Kegerator (part one)

I've heard that it's almost impossible to make a great home brewed IPA without kegging equipment. I've heard that kegging saves so much time that you'll never go back. I've heard that the carbonation is better with kegging. I've heard counter pressure filled bottles taste fresher longer. I heard all of these things from seasoned brewers online and that made me wonder, "is it true?"

Keg Kit

I got a dual regulator setup from midwest brewing supply earlier this summer that I have been eager to try out. I chose this system for a few reasons you might want to consider: I wanted 2 kegs so I could always offer 2 beers on tap in case my friends wanted some variety, the dual regulator offers the option of controlling the carbonation of both beers, ball locks are more common and also a bit more expensive. Ball lock kegs and pin lock kegs also have different dimensions. This was important when picking out the mini fridge I intend to use for my kegerator.


The Fridge
I wanted the sanyo fridge that the internet seems to think makes the best/easiest at home kegerator. I could not find one for cheaper than $290 on line. While touring best buy last week I noticed a reasonably sized Frigidaire model BFPH44M4LM on sale for $169+tax. I couldn't say no: not when I was this close. The pluses about this fridge: it has a lock, everything inside of it comes out so it can accommodate kegs, and there is a guide on how to modify it on homebrewtalk's forums. There are draw backs to this fridge however: it requires some modding of the temperature control to fit 2 kegs, and it's not exactly clear where the coolant lines are in the top.


The Next Step
So next up I need to modify the fridge, brew some beers and try this thing out. I've been investing in this project pretty heavily recently. I've wanted beer on tap at home since I was in college and now that I have the chance I'm not going to miss it.

Part Duex? 
As this series rolls along I am going to do a post on keg care and cleaning from a newbie's view. How I plan to purge oxygen from my brewing process(you know the parts where oxygen is bad). How the fridge is working with picnic taps and kegs. I will finish it up with a detailed accounting of the addition of taps and other modifications of the fridge.

Citra Pale Ale

I purchased a keg setup from Midwest brew supply and a fridge from Best Buy that I intend to make into a kegerator (pictures/guide to come when I do it all). I've been thinking about what beers to keg, for my first kegged beer I picked a Citra Pale Ale.

The inspiration for this beer came from Kyle. When we were drinking the Citra IPA which was our first legitimate all grain brew(the prior brew was done just as a walk through, it turned out a bit too bitter) Kyle's first thought was that he wanted it to be a bit less bitter, and then he decided he wanted a bit less body. I wanted a bit more carbonation, and a bit more aroma. Thus I decided to reduce it from an IPA to a Pale. I did this to keep the sugars down because I wanted to reduce this to a session beer that I'd want to drink more often. This yielded a recipe with 2 fewer ounces of total hops, and 4 pounds less grain.

(read more after the break)

American Lambic: An Experiment in Lambicing

I am enjoying funky beers more and more, and I have been inspired by mike over at the mad fermentationist, and many others.

Things really turned for me earlier this year when I went to LA for The Bruery’s reserve society party. Patrick makes some fine beers, when I tried the oude tart I really began to enjoy funk; the oude tart with cherries was sublime. Then we found a bar in West Hollywood called The Surly Goat which had some Lost Abbey and Russian River sours on tap, this sold me. I had never experienced the depth of flavor, it was beer, fruit, tart, and subtly sour at the same time. This kicked off a sour run that has not stopped. 

My research for brewing this beer has been extensive: I’ve listened to the brewing network podcast, another great resource, read the info on BYO’s website, and read the mad fermentationist. Jamil pumped up a simple extract recipe that I had read at BYO. Steve Piatz wrote the recipe and explains why it works better than I could.

My take on it is doing 2 at once, and seeing what some of the different sour strains do so I can get a feeling for what I can make. In 12-18 months I might blend them into a gueze, or drink them straight or send them back to work fermenting fruit.

The Recipe

3 lbs Wheat Dry Extract (3.5 SRM)

3 lbs Golden Light Dry Extract (3.5 SRM)

4.00 oz Malto-Dextrine (Boil 90.0 mins)

4.00 oz Lambic Hops [0.00 %] - Boil 75.0 mi

1.0 pkg Belgian Ardennes (Wyeast Labs #3522)

Then aged with:

1.0 pkg Belgian Lambic Blend (Wyeast Labs #3278)

Or

1.0   pkg Roselare Blend (Wyeast Labs #3763)

And

.5 oz light toast French oak spirals

The process is a simple extract brew, 5 gallons of bland beer, fermented out with the Belgian blend, then racked to secondary with the Lambic yeast. First up is the Roselare Blend because the satchel of it I bought was produced a while ago.  

