Blue Hills Brewing

A Craft-Brewery in Transition

Given that I have only been brewing for a couple of years, it's understandable that I'm still developing my system and changing some of my equipment. Right from the start, I was grateful for my wife's suggestion that I should give brewing a go, and she will always wonder why she ever suggested it.

After my first batch with a Brew-On-Premises I gained confidence that decent beer was possible without investing millions of dollars. By borrowing some basic gear I was able to begin brewing kits. Before mixing it all up, I had begun some reading and learnt that better results could be obtained by replacing the 1kg of sugar with malt, or a "Conversion Kit" from the local home brew store.

Right from the start, the focus was on quality and me controlling the ingredients used. So it was only natural that I quickly progressed onto extract brewing from kits, then mini-mashing and then pretty quickly into all-grain brewing. In addition to reading as extensively as possible (both books and the internet), I received invaluable help from the West Coast Brewers. I found the club to be full of highly knowledgeable people that were more than willing to help. This was as valuable as the theory that I was picking up from places like the Home Brew Digest (HBD) (http://hbd.org ) in the days before the Oz-CBD.

The transition to mashing took just under 12 months. All this time, the unsuspecting members of North Oceanic Brew Sippers were the victims of my hit and miss learnings. Learning about brewing, and assembling the equipment myself was a big part of the fun.

During this time, I did my marriage a favour and moved my brewing out of the kitchen and into the garage. .

In the last couple of months I have designated a garden shed as the brewery and built a frame so I can brew outdoors. So with this background, I am still manipulating, learning and building. In another six to twelve months I hope to have finished building my system and can then get down to the serious business of brewing consistently high quality beers, of many different styles.

From the left: kettle, HTL and MLT.

SNAPSHOT OF A TYPICAL BREWDAY

All of my beers start on the computer with a session on Promash. I highly recommend this software for any half serious brewer.

The program, product support and price make this an unbeatable package. After a couple of brewing sessions, I started to get a handle on how to use Promash with my brewing system. I now use it for keeping records, planning recipe specifics, mash programs, water and boil requirements, fermentation specifics, and other notes, as well as swapping recipes with other brewers.

Promash and the printout.

With my brewday plan in hand, I then trek down to the backyard and begin pulling out and assembling the gear. With the hot liquor tun (HLT) in place, I add the water for the dough in and begin heating it. The water is carbon filtered. Depending on the recipe, and particularly the level of dark/roasted malts, I know roughly the amount of phosphoric acid required in the dough-in liquor to ensure that the mash pH is in the 5.2 to 5.5 range.

I have the water analysis from the Water Authority, but instead of individual reports they only issue a typical range and an average. I find that the water quality changes significantly throughout the year. So when I add phosphoric acid to adjust the pH, the ability of the water to buffer against this can be extremely variable. It usually requires some thinking on the run.

Whilst the liquor is heating, I will weigh and grind the grain. I have only recently bought the Valley mill and I'm completely stoked with it.

Previously, the Corona flour mill (Porkert actually) never gave me a crush that I was happy with. Either it produced too much flour and shredded husks (which made it difficult to clear when recirculating), or the grind was too course and my efficiency suffered. Further, in order to move to a mash pumping system, the crush has to be spot on.

Next is the dough in. This is pretty simple with the mash-in liquor and the grist being added simultaneously. With plenty of stirring, I try to ensure thorough mixing and eliminate any dry balls of malt. I made a copper manifold for the mash/lauter tun (MLT), based on John Palmer's recommendations and experiments (http://realbeer.com/jjpalmer ). I wrap the manifold with a sparge bag that I bought for mini-mashing. This helps filter the pieces of crud (draff).

The MLT is insulated to retain the heat, but it normally loses between two and five degrees C (over 90 mins) depending on the ambient temp and how many times I remove the lid to stir the mash. One of the things I hope to achieve with a HERMS system is better control of the mash temperature.

Promash calculates the required temperature of mash-in liquor. I currently estimate my thermal mass to be 0.3, but by adding the pump I'm losing a couple more degrees in the transfer. This will soon be sorted out with more practise.


The manifold design in the MLT, the grainbag goes around the manifold.	The dough-in

Once this is doughed in, I top up the HLT with the sparge water and begin heating.

The sparge water is adjusted to a pH of around 6.0. Thus when sparging, the pH is never allowed to rise enough to extract tannins and I only need to concentrate on the SG. After the mash has had a few minutes to settle in, I will take a sample. Upon cooling, I check the pH just to ensure that its within the 5.2 to 5.5 range.

Mash sample with a pH of 5.4

I normally run the mash for 90 mins. I don't bother doing a starch test for conversion. I'm confident enough that with the right ingredients and mash temps I can control the attenuation of the wort enough without worrying too much about varying mash thickness and mash times.

I aim to stir the mash every 20 to 30 mins to keep the mash at an even temperature throughout the profile. I'll start the pump about 15 mins before the end of the mash to ensure that the first runnings are free of particles.

