A new Mash Tun, a plan, a pale ale

So I may still have no idea what's going wrong with all my brews... but I have a bit of a plan. First off though... some encouragement in the form of new equipment!

I ordered a new Mash Tun and Sparge Assembly from brewd00d.com. I got the 48-QT model, which is big enough to do 8%abv or so 10gallon beers, so it should last me basically forever (I don't see myself ever doing 20gallon batches, I like too much variety for that much of a single brew, and I don't even see me brewing more than 5-gallons of some big beers). I got this "loaded" if you will, so I had the sparge assembly installed in the lid, and I ordered the sparge faucet which I will adapt into my old Mash Tun to re-fit it as a Hot Liquor Tank. This setup should allow me to reach 75%+ efficiency, Brewd00d reports 80-85%. This will save me some money, in some cases up to $10 on grain per batch. Next thing I need to do is build a 3-tier stand for my coolers to sit on for gravity feeding!

So as far as my infection problems go... These are what I see to be the possible causes of my problem:
-Infection from the air
-Infection on the thermometer that sits in the wort post-boil
-Overall sanitization
-Infection in the Fermenter
-My Cat?

If the infection is coming from the local (as in Grand River Valley, Portland MI) air, there's not much I can do about it, except be VERY careful not to splash the wort, and keep it covered at all times after boiling, and then use an oxygen tank to oxygenate, rather than shaking for aeration.

The thermometer? I'm not so sure... it's possible though, so I will not leave the thermo sitting in the wort. I won't even read the temp for 30 minutes after boiling, I know the wort chiller takes at least that long for now. Then I'll use my small steel thermo which will have been in the sanitizer, and put it back in the san when I'm done with it.

As far as overall santization goes... I don't honestly think I've been doing anything wrong there. I've brewed a few times with other people, and so far I seem to be slightly more anal than most I've worked with. There has however been one big difference. Nobody I've brewed with has ever used Iodophor as their sanitizer! They've all used an acid-based sanitizer, Star-san or off-brand equivalent. Now there's lots of discussion on the homebrew forums about which is better, and people seem to stick with what they like with no clear indication of which is the "best". All I know is that something I am doing is not working right, so I've got a bottle of Acid-san and will try that.

An infection in the fermenter, like a scratch with some bacteria growing in it? This seems to be the most likely scenario to me, and I don't know if I think it's very likely... The only thing I can do to combat this is to clean them real good, and sanitize them real good. Theoretically chlorine is no better at sanitizing than Iodophor or Acid-san, but I think I'm going to whip up a stiff bleach/water solution to soak my fermenters, lids, airlocks etc in, after giving them a thorough cleaning.

Lastly, my cat... Now I've heard that Cats harbor all sorts of bacteria, and I wonder how much of that is present in the air in my house? I wonder if my stuff that has been sanitized is getting infected post-sanitization? Or perhaps I'm picking up the bacteria in the air during transfer? I'm not sure... but next time I think I'll sanitize my fermenter and stuff, and then let them drip outside and transfer to my fermenter outside. Then I should never have to have my beer open to the air inside my house until after alcohol forms.

So, next weekend I will put my new Mash Tun and refitted Hot Liquor Tank to use, along with new sanitization methods, to brew me up a pale ale. I've got plenty of Summit to use as my bittering hop, and I picked up a couple of ounces of Glacier for my aroma and flavor. I think I'm going to skip dry hops on this, as most of the pales and IPAs I've made have been dry hopped, and I just want to know if I notice a difference right off. Since Summit and Glacier are both low-cohumulone hops (cohumulone being the compound in hop oils that causes very coarse, resinous, harsh, and strong bitterness) they should provide nice bittering without overpowering coarseness. Because of this I've taken this recipe right to the edge of American Pale Ale IBU range, which tops out at 50. Assuming gravities hit right, this should be basically 48 IBU. I'm very curious how the flavor will turn out, as I haven't had a beer with Glacier as the main flavor hops survive yet. Glacier is reported to have peach, apricot and orange notes, and Summit should be citrusy, grapefruit and tangerine perhaps, though there's not going to be much Summit flavor in this, the Glacier should really dominate. And with Summit and Glacier hops, I'm thinking I may have to dub this Frozen Peaks or something... So here's the recipe:

Frozen Peaks Pale Ale

8lbs American 2-row $12
1lb Victory Malt $2
.5lb Crystal 40L $1
9.5lbs Grain $15

.5oz Summit 16.7% FWH $0
1oz Glacier 7.4% 15min $2.50
1oz Glacier 7.4% 0min $2.50
2.5oz Hops $5

2-packets US-05 $4

9 gallons Absopure Spring Water $11

Total cost: $35 (not including propane, maybe another $5?)

Now I should get a OG of about 1.051 with 75% efficiency, and if I do well I could end at 1.056 with 82% efficiency or so. To achieve 1.051 on my old mash tun would require an additional 3.5 lbs of base malt. Since this recipe is using the American 2-Row, it's only saving me $5.25. However, if this was Maris Otter, it would be $7 savings (and if I, for example, brew a Maris Otter based Barleywine at about 10%, this new mash tun will save me at least $13). In relation to buying beer then... I'm about breaking even on this batch. A case of Samuel Adams might run me $30, plus tax and deposit. This should be a better (read: more flavorful, more grain and hops per gallon) beer than SABL, so I might equate this closer to Sierra Nevada or Founders Pale Ale. The Founder's could run me closer to $40 a case, so I'm doing pretty good there. And, theoretically, I should end up with close to a sixer more than a case of beer in a 5 gallon batch. To cut costs, I think my next step is water filtering, and trying the tap water in Portland. Maybe I can find someone a the club who has a filter I can borrow for a trial batch.

So my future brewer expansion plans look like this:

1. Build wood stand for HLT and MT for gravity sparging, kind of like these setups. This will be made of 2x4s and maybe 4x4 legs. I'll have to decide if I want the mash tun to be high enough to drain into the kettle right on the burner, or if I can drain to a kettle on the ground and go from there. It'll depend on exactly what height I decide I want my mash tun at. I don't want to have to bend over to stir, or climb anything to fill my HLT... but I also don't want to have to pick up a nearly 55-lb full kettle if I don't have to.

2. I might try to find a decent water filtering solution after this, because I think using filtered tap water will be my next big savings. I don't know what my exact price per gallon is on my tap water, but I'm sure it's less than the $1.19 or whatever that I spend on spring water, as my water bill is only $20 a month or so for the whole house. so I figure a water filter, if the water is acceptable, should save me at least another $8 a batch.

3. I think next will be oxygenation. I can get my wort all oxygenated so the yeast start fast and fully ferment with zero risk of infection with an oxygenation system. There's a couple of options, using either an air pump and filter, disposable oxygen tanks and cheap regulator, or "normal" refillable oxygen tanks and expensive regulators. All systems use an air-stone, like in an aquarium, to deliver the O2 into the wort. I tend to think I would go with a refillable O2 tank, so that someday I can upgrade to inline oxygenation, when I got to inline cooling, without having to buy a new tank.

4. After that will be my 2nd wort chiller for my pre-chiller setup I discussed in another post.

5. Then, I will likely try to get a bigger propane tank! Heating my strike and sparge water on the stove is cool and all, but eventually I want to this be an entirely outdoors operation. So I need a bigger tank so I don't have to fill up as often.

6. Next perhaps will be a new boil kettle, one with a spigot and ball valve. This will be in preparation for future upgrades to the cooling, oxygenation and transfer systems. Once I've got spigots on my HLT, MT, and Kettle, I'm ready to add pumps, counterflow chillers, and inline oxygenation. Then my brewery will need to be put an on all inclusive cart, since I won't need gravity anymore. Sweet =)

What am I doing wrong?

I don't know what my problem is... but I've lost over half of the batches of beer I've ever tried to brew. Most to, I think, infection and a few with temperature problems.

