As my sanitizer is being siphoned from carboy to carboy in preparation for racking two beers from primary to secondary I thought a quick ode to the Auto-siphon would be in order.  If you don’t brew your own beer and have no idea what racking is, I’ll tell you.

Racking is simply moving the beer or wine from one fermenting vessel to another. The easiest and cleanest way to do this is by using a racking cane (Check my side bar for the Midwest link, then search these if you are curious.) and tubing. Create a siphon from one vessel to the other and watch it go.  This way greatly reduces the amount of air that touches the finishing beer and helps prevent off flavors from oxidation. I suppose the easiest way to transfer the liquid is to pick up the bucket and dump it into another bucket, but I don’t recommend that.

I digress, this was meant to be about the Auto-siphon. A wonderful combination of innovation and engineering that lets the center part be raised and lowered, pushing the liquid down through the tube and successfully creating a siphon without having to slurp all over the other end of the tube! I used to take a snort of vodka on the (unlikely) chance it would partially sanitize my mouth before sucking the tube to start the siphon. It certainly doesn’t save me any time, but it is a cool little gadget that makes the actual racking much easier and cleaner.

Now all I have to do is sanitize all tubing and the Autosiphon and away I go.  Hmm. Maybe a snort of vodka for old time’s sake wouldn’t hurt anyway.

If you brew and don’t use one, look into it. They’re fairly cheap and well worth the cost for ease of use.

Next week I’ll focus more on getting the kegerator built as well as looking into a few more beer reviews. “Honey, I have to get this six pack, its for the blog!” Hahahahaha!

Cheers!

I just read on a brew forum about a beer by bud that comes mixed with clamato juice. ugh. I’ve got nothing against a snit of bud with your bloody mary, and I know a couple of folks who like to dunk a little V-8 or tomato juice in their cold beer, but prepackaged mixed beer?!? Oooh, man, that might be about the nastiest thing I have ever heard.

Which made me wonder, What beers  have I brewed that someone would say the same about? There are two of note and since my brewlog is missing I can’t double check.

The first was a pepper wheat. I added roasted ceranos and jalapenos to both the primary and secondary. In the finished beer there was a great slightly chipotle flavor against the wheat base and a medium burn after the swallow. It reminded me of drinking beer while eating chips and salsa. It turned out to be one of my most requested beers. One of the local brewpubs did a pepper beer that burned like pure fire, I only tried a sample of that. After a pint I’d likely be singing Cash’s Ring of Fire all night long!

The second was a Root Beer Float Stout. Oh, man, that was the first beer I ever dumped. Gave up on it completely. I started with a sweeter stout recipe and added some spices found in homemade root beer recipes. Then I added a bit of lactose to sweeten it up. The end result smelled similar to baby spit-up and tasted like spoiled milk mixed with beer. Maybe when I’ve dried up the rest of my brewing ideas and have time and energy to revisit I might try this recipe again… but I doubt it. The idea still sounds good, the execution, not so much.

Cheers!

I had this great idea, I was going to post another of my favorite beer recipes for my Belgian Tripel. A beer that I aged for six months, it was pretty light considering a partial boil on a stove top. It tasted light, not the usual over the top strong cloying thick mouth feel. It slid down, though it warmed the belly, thats for sure. I might have even mentioned it before. One pint limit was imposed when I was serving it to friends and guests though, since they had to drive home.   Yeah, it was strong.

I was going to put up my recipe on the blog to share. It might have been one of my favorite beers. (I can say that, but we all know most of my beers are my favorite beers.)

I use BeerSmith to keep track of my recipes on the computer, but I always ALWAYS write down what I’ve done, just so I can repeat it if I like it. Especially when I’m working with a beer not from a kit. My BeerSmith recipe’s are no where to be found on the machine. No big deal, I’ll just look in my notebook, right?

I CAN’T FIND MY NOTEBOOK!

The brewlog that has nearly 100 entries of wine and beer, root beer and mead! GONE! Seriously, I cannot find it anywhere. We recently moved and I am almost 100% sure its came with us. I seem to remember referring to it, but I just cannot find it!

I know I’m no master brewer, nor am I a professional beer appraiser or any other thing, I’m just a fellow who likes to brew and drink beer. Its a fun hobby in moderation. The loss of my brewlog isn’t newsworthy since its not your brewlog.

Still, raise a pint to my brewlog in hopes it turns up soon. I’d be pretty bummed if it is truly gone.

Cheers?

