7.5kg of grain

I brought the strike water up to temperature and added it to the mash tun. I then started adding the grain starting with 2 (3kg) bags of pale malt followed by 2 (0.5kg) bags of pale malt and finally 0.5kg of amber malt. I left the amber malt until last as I felt I could mix it in more evenly with the other grains in there. The first of my mistakes of the day occurred here, I will refer back to this point later.

So yeah, that brings me onto the mixing. I had always seen guys (on youtube) using mash paddles and had thought to myself, "I will never need one of them, the random spoons and stirrers around my apartment will be grand.....". I wished I had had one of those paddles today. As this was only my 2nd all grain batch I wasn't prepared for such a thick mash. I was using a normal plastic cooking spoon to stir initially and I nearly snapped it in half while trying to stir. I then changed to one of the plastic paddles for stirring wort, this worked a bit better but overall struggled to do the job. I think I have identified the next piece of equipment to purchase. I stirred as best as I could and then took the temperature. It had dropped to approximately 65degrees which is a bit lower than where I normally aim to mash but the brewing notes in the recipe indicate to mash on the low side.

I put the lid on the box and then piled on several towels on top of the lid. My opinion on coolers is that they are optimised to keep stuff cool and thus seem to skimp on insulation in the lid. This is really apparent after an hour when you put your hand in between the towels and the lid as its quite warm. 

Continuous hopping for 90 minutes

While the grains were mashing I measured out all the hops into plastic cups to make the hopping schedule easier. I mixed everything into a large bowl and measured out approximately 18g per cup which incidentally was the full cup. Each addition would be added incrementally in its respective 10 minute interval and as a result the zero minute addition doesn't really make sense as I would have been adding the 10 minute cup up until zero anyway. I decided to add it all in at flame-out to give some additional aroma as I had a some small bits of hops left over. 

I took the first running's from the mash tun after an hour and did a single batch sparge with 14 litres of water at 76 degress. The total running's from the mash tun filled my kettle almost to the brim at nearly 28 litres. I was a bit uneasy with this amount of wort as I was used to having around 25 to 26 Litres in the kettle. There was now a high risk of a boil-over before the hot-break. I fired up the two elements and took a gravity reading. DISASTER, I only had a miserable pre-boil gravity of 1051 ! This number should have been greater than 1070.  I wanted to cry. This brings me back to the first mistake. I had another 1kg of grain that I didn't put into the mash as I thought my efficiency would be better than the previous batch but unfortunately it was worse! The efficiency was working out at less than 50% or even worse. 

So I think to myself, I know what I'm doing, I don't have any malt extract so the other option is to boil for a longer period of time and increase the gravity that way, I was already 2 or 3 litres above my normal volume so it would be fine. This was mistake number 2. I think that despite that Beersmith saying it was aiming for a pre-boil volume of 26 Litres, it was taking into account the additional 30 minutes of the 90 minute boil and compensating accordingly. I came close to a boil-over before the hot break and thankfully turning off one of the elements immediately resolved the situation.  I was afraid that there would be a delay resulting in a  boil-over despite no heat. 

End of the boil

I boiled for 30 minutes and then started the timers. I continuously hopped for 90 minutes and added the wort chiller in the last 10 minutes to sterilise it. Unfortunately mistake number 2 was starting to become apparent. At this point I would usually have around 22 or 23 litres of wort after the boil. About 3 or 4 litres of this would normally be lost to trub in the end of the kettle. I had just under 20 litres at this stage so I knew I was going to come up short. I cooled the wort and transferred it through the hop strainer to the fermenter and sure enough I came up short at 15 litres. I was amazed that I had got even that much given the enormous amount of trub and hop leaves in the kettle. 

Given the extreme amount of hops in this recipe I didn't think it was a good idea to leave the volume at 15 litres. I decided to pitch the entire 4.5 litre starter into the fermenter to bring up the volume to the required amount. This had two effects of adding the yeast and also some gravity of which the yeast hadn't had a chance to eat yet. I mixed the wort up and took a gravity reading ignoring the fact that there is yeast in the mixture and probably some alcohol from the starter. The original gravity came to 1074  which I suppose isn't  too bad given the mistakes made earlier. The drink that I am attempting to clone weighs in at 9% ABV so if the my beer attenuates down to 1010 and priming adds another bit I mightn't be that far off in the end. BeerSmith is estimating that the beer will finish high at 1020 but given the lower mash temperature and the enormous starter I don't think it will finish that high. 

