Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Pro Grade Refractometer Atago PAL-1

The Atago PAL-1 is a professional grade digital refractometer that we got to test out over the past few brew sessions.  Compared to my $40 refractometer from Amazon, it is a night and day difference. The PAL-1 is super accurate reading to reading, varying only +/- 0.05 Brix. Contrast that with my cheap-o refractometer which reads +/- 0.6 Brix sample to sample, making it near useless since I have to average 6+ samples to get a good idea of the gravity.

For anybody who brews beer often the PAL-1 is a real treat to use. I can see this unit being an essential tool at any pro brewery. The measurement range is from 0 to 53 Brix, plenty wide. It is water resistant, so you can rinse it off in the sink. It even floats (but I didn’t test that).

Unlike a standard analog refractometer, the PAL-1 is digital.  It requires two AAA batteries and works from the palm of your hand. Just put a couple drops of wort in the sample area and hit the start button. It only takes a second for the reading to come up.

Like all refractometers the PAL-1 needs to be calibrated with water before each use.  The unit is simple to operate – there are literally just two buttons (start = take reading, zero = calibrate with water).  The manual provides detailed info about how to operate it and the various on screen codes that come up. The only trouble I ever had was skipping the calibration or not putting in a large enough sample (both user error). I found that 2-3 drops does the trick, with a wide margin of error provided the minimum sample size is met.  The unit reads best at 59F, but has automatic temperature correction (ATC).

Like all refractometers, the PAL-1 does not correct for the presence of alcohol which throws off the reading. This is not a showstopper for me because Brewer’s Friend corrects for this both in the Brew Log entry screen, and in our stand alone Refractometer Calculator.

I found the FG numbers the PAL-1 and my old school refractometer were giving lined up reasonably well with a hydrometer after applying alcohol correction. Still, FG readings should be taken with a hydrometer.  Refractometers are best suited for OG readings, and taking readings during the mash, or at preboil.

Technical Explanation of How a Digital Refractometer Works:

“Light emitted at an angle from a point source underneath the prism toward the sample liquid enters the boundary surface at multiple angles. Depending on the refractive index of the sample, light may be transmitted (refracted) or reflected. For example, water has a low refractive index, and therefore, light is refracted at a small angle of incidence. Likewise, light traveling through a sample of high refractive index is refracted at a large angle of incidence. Refractive index is proportional to critical angle, the largest angle of incidence for with refraction can still occur before incident light is totally reflected. A boundary line separating light and dark fields appears at the critical angle. The location of this boundary line is detected by the light receiving sensor and the refractive index is calculated.”

– Atago Catalog

Here is a page that explains more about how it works.

Atago’s website and ordering information:

www.atago-usa.com (main page)
https://www.atago-usa.com/PAL-1-Pocket-Refractometer-p176.html (PAL-1 product page)
https://www.atago-usa.com/PAL-Plato-p437.html (PAL-Plato product page)

But wait, there’s more…!

Atago granted our readers a special discount code! Brewer’s Friend readers can save 5% off a PAL-1 or PAL-Plato. Valid through 2013. 

Promo Code for web store: BREWPAL

Post by Larry
(Brewer’s Friend received an evaluation PAL-1 demo unit.)

Posted in Equipment | 1 Comment »

Book Review – Booze For Free

Booze for Free – The Definitive Guide to Making Beer, Wine, Cocktail Bases, Ciders, and Other Drinks at Home – by Andy Hamilton.

https://www.amazon.com/Booze-Free-Definitive-Making-Cocktail/dp/0452298806/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1

This book is a fun, quick read with some witty comments by the author.  The book is mostly focused on ingredients that can be foraged, like wild herbs, berries, fruits. It includes more exotic, historical, and what are now considered peculiar ingredients like tree sap, dandelion, nettles, etc. Touches on beer a little, but there are much better books out there that focus strictly on beer.  The free part is a bit of a misnomer, unless you want to forage for berries and do a wild fermentation. I’d like to re-iterate to readers, when it comes to brewing anything – you get what you pay for in terms of ingredients! Garbage in garbage out is the saying in the computer world, and the same is true in the brewing world. My advice is to start with the highest quality freshest ingredients you can afford!

