Damn that looks delicious!  Rather… it WAS delicious as I drank it after taking the pictures.

Currently Black IPAs, CDAs, Black Ales, Dark IPAs, whatever you want to call them, are categorized under BJCP category 23 – Specialty Beer. Category 23 is the catch all for everything from Australian Sparking Ale, to Malt Liquor, to Black IPA / CDAs. Given continued commercial success and adoption by home brewers, is it time to finally grant this class of beer its own category? BJCP has not acted on this yet. There are a number of issues to sort out.

Issue #1: What to call the category?

For sanity sake, let’s add one new category and not five. Debating the difference between a Black IPA and a Cascadian Dark Ale (CDA) is possible, but it is splitting hairs. Being from Portland, putting ‘Cascadian’ in the name feels right, but that makes it regionally centric which in today’s politically correct world would be a mistake. That leaves Black IPA or Black Ale. Brewer’s Friend recommends naming the category ‘Black Ale’. The reason for dropping IPA from the category name is covered next.

Issue #2: This is not an IPA with ‘food coloring’ added to make it look black.

The point of a beer category is not just based on stats like OG/FG and IBUs. A category is based on flavor, aroma, mouth feel, appearance, and even history. A Black Ale is not hopped up porter or darkened IPA. Could we someday have a beer called Dark Kolsch, just because it has a hint of roasted flavor but uses noble hops, an SRM of 35, and is light in body? What about a Dark Cream Ale??

Issue #3: General profile:

A Black Ale uses Northwest hops (eg – Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Columbus, Crystal, Simcoe). The citrus hop flavor combined with roasted notes make for unique flavor combinations characteristic to the style. Rich roasted, caramel, chocolate, and coffee flavors can be present.

Aroma: Mix of caramel, roasted malt, and possible hints of chocolate/coffee paired with dry hopped citrus, pine, grapefruit, fruity, floral, and herbal hop notes. Alcohol should not be overly present in aroma.

Appearance: Very dark. Dark brown to obsidian black, with creamy white or tan head.

Flavor: Could be hop forward or malt forward, but bitter and roasted flavors both should be present, and eclipsed by citrus/herbal/spice notes from excessive use of north west hops. This is not a malty beer nor should it be too sweet. The flavor should be crisp, and the finish somewhat dry, but not entirely dominated by the hop profile like in an IPA. Subtle oak notes can be present from barrel aging.

Mouth-feel: Medium body, not overly malty, but not dry or watery. Can (should?) leave lingering flavors on the tongue from dry hopping. Low to moderate carbonation.

Stats:

• OG: 1.060 – 1.075
• FG: 1.010 – 1.018
• ABV: 6% – 8%
• IBU: 60-120
• SRM: 35-40+

Issue #4: What category to put it in?

Does it belong under the IPA category as 14D or the American Ale category as 10D? There are two main themes driving the definition. One is a standard IPA with a dark color and a hint of roasted flavor. The second is a stout or porter with a huge amount of hops. A Black Ale is similar to a barely wine, but not as high in alcohol content and less malty. IPA’s are hoppy beers, but not the only hoppy beers, so Brewer’s Friend recommends putting Black Ale under the American Ales category, as 10D.

I did a lot of research on fans in terms of price, noise level, and cubic feet per minute (CFM). The more CFM you want the more expensive they get and the more noise they put out. The ideal solution is a reasonably priced fan that can keep the room dry but not drive me nuts with racket. Going in I knew a kitchen hood fan like the ones that normally go over a stove would not be powerful enough.

Where to find a powerful exhaust fan? It turns out exhaust fans are a big deal for ‘growers’ too. Their supply stores have several models to choose from. It felt a little strange ordering from one of these places. Thankfully, the shed has a sky light so big brother can already see what is going on in there.

After trying to find a balance between noise level, cost and CFM, I went with this:
Can MAX Fan 6″ – 334 cfm w/ Speed Contrl
http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/itemdesc.asp?ic=AEFCFMF06&Tp=
http://www.growwurks.com/can-fan-max-fan-6-3-speed-complete-control-334-cfm.aspx

The max fan is $150 before shipping. The noise level is tolerable and I thought 334 CFM would be plenty. It works fine for a 60 minute boil in dry weather. However, it is too weak to keep up with a 90 minute boil if the relative humidity is over 75%. What I ended up having to do a couple times earlier this winter was wrap a towel around the unit since there was so much dripping coming out of it. That works pretty well and has gotten me by until I have time to make a more permanent solution.