I added 2 bags of hops for dry hopping and I will just leave those in there for 2 weeks in the primary. I'm not going to bother transferring to secondary unless I get bored. 

Recipe:

Recipe:  90m IPA TYPE: All Grain
Style: Imperial IPA
---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------
SRM: 16.4 EBC SRM RANGE: 15.8-29.6 EBC
IBU: 122.9 IBUs Tinseth IBU RANGE: 60.0-120.0 IBUs
OG: 1.087 SG OG RANGE: 1.070-1.090 SG
FG: 1.019 SG FG RANGE: 1.010-1.020 SG
BU:GU: 1.413 Calories: 764.1 kcal/l Est ABV: 9.0 %
EE%: 70.00 % Batch: 19.00 l      Boil: 26.21 l BT: 90 Mins


Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP007
Yeast Starter: Yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.085
Final Gravity: 1.017
IBU: 90
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Color: 9SRM


Total Grain Weight: 7.50 kg Total Hops: 263.00 g oz.
---MASH/STEEP PROCESS------MASH PH:5.40 ------
>>>>>>>>>>-ADD WATER CHEMICALS BEFORE GRAINS!!<<<<<<<
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
7.00 kg               Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)         Grain         1        93.3 %        
0.50 kg               Amber Malt (43.3 EBC)                    Grain         2        6.7 %         


Name              Description                  Step Temperature       Step Time       
Mash In           Add 22.04 l of water at 72.6 66.7 C                 60 min          


---SPARGE PROCESS---
>>>>>>>>>>-RECYCLE FIRST RUNNINGS & VERIFY GRAIN/MLT TEMPS: 22.2 C/60.0 C
>>>>>>>>>>-ADD BOIL CHEMICALS BEFORE FWH 
Batch sparge with 3 steps (Drain mash tun, , 7.09l, 7.09l) of 75.6 C water


---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.072 SG Est OG: 1.087 SG
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min   Hop           3        7.8 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min        Hop           4        5.5 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min         Hop           5        3.6 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 80.0 min   Hop           6        7.7 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 80.0 min        Hop           7        5.4 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 80.0 min         Hop           8        3.5 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 70.0 min   Hop           9        7.6 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 70.0 min        Hop           10       5.3 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 70.0 min         Hop           11       3.5 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min   Hop           12       8.0 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min        Hop           13       5.2 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min         Hop           14       3.4 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 50.0 min   Hop           15       7.0 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 50.0 min        Hop           16       4.9 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 50.0 min         Hop           17       3.2 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 40.0 min   Hop           18       6.4 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 40.0 min        Hop           19       4.5 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 40.0 min         Hop           20       2.9 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min   Hop           21       5.6 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min        Hop           22       4.0 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min         Hop           23       2.6 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min   Hop           24       4.4 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min        Hop           25       3.1 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min         Hop           26       2.0 IBUs      
10.00 g               Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min   Hop           27       2.7 IBUs      
4.00 g                Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min        Hop           28       1.9 IBUs      
3.00 g                Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min         Hop           29       1.2 IBUs      


---FERM PROCESS-----------------------------
Primary Start: 07/01/2012 - 4.00 Days at 19.4 C
Secondary Start: 11/01/2012 - 10.00 Days at 19.4 C
Style Carb Range: 2.20-2.70 Vols
Bottling Date: 21/01/2012 with 2.3 Volumes CO2: 
---NOTES------------------------------------
7.25kg 2-row
580g  Thomas Fawcett Amber Malt* (see note below)
85g Amarillo
28g Simcoe
28g Warrior


Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2wks @ 18
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2wks @ 21
Mix all hops together, and hop continuously for 90min** (see note below)
Mash at 149-150(65-65.5)*
Ferment with WLP007 at 18*. Use a pitch rate calculator for your starter, you want around
300 billion cells.


Dry hop:
56g Amarillo
56g Simcoe
I like to split the additions in half over the 2 weeks


*Amber malt: Use Thomas Fawcett Amber Malt, don't just use any old amber malt.If you can't find Thomas Fawcett Amber, look harder. This is the exact malt DFH uses,and it's a distinctive flavor. It's available at quite a few online retailers if your
LHBS doesn't carry it.


