New Site For Brewing Questions: BrewAdvice.com

A few people I follow on Twitter set up a nifty new site designed around brewing questions. Using technology from StackOverflow the best answers bubble up to the top of each question, meaning you need not search through a lengthy forum post to find the right answer.

Surf on over to BrewAdvice or check out my profile there.

Basic Equipment

One of my friends asked what equipment she should get her boyfriend so he could start making beer. There are many equipment articles out there and here is one more

Note: If I were to write this up again, I would recommend the Australian brew-in-a-bag method rather than all the all-grain equipment.

I don't know what your budget is... you can easily spend a few hundred dollars for a good kitchen setup.

The Minimum:

A large pot. Stainless steel is best, but aluminum is cheap. Like I said before, at least 2 gallons. The bigger, the better. Best is 6 gallons so he can do a full-wort boil where he doesn't have to top off the fermenter with tap water. Boiling 5 gallons of wort on a kitchen stove is a big pain though, consider getting one of those turkey fryer burner deals. The one I used to have was a 7-gallon aluminum pot and a burner. Never did fry a turkey.

A fermenter. Go for the 6 gallon variety. I used glass carboys, but I have heard very good things about the Better Bottle. If I needed another (cheap) fermenter, I'd try one out. The homebrew shop will probably tell you need a primary & secondary fermenter, but that's a big myth. I do my fermentations in a single vessel and make pretty good (damn good) beer. Politely decline.

Transfer tubing, bottling wand and a racking cane. Not too much to say here - the homebrew shop will know what you need. I recommend a stainless steel racking cane over a plastic one. It's worth the extra money.

A bottling bucket.

Bottles. Five gallons of beer fills a little fewer than fifty bottles.

Sanitizer. Go for the "no rinse" variety. I switch between iodophor and 5-Star to keep the nasties on their toes. Buy in bulk.

Testing equipment. A floating thermometer or a digital thermometer on a probe. Also a hydrometer and a cheap graduated cylinder to take specific gravity readings in. Long ago I ditched the cylinder & hydrometer in favor of a refractometer. Really worth the extra money (but maybe only if you've been using a hydrometer for a while :-)

That equipment will be enough to get him started doing "extract with specialty grain" (also incorrectly known as "partial mash") brewing. The recipe kits are classified by the level of equipment you have. Since he's got some brewery experience he will probably want to get into "all grain" brewing pretty soon. All of the above equipment will serve for that purpose, plus a few additional pieces.

All Grain

You definitely need the full sized pot.

A hot liquor tank (HLT). Ideally this is a vessel you can heat, but anything that keeps 3-5 gallons of hot water is fine. Many people use Rubbermaid or Gott coolers.

A mash tun. This is a vessel to hold the grain and hot water for making sweet wort. It's slightly specialized because you need a filter at the bottom used to separate the sweet wort from the spent grain. If either of you is crafty you can make one on the cheap. Mine was a large cooler with the drain plug removed replaced by some copper fittings. Some rigid copper tubing with small holes drilled in it sat in the bottom connected to a brass ball valve on the outside. Served me well for five years.

Here's a good shot of my previous all-grain setup. Left to right in the picture is a 5-gallon aluminum pot that I punched a hole in for the drain and spigot. It served as my HLT. Next is my mash tun which I described above. Lastly is a 10-gallon aluminum pot sitting on a burner. It also has a drain and spigot.



Consider a subscription to Zymmurgy or BYO Magazine. One of the books I recommend to everyone is Designing Great Beers. Really helped me understand the process.

Get involved in a homebrew club. They are the best places to learn the hobby. There are at least two in Oakland: The Draught Board & Bay Area Mashers (BAM). If you go to a Draught Board meeting tell Roger St Dennis I say hi.

I've gone on for a while now. There are a billion other brewing resources on the web.

