I haven’t felt the need to post recently on FF, but this past Friday we ran into a home brewer and had some interesting conversations for the last hour or so that are definitely worth sharing.

First let me state up front that the guy we were talking to really did rub me the wrong way. He seemed to have a cynical approach to many things and did not seem to have an open mind on many things. I myself am very cynical at times, so I can understand some of this. Though, I like to think that I have expanded my horizons with my adventures into home brewing and have developed an open mind.

Brew Magic

Out of the gates we started talking because he overheard John and I’s discussion about our remaining doppelbock. He quickly made sure that we knew he used a BrewMagic system, which was intriguing to me because I have not met anyone who went this route with home brewing. For those who don’t know much about Brew Magic, its a homebrew system that you can by complete from Sabco. Its built upon 3 1/2 barrel kegs (10 gal system), sits on a metal stand with integrated burners, has integrated control panel for logging and automatic control, is made from all stainless steel (except the stand), and uses RIMMS with a heating element to handle temperature control. The base price on these is $5,590, which can go as high as $7,300 with accessories (chiller, select kegs, tri-clamp, regulator harness, cover…). Not sure about shipping. I remember almost 3 years ago when I was getting into home brewing seeing these models online and thinking they were awesome, very pricey, but awesome. I know that Dogfish head used one of the original brew magic systems for their brewpub and got the new one as a gift (for promotional materials) and use it as their pilot system now.

Back to my point of bringing this up. My biggest qualms with the brew magic system have always been the cost (>$5590) and the usage of a heating element for RIMMS. I built my system for probably around 1K and even if you add all of my toys it stays way under the starting price. The brew magic does has some time savings in the automation it provides but this savings is not that far from my updated system.

RIMMS Heating

The heating element with RIMMS issues is definitely controversial. The Sabco guys admit they use to have a problem with caramelization and other related issues, but fixed the problem with a smaller housing tube and a smaller element with more surface area. This may be the case, but I can’t get over the fact that mashing wort will be circulating around and through a fully heated element. Certainly this must have SOME affect on the end wort. He assured me that it had no affect whatsoever, but there is no such thing as never in situations like these in my opinion. He did mention that his efficiency usually maxes out at around 80%, which got me thinking because mine is usually 85-90% on a similar but less sophisticated system. What I am thinking is that as the wort passes over the element, it is imparted with a significant amount of heat. This is required if the RIMMs is going to be able to hold or raise temperature. This heat change is most likely raising the temperature of the wort closest to the element very rapidly in order to balance out the temperature of all the liquid in the tube. What this likely means for the contact wort that is already at mash temperature (140-158 F) is that its being pushed beyond the temperature at which the beta-amylase and alpha-amylase become denatured. Not sure if the duration of this increase is long enough, but once a protein is denatured it will not be able to break apart complex sugars into the sugars anymore. If enough protein is denatured early this could affect the amount of starches broken down into maltose, hence reducing efficiency. Sure there are many other explanations for differences in efficiency, mash thickness and in-accurate malt analysis information, but this does seem like an issue to me. The other more likely affect of denaturing of the amylase proteins is overly dextrinous wort, which means it will likely finish with a higher gravity and taste sweeter as a result.

I think the main thing to understand about this heating technique is that there is much less heating surface area in contact with the wort than with a HERMS system. This means more heat must be applied to less wort to get the same result, which is where I think the problem is. Note this is the same issue that is discussed when people talk about using heating elements in there boil kettle as a heat source. This is an interesting issue and I would love to get more substantial proof that proves either case.

Fermentation

One thing I asked this guy was what type of fermentors that he used and he told me carboys and buckets, which really does make sense to me at all. This is because in my opinion fermentation is the most important stage of the beer making process. Its in this stage that a beers character is developed and the slightest of change in temperature, yeast quality, yeast quantity, nutrients, oxygen, and sanitation can make huge differences in the beers taste and health. Thus, too me it makes sense to invest in high-end fermentors that help make fermentation easier. I’m not saying this because I have two blichmann conicals, because I didn’t realize these fact when I bought them. I bought the blichmanns for convenience and because I though they were the best available for home brewers.

What amazed me was this guy is that he was adamantly stating that why would he invest in expensive fermentors when buckets work fine. I was trying to show the above facts and was thinking why spend 6K on a system where a $500 system would work fine? Why invest tons in the brewing system and not in fermentation when fermentation is WAY more important.

I am also reminded now of a statement that he posed, that he didn’t know why people would buy conicals because on the home brewing scale they do not provide any benefit. Having used concials and then tried glass carboys, I know that they have huge benefits. Here is a few of the benefits of the blichman conicals I have found:

1. They have no welds, therefore no where for bacteria to live if the weld is bad and/or not sanitary
2. Very easy to clean. The top comes off and gives you full access to the entire cylinder.
3. No need for a secondary fermentor. The yeast, proteins, and hops will drop to the cone and can be dumped to simulate a secondary transfer.
4. Much easier to take samples because of the racking port.
5. Easier to dump things into the fermentor like fruit and hops because of the corny size hatch.
6. The stainless steel retains temperature better than glass.
7. Less trube stays in contact with the wort because it collects in the cone.
8. You can pressurize from the top and rack from the bottom.
9. Racking is a breeze, no need for siphoning
10. Cone is the perfect size for a heat wrap and fermenters are designed to fit in a freezer for lagering

Other stuff

There were more talking point. Mainly in the area of small to large batch growth and system automation that I wanted to talk about, but this post is too long as it is and I’m tired of sitting on it.

