All you really need to make great beer.

Today, I will attempt to make a list of the things you really need to make great beer.  Not just OK beer.  Great Beer.  These are the things you need to make partial mash beer.  UPDATE: I HAVE 19 PARTIAL MASH RECIPES POSTED AT BREWTOAD.  JUST TYPE IN " ( REAL PARTIAL MASH ) "

• A willingness to learn coupled with a willingness to try and fail
• A desire to help others
• 2 Large pots 4-5 gallons each
• Some paint strainer bags
• A 6.5 Gallon Fermenter or two...
• or like most of us 6-11 fermenters
• A colander or sieve
• A wort chiller
• I realize I don't always use one.  I'm not the best example to follow in that way.   But I'm a dinosaur who has been brewing since the 1st Bush Administration.
• Some air locks
• A hydrometer.
• Refractometers are cool, but for my money use a hydrometer, the reading is what the reading is... no conversions, no calculations. 
• A thermometer
• A bottling bucket and some tubing
• A couple of large 30 gallon buckets (think laundry tub)
• For controlling fermentation temperatures
• I found mine at garage sales for $1.00 each. 

You can get all of this for under $250.00.   And with it you can make great beer.  Dare I say competition quality beer.   That's it.   You don't need a $10 K  eHERMs system.   You don't need a 3 tier gravity fed  brew sculpture.  Now those things are cool.  And they make brewing easier, and in some cases more fun.   And I will admit... I may have some of those things.  But I (fingers crossed) kinda promised SWMBO that I wouldn't keep getting too much more... (sorry honey, yes I do need a sliding door refrigerator/fermentation chamber in the garage from the used Restaurant supply place if you want your whirlpool tub back)  I digress, where was I... oh yeah these things are cool...But you don't really need them.

Here are some things that are nice to have.  

• A 5 gallon beverage cooler 
• A ball valve for the cooler
• A bottling wand
• An aeration stone and an aquarium pump
• A cheap turkey fryer with a large pot with a valve.  
• you can do full volume boils with 2 pots on the stove, but one big pot is nice to have. 
• I use and recommend the Cajun Injector Electric Turkey fryer.  it was about $100.00 and yes naysayers it can boil 6.5 gallons of wort.

All of these extra things cost you about $200.00.  So for $500 total you are truly set up to brew.  If you are industrious and if you are willing to go to garage sales, you can probably be set up with everything you could ever need to brew for less than $200.00 total.

This is my firm suggestion to you.   Give partial mash a try before you spend a bunch of money on a wort production system, try partial mash for a year or so.  You may find you never want to brew any other way.  Chris Colby editor of BYO and Beer and Wind Journal has written lots of great articles on partial mash, look them up.   http://byo.com/grains/item/2543-converting-to-partial-mash

If you're just itching to spend money on brewing, your first priority should be a temperature controlled fermentation system.   The guys at NC home brew have a great tutorial on this.  http://www.nchomebrewing.com/diy-mini-fridge-beer-fermentation-chamber-build/

So there you go.  This hobby doesn't have to be expensive, it does have to be fun and delicious.

Ok I said never again. But...

I tasted a raspberry wheat beer last night.  I forced a 1 liter in a sanitized coke bottle (PET).

I know I said never again, but Wow.  This may be the best raspberry wheat beer I have ever tried.   And I made it.   In my kitchen.

So the old adage, "never say never"  holds true.   Because this morning I find my self already planning my next raspberry wheat beer.   But I think Ill make some changes.    I'm going to try both extract and (fresh puree).

Easy Texas Two Step Raspberry Wheat Beer: Extract with Grains with Raspberry Extract.
(a raspberry wheat you can make in your kitchen or counter top)

1 lbs  Flaked Wheat
1 lbs  Honey Malt
3.3 lbs Liquid Malt Extract Preferably Wheat  I like Briess
2  lbs Dry Malt Extract Wheat
1 oz Cluster hops (7 AAU) at 30
1 oz Hersbrucker (4 AAU) at 5 Minutes
1 satchel of Fermentis US-05
1 tsp of yeast nutrient

• Steep Grains at around 155-158 for 30 Minutes in 1 Gallon of Water
• Rinse Grains with .5 Gallon of Water.
• Add Dry Malt Extract with heat off and stir to mix it all in to the wort
• Separate the Wort into two 4 Gallon or larger pots
• Add Near Boiling Water to bring boil up to 6 Gallons
• Bring both pots to a boil
• with 30 minutes left add Cluster Hops in a bag
• with 5 minutes left add Hersbrucker Hops in a bag
• with 4.9 minutes left add the Liquid Malt Extract (heat off ) stir in, heat back on.
• with 4.9 minutes left add yeast nutrient.
• At the end of boil you should have around 5 gallons of wort.
• Chill wort (or don't chill, you can just put the lid on at flame out, let it cool for an hour or two, wrap the top of the pot, where the lid sits with plastic wrap and let it cool slowly, when I do this I let it sit all night.) 
• Pitch entire satchel of US-05
• Ferment at 65-68F 14 days in Primary
• Right before you transfer to 2ndary, Create a raspberry puree of 3 lbs of frozen raspberries. 
• Add to pot, bring to 160 F for 10 Minutes
• Mash with a potato masher.
• Run through a fine sieve with cheese cloth. to remove all seeds and skins
• Rack beer onto Puree. 
• A slight new fermentation will start. leave it alone for 2 weeks.
• On bottling day add bottling sugar and 1-2 oz of Raspberry Extract to bottling Bucket.  The amount will depend on the flavor provided by the puree.   So taste it and decide.   The extract has better aroma, the puree better flavor. 
• Condition for 1 Week, or longer it gets better with age. 