• Brew Advice A good Q&A site.
• Homebrew Talk Great forum & brewing wiki
• More Beer I used to buy what I couldn't get locally from them. (Now Austin Homebrew Supply is closer.)
• The Homebrew Digest Hangout for some old, old veterans of brewing.
• The American Homebrewer's Association A good advocacy group
  

Triple Digits Tasting Notes

Triple Digits is gone. It was good with room for improvement. The hop bitterness was a little harsh and it should bee lighter. Here are some tasting notes:

• spicy clove phenolics
• alcohol warmth
• yeast aroma
• fine, thin head
• effervescent
• creamy malt, finishing dry
• medium body
• earthy hop bitterness lingers in the back of your throat

Oktoberfest At Christopher's World Grille

Thanks to everyone for coming out to see me talk at Christopher's tonight. For an Italian, he makes some delicious German food.

If you want to know more about making beer at home, read this post and come out for Teach A Friend to Homebrew Day on November 7th. The Texas Aggieland Brew Club will be making beer in front of the Village Cafe/Art 979 Gallery in downtown Bryan starting at 11am. If you can't make that we hold regular meetings on the third Friday of the month. We are organized through Facebook only right now, but if you get in touch with me I will make sure you know what is going on.

I hope you enjoyed the dinner as much as I did. I can do the same for your restaurant. I also train staff and give general beer menu advice. Drop me an email.

I Could Make Great Vinegar

The nettle beer came down with an acetobacter infection. This is not a surprise because fermentation conditions almost encouraged it. When I made the beer, I was out of carboys after making a Newcastle Brown ale clone. Under the circumstances I used a 5-gallon bucket. Normally these vessels can make great beer, however none of my buckets have lids. I improvised a "seal" with some plastic wrap. The beer was okay when I added dry hops to it a week after fermenting and I suspect opening the seal introduced the infection.

In the interest of Science I have a few ounces of the witch's brew in my cup and take furtive sips to get a taste for how the beer may have turned out. My eyes are a little watery. It isn't balsamic strength, still very much a vinegar. All the alcohol became acetic acid but there is a underlying malt taste and something else which I can only attribute to the nettles. Sandwiched between the initial vinegar sourness and the finishing vinegar bite is a vegetal-peppery note that reminds me of the brew day. Hop bitterness is non-existent and there is a softness to it that you don't get when consuming straight vinegar, which I do on occasion.

It was an experiment that failed. The follow-up experiment will improve it. Things I will change:

• A proper lauter - I strained my grains through a colander.
• Closed fermentation.
• Nettles at knockout instead of the boil.

Most teas are steeped and adding leaves to boiling water can bring out bad flavors. Doing a full boil, then adding the nettles after removing the flame will better simulate this.

If You Saw Me On The TeeVee

Thanks for finding me (see the interview video if you are a regular reader). Homebrewing is a rewarding, useful hobby. It can be easy or intricate, scientific or artful. For the impatient, join the Texas Aggieland Brew Club on Facebok and read about the process on HowToBrew. Or get in touch with me personally.

The beer you saw me making was a three gallon batch of nettle beer. It is a recipe I want to start experimenting with. The beer I drank throughout the interview was a Belgian Tripel. Typically, homebrewers make five gallons of beer at a time so most of the equipment is sized appropriately.

To get started making your own beer you need a few specialized tools and some basic kitchen gadgets. Homebrew specialty stores sell equipment kits that will get you started. Check out Austin Homebrew Supply - they have a good web store and it only takes a day for UPS to get to B/CS. You will also need a large kettle, six to seven gallons is ideal, however I started off with a twelve quart pot. When you purchase equipment, also pick out some recipe ingredients. Austin homebrew has around 120 pre-assembled recipes that come out to around $0.55 a bottle.

A great way to learn the hobby is to get together with some other homebrewers and make beer. The TAbc meets monthly on the third Friday evening of the month. We have a number of experienced brewers and beer lovers to answer questions.

How Do YOU Decide What To Brew?

This post's inspiration comes from HopWild. It’s audience participation time and the question of the day is this; Where do you find the inspiration for the recipes you brew?

