Kodiak’s British ESB Pumpkin Porter

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Kodiak

2014 Rapsberry Porter Version below (the beer was only 3 weeks old, looked great and tasted great!)

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2013 Pumpkin Porter Version below:

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A 5 gallon batch recipe for a nice Pumpkin Porter, based on the recipe of a Edmund Fitzgerald porter clone with our tweaks.  We wanted to give it a British theme, so that’s the pale malt we used, but any pale malt suitable for use in porters or stouts should work well.

In addition we are providing you a link to a very good article on the subject of porters in general, a recommended read – by Brew Magazine:

http://byo.com/porter/item/1260-practical-porter

Grain:

  • 8 lb Pale Malt – we used (British pale malt)
  • 3/4 lb Crystal 60 L Malt
  • 1/2 lb Chocolate Malt
  • 3/4 lb Roasted barley Malt

Hops:

Hops are rated using AAU’s in this recipe, it stands for Alpha Acid Unit, the math is to divide whatever AAU you need by the acid level printed on the label of your hops (per 1 ounce).  For example our hops were: Norther Brewer 8.6%, Cascade 6.7% and Fuggle at 5.3%.  So 7 AAU’s of Norther Brewer is 7 / 8.6 = 0.81 ounces of Northern Brewer (so you will need a scale), you should be fine if you round-off, but then you loose exactness of the formula.

  • 7 AAU’s or 0.81 ounce /  Northern Brewer @ 0 minutes (from start of boil)
  • 4 AAU’s or 0.75 ounce /  Fuggles @ 30 minutes
  • 8 AAU’s or 1.19 oz / Cascade @ 60 minutes

Pumpkin:

Add in at last 10 minutes of rolling boil, if you want more pumpkin flavor try adding at last 5 minutes or at end of boil.

A good chunk of either fresh or frozen organic sugar pumpkin is the best, you can substitute for canned pumpkin that you can buy in the store, but………  If you have a little property, try growing some sugar pumpkins, those are the best – or buy them from your local farm and prepare your own pumpkin meat.

In our recipe we used a 2.2 lb chunk of a earlier prepared frozen pumpkin meat!  Article on how to do that here: https://kodiakbrewing.com/wordpress/?p=1364

Spices:

What about the spices that typically go along into a regular pumpkin ale ?  We didn’t use it in our recipe, but you are more than welcome to try if you want :- )

Mash:

We did the standard mash at 152 F for 60 minutes using the batch sparge method.

video of mashing phase:

video of mash out:

Yeast:

We used – WYEAST London ESB #1968, use your house strain if it is suitable for a Porter.

Fermentation:

A recommended temperature is about 65 F – but there exists various different techniques, so do some research if you want to know more.

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Preparing your own pumpkin for beer brew day

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Kodiak

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Each pumpkin will give you lots and lots of seeds, more than you will ever need.

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Pumpkin Ale – is a special type of beer, highly in demand, for the good stuff!

The best fastest way is to buy canned pumpkin and then use that in the beer recipe to brew your beer to learn, but if you want to do it the right way, the proper way is to use fresh pumpkin and then baking it to get the pumpkin meat prepared for the brewing session.

Nothing beats a fresh 100% organic pumpkin grown in your back yard and it is fairly easy to do as well!

There are many web sites that will give you a good idea of how to prepare the pumpkin and then how to bake it in the oven, here are the steps:

  1. clean the pumpkin well with warm water
  2. cut the pumpkin in half and remove all the seeds in the middle with a sharp good knife
  3. save the seeds for next year, each pumpkin will give you many of seeds
  4. add some water into a bake dish 1/4 ” and place pumpkin there, cut face down
  5. bake in oven at 350 F for about 40 – 45 minutes until soft, like a potato (poke check)
  6. remove and let cool down
  7. peel the outer skin, cut into chunks, place into plastic bags (suck out oxygen) and freeze

some more pictures (after baking is over):

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pumpkin_bag

Let the bag cool before putting into freezer!

Cheers!