This will work for any fruit wheat beer.  Try it with apricot...yum

Cajun Injector worked like a charm

All these guys online talk about the need for massive BTU systems.  They tell you you can never get a quality boil with an electric Turkey Fryer.  I'm here to tell you, they're wrong.

We brewed this weekend with the Cajun Injector Electric Turkey Fryer.   IT HAD NO PROBLEM BOILING 6.5 GALLONS OF WORT.   Boiling Full Volumes of Wort is a real key to brewing better beer.

Now in fairness we did a partial mash, and heated our sparge water on the stove.   Then we did a near boiling water addition to bring our wort to volume and to temperature.  But once we were at a boil the Fryer did fine.  We left the lid on, but ajar.  This created a very large gap for ventilation of Steam and the dreaded DMS.

You can see for yourself in the video at the left.  It is boiling away.  The brew in the pot is our "Risen APA"

Even the guys who are the most scared of DMS would have to agree that is more than enough ventilation to allow for steam and DMS to escape.

Here is another video of the boil with the lid off.  Not quite as vigorous but still just fine for brewing beer.  This affordable kettle should be a tool that any brewer who wants to step up to BIAB or Partial Mash should consider.   There is just no reason to spend thousands of dollars on your brewing system.   Use your head, buy stuff that makes sense.  

The electric turkey fryer came...

My Brew Partner just received the Cajun Injector Electric Turkey Fryer.  7.5 Gallon Capacity.  It only has a 1650 Watt heating element which will produce roughly 5600 BTUs of heat.  So once it's boiling it should be fine.  It will certainly produce more BTUs than we are losing.  But we may need to add a 1300 watt immersion heater to get to a boil quickly.  That would take us to around 10000 BTUs.  It takes about 7200 BTUs to boil 6.5 gallons in an hour.  So we should reach boil from 170 (mash out) in under 30 minutes.  I can live with that.  We may also insulate the side walls.  Either way, it is a counter top BIAB system capable of 5 gallon batches, and easily capable of full volume partial mash and extract.

update:  the turkey fryer was awesome for Partial Mash.  It should be just as great for Partial Mash and Extract.   Im Sold

Let the awesome brewing begin.  Our focus will be on accessible American Style Ales, and Pale Ales.  For the Fall we will brew some festbier, and some porters.

Can't wait to try this thing out.

A Return to Common Sense Home Brewing

It's time.  In fact, it is long past time for a return to common sense in home brewing.   It is time for a focus on the things that actually matter.  I understand this is a weird way to start a blog entry, but it sums up where I am with this hobby I love.   It is my core philosophy, and it was inspired by a conversation I had recently when getting ingredients at my LHBS.  The conversation went something like this

Me: "hey brewer X, how have you been?"
X: "good good, times are a little tight, you know we have 2 in college, and the oldest just had a baby..."
Me: "that's awesome congratulations"
X:  "Thanks,  so yeah, I have to brew up some cheap beer for a while"
Me: "How are you brewing now? all grain?  Do you still have your gravity system? Did you put your eHERMs on hold?"
X:  "No No... the Basement brewery is all tricked out... eHERMs,  super grain crusher 2000, ceiling crane for grain removal, even put up subway tiles... you should come check it out... I've spent a fortune on it lets brew sometime"
Me:  "yeah, sounds like fun"
X:  "so how are you brewing now?"
Me: " Still doing partial mash split full volume boils in the kitchen"
X:  "I don't know how you can do that man... doesn't that take forever?"
Me:  "about 3 hours"
X:  " Oh...uh... really?  3 hours? that's not too bad..."

Times are tight, and the guy just spent 10-15K on a home brewery.  To my knowledge he has never won a single award, and although his beer is very good, it was very good before he built the basement brewery.

PEOPLE LISTEN TO ME.  YOU CAN LITERALLY SET UP A 2 BBL BREWPUB BREWERY FOR LESS THAN THESE GUYS ARE SPENDING ON THEIR HOME RIGS.  AND BSG OR WHOEVER WILL COME SET IT UP FOR YOU.

I will proudly stick to the things that matter.  Full Volume Boil with common sense.  Correct Mash temperatures.  Correct Fermentation Temperatures, Correct Pitch Rate of Yeast.  I will proudly avoid weird grain or hop bills.   I will comment on each of these thing in days to come.