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Green Brewing

Brewing “green” is appealing to more than those who want to have a positive effect on the environment. If you’re frugal, especially in this time of rising ingredient and energy costs, streamlining your brewing processes can lessen the impact on your wallet as well.

In a recent episode of Basic Brewing Radio (which can be found at www.basicbrewing.com), we asked our listeners to send in tips on how they have changed their brew day to be greener or more cost-efficient. By far, the most common thread was about the use of water in chilling the wort after the boil.

In some areas of the country, being more mindful of water use is a necessity. The southeast United States and California have been in the news lately as they suffer through drought conditions.

“Here in the Atlanta metro area, the local governments have instituted outdoor watering bans due to the dangerously low levels of our reservoirs that supply our drinking water,” says Michael Schliesman of Roswell, Georgia. “We are not even allowed to wash our cars in our driveways.”

Schliesman brews on his back deck in a converted keg, and he chills with a counterflow wort chiller. Although he says the chiller is very efficient, it still uses a lot of water to cool 10-gallon (38-L) batches.

“In an effort to conserve that water, I connect a hose to the water outlet of my chiller and water my vegetable garden and other plants around my house with the water that would normally have run through my yard and down the storm drain,” Schliesman says.

Several brewers reported capturing the chiller water and using it for other purposes, from filling clothes washers to cleaning brewing gear to watering the lawn. One thing to keep in mind: when the water first comes through the chiller, it’s going to be very hot. This can have unexpected effects in terms of safety and marital harmony.

“I decided to water the garden with my chiller water,” says Steve Wilkes, co-host of the Basic Brewing podcasts. “I didn’t realize how hot the water was at first. The next day, one of my wife’s prized azaleas was brown. The beer was good, though.”

What’s bad for azaleas is good for cleaning solutions, though. The initial exit water from your chiller can be used to make a great, hot solution that you can use to clean your kettle and immersion chiller after the wort is safely in the fermenter.

Another podcaster, Douglas Wawrzynski of Homebrewing Perspectives, lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is on the edge of a desert. Wawrzynski modified one of the techniques from our Low-Tech Lagering DVD to minimize the amount of water he needs for chilling with an immersion chiller.

“I start with a large cooler,” Wawrzynski says. “I fill it about halfway with cool water and add the proper amount of Iodophor. I use that water to sanitize my plastic fermenter and all the gadgets associated with brew day. I complete the boil, and then when all my things are sanitized, I place my immersion chiller in the wort in front of the cooler and attach one end of the immersion chiller to a small pond pump in one end of the cooler. I then loop the other end of the immersion chiller circuit to the far side of the cooler. My sanitization solution has now become my heat exchange fluid, plus I have the peculiar benefit of knowing I’m killing whatever is lurking in the dark coils of my immersion chiller.”

As the sanitizing solution/chiller water heats in the cooler, Wawrzynski adds milk jugs of ice from his freezer along with other cold packs and ice cubes. Once the wort is chilled, he adds PBW and uses the water to clean all his brewday equipment.

“While neither National Chemicals or the PBW people would likely condone mixing the two, I haven’t had any problems,” says Wawrzynski. “In the end, I am only using about 7 gallons (26 L) of water for sanitization, wort chilling and equipment cleanup combined.” A slightly modified approach might be to direct the hottest initial water to your washing machine, or to a cooler to make hot cleaning solution, and only begin recirculating the chilling water once the water has cooled a bit. This would reduce the amount of ice needed (and reduce the amount of electricity needed to run the freezer to make the ice).

Due to their design, counterflow chillers are inherently more efficient in their water usage than immersion chillers. But, the upfront cost is higher. Some immersion chillers, though, are more efficient than others. Some have a twisted strand of plastic running the length of the tubing. This insert causes the flow of water through the tubing to be turbulent, and hence increases the efficiency of the chiller. (If the water flowed more smoothly through the tubing, the water right next to the metal would heat up while the water in the center of the stream would be slightly cooler.)

When using an immersion chiller, brewers can dramatically affect the chilling time by keeping the wort moving around the chiller’s coils. Steve Arch from Dwygyfylchi, Wales says, “when using an immersion chiller, if the wort is left to settle, then a layer of cold wort forms around the chiller that shields the rest of the hot wort from the chiller. If you stir or agitate the wort with your brewing paddle (sanitized of course) every so often, you prevent these areas of different temperature in the wort and chill the wort faster. You can feel the difference in this if you put your hand on the outlet part of the chiller or in the outlet water stream.” (Do not touch the outlet tubing or exit stream in the first few minutes of chilling or you will get burned or scalded.)

