Project ZUTROB - Zepto Under the Radar Office Brewing

What is it?
Not micro, nano or pico, but zepto yielding 1 bottle batches.
All Grain brewed on your desktop at work under the radar.

How?
Ideas are to use a ranco controller and a mini crock pot.
Mash temps are regulated by the controller.
Should be able to achieve a boil in a mini crock pot but w might use the microwave to assist in ramping up the boil.
We'll cool using ice and water from the breakroom
We'll use an ice tea bottle to ferment.
We are considering a mini soda can cooler and the ranco to control fermentation

Other Ideas
No boil Berlinner Weiss.
Spontaneous Fermentation (overnight outdoor inoculation).

Why?
Unanswerable.

It has been suggested that one could make a coffee stout and re-purpose the grinder as the grain mill.

You must be really bored at work if you are trying to brew by the bottle to kill time!

avaserfi said:

You must be really bored at work if you are trying to brew by the bottle to kill time!

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Hah... at the very least, it entertained you. I'm taken by the elegance of a single bottle batch.

Fabulous.

I need to do more small batch brewing to fit in the spaces in between where I don't have time to brew a big batch (or the fermenters are full) and still want to brew something. I'm a big fan of the Mr. Beer for low gravity beers, as you can bottle when the krausen drops and it carbonates naturally in 2L bottles as the last few points shave off. I hadn't thought about going smaller though.

This thread has the potential to be EPIC!

*subscribe*

I need a second controller for this project that will eventually be chest freezer controller.
Can anyone beat Morebeer's price?
Or should I roll my own?

[FONT=Trebuchet MS,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Trebuchet MS,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]SALE: $84.15 - 15% OFF
PROMO CODE: TEMPMAY09B
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olllllo said:

I need a second controller for this project that will eventually be chest freezer controller.
Can anyone beat Morebeer's price?
Or should I roll my own?

[FONT=Trebuchet MS,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Trebuchet MS,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]SALE: $84.15 - 15% OFF
PROMO CODE: TEMPMAY09B
[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Trebuchet MS,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Trebuchet MS,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]* Offer is good from May 24 - May 31 *



[/FONT][/FONT]

Click to expand...

You might want to wait to see if the order egg hatches on time before counting your temp controller chickens.

Wasn't there an Office episode where Kevin makes beer in the office?

Found it!!! 3:50

Despite it being a genius idea, I'm gonna pass on this. I like the thought of a pension in 2 years.

How about mashing in a coffee thermos. Measure the temp of the water from the coffee machine beforehand and use a mash temp calculator to figure out how much you need to add to the grain in the thermos for mash in. Boil in the microwave. Transfer it to the tea bottle, cap and put it in the fridge to cool down. Pitch the yeast when it's cool enough and ferment on the desk. Transfer to another tea bottle / soft drink bottle when it starts slowing down and screw the cap on tight to carb.

I'd be temped to go DME with steeping grains. Also I think boiling in the microwave or an hour would be a problem, DME would help since you only need to boil for hop utilization. I'd reccommend a IPA, all bittering/flavor/aroma in the 10 minute boil.

Blow off tube? Bendy straw. Short end through the cap, long end in a dixie cup...or use coffee cup that belongs to the annoying chick in accounting. Your pick.

conpewter said:

I'd be temped to go DME with steeping grains. Also I think boiling in the microwave or an hour would be a problem, DME would help since you only need to boil for hop utilization. I'd reccommend a IPA, all bittering/flavor/aroma in the 10 minute boil.

Click to expand...

you wouldn't have to boil for an hour, just for as long as you'd do it with extract to get some bitterness from the hops.

My "office" is right next to my brewery. I make beer "at work" all the time when I am not billing .

In fact, I just finished a pint of 75 minute IPA that I made at work a few months ago.

I do not miss the days of commuting to an office.

I think someone has a case of "the Mondays"!!!

I once saw a youtube video about how to add a pressure release valve to a bottle top. I always wondered what use that might have. Now I know.

KingBrianI said:

you wouldn't have to boil for an hour, just for as long as you'd do it with extract to get some bitterness from the hops.

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you don't need to boil for an hour to get bitterness from hops. You'll still get about 1/3 of the bitterness extracted in a 10 minute boil than you would get in a 60 minute boil. I've been reading about several brewpubs that hop like this for a lot of hop aroma/flavor without massive bitterness.

You could use a drip coffee maker for fly or batch sparging and for all water heating needs...

If you get one of these:

Review: The Big and Easy Bottle Brew - Beer, Wine, Homebrew, and Everything Fermentable! - fermentarium.com

You can do the fermenting in the 2l jug with the nifty airlock cap.

I think bringing in a crock pot is cheating, though. Gotta use equipment found at work (for work related purposes) and use that to brew.

I recommend mashing in the coffee pot. Toss in grains and see how long that bastard will hold enough heat for full conversion.

As for a 1 hr boil - without cheating a bit, I don't know what to say on that one. I saw something really cool about these pepsi-can burners that hikers make. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverage-can_stove

It's cheating too, but at least not to the point of bringing in coil burner or crock pot.

