Autosiphon dime fix

After only about five brews, I've been finding that the little valve flap thing in my autosiphon keeps popping off.  At first, it seemed to only happen when I sucked up hop matter into the autosiphon, but last night the little thing popped out while I was running sanitizer through it.  I had wort chilling, so I didn't have time to spend popping it back in with a pair of tweezers as I've done before.  So I tried dropping a dime in the siphon as I've read on the internet.  It didn't work as well as the little plastic flap, but after a few strokes I did get a siphon started.

In summary, fixing an autosiphon with a dime does work.  (I have the half inch model of the autosiphon.)

Brew in a Bag Session 2

I did my second brew in a bag session today.  It was only four hours from the time I started heating my strike water till my my 65 degree F wort was transferred to a carboy and I finished cleaning up.  I did cut my boil time to 45 minutes.  If that doesn't lead to any dms  issues, I may just shorten up my normal boil time (I usually don't have a 60 minute hop addition anyway).

This batch may have given me an issue with efficiency (only 68%), but I may have messed up my measurement by drawing a sample from near the top of my kettle while I was chilling.  (I usually draw a sample at the end of my boil before everything gets stratified.)  My first brew in a bag batch had a 76% efficiency, so I think I just took a bad sample this time (especially given that this was a lower gravity beer).

I've added some photos this time to show how I executed a brew in a bag session in the kitchen of my condo.

This is my brew kettle just after adding my grains to my strike water.  I used the same formula for calculating my strike water as I did with a water cooler mash tun and it worked perfectly.  That is of course with a towel around my kettle for insulation.  

This is a second pot (5 gal.) that I  put my bag of grains into after removing it from the brew kettle for my mash.  I left the bag in here for about ten minutes and stirred up the grains.  I had an over flow last time.  Now I estimate that for a normal gravity beer, I can only have between 2-2.5 gallons in my 5 gallon "dunk sparge" kettle.  

After my "dunk sparge," I removed my grain bag to a large stainless steel mixing bowl where I caught some extra wort dribbling from the grains.  

Given my experience with this second brew in a bag session, I think I will be using this as my primary all-grain brewing method.  Finally, in my last post, I noted that this method produced very cloudy wort. This time, was no different.  I had a lot of break material in the bottom of my kettle after chilling.  But to keep from losing too much wort, I opted to use a hop sack.  I rarely use hop sacks, but I think I will be using them for brew in a bag.  So far, I think this is the best all-grain method I've found for brewing in my small apartment kitchen.  It's also pretty much as fast as knocking out an extract with specialty grains batch.  

Brew in a Bag Experiment

My local home brew shop started carrying large nylon mesh bags big enough for brew in a bag.  I tested it out  on my last brew with 13 lbs of malt and the seam on the bag ruptured in a few spots.  Besides the ruptures, which I've patched with some nylon thread, it was much easier than mashing in my water cooler mash tun.

If you've read my post on doing a full wort boil on a glass top range http://greatermonkey.blogspot.com/2012/04/full-wort-boil-on-glasstop-electric.html, you'll see I use a towel wrapped around my brew kettle to help me get 5.5 gallons of wort from mashing temperature to a boil in 20-25 minutes.  That towel worked great at retaining heat during the brew in a bag mash.  I only lost one degree F on a 1 hour mash.  The wort came out a lot cloudier than with my water cooler mash tun, but the beer still cleared out nicely after fermentation.  With the time I saved by not draining and then washing the mash tun, I think I may prefer mashing with brew in a bag to mashing in my water cooler mash tun.

I'll be testing out brew in a bag again tomorrow with my repaired and reinforced mesh bag.

End of the 2012 Hop Growing Experiment

My experiment on growing hops in the tropics is over and I didn't get any cones.  This year was hot and windy and I had trouble keeping the leaves on the plants from drying out without making the soil too wet.

I just dug up my rhizomes and stuck them in the fridge.  I'll probably give it another shot next year and hope for better weather.

Kansas City

The hops have not been doing well during this especially windy summer.  I can't give them enough water to off-set the high winds (when I tried I ended up with fungus gnats).  On the brighter side, I recently went to Kansas City and found a couple of cool beer places.