 

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Beer Hops growing from start to finish, with pictures…

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Kodiak

This short post shows with lots of pictures the progression of growing a hop plant, harvesting hops and drying them out.

Remember!!! – Hops are deadly to Dogs, so keep them away from your pets at all times, through all phases of dealing with them once you pick them off the plants, and even while on plants, isolate them with some fencing, just to be on the safe side.

Also, you probably won’t get much if any hops the first year after planting from root, the first year is all about the plant establishing it self (this is normal).  If you plant a hop plant from a plant (not a root) early enough in the season, you might get some hops the first year.

Hops peaking out from a fresh root.

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Hops growing up and climbing the trellis (made from cow fencing) on it’s side.

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Hop plants climbing the top of the trellis and transitioning to a grow rope.

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Hops are starting to flower, buds are visible.

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Buds are almost mature and ready for Harvest.

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Dried hops after harvest.

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Bottom of the dry box, loose yellow lupulin clearly visible.

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For more information on Hops see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hops

Also, this is a really good resource with lots of details and identifying pictures to help you id which hops you might have, if you don’t know:

http://www.usahops.org/userfiles/file/HGA%20BCI%20Reports/HGA%20Variety%20Manual%20-%20English%20%28updated%20March%202011%29.pdf

Thanks for reading and Cheers!

 

 

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Howto convert a beer keg into a Fermentor, 15.5 gallons

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Kodiak

If you have an extra standard beer keg, with a little effort, you can turn it into a 15.5 gallon stainless steel fermentor.  In this video I show you how I did it.  Benefits are the adoption of something existing that you have with little extra cost, versus buying expensive kits that sell for a few hundreds of dollars $$$

Not to say that there is anything wrong with them, they are in fact very nice kits, you just end up saving some money.

The beer won’t know any different, it will come out the same…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Portable Home Beer Brew Pump March/Chugger ON/OFF switch with GFIC protection

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Kodiak

Tips:

1) make sure that the pump you get does not have a one-way-rubber-valve installed on the inside of the output plumbing… this will put a resistance on the output and reduce your flow considerably… by more than half!!!

2) air trapped in your output tubing will also severely impede the output rate especially when it is longer (which we like to use, gives you flexibility), its best after connecting the wort/water input into the pump, by putting the your output hose flat on the ground  // below your input – turn the pump on and this will force easily all the water out mixed with the air bubbles ( you will be amazed how much better, even a small pump will work ), like the one in this tutorial – very good flow and almost no noise… a 1/2 gallon growler fills in under 10 seconds.

3) as you are heating up your strike water – have some of that hot water run through your pump system to clean it out, so try to account for that by adding this extra water for your total water needed (mash + sparge) // use a online calculator to help your self out!  Google it 🙂

4) you can control the speed of the pump with the ball value on your kettle (start at a lower speed when you re-circulate to clear up the beer after mashing…).  Increase the speed when you are transferring beer for bigger batches like 10+ gallons…

Main video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu71HXeITMg

Main Article:

With a pump system you can do:

  1. use it to re-circulate the wort after mashing to clear up the beerPreview Changes
  2. use it to transfer larger brews of 10 gallons+ // no need to move or lift heavy brew kettles full of hot liquids and a gravity based system is no longer required…

You are looking at a portable GFIC protected march pump connected to ON/OFF switch – with extra GFIC outlets, nice to have for future needs.

Adjust all of your ideas from reading any articles on our blog to your own situation and need, you don’t need to make it exactly the same as we did  😉

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The first thing you need to learn about is the basics of available pump types, the 2 major ones that are used to transfer beer are March pumps and Chugger pumps.  You want to buy a pump that is rated fitting for transfer of hot liquids and food grade safe.

Here we like to use March pumps because these are made in the US and we like to support made in the u.s.a. (whenever we can), so that is always #1 on our list, stay away from cheap chugger pumps made in china on ebay, not to say that there are not any quality chugger pumps out there… [ you get what you pay for ], but do your research.

