 How I Brew - The Brewday |
| This page shows my latest standard rig, used for 5-6 gallon
batches. While many of the components have been in operation for some time in a
different configuration, the actual version seen here was officially
inaugurated on 06/15/2000. Those of you who have taken a look at my other rigs
will recognize many items as being the same, or similar with some
modifications. This page is also meant to satisfy the large number of requests I have received to describe my brewing process on a home-scale system. While I offer no magic, I am happy to demonstrate the procedures I go through on a standard brewing day. These procedures are followed fairly rigorously, and change very little from brew to brew. The rig is a 2 tier all grain system and while fairly simple, I am quite proud of the details. You will notice every piece of equipment (with the exception of the frame and CF Chiller fittings) is Stainless Steel , from the vessels to bulkheads to the ball valves and only high-temp (275 F rating) FDA approved hosing is used throughout. The frame (the one near constant on all my various configurations) is quite sturdy and versatile, it's base wheels making it easy to move around and easy to make modifications to on the fly. Click on any picture to see a larger, full detail picture. |
| Step 1: Break out the frame, burners and components and set-up appropriately. The burners and components are stored in the closet behind the frame. |
Step 2: Measure out mash water into mash-tun, get the tun on a burner and start heating water, mill the grain while the water is heating. |
 |
 |
| Step 3: Dough in grain, cover tun, get HLT in place. |
Step 4: Get kettle and pump in place. Wait for mash to complete (I usually mash for about 90 minutes). |
 |
 |
| Step 5: Mash is complete, start the sparge, run-off into the grant, pump from the grant into the kettle. |
I usually sparge fairly slow, with my usual run-off/sparge time being about 1.5 hours. |
 |
 |
| Step 6: Sparge water empty, but still pulling wort from the mash tun. Remove HLT, fire up burner under kettle. A special case for this Scotch Ale....I had pulled 1 gallon of 1'st runnings into the small pot on the right. As the kettle heats, I boil this 1 gal down to 1/2 gallon, caramelizing the runnings a bit for that special Scotch Ale flavor. It is added back to the kettle when the volume is approx. 1/2 gal. I keep the kettle partially covered until I reach about 180 degrees F. |
Step 7: All done with mash, remove tun, pump and hoses. Continue heating kettle. At this point I have about 15 minutes before I will reach a boil, and I use that time to clean the mash tun , pump and hoses and store all items safely away. |
 |
 |
| Step 8: Boil has begun. Note the lid has been completely removed. The wort chiller is put into place on the frame (you can see it directly under the right burner). I usually boil for 75 minutes, so I have 15 minutes from the start of the boil until I add my bittering hops (which I usually measure out the night before), which remain in the boil for 60 minutes. |
Step 9: After the boil begins, I immediately fill the fermenter (previously cleaned) with sanitizer for a 5 minute soak. I am using iodophor in this picture but have recently begun using Star-San. Also the final hoses and fittings are immersed in a bucket of sanitizer. I am fortunate in that we have this 1/2 shower stall in 1 bathroom that is never used. It has been converted into my cleaning/sanitizing station. |
 |
 |
| Step 10: After 5 minutes in sanitizer, the fermenter is emptied, turned upside down and allowed to drip dry for 60 minutes. Clean bleached paper towels are placed at the mouth as to not allow anything to float up into the fermenter. (Note the fermenter stand was from an upside-down carboy kit. While I learned that a carboy does not make a good conical, the stand is real handy!). |
Step 11: 1/2 hour before the boil ends. The wort chiller is filled with fresh sanitizer from the sanitizing bucket and allowed to sit (the fermentor is also stored filled with sanitizer). |
 |
 |
| Step 12: Boil is 15 minutes from finishing. Irish moss is added to the boil to help coagulate and drop protein in the wort. The smaller pot (previously used as the grant) is placed on the burner with 1.5 gal of water to boil, to be used in a final rinse through the wort chiller. Also the aeration diffusion stone is sanitized there. |
Step 13: Knockout. The boil is over, the kettle is covered and allowed to stand for 15 minutes (trick learned from Fal Allen). During this time, the boiling water in the small pot is run through all lines and the wort chiller to rinse all sanitizer out (even though that may be unnecessary I still do it). At this point you can also see the water hoses connected to the wort chiller. The water spigot is inside the closet. The outlet runs off the deck to the ground. |
 |
 |
| Step 14: Running the wort from the kettle, through the wort chiller and into the fermenter. |
Step 15: Once all the wort is in the fermenter, it is oxygenated. I use the recommended 2 bursts for about 20 seconds each burst. After that the yeast is pitched (you can see the airlock on the yeast starter below the oxygen tank). |
 |
 |
| Step 15: Finally, the fermenter is put into a nice cool place. I use 6.5 Gal Primary fermenters, with a blow-off glass tube immersed in sanitary water. This picture was taken 11 hours after pitching, and you can see a nice 2 1/2" thick krausen already formed, it is fermenting furiously. |
Step 16: Final Cleanup! At this point most of my rig has already been cleaned and put away. Before tearing down the burners and frame however, there is one last and very important step; to clean the CF wort chiller. |
 |
First, I run cold water through it
until clear water is seen at the outlet for 15 seconds. Next I run boiling
water through it for 5 minutes to really clean and sanitize it (you do not
want to run the boiling water through first, as you will scorch remaining wort
unto the copper lines). Finally, sanitizing solution is run through the
chiller, and the chiller is plugged while full and packed away for the next
use. This is by far the biggest cleaning task of the day, but well worth
it. All that is left to do now is clean the kettle, tear the burners down and cover the frame. |
| And that's it! That's the basic
brewing day for me, and it will range in anywhere from 6-8 hours, depending on
how tough cleanup jobs are, any special circumstances or procedures for the
brew at hand, etc. One item done prior to the brewing day and not covered here, was making the yeast starter. I like big yeast starters and will use a 900 ml Pyrex flask to make it in. I use a 1.050 starting wort, at about 600 ml wort and 1 White Labs pitchable tube. After the starter has finished fermenting, I drop it to 50 F for a day or two to drop the yeast. The day of brewing I bring the starter back up to room temp, and immediately before pitching decant the majority of wort of the top, mix the thick slurry and pitch into the fermenter. Also not covered here are bottling and/or kegging, which I will cover at a later time. A few other items of interest are shown below.... |
| The Timer The best brewing timer ever! This is an old Dark-Room timer. It is set in minute increments, up to 1 hour. It has a VERY loud buzzer (I can hear it 2 blocks away) which can be turned on or off, and a very large readable dial. I picked this up at a garage sale a few years back for about $5. |
 |
| All Stainless! As I mentioned, all bulkheads, ball valves, barbs and fittings are Stainless Steel. This is a recent upgrade for me, the previous setups had SS ball valves but copper or brass bulkheads and fittings. |
 |
| The Hoses All Hosing/Tubing throughout the system is FDA Approved Norprene Hot Food and Beverage Tubing, rated to 275 Degrees F. This stuff is great! Is holds up very well and can be cleaned with virtually all commercial cleaners and sanitizers, and can be autoclaved repeatedly. It's a bit pricey but each piece will last for years, and it sure beats wondering if your tubing is leaching unwanted resins into your wort. The tubing can be purchased from Moving Brews. |
 |
| Such GREAT Brewing Weather! |
 |