The pump was purchased from Moving Brews in the USA and is a real beauty. It is a magnetically driven pump (March 6144MM FC, 230 volt 50/60 Hz), with the flow rate determined by the ball valve on the outflow side. It is ideal for recirculating the mash, transferring hot liquor and even pumping boiling wort. Bill Stewart from Moving Brews is the most customer friendly person I have ever come across. At his expense he phoned me several times to clarify details of the order and shipping. Look anywhere you like on the Web, you'll only ever find positive things said about Bill and his products.

Currently I don't bother about a mash-out. When I'm finished setting up the HERMS, it will become standard operating procedure. For now, its just another step that I can't be bothered with.

If I am First Wort Hopping (FWH), I'll add them when I begin pumping the first runnings into the kettle. I made a manifold for the kettle which helps to keep the majority of hops and trub out of the fermenter.

When the first runnings are totally drained, I transfer all of the sparge water into the MLT. Although batch sparging is less efficient, it is far easier. Besides, with a single pump it also suits my system. I will then take about 45 to 60 mins to sparge. I always stop sparging when the SG of the runnings drops to 1.016 (Temp adjusted). I could run it down to 1.010 but it has been reported that decreased sparging produces a smoother beer, although efficiency suffers (I usually have to top up the kettle with water prior to the boil). At some stage soon I plan on producing a no-sparge and a normally sparged batch to test this theory.


The first runnings being drained.	The sparge has commenced.

I will have already started the boiler under the kettle. I aim to commence boiling soon after the last runnings have been pumped into the kettle. Sometimes this works. What ever happens, I watch the kettle very carefully because I've had enough boil-overs to last me a few years.

Once the wort begins boiling, I'll back off the gas and adjust the lid. I aim for 10% evaporation rate. I normally boil for 70 mins, with the bittering hops going in after 10 mins. Depending on the quantity of hops, I may put them in loose or in a hop bag.

During the boil, I begin sterilizing all of the cold-side equipment and cleaning up.

Flavour hops and Irish Moss are added 15 mins before knock out. At this stage, I also put in the immersion chiller so it gets sterilized from the boiling. Aroma hops are normally added 5 mins before the end or right at the end

When the heat is cut, I begin chilling. I use the pre-chiller but still find that I can't get the wort down past 25 C (I put the fermenter in the fridge to cool to pitching temperatures). Chilling usually takes about 30 mins during which I frequently stir the wort - slowly at first to minimize HSA - to maximise chilling efficiency.

The first lot of water used for chilling comes out very hot, so I store this for cleaning. After removing the chiller, I whirlpool and allow to settle for 30 mins. When draining the wort into the fermenter, I use a sterilized stocking (with dye boiled out) to catch any trub or hops.

Home-made chiller, with pre-chiller in jug on the right (half tipping over).

Water bath with aquarium heater.

If it is a lager, I will put the fermenter into my dedicated lagering fridge. This maintains the temps required with a overriding thermostat.

For ales, I put the fermenter in the water bath and use an aquarium heater to maintain the temp (usually 18C). For lagering, I will transfer to cornies. For ales, I secondary in a plastic fermenter.

All of my beers are carbonated at 100 kPa. This is incredibly easy. I keep the gas on the serving kegs at this pressure permanently and also dispense at this pressure.

I don't bother to bottle anymore. I figure if I need bottles, I can easily dispense them from the tap. I hope to build a proper bottle filler soon.

The converted freezer runs at about 3 C permanently, with another overriding thermostat. My neighbour Doug was gracious enough to install the two thermostats that give me precise temp control.

My very disorganised serving fridge.

A typical letterbox session.

The final step in this process in the enjoyment of the products. We are very lucky in that we live in one of the friendliest streets in Oz. We frequently gather on one of the front lawns for "Letterbox Drinks".

This is a great way to chill out at the end of the weekend or after a long day. It also helps that three of us homebrew and we all enjoy good beer.

WHERE TO NEXT

As stated earlier, this is very much a work in progress. There are a few things that I hope to do over the next six to twelve months:

Convert HLT to HERMS with digital temperature control. This will allow me to pump the mash liquor through a copper coil inserted in the HLT to control temperatures (have a look at http://www.brew-beer.com for some dream systems).
I saw a really neat collar around the top of a converted freezer by Dan Shultz. This would allow me to permanently mount a couple of taps into the collar without drilling through the freezer. The increased height will also allow me to fit in two extra kegs.
Build a counter-flow-chiller to get the wort down to pitching temp immediately.
Buy an additional pump for HLT. I'll probably go with a cheaper aquarium pump as per Graham's suggestion. As this pump will only be pumping water, it doesn't have to be as spiffy as my first one.
Digital temp measurement for mash liquor (as per systems above)
Build a hop back., build a counter-pressure bottle filler and many other gadgets.

So although I have the basis of my system, there are a few finishing touches yet to be completed. The aim of all this is to give me a system that requires negligible lifting, precise temperature control and will allow me great reliability in beer production. The quality can be achieved without going to these lengths but I have no doubt that this system is at the cutting edge of what home-brewers can do to ensure consistency across many different beer styles.

All the best,

Adam.