**Hopping: Mix all 140g of hops together, how often you add them is up to you. Some people add a couple pellets every minute, others fill up 30 dixie cups, and add one cup per 3 minutes. Personally I do 10 additions, 14g every 10 minutes, and it turns out excellent.


That's about it, it's actually a fairly easy beer to brew other than the continuous hoping. If you can't find WLP007, use WYeast 1098 - Dry Whitbread, or Safale S04. Definitely use WLP007 if it's available, the yeast character is dead on.


Make Starter  48 hours before making the brew. Chill for the last 6 - 12 hours to take the yeast out of suspension, decant the excess beer so that it is only concentrated yeast being pitched. 

Tweeting Fermenter

After a brew day I cant help but have concern for the status of the fermentation and its environment especially in terms of the temperature. I had always wondered what was going on and thought it would be great if I could get some sort of real time information about what was happening. I decided to put my engineering background to some use and set up a temperature monitoring system. I considered using an Arduino based solution but didn't really have the time and didn't want the mess (It was actually sheer laziness). I went for one of these units in the end:

Wireless Temperature Monitoring Units

This unit connects to the PC via USB which performs real time graphing but also has the ability to perform HTTP,GET, POST, CMD and Email commands with a little utility that you leave running in the background. I have a home server that is normally on so it made sense to connect the base station to this machine for logging and running the utility. Since it isn't possible to update your twitter status from email I had to rely on a third party utility to update twitter for me. There are some that you can pay for but I found one that was free. It is called Twittermail and it merely inserts your emails into your twitter for you. I set up the utility to use my Gmail account and it sends the data from my gmail account to my twitter stream using a unique email address generated from Twittermail.  

Utility for emailing sensor data

I configured the utility to email me the temperatures of my fermenting bucket (I just left the sensor on the lid) and the Kitchen (where I leave bottles to condition for the first couple of weeks). This email is sent every hour and I made a new twitter account to receive the tweets which I then followed using my main account.  I don't think any of my followers would have taken too kindly to hourly temperature data. I only got this working this evening so I don't know if I have the transmission frequency right yet but the system is indeed tweeting my temperatures. 

Tweets with temperature data

I purchased the components from Audon in the UK and the batteries in the wireless sensors seem to last longer than a month which isn't too bad. I'm sure that an equivalent system could be built for much less than the cost of these sensors and if you have the time to build it then go for it. 

Brew Kettle Modification

Brew Kettle with  2 x 2kW elements

I recently upgraded all my equipment with the move to all grain brewing but it didn't take me long to notice the areas of improvement. The most obvious and simple upgrade is to add a second heating element to the brew kettle. While that was simple, I found the investigation to identify the maximum amount of power that can be drawn from a double socket more challenging. I noticed a huge variance in comments across the internet with a lot of people making the assumption that if you have a double socket then, in theory, it should be able to power two 13A appliances at the same time. I found this to be a fair, albeit inaccurate, assumption to make and one would hope that the electrician had chosen the appropriate gauge wiring for such a scenario. 

Breaker switches for kitchen sockets

I decided in the end that there was too much speculation and investigated my circuit breakers. Thankfully they are very well labelled so there is no random manual tripping of switches to see what is what. The kitchen has two double sockets and after manually tripping the switches in the breaker box confirmed that they were wired to separate breaker switches. 

A quick look at the manufacturers datasheet confirmed that the 'B20' on the breakers represented 20A so this implies that it can in theory provide 4.6kW of power (20A*230V) before tripping. Each element in the kettle is rated at 2kW so both of them could feasibly run on a double socket provided no other appliance shared that link. 

Unsurprisingly the other appliances in the kitchen also shared these links, it is just all hidden in the walls and presses. The fridge, microwave, extractor fan and washing machine are spread between the two lines.  

Current Derating Curve for 'B Type' 20A MCB

On a typical brew day, the fridge and extractor fan are definitely going to be on and while both of them have relatively low power consumption, they both have very high inrush currents when starting. Both units can use up to 1kW for a few seconds when cutting in. This might only happen once with the extractor fan but it is going to be happening several times an hour with the fridge. To see how the breaker deals with these temporary surges, one must consult the manufacturers datasheet again. Unlike a current rating which is 20A, we are looking for a 'derating curve' which will give an indication as to how the breaker performs under loads greater than its specified range. 