Alternatively, brewers can use the immersion chiller itself to get the wort moving around the coils. Swirling the chiller in the wort will cause the liquid to move, increasing the effectiveness of the cool water moving through the copper tubing. Those who are afraid of the effects of hot side aeration should avoid vigorous movement until the wort chills below 100 °F (38 °C). Also, keep in mind that the outflow tubing will be extremely hot, so use gloves or a pot holder when handling the chiller early in the cooling cycle. Swirling your wort or chiller not only saves water, but cools your wort faster and faster chilling means the wort spends less time in the temperature range where contaminants grow quickly.

Nick Marshall lives in South Florida, which means he’s used to thinking about the challenges of chilling hot wort. “If you own a pool, you can install a garden hose spigot to your pool plumbing,” Marshall says. “When it comes time to chill, you can simply pump pool water through your chiller and re-circulate it back to the pool where you will also get warmer water for your pool. Zero usage of water on your water bill.”

Reduce

Ironically, one of the letters with suggestions on how to cut down on the use of sanitizing agents came from a sanitizer manufacturer. Murl Landman of National Chemicals wrote in with tips on using BTF Iodophor, which his company manufactures.

“We all know that the real pain is sanitizing bottles,” Landman says. “I bottle condition in swing tops, and for the longest time I could not find a great way to sanitize them without either making five gallons and submerging them or buying a bottle tree. Both can be a bit messy. I can’t use oven heat as it will degrade the rubber seal on the swing.”

Landman devised a solution that cuts down on the use of water and Iodophor. “I came up with a new fast and cheap protocol using a secret sanitizing weapon: a small, plastic, long-necked watering can for houseplants,” he says.

“First, I dip the necks and swing tops into a gallon of sanitizer in my bucket, completely ignoring the inside of the bottle to start with. Then, once they have all been dipped, I dip the tip of the watering can into the sanitizer and then fill the watering can with sanitizer. From there, I add a few ounces of sanitizing solution to each bottle. Then swirl and dump the bottles, often 2 to 4 at a time back into the sanitizer bucket, repeating this until all the insides are now sanitized. I easily cut my bottle sanitizing time in half and cut my chemical use by 80 percent.”

Landman admits that he may be hurting his Iodophor sales by sharing tricks on how to use less. “But in the long run, if I can do my part to help others achieve more successful and consistent brewing events faster and for less,” he says, “the world will be full of more great beer and happier people!”

Another common sense approach to reducing the amount of chemicals used for cleaning and sanitation is to clean or sanitize as much as possible with your solutions. If you make some hot cleaning solution to clean a fermenter, clean the keg you will use as well — and look for other brewery items that need cleaning as well. Most cleaning and sanitizing solutions can be stored for short amounts of time and successfully reused, so if you know you’re going to brew again in a couple days, save your solutions in an old bucket.

Reducing the amount of energy needed to bring water and wort up to the proper temperature is also a key point in the process where brewers can have an impact.

Tony Black, from Payneville, Kentucky discovered a new appliance had unexpected results for his brewing sessions. “We remodeled our old farmhouse and installed a tankless water heater,” says Black. “The thermostat is adjustable in two degree increments up to 140 °F (60 °C), so if I brew indoors I can get the right amount of water to the right temperature almost immediately. And, it takes less time to get the wort up to boiling (less gas used).” (Of course, depending on how the electricity was generated — by burning coal or by the turning of hydroelectric turbines — and the efficiency of the heater, the tankless water heater may or may not be a net benefit to the environment. Sometimes figuring out what’s most green isn’t all that simple.)

Those of us who don’t have the latest model of water heater can still benefit from using some common sense when we’re brewing to cut down on the energy we need.

First, when brewing outside, shield your burner and kettle from the wind. On windy days, precious heat is blown away and diverted from the wort, while you watch the surface for a sign of a bubble. At the same time, keep whatever you’re using for shielding well away from the flames. Likewise, heating your brewing liquor more slowly will save propane. If you begin heating your water first, then taking care of any brewery set-up, grain crushing or last-minute cleaning, you can save propane.

Giving your burner a tune-up can also affect the amount of gas you use. When you restrict the amount of air going to the flame, your propane burner should produce a blue flame with no red in it. If it doesn’t, you are not burning the fuel as efficiently as you could and are wasting gas. In storage, dust or other material may settle in the burner head and actually restrict the flow of gas. A quick blast of compressed air through the air inlet of your burner will clean this out. However, the burner head itself may not allow for gas to flow as smoothly as it should. Often, if you disassemble a new burner, casting slag can be found inside. Use a metal file to remove this, clearing a path for the gas. A clean propane burner will not only save gas, it will eliminate the deposition of black soot on the bottom of your kettle.

If you’re mashing outside, especially in cold weather, add a layer of insulation to your mash tun. Whether it’s a sleeping bag or an old blanket, the added insulation will keep your mash more stable and keep you from expending energy to bring your mash back up to your desired mash rest temperature.

