Hot Tips 101: Calling all SOBA NHC Best-In-Class Winners

[Stu McKinlay]

Can the best in class winners from the SOBA homebrew comp please pass on some insights to those who weren't as successful (or who are new to the brewing game)?

What do you ferment in - plastic, glass, stainless?
Are you kegging or bottle conditioning?
What malts are you using (UK, German, Aus, NZ)?
Dry or liquid yeast?
Batch or fly sparge?
Who are they lucky people that generally get to drink your beer?
What do you think the main keys to your brewing success are?

[Barry]

I ferment in plastic, I have 2 fermenters - a really old screwtop black lid one and a much newer bucket style one. The old one is my favourite, my first choice every time. It's going on 15 years old. I ferment in a fridge using a fridgemate temp controller. Tip #1 - temperature control, I can't overstate how important this is.

I keg. After a week or two in the primary I fine using plain old brewcraft finings from the supermarket (gelatin I believe). I dissolve in previously boiled water as per instructions, open the top of the primary and pour it in as gently as possible. I leave for another day or two and then keg. Because I'm impatient, I'll chill overnight and force carbonate the next day by hooking the beer out post up to CO2 @ 40psi and rock the keg for 2 minutes. This will usually undercarbonate, but over the next few days it'll get to the required condition. It usually doesn't taste any good until at least a week but I drink it anway and carefully note the changes. I condition really really lightly, much less than 2 volumes. And I serve at around 8-10 degrees. This suits my mainly English ales perfectly, and doesn't hurt my American ales either. When bottling get the beer as cold as possible, freeze the bottles also. Fit a tube on the end of the picnic tap and fill bottles from the bottom, capping under foam. I sanitise with iodophor, shaking as much excess out as I can but not rinsing. Bottling this way sucks, very messy and labour intensive, but it works.

I use sacks of maris otter. And crystals, choc, other specialties, all from Mike at brewers coop, all Bairds I'm guessing.

I use dry yeast. Never used liquid ever. I used to recycle, and will again when I stop being so lazy. Gently swirl the fermenter round once empty (there will still be a little beer left after kegging to mix it all up) and pour through the tap into a jar. Store in the fridge and use within a week. Spark it up with some wort before pitching.
As I no-chill my lag time can be 24-48 hours or even slightly more, I've never noticed any ill effects. If you ask me, excessive lag time is around a week, a couple of days is of no concern whatsoever. Debunk that myth.

I batch sparge. I've always said the only reason I could contemplate going all grain was the massive increase in knowledge online and the general uptake of some of these much easier but not so well accepted techniques. When I first read about fly sparging I never considered it - measuring run-off gravities and not dipping below certain SG's, temperatures, ph. Bugger that. Of course I've since realised that most people just don't bother and don't need to, but it's daunting to contemplate from the start isn't it.

The lucky few who drink my beer? I drink a lot of it myself, too much probably. I'd love to share more but both my father and father in law - the most frequent visitors to my house - rarely step up for a session. One pint and they're on their way. And either will drink anything, really anything. My little brother is a highly regarded chef, and is pretty interested in quality beer, but is newly married and that's where his priorities rightly lie. Other brother can be wholely thanked for introducing me to craft beer but at the moment resides in Dubai. One mate has become pretty interested, but chastises me for introducing him to decent beer and making his supermarket beer buying trips overwhelmingly less rewarding. I'm happy to have helped.

Until the SOBA competition no-one who actually knows good beer from bad on a judging level or even from a brewing standpoint had tasted my beer, which makes the results really very surprising - and pleasing. It's probably testament to my palatte, I can't always put what I'm tasting into words, but I sure can recognise a decent beer when I taste it.
I'd love for more people to try my beer (and like it), it's a great feeling to have people enjoy something you crafted.

[Barry]

Forum truncated my reponse - yes it was even more verbose!

Finally, the secret to my success is simply attention to detail. Anyone can do it, just not everyone is inclined to be so anal about the details. As an obsessive compulsive it comes naturally to me. The differences between good beer and great beer are incredibly subtle. You need to pay attention to recipes, weights, volumes, measurements, timings, temperatures, cleanliness, conditions, sanitation. Every little thing requires the utmost care.

[Kiwicrog]

Cheers Barry, that's great.

I'm particularly interested in more detail on your mash & batch sparging method. I'm on brew #10 and the mash & spage is the area which I'm turning my eye to for improvement next. I currently use roughly half my water for the mash and half for a single batch sparge (a bit less in the sparge than the mash to account for the water held by the grain).

