The largest chiller

While I like to brag about my chiller, I cannot compete with the guys over at The Champagne of Blogs. They just dumped the hot wort into a cold river.

In fact the entire brew day was a picnic (literally) by the banks of this river. Reading the story, there is just one thing I would have done differently. I would pitch the yeast as soon as the wort reaches the pitching temperature. No waiting around the get the fermentation going. I am a bit panicky until the yeast has begun doing its job, and would not have been able to keep a strait face is I got pulled over with cold wort just waiting to get infected. No – I want my storm troopers (yeast) ready and going in to action ASA(F)P.

Wow – totally nice place to brew. It beasts my kitchen by far.

“Why do you brag about your chiller”, I can almost hear you ask. It is quite simple. Whereas most chillers are six to seven meters of copper tubing, mine is made of 22 meters. So you see, mine is bigger than average ;-)

Performance wise, I can get 25 liters of wort from 100 deg C to 29 deg C in 8 minutes flat, but have no rivers available at all.

A snitch threaten to close home brew shop

Now I have spent a lot of time focussed on how nice people are in the Danish home brew community. Well now there is a snake in paradise! A snitch has reported our local home brew shop Maltbazaren.dk the authorities.

The anonymous weasel apparently claimed that Matltbazaren.dk sold infected rye malt with intent. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that there is a suspicion that the rye malt might contain too high levels of ‘meldrøje’.

Maltbazaren.dk has handled the situation professionally from the start with stopping and recalling the rye malt in question, and this without the confirmation weather there is a problem or not. Customers have been warned not to use any rye malt until lab results from Weyermann can confirm or deny the suspicion.

This post really is not about the rye malt at all. It amazes me that someone could be such a jerk and turn this little shop in. Maltbazaren.dk is largely run by volunteers and craft brewers themselves.

One of the consequences is that they no longer can mill the grain being sold. This means that now there is a higher economic threshold when starting out as a home brewer. Now you also need to have access to a mill too.

So now they are considering to close or sell the shop.

Wow – hold on just one minute! This will be the biggest blow the the home brew community in Denmark ever. In fact Maltbazaren.dk is partly the reason that I brew. The availability of ingredients is a key factor to have an active home brew community. I remember the days I ordered stuff from abroad – this is no doubt an inhibiting factor. Sure there are competitors, but they at placed way too far away from Copenhagen, and there is plenty of room for competition.

So here is to Maltbazaren.dk, may you survive for a long time.

New mill goes into action

I finally got my new mill tested. I milled the grain for two batches of beer, in a very short time. A short time should be compared the the HOURS I spent on milling with my old Marga mill - it truly sucks (either that or I am a fool who never got to understand how to operate it). I either case this new mill is a revolution for my new brews.

Due to the fact that my brew-days are very few, I milled somebody else's grain, and got to test the new CrankAndStein rollers and the motor. It all went just fine and the mill went though the grain in a flash. It did get stuck at one point when there was onlu wheat in between the rollers. It just stopped, and I was not able the move it by hand either. Bugger! It got totally stuck.

Anyway - here is some video footage from when it ran:



The bottom-less water cooler jug as a hopper worked just fine. The inside of one of these are extremely smooth and the grain feed onto the rollers was even. Apaarently I just have to go easy on the wheat. When the rollers get completely filled with wheat, they do not turn one inch, but when blended with barley, it worked like a charm. One addition the the setup must be som clear plastic sidings for the rollers so that the milled grain does not just lay by the sides as in the clip. The mill ran surprisingly silent compared to my old mill.

Apart from testing (a test I would call a success) I got a homebrew from the fellow brewers whom I helped mill their grain. So now I am looking at a "Thomas og Julles Søndags IPA" (The Thomas and Julle Sunday IPA) and I am wandering when to drink it. This is probably one of the best parts about being a brewer, you get to taste beer that is available to no one else, and the brewer actually would like to hear what you thought about it. I will drink it soon as the label states "this beer contains 6% and should be consumed fairly fresh, and surely before it gets too old". Hmmm - what date is that?

As a quick note about the craft brew community in Denmark, I might ad that craft brewers are friendly people. In general people all over the world like to meet people with the same interests as themselves. In home and craft brewing this holds true. In fact my first all-grain also got milled by somebody elses mill - so I am kind off returning the favour.

Brewing skypecast

Kasper Malmberg, one of the Danish homebrewers, held a skypecast this Sunday , where we were about 6 people discussing craft brewing on skype. The topics ranged from spices in x-mas beer to first wort hopping and where to get bottles for your brew. Based on this discussion, I really need to look at different types of hopping. There was clearly material for one of my dormant projects:Dogmebryg, where a lot of people brew the same beer but with one variable different.

Skypecasts is a new way to have conversations with people across the world who share your interests. Skypecasts are live, moderated conversations allowing groups of up to 100 people from anywhere in the world to talk to one another.

The event was a success, mainly because there were people there and they had something to say. It feels like we connected more than on the email media, and we kind off 'met' on line . The call left me with a greater a sense of community.

A funny incident during the call, was a German trying to participate, he was not able the understand one singe word we said. Sorry but the call is in danish only, for the time being.

So thumbs up for the call - and I hope to meet more next time. A new skypecast on craft brewing will be announced on the brygforum mailing list, and I'll try to post date and time on this blog. Maybe some of the Swedish or Norwegian brewers will join in and talk about brewing beer with us the next time.

Free beer in the real world

Time and again I see projects that have been started by or supported by the folks at Ølfabrikken. They pop up all over the place, when you like beer. Now The Danish Beer Enthusiasts (DØE) just had it’s 8 years birthday. Naturally Ølbabrikken was on the spot with a brew designed by none other than two of the original founders of DØE. The reason I bring this up, is that not only have they made that beer, but they also have published the recipe. Project Free Beer go home! This is real beer, and not a fancy art project.

The recipe is as follows:

Efficiency: 70%

OG: 1070
FG: 1019
ABV: 8,0%
Colour: 67 EBC (Dark brown)
Bitterness: 30 IBU

Malt
4000gr Maris Otter Pale Malt
1000gr Münchener malt Type II
500gr Cara Weat
500gr Special B
300gr Corn flakes
75gr Dehusked Chocolate

Adjuncts
400gr Dark sugar

Hops
40gr Fuggles 6,4%at 60 minutes
30gr Hersbrucker 3% at 30 munites
15gr Hersbrucker 3% at 5 minutes

Yeast
Wyeast 1762 OR Whitelaps WLP540

Doggy bag beer

This is wierd stuff. There are people like me, who say that beer is better if consumed in a glass rather than drinking from a bottle. Then there is those who tell me to bag it. I never knew (before now) that they were being litteral about it.

Over at A Welch View I found this post:

Apparently, in Qingdao, the Chinese city where Tsing Tao is brewed, beer in a bag is a common sight. You can buy beer on the streets of the city from people who sell it directly from kegs. Using a small spring scale, they weigh out the amount of beer you ask for. Then you get a small straw to punch through the side of the bag to drink out of.

Personally I would cry if my beer was served in a bag. Maybe it is more enviromentally sound to serve in bags, as it leaves less grabage around than cans or bottles. Well I think I'll just stick to my very recycleable glass beer mug and enjoy beer the way I think it should be consumed.

Are there any other wierd vays to serve beer out there?