Immersion Chiller Ice Pump

I'm desiring (and getting) more and more temperature control for my wort chilling and fermentation processes. I've been listening recently to three good podcasts:

Basic Brewing Radio
The Jamil Show
Brew Strong

And, I continue to listen and learn from the great people at my local homebrew club:

Ohio Valley Homebrewers' Association

What I've learned is, while I've been making pretty good beer, I'm ready to take the next few steps to improve what I'm doing.

The first improvement was Yeast Washing. I won't explain that here, because Don Osborn has explained that pretty well on his site.

The second improvement is the move to yeast starters. Jamil Z says it's the most important thing you can do to improve your beer. I rely on the Wyeast pages:
Wyeast Pitch Rate Calculator
Wyeast Pitch Rate chart
Wyeast Making a Starter

But most importantly, I listened to Jamil Z, especially the Yeast Starter episode on Brew Strong. And used his Pitching Rate Calculator.

The third improvement is going to be a refrigerator. My mom is moving to my hometown and buying a new fridge. So, she's donating her older fridge to us, which we'll put in our kitchen, then we'll move our much older fridge out to the garage for fermentation temp control. Yeah!

Finally (for now), the fourth improvement will be wort cooling. I built an immersion chiller out of 50 ft. of 3/8" copper tubing, and it has worked okay. But, in the spring/summer/fall, I just can't get the wort cooled down below 76-80F. In the winter it's better; our municipal water drops more than 10F; I think they switch to a different source. That's much warmer than I want to pitch even my ales.

So, my plan was to use the immersion chiller on tap water down to around 80-90F. Then, I changed the water source to a bucket of ice water, pumped with a small pond pump through the immersion chiller, and recycled back into the ice bucket.

I bought a small pond pump at Lowes.





That has a 1/2" ID outlet, so I bought some braided 1/2" ID hose, a 1/2"barb to 1/2"pipe adapter, and a 1/2"pipe to garden hose adapter, attaching these with teflon and a hose clamp. That allows me to connect to my immersion chiller easily, which has garden hose connections. Lowes didn't have those connections, so I got them at Ace Hardware, which didn't have the pump.

The tap water temp was down as of this week, so it's running at about 62.5F. I used the immersion chiller with the garden hose water and chilled down to about 65F pretty quickly. I used a sanitized spoon to create a whirlpool, so I had the whole thing chilled from boiling to 65F in under 10 minutes!!!!

I put about 10 lbs of ice in a cooler (my mash tun, actually, after cleaning it out). Then covered the ice with tap water, threw in the pump, connected the pump to the inlet side of my chiller, and dropped the outlet hose back into the cooler to recirculate. Turned it on, and got from about 65F down to below 60F in just about five minutes. The water was just trickling, it's not a strong pump, but it worked just fine.

Here's a pic of my setup. It's pretty simple. I wouldn't mind a stronger pump.

Ancient Mead

owner: Michael Erwin | started: 05/28/2009 | last updated: 06/19/2009
status: Fermenting
temperature: 74F
starting gravity: 1.152 (ser | current gravity: ?? | final gravity:

http://www.moremead.com/mead_logs/Ancient_OCC.html

--------------------
May 28, 2009
Fermenting
--------------------
temperature: 82F
starting gravity: 1.152 (seriously!!!)

A guy brought some of this to our local homebrewer's club meeting last night. Whoa, this stuff will knock you out! I measured the OG just for the hell of it: 1.152. That's not a typo! Check out the recipe, it's pretty damn simple to make. I just happened to have a one gallon bottle and I had the cinnamon, clove, and bread yeast in the kitchen already. Just had to buy the honey, an orange, and some raisins.

6/19/2009 - Three weeks later this stuff is still bubbling, about two bubbles a minute!

6/22/2009 - Topped the carboy up with water.

Bottled sometime in July. This is too sweet. Need to cut back on the honey.

Flat Tire Ale - my first all-grain

This is a longish post, but I guess that someone will want read this. Make comments if you like.