If you are interested in brewing with any of the following ingredients, I’d check the book out. There over 100 recipes using the following:

• Acorns
• Apples
• Bay
• Beech Leaf
• Beets
• Birch sap
• Blackberry
• Blackcurrants
• Broad Bean (fava beans)
• Broom Flower
• Carrots
• Cherries
• Cleavers
• Courgette
• Damson
• Danelion
• Elderflower
• Grapes white/red
• Golden lime sap
• Gorse
• Hazelnut
• Himalayn balsam
• Hops
• Horseradish (vodka – whew!)
• Japanese Knotweed
• Japanese Rose Petals
• Lavender
• Mint
• Mugwort
• Mulberry
• Nettles
• Pears
• Pine needles
• Plumbs
• Pumpkin
• Quince
• Ratafia
• Rhubarb
• Rosebay
• Rosehip
• Rosemary
• Rumtopf
• Sloe
• Sumac
• Sweet corn
• Walnuts
• Yarrow

  and finally:

• Prison Booze – complete recipe!

I personally wish I could try small samples of some of the recipes and see if it is worth attempting a brew. I’m pretty skeptical of dandelions in beer…  However, my lawn is full of them!  I’d have a year round supply (if it was to my taste that is).

Disclaimer: Brewer’s Friend was sent a free copy of the book to review.

Post by Larry

Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »

2013 May Release Updates

May has been a busy month for Brewer’s Friend. The mash calculator tab has new updates. Recipes integrate with the Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator.  The 1.3 version of our iPhone app is live and supports sync of brew sessions and brew logs!

We are very happy to get these items knocked out for you! Our mission is to help you brew better beer!

• Strike Tab now allows targeting mash thickness or infusion volume.
  

• Ability to mash in quarts or gallons (for users who have their units set to US).  The input fields on related tabs work in gallons as well.  Mash water unit is profile option. The default is quarts, but it can be changed under your brewing profile.  The mash water unit value can also be overridden on the Brew Start page. Related to this, the Water Volume Tracking table shows key volumes in quarts and gallons (when brew is in US units mode).

  

• Added Fly Sparge and Batch Sparge options, which make things much clearer.

• Warnings related to exceeding volumes, boiling, or freezing are now textual instead of popup alert dialogs.

A few months ago, in collaboration with Kaiser, we launched our Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator, which does mash pH estimates in addition to many other water chemistry calculations.  In this release, the advanced water calculator and the recipe editor are more tightly integrated. Look for the link to the Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator on the Recipe View or Recipe Edit pages. (Requires a water profile to be selected.)

I’m hooked on this tool because it shows the relationship between grain bill, brewing salts, and mash pH. Following the link from the recipe leads to a pre-populated version of the tool (target profile, grain bill, and water volumes are filled out based on the recipe and your profile). You can also load in your source water profiles from the drop downs without having to re-type them.

As a follow on to the above item, accounts now supports multiple water profiles, not just one!

Brew Session and Brew Log Sync Supported!

• Ability to delete all items from shopping list.

• On the recipe edit and view pages, the number of yeast cells needed to hit the targeted pitch rate is displayed.

• Added brew log entry type ‘yeast starter’.  I typically create my brew session the day I make my starter.  The volume drop down now supports Liters as well (for some reason I always do starters in Liters).

Happy brewing,
Larry

Posted in Announcements | No Comments »

BRY-97 American West Coast Yeast Review

BRY-97 is a relatively new dry yeast on the market released in limited amounts in 2012.  Got a pack for the first time late last year. That brew is almost completely gone, and I’m happy with the results, but there were a few surprises!

In a nutshell, BRY-97 is NOT your typical Chico strain like US-04, Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001.  

BRY-97 accentuates malt character and provides some fruity notes (pineapple, citrus). It also has a huge frothy krausen head and a long lag time compared to US-05.

I brewed an IIPA with it, fermented at 65F (not too cool, not too warm).  The beer was great, but I was surprised that it wasn’t a more neutral strain, like the Chico strains.  The shed smelled like pineapple the entire time it was fermenting!  The tropical note has dropped off now after several months in the bottle but there is still something sweet and fruity about it.

