Many of you who have talked to me in person over the past year have probably heard me talk a bit about my new homebrewing stand.  Well, I’m happy to say it’s pretty much completed.  (Let’s be honest, is there ever going to be a time when you stop tweaking things on projects you’re working on?)

So here’s the rundown of the system:

• Single Tier Brutus 10 Frame Design
• Direct Fire HLT (Hot Liquor Tank) and Boil Kettle
• 130k BTU Propane Burners
• This is a HERMS (Heat Exchanged Recirculating Mash System)
• PID controls the temperature of the mash as it recirculates.
• 16 Gallon Boil Kettle
• Polysulfone quick disconnects
• Soon to be added: Stainless Steel Hopback.

The external exchange is probably one of the biggest differences from most HERMS systems.  I got the suggestion from my friend Pat Reddy who showed me Dennis Collins’ external heat exchanger (his site is currently down, here’s the Google cache.)

Why an external exchanger?  Because it’s more efficient.  By using your HLT as the exchanger, you’re forced to heat and monitor 10-12 gallons of water at a certain temperature.  This external exchange only uses 1.5 gallons of water, which makes heating and cooling the water much quicker.

I also only have a single pump on this system.  Why?  Because I’m broke.  Plus, I can pour my runnings into a bucket and pick the bucket up and just pour it into the boil kettle.

Also, I want to thank Mike Leahy for his big help on this project.  Mike did all of the welding and construction on the frame and kettles.  There is no way I could have done that on my own, so I really appreciate everything he did.  If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Update: Willie Nordmann had a few questions, thought I’d post the answers here as well:

Why Polysulfone QD not brass? Worried about lead?
Wanted something I could handle with hot liquids. They’re a little more expensive, but it’s nice to know I can grab something without being burnt.

Hows the burners? Can they be adjusted to a low temp?
They put out a lot of heat. I mean, a lot. Yeah, I can get them to a low temp without a problem.

Is the an electric starter on the burner?
It was. It melted away. Again, a lot of heat.

So the PID controls the Electric heating element on the HERMS?
Correct.

The pump is controlled by plugging it in and moving around the QD?
Correct.

Is the heat exchanger also the chiller?
No, I have a separate immersion chiller for that.

When are you brewing next?
When it gets slightly warmer. I’m hoping some time in March. Still have a couple of tweaks to make to the system.

This one is for all of those homebrewers out there. If you’re looking to get some honest feedback on your beer, a homebrew competition is the best place to start. They’re going to give you informative feedback that can only help to improve your beer. Dan Stauder of the St. Louis Brews forwarded information on to me about this year’s competition:

The Happy Holiday Homebrew Competition is the St. Louis Brews annual homebrew competition. It is a fully sanctioned AHA and BJCP event. This year it will be held on December 9, December 11, 2009 and December 12, 2009.

The location of the competition & banquet is the Annunciation Church in Webster Groves, located at 12 West Glendale Road, just South of Hwy. 44 on Elm Avenue. Here is a link to a map. We are proud to be the final qualifying event for the Twelth Annual Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing.

2 bottles per entry
Fee is $6.00 per entry
Entries must be received by Friday, December 4, 2009

Please register on the web with a valid email address. The registration page will have all the details of where to send the entries. Local dropoff will be at the local homebrew shops.

Scoresheets will be scanned and emailed back to the brewer by the next day. Currently this is the only competition that I know that scans and emails scoresheets for quick feedback to the brewer.

I plan on entering a few beers this year just to get some feedback (and if they’re good enough maybe win an award.) If you’re a homebrewer I would strongly suggest that you do the same!

If you’re a new homebrewer or you’re just looking at upgrading some equipment then you may want to block away some time this Sunday, September 27th from  12:30 until 3:00 PM for the St. Louis Area Brewers Flea Market located in the parking lot of the Schlafly Tap Room.

Homebrewers from the area will be peddling their wares and you may be able to pick up quite a bargain on some used equipment. You can also sell some equipment of your own, for more information check out the St. Louis Brews forum and I’m sure I’ll see you there.

If you’ve been following the STL Hops Forums, then this is old news to you. But if you haven’t, the East Side Brewers homebrewing club has a new website.  It’s still a bit of a work in progress, but they’ll be featuring blogs, brewing information and their own homebrewing forums.

The East Side Brewers have really blown up over the past few months.  Make sure to visit the site to see what events they have coming up and stop by for some great beer, great knowledge and some really great guys.

OK, back to brewing this weekend after a 3 week break. I almost did an extract batch this weekend just to save a little time, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the extra $20-25.This weekend will be another Two Hearted IPA clone. I’m extremely happy with how this last one turned out, even if it is a bit cloudy. It smells and tastes fantastic. I’m probably going to end up making it my go to brewing beer from here on ou, hoping to perfect it along the way.

