Buffalo Theory
The Buffalo Theory - by Cliff Claven (Cheers)
“Well ya see, Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
Kegerator Conversion
Finally was able to purchase all the items needed to make my kegerator.
All the homebrew forums recommend using the Sanyo 4912M fridge which is available from Best Buy for $200 and with all the photos and tips there was no reason to doubt them. I must admit drilling a 3″ hole in the top of a brand new fridge is a little nerve racking but again with all the knowledge from the forums, I was glad I did all the research. Here are some pics:
Tower with Dual Taps
Inside Kegerator (2) five gallon Cornelius Kegs
Everything is working great!! A little work saves you a lot of money instead of buying one of these premade.
Mash Tun Conversion
So I finally got all the needed equipment to convert my 70qt Coleman Extreme cooler into a Mash Tun.
Mash Tuns are used for All Grain brewing. So for a small budget I was able to build a nice piece of equipment to move myself into the next phase of homebrewing. All Grain recipes leave more to the imagination and creativity of what you want to brew.
Here are some pics:
70 qt Coleman Extreme Cooler
Valve
Copper Manifold (Slits on bottom of manifold allows the wort to strain though Mash)
Next project is convert a Keg into a Keggle (Boiling Kettle), this will allow me to make 10 gallon batches instead of 5 gallons.
Homebrew Batch 003
Last Saturday I brewed my 1st partial mash which was an Oktoberfest with guest brewer Gaylord Fokker. It was also my 1st attempt to move the brew process outside. For those of you who don’t live in the Northeast, this time of year gets quite cold at times. Conditions where 30 degrees F, 15mph winds with light snow.
Ingredients
- German Munich Malt
- German Pilsner Malt
- German Vienna Malt
- German Caramunich Malt
- Belgian Aromatice Malt
- 1 pkg Light Dried Malt Extract
- 3.3 lbs Malt Extract
- 2 ounces Hallertau Hops
- 1 Oktoberfest Smack Pack Yeast
We started around 11am by getting the 5 gallons of water to 170 degrees, our mash temps needed to stay between 150-155 degrees, we did this in a make shift double boiler. My dad cooks chowder a few times a year and has a nice 16 gallon kettle, but I thought by using the double boiler method that this would help regulate the heat a little easier. I was wrong. We where able to maintain our mash temps for the entire 60 minutes, but the next issue was bringing the wort up to a boil. Which wasn’t happening!
We ended up taking the burner from the chowder kettle and moved it directly underneath the brew pot, removing it from the dual boiler, this helped considerably except that the wind was now a factor but at least we got a boil. Once we added all the extracts we struggled to maintain a boil and had to make a few decisions on the length of boil time as we missed a good 20 minutes worth and needed to extend our boil to compensate for lose of time. This recipe was estimated around 3.5 hours of labor, but it took us about 5 hours total and that included transferring the wort into the 6.5 gallon carboy.
Yes I said carboy.. No more plastic fermenters for me. In fact this batch I am using a 6 gallon carboy for the secondary fermentation. 48 hours later this batch is very active, a lot more active than my 1st 2 homebrews. Seeing this is an Oktoberfest, I am allowing ample time for this batch to ferment, so we will not be tasting this one for a couple months.
Homebrew Batch 002
I have been slacking on my posts lately, but about a month ago I ventured into doing my 2nd homebrew considering the disappointment I had with Homebrew Batch 001. This time around I got a lot of positive feedback from the forums on RateBeer with where my errors most likely occurred causing the batch to be contaminated.
This 2nd batch I decided to try a Red Ale extract but wanted it make it slightly different so I added some Cascade Hops (pellets) to the the fermenter.
Ingredients
- 1 Can Edme Red Ale Extract
- 3 Cups Muntons Plain Light Malt Extract
- 1oz. Cascade Hops (pellets)
- Yeast supplied with Edme Extract
This time I am not going to list the entire procedures used here accept the things I did differently from the 1st batch.
- Washed all bottles in High Temp dishwasher
- Sanitized bottles 30 minutes before bottling, hung them on bottle tree
- Used Iodophor for all sanitizing of equipment
- Used a bottle rinser that allows the one step to spray into inverted bottle
- Used Light Malt extract for priming bottles
- Batch primed by boiling water and ad Malt extract to boil to kill off any contaminants in the Malt, then reduced heat and mixed into fermenter then transfered to bottling bucket
This batch seems to have turned out a lot better than my 1st, but I am still not 100% satisfied with the overall taste of this Red Ale. The cascade hops maybe a little much for this extract but I went off one recommendation from my local homebrew store.
Cheers!
Quelque Chose clone….halfway home.
So tomorrow I’ll be brewing a Belgian Dubbel. Destined for blueberry’s. But since THAT beer isn’t my brainchild, what I am excited about is racking my clone into the secondary and adding #15 of tart cherries! In two weeks it should be ready and I’m sure it will sell out fast. Since I’m not drinking for a while best beleive I’ll be bottling a bit of this for next year;)
Homebrew Batch 001 - Update
Bad news on my 1st homebrew — Its contaminated!!
How do I know? Sour taste!
Continuing from my last post:
Last week Tuesday(10/02/2007) I scrubbed all the bottles out uses a bottle brush and sanitizing solution and placed them onto the racking tree. On Wednesday (10/03/2007) I transferred the brew from the fermentation bucket to the bottling bucket, no problems there except next time I will purchase the automatic siphon!!
Now that I had everything in place it was time to bottle, this is where I noted my ROOKIE mistake. Even though I thoroughly cleaned the bottles the night before, I never resanitized them again before bottling.
So I had the unfortunate job to uncap all the bottles and dump them down the drain and rinse out all the bottles. Cleanliness is key with homebrewing and I missed one crucial step. So I will move onto Homebrew Batch 002 which will be a Red Ale. This time I will recheck all my steps before bottling.
Thanks again Gaylord for the words of encouragement, at least I was able to identify where I made the mistake and will make sure that never happens again.
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