I decided when I started brewing all-grain, I would kind of start my count over. But that's no good, b/c if I do that I'm at 0 for 3, counting through the first try of Colin's Colsch (I still have a chance with Colin's Colsch-2)

I never posted about this b/c I was so frustrated, upset, and embarassed by it (I don't know a single other homebrewer who has ever had as bad a record as me...), but both Repale (the River Grand Brown) and my River Rat Rye got infected or something in the keg. I hadn't had a pint off either of these in a week or two (and this has been a while now) and one day when I went to draw a pint... they both tasted like crap! Cidery, bitter (not in the good way), tart... really gross. I don't know what in the hell happened to them. My only guess at this point is that my taps were dirty/unsanitary and something was able to infect the beer from there.

So I consider those two partial losses. I made it to finished beer, and just didn't handle them right afterwards. I have a new plan for operation my kegs for at least the next couple of batches, hopefully to eliminate this problem. I bought a hand held faucet and a new section of tap line. I've filled a keg with sanitizer solution, and plan on getting a spray bottle I can fill with some kind of alcohol-based disinfectant (I think I know where I can get some 90% ethanol...). I will use this new faucet exclusively for the next couple of kegs. It will be stored disconnected, and I will flush it with sanitizer before using. I will also spray all connections with the alcohol before connecting the faucet to the beer-keg. After pouring beers, or if switching from one keg to the other, I will flush the faucet and spray the connections again. As I'm thinking about it... I'm also thinking I need to tear apart the hardware in the fridge and clean and sanitize everyhting there too. So hopefully with some more rigorous handling I can eliminate that problem.

However... Colin's Colsch round 1 is now... crap. It seems to have gotten infected sometime prior to going into primary. Chances are that it got infected during the cooling procedure, or while pouring into the fermenter. I think my sanitization process is fine, though I could perhaps 'polish' my process a bit (I don't have a designated sanitary drying location for example...), so I'm guessing that I got the infections while it was cooling, which took a while. To combat this I need to do one or two of these: Cool faster, cool more carefully.

Cooling Carefully... well I don't know what to do there. I sanitize my wort chiller before using, though I could just stick it into the boil before it's done, I could really use a hose to get the water to my kettle then as right now I have to carry the kettle to a spigot. Actually, I think I should probably get a hose, but I think I need one on the drain side to, then I could drain into the street. Normally I leave my floating thermometer in the wort while it chills, and use that to stir the wort a bit, perhaps I need to be more careful not to splash? But this batch was no different than the Repale and River Rat...

Which brings me to cooling. Repale and River Rat both cooled faster, it was cooler outside (Repale even had snow to help). There's lots that I could do to help cooling though... with that I'm basically limited by money. There's 3 main types of wort chillers. I have a single immersion chiller. One option that I am considering is getting a 2nd chiller so I can do a pre-chiller. This is when you use 2 immersion chillers in a line, and the first chiller is in a bucket of ice-water. This pre-chills the coolant water down to around 40F or so, hopefully, translating to faster cooling. A counterflow chiller would be pretty cool, but they're a bit expensive. I've seen them and plate chillers in action, and it is awesome to see wort get chilled immediately, you just drain your beer from you kettle through them and it comes out chilled! Well it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. I think the pre-chiller is more cost effective though.

Something else I've considered doing is having somebody come and brew with me some day while I'm brewing. Somebody with lots of experience, who can tell me if I'm doing something wrong, risking my beer at any point. I've brewed with others before, but nobody's ever come watch me do my brew-day on my own.

It's tough though... this is something I REALLY enjoy, enough of a passion to want to make a career out of it. And yet, I fail half the time. I've sunk a lot of time, money, and effort into this, and I'm currently the most failingest homebrewer I know. This is like wanting to be a professional tennis player, but losing every single game, set, and match you've ever played! (No I don't lose every batch... but I've never met a homebrewer who's lost more!) I get so frustrating that I want to give up sometimes... it seems like if I was meant to brew, I wouldn't do so bad.