Since I only had one pack, I did a starter – check out the krausen head:

Normally with dry yeast I would buy more packs instead of making a starter. I could only get one pack on special order with BRY-97, so I did a 1.5L starter. Due to the lag with this yeast (which I was not aware of at the time), it took 2-3 days longer than normal to finish out, and I had juggle my brew schedule.

Flocculation was great, the beer was clear after 2 weeks. No off flavors or any issues with esters or weirdness. The beer was quite drinkable after 30 days, so I take it this yeast doesn’t stay green as long. I’d use BRY-97 again for something along the lines of a Kolsch or summer beer, but not in a brew where I want the hops to shine.

This Home Brew Talk thread has pages and pages of interesting comments. There is a lot of concern about the lag time, extra price, and muted hops:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/anyone-try-bry-97-yet-333553/

Danstar’s product page is here:

https://www.danstaryeast.com/products/bry-97-american-west-coast-yeast

Post by Larry

Posted in Yeast Cultures | 3 Comments »

Pre-Prohibition Beer Bottle Lamps – Art, History and it Lights Up!

If you are looking for a cool item to give to the brewer who has everything, check out Peared Creation. They make lamps out of pre-prohibition beer bottles. We were sent one of these lamps to review! The cord is an antique fabric style. The on/off switch is a vintage faucet handle. It gives a nice warm amber light. The lamps use standard 15 watt bulbs and each lamp comes with a spare bulb. Each lamp includes a tag that contains more information about the particular brewery the bottle came from. While the lamps are not cheap, starting at $125, they are unique and offer an authentic and intangible historical component you can’t get at Walmart or Target.

Peared Creation has several designs to choose from:

Peared Creation also has a wide range of pre-prohibition bottles which can be purchased separately from their lamps.  In looking through the selection, they sure don’t make beer bottles like the used to. I like how the brand names are embossed in the glass. It is also interesting to note that there was a larger percentage of clear bottles back then.

I can’t imagine how frustrating the prohibition must have been for brewers! I don’t recognize any of the names of the bottles, probably because they all went out of business. 

I asked Jay at Peared Creation about the possibility of re-packaging home brew into pre-prohibition bottles. His reply: “I wouldn’t trust the bottles to drink out of. Many of them have been in the ground for 100+ years and minerals have been leached in and out of the glass.” 

That’s a bummer, would look cool, but better to err on the side of caution. I’ll keep using the pre-prohibition bottle for a lamp, and stick my my recycled bottles for beer.

By the way, I am trying to talk my wife into letting me keep the lamp in the house.  For right now it is in the shed – works for me.

Post by Larry

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment »

Hops Squeezing and Hops Absorption – More Bitterness Please

Should we squeeze out the hops bag or not?

A recent IPA brew session called for 7 ounces of hops. The recipe is 110 IBU with a lot of late hopping.  For this brew, I did not squeeze out the hops bags and left them behind after draining the kettle. I then squeezed out the hops bags into a small bucket, and here is what I got:

The resulting beer wasn’t as bitter as I would have liked, maybe more like 80 IBUs, and I think the lack of squeezing is the reason.   I tasted what I collected, and holy moly was that bitter! It was like an IPA espresso!

There are claims floating around online that say avoid squeezing or else harshness will be extracted. That applies to the steeping grain bag, but NOT for the hops bags.  When it comes to hops – squeeze away!

On lighter beers with only an ounce or two I skip the squeezing step, but for IPAs I will be squeezing from now on.  A dedicated set of BBQ tongs work the best.  Sanitize them first along with the kettle lid and primary fermentor.  Don’t use dirty bare hands to squeeze, as this could infect the batch. Not to mention, wait for the wort to cool down if using an immersion chiller. If using a counter flow chiller or plate chiller, be extra careful about squeezing the hops, which will be boiling hot.

