Hazelwood’s Brewday Part 2

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Double brew-day today. Just got the mash on for my first beer, an English Bitter. Cool but bright start to the day.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

20 minutes in (and a little time to cool my sample) and time to check pH/gravity. All on track, time for a coffee.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

I’ve had quite a busy day today, kegging a beer and preparing for a double brew-day tomorrow - bitter and stout.

Speaking of stout some of you will know I’ve been wanting to improve my beers and in the case of stout I wanted a smoother flavour and a creamy head. I’ve made some progress here as you can see from this picture but I’ve learned a few things along the way so if you like stout and share my desire for a smooth nitro-stout, strap in…

View attachment 67371
On the subject of smooth flavour, this is of course a personal preference and many will argue a dry Irish stout is a different animal - agreed. That’s not what I want however. To achieve that smooth flavour I now cold-steep the roast grains. I did previously try adding the roast grains at the end of the mash but this didn’t go far enough. Here’s a picture of the dark grains steeping - this is 600g roast barley and 200g chocolate malt in 4l liquor. The grains are steeped overnight and the steeped liquor separated from the grain.

View attachment 67372
I initially added the steeping liquor at flameout and while this did produce a very smooth flavour there was also a raw grain flavour. The solution is to add the steeping liquor 10 minutes before the end of the boil to cook out that raw flavour.

The nitro dispense needs a different bottle of gas, 30/70 mixed gas (30% CO2, 70% Nitrogen). Mixed gas has a different fitting for the primary regulator so you also need a different primary regulator. Finally, you need a stout spout which is much like a regular tap spout but has a disk with about five small holes in it that the stout flows through - more on this in a moment.

A little bit of science (not hard) is needed to understand nitro-stout. Using regular 100% CO2 carbonation the CO2 easily dissolves in your beer and at dispense that dissolved CO2 is eager to escape and forms lots of big bubbles that rush to the surface coalescing into bigger bubbles on the way up and forming the head.

When using mixed gas the CO2 behaves just the same as above but Nitrogen doesn’t easily dissolve in your beer. It will do so though at high pressure and I’ll come back to this shortly.

Despite being hard to get into your beer, once there nitrogen isn’t in any rush to escape (related to the abundance of nitrogen in the atmosphere) and so a stout spout is used to create turbulence and encourage the nitrogen to form small bubbles - these create that creamy head. Because nitrogen is in no rush to escape the bubbles don’t rush to the surface or coalesce as quickly and that head can last. The CO2 in the meantime is desperate to get out and creates that cascading effect - the CO2 is tumbling the nitrogen bubbles! You’ll see you need the nitrogen for the creamy head of tiny tight bubbles and you need the CO2 for that cascading effect, if the balance is wrong one or the other effect will not be as good. This brings me back to pressure and I’m still talking 30/70 here. To get the right effect you need high pressure, depended on temperature of course. For my stout at about 12C the required pressure for carbonation and dispense is 52psi - yes, really. I tried lower pressure and you do get the head at about 45psi but no cascade.

Another interesting adventure…

I wonder if you could use the same gas with a lager to create something like Carling Premier or a bitter for something like Caffreys.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I wonder if you could use the same gas with a lager to create something like Carling Premier or a bitter for something like Caffreys.

Yes you can. You can use mixed gas for any beer but you’d have to be selective when entering BJCP style competitions. For your own consumption though, fill your boots!

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Just out of interest, what FG did you get on that Czech Pils, H - or is it still chugging?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Just out of interest, what FG did you get on that Czech Pils, H - or is it still chugging?

About 1014 in this last batch, I dropped the glucose and added more malt.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Gravity at the end of the mash-out was about 1053. Sparge water heated and the sparge is now in progress.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Pre-boil gravity was 1041 so a couple of points up on target and now I’m waiting for the boil to do it’s thing. I’ve washed up all the kit used to this point ready for the second brew and I’ve separated the roast grains from the steeping liquor for the stout.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Mash water is heating for the second brew, another batch of nitro-stout. The bitter is now in the fermentation cabinet, I got 21litres at an OG of 1045 - on the button.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

At the 20 minute mark my stout mash has the same pH and gravity as the bitter.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Have you compared your refractometer reading (OG) to a hydrometer? Mine looks identical to yours, and measured out a controlled sucrose solution at 1.050 SG today. My hydrometer read exactly 1.050. the refractometer read 1.045 or 1.046. just wondering whether mine is very duff

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

The mash gravity (pre-sparge) ended up at 1055, just a tad over the target.

Pre-boil gravity was 1045 so, again, 1 point up on target.

45 minutes in, time to add the steeped liquor to the boil. 3 litres of the good stuff.