Ah well... I've got some plans on what to work on to prevent this in the future. Just the fact that I'm still willing to work on making this happen, produce new recipes, brew new beer (I'm thinking about a mild ale this weekend, real cheap and real quick) proves to myself that I've got the determination. I just need to keep brewing!

Colin's Colsch... round 2

So I'm going to try and brew this beer again. This time armed with my knowledge of boil-off for my new kettle, a healthy respect for Phosphoric Acid, and more time, I hope to get closer to my target!

I did change one thing... rather than English Maris Otter pale malt, today I am going to use German Pilsner malt. Pils is lighter colored, so I should get a paler beer. Which is good, a Kolsch should be straw-golden colored at the darkest, pale yellow at the lightest.

Of course, switching grains brings in a new dynamic... Pils malt, especially German Pils apparently, is less "modified" than standard 2-Row Pale or the Maris Otter I love so much. Less modified meaning that less of the proteins and starches in the malt are broken down into smaller proteins and sugars. Generally this is dealt with by doing a "protein rest" in the mash, a half hour period at about 121F before the mash is brought to 150F for an hour. I've never done a protein rest... and I'm not sure I feel like trying today! (Perhaps I should've stuck to Maris Otter...) I've asked in the BeerAdvocate homebrewing forum... but it's early so I won't get a response for a while.

Oh well. Gonna go get some breakfast, and then get started!

River Rat Rye summary

Brewday went pretty well. I hit my temperatures pretty much right on, 147-150 for the mash, and sparged about 165. Efficiency may have been a bit low (it sucked actually), the wort weighed in at I think about 1.032, I forgot to write it down apparently. That thickened up to 1.046 in the boil, so I could get 4.5% abv or so. PH was still a bit of a problem, it was high all around. I tried correcting the sparge, this time measuring quarter teaspoons into a pint of water and adding one cup of that at a time. I added 3/4 of a teaspoon and it was still high. I had been told on some forums that I probably just shouldn't get too worried about ph, so I just went ahead and sparged, but now I'm wondering if ph has something to do with my lack of efficiency.

I did have one "incident" where I accidentally pushed the rubber stopper that holds the steel mesh and copper pipe into my mash tun. I had about 1 gallon of 120 degree water and 1/2lb of rice hulls in there, so besides making a wet mess, there wasn't too much loss and it wasn't even sticky. I turned the mas tun so the drain side was away from me and all was fine.

This time, I went with my conceptual "compacted" brewday, where I waited to do things like get the mash tun clean until after I started heating my strike water, or waiting to make my sanitizer and sanitize my fermenter until the last 10 minutes of boil, etc. While this got me from start to yeast pitching in 4 hours, this was not such a good idea. I set up closer to the sink this time, which was handy, but it prevented me from being able to clean things as easily, and at some times I was somewhat rushed, and I couldn't watch my boil well enough, which resulted in a boilover. Next time it'll be back to having everything clean before I start, if not necessarily sanitized.

I started about 12:30, after picking up 10 gallons (again, actually the Absopure gallon + 8oz jugs) of water, and exchanging my propane tank. The mash got underway about 1:30, and I was on the burner at 2:50, boiling by 3:02, and had hot break at 3:05. I pulled it from the burner at 4:10 and pitched my yeast 20 minutes later. All in all everything worked great.

My biggest problem today were the hops and the volume. The whole leaf hops are a bit troublesome to deal with as they soak up a lot of wort (which exacerbated the volume issue) and are hard to keep out of the fermenter, unless you rack your wort into the fermenter, and I really prefer to pour mine, I think it's much easier. I don't think I took enough of my sparge water, but that's kind of a catch 22 because my gravity might have been even lower if I had taken more. I'm going to skip dry-hops on this batch because I don't want to lose any more beer to absorption.

I need to find out what to do about my efficiency. I know batch sparges are not efficient, but they should be more efficient than what I'm getting. I might need to start showing up at the Red Ledge Brewer's club meetings and ask for some input. There's tons of resources online, but I think I want to talk to some people who have experience in person. Perhaps I'll ask the person with the strongest beer