Cream ale no cool brew day

It wasn't supposed to be a no chill brew day.  It was supposed to be a treatise on cooling with ice.  But, as I've warned you,  you have to source your ice carefully.  And well the inspection of the ice machine was last Monday, and it hadn't been cleaned yet Saturday morning,  the last cleaning being Friday morning at 2:34 am.  Alright. .. no chill it is.   NOTE this is not the norm for my local Wal-Mart.  They're normally on the ball.  

Whenever I can I try to think about the environment.   As a home brewer you can waste a lot of water.   7 gallons minimum are needed to brew 5 gallons of beer.   Chilling with a wort chiller means another 10 to 20 gallons.   So I try whenever I can to use less water.  I'm currently designing a closed loop system with a sump pump. So that I can chill fast and use less. 

My strategies:
1. Chilling with ice
2. No chill 
3. Closed loop system with a sump pump in a cooler of ice water.

No chill was,  like many recent beer innovations,  invented by the Australians.   They have had a huge drought for many years.  Beyond their normal arid climate.   It occurred to some one some day that there was no reason to chill wort quickly if you could protect it from microbes and just let it cool naturally.    Zero water use.  The only hang up. .. hop oils continue to react with the hot wort.  So it's tough to make super hoppy beers.   They compensate with hop teas and dry hopping. 

But when you're making cream ale... one of the least hoppy styles. Well then, "goodonya, It's all apples mate". (typed in my best Aussie accent)

If Ive said it once, Ive said it 2x ORGANIZE!

So here is my brew day.
Before I start brewing, I wash all of my gear, and organize my ingredients.   In this beer there aren't a bunch of crazy hop additions.  When there are crazy hop additions I tend to split them up and set them on sticky notes with the addition times.

If you don't organize, you'll find yourself running around like crazy trying to find something you may need later.  After I took the picture I realized, I didn't have my pH stabilizer, irish moss, or yeast nutrients out.

Check your grain temps.
Use an online mash calculator. its easy!

I always check the temperature of my grains.  There are many calculators on line that can help you hit your strike temperatures.  Long term I am determined to get the BrauSupply UniBrauMini.  It can easily produce 3.5 gallon all grain and 5 gallon partial boil partial mash. Controlling mash temps is the biggest challenge of the electric turkey fryer. But the more I use it the better I get.   On this day, in this kitchen I nailed it.

The key to getting the strike and mash temps correct on the turkey fryer, is to use the insulation between the walls and the kettle.  Get the water to temp.  Dough in.  Then cover it with blankets and walk away.  I open it at 30 and 45 to check temps and stir.  Thats all.  Just walk away.

Nailed the mash temp.  Got a little hot for while but I stirred
like crazy and got it under control.  

When I boil i leave the lid on and ajar.  It really
gets the boil to a vigorous point.  With the lid ajar
there is no risk of DMS, never had a problem.
Mandy the brew dog is sealing the cat's water
in this photo to the left.  Bad Mandy!

The mash went  smoothly, and I added 2 lbs of DME dissolved in 2 gallons of water.   Then I rinsed the grains with enough hot water to bring my pre boil volume to 6.5 gallons.  (by this point SWMBO had informed me we had plans and I would not have time to chill with my immersion chiller and pitch my yeast).  OK, this beer isn't very hoppy, so I guess I'll no chill it.

As you can see if I put the lid on during the boil, I leave it ajar by about 1.5".  This gives me a rigorous rolling boil.   It also allows the dreaded and overly feared DMS precursors to boil off.   In truth modern malted barley is so well modified, there is very little risk of DMS.  But a rolling hard boil breaks down protein and makes for much clearer beer. 

The beer in the middle is the cream ale. Also
Pictured are a belgian blonde (left), honey brown
(one gallon), and the closet cleaner pale ale. 

