Barley Lane Brewery

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Background

If you want to drink beer at home which is, potentially, as good or better than any you'll drink in a pub and which is around 40p a pintthen I advocate making your own. There is an initial outlay, of course, but if you start by using kits and work up to making your beer using raw materials (so called "all–grain") then you can rationalisethe expense as negligeable. ...I do!

For those who are not familiar with the process of brewing beer I've put a short description here.

Cutting straight to the all-grain, I will describe my brewing equipment, my main recipe and my brewday.

Equipment

I have tried to keep my equipment purchases to a minimum. I have:

An Electrim bin
A fermenting bin
A King keg or 48 bottles
A Stainless Steel Rotating Sparge Arm

I also have:

A thermometer
A hydrometer and measuring cylinder
A large plastic spoon
A grain bag
A CO₂ injection cylinder

I have also made some bits and pieces to augment these bought items. I have:

Brewery log spread-sheets

I have three spread-sheets which I use in my beer making. You can read about them here

Golden Amarillo

This is my current favourite of all of the recipes which I have evolved over the years. It is a light, refreshing golden ale; quite bitter and with a nice citrussy aroma. It results in a beer with alcohol-by-volume of between 5.3% and 5.6%.

Mash
Pale malt (Maris Otter)	4.5kg
Mash liquor (tap water)	15 litres
Sparge
Sparge liquor (tap water)	24 litres at 80^oC
Start of boil
Admiral	50g
Last 15 minutes of boil
Protofloc	1 tablet
At the end of the boil
Amarillo	20g
Fermentation
Safale s-04	11g
Amarillo	30g
Secondary fermentation
Sugar	50g

The BeerEngine says that this should produce a beer with 77 EBUand 8 EBC. The original gravity usually turns out to be around 1042 which corresponds to an efficiency of 75%. My beer's final gravity is usually around 1006 giving an ABV of around 4.8% to 5% - but, of course, it varies slightly from brew to brew.

The Hops

It's worth pausing a moment to consider the utilisation of the hops. The properties of hops which are of interest to a brewer are alpha acid and oils. The alpha acid comes from resins in the hops. These dissolve quite slowly, which is one of the reasons why we boil hops for a long time. The alpha acid provides the bitterness in the beer. The oils are much more volatile. They are absorbed into the hot wort quite quickly but they then evaporate quite quickly. So, we add hops at the start of the boil to get the acid to dissolve and at the end to obtain the oils without giving them time to evaporate. Adding hops during fermentation also extracts the oil.

The Process

I allocate a whole day for brewing plus around an hour the day before to get everything ready: I generally start at about 09:00 and start tidying up at about 15:30. However, that is the elapsed time - I do get time off while long operations are in progress.

NOTE.

You don't have to worry about sterilising anything until the afternoon: most of the day everthing's too hot for bacteria.

For sterilising things I have used lots of different things in the past; sodium metabisulphite, campden tablets, ... I have heard of home brewers using diluted domestos or something but apparently when you buy bleach in super markets the concentration is often unknown so you don't know how much more to dilute it. I now use Milton baby bottle sterilising solution, which is bleach, diluted according to the instructions on the container. If it's good enough for babies then I imagine that it's good enough for beer and, so far, this hasn't let me down.

So:

To see a more detailed picture click the thumbnail.

The day before Get everything ready and bring the grain in from the larder to get up to room temperature. I prepare the boiler as a mash tun by putting a grain bag in it, an old duvet around it and I have three old towels plus all of the clean towels from the airing cupboard which I get ready to put on top of the boiler. The grain bag prevents the malted barley from clogging up the drain tap and the ideal mash temperature is maintained for the 2 hours mashing time by the duvet and towels. I also put my home-made hop filter in it ready for when it is really the boiler. I put all the grain in a nice clean orange B&Q bucket which I cover and leave in the brew roomovernight so that the grain doesn't cool the mashing liquor down as much as it would if I got it straight from the larder. This bucket also makes pitching the grain into the mash liquor far easier than struggling with a plastic bag full of grain.