McCoy's: This place is a brewpub in Westport (I think that's what they call the area).  I tried a sampler and a glass of their double IPA.  The Double IPA and stout from the sampler were very tasty.  I found quite a few hoppy wheat beers in the city, which were really delicious.  McCoy's wheat beer in the sampler was unfortunately not one of these hoppy ones, but was still pretty tasty for an american wheat.  They also had a nice lean bison burger, which was a nice break from all the barbecue I had been eating.  (The barbecue was very tasty, but I usually don't eat so much rich meat in a single meal and I needed a break.)

Down the street from McCoy's was a "World Market."  It had a wide selection of bottled beers (stored warm).

Flying Saucer Draught Emporium: This place was in the Power and Light district.  Not a brew pub, but had a nice wide selection of area beers as well as other beers that don't get distributed to my town.  They had a 3 dollar menu with solid beers (no watery lagers) and a wall full of taps.  I don't know how many.  It was a very nice place.  If there was a place this nice, with this many beers in my town, it would probably be really expensive.

Near Flying Saucer there was a Cosentino's Market, which had a lot of beer.  Unfortunately, they apparently put a bag with my Boulevard Smokestack beers in the cart of the people in front of me.  I noticed after I had left and taken a bus to my hotel.  

Hops Update

After dropping the twine on my Nugget bines a third time, one of the the bines has again reached the top of the twine.  I think at this point I'm going to let the top of the bine start slumping over.  I read that would encourage the growth of laterals.  I think that the length on that Nugget bine is at approximately 15 feet now.  I think that's pretty good for a bine growing on a condo balcony.

The stumpy Cascade seems to have given up and shriveled to death.  That sucks, but that's the reason I bought two  rhizomes of each variety.

The surviving Cascade is still shorter than the two Nugget bines, but it's started shooting out new horizontal growth.  I hope those are the laterals I've been reading about.

Cheap Fermentation Temperature Control Update

The modifications I've made to my temperature control (putting my cold water reservoir in my mini refrigerator) are not working out well.  So far, the control seems to have trouble keeping the beer below 68 during fermentation.  That isn't so bad for the Belgian blonde I'm doing right now, but I like some of my other beers to ferment cooler.  I may consider looking for a larger reservoir.

I'm also considering changing the placement of my temperature probe.  Right now I have it attached to the carboy below the first couple inches of beer.  But I've notice my temperature readings near the bottom of my carboy are about 8 degrees cooler than near the bottom couple of inches.  Something to look into later.

Hop Update

A couple of days ago I had to add about five extra feet to the twine on my Nugget hops.  The Nuggets are continuing to grow vigorously.  The healthy cascade is still growing rapidly, though not as impressively as the Nuggets.

Unfortunately, the sickly Cascade is looking like a goner.

As for the fungus gnats, I've been letting my soil dry until I see the leaves at the top getting a little crispy before I water.  I've also been watering with the garlic solution.  The gnats aren't as plentiful as they were, but there's still a lot of them buzzing around my pots.  I've also started putting out little dishes of vinegar mixed with a few drops of dish soap around the plants.  The vinegar traps look like they're catching hundreds of gnats, but they don't stop coming.  I didn't want to use poison on my plants, but I'm starting to reconsider now that I'm seeing gnats buzzing around my house (where they might land in my beer).

Hop Update

I've recently noticed a bunch of fungus gnats (identified from a google image search) coming out of my hop containers.  I've decided to wait longer between waterings and apply a garlic water recipe I found on the internet (head of garlic soaked in water for 2 days, then strained and diluted to 1 gallon).  I also added chilis to the water because I read that was supposed to repel other pests.  I'll see how it works in a few days.  The plants seem to be doing fine despite the bugs, with the exception of my sickly Cascade.

Full Wort Boil on a Glasstop Electric Range

This is 5.5 gallons of wort that I got to a boil on my glasstop electric range.  After I got the first and second runnings into the kettle I believe my wort was at around 155 degrees F.  With this towel secured around the pot, I got to a boil in approximately 22 minutes.  

When I first started trying to do all grain I had stuck to 4 gallon batches that barely fit in my 5 gallon pot.  I wanted to be able to do 5 gallon batches, but I wasn't sure my stove could get all that wort to a boil.  I ended up buying this 7.5 gallon pot with the self-justification that if I couldn't get the full 5 gallon batch to boil, I could at least do my 4 gallon batches without having so much wort splashing out during the boil.

I was surprised at how well this towel wrap improved the efficiency of my boil.  When I did my first batch of extract, it took me 40 minutes to get a mere 3.5 gallons of wort to a boil from 155 degrees F.  It seems like the towel made a huge difference.  I left a couple of inches between the towel and the bottom of the pot to avoid having the towel burn.  I also watched the pot in case the towel slipped (which it didn't).

