Having fun in Seattle & Hello

[bvn]

My name is Bruce vanNorman. I have been brewing something or other, sporadically, since the late 1950's. Since 1994, I have been regularly brewing live, cask conditioned, ales.

The experience I bring to this craft is:

• I am an engineer. The focus is on achieving best practices for brewing. Reliable and repeatable methods are valued over specific recipes.

• I have been an executive chef. The focus is on safety, health, and enjoying food.

• I have worked professionally, in a brewery, and am directly aquatinted with what goes on in the brew house. To me, that is work and not fun. I try to bring the same spirit to brewing as I do to mashed potatoes and gravy. I have little concern for the constancy of our products over time.

The three books that most affect my brewing are:

• Harold McGee – On Food and Cooking – The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

• Simmons, Amelia – American Cookery, Hartford, 1798

• Charles Papazian – The Complete Joy of Homebrewing

The objective of appearing in the Home Brew Talk forums is to exchange different ideas of how things should or could be done. Lately, my grandson, Carl vanNorman, has been joining me. My own tastes tend toward English bitters – Everything between a Session and an Extra Special. Carl has forced me to branch out.
Our execution of the art is largely restricted by our venue – specifically the temperature of our basement which encourages some brew styles in the winter and other styles in the summer. The biggest investment in equipment is our basement refrigerator with the space for milk, eggs, and butter shared with 3 corny kegs, a CO2 bottle and a bunch of hoses. The vegetable crisper drawers are used to store glasses – pints and halves.
Because of our equipment and a preference for a dryer product, we step mash our grain. Because we cannot heat the mash tun, we use decoction methods. Also, we use secondary fermentation and frequently dry or wet hop. This gives us cream yeast for baking and green beer for sauces, gravies, stews, and meat pies.

Equipment​

Nothing, but ourselves, is dedicated to the brewing of beer.
Venue
Laundry room: work tables, utility sink, and a 20 cu. ft. Kitchen Aid refrigerator with a top freezer.
Adjacent to the laundry room is a fluvarium (rain room) that has a glass wall that opens up completely. The fluvarium has a quick disconnect NG outlet. A great place for the boil.
Both the laundry room and fluvarium are unheated spaces.
A 15,000 BTU crab pot burner modified for NG with a 12' quick disconnect NG hose. It is often used with a 30” wok for meal preparation.
Adjacent to the fluvarium is a run-off cistern and catchment which is used with a portable sump pump and home made cooling coils to remove heat from the wort. This is Seattle, where it rains – actually, more of a continuous drizzle, but it keeps the cistern full.
Pots with lids
Boil – 32 qt. Update International, NSF stainless stock-pot
Sparge – 20 qt. no-name, cheap stainless stock-pot (it never burns the water)
Decoction – 8 qt. Update International, NSF stainless stock-pot
Tuns
Mash – 36 qt. Coleman Extreme picnic cooler (2” thick, closed cell walls) also used for equipment storage
Lauter – 5 gal. food grade bucket with false plastic bottom and plastic spigot
Primary fermentation – 2 @ food grade 30 L. plastic by Brewcraft
Secondary fermentation – 2 @ 5 gallon glass carboys
Significant utensils
10” double sieve
20” spoon
3/8” siphon, filter, and hoses
Revere Ware pot used as a scoop for racking
69 cent plastic paint stirrer for aeration (requires a drill for operation
The utensils not used regularly in the kitchen are stored in the cooler

 

[Yooper]

Welcome! It seems like our forum tends to be engineer- heavy, as there seem to be more engineers here than any other occupation. I know brewing is both an art and a science, and I'm glad to have both perspectives here. Look around the forum, and ask any questions you may have. Again, welcome to the forum.

 

[bvn]

Thanks.

Most of my brewing biases come from being a volunteer executive chef.

The engineering shows up in my practices (hopefully "best practices") documentation. I must have 40 pages of, single spaced, expository writing - with 10 pages in constant use. The thing between my ears is my forgettery.

 

[45_70sharps]

Well I would be able to tell you are an engineer in a heartbeat simply by reading that post.
No doubt in my mind at all that that came from an engineer.

I can tell you're from the coast because you have a crab pot burner instead of a turkey burner.

Welcome to the forum from down in Raymond Washington.

What type of engineer are you and what company are you with, if you don't mind me asking.

 

[bvn]

Degree is EE, practice is software engineering (however, I prefer programming). Boeing for 32 years. 15 of them as consultant & road warrior (NATO countries only). I did a gig at the Rainier brewery on the bottle recycling line. I find that kitchen approaches to home brewing to be more fun and creative than brewery approaches, which makes me odd-man-out on most brewing topics. Duplicating someone else's creation is not on my planning horizon. However, I am not above plagiarizing other folks ideas.

Why would anyone want to burn a turkey? That must produce a mighty strange brew

 

[45_70sharps]

Electrical.... and programing... that is some tough stuff. Too many hours in front of a computer for me to deal with. How are your eyes holding up after all these years doing that every day?
The road warrior for Boeing would be fun, for a while at least. You probably have gotten to see some cool places, and travel there on a good old American made jet!

I don't think too many people are actually into the brewery approach to brewing, at least not large scale brewery. That would probably be mostly a repetitive task with lots of time spent cleaning things and being wet. I know about being wet and I can tell you that being dry is better.
I don't think I would enjoy it if it were more than a hobby myself.
As soon as it wasn't brew what I want, the way I want and when I want, it would no longer be fun.

So, with your background have you ever thought about building an electric brew rig? I know you use the crab cooker, but you could probably build an incredible electric rig that meant you hit your temperatures perfect every time! Just drop hops when the buzzer goes off.

 

[bvn]

I try to avoid dedicated brewing equipment. That said, the 32 qt brew pot, 20 qt sparge pot, fermentation & lautering tuns, 3 Corney kegs, the CO2 bottle with attachments, and 60% of a 20 cu ft refrigerator are pretty much dedicated. The only unique piece of brewing equipment is the wooden shelving in the fridge that permits sharing with the 3 Corney kegs. I have just taken pictures of it and hope to post soon.

Our (I brew with a 22 year old grandson) temperature management practices are not very good. We are still struggling with a reliable and repeatable decoction draw. We get to the right place but the practice is still hit & miss; and we spend too much time getting there. This site has been very helpful in adjusting our expectations. After that is nailed down, we intend to take on the strike water issue. I'll report what we figure out.

We have no interest in consistency of product, which is why we use ad hoc commercial kitchen methods. I am preparing an article on our sanitary practices, the likes of which, do not seem to be mentioned anywhere on this site.

Relative to staring at the tube. I have a Jefferson desk and spend more time walking around in circles. The weak link is my brain, not my eyes or fingers.

 

[45_70sharps]

After you do your article, I hope you share your views on sanitation with us.