Hop filter This photo shows the hopback or hop filter; a 22mm copper tube which is wedged over the threaded part of the tap. The hopback, click on the thumbnail on the right and look at the second photo, has two rows of small holes drilled in the lower side and 22mm copper straight coupler glued on the end with a plastic wine cork wedged in it. I made a dimple in the coupling where the cork is fitted with a centre punch to stop the cork moving and such that the over-all length allows it to be wedged firmly in the boiler. This device allows the wort to drain out, after the boil, while the hops are kept back. The hopback won't actually be used until about half past three but it is most convenient to fit it now and just leave it there all day.	Hop filter

Grain bag Tie the grain bag securely round the top of the bin.	Grain bag

Mash Tun insulation Wrap the bin in an old single duvet folded in half down the middle and tie securely. Of course, you could use blankets or towels or ... or whatever. It just needs to be really well insulated so that the temperature doesn't fall during the mash, well... hardly at all. You might notice that I've stood the boiler on an insulating mat. I made this by cutting lots of bits of cardboard into 380mm squares then I wrapped them in a black binbag and taped it up thoroughly to keep moisture away from the cardboard. The mat is 70mm thick.	Duvet & towels
Brew day The first thing to do is to get the mash going. 09:00 Mash liquor (tap water) heating Put 15 litres of tap water in the boiler which, as I said above, I'll be using as a Mash tun initially, switch on the heater and make sure that the simmerstat control is set to continuous i.e. full power to the heater. 09:25 Start to monitor the water temperature; it usually takes around 30 minutes to get up to 72^oC with the 2kW element. Since the heater went on at 09:00 it should be up to temperature by 09:30 The mashing temperature should be 65^oC or 66^oC ideally but you need to heat the water to a higher temperature so that when the grains, which are at room temperature, are added you end up with the ideal temperature.

09:30 Grain Check that the temp is 72^oC - then switch the heater off and add the grain, stiring all the time. 4.2kg Maris Otter malt. NOTE. It's very important to add the grain as quickly as possible to ensure that the grain is only exposed to temperatures much above 68^oC for the shortest time possible because that would damage the enzyme which converts the starch to sugar while, at the same time Stiring thoroughly: otherwise the mixture goes lumpy which stops the warm water getting to all of the grain. 09:35 Mash Measure and record pitching temperature; hopefully it'll be around 65^oC or 66^oC. It should be Ok as long as it's between 62^oC and 68^oC. The cooler it is the less the enzyme works - the hotter it is the more the risk of damaging the enzyme. It's good to try to keep the temperature steady throughout the mashing time. The 70mm mat under the mash tun and the duvet help but, in the past I've found that the temperature can drop by up to 1°C. So now, in addition to the duvet and the three old towels I roll one of them up and wrap it around the bottom of the bin to keep draughts out and get all of the towels out of the airing cupboard and drape them all over the top and tie them in snugly. ...Mash for 2 hours.	Grain

09:55 Heat sparge water As soon as the mash tun is sorted out and you've put all the towels on top, which should be before 09:55, you can fill the Hot Liquor Tun (HLT) with 24 litres of water, switch on and set the thermostat to 80^oC. Of that 24 litres only 22 litres will be available for sparging because about 2 litres of water stays in the tun below the tap outlet. I try to get a little more, about another litre, by tilting the HLT when it's nearly empty. The photo was taken at 09:58 so the cold tap water (aka Liquor) had only got up to 23.6^oC by this stage as you can see in the photo. It will be up to 80^oC long before it's needed at 11:35.

