Last Saturday I decided to take an adventure and try a 5 gallons all grain brewing in my apartment. Follow the story for (dis) encourage adventurers like me. Unfortunately I have no pictures, but here's the long report (the same I wrote on HBT Brasil but here in a very bad English, sorry)
I live in a 900 square feet apartment, with a nice balcony. I have a good stove and reasonable equipment for homebrew, nothing special but OK. I decided, with my brother-in-law, run the risk and brew a witbier.
First of all, I left things well organized, with enough space in the living room and kitchen and all ingredients separated. We just started around 8am.
First part, grind the malt. We did it on the balcony, using a standard mill and using a cordless screwdriver. It was my first test with the screwdriver and everything goes perfect. Within few minutes, we finished the 3.5 kg of pilsner barley malt.
I realized that the grains were not enough crushed and we decided grind again. We adjusted the iron discs and repeated the task. At this time, OK
Now it's time to grind wheat grains. But this kind of grain is very hard and it keeps whole even after passing through the mill. And I made a small mistake, not separating from the rest of malt. I could grind it all over again, but I thought it would be too much. The floor was a little dirty but the vacuum cleaned all the mess up
Lets go on and start cooking. I have an ordinary stove, but with one burner much larger than the others. I've got surprised with the maximum flame. It rose the water temperature at a good pace. I did not use the electrical resistance at any time (by the way, I noticed this is releasing a white dust, I don't know what it is. If anyone knows, thanks)
Protein rest, OK
Saccharification, fine
Mash out, perfect
We began the circulation. That's the first time I used a dishwasher pump, connected by two PVC non-toxic hoses, fully secured by clamps and connected to the pan by a 3/4 to 1 inch converter, without bracket but strong fixed. We did some tests previous week and it was OK. But now, for real, things got a bit more complicated.
The wort flow started well. The pump is not very strong, sometimes stopped. But we easily corrected by manually moving the hoses. The filtering was good and we've seen the liquid coming out pretty clean after a few minutes. But...
When I bought the hose, the salesman warned me that the maximum temperature was around 60ºC. In mash out, we had the wort at 74ºC. I decided to take the risk and apparently there were no problems. But after a while, the hot liquid softened the hose, and one connection suddenly broke off. A jet of hot wort (rich in sugar) dirtied the entire kitchen, from floor to cabinets.
Well, that's part of the game. I cleaned it up and we decided to interrupt the circulation. We transferred to the bucket and used a sieve to filter. The result was very good, a cloudy liquid came out (ok for a wheat beer) but without presence of any cereals.
With the wort in the bucket, we started cleaning the pan. Removeing all those soaked grains were not easy and dirt in the sink began to increase. I really wanted to save some malt to make bread, but with the whole mess, I throw it all away. I did not want waiting so much to start boiling.
Obviously the 36 liters pan didn't fit in the sink. The only place available to wash was the bathroom stall. Despite the awful scene, everything went right, with (relatively) little water spread.
Back to the kitchen, we started the boil. At this time, I realized that the temperature took a little longer to rise. If I had used an electric resistance, I would have had less work and less evaporation. But I was afraid because of that weird dust. Anyway, let's use only the fire.
Hops OK
Irish moss OK
Coriander + orange OK
In the meantime, I began to prepare the chiller. I left everything ready, hose and connections waiting to attach at the balcony tap. But I had another problem, this time more seriously. The tap, I do not know why, have a different format, impossible to screw the hose to connect the chiller. I tried everything I had at home and borrowed a few more things of the building janitor. But it didnt work. But I didnt give up and tried running the water flow using the pump. However there was a situation. The warm liquid that softened the hose also created a small leak in internal connections (the pump is assembled inside a small box) and I realized that we needed more time to understand what was happening and trying to solve. But the boil was already going to the final minutes.
Well, time to accept the fail and check out what we can do. The solution was to try to cool only placing the bucket inside a pan with water and ice. I had enough ice in the freezer. Despite the difficulties, I measured OG and got 1,049 at 20ºC, absolutely within the expected margin. Because of evaporation, I decided to add a little more water. I did the math and the OG now was 1,044 on the lower limit of the range according BJCP. Alright.
Well, with all those efforts we got 40ºC, far above what I'd like. Okay. It was around 4 pm, we were tired and hungry. Let's finish. We put the yeast, locked the bucket and closed with the airlock. The beer will now rest in a dark room on the garage, which has a cool and stable temperature. In the coming weeks, I update the news
A lot of lessons learned and many next steps. We will need to rethink everything about the pump system - one option is replace the PVC hoses with silicone, which work well in high temperatures. But Im afraid the pump suction makes the silicone hose close. It might be worth thinking about another most suitable pump too. Or become a BIAB enthusiast. Also we must review all about the cooling equipment. I'm tempted to get a chiller plate, despite having heard many warnings about sanitation issues. We have to think.
Finally, despite the huge mess and the problems faced, I believe that the experience was valid. Who wants to take the risk and brew a beer in an apartment needs A LOT OF planning. No room for improvisation, everything needs to be working fine. And it is possible that you have a lot of work, especially cleaning.