We will assume that the 2 kettle elements, the fridge and the extractor fan are all being powered from the same breaker switch so this would give the following nominal power consumption:

Kettle Element 1: 2kW
Kettle Element 2: 2kW
Extractor Fan: ~300W
Fridge: ~120W

This gives a total of 4.42kW during periods when all of them are running which is within the range of the breaker. Even if the fridge and extractor fan both turned on at the exact same time, the most power that would be drawn wouldn't be much more than 6 or 7kW for a few seconds. Taking the worst case scenario into account, 7kW (~31A) is almost double the rating of the breaker so we will round it up to 40Amps. Now look at  the derating curve, 40A is a multiple of two of IN (Nominal Current). Tracing this value into the curve shows that the breaker can handle 40A for a time between 10 to 40 seconds. The inrush current situation would only last for a few seconds so the breaker is well capable of dealing with such an occurrence. I found this on a forum which is a reference to the rating of a double socket. 

BS1363-2:1995 requires for double socket outlets that both socket outlets have loads applied via test plugs, 1 test plug having a load of 14 amps whilst the other has a load of 6 amps, making a total load of 20 amps on the cable supplying the double socket outlet. The double socket outlet is then subjected to this loading for a minimum continuous period of 4 hours or longer until stability is reached with a maximum duration of 8 hours (stability being taken as less than 1 degC rise within 1 h). The test is passed if neither the terminals / terminations, nor the accessible external surface, increase in temperature by more than 52 degC.

So some sockets could get as hot as 70degrees C (20deg ambient + 52deg) and pass. A double socket is capable of safely driving a dual element brew kettle but personally I'm not happy putting that much power through one cable for 4 or 5 hours on a brew day. I will split the kettle elements between the 2 double sockets in the kitchen and be comfortable in the knowledge that it is well within the ratings in my apartment wiring infrastructure.

#16 - Coopers Ginger Beer [Kit]

First brew of 2012! At one of my previous beer tastings, one of my friends (who is also a brewer), brought a few samples of a coopers ginger beer that he made. Needless to say it was the hit of the night and everybody loved the taste including my girlfriend who kept going on about it and wondering when my friend was going to bring more over again. Naturally this was prime opportunity for a Christmas present and her first brewing opportunity. :)

Coopers Ginger Beer

Sure enough I got it for her along with 500g of extra light and 500g of light spray malt. Along with the contents of the can, this would bring the alcohol content of the beer to between 3 and 3.5% which should lead to a light and refreshing brew. 

Making the brew was not much different from that of a normal kit except for the fact that less water is needed. The kit is mixed with 2 litres of boiling water and then mixed with the malt extract. It is then topped up to 19 litres compared to the conventional 23 litres as is common with other kits. 

It is now in the fermenter with an OG of 1032, which is a little on the low side and will probably result in a final gravity of 1010 giving just under 3% alcohol. When carbonating the sugar might add on another 0.25 to 0.5%. The instructions on the back recommend using 1kg of raw sugar which would have a higher fermentability than malt extract at the expense of body. If making the kit again I would make it with the raw sugar and compare against the malt extract to see which gives the better flavour. 

#15 - Ronk Christmas Bock [Extract]

Since its getting close to the festive season I went searching for a Christmas beer that sounded tasty. Seeing as I was still quite new to extract brewing and I had just started using BeerSmith (#14), I went looking on their website for a recipe. I went through the various recipies and came across "Happy Holidays Ale" which attracted my attention due to the simplicity of the ingredients and the addition of a speciality grain called 'Special B Malt'. It was great to see something that wasn't the same old iteration involving crystal grains.

Steeping grains

As was the case in the previous brew (#14), some of the ingredients were not available in the home brew store. I had to substitute the grains with something so I literally guessed that Carafa Special I Roasted Caramalt would do the trick. 

