Let's get it in the barrel!

After 3 weeks of fermenting, I finally put Townie Brown into the oak barrel and keg! I fermented in two 5 gallon batches and it ended up around 1.022 gravity at about 11.8% ABV! He's a big boy. One of the 5 gallon batches was slightly more dilute because of the water chase we did coming out of the brewery into the fermentor. That batch finished up around 1.022 and went into the keg. The other batch which was full strength went into the barrel and was still around 1.026. I think the 6-9 months at 55-60F in the barrel will let it ferment out a bit more though and it will finish around 1.022 as well. Enough throwing numbers around...this stuff was tasty. It has a nice, sweet malt and brown sugar backbone to it that I think balances out the high alcohol really well. There is a slight British hop aroma, but not much bitterness. The one in the keg will be carbonated in about 10 days, so we'll see how it tastes poured into a glass...a very small glass though. I have a feeling this one will be on tap for some time.

Get into the barrel, Townie Brown! You can see what's on tap as well

The other beers are pouring and they are quite delicious..at least to me. Some might find them a little hoppy for there liking, but I think they're great. I might have to stop pouring some of them so I can bottle them up for the NHC competition. I'm entering an Imperial IPA, English Old Ale, American Barleywine, and two Specialty Beers (Imperial Red and Imperial Brown). I'm excited in only the way a beer geek can be, to bottle these guys up with my new Blichmann BeerGun. It will make it a lot easier to bottle.

The Lowell.Brewing strong ale festival will have to be planned soon so I can clear the taps and make room for some new brews. There will be some more sessionable beers in this next phase, maybe try to keep them under 7%! Now why would I want to do that?....

Count me in to see this one...

I never get tired of these movies and can't wait to see this...whenever it comes out. The craft beer culture in America told by Colorado's craft brewers. Should be great!

He's a big ol' beer named Townie Brown

Yesterday, Jeff and I brewed one hell of a beer. We made 10 gallons of an imperial brown! What's that you say?, "You'll NEVER drink 10 gallons of an imperial beer". Yes, we know...at least not quickly. 5 gallons of this beer is going into the oak barrel I have and will be aged for about 6-9 months. The other five will be kegged and served. The brew day went great, though the mash was a beast this time around. The mash tun was about maxed about, check out the picture below. The beer will finish at 12.1% theoretically (OG was 1.114) and was made up of Marris Otter malt, 2-row, crystal, special roast, and a wee bit of chocolate malt. Also, we added maple syrup and dark brown sugar. We topped of our numbers with some light malt extract and corn sugar as well. It smelled and tasted delicious, strong toasted caramel and nutty flavors. The hops used were Columbus for bittering and East Kent Golding for aroma and flavor. The 10 gallons of wort is currently bubbling away in the room next to me!

Say when...

While we were brewing, we also kegged Pliny the Brother and Sally's Lil' Slice of Heaven. They both finished up at around 1.010. That is perfect for Pliny, but maybe a little too low for the barleywine. The lower OG might make the barleywine a little more drinkable, but hopefully some of the body was retained. We'll see, they both tasted fantastic and I can't wait to try them in a week or so. I have been imbibing Kitchen Sink Ale and it tastes great! It turned out like an English Old Ale (think Great Divide Hibernation Ale). The color is great and the head on it sticks around for a good while. I really like it.

Kitchen Sink Ale, freshly poured from the tap

So, the taps will now be full in a couple of weeks and the feverish brewing schedule will calm a bit, though I'm not sure I want it to. I'll have to start focusing on some more sessionable (drink more than one in a sitting) ales after this. Any suggestions? I was thinking of starting with an Amber. I'm probably going to have a Lowell.Brewing Strong Ale Festival to start clearing the taps! Stay tuned, things are rolling and I'm loving the brews off the new system...

