Out Of Key Brewing

I did a ten gallon split batch of Harry Knuckle Rye IPA.  Half is fermenting on US05 and the other on wyeast bavarian lager yeast at 50 degrees.  I am going to try and have the ale half ready for the holidays.

On Sunday I did a 5 gallon batch of Schwartz beer.  Not sure on the name.  The recipe broke down like this:

Pilsner (2.0 SRM) 60.5%
Munich Malt, Dark (15.5 SRM) 27.9%
Carafa III (525.0 SRM)  7.0%
Caramel/Crystal Malt – 60L (60.0 SRM) 4.7%

Magnum [14.10%] (60 min) Hops 24.3 IBU
Spalter [4.10%] (20 min) Hops 3.0 IBU

Mash at 154 for 60 minutes.

Mill the the Carafa seperate from the other grains and do not mash it.  You want to cap the mash with these grains. I added them to the mash before the first vorlouf.

The Schwartz is for the St. Patricks day party.  It should have 2 solid months to lager. It is fermenting in the same water bath as the Harry Knuckle Rye Lager.  I used a 2 liter starter of Bohemian lager yeast.

I don’t normally write endorsements of Online Homebrew stores, not sure why, I suppose I just never had any reason to.  Normally I order my supplies from one of two homebrew shops.  They both are large and do a fine job.   What I find lacking is their customer service.   It has just never impressed me.  While listening to an archive show of BrewStrong I heard an ad for the fine people at Brewmaster’s Warehouse.  Their hook?  10% off if you use the coupon mention BNArmy at checkout.  That was enough to get me to check them out.

The site is well designed and easy to navigate.   The search functionality works well.  Grain is organized into logical groups.  They support the ability to build custom recipes online, order the grains, and then share them with the interwebs.  But lets be honest here, while all the above may have drawn me in, what kept me there were the prices.  Their specialty grains are the best priced on the internet (even before the coupon).  I have been in the market for an oxygen system for a couple months.  I would have liked to buy it a couple months back but they have been out of stock at one large retailer for over 2 months.  BMW had them in stock and at prices that were extremely competitive.  I ended up placing a large order for all my non base malt grains for the next several months, my oxygen system, and some flasks for yeast starters.  This was on a Friday after close time for them.

Monday morning I got a call from them.  My first thought was that something was out of stock and would need to be removed from my order.  Fine.  It happens.  My concern was that when this happens at other stores it moves your orders to the bottom of the list and it typically takes a couple extra days to ship.  Imagine my surprise when they told me that instead of removing the items they were going to swap them out with better items at no extra cost.  Check this out.  I had ordered a pound of Calcium Chloride.  It was out of stock.   What they did for me was,  send me 2 oz (solving my immediate shortage), and once the pound is in stock they are going to ship it to me.   At another homebrew shop, my only option was drop it form the order or wait.  This was way above and beyond.  Add this to the fact that that I received my shipping notice that afternoon and the order was delivered two days later.  I was impressed.

The order was well packed,  The yeast was sent with a gel ice pack,  All the flasks were intact, and all the grains computer labeled with maltster and grain type in heat sealed heavy plastic bags.  Perfect execution.

The only thing I found lacking was the ability to save your cart.  Personally I find it nice to be able to be build a shopping cart over the course of a month or two.  Think of something I need to brew my Imperial Wit next spring, log in, add it to my cart, and log out.  Then when its time to place my order, it is already full of stuff that I would otherwise have forgotten.  Minor and something that can be rectified with alittle technical work.

So in summary Brewmaster’s Warehouse:

Great Prices.         Check.
Flat Rate Shipping.   Check
Customer Service.     Check.
Above and Beyond.     Check.
My new brew shop.     Check.

TLDR:  Brewmasters warehouse has great prices and great service.  Use BNARMY coupon for 10% off your order.  Its my new brewshop of choice.

Ron over at Shut up about Barclay Perkins says today what I think is on the minds of many people.

Just brew good refreshing beer

Whats the point of brewing of going extreme if it tastes like shit.

In the defense of extreme beers I think one source of these styles may be the need to break from the yellow fizzy beers the most American beers drink.   Really I think its not too different from a teenager dying their hair purple do be “different”.  Perhaps to break the mold of their parents.  Of course, in time ,when everyone is “different” we cease being different at all.

Lite Lager anyone?

Stan made an interesting post today about an old book that he came across on google books.  In it the author makes the case and gives direction for using potatoes in brewing beer.  Anyone ever done it?  I think I may see a small batch of potato porter in the future.

