My $50, 10 gallon mash tun

Midwest Supplies, and other online vendors sell cooler conversion kits, as well as pre-built mash tuns.  I wanted to build one myself after reading dennybrew's instructions it seemed easy enough.  I was able to build a 10 gallon (actually 12 gallon) rectangular mash tun for about $75 with his advice.  I might have been able to spend a bit less if I bought everything at the hardware store, but BrewHardware is such a nice convenient place to find everything this was a no-brainer.  Also, Bobby M from BrewHardware is a nice guy, was really helpful and quick to respond to my questions.

I intend to use this for batch sparging as described on dennybrew - this wouldn't work well for fly sparging and is a very low-end no frills setup.  It should work out just fine, however.  In the end, as long as I wind up with good beer - who cares!

Supplies

• Rectangular cooler ($22.97 @ Lowes)
• Variable length bulkhead ($12 @ BrewHardware)
• Mash Screen ($15 @ BrewHardware)
• 2-piece ball valve ($13 @ BrewHardware)
• 1/2" NPT hose barb ($4.69 @ BrewHardware)
• Teflon tape (used to seal the connections with NPT)

Total: $52.66

Left: Bulkhead, Center: Ball Valve, Right: Hose barb, Bottom: Mash Screen

The Build

The build is simple.  Drill a hole for the bulkhead, attach the mash screen on one side, attach the ball valve and hose barb on the other.  Per Bobby's instructions on BrewHardware:

Drill a clean 13/16" or 7/8" diameter hole in your pot taking care to avoid any wall contours that may prevent the silicone gasket from sitting flat on the inside wall of the vessel

I drilled a 1/8" pilot hole and pushed through with a 13/16" spade bit - its just plastic and insulation so went straight through.  After the hole is drilled everything is pretty straightforward:

The red washer goes on the inside, flush against the flat wall of the cooler.  Wrap teflon tape a couple times around the protruding thread on the outside, then screw on the ball valve, teflon tape on the hose barb, and screw that into the ball valve.

Sharpie to mark the spot to drill, 1/8" pilot bit, 13/16" spade bit, my drill, and a flathead screwdriver that was used to tighten the mash screen

That's all there is to it!

2nd Brew Day Success!

Tonight I brewed my 2nd batch, I'm really excited that this will turn out much better than the first batch, given some extra equipment this time around to help control my temperature a little better.  The brew I cooked up tonight is an extract + speciality grains kit from Midwest Supplies; a cream stout.  I intend to rack to a secondary after fermentation is completed, at which point I am going to add 2 whole vanilla beans - hoping for a nice vanilla cream stout.  I can't link directly to it for whatever reason but here's the description from Midwest Supplies website:

Our recipe is similar to Milk Stout recipes of old. Sweeter than traditional Stout, this style is a nice alternative for those who find traditional Stouts too bitter. This beer is perfect for dessert after a satisfying meal. Our ingredients for this recipe include: 6 lb. Dark liquid malt extract, 8 oz. Lactose, 8 oz. Black Malt, 8 oz. Caramel 80L specialty grain, 1 oz. German Northern Brewer bittering hops, yeast, priming sugar and a grain bag.

For this brew, I got to use my new propane burner.  I was concerned this thing would be loud as hell - when I tested it the other night with just water, I had it on full blast and it sounds like a godamn jet engine...

I also wanted to do a full boil, instead of a 2.5-3g boil and then adding top-off water to the fermenter.  I have a 7.5g pot, so I figured with 6g of water in there, accounting for some boil off, that I would have enough head room.  If you look you can see I have maybe 2 inches of headroom at the top there.  I also had to mess around with the burner quite a bit, keeping it relatively low, to make sure I didn't get a boil over.  I completely over estimated the power of this burner and had a little mishap when I first added my LME.  I lost some hops during that boilover, but I am hoping enough stuck around after that for the beer not to taste like shit.

Aftermath of the boilover... my poor hops!

  Once I got the flame under control, the rest of the night went smooth enough.  I dropped a whirlfloc tab and my immersion chiller in @ 15m - luckily by that time there was enough headroom to account for the wort displaced by the chiller (something else I hadn't thought of).  The immersion chiller didn't work as well as I was lead to believe - I think this is because it was about 90 degrees F outside when I was trying to cool everything down.  That said, I did get the wort down to about 100 relatively quickly, and without the headache of an ice bath.  I am hoping when it gets just a bit colder out, during the fall and winter, the immersion chiller will work like a champ.  I am going to look into building a CFC at some point, however.  Right now, my brew is sitting in a better bottle, inside my new Cool Brewing cooler with a couple of jugs of ice.  I am hoping I can drop the temp enough to pitch tonight, otherwise I will have to do it tomorrow morning before I head to work.  I've got a blowoff on there anyway, mostly just to keep nasties out - I don't expect any fermentation without some yeast!