I’m always amazed when I sit at a bar and watch the bartender pour a pint, but have to dump half or more down the drain because its all foam. That doesn’t have to happen, and I make darn sure it doesn’t happen with my kegerators. Its actually really simple to balance the flow of beer, but if you research it you might find complicated gas volume charts, pressure requirements, temperature and changes to pressure and volume and and and …

I’ve got a science background, have taken chemistry, physics (more than I ever wanted to), biology and calculus. I’ve come to the conclusion that having all that information is good but not all that necessary to pouring a decent pint. We are, after all, talking about beer. Not rocket science.

Three things go into a good pour; temperature, serving pressure and tubing resistance. I like my beer cold, usually around 38degF so I can taste the changes as the beer warms through the pint. I’ve served beer from my taps as cool as 32degF and as warm as 45degF. I like my beer carbonated at 10-12psi. No, I don’t consult the charts to tell you how many volumes CO2 are in my beer, I keep my regulator at 10, force carbonate and serve without having to muck with it. I can hear CAMRA screaming right now!

It comes down to tubing, the most difficult to change, but easy to work around. When I used shanks and could determine what length I wanted I used 5.5ft of 3/16″ ID beverage tubing with a resistance of 2ppf. Huh, I serve at 12psi, have a resistance of 11… look at that, nice pour!
I have a tower or two that has 3.5ft tubing, serve at 10psi, a bit fast out of the tap but again, decent pour. Get the resistance within three units of serving pressure and enjoy. Yup, its that easy.

Those three things balanced will give a decent pour every time. I might have gotten my facts wrong, my reasoning might be so flawed it boggles the mind but it works!

Cheers!

To turn a fridge into a kegerator, we need to build a sturdy shelf in the bottom to hold the kegs. Five gallons of beer is forty plus pounds, and three kegs can fit in easily!

Notice how the bottom is sloped.

The easiest way to deal with that is to put the back end of the shelf on the upper ledge and support the leading edge with some 2×4’s. Leave enough room to slip a couple six packs underneath.

Next decide on tap placement. If its feasible, consider going through the side of the fridge instead of the door. This way the freezer is still accessible without knocking open the taps. Use the proper tool! Bi-metal 7/8th inch hole saw cuts like butter through old steel fridge sides. 7/8th inch spade bit for wood… not so much.

Thread the shanks through, tighten them down, hook up hoses and beer flows!

Deciding what shanks to get, length of hoses, faucet choices and more advice will come later this week.

Happy drilling,

Cheers!

If you are spending money for yeast smack packs with every batch of beer you brew, consider reusing your yeast. It is very simple and if you use it within a month it will greatly decrease your lag time after pitching.  The one thing that goes through my mind when I do this though is “A beer in the carboy is worth more than the next batch.” So when I know I’ll be saving the yeast, I make sure to take care of the racked beer first.

Saving the yeast for reuse is really easy. I like to use the slurry from the primary fermentation, once the beer is racked into secondary and stored away, go back to the primary and give it a swirl to knock loose all the schlock in the bottom. Grab a clean and sanitized quart jar and fill about 3/4 full. Cap and put it in the fridge. Tada! Easy schmeezy.

Come the next brew day take the jar out of the fridge and let it warm up while you brew. Once the wort is cooled and you are ready to pitch, open the jar and take a strong whiff of it. If it smells like yeasty beer you’re good to go. If it smells even remotely off use your back up yeast.  Oh, forgot to mention, never ever rely only on the yeast in the fridge, always have a back up. Heck, I have a back up for the back up, you just never know.

If you want to be fancy or its been more than a month consider making a starter from the yeast a few days before. Honestly, though, I’ve never had a problem. Make sure you have a blow off tube ready too!

The most I’ve reused is through six batches. After that there runs the greater risk of contamination.

Good luck,

Cheers!

How many Honey Wiess or Sleemans Honey Brown have I had? A few. I started adding honey to some of my homebrews because it seemed like a good idea at the time. (Isn’t that how most good ideas come about?)

I’ve found that adding honey to a recipe adds some complex flavor to light beers and not so subtle kick to heavier beers. If there is a recipe that has been brewed a time or two and seems like its lacking, try adding a pound of honey to the last five minutes of the boil. By fermenting it completely there is very little residual sweetness from it and it doesn’t add the cloying mouthfeel that might be expected from honey.

Right now I have a Honey Brown Ale on tap, though not like a Sleeman as it rings in around 6.5%ABV. In another two months it should mellow out to a great drinking ale. I don’t know if it will last two months though. Here’s hoping my other two batches finish soon.