Most frequently I make beers "to style". That is, I pick or design recipes based on historic beer styles. My focus is generally on brews rarely available in my area. The last such beer was a Belgian Triple and the next one will be Düsseldorf Altbier. Researching styles and their individual brewing techniques adds to my enjoyment of the hobby. I page through back issues of BYO and Zummurgy, and read the Classic Style book if it is available.

Less often I devise an experimental, outside guidelines batch. My inspiration in these cases comes from an ingredient that I want to spotlight or become more familiar with. The nettle beer is a recent example. Some of these recipes even make it into the brewing rotation. I would like for the nettle beer to become a regular recipe, but after tasting it today it will need much work.

Finally, I enjoy making traditional seasonal beers. The only current example of this is a barleywine that has been conditioning since May. I will tap that one on my birthday in late October.

Your Turn

I'd like to hear your ideas. Share them in comments (or a blog of your own).

Brown Fitzhenry Ale

My wife Adrienne was in need of some design services for a logo and business cards for her consulting services. Happily a friend of mine, Roby Fitzhenry, works for a first-class graphic design studio: Always Creative. The three of us met over beers at Revolution Bar one evening to hash out a deal. He would provide some branding and design services and we would make beer and replace a toilet in the Creative Space where he and I share offices. Roby likes Newcastle Brown so I started looking for recipes for a similar beer.

I found one in Graham Wheeler & Roger Protz's book Brew Classic European Beers At Home. This 180-page book is full of clone recipes from European breweries. Notable recipes include Fuller's ESB, Heller's Kölsch and Jenlain Bière de Garde. The book was a gift from my early brewing days and I do not often page through it. This time I was glad I owned it. On the Newcastle Brown ale clone page the authors write:

Newcastle Brown is a blend of two beers, a strong "vatted" ale and a weaker beer. The strong beer is matured in maturation tanks for a period of time and this is blended with a weaker and probably younger beer of OG 1030; the final blend having an OG of about 1045. Unique flavor characteristics that are only developed during the maturation of strong beers are then imparted to the strong beer, producing a full flavored beer for its gravity.

At their suggestion I brewed 5 gallons of OG 1.075 beer, blending it four weeks later with 10 gallons of OG 1.030 beer. This beer fermented and conditioned for a further three weeks to be put under pressure today. I have not taken a critical analysis of it yet, however Roby calls it "Fucking Delicious Ale" after he tasted it lukewarm and undercarbonated. Here's a pic of him trying to fit a cornie keg in his laptop bag to take home:


I will reproduce the single-batch recipe Wheeler and Protz provide, modified to fit ingredients I had on hand, and explain how they suggest splitting the batch.

5 US Gallons of Newcastle Brown Ale Clone

Fermentables

• 5.75 lbs Pale
• 1.15 lbs Crystal 60L
• 12.5 oz sucrose
• 1.1 oz Chocolate malt

I mashed for 90 minutes at 149° F where the book suggests 153°

Hops

• 0.4 oz 8.9% AA Northern Brewer 90 mins
• 0.6 oz 4.5% AA Fuggle 90 mins

(suggested) OG: 1.044, EBU: 24
(actual) FG: 7% brix

To make strong and week beers to blend, multiply the ingredients by 1.7 and 0.68 respectively. Blend one part strong with two parts weak. It was easiest to scale the recipe to 15 gallons, brewing 5 gallons strong with 10 gallons weak. I only promised 10 gallons to Roby so I get to keep 5 gallons for myself.

My brewery lacks a 15 gallon fermenter. A fellow brewer graciously loaned me a carboy so I could ferment the beer in three vessels. Upon kegging the beer I thought I noticed a flavor difference among the fermenters. I had my wife give me a triangle test and could pick the odd-beer-out. One was slightly maltier, but not significantly different. These beers were virtually identical and kept in identical environments, with few factors accounting for the flavor differences. This bolsters similar anecdotal evidence I found in my last split batch. Pitching rates matter.

KBTX Interview

I just wrapped an interview with Meredith Stancik from the local news station. She runs a feature called Saving You Money and this time around is spotlighting homebrewing. I got half a day off work to make some beer for the camera - an experimental one (read about it) - and chat about the hobby.

