Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Using a mini-fridge as a keezer FAIL

In an attempt to save money, space, and time, I thought it would be a good idea to buy a mini-fridge online for use as a keezer or fermentation chamber. Turned out there was not enough room.

All mini-fridges have a hump inside them where the compressor and fan are located. This eats up some of the usable internal space. The shelves on the door further constrain the internal space. The lesson: going online to buy a fridge/freezer for use as keezer is a bad idea. Sometimes the product description will list internal dimensions, but that’s not enough to go on since the floor might be sloped or the shelves might be in the wrong spot.

The best thing to do is make cardboard cut outs representing the foot print of what you want to put in the fridge. Also note the heights of the containers, leaving room for airlock, hoses, couplers, etc. For example, a corny keg needs 27″ of vertical space to leave clearance for the couplings and is 8-1/2″ – 9″ diameter. Take the cutouts with you to the store and bring a tape measure. Then you can be sure what you are buying will work out.

The humps inside mini-fridges and chest freezers are a real drag. In my keezer, the CO2 tank sits on the hump along with a moisture absorption tray. One trick is to build a 4” collar around the top of the keezer. The hatch will have to be removed and then re-installed when the collar is in place. Often this is enough to take the hump out of the equation so 1 or 2 more corny kegs can be placed inside.

Towards the middle of my project todo list is a fermentation chamber. This is done by removing the door from a mini-fridge and building an insulated box that extends the conditioned space. With a temperature controller, a mini-fridge in this setup can be used for precise temperature control during fermentation. What I’m not sure about is how to safely heat the chamber, in the event it gets too cold in the shed (let’s say I want to keep it at 65F, but outside it is 40F). More on that when I get there.

Posted in Equipment, Kegging and CO2 | 13 Comments »

Recipe Builder 1.02 Launched

Another release just went live.

The 1.02 release includes the following features:

• New and improved Mug icon (the color is dynamically set by the brewing software).
  
• Scale by Efficiency feature launched for All Grain / BIAB / Partial Mash recipes. Uses logic to keep OG the same, while preserving flavor and color balance. This was a bit tricky to get right and feedback would be appreciated.
• Ability to view a recipe as HTML or Text, and download in either format. Check the new buttons on the recipe view page. This way recipes are easier to share by email or in forums.  BeerXML format is on the way (that is a bit more complex though!)
• Darkened up the last 5 SRM values. An SRM value of 40 should be pitch black, and now that is how it should look on most monitors.
• Bug fixes: (ECB color equation, sharing a recipe after the first save, stay signed in now tracks profile information correctly).
• Back end upgrades to libraries.

We’ll get around to posting more beer related blog posts in the near future.  An IPA clone recipe Larry is perfecting is fermenting right now:

Best of luck in brewing next year to all our readers and users!
– Larry

Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »

Recipe Builder 1.01 launched

Hello fellow brewers,
Happy holidays from the Brewer’s Friend team. May your brewing be merry and plentiful in 2012!

Our team has been working very hard the past week and a half to make the 1.01 release of the Recipe Builder possible. There is a lot more on the way in 2012 from Brewer’s Friend, we hope you will join us.

The Recipe Builder has just been updated to version 1.01 with the following features:

• Sharing: It is now possible to share recipes, such that the URL can be posted, emailed etc.  By default recipes are private.  There is also an option to make recipes searchable in our database, but the search interface is not available yet (expect to see that in January).
• Scaling: The new scaling tab at the top allows a batch to be scaled to different volumes. We are working on a scale by efficiency feature.
• Text View: Recipes can be viewed in ‘text’ mode for easy posting to other sites. We are working on an HTML version.
• Yeast Section: When selecting a yeast from the drop down, the page now shows the yeast stats (Attenuation, Flocculation, Optimum Temperature, and Alcohol Tolerance).
• Content: Added 11 different types of yeasts (thank you readers for pointing out a few missing ones).
• Misc Updates/Fixes: Priming sugar/amount now visible on display page,  Firefox 3.6 bug fixed, IE 7 + 8 header renders better, adjustments to view page rendering, styled buttons on recipe editor.
• Social Networking: Facebook and Twitter pages setup and linked.

Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »

Complete Recipe Builder Launched

Hello fellow brewers!

