Sailboat Setup - Need Help! - BrewJacket

[MovingOn]

Hello all!

Quick Background: We have a Lagoon 440 sailing catamaran that has some pretty decent room in it for brewing. When you are sailing down island beer is ridiculously expensive and rarely are you presented with that "oh damn - this is awesome!" beer experience. Usually very few choices with very little flavor - at least for me. So my girl and I are going to make it! I come form a distilling background...

Here are my issues;

One, everything possible needs to be stainless steel or extremely hardy. Even where I live things on the boat get CRUSHED by the environment - and the further south we go it gets exponentially words.

Secondly, we have a real issue with heat. We can't run the air while we are sailing - nor wold we want to. If it is a still night and above 90 - we will - but other than that - you get used to it. My concern isn't the fermenting side because I have these 12v chillers on the way from BrewJacket. That should do the trick for keeping the beer cool during fermentation. It is the storage of the beer after it is brewed.....

So my questions to you

1. How long can I keep beer after I bottle it if it is in a 80 degree area?

2. Bottling. I am not against kegging. I do have some of those 12 oz stainless steel bottles coming and could put a good portion of the beer into those... I can't have a bunch glass on a blue water boat nor do I like the plastic or aluminum solutions JUST because I'm worried bout the high heat environment and what type of leaching could occur... but I could be talked out of this. Or can I get a few of these? http://deepwoodbrew.com/stainless-steel-growlers/10-stainless-steel-growler-2l-mini-keg.html

3. Fermenter / boiler I'm thinking of getting one of these:
http://wholesale.oliveoilsource.com/content/minox-welded-fusti-stainless-steel-lever-spigot-50-liter
Any advice? Going to use the Brewjacket on this. The Brewjacket is a lifesaver because there is NO WAY I could keep any beer under 80 degrees on a cool day on the boat....


Lastly - I need a solution that is tough.... things get knocked around on the boat. We do have some decent storage so that is a huge positive - just the weather is hot...

Thanks all for your help / opinions / jokes....! _steve

 

[giraffe]

So you are sailing long enough, you cant just brew on land, and take 40 cases of bottles with you? While not ideal, bottled beer at 80 degrees will hold for a few months at least. Higher alcohol, higher hopped styles will hold better.

Kegs may make more sense. If carbonated (or cask conditioned) ahead of time and sealed, You would only have to get them cool for a few days before serving and top off with co2. I dont know enough about sailing to know if you want a co2 tank on a boat though.

My biggest concern would be about the brewing itself. It takes alot of heat to bring 7 gallons of water to a boil. And 7 gallons of boiling wort sloshing around doesnt sound fun. During the boil it needs to be open to the air and not covered, several chemicals need to boil off and escape into the air, or the beer will taste of cooked corn. Make sure you have a good solution to this.

Id also consider filtering, you will never get clear beer with that much vibration, the yeast will remain in suspension. You may be fine with fining and a very floculant yeast, but id suspect not. I tend to not serve out of a keg for 2 days after moving it across the room from the cold conditioner to the serving fridge. Thats barely sloshing it around.

 

[giraffe]

Also some yeasts are more tolerant of high temps. wlp009 australian ale for english/american styles, the chico strain wlp001/us-05 also does well into the high 70s. Saison yeasts wyeast, 3724 in particular, wyeast3522 for belgian styles, and most other belgian strains.

 

[MovingOn]

giraffe - when we go on the "long" trip it will be many years. We have some room but 40 cases would be super tough to stash...!

We wouldn't actually be lighting the burner on the way - would do this at anchor or at a dock. We have a lot of propane so should be good there.

As for fermenting - that we have to do while moving. Unsure of the issues with that..... our boat is pretty stable but who is kidding who - when the waves build everything gets stirred up including stomachs - !

 

[giraffe]

That sounds more reasonable. Fermenting should be fine, if you can avoid spilling, and keep the airlock full. I dont know the angle that the boat will pitch in bad weather, but consider how that will work. The yeast wont ever fall out with even slight rocking, so you will probably need to filter your beer after fermentation is complete. With filtering, kegging is the better option.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

First, I am so jealous! Here in New England we're getting in our last few weeks before hauling the boat for the winter.

So, obviously you will need to do the actual brewing at anchor. The good news is that with a catamaran, you have a reasonably stable platform. You will probably want to stick with extract brews with specialty grains and a partial boil (2 - 2.5 gal for a 5 gal batch). Even at a calm anchorage, 7 or 8 gal of boiling wort sloshing around could be sketchy. And the fewer grains you need, the better. They won't keep well on the boat at those temps and I assume any refrigerated space is at a premium. Whatever grains you do keep should not be crushed until you need them so you will need a basic hand-cranked grain mill.

Get a 5 gal stainless brew pot and a 6.5 gal plastic fermenter bucket. I would also recommend using dry yeast as it will keep better than liquid. Pellet hops sealed in nitrogen bags will keep pretty well for awhile. Fermenting underway will be a challenge. The fermenting buckets have a handle so you could hang it using some line to make a sort of gimballed arrangement to keep it level. Or you could get fancy and hang a 2 foot square board with lines at the corners like a plant hanger for a little more stable platform.

So on brew day, you will steep you grains, boil your 2 - 3 gal of water, add your hops and throw in your extract for the last 15 min of the boil. Let it cool for awhile, transfer into your fermenter and top up to 5 gal with as cold water as you can get (or water and ice). If this gets you down to high 60s or low 70s, pitch your yeast and put the lid and airlock on. If it's still too warm, use the brewjacket to cool it further and then pitch.