The focus of the piece is how homebrewing is cheaper than store bought beer, which I believe is true. Austin Homebrew Supply, where I buy what I don't get in bulk elsewhere, sells a basic equipment kit for $80 and about 150 recipe kits that come out to $0.50 a bottle. If you make only one 5 gallon batch of beer it tallies up to around $2.00 a bottle. After three you are down to almost a dollar per cool, refreshing draught.

We also talked about my beer consulting work and judging experience. I put in a plug for the homebrew club. The show will air Thursday, September 24th at 10:00pm. I'm curious to see the final product. If possible I'll get the video up on my blog.

Nettle Beer - A Beginning

Nettle tea helps promote kidney function, reducing the risk for kidney stones and gout. I get attacks of gout when I am not careful what I eat and many of my family members have kidney stones. I do not drink a lot of tea, and rather than changing my habits (putting me dangerously close to sounding old) I thought it more appropriate to get nettles elsewhere. Enter homebrew.

The cup of nettle tea I made to get a feel for the flavor tasted vegetal and slightly peppery. Few people, me included, want to drink beer that smells of boiled vegetables. My thinking went to covering it up with a healthy dose of American hops and some big malt. That was yesterday and I didn't have any Amarillo on hand... or yeast for that matter. The nearest LHBS is a day away by UPS. Because I was being interviewed for a homebrewing segment on the local news there were timing constraints. The beer had to be rolling at 2:30 when the reporter arrived. Not wanting to pay for overnight 10 AM delivery shipping I placed an order and crossed my fingers.

I should have known better. UPS usually delivers to my house around 7 PM. Not to worry, I wasn't really sure what kind of beer I would make today. Grabbing the first bag of hop pellets from the freezer, I settled on German Pearle. Next I went to the larder and ripped open new 55-lb bags of Vienna and Munich malt. Here's what happened:

3 gallons of Some Nettle Beer

Fermentables

• 4 lbs Vienna
• 2 lbs Munich

Doughed in 2 gallons of 160° F water (mostly RO with some tap water for "minerals"). The mash hit 157° F for 40 minutes. Using an ad-hoc brewing setup I batched sparged through a colander and collected a little more than 3 gallons of 10% brix sweet wort. So far so good. The reporter arrived right on time as the wort was starting to boil.

Bittering

• 1 oz 8.1% AA Perle 60 minutes
  
• 6 oz dried loose leaf nettles 60 minutes
  

I wasn't sure how much nettles to add - most of the recipes you find online measure by the fresh bucket or the peck. They went in until I had enough to almost overflow my kettle. By then the wort had a sharp nastiness to it signaling to me that it was a good time to stop.

We conducted the interview while the nastiness boiled. Right now I have just about 3 gallons of 13.6% brix wort cooling slowly as I wait for UPS to deliver some Safale US-05 yeast. The slow cool means that the resulting beer will have a lot of DMS, but it is a veggie beer to begin with.... Oh yeah, batch sparging with a colander causes a lot of splashing and hot-side aeration. Maybe my nettle beer won't start.

Looking forward to improving on this recipe with a little more preparation.

Tripel Digits

On June 20th I made an approximation of a Belgian tripel.

Tripel Digits

5 US gallons
OG: 18% Brix
FG: 8.8% Brix
IBU: ~30

Fermentables

• 14 lbs 2-row
• 1 lbs cane sugar

60 minute rest at 152° F. 60 metric minute boil.

Hops

• 1 oz 8.1% AA Perle pellets 60 minutes
• 1 oz 4.6% AA Saaz pellets 10 minutes

By the time I was done sparging I had 9 gallons of sweet wort and only enough fermentables for 5 (as planned). To get to my target volume I boiled for three hours. Not much harm in that except the beer will be a good deal darker than it is supposed to be.

Came out of the fermenter today nice and clear. Going to be about 10.75% ABV, but you can't really taste it. Tripels are like that. Another three weeks conditioning in the keg.

Review: Rye of the Hurricane II

This beer is delicious. I already have ingredients to make it again. Soon. It's almost out.

