Brewing Process 2: Electric Boogaloo

Now, we have our wort in the boil kettle. Since this is a big stout, and we are looking for a higher ABV than your typical stout, we may be adding some adjuncts. In this case we would add Maltodextrin, which is an unfermentable sugar. This increases mouthfeel, head retention, and body, without affecting the flavor or ABV. For increasing ABV, we may add some Belgian Candi sugar. It is sort of like Rock candy in syrup form....basically sugar syrup. Yeast eat this stuff up, and it is an efficient fermentable. There are two ways to do this, add it to the boil, or in fermentation. There are a few advantages for each, but I will not bore you with those details.

Ahoy! Original Gravity Ahead!

A few tests are made before transfer is complete. Above, you see Daniel checking the wort's gravity to determine how close we are to getting the last usable wort out of the mash tun. This test is done several times until Original (pre-fermentation) gravity is reached. Once we get to the volume we want, we check again with a hydrometer. pictured below.

Now, the beer is in the boil kettle, where it will boil between 60-90 minutes. Today, we are doing a 90 minute boil. Transferring the beer over to the kettle, the beer is at about 170F, and we start the boil kettle while doing the transfer, so that we get a little more efficiency. Either bittering hops, or hop oils are added to the boil, as well as any adjuncts. Below is a photo of Daniel adding the hop oils. Hop oils are more commonly used now because of the mess from using hop pellets, or whole cone cone hops in the boil. Using oil raises the volume of beer significantly. More drinkable beer per batch = more sellable beer per batch. Hop oils are the way to go, yo.

Daniel adding hop oil

More later....Transfer to cold side....I know, I know, but you will have to wait. I have beer to brew!

They keep feeding me.

Brewing At The Beard: Adapt and Overcome

Today, although nursing a hand that lost a fight with an errant surfboard fin, I am at Lincoln's Beard with Monty and Daniel, brewing a Stout. Today, I am going to walk us through the Pro brew process as it applies to their equipment. Some of the details will change since we have a dedicated brewhouse, but the process, and more importantly, the adjustments are key to making the mostest, bestest, beer one can while pushing the envelope of size limitations (BAKAW!!)

When we arrive at 6:30, Daniel is here and warming up the mash tun to the desired temp. Lincoln's beard does not have a dedicated hot liquor tank, so this process uses a lot of water. Once the mash tun is at the desired temp, we add grain to the mill and that grain is mixed with water and steeped.

Daniel Adding malt to the Mill.

In this case, we are reaching the limit of the mash tun's capacity, so having control over the water flow is of the utmost importance if you want to get all the grain in this big olde stout. (They don't have a flowmeter)

This baby is packed!

Monty smashing doughballs anonymously.

Once the water and milled malt are added, they are mixed to insure that any doughballs (Jason's HS nickname) are broken up, so that water can fully saturate the grain and essentially make a tea of maltose and other sugars. At this point, I am inspired to create a recipe call "Churchill's Bathroom" we are thinking of a dark sour, but on purpose, maybe some cherry elements to balance the sour. This could be the second beer we brew at FN. The first will be my ESB, as it is the simplest recipe, and is a good hop calibrator for later, hoppier beers.

Once the mash has steeped for about an hour, we Vorlauf, which is to recirculate the liquid in the mash tun to get a clearer mash with less sediment inside. Once we have the wort (Unfermented beer) cleared up, we will then rinse or sparge the grains, rinsing all the sugar out of the grain, while transferring the wort to the boil kettle.

Note the grain in the filter as the wort is recirculated through the mash tun.

This is set up for recirc, with the pump in the foreground.

Like Motor oil, but way tastier.

Adaption will be made along the hot side process to dial in the specific gravity and pH of the wort before fermentation. We couldn't get two bags of grain into the mash tun, because of the flow issue. Brewmaster did not want to exceed a certain grist to water ratio, which makes sense. This is going to be adjusted a couple of ways depending on a few outcomes. likely, the flavor of the pre-boil wort is going to be within tolerances, but the gravity will be light. Boil times can be adjusted to evaporate and raise OG (Original Gravity), simple sugar can be added to the boil, but only if the wort flavor profile is within tolerances. Water can be added to lower the specific gravity, if the beer is too dense.

Things on the hot side are controllable, obviously, having more control on the front end of the process, flowmeter, a grant, and a few other components make the brew day easier and more efficient. Things we will have in our quiver.