Great news, Brewer’s Friend has just launched the Early Release of our complete recipe builder!  We took our readers’ advice and leveraged the existing calculators to create a complete tool that allows you to input, save, and print recipes.  The tools can be used anonymously, but in order to save things you’ll need to Sign Up first. We humbly predict many a great beer will be designed using the Brewer’s Friend tools.   The current release will serve as the foundation of many future tools including a brew assistant (sounds sexy doesn’t she?),  water management tools, social networking, BeerXML support, mobile apps, the list goes on…

The existing calculators will stay exactly the same. The blog will continue to put out interesting and fun home brew posts on a regular basis.

During the early release users are granted free access to the Brewer’s Friend platform. We will eventually switch to a ‘Freemium’ model where use of the tools on a limited basis is free. The annual fee for full access to the system will probably be around $15.00 USD for one year of service. Sign Up for the early release is completely free, no credit card information is collected, and there are no obligations.

Current feature set:

• Complete recipe calculator.
• Supports All Grain, Extract, Partial Mash, BIAB.
• Ability to save recipes to your account.
• Ability to print recipes.
• Multiple ABV, IBU, and SRM equations supported.
• US and Metric Units
• World Timezone Support

The Brewer’s Friend platform will eventually include:

• Complete water volume management for All Grain brewers.
• Ability to scale recipes by efficiency and batch size.
• An automated brew helper with customizable steps, based on our brew day sheets.
• Ability to log brew events, gravity readings, and automatically calculate efficiency.
• BeerXML import and export.
• Support for brewing kits from home brew stores.
• Additional brewing equations.
• Ability to search and share recipes.
• Social networking features.
• Integration with mobile devices.
• Most importantly – Tell us your ideas!

Please use the comments thread on this page or the feedback page and let us know what you think!

To say thank you to early adopters, a discount will be made available when we go live.

Join and participate in the newest brewing solution built by brewers for brewers!

Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

Site Theme Upgraded

Hello fellow brewers, this is a quick announcement to let you know we upgraded the site theme today!

Yeah, change is no fun and we apologize if the shock of seeing the blog theme change caused anyone to spill their beer. The old theme was so familiar to me it does take some getting used to. You might have to clear your browser’s cache on any pages previously visited to get the new appearance.

By the way, the new image in the top is a close up of some fresh hops!

We hope you like the new theme. This work is in preparation of an upcoming major release that represents a culmination of all the brewing calculators.

PROST!

Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

Curvy Brew Stand

Well I’m up and brewing in the shed these days. The brew stand is completed. The idea was to make a solid, aesthetically pleasing stand that will outlast me. I’m not sure if this qualifies as a brew statue, since it is wood not metal. Still the curves are sexy.

“She’s got legs!… And she knows how to use them…”

The stand is made of 2×4 doug fir. Everything is nailed and screwed together from multiple angles. I made the curved cuts with a jig saw. The shelves are 3/4” plywood, topped with backer board and tile. The tile is overkill for an electric brew setup, but makes for easy cleanup and a solid look. I painted the wood with a silicon based cement paint to really seal it good. The trim on the edges is 1/8” oak plywood. The thin plywood bends over the curves, and this helped hide all the defects in the original cut. The front is 1/2” walnut.

They say we are overdue for a big earthquake in the northwest. I really don’t want 180F water tumbling down on me or a guest. I see a lot of brew stands online that look rickety. If there is one thing to overbuild, its your brew stand! Aside from strong construction, I took extra care to make sure everything is strapped in place. The kettles are secured with cables. The brew stand itself is screwed into the studs with 6 inch lag blots on the top and bottom. The curves on the stand are setup so the kettles have to be lifted slightly to get them out for cleaning. The stand and the kettles are literally a part of the shed. The shed itself is bolted down to the foundation. Solid.

Here are some more pictures of the brew shed. One reader had asked for a picture of the skylight. Here it is!

Posted in Equipment | 6 Comments »

Infected Batch Forensics

For the first time in many years I experienced a bad batch of home brewed beer last month. I am sharing this with the community so you can avoid my mistake. It is embarrassing! Being out the time and money for the batch and having an empty keg sucks. However, I learned a couple things I can pass along. This bad batch changed my perspective on yeast re-pitching, updated my definition of what a healthy fermentation is, and helped me clean my equipment better.