Previously I made it without crystal 120, but that malt adds great body and plum/raisin maltiness. While it is full-bodied the beer is not heavy. Traditional British hops give it a earthy, muddied bitterness leading into a spicy rye and Hallertau kick. The finish is peppery, slightly sweet and just a little thick on the tongue. I want more.

I really appreciate the ability to do multi-step mashes my new system gives me. For this beer I rested 20 mins at 150° F and 40 mins at 163° F which developed that full body while lending enough fermentables to the wort. The gravity settled at 1.017.

As difficult as it is, an extra few weeks conditioning will do wonders. When I tapped it the dried fruit flavors had not developed, however near the end of the keg they come through and really make the beer stellar. I recommend leaving it alone for eight weeks after taking it out of primary. 8 weeks, I thought I waited long enough for this one....

Rye Without The Hurricane

Last September, a day after Hurricane Ike demolished Galveston, I brewed a great rye beer I called Rye of the Hurricane. It was about 20% rye, 5% munich and 75% pale bittered with Mt Hood & Hallertauer hops. The beer came out with a great dry earthy bitterness from the rye and Mt Hood. Five gallons of that beer lasted seven weeks; these day's I'm lucky to get two weeks out of a keg.

Rye of the Hurricane II will be a very different beer. I increased the ratio of munich malt, and added crystal 120 to the grainbill. To balance the more intense malt flavors that the crystal adds I also stepped up the hopping schedule. Have a look. (Pictures here.)

Fermentables
9-gallons

• 15 lbs Pale 2-row (Rahr)
• 4 lbs Rye malt
• 2 lbs Munich
• 2 lbs Crystal 120L

Doughed in with 9 gallons of spring water to hit 150° F. Rested 20 minutes. Direct-fire heat to 163° F for another 40 minutes. Sparge with 170° F water to collect 10 gallons sweet wort.

Hops
60-minute boil

• 2 oz 5.2% AA Mt Hood pellets first-wort hop
  
• 1 oz 4.8% AA Kent Goldings pellets 30 mins
• 1 oz 3.9% AA Hallertau pellets 10 mins
• 1 oz 3.9% AA Hallertau pellets 5 mins

Wyeast 1318 London Ale Yeast III; Fermenting at 70° F.


The reason this beer is only 9 gallons is because I changed my strike water volume and forgot to compensate with extra sparge water. I wanted a thin mash - about 2 qts/lb to really pack this beer with malty goodness, but upon getting 11 gallons of strike water in my new mash tun I could see that adding in 23 pounds of grain would possibly overflow the vessel. I should have added the two missing gallons to the sparge to collect 11-ish gallons of sweet wort at completion of the mash.

The wort tasted awesome, simply fantastic. It's taking all my power not to keg & tap the beer this week - 9 days through fermentation. I hope I have the will to let it sit for another nine days, but I'm out of homebrew at the time. The bitter I made as a yeast starter for Gnarly Barleywine started out "meh" because I tapped it way too early. It became a nice beer near the end of the keg. I will keep that lesson in mind while I drink some commercial beer.

Vigorous Fermentation

I was glad the barleywine did not become infected because it blew the airlock off the first night of fermentation. I was fairly confident it was safe since it was just expelling trub and krausen. I don't normally ferment in carboys any more so didn't have a blow-off tube. This is what remains after racking. The interior of the duck-in cooler is a giant mess. That's one reason it's brewery cleaning week(s).

Barleywine, Bitter, Beer judging

Last Friday, minutes before leaving for a beer-judging weekend trip to Oakland, CA, I kegged this year's Gnarly Barleywine. Even though it has been four years since the first and last time I made this barleywine, I call it "this year's" barleywine because it is a good enough recipe that I would like to make it yearly. Brewed on May 6th, this beer's beginnings reach back another two weeks to a 10-gallon batch of Bitter I made as a yeast starter for the barleywine.