When you are ready to bottle, PET plastic bottles will not leach any off flavors and should be good for at least 6 months or so.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Oh, and if you can store your bottles somewhere that stays below 80F you should be OK for a few months. Maybe if there is some storage (or even bilge space) below the waterline, that would be the coolest space. Since the beer is likely to be a bit cloudy from suspended yeast, when your ready to drink give the bottles a good 3 days or more to chill and the yeast should settle out.

Floating on the ocean in paradise with a homebrew in hand is the ultimate RDWHAHB!

 

[TommyTbar]

Dude, literally living my dream, brewing and sailing. To get the best results just try and keep the beer cold for the first week of fermenting, or choose a high temp tolerant strain, saison strains love 80+, as for storage tuck em in some area of the cabin were it stays somewhat decent temp, keep the hatches open, would love to see a vid of a brewing session under sail haha, plus looks like your on a cat might be able to get away with it, don't really see that thing heeling much. Or if it does you might want to build an oscillating stand for the fermenter.

I would also recommend a keg, carbonating with priming sugar then chilling by dragging the keg in the water till it gets cold

Been sailing mono hulls since I was a kid, would love to mix the two passsions

 

[MovingOn]

All - I have one year to get this down to a boaters science.... And I'm SO looking forward to it. Over the last year we have spent a month in the Abacos and 5 weeks in the Exumas and Eluethra so the next long trip we'll test out our setup and shoot a video.

Right now we are building everything out at home - testing - making it more and more efficient.... and hopefully long lasting....!_steve

 

[IslandLizard]

As said above, storing the various ingredients (keeping them fresh and prime), equipment (there will be a significant amount, trust me), actively fermenting beer in vessels, as well as packaged beer, ultimately, will be a real challenge.

Unless you've kept your currently fermenting Imperial Stout (you mentioned it in the other thread) cool enough, it will likely contain significant off-flavors and fusel alcohols that may never subside. You can brew, ferment, and store beer in pretty much any vessel, but good beer can only be made under adequately controlled fermentation temperatures, Saisons excepted to some degree.

Let us know how the brew jackets/peltiers work out. Your environment is quite extreme and will be a good test floor for them.
Are you using plastic or stainless fermentors?

Do you have an ice machine?

 

[MovingOn]

I'll let everyone know how the BrewJacket works as I'm going to use it right away. If it doesn't I'm going to be SO BUMMED! I honestly do think it will work though - I have a real nice area to have two stainless steel fermenters running. And the BrewJacket is a 12V device - which is what the boat is (we have a 10Kw genet but we sure don't want to run that all of the time...!).

Everything I'm looking at is SS. I have seen stills made out of a milk cans and am looking to get a milk can just like except a different lid to allow the BrewJacket / pop top to fit on it. (still is not going with us but some aged Rum sure the hell is....)

More as soon as the parts and pieces come together._steve

 

[Tegra]

"... I'm going to use it right away."

Hmmmm... did it reach critical mass and burn through the bottom of the boat?

(What's the expression?.... "He's drinking with the fishes")

Tom (BIP, Brew In Peace)

 

[neilpcraven]

Have you seen that episode of Brew Dogs where they build a brew rig on a gimbal to keep level on a sailboat?

 

[Sailingeric]

I know this is an old thread but I have sailed the Bahamas and will be taking the boat down to Grenada in a couple months. Beer is crazy expensive in the Bahamas but hard liquor is way cheaper. Stock up on some Havana Club and save the beer for when you get back state side.

 

[Curtis2010]

I know this is an old thread but I have sailed the Bahamas and will be taking the boat down to Grenada in a couple months. Beer is crazy expensive in the Bahamas but hard liquor is way cheaper. Stock up on some Havana Club and save the beer for when you get back state side.

+1. Rum is way easier to stow on a boat.

 

[heckler73]

Isnt this why IPA was invented?

 

[Curtis2010]

Isnt this why IPA was invented?

Yes, but for long term storage on ships during transport. On "small" boats beer storage becomes a hassle. Lots more volume and containers to stow and then dispose of.

 

[bobeer]

yea, I wonder what ever happened with the OP? It hasn't quite been a full year yet which was his timeline.

I'd also be worried about oxidation if it were me. If everything is going to be sloshed around while at sea I would think the fermenting beer would also get splashed around. I guess if the fermentor was never exposed to air most of the oxygen would get pushed out during fermentation so it might not be as big of an issue as I'm thinking.
Brewing at sea sounds like an awesome idea but I'm wondering if the juice is worth the squeeze. It seems you'd have to take a lot of measures to get it done and the outcome seems a little too uncertain. It will be cool to see if he ever got around to doing this, what the experience was like and how it turned out.

 

[Curtis2010]

I'm also a sailor and spend part of the year cruising (currently in Panama). I leave serious brewing ashore...lots of energy and space requirements (both at a premium on a boat) to store ingredients, brew, ferment, condition, stow. Not to mentioned you're gonna take all this and give it good strong shake periodically. Brewing hooch in the bilge is one thing, but good quality beer is a whole other ball game.

And getting ingredients imported as you move around will be an expensive hassle. Still illegal to brew in some places. I've got my routine down for getting ingredients into Guatemala, but it take some time to learn the ropes in each country. And in the end there is no way I can brew a beer I actually want to brew and drink at even close to the local mass produced beer price with small volumes of imported ingredients.

Some places, like the Bahamas, beer is expensive, but still I suspect overall cheaper than creating a brewery aboard and getting ingredients (he did say cost was one of his justifications).