Lambic Hops are another unique ingredient in this brew. Typically they are aged one to three years. The idea of this is that all of the aroma and acids have long since floated off leaving only preservative qualities. I didn’t have three years to wait to make a beer that takes 2 years to make. I bought a pound of Czech Saaz hops. I aged 8 oz(4 oz for each batch) in my oven for 4 hours at 175 The results? They came out dry and faded, with much less aroma then when they went in.

I can’t report on the results yet, but so far so good. I brewed the first batch on 8/5/11 and the second batch on 8/19/11.

The only remaining question is what to brew next? I’ll have a third generation Belgian yeast cake ready to go.

American Black Ale (Simcoe)

This is part one of a three part experiment. As the title suggests this will be an ale featuring Simcoe with a bit of Cascade to add hop dept and fruit flavors. Cascade made the perfect choice because it is the classic hop in American beers; it seemed like a logical choice for this American style. When I formulated this recipe I looked around the Internet and settled on Carafa 3 special to darken the beer and add a distinct roasted aroma. Additionally I included chocolate malt to add roasted notes and victory to add biscuit flavors. I plan to dry hop this beer for about 5 days and bottle it a week in advance of my next trip to STL. 

This was my first and probably one of my last experiences with an ice bath. Some point soon I am going to build a second wort immersion chiller especially for small batches. The ice bath chilled my beer but 7 pounds of ice was no match for even a gallon of beer. The 25 foot immersion chiller we used in Chicago cooled our porter in less than 10 minutes to less than 70 degrees. I just need to engineer it to fit into 2 inches of water. 

I am a fan of hop bursting, I first read about this technique when I read Jamil Zainacheff’s article from zymurgy. The idea is that you use the majority of your hops in greater quantities in the last 20 minutes to increase your flavor and aroma while keeping the bitterness reasonable. In my somewhat limited experience with the technique I have yielded great flavor, good aroma, and not a lot of bitterness. To contrast we made a pale ale with warrior @ 60, citra and centennial in smaller amounts as usual, @ 40IBU; we also made an all citra IPA with a small 60 minute citra addition and 6 oz in the last 15 minutes, flameout and dry hop for 70IBU. The pale ale had more apparent bitterness. I put this technique to use with 50 IBUs coming from hops in the last 15 minutes.

I mentioned my experiment in the first paragraph; I plan to brew this three times, and each time I’ll supplement Cascade with another strong American hop. The next two versions will be centennial and nugget. I picked these hops because of the flavors, huge pine, huge citrus, and huge earth/spice.

The Recipe

Type: All Grain Date: 8/16/2011

Batch Size (fermenter): 1.00 gal     Boil Size: 1.14 gal: 

Boil Time: 60 min     Equipment: Brew Pot (2 Gallon)

End of Boil Volume 1.00 gal     Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %

2 lbs 2.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 79.0 %

4.0 oz Carafa III Special (525.0 SRM) 9.3 %

2.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) 4.6 %

1.5 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) 3.5 %

1.5 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) 3.5 %

1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)

Mash Profile: BIAB, 60 minutes @ 152, mash out @ 168 for 10 minutes

Bittering Hops:

0.10 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 20.4 IBUs

Flavor Hops:

0.30 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min 12.9 IBUs

0.20 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min 20.3 IBUs

Aroma Hops:

0.20 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 3.4 IBUs

0.30 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min 12.2 IBUs

0.20 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs

0.30 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs

Dry Hops:

0.20 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 14 0.0 IBUs

0.20 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 15 0.0 IBUs

OG: 1.069

FG: 1.014

SRM: 51.8

IBU: 69.2

Brewing Notes: I am always suprised how much hop trub is left over after brewing with whole hops. I need to remember to use a slotted spoon when I am brewing. I also will be thinking about using pellet hops in the boil, I might use some or all of the pellets in the boil and then dry hop with whole hops.