All Grain, Parti-Gyle and the origin of some words...

A not so innocent bystander asked, while I was buying a bag of American Two-Row malt at Artisan Homebrew, "So you're a professional all grain brewer now?  Are you going to post that on your blog?"  Well, yes I am.  Although I still need a grain mill and should actually have a batch under my belt first, right?  Eh, isn't having the grain sitting in my hallway good enough?  I mean it's just beer.  I'll post a picture of my pet bag o malt later.  I think we will call him Doughballs.  Speaking of whom, I better check on him.  I think he's lonely over there.  Poor guy.

So, have you heard about this Parti-Gyle thing?  You know where you mash your grain, er malted grain and use the first runnings for a high gravity beer and the second runnings for a smaller beer?  I guess I've known about it for a long time, but, now that I'm a "professional all grain brewer" I can try it.  (need a shorter way to say professional all grain brewer...hmmm PAGB, pro-agb, AGPB... I'll keep working on that.  Too much thinking.  I'm tired).

Anyway, if you want to read something interesting and informative about this gyle thing, check out Randy Mosher's article in Brewing Techniques.  It's from all the way back in 1994 when I was drinking stuff like Molson and didn't even know about homebrew.  A time when Ace of Base topped the charts with The Sign.  Lucky for you, Randy's article isn't anything like those things I just mentioned.  Pay close attention to what he says about the origin of the terms triple, double and single.

AHA Event: Big Brew Day around the world and local...

Check out the AHA Big Brew event page.  I know that locally the BUZZ homebrew club is joining up with Artisan Homebrew for this event on May 5th.  Lots of brewing going on that day.

3% Pale Ale, the next beer and my electric brewery...

Happy to say that the 3% ales are being received well.  The dry hopping really took them to the next level.  Without that I don't think they would have nearly enough flavor.  Probably have a few gallons left.  Been enjoying these at ambient room temp and even then they taste good.  Not exactly cask conditioned since I'm using CO2 pressure to serve and add some carbonation, but, much of the carbonation was natural as it wasn't quite finished fermenting when I kegged it.

The next beer.  What will it be?  Well, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  I only have so many ingredients on hand so I think it will be another simple beer.  Maybe this time I'll use the wheat beer yeast that Bryan shared with me the other day.  Tons of yeast left in one of his growlers from East End Brewing.  Might be fun to experiment with.  Maybe half a batch with that yeast and half with another.

The electric brewery is 98% done.  Two plugs to rewire, receptacle to mount and then mount my new Therminator, recently purchased from Mike at Artisan Homebrew.  Once that's all done, I will have andoor stationary system.  It's been a long time coming.  I'll still need to test the boil kettle to see if 4500 watts will give me the rolling boil that I want.  It would be nice to have it all run off a PID, but, if I can manage to get this to work for now, I'll  be happy.  If I do need to use a PID I'll be relying on the Homebrew Talk forum for some background on parts and wiring.

3% Pale Ale Dry Hopped

This little 3% pale ale seems just right with a little yeast and some dry hopping.  Will be interesting to see how it develops over the coming days.  It's meant to be a table beer.  Something to have with dinner, kinda light with some flavor and not too much alcohol.  I added whole leaf Amarillo to one of the 5 gal. kegs and whole leaf Columbus to the other which makes the Columbus a 100% single hop beer.  Used a Stainless Steel Mesh Tea Ball in the keg for dry hopping.

My Electric Brewing Parts List

I'm putting together a parts list here with links.  This is a work in progress that I'll update as I have time.  Search http://homebrewtalk.com for more complete lists and others experiences.  Ask questions in the comments.

• Ultra Low Watt Density - Water Heater Elements (5500 w, 4500 w)
• Spa-Panel with GFCI (Amazon)
• Spa Panels  (Home Depot)
• 30 amp 3 conductor 10 guage flexible rubber cable (Home Depot)
• Leviton 830-T 30 Amp, 125 Volt, Travel Trailer Vinyl Grounding Angle Plug, Black
• Leviton Surface Dryer Outlet - Black Finish
• 1 inch hex nut (bargain fittings.com)
• 1 inch silicon O-ring (bargain fittings.com)
• stainless steel bolt washer and nut for grounding
• Leviton 3032-2W 30 Amp, 120/277 Volt, Toggle Double-Pole - White
• Carlon E98TSCN-CAR Single Gang Weatherproof Toggle Box Cover

Electric homebrewing update... (cost, parts, etc)

I brewed a simple single hop 3% pale ale about a week ago using electricity and propane.  The entire electric brewing system isn't complete yet, but, it was definitely cool to heat up water with a flick of a switch.  Right now I have a hot liquor tank with 5500 watt 220 volt electric element in it.  I don't remember exactly how long it took to boil 12 gallons of water, but, I'm pretty sure it was less than an hour.  I'll provide some exact numbers next time around.  All numbers below are based on en electric brewing spreadsheet I found via http://www.homebrewtalk.com.  I used my current electricity rate and current tap water temperature.

I used this formula to calculate the cost to get 14 gallons of water to boil. (don't really need 14 gallons, but I didn't have my pickup tube installed so that's what I needed to boil to get 12 gallon or so)

kilowatts used per hour * hours it takes to get to boil * cost per kilowat hour = cost
5500 watt electric element = 5.5 kilowatts per hour
61 minutes to boil = 61/60 = 1.02 hours
$0.097 cents per kilowatt
5.5 * 1.02 * .097 = $0.54 to get 14 gallons of water to boil from starting temp of 56F.

Now I just need to add to that the cost of a 60 minute boil.  In this last brew I used propane for this.  Next time I hope to have a smaller element installed in my kettle to maintain a good boil.  I think 5500 watts would probably be too much.  I'm thinking 4000w or 4500w to maintain a boil.  That would cost even less.  Here's the projected cost for a 60 minute boil with a 4500w element.

kilowatts used per hour * hours * cost per kilowat hour = cost
4500 watt electric element = 5.5 kilowatts per hour
1 hour boil
$0.097 cents per kilowatt
4.5 * 1 * .097 = $0.44 to boil for 1 hour

So it would cost a little less than a dollar to brew a 10 gallon batch of homebrew using extract :-)  Shouldn't be much different for all grain.  I would imagine that propane costs between 3 and 6 dollars per brew session.  Assuming a savings of $5 a brew session it would take 4 brews to pay for the element, 10 brews to pay for the wire, etc.  IF I brew often (if...heheh), it would take one to two years to pay for the investments in electric equipment (wire, plugs, spa box with GFCI, elements, o-ring, nut, switch, switch box, items for waterproof cover for element wire connection).

Why go electric?  Mostly because I can safely brew in my garage with the door closed all year around.  Not to mention eliminating the need for propane refills.  Eventually it will be cheaper to brew this way too.  I will need to keep propane and a burner around in case the power goes out in the middle of a brew session ;-)

NOTE:  Need to revisit with actual numbers from next brew session.

Brewing & Baking: Spent grain bread....

I've tried using spent grains to bake bread and it turned out OK.  Never tried again.  Since then, I've learn more about baking bread and making beer.  Today, out of the blue an email came over the BUZZ homebrew club email wire/ether and voila, I am inspired to bake with spent grains again.  Thank you Brandon for this link.  Of course this means I need to brew again ;-)

Note:  Original photo is not mine and can be found here.

Back in the brew garage wiring things up...

If all goes well tomorrow I'll have a way to heat water with electricity. We will call it a Hot Liquor Tank. Hey, why didn't I just get a water heater? Hmmm....

Cascade hops sprouting! (photo)

Chinook hops sprouting! (photo)