Where do I stand to gain the most bang for the buck?

Northern Brewer General
1

I’m getting itchy to do something different with my brewing, I think that’s being prompted by starting to plan out a new garage/shop building I hope to build within the next year (it will be built within 2 years).

For starters, this is where I am today: I’ve been brewing extract almost exclusively since 2003. I can do AG, have the basic equipment for a single-step (that I tried to push into a multi-step once), but the ROI wasn’t there for me. I’m happy with the results I get out of the NB extract kits ~ but I want to plan for non-kit AG brewing when looking at changes, so long as it’s not something that’s exclusive to that task.

My brew-cycle works as such:

[list=1]

  • Order extract kit w/ liquid yeast (been using smack-packs lately)[/*]

  • collect water from in-laws well (good tasting, ever so slightly sweet, they're 3 miles away and I'm there once a week anyway)[/*]
  • start the yeast a night ahead ~~~~I have done starters in the past but saw no tangible difference/benefit, that was also before the keezer/fermentation temp control.[/*]
  • I brew in a keggle, on propane which sits on a table. THIS I need to change, it's wobbly and unsafe. I've also done it off the tailgate of my truck. I'm thinking of a pump and forget gravity.[/*]
  • Follow kit instructions, grains to 170, boil, add LME/DME/hops on schedule[/*]
  • sanitize CFC, carboy, other "stuff" as needed[/*]
  • whirlpool and let rest ~20min with lid on after flame-out[/*]
  • run wort through CFC into carboy and test OG, add water as needed for 5 gallons[/*]
  • oxygen stone for aeration [/*]
  • Place in keezer to finish bring to pitching temp (STC1000 controlled)[/*]
  • Clean (flush CFC and rinse keggle mostly) and put gear away[/*]
  • Once wort is to temp (have stopper thermowell), pitch yeast and wait.[/*]
  • I usually wait 2 weeks and then test SG, haven't had to go longer yet.[/*]
  • My most recent brew I tried cold-crashing which seemed to work really well, I haven't had the first pour yet though.[/*]
  • Transfer to cleaned and sanitized keg, then to keggerator for force carbonation[/*]
  • serve and enjoy :cheers: [/*]

    I seem to remember that the fermentation side of things was the first big area for improvement, almost a requirement here in Georgia as even inside temps hover in the 80~82 degree range through the summer, which is why I have a keezer for fermenting with accompanying thermowell/controller. I’m trying to find the next biggest area for improvement.

    Things I HATE are the wobbly keg sitting on top of an outdoor table (wife hates I user her table as well), and needing a ladder to see what the heck is going on, pull the grains, add the malts/hops. This is easily my biggest hate… I really want to stop hauling 6 gallons of water up a ladder, then balancing it as I try to pour into the keggle too. It just seems a recipe for disaster. Plus, when I do AG brew, it’s a nightmare of lifting a keg with 6.5~7 gallons of water so I have enough room for gravity feed through my CFC. So I’m researching pumps right now. Should be an easy $$$ sell.

    Beyond that? I really like the look and idea behind things like the BrewEasy/K-RIMS (though it seems a brew kettle and typical mash tun with pump and thermomters replicate the system for WAY cheaper), and the BIAB single vessel systems (Grainfather, Braumeister, etc…) and I’d Like to go electric, but that’s down the road.

    Oh, I’m almost Certainly never going over a 5-gallon batch size. It’s rare to drink 20 gallons in a year, and some years I don’t even drink 5, though I seem to average in the 10~15 range (2~3 kegs worth). Of course this is the first year I’ve had a kegerator inside the house and we’ve been through 15 gallons and I have nothing left, at all, anywhere. :frowning:

    I brew for the end result (beer better than what I can buy, for LOTS cheaper than I can buy), not necessarily the process. I’m currently OK with kits, but want the flexibility of AG recipes for those times I want to enjoy the process (occasionally, not frequently). Mostly I want efficient, easy to clean/maintain and safe to use (meaning ditching my current gravity setup).

    Any thoughts, suggestions, musings or critiques :?:

    • 2

    A good burner with leg extensions or some type of brewstand, depending on how much you want to spend would be nice. If you are planning on going all grain it would make boiling larger volumes faster and easier (and safer, if your current setup is wobbly). A grain mill is nice if you plan on developing your own recipes-you can keep the crush consistent, and order larger amounts of grain to save a little money. Not sure a RIMS system is really worth it for 3-5 batches a year, but a good burner and maybe a mill would be nice. You can batch sparge effectively and inexpensively with a cooler mash tun (
    http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/
    .

    3

    Just to add to what the above poster said, buy a good burner with leg extensions. I bought the Blichmann burner with extensions (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brew … oor-burner) and it was probably the best investment I made other than a chest freezer for ferm temps. It’s short enough to see whats going on inside without a ladder but tall enough to still use gravity to fill your fermenter.