I find I come under my target OG (even with a low efficiency assumption) and I'm not too happy with what the malt is doing in my beers.

If you have any more tips I'd be glad to hear them.

Cheers,
Craig

[Barry]

My batch sparging method goes like this:
HLT is filled and set to 79deg for a 68deg mash, 77 for a 66deg mash, with slight adjustments for time of year (less heat loss in summer). Grist is crushed into mash tun - a 55lt chillybin with stainless braid manifold. I transfer the liqour manually with a 5lt jug - my brewery system is single tier and I find manually transferring more hands on - I can _feel_ whats going on. I add water to grist, not the other way round, then I break up dough balls with a mash paddle, seems effective enough. I usually err on the side of higher temps, if I've undershot temp I close the lid quickly and suck it up, heck it's only a degree or 2. If I'm over temp I stir more 'til I'm on the money.

Then I refill the HLT and set it to boil - maximum on my controller is 100deg. In the time it takes to mash the liqour will be boiling.

I use a rough ratio of 2 and a bit litres liqour to 1kg of grain. So for a 5kg grist I'll use around 12lt liqour. I need about 29lt in the kettle for a 1 hour boil, about 31 for a 1.5 hour boil. My mash tun loses a litre, the grain slightly over a litre per kg. 12lt in minus 5 and a bit for the grist, minus 1 for the dead space equals 6 litres left. Half my volume would be 14.5lt (29 into the kettle remember) so I mash out with 14.5 - 6 = 8.5lt of the now boiling water. This pretty much always takes the temp up to 74deg - perfect mash out temperature. Leave for 15, then vorlauf and lauter my 14.5 litres. If I get more or less, I make it up with my sparge volume.
The sparge just involves 14.5lt of liqour, taking the temp up to roughly 76deg - according to my mashmaster thermometer this is perfect. I leave for 5 minutes or so then repeat the vorlauf and lauter. Viola, 29lt into the kettle.
Adjustments are made for any size grist, smaller grist equals less liqour to start with but more mash out liqour. I also slightly adjust ratios for different beers, thicker mash = more dextrinous wort but the difference is likely negligible.
A lot of this is feel and intuition, thats the way I like it - hands on and hand crafted.

The most important detail is the mash rest temperature.

The rest can be a litre or a couple of degrees either way with no bother.

[jt]

HLT is filled and set to 79deg for a 68deg mash, 77 for a 66deg mash, with slight adjustments for time of year (less heat loss in summer).

... and grain temperature too .. or is that rolled up in the adjustment for time of year ?

[Stu McKinlay]

What about Brendon and I - we tasted your beer gave you some feedback :(

[Barry]

I didn't count that beer because I knew it was flawed... your feedback was incredibly helpful and I do count you two as experts. Sorry Stu :)

Wonder if we can get Luke to turn on smileys, :) just isn't the same.

JT, I don't adjust specifically for grain temp, just a general adjustment for the fact that the transfer time, stir time, grain etc will need a slightly higher liqour temp due to the ambient temperature at a given time of year. It's all counted in the one mental calculation.

[Greig McGill]

Interesting. Thanks for all the info Barry. Turns out you and I have frighteningly similar methods and equipment. Only real differences: I ferment in glass, and fine as I keg (if required) pulling out the finings on the first pint or two, and I don't have a HLT, which requires juggling my brewpot and worrying about temp a lot more. Oh, and I do chill. Sorry, I doubt I could ever be relaxed enough to try no-chill! ;) I really wish I had been more organised now, our battle of the milds would have been very interesting! ;)

[Stu McKinlay]

My methods are similar too. Also ferment in plastic, use mostly English malt and use dry yeast (always fresh, right now).
Three differences:
* I no longer mash-out, seeing that it was causing me more harm than good (poor run-off, which I put down to adding too much water).
* I don't fine beyond the kettle, haven't seen the need for it with flocculant yeasts and clear run-offs (haven't even been kettle fining recently).
* And I do chill - with an immersion chiller.

[Doublehoppy]

I think the key things for me are..

- I maintain a consistent fermentation temperature using a simple brewing cabinet heated by a thermostatically controlled light bulb. Can heat but not cool, so this isn't suitable all year round.

- All brewing liquor is run through a kitchen filter. This is a recent change and I think it has had a major improvement

- I use beersmith to formulate recipes. Used to have difficulties in hitting targeted bitterness especially

The fermentation temperature control is the one thing I can't stress enough. I bought my thermostat unit from Surplustronics in Auckland if that helps.

