Howto convert a beer keg into a Fermentor, 15.5 gallons

Posted on August 22, 2013 by ray 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 ray 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 ray 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 ray 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 ray 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 ray 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 ray 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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Belgian White Ale – All Grain Recipe – 10 Gallons All Grain

Posted on January 5, 2013 by ray kodiak

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 Dude, its like drinking WOW in your mouth!

( the picture above was of only a 3 week old test pour out of Keg that was cold dropped only for overnight, that’s less than 24 hours!!! – makes HUGE difference! ), beer only gets better with time!

OG 1.048 +/-
FG 1.010 +/-

We use a converted Keg into a Mashtun with a false-bottom, see pictures…  Our efficiency currently varies between 75-80%, sometimes higher.

ABV / Alcohol by Volume: 5% (rounded off)

  • 9.5 lbs Belgian Pilsner (2-row), brew store might sell it under Euro Pilsner Malt.
  • 6 lbs White Wheat Malt, brew store might sell it under American Wheat Malt.
  • 5 lbs Flaked Wheat
  • 2 oz Cascade Hops – [ 1 oz at 5 minutes and one at 30 minutes ]
  • 1 oz Orange Peel, might be sold under Bitter Orange Peel – [ 15 minutes of boil ]
  • 1 oz Coriander Seed, (crush it – store might sell it un-crushed in a plastic bag) – [ 15 minutes of boil ]

Yeast Starter was used ahead of brew day.

Total boil time is 50 minutes, if you want to do 60 minutes, the World won’t end.  Primary ferment for a week+ or until reaction finishes, Secondary recommended; but not manditory.

For yeast we used a Wyeast 3787 re-captured Trappist HG (high gravity) yeast, but the original recipe called for a White Labs# WLP40 Wit Ale.  BTW: It’s ok to use (HG high-gravity) yeast on a (LG lower-gravity) beers, but not the other way around.

8.5 gallons of strike water at 163F, maintain for an hour (60 minutes) at 152F

Then Re-Mash 6.5 gallons of additional water for 30 minutes more at 168-172, we simply filled the mash tun with 6 gallons of additional water, stir it so often and drain it off at 30 minutes, the rest gets cooled and fed to horses and chickens.  Horses especially love the mash left overs, its like Candy to them and the chickens go nuts and lay later high quality eggs.

So total water for brew 15 gallons (mash + re-mash).

For fermentation we used a 15.5 gallon keg that was converted into a fermentor rather than splitting it into multiple glass carboys or some other method.

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After fermentation is done, we split into 2 soda kegs and carbonate.

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How to cut out the top of a Beer Keg, turn it into a Keggle

Posted on December 15, 2012 by ray kodiak

Here is an affordable way to cut out the top from a industry standard 1/2 barrel (15.5 gallon keg).  I used a 4″ inch cutting wheel (rated for stainless steel) mounted inside of a 4″ grinder.  Later once hole cut out, I switch to a grinding wheel (not cutting wheel) to clean up the edges, link below to the youtube video.

You want to employ the safety shield that is installed in the grinder tool, don’t remove it.

Glide it along-side the inside rim of the keg (watch video), no template is needed.  First go around to create a mark line in the metal, if you make a mistake you can correct it, go around and do that first, don’t cut all the way in.  Once you are satisfied, then you can use the mark to easily glide along the metal and finish cutting it.

Youtube link to video is below:

Cut out Top from Keg Beer

Cheers!

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Silver Dollar Porter – All Grain Recipe

Posted on December 2, 2012 by ray kodiak

Silver Dollar Porter – O.G. 1.052 – 1.056, F.G. 1.012 – 1.016. Bitterness 43; Color 40 SRM (80 EBC)

This is a great porter to start out with if you have never brewed a porter. A full-bodied bittersweet version of the black heaven famous Anchor Porter of San Francisco.

Mash – Start with 10 quarts of water and add 1/2 the gypsum, heat water to 145F and add all the malt/barley. Temperature will stabilize at 130 to 135F, hold temp at 133F.
Add heat if necessary and hold for 30 minutes, then add 5 quarts of boiling water to the mash, should raise temp to 155F, hold at this temp for 45 minutes, always stir
occasionally. Complete the conversion by raising temp to 158F and hold it there for 10 ~ 20 minutes more… raise temp to 167F to stop the conversion.
Transfer the mash water to kettle and add 3 more gallons of sparge water to mash tun ( 170 F for sparge temp ) and add the other 1/2 half of gypsum,
in order to maximize the conversion from grain of the sweetness that we are after.

The Boil – bring to boil and add 1 ounce of Northern or Perle Hops and 1/2 ounce of Cascade hops for bittering and continue rolling boil for 50 minutes. Add Irish Moss and
boil for 8 more minutes, add the other 1/2 ounce of Cascade hosp for aroma and boil for the remainder of 2 minutes, stop the boil!

After the boil – Cool wort, transfer to fermentor, pitch yeast, If you end up with less than 5 gallons of wort, add fresh water to achieve 5 to 5 1/2 gallons.

Ferment at 70-72 degrees for 6 days or so, transfer to secondary fermentor and complete the fermentation and to settle for 7 more days. For best results
age the beer for a minimum of 50 days at 50F, colder temp – if you have a cellar, find a Cold spot in your basement (maybe in Winter), this helps to drop
the yeast out of suspension ~ helps but is not super necessary! Age the beer regardless :- )

5 gallon:

  • 8 lbs pale malted barley
  • 1lb munich malt
  • 1/2 lb crystal malt
  • 1/2 lb black parent malt
  • 1/2 lb chocolate malt
  • 1 tsp gypsum
  • 1 oz Northern Brewer or Perle hops
  • 1 oz Cascade hops, use 1/2 for bittering and 1/2 for aroma
  • 1/4 tsp Irish moss
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