The resulting taste of this brew has been very good. Fairly good head retention which I reckon could be improved a lot with the addition of some flaked Oates. As it was a Christmas beer I would have liked a bit more of the cloves and cinnamon to come through. They were very much in the background and I couldn't detect them. The next time I think I would double their addition size to increase their potency. The hops come through very well in aroma and taste. They are not overpowering but are still upfront enough to be enjoyable. Overall a recommended recipe. :) 

Recipe: Ronk Christmas Bock TYPE: Extract

Style: Fruit Beer/Bock

---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------

SRM: 31.3 SRM SRM RANGE: 5.0-50.0 SRM

IBU: 21.4 IBUs Tinseth IBU RANGE: 5.0-70.0 IBUs

OG: 1.059 SG OG RANGE: 1.030-1.110 SG

FG: 1.013 SG FG RANGE: 1.006-1.024 SG

BU:GU: 0.365 Calories: 169.1 kCal/12 oz Est ABV: 6.0 %

EE%: 72.00 % Batch: 5.02 gal      Boil: 3.69 gal BT: 60 Mins

---WATER CHEMISTRY ADDITIONS----------------

Taste of Christmas! 

Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         

3.96 gal              Dublin, Ireland                       Water         1           -             

Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort

---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------

Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.088 SG Est OG: 1.059 SG

Amt                   Name                                                 Type           #        %/IBU         

6 lbs 9.8 oz          Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)                  Dry Extract   3        85.7 %        

2.00 oz               Cascade [4.30 %] - Boil 45.0 min           Hop           4        19.3 IBUs     

0.45 kg               Honey (Boil 45.0 mins)                         Other         5        -             

1.00 tsp              Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins)                    Fining        6        -             

4.00 Items           Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 10.0 mins)      Spice         7        -             

2.00 tsp              Vanilla (Boil 10.0 mins)                         Spice         8        -             

0.25 tsp              Cloves (Ground) (Boil 10.0 mins)           Spice         10       -             

0.25 tsp              Cinnamon (Powdered) (Boil 10.0 mins)   Spice         9        -             

1.00 oz               Cascade [4.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min            Hop           11       2.1 IBUs      

#14 - 60 Minute IPA (Continually Hopped) [Extract]

Ingredients for first extract recipe

After brewing with kits and experiments I finally moved up the ladder to extract brewing. I purchased a small 4 gallon stock pot and finally got round to using BeerSmith to its potential! My first brew was initially meant to be a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA clone based on this recipe but none of the Irish home brew stores had all the hops so I had to substitute. I think most hops were substituted quite well other than the Amarillo Hops which seem to be quite unique. I also had to get a slightly different type of grain (Crystal 60L) for the same reason as the hops. I'm thinking that with the amount of substitutions it is no longer a clone. :)

Steeping the grains, Crystal 

Initially I brought the water up to 65 degrees and put 

in the grains to steep for around 20 minutes. As my stove is so slow to heat the water, I was able to turn it down to the lowest output and that kept the temperature relatively constant. The colour change from a couple of minutes of steeping the grains can be seen in the adjacent image. 

After steeping, I removed the grains and didn't sparge them although I have read in several places that you should, so I might do that the next time. I then brought the water to a boil which took AGES due to the poor cooker. The length of time that it takes to bring it to a rolling boil really made me understand while all the yanks are using propane burners or huge elements in their kettles. It really is a time saver to have a decent source of heat.  

Once boiling, the endurance test began. The recipe calls for the wort to be continuously hopped for the full 60 minutes. I had two timers going, one for the total 60 minutes and the other which went off every minute to signal a hop addition. The idea behind this is to add a few pellets/cones every minute so that you end up spreading out the whole lot over 60 minutes. I was extremely paranoid about a boil-over so I had 2 tea towels ready to grab the handles and take it off the head at the first signs of boiling over. Thankfully the boil-over never really happened, probably due to the length of time it takes for the cooker to bring the wort to the boil.  

Once the 60 minutes had elapsed, I took the pot off the head and lowered the pot into a sink of cold water. I then ran down to my local store and got 2 bags of ice which I then dumped into the pot. The ice is surprisingly effective at getting the wort down to pitching temperatures. I have seen arguments about putting ice about whether it is a good idea or not but it is safe to assume that the ice is completely sterile as otherwise people would be getting sick when consuming it with their drinks.

High Krausen!

