I know this is a blog about brewing beer, but I wanted to take a moment to discuss…gardening! Yes, gardening. Specifically, gardening for citrus trees. Mike and I have been fortunate to live in one of the best areas in the world to grow fruits and vegetables. Due to a long laundry list of hobbies, we have downsized our former orchard filled with 19 fruit trees to 7 citrus trees. When we planned a remodel of our small house and expanded our brewery, we decided to downsize our backyard orchard. Instead of devoting weekends to the garden, we wanted to spend less time in the garden while gaining more time for brewing. Citrus was the answer. We use citrus trees in cooking and brewing. The trees are easy to maintain and only need a little trimming for maintenance. We find that vermin stay out of the yard and the diseases they get are easy to manage and control. However, they do require a bit of planning to keep them in prime fruiting conditions. Our Citrus Trees
![]() Meyer Lemon: This is our fourth Meyer lemon tree. I am determined to get one to grow! For whatever reason, I find lemon trees the most finicky and susceptible to weather. My parents had a Meyer Lemon tree in the house I grew up in, and the lemon juice made the most incredible lemonade and desserts. The fruit is tart and sweet. They lend themselves to desserts and are prized by bakers. I have a thousand recipes I want to make with Meyer lemons, so I really need this tree to get going! I have a couple of small lemons on our tree. It looks a bit sad, but I am determined to get one to grow in my yard! ![]() Lisbon Lemon: Lisbon lemons are the lemons you buy in the grocery store. However, I find the grocery store lemons have a weird wax coating and flavor. There is something very pesticide tasting on them that I don’t like which is why I never have lemon in my water at restaurants. However, from our tree, the flavor from our Lisbon is great. It is a perfect workhorse lemon and perfect for adding to drinks and water. The only downside so far is that the tree has thorns…lots of thorns…lots of LARGE THORNS! Be careful when you pick the fruit off of the tree. So far, this is a heavy fruit bearer. I’m excited for the tree to get going!
Rio Red grapefruit: We love pink grapefruits and were excited that we could find one that grew in our climate! We don’t get the freeze that Florida does, so grapefruits don’t often get enough cold for them to sweeten. Our tree is about 4 years old and this year we had 10 grapefruits. We are hoping to get a large crop in the next few years. I’m most excited to make a beer with these grapefruits once they get going. **I forgot to take a picture before it got dark today. Oops. TREE CAREWatering: Our citrus trees are established and have solid roots, so I don’t water them frequently. However, I have found the need to supplement watering during the hot summer months as we are in a drought. When citrus tree leaves curl, they need water. They do well with deep water and then let the soil dry out before watering again. Some citrus trees have taproots, but the majority of citrus tree roots are thin, woody horizontal roots that have hairy feeder roots off them. Their roots tend to lay close to the surface of the soil and overwatering can lead to root rot. Allow the soil to dry out between watering. I typically only water when the trees start flowering and only water on a regular schedule in the hottest times of the summer. Pruning: Citrus trees do need to be pruned to keep branches from crossing and causing damage. Keep the center of the tree open if you can to allow for air to flow through the trunk. Check regularly for dead branches and prune those back. Keep the trees small and encourage them to grow shorter rather than taller. Keeping the trees short allows you to pick the fruit from the ground vs having to use a ladder. Being that both Mike and I are over 6 feet tall, we typically stand next to the trees and extend our arms up…as tall as we can reach is the maximum height we allow the tree to reach. I cut back our citrus trees when they get taller than the maximum height. I actually believe keeping the trees shorter has helped them to produce such amazing fruit as the tree can devote more energy to fruiting rather than growing taller. Fertilizer: Citrus trees are heavy feeders, very heavy feeders. I tried to fertilize using only organic means, but I found that to be an ineffective and costly way to fertilize the trees. Typically, the trees require a pound of fertilizer for each year it has been planted. For example, a 5 year old tree needs approximately 5 pounds of fertilizer a year, a 6 year old tree needs approximately 6 pounds of fertilizer a year, and so on. A good schedule is to split the feedings over 3 times that are easy to remember and beneficial to fruit trees–Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day. I use the following to fertilize my trees:
Dealing with bugs: I find that most issues that arise on citrus trees can be dealt with by spraying them with water. Black sooty mold is common in Southern California and develops when aphids or other bugs feed on the leaves. Aphids are also very common. You can control aphids by spraying them with a strong stream of water or spraying them with neem. Honestly, that’s about all I ever have to do is spray for aphids and sooty mold. Citrus trees that are healthy and dark green don’t tend to get many issues. Also, if you see ants in your tree, it is typically an indication that aphids have been feeding on the leaves. Painting trunks: Citrus trees that are in sunny locations will thrive, but they will also benefit from an application of whitewashed latex paint to their trunks. Citrus bark is thin and easily sunburns. A bonus is that the paint also protects the trees from bugs that feed on