Today was my first all-grain batch. I purchased a kit from Midwest just to take some of the complication out, plus they crush the grains. It was the Flat Tire kit, and I bought the Wyeast Belgian #1214 to go with it.

First of all, equipment. I have a 12 qt stainless pot, an 18 qt aluminum pot that I’ve been using to extract brew, and now a 30 qt aluminum pot of the turkey fryer variety, brand new. I have the base for that, too.

I built a combination mash & lauter tun.

I built an immersion wort chiller from (nearly) 50 ft of 3/8” copper tubing, some hosing, and fitting to put a garden hose on the chiller hose.

Here’s the chronology:

Last night I finished up calculations using Beersmith and printed out a brewsheet. Awesome.

I got up this morning about 5:45am and filled the two small pots with hot water, and put them on the kitchen stove to boil. I’m guessing I had four gallons in one and about 2.5 gallons in the other. Then, I went to the gas station around the corner to replace my propane tank (I have two, one was empty, the other nearly so). The water took almost 30 minutes to boil.

I transported the water outside and put it all in the large pot, and tested out my new burner. Works perfectly. Of course, the water was already nearly boiling, so it began boiling again in about two-three minutes. Question: of what use is the little contraption that controls the air flow into the burner? I just left it wide open the whole time.

Beersmith said I needed 15.75 qts of water at 167.2F. So, I used the 18qt pot to mix in nearly boiling water with some cold from the tap. The best I could do was 166.8F. I was using a 2qt pitcher to move water around, so none of these measurements for water are all that exact. Question: how do you know how much water you’re moving around?

I had 10.5 lbs of grain. That is: 9lbs 2-row, 1/2lb crystal 120L, 1/2lb munich 10L, and 1/2lb special b, whatever that is. I mixed at 1.5qts to lb ratio. I’m not sure why I did that, but anyway. 166.8F water and 10.5lbs of grain averaged out to 153.5F, which I was shooting for 154F. I figured, close enough. Closed the lid at 7:05am.

At 8:15am (I had kids to get to school), I had a temp of 151.1F. Question: if you know your temp is going to drop 2.5 degrees, do you shoot high? Ie., I wanted 154, so should I go for 155.3, and expect a drop to 152.8, or what?

I added 3qts of water at 168.1F, stirred the mash, and drained two quarts of it into my pitcher, recirculated that (it looked pretty clean anyway), and drained it all into the 18qt pot (the brewpot still had hot water in it!). Note to self, it would be helpful to have another large pot to heat water in. An HLT of some kind.

I added 3.5 gallons of 168.0F water to the lauter tun, stirred it, and then remembered to close the valve! :) I dumped the remaining hot water out of the kettle, poured the first draining into the kettle, and then drained the second amount into the kettle. I gave Brewsmith 2qts of dead space in the tun, but I ended up with 6.75 gallons, about 1qt over what I was hoping for.

The preboil gravity was 1.024 at 47F, adjusted up to 1.039. Significantly less than the 1.048 I would’ve gotten at 75% efficiency. I think, I didn’t reach that efficiency, and I had too much water. I brought it all to a boil, which took maybe 20 minutes or so.

I had an extremely full pot, I was using an unfamiliar heat control, and I nearly had a boilover. I avoided it, but then added the hops and that did it. It came out, hops first of course. Then I couldn’t find my matches to relight the stupid burner. Note: buy a long lighter. Geez.

Got a boil again at 9:05am. I was hoping I still had a good amount of Northern Brewer hops, but who knows? I saw quite a bit floating around in there during the boil, so let’s hope for the best.

I gave the boil about 10 extra minutes just for the hell of it. I added some Irish moss at about 15 minutes left, and I dropped the new immersion chiller in. I had tested it out during the boil, so it was full of water, which began to flow rapidly out of the hose as soon as I dropped the chiller in the wort. Cool. I added 1oz Saaz with 2 minutes left, at 10:14.

At 10:16, I cut the heat and started the chiller. I got it down to 80F in about 14 minutes. I got the wort into the fermenter, and it looks like I have about 5-2/3 gallons. The OG is 1.051, lower than the 1.056 Brewsmith expected. Again, too much water is the main problem, and a lower efficiency than expected is a secondary problem. The efficiency came in around 68%.