    4

    Agree with the above: getting your boil set-up stable is about safety, and that’s something you shouldn’t compromise. So you need a better burner.

    Nothing wrong with a gravity set up, and you don’t need leg extensions to make it work. I’ve got a burner that keeps my kettle about 8 inches off the ground, which allows me to set my mash cooler on a table next to it and gravity sparge into the kettle. At the end of the boil, I grab the kettle by its handles and lift it three feet up onto the table, then gravity drain it into the fermentor. Simple, safe and it works.

    5

    Grain mill is left field… I’ve done one AG in the past 3 years and it left me wondering (again) why I bothered (batch sparge in a cooler). I’m not sure I could think of something that would be used less with my current cycle.

    As for the burner, it’s wobbly because of the Table it’s on. It wasn’t wobbly when I was putting it in the back of my truck, at least so long as I made sure the feet were all in the troughs of the bed, and isn’t wobbly in storage (garage floor). I’m not sure that 24" is enough height for gravity through a CFC because my outlet is at 24" currently and I’ve tried that in the past without luck/success. A taller brewstand would gain me the height, but we’re back to lifting 40lbs of water and/or needing a ladder or stool of some sort. I’m over the whole “lifting hot or heavy” aspect if it can be avoided. Plus, I already own a functional burner and want to go electric with the next, dedicated, space which makes it very low value for the dollar spent. 10k BTU isn’t a whole lot of improvement for a $150+ purchase.

    So, I could built a wood brew-stand to retain gravity feed (seem like I’d need at least 2 steps/14" and 3/21" would be better), but still have a issue with needing to stand on something Other than the flat ground. Or I could continue with the flat ground if I dump the keggle for a shorter kettle. Cheaper to build something, but more of a storage hassle too.

    That addresses safety only, any other thoughts on quality or efficiency improvements?

    6

    Have a 220 volt line, GFCI protected, put in to your new work shop for future flexibility.

    7

    Instead of using a 6gal bucket, catch your water in single gallon jugs. This way you don’t have to try to balance the full 6 gallons.

    You could build something with a very little footprint so storage isn’t a hassle. I use a gravity brewsculpture from a competitor (so I won’t post the link). But here is something you might be interested in:

    http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/cent ... -brewhouse

    It can be broken down for storage. All you need to see in a HLT is a bucket. You could simply brew extract on middle/bottom burner and use gravity. You can buy a cheap pump if you want. Seems to be what your looking for.

    I think you need to decide what you want as far as electric. Usually electric and gas systems don’t mesh well as far as compatibility. If your dead set on going electric your biggest bang for the buck is starting to go electric.

    8

    Some of this is spitballing for the future, some of it is thinking out loud trying to work out issues with what I’m currently using/doing.

    I don’t necessarily Want a pump, but looking over all the “systems” seemed to include pumps so my brain got stuck. Hence the thinking out loud part. I’m doing a highly monotonous and boring job today (striping 80 years worth of paint from exterior window frames on my house), which gives me time to think the replys over (and thank you all for them, it’s forcing me to get off the single track my mind was stuck on).

    So, measuring my keggle on its burner, the top rim would be at 5’ to get a few inches over 3 feet to the ground from the outlet. Workable for keeping my feet on the ground and still stirring/adding hops/removing grains/etc… I’m going to slop together a stand of the needed height (cinder blocks, bricks and plywood stacked up) for the next brew and see how that works. I’ve just had issues in the past where the siphon stopped as the level in the carboy raised and ended up with a TON of trub in the fermenter when I had to just dump the remaining gallon+ in via funnel. That was awhile ago when I was still brewing inside/less experienced but I’m not sure how I could even “save” that kind of issue with a keggle as it’s impossible to pour out of in a controlled manor.

    This is how I keep getting stuck in a rut of “just buy a damn pump”. :roll:

    As for the future space, it will be wired for 220. Actually, I saw someone converted a washer and dryer area in their garage (moved the laundry inside) to their brewing area and it struck me as perfect. Source of water, drain, both 110 and 220 power, “utility” sink… so that’s the plan for my dedicated space.

    Thanks again folks

    9

    So it seems the end consensus is that there is no major, or even minor notable but universally agreed upon, improvements to be made other than fix when I knew needed to be fixed (wobbly table as brew stand).

    Works for me.

    Back to lurking for another 3+ years.

    10

    Overall it seems you have things in order. But I’m still finding it a bit confusing if you are asking about how to make your process easier or how to make your beer better.

    To make the process easier, write down everything you do in a brew day, and figure out where the issues are. What part do you hate dealing with? What always seems to take too long, etc. Is there a piece of equipment that is underperforming? Sometimes that can be obvious (unsafe table), and sometimes you won’t realize how big a deal it is till after you fix it, as happened with me both when I bought my plate chiller, and again when I started kegging.

