It's been a while since we've had an update on the Brew Barn. For those of you not familiar with the project, our member Peter L.(Scele) has set out to build his brew space from scratch, and we've been lucky to see the progress along the way. To catch up please read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.
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First of all, I'd like to say that I'm sorry for how long it's taken to get this article up. I've had a busy couple of months and just couldn't seem to get it done.
So, last time we did a brew barn article I'd just gotten it up and running ex power. Well, I got the electrician to come by and install the needed electrical outlets and fuse box. I also added a few fridges and some finishing touches to the brewing space:
With everything in order I figured it was time do a proper brew day, with an American pale ale on the menu. So, I fired up the Breumeister and cursed out my relatives for leaving the drill for my malt mill completely out of power. After about 30 minutes consisting of "milling" - "recharging" phases, I was able to set the Braumeister to the correct program and get going. The nice thing about the Braumeister is the complete control over the temperature, a friend of mine described it as "Removing the annoying parts from brewing".
I put in 4kgs of Maris otter pale malt, 0.5 kgs of caramalt 80l and 0.3 kgs carapils (for foam) and went at it.
After a 60 minute 4 step mash I hoisted the malt-tube out of the kettle and let it drip off for about 10 minutes. I do not recommend hoisting such a malt tube out alone, and by hand if you have been drinking. I'm 6.1 and 220 lbs and with the 90 cm tables, I need a stepladder to do it safely.
After getting the malt tube out I started on the 60 minute boil. The problem was that I'd forgotten to change the boil time from doing a bigger beer at 90 minutes the week before, so I had to cancel the process and start over, to avoid having too much boil off.
As long as the Braumeister is set to 102 degrees Celsius, it tends to keep a fairly rolling boil, with small breaks if you add heavy additions like lactose or a worth chiller, which tends to drop the temp by 2 - 3 degrees. Throwing in the worth chiller 15 minutes before drops it down from 99 to 97 for a few minutes. Note to self, if you need to do sugar additions, do them before adding the worth chiller and save yourself some cleaning.
I realize that the "brewbarn" project has been dominated by interior shots, so I figured I should show you my view while brewing:
***
First of all, I'd like to say that I'm sorry for how long it's taken to get this article up. I've had a busy couple of months and just couldn't seem to get it done.
So, last time we did a brew barn article I'd just gotten it up and running ex power. Well, I got the electrician to come by and install the needed electrical outlets and fuse box. I also added a few fridges and some finishing touches to the brewing space:
With everything in order I figured it was time do a proper brew day, with an American pale ale on the menu. So, I fired up the Breumeister and cursed out my relatives for leaving the drill for my malt mill completely out of power. After about 30 minutes consisting of "milling" - "recharging" phases, I was able to set the Braumeister to the correct program and get going. The nice thing about the Braumeister is the complete control over the temperature, a friend of mine described it as "Removing the annoying parts from brewing".
I put in 4kgs of Maris otter pale malt, 0.5 kgs of caramalt 80l and 0.3 kgs carapils (for foam) and went at it.
After a 60 minute 4 step mash I hoisted the malt-tube out of the kettle and let it drip off for about 10 minutes. I do not recommend hoisting such a malt tube out alone, and by hand if you have been drinking. I'm 6.1 and 220 lbs and with the 90 cm tables, I need a stepladder to do it safely.
After getting the malt tube out I started on the 60 minute boil. The problem was that I'd forgotten to change the boil time from doing a bigger beer at 90 minutes the week before, so I had to cancel the process and start over, to avoid having too much boil off.
As long as the Braumeister is set to 102 degrees Celsius, it tends to keep a fairly rolling boil, with small breaks if you add heavy additions like lactose or a worth chiller, which tends to drop the temp by 2 - 3 degrees. Throwing in the worth chiller 15 minutes before drops it down from 99 to 97 for a few minutes. Note to self, if you need to do sugar additions, do them before adding the worth chiller and save yourself some cleaning.
I realize that the "brewbarn" project has been dominated by interior shots, so I figured I should show you my view while brewing:
