Getting back on the horse
I’m back after a short brewing hiatus. After getting 4 batches ready in 2 weeks for an event at my gym, and my birthday party, I was ready to take a few weeks off from brewing. Although, between planning our wedding, looking for a new job, and starting a new job, a few weeks turned into a couple months.
Alas, here we are, with an empty kegerator, and beer to be made =) Today I’m brewing 10 gallons of a bastardized California Common. I’m using Cali Ale yeast rather than the typical San Francisco Lager yeast, as I’m lazy, and the Cali Ale yeast will come in handy for my next batch. Additionally, my friend Kiernan is looking to get started homebrewing, so he is going to split a couple 10 gallon batches with me to get the hang of it.
I won’t get into too many details about the beer, as I’ll post all that when the beer is actually done. Instead, here are a few pictures and notes from the very hot July brew day.
I started off fairly early (7am) in hopes of finishing before it gets really hot. For those that haven’t been watching the news, it’s been brutally hot here in Phoenix. Apparently the average temperature this June was the hottest on record. Anyway, coffee helped fight off the yawns, and I got going.
Took this picture in the shade at 8:15 in the morning. As I said, it was hot. Add to that a little humidity from the thunderstorms the night before, and I was drenched in sweat by the time I was mashed in.
I’m sticking with the traditional Steam beer flavors on this one. Here’s the 15min and flameout additions of Northern Brewer. It has a nice woody and minty smell to me.
The worst part of brewing in this weather is chilling 10 gallons down. My hose water is at a tepid 89* right now, so it took roughly 30lbs of ice, and 30 minutes of recirculating to chill this to the low 60s.
I’ll definitely admit, I was a little out of sync on the brew. Not that anything went wrong, but everything just took a little longer. I had a number of those “what was I just doing?” or “how do I normally connect these hoses?” moments. I can definitely say, the more often I brew, the easier brewing is, and the more carefree my brew days are.
Nonetheless, everything went smooth, and here’s 10 gallons rocking away in my fermenting fridge. As those that have checked my temperature monitor page will notice, things are back in the low 60s rather than the ambient temperature in my garage (which has been near 110* lately.).
So that’s all for now. Expect to see a post on this beer in a couple weeks, and some Pliny the Elder goodness a week or two after that. Cheers!
I just brewed v2.0 of my california common on the 2nd, far out. I used the wlp810 SF Lager, I'll get you the fermentation notes later in the week!
I also live in Chandler, and since I first started brewing last December, I had my first brutally hot day as well. I think I bought as much ice as you but I couldn't get anything close to 60*. Can you give me some tips? I've recently installed a pump and have installed a port on my kettle for whirl-pooling, but before all that was in place I had my plate chiller setup like this:
Water: Hose water > copper pre-chiller soaking in a cooler of ice water > plate chiller
Wort: Kettle > plate chiller > fermenter
I think i read someplace that I should run the water just straight from the hose to the plate chiller while circulating the wort through the chiller and back into the kettle to get it to whatever the hose water temp is. Then, hook up the pre-chiller and start moving wort into the fermenter, thus taking better advantage of the ice. Clear as mud?
Ditch the pre-chiller, I've been down that road. Buy a submersible pond pump. I got mine from Harbor freight for like $15. I drop that in the my ice water, and then pump the ice water through my CFC(plate chiller in you case).
And ya, follow that advice (it's what I do). I use tap water, and pump my wort back into the kettle until I hit roughly 100-120F. It depends on the tap water temp, and how much ice I have on hand. At that point I start pumping the ice water through the chiller to finish the job.
This little pond pump has been trucking along for over a year now, one of the better things I've bought for brewing. I just drop it in my mash tun filled with ice water
Haha, what are the odds
Cool, thanks for the advice. Dang, I just got that pre-chiller but it wasn't that expensive. I will check out the pond pump.
Scott – I'm thinking of integrating a CFC into my setup. Would you be willing to share your CFC build or design details?
