Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Brewing Outside on Propane

Brewing outside can be a really fun experience. It saves time for a number of reasons. First, there is is less cleanup to do before hand and afterward. Second, the water boils a lot faster than on a stove. I have waited 45 minutes to boil 3 gallons on a gas stove, but with propane it is closer to 10 minutes. Another benefit is the smell of the wort is not kept inside the house, making it easier on your family *if* they don’t like it for some odd reason.

There are of course a few downsides. It is easier to get a boil over because there is so much heat going into the kettle. I am also careful not to burn ingredients on the bottom of the kettle. Propane can be dangerous to work around, so make sure the fittings are safe and the tank is secure.

Here is an image of me brewing some English Pub Bitter. There is under 15 minutes left as the wort chiller coil is already hooked up. For instructions on how to build a wort chiller, click here. Turning on the hose and letting it shoot the warm water into the lawn is fun and I used that water to rinse out the hops bags. Cooling with wort chiller took about 10 minutes!

Make sure to check the weather ahead of time.

Posted in Brewing, Equipment | 1 Comment »

Hops Alpha Acid Table

Alpha Acids from hops contribute to the bitterness in beer. During the boil alpha acids are isomerized and increase international bittering units (IBUs). This site has an IBU calculator.

Hops also contain beta acids, which contribute to aroma only. The more alpha acids the more bittering potential per ounce. For example, one ounce of Northern Brewer (8.5) is roughly equivalent of two ounces of Domestic Hallertau (3.9) in terms of bittering potential.

This chart is a general guideline only. The actual AA varies from year to year depending on the weather, harvest conditions, and storage.

If you do not see your hops listed here please leave a comment or send us feedback and we will find out for you!

Posted in Ingredients | 10 Comments »

Do It Yourself Immersion Wort Chiller Instructions

After reading about the benefits of wort chillers and seeing the prices I took it upon myself to build an immersion wort chiller. It takes about 30 minutes and a trip to the hardware store. No special tools are needed beyond a crescent wrench.

An immersion chiller works by taking advantage of the cool underground temperature of tap water. Running tap water through the coil allows a heat exchange to occur, removing heat from the wort rapidly.

The entire setup cost me $66.70. That was about half the retail price on an equivalent model. I won’t go back to ice baths ever again. It cools a 3.5 gallon batch in about 10 minutes! It is a big time saver when brewing.

50 feet of 3/8 ” soft copper tubing was desirable because that length is good enough for 10 gallon batches in the future.

I wrapped the coils around a bucket so they would fit nicely into my kettle:

Make sure the supply side starts at the top and the return side comes from the bottom. This will help with the hot water convection inside the kettle.

The store had 20 feet and 30 feet, but no single 50 feet length, so I combined the two tubes into one with compression fittings. It was nice that no soldering was needed because I was concerned about the health effects:

The supply side uses a standard female garden hose attachment with a compression fitting:

When I use this indoors, I attach a pvc tube to the outlet side and use a worm drive clamp to lock it down.

The final product, an immersion wort chiller:

NOTICE:
Make sure to test it out for leaks before using. You do not want boiling water and steam shooting everywhere when you are trying to make beer. Also be sure to clean it with a non abrasive cleaner to get all the grime from the factory off before dunking it into your wort. It will come out of the wort very clean because the heat scrubs off all the oils and tarnish. Cleaning took some trial and error. Vinegar did not work and left an ugly gray stain on the copper. What did work was lemon juice in hot water and some mild scrubbing with a dish rag.

To use, submerse in the boiling wort when the batch has 15 minutes left to sanitize the unit. Be careful, steam and hot water will shoot out of the in and out pipes. Hook up the hose and the pvc outlet tubing before submersing. When I brew outdoors, I don’t worry about the outlet tubing and point it away from my work area. For indoor brewing I put the pvc outlet tube down inside the sink so it doesn’t go anywhere. I have a converter for my utility sink which allows me to hook up the hose and run it into the kitchen. Your hardware store will have that too, I brought in the attachment for my faucet so I could get the correct size in one trip.

Posted in Equipment | 5 Comments »

English Pub Bitter, 2008

I wanted to try making something similar to the run of the mill beer in England. I found out from this batch, most of the flavor differences are due to the hops and yeast. Everyone who tried this beer really liked it.

Posted in Recipes | No Comments »

Orange American Hefeweizen, 2008

The Eugene City Brewery has a honey orange wheat beer that inspired me to brew this. This beer is much heavier in flavor and body, which I ended up liking better. You can still drink a ton of it one setting, and it was perfect for my bachelor party. The coriander comes through really nicely in a bright citrus flavor. As the citrus flavor falls off the potent cascade hops hit the tongue producing an excellent bitterness.

Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »

Beer, Tap Into the Art and Science – By Charles Bamforth

Beer, Tap Into the Art and Science – By Charles Bamforth

If you want to know everything about the history of beer, the processes of brewing, and the chemistry behind each of the ingredients this is the book. It is full of interesting facts and quotes about beer, yet it is a very serious approach. Contains details on the chemical composition of grains and the malting process. The chapter on hops covers the treasured plant’s original shaky introduction into beer in Europe, where and how it is grown, and all facets of its chemical makeup. The chapter on the brewing process is full of details about modern day brew house vessels, quality control, and considerations and trade offs during production.