I should note that I brought this to a boil with a lid on, which I removed when the wort got up to around 208 degrees F.  I gotten my last two 4 gallon batches up to a boil with the lid on and not noticed any DMS character, so I went ahead and did it on this beer.  This one's still in the fermenter, so I can't be sure there weren't any problems caused by the lid.   

Hops Growing Update

There hasn't been much going on in the hopyard so there hasn't been much to post about.  Everything is still growing bigger, except for that stumpy Cascade (which still looks small and sickly).  You can see the stumpy Cascade on the right side of the photo.  

As mentioned before, I was using the ajustable trellis system described in a BYO article (http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/1926-growing-hops-in-containers).  Today, I saw that the Nugget plants were reaching the top of my trellis, so I decided to drop them.  I didn't want the bines flopping in the wind because it's been uncharacteristically windy for me this year.  To avoid having lots of slack bines flopping around in the wind, I let the lower part of the bines flop over the edges of my growing containers.  Then, I attached the top of the twine hanging over the bucket to the twine at the point where I had attached to base of the twine to the container.  This allowed me to leave the lower part of the twine hanging loose, while pulling the upper part of the twine snug.  I tried to get a picture of what I did below.

Cheap Fermentation Control Update

These are the pictures of my new modifications to my cheap fermentation temperature control system.  This post will probably not make a lot of sense if you haven't read my original post about this temperature control system (http://greatermonkey.blogspot.com/2012/03/my-cheap-fermentation-temperature.html)  As I mentioned in my last update about the system (http://greatermonkey.blogspot.com/2012/04/temperature-control-upgrade.html), I replaced my cooler of ice and water with a jug in a small refrigerator.  This is the end of the first full day it's been in use.  It's keeping a Belgian blonde at 70 degrees F (didn't want to push it too hard on its first try). 

Here's the fermentation held at a steady 70 degrees.

Here's the fermentation held at a steady 70 degrees

I saw some rope on sale at the hardware store and decided to use it to hold the sleeping bag to the carboy.  This was much easier than cramming the sleeping bag into the tub around the carboy.

This is the milk jug in my refrigerator.  You can see that I've sliced the top open to allow the pump to fit.

This blurry shot shows my hoses and the power cord for the pump going into the refrigerator.  I simply put a slit behind the magnetic strip so that I could lift away a portion of the vinyl between the door and the magnet strip.  You can see the flap of vinyl folded behind the black power cord from the pump.  You can't see it in the picture, but the slit goes around the corner a few inches.  I needed to go around the corner to make a big enough hold for the plug on the end of the pump power cord.  I made the slices a few weeks ago and have found that a little blue masking tape along the slit keeps the refrigerator operating normally when the not being used to chill my fermenter.

I'll try fermenting something a few degrees colder the next time around.

Temperature Control Upgrade?

I've just pitched yeast into an ale using my newly modified temperature control system.  I've gotten rid of the cooler of ice and water and replaced it with milk jug in a mini-refrigerator.  I have the same pond pump set up running water out of the milk jug.  To run the tubing and power cable for the pump out of the refrigerator,  I put a slit in the top of the magnetic strip on the refrigerator door.  I'm starting it off easy with a Belgian golden ale recipe that I wanted to ferment on the warm side, 70 degrees F.

My cheap thermostat controller got knocked over while I was setting everything up and one of the connections I soldered got torn out.  I jammed the wire back into the heat shrink and taped the wires to the  thermostat so they couldn't move.  That was tiring, so I'll add pictures later with an update on the performance of this new system.  If it works, I won't have to plan changing ice packs into my schedule.

Maui Brewing Tour

I didn't post an update on my hops this past week because I was visited Maui for the weekend.  While I was there I took in a tour of the Maui Brewing Company's production facility.  The tour was ten dollars and came with a tasting tray of Maui Brewing's Big Swell IPA, Mana Wheat, Bikini Blond, and Coconut Porter.  They also put in a fifth beer, an Irish Red.   I had tried the IPA and porter at bars in the past and was disappointed.  But after having the chance to try these beers at the brewery, I think the bars must not have treated their beers very well.  The IPA and porter were amazing at the brewery.  I had never had such a delicious IPA in Hawaii before the brewery tasting.  The tour was along the lines of other great brewery tours I've had (Stone and Anchor), but it really warmed my cockles to see a little brewery doing such great things in Hawaii.  I've added some pictures I took on the tour below (I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the brew system and fermenters.)  The price of the tour also came with a wooden token good for a pint at the Maui Brewing pub, which was at a separate location (see below). 