Good luck!
Rafael
I live in a 900 square feet apartment, with a nice balcony. I have a good stove and reasonable equipment for homebrew, nothing special but OK. I decided, with my brother-in-law, run the risk and brew a witbier.
First of all, I left things well organized, with enough space in the living room and kitchen and all ingredients separated. We just started around 8am.
First part, grind the malt. We did it on the balcony, using a standard mill and using a cordless screwdriver. It was my first test with the screwdriver and everything goes perfect. Within few minutes, we finished the 3.5 kg of pilsner barley malt.
I realized that the grains were not enough crushed and we decided grind again. We adjusted the iron discs and repeated the task. At this time, OK
Now it's time to grind wheat grains. But this kind of grain is very hard and it keeps whole even after passing through the mill. And I made a small mistake, not separating from the rest of malt. I could grind it all over again, but I thought it would be too much. The floor was a little dirty but the vacuum cleaned all the mess up
Lets go on and start cooking. I have an ordinary stove, but with one burner much larger than the others. I've got surprised with the maximum flame. It rose the water temperature at a good pace. I did not use the electrical resistance at any time (by the way, I noticed this is releasing a white dust, I don't know what it is. If anyone knows, thanks)
Protein rest, OK
Saccharification, fine
Mash out, perfect
We began the circulation. That's the first time I used a dishwasher pump, connected by two PVC non-toxic hoses, fully secured by clamps and connected to the pan by a 3/4 to 1 inch converter, without bracket but strong fixed. We did some tests previous week and it was OK. But now, for real, things got a bit more complicated.
The wort flow started well. The pump is not very strong, sometimes stopped. But we easily corrected by manually moving the hoses. The filtering was good and we've seen the liquid coming out pretty clean after a few minutes. But...
When I bought the hose, the salesman warned me that the maximum temperature was around 60ºC. In mash out, we had the wort at 74ºC. I decided to take the risk and apparently there were no problems. But after a while, the hot liquid softened the hose, and one connection suddenly broke off. A jet of hot wort (rich in sugar) dirtied the entire kitchen, from floor to cabinets.
Well, that's part of the game. I cleaned it up and we decided to interrupt the circulation. We transferred to the bucket and used a sieve to filter. The result was very good, a cloudy liquid came out (ok for a wheat beer) but without presence of any cereals.
With the wort in the bucket, we started cleaning the pan. Removeing all those soaked grains were not easy and dirt in the sink began to increase. I really wanted to save some malt to make bread, but with the whole mess, I throw it all away. I did not want waiting so much to start boiling.
Obviously the 36 liters pan didn't fit in the sink. The only place available to wash was the bathroom stall. Despite the awful scene, everything went right, with (relatively) little water spread.
Back to the kitchen, we started the boil. At this time, I realized that the temperature took a little longer to rise. If I had used an electric resistance, I would have had less work and less evaporation. But I was afraid because of that weird dust. Anyway, let's use only the fire.
Hops OK
Irish moss OK
Coriander + orange OK
In the meantime, I began to prepare the chiller. I left everything ready, hose and connections waiting to attach at the balcony tap. But I had another problem, this time more seriously. The tap, I do not know why, have a different format, impossible to screw the hose to connect the chiller. I tried everything I had at home and borrowed a few more things of the building janitor. But it didnt work. But I didnt give up and tried running the water flow using the pump. However there was a situation. The warm liquid that softened the hose also created a small leak in internal connections (the pump is assembled inside a small box) and I realized that we needed more time to understand what was happening and trying to solve. But the boil was already going to the final minutes.
Well, time to accept the fail and check out what we can do. The solution was to try to cool only placing the bucket inside a pan with water and ice. I had enough ice in the freezer. Despite the difficulties, I measured OG and got 1,049 at 20ºC, absolutely within the expected margin. Because of evaporation, I decided to add a little more water. I did the math and the OG now was 1,044 on the lower limit of the range according BJCP. Alright.
Well, with all those efforts we got 40ºC, far above what I'd like. Okay. It was around 4 pm, we were tired and hungry. Let's finish. We put the yeast, locked the bucket and closed with the airlock. The beer will now rest in a dark room on the garage, which has a cool and stable temperature. In the coming weeks, I update the news
A lot of lessons learned and many next steps. We will need to rethink everything about the pump system - one option is replace the PVC hoses with silicone, which work well in high temperatures. But Im afraid the pump suction makes the silicone hose close. It might be worth thinking about another most suitable pump too. Or become a BIAB enthusiast. Also we must review all about the cooling equipment. I'm tempted to get a chiller plate, despite having heard many warnings about sanitation issues. We have to think.
Finally, despite the huge mess and the problems faced, I believe that the experience was valid. Who wants to take the risk and brew a beer in an apartment needs A LOT OF planning. No room for improvisation, everything needs to be working fine. And it is possible that you have a lot of work, especially cleaning.
Good luck!
Rafael