Pictured in the photo to the right is my Mango Blonde, my Raspberry Wheat and my Imperial IPA. After working on the Mango for 4 years, I think this is my last attempt.  I just don’t get any mango taste or aroma that comes through so it seems like a waste of time and energy.  It was a worthy effort but it’s time to hang it up.

You may remember my brewing schedule that I set up back in January, here’s the list as it stands right now:

May
Russian Imperial Stout
Weissbier
Two Hearted Clone

June
Belgian Dark Strong
Oktoberfest

July
Pumpkin Beer
Chocolate Cherry Stout

August
Schwarzbier
Robust Porter

September
Dopplebock
Christmas Ale
Imperial IPA

October
80 Schilling
Southern English Brown

November
Belgian Dubbel
Oatmeal Stout
Two Hearted Clone

December
English Barleywine
Brown Porter

I originally was going to brew a Belgian Dark Strong this month, but the Belgian beers just aren’t doing it for me as much anymore. I find them a bit too sweet and I can’t drink more than one without wishing I had something a bit hoppier. So I’ve decided to move the Weiss beer up to May and I’m thinking about taking the BDS out all together and moving the English Barleywine up to June and finding something else to brew in December.

Also, if anyone is interesting in homebrewing and has never done it or if you just want to help, you’re always welcome to come over to the house and help out.

Just an update on some of my brewing from over the past few weekends.

• Brewed the Two Hearted Clone last Saturday.
  • OG finished a little lower than I would have liked, but nothing terrible at 1.062 (was shooting for 1.065)
  • Lag time of about 8 hours. Also added 8 drops of FermCap to keep down on the krausen.
  • Dry hopped with 2oz of Centennial hops this weekend and moved into the closest for one week on the hops.
• Moved the Pliny the Elder (Imperial IPA) clone from a carboy into a bright keg.
  • Unfortunately the pelletized hops clogged up my ball lock, so I had to just open the keg and rack it in.
  • Finished out at 1.014 from an OG of 1.088. I tasted it and was quite impressed. I had the girlfriend taste it and she said even at this point, it’s better than Hopslam.
  • Noticed a bit of fusel alcohol aroma as it warmed. Hopefully some of this will age off a bit.
• Brought the Mango Blonde down to 37° last weekend.
  • Transfered to bright keg this weekend and added 6lbs of mango. Looking back at it though, should not have moved this into the bright tank. I think I’ll just swap dip tubes.
  • Also, fitting 6lbs of mango into the keg lost me about a gallon of beer. Not a big deal.
• Chilled and carbonated the La Fin Du Monde clone.
• Bottled 20 bottles of my Oatmeal Stout and 14 Bottles of the Southern English Brown. Dumped the rest of the Oatmeal Stout.
  • Had a lot of foaming with the Oatmeal Stout, I think it was due to the keg being warm.

This weekend I tackled a Raspberry Wheat beer. 47.9% Pils, 47.9% White Wheat and 4.3% Crystal 15. One additional of Willamette at 60 minutes to bring it to 18 IBUs. I’ll add 3lbs of raspberry puree after primary fermentation has ceased.

I also did overnight mash for this beer. I’m trying to avoid brewing on Sundays and thanks to the awesome Repeal of Prohibition festival I was busy Saturday afternoon. So I began my mash right before heading for dinner on Friday night, came home and brought the temperature up to 174 with my heatstick and left it overnight. I woke up early on Saturday morning and began heating my sparge water. The temp on the mash dropped to 153 overnight, so I used the heatstick to bring it back up to 170. Did my sparge and then boiled. I was hoping this would make a 6 hour brew day only 3-4 hour day, but thanks to a 90 minute boil it was closer to 4.5-5 hours. Still made for an interesting experiment.

Oh, this was also my 6th batch in 6 weeks. Whew. Talking a Belgian Wit this weekend and then taking off a few weeks from brewing. I’m sure it’ll make Irene happy.

I mentioned in Friday’s Round-Up that I was brewing a clone of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder. I thought I’d provide a picture of it fermenting because I was pretty shocked just how violent it became. I brew 5.5 gallons of beer and put it into 6.5 gallon carboys to allow room for the krausen (that brownish-yellow foam on top). But when you have bigger (as in sugar/alcohol) beers such as this one, you’ll usually need to have a blow off tube to catch any additional krausen that may come out of the fermenter.

Here are some quick specifics about my beer:

• OG 1.088
• IBUs: 100+ (ProMash estimated it at 284)
• Lag time: About 8 Hours

This is a bit bigger than Vinnie’s beer, but I’m sure that the amount of hops added should be able to handle the extra 15 points of sugar. After the primary finishes I’ll rack to a 5 gallon carboy and dry hop with about 7 more ounces of hops. This will probably be the first beer I try my Randal on. Exciting stuff, though I guess this means I’m officially a hop head.