After cleaning up everything, it was 11:15am. Time:5.5 hours. Plus, I did a few small garden tasks during the boil, once I was sure there’d be no more boilover. I’ve let the thing sit in the fermenter for an hour, and I’m going to rack it off the trub into a carboy, then rack it back again, and pitch the yeast starter.

My Inexpensive Homemade Mash/Lauter Tun - MLT

Here's my rendition of a combination Mash/Lauter Tun using parts easily available around town. It all started the day after I visited my local homebrewer's club, the Ohio Valley Homebrewer's Association, www.ovha.net, and saw a version of a 10-gallon combination mash/lauter tun made from a 10-gallon Rubbermaid cooler, one of the orange round ones that are pretty ubiquitous.

The next day I was in Target and thought I'd just look at the coolers, just to get an idea. They didn't have that particular cooler, but they did have a 50-qt Igloo Ice Cube, and it just happened to be on sale for $18.99. Sold!



The ice cube didn't have a plastic spigot, so my first task was to drill a 5/8" hole into the side. One of the sides has a thinner wall near the bottom just perfectly formed for the insertion of a spigot, so I drilled there.

Then I built the spigot, basically a homemade bulkhead fitting.

On the outside, pictured below are:

• 3/8" male barb adapter, with teflon tape on it
• 3/8" ball valve, for liquid and gas (make sure it's not just for gas)
• a 3/8" x 1-1/2" brass nipple (you can't see it)
• several 5/8" ID flat washers
• a 5/8" o-ring (you can't see it, it's up against the cooler wall
  

Then, on the inside we have:

• the same nipple from the outside coming through the cooler wall (you can't see that, of course)
• another 5/8" o-ring (against the inside cooler wall, you can't see)
• a brass 5/8" flat washer (brass or stainless here, b/c it will contact the wort)
• a 3/8" female barb adapter, with teflon on the nipple
• a 1/4" stainless hose clamp
• a manifold made from a dishwasher supply line (more on that below)
  

I bought a stainless steel (make sure it says so on the package) dishwasher supply line, cut the end connections off, then pushed the stainless braid off the rubber hose. This is tricky, but remember to PUSH the braid and not pull. It slips out VERY easily if you're doing it correctly. Otherwise, it's impossible, like Chinese handcuffs.

Then I used some heavy duty wire cutters to cut the stainless braid to length, which should be just less than the width of the cooler, so that it lies down flat and straight after everything is assembled, without touching the opposite wall of the cooler. On the other end of the hose, I've put a 1/4" brass plug, clamped on with another 1/4" stainless hose clamp.



















That's all there is to it.

My primary references for this were:

http://members.shaw.ca/Fly_Guy/mlt.htm - perfect explanation of how to build it, with good pictures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmwYSjfu3zY# - not so detailed, but this guy's video inspired me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMHLqnWCNjE# - another great video for extract brewer's who are thinking about all-grain.

And, of course, much support and advice from the Ohio Valley Homebrewer's Association, OVHA, www.ovha.net, especially this short topic on the message board: http://www.ovha.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=583&start=0&hilit=stainless+steel.

Just-In-Time Kölsch - 22

owner: Michael Erwin | started: 03/19/2009 | last updated: 07/11/2009
status: Enjoying

--------------------
March 19, 2009
Planning
--------------------
Ordering material today. Base recipe from Papazian, Joy, p. 190. Here's mine:

3.3# Coopers wheat malt extract
2.5# extra light dry malt extract
.5oz Perle (60)
.75oz Saaz (60)
.5oz Tettnang (30)
Safale K-97


--------------------
April 30, 2009
Fermenting
--------------------
temperature: 69F
starting gravity: 1.047

Got this one in the fermenter today, hoping to hold temp around 70F. K-97 is supposed to run between 59 and 75. The weather should cooperate.

5/4/2009 - weather has been cool; temp dropped to 68F a couple of days ago. Fermentation is still in process; a bubble is released about once a minute.