The spoiled batch, which had been in the keg for about 2 weeks had the following properties:

• Initial flavor was anti-septic (almost burning).
• Murky appearance (different than chill haze).
• Slippery mouth feel.
• Finshed soapy, with the flavor getting more pronounce, to the point I spit it out. The bitter antiseptic flavor lingers on the tongue.

What the heck! Had I gotten a lax on sanitization? Was my yeast bad? Was there something in the brewing process that lead to this? I asked some home brewing experts and they attribute this to a yeast deficiency – either an infection, or bad yeast. It turns out there were two main factors, repitching of yeast and a dirty spigot in my fermentor. While I am not sure which did more damage, I have evidence of both.

Here is what the carboy looked like, note the ring:

If you have a goopy ring around the krausen layer you might be in trouble. The off gases from the fermentation also smelled ‘cheesy’, which tipped me off there might be a serious problem.

Beer Forensics:

For what turned out to be the spoiled batch, I opted to re-pitch yeast (Wyeast Northwest Ale 1332) from a previous batch of IPA. The harvested yeast was in the fridge in a ball jar for about 2 weeks. That IPA was already in the keg and was drinkable, but it was not my best batch ever. It had a thin finish and there were some light ‘chemical’ flavors present that come and go from sip to sip. I figured at the time, the beer was just green – and it did improve a lot after a month went by. When I kegged the IPA and harvested the yeast, it looked and smelled fine, a fresh bready aroma was present. That meant it is good to go right? WRONG!

Something funny happened with the fermentation of that IPA. One night I forgot to set the furance at 64F, and instead turned it all the way down to 58F – so it got pretty cold in the house that night. It turns out NW Ale 1332 does best between 65F and 75F. In effect, that night the yeast were really stressed. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I do recall the fermentation slowed after that. I also left the IPA in the primary for 23 days, without racking, and then harvested the 23 day old yeast cake. In retrospect I should have spent the $4-$7 for a new yeast pack. Even though that yeast cake smelled good at the time, it was no longer to be trusted given its age, and the temperature fluctuation.

I gathered two ball jars from the yeast cake. Now a month later, on inspecting the second ball jar, there is a thin line of black mold growing on top. YUCK!

That IPA was fermented in a plastic bucket with a spigot. The subsequent failed batch was fermented in a glass carboy. I went ahead and tore apart the spigot on the bottling bucket, and look what I found in there:

It had probably been over 3 years since I setup that bottling bucket and spiot. Whoops! No doubt whatever mildew / mold / germ was living in there is not good for the beer. I terminated it with extreme prejudice – a strong bleach solution!

After I soaked everything, I thought I was ready to go again, but then I noticed, inside the sealed part of the spigot, there were some faint black spots. It is hard to see in the picture, so I enhanced the second one.

The mold / mildew, whatever it is, is growing INSIDE the sealed part where the spigot rotates. There is no way to scrub that section. I am looking into getting a different type of spigot that does not have this design flaw.

Yeast Re-pitching Revisited:

All this time I had thought I was being a good sport by re-pitching yeast. That is what the pro’s do right? Well, it turns out I did not realize the risks associated. I wrote an article awhile ago that praises yeast washing, and another on yeast repitching. I have updated those articles to point out what was learned here. The time it takes to harvest and clean the yeast (15-20 minutes), plus the risk is not worth the $3 savings it offers! I should have known that…

Key Take Aways:

• Yeast re-pitching can be risky and might not be worth the cost savings for home brewers.
• If you are going to repitch – I would rack after about a week and save that yeast. Let the secondary fermentation finish on its own, and discard that smaller, older yeast cake. I would also be very strict about temperatures ranges and sanitization. I successfully repitched many many times, but now I am starting to see where perhaps some inconsistency came into play.
• Tear everything apart now and then and completely clean it with PBW or a bleach solution if the materials are compatible with bleach.
• Look for stuff growing inside what appear to be sealed parts, such as the spigot on the bottling bucket.

PROST!

Posted in Brewing, Yeast Cultures | 9 Comments »

Wine Season and New Wine Calculators Released

Home wine makers are wrapping up the season with late harvests coming in throughout the Northwest. This weekend is going to be the last chance for Oregon Pinot Noir. The California harvest is of course long over by now. Recent wine making activity has inspired me to write a couple new calculators related to wine making with more on the way.