Cali Common
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.016
ABV: 5%
IBU: 35
10 lb US 2-row
1 lb Munich
8oz c40
8oz c60
4oz victory
Mash 152 60 min, 168 mash out
60 min: Northern Brewer 29ibu addition
10 min: Northern brewer .5oz
0 min no steep, drop in and start chilling Northern brewer 1oz
6 gal post boil
60 seconds pure 02
San Francisco Lager WLP 810 – 300 billion cells for 5.5 gallons
Pitched at 62, fermented at 63, 1.019 on day 7.
Tasted, no sulfur, clean tasting, very little fruity esters, racked to secondary on .5 oz northern brewer and let it rise to 70 to finish out, going to crash it in 36 hours.
So far I think that 62-64 fermentation range is a bit too low and not producing enough esters for me. Thinking maybe a 62F pitch let rise up to 66F will work better.
Had to get union jack clone into fermentation chamber today! 🙂
I feel like I'm pestering you here Scott, but I must ask…… It looks like you use ambient temperature in your fermentation fridge? Your temperature probes on both buckets would then just provides data for your temp monitor? Do you use one of those probes for feedback to set the ambient temp in the fridge? If indeed you do use ambient temp control, do have you have any major negative feedback on that? Currently I run a one bucket or carboy operation and use the temp probe to maintain temperature. At times I brew with a friend and would like to have a "two bucket" operation like you have to increase our volume.
I was examining the picture of your gear, are you using that heat exchanger (hose) to both heat your mash and chill your wort?
I tape one probe to the fermenter, and insulate it fairly well. The second probe is usually just dangling in the air inside the fridge. When I brew 10 gallons, I rest the probe next to the second fermenter. You'll see bigger temp swings on that probe, and much tighter temps on the top one.
I only chill with that. To heat my mash I use a little 2gal cooler (meant to drink water from). Inside of it I have 20' of coiled copper, and a heater element. It acts like a mini herms
Very nice! that should turn out excellent. Mine will be a little more ale-like as I used cali-ale yeast, but otherwise pretty damn similar.
Okay. Great info. One just goes along for the ride. Thanks Scott!
I brewed a California Common (my second attempt) a few months ago, and actually tried adding a dry-hop of Northern Brewer… 1.5 ozs for about 7 days or so. I also cold-crashed the beer in secondary for 3 weeks at 50 F (I believe I got that idea from "Designing Great Beers").
Anyway, came out really nice… the dry hop of NB was a bit odd for the first couple of weeks, but after it mellowed a bit, I really liked what it brought to the beer.
Kegerator is done and I just had the first glass of the CFC, well done sir. Now let's get that Pliny tapped! BTW, I am now following your blog so I can actually see the notes on what we are doing.
Atta Boy! Pliny is Dry hopping as we speak 😉
Hi Scott, can you tell me what fridge your fermentation chamber is originally? I need something capable of fitting two buckets in and yours obviously does the trick!
Thanks
Peter
I just came back from Santa Rosa and drank allot of Pliny. I was disappointed. It had almost no citrus at all. Just a bitter dry (too much corn sugar) medicinal flavour. Really one dimensional and boring. I brought some bottles home, maybe it will taste better in the bottle. Stone's 10th Anniversary Ruination is a much better beer to my tastes. A highlight of the trip was Bear Republic Cafe 15 Racer triple IPA. Fantastic and dangerously strong. Lagunitas Hop Stupid also tasted great at the brewery.
It's an Amana top and bottom fridge. I'm not sure the model, but it's roughly 10-15yrs old. I'd say it's the prototypical fridge that's been produced for the past 20years before those fancy side-by-side w/ the freezer on the bottom models came out.
Ya, Pliny is pretty dank and piney. I personally taste a fair amount of grapefruit, but everyone is different. RuinTen, Cafe Racer and Hop Stoopid are all amazing though.
Drank with some friends the bottles of Pliny the Elder I brought back from Russian River. It was much better in the bottle. Way less medicinal, more grapefruit came through and made you want to drink more.