Homemade Mash Tun from Igloo Cube Cooler

I picked up this cooler for about $20.00 at Target. It had no drain hole, which turned about to be a good thing. I used the following parts:

- Cooler
- 1/2" Threaded Copper Ball Valve
- 1/2" Close - Threaded Brass Pipe Nipple
- 3/8" ID Barb to 1/2" MIP
- 1/2" Gasket (x2)
- 1/2" Brass Locking Nut
- 3/4" Stainless Washer (x2)
- ~Foot Length of 1/2" Pex
- Food Grade Silicon

I drilled a 3/4" hole in the cooler and then I 'screwed' the 1/2" nipple into the cooler. It was a tight fight and I was happy about this. I then put a small dab of the silicone around the nipple and then slipped on the o-ring and a washer. I then tightened the ball valve on the nipple. On the inside I again used the silicone, o-ring, and washer and tightened it down with a brass lock nut. For the grain filter I drilled a bunch of tiny holes into the pex, plugged the end and then entered the pex into the nipple. Pex is slightly smaller than whats its labeled as and it fit great in the nipple.

I used it with the sweet stout and it held heat really well, I think I lost two degrees over the hour of the mash.



I used these two websites for guidance:
http://brewtech.blogspot.com/2007/01/igloo-cube-cooler-mash-tun.html
http://brewing.lustreking.com/gear/mashtun.html

Sweet Stout

Brew Day: 10/10/09

4# Amber DME
2# Two-row
1# Pilsner
1/2# Carafa I
1/2# Crystal 90
1/2# Crystal 10
1/2# Oats
1/2# Black Patent (de-bittered)
3/16# Special B

1 oz Tradition @ 45, 1 oz Fuggles @ 15

1# lactose @ flame out

White Labs Irish Ale

OG 1.071

OG is a little high for style as are the IBUs a little low.

Cider again

Started brewing making another plain apple cider on August 23rd, 2009. I used D47 yeast (I think) and some yeast nutrient. Original was a 'hit' and more is needed. Milk Stout up next.

BERLINER WEISSE - The Beer that Didn't Want to Get Made

First, I used a newly crafted, unwashed immersion chiller in the brew. Fears of copper factory germs arise. Quelled by online brewing community who say go ahead, but your beer will might taste like copper. I forge ahead.

2.) The case of no fermentation. Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:46 am

I was trying to make a an all extract Berliner Weisse. 3.3 lbs light LME and 3.3 lbs wheat LME. After cooling to 85°F I pitched 90 ml of Wyeast lactobacillus and gave it a ~ 12 hour head start and then I pitched some K-97. After 24 hours I saw no airlock activity and then proceeded to the check the gravity, no change. So then I thought, well since there has been no activity why not aerate again? I did. 3 days later, no activity, no gravity change figuring all is already lost (a second time with this batch) I pitched some S-04. Here I am, no fermentation. However, I tasted no pennies in the the samples I pulled for checking the gravity.


3. Wed Jun 10, 2009 11:20 pm

Timeline:
5/31/09 - Beer Brewed. 90ML Lactobacillus pitched.
6/1/09 - K97 pitched. Didn't check gravity until now (1.036)
6/3/09 - no airlock activity, no change in gravity. Aerate with aquarium pump.
6/4/09 - Still no activity, freak out, pitched S-04
6/5/09 - no activity, add some yeast nutrient
6/7/09 - Airlock activity.
6/9/09 - No airlock activity, gravity 1.012, after taking sample - more airlock activity.

Did not taste like pennies.

4. I bottled this 6/25/09. OG was 1.036 and final was ... well I added the priming sugar before I could get the sample, but since it was 1.012 a while back I was comfortable with that. I also added a pint starter of more lactobacillus and a sachet of Lalvin #EC-1118 Champagne Wine Yeast for good measure. After it carbs up I'll let you all know if its coppery, good, bad, etc.

Come Wit it Now!

Wit

9 oz oats
15 oz wheat
1 lb 2 row
15 min @ 122
15 min @ 152
15 min boil

Added to:
1 lb pilsner
2 lb white wheat
resting at 122

Brought temp to 155, rest for 45 min

3 lbs Wheat DME

1 oz German Tettnang Pellet Hops 4.4% AA @ 60 min
0.3 oz hallertau 3.9% AA @ 30 min
0.5 oz crushed coriander @ 15 min
0.5 oz orange peel @ 15 min
pinch of cumin seeds
1 oz hallertau select @ 2 min
0.5 oz orange peel
0.25 oz chamomile

O.G. 1.039
F.G. 1.009
ABV 3.86

This would mean only about 60% attenuation. Maybe this is right? I used safbrew wb-06, which is a dry wheat bear yeast, but not a true wit beer yeast, but the sample I took before bottling, tasted delicious. So ... a small beer great for summer. (I hope.) It also left a nice ring of crud around the fermenter, orange peel I think and I used red caps and they look sweet.

14 months to freedom, or Apple Cider Revealed.