What I like about coming here is that I am on the front lines of non-linear thinking about the process and what can go wrong, or what can at least turn a bit. These guys don't have a lot of luxuries, and because of that, they are excellent problem solvers.

Working with larger, more production style brewhouses, like The Tank and Biscayne Bay and Intracoastal, along with smaller outfits like Lincoln's Beard prepares me for the inevitable, by covering most bases. We are somewhere between these two styles of brewhouse.

Also, they feed me.

SOP Series 3/10 Wort Stability Test

This test, like the forced fermentation test requires no special equipment, but is of utmost importance in diagnosing where issues in the brewing process have arisen.

We take 1L of unfermented wort, so pre-pitch, and put it in a sanitized 2L bottle with a one way vent. You simply store that wort while the mother beer is fermenting in a warm space, and if there are signs of fermentation, then it shows there is an issue with your CIP process, or you have a wild yeast or bacterial infection in the beer.

We will do this with every batch of beer, as it acts as a failsafe that prevents us from moving possible infected beer into several other tanks and then contaminating those tanks, as well as the possibility of serving contaminated beer to our customers.

The cost is the same as the forced ferment test, so just the loss of one liter of wort, and some 2L bottles. (These are reusable by the way) I am trying to avoid single use plastic in the brewery wherever possible.

Update: After a visit to the Tank Brewing, I discovered Whirl Paks, and they changed my life. I can do the wort stability test using less than 500ml of wort, simply putting the wort in a bag. I also discovered some other tests that I will explain the efficacy of, and describe the cost/benefit of in the coming days.

SOP Series Part 2 of 10 (Forced Fermentation)

The second thing I want to implement, costs us nothing, yet can ensure that a batch of beer is ready when we release it. The technique is called Forced Fermentation, and is done by very few breweries of our size, but is an essential QC step to ensure consistently excellent beer.

A forced fermentation should be done with each batch of beer. Especially when we are re-using yeast, as this is a good indicator of whether or not the yeast has reached the end of its life span, and can no longer be re-pitched.

We draw a liter of wort from the fermentor and add some yeast slurry to that, putting it in a sanitized container, like a 2L bottle. Then leaving that to ferment at room temp while the mother batch does its thing as well.

Within a few days, due to the high pitching rate (the number of yeast cells per liter of wort) and the higher fermentation temperature, the yeast will fully attenuate, or eat up all the available sugar within the wort, which lets us know the maximum attenuation of that yeast strain during this pitch. The smaller, over pitched, beer will finish before the mother beer letting us know where we should be gravity-wise with the mother beer. We can check this against the recipe, which has the final gravity of the beer as a target.

What this tells us is a few things; if the yeast has been pitched too many times, it will not reach final gravity, which allows us some time to add some more yeast to the batch and properly finish out the beer. Also, if we have a bad batch of yeast, we can also adjust (Although this should be checked by SOP 3, but it still occasionally occurs) This step, which costs us a few 2L plastic bottles and a couple of blow off tubes, can save batches of beer, and maintain flavor consistency.

Here is a link to an article that likely more eloquently explains the process, and has some photos.

Forced Fermentation

10 SOP Procedures for Our brewery (Part 1: Fermentation Temperature Control)

Fermentation Temperature Control is the 4th most important thing to master for brewing consistantly great beer. Numbers one two and three are Cleaning and sanitation.

Pro breweries typically use a propylene glycol chiller system to keep beer at a consistent temperature. Fermentation vessels are jacketed, or are double walled and have coils, or soft tubing that a glycol solution flows through to chill the beer to optimal fermentation temps, and maintain that temp. A thermostat is set  and the system pumps glycol which removes volumes of heat from the fermenter, carried by the glycol then released through compression and evaporation. It is similar to an air conditioner, except focused on the vessel itself, and not the environment. I will attach a video that explains the system if you are interested.

I have been looking at a few glycol systems and am trying to troubleshoot problems so that we can avoid expensive repairs and downtime. One major thing to do involves the plumbing layouts. We will need to have by-passes in the plumbing so that if a pump breaks, or a thermostat fails, or there is a problem with the chiller, we can still control the temperature in our other tanks, only losing production in the one tank. This seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many breweries lack this bypass.

It is simply a matter of some plumbing and a few valves, but I want to be sure we include this in the process.

Here is quick YOu Tube video for y'all. I love watching this stuff.

Glycol Chiller System How it Works