So this brings us to the end of the boil.   At the end of the boil, I pulled the hop bag,  and let it drain out completely.  I twisted it to extract all of the yummy hop oils.   Then I wrapped the kettle in saran wrap and foil (not pictured) all the way around the seam, and let it sit.   It is a little after noon now. and the kettle seems to be down to pitch temperatures. So very soon, Ill go let it drain into a sanitized fermenter, hydrate my US05 and put it into the whirloment 2000 fermentation chamber / whirlpool tub.  The whirloment is staying around 66F even on 100 F days. So.  I figure my primary active fermentation is getting up to 69F or 70F. Not bad for Safale US05.   It doesn't kick off anything funky until the
high 70s. If you don't have true temperature control.  And I don't right now due to some a hole scrappers stealing my undercounter fridge as it was out side drying out,  US05 is a great choice.  You can make just about any clean ale style with it.   As of this morning the US05 was rocking. With a nice krausen already developing and an occasional bubble.   Should be another quaffable cream ale.   A Quaffale if you will.  Next weekend I'm having a brew party at home.  Some friends who brew, and some newbies are coming over to learn from the old guy.  

Had a sample of this last night, I was adding gelatin to make it crystal clear... it's freaking amazing.  Cant Wait to get this one in bottles and 2 liters and start drinking it.  

The closet cleaner Pale Ale and chilling with Ice.

Sunday, I had found some time to brew. Unfortunately, it was Sunday. Which means the local home brew stores were closed.  Here in Kansas City where I live, we are blessed with 7 home brew stores.   But none of them are open on Sunday.   And we had an impromptu get together the night before, so the kitchen was destroyed.   Step one of brewing in your kitchen (Counterbrew) is to clean your kitchen.  So 35 minutes later the kitchen was clean and I was ready to brew.  Now when I say clean I mean it.   I even wipe down the cabinets, clean the floors, and clean the countertops.   Being a brewer has taught me to be the fastest, best kitchen cleaner I know.   By the way washing by hand is way faster than your dishwasher... just saying.

Sunday, and the homebrew stores are closed? Fortunately, I am a homebrewer, I have some of ingredients lying around. Like you, I imagine, I always have the best of intentions for my excess ingredients, but I never quite seem to get to them.

Fridge and Closet Gold
The buckets are fruit beers
awaiting bottling. 

A quick search of the brew closet revealed the following.;

• 3 lbs of maris otter
• .25 lbs of munich dark
• .25 lbs of vienna
• .25 lbs of carapils
• 2 lbs of dry malt extract
• 2 oz of Centennial
• 1 oz of Simcoe
• 1 oz of Cascade

No yeast... hmm... Ok simple solution.  I'll bottle up the 1 gallon Cascade I made a couple of weeks ago and use the yeast slurry from that batch.  I think it was Nottingham.  

I have 5.2 pH stabilizer, Irish Moss, and Yeast Nutrient on hand at all times. 

This ingredient bill sounds perfect for a 3.5 gallon batch of Pale Ale.   So that is what I made a simple stove top pale ale with 8 hop additions 5 of which came in the last minute.   I even used ice to chill this thing down.   

Doughing in on the stove top. 3.75 lbs of grain.   Could have made just a simple 2 gallon all grain BIAB but, I decided that I wanted to use up my DME as well. I added 5.2. pH stabilizer prior to dough in. I heated the strike water to 160 and added my grain.   I came damned close to my strike temperature.   Brewtoad has a feature for calculating strike water.

 After a 60 minute mash.   I drained the grains and rinsed with about a gallon of 168F water.  Then I squeezed the bag to get to a volume of 3.5 gallons.  Wait? what the what? 3.5 gallons for a 3.5 gallon batch?  are you crazy?  yes, yes we are...I told you earlier I was going to use Ice to chill this down.  So the small boil after evaporation gives me 2.5 gallons.   8.45 lbs of ice brings me back to 3.5+ gallons of wort.  Its simple to do and chills your beer instantly.   Some are concerned about the sanitation of packaged ice.  But in truth the FDA and local health and safety carefully monitor ice machines and ice packaging.   I get my ice at Walmart, the inspection report and date are on the side of the machine.  It was inspected last Monday, and Friday.  And passed with no deficiencies. Seems pretty safe to me.  More on this later.

I broke my 4 oz of hops into 8 additions.   

Each addition was .5 oz.  Brewtoad estimates 79 IBUs.  Should be amazing. 

60 Centennial and Simcoe

15 Centennial

10 Centennial

5 Cascade

0 Cascade Centennial and Simcoe 20 minute hop stand after flame out.  

So 2.5 oz of hops in the last 5 minutes of the boil. That should give me a bit of a tongue stinger. Which I love.  My current favorite commercial beer is boulevard's "The Calling"  This is by no means an effort to clone that beer, but it should still be interesting and delicious.   I mean really, who among us doesn't love a ridiculous pale ale?  