the bark such as beetles. They make specific tree paint, but you can just dilute regular white latex paint with water to paint the trees. I reapply the paint yearly or whenever the tree has extensive new growth that is not covered by leaves from the sun. Weeds: Be careful weeding around citrus trees since the roots are so close to the surface. I try to leave the soil as undisturbed as possible. I do, however, pull weeds when they appear. As much as possible, try not to disturb the soil unless you have to. ResourcesMost cities offer gardening courses and actually have some great money saving deals. Socal Water Smart has rebates on rain barrels. Mike and I were able to purchase four rain barrels with rebates. We water our backyard plants using the water we collect. After our last rain, we now have 4 full barrels of water again. Los Angeles County also has multiple Smartgardening workshops. The classes also give you the opportunity to learn about composting and vermicomposting. At the workshops, you can buy composters and worm bins at a discount price. I attended several gardening workshops through Los Angeles County and found them all extremely beneficial. They were well worth the money and time. Our trash is collected by Edco that now has green waste recycling. Through their program, you can request a free countertop composting bin. However, I will give you one bit of advice. Be careful with the County provided free mulch. The mulch is not sifted through and often has bottle caps and glass. Also, my neighbor as used the free mulch and ended up bringing in grubs and nutsedge. If you don't know what nutsedge is, you are incredibly lucky! I'm not sure napalm could get rid of it! Be sure to sift the mulch if you use the city mulch...you will be thankful!
If you are interested in growing citrus or other trees in a small garden, I highly recommend researching backyard orchards. The suggestion is to plant trees 6’ on center. I have done this with our trees and find that we get plenty of variety of fruit in a small area. Also, keeping the fruit trees smaller allows the trees to produce better fruit and for us to utilize the fruit we have instead of having tons of fruit that spoils. For more information, this article from Dave Wilson Nursery has a lot of information. Happy gardening! We’d love to hear what you are growing in your yard and how you plan on using it in your beer! Cheers! 2JBC
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When Mike and I tell people we are homebrewers, we are often asked how we find time to brew. We are both full-time teachers, so we have to prioritize and make time for brewing. Over the last 10 years, we have had moments when it seemed like we were brewing every weekend and moments when it seemed like we never had time to brew. When the COVID quarantine hit, we were unable to brew for months mostly because the quarantine happened to coincide with a major kitchen remodel. The timing of our kitchen demo was unfortunate. We demolished our kitchen the week before the world shutdown from COVID, found termites in our brewhouse, AND were forced to move all of our classes online. Basically, due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to shut down our brewing for about 6 months. When the 2022 New Year started, we decided we wanted to focus our efforts on brewing. Mike and I both live our lives without regrets, and we didn’t want homebrewing to become a shoulda, woulda, coulda hobby in our life. We spent much of the COVID quarantine at home and sampled a variety of beers. Most of our reactions to the beers we tasted were, “We could make that” or “Why don’t we make that?” So, how do we go about finding the time to work full-time in stressful careers, enjoy quality time together and with friends, enjoy hobbies besides brewing, and spend time with our two wonderfully goofy greyhounds? Some pics of our kitchen remodel that paused our brewing. It was an experience we hope we don't have to repeat--nothing like two teachers teaching two classes simultaneously on Zoom while in the middle of a kitchen remodel. Did I mention the restaurants closed while we had no kitchen? 0 stars...do not recommend. Prioritize brewing & brew tasksMike and I have more hobbies than time. We golf, surf, paddleboard, hike, travel, camp, and a long list of other activities. Mike and I decided we needed to cut down on some of our activities and only focus on a few. We decided we needed to devote most weekends to brewing and some weekends to our other hobbies. During the week, we often turn off the tv and tinker in the brewery. We break the cleaning tasks into multiple small chores rather than a whole day. We may spend one night cleaning beer lines, and another night racking over a beer to kegs. Teaching can make you feel like a zombie. After a long day it's easy to just crash on the couch and drown yourself in beer when you know you should be taking steps to brew more. We are trying to focus more on our overall health, so we have the energy to do brew tasks on the weekdays and free up more weekend time to brew. Some time saving tips:
EQUIPMENTWhile we saved time with our cleaning regime, we still realized we were brewing more frequently than we wanted to be brewing. That may sound strange since we are talking about our love of brewing. But, we found we were brewing the same beers over and over with little time to experiment on new creations. The result was we upped our brewing system. We now have the capacity for a variety of brewing needs. We can brew 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 gallon batches. Most frequently, we brew either 10 or 20 gallons. We upgraded to a one barrel brewhouse (i.e., 50 gallon pots). When we upgraded, we decided to keep our older setup. So, we have 6 brew kettles instead of 3.
