Suburban Brewing

As reported by the Brew Lounge there is a new homebrew shop set to open soon in the Downingtown area. Since I work near Exton this place will be just a short drive away. Nice to see a shop finally opening in this part of Chester County. I’ll post the address and web url once available, for now we know the place will be called: Artisan Homebrew.

While on the topic of homebrewing shops… I had the pleasure of visiting Brew Your Own Beer (no web site as of yet) located in Havertown which is about 5 minutes from my house in Drexel Hill. I planned on stopping over there few times but due to long work hours I could never make it before closing time. Recently I acquired two 1/2 barrel kegs (legally of course). Both of them still had some PBR in it so I needed to open each keg to get it cleaned. Both kegs have the Miller Brewing Company logos on them and are stamped with PBR July 2009 production dates. Anyhow, I had trouble opening one of the kegs as it had the “Miller Style” valve which has a release spring under the steel ball to prevent gas pressure from blowing up in your face. This valve is alot different than the standard spring type found in most kegs and it was a bitch to open. Needless to say I ended up wrecking the valve and the dipping tube while trying to take it out. Okay so what does this have to do with Brew Your Own Beer? While there I bumped into Dave, who is one of the brewers at Victory Brewing Company. Apparently he visits BYOB often to pickup hop bags and other brewing gear. I figured he’ll know how to open a keg so I asked him what is the best way of opening one that has the standard spring valve (at the time I had no idea my other keg had the Miller valve, otherwise I would asked him about it as well). Dave was nice enough to give me the scoop on how to get it open:

1. release the pressure
2. use a sharpened screwdriver and press down the indentation in the valve to release the spring
3. once the spring lifts a bit use pliers  to gently pry it away
4. remove the dipping tube
5. done!

sure enough it took me a minute to open it once I got home. I wish someone made a tool to get the Miller style valve removal easier, or I’m just going to avoid getting Miller kegs like the fire!

After much thought and quite a bit of creative thinking I finally came up with a solution for building an affordable 3 tier gravity system that will house my brewing equipment. After reading many homebrewing discussion forums I’ve noticed many people either build a 3 tier system from wood or they fabricate it from steel. I didn’t like the idea of using wood because of the possible fire hazard and I did not like the notion of building one from steel for the simple reason that I do not know how to weld.

So what else could I use to build my system? How about using store bought shelves to build a 3 tier structure! This structure has to be strong enough to hold my brew pots and burners. It has to be steel so it doesn’t catch on fire and finally it has to be flexible enough to allow for a step design that is typical to a 3 tier brewing system.

Once I had this rough idea of what was needed I started to scour the internet for such modular shelving system. It took me quite a bit of time before I finally came across the Metro Commercial Shelves sold by the Container Store. Here is what they look like in different configurations:

They can be assembled in various configurations so what you see above are just examples of their standard “out of the box” setups.

What I needed was the ability to build my shelves from scratch and to accomplish this I found these components sold individually. Now I had to do a bit planning, things like measuring my burner with a pot on it, the total height of my garage where brewing will take place. Cost is another factor, although the overall structure will not be expensive it is will not be as cheap as a wood contraption.

To be continued…

Since I’ll be using a steel pot for my mashtun as opposed to an igloo cooler that most homebrewers use it will be important for me to control the mash temperature when and if needed. I realize without insulation my temp could drop quickly and drastically so to combat that I’ve purchased a 1500 watt professional electric burner for my mashtun. This is not a heating element that is typically inserted into the mashtun, this one will sit under the pot. I’m certain it will take a while for me to tweak its power output to a point where temp loss is negligible. Yes, 1500 watts is not much but I’ll be brewing 5 gallon batches and the goal of this burner is to keep things “warm”. My propane burners will be used for boiling. Okay so why not use an insulated cooler? This is just a personal preference really. I’m not a big fan of plastic and would like to avoid using it during brewing at all costs.

After short break things started to move along, most importantly in the forward direction!  The guys at Northern Brewer came through and replaced my broken pot. The whole process was very smooth, no questions asked. They even emailed me a pre-paid UPS label to send the pot back and within 10 days I received a brand new replacement pot. Kudos to them for providing outstanding customer service. Yesterday I picked up a 33 lbs propane tank from a guy in Media for $5.00, yup. FIVE DOLLARS! Craigstlist is wonderful. I figured my high pressure propane burners will “burn” through propane pretty quickly so I’d like to get another 30 lb or 40lb tank.

