Anna's Brewdays

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Ok today was 'interesting' as a brew day, as in another of my 'learning experiences'
I'll write it up properly later since right now I'm recovering with a glass of my Zest Cerveza which has improved for cold conditioning for a month. I was making up two kit beers which had been purchased for No1 son (who has gone off the idea of brewing) but I was too stingy to buy LME and thought I'd use up some Lucky's lager malt to make up the malt extract equivalent required. Hmmm... Ok I've ended up with two fermenters in the brew fridge thingy and yes it all looks neat tidy and organised now, but sheesh that's taken a whole lot more effort than expected .
View attachment 52647View attachment 52648

Oh - you might have noticed, my plastic fermenter buckets have had a bit of an upgrade with ball lock posts and floating dip tubes with filters on the end ok I know I didn't really need them.. it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I'm trying to do low O2 brewing even in a bucket . Why do things easy when you can make it sooo much more complicated for yourself .

That ball lock idea is fantastic - can't wait for your write up to see how you did it!

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Looks very nice! I started out using ball-locks too, but I found the FV lids weren't really solid enough to give a good mounting point... so I switched to 1/4" bulkhead connectors: cheap & cheerful but of course no built-in valve ;-)

 

[matt76]

Oh - you might have noticed, my plastic fermenter buckets have had a bit of an upgrade with ball lock posts and floating dip tubes with filters on the end

I can't quite tell from the picture @DocAnna but presumably in addition to the grey gas in/out posts you've also got liquid in/out posts on there too? Just bear in mind, based on my own recent experiences, while those gas posts will probably stand up to a lot of pressure the rest of the bucket might not!

Looks very nice! I started out using ball-locks too, but I found the FV lids weren't really solid enough to give a good mounting point... so I switched to 1/4" bulkhead connectors: cheap & cheerful but of course no built-in valve ;-)

Ah, interesting find, thanks for sharing @The-Engineer-That-Brews , just found those on Amazon Surprised you say 1/4” though and not 3/8” since both are available. Presumably you want rubber washers either side in there too?

I was doing fine just with rubber grommets (based on a single attempt!) but a non-bubbling airlock traced to a not-completely-airtight grommet is making me think something a little more assuredly gas tight might be a better long term bet.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Surprised you say 1/4” though and not 3/8” since both are available. Presumably you want rubber washers either side in there too?

Well in fact I tend to use the 1/4" ones for gas as viscosity isn't an issue - when it comes to beer I use the 'proper' John Guest 3/8" ones which cost a bit more :-)

You really only need one rubber washer or 'O' ring, which should go against the 'shoulder' (i.e. the fixed part - opposite side to the nut).
There's no point putting one behind the nut itself because the gas/fluid will just get past it by seeping along the threads...

 

[DocAnna]

I never did get round to typing up last weekend's brewday to make extract for the kits. So here's the really short version before we get on to today's exploits. Making your own single malt mash and boil to replace extract is fine in principle but it takes just as long as a normal brew day once all the clean up is included. The shorter boil time saves very little time in the scheme of things. Learning nugget - remember to allow for the hot water volume you need to use to rinse out the kit extract can/packet... I almost didn't and it was a bit tight.

 

[DocAnna]

Ok on to today: I'm making a red version of my Level 2 Festbier, using Red-X grain courtesy of @stuarts in place of Vienna malt to make a 'red status' beer. Now this is a bit unusual since it's being made for one of my operational team groups and associated colleagues. Unusually for me, I've made a label and named it before tasting it.. which I don't normally like to do. It's called Naeb'dy Aboot for reasons I can't go into since it's an in joke for the team .
This is putting my brewing reputation a bit on the line since these colleagues haven't tasted my beer before since I've been on secondment since the end of last year, and I'd prefer to have made it and checked it was ok first. I'm not entirely sure what the various teams I work with make of the idea of me being a brewer... it doesn't really fit with my image . I'll add to the label regarding the flavour once it's finished and can comment intelligently about it!

Milled the Lucky's lager malt grain fresh - I really love my new malt mill , super fast, super clean and not too noisy at all. Single 60 min mash at 65 with a half hour mash out at 72. Seems quite low stress for now .

Anna

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Love that idea and the beer name!

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

@DocAnna is there any feedback yet on how your Cerveza worked out? For some reason it's a beer I keep wondering about brewing...

 

[DocAnna]

@DocAnna is there any feedback yet on how your Cerveza worked out? For some reason it's a beer I keep wondering about brewing...

Ah - it has been interesting, I’m not totally convinced I’d do it again. When I removed the limes from the sediment there was an intense citrus zest smell which wasn’t carried over into the beer. The first couple of pints out of the keg also had some haze and a bit of a “pith“ taste.
At this stage, I was really quite disappointed, however, it has improved dramatically after those first couple of pints and it’s now clear and has an aromatic lime zest and citrus flavour. It has really improved over the last couple of weeks with cold storage as well.

I’m not entirely convinced that the Mexican yeast added any particular flavour, but fundamentally it is simply just not a beer style that I would typically choose. I made it for my son to take to university with him but he left to go party before the start of term .

Anna

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Ah - it has been interesting, I’m not totally convinced I’d do it again. When I removed the limes from the sediment there was an intense citrus zest smell which wasn’t carried over into the beer. The first couple of pints out of the keg also had some haze and a bit of a “pith“ taste.
At this stage, I was really quite disappointed, however, it has improved dramatically after those first couple of pints and it’s now clear and has an aromatic lime zest and citrus flavour. It has really improved over the last couple of weeks with cold storage as well.