I mash in a brewheat boiler (it has an immersion heater). I like being able to easily adjust mash temp. As long as you stir when the element is on there is no problem with scorching the grain. I then fly sparge using a bucket within a bucket set-up.

I chill using an immersion chiller, but I still find I have to sit the boiler in a bath tub for a few hours or overnight before I can pitch the yeast

I ferment in plastic, and transfer to a glass carboy for clearing prior to either bottling or (roto)kegging. At transfer to secondary I usually add gelatine finings dissolved in warm water.

I'm a fan of liquid yeasts I must say, especially for the belgians I'm doing more and more of. I had good results in reusing a couple of wyeast packs for successive brews so it can work out quite economical.

[Kieran Haslett-Moore]

What do you ferment in - plastic, glass, stainless?
I ferment in 20 litre plastic jerry cans, I clean them with caustic soda, bleach and brewcraft sanitiser powder. I change them regulary as they are cheap.

Are you kegging or bottle conditioning?

Almost all my beer is cask conditioned in corny kegs. Sometimes primed with dextros, sometimes allowed to condition with residues alone. My best in class IPA was bottle conditioned, after being filled warm from a corny.

What malts are you using (UK, German, Aus, NZ)? Almost alll British, Marris Otter, Golden Promise, Pearl, alittle German pils here and there. Specialtys include mid Crystal, dark crystal, patent, roast barley, choc malt.

Dry or liquid yeast?

Only dry, Saf 04 and 05.

Batch or fly sparge?

Fly sparge, its not that hard.

Who are they lucky people that generally get to drink your beer?

Anyone who is around when the bar opens on a thursday, flatmates any day of the week.

What do you think the main keys to your brewing success are.

Picking a recipe and brewing it multiple times, working the recipe out making changes logically. Its so tempting to brew a different style everytime never learning anything.

[Fairlane]

What do you ferment in - plastic, glass, stainless?
Stainless steel. I'm lucky enough to have a very good stainless steel welding contact who has modified a keg for me so that it has a 6" dairy fitting at the top and a 1/2" racking and 1/2" bottom valves. Cooling is acheived by using a slight spray from overhead with a garden hose continually as long as the ferement goes for (luckily my garage floor slopes towards the door for convenient drainage). Usually keeps the beer at about 15 deg. C. The keg will be modified over time to include a cooling jacket and refrigeration connections.


Are you kegging or bottle conditioning?
Bottle conditioning. Mostly 330ml but moving into 500ml bottles. All beers are made using the krausening method of retaining unfermented wort in the fridge and adding it back with the finished beer upon bottling. Not only is this very easy, it means I haven't had to use any sugar at all in over 5 years.


What malts are you using (UK, German, Aus, NZ)?
Um...german and UK I think. Whatever I could get from the brewery at the time.


Dry or liquid yeast?
Dry. Fresh each time. I am only using Gervin Ale, S-04 and S-23 currently.


Batch or fly sparge?
Fly I guess. My Lauter tun doesn't quite hold the 35 (approx) litres needed for the sparge, so I top it up when required, but it is one continuous run off into the kettle.


Who are they lucky people that generally get to drink your beer?
Mostly myself and fellow students, and friends of course. Currently making a beer for a co-workers wedding in February.


What do you think the main keys to your brewing success are?
Firstly my recipe calculator. It has taken many years to fine tune and still is only say 95% accurate for ALL beers but it has proven to be an invaluable piece of software. Basically I can almost be assured of creating the beer (both in volume and style) in the garage that I have designed the night before in excel.

Next would be attention to water profiles. I carbon filter my water before use and add appropriate salts etc for the type of beer produced. ie gypusm for london ale styles and calcium chloride for pilseners etc... Ideally, I would take a sample of my filtered water in for testing so I knew what I was starting with but at $100 to do this, I am a tad reticent...

I am a big fan of decoction mashing (not from a time standpoint as it takes much longer) as one of my all time favourite beers is the Pilsener Urquell. So my bohemian pilsener, and weizenbock are done this way which I feel adds just that extra touch of complexity to the beer on the palate.

Lastly, cold conditioning. I haven't had a beer yet which hasn't benefitted from at least 3 weeks at 0-2 deg. C.

Also, I must agree whole-heartedly with what Kieran said about making the same beer until you nail it. This is especially true when you are changing equipment or brewing different volumes. Keep the variables that are changing to the bare minimum until you have consistency.

dh