Mike and I rarely get rid of our equipment. Instead, we multipurpose everything. Our original cooler mash tun and HLTs we still use. In fact, we use them for cleanup…they work great for PBW and Star Sans buckets on brew days. The only items we have gotten rid of are glass carboys. I sold our old glass carboys to a co-worker who was getting into brewing. We repurpose things because we live in a 1950s house with 888 square feet. Thank goodness we have a two car garage and a storage shed to house things! Calendars & Time managementWe keep a shared calendar on Google for brew days and competition dates. We plan out which brews will go to each competition and plan out when we need to brew, bottle or can, and ship each competition beer. Once we have these on the calendar for the year, we then revolve our brew days around the schedule. If you aren’t familiar with Google Calendar, it makes our lives so much easier! I color code our tasks and set them for specific timelines. For example, if you want to clean your beer lines every two weeks, you can set a task reminder in Google Calendar and put it on repeat. Mike and I share our Two Jacks Brewing Company gmail account, so we just push the account to our phone and get easy reminders. Every Tuesday I devote time to writing this blog. I just block off time during my duty free lunch and begin the blog. I finish the blog after work, insert pictures, and post at home on Tuesday evening. I don’t answer the phone and ignore all work related emails and phone calls during my lunch break. On my work calendar, it is blocked off as “busy” during every Tuesday lunch. While the blog takes a lot of time to put together, I find that I look forward to having some time to myself to focus on it. The writing motivates me to keep up with the brewery and appreciate the hard work we put into our brewing. Recipe writing is something I continually do. I sometimes think of a recipe or Mike and I come up with a recipe while at dinner or beer tasting. We actually write a lot of beer recipes while talking in the car. I have access to Beersmith on my phone, so I will immediately write down some of the ideas into a recipe that I finish up while watching TV, when I can’t sleep, or during my work lunch break. I like to research and read about the history of beers, brewing processes, new hops, and so on. After researching, I often create a new recipe based on the information I find. Currently, I have about 20 recipes sitting in Beersmith that I recently created and haven’t brewed. We may never use all of the recipes, but I know that I have access to some new recipes that I spent time thinking over. This allows Mike and I to look over new recipes when we can’t decide what to brew next and just have a “go with your current mood” attitude and pick one. This is how our Haleiwa Island Lager was created. Mike and I went to sushi and said, “I wonder what a hopped up rice lager would taste like.” I took notes on it that night and then wrote the Haleiwa recipe after researching how to brew with rice. Social media posts I try to update around the same times every day. Typically, I will post something before work, during my lunch break, or at night. Sometimes I find I spend too much time on social media, so I try to shut down my phone or have a Sunday phone free day. I like having Instagram and Facebook posts to commemorate our experience with the brewery and to gain new brewing techniques from other brewers. My favorite part of FB is when memories pop up. These help us remember how far we have come and gives us motivation to keep evolving as homebrewers. I also love seeing other brewers’ setups. Hearing what other brewers are doing and seeing them win medals in competitions has given us the confidence to enter into contests and try to become the best brewers we can. The brewing community is really about learning and growing and sharing your accomplishments. There are also a lot of products we have seen and gotten feedback on by following other brewers. Less time cleaning and maintaining the brewery equals more time we get to enjoy together. Basically, the answer to “How do you find time to brew?” is we make time and decided that we wanted to prioritize brewing. It helps that both Mike and I love brewing and enjoy spending our time doing this together. You may need to be even more diligent with your planning out of time and calendaring if your partner doesn't also brew. However, communicating your brewing schedule and priorities will make your brewing more efficient, even if you only brew once every few months. Just fit the brewing into your lifestyle. We have some work weeks where we just can’t brew because of other commitments. That’s totally fine. We just prioritize the other weeks instead. Just keep brewing!
