New website functionality to check the weather at the brewery [Brewery Weather Tab]. Looks like today's forecast calls for something dark, roasty, and warming.
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After years of running vinyl lines in the keezer I've swapped them out for EVAbarrier draft tubing. This required replacing the stainless steel fittings on my tap shanks, ball locks, and SF800 flow meters. The smaller ID (4mm) restricts the flow a bit, but the pours look great.
I've had my tap water (left) and RO water (right) analysed by Ward labs to get a baseline of my water source and RO filtration.
I had these two samples tested ~6 months apart. I can only assume that the public utility district changed sources in that time considering my RO water (right) TDS only dropped by ~20%. I believe that RO filtration systems typically see a reductino in TDS of 90+% I've sampled my water (before and after) with a cheap TDS meter and see the expected reduction in TDS so I don't think that my RO system in faulty or misconfigured. Regularly monitoring the RO water with a TDS monitor will allow me to keep tabs on my RO membranes and replace them as necessary. Well, since COVID-19 has put the kibosh on most beer competitions for the foreseeable future, I've set a 2021 goal to work my way through the 2015 BJCP style guide. There are some 80+ styles defined in the guide so this shall mark the beginning of an epic journey. The first section covers Standard American Beer:
American Light Lager (1A) America Lager (1B) Cream Ale (1C) American Wheat Beer (1D) I'll be tackling 1A and 1B simultaneously because of the extended lagering time and will then move on to 1C and 1D. My hope is to brew all four in January. https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf Up After several hardware failures, some head scratching, and pleas for help on HomeBrewTalk I think I've corrected my fermentation chamber dilemma. My first setup was using a single Sainsmart Relay to control the heating and cooling of my fermentation chamber. Every now and again I would experience a failure on the cooling circuit between the relay and my fridge. The relay would failed "closed" which would run my fridge indefinitely or until I happened to go into the garage and see my conical frosted over.
I learned on HBT (shout out to day_trippr, Lbussy, and hinkensj) that my compressor was probably drawing too much power (likely at start-up) and melting the internals of the relay which resulted in a permanently "closed" circuit. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/howto-make-a-brewpi-fermentation-controller-for-cheap.466106/post-8898206 I've now updated my configuration to use an Inkbird SSR-40 to control the cooling circuit. The Inkbird is rated to handle the power needs of the compressor so we shouldn't be seeing anymore frozen beers. To accommodate a yeast harvesting jar I've added 9" extension legs to my fermentor. It's much taller now, but the wider base keeps everything stable.
Another technical improvement to the brewery. I've bridged the gap between my Fermentrack instance that is controlling my Fermentation Chamber and my published website. With my previous setup I was taking gravity readings two times a day (morning and night) with my cell phone Tilt application. This required me to walk out to the brewery, open the Tilt app, wait for the bluetooth to sync, wait for the synchronization with Google Sheets (~2min total). This gave me two data points every ~24 hrs and resulted in clunky, unrefined fermentation curves.
To overcome this, I've configured and deployed a micro-controller (ESP32) with onboard WiFi/Bluetooth antennas that translates the Bluetooth signal coming from my Tilt Hydrometer into something that my Fermentrack instance can consume: WiFi. (Note: Fermentrack is capable of interpreting Bluetooth assuming the signal strength is strong enough to reach the hardware). I'm now able to capture a gravity/temp/time record every ~10 minutes! The additional data points will give me a much clearer picture as to how my beer/fermentation chamber are reacting throughout the fermentation process. A water analysis that I had conducted by Ward Labs. With this data I'll be able to adjust my recipes using a water calculator such as "Bru'n Water" by Martin Brungard.
So, in alignment with my own personally stated brewing goals this year, I've entered all WHOTY (Washington Homebrewer Of The Year) qualifier competitions to date...including cider competitions. The most recent was the B.R.E.W. Mead/Cider Cup. I entered a C1 "New World Cider" and needless to say...it got smacked down. I made this cider with 5 gallons of Skagit Valley Cider and a pack of Wyeast 4766. I believe this cider over attenuated and the result was an astringent, overly alcoholic, dry cider. I don't have any experience with back-sweetening, but based on the results I'd say this cider would likely improve in scoring if back-sweetened.
4/14/Many months ago, my homebrew club (NorWa) purchased a Jim Beam barrel in an effort to learn more about barrel programs. The club decided to barrel age an IPA for the maiden voyage. Several members in the club (myself included) produced anywhere from 5-15 gallons of IPA and dropped it in the barrel to get to know Jim Beam bourbon up close and personal. A few weeks ago we hopped the barrel with a smattering of varieties in several forms: pellet, cryo, and backyard whole cone. After a week on the hops we racked the beer off into corny kegs and rinsed out the barrel. Sadly the data on this project wasn't well maintained or recorded so the BU:GU, ABV, total yield, total loss, etcetera are really just a guess at this point. I plan to do a review of the beer and post it here at a later date.
Update (4/14/20): I have located the hop packages from our barrel-aged IPA and have listed them below: 3oz Cascade Cryo hops (18.4 Alpha) 3oz Amarillo Cryo hops (17.4 Alpha) 13.2oz 2019 Harvest Backyard Whole Cone "C" hops (? Alpha) The barrel was dry hopped for ~7 days. |
Jamie WeissHomebrewer, Recognized BJCP Judge, aspiring Certified Cicerone Archives
November 2023
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