Possible Solutions:

1. Get something with a higher CFM, and then build an insulated box around it to block out some of the noise.
2. Redesign the duct work. What I accidentally created is a reflux chamber – doh! When the hot gas goes up through the fan, some of it cools and condenses on the walls of the ducting and then drips back down (all the way). My fault for designing it that way, but it was the shortest distance. What I probably need to do is orient the fan sideways and rig a dip tube that goes outside.

Other considerations when it comes to condensation in the brewery:

Selecting a hood is another issue. The loft makes for a built in hood, but it is not the same thing as a professional stainless steel hood. Those things are insanely expensive, coming in upwards of $1,000 for a cheap one. I had a left over dust collection vent from my wood shop so I mounted that. I don’t think the problem is the hood, I think the main problem is the reflux.

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=11312
http://amzn.com/B0000223WV

Looking forward to anything our readers can share on this issue!  Don’t build a re-flux chamber like I did!

Going into the upgrade, there were a few myths I was concerned about. Let me tell you the facts:

You can only do dark beers with electric brewing because the element will scorch the wort.

This is completely untrue given the right equipment. My first batch was a 3.2% Hefewiezen came out perfect. Subsequent batches, including an American Lager (arguably the lightest beer in the world) also had no scorching. In essence, expect ZERO scorching using the HighGravityBrew elements. If you build your own controller, or use a different element, this could be a problem.

The electricity is expensive.

According to our calculations electricity reduces the energy cost by 70%!

Equation for electricity consumption in home brewing:
hours * (watts / 1000) * price/kWh = total cost
For an example, let’s say the the price is $0.12 / kWh, and a typical batch is brewed:

• 1 hour * (5500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.66 (hot liquor tank 5500 watt element)
• 1 hour * (4500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.54 (boil kettle 4500 watt element)

Total electricity cost for a standard batch of beer: $1.20

A 5 gallon tank of propane is around $20 to fill, and you get at best 4 batches out of it. That puts the cost around $4/batch with propane.

It requires an expensive computer controller.

Yes and no. You can ‘build your own’ controller out of parts for under $100. That would also require knowledge of electronics. The one from HighGravityBrew is a turn key solution. Most electric brew rigs also have fancy controllers to automate valves and pumps in addition to controlling the electric element. This goes way beyond the issue of switching from gas to electric for a heat source. Besides, at that point it becomes a labor of love. As long as you are having fun and your wife is okay with the project, go for it!

My submersion chiller won’t work.

This is true. I had to adopt my chiller to look like this so it would straddle the heating element. Cools faster and looks interesting. One online reviewer said it looked like the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

I was against upgrading to a plate or counter flow chiller. That style of chiller leaves a lot of hot wort sitting in your kettle while they are draining. This is not good. Plate chillers are also a bear to clean without using caustic solutions.

An electrician is needed:

Actually, this is true. Pay for a licensed electrician and get the permits to make sure your brewing area is safe. Don’t electrocute yourself or burn the house down! All you need is a dryer outlet on a GCFI’d breaker.

Beer drinking skill comes into play when we start to analyze things like appearance (color, clarity) smells (hoppy, tanic?), after taste (too bitter, malty, sweet?).  Everybody has to start somewhere, and at most parties we have a mixed bag of skilled beer drinkers, macro drinkers, and the beer oblivious. To unite them all in a night of fun, this brew sheet comes to the rescue!

Click Here To Download the PDF Beer Tasting Party Sheet

Evaluating a beer goes like this:

1. Appearance
2. Smell
3. Taste
4. After Taste
5. Drinkability
6. Overall Score

For my first use of this sheet, we had my Blitz Clone which was done as an 11 gallon batch (half fermented with Safale American Ale US-05, and half with Wyeast American Ale II 1272) vs the likes of MGD, Keystone Light, and Hams!  What fun!  It was OBVIOUS that the home brew was better to all who attended, even those who swear by Coors Light, which was a big compliment to the brewer.  Here’s to you having fun with this tasting sheet at your next party.

PROST!

Extract Batch without steeping grains:

• 30 minutes – setup, and wait for water to boil
• 1 hour – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 2 hours 30 minutes total.

Extract batches are the fastest because there is no mash to worry about and less equipment to deal with.

Extract Batch with steeping grains:

• 30 minutes – setup, and wait for water to warm up
• 45 minutes – steep grains
• 15 minutes – wait for boil
• 1 hour – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 3 hours 30 minutes total.

Steeping grains add real flavor, color, and freshness to plain extract batches. The extra time in our opinion is completely worth it, and the differences will be noticeable.

All Grain Batch:

• 45 minutes – setup, and wait for mash water to warm up
• 1 hour, 30 minutes – mash
• 15 minutes – wait for boil
• 1 hour – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 4 hours 30 minutes total.