Chilling With Ice

I sometimes chill my wort with Ice.  Yes, I have an immersion chiller. Yes, it works greatish.  (It will be better when I can add another 25 ft of coil to it.  But there is something else that works great too.   ICE.   Ice can be safely used to chill down your beer.  and using 1 gallon of ice to chill your beer is far more environmentally responsible than using. 10 gallons of cold running water.    Here's how I do it.  

• I buy my ice at an ice machine (think wal-mart)  not from a place where they deliver the ice (think gas station).   
• The machines are regularly inspected for sanitation, usually 1x a week.  
• I buy a 10 lb bag of ice,  from which I remove 1.5 lbs. 
• I am extra sanitary when working with ice.  nothing touches the ice,  the scissors are sanitary, my hands are sanitary. 
• I sanitize two 5 gallon buckets in addition to my fermentation vessel.
• I put 8.5 lbs of ice into one of the buckets
• I pour in my nearly boiling wort.  this batch had a 20 minute hop stand so it was probably only 185 F.
• I then pour the wort back and forth a couple of times between the two buckets.  
• BOOM -  75 F  Pitching temperature and aerated wort!

In 10 + years of doing this I have never had an infection.  But I'm a freak for sanitation.  I stay sanitary even during my boil. Empirical experience tells me the practice is safe.   It shortens my brew day.  And it is better for the planet.  So, the Aussies can keep their no chill methods.  I'll stick with my ICE.  

Strawberry Blonde Brew Day 1.052 NO CHILL

Yup, I brewed again.   2 days, 2 brews.  So much fun.  But Today things didn't go exactly as planned. You see, today wasn't supposed to be a no chill brew day but a meeting at church cut my brew day short.   So for the first time we here at counter brew bring you... a no chill brew day.  It's a strawberry blonde ale, so I'm not worried about the hops. We'll see how it turns out.

Of course Ill keep everyone posted, and if it is great beer, I'll probably start no chill brewing when ever I can. To be honest it has always bothered me how much water is wasted in the chilling of beer.  I know the theory is sound, I know that down under guys do it all the time, but I haven't had the courage to try it yet.  But, hey, anything that makes my brew day easier...

Today was a blonde ale... in my crazy head a blonde ale is a cream ale at a little higher OG and with a little more freedom on SRM and gran bill.  I know classically I should use Windsor or an English ale yeast but I usually use US05.  And this one is destined to have strawberry flavor added, so no reason for a yeast with any complication at all. Truth be told this one is for SWMBO and her girl friends.  It is a classic summer beer.   Ill probably brew a wheat next weekend and that one too will have a flavoring added (apricot or raspberry).  Easy way to create fun summer beers.  My new fermentation chamber can hold 6, 5 gallon fermenters so... yeah, lets fill them all.  When that is done, Ill begin my Lagers and Stouts.   I know many of you brew lagers in the winter for summer, but I brew them in the summer with Wyeast 2112.  The idea is to have plenty of non challenging beers around for football season, and to build a series of beers on one yeast cake (standard lager, premium lager, bock, ocktoberfest)

Today was also a traditional brew day.  No partial mash or BIAB.  A relatively small grain bill meant it was time to use the 2, 2 gallon  beverage coolers with the bags as filters.   Using the bags as filters means you don't need to vorlauf.  A quality voile bag will create a clear grain free wort.  Nice time savings.  Even though I could't chill my beer, it was still a fun brew day, and I continued to learn a lot about the Cajun Injector as a brew kettle.  I think I actually figured out my main practices from here on out.   So regardless of how the beer turns out this was a great brew day.  Crazy as it may sound I plan on brewing Partial Mash, most all of the time. A grain bill up to 6 lbs with 2 lbs of DME means I need about 3 gallons of water for strike, 2 gallons of 170 F for the rinse, and 2.25 gallons addition.   It's the addition that makes this perfect... Into the addition, on the stove top, I dissolve my DME.  I bring it slowly to near boiling.  This weekend Ill post a step by step of how I rule the brewing world with my Janky, Ghetto Set Up.