5/9/2009 - all activity has stopped. Temp is back up to 70F. For not trying very hard, I've kept the temp in a pretty small range. Rack tomorrow.

--------------------
May 13, 2009
Secondary
--------------------
temperature: 68F
starting gravity: 1.047
specific gravity 1.011
final gravity:

Racked to secondary. Because of the attention to fermentation temp, this one slow-simmered. Very little krausen. Apparent attenuation is at 77%. Pretty good. Extremely cloudy. Must be the wheat. This could very well be my last extract beer.

--------------------
May 25, 2009
Secondary
--------------------
temperature: 68F
starting gravity: 1.047
final gravity: 1.010

Whoa Nellie!!! This is a great one to end my extract career on! Clear, straw color, subtle hop taste, but not malty at all! This one will be perfect in July and August when the days are warm. I have to convert this to all grain somehow.

ABV: 4.8%
App Atten: 78%
--------------------
June 3, 2009
Secondary
--------------------
temperature: 68F
starting gravity: 1.047
specific gravity 1.010
final gravity: 1.010

This beer is misnamed, it's more than OK! I thought it would be good for hot days in July and August, but it may not last that long! Check out the pic, the beer is clear enough to see the wall patterns behind it!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/photo.php?pid=30444561&id=1076958863&ref=nf

Bourbon Barrel Old Ale - 21

owner: Michael Erwin | started: 03/14/2009 | last updated: 07/11/2009
status: Lagering

--------------------
March 14, 2009
Brewing
--------------------
This is a midwestsupplies.com kit:

6 lbs. Amber liquid malt extract
3.3 lbs. Gold liquid malt extract
8 oz. Brown Malt
8 oz. Crystal 50-60°L
8 oz. Wheat
4 oz. Aromatic
4 oz. Chocolate
1 oz. Northern Brewer
2 oz. Glacier
2 oz. Tradition
2 oz. American Oak Cubes
enough bourbon to cover the cubes in a sealed container
Nottingham ale yeast

OG:1.074
Pitching temp: 68F.
Pitched the Nottingham dry, just sprinkling it on top, waiting 30 minutes, then stirring it in.

Covered the oak cubes with Maker's Mark in gladware. That needs to sit for six weeks for the wood to soak up the bourbon. Then, it will go in the secondary. The brew itself will sit for six months in secondary before bottling.

3/16/2009 - Fermenting away nicely since yesterday morning. Temp remains at 68F.
--------------------
March 19, 2009
Lagering
--------------------
temperature: 68F
starting gravity: 1.074
specific gravity 1.021
final gravity:

Racked to secondary today. Used the glass carboy, as I trust it more for a long term like this: 6 months!!! Refreshed the bourbon on the oak chips, as the level had gone down when the wood soaked it up. Those go into the secondary in five weeks.

--------------------
May 23, 2009
Lagering
--------------------
temperature: 68F
starting gravity: 1.074
specific gravity 1.021
final gravity:

Dumped the bourbon-soaked wood chips in today. It's starting to get warm in the house, so this one is going down to the cellar this afternoon.

Bottle in September/October. Ready for the winter! Yeah!

NPA Pale Ale - 20

owner: Michael Erwin | started: 02/26/2009 | last updated: 07/11/2009
Recipe: | status: Finished

--------------------
February 26, 2009
Planning

Ordered ingredients from Midwest. Plus, ordered two hop rhizomes, Cascade and Glacier.

8 oz crystal 10L
6 lbs Briess pilsen light malt syrup
12 oz pilsen light dme
1 oz Galena pellets (45)
.5oz oz Cascade pellets (15)
1 tsp Irish moss (15)
1 oz Cascade pellets (5)
1 safale 04
1 oz Cascade pellets (dry hop)
6 oz corn sugar

I'm going for a lighter color this time.

OG:1.055
Exp FG:1.014
Starting Temp: 68F.
Took this one to the upstairs closet. Got warm (75F), and starting going nuts within two days; blew out the airlock. Moved to kitchen closet. Now at 65F and fermenting nicely.

