Here Come the Kegerators

Some of the boys have wanted to go in on batches with us, so we've started to assemble kegerators for them.  It turns out finding free refrigerators is easy as pie Craigslist.  I've picked up two and delivered them to the guys in the last 10 days.

We're in the process now of collecting the rest of the parts we need (shanks, lines, etc) as well as procuring CO2 bottles and regulators.  All in all these kegerators are going live for less than $150 each which is pretty good.  Plus, the guys get the extra freezer space, etc.  Good deal.

Hot Mash Tun Action

I realized that I never posted details about our awesome Mash/Lauter Tun. It's huge (I think it's roughly 45,000 quarts) to accommodate what is generally around 40 pounds of grain per batch.

Shawn put on his engineer's hat and built the Greatest Homebrew Manifold Ever to Grace The Universe. It disassembles for easy cleaning and everything.

Then, because he has an unlimited supply of Awesome, Shawn installed a sparge arm in the lid of the thing. We've been fly-sparging (and just plain fly) ever since.

Too Much Beer? That's Unpossible!

Seriously. We (and by "we" I mean "Shawn") had to buy more kegs just to have a place to put it all.

As a result we're going to relax our schedule just a tad. Big Brew Days will happen a bit more randomly now, so if you're thinking of dropping by keep an eye on the Next Big Brew Day block at the top-right of this page.

Speaking of dropping by, please do and help us free up some kegs. We haven't seen some of you (I'm looking at you ScottScatJeffBeanTonyPaulaPagsSoda) for a while and haven't seen others (RodTyAdamJackieJebMikeJessiePGDave) for a brew day ever. It's a dirty job...

BTW - this batch of Irish Red Ale is on the money, Money. Also, I wish I had taken another picture of the Octoberfest because it cleared up nicely after another week but I couldn't because Tony drank it all sheesh.

Better Bottle?

We picked up a ported Better Bottle and are giving it a test run this week. If we are happy with it, we plan to replace all our glass carboys with them.

The fact that they are much lighter and ported are big pluses, but the primary reason for the change is this collection of horror stories about serious injuries resulting from exploding carboys. The chance of something like this happening may be remote, but if there is a safer alternative that works, we're going to go with it.

They are about the same cost as glass, but the ported version ends up much more expensive as the valve is quite pricey. Overall the cost for these things is a bit ridiculous, but with no competition they only have to compete with the price of glass carboys (which all come from either Mexico or Italy.)

If your thinking about buying carboys, I would definitely consider getting a un-ported BB instead. Just the weight difference is worth it. They don't quite have the romance of the glass, but being lacerated to the bone isn't very romantic either.

Imagine doing this with a glass carboy...

New Kegs

Some new arrivals at the brewery including our new soon-to-be keggle #2. Like the Shamwow it was made in Germany which gives it extra cool-points.

Two keggles will allow us more flexibility, more efficiency on brew day, and the ability to brew 20 gallon batches if we desire. And we do desire.

(Semi) Live Temperature Data for Batch #23 Fermentation

I'm inputting this data in to a spreadsheet by hand and this chart will auto update to reflect the data. (Note: All done.)

I can't get it to size correctly and legend is cut off. The orange line is the fridge thermostat setting. Fixed.

As you can see, I had to babysit things for a bit around hour 27. To elaborate, the wort temp hit and stayed at 71F (max for this recipe is 72F) despite small ambient adjustments. I finally cranked down the thermostat and let the fridge cool. After about 10 minutes of cooling, the fridge hit 50F and the Wort dropped to 70. At that point I returned ambient to 63 and things stabilized.

UPDATE: Around hour 40 I have started to bring the ambient up as the wort has dropped to 68F - the lower limit of our acceptable range for this recipe. I want to bring the wort back up to 69F or 70F and hold it there for the rest of the fermentation.

UPDATE: As of hour 60-whatever, the wort has stabilized to ambient temp. As the interesting part seems to be over, I will no longer be updating the data set. This was a very interesting experiment and I think we collected some valuable data. We'll be doing this for the next several batches to see how they vary and to see if we can anticipate our ambient temperature adjustments.

Watching the Wort Temps

Now that our Coke fridge has been modified to control the temperature, we need to learn how to use it. As wort is fermenting in to beer, the yeast actually produce heat. I have read various estimate as to how much this will heat up the wort (4 -10 degrees F), but we need to find out definitively. Yeast produce different flavors depending on the temperature of their environment (the wort) so controlling that temperature is our goal.

Using a wireless thermometer, we installed the probe (long probe is looooong) in the lid of one of the primary buckets. This will let us keep a close eye on what is happening inside as fermentation takes place.

For this recipe (the Belgian White) we want to keep the wort between 68F and 72F. As the temperature inside the bucket tries to climb, I will counter it by dropping the temperature inside the Coke fridge.

Eventually we would like to make this automatic by wiring the probe directly to the thermostat, but for now it will be hands on.

As of this morning (16 hours after we pitched our yeast) the wort temp is 2 degrees warmer (69F) than the ambient air in the fridge. Fermentation is going great-guns, so I'll be checking it every hour or so and gathering data.

