Carboy Etching

How much liquid is in your carboy?  Sure the 5-gallon or 6-gallon level, depending on the size bottle you have, is pretty easy to hit, but what if I want to mix up a half batch of Star-San and need exactly 2.5 gallons?

 

Marker won't say, tape will peel off the first time I have to wash and a wooden measuring stick isn't sanitary and requires me to open the carboy.  The solution to these problems is glass etching!  I purchased a Deluxe Glass Etching kit from etchworld.com for $21.95 that I used, along with a bunch of masking tape to label my carboy with 1/2 gallon increments.  The etchworld kit contained lots of items that I didn't need, like flower stencils, a pair of gloves, a small paint bush and razor blade.  The item that I did use from the kit was the Armor Etch chemical.

Just tape off the area that you don't want etched by the Armor Etch chemical and paint a thick coat that will sit for a little more than a minute.  Wash with warm water and remove the tape.

Brew Pot Mod.

Today, with the help of another engineer from work I put a weldless fitting into my brew pot.  I purchased the weldless fitting with high temp washers, a 1/2 inch barb fitting and a sanitary ball valve.  The ball valve completely disassembles so that it can be cleaned and sanitized.  I purchased the entire item at homebrewstuff.com for a good price.  The part was shipped super fast and I got it right away.  They even included a 10% off coupon for my next order, so I purchased some high temp hosing from them. 

All the parts are 304 grade stainless steel and look great.  I'm excited to brew this coming weekend and use this new valve to transfer the chilled wort from my boil kettle to my fermenter.  No more lifting a heavy pot to pour into a carboy.

...not by beer alone

Man can not live by beer alone, try as we may, there are many other things that deserve our attention.  In what I hope to make a regular feature for School Master, "...not by beer alone", we will take a look at things outside of brewing.

This is our first attempt at wine, "Conrad Concord", named after the local 18th century Iroquois translator and frontiersman, Conrad Weiser, is seen here next to a carboy of "The BN Session Brown", English Brown Ale.  It is quite different making wine; no grains, no boil, gravity readings above 1.100!
We started with 30.0 lbs of Concord grapes picked from a relatives arbor and frozen until we made time to make the wine.
A must was started with...

• 5 crushed campden tables (sodium metabisulfite (Na2S2O5))
• 30 lbs crushed Concord grapes
• 2 gallons water
• 10 lbs sugar
• 5 tsp yeast nutrient
• 2-1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 2 packets wine yeast

A few days later the must was  bubbling well enough to push the "cap" of grape skins to the top of the primary fermenter.  The wine was racked into a glass carboy with an air-lock and set to age after 10 days.  It is now bubbling away next to a batch of beer in the basement brewery. 
Again, there are some serious differences between making beer and wine.  Wine does not involve a boil, so spoiling bacteria, wild yeasts and other "nasties" are removed by adding sulfur-based compounds to wine.  When transferring the wine from the primary fermenter to the carboy we put the grape skins in a sanitized mesh bad and squeezed it with our bare hands.  Granted I washed liked the dickens; trimming my fingernails, scrubbing my hands and arms and then submersing my my arms in star-san. but the process was a little odd.
The wine tastes good thus far and I am looking forward to finishing this batch and making many more.

Brew Pot Mod.

I've heard many times that the two most important things in brewing are consistency and sanitization.  In the spirit of the latter I've modified my brew pot.  Previously, the lid of my brew pot sat askew in order to accommodate my immersion chiller.

Well, no more my friends, no more.

With a little work in my company's machine shop (band-saw and some files, followed by Emory cloth) I've got a perfect fit for the brew pot lid with my immersion chiller.
This should help to keep any "nasties" out of the brew during chilling.

Berks County Homebrew Club

 

The Berks County Homebrew Club had its first meeting on Tuesday, January 12th 2010 at Canal St. Pub.  A club, "dedicated to the world of home brewing," drew a crowd of more than a dozen local home brewers and beer lovers.

After seeing the label designs of School Master Brewing Co. the group asked for a logo design.  Happy to help, the above pictured logo was created and approved as the group's official graphic.  

You can find out more about the Berks County Homebrew Club by emailing berkshomebrew@gmail.com or following them on Facebook; name Berks Homebrew.

Nut Brown Ale

Today marked two firsts; I brewed the first batch of 2010 today, an American Nut Brown Ale and this was the first time I've brewed outside.
I used a Brewers Best bold series kit to make what will be called "Buck Fever Brown".