The beer is now in the fermentation cabinet with the bitter. I collected 20 litres with an OG of 1052 finishing 1 point above target.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Have you compared your refractometer reading (OG) to a hydrometer? Mine looks identical to yours, and measured out a controlled sucrose solution at 1.050 SG today. My hydrometer read exactly 1.050. the refractometer read 1.045 or 1.046. just wondering whether mine is very duff

My refractometer is always a couple of points higher than my hydrometer. I can live with that because I always use the hydrometer for OG and FG readings.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

About 1014 in this last batch, I dropped the glucose and added more malt.

Is that the one you did the bulk of the mash at Beta Amylase temps? I was just interested to know whether you’d got a highly fermentable wort…

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Is that the one you did the bulk of the mash at Beta Amylase temps? I was just interested to know whether you’d got a highly fermentable wort…

You would think! The California lager yeast is not a high attenuator though at 77%-82%. I think it would have dropped another few points if left for longer but I have a schedule I need to keep.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

My first use of a tap on my fermenting bucket has been a minor disaster although to be fair it wasn’t the tap that caused problems. This is the setup I attempted, a tap with some hose and an in-line filter which I needed because my first dry hop on day 0 was leaf.

When I opened the tap beer leaked at an alarming rate from the filter (where the clear cover met the black body) so I had to remove it. I then watched shadows flit every few seconds down the hose into my keg - leaf hops!

I now have a keg of beer with leaf hops in and I have no doubt whatever that if I tried to dispense they are going to block the dip-tube and the poppet in the beer-out post. Damn!

What I’ve decided to do unless anyone has any bright ideas is just leave it for a couple of weeks to settle out (I’ve already displaced the air in the head space). I will then SYPHON(!) it into another keg and carbonate it from there.

I need a holiday!

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

My first use of a tap on my fermenting bucket has been a minor disaster although to be fair it wasn’t the tap that caused problems. This is the setup I attempted, a tap with some hose and an in-line filter which I needed because my first dry hop on day 0 was leaf.

View attachment 67565
When I opened the tap beer leaked at an alarming rate from the filter (where the clear cover met the black body) so I had to remove it. I then watched shadows flit every few seconds down the hose into my keg - leaf hops!

I now have a keg of beer with leaf hops in and I have no doubt whatever that if I tried to dispense they are going to block the dip-tube and the poppet in the beer-out post. Damn!

What I’ve decided to do unless anyone has any bright ideas is just leave it for a couple of weeks to settle out (I’ve already displaced the air in the head space). I will then SYPHON(!) it into another keg and carbonate it from there.

I need a holiday!

What a pain… what on Earth do you think was going on with the filter body?!
I’m sure the siphon idea is the best approach and will work absolutely fine.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

My first use of a tap on my fermenting bucket has been a minor disaster although to be fair it wasn’t the tap that caused problems. This is the setup I attempted, a tap with some hose and an in-line filter which I needed because my first dry hop on day 0 was leaf.

View attachment 67565
When I opened the tap beer leaked at an alarming rate from the filter (where the clear cover met the black body) so I had to remove it. I then watched shadows flit every few seconds down the hose into my keg - leaf hops!

I now have a keg of beer with leaf hops in and I have no doubt whatever that if I tried to dispense they are going to block the dip-tube and the poppet in the beer-out post. Damn!

What I’ve decided to do unless anyone has any bright ideas is just leave it for a couple of weeks to settle out (I’ve already displaced the air in the head space). I will then SYPHON(!) it into another keg and carbonate it from there.

I need a holiday!

I had a nightmare once and transferred a lot of hop matter into the keg. I left it as but in my case the dip tube got blocked and the beer wouldn’t dispense. I ended up siphoning to another keg.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

What a pain… what on Earth do you think was going on with the filter body?!
I’m sure the siphon idea is the best approach and will work absolutely fine.

Hi TETB! Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, it’s been a busy day.

I think the problem might be that there are several ways to assemble the filter but only one that gives a leak-proof joint. I need to test this idea before I next use it but inside the unit is a mesh filter that is cylindrical in shape but it is very slightly tapered and if it’s put together the wrong way round it prevents the cover/body from sealing. Also the tapered filter needs to be attached to the black body before the clear cover is fitted or again the seating of the filter prevents a good seal. I think these statements are correct from my post incident inspection of the components but I have yet to test them.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Hi TETB! Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, it’s been a busy day.

I think the problem might be that there are several ways to assemble the filter but only one that gives a leak-proof joint. I need to test this idea before I next use it but inside the unit is a mesh filter that is cylindrical in shape but it is very slightly tapered and if it’s put together the wrong way round it prevents the cover/body from sealing. Also the tapered filter needs to be attached to the black body before the clear cover is fitted or again the seating of the filter prevents a good seal. I think these statements are correct from my post incident inspection of the components but I have yet to test them.

Yikes… if you get a chance, couple you do a couple of photos once you’ve worked it out, please?