Allo from Maryland!

[minorhero]

Hey folks!

I have been really enjoying these forums for the past couple of weeks and thought I should introduce myself.

I am a newbie to the world of brewing but I like to cook and I am finding a lot of similarities. So far I made one English brown ale with extract and one american brown ale BIAB. The first beer was ok but not blow your socks off. The second beer is chilling in a keg right now but I know I screwed it up. When going through the mash I was checking temperature through a hole in the lid and it definitely produced inaccurate results. I thought my temperature was in the low 140s and falling rapidly when it was in the 180s. Soooo yeah my ABV ended up at 3.5% instead of 5.5%.

I am using a 6 liter keg with a mini regulator and a tap attached directly to the ball lock so the whole thing can fit in my extra fridge (which still needs to hold food). I am only interested in small batches. Speaking of, does anyone know how to control foam without using 5+ feet of tubing? I was thinking of just making the hole in the down tube smaller.

I am learning more each time I explore this forum so next time I will do dunk sparge and.. you know.. not screw up my mash temperature. I am also planning to add some cherry wood to the last few minutes of the boil next time. And probably going to get another keg to use as fermenter and do a pressure fermentation and then a closed transfer to the serving keg.

Thanks folks for writing all the great stuff on this forum!

 

[murphyslaw]

From Silver Spring, welcome!

 

[minorhero]

From Silver Spring, welcome!

Thank you! My wife's family lives in silver spring. We live in Ellicott City.

 

[Sammy86]

Welcome to the community and obsession from CT!

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the hobby, and the group, from Colorado

 

[IslandLizard]

Welcome to HBT!
I'm in Pasadena, MD.

does anyone know how to control foam without using 5+ feet of tubing?

Use 4mm ID (8mm OD) EVA Barrier tubing. About 5-6 feet should do it, but optimal length highly depends on temperature and carbonation level of the beer in the keg.

Since you're in Ellicott City, Maryland HomeBrew in Columbia (MDHB.com) is your closest and best source for anything brewing. They have the EVA Barrier line is stock, as well as the needed Push to Connect (PtC) adapters.

Just mill the grain you get there twice...

From what understand, you can slip the 4mm EVA tubing on a regular picnic tap, with some boiling water and perhaps a swaging tool or so. As long as your 6 liter keg has regular corny keg posts, the liquid side connection is easy peasy.

 

[madscientist451]

I am learning more each time I explore this forum so next time I will do dunk sparge and.. you know.. not screw up my mash temperature. I am also planning to add some cherry wood to the last few minutes of the boil next time. And probably going to get another keg to use as fermenter and do a pressure fermentation and then a closed transfer to the serving keg.

Thanks folks for writing all the great stuff on this forum!g

BIAB with small batches has some benefits but also challenges. The small amount of grain/water doesn't have much thermal mass, so the temperature can drop more than you want to over an hour. On the plus side your mash will probably fit in your oven. Pre-heat the oven to its lowest setting and then turn it off when you put your kettle with your mash in there. Don't guess at strike water temperatures, use an on-line calculator. I also do a dunk sparge with BIAB and it works for me.
I'm not sure if you are going to achieve anything by adding wood to the boil. But you could test the idea by boiling some cherry wood in plain water, let it cool down and see what the flavor is like.
I use Jack Daniel's barrel chips to get a barrel-aged flavor. I soak the chips in cheap bourbon for a few weeks and then add the chips to the keg and some of the bourbon as well.

 

[minorhero]

Welcome to HBT!
I'm in Pasadena, MD.


Use 4mm ID (8mm OD) EVA Barrier tubing. About 5-6 feet should do it, but optimal length highly depends on temperature and carbonation level of the beer in the keg.

Since you're in Ellicott City, Maryland HomeBrew in Columbia (MDHB.com) is your closest and best source for anything brewing. They have the EVA Barrier line is stock, as well as the needed Push to Connect (PtC) adapters.