How the Brewer’s Friend recipe editor and brew feature handle hops absorption:

• The hops absorption amount shows up in the water requirements report (recipe tools -> water requirements). The result is based on the amount of hops in the recipe, and your hops absorption equipment profile setting. The system correctly excludes dry hops and mash hops from the hops absorption calculation.
• My profile was set to the default hops absorption rate of 0.15 quarts per ounce. At 7 ounces of hops, that comes to a little over 1 quart. In measuring what I got in the bucket, it is spot on. The default of 0.15 qt/oz was accurate in this case.
• Hops absorption negatively impacts brew house efficiency. This comes into play if your batch size target is set to ‘fermentor’ (which means brew house efficiency is the efficiency factor the recipe is working with). If your batch size target is set to ‘kettle’, then you are targeting ending kettle efficiency, and hops absorption doesn’t count against that.  Read more about efficiency here.
• For purposes of designing a recipe ‘to the fermentor’ that uses a lot of hops, if you are not squeezing out the bags, adjust efficiency down 1-2% to compensate for hops absorption.

Posted in Brewing | 6 Comments »

Want to know everything about IPAs? Check out this book by Mitch Steele

IPA Brewing Techniques, Recipes, and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale by Mitch Steele.

A great book covering every detail you ever wanted to know about IPA brewing. It starts from the early history of beer all the way through to today’s modern hop bombs like Pliney the Elder. The author is the Brewmaster at Stone Brewing, so when it comes to bitter beer, he knows what he is talking about.

The recipe reference in the book is worth it alone, about 60 pages in total covering historic and modern IPAs. Don’t expect to get the times and amounts of ingredients in recipes though (bummer). The key appears to be aggressive dry hopping in most cases!

There is a lot to learn from this book. It challenges the historical myth that IPAs (India Pale Ales) were brewed specifically for export to India because nothing else could survive the journey. The author points to evidence that Porters, Pale Ales, and all kinds of brews were shipped to India for almost a century before the name IPA came along. What we do know is the beer back then had stability problems, and hoppier, stronger beers were more suitable to such a long haul. These high quality, strong, bitter beers were originally sold as Pale Ales or October ales. In the early to mid 1800’s Pale Ales were re-branded to read “Pale Ale for India”, or “Pale Ale brewed Expressly for the India market” – seems like more of a marketing switch than a recipe formulation issue to me. In the end the name stuck, but the style evolved considerably.

A typical “IPA” or Pale Ale from the late 1700’s was radically different from what we think of as a modern IPA.

• Most IPAs back then were SMaSH brews (single malt and single hop). This makes sense because pale malt and Kent Goldings were pretty much what was on hand. There were specialty grains, a few other hop strains, but they were not as common in IPAs.
• The beer was aged for 9-12 months in oak casks. The oaking would make a huge flavor difference on such a light colored beer!
• Beers were likely tainted with a cocktail of bacteria including Brettanomyces, Pediococcus and Lactobacillus. That explains the sour and tart flavors in historical tasting accounts.
• IPAs back then were often dry and even sparkling!
• They were typically high in alcohol, 7%+.

Two world wars, prohibition, and the rising popularity of the continental lager all but destroyed IPA brewing for most of the 1900’s. However, this all changed in the 1990’s with a craft beer renaissance. This was enabled by new hop varieties like Cascade that were becoming widely available. I am proud to say that my hometown, Eugene, OR is credited in the book as being the first craft brewery to put an IPA on tap continuously – Steelhead Brewing Co, with its Bombay Bomber! Thank you Teri Fahrendorf!

The book also helped me realize just how spoiled we modern brewers are given the wonderful selection of hops available to us. Consider, what would the world be like without the four C’s (Cascade, Columbus, Chinook and Centennial)? Let’s not forget the patented strains Simcoe and Amarillo which run up in about 10 years. There are new hop strains being developed all the time, so the future looks great for the variety and quality of new IPAs and beer styles. Going forward, brewers will continue to push the limits and evolve the IPA style. New categories may someday be introduced to cover the twists like Black Ales, Black IPAs, and Cascadian Dark Ales (CDAs). We discussed that issue previously in this article: Black Ale as a Beer Category.

Here’s to filling all your kegs with IPA’s and IIPA’s – cheers!

Post by Larry

Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »

Using your Refractometer Correctly for Maximum Accuracy in Home Brewing

A refractometer is a nifty brewing instrument that allows a gravity reading to be taken with just a single drop of wort. It beats wasting 6-8 ounces for a hydrometer sample. The drop of wort is spread across a flat lens with a clear plate that snaps down over it and uniformly spreads the fluid. The refractometer is then held up to a light source and you look through it, sort of like a telescope.

