Bazza's photo guide for the work-shy brewer

[Bubbles]

Great post!


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[auralabuse]

You are not a true lazy bastard if your milling your grain by hand though. Unless you start using a drill you risk being seen as quite the hard worker.

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[Bazza]

Unless you start using a drill you risk being seen as quite the hard worker.

Too risky. If the missus twigged I owned a drill she'd have me putting up shelves, pictures and shit all over the place 

-Barry

[belfastjacko]

Did you build your own spunding valve? Was it easy?

[Bazza]

Did you build your own spunding valve? Was it easy?

Nope. I bought mine here:

https://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/adjustable-pressure-release-valve-gauge-for-cornelius.html

I have taken it apart, though, and looks like there's very little to it. I'm sure it'd be easy to knock one together. There're plenty of online guides to making them.


Cheers,

-Barry

[belfastjacko]

Cheers, I've had a look not sure I could build one as cheap as that.

It's all coming together nicely now.

[Bazza]

A belated follow-up to the original post

When we last met Freddy Fermenter, he was using his imposed incarceration in the Fermentation chamber to make some beer for all his friends. 2 weeks on, let's see how he's doing.

After 10 days in the fermentation chamber at 19 degrees C the spunding value was closed completely. It held at a steady 15 PSI, meaning that no more CO2 was being produced and therefore fermentation had completed. Into the fridge she went for 3 days' cold crashing.

3 days later. PSI has understandably dropped to under 10 PSI:


Time to prepare the serving keg with the same W5 and Starsan combination as the brew day:


This one's going to be keg hopped with 8g Citra and 12g Cascade:


Boil up the nylon hop bag for 5 minutes to kill any germs and then liberally spray with Starsan:


In go the hops and the bag is tied tightly...


...and into the serving keg she goes:


Clean and sterilise the other major bits of equipment needed for keg to keg transfer:


Fermentation keg (left) and serving keg (right) placed with the liquid out's side by side:


Serving keg is pressurised to 5 PSI:


Gas supply is then removed and attached to the fermentation keg. A picnic tap is attached to the fermentation keg's liquid out to decant the first half litre or so of yeasty mess:


Yum yum, murky:


Liquid out posts of the sending (fermentation) and receiving (serving) kegs are connected up:


Spunding valve placed on the gas in post of the receiving keg:


At this stage the gas supply is attached to the gas in of the sending keg, at 5 PSI. To allow transfer of beer the spunding value is opened to lower the PSI on the receiving keg to around 2 PSI. The pressure differential causes the beer to flow through the line from the fermenter to the serving keg:


Keeping the flow going by mainting pressure differentials via adjustment of spunding valve and gas supply involves a degree of trial and error, but the transfer should be complete in a few minutes. As soon as the line gurgles dry, the two kegs are quickly detached from each other and the spunding valve is popped off the receiving keg.

All that's left now is to seal the lid of the serving keg at 30 PSI:


Back into your box!


I'll keep it in there for a week or so, to allow the hop aroma to establish itself but, even at this early stage, the beer is already sufficiently carbonated and ready to drink if a little cloudy and under-hopped.

2 or 3 days before the party I'll pop it into the fridge to get it down to a decent serving temperature. By that stage it should be much clearer and have have a decent hop aroma.

Since the fermentation keg is still sealed and pressurised, I'll not bother cleaning it until I'm ready to use it again so, all told, there's bugger all cleaning to do:



Tune in next time to see if it tastes like shite.

Cheers,

-Barry

[Leann ull]

You are getting quite good at these and they make a great read!
Be careful about over exposure of the hops, they do most of the work in 72 hours after 7 days you run the risk of your beer picking up grassy flavours.

[Bazza]

Be careful about over exposure of the hops, they do most of the work in 72 hours after 7 days you run the risk of your beer picking up grassy flavours.

Point taken. Normally after kegging I'd have put the keg into the fridge for a week or so but, given the quick turnaround time needed, I wanted to give the hops aroma the best possible chance to develop quickly hence the warmer temp.

This was kegged last Thursday so maybe that's plenty of time, so might just put it into the fridge this evening.

Cheers,

-Barry

[Leann ull]

The plus side of course when you DH in the keg is a little roll to mix and you can work out exactly where the sweet spot it, involves sampling every day though, are you up for the job?

[Leann ull]

Forgive man speaking with forked tongue

http://brulosophy.com/2016/06/13/under-pressure-pt-3-the-impact-of-pressurized-fermentation-on-lager-exbeeriment-results/?

[Bazza]

Cheers for that, John. No real surprises there, given that a) their previous experiments were inconclusive and b) every other experiment of theirs that I've read has been inconclusive

Of the reasons I listed for fermenting under pressure, better tasting beer was not one of them; for me it was mostly to do with a saving on effort, time and an ever so marginal saving on CO2.

Interesting article nonetheless.


Cheers,

-Barry

[Leann ull]

The ideas for testing are good and so is his methodology but he's had splinters in his arse from sitting on the fence with his conclusions on the last few and I'm not sure it's his tasters are at fault but he needs to reevaluate that part of his analysis, maybe some qualified bjcp judges

[Paddy]

Great post Baz.  Really like your method here.

I wouldn't mind getting into this myself as I've been looking for a way to make smaller batches and this looks really streamlined.  All I would need is a hop bag, a kettle and spunding valve as I have everything else.

Was the kettle expensive?  Was it a big job to hack it so that it allows a continuous boil?  Also where do you get your muslin bag?  Definitely need to get something together next month (payday).

Cheers,
Paddy

[Bazza]

Cheers for the feedback, Paddy.

Kettle was relatively inexpensive (£75):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cygnet-MFCT1030-Counter-Manual-Stainless/dp/B004EAERSS/ref=pd_sim_sbs_201_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=310LnKmQrYL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=QM9ETV0W0D5QYC3JY60T

No Mods required. The instructions say she'll hold a rolling boil at the highest setting on the dial and that's just what she does. You'll notice a large proportion of the reviews are from homebrewers but, apparently, if you need to run a church fete or have the vicar coming round for tea at short notice, she's good for that too

The Ebay link for the bag I use doesn't seem to work anymore i.e. seller seems to have disappeared, but I think it's this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ritchies-Mashing-and-Sparging-Bag/dp/B00BPSHPYK

Over 20 brews and it's still holding strong.


Cheers,

-Barry