As I write this article, I sip the Starter Bitter. It's an ordinary bitter on the very low end of the SG range and the very high end of the IBU bracket. That combination of attributes makes for a bad beer. The bitterness is sharp and harsh and the body is thin. Adding calcium sulfate to RO water is about the only way to "fix" my tap water, but I think I overdid it this time. Sulfur compounds accentuate harsh bitterness. It is carbonic and metallic and a healthy dose of malt flavor would really bring this beer from the brink of disaster. The bouquet has some malt sweetness, but lacks hop aroma. Pardon me while I take another draught. Next time, five more pounds of Maris Ottr. The recipe:

10 gallons of Ordinary Bitter
Fermentables

• 12 lbs Maris Ottr Pale
• 2 lbs Crystal 60

90 minute rest at 149° F

Hops

• 2 oz 7.6% AA pellet Brewer's Gold 60 minutes
• 2 oz 5.25% AA whole EK Goldings 15 minutes

WYeast 1098 British Ale yeast. Ferment around 62° F.

A better mash program will probably help the malt profile. 149° F is at the top end of beta-amylase's temperature range, but below alpha-amylase. Beta makes fermentable sugars and alpha makes unfermentables. As John Palmer writes: "A lower mash temperature, less than or equal to 150°F, yields a thinner bodied, drier beer." That is exactly what I have; more malt please.

I should also note that higher fermentation temperatures will produce more of the British ester compounds that are missing from this beer.

The low starting gravity sure makes for a low-alcohol session beer. Pardon me while I pour another pint.

Moving along, the starter bitter fermented out and I transferred it to kegs. Onto the yeast cake I dumped 5 gallons of New Gnarly Barleywine:

Fermentables

• 13.25 lbs Maris Ottr Pale
• 2.25 lbs Honey Malt
• 1.5 lbs Munich
• 1 lbs Carapils Malt
• 0.5 lbs Brown Malt

Mashed at 145° F for 60 minutes. Raised mash up to 160° F for another 30 minutes.

Hops (90 minute boil)

• 1.5 oz 14.4% AA pellet Magnum first-wort
• 1 oz 5.2% AA pellet Mt Hood 15 mins
• 1 oz 5.2% AA pellet Mt Hood 5 mins
• 2 oz 4.8% AA pellet EK Goldings 2 weeks dry hop

WYeast 1098 British Ale yeast. Ferment around 62° F.
OG: 1.092
FG: 1.018
IBU: 71 (est)

I was in a rush to get to the airport for this weekend's Longshot competition, therefore I did not get a proper taste on the way to the keg, nor did I add the dry-hops. Adding them will give me an opportunity to have a proper taste test.

Longshot was great, as usual. This marks my third year judging at the competition and reinforced my appreciation for the Boston Beer Company. My report from 2007 will give you an idea of what it's like. Incidentally, the best in show in our region went to a barleywine.



22 beers waiting to be judged best in show. The dude on the right is Pete Solsberg of Wicked Ale and gourmet chocolate fame. Real approachable guy - as are most brewers.

I Will Be on KEOS Tonight

My friend Martin Codrington asked me to speak about homebrewing on his radio show tonight. Listen in to 89.1 at 6 o'clock. Sadly, I can not find a stream online link for KEOS, so if you are not local you will have to wait for the tape. I will point listeners at this blog as the jumping-off point for everything I talk about.

If you are new to homebrewing I suggest digging into John Palmer's free book How To Brew. It is an in-depth book covering the three broad ways you can make beer. Intermediate brewers should read Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels and Principles of Brewing Science by George Fix. Being a desciple of experience, I recommend instead finding a homebrewing friend and make some beer.

If you don't know any homebrewers in Bryan or College Station plan to attend one of our homebrew club meetings. The next meeting is scheduled for the evening of April 17th. We do not have a web site yet, but you can find us on facebook or drop me an email and I will add you to my mailing list. I am @brundage on Twitter. Contact me somehow for club details.

Links:

• Austin Homebrew A good place to buy supplies.
  
• More Beer Quality homebrewing equipment
  
• Seven Bridges Homebrew Supplier of organic ingredients
  

The Midnight Hour Brewery Goes Next-level

I purchased a used 3-tier stand yesterday from a local homebrewer. In brief, it is professionally welded 2" box iron. The vessels are all converted kegs with weldless quick-disconnect fittings. Propane is hard plumbed up the center support.

