Brew Year's Resolution - in July (There's a Pattern)

Some people do New Year's Resolutions. Apparently, I do summer resolutions!

Here it is July again, and I find myself gravitating back to homebrewing. Again. I only brewed 5 beers in 2019, and 4 of them were brewed in the summer. I would like to say that this will change for the remainder of 2020 (which has obviously been a doozie!) and into 2021, but I say that every year...

I like planning - developing recipes. I like brewing. I certainly like drinking the results. But like so many other brewers, I hate cleaning! The setup and time for an all-grain brew day is a bit of a drag as well. I suppose that there are ways to make setup more efficient, which might shave some time off of that step. An extract or extract with steeping grains batch can reduce the brew day a great deal. There are no real shortcuts for cleaning, however.

This summer, I find myself analyzing brewing a bit differently. Along with the simplified analysis of what I like and don't like about brewing in general, I decided to think about what I like about drinking  beer. Above all else, I love the refreshing variety of flavor and style options. My wife is always asking me why I need so much beer; the answer is choice. I like to have choices!

Some days I want something light and refreshing - a craft lager or pilsner hits the spot (and because of hockey, I also always have some locker room beer like Rainier or PBR). Other days, I crave something hoppy - an IPA, pale, or session pale are there for me on those days. When I long for something dark and roasty - a porter or stout fits the bill. Besides simply matching the hankering in the moment, I also like to match the beer to the food I make.

Brewing that much variety in 5-gallon (or larger) batches is an undertaking. I do have a 4-tap keezer, but brewing and keeping 20 gallons of beer is kind of a big deal. When I used to brew with friends, it was easier; one year, a friend and I brewed over 300 gallons! Nowadays, however, it seems like I barely brew 20 gallons a year! Clearly, a different approach is in order...

In years past, I have mashed and brewed a bigger batch - to the tune of 10-12 gallons - and split it into two smaller batches. That worked well enough: more beer for not much more time on a brew day (running two burners for the boils). I have tried parti gyle batches, were I got a bigger beer and a smaller beer; I have made different beers from the same wort by varying hop charges and yeasts; and I have brewed very different styles from the same base wort by utilizing steeping grains. Each of these double batches got me two kegs. I'm not sure that any of these methods will get me brewing more often though.

Even if I were to go the double batch route, and fill all four of my taps, that might be 2 or 3 brew days, which is reasonable. Although four choices is technically quite a bit of variety - I could easily cover my bases with a lager, something hoppy, something darker, etc. - that's 5 gallons each; roughly 36 pints each keg. The novelty of those specific varieties often wears off before the keg is blown.

When I first begain brewing, doing extract batches on the stovetop, I often brewed smaller batches. Not only was it easier to manage, I also got to try my hand a lot of different styles! Back then, bottling 2-3 gallons of beer into some combination of about 24 bottles, 12 ounce and 22 ounce, was a lot less daunting task than bottling a full 5-gallon batch as well. After watching James Spencer brew up a one gallon batch on Basic Brewing Video, I even did a bunch of those batches, which yielded about a six pack of finished beer (that was a lot of work for six beers - I would recommend doing a 2-3 gallon batch over this method, unless you were conducting experiments).

These days, I have four 2.5-gallon kegs, which I have used for the occasional 1/2 batch (or when I brew something like a mild for a yeast starter). When I eyed those smaller kegs the other day, it got the gears turning... The smaller volume might get me over the "I'm kind of tired of this" hurdle. The smaller size also means that I can potentially fit more into my keezer - if I stack them; if I add some new taps, I could potentially double my choices (withiout having to drink 5 gallons of the same beer!)!

The prices have come down quite a bit on the smaller kegs (at least since I first bought mine about 5 years ago). I'm thinking it is probably worth investing in few more 2.5-gallon kegs. I already have quite a few 3-gallon carboys - more than enough to get a handful of beers going. Scaling recipes is a snap.

All of this has me a little bit excited - more excited than I have been about brewing for a while! My plan for reinvigorating my brewing is to go small! It is undoubtedly too early, given that I have not even begun brewing aything yet, but I am dubbing this the "brew-a-week" plan...

Time for a Brew Kettle Modification?

SS Brewtech Trub Dam

While reading a brewing magazine recently, I saw SS Brewtech's Trub Dam. I currently have a copper tube, perforated with holes and covered with stainless steel braid; it is prone to clogging with

My current kettle screen

trub and protein break... at the very least, it slows WAAAAAY
down towards the end of the draining process.