Reuse

Of course, if you’ve ever gone diving into the trashcan after (or even during) a party to fetch “good” bottles, you’re familiar with the concept of reuse. Homebrewers are known for rescuing items from the trash or curb for use in their home breweries. This practice is especially useful in communities without recycling programs.

Steve Oatley from Oak Park, Michigan has a list of rescued items. In addition to glass bottles, he reuses old plastic fermentation buckets. “They’re great for washing the car — which you should do on your lawn,” Oatley says. “The water is good for your grass, and it keeps the soap out of the runoff drains that can harm fish.”

On the other hand, not every item is a good candidate for rescue. Matt Fischer from Fort Collins, Colorado has a warning for brewers who are using old freezers to chill their kegs and lager their brews. “One of the reasons I did not go with an old freebie fridge is that they eat electricity like candy,” he says.

Fischer directs owners of old refrigerators to a government Web site: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=refrig.calculator.

“You can go here and enter the model number and your electricity cost (in dollars per kwH), and it tells you the annual cost to run the fridge,” says Fischer. “A free fridge isn’t that helpful if it’s burning through $250 in electricity every year. If you see the cost is pretty high, you might save money after a couple of years to buy a new one, or move your kitchen fridge to the garage and buy a new one for the house.”

There are also devices, such as the Kill-A-Watt monitor that allow you to find out how much juice any appliance is using. You just plug the monitor into your wall socket and plug your appliance into the meter. The meter will show you how much electricity you are using. This meter is not only great for evaluating your brewing fridge, but it’s useful for ferreting out electronic items in your house that could be left unplugged when not in use. (Some items use an astounding amount of power just to display a digital clock or to remain in “standby mode.”)

At some point in their pursuit of the hobby, many homebrewers end up with multiple fridges, chest freezers and/or kegerators. One thing to remember about refrigerators is that they use less electricity when they are full. So, if you have multiple fridges, consolidate your bottles and kegs as much as possible and unplug any appliance not in use. (And, of course, if you brew as much as possible, your fridges will always be full.) Also, if you have a fleet of fridges, find out which are least energy efficient and only use them when your beer inventory swells.

Recycle

Brewers have an excellent opportunity to turn some of their used ingredients into wonderful plant food, as well. Once grain has done its duty in the mash tun or steeping bag, a backyard compost heap is an excellent final resting place.

Spent grains piled up by themselves will smell bad (OK, horrible), though, and it’s best to read up on composting if you are going to try it. If you have an active compost pile, you will need to add some green material along with the spent grains to keep the decomposition of the materials proceeding at a fast rate. For a passive pile, simply covering up the grains with a layer of soil will keep the odor down.

Hops are good candidates for composting, too. However, don’t let your dogs eat them — certain breeds have a toxic reaction to them.

Composted soil is excellent food for gardens and household plants. Not only that, but composting keeps spent grains out of the landfill or the wastewater treatment plant if you wash them down the kitchen disposal.

And speaking of gardens, if you live in an area that’s suitable for hop growing, you can save money by planting your own rhizomes while helping the environment at the same time.

One homebrew company will also help you recycle their packaging. White Labs yeast comes in plastic tubes. If you save up their tubes, you can return them to White Labs as part of their Customer Club. For every 10 tubes you return you get a coupon for another tube. White Labs recycles the plastic. Some homebrew shops also collect these for recycling (and you really only need to send in the labels to get your yeast coupon).

Grow Your Own

By now, unless they’ve been hiding under their brewpots, homebrewers are well aware of the high price of hops. As a response, across the country, hopyards are springing up at the home addresses of many homebrewers. There are numerous advantages to growing your hops, beyond the fact that they look great. They are easy to grow and only need to be dried after picking. In addition, you will control how much pesticide you use on the plants — and if you live outside of traditional hop-growing regions, odds are you may not be troubled much by pests. Finally, in addition to saving on ingredient costs, not purchasing hops sent from across the country will save on the packaging and energy it takes to ship them.

Brewers who use Star San as a sanitizer and grow their own hops may find some use in this advice from Norm Kwasinski from Lynnwood, Washington. “Don’t dump used Star-san down the drain, save it,” he says. “Get yourself a small garden sprayer and spray your hops with the used Star San. This will not hurt your hops but will help cut down on powdery mildew.”

Matt Fischer has an additional tip for gardeners. “Last year we had slugs in our garden, and I had some bad homebrew,” he says. “Instead of dumping toxic stuff in the garden to control the slugs, we took a plastic bottle and cut a ‘window’ in the side and buried it about 3–4 inches (8–10 cm) down. The slugs need to be able to ‘walk’ into the bottle, which is filled with bad beer up to the ground level. Slugs love your bad beer and will drown in it, presumably after getting hammered.”