All grain brewing does take longer. Complete control over the ingredients and mash leads to noticable benefits in the finished product.

All Grain Batch with 90 minute boil and longer mash:

• 45 minutes – setup, and wait for mash water to warm up
• 2 hour, 30 minutes – mash
• 15 minutes – wait for boil
• 1 hour 30 minute – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 6 hours total.

Some brews, particularly those using a large amount of Pilsner malt use a 90 minute boil. Longer mash times can also lead to higher efficiency.

Other thoughts:

One way to save on setup/tear down time is to have a dedicated brew space, like a shed. This takes time to build up to, but it is really nice to have.

Does time really matter when it comes to home brewing? If you are enjoying yourself that is what matters. Brewing is stress relief.

Quote from the product:
Like most great ideas, the Beer Tool came out of a problem. Being tired of having to use the wife’s bottle opener to crack a cold one the decision was made to come up with something tougher, stronger, and more manlier. A few hours later the original Beer tool was born and there was much rejoicing.

The Manliest Bottle Opener You’ll Ever Own

http://www.thebeertool.com/

There is something that just feels right about it. Works effectively and people get a kick out of it!

They come in different sizes, so make sure to get the size you want. In this case I think bigger is better.
 

Disclaimer: TheBeerTool provided Brewer’s Friend with a complimentary opener.

The recipe is loaded into the Brewer’s Friend Recipe Builder:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/637

This batch pushed capacity limits of my 15 gallon kettle and 48 quart mash lauter tun. I am not convinced my 15 gallon kettle actually holds 15 gallons. It is more like 14, sort of like how a 2×4 is not really two inches by four inches… At least this kettle is enough for an 11 gallon batch.

In the picture there is a little over 13 gallons in the kettle which still leaves room for the boil. The actual batch volume is 11 gallons. That way there is room for trub losses. The plan is to keg this directly from the primary fermentor after the yeast completely fall out.

When draining to the fermentors, I took a staggered approach. 2.5 gallons into the first one, then 2.5 into the next, and so on until both were full. That way, if there was any stratification going on in the kettle it was mitigated. In one fermentor Safale-05 American Ale is being used. In the other it is Wyeast 1272 American Ale II.

The plan is to do a blind taste test and see if we can tell them apart. Liquid yeast is more expensive than the dry yeast (yet ironically the dry yeast has more cells). For this sort of run of the mill beer, if the liquid yeast doesn’t wow me, I’ll stick with the dry yeast for future batches. Nottingham is another yeast I have used here with success, and it imparted a nice bready flavor.

All mini-fridges have a hump inside them where the compressor and fan are located. This eats up some of the usable internal space. The shelves on the door further constrain the internal space. The lesson: going online to buy a fridge/freezer for use as keezer is a bad idea. Sometimes the product description will list internal dimensions, but that’s not enough to go on since the floor might be sloped or the shelves might be in the wrong spot.

The best thing to do is make cardboard cut outs representing the foot print of what you want to put in the fridge. Also note the heights of the containers, leaving room for airlock, hoses, couplers, etc. For example, a corny keg needs 27″ of vertical space to leave clearance for the couplings and is 8-1/2″ – 9″ diameter. Take the cutouts with you to the store and bring a tape measure. Then you can be sure what you are buying will work out.

The humps inside mini-fridges and chest freezers are a real drag. In my keezer, the CO2 tank sits on the hump along with a moisture absorption tray. One trick is to build a 4” collar around the top of the keezer. The hatch will have to be removed and then re-installed when the collar is in place. Often this is enough to take the hump out of the equation so 1 or 2 more corny kegs can be placed inside.

Towards the middle of my project todo list is a fermentation chamber. This is done by removing the door from a mini-fridge and building an insulated box that extends the conditioned space. With a temperature controller, a mini-fridge in this setup can be used for precise temperature control during fermentation. What I’m not sure about is how to safely heat the chamber, in the event it gets too cold in the shed (let’s say I want to keep it at 65F, but outside it is 40F). More on that when I get there.

“She’s got legs!… And she knows how to use them…”

The stand is made of 2×4 doug fir. Everything is nailed and screwed together from multiple angles. I made the curved cuts with a jig saw. The shelves are 3/4” plywood, topped with backer board and tile. The tile is overkill for an electric brew setup, but makes for easy cleanup and a solid look. I painted the wood with a silicon based cement paint to really seal it good. The trim on the edges is 1/8” oak plywood. The thin plywood bends over the curves, and this helped hide all the defects in the original cut. The front is 1/2” walnut.