Today my two Polar Ware pots arrived from Northern Brewer, along with a false bottom,  1/2 ball valves and couple rubber stoppers for my carboys. Pots look enormous! I wrapped some teflon tape around the screw pipes and a proceeded to attach the valves to each pot. The first pot went pretty easily, got it tightened well and all was looking good. I did the same on the 2nd pot but I felt screwing the valve was much harder on this one. Afterward I proceeded to fill both pots with water to see if the valves are tight. First pot was fine but the 2nd pot started to leak under the valve; nothing major just dripping a bit. I attempted to remove the valve to see what the problem was but it would not budge! It is basically stuck –permanently attached to the pot. Looks like I’ll need to call Polar Ware.

After doing some homework I’ve decided to go with a three tiered gravity flow system for my setup. Initially I thought about building shelves utilizing steel builder’s squares from Home Depot but I found nice steel shelves online that can hold up to 800 lbs and are modular. The plan was to buy 3 sets of shelves in different height levels then attach them together so it created a 3 tiered/step system. After measuring my garage I found that my ceiling is 85 inches from the floor while the brewing system including pots, burners and shelves exceeded that by 12+ inches. So… I had to modify my plans and instead go with 2 sets of shelves and low-profile propane burners. The bottom tier will stand on the floor instead of being elevated. I’m okay with that type of a compromise, besides it will save a bit of money as well since I don’t have to buy shelves for the 3rd level (bottom).

Friday I received a copy of my water report from Aqua PA and here are the results:

1. Calcium – 30 mg/L
2. Magnesium – 9.8 mg/L
3. Sodium – 27 mg/L
4. Iron – Not Detected
5. Bicarbonate – Not Reported
6. Sulfate – 46 mg/L
7. Chloride – 40 mg/L
8. Alkalinity (Bicarbonate) – 53 mg/L
9. Hardness – 110 mg/L
10. Chlorine residual – 1.82mg/L

Overall it is not too bad. It will need tweaking for certain once I start brewing but that will depend on the beer styles I ended up making. For the most part Calcium is too low, needs to be above 50 mg/L and higher. Magnesium is also too low, should be in the 30 range.

Interestingly Aqua actually sent people over to my place, I’m assuming to take the sample directly from the tap but since it was during business hours no one was here to give them access to the water. Few days later I received a letter from them which contained two reports: one was from the Pickering East Pump and the other from Pickering West Pump 1. So I’m assuming these samples were taken and analyzed at the pumping station which supplies my neighborhood.  Once I get close to brewing I’ll either request another report or have an independent lab test my water at the destination as opposed to its source.

I’ve decided to get a 10 gallon Polar Ware pot (with false bottom, 1/2 ball valve and thermometer port) as my mash tun. I know size is always an issue but since I will be brewing alot of batches I don’t want to waste too many ingredients if a batch turns out undesirable. Utilizing a 10 gallon pot will be perfect for 5 gallon batches and should give me enough room to prevent boil-overs. I’d hate to sound negative but I’ve become disappointed a bit with my local Home Brewing Stores. I called 4 stores today and none stock the type of pot I described above. Now I would really like to support my LHBS but if they don’t stock merchandise what else can I do? With some online retailers offering $7.99 flat shipping and no tax plus stock  availability how can you go wrong? It looks like my 10 gallon mash tun will be coming from Texas.

While I’m still in the “equipment purchasing mode” I decided to find out a bit about the water supply in Drexel Hill. I went to Aqua Pennsylvania’s web site and found a link to Water Quality Reports Search. Here I was able to find  and download this PDF Water Quality Report for zip code 19026. I was so excited about my find until I looked closer and realized these reports are just summaries and they lack details. Specifically details important for brewing are missing such as the levels of:

• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Sodium
• Iron
• Bicarbonate
• Sulfate
• Chloride
• pH levels (these I could measure myself)

I picked up the phone, called Aqua’s Customer Service and asked for a detailed report which they said they do not have. Instead they offered to have my water tested tomorrow and a detailed report generated. They asked me what type of analysis I wanted and what should be included in the report. I provided the above list of elements which were added to my request. I asked for an Order # to make sure my request doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Now we wait!

4 x 6.5 gallon Carboys

We left Drexel Hill at 6:30pm today and drove to Columbus, NJ to buy these jugs at Rubino’s. They advertised Italian carboys for $35 per bottle on their website, which is a heck of a deal. Knowing how expensive shipping would be I figured it would be cheaper to take a ride to Columbus and pick them up. I remember seeing carboys for $60+ when the only manufacturer of them in North America shut down few months ago. Since then a new supplier was found in Italy and prices have been dropping steadily.

Rubino’s was the only place relatively close to me that had 6.5 gallon glass carboys in stock and they were willing to stay open past their 7:30pm closing time while I was en route to their shop.

So why did I buy 4 of them? I’d like to brew and ferment 3-4 batches at a time. Doing this will also allow me to make slight variations or alterations in the recipe and see which one produced the best results. Depending on how things progress I may buy 2 more carboys in the near future and brew 5-6 batches at a time.