It took about 5 minutes for the wort to cool once the ice was added so I then transferred it to a freshly sanitised fermenter through a couple of sieves. There was a lot of debris in the wort due to the large amount of pellet and whole hops so the sieves got clogged repeatedly. I topped up the fermenter to the 19L mark with cold tap water and pitched the yeast. I had previously made a 1L starter with a sachet of Safale US-05 and some malt extract. Due to my experience of using kits I wasn't familiar with the necessity of using a blow-off tube.....It was necessary this time.....for several days in fact! Part of the problem was due to the fact that the capacity of the fermenter was only 23L (as opposed to the normal 30L) so the head-space was quickly filled with Krausen. It is due to reactions like this that I have added this  brewing t shirt  to my Christmas list. :)

#12 - Brewers Choice Traditional IPA [Extract]

Since my original coopers IPA in brew #3 had completely run out I decided it was time for another IPA. I so impressed with the process of making the Weissbier in brew #11 that I went with another Brewers Choice kit. When making kits you never have any experience of steeping grains (at least not initially) but this IPA had several types of grains to be steeped and a couple of types of hops. They were all contained in their own tea bag things but you could smell that "IPA smell" from one of the grain bags and I was really impressed with that. I didn't realise that certain types of grain could have such an affect on the taste.

Please excuse the apparent filth of the cooker but it was rusting before I moved in here. :P  I have the grains and hops steeping in a pot of boiled water which is sitting on a wooden board to keep in some of the heat. This steeping is done 3 times. The coopers malt extract is also heating up in the back along with a Alexander's Pale Kicker which I later dumped as it was old and smelt disgusting.

When bottling the brew I used dextrose for the fist time without a bottling bucket. If there is one method that makes the misery of bottling worse then this has to be it. It was an awful mess, when adding the dextrose to the beer, it foamed out of the bottles. When adding the dextrose first it then foamed meaning it took twice as long as it required waiting till the foam died down. I was also conservative with the amount I put in with slightly less than 1 teaspoon. I opened a bottle earlier in the week and it wasn't carbonated yet which has quelled my previous worry that the whole batch would start exploding. : /

I will update this as the picture changes.


Stats:
Started - 28.8.11
Racked - NA
Finished - 08.09.11
Bottled - 08.09.11
Code - 1012
Yeast Brand - B.C Yeast
Yeast Code -  DZB 6G
Y-Temp -  22.0
Beer/Product Type -   Brewers Choice Traditional IPA
Malt/Sugar Type - 1.5kG Coopers LME Amber
Volume -  23.0 L
OG - 1058 
FG -  1017
Proof  - 6.00 (Including 0.5% Priming)

#11 - Brewers Choice Bavarian Weissbier [Extract]

This brew was my 2nd attempt at making a beer that had that sweet distinctive Weissbier taste that I had hoped to emulate in brew #2. The key ingredient that was missing in that brew to create that taste was the correct type of yeast. This was not a problem with this kit. The Brewers Choice kits are also a bit more 'involved' than the traditional kit type as they have separate hops, grains, DME and an additional malt extract which you buy separately. 

I chose to buy an LME(wheat) for this brew as it was recommended as a means of getting the highest quality possible out of the kit. I also made my first yeast starter which I'm sure wasn't made correctly as I just used a bit of sugar and water to make it. I left it for 4 or 5 hours and it had grown quite a bit but I have no idea whether it was too much, too little and I wasn't bothered checking that website that tells you the correct amount of yeast to pitch into wort. Either way it was fine and it really does reinforce what I read on a forum recently, "its quite hard to screw up a batch of beer". I would tend to agree with this when kits are concerned. My tract record of venturing outside kit territory has been fraught with failure so far! :) 

The end result was very positive, it had 'the' taste that I was looking for and the first taste induces that "mmmm German beer" mental comment when you drink it.


Stats:
Started - 28.7.11
Racked -  28.8.11
Finished - 2.8.11
Bottled - 14.8.11
Code - 1011
Yeast Brand - Muntons Yeast
Yeast Code - NA
Y-Temp - 21.0
Beer/Product Type -   Brewers Choice Bavarian Weissbier 
Malt/Sugar Type - 1.5kG Coopers Wheat
Volume -  24.0 L
OG - 1055
FG -  1018
Proof  - 5.46 (Including 0.5% Priming)