A day after my tour of the production brewery, I visited the pub.  I won't get into individual reviews of the beers I tried, but I enjoyed everything.  I had a glass of the Freight Train IPA and Chinwig English Strong Ale.  Both were very tasty.  The Chinwig got very tasty when it had a chance to warm up.  Of the Freight Train, I have to say it was the very best IPA I've ever tasted in Hawaii.

It was described as a San Diego style IPA at the pub and I think it lived up to that description.  It was one of those great beers that smells like a freshly opened bag of hops.  My visit to the pub made me really wish there was a Maui Brewing pub on my island.

The pub also let me have a tasting of four beers of my choosing for $6 (they told me it would have been $4 for a tasting of the brewery's four main beers that I already tasted at the brewery tour.)  In regards to my hop experiment, the Nuggets put on a little over six inches while I was away; my stumpy Cascade is still looking stunted, sickly dud.

The Freight Train IPA

The Chinwig English Strong Ale

The four beer tasting

Bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja

I drank a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja a few days ago and decided I should dump my last jar of starter wort over the sediment and see if it grew.  It's looking nice and active today.

Hop Experiment: Three Weeks

It's about three weeks since I planted my rhizomes.  The last rhizome to sprout was this Cascade, which seems to be moving along very slowly for some reason.  I'm glad I bought a second Cascade because this one is lagging compared to the other plants.  The sprouts also look strange compared to the sprouts from the other plants.

In comparison to that disappointing Cascade,  this one seems to be moving along nicely, although slower than the Nugget plants.  It's approximately 13 inches right now.

The Nugget plants continue to be the most impressive, with the longest bine (below) at approximately 25 inches.

You may also be able to see that I've rearranged the Christmas lights.  I have them hanging from my stakes so that the string runs vertically behind each bine.  I've also moved the grow bulbs (of which I have two in aluminum light fixtures) up the stakes so that they're above the top of the Nugget plants.  

Hop Experiment: Two Weeks

It's been about two weeks since I put my rhizomes in the ground and they've finally all put up shoots.  This Cascade was the last to put something up.

 The Nuggets (below) are way ahead of the Cascades.  The bines on the Nuggets were getting long enough to bend to the side, but weren't long enough to reach the twine I had secured to my containers.  I ended up tying an extra lengths of twine to the pieces I had already strung up.  Then I wrapped the bines around those extra pieces of twine.

 This (below) was the first of my two Cascades to put up shoots and it's already way ahead of the second Cascade.  I'm a little concerned that it's looking wispy compared to the Nuggets.

At this point, I have each of my four rhizomes in it's own five gallon bucket with commercial potting soil.  I'm using an adjustable trellis system similar to the one described in this BYO article (http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/1926-growing-hops-in-containers), except that I'm limited to a 6.5 ft stake.  I would have preferred to use a larger stake, but that was about as tall as I could make them while still being able to move the plants.  

Cascade Sprouts

I noticed some sprouts finally coming out of one of my Cascades today.  The Nugget rhizomes have both already have about six inches of growth with nice shapely leaves.  I was concerned about the amount of light coming off of the two LED grow bulbs I initially set up to supplement my daylight, so I've added a string of 60 white LED Christmas lights I had.

More Nugget Shoots

The second Nugget put up a shoot today, but still nothing from the Cascades. The first nugget has also put up some new shoots. Now that I have some shoots, I've put a few lights on a timer to come on in the morning before sunrise and again after sunset to try and mimic fourteen hours of light. I had been thinking about supplementing my short tropic days with artificial light and decided to try it after reading a blog about growing hops in South Africa here http://www.heydenrych.info/hop_growing.html.

First Sprout

Right after my last post, I put two Nugget rhizomes and two Cascade rhizomes into the dirt. Today, just three days later, the first sprout poked out of the dirt from one of the Nugget rhizomes.

Hop Experiment

My rhizomes have arrived! Soon I'll start my experiment: growing hops in the tropics with artificial lighting to supplement the day length.

My Cheap Fermentation Temperature Control

I built this fermentation temperature control system to be cheap and not take up too much space in my condo. On my first few brews I only used a tub of water and some frozen water bottles, but that ended up being inadequate as ambient temperatures where I live are often above 80 degrees F.