If you're in IT you can almost surely lager in the server room, those are usually kept nice and cool.

conpewter said:

you don't need to boil for an hour to get bitterness from hops. You'll still get about 1/3 of the bitterness extracted in a 10 minute boil than you would get in a 60 minute boil. I've been reading about several brewpubs that hop like this for a lot of hop aroma/flavor without massive bitterness.

Click to expand...

We're saying the same thing. I mean't an all grain batch wouldn't have to be boiled for any longer than an extract batch, whatever length of time you choose, be it 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.

this is amazing! Pictures are a MUST for this project !

How about Ed Worts Apple Wine then you can say it's just apple juice! It does take time but if you go to Sams and get the 16 oz bottles of AJ and open one a day and sprinkle little yeasties in or even daisy chain them all one by one with the bendy straw idea and the blow off could prime the next one. I know it's not beer but still makes the job better

Thoughts on the thoughts.
I'm set on all grain. I want to extend my brewday experience.
I'm going with no open flame, so no burner. Safety issue.
Crock pot - We have them at work, holdovers from pot luck lunches.
I like the thermos and microwave idea for mashing if we're going for a minimal approach.

Initially I thought about removing the safety on a coffee mug warmer for boil. Might revisit that.

The boil time is important for about between 5 and 9 reasons... anyone care to name them.
1) Hop isomerization.

Fermentation cooler idea.

olllllo said:

The boil time is important for about between 5 and 9 reasons... anyone care to name them.
1) Hop isomerization.

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2)sterilization
3)coagulate proteins

10) because 60-90min is the perfect ammount of time to enjoy a beverage or two...

Might I suggest IBC root beer bottles might be a good item here. You can keep real ones in the fridge along side the beer and if anyone asks you have a cover. Plus they are brown glass which means they are perfect for beer.

4) Evaporation for correct gravity.

IBC rootbeer - noted!

Toying a little more with the idea...
22oz single bottle Mild
6oz Maris Otter
.25oz Chocolate
.1oz Challenger 7.5%
mash at 154 in thermos until complete (30min assumed) with 30oz water
then strain through a coffee filter into a tupperware container
Add hops then set the microwave on high for 15 min
After boil strain through coffee filter again and place into sanatized (via dishwasher cycle) thermos, pitch an eyedropper of yeast slurry, then cover with foil. After 1 week prime with one packet sugar and bottle and cap with wing capper.

OG:34
IBU:25
SRM:20


I don't know how to tackle clarity issues as I assume this will be pretty cloudy...
I also generically picked a week to ferm because I wouldn;t want to waste any of it on gravity samples. I don't have a refractometer so 2 samples would be about the entire batch size...

5) DMS

There are good reasons for a 60-90 min boil with both extract and all-grain, I think there are more good reasons for all-grain though since DME has already been boiled.

Crock pot is a good idea for a small batch boiler. You could also put a temp controller on it for mashing, so it does double duty. You could do BIAB with the crock pot....

olllllo said:

IBC rootbeer - noted!

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Probably need a bench capper, my wing capper breaks the twist-off bottles :/

Thanks Rob, for giving me something to occupy my mind.

I like the concept and you are taking it to the extreme. You got me thinking about small scale AG brewing though. I was thinking more along the lines of say a 1Gallon brewery. Once of those stainless coffee urns with the valve in the front and including a temp controller should be able to serve the function of a mash tun and boil kettle with the BIAB method. Imagine a small AG brewery that you could use on the kitchen counter if you got the urge to brew on a weekday but had limited time.

Understand that there is still a minimum amount of time for mashing and boiling, but you could cut down on time for racking, cooling, etc...

Sorry for the semi-hijack. I was inspired and might try this someday if I can pick up one of those pots at a yard sale.

Did I kill this thread?

Subscribed.
The humor potential is incredible.

McKBrew said:

Thanks Rob, for giving me something to occupy my mind.

I like the concept and you are taking it to the extreme. You got me thinking about small scale AG brewing though. I was thinking more along the lines of say a 1Gallon brewery. Once of those stainless coffee urns with the valve in the front and including a temp controller should be able to serve the function of a mash tun and boil kettle with the BIAB method. Imagine a small AG brewery that you could use on the kitchen counter if you got the urge to brew on a weekday but had limited time.

Understand that there is still a minimum amount of time for mashing and boiling, but you could cut down on time for racking, cooling, etc...

Sorry for the semi-hijack. I was inspired and might try this someday if I can pick up one of those pots at a yard sale.

Click to expand...

i use one of those coffee urns (100cup/4g) for a hlt and your gonna be hard pressed to get it to a boil without hacking the hell out of it, mine only hits 190 before it locks into warming mode.

i picked up a 2g igloo round for a mini mashtun this week since i do make 1.5g test batches (2g fermenter)

eriktlupus said:

i use one of those coffee urns (100cup/4g) for a hlt and your gonna be hard pressed to get it to a boil without hacking the hell out of it, mine only hits 190 before it locks into warming mode.

i picked up a 2g igloo round for a mini mashtun this week since i do make 1.5g test batches (2g fermenter)

Click to expand...

I was wondering if they would boil or not. Maybe with an upgraded element.

Definitely a project for the future, but I think it would be cool to build a homebrew pilot brewery with say a 2.5-3G capacity on a roll-away cart, mostly just to say I could.