Frisco was the usual affair, though a bunch more people came out because it was my last day at Windermere/Essex/Northrop Grumman. My first beer was Wolavers All-American ale. This beer didn't strike me as having that much flavor. It had a light mouth feel, was amber in color, and was easy to drink. It was ok I guess, just nothing spectacular. After that me an John split the new Stone Vertical Epic for 08-08-08. At first, John and I both got the dreaded pool water flavor. Not sure how else to describe that flavor, I'm sure there is a proper term for it. The pool water flavor went away quick and it warmed nicely. It reminded me of a very light Belgian tripel with more hop than usual and a detectible peppery bite on the finish. This makes sense because apparently it was at least partially inspired by Duvel Tripel Hop. Overall pretty good. Shortly afterwards I rode over to Perfect Pour to get two bottles to cellar.

I tried this at Frisco today and have to tell you it has some intense flavor and aroma. So much so that without knowing it came from Southern Tier you wouldn't think that it was a beer at all. It smells very sweet, much like a creme brulee desert but is mostly overpowered with caramel smells. When tasting I got strong flavors of butterscotch, caramel, vanilla, and maybe a little coffee.

This definitely would be a great desert beer though it was a bit too sweet for me. The beer had to be sipped at first to get used to the rich flavors and sweetness, but was easier to drink once the palette got used to the intensity. This would probably be a good drink for some of the ladies who aren't really into beer but like strong flavored drinks like kahlua.

I'm very interested in how they were able to get those flavors into the beer. I would be very impressed if the majority of the flavor comes from pre-fermentation additions. There definitely is a creaminess to the flavor which I would assume come from the lactose additions, but the source of the strong butterscotch flavor is a mystery to me. Maybe simply the combination of the dark caramel malt, lactose, and vanilla are what provide the flavors. Assuming the label highlights all the ingredients (it may not), then this could explain the flavor partially because only the caramel malt would have been used to provide the dark color, no roasted stuff. There are some dark caramel malts available, so this is definitely possible.

Also wanted to mention that we had two of the Eugene City Brewery beers today. I had the 100 meter first while John had the 200. I followed the 100 meter with a randalized 200.

The 100 meter was good, a nice hoppy red, but I didn't find anything particularly special about it. John was saying that the 200 was very hoppy two, but from the randalizer it almost seemed to have less hop action. I wonder what hops they were using? Personally I didn't get much hop flavor on the front, only a little late bitterness. Though this could have been affected by the 100 meter I drank first.

Overall thy were definitely good beers, worth trying but nothing really spectacular.

Frisco grille a brew pub? 

Was chatting with Adam of Frisco Grille on Friday about the best way for me to sell my beer. We discussed the issue dealing with distribution and the overhead it would cause for a super small brewery. Adam has often said he would be willing to tap my beer in his bar if it were legal. I guess I could do it if the beer was free, but that doesn't help me or him. 

I tried to convince Adam that if he wanted to expand, adding a small brewpub would be a good way to get small batch beer on tap. We agreed that it is in a bars best interest to continue taping and serving all of the good beer that they currently serve. The point would be to have a few in-house beers on to establish a market. This would be a good way of experimenting with new beers and finding out what people like. The Dogfish head owner did something very similar with his initial brewpub that opened in Rehoboth.

Interestingly, after talking about this for a while one the patrons at the bar announced that he was the owner of Ellicott Mills. He mentioned that there are some small distributors, like the one they use that might not be too bad. Adam was asking about maybe having Ellicott Mills contract some beer for the grille. After some discussion we discovered that they have a 20 barrel system which might be a bit too much for Adam to store. Even a half batch would probably be too much beer. From what I could tell the Ellicot Mills owner seemed somewhat interested, like he might go back and talk it over with some people to see how worthwhile a contract brew or two would be.

New On Tap Program

Adam was complaining about the web program he uses to show the beer list. It seems to timeout a lot and he can't get it to rotate the way he wants. I offered to write a simple .NET program for him that would fullscreen itself with no decorations and use the WebBrowser controll to changes pages based on a custom confirguation. I wrote the program and it seems to work really well. When it loads it asks which display to be shown on. Once started it loops reads the XML config file to figure out what to display and when. It's a pretty simple configuration, but lets you set a default page to go to every other page, as many ad pages as you want, and a duration for each page. The ad pages can be displayed randomly or in series. Since the web pages are now controlled with code behind them, it should be easier to prevent the timeouts and control it the way he wants.

I sent the program over Friday early evening, but have not heard any feedback. Will be interesting to hear how it worked.

Beers

I tried the, Avery Maharaja which was pretty good. It had a lot of hop flavor typical of an strong American IPA. I also tried a bottle from the rack which I cannot remember the name. Maybe I'll update this later when I look it up in my book. It was a rye ale with caraway seeds in the brew. It definitely had an interesting flavor that I would attribute to the seeds. Almost like a mild licorice/coriander flavor.

Oliver also mentioned that he is going to have several of the Eugene beers on draft soon. The kegs were arriving as we drank. Should be on now, so I can get some Monday.