A few tips for using honey in your beers: Go with good honey, and make sure its pure honey, if you want high fructose corn syrup in your wort thats your business, but I don’t want it in mine. Expect to leave the beer in primary for at least two weeks, then in secondary for at least a month. From all reports honey ferments slower then malt sugars so give it time. As per standard advice, check gravities three days in a row to make sure its stable, then I’d give it another three days just to be sure.

Don’t stop at honey wheat or honey brown. Think about honey porter, oatmeal honey stout, honey red and for sure add some to the Belgian line up! Honey Tripel a year later will knock you down with a smile on your face after one pint. With the candy sugar, honey adds power of gravity without much color or residual sugars. Man, I’ll have to unearth my last Tripel recipe and try that again!

Honey, give it a go and see what happens, just remember it takes a bit longer to ferment so try and be patient.

Cheers!

From CNN comes a great article about checking out the local breweries. If you have a brewery or two in your area make sure to give them a visit. If you are a homebrewer its cool to see how its done on a larger scale, and if you are a beer drinker its cool to see how it got to your table.

I’ve been to three brewery tours, a local brewpub where I lived previously, Sam Adams in Boston and Lake Superior Brewing Company in Duluth. It is really fascinating to see the production of beer on so many scales. From making batches for my self and friends, to city wide, regional and national levels, its almost enough to make my head spin.

As a side note, I’ve stopped by the Leinenkugel gift shop in Chippewa Falls on a number of occasions, but since we were traveling through I’ve not taken that tour. Soon, I hope!

Tour a brewery on a Saturday, or if they do week day tours, take an afternoon off! Nothing like a tour and few samples to pick up the day.

Cheers!

The very first step in having your own kegerator is deciding what what kind of base appliance you want to fit your needs. There are basically four options available to you.

1. Upright refrigerator. The upright needs little explanation, look in your kitchen and imagine one or more beer faucets coming out of the side or front. Ta da, the kegerator. With a few small changes to the inside most standard refrigerators can handle three or more five gallon “corny” kegs or one 8 or 16 gallon commercial keg. The major upside to this is the ease of loading the kegs, the vertical distance is not far. Two drawbacks are: tap placement, if done on the door, opening the freezer compartment carelessly could result in spilled beer and in living space an extra upright might look bulky and out of place.
2. Chest freezer. The chest freezer is my favorite because it is really versatile. With the required temperature controller installed there is huge control over the serving temp of the beer. I like most of my beers very cold, but when its time to lager, I can let it get much warmer. Serving from a chest freezer can be done either through a tower in the top or build a collar to elevate the lid and put the taps through there. (I’ll be posting pictures of that later if it isn’t clear.) One major downside to the chest freezer is having to lift the keg up so far to get it in. Five gallons of beer is not light.
3. Minifridge, or dorm fridge. The challenge with the dorm fridge is finding one without the freezer compartment, large enough to hold two kegs and in decent shape. Once all those criteria are met, they can be dressed up pretty slick and take up little space.
4. Commercial beer fridge. Some retailers actually sell ready made beer fridges complete with tower, gas  cylinder and enough space for a 16 keg. They are big enough to fit three cornies and a 10lb cylinder. Unfortunately they are also fairly expensive.

Figure out where to put the kegerator, how many batches or commercial kegs might be in use at a time and we’re on our way to beer on tap.

I’ve converted three of the four options to homebrew kegerators (I’ve not done the minifridge) and will outline the process for each in the coming weeks.

Cheers!

But I got a really cool Fathers Day present yesterday. Four hours to brew two batches! Thats right, my father in law brought over another outdoor cooker and brew kettle and we fired them up side by side. Before we were able to light the fires though, I had to help lug a chest freezer up some stairs and then into and out of the pickup. Where did it end up, and what does it have to do with beer?

Aaah, theres the real fun. That chest freezer just happens to have a two inch hole in the lid with a single tap tower sticking out of it! Yes, the kegerator is once again ALIVE! Whats a kegerator? A specialized beer serving appliance. Want to know how to build one? Stick around Brew Dad and I’ll share my secrets.

The kegerator in my family room is on loan until I can acquire another freezer or refrigerator to convert. The price of the loan is fixing it up. Taking the single tap tower off and putting the double tap brass tower on, finishing the drip tray and adding a laminate top and rails.

Pictures of the progress will definitely be shared here!

One fine day, two beers brewed and two more chilling in the new kegerator! Can anyone ask for more?!?

Cheers!