Lessons learned, tips for next time:

1. Apparently a 7.5G pot isn't quite big enough for a full boil
• There was technically enough room, but it was a little too much adventure and excitement for this to be worthwhile moving forward
• I am thinking a 10G pot at least for a full boil, but since I want to (eventually) get into AG/BIAB I am going to look into getting a 15G pot
2. It's easier to control the boilover by messing with the flame than the wort itself
• I found that if I stood there and stirred the hell out of my wort, it stayed down.  If I stopped even for a second, it was like Yosemite in there.  Simply dialing up or down the pressure on the propane seemed to be much more effective. 
• Subsequently, I found out I can leave the pressure quite low while maintaining a vigorous boil
3. Late extract addition means a 2nd hot break
• I have read a lot in the past few days about ways to improve extract brews, one thing that comes up time and time again is adding extract late.
• A lot of members at HBT said they add just a bit at the beginning, and most of it at the end.  In fact, some people just add it at flame out - that seems wrong to me, but I really don't know wtf I am talking about just yet
4. There is plenty of time to sanitize while the wort is chilling
• During my first brew and in most of the kit instructions, everything says to sanitize at the beginning.  The problem is after heating to a boil, and then the hour long boil on top of that its a good 90m or so before I need my primary fermenter, racking equipment, hydrometer etc...
• It only takes a few minutes to sanitize with StarSan - plenty of time to do so while the immersion chiller is doing its job.
5. Making a starter was easy
• There are already a ton of articles floating around about this so I won't make one of my own, but this was easy and I have way more yeast now than if I hadn't done one

Psyched for my next batch

My first batch is bottled, sitting in the basement carbing up (hopefully!).  I have been checking out the bottles every couple of days, though I don't really know what the hell I am looking for since it was the first time I have ever done this.  I am excited, however, to take all the things I have learned from the first batch and hope my 2nd batch will be much improved!

New Process and Equipment

As I noted in an earlier post, I went on a bit of a homebrew shopping spree for this next batch.  The one thing I haven't yet received is my immersion chiller.  I was able to find this bad boy on Amazon

Immersion Chiller, sold by HomeBrewStuff, image from Amazon

This is the only thing I am waiting on right now before I start my next batch.  I'm also planning on making a 1L starter with this batch, fermenting in a Better Bottle, controlling my fermentation temperatures, as well as a turning my spare racking cane into a venturi device.  This is something I just read about which is neat and basically free. 

I asked a question on the HBT forums about aeration; for this next batch my primary will be a 6G Better Bottle instead of my plastic bucket so I can't exactly dump the wort from my kettle directly in.  The cheapest easiest way to get air into the wort was to use SCIENCE!



Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!



The Venturi Effect

The Venturi effect is a jet effect; as with a funnel the velocity of the fluid increases as the cross sectional area decreases, with the static pressure correspondingly decreasing¹

Basically what this means is if you have wort whizzing past a little hole in a tube, the speed of the fluid will suck air into the mix - automagically aerating it without having to splish splosh or roll around afterwards. 

You can get this effect by either heating up a straightened out paperclip and poking holes in your tubing, or using a small drill bit.  Obviously you would only want to do this racking from the kettle to the primary as you don't want O2 introduced after primary fermentation!

Better Cooling

I also ordered a Cool Brewing cooler off Amazon, which will better allow me to control my fermentation temperatures.  I didn't really control temperatures at all on the first batch, and it tasted OK going into the bottle.  I wouldn't say it was great, but again it was my first batch.  I am hoping that with some more careful temperature control, I will remove any off flavors that might have gotten into my brew and make for a better finished product.  I'll post a review here, as well as on Amazon and let the folks at HBT know my experiences as well.  As far as I can tell, Cool Brewing is a startup who just got into business within the past 3-4 months, so if this is a solid product I want to help the guy out!

New Style

My first batch was a kit called "Oompah Altbier" from HomeSweetHomebrew in Philly.  It is described as a "Traditional malty Dusseldorf style Copper Ale" - we'll see how it actually turns out.  I didn't like the other kits that HSH had, so I bundled a kit in with my equipment order from Midwest Supplies².  The kit I got is their cream stout - a sweet stout recipe.  I plan on adding a couple of vanilla beans to the secondary as well to give it a little somethin somethin.

All in all I'm pretty excited about everything for the 2nd batch.  If I am able to get the chest freezer from my mother's house in a timely manner, I'll pick up kegging equipment because bottling sucks.

