Back to the mash tun

Saturday, I took the wife and kids on a field trip to The Brew Hut to get ingredients for the 2011 version of SheppyBrew's X-Mas Ale. I brewed it up on Sunday.

The kids really like the Dry Dock

Of course, my big fermenter was full of Stouticus American Stout, so I got up early and bottled up Stouticus. This time, I mixed sugar and the beer in a corny keg and used my Beer Gun to bottle it up. It seems to have gone smoother this way, but that may have just been the fun of a new process. One decent advantage of using the keg is that it is easier to get every bit of beer out of the keg than it is out of a bottling bucket.

Thankyou Stouticus

You may remember that Stouticus came about because the COO of the company I work for asked me to make a beer. I ended up sharing the first batch with everyone in the company.

When the SheppyBrew beer model signed us up for the 2nd wind fund again this year, I sent out an email at work offering everyone who donated some more Stouticus. A few people took me up on the offer by donating. Today, I brewed the "Thank you" batch of Stouticus.

The recipe changed just a bit from last time. You can see the recipe on the Stouticus page on the SheppyBrew site. It is a quite a bit higher in alcohol and is not nearly as afraid of the stout roast. It also uses some flaked barely (first time I've used flaked barely).

Buckwheat BPA Brew Day

So, I brewed Buckwheat's BPA today. I got started before church by printing out the brew sheet from Beer Smith. Then, I heated up 8 gallons of water and put it in my 10 gallon cooler. I let it sit in there until I got home from church.

Phat & Tyred Brew day

Seems like forever since I've brewed beer, but today I brewed up a batch of my world famous Phat & Tyred Amber Ale. This is my first 5 gallon batch of the P&T beer. It is also the first time I've tried my modified BIAB process.

My modified BIAB process is basically using a nylon bag inside a 10 gallon gott cooler. I used no sparge, and I got all my boil volume from the mash itself.

Grains ready for the strike water

Beer Smith gave me a strike water volume of almost 8 gallons at a temperature of 161F. Just in case you were wondering, 8 gallons of water is pretty heavy. 8 gallons of hot water is probably pretty dangerous, so if you are going to copy this process, you might want to be careful. I wasn't, but I'm not that bright. Plus, I lead a Semi Charmed Kind of Life, so I won't get hurt. You might.

Brew day: Quarter Life Crisis

Connor has been bugging me for quite awhile to make cookies with him. Saturday, while I was giving blood, he finally gave up on me and convinced his mother to make cookies with him. The picture to the left is what I came home to, a little baker with oven mitts and an apron on. He is a pretty cute chef. Just for the record, I was planning on making cookies with him this weekend. We just have not had time the other times he has asked.

But, that is not what this blog post is about. Today, we are talking about Sunday's brew day. On Sunday, I brewed up my Quarter Life Crisis Hoppy Red Ale.

It is really hard to declare any home-brew a favorite over another. As I've heard quite a few brewers say when asked to name their favorite beer, "my favorite beer is the one in my hand". But, if you made me tell you my favorite beer, usually my answer will be Quarter Life Crisis. It is big and hoppy with a malt complexity that IPAs just don't have. I love the Imperial (or West-Coast) Red style, and I think my Quarter Life Crisis is as good as any commercial example of the style. I like it very much.


But, at the moment, I only have one Quarter Life Crisis in my inventory, and I've been telling myself for quite awhile that I need to do another batch. On Thursday, I finally stopped by the Brew Hut and purchased ingredients to brew another batch so that I could brew it Sunday.

And, that is just what I did.

This batch was my first all-grain version of QLC. It was also my first 5-gallon batch of the recipe. One of the reasons I switched to BIAB was because my 5 gallon mash tun would not be big enough to do full-sized all-grain batches for my higher alcohol beers. My 8-gallon brew pot is obviously bigger than my 5-gallon tun.


The brew day went pretty well. I hit all my gravity numbers at acceptable volumes, but I think ideally I would have an even bigger vessel for mashing the grains for this recipe.

My 8-gallon brew pot was great for mashing Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale (1.046OG, 4.69% ABV) and Summer Lovin' American Wheat (1.052 OG, 5.99% ABV), but QLC has an OG of 1.072, and you might be able to tell from the picture to the left, that much wet grain is pretty bulky. You probably can't tell from the picture, but might be able to imagine, that much wet grain is also very heavy. I was able to fit the grain plus about 6 gallons of water in the mash. That left almost 3 gallons of water for a sparge, which I did in my 5 gallon mash tun. The fat, heavy, wet bag of grain was difficult to get into the gott-cooler, and I spilled some of my precious sugar-filled wort moving the bag to the sparge vessel.