    To make the beer better, you’re already doing the thing that matters most (temperature control for fermentation), but you might want to review your other yeast handling issues (pitch rates, aeration) and look at if you can improve ingredient quality. What malt you use does make a difference. If you were brewing AG, I’d say look at water treatments, but that is a much less important issue for extract brewing.

    11

    Both actually, but more quality control than process/work efficiency. I’ve dealt with workflow on a professional basis for 2 decades (and am a lazy SOB anyway, if there’s an easier way to get the same end result I’m pretty good at finding it).

    My brew days are fairly streamlined. I haven’t had a Solid, stable, system/process for ~8 years now and I was doing partial boil extracts on the kitchen stove back then. Too many moves, I sold everything one year and bought all used equipment the next, no room at one house so I was borrowing storage space for the equipment then driving home to brew (in the truck) and back to storage again, etc… I’ve been in my current house for a year, have storage, but haven’t devoted the time/energy to make a better solution till now. The table thing has been irritating me the whole time. Beyond that, as I think through the processes, it’s table issue for height (adding water from a ladder), no good place to set my timer/thermometer display (minor), I’m not particularly happy with my plastic paddle but it works, table again for adding/removing grain bag, adding LME, honey, hops, whatever. Table again for keeping an eye on hotbreak, need to buy a spray bottle to combat foaming… mickey mouse solution for holding my CFC (sits on a bucket, none to stable) ~ wish I could KNOW it was disinfected/sanitized. And lifting my glass carboy, full, into and out of a chest freezer. Oh, and cleanup… it’s a mess that I hate dealing with. But generally, once I do something about where my burner sits, I’m back to minor issues. My brew days are rather compact, easily less than 3 hours and probably even closer to 2 hours than 3 (I don’t really time things, I know the water boils in 20 minutes and has a boil of 60 minutes, that’s it).

    What I’m less comfortable with, due to ignorance on my part, is improvements being made in the process. For instance, I have 3 5-gallon secondaries that were used a LOT (before my keezer), I was shocked to go online a couple years ago and learn that doing a secondary isn’t highly recommended, and is actually mentioned as adding more complications (aeration) than it’s worth. That was an ingrained, absolutely Essential step back when I started. I’m finding people are now fermenting in kegs under light pressure (need to read more, this interests me a little as I hate cleaning carboys, plus I’ve broken a number of them over the years), conicals were only for the super rich. BIAB simply didn’t exist the last time I really made the rounds to see what was going on, electric was only something the enthusiasts with electrical background were doing, etc… I don’t really remember anyone talking too much about water outside of pH.

    There are simply changes that I’m not aware of because I don’t follow this hobby too closely. It’s not a passion, just something I like to do a couple times a year (well, I like having the Option to drink a beer all the time… :lol: ). I know there are gains in quality to be had from AG, but only IF you do the process well. There are supposed to be gains from yeast starters, I did them for several years and never noticed anything (but wasn’t controlling fermentation temps then either). No idea on anything past that though. I was mostly wondering if there’s some new revelation I might have missed… like there’s no need to boil/heat anything anymore. I’m not to the point of worrying over minor gains/improvements, well… maybe I am if it’s something that takes less than 5 minutes or is done only once.

    For now I am the most casual of brewers. Hard to get too excited when it takes SO long to get rid of the beer (I once went 18 months with the same 3 beers in kegs, when I finally dumped them there was easily 10 gallons remaining from the original 15 ~ that’s when I sold all my stuff).

    Thanks for reading/responding. It’s appreciated :cheers:

    12

    Like I said, it pretty much looks like you’ve got stuff under control. The recommended processes do change over time, and adopting the new way of doing things typically is helpful.

    Secondaries is a good example. The big reason for doing a secondary was to get the beer off the yeast before autolysis occurred. But with better quality yeast now available than previously, autolysis is no longer a serious concern. So the biggest reason for secondary went away as well. That doesn’t mean it is bad. There are still brewers who swear by using a secondary, with the advantage being clearer beer, and as long as your processes are decent, the increased odds of infection or oxidation are pretty minimal. I’ve tried it both ways and can’t see a difference, so I don’t bother with a secondary.

    You might want to give yeast starters a try again. Without temperature control, it would be hard to tell if there is an advantage or not. Starters don’t always make a difference, but they can, and when they do it will be an improvement.

    Most people who brew AG will swear it makes the beer better as well, but I think that is only true for some types of beer. If you are making beers that you are enjoying, then I doubt you’ll see a big improvement from AG. And it is a major addition to the process and the brewday time, so you really have to be hooked on the hobby to look at that as an improvement.