My first 5 gallon yeast experiment has come to fruition.
Recap:
- 5 gallons of Tipton grove natural juice (not from concentrate)
- Pitched yeast: Lalvin 71B - 1122 (x2) on 04/10/08
- Added yeast nutrient (2.5 tsp) on 04/12/08
- Racked the cider into secondary on 4/29/08 (~62F)
- Bottled 5/29/09 with one can AJ concentrate and one packet of Red Star Cote des Blancs
- Bottled Conditioned for about 3 weeks
- Taste: crisp and quite dry.

Images below, L to R, 4/15/2008, 6/26/2008, 5/29/2009

On Deck: Berliner Weisse and Wit - Beers of summer

Berliner Weisse:
The beer Napoleon called the champagne of the north. Wheat beer with a modest gravity and sour punch (thank to lactobacillus)

Wit:
One of my favorite beers - Hazy, Wheaty, Citrusy.

Lets see if I can actually get them done before summer is over.

Brew like a monk.

I read this book Brew Like a Monk. It is a good beer history type book and as such doesn't have complete recipes. May or may not be interesting to those who don't brew beer. I liked it. I have never drank a Trappist ale, but I bought one the other day and will have had one in the future.

Added the oak, hope it ain't broke

I went to go see how the pellicle was doing and found my stopper and airlock had popped out of the carboy (5/7/09). That was lame. I am not all that worried because this beer style needs some oxygen during the long secondary fermentation, but still it was lame. Since I had not added any oak, I decided this was the time to do so. I took 0.7 ounces of oak chips, boiled them in 3 changes of water to reduce there oakiness (i.e. tannins) and added them to the carboy and sealed it back up. Pretty sweet huh?

Marketshares of Beers in the USA

Bud Light 20.2
Budweiser 11.3
Miller Lite 8.4
Coors Light (Molson 8.3
Natural Light 4.3
Corona Extra 4.1
Busch Light 3.1
Busch 2.9
Heineken (Heineken 2.4
Miller High Life 2.3
Keystone Light 1.6
Miller Genuine Draft 1.5
Michelob Ultra 1.5
Natural Ice 1.3
Budweiser Select 0.9
Milwaukee's Best Light 0.9
Milwaukee's Best 0.8
Steel Reserve 0.8
Yuengling Lager 0.8
Modelo Especial 0.8

Others 21.9



2007 brand shares from Euromonitor market research

Pellicle or pelicle?

The pellicle has arrived. While not a mat yet, There are little gobs of white floating atop my Flanders Red. Oh, the excitement.

Here, for example, the pellicle is bad. Also here a pellicle would be bad.

But in my carboy it is oh so good.

From homebrewtalk:
"Pellicles are characteristics of Brettanomyces [a yeast whose flavor is described as horsey], which are considered oxidative yeast, which is why they are feared in brewing and winemaking. They use oxygen to grow and metabolize sugar and starch. Since no oxygen remains in the beer when they are ready for duty they have to come to the surface and look for air, forming a pellicle. The pellicle also, as you pointed out, protects the beer from any foreign bacteria like acetobacteria and mold. The brett uses the small amount of oxygen that is diffused into the wort via the dowel to reproduce and consume the remaining sugars."

Flanders Red: Secondary 3/9/9

The color was Flanders red-ish. That was good. Did I mention that I used about a 9 month old Wyeast Belgian Blend Propagator and that I got freaked out it wouldn't work and rather than waiting and using a hydrometer that I instead drove 20 miles one way to buy some White Labs Belgian Sour Mix which I pitched two days later? Well I did. Huge yeast cake. Great beer smell. FG 1.014 ~ 5.46 A.B.V. Now the wait begins.

In a year from now...

I'll be drinking a Flemish sour / red ale.

1 lb white wheat malt
1 lb Munich 10
0.5 lb Vienna
0.5 lb Caramunich III
5.10 oz special B

1 hour @ 155
10 min @ 162
Sparge 172

2 hour boil

6lbs Amber LME
.75oz hallertau 3.9% AA 60 min

Belgian lambic blend
Pitched on 2/15/2009 at 3:00 am

Flip Flopping on Root Beer

Okay,
Root beer is good. I also did not get any of the "cat"-iness that some claim to get from Cluster hops. Which, imho, is good. So yeah, brew it up.

Radical Brewing: Lazy Book Review

There is a lot of information on the World Wide Web about homebrewing. Sometimes the need for a handy real life, in your hand reference is needed. I bought Radical Brewing and I think its a good buy.

1. Its informative
2. Its written in a non-dry way
3. Um, its good and has better layout than similar books.

It has cool title.

ADULT ROOT BEER - Revealed

Bottled the root beer 1/18/09. This beer was not as odoriferous and smelling of root beer as when I put it into the secondary. It carbed nicely and pours nice, but its not root beer. It has some wintergreen to the nose, but other than that is a slightly bitter porter. Not bad, but not root beer. If I try again I'll use spices in the secondary and then make a tincture to add at bottling.

Root beer: bottled

Hmmmm, didn't seem so root beer-y today. Taste good, root beer flavor level low.


FG 1.018

~ 4.66% ABV