The Chaos that is a Buffers Brewery brew day

As the old saying goes "make beer while the sun shines". I took advantage of today's fine weather and an empty fermentation bucket to do a repeat brew of the APA I brewed back in February. No change to the recipe or the equipment so no pics today (you've seen them all before ). Wort is currently chilling on the patio. I'll transfer to the fermentation bucket and pitch the yeast tomorrow.

Well, a busy brewing day today! It's been a week fermenting in the brew fridge so it's time to dry hop the APA.


Well, that's me done for today

Buffers brewery said:

time to dry hop the APA.
Well, that's me done for today

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Bombs away, Ginger! Time to head home for tea and medals

Just moved the NEIPA I brewed at the end of March in to the barrelator. Couldn't resist a quick pour to check for the dreaded oxydation

Looks good and tastes

Can't be too careful

The APA I brewed earlier this month has finished fermentation. FG 1.012 so time to cold crash ready to transfer to a barrel in a couple of days time. As I'm busy tomorrow, wifies birthday, I decided to prepare the barrel today. After cleaning and sanitising time to prime with CO2. Fortunately another barrel had just finished so I used the remaining pressure to start displacing the water...

Managed to get half the water out. Just needed my cylinder for the remaining water. N.B. the barrel in the sink is the empty one and the barrel on the drainer is full of water.

My eldest son was visiting from New York and asked if we could have a brew day while he was over. Of course I said “yes”. His flight was cancelled so he flew the following day, arriving here on brew day. He and his brother got to me after everything was set up and strike water was up to temperature. Given the choice between mashing in or drinking my beer and having some lunch, you can guess which they opted for. They did “watch” me mash out and lauter then returned to my beer. I managed to persuade one of them to turn the boiler tap on to drain the wort into the fermentation bucket and the other one to pitch the yeast.
A fun brew day even if they did do some damage to my beer stock.
Five gallons of Cascade pale ale OG 1.052, now fermenting in the brew fridge.

It seems like a long time since I last had a brew day! After my annual pilgrimage to Australia to visit my daughter and grandkids I'm now back and battling jetlag. What better thing to do?
Brewery set up and cleaned yesterday so started straight away this morning. Nothing like the sound of brewing....

So today it's a Tribute clone.
3.5kg Maris Otter pale malt
1kg Munich malt.
Mashed at 66C for an hour.
1 hour boil.
Hops:
16g Fuggles 60 minutes
19g Willamette 60 minutes
15g Fuggles 15 minutes
12g Willamette 15 minutes
25g Celeia 0 minutes
25g Willamette 0 minutes

Chilled down to 25C and left for 2 hours to settle.
Now for the exciting bit. Having developed an aversion of transferring trub with the wort to the FB I made a syphon to transfer the cooled wort to the FB "sans trub".



Drawing the wort from the top resulted in no trub transfer. Gradually dropping the syphon tube until it hit trub resulted in nice clear wort in the FB

but a loss of 2-3 litres of wort. Only 4.5 gallons/21 litres in the bucket!

OG 1.047. Sachet of Nottingham yeast pitched and fermentation fridge set at 20C.

Before I cleaned my boiler I tipped the trub into a bucket and put it in my empty brew fridge set at 3C. Had a look this morning....

Still a fair depth of trub so I poured off the clear wort...

Just short of 2 litres that accounts for the loss in the F bucket. I might consider returning to whole hops and hop bags for the boil in future to see if it reduces losses.

I have an empty barrel in the shed and an almost empty barrel in my barrelator so it's time for another brew day. NEIPA today. However, due to a slip up in my record keeping I was out of Simcoe hops. Looked up suitable substitutions and decided to use some leftover Cascade and Magum pellets.
Brew day progressed without incident (doing a B-G rest at 50C for 30 minutes really sorts out the oats and avoids a gummy mash). 30 litres in the boiler, currently simmering nicely while I have a bite of lunch. Hops will be added after the boil at 80C for 30 minutes then chill.
Dry hoppers will be filled with Citra and Galaxy to be dropped with three days to go .

Used my syphon method to transfer to "cooled" wort (27C) to my fermentation bucket. Just shy of 5 gallons with very little trub. OG 1.056.

Colour looks good. It's in the fridge now to chill it down to 20C ISH and I'll pitch the yeast tomorrow, Verdant IPA.

Wort has cooled nicely overnight in the brew fridge. Now to pitch the yeast and load up the dry hoppers..


..with 100g Galaxy and 150g Citra before fitting the fermentation bucket lid...

Returned to the brew fridge set at 20C. Plan to dry hop in 9 days time.

First outing of my new (complicated) fermenter today. Did a simple SMASH cascade pale ale for it's maiden voyage. I'm continuing to syphon the boiled wort into the fermenter ...