The entire family came down with Swine Flu this past weekend.  My daughter was the first to go on Friday afternoon spiking a fever of over 103.  My wife was next Friday night at 1 am.  Her fever also hit over 103.  And last but not least my son succumbed to it at 3 am.  His fever was just shy of 103.  I spent the weekend taking care of them because I had swine flu this summer while they were all out of town.  All in all I would say that while the H1N1 sucks for for about 36 hours, it really is quite Mild.  Lots of fluids and asprin to manage the fever and you will make it though fine.  By Sunday everyone was feeling much better and I was able to brew what I am going to call my Swine Flu Mild:

4.00 lb        Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)       Grain        65.6 %
1.00 lb        Caramel/Crystal Malt – 60L (60.0 SRM)  Grain        16.4 %
0.50 lb        Chocolate Malt (400.0 SRM)             Grain        6.6 %
0.25 lb        Brown Malt (65.0 SRM)                  Grain        4.1 %
0.20 lb        Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain        3.3 %
0.20 lb        Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)             Grain        3.3 %
0.40 oz        Simcoe [12.20%]  (60 min)              Hops         19.9 IBU
Wyeast 1318 London Ale III 2000ml starter

Again hops are a touch non traditional, but Simcoe provide such a smooth bitterness I dont think its going to be an issue.  My starting gravity was 1036, the above recipe should yield 1032 with 75% efficiency.   A touch darker than typical but the roastiness should play nicely off all the crystal in the grist.  I used a couple grams of Chalk, as well as a 3 to 1 ratio of Calcium Chloride to Gypsum to bring the ratio over to the malty side.  Fermenting now at 66 degrees.

The plan is to fine with gelatin this weekend and cold crash and carbonate.  I hope to be able to serve it Thanksgiving weekend.

The Problem
Chicago has moderately alkaline water with approximately 100 part per million (ppm) Calcium Carbonate (CaC03)(Also known as Chalk).  Given my Calcium (CA) levels of 35pmm my water’s Residual Alkalinity (RA) is computed at 55.    This water is perfect for brewing beers in the amber range (10-15 srm) however it is tough to brew beers lighter in color due to issues with Mash PH.  The general rule of thumb is the higher the water alkalinity (roughly correlated to RA) the more appropriate the water is for darker beers.  The affects of alkalinity on mash PH can be counteracted by boosting CA levels via the additions of either Calcium Chloride (CaCl2), Gypsum (CaSO4).  These Calcium additions however are limited primarily because it is best to keep CA levels in a finished product below 150 ppm.  While it may be possible to drive down RA far enough to brew a light lager (3 SRMish) the resulting water will most likely not yield a great tasting beer.

The Solution
One option would be to brew using all distilled or reverse osmosis water.  This water is entirely devoid of any minerals and the brewer would then build the water that is appropriate to the style being brewed.  This approach works perfectly however it does not work in my brewhouse because I am cheap and don’t have the time to make a water run every time I am going to brew.  If you have the luxury of extra time and money you can stop reading now.   However what I present costs virtually nothing and takes no additional time, only a touch of planning ahead.

The Solution my brew house is currently using Calcium hydroxide to remove Alkalinity from the brewing water. The process is described in great detail by AJ DeLange and Hubert Hangofer in a set of Home Brew Digest posts about the process.  Both of these gentlemen are quite knowledgeable regarding chemistry and do a great job of filling in the details of what is going on in the process.  If you are interested in all the details I suggest that you review their posts in detail.   However I would like to point out that Hangofer adds:

The method is widespread among Austrian / Bavarian brewers
(geology is based on limestone, water high in temporary hardness).
It’s allowed according to Bavarian Reinheitsgebot…

The point to emphasize here it this is not a new process and has been used for many years to combat high RA water.

Enough background lets get into the details of the process.

The quick summary of the chemistry for the non-chemist
Based upon your Alkalinity and Calcium levels in your water we can calculate an amount of Calcium hydroxide to add to your water that will remove your water’s alkalinity.  Where does it go?  It will settle onto into the bottom of your vessel as chalk (CaC03).  The remaining water will have ~ 0 alkalinity and will have a reduced amount of Calcium.

Warnings
Calcium hydroxide is a chemical and should be kept out of the hands of children and away from pets.  Care should used when working with it.  It can and will burn you if you handle it with bare hands.  This being said it is a common addition to pickles and other food products to preserve freshness when storing.  You should not attempt this process if you do not have a good gram scale with precision to .1 grams.  These can be purchased for less than $20 shipped on Ebay and are perfect for measuring hops and other salt additions in your brew house.