Supply and Demand

Our latest problem - getting our ingredients when we need them.

Now that we are brewing big batches we have run in to this problem a few times. Neither of our local homebrew stores are consistently prepared for us to come in and buy 30 pounds of various grains.

To make matter worse, we need to buy these grains no more than a day or so before brew day as once they are ground they begin to go stale.

Today, Shawn is driving to Columbia, MD (far far away) to attempt to complete our grain bill for this weekend. This, of course, sucks.

There are a couple of solutions to this problem.

First, we can submit our grain bill (and hop bill and everything else) to the store early and have them ensure that they order what we need.

Second, we can acquire our own grain mill. This would allow us to buy the grains far in advance and grind them on brew day. It would also allow us to buy grain in bulk which is much cheaper in the long run.

I expect that we may end up employing both of these solutions so that we are not scrambling around the state every time we are ready to brew.

Light Saber?

No! Refractometer! This tool allows us to test our mash/wort/beer quickly using very small samples. It was a Christmas gift from my dad. It is definitely the coolest looking piece of equipment I have in the beer-toolbox.

Keg #6 Joins the Ranks

Six kegs may seem excessive to some, but they are being divided between two households now. I expect we may see a few more before long.

Heater Hacking Part III - Success!

After much shenanigans, our Climate Controlled Fermentation Chamber is working like a charm. It will heat or cool as needed to maintain a specific temperature and has been running for about a week with no problems.

There are still some housekeeping tasks to do to hide the wiring and Shawn is looking for a thermostat that satisfies our requirements and can do remote sensing (so it can be on the outside of the fridge and the probe can be in the beer) but even as-is this thing is wonder.

Later I will post more complete information about how Shawn accomplished this amazing feat of beer-engineering (Beergineering!).

Oh Look... Heaven.

I put a shelf in our beer fridge. We can now easily fit 4 kegs or even carboys if we need to. I never bothered with this before, but with the volume that we are producing I think it will come in handy.

Heater Hacking Part II - But Wait...

After spending a bunch of time (not to mention cash) on integrating a heater in to our Coke fridge, we discovered something amazing/annoying.

The Coke fridge will heat itself.

The existing cooling system includes two high speed fans located inside the fridge. These fans pull air across a radiator (or exchanger or whatever it is called) and direct a sheet of cold air down the front of the fridge. I assume this is to achieve an air-curtain effect to minimized the loss of cold air when the door is opened.

Even when the compressor is turned off these high speed fans are still running. And guess what? The fan motors generate heat. DUH! So with the door closed, the compressor off, and the fans running the temperature inside the fridge slowly climbs. We went from 61F to 73F in about 30 minutes. Amazingly, this is actually TOO HOT. We need about 65F max.

Sigh.

So Shawn is going to figure out how to wire the system so that by default the fans are off. When we need a little heat, the fans will kick on. When we need to cool the fans and the compressor kick on. Simple, right?

Right.

Tappity Tap Tap

My grandparents sent us some cash-ola for Christmas and we took half of it and installed a tap on the beer fridge. Awesome!

Not only is this more convenient, but the inside of my fridge will stay cleaner as well. Sometimes after parties I would literally have to mop out the inside from beer being spilled and dripped from the party tap.

I still need to get and install a drip-tray for it and "balance" the system with longer hose on the beer side, but even without all that it's great!

Thanks Goggie and Pop!

Heater Hacking

Early on New Year's Eve, Shawn and I spent some time prototyping a heater for our Climate Controlled Fermentation Chamber (also known as the Coke Fridge).

We need the chamber to hold a specific temperature, so Shawn's idea is to hook up an auto-thermostat to the existing cooling compressor as well as a heating element. This will allow us to simply set the desired temperature and the system will do the rest regardless of the temperature of the basement.

The heating test went well, except we found out one important fact: thermostats designed for household HVAC systems are not responsive enough for this application. Shawn is looking for a substitute.

Fermentation Temperature Control

Controlling the temperature of fermenting beer is key. Remember my swamp cooler? We're not going to need that anymore...

Chiller / Lid Mod

Shawn did an amazing job altering his wort chiller so that it is much easier to use. The connections are now outside the pot making leaks inconsequential. We altered the lid as well and simply left the chiller in the pot for the entire boil.

Awesome Thermometer

Shawn installed this awesome thermometer on our HLT/Keggle. Nothing is as cool as a big-ass analog dial!

Shawn's Kegerator

Shawn picked up this old kegerator along with a CO2 tank and an empty 1/2 keg (now our keggle) the other day. It's big enough to hold 3 corny kegs. He has big plans for it including a 3 tap system and off-road tires. Imagine being at a party and seeing that roll up on a trailer! I know a lot of people who wont have to imagine for long...

Hi, I'm a Mash Tun

Shawn built me. I will also be used as a hot liqueur tank sometimes, depending on what kind and the quanity of beer being brewed. I am super awesome, but I'm going to have a big brother that is even awesomer. He is not this super cool yellow color though.