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.

Quickie: Do they blend?

I am drinking a blend of half Costa Rican, half Yemeni beans roasted to full city. This blend has the deep notes I like from the Yemeni, but lacks the smooth Costa Rican flavors. Not sure if the South American bean is the right complement to the Arabian bean. Next I will try an even split between the Javanese and Yemeni beans.

The people at Sweet Maria's are right about Yemeni beans — they really take 48 hours to rest after roasting. Yesterday, the first day after roasting, this blend was not nearly as full.

Kegged Evil Brown

On ITAFtHD I made a brown ale from AHS. Readers will know that I really messed that one up using RO water. I came out with 15 gallons when I expected only 10 - meaning that the beers were weak. Beer #2 was a slow starter, taking two days and some krasuen from beer #1 to get going. I kegged the beers today.

Number 2 was totally spoiled. Might get it through my head now to slow down the rate at which I pass the beer through the CFC. I suspect I pitched my starter into hot wort, killing the yeast. In the end, I came out with the same volume I was expecting (10 gallons) but the wrong strength. Evil Brown #1 ought to be ready for Thanksgiving when we have company over to celebrate.

Final Gravity: 5% brix.

I also ran out of the totally delicious Rye of the Hurricane today. Gonna make that one again. The beer came out with a great dry earthy bitterness from the rye malt and Mt Hood hops. It needed a little more body so I think I will increase the ratio of Munich to pale malts.