Beach Brew

Last weekend I bottled my bitter. I had a taste on the weekend just passed and although not fully carbonated yet it is tasting really good. It has a great aroma and flavor from dry hopping with EKG. It still has a nice balance of malt and a medium light body as you expect in a bitter. I think it is going to be a great summer beer once it has the time to condition properly.

Next up on the brew list is another shot at a steam beer. The last one I made came out ok but ultimately a little disappointing as it is not quite what I was looking for. I am going to add some darker specialty malts this time to get some more of the melanoidin type flavour into the beer. I have plenty of Northern Brewer hops this time so no issues there either. My last attempt was also a little light bodied so will be increasing the mash temp up to about 68C to give it some more body. I was thinking about doing a decoction to try to get some more character but this not really typical for the style. Think I will stick with a single infusion on this one. I will go for the rapid lagering on this too. I’m planning two weeks at about 5C.

I was listening to a brewing podcast the other day and a couple of the people on it were saying how thankful they were for commercial beers. From a home brew podcast? I could have kind of understood if they meant that the commercial beers can bring interesting beer to the masses. However, that isn’t what they meant.

They then proceeded to talk about how they were enjoying megaswill domestic beers. These beers have their place. To say you are thankful to them because you have been drinking home brewed beer I think is sad and I think these people don’t really enjoy good beer.

The beer I have tasted from home many home brewers is superior to most commercial beer I have had. I think that home and craft produced food of many kinds are one of the few real delicacies available to almost anyone who has a little passion and is willing to put in a little effort.

I for one one welcome our home brew over lords!

I have written an article in the past about building your own mash tun. You can find that article in the menu on the right. It has been a while since that article and I would now like to cover HLT(hot liquor tank). There is not as much building here as a comparison of a couple of different methods I have used.

When I first started all grain brewing I was using the same vessel, an old stainless 50l keg as both my hlt and kettle. So after mashing in I would heat up sparge water and transfer that to another vessel. I would then run the mash into the kettle/hlt. Once that was completed I would batch sparge with the hot water I had temporarily transferred to another container. That was a pretty ugly system, but it worked and got me started. Eventually I got a separate vessel for a kettle and stopped doing the hot water shuffle. Last year I upgraded this again by replacing the gas fired ex keg hlt with a 30l stainless electric urn with thermostat. This is still my hlt.

The gas fired option. This is a good easy and cheap way to get started. You may already have a burner and or a large pot lying around at home. This method allow for rapid heating of water. Faster than electric systems in my experience. However, the down side here is the lack of thermostatic control. A thermostat could be installed and used on a gas system but this would involve installing servos etc to control the gas. A project that is probably beyond most home brewers.

If you are willing to manually manage the temperature of the hot water either by manually dipping in a thermometer or perhaps fitting a gauge to the hlt it can be achieved easily. My gas fired hlt was the old keg with the top plasma cut off and a hole cut in the side near the base. If you have a look at this page you can see my original hlt. Through the hole near the bottom I put a piece of plumbers thread and attached a ball valve to it. To hold the thread in place I used some hand crafted rubber washers and standard size nuts. I never had any issues with leaks or degrading washers. On that page you can also see the burner used with the hlt.

That hlt served me well until Christmas a couple of years ago now when my partner presented me with a 30l electric urn, just like this one. I have the 30 litre model as anything larger is fitted with a 15 amp plug which would mean I would require a 15 amp socket to be installed at home. I generally do 20l batches so a 30l urn is fine.

The urn I have has a thermostat on it so I can dial in the strike temperature I want. My brew day starts with me filling it up, setting the temp and then I prepare everything else while the water heats. The markings on the dial are not entirely accurate but I have calibrated it using a accurate and calibrated thermometer. The control has been calibrated. I couldn’t say for certain how long it takes to get to temperature but by the time I’m ready to mash in the urn is ready to go. Once the mash is in the urn is refilled with the sparge water. I normally do a 60 minute mash and the sparge water is always ready to go by the time I need it. The urn also has a site gauge n it which I have marked volumes on so I can hit my volume as well as my temperatures accurately.

In summary if you can afford the extra cash I would recommend the electric urn style hlt. However, this will depend on your brewing area and the size batches you are doing. If you are regularly doing 50l batches it may get really expensive to go down the electric route. The only real down side for electric is cost and having electricity in a wet environment. The speed of heating ceases to be an issue if you plan your brew day.

All this said I used the gas fired hlt with a thermometer for years. You have to pay a little more attention to what you are doing but that isn’t always a bad thing. It’s a good way to get started but I would recommend an upgrade to electric when you can fit it into your brewery and your budget.

Just got back from Japan. You wouldn’t expect Japan to be be much of a beer destination but you just have to know where to look. Sure it’s not Germany or Belgium but there is some great beer to be had from some micros and some decent beer from the big boys. Was only there for a week and it wasn’t a beer trip as such so this is far from a comprehensive beer summary of Japan.

In the main the big breweries do light lagers. They seem to do a lot of them too. Each of the big brewers seems to have at least half a dozen different beers with little between them. Some have different percentages of malt in them. However, there are plenty of 100% malt beers. The big boys are starting to do some dark beers which I would say are pretty close to a schwarzbier. They actually seem to have a little malt which is nice. There are also a couple of premium light lagers that have a little hop flavor. Mostly they are just really well made fairly plain light lagers. If that is what you like you will certainly get it in Japan.

The Kirin brewery also has a chain of pub restaurants. There was three I spotted in Shinjuku alone so I imagine there are a lot more around the city/country. They seem to have their premium beers available at these outlets including a stout, an ale and some darker and more interesting lagers. they also had another brand available there which they were promoting and seemed to be their house craft label. The brand is Ichibanshibori and they were pouring the stout at the two places I went to. It was a decent drop but nothing fantastic.

Then there is Popeye in Ryogoku. If you like beer and you are ever in Tokyo you need to visit this place. They have forty craft beers on tap including a couple of imports from the states. I managed to get through more than thirty of them. It was quite a challenge given the Japanese seem to have taken the American route and are making big hoppy beers. Lots of American style pale ales and IPA to be had here. Some great barley wine and a superb IBA too.

The food is also good and reasonably priced. The beers are expensive but completely reasonable for micro brewed beer from around the country. The staff are super polite and very friendly. They are able to talk about beer in English pretty well too. That was helpful as my Japanese is non existent. In short if you are in Tokyo go to Popeye. Get there after 1700 as the bar does not open until 1700.

So that is the quick summary of my beer experience in Japan. Go to Popeye!

I racked my bitter today too. Added the dry hops and it smells and tastes pretty good. Will bottle in about a week.