Making Beer

Useful Information

General Brewing

• How to Brew. Sections one and two should be read before attempting to brew as we are skipping straight to using specialty grains (the extra effort is trivial).

Software

• QBrew recipe formulation tool and batch log. Available in Debian, and indispensable for the Free Software loving brewer. Lacking a few features compared to proprietary offerings, but bpt and ClintonEbadi are programmers...

Location Specific

• American Brewmaster Our friendly Local Home Brewing Store

Water

• Town of Cary Water Quality Report.

• Water Adjustment Calculator and an alternative calculator

• All Grain Water Chemistry Somewhat applicable for extract brewing

Cary uses chloramines rather than chlorine for water purification. The homebrew shop was helpful and warned that this does not evolve out as gas during boiling like chlorine does, and results in band-aid like flavors in the final beer. To counteract this a quarter of a campden tablet must be added for each five gallons of water used. This will react with the chloramines and cause them to evolve out as sulfur and chlorine gases within approximately fifteen minutes. The water may then be boiled as usual.

For extract brewing water adjustment is not essential, but water in the Raleigh region is soft enough that there will be issues with hop bitterness not being properly attenuated. The LHBS provided Water Crystals (8:1 CaSO₄:MgSO₄) with a recommended rate of one or two tsp per five gallons. A teaspoon has a mass of 4g (3.55...g:0.44...g).

Sulfate:Chloride ratio of raw water = (approximately) 1.2:1.0 which is not particularly good for anything. This should be closer to 2:1 for bitter ales, 1:3 for stouts and porters, and 1:2 for milder ales (e.g. Justin's Brown Ale). Some minor adjustment with NaCl will be needed; since extract is being used and the NaCl content is unknown a conservative approach is best. ClintonEbadi suspects aiming for a ratio of 2:1 for bitter beers, 1:2 for more malt dominated beers, and leaving it alone for the others is the best approach for now.

According to BeerSmith our Magnesium levels are insufficient for yeast nutrition, and the sulfate levels are too low for bitter beers (like ClintonEbadi's Pale Ale recipe).

Based upon this information it appears that a good approach will be to add 2g of Water Crystals to all batches with an appropriate amount of NaCl to balance the additional Sulfate.

Available Equipment

So far all owned by ClintonEbadi and available for shared use.

Wort Production

• Bayou Classic KAB5 Low Pressure Propane Burner. 100,000 BTU/h super burner. MORE POWER.

• 2'x2' Paving Stone to provide a stable surface for the burner and protection for deck wood against drying out or scorching

• Polarware 30 quart stainless steel brew kettle. Basic, but workable for full five gallon wort boils. LHBS recommended the low end kettle and reserving funds for a future purchase of a fancy ten gallon kettle.

• Immersion Wort Chiller. Just a basic coiled copper tubing gadget.

• Igloo Lunchbox Cooler for steeping specialty grains. Maybe, not sure if this will hold heat well enough. If it proves unacceptable a small cooler will need to be procured.

Fermentation

• 8 Gallon Ale Pail

• 8 Gallon Glass Carboy

• 5 Gallon Glass Carboy for secondary fermentation

• 1.5 Gallon Glass Jug for minibatches or starters (volume not entirely certain--definitely larger than 1 gallon, but not 2 gallons)

• 64oz Glass Jug (Rogue Dead Guy Ale Jug) for starters

• Cooling system A plant water drainage tray, tshirts, and a box fan... not as nice as a basement, but it'll have to do.

• Airlock enough for all fermentors and one starter jug (with stoppers for the carboys)

Siphoning &c

• Autosiphon

• 10' 5/16" ID Siphon Hosing

  • Split with a venturi tube gadget for wort aeration

• Faucet hose adapter. Because it's getting cold and outdoor faucets need to be turned off soon.

• Bucket Filler. Homemade hose end with siphon tubing attached to make filling five gallons of water a lot less of a pain in the ass.

Bottling

• 8 gallon bottling bucket with a spigot

• Bottling Cane with an auto shutoff and whatnot

• Bottle Capper basic wing capper

• Drying Rack Plywood board with removable legs and holes for drying bottles after sanitization

Science!

• Hydrometer for taking gravity readings

• Floating Thermometer

• Cylinder not graduated, but with a 100mL (maybe--have to double check this) line marked. Used when taking gravity readings.

• Wine Thief to take samples for gravity readings

Books

• Beer Captured. A recipe book of 150 clone brews. Helpful as a basic guide for various styles.

NEEDED

• Stirring Spoon ClintonEbadi has a metal spoon that should work, but a larger one is probably needed

• Propane Cylinder. Lowes sells new 20lbs capacity cylinders for $30, and it appears that a fill up will cost around $25. The alternative is to do cylinder exchange which works out to the same dollar amount, but for a used cylinder and only 15lbs of fuel. If a convenient filling station can be found it makes far more sense to buy an empty cylinder and fill it.

• Spray Bottle for storing StarSan solution when making a full batch of Idodophor is infeasible but things need to be sanitized (e.g. when taking gravity readings)