Cheers!

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect
2. As an aside, MWS was awesome.  They packed and shipped out my order within hours of it being placed on their website.  Everything arrived in a single box, packed very nicely, and as I noted in my website security post - they are one of the few vendors who actually seem to give a shit about it.  I will definitely be ordering from these guys again!

Bottling my first batch

Well the first batch is all set, bottled up, carbonating and hopefully won't explode all over my basement.  I think the only thing this first bottling experience has taught me is that I need to get into kegging ASAP.

Cleaning in the sink

 I picked up 2 cases of brown bottles at Barry's, and had a couple extra empties from my buddy as well.  Cleaning and sanitizing everything was probably the biggest pain in the ass because I don't have one of those neato jet sprayer attachments for my sink, or a drying rack.  I had to use the boxes the bottles came in for everything.

All in all, however, the process was pretty smooth.  I assumed I did not actually have a full 5 gallon batch because I did not account for boil-off when I brewed (lesson learned!) - one thing to fix for next time.



I boiled up what I eyeballed as about 3.5-4oz of corn sugar in a pot before adding it to my bottling bucket.  The tubing and bottle filler were a pain in the ass to fit over the spigot, but the actual bottling and capping all went smoothly with very little spillage.

  My process was to fill 6 bottles, cap em up and move on.  The whole process took maybe 15-20 minutes.  It didn't occur to me until all was said and done that I might have A) over carbonated and B) not left enough headroom in the bottles.

I worked the googles this morning to double check on the headroom and was happy to find my on-the-fly technique was shared by a lot of folks at HBT:

Fill the bottle with the bottle filler up to the top - when you remove the bottle filler, the amount of beer that was displaced should be just the right amount of headroom

Capping was pretty easy too, didn't have any broken bottles.



First sixpack of homebrew, bottled!



Now I just have to wait 3 weeks and hope this doesn't taste like cat piss - fingers crossed!

So many new toys!

I have the fortunate situation of having some extra money in the coming month, so I've gone on a bit of a homebrew supply shopping spree for the last week or so.  I'm pretty sure I am going to drive my neighbors nuts with all the deliveries that are coming to my house (which I won't be home to sign for).

From Midwest Supplies I ordered:

• 6 gallon Better Bottle w/Stopper and a 3-piece airlock
• A Better Bottle handle
• A carboy handle
• 2L flask (for starters)
• Cream Stout extract kit (2nd batch!)

From Amazon, I ordered an immersion chiller, Bayou Classic SP10 propane burner, and a a Cool Brewing cooler.

A note about this Cool Brewing cooler... I am excited about it.  It's just a big bag made of insulated cooler material, the same like you would see at the supermarket.


Cool Brewing Cooler,
image from Amazon.com

 It's big enough to hold a large carboy, with enough headspace for a blowoff tube or airlock.  By all accounts on HBT, this thing should be able to hold temperatures anywhere from 10-15 (up to 20) degrees cooler than ambient temperatures with a couple of 2L bottles of ice.

After my terribly failed build of my own fermentation chiller I was considering just using a swamp cooler.  This product should allow me to do the same thing, without water, and the same amount of maintenance (having to swap out ice bottles).

I would not recommend purchasing this product directly from the manufacturer's website. The site looks nice and they have an SSL, but again, no attestation of PCI compliance or any other reason for me to believe they are keeping my credit card information secure.  Luckilly, however, these guys are also selling through Amazon, who I trust.

The last thing I ordered is a stir plate from some dude named Dan.  I'm hoping this new equipment will give me better control over my brew - we'll see how everything turns out.

Failed Projects

This past weekend I tried to build a stir plate, as well as a Son-of-Fermentation chiller.  It didn't go so well.

The Fermentation Chiller

If you aren't familiar with what this is, it is basically a box built from thick styrofoam - the kind you would use to insulate your house.  The inside of the box is split into 2 compartments, separated by a partition with 2 holes cut in it.  Your carboy sits in the big compartment, with a thermostat.  The smaller compartment contains jug(s) of ice; you can use milk jugs, coffee cans, apple juice jugs... whatever.



The ice goes on the left, carboy on the right.  The top, front, and right side are not displayed here

The thermostat is hooked up to a CPU fan.  Set the thermostat to whatever temperature makes sense for your batch, figure 62° F for an ale.  When the temperature gets too high, the thermostat turns on the CPU fan which sucks air from the compartment where the carboy is sitting, down over the jugs of ice (thus cooling the air) and back into the carboy compartment.  This is basically how an air conditioner works, except there is no compressor, and no freon.