This set up utilized a 20 ft piece of 3/8 in. outer diameter copper tubing that cost around $13 at the hardware store, an old sleeping bag, a plastic storage container that I already had, an old 2 gallon cooler, a fountain pump I got from Amazon for $12, two pieces of 3/8 in. inner diameter vinyl tubing, some teflon tape, and a two hose clamps. To control the system, I used a Lux Win 100 thermostat that I modified by splicing several feet of wire to extend the reach of the temperature probe. I've been using a 6 gallon better bottle as my fermenter and it's been working great with this system.

To modify the termostat, I cut the short external wire attached to the temperature probe. That left just enough wire coming from the probe and the thermostat for me to solder in a few feet of 18 gauge wire.

To actually remove heat from my fermentor, I arranged the copper tubing into a coil that fits tightly around my better bottle and attached a length of vinyl tubing to each end with hose clamps. I pump cold water into the top of the tube with the fountain pump. I couldn't find an adapter at my hardware store to fit my 3/8 inch tubing to my fountain pump, so I wrapped a bunch of teflon tape around the tip of the tube I attached to the pump until I had a nice tight fit.

To keep the water that I pump through the copper coil cold, I keep the pump in the 2 gallon cooler and change the ice two or three times per day.

I set the carboy into the plastic storage tub and stuff the sleeping bag around the Better Bottle. The picture below shows the better bottle wrapped up in the sleeping bag on the left. The cooler with the pump and frozen ice bottles is on the right. I tape the temperature probe to the Better Bottle and tape a piece of cardboard over the probe. The power cable from the pump gets hooked up to the thermostat and switches on the pump to keep my beer at the correct temperature.

The picture below shows the copper tubing wrapped around the Better Bottle beneath the sleeping bag, as the cooling system keeps my ale fermenting at 60 degrees F.

So far, the coldest I've been able to keep a fermentation with this system was 60 Degrees F. That was a five gallon batch of 1.075 gravity ale that I fermented with Pacman yeast. I'm sure a digital temperature control would be better than the thermostat, but this system currently keeps the beer at my selected temperature, or one degree F below (at least according to the display on the thermostat). This system is also great because it doesn't take up much space in my condo when it's not in use.

I'm thinking about upgrading this system by replacing the cooler of ice and water with a container of water in the small refrigerator I currently use to hold my beer. I would modify the refrigerator to accommodate the vinyl tubing and power cable from the pump. I'm thinking of possibly putting a slit in the magnetic stripping on the door to accomodate the tubing and power cable.

My Cheap Homebrew Mash Tun

I built this mash tun after reading about Denny Conn's mash tun at http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/. I wanted to build something similarly cheap and simple, but wanted to utilize a spigot that could be secured with a nut.

I've only used it once so far and got approximately 72% efficiency. Not extremely efficient, but it was relatively cheap and compatible with the countertop brewing space in my condo. I utilized a 5 gallon Igloo cooler that I already had around the house, a piece of teflon tape of which I already had a roll, a 6 in. piece of 3/8 in. outer diameter copper tubing that I bought from the hardware store for $2 (they would only sell me a foot), the stainless steel braid from a toilet hose that cost around $7 from the hardware store, and a water dispense faucet that I got off Amazon for about $10.

After removing the braid from the toilet hose, I twisted and crimped one end shut with some pliers. The other end I pushed through the copper tube and folded back over the copper tube, securing it to the tube with the teflon tape. The frayed end of the hose is prickly and easily stabs fingers.

The taped end of the copper tube fits nicely into the back side of the faucet and fits just

right so that grain bits don't make it out of the spigot. I think that I may have been able to use aslightly larger piece of tubing into the faucet, but was nervous that a larger size wouldn't work with the thickness of the stainless steel braid folded over the end of the tube. The picture to the left shows the faucet assembled in the cooler and the copper tube assembly inserted.

I was concerned about the grain bed pinching the stainless steel braid closed and pushing against the end of the copper tubing, possibly reducing the flow of wort out of the mash tun. So I placed a stainless steel vegetable steamer that I already had on top of everything (see the picture below.) I'm sure some grain made its way below the steamer, but the wort flowed smoothly and I didn't have any problems draining the mash tun.

One brew in, this cheap and simple design has been great for my 3.5 gallon condo brew system. I'll eventually put this mash tun to the test