Lil' Slice of Heaven

Last Friday, I brewed an Avery Hog Heaven clone. This one was for my wife, Sally! She LOVES this beer...and so do I. Named it "Sally's Lil' Slice of Heaven". Man, the brew day was a long one! This was due to the fact that I didn't get a chance to clean the brewery after brewing Pliny the Brother last time. I was late for dinner at the in-laws' house and had to just rinse and run. Therefore, I had to spend a couple of hours cleaning the brewery before I could even start the new brew! Everything went fairly smooth. I used Whirlfloc in the boil kettle and that seemed to help flocculate the proteins and break and keep it on top of the false bottom when draining. Therefore, no clogging of the plate chiller! I still need to compensate for the holdup volume of my system when transferring out of the brewery into a fermentor. I always seem to boil down to 5 gallons and only get 4.5 in the fermentor. This may also be because the hot wort has expanded and the 5 gallons is really 4.5 in the Boil Kettle anyway. Maybe I'll just up my markings on my sight glass by 0.5 gallons. The gravity was a little lower than expected on the wort (probably b/c I had to chase the wort with water to reach 5 gallons and then I overfilled a little bit...whoops). Besides that, the beer has been fermenting quickly. I just threw the cooled wort on top of the Cal Ale yeast cake from Kitchen Sink Ale. I know some will poo-poo this move, but I had never done it and I want to see how it turns out. Once fermentation is close to complete I will add 4.5 oz. of Columbus hop pellets to dry hop...mmmmmmmm!

The Kitchen Sink Ale is on tap now, but I have not sampled it yet. It has to carb a little bit more. I put the keezer (kegerator made from chest freezer) on casters too, so I can easily roll it out to load kegs. I also hooked up a cooling system for the keezer. I have a glycol plate at the front of my tap tower with inlets and outlets. I used a liquid cooled computer processor cooler from CoolerMaster (Aquagate 80/120). I got it cheap off ebay and just ran new hoses and filled it with more coolant. There is also a small radiator and fan hooked up to the pump as well. This allows the fan to circulate the cool air around the keezer while at the same time cooling the taps. I hooked up a switch to the cooling unit, so I have the option of not running the thing all the time. Hopefully this means no more foaming beer when you pour! Check out the pictures below of the cooling system.

Cooling plate at front of the tap tower, glycol goes in one way and out the other

 Cooling radiator and fan in front pulling air through and out into the keezer. Cooling pump on right with hoses leading to the tap tower. CO2 manifold below with the Eva-Dry unit below to control moisture.

Top view of pump, radiator, and fan

Something's Brewin'...

So, the brewery finally got all hooked up and sync'd up with the controller and computer. The first test batch , Kitchen Sink Ale, was 2 weeks ago and I just threw together some Maris Otter base grain with some old specialty grains and hops I had laying around. It actually tastes pretty good right now in the fermentor. Tastes and looks like a Red with Columbus and Cascade hops, coming in around 7.5% ABV. This one brewed pretty smoothly without any MAJOR hitches (of course, there were a couple minor ones). Just yesterday, my brother and I finally got the chance to brew the beer we've been talking about brewing all year, a Pliny the Elder clone. I named it Pliny the Brother...clever, right? The brew day was great and it is always nice to share my passion of brewing with Jeff and have him get more and more excited about it...I'm pretty sure he'll be as hooked as I am in no time. My rockin' wife, Sally, also helped stir the cauldron. Check out the video below of the brew day: 

Here are some other photos of the day:

Moxie was apprehensive about the brewery in the garage and all the weird noises...he'll get used to it

Getting ready for brew day with some over-exaggerated smiles and thumbs-up...

Newly labeled control panel and pretty lights

Hot Liquor Tank steaming away, lid off for effect...not for heat loss!

Recirculating the mash (vorlaufing)

Jeff lending a hand cleaning kegs and creating a skating rink in the driveway

Boiling away in the kettle

All and all, the brewery is working out great and I am very happy that 6 months worth of work has paid off. It is much easier brewing now than it was before the new brewery. My back has been thanking me at the end of each brew day! There are a couple of minor issues like working out the temp calibration on the RIMS heater outlet and trying not to clog the plate chiller with hop debris and break. It will be a work in progress for a little while, but I am very happy with how it turned out. I never thought my little drawings on post-it notes would actually become what I have in the garage.

So, right now, Kitchen Sink Ale is 8 days into fermentation and activity has subsided. I will probably rack to the keg in a few days once it has completely dropped out and cleared. Pliny the Brother is bubbling away as I write this (check out the video). So far, it smells great and the color looks good. Let's hope for a nice clean fermentation. After that, we'll be dry hopping for about two weeks in a secondary fermentor! Now, I just have to keep the pace of brewing once a week up! It's easy when you have to fill 4 vacant taps, but might not be when we have to drink 5 gallons a week to make room for batches brewed once a week! We'll try our best to keep up...