What's that science experiment in the corner?

Now Fermenting @ Kazoo Brewery, Oakland:

Mister Squinty Summer Ale   &   Fool Moon Saisoon! 

Whole Hops Concluded! Sweet Portable Beer Dispense!!

In order to really relax on a Memorial Day camping trip, a full, portable corny keg is a necessity. A large, metal framed backpack accommodates one quite well, with room for a fly reel and a few chew bars.

The super-hopped, Belgian-American IPA came out spectacularly: the siphon hose with a ramshackle cheesecloth filter ran full with slightly cloudy golden nectar, and those pesky hop leaves stayed in the bottom of the carboy. 

Quick-charged the keg overnight, bathed in ice (hopefully about 50*F throughout), alongside of the Amber Ale keg we brewed and left behind to appease those brewhands unable to trek out to the river. Sealed off the IPA and tapped the Amber.

Materials needed for portable pump:

1 hand bicycle pump

1 Gas In quick disconnect fitting

4" gas tubing

1 old bike tire innertube

some kind of clamping device, pref. circular

sharp scissors

Cut the stem from the bike innertube (make the leftover rubber into a bungee to tie down important camping gear!) and force it into one end of the gas tubing, so that the air nipple sticks out. Clamp that down/use some extra secure thing you improvise. Attach the other end to the quick disconnect and voila! you can pump air into the keg to displace all that delicious beer. As long as you drink the beer in the span of 2 or 3 days, you don't have to worry about it going off due to the odd bits of primordial life you're introducing from the outside air!

The Miracle of Defoamer

Bought an American Amber Ale kit to maintain the supply of foamy beer on tap in the house and mixed it up without a hitch. Seven batches of beer and the process comes easily now, doing the tiny kitchen dance with one partner or several.

The learning experience, and there's always one, came the following morning in this particular batch. We are using a corny keg as primary fermentation, and filled it to within about 4" from the top, propped the legs of the seal and closed her up. Using the liquid quick-disconnect fitting and a length of hose leading into a 1/4 full bottle of cheap vodka, constructed a larger than normal pressure lock.

The yeast started in on the wort almost immediately and the next morning the vodka bottle was half full of light brown liquid and yeasty foam. Called my local beer supply and our buddy, Kel, told me we shouldn't fill a 5 gal fermentation vessel. "You need to leave about 8" for the yeast break," he said. "So to do 5 gallons, you really need a 6.5 gallon container." He said we would lose a lot of beer and possibly all our hardworking yeast bodies to the current setup, and recommended a chemical product called Kettle Defoamer. We picked up a bottle of the stuff, which resembled Elmer's Glue in color and texture, for $6 and set about to Save the Beer.

The yeast had produced so much gas that the fermentation lock was bubbling nonstop, the only outlet to our well-sealed keg. This made it impossible to open the top of the keg, and if I had paid more attention to high school chemistry I could probably calculate the pressure holding the lid in place, but suffice to say our 180# roommate could not make the sucker budge. We added pressure to the quick-disconnect fitting to allow more gas to escape, along with a pile of foam which condensed to about a pint of liquid. Soon we had released enough pressure to open the top and deposit 10 drops of the defoamer, but the foam was unstoppable and rose up out of the keg, taking the goopy substance with it. Threw a few more drops in for good measure and closed up the top before more foam could escape. The foam subsided almost immediately and the pressure lock water has remained clear since.  

Whole Hops: The Saga Continues

The Belgian American IPA at 5 weeks has settled quite a bit. The pressure lock still pushes up a bubble every minute or so, but fermentation has slowed to the marathon pace. The fresh hops have fallen to the floor of the carboy in autumn foliage snow-globe fashion, and we're hoping to extract the beer without much trouble from that group.

A few brainstormed ideas on keeping the hop leaves and buds out of the keg, after siphoning out most of the beer:

Create a screen or cheesecloth filter around the end of the racking tube to keep hops out of siphon hose.

Decant carboy contents into 5 gal steel pot and create a French press like device to press the hops to the bottom and pour the liquid into the keg.

Pour the last sludgy bit out of the carboy and through a fine pasta strainer and into the keg.

We may end up using all three of these ideas, in series, before getting all the beer into the keg for tapping. Looks like we're pushing fermentation to about 7 weeks, maybe 8, but housemates have been eyeing the batch hungrily and making comments like, "wow, that looks like it's about ready..."every couple of days, so we'll see.

Adventures in Whole Hops

Recipe: Belgian-American IPA

Source: Radical Brewing, Mosher 2001

Cooked up an IPA in anticipation of the summer season and some sticky Oakland afternoons, opting to use whole hop buds instead of rabbit food. 3oz of Saaz smelled citrusy and sweet, certain to bring a new element of freshness to the brew, along with the zest of a sweet pink grapefruit. 

The wort smelled great, as usual, throughout the 60 minute boil, but when it came time to siphon that amber ambrosia into the carboy, those hops caused problems. They had expanded to more than thrice their dry size and kept blocking the hose, despite our little filter on the racking tube. We managed to pull out most of the wort, then set about stuffing the hops into a funnel to the carboy. Got most of them in, pitched the yeast and 2 days later the whole thing's foaming away, turning itself upside down every few seconds, and we're hoping the hops eventually settle to the bottom. Also hoping that extra time/exposure/aeration of the wort doesn't affect the final foamy. 

Kazoo Brew has had a fairly high success rate, 4/5 beers rating as 'delicious,' but we don't have a very professional process yet. Many times, we improvise different uses for common kitchen tools (cheese grater, wooden spoon handle, and cheesecloth are some favorites) in order to rack  or cool the beer, and we worry that this extra handling may have an adverse effect on the beer. We'll see in 6 weeks when we tap this IPA whether we scraped by without introducing off flavors to the mix.