1" copper pipe, flattened/notched 3/4" copper coupling, 90° elbow

I sketched up a similar trub dam which used copper fittings. Some cutting, simple soldering - it was possible. I decided it was at least worth a try.

Materials:
1/2" x 1/2" threaded adapter
1/2" copper pipe (1")
1/2" copper 90° elbow
3/4" copper coupling
1/2" copper tube strap

• I soldered the copper pipe section into the threaded adapter. This gets screwed directly to the threaded valve on the kettle. 
• I had hoped to find some copper flashing for the main portion of the dam/diverter, but I could not source any locally. I got creative and cut the 3/4" copper coupling lengthwise, then bent it open and flattened it out; I notched it about 1/2" and bent that up for a soldering surface to connect to the 90° elbow.
• I worked the 1/2" copper tube strap into a "C" shape to match the width of the flattened coupling. I filled the screw holes with solder, then soldered that 90° to the flattened coupling as the diverter on the dam. I trimmed the base to fit

1/2" copper tube strap, soldered base/90° elbow

base - showing uptake gap

1/2" copper tube strap, solder-filled

diverter/dam complete

I'm hoping that I can get the wort going in a "whirlpool" as I chill it, and use this new diverter/dam fitting to keep the trub and hop mass out of my wort as I drain it into the carboy...

Organization

Last weekend, I spent a lot of time cleaning out my garage... It was long overdue for a lot of reasons, but one of the motivating factors was brewing. I had a brew date on the calendar, and friends coming over to brew.

It feels so much better out there now. Everything is orderly and easy to find. I spent some time organizing and labeling bins, consolidating and arranging equipment. There is space to move around.

I recognize that I am a habitual planner - I have always like to sketch out plans, to make lists, to plan new creations. The reality is that I have always planned proportionately way more than I have executed. But even so, I realized that a major road block that was skewing this ratio even more than usual was the mess.

It was way more work just getting ready to brew. Where is the equipment? Is it clean? do I have everything I need? Which bin has the ingredients I need? You get the idea. Preparing to brew is still quite a bit of work, but I don't dread it now that I have things reasonably presentable!

Hop Trellises

In a recent post, I lamented the loss of my established hops due to a poorly executed move. In that same post, I also spoke of planting my new rhizomes. As I eagerly awaited bines to sprout, I contemplated trellis possibilities...

At my old house, I strung twine from my roof down to the ground - this gave me about 10' vertically. At my new place, the hops are planted away from my house in an area of raised garden beds. The trellis issue presented two problems. Of course, the first problem was the trellis system itself -what was I going to do? Secondary, and possibly more importantly, whatever trellis system I decided upon had to meet my wife's approval, since she is in charge of the aesthetics of the garden area.

What I really wanted to do was weld up a sturdy, permanent trellis... I felt that the unfinished steel would rust up nicely and complement the rustic wood of the raised beds and fenceposts. My wife thought that this plan would result in a "rusty monstrosity" which would undoubtedly be an "eyesore." (the quoted parts are her actual words) Likewise, any wooden trellis structure was likely to be a visual distraction.

I reluctantly concurred, putting off any truly permanent construction until next year when I plan on putting the hops into the ground (or at least planted more permanently).

In the end, I opted for simple. Material-wise I purchased two long 5/8" pieces of re-bar, 4 u-shaped 1/2" conduit brackets, two 1" screw eyes, 2 worm-drive hose clamps, and a spool of natural fiber twine. Planning-wise, I did not consult my wife (this simplified things greatly).

I used the hose clamps to fasten one of the screw eyes to the end of each piece of re-bar; tightening down the clamps as tight as they would go (along with a little bit of shaping of the clamp strap) added a sturdy circular eye to the 'top' of my trellis rod. Next, I test-fit the conduit brackets, and bent them to insure a secure and stable fit. I began by fastening only one side of a pair of conduit brackets for each trellis rod to the end boards of a raised garden bed. Before I mounted the re-bar to the garden box, I threaded 4 strands of ~20' of the natural twine through the eye at the top (this way, I avoided having to climb up a ladder to do that later). Finally, I fitted the re-bar into the conduit brackets and finished screwing them in. This resulted in a trellis that will be plenty sturdy for the hop bines, and hardly noticeable in the garden area.