Like I mentioned above, I hit gravity numbers, so it did not cause any kind of real problem with the resulting wort. It was just more difficult than it seems it should have been.

The boil went well. Absolutely no issues over the 90 minute boil. One thing I did a little differently this time was I used another bag to hold the flavoring hops in the boil. The bag was smaller than the BIAB bag, but bigger than the hop sacks I've used sometimes in the past. The idea here was to easily filter the hop material (there are a lot more hops in this recipe than any of my other recipes), but still allow the hops to "swim free" for the most part, allowing decent hop utilization. The filtering part seems to have worked really well, and I think I got  more wort because of considerably less gunk on the bottom of the pot. Not sure how my utilization actually compared, but the wort sample did taste hoppy, so I guess it was decent.

It was a hot, sunny day in the upper 80's or maybe even in the 90s, and my chiller did not get the wort as cool as I would like. As I mentioned in Beer Model Brew Day, I might want to invest in a pre-chiller to help chill on these hot summer days. I would put my pre-chiller in an ice bath so that my chilling water would be much colder. I think that would help quite a bit, but I don't know how much colder I'd be able to chill with this pre-chill method.

This time, though, what I ended up doing was putting carboy into my chest freezer for about half an hour (might have been more). This got me from about 72 down to around 62, which is a perfect pitching temperature for an ale. Note, I do know that lots of brewers will say that 72 is a perfectly acceptable pitching temperature. I just have had better results when I pitch either right at or a little bit lower than fermentation temperature, and I've had much better results starting fermentation in the low 60's than I have had fermenting at or above 70. So, I guess until I make or find an inexpensive pre-chiller, I have an acceptable plan - B.

Now, back to brewing the bigger-gravity SheppyBrew all-grain recipes, I am back to thinking that I need a 10-gallon gott-cooler to use as a mash tun. But, I am sort of thinking it would be just fine to use my BIAB method inside the cooler so that I don't have to do any modification on the cooler. Not only would this mean less up-front work, but also, one of the things that appeal to BIAB for me is that there is no danger of a stuck-sparge. All-grain wheat and rye beers and beers to which I add flaked oats will not have that risk. I suppose I'm just a bit gun-shy after the last time I tried to brew Phat and Tyred Ale (see Worst brew day ever?).

While I was cleaning up from my brew day, the beer model and the brewing assistants planted perennials on Sunday. Unfortunately, very few of the perennials that we plant in the front ever come up perennially. I guess the beer model still thinks that perhaps this is the year that the plants will survive to come up in the future. I think she is planning on making watering the plants one of the jobs on the kids' checklists so that at least they should get enough water through the summer. I guess we'll see. If they don't survive, I guess there is always next year. She is a Cubs fan after-all.

Here is the Quarter Life Crisis carboy fermenting away:

Upcoming National Home-Brew Day

National Home-Brew Day is coming upon us fast.  Yep, Saturday, May 7 is the day.  Are you going to brew something?

I am.  Or more accurately, my wife and I are going to brew something.

So far, my wife (aka the SheppyBrew Beer Model) has participated in one brew day.  She helped me brew 15 Year Anniversary Amber Ale the first time.  That beer turned out fantastic.  It is one of those beers that we both like.  It is hoppy enough that I am a bit surprised that she likes it, but it is one of those beers she grabs for herself just about every weekend.  Its hop flavor / aroma comes from crystal hops, which is very similar to some of the noble hops.  It give more of a mellow, floral flavor and aroma than the citrusy American hops, so she is just not associating the beer as hoppy.  It is hoppy, just different hoppy.  I call it an amber ale hopped like a German Pilsner.

Anyway, the Beer Model thinks she wants to brew something.  She says she wants to brew something that SheppyBrew has not brewed before.  She also says she doesn't want anything dark or hoppy.  Unfortunately, all of my future to-brew-list beers are hoppy or dark or both.  Fortunately, this means we can come up with a new SheppyBrew recipe.

But, when I ask her what she would like to brew, the most I can get her to narrow it down to is "not hoppy and not dark".  I can't even get her to narrow it down to ale or lager.