11:30 Wort Measure and record the end of mash temperature; I usually find that it's still around 65^oC or 66^oC. Then run the wort off into the fermentation bin.	Wort

11:35 Sparging Start sparging. The stainless steel rotating sparge arm is really great except that it's really crap. Basically when it's rotating it sprinkles water sort of evenly over the grain; the problem is that it keeps on stopping. So, you need to continuously nudge it with the handle of the long plastic spoon to keep it going. Hey-ho. NOTE: you need to sparge with water which is between 75^oC and 80^oC; so I set the hot liquor tun thermostat to 80^oC, then it should be above 75^oC still by the time it hits the mash. I try to get the last drops out of the HLT because an astonishing amount evaporates during the boil so to end up with 23 litres of beer you need all you can get.	Sparging

12:05 Extra wort By this time, 12:05, the fermenting bin probably contains about 25 or 26 litres but you need to continue sparging another 10 litres. There is another problem: the Electrim bin has another short-coming, the tap doesn't produce a nice clean flow when you open it, rather it splutters all over the place, mainly the floor. So, I've pushed a short piece of plastic tubing with a diagonal cut at the lower end; this fixes the problem and the wort flows cleanly. Don't forget that there is about 2 litres of wort below the level of the tap in the boiler which you can get at by tipping the boiler forward when it's nearly empty. I find that when the sparging is complete the grain left in the mash tun has no sweetness. The extra wort is all stuff from the end of the sparge process. So, now, I have weaker wort in the preserving pan which means that it's less likely to burn sugar on the bottom.	Extra wort

Boiling extra wort I put the preserving pan on the gas to boil with no hops in it: the hops all go in the boiler. Boiling the wort helps to precipitate some of the proteins which could make the beer cloudy. It also concentrates the thin wort which you get at the end of sparging: an astonishing amount of water evaporates from the preserving pan.	Boiling extra wort
12:25 Refill the Boiler Take the grain bag out of the boiler (have a bucket ready to catch the drips) and put all of the wort back into the boiler from the fermenting bin. 12:30 Boiling the wort Leave the duvet on the boiler and put the lid on with the towels on top to save electricity and speed up the heating. Switch on the heater and make sure that the simmerstat control is set to continuous. The wort will have cooled a little by now so it usually takes about 40 minutes to get to the boil. Hops Weigh out 50 grams of Admiral hops ready for when the wort in the boiler comes to the boil. You should cover the hops to avoid degradation caused by light. 13:00 Nearly at the boil Monitor the wort temperature and take the lid off when it's about 98^oC. If you let it boil with the lid on you get loads of boiling froth all over the duvet and the table and the floor and...! 13:10 At the boil Set the simmerstat to 80% so as to maintain a good rolling boil. Tip in the hops and stir them around to wet them thoroughly so that they roll around busily rather than just hang about on the surface. Check the simmerstat setting occasionally to maintain the boil.

The hops boiling Here you can see the hops getting thoroughly rolled around.	Hops boiling

13:15 Chiller Put the chiller in postion so that it is exposed to the boiling wort; this will sterilise it. The hoses go outside: the green one to the garden tap and the yellow one to a drain.	Chiller

13:20 Fit the hop strainer over the back of the tap in the fermenting bin. I put 30g of Amarillo hops, for aroma, into the wort during the fermenting process. Without fitting a strainer, hops can get lodged in the pipe used to transfer the beer to the pressure barrel or bottles, when it's finished fermenting, which is really annoying as it makes the flow really slow. I cobbled this one together: it is a small tub with a tupperware style lid. I have drilled lots of small holes in the tub to let the beer out but not the hops and a large hole in the lid which fits over the threaded part of the tap; it's held in place by a spare tap nut. Then put in 5 litres of sterilising solution (I use Milton baby bottle sterilising solution (bleach)). Put the thermometer, the plastic spoon, hydrometer and its measuring cylinder in as well to sterilise.	Hop strainer
13:30 ish By now the level in the boiler has probably gone down enough to transfer a litre or so of wort from the preserving pan to the boiler. Over the next hour or so check occasionally and transfer more as necessary. You need to end up with 23 litres at the end of the boil to proceed to the fermenting stage. I find that the 15 litres of mash water plus the 22 or 23 litres of sparge water will reduce down to 23 - 25 litres of hopped wort. Some gets left behind in the hops and the rest evaporates.
14:30 Protofloc Add 1 Protofloc tablet. The protofloc tablet fizzes up quite spectacularly and will help to clear the beer during maturation.
14:45 End of the boil Switch off the boiler and add 20 grams of Amarillo hops.
14:50 Start chilling Turn the garden tap on to start the chilling process and take the duvet off the boiler for a bit more cooling. Cooling the wort quickly helps to precipitate more proteins from the wort.
Sterile from now on From the moment the wort is cooled it is vulnerable to bacterial damage. So, absolute cleanliness is vital. Wash your hands right up above your wrists in antibacterial hand wash. Wash the sink tap's spout and its knob to make sure that they are clean. Each time you touch anything which has not been sterilised wash your hands again. That includes towels so don't dry your hands; just shake the excess water off. This maybe over the top but I always do it and I have never had a beer go bad. So I continue this way, maybe I could be more relaxed - but why risk it?
15:15 Rinse the sterilising solution out of the fermenting vessel. It's actually handy to have a second fermenting vessel to use as a serilising bin to keep the spoon, thermometer and hydrometer in, just pour all the sterilising solution in. Take great care not to contaminate the fermenting bin because any bacteria now would spoil the beer. Also, take care not to dislodge the hop strainer.