3/11/09 - SG:1.011, way better than expected. Extremely light color. Moving to secondary.

--------------------
April 9, 2009
Conditioning
--------------------
temperature: 64F
starting gravity: 1.055
specific gravity 1.011
final gravity: 1.009

Warm, flat beer. Must be bottling time again. Deep straw color, very light. FG came in nicely, dropped 2 points in secondary. See you in two weeks!

FG: 1.009
App Atten: 84% !!!!!
ABV: 6.0%

--------------------
July 11, 2009
Finished
--------------------

Oh so good. I'm working on an all-grain version to brew in August.

Elementary Penguin Maibock - 19

owner: Michael Erwin | started: 02/02/2009 | last updated: 07/11/2009
status: Enjoying

2/3/2009 - Raw materials are on the way. Here's the recipe from Papazian, and I'll edit later to include my modifications:

9.9# light malt extract syrup
.5# toasted malted barley
1.5oz Mt Hood (60)
.5oz Vanguard (30)
1oz French Strisselspalt (15)
Saflager 23

2/25/09 - Got delayed for a number of reasons. But, tomorrow is the day.

--------------------
February 26, 2009
Brewing
--------------------

Brewing as I type this into the blackberry. Here is my recipe:

9.9# Midwest Gold malt extract syrup
.5# lightly roasted barley
1 oz Mt Hood (60)
.4 oz German Spalt (60)
.5oz Vanguard (leaf) (30)
1oz French Strisselspalt (15)
Saflager 23

This is a big beer. OG:1.072, so we're looking at a 7% abv at the finish. Pitched at 74F. Recommended ferm temp is 50-60F, so I'm going to put this one in the basement, and hope for about 55F.

3/5/09 - SG:1.024. 53F.
3/7/09 - SG:1.023. 56F.
3/12/09 - SG:1.017. 53F. Moving to secondary.

--------------------
April 25, 2009
Bottling
--------------------
temperature: 53F
starting gravity: 1.072
specific gravity 1.017
final gravity: 1.016

Bottling day. Dark amber in color, with a sweet taste at this point.

App Atten: 78%
ABV: 7.3%

--------------------
May 14, 2009
--------------------

Oh, this is good.

Sparrow Hawk Porter - 18

owner: Michael Erwin | started: 01/15/2009 | last updated: 07/11/2009
status: Finished

1/15/2009 - I've been brewing for one year, and I've discovered that you can't go wrong with a recipe from the Joy of Homebrewing, so here's another one, p. 201 in the revised edition. And, here's what I'm using:

3.3# amber syrup from Midwest
3.3# dark syrup from Midwest
1.5# light dme
18oz black patent malt (recipe calls for 1#, but I was just dumping extra stuff)
1.75oz Northern Brewer (60)
1oz Tettnanager (less than 5)
1tsp Irish moss (15)

OG: 1.062
Exp atten: 75%
Exp FG: 1.016

Okay, I screwed this one up a little bit. When I measured the OG, it was only in the 44 range. Huh? Oh, damn, forgot the DME!!! So, I poured it straight into fermenter and stirred it up. I mean, it should work, right?

Anyway, when I go to measure the OG again, there's so much foam at the top, I can't quite see the gauge. The foam didn't subside after 15 minutes, so I just took a guess at the OG.

I need some luck.

--------------------
February 19, 2009
Bottling
--------------------

FG:1.018, which isn't too far off the mark. When I racked to secondary, this had some pretty high esters, and not really desirable. Those have tapered off pretty much, so I'm not concerned. Pretty heavy as far as beers go. We'll see how it is after carbonation.
FG: 1.018
Atten: 71%
ABV: 5.8%

--------------------
April 30, 2009
Enjoying
--------------------

Just like Papazian indicated, this beer is bitter when straight out of the fridge, but transforms to a malty sweetness when served above 50-55F. Two beers in one, really. Comes out really green, so it needs at least a couple of months in the bottle before enjoying.

7/11/2009 - It's gone. Kathy's cousin Will thought it was really great.