They say we are overdue for a big earthquake in the northwest. I really don’t want 180F water tumbling down on me or a guest. I see a lot of brew stands online that look rickety. If there is one thing to overbuild, its your brew stand! Aside from strong construction, I took extra care to make sure everything is strapped in place. The kettles are secured with cables. The brew stand itself is screwed into the studs with 6 inch lag blots on the top and bottom. The curves on the stand are setup so the kettles have to be lifted slightly to get them out for cleaning. The stand and the kettles are literally a part of the shed. The shed itself is bolted down to the foundation. Solid.

Here are some more pictures of the brew shed. One reader had asked for a picture of the skylight. Here it is!

The spoiled batch, which had been in the keg for about 2 weeks had the following properties:

• Initial flavor was anti-septic (almost burning).
• Murky appearance (different than chill haze).
• Slippery mouth feel.
• Finshed soapy, with the flavor getting more pronounce, to the point I spit it out. The bitter antiseptic flavor lingers on the tongue.

What the heck! Had I gotten a lax on sanitization? Was my yeast bad? Was there something in the brewing process that lead to this? I asked some home brewing experts and they attribute this to a yeast deficiency – either an infection, or bad yeast. It turns out there were two main factors, repitching of yeast and a dirty spigot in my fermentor. While I am not sure which did more damage, I have evidence of both.

Here is what the carboy looked like, note the ring:

If you have a goopy ring around the krausen layer you might be in trouble. The off gases from the fermentation also smelled ‘cheesy’, which tipped me off there might be a serious problem.

Beer Forensics:

For what turned out to be the spoiled batch, I opted to re-pitch yeast (Wyeast Northwest Ale 1332) from a previous batch of IPA. The harvested yeast was in the fridge in a ball jar for about 2 weeks. That IPA was already in the keg and was drinkable, but it was not my best batch ever. It had a thin finish and there were some light ‘chemical’ flavors present that come and go from sip to sip. I figured at the time, the beer was just green – and it did improve a lot after a month went by. When I kegged the IPA and harvested the yeast, it looked and smelled fine, a fresh bready aroma was present. That meant it is good to go right? WRONG!

Something funny happened with the fermentation of that IPA. One night I forgot to set the furance at 64F, and instead turned it all the way down to 58F – so it got pretty cold in the house that night. It turns out NW Ale 1332 does best between 65F and 75F. In effect, that night the yeast were really stressed. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I do recall the fermentation slowed after that. I also left the IPA in the primary for 23 days, without racking, and then harvested the 23 day old yeast cake. In retrospect I should have spent the $4-$7 for a new yeast pack. Even though that yeast cake smelled good at the time, it was no longer to be trusted given its age, and the temperature fluctuation.

I gathered two ball jars from the yeast cake. Now a month later, on inspecting the second ball jar, there is a thin line of black mold growing on top. YUCK!

That IPA was fermented in a plastic bucket with a spigot. The subsequent failed batch was fermented in a glass carboy. I went ahead and tore apart the spigot on the bottling bucket, and look what I found in there:

It had probably been over 3 years since I setup that bottling bucket and spiot. Whoops! No doubt whatever mildew / mold / germ was living in there is not good for the beer. I terminated it with extreme prejudice – a strong bleach solution!

After I soaked everything, I thought I was ready to go again, but then I noticed, inside the sealed part of the spigot, there were some faint black spots. It is hard to see in the picture, so I enhanced the second one.

The mold / mildew, whatever it is, is growing INSIDE the sealed part where the spigot rotates. There is no way to scrub that section. I am looking into getting a different type of spigot that does not have this design flaw.

Yeast Re-pitching Revisited:

All this time I had thought I was being a good sport by re-pitching yeast. That is what the pro’s do right? Well, it turns out I did not realize the risks associated. I wrote an article awhile ago that praises yeast washing, and another on yeast repitching. I have updated those articles to point out what was learned here. The time it takes to harvest and clean the yeast (15-20 minutes), plus the risk is not worth the $3 savings it offers! I should have known that…

Key Take Aways:

• Yeast re-pitching can be risky and might not be worth the cost savings for home brewers.
• If you are going to repitch – I would rack after about a week and save that yeast. Let the secondary fermentation finish on its own, and discard that smaller, older yeast cake. I would also be very strict about temperatures ranges and sanitization. I successfully repitched many many times, but now I am starting to see where perhaps some inconsistency came into play.
• Tear everything apart now and then and completely clean it with PBW or a bleach solution if the materials are compatible with bleach.
• Look for stuff growing inside what appear to be sealed parts, such as the spigot on the bottling bucket.

PROST!