Most pumps are rated for standard household 115Volts, that is your standard electrical socket at home, we would recommend that you stick with that, only more powerful pumps would require 230 volts, for bigger breweries – not home a.k.a hobby brewery.

The pump will have its rating printed on its side label, including how many gallons per minute it is rated for and stuff like that… March pumps come in small to medium sizes and even bigger sizes, so you need to think about your current needs and future needs (think about both).

Here will will show you how we wired a medium sized march pump that we use for re-circulation and transfer (can be used for anything really), into a standard 115 volt household 3-prong socket.

If you are not familiar with the 3 prongs, here it is:

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Basically Ground is used when there is an electrical fault – so that the electricity can be safely moved into ground.  The black wire is the HOT wire that delivers the 115 volt 60 Hertz A/C current.  The white is a (neutral) wire, that is used to complete the circuit loop to make the electricity flow when you turn things ON/OFF.  Without a loop, the principles of how electric current works and flow would not work, there is also a loop in D/C current too, but that is outside of this article scope.

We decided to use a heavy duty ON/OFF switch connected to the pump in-line with a GFIC outlet, so that if we need to plug-in additional things in the future, we can.

The GFIC provides ground-fault interrupt protection, and it will flip its self off without affecting the main electrical box in your house when there is a ground-fault.  These usually are installed in bathrooms and kitchens, etc… for like hair dryers (fall into water), etc… since beer brewing involves water, better be safe than sorry!

I made a short video on how this kind of works and how we wired this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un5gFHIg14I

If you have never worked with GFIC connections, please watch a few videos on youtube made by electricians that will make it clearer, but basically its like this:

Get a 3-prong PC power cable (an extra one that you have) and cut-off the end of the female end of this cable, not the part that plugs into the a/c outlet (male end), clearly you are going to need that….  strip the wires and wire that into the GFIC in-line…

Then Connect the ON/OFF switch to the load of the GFIC (again watch those videos), the load extends the protection beyond the GFIC 2 outlets into whatever is connected to it, in this case our ON/OFF switch is, so it extends the GFIC protection to the pump through the ON/OFF switch.

The trick is to now correctly wire the ON/OFF switch – watch our video, but basically you need to realize that an ON/OFF switch in an A/C circuit was designed to connect one wire, like the HOT wire and the circuit is cut off with the switch, you NEVER want to wire in both the HOT and NEUTRAL wires to both ends of the switch – as soon as you flip the switch, your circuit breaker in the electrical box will flip off, this means that you done this part incorrectly……

Most people wire their switches and outlets to their brew stands, into permanent connections, but you can also set this up into a portable system – as most home brewers brew out doors using make shift setups of all kinds… so this will allow you to take it anywhere, including your friends house or a brew club or where-ever and not have it tied down to only one place.

In addition, you can extend this design, and buy another pump, a more powerful one, and mount it above the one in the picture and add an addition A/B switch to the ON/OFF switch, when you need various pump types because of whatever need.

Below is a video of a test that we did once the pump wiring was done (used an old wood pallet to make the stand), yes there are some small drips, we left that in the video to again show you some of the things that you will need to check, we strongly recommend that you do a dry test, and identify all leaks and fix them and next do also a hot-water dry test, without any malt and make sure everything works at the temperatures that you will actually brew at….

Also you might want to now consider quick disconnects for the connections, also make sure to use tubbing that is food safe and was also made to withstand your working temperatures…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FyEgzU9Bbs

Have fun brewing!

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Belgian Abbey Ale – 5/10 + gallon batch

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Kodiak

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Above picture was taken on a frosty November morning 11/23/2013.

Belgian beer in general needs to be aged properly for longer than your average, we recommend at least a good 3 months, you will noticed the beer get considerably better over time.

Belgian Abbey Ale – 5+ gallon batch (means you might end up with a little bit more than 5 gallons).

A darker and stronger Belgian beer, if you like a beer with a little kick, but one that still tastes great, this is it!

ABV 9~ 11% (depends on your brew setup/equipment/efficiencies and experience)

Standard mash at 152~154F for 60 minutes, boil for an additional 60 minutes, ferment below 70F.