Now I didn't come up with this myself, I'm not that clever.  I read about it on HBT and eventually found the "plans" to build it by this guy named Ken Schwartz.

I put "plans" in quotes there because although Ken seems to know what he is talking about, the plans and the PDF is terribly organized.  I was expecting to see something like 1) Equipment list 2) Diagram 3) Step-by-step instructions.  There is some degree of organization but all in all it is poorly written.  Having worked in tech support for 6 of the last 7 years, this made me cry a little bit inside.

That being said, there is enough information in the PDF and from other folks at HBT that I was able to figure out how this all works.  The first thing I did was pick up a thermostat, CPU fan, and 12V adapter.  I probably could have gotten an adapter from someone for free but I was too excited so I went out and bought one.

My first problem came with the wiring.  I'm no electrician, I understand enough to not get myself killed but that's about it.  I had some trouble figuring out which wires go where, but now I'm pretty much a genius.  If anyone ever needs a CPU fan hooked up to a thermostat - I'm your guy!

cpu fan hooked up to the thermostat

Once I figured out the CPU-thermostat-power supply setup, I tested it out.  I was pretty excited about the whole thing working.  I felt like I invented fire.  My girlfriend was as equally uninterested as I was excited, she promptly returned to watching her DVR'd Bachelorette.

I went to Lowes and picked up 2" thick polystyrene (fancy word for styrofoam).  The jerks nice people at Lowes wouldn't cut it for me.  They handed me a utility knife and a ruler and said have fun. 

It was not fun.

After jamming my first cut up pieces of foam into my car in the pouring rain, I got home and tried putting this thing together.  I failed miserably

this is what happened with my first attempt.  not quite a fermentation chiller...

I wound up having to go back to get a 2nd 4x8 piece of foam.  I asked them to cut this piece, and they agreed this time around.  Right now, everything is stuck together and looks like it might work out, but I won't be able to find out until some time tomorrow.

It's together, for now.  Time to see if this thing works!

Stir Plate

The other project I set out to do was a home made stir plate.  After reading a bunch of articles on yeast starters, the stir plate seemed like a cool thing to have.  On Amazon, the real deal stir plates are at least $80-$100, fuck that.

I started reading around the HBT DIY forums and everyone on there said it would be nice and easy to build one.  It's just a magnet on a fan!  I couldn't find the right type of magnets, and I suck at precision so I have a fan with a hard drive magnet stuck on it, that can't spin shit right now.

[Pic of my stir plate coming]

I eventually gave up and just bought one.  I'm pretty sure this is just some guy who made it himself, since he is only selling them for $45.  Payment was made through PayPal so I'm confident that my information is secure.

I bought it Saturday evening and already got notification that it has been shipped, so hopefully it will arrive some time this week and I can see how it works out.

Website Security

I went through HBT's vendor list and was surprised to see how many vendors apparently do not give half a shit about internet security.  Lots of vendors have pretty sites.  Northern Brewer, for example, has a really sharp site.  The design is good, the navigation is easy and the images are all nice high resolutions... but no security.  Sure it has an SSL, but so what?  No seals at the bottom for PCI or any other programs to identify they are keeping information secure.

Lots of people on HBT forums point to several popular sites:

Austin Homebrew
MoreBeer!
Stainless Brewing at the time of this writing is running a promotion, listed under the "vendor showcase" forum @ HBT...

I wouldn't trust giving any of these sites my credit card info.  Not until they show me they have some kind of PCI level, or some attestation from a reputable merchant vendor like Authorize.net or Trustwave etc...  In fact, as of right now - I'm only ordering from 2 places: Amazon, and Midwest Supplies

Midwest Supplies is the only HBS site I have found that actually has some kind of certificate other than just "hey we have an SSL!". 

Note to people running a HBS website: Having an SSL doesn't mean my data is secure once you have it.

I worked for the internet for too long, and have spoken to too many business owners whose databases I had to personally shut down, because they were storing plain text credit card numbers in there.  Sure the SSL makes it so no one can intercept my HTTPS submission of that data and grab my CC info out of thin air - it doesn't do shit to protect my data once the vendor has it.  I am not giving my personal information, nor credit card to any website that doesn't have some kind of certification that tells me the way they store their data is secure.  I don't care who's kid designed your site for you, or how much money you paid for your stupid shopping cart, if it doesn't have a fancy badge somewhere on the site, I'm not buying from you.

UPDATE: It looks like BrewGadgets also should work out.  These guys don't have a PCI badge on their site, but they also aren't processing payments themselves - they let you checkout with Google, Paypal, or Amazon.