Brewing with Hot Rocks!!

LHBS Apex Brew Wares put on their second Stein Brew Last night. Brewing with hot rocks. We boiled the wort using rocks heated from a fire. Thought I'd post some pics up for everyone here to see. Very interesting. Couple guys from the board were there that I've met before and know, KCBrewer, Schumed, Apex. If I missed some other guys sorry.

Was a pretty simple malt bill, only one hop addition. Was an awesome, fun, and interesting time to see how it can be done. If anyone else there got some pics put them up!







Safety at it's best.....

You guy's have any rocks blow up? I used to be an archaeologist and one of the most common things to find were fire cracked rocks, caused by people doing exactly this. Maybe just not with beer . Looks pretty awesome!

Interesting. I'd love to hear what type of flavor the fire heated rocks impart.

dfc said:

Interesting. I'd love to hear what type of flavor the fire heated rocks impart.

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I'm guessing piney, since they're using two by fours.

Very cool. I'm an archaeologist and some of my research focuses on hot-rock cooking. As jskinner said, fire-cracked rock (or just FCR, as we call it) is one of the most common artifacts we find, especially in certain time periods. I've never brewed beer with hot rock, but I've done other experiments using it as a heat source for cooking. The first time you try "stone boiling," it's really quite surprising how efficient it is and just how quickly you can bring water (or beer, or venison stew) to a boil with hot stones.

Keep up the good work!

Those last few pictures are badass!

BBL_Brewer said:

I'm guessing piney, since they're using two by fours.

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I assume it might be a bit smokey as well.

The guys from basicbrewing radio did an audio and video podcast of stein brewing with F.O.A.M.
The Fellowship of Oklahoma Ale Makers. It's in their archives from 11/10/2010. Was a pretty interesting watch and listen.

Nice kettle lid.

I'm really interested to hear how long it took to bring the wort up to boiling. Like HeadyKilowatt, I've done experiments involving boiling water with hot rocks as well and it's definitely surprising how quickly you can bring water up to boiling temperatures. However, I wasn't trying to boil a volume even close to what landshark was involved with.

Sorry for the wait. We brought our water up mash temperatures with propane heat, same with the sparge water.

For Boiling, I'd say it was almost instantaneous that the water went to boil. we had a boil over immediately putting the hot rocks in the wort. The rocks kept the boil for probably 15 minutes before it got to were is wasn't really a rolling boil, then we pulled that batch of rocks out and put the second set of rocks in. These kept the boil going for I think the next 45 minutes if I recall correctly. I don't think we switch rocks again. we may have in the last 10 minutes though.

dfc said:

Interesting. I'd love to hear what type of flavor the fire heated rocks impart.

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Smokey to the point of aquired taste. I read about a brewery that does this. Might have been Stan H's wheat book?

Check this out from a brewery called Boscos http://boscosbeer.com/nashville/menu/beer_menus/alwaystap.htm

Their flaming stone is quite tasty. Not sure if this is what you are talking about but their beer is good. JT

The rocks give off a lot of earthy flavors (imagine that) but it also carmelizes the wort. I tested last years stein that was made with kolsch yeast and dry hopped with cascade leaf. The flavor of that beer was awesome. So thats what i did with my batch for this year. Its in secondary for another month. Then a few days for dry hops. Then into the keg!

Mine is still aging. Probably go another 2 weeks before I bottle it. Believe I used 1187 Ringwood Ale. I don't plan on dry-hopping though as I was wanting more of the malt flavor. Really looking forward to it though.

Barker, do you have any bottles left from last year to compare? Or did you keg it all?

I didnt go to last years....had to work. I tasted genes version of it.

looks like a good group of folks having some fun there. thanks for sharing!

Glad there are no pics posted of my drunk a$$

I bet the neighbors were freaking out!!

The neighbors were there!!!

That's cool. Any suggestions on what kind of rocks one should use? What kin did you guys use. Maybe I'll try and suggest it at the next club meeting and see if I can get us doing this. Looks like fun.

HellBound said:

That's cool. Any suggestions on what kind of rocks one should use?

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Tasty rocks.

Damn I'm pissed I didn't make that group brew. (though I was at the porter that is still in the barrels). My plans had to change that day even though I was planning to go to the stein brew. Jeremy knows how to put on a great group brew and those mash tuns are fun to admire. Glad you guys had fun, I will be at next years.

Use granite, its a fairly non pourus rock. So water wont get in the holes and explode. Then after the boil, let a couple rocks cool off of put them in star san. And put them right in your bucket fermenter!!!

The Stein brew I organized a while back didn't have any smoky flavor or aroma. It did have an earthy/minerally flavor though. I thought it would be smoky considering we maintained a 90 minute boil with ONLY rocks so they saw the fire through many cycles.

I dont remember any smoke flavors either. Been awhile since a drank it though. I remember caramel flavor, earthy, and some cascade hop action!! Bobby, what kind of yeast did you use??

We brewed it as a Bock, so it was a mix of lager yeasts the various people saved slurries of.

Ahhh ok, we have lots of people trying different thing with the stein beer this time, lagering it, different yeasts etc. should be interesting to see how they turn out this summer!

My freinds and I brewed a Smash Stone ale yesterday. I had no idea what to do we just got some rocks and buit a fire over them and add the rocks to a 10 gallon kettle. We used cedar bows in the mash tun as a filter. I saw this on a Norwiegian Farm House ale video so I tried it. The wort had a spicy flavour. OG 1.037. It was great fun will study up and try again.