So, here are some beer styles I think I would like to brew that are not hoppy and not dark in color:

• Cocoa Blonde:  Not too long ago I was at Dry Dock Brewing Company and had a blonde ale that had added cocoa nibs into the secondary fermentation.  I was very impressed and thought the Beer Model would probably enjoy it.
• Vienna Lager:  I've wanted to do a Vienna Lager for some time.  It is an Amber Ale, but I don't think it would end up darker than 15 year or Buckwheat's BPA. 
• Sam Adam's Boston Lager Clone:  I have links to several clone recipes.  We both have enjoyed many Sam Adam's in the past.  I think she'd like this beer.
• Kolsch:  Practically speaking, I'm not sure a SheppyBrew Kolsch would be much different from Wetta Blonde or Girly Berry, but this is another beer style I've been thinking about trying.  I would probably use the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles.
• Cocoa Kolsch:  A Kolsch with cocoa nibs.
• American Wheat:  Tracy loves her gateway wheat beers such as New Belgium's Sunshine Wheat.  We could add honey to make it a honey wheat or/and raspberries or/and apricots or some other girly something (maybe even cocoa nibs) to add some excitement to the American Wheat.
• Altbier:  She might think the color of an Altbier would be too dark, but she's wrong.  She would love an Altbier.  In fact, she did enjoy a few at GABF.
• California Common Beer (aka Steam Beer).  I don't know.  I just think she'd like it.
• Saison:  Who doesn't like a nice farm-house ale?
• Belgium Blonde Ale:  It's light in color and high in alcohol, what's not to like?  It might have a bit too much of the Belgium funk if we are not careful, but it is worth a try.

So, if anyone out there has a vote, or even more nominations, leave a comment.  The Beer Model gets the final say, but I'm sure she'd appreciate any help she can get making the decision.


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I also brewed a batch of Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale today.  It was my first official all-grain BIAB batch, and it went great.  My mashing efficiency appears to be about as good as what I was getting in the mash tun. I split this batch into 2 Mr. Beer fermenters.  I was planning on just adding jalapenos to one of the fermenters in a few days, but now I am thinking about maybe either adding the peppers to both, or maybe adding something else (green chilies maybe) to the other.  I would like to be able to try this beer on Cinco de Mayo, although I am cutting it sort of close by only brewing it today.  I guess we'll see how it goes.

My BIAB process was a little non-standard.  Typically "official" BIAB brewers try to mash with the whole boil volume plus whatever volume of water the grain should absorb.  Beer Smith had me hold back 2.16 gallons of sparge water rather than use the whole boil volume for the mash.  I had sort of assumed that this was because my pot would not be big enough for grains plus the whole 7 gallons of water, but I certainly could have fit more water in.  It might just be that Brad Smith never considered BIAB when he designed the software.  Or, maybe I did not set up my brewing equipment just right.  Anyway, I followed the directions and "sparged" by putting the grain bag in my 5 gallon gott cooler and pouring the sparge water on top.  Again, the mash efficiency seems very similar to what I was getting on my infusion mashes, so I guess it works ok as is. 

The strike temperature suggested by Beer Smith seems to have given me a mash temperature that was higher than I had intended.  I think that is fine with this beer because I was sort of thinking that extra body would not be a bad thing with this beer, but obviously, I need to try to adjust for future beers.  This might be another reason to hold back some water, so I can adjust the temp by adding boiling or frozen water after getting the original temperature reading.

But, other than the minor process note, everything went great.  I am going to keep doing the BIAB.  Almost certainly, my next brew day will be whatever my wife decides to brew on National Home-Brew Day.  I am sort of thinking a wheat beer would be a good idea, since I won't have to worry about a stuck sparge with the BIAB process.  But, whatever she wants to brew, we'll brew.

My first ever all-grain BIAB.

BIAB for me?

So, this blog post might get a little home-brewing-geek-technical for some of you.  If you're not up to it, turn away now.  If it is more your speed, you can look through posts with pictures of the assistant brewers instead.

For all-grain batches, the SheppyBrew nano-brewery uses a 5 gallon gott-type cooler as a mash and lauter tun.  It is modified slightly to include a ball-value and a stainless steal braid to strain the grain as its "manifold".  I basically got the design here: Homemade Mash Tun Design.  I picked the 5 gallon cooler because when I started doing all-grain batches, I was still doing "Mr. Beer" sized batches, and 10 gallons just seemed like overkill.  Lately, however, I've been doing either double Mr. Beer sized batches or 5.5 to 6 gallon batches for my better-bottle carboy, and at my typical OG (usually around 1.060), the 5 gallon mash tun works ok.  At 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain (which is BeerSmith's default on the mash profiles I use), I can fit the grain and water.