Before plunking down money Clint invited me to make a batch of beer with it. This is that beer's story.

Clint and I started heating strike water around 9:15 Saturday morning.

Fermentables:

• 10 lbs Pale Malt

Doughed in with 1.3 qts/lb of RO and tap water to rest at 145° F for 30 minutes. Direct-fire heat to bring the temperature up to 160° F for another 30 minutes. Sparged with 170° water to collect about 6 gallons sweet wort. Boiled 60 minutes.

Hops:

• 1 oz 7.9% AA whole Perle Hops first-wort hop
  
• 1.5 oz 5.3% AA whole E.K. Goldings 30 mins

SafAle S-05 California Ale yeast

We were done and cleaned up by about noon-thirty, making a relatively quick brewday. OG was 14.6 °Brix with an estimated 51 IBUs. I call it Bitter Blonde.

I love the recirculating mash and all the direct-fire vessels. The mash tun and hot liquor tank have temperature probes for use with common digital oven thermometers. That gives me fine control over the mash, meaning when I find a recipe I like I can accurately record and recreate it. The kettle doesn't have a sight glass which is critical to me. Kettle volume combined with the gravity of the sweet wort is a guide to hitting target OG. My current 20 gallon aluminum kettle has a sight glass and fits on the bottom burner, so I will continue to use it (and I already have a prospective buyer for the keggle).

I also get a March pump with the deal, doubling the number of pumps I have. Now I have a spare mash tun and HLT which will go up for sale. It is a little sad to see my mash tun go because it is the second piece of homebrewing equipment I made - the first being an immersion chiller which was sold long ago.

Bitter Blonde is bubbling away in my 6.5 gallon carboy. Looking forward to tasting it and brewing again on my new brewstand.

Alt One

Altbier is one of my favorite styles of beer, and this is my first attempt at formulating a recipe for it. To prepare for this batch, I read Altbier: History, Brewing, Techniques, Recipes by Horst Dornbusch. The Classic Beer Style Series book came through with helpful explanations.

Fermentables:

• 10 lbs German Pilsner
• 3 lbs Munich
• 3 lbs Vienna
• 2 lbs Crystal 60

Using reverse-osmosis water treated with gypsum, I doughed in with 1 qt/lbs water to rest at 146° F for 30 minutes. Added boiling water to bring temperature to 160° F for 48 minutes. Sparged to collect around 14 gallons sweet wort.

Boiled 90 minutes.

Hops:

• 3 oz 8.3% AA whole Perle 60 mins
• 1 oz 3.3% AA pellet Hallertau Hersbrucker 10 mins
• 2 oz 2.4% AA whole Hallertau Hersbrucker flameout

Chilled wort and pitched WYeast 1007, German Ale yeast. Fermenting at 63° F.

The second mash step went 18 minutes longer than I planned for. At that temperature alpha-amalyase is most active and beta-amalyase is denatured. Alpha-amalyase breaks down starch into unfermentable sugars and because of this the wort turned out quite sweet. The finished beer will likely turn out too malty for the style, but it won't turn out bad. I will find out in six weeks.

Grain Mill Hopper Construction

In my pile of brewing equipment is a grain mill which I purchased from More Beer. I am a little embarrassed to say that the purchase was made at least eighteen months ago and I have yet to make use of it. Some weeks ago the Austin Zealots made a bulk grain buy and I bought fifty pound bags of 2-row and pale malts. Having all that unmilled grain around motivated me to start using my equipment.

The mill came with a small plastic hopper and a flimsy bucket-top mount. I wanted to build something more suited for my ten gallon grainbills. So I enlisted the help of my friend Ry and we got to work.

Here is the undercarriage that holds the mill and sits over the bucket.


Now a plywood top with slit for the grain.


Here we are, ready for the hopper.


Diagonals are difficult to cut for an amateur.


The grains for Alt One in the finished hopper.