Just mill the grain you get there twice...

From what understand, you can slip the 4mm EVA tubing on a regular picnic tap, with some boiling water and perhaps a swaging tool or so. As long as your 6 liter keg has regular corny keg posts, the liquid side connection is easy peasy.

Thanky! I have been to Maryland HomeBrew probably half a dozen times already ;P basically every time I realize I forgot something or really should be using a different piece of equipment. When I told them I was brewing in a bag they told me they would double mill the grains themselves. Hopefully that was enough, if not, I need to buy a grain mill.

I was hoping if I make the tubing small enough I wouldn't need to use 5 or 6 feet of tubing, preferably just something like 1 foot of tubing so it would fit inside the keg without coiling about a lot. The keg is a small sized torpedo keg.

BIAB with small batches has some benefits but also challenges. The small amount of grain/water doesn't have much thermal mass, so the temperature can drop more than you want to over an hour. On the plus side your mash will probably fit in your oven. Pre-heat the oven to its lowest setting and then turn it off when you put your kettle with your mash in there. Don't guess at strike water temperatures, use an on-line calculator. I also do a dunk sparge with BIAB and it works for me.
I'm not sure if you are going to achieve anything by adding wood to the boil. But you could test the idea by boiling some cherry wood in plain water, let it cool down and see what the flavor is like.
I use Jack Daniel's barrel chips to get a barrel-aged flavor. I soak the chips in cheap bourbon for a few weeks and then add the chips to the keg and some of the bourbon as well.

These are great ideas! I hadn't thought of using my oven, didn't know strike water temperature was a thing beyond just trying to use the same temperature as the water already in the pot, and testing boiled wood in advance is something easy I can do before brewday. I figured adding the wood to the boil would be an easy way to sterilize it and get flavor out of it but its just speculation on my part. Thanky!

 

[archi77]

Greetings from Frederick.

you could always use a flow control faucet. No minimum hose length required. CM Becker has amazing ones And can be found easily at keg connection

 

[minorhero]

Greetings from Frederick.

you could always use a flow control faucet. No minimum hose length required. CM Becker has amazing ones And can be found easily at keg connection

Thank you! I sadly already bought a tap that does not have flow control, but clearly regretting that now ;P My current solution is simply open the tap only a small amount. Next brew I will try to put a piece of airline hose in my floating downtube to make the inner diameter smaller. Probably take a few brews to dial it in but hopefully I can git 'er working.

The keg on the left is what I'm working with:

 

[archi77]

Actually, a lot of taps work best when fully open. Picnic taps, etc foam a LOT when only cracked a little. That might be some of the problem, then.

 

[minorhero]

Actually, a lot of taps work best when fully open. Picnic taps, etc foam a LOT when only cracked a little. That might be some of the problem, then.

Sadly that's not it. When I open it up I get a glass of 80% foam.

 

[archi77]

Sadly that's not it. When I open it up I get a glass of 80% foam.

You could always install one of these in-line flow control devices. Not too expensive.
https://www.kegconnection.com/cmb-inline-flow-control/

 

[minorhero]

You could always install one of these in-line flow control devices. Not too expensive.
https://www.kegconnection.com/cmb-inline-flow-control/

That's pretty cool! Can this be inside the keg? I don't have any line outside the keg.

 

[archi77]

That's pretty cool! Can this be inside the keg? I don't have any line outside the keg.

Sadly, I think it’s meant to be between keg and tap faucet.

 

[minorhero]

Sadly, I think it’s meant to be between keg and tap faucet.

Ah oh well, I'll make the tubing work as is then. I think its a solvable problem its just going to take some trial and error to make it come together.

 

[Brüverine]

Thank you! My wife's family lives in silver spring. We live in Ellicott City.

Greetings from Texas!

(I have in-laws in Silver Spring so I'll hop in on the SS train)

 

[Transamguy77]

Welcome from Pa!