Where to buy
Any grocery store should have Pickling Lime in the canning section near the Glass Jars.  This is a great source of Calcium hydroxide because it is food grade.  It should probably cost about 3 or 4 dollars for a pound.  This will last you a long, long time.  My treatment of 15 gallons called for the addition of 4.2 grams for 15 gallons of water.  Roughly calculated I can treat 1600 gallons of water for 4 dollars.

The procedure (Simplified Version)
1.  The night before.  Add all your brewing water (Mash + Sparge) to a vessel.
2.  Using the spreadsheet determine the amount of Calcium Hydroxide to add.
For my numbers 15 gallons of water, 100 Alkalinity, 35 calcium I needed to add 4.2 grams
2.5. Seed the water with approx 3 grams Calcium Chloride per 5 gallons of water.   This will assist in precipitating out the chalk.
3.  Add the Calcium Hydroxide to the water and stir.
4.  Walk the hell away.
5.  The following day, rack the water off your vessel into your HLT.  You will notice a thin layer of white chalk on the bottom of your vessel.  Be careful not to disturb this back up into solution.  I was able to use my pump to clear the vessel after I had pointed my pickup up higher from the bottom.  A racking cane would work as well.
6.  Brew amazing beer.

The only complicated part in calculating the amount Calcium Hydroxide to add is that as part of the reaction Ca precipitates out of the solution.  If you do not have enough calcium in your water not all of the Alkalinity will be removed.  The spreadsheet in the tools section below will tell you on line 11 if there is a Ca deficit.  I would advise that if you are planning on adding additional Ca to the mash, you should do it now.  If you have a positive number on this line you should add the amount of Gypsum and/or Calcium Chloride specified at the bottom of the sheet.  This will allow all the Alkalinity to be removed.

TLDR
You can use Calcium Hydroxide (aka Slaked Lime, Picking Lime) to remove alkalinity from your brewing water.  Use the spreadsheets below to figure out how much to use.  It works great.

Tools:

Mash Water Excel Sheet:  (Downloaded from this site)
Slaked Lime Calculator Excel:  (Thanks to BeirSlayer for developing the spreadsheet.  Found here.)

Addtional Reading:

AJ DeLange’s Water Tretise Part 1

I came across another brewing water spreadsheet today, and I have to say that it is probably the easiest water calculator I have found.  It has standard profiles that can be loaded into the sheet automatically as well as the ability to add custom profiles (and save them).  Very easy to use and well done!

You can download it here:  http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/

I am working on an post about using slaked lime to remove high levels of bicarbonate. These are some interesting links that I have come across in the process of doing the research:

http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/2540.html#2540-18

http://hbd.org/brewery/library/wchmprimer.html

http://www.antiochsudsuckers.com/tom/

http://hbd.org/discus/messages/20001/26833.html?1101144067

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Renner/WaterHardness.shtml

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=51068

http://netbeer.org/content/view/13/42/lang,en/

http://hbd.org/discus/messages/26895/30259.html

http://hbd.org/discus/messages/34426/34425.html

http://hbd.org/discus/messages/26895/27479.html

More once I can bring it together, but in the mean time I really don’t want to lose those links.

On my project list for the summer are:

1. Clean In Place Corny Cleaner – This basically pumps cleaning solution into your keg poppits and cleans the inside at the same time, while keeping the mess contained in the bottom of a bucket.  Some good links on the topic are available on the brewing network forums and over at slobrewer there is a great write up on how to create a CIP system for Corny kegs.
2. Brew Cart – Single Tier, 2 burners, ability to store my vessels under the cart.  .  My friend jon has assured me that he knows someone that can do the welding.  I just need to come up with the plans.

I recently bought a 10 gallon corny keg to use as a fermenter.  It is perfect to ferment lagers in because it is as tall as a standard corny so it fits nicely in my kegerator.  In order to use it as a fermenter I simply connect a piece of tubing to a gas ball valve, connect that to gas in, and run that into a growler of sanitizer.  It worked perfectly when I fermented my Yellow Sally Pilsner.

On Sunday I used it as my fermenter for my Wader Patch Wit.  I sanitized it, racked into it, connected the gas valve to the beverage out post….wha wha what!…The next morning when I walked into the fermentation chamber (basement bathroom), the active fermentation had pumped four of the five gallons onto the floor and carpet.

Quite a mess.

Quite a big mistake.

Not one I will be making anytime soon again.