This book does not touch on home brewing, nor is it a ‘how to’ guide in any sense. It gives an elevated sense of appreciation for beer, its rich history, and elaborate modern production process. The author hammers home the point of nearly freezing beer for at least three days before bottling to drop out the remaining sediment. That may be something to try in my next home brew batch.

Topics unique to this book:

• History of beer and its ingredients
• Tables on beer production and consumption
• Information on the positive health effects of moderate alcohol consumption
• Large scale brewing process schematic (page 54, 2^nd edition)
• Diagrams of large scale brewing equipment: Mash converter, lauter tun, wort kettle, hot wort receiver, and wort cooler. (starting page 132, 2^nd edition)
• Information on the various defects that can occur in beer and how to correct

Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »

Cost Breakdown of Beer, Home Brewing vs. Commercial

The relative cost of commercial beer to the consumer is 70% marketing, packaging, and taxes! It is all because of the hefty price of marketing and packaging that home brewers have a substantial economic edge over large scale breweries. Comparing the breakdown to what home brewers pay for the relative ingredients tells us home brewers are paying a lot more for hops and malt. That makes sense due to the buying power large breweries have. Even so, home brewers easily beat the price of store bought beer. Quality is also easy to surpass after the fist few batches.

Large Scale Breweries:

Data Source: Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing, by Charles Bamforth, 2nd Edition, Page 191

Home Brewing Relative Costs:

This is a basic 5 gallon batch of beer, OG of 1.05. Let’s assume we need 5.5 lb of DME (or 10-12 lb of grain) 4 oz of loose hops, gypsum/irish moss, fresh liquid yeast, 50 bottle caps and some cleaning solution.

Closing Thoughts:

The time factor of home brewing is not considered, since home brewing is a hobby and something to be enjoyed. In other words, this hobby pays for itself. Check out the break even cost article for more details on that:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/2008/06/07/break-even-cost-of-home-brewing/

Posted in Economics of Brewing | 7 Comments »

Standards of Brewing – By Charles W. Bamforth, Ph.D, D.Sc.

Standards of Brewing – By Charles W. Bamforth, Ph.D, D.Sc.
A Practical Approach to Consistency and Excellence

For a home brewer who likes numbers and math, it is a fairly interesting peek into what brewing for a living looks like. Lots of details about how to test ingredients for quality. Making consistent beer every time on a large scale is a tough job!

The target audience of this book is brewing staff employed by large beer breweries. Covers procedures on quality assurance relating to the entire brewing process. The idea of scientifically testing beer at each stage is intriguing but not very practical for the home brewer. Large scale brewing is extremely technical, involving lots of scientific testing and data analysis. At each step in the beer production process quality control plays a huge role. There are many ‘tweaks’ that can be done along the way to a adjust a beer’s final profile. Some of these are way out there for a home brewer, and it makes me trust my home brew a lot more over commercial beer because I know exactly what is in it!

Topics unique to this book:

• Large scale brewing practices
• Using statistical measures to control brewing quality
• Twenty key quality control checks in a brewery
• Breakdown of statistics on ingredients (grain, water, hops, yeast)
• Water quality standards tables by impurity
• Chemistry involved in brewing

Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »

The Complete Handbook of Beers and Brewing – By Brian Glover

The Complete Handbook of Beers and Brewing – By Brian Glover
The beer lover’s guide to the world

This book is not about home brewing, it is about beer. Every page contains vivid color images of beer labels, bottles, ingredients, production, and people enjoying beer. The first section briefly covers the history of beer, its ingredients, production, and styles. The second, and much more lengthy section is an encyclopedia of beers from around the world organized by country and brewery with many pictures of the different labels and bottles.

If you are planning a trip to Europe to sample beers, avoid Norway, Sweden, and Finland because of their high tax rates on beer and historical restrictions on alcohol. “Norway levies the highest and most punitive rate of duty on beer in the world”, page 116

The best place to go is Belgium and Germany:
“About 30% of all the breweries in the world are in Germany.” page 146

Awesome quote:
“Make sure that the beer – four pints a week – goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get at drop.” – Winston Churchill, in a note to the Secretary of State, 1944.

Topics Unique to this book:

• History of beer and brewing

• History of prohibition and brew during war times

• Overview of large scale production of beer

• Description of 75 different classifications of beer

• Tour of beers from 32 regions

Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »

Barley Wine, 2008 Recipe

I will brew Barley Wine every spring so it is ready by winter. Next time I will try using champagne yeast a few days into the primary fermentation to get the final gravity down. Extra hops would help give it a more awesome bitter flavor. A full wort boil would also get the utilization of the hops higher. I created the IBU calculator on this site after I brewed this batch, had I checked it I would have known to add more hops. This is an expensive batch of beer and it takes a long time to ferment and age in the bottle, but it is worth waiting for. It is not a beer you can drink a lot of in one setting. It is more of a beer you drink from a snifter to finish off the night.

Posted in Recipes | No Comments »