I’m not entirely convinced that the Mexican yeast added any particular flavour, but fundamentally it is simply just not a beer style that I would typically choose. I made it for my son to take to university with him but he left to go party before the start of term .

Anna

*sigh* they suck the life out of you, then they fly the nest....

 

[DocAnna]

Oh I forgot to add a picture of the Cerveza

 

[Brewnaldo]

Oh I forgot to add a picture of the Cerveza
View attachment 53064

It looks good. Not that i'm advocating caning a keg at anything other than the CMO's recommended weekly alcohol intake, but the lemon and lime flavour died off pretty quick on mine, I suspect that if you haven't drunk the one I gave you by now, you'd maybe never know it was citrusy at all.... That said, mine lived upstairs in that heatwave we had and never tasted the same since I'd be interested to hear how you felt those flavours survived in a more controlled temperature

 

[matt76]

Oh I forgot to add a picture of the Cerveza
View attachment 53064

This pic has reminded me @DocAnna , when I was cutting the holes for my own kegerator yesterday, I was trying to figure out how you managed to have space for that chalk board (really cool btw) without putting the taps so low down they're on the floor!

Well, the pic answers that mystery - I assume that's a freezer compartment up top, do you actually use it for anything?

 

[DocAnna]

This pic has reminded me @DocAnna , when I was cutting the holes for my own kegerator yesterday, I was trying to figure out how you managed to have space for that chalk board (really cool btw) without putting the taps so low down they're on the floor!

Well, the pic answers that mystery - I assume that's a freezer compartment up top, do you actually use it for anything?

Thank you, yes I specifically looked for a second hand fridge with a freezer compartment on the top to keep my stock of hops in, and it had to be able to fit in my rather wee car! Hence not a full height fridge freezer. I did wonder about a keezer but I don't really have the space for it in the garage, and the joinery/engineering required for the collar felt a bit beyond me.

 

[DocAnna]

Life has been busy (🖥 stuff) so I've not been here to update as often. In a bit of a quandary with my poor planning. I've my Naeb'dy Aboot in my fermenting fridge, purposefully at 10 deg C just that bit below the CML Hell yeast recommended temperature. It's 9 days in and still bubbling away, and I was worried it was infected but I drew off a small sample last night and it tastes fine other than I can still taste unfermented sugars but no sourness. The modified kit beers have been at ambient for the same 9 days and finished ages ago, but I've not added the dry hops yet as I want to get them down to 16 deg C before doing so then cold crash.... problem is I can't do that until I take the NA out which I was going to do as a diacetyl rest after active fermentation seemed to have stopped. All a bit annoying and means the kit beers are sitting on the yeast trub at ambient which isn't ideal. I already have two brew fridges, but I'm going to have to wait a few months before I can count the back shed as a fridge.

One of the really surprising thing to reflect on is that I wouldn't have understood half of what I wrote above before joining this forum which is either cool, or a bit nerdy depending on perspective. Even more interesting is that I've not even remotely followed the instructions for the kits, and I'm not that fussed either, which feels quite good really .

 

[Buffers brewery]

“Nerdy” is the new “Coooool”

 

[DocAnna]

Rather conveniently it was 16 deg ambient today in the garage so I've dry hopped both the pink grapfruit and the New Zealand pale, then purged the headspace with CO2 using the new ball lock attachments, pushing it through the beer in floating dip lines to also help clear any blockage from dried krausen. They are now tucked up with their balloon umbilicals and black bin back hoods. I'm a little worried again about the festbier since it is STILL bubbling away quite rapidly, I'll take it up from 10 deg later today to about 18 and cold crash the other two. If it doesn't stop after it's warmed up then I'll need to revisit the possibility of an infection .

 

[DocAnna]

My first closed transfers with the tweaked fermentation buckets today . Otherwise known as Anna‘s adventures in making things complicated for herself.

So here’s the two unsuspecting beers that have been cold crashed to 0.2C since Friday. Each with their rather fetching blue star breather packs. These means that when I lift the buckets out and move them around any change in shape in the bucket doesn’t draw in air.

I’ve two sanitised and purged kegs waiting, just needed to push out the last off the starsan left in the bottom of each, then connect the beer-beer jumper tube between the bucket and keg. Because this is not really a pressurised transfer I’ve put the bucket higher up to effectively syphon into the keg, and opened the prv to let the gas out as it fills.

Getting the syphon to start was a bit difficult as the pressure from the balloon wasn’t enough and I ended up bursting it which wasn’t very clever. Pressing down slowly on the now slightly domed lid worked though.
Once started I waited until the lid was depressed with the beer emptying - and topped up a little from a CO2 feed from the cylinder every few minutes.
That sounds like it went pretty well (other than having to fit a new at some stage) I did though misjudge the pressure a couple of times and popped the lid on the bucket - but I can work on that.

 

[Buffers brewery]

Good job!
If I may suggest shortening the Syphon beer to beer tube might make it easier to set up. I've got a bottom tap in my FB but have to add priming solution so I connect the keg end beer connector to a corny post fitted to the top half of a coke bottle. Holding said coke bottle slightly above the beer level in the FB you can "bleed" the syphon tube of air and disconnecting when the beer reaches the bottle will lock the beer in the pipe. Connecting it then to the lower keg will start the syphon provided the keg is not pressurised. Also, running the gas from the keg back to the FB will eliminate the need to keep giving the FB a puff of gas.

 

[Buffers brewery]

Just another thought (sorry) if you connect the gas post from your corny (gas flushed) to your FB you will equilibrate the pressures and possibly (if you have a little pressure in the corny) have enough pressure to bleed the beer Syphon line.