Update 6/14/2013 – the unit pictured here is cheap made in China version off Amazon for $40. With refractometers, you get what you pay for. Check out our evaluation of the PAL-1 digital refractometer if you want to see what a top of the line model looks like.

There are some caveats for proper refractometer use – otherwise they can be frustrating to work with:

• Refractometers need to be calibrated with water to read zero. Calibration may be necessary before each use.

• IGNORE the SG scale if your model has it – only pay attention to the Brix scale. The relationship between Brix and SG is not linear!

• Like hydrometers, refractometer readings are temperature dependent. Some models support ATC – automatic temperature correction, and have varying degrees of success at this. I let my samples cool to below 100F / 37C before using them so I don’t burn myself.

• Cheap refractometers are not very consistent measurement to measurement from the same wort. I take 5+ measurements then average the value before recording. The variance is +/- 10% either way! What a joke. You get what you pay for and this unit was a gift.

Refractometers and wort:

The convenience of refractometers comes with a price as refractometers are not as straightforward has hydrometers when it comes to measuring wort gravity.

Refractometers measure the angle of refraction as light shines through the solution. They are typically calibrated for sugar water. Wort however has a different density and contains more complex sugars.  This throws off the refraction index. Any wort gravity reading from a refractometer needs to be adjusted by a ‘wort correction factor’.  For the home brewer, a wort correction factor, specific to the instrument, needs to be determined to accurately measure wort samples.

We have complete guide, including spreadsheet for recording measurements, that will help determine your Wort Correction Factor.

To help clear up confusion with terminology, at Brewer’s Friend we have decided to call a Brix measurement of wort: Brix WRI (wort refraction index).  Brix WRI makes it clear the measurement pertains to wort and is unadjusted. Only after dividing Brix WRI by the wort correction factor do we arrive at the actual Brix / Plato reading. It is helpful to know that Brix and Plato are nominally the same to 3 decimal places, so the corrected reading can be treated as Plato (°P).

Refractometers and Alcohol:

In the presence of alcohol, refractometer measurements get even more complicated. Alcohol throws off the refraction even more. The good news is, it can be corrected for if the OG is known. Sean Terrill posted research on the subject and arrived at the following equation which we have taken to be the most accurate:

FG = 1.0000 – 0.0044993*RI_i + 0.011774*RI_f + 0.00027581*RI_i² – 0.0012717*RI_f² – 0.0000072800*RI_i³ + 0.000063293*RI_f³

https://seanterrill.com/2011/04/07/refractometer-fg-results/

Using Refractometer measurements at Brewer’s Friend:

Using a software package like Brewer’s Friend will mitigate the complexities of using a refractometer to a large extent.

• See our stand alone Refractometer Calculator.

• Inside a brew session, the brew log entry screen fully supports refractometer input, including wort correction factor and alcohol correction (if applicable).

  

• The wort correction factor is a profile option, and the default is 1.0 (no correction).

• We have a complete guide with spreadsheet for finding your refractometer’s wort correction factor.

Posted in Equipment | 5 Comments »

April 2013 Release is Live, Refractometer Support, Calories, iPhone 1.2 sync, Lifetime Memberships

More cool new features at your disposal. Our mission is to help you brew better beer! Enjoy!

Refractometer Support:

• When used with wort, refractometers readings require adjustment by a wort correction factor, and an additional correction in the presence of alcohol. Our calculators cover all that for you! See our FAQ about the types of gravity scales we support.
• New Stand Alone Refractometer Calculator
• How to determine your Refractometer’s Wort Correction Factor.  A new equipment profile setting has been introduced to store this parameter.
• Screen shot of brew log entry screen:

  

Calories per 12oz / 355 mL:

• The recipe editor, under the More… section will now show the calorie count.
• In the brew session section, there is a new line for calories which appears after the fermentation completely log entry is made.

Lifetime Memberships Available:

• We have re-enabled Lifetime Memberships!