Grain:

14 lb American 2-Row Malt
1 lb Munich Malt
2 oz. Chocolate Malt

Hops:

1 oz. Willamette @ 15 minutes (from start of boil)
1 oz. Willamette @ 60 minutes (at end of boil)

Use your house Belgian yeast or try: White Labs Belgian Ale (WLP550) or Abbey Ale (WLP530).

Note, we usually brew the 10 gallon version of this beer.. If you want a darker beer, double your Chocolate Malt, keep in mind that you are adding this using ounces (not pounds) unlike the other malt grains.  We usually add 4 ounces for a 10 gallon batch, double the mentioned amount for the 5 gallon batch, here is a video of a Re-circulation of the Belgian Abbey, so you can get an idea of its color….

Additional Tips:  Anytime you are brewing bigger batches, 10+ you need to be on the look out for stuck sparges, once the channel gets stuck in the sparging process, the beer will stop want to flow out of the mash tun.   You can heat to 168 F, this will most likely unstuck it by reducing the viscosity of your wort, however be careful – too high of a temperature anything past 170F and extraction of unwanted tannins will happen.

Anyways with a few batches you will figure it out :- )

10 Gallon batch:

28 lb American 2-Row Malt
2 lb Munich Malt
4 oz. Chocolate Malt

Hops:

2 oz. Willamette @ 15 minutes (from start of boil)
2 oz. Willamette @ 60 minutes (at end of boil)

Here we actually used a little bit more water then intended and added also 1/2 lb of Belgian candi sugar – ended up with a OG of 1.058 (border line 1.060) and we actually ended up with about 15 gallons of beer, not 10 – LOL

FG was 1.013 – final alcohol ABV:  5.91% or 6% rounded ( keep in mind that we used the grain amount for a 10 gallon batch in a 15 gallon batch, so the ABV was diluted, to make it less strong )..

Yes – 15 gallons is heavy, you will need a pump to help you transfer the beer, unless you have a 3 stage all gravity system in place, good luck and cheers!

 

 

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Part II – How To Grow Hops Tip

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Kodiak

One way to grow hops in your back yard, non-commercial setup for private use.

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Hops are bines and they like to climb.  We use a cow field panel flipped on its side and we used a grinding cutter to shorten it a little bit to size.  Once it climbs the top, from there it transfers naturally to the ropes.

I like to guide them when they are just getting over the top.

We used a recycled wooden pallet to make a hook hanger and attached it to the side of the house.  Of couse the side of the house is facing South (where majority of the sun will be).

Always take into consideration light source and quality when planting anything.

That’s it!

Cheers!

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Hop roots – Rhizomes ( grow your own hops )

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Kodiak

 

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roots into plant, babies:

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prior years planting (hops come back every year):

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Hop rhizomes are basically the roots of a hop plant.  Brew stores sell these in the Spring.

My local brew stores had about a dozen to select from, (in picture above) are Chinook Hops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hops

A descent brew store will have some growing tip fliers printed out, so that you can read all about what you need to do.  Basically plant them on their side about 6 inches deep.  Eventually you will need a trellis as hops like to climb.  Hops are bines, not vines like grapes.  Regardless they link to climb.

Once the plant reaches the top of the trellis, guess what, it wants to climb even more, so most people then train them on a slightly sloped rope (that’s what we do).

Hops come back every year, like grapes and even stronger year over year and yield more and more…  hops.  It’s important to pick a permanent spot for the hop plant, it’s not something that you should ever be transplanting in relation to your property and optimum sun exposure times should be picked.

Expect to pay about $5 per root.

It’s important to learn all aspects of how-to-grow hops, especially how to correctly harvest (when) and dry hops before packaging them for long term storage.  If you incorrectly dry the hops, they can turn moldy on you and your entire years effort just was flushed down the toilet!

Hop On and Grow some Hops!

 

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Belgian Pale Ale – 5 gallon batch

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Kodiak

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A lighter Belgian beer, similar to a English Ale – with a medium copper color.

