ARye PA round 2

Memorial Day weekend... perfect time to grill and brew!It was quite a hectic weekend which started off with a quick trip to DeFalco's to pick up a few grain supplies (like my base 2-row malt) between work and heading to a Rammstein concert.  I was whipped afterwards but it was one of the most amazing shows I have been to!  In any case, Sunday was a brew day and I made sure I had all the ingredients ready to make a round two of my RyePA which was very tasty last time.  The grain bill is as follows:

9.5# US 2-row malt
2.5# Rye Malt
1.5# British Crystal 55L
0.5# Wheat malt, red

On Saturday I started up a starter of White Labs California Ale (WLP001) yeast in my 2000mL Erlenmeyer flask by sanitizing it and the stir bar, adding two tablespoons of Light Dry Malt Extract (DME) and about 600mL of water and heating it on the stove to make sure there were no unfriendly growings before cooling it, and then pitching the yeast and the stir bar in and letting it sit on my stir plate for 24 hours.  I originally tried to make my own stir plate out of a cigar box, computer fan, phone charger and some rare-earth magnets, but it didn't quite work right, so I bought this one from Bell Brewing a while back.  Good price and it comes all inclusive.  By Sunday afternoon those little yeasties were very happy and ready to go crazy in my beer!

This mash was a little bit different than last time because Thomas was able to help me stir it up every 10 or 15 minutes to get a good efficiency, but we also kept heating up the kettle a few degrees every time as well since we were continually losing heat.  We started at 160F and added the grains to the grain bag, which dropped the overall temperature to 157.  Every time the temp dropped to 155 or so we bumped it back up to try and keep a continual temperature high enough for a good mash.  The color was rich and the smell was great right away!  Mmmmm one of my favorite parts of brewing is the smell...

For the boil, I've been using a hop bag which I purchased in November at the homebrew shop my parents frequent in Colorado, which has really made a big difference in my setup since I almost never have to filter hops out or deal with clogs in my system now.  I just tie it to the kettle handle and let is sit about halfway down during the boil, as you can see to the right, and open it up whenever I need to add!  Sometimes this gets a little warm, and sometimes I risk dropping the bag entirely, but so far it has worked pretty well.  The hopping schedule for the RyePA was:

60 min  1oz       Cascade pellets
60 min  0.75oz  Mt Hood pellets
30 min  0.25oz  Mt Hood pellets
30 min  0.25oz  Mt Hood whole hops
5 min    0.75oz  Mt Hood whole hops
7days   1oz       Cascade whole hops (dry hop, secondary)

It was pretty hot on Sunday and we decided to roll out our awning for shade, but left the kettle in the sun to keep the heat from possibly damaging the shade, since it was pretty hot right above the kettle. Darn propane... :P

Now for the part I have been really excited to write up: the homemade counterflow cooling system! I wish I would have taken some pictures of making it, but that was long ago.  There are plenty of walkthrus on the interwebs (like this one for example), so take a look. It's not a walk in the park, mind you... we ended up using KY (non petroleum based lubricant!) to get the 25 feet of copper tubing into that damn hose.

But now that all the joints are soldered and the thing is basically sealed (the hose leaks in one spot), it works.  I have the heat tubing to connect to the spigot on the kettle and to the top of the counterflow and then set the counterflow on a double-stacked bucket so it dumps perfectly into the fermenting carboy, as you can see to the left.  Once it is hooked up, just throw the switch and let it flow! The top part you can see the heat tubing with beer flowing in and the hose with water flowing out. In about 15 minutes all the beer flows from the kettle to the fermenter and is 78 degrees, perfect for the yeast to be pitched. There's a better view of the whole setup on the right, with Thomas checking the flow out of the kettle.

After all was said and done, I had A-RyePA round 2 made and it smelled exquisite. It started popping away within about 45 minutes and we finished up a dinner consisting of chicken breasts, steaks, squash, peppers, corn and zucchini all popped on the grill during the cooling process, and finished by the time cleanup was done.  Of course, since I had just gone to Albuquerque the weekend prior for the solar eclipse I had brought back a dozen New Mexican craft beers which went well during the day and the meal.  Between those beers, old homebrews, the grilled meal and a good day of brewing, it was a perfect end to a Memorial weekend!


PS: Still looking for a label for "ARyePA" beyond the simple text that I have here.  It works, but it's not as sexy as the others. Six pack for the designer! I plan on making this on a regular basis too, so it will be reused ;)