New Wine Calculators:

• Brix and Specific Gravity Conversion Calculator– Converts Brix to Specific Gravity and vice versa. The Brix scale is commonly used in wine making. Specific Gravity is commonly used in home brewing. Some hydrometers have only one or the other, which is where this calculator comes in.

  Brix and Specific Gravity are used to tell how much sugar is in solution. In wine making the freshly crushed juice is being measured (commonly known as the ‘must’). The Brix scale is very close to the Plato and Balling scales.

• Chaptalization Calculator – Chaptalization is the process of adding sugar to must (grape juice) to boost the final alcohol level. This is often done in poor growing years where the grapes did not mature to the desired Brix level. The amount of sugar to add is dependent on how much wine is being made, and how big of an increase in Brix is needed.

I currently have 160 pounds of Pinot Noir fermenting. I split the must into two 24 gallon fermentors after doing a two day cold soak. The left one has RC-212 yeast, and the right one has Assmanshauser. After the crush they will be blended and put through Malolactic fermentation. The house smells really, really good!

The above image shows the two fermentors all setup waiting for the cold soak to finish. The 1 gallon container on the side is a starter for the Assmanshauser yeast.

Posted in Announcements, Wine | 4 Comments »

Wheat Malt in All Grain Brewing

Wheat malt takes extra preparation in brewing since it is smaller in size than standard malts. The first time I ran wheat malt through my grain mill, it was frustrating to discover the gap was set too wide for the wheat malt only! The other grains were being crushed perfectly. I ended up trying a few different approaches until I was successful. My mill is not easy to adjust, so adjusting the gap only makes sense for me if I am going to do a lot of it. For crushing small amounts of wheat malt, the best approach I found is to use a blender.

To make this more confusing, there are several types of Wheat Malts: white wheat, read wheat, pale wheat, carawheat, chocolate wheat, etc. Rye malts are even smaller than wheat malts. Be prepared to adjust the gap on your mill when using Rye or Wheat malt, or resort to the blender.

Option 1 – Plastic bag and a hammer:

This was a lot of work but it got the job done for the most part. This is really only feasible for a half pound of wheat malt or less. The plastic bag is ruined and you need a nice smooth concrete slab to hammer against. The floor of my brew shed worked well, but this took a good 10 minutes to complete.

You can still see a few whole kernels in this picture.

The bag is completely shot. Many small holes develop as part of the pulverization process.

Option 2 – Rolling pin and plastic bag:

This is completely out. I could not get enough pressure on the kernels to break them. Gave up after a minute.

Option 3 – Adjust the gap on your mill:

Great if your mill is easy to adjust and you can reliably adjust the gap back to the correct setting for standard malts. This is only viable for me if I am doing more than a couple pounds. Next time I make a Hefe, which requires 60% Wheat Malt, this is the option I will use.

Option 4 – Mill it twice:

Some people have reported they run the wheat malt through their mill twice. In my case this did not help at all. Way too much of the wheat malt was falling through without being crushed.

Option 5 – Use a Blender:

This is the winner! The blender is a cheap-o no name brand, with a weak motor and a dull blade. In other words, a fancy blender is not needed to mill wheat malt.

My approach is to crush 1-2 cups of wheat malt at a time. Adding just a touch of water really helps. Without water the kernels tend to bounce around too much. Some of the very fine flour got stuck in the bottom of the blender. In the final image below, a few kernels are left whole, but everything underneath it has been nicely ground and is ready to go into the mash.

Notes for All Grain brewers:

A protein rest is recommended when brewing with Wheat Malt (~120F for 20 minutes), but not required. If the grain bill has more than 25% Wheat Malt, it would be a good idea to add rice hulls to help prevent a stuck mash. When Wheat Malt is mashed it globs up and looks like oatmeal.

Wheat malt is traditional used in beers like Hefeweizen, Bavarian Weisse, Wizens, where it makes up 40-60% of the grain bill. Wheat malt can also be used in extract brewing as a steeping grain. Increasing, a small percentage (3-5%) of wheat malt is added to grain bills of all types of beer to aid in head retention and body. I have been experimenting with this myself.