  

• If you already have a Premium Membership that has a lot of time left you are in a good spot. Down the road we plan to setup a discount program for members who want to convert from a Premium Membership to a Lifetime Membership.

iPhone 1.2 Release, which supports sync (premium account required):

• Our iPhone app is catching up to the cloud solution fast. Next we will support brew session and brew log sync!
• Brewer’s Friend iPhone App Information Page
  

Other Updates:

• Our Stand Alone ABV Calculator has been updated to calculate calories, attenuation, and support Plato!
• Usual minor bug fixes, platform updates, etc.

Don’t forget about The Big Brew Day, coming up May 4th at your Local Home Brew Store!  At the stores here in Portland there will be lots of brewing going on, food, discounts, and of course home brew! Have a blast!

Happy brewing!

Posted in Announcements | 6 Comments »

Brewing Water Treatment in 600 Words

It seems that over the last few years many more home brewers have taken an interest in understanding and modifying their brewing water. And there are good reasons to do so. Depending on the beer that is brewed and the water quality, modifying the brewing water can take a beer from great to excellent. The intent of this post is not to go into the details of water and mash chemistry but to provide an overview of what’s important and paint a high level picture of water treatment for brewing. For those counting, the first paragraph doesn’t count towards the 600 words.

When it comes to brewing water treatment there are 3 goals we brewers are trying to achieve:

• eliminate off-flavor causing water compounds: this is largely the removal of chlorine
• provide a water ion profile that supports the desired flavor of the beer
• provide a water and grist composition that settles at a desirable mash pH

What’s daunting for many brewers is not so much the underlying chemistry, which is easily handled by a brewing water calculator, but the many parameters that can be adjusted.

Chlorine, found in water as free chlorine or chloramine, needs to be removed from brewing water since it forms nasty chlorophenols in beer. Most brewers accomplish this through carbon filtration or Campden tablets (sodium or potassium metabisulfite). Another undesirable water compound is iron. The water’s iron level should be below 0.3 ppm to avoid a metallic taste.

Brewers care about 6 primary water ions that are able to affect the flavor of the beer. The electric charge of the cations (Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺) needs to match the electric charge from the anions (Cl^–, SO₄^2-, HCO₃^–) which is why one cannot be added without the other. Here is a quick summary of what these ions do for the flavor or brewing process:

Calcium (Ca²⁺) is beneficial for the brewing process as it helps with yeast flocculation. It’s also fairly flavor neutral and a recommended minimum is 40 mg/l. The most common means of increasing calcium in water are gypsum and calcium chloride which also adds sulfate and chloride, respectively.

Magnesium (Mg²⁺) from water is not needed since malt provides lots of magnesium to the wort. Excess magnesium can cause a bitter taste. Should be kept below 50 mg/l.

Sodium (Na+) can lead to a salty taste and should be kept below 100 mg/l. Brewers don’t usually add sodium except when baking soda is used to add bicarbonate.

Chloride (Cl^–) creates a softer beer flavor and is desired in malt forward beers.

Sulfate (SO₄^2-) enhances hop bitterness and dries out the beer’s finish. It is desirable in hoppy ales and some brewers even go as high as 700 mg/l. Most hoppy ales should be fine with sulfate levels between 100 and 300 mg/l

Bicarbonate (HCO₃^–) does not affect the taste directly but can have an indirect effect through its ability to raise mash pH out of its desired range.

Mash pH is the result of the balance between pH active water ions, grist and any acid or salt additions that are made. In most cases we are looking for a mash pH in the 5.3 – 5.6 range. These numbers are for a cooled (25 C/ 77 F ) mash sample. Dark malts and acids are the primary drivers of lower mash pH while water alkalinity raises mash pH. Calcium and to a lesser extent Magnesium also lower mash pH but not enough that mash pH control should be done through adjusting calcium or Magnesium levels. In most cases mash pH adjustment requires the addition of acids (lactic or phosphoric are popular choices) to neutralize water alkalinity. Lighter beers may even need more acid to go beyond neutralizing the water alkalinity in order to get mash pH into the desirable range of 5.3-5.6.

To get started you need to find or get a water report for your brewing water, enter the water ion levels and grist information into the Brewing Water and Mash Chemistry calculator and see where you land. From there you can play with salt and acid additions. Target water profiles designed for various beer styles can guide you in your water adjustments.

Image of common brewing salts:

Notably, canning salt, and chalk are not pictured here.

Post by Kaiser

Posted in Brewing | 1 Comment »