Nice clear wort after it had settled for an hour...

Pitched the yeast (Verdant IPA)....

Lid fitted.....

and off to the fermicular railway to the fridge where I connect the fermentation gas line....

And squeeze it into the fridge and quickly shut the door .

Will return tomorrow to check the bubbler (outside the fridge).

Buffers brewery said:

First outing of my new (complicated) fermenter today. Did a simple SMASH cascade pale ale for it's maiden voyage. I'm continuing to syphon the boiled wort into the fermenter ...
View attachment 104317
Nice clear wort after it had settled for an hour...
View attachment 104318
Pitched the yeast (Verdant IPA)....
View attachment 104319
Lid fitted.....
View attachment 104320
and off to the fermicular railway to the fridge where I connect the fermentation gas line....
View attachment 104321
And squeeze it into the fridge and quickly shut the door .
View attachment 104322
Will return tomorrow to check the bubbler (outside the fridge).

Click to expand...

Looks good, assume you siphon to avoid any infection risks from the tap? or is it to reduce trub pickup?

Got fed up with dragging loads of trub into the fermenter through the tap. Good point about infection though. I used to circulate the wort for the last 15 mins of the boil (through the tap) and during cooling. Purely coincidentally I stopped circulating when I started syphoning. I've noticed cooling (immersion chiller) does take longer without circulation so I stir instead.

After three days of cold crash at 3C, time to transfer to one of my primed King Kegs...

All went well. Transferred to my carbonation and conditioning fridge for a couple of weeks at 20C then a couple of weeks at 10C.
Looks like the floating dip tube worked well with not too much beer left behind and not much trub carried over ...

All cleaned now ready for next brew day, weather permitting

Fermenter was empty so time for a brewday. Another try at the Tribute clone recipe. Following suggestions from forum members I increased the flame out hop addition. Also, decided to add some carapils. Today's recipe was
3.2 kg Maris otter pale malt
1 kg Munich malt
0.4 kg carapils
1 hour mash at 66C
16 grm fuggles @ 60 minutes
19 grm Willamette @ 60 minutes
15 grm Fuggles @ 15 minutes
12 grm Willamette @ 15 minutes
25 grm Celeia @ 0 minutes
50 grm Willamette @ 0 minutes
1 sachet Nottingham Ale yeast

Brew day went without incident. However, my latest mad idea proved a total failure and non-starter.
What was it?
Encouraged by another forum member that will remain nameless, a brewing engineer, I came up with this arrangement to monitor wort continuously during the mash.
The idea was to include a chamber that housed a hydrometer in the HERMS plumbing. The chamber had a window so the wort surface could be seen and the hydrometer reading taken. This is what I came up with...

This shows the hydrometer bobbing around in the chamber.

After much testing the issues identified were, and in no particular order, and they are a bit obvious,
The flow of the HERMS circuit lifts the hydrometer so has to be stopped to take a reading,
The chamber had to be fitted with a temperature probe so the SG reading could be corrected,
Both of those were easily addressed. However, the killer was the gradual movement of the liquid level upwards and disappearing from sight.
The chamber needed a space for the hydrometer stem to rise into as the SG increased. This created an air pocket above the chamber exit port. Unfortunately, this air pocket gradually became a vapour pocket and, as a consequence of the vapour condensing, the air/vapour pocket became smaller, sucking the liquid level upwards and caused the liquid level to disappear eventually. I considered.....but then decided it was a crazy idea and stopped. Enjoyed trying though

Inline refractometers look very expensive!

Transferred the Tribute clone to the fermenter last week so decided to put the "new" fermenter to the test and brew a NEIPA and check out the dry hopper in the lid.
Started with a beta-glucan rest, 45C for 30 minutes. I always do this now when brewing NEIPA as I've suffered stuck or clogged mash when recirculating. Not happened since I started b-g rest.
Start of b-g rest ...

All went well with the mash and transferred just short of 30 litres of wort to the boiler.
Very foamy at the start of the boil...

Added 50 grm each of Amarillo and Simcoe pellets at switch off and chilled down to 45C before moving it to the garage to settle and cool overnight.
In the morning the wort was down to 14C so syphoned the cold wort to the fermenter and moved it to the brew fridge set at 20C to warm up before pitching the yeast.
Loaded up the dry hopper this morning with 150 grm Citra and 100 grm Galaxy pellets ...

..had a quick look at the wort ...

before pitching a sachet of Verdant IPA yeast.
OG 1.061

The NEIPA has been cold crashing for four days so time to transfer to a King Keg to carbonate and check how the dry hopper worked (or not)..

Well that's encouraging. Just a bit of hop dust left on the flaps.

Huge pile of hop dross on the bottom of the fermenter and not too much beer left behind