Posted in Ingredients | 3 Comments »

Electric Brewing Upgrade

Upgrading to electric brewing makes home brewing a real pleasure. This article covers the details, including a 30 amp GFI’d outlet, drilling holes, and ordering ~$280-500 worth of parts. Dave Knott at HighGravityBrew spent years perfecting electric brewing equipment for his own use. He sells everything you need online and through his home brewing store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. HighGravityBrew saved so much time and headache! I highly recommend their products and I am writing this article as an acknowledgement of their quality, and a thank you.

Heating Elements Used In Brewing:

With electric brewing a heating element is mounted inside the kettle. It works the same way an electric water heater works. Instead of heating the kettle from the bottom, the wort boils from inside. Here is how my boil kettle looks:

The elements can be purchased from HighGravityBrew:

For the HLT, they recommend a 5500 watt unit.

For the Boil Kettle, they recommend a 4500 watt unit.

Weld-less vs Welded fittings:

Getting the element into the kettle requires drilling a hole and using either a welded or weld-less fitting. Weld-less is a simpler option that worked well for me.

Step 1 – Drilling the hole:
This I did myself by carefully marking where I wanted the hole, relatively low in the kettle, such that the element would not hit my dip tube. On the mark, I took a center punch and made a dimple so the drill would have a place to slot into. Lots of oil, walled off with a damn made of plumber’s putty, and a standard hole saw made the cut in under a minute. For the HighGravityBrew elements a 1.25″ hole needed to be drilled. I spent some time fretting about the bit type. Some sites suggest using a stepped bit (aka unibit), but they are expensive. For the thin wall of my kettle (which was from MoreBeer / Polar Ware), a standard hole saw worked fine.

Step 2 – Fitting the element:

In the case of a welded fitting, a coupler is welded over the hole. The element slides through it and screws in to female pipe thread on the coupler. Welding shops were quoting around $75, plus the couplers.

The weld-less fittings use a silicone gasket and a stainless steel nut that go on the inside of the kettle. This approach was feasible to do on my own and cheaper overall. Zero leaks from the weld-less fittings after two brews.

Power Source:

A 30 AMP GFI breaker is required. Get it installed by a professional. My brewery has a 4 prong dryer outlet which the controller plugs into. The controller is described in the next section.

Controller:

To regulate the power going into the element, a controller is used. The controller plugs into the dryer outlet. The cord that leads out of the element plugs into the controller.

HighGravity brew has a couple turn key options. I bought the ECB II for $300. With this unit I can vary the power using the knob. The ECB II also has a bypass for a temperature controller. This allows the element to be turned on or off by a temperature probe. That way a HERMS system can be built with the ECB II as its heart.

HighGravityBrew also has a $200 model, which doesn’t not allow a temperature probe to be hooked up to it.

Wort Chiller:

I had to redesign my wort chiller so it would not sit on or bang up the element. My solution was to wrap another 50 feet of soft copper tubing around a 4″ PVC pipe and form it into the following:

Plate chillers and counter flow chillers are another alternative. I researched those quite a bit and decided against them. Stay tuned for an article on that.

Performance:

On the highest setting, the elements will increase temperature at the following rates:

• 15 gallons, +3 deg F / min
• 10 gallons,- +4 deg F / min

Strike water is ready in under 30 minutes. Going from mash out to boil takes under 10 minutes! After a rigorous boil starts, the dial can be set back to around 60% to maintain a steady boil.

In an electric brewery, the cost of boiling is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). In the northwest the price is around $0.10/kWh, but in Hawaii it is higher. Check your electric bill to be sure.

The equation is:
hours used * (wattage / 1000) * price/kWh = total cost

For an example, let’s say the the price is $0.12 / kWh, and a typical batch is brewed:

• 1 hour * (5500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.66 (hot liquor tank)
• 1 hour * (4500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.54 (boil kettle)

Total electricity cost for a standard batch of beer: $1.20

No More Propane:

Minimal cost savings aside, eliminating propane from the brewing equation is just awesome. Exhaust fumes are no longer a concern. There is no worry of a seal or hose coming loose and burning the shed down. Best of all, no more lugging the tanks around and having to get them refilled. If you are brewing indoors on a propane burner, seriously consider this upgrade. I have enjoyed brewing even more. I did not think that was possible. Electric brewing is safer, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly.

Posted in Brewing | 3 Comments »