Article

Brewing Day Priorities

Photo by Michael Tonsmeire

You aren’t running a craft brewery out of your basement (yet), so why brew like one? The schedules and finances of commercial breweries mean that they emphasize extraction efficiency, consistency, and speed. With different priorities and constraints, hobbyists are better served by shifting their emphasis in different directions than those of businesses.

The most difficult part of homebrewing in the Internet age is selecting between a multitude of choices. Brewhouse designs run from stovetop rigs assembled from hardware and kitchen supply stores to smartphone-controlled marvels of automation. Every homebrewer can benefit from determining what they want out of a brew day: What steps keep you brewing and which keep you from brewing?

In this column I will offer ideas to help you customize your approach in order to maximize your brewing satisfaction.

Prioritization

First, take time to identify the two or three factors that are most important to you: System cost, ingredient efficiency, brewing time, physical effort expended, control over the results, quality of the beer, and quantity of finished beer. Many have trade-offs, so be deliberate!

For the system I built to brew on two years ago, it was to minimize effort while maximizing quality. A longer brew day doesn’t bother me if I don’t have another commitment, and I can accept more expensive equipment and more raw ingredients if the result is delicious beer. Quantity and control are secondary priorities because I am willing to spend more money and time to produce additional wort, while saved effort allows me to focus on control.

This isn’t the same prioritization that I had when I began homebrewing. As a college senior (and then an unemployed college graduate) cost was central. Remember to reevaluate as your homebrewing hobby progresses.

A change in finances, free time, space, or beer preferences may mean your current process or equipment is no longer ideal.

Minimal Sparge

I wanted to leverage the simplicity of the brew-in-a-bag method, but avoid hoisting a 40-pound (18 kg) bag of steaming-hot spent grain. The result is a method I’ve dubbed “minimal sparge.” I heat 85% of the water, dosing minerals as needed, in the mash kettle. When the brewing liquor reaches the target dough-in temperature, I stir in the milled grain. I configure the recirculation loop and allow it to run for the length of the mash, leaving the flame on low to maintain temperature, or dialing it up for a step-mash. With conversion complete, I divert the runoff to the boil kettle until the wort in the mash is down to the grain bed. I add the remaining water, untreated, and at ground temperature to the top of the mash and finish run-off.

With different priorities and constraints, hobbyists are better served by shifting their emphasis in different directions than those of businesses.

The unheated sparge was inspired by Kai Troester’s post about the technique on his blog. Kai discovered that while sparging with room temperature water slowed runoff, it only lowers efficiency by 1% compared to a traditional 170 °F (77 °C) sparge. I’m not in a hurry during the sparge because the wort is still coming to a boil anyway. From an equipment standpoint, this technique allows me to brew without a hot liquor tank. As an added benefit the water cools the grain bed as it flows through, allowing immediate spent grain disposal.

You’ll need oversized equipment because of the dilute mash. My mash tun and kettle are both double the size of my target batch. I achieve ~75% mash efficiency for moderate gravity beers, even with a short 30-minute saccharification rest for high diastatic power grain bills. Six hours is a typical brew day.

Identify chores, and mitigate them. I brew in my detached garage and little else has made brew days easier than buying an RV hose and a carbon filter that attaches to the hose. Rather than carrying 18 gallons of water out from the kitchen, I run water directly into the mash tun.

Pumps and Chillers

A heat-resistant pump cuts manual work with this setup. I mounted a March Pump inside a plastic toolbox (as described in the “Projects” column from October 2009). This approach makes my pump mobile and protects it from errant splashes (with a ground fault circuit interrupter as a backup). The pump recirculates the mash (no manual vorlauf), moves wort from mash tun to kettle (no gravity required), and whirlpools (no stirring).

I rarely deploy my plate chiller, a miniature version of a commercial heat exchanger. When my ground water is cold, chilling is ultra-efficient. However, during half the year my Washington DC tap water is warmer than 70 °F (21 °C), making it impossible to cool the wort adequately for most yeast strains. A plate chiller also requires substantial effort to clean, recirculating hot cleaning solution in both directions after each use. I’ve enjoyed the change to an immersion chiller with a recirculation arm. The pump creates a whirlpool to speed cooling. Once groundwater takes the wort down to within 10 °F (6 °C) of itself, I switch over to recirculating ice water through the chiller using a submersible pump. Alternatively, move the wort into the fermenter and park it where it will cool to room temperature for 12 hours before aerating and pitching (as long as your sanitation is good, there is minimal risk).

Double Oversize Batches

Part of the impetus for my new setup was to move from 5-gallon to 10-gallon (19-L to 38-L) batches. Doubling the amount of wort doesn’t double the amount of time or effort required to brew. Mashing and boiling take the same amount of time although heating takes longer if you don’t also splurge on a more powerful burner. Extra capacity is invaluable for events (one keg for me, one for them), but in most cases I produce two or even three different 5-gallon (19-L) beers from a single mash. This is a great way to increase efficiency in your homebrewing. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

• Historic imperial stout: Half clean, and half aged on oak with Brettanomyces claussenii.

• Berliner weisse pre-boil, saison at the end of the boil, and New England IPA after the hop-stand.

• English porter, straight and infused with butternut squash, spices, and chocolate.

• German Pilsner and a Brett saison, using the same wort through chilling.

Adding extra grain and hops to produce a 20% cushion of wort has reduced my brewing stress. To result in two 5-gallon (19-L) kegs, I aim to have 12–13 gallons (45–49 L) of wort in the kettle at the end of the boil. This means that I can leave most of the trub behind with a gallon (4 L) of wort, allowing me to fit more wort and less trub into the same fermenter. With less break material I get to harvest purer yeast. I ferment in 8-gallon (30-L) vessels so 5.5–6 gallons (21–23 L) of wort doesn’t risk a messy blow-off. The final payoff is a full keg without tilting the fermenter to extract every drop of beer.

Be careful to adjust your recipes to account for the amount of beer present at each relevant stage. Boil hopping rates should be based on the amount of wort in the kettle at the end of the boil. Pitching rate and dry hopping on the amount of beer in the fermenter. Priming sugar on the amount of beer in the bottling bucket.

Where My Effort Goes

While you could use all of the free time a streamlined brew day liberates to watch football, read a brewing book, or enjoy a beer with friends . . . I use it to focus on the areas that I’ve found are responsible for great beer: Cleaning/sanitation, ingredient evaluation (smell every bag of hops before adding it), yeast health (use a vitality starter if you didn’t have time for one before), pH (monitor and adjust), and mineral profile.

I don’t suggest that my method is ideal for anyone other than me. It is only presented as an example of the steps I’ve taken to keep the hobby fun. If bottling fills you with anxiety, look into kegging. If the hassle of swapping out ice packs every 12 hours means primary fermentation is annoying, consider saving up for a temperature-controlled fermentation chamber or building one yourself as detailed in this story from the November 2009 issue. If time is your greatest constraint, consider a more powerful burner, and shortening the mash and boil.

You can brew beer that is as good as your favorite craft brewery without brewing beer using the identical approach as your favorite craft brewery!

Issue: January-February 2017
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