Bad homebrew? Is there such a thing? One supposes that bad store-bought beer could also be used for the slug traps — after the guests who brought it have left.

In the end, there are as many solutions to brewing green as there are home brewers. Many homebrewers are interesting in brewing green as a way to do their part in helping the planet. Our planet is, after all, where barley and hops grow. As a bonus, many of the environmentally-conscious ideas for green brewing will also save you money . . . and this money can be spent on barley and hops.

There can also be an element of challenge to it. Brewers may wonder what’s the least amount of water they can use to successfully chill their wort? How many 5-gallon (19-L) batches can they squeeze out of a single propane tank?

When they set their minds to it, home brewers are as inventive and resourceful as any group on the planet. And when it comes to saving the planet, they’ve got more than a few answers. And many of these simple, common-sense answers show that, despite what Kermit thinks, it can be easy being green.

Homebrewing Organic (Sidebar by Amelia Slayton)

These days, almost everyone wants to make environmentally friendly choices. Recycling, fuel efficiency and conserving water are so commonplace that most people do it every day with hardly a second thought. Organic food has also hit the mainstream, with major supermarkets devoting whole sections to organic produce and packaged food.

There are also plenty of organic beers on store shelves these days, from hand-bottled beers crafted by the smallest microbrewery all the way up to organic beer offered by Anheuser-Busch. To many homebrewers who have tried an organic beer, brewing one at home seems to be the next logical step. Brewing organic beer might be a scary move into the unknown, but it is easier than one might think.

The first question many brewers have is what makes organic beer organic? The word organic has several definitions. If referring to the scientific definition organic means “of, relating to, or derived from living organisms.” Based upon this, it would be correct to call any beer organic since it is made from plant products and fungus (brewers yeast). However, when it comes to the modern everyday use of the word in reference to food products, the word organic is now defined as grown and processed without chemical pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides, artificial fertilizers, sewage sludge or artificial additives. In addition, specific substances or processes such as radioactive byproducts, irradiation, or genetically modified organisms (commonly labeled GMO’s), are not allowed in the production of organic food in the USA.

In the US, the use of the word organic in food production is regulated by the USDA through The National Organic Program (NOP). The NOP is responsible for the legal definition of organic, administering organic certification nationwide, and enforcing organic standards. What this means is that anything sold as organic has to have documented proof that the standards were followed from the grower to the final product. Unless buying direct from the farmer, these days the certified organic label is the best way to be sure the product is organic. Every food product that is certified organic must list the certifying agency on the label, and most carry the USDA organic seal familiar to many shoppers. Commercial producers of organic beer also have to meet national organic standards, and have to go through a certification process. Homebrewers, of course, do not need to worry about government regulations, just their own personal standards.

The next step to brewing organic beer at home is to seek out the ingredients. When choosing ingredients, try to get ingredients that are as fresh as possible and check for the certified organic seal on the label. The selection of organic brewing ingredients available to homebrewers is still very limited in most areas. One place to look, if the local homebrew store does not stock organic malt or hops, is the local health food store. Many health food stores regularly stock flaked grains, organic herbs and spices, fresh organic produce and sugar alternatives such as agave syrup, molasses and malt extract, all of which could be a part of an organic recipe. Many shops carry a few items or can at least special order a sack of organic grain. For some organic brewing ingredients, the only option is mail order.

One thing is certain — the selection of organic brewing ingredients pales in comparison to the selection of conventionally grown ingredients that is available to homebrewers today. In fact, choosing the right substitutes for ingredients is one of the biggest challenges an organic brewer faces. This has required organic beer brewers to be resourceful and creative. The challenge to brew organic beer just as good if not better than conventionally brewed beer has made the truly dedicated organic brewer a better brewer. No organic bitter orange peel? Why not try a blend of sweet orange peel and lemon peel instead. No dark malt extract? Make a tea with organic chocolate malt and add it to the brew.

Like a seasoned chef, working with just fresh seasonal ingredients, a skilled brewer will smell and taste unfamiliar ingredients before brewing, and then choose a recipe that highlights the best characteristics of those ingredients. Becoming familiar with the unique characteristics of each ingredient really helps when working with organic hops, since some of the organic hops on the market are unknown to most homebrewers.

For instance, New Zealand Pacific Gem is a hop rarely found except as organic. It is a very high alpha hop averaging 16% alpha acid and has a striking blackberry characteristic which works very well in a stout or porter. Organic hop farming on a large scale is a challenge, and to succeed, farmers in New Zealand, Germany, and Belgium have had to dramatically change their growing techniques. The end result of their efforts are very high quality, fragrant hops that rival the best conventional hops on the market. Although the reasons to brew organic beer are many, there is one thing that just about every organic homebrewer can agree on: Organic beer is clean, great tasting beer, rich with flavor, and good for you and the environment too.

Issue: October 2008