She actually brews with me 3 or 4 times a year. I jokingly say that I make her brew with me so that I'll stay out of jail when the authorities find out I brew more than 100 gallons of beer in a year.
You see, according to federal law:
The production of beer per household, without payment of tax, for personal or family use may not exceed:
100 gallons per calendar year if there is only one adult residing in the household or
200 gallons per calendar year if there are two or more adults residing in the household
By the letter of the law, she doesn't actually have to brew to allow our household 200 gallons of beer, but it is fun for me to pretend that I need her to stay out of jail.
Honestly, I don't think the TTB (or whoever is responsible for enforcing this law) actually cares one way or another as long as I don't try to sell my beer, so it probably doesn't matter at all.
Anyway ... whenever we brew together, the Beer Model has me print out a "Brew Sheet" from BeerSmith, and the sheet always confuses her. Honestly, I don't understand why she wants it at all since I have to interpret it for her anyway. I could just do this from looking at the website recipe page as I do when I brew by myself.
So, for Where'd My ManGo Wheat (Batch 391), I took the time to make a simplified checklist for her.
And ... I basically had her follow the list to see how it went.
Where’d My ManGo Wheat Checklist
Prepare Water
· 8 gallons Denver Water
· Add Minerals
4g Calcium Chloride
2g Epsom Salt
1g Gypsum
· Heat to 150°F
· Attach Pump to Foundry
Prepare Equipment and Ingredients
· Mash Paddle
· Boil Spoon
· 0.5 oz Magnum
· 1 tablet whirlfloc
· Hydrate 1 pack SafAle S-04
· Refractometer
· Clean / Sanitize FerMonster and Airlock
· Assemble wort chiller and hoses
Mash
· At 150°F, mash in all grains inside the grain bag
· Optional … rice hulls
· Break up all doughballs
· Turn on recirculation pump and confirm flow is right
· Mash 40-55 minutes at 150°F
· Raise to 156°F for 20 minutes
· Lift Pipe and Drain grains
· Heat wort to 200°F on the way to boil
· Measure pre‑boil gravity
Target: 1.046
Target volume: 6.6 gallons
· Adjust gravity / volume as desired
Boil
· Add .5 oz Magnum at start of boil
· Set 60 minute boil timer
· At 15 minutes left: add whirlfloc
· At 5 minutes left: place wort chiller + boil spoon into kettle
· Run pump to sanitize transfer lines
· 0 minutes:
Turn off heat
Turn on cold water to chiller
· Take OG sample
Finish up brew day
· Measure OG (target = 1.051)
· Chill wort to ~60°F
· Pump wort into FerMonster (target = 5.5 gallons)
· Move FerMonster to basement; Cool with frozen bottles
· Pitch yeast
· Clean brewing equipment
Fermentation / Keg
· Keep fermentation around 65°F for first couple days
· Then allow to rise to basement ambient
· After 10 days: rack onto mango purée
· After 4 days: keg with mango flavoring + Campden tablet
· Measure FG and calculate ABV
So ... she took this list and went step-by-step. The issue I had with this is there was no parallel processes she did all the "Prepare Equipment and Ingredients" steps before starting the mash. Obviously, she could have started the mash (or had me do it) and done those "Prepare Equipment and Ingredients" steps while waiting for the mash to finish.
As I mentioned in Big Brew Day ... Where'd My ManGo Wheat (Batch 391), it also drove me crazy how she hydrated the yeast. She obviously had either never seen me do it or didn't remember seeing me do it before.
But we got through the brew day fine. And, she wasn't nearly as confused as she was with the "Standard" brew sheet.
So, next time we brew together, I'll probably put together another similar list. I'll just organize it differently, and may add more detail on the hydrate yeast step.
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