Ingredients

• 6.6 lb - Amber LME
• 3.0 lb - Amber DME
• 4 oz - Crystal malt
• 4 oz - Chocolate malt
• 1 oz - Black Patent malt
• 1 oz - Willamette hops (bittering)
• 1 oz - Willamette hops (flavoring)
• 1 oz - Columbus hops (aroma)

Beer Gift

Make 'um work for that beer - the "Last Call" puzzle from Puzzle Mike's is a great gift for the beer lover on your list.

  I got this from my aunt and uncle for Christmas.  It is a little tricky to open, thankfully it comes with instructions.

Basement Brewery Progress

Gallery - Basement Brewery Progress

The basement is coming along nicely!  So far the following has been completed...

• Point all stone walls
• Dry-Loc walls
• Add new lights
• Beer Fridge!!!!
• Storage Racks
• Make room for all the little stuff needed in brewing

It has been a very rewarding task to build my own little slice of heaven right here in my house.  That being said, I'm not finished yet.  The to-do list is...

• Hook up sink
• Add more lights
• Install hood vent
• Get water filter system

The goal is to be able to complete the entire beer process down in the basement; boil to bottle.  I'm very luck in several regards. 1. The basement has a drain in the floor, so I can pretty much hose down the entire place if needed.  2. The 'Ol ball and chain is totally cool it, in fact she's glad when I brew, because it means I leave the kitchen, not only spotless, but also sanitized.  3. It hasn't cost much at all.  At least not much more than my time.  All told I've got about $250.00 into the whole deal.  The beer fridge was free, the sink was less than $100.00, Dry-Loc isn't that expensive and cement is dirt cheap.

Check out the progress.  This gallery starts with the day we first saw the house and shows the steps towards brewing nirvana.  Enjoy.

Gallery - Basement Brewery Progress

Beer Gadgets - Siphon Pan

There are many house-hold items that can be used in your brewing. Some of them, like this wallpaper pan, can be found at your local hardware store.
One of the most basic tasks in brewing is to clean and sanitize everything that comes in contact with your beer.

Siphon tubes, long spoons and racking canes can be particularly difficult to clean and sanitize because of their length. I typically use a 5-gallon bucket of water with 1 oz of Star-San to sanitize my brewing equipment. The problem with this is that only about half of the racking cane is immersed in the sanitizer.

Well, a trip to my local True Vale and a few dollars solved that problem; now I have this wonderful pan to clean and sanitize my siphon equipment. It only takes 2-gallons of water to fill it and at 36 inches it is several inches longer then my auto-siphon and biggest racking cane.

It is a thin injection molded plastic that will probably not last very long, so I bought two. An inch or two added to the tray width would make it a little easier to fit tubing that is attached to racking canes, so I'll have to keep my eyes open for wallpaper pans at other hardware stores. Perhaps there is a professional grade pan that is wider and sturdier.

First Keg

Today marks a historic day for the School Master Brewing Company; the first ever kegging of beer. With a homebrew keg kit from Midwest Supplies, a CO2 tank filling by Womelsdorf Beverage and a 5-gallon batch of Dortmunter Ale I've completed my very first kegging.

After cleaning the "corny" keg with hot water to remove the caustic cleaner used to remove any soda/syrup remnants, the keg was sanitized with Star-San.

I siphoned the beer from the secondary fermenter to the sanitized keg, sealed it and connected the gas in connection.

With the pressure in the keg set to 30 psi the beer will begin to absorb the CO2. This process, known as forced carbonation, should take from two to three days to complete, a far cry from the three to four weeks required for bottle conditioned carbonation.

To bottle condition beer, priming sugar is added to the fermented beer and then it is sealed in bottles. The yeast cells in the beer produce CO2 by metabolizing the added priming sugar and naturally carbonated the beer.

The entire process of kegging, from cleaning to finish, took less than half an hour. In the future, starting with clean kegs that only need to be rinsed and sanitized, this process should taken even less time. When compared to bottling, it is amazing how much faster it is to keg beer.

It typically takes me one to two hours to bottle beer. Remember that a typical 5-gallon batch of beer requires almost three cases of empty, clean and sanitized 12 oz bottles. Since I sterilize my bottles by boiling before filling them, the total time to bottle a single batch can reach several hours. Now that I can clean and sanitize one single keg, the process is exponentially faster.

In two days this Dortmunder Ale should be ready to taste. Cheers!