After more than a dozen years in the suburbs, we moved back into the city last October. I joined a homebrew club, CHAOS, that has a special mission for brewers like me, who live in the heart of the metropolis and for whom space is at a premium. Unlike most homebrew clubs, CHAOS built and maintains a brewhouse for its members to use.
The brewhouse includes four brew bays, each with a burner, mashtun, work table and all the equipment needed to brew a batch of beer. The only items a brewer must bring are the ingredients for the batch and the container in which the beer will ferment, usually either a bucket or carboy.
As I described in the blog post previous, I’m helping organize and brewing a batch for CHAOS’ Hop School at our Cerveza de Mayo event on May 9th. John at Farmhouse Brewing is sponsoring the Hop School and gave us hops. I took the Hallertau Blanc hops and brewed an IPA with them. When I opened the packages to weigh out the additions, the smell reminded me very much of Cascade hops but with a spicy and peppery aroma layered on top.
Before the brew day, I decided to brew a double batch - one batch for the Hop School and one for us at home. Usually batches are around 5 gallons, so this was a 10 gallon batch, requiring 30 pounds (!) of grain.
The grain bill was just a little too big for one mashtun (where I soaked the grain in 150 F. water to extract the sugars from the malt) so I used two. The mashtuns are 10 gallon coolers fitted out with a false bottom and spigot, in order to drain out the resulting sweet liquid and leave the grain behind. I didn’t get a photo of it, but the brewhouse also has a motorized grain mill - which I really appreciated today with my 30 pounds of grain! Each brew station has a water hose with carbon-filtered water.
After the mash, I had 13 gallons of wort (the sweet liquid) in a 20 gallon brew kettle and heated it up with a natural gas burner made by Blichmann Engineering. The burners are monsters and brought the 13 gallons up to a rolling boil in very little time, no more than 15 minutes. I use a hop spider I made when I brew IPAs and other beers that use a lot of hops - this keeps the hop materials from making a mess of the beer. This particular batch used a pound of the Hallertau Blanc hops.
After boiling the wort and adding hops for an hour, it was time to chill the wort from boiling down to 60 - 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The brewhouse has a counterflow chiller, which works by pumping the hot wort through some copper coils inside a hose with running cold water. The copper transfers the heat of the wort to the water, chilling the wort. As the wort flows out of the chiller, I fill two carboys with it.
Once the wort is in the carboys, where it will ferment, I add oxygen and then pitch in the yeast, who do the work of fermentation. Managing fermentation is a major part of brewing and temperature is critical to that. The brewhouse has a walk-in temperature controlled fermentation chamber, set at 65 F. The photo below is looking through the door into the chamber.
There are three rows or shelves of fermenters in the chamber. Everyone uses a blow-off tube in the early stages of fermentation, in case of explosive fermentations that overflow the carboys or buckets. A blow-off tube is just what it sounds like - a larger tube that allows CO2 to escape from the fermentation without allowing any air back in and also allows for excess krausen to pass through the tube and into a glass collecting jar. Here’s one of the fermenters in the fermentation chamber with its 1” tubing.
Like any brewing experience, more time is spent washing and cleaning than anything else. The brewhouse has two large utility sinks in the middle of the space, which makes cleaning ever so convenient. PBW (for cleaning) and StarSan (for sanitizing) are provided.
Shared brewing space presents some challenges, but the benefits are manifest. The space is great, the all-volunteer club maintains it well, stocks it with equipment, reserving time is easy via the online calendar, and one of the very best parts is that sometimes you get to brew with both old and new brewer friends!
http://www.singingboysbrewing.com/The-Blog.html?entry=chaos-brewhouse-brewing-in-the
www.chaosbrewclub.net
The brewhouse includes four brew bays, each with a burner, mashtun, work table and all the equipment needed to brew a batch of beer. The only items a brewer must bring are the ingredients for the batch and the container in which the beer will ferment, usually either a bucket or carboy.
As I described in the blog post previous, I’m helping organize and brewing a batch for CHAOS’ Hop School at our Cerveza de Mayo event on May 9th. John at Farmhouse Brewing is sponsoring the Hop School and gave us hops. I took the Hallertau Blanc hops and brewed an IPA with them. When I opened the packages to weigh out the additions, the smell reminded me very much of Cascade hops but with a spicy and peppery aroma layered on top.
Before the brew day, I decided to brew a double batch - one batch for the Hop School and one for us at home. Usually batches are around 5 gallons, so this was a 10 gallon batch, requiring 30 pounds (!) of grain.
The grain bill was just a little too big for one mashtun (where I soaked the grain in 150 F. water to extract the sugars from the malt) so I used two. The mashtuns are 10 gallon coolers fitted out with a false bottom and spigot, in order to drain out the resulting sweet liquid and leave the grain behind. I didn’t get a photo of it, but the brewhouse also has a motorized grain mill - which I really appreciated today with my 30 pounds of grain! Each brew station has a water hose with carbon-filtered water.
After the mash, I had 13 gallons of wort (the sweet liquid) in a 20 gallon brew kettle and heated it up with a natural gas burner made by Blichmann Engineering. The burners are monsters and brought the 13 gallons up to a rolling boil in very little time, no more than 15 minutes. I use a hop spider I made when I brew IPAs and other beers that use a lot of hops - this keeps the hop materials from making a mess of the beer. This particular batch used a pound of the Hallertau Blanc hops.
After boiling the wort and adding hops for an hour, it was time to chill the wort from boiling down to 60 - 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The brewhouse has a counterflow chiller, which works by pumping the hot wort through some copper coils inside a hose with running cold water. The copper transfers the heat of the wort to the water, chilling the wort. As the wort flows out of the chiller, I fill two carboys with it.
Once the wort is in the carboys, where it will ferment, I add oxygen and then pitch in the yeast, who do the work of fermentation. Managing fermentation is a major part of brewing and temperature is critical to that. The brewhouse has a walk-in temperature controlled fermentation chamber, set at 65 F. The photo below is looking through the door into the chamber.
There are three rows or shelves of fermenters in the chamber. Everyone uses a blow-off tube in the early stages of fermentation, in case of explosive fermentations that overflow the carboys or buckets. A blow-off tube is just what it sounds like - a larger tube that allows CO2 to escape from the fermentation without allowing any air back in and also allows for excess krausen to pass through the tube and into a glass collecting jar. Here’s one of the fermenters in the fermentation chamber with its 1” tubing.
Like any brewing experience, more time is spent washing and cleaning than anything else. The brewhouse has two large utility sinks in the middle of the space, which makes cleaning ever so convenient. PBW (for cleaning) and StarSan (for sanitizing) are provided.
Shared brewing space presents some challenges, but the benefits are manifest. The space is great, the all-volunteer club maintains it well, stocks it with equipment, reserving time is easy via the online calendar, and one of the very best parts is that sometimes you get to brew with both old and new brewer friends!
http://www.singingboysbrewing.com/The-Blog.html?entry=chaos-brewhouse-brewing-in-the
www.chaosbrewclub.net