Not overly hoppy or malty.

Brewed on 4/7/2013 – OG was 1.059

Kegged Beer on 4/14/2013 – FG was 1.015

ABV% 5.78%

Standard mash at 152F for 30 minutes, boil for 60 minutes, ferment below 70F.

ABV / Alcohol by Volume: 5~6% +/- ( depends on the efficient of your brew equipment and your brew skills )

  • 12 lb Euroean Pale
  • 1 lb 2-row malt
  • 1 lb Victory malt
  • 1 lb Cara Munich malt
  • 1/2 lb of light sugar or honey or brown sugar – ( end of boil ), we used brown sugar
  • 1 3/4 oz Kent Golding hops – [ 1 oz at 20 minutes and 3/4 at 60 minutes ]
  • 1 1/2 oz Saaz hops – [ 1 oz at 10 minutes and 1/2 at 15 minutes ]

Use your house Belgian yeast or try: White Labs Belgian Ale (WLP550) or Abbey Ale (WLP530).

We ramp up slowly the yeast temperature starting at low 60s in the fermentor for metabolism reasons, so that the beers attenuation is not affected.

… more information will be posted later with OG, FG, thanks!

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IPA/Indian Pale Ale – All Grain – 5 Gallons

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Kodiak

IPA

You will love this IPA, and that’s about it, there is nothing much else to say!

Of course everyone knows, but just incase – IPA = Indian Pale Ale.

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Pale_Ale

If you want to do a bigger or a smaller batch, divide all ingredients by 5 and then multiply by your batch size, (example * 1 for 1 gallon, * 3 for 3 gallons, * 10 for 10 gallons), this includes water used during mash, and sparge.

We employ a batch sparge method.

  1. The mash strike water mixed with the grains.
  2. The mash out water followed by drain.
  3. The sparge water followed by drain.

On #2 and #3 we re-circulate until the wort is nice and clear before draining off into the boiling kettle.  Google batch sparge if this is new to you or use your own method.

12 lbs 2 Row Pale
2 lbs Crystal 40
1 lb Wheat

Mash at 152 F, with total Boil time of 60 minutes.

  • 1 oz Centenial at 5 minutes from start of boil
  • 1 oz Centenial at 20 minutes from start of boil
  • 2 oz Northern Brewer at 60 minutes, end of boil

No dry hopping in this recipe, but that’s up to you!

If you are thinking how much water do you need for the initial strike and than sparge process, we used a on-line calculator to showcase how easy it to figure out, of course with time as you re-brew the same batch – you can make slight adjustment to bring it to Perfection:

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

We used 5.5 gallons for strike-in and 4.33 gallons to the Sparge method we use, so total water needed for a 5 gallon batch is about 9.83 gallons or about 9 3/4 gallons…, 1/2 more than the Calculator (just incase).  Just enter the variables you know like (batch size, temperatures you will use, lb of total grain, etc…).

For yeast try to use a good house strain, so that you can re-capture it and use again and again and again, there is no need to be flushing your money $$$ down the drain every time you brew.  We are using a strain of yeast released by the brewery Rouge in Portland, OR – it’s called PACMAN by Wyeast – 0733347, details about it are below:

Beer Styles PACMAN can be used with: American Pale Ale, American Amber Ale, American Brown Ale, Brown Porter, Cream Ale, Irish Red Ale, Strong Scotch Ale, Dry Stout, American Stout, Russian Imperial Stout, American IPA, Imperial IPA, American Barleywine, Fruit Beer, Spice/Herb/or Vegetable Beer, Christmas/Winter Specialty Spice Beer, Other Smoked Beer, Wood-Aged Beer

(1.066 – 1.024) * 131 = 5.75%

OG was 1.066

FG 1.024, expected ABV 6-7 %, but will vary on your yeast/temperature, setup, skill and brew efficiency.

Remember!! No one owns beer brewing, so feel free to experinment, tweak, change away – use different hops if they are appropriate for an IPA.

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