I've been hearing and reading that thinner (more water per pound of grain) mashes are better for mash efficiency.  Plus, there are some recipes that have higher OG's, which obviously means more grain.  And those will not fit in the 5-gallon cooler.  My recipe for Phat and Tyred Ale (which is what I had planned on making last time I had a brew day) calls for 10.83 lbs of grain with 13.53 quarts of water for the mash, and the tun was full.  If I were to try to make a 5 gallon batch of beer for Stone Soup IDA, though, I would have 13 lbs of grain, and to make things fit, BeerSmith tells me that I would use 12.91 quarts of water (because that is all that would fit with that amount of grain).  As you can probably tell without even being much of a math genius, that is less than 1 quart of water per pound of grain.  So, my mash in this case would be going thicker, not thinner.

Plus, with less room in the tun, I need to do several sparges (I batch sparge) to get what I need to out of the sparge. AND PLUS ... lately I've been getting some stuck sparges with the large batch sizes.  Until last brew day, these have been no big deal, but the last one sort of sucked.  Well, it was fun, but it could have sucked.  I actually don't know if the large batch sizes are related to the stuck sparges.  I might just need a new stainless steel braid.

Anyhoo... I wrote all that as a long (possibly somewhat boring) way of saying:  I need a larger mash tun.  Gosh, I hope you're not too bored.  If so, check out this blog.  She usually has something interesting to say.

So I need a bigger mash tun.  I need to buy a bigger cooler and I need to do some work and convert this big cooler into something that will strain and drain wort from my grains.

Or do I?

I have read and heard quite a bit lately about Brew-In-A-Bag (BIAB).  The Brewing Network has talked about the subject.  Basic Brewing radio has done at least one podcast about BIAB.  BYO magazine has done at least one article.  BeerSmith's blog has an article  and a recent podcast on BIAB.  And quite a few of my fellow brewers that I know from online forums and/or facebook have recently started BIAB brewing.  In fact, when I was doing partial mashes, I did a sort of weird hybrid between a BIAB method and a traditional mash tun method.

If you don't know, the premise behind BIAB is that you mash in the same container as you do your boil in.  In the pure form, your mash volume is the same as your starting boil volume, although I have heard of modified versions where some sort of sparging is done as well (similar to what I did when I did my partial mashes).  The bag enters the picture in that you put your grains in a big mesh bag.  The big mesh bag goes in the brew pot.  When the mash is done, you remove the bag, and with the bag, the grains come out.  Pretty simple.  All you need is a big brew pot and a big mesh bag, and I happen to own a big brew pot.  I can buy a big mesh bag for much less money (and a ton less effort) than a cooler and the pieces needed to convert the cooler.

And, with BIAB there is never a worry about a stuck sparge, which is something that I have been thinking about lately.

Some people say that you get a lower mash efficiency with BIAB.  Patrick Hollingdale from http://biabrewer.info/, (the guest on Brad Smith's podcast) though says this is not necessarily true.  In fact Patrick says that many BIAB brewers get better efficiency.  The other "knock" I've heard on BIAB is that you won't necessarily get the crystal-clear beer that you can get by recirculating the first of your drained wort, but I've never really worried about getting crystal clear beer, plus I think with Irish moss (or other fining agents) and/or crash cooling your beer before bottling, you can probably get similar results.

The only thing I'm not sure of is keeping the mash temperature steady for an hour (sometimes over an hour in some of my current mash profiles).  My cooler-style mash tun holds heat very well for well over an hour, but obviously a stainless steal pot will not maintain heat as well as an insulated cooler.  Of course, since the mash is in the pot, I could apply heat to warm things up if needed, but I know if I do that, I'll over compensate at some point.  I think some people use blankets over their pots to keep the temperature steady.  I just don't know how well this will work, especially in the winter.  Maybe its just a matter of getting used to what works. 

I guess the other thing that might be an issue with me is that my brew pot has a thermometer probe build in that could potentially poke a hole in the bag (which would probably not be a good thing).  I'm not sure what to do about that.  Do I just have to be aware of where that is, and be careful when adding / removing the bag?  Not sure.  I might even be willing to remove the thermometer if I can figure something to plug the left-over hole with.

So, at the very least, I think I am going to give Brew-In-A-Bag a try.  All I have to lose is potentially the cost of a grain bag.  I'll let you know (right here on this blog) how it goes next brew day.

Now all I have to do is decide:  should I do Phat and Tyred, Stone Soup, or Gringo Cervesa?