15:25 Into the Fermenting Vessel Rinse the thermometer to remove the sterilising solution because it's bleach! and check that the temperature in the boiler has gone down to about 23^oC to 25^oC. Run the wort into the FV from a great height. Add the yeast and another 30g of Amarillo early on. As you run the wort off, vigorously stir it with the sterilised and rinsed spoon to get as much air into it as possible; this makes the yeast happy. Again, take care not to dislodge the hop strainer.	Into FV

15:30 Original gravity Catch some wort in the sterilised and rinsed measuring cylinder and measure and record the Original Gravity. As you can see in this case it turned out to be 1048. You can see that the meniscus straddles 1046 to 1048 on the scale. The hydrometer is designed such that the actual specific gravity is read from the bottom of the meniscus.	Original gravity
Early the next day Rinse the plastic spoon to remove the sterilising solution because it's bleach and give the wort another vigorous stir! Some time in the next few days put sterilising solution in the pressure barrel if that's what you're using.
5-7 days later Rinse the hydrometer and the mesuring cylinder to remove the sterilising solution because it's bleach and check the specific gravity. If it's gone down to about 1006 then it's ready to rack if it's much higher try again the next day. Pressure Barrels or Bottles? I think that on one hand the barrels are much more convenient than bottles but on the other hand they can run out of pressure before all the beer has been drunk and the first few pints can be a bit cloudy. Bottles, however, are much more time consuming to prepare and fill but they usually open with a psst and you get a clear glass of beer ... as long as you're carfull with the sediment. Pressure Barrel When the beer's ready, boil 200mL of water with 50g of sugar. Make sure that it's boiling for about five minutes to ensure that the sugar solution and the saucepan are thoroughly sterilised. Leave to cool. Use a sterilised and rinsed plastic tube to carefully transfer the fermented wort (beer) to a sterilised and rinsed pressure barrel. If your sugar solution is still hottish then wait until the barrel is quite full so that yeast, which is carried over with the beer, is not damaged. Screw on the sterilised and rinsed lid and store for around a week; after which it should be in good shape for drinking. I find that the first pint maybe a little cloudy. I guess that some haze collects at the surface and as I use top-tap king kegs that's the beer I get first. Bottles Put one gram of sugar in each of about 12 bottles, lay them on the shelves of your oven with the necks facing away from you and put the oven on to 100^oC. Put a saucepan of water on the hob to boil. After about 5 minutes at 100^oC take the bottles out using oven gloves being careful not to touch their necks and put them on a board to cool. When they are cooled down so that they are barely warm to the touch fill them carefully from the fermenter; you should do this quite slowly so that the beer doesn't splash about and absorb air. The crown caps usually have a coating on the inside which absorbs oxygen but I'd guess that there is a limit. Finally, drop a crown cap in the boiling water for a few seconds to a) sterilise it and b) to activate the oxygen absorbing coating then put it on the bottle and store the bottle away. Repeat this 3 more times as the brew should fill around 46 or so bottles. Store for a week or maybe more if you have the patience then they should be ready to drink.