Cheers! 2JBC No matter what anyone says, putting your beer out to be judged by the public is both exhilarating and nerve-wracking! Anyone who brews understands the amount of work, blood, sweat, and tears that go into creating something from the heart. We are proud that each of the 5 beers we represented at The Craft LB Homebrew Invitational were our own recipes. We designed each from scratch and created beers we enjoy to drink. Based on the fact that we went through almost 5 full kegs of beer (about 22 gallons) on Saturday, we presented our beers as we wanted them to be presented--crisp, clean, and crushable! We can't lie, watching people you have never met drink your beer and smile was something special. Seeing them come back and sample other beers or drink the same beer 5 separate times is indescribable. Mike and I liken the experience to the rush you get playing Division I caliber sports or leaving the stage after your band plays. It was AWESOME! If you are on the fence about putting your beers into a competition, DO IT! The feedback you get, the confidence you gain, and the truly remarkable people you meet is worth every second of the hard work (and money...22 gallons of beer isn't free to brew!). Both Mike and I have to say the absolute support we felt from other brewers was fantastic and the cherry on top! We watched brewers share equipment, pour other beers when a brewer needed that emergency restroom break, and help unfreeze jockey box lines. Everyone wanted each brewer's beer to be the best version of it it could be. We realized that the world can seem cruel around us, but homebrewers are an amazing community of supportive people! We wished we had more time to just hang out and get to know people more! With that being said, we wanted this blog to focus on how we prepared for the event, what equipment we found helpful, and what we would do differently. PREPARING FOR THE EVENTSo, here’s a list of our advice from the first event:
Some products and companies we recommendThis is a list of some items that really helped us prepare for the event. We do not have sponsors and do not make any money off of our blog or Instagram. We are simply sharing what we used and what we found helpful. ![]() The metal sign we used on the front of our jockey box is from Shutterfly. We remove the sign for storage and to protect the cover. The sign will last for year's to come and can also be hung on the wall of the brewery when not being used on the jockey box. We used Cool Brew Jackets to house our kegs. Each insulated jacket holds a 5 gallon corny keg and fills with ice. These kept our beer at the temperature we wanted for pouring. Since we only had one jockey box, we used picnic taps on the other kegs. In the future, we will be adding an additional 4 tap jockey box. These bags kept our area organized and kept our beer at a fairly consistent temperature. When we got home, our kegs were still cold. We brought 8 kegs to the event and had 3 kegs of leftover beer to put back in our keezer to enjoy later. You can also see our milk crate C02 storage. Did we bring extra C02? Yes. We figured we would have extra in case we had a random issue with a bottle or if someone else ran out of C02. ![]() We purchased our foam signs from Vista Print. We use Vista Print throughout the year for various events, and they always have great deals and good products. We initially made our signage before we knew how much space we would be given. However, we already have a fix in place for next year. We like to purchase things that we can reuse. Each of the signs can be used as artwork in our brewery to commemorate the event which is a bonus. The Two Jacks Banner we had over the black tablecloth actually came as a free bonus product when we purchased our custom tablecloth. Unfortunately, we were unable to use our table cloth at this event. However, it will be utilized in the near future at our friends' wedding. We purchased our tablecloth and banner from Totally Promotional. A bonus is you get to approve the proof before printing and the quality is great. The fabric cleaned up easily after the event. ![]() This will definitely be a purchase for us in the near future. While the kegs in Cool Brew Bags were helpful, this cart would have made transporting the kegs easier and faster, especially at the end of the event when we were tired. What things would we change for next time?Honestly, very little. It’s very easy for someone else to say, “You should have put ____ beer in the competition instead.” We don’t believe in armchair quarterbacking our decisions. We had a clear purpose with what we wanted out of this event. We chose to include Judge Hopner IPA as our beer not because we felt it was our best beer. We chose it because it was the first beer recipe we created and the beer we have brewed the most consistently. At the time the competition paperwork was submitted, we had not completely dialed in our new brewing equipment and had changed our brewing process. We were certain we could make a very drinkable Judge Hopner IPA for the public, and we felt confident we would have a beer we could feel comfortable pouring for people. Would we change our beer choice? No. In your first competition, there are jitters and unknowns to work out. Do we think that Judge Hopner was the best beer we poured at the event? No. Did we get exactly the feedback we wanted and the confidence we needed to continue in competitions? Yes. Do we want to upgrade a few minor things? Yes. We are excited that we will feel way more comfortable pouring for our friends' wedding reception. Honestly, I would never be able to live with messing up the beer and cocktails for such a wonderful day! WHAT DID WE LEARN?Several takeaways. One, we really love brewing, and the event has really encouraged us to move on from some of our older beers and explore some of our other ideas. This event helped us to gain more confidence and enter multiple contests. Our goals for this year were to expand our brewing, enter competitions, and get out of our comfort zones. We are only in March of this year, and we are super stoked at the progress we are making and the direction our brewing is going. However, while we are new to many people in the homebrewing scene, this is not a new venture for us. This has been 10 years in the making. For anyone who is starting out and using kits and plastic buckets, we started there. We were not members of a homebrew club. We started a homebrew club and are fumbling our way through this. Everything we have learned has come from researching, brewing, and asking questions. The biggest takeaway from this event is that we are proud. Proud of what we have accomplished. Proud of what we have created. Proud of where we are going. And proud that we could represent the city that we love, Long Beach.
I am 4th generation Long Beach, and I come from a family that built this city (literally, my family owned a small construction company, CR Crain and Sons). In fact, my grandfather was a master mason and most of the masonry work you see (LBCC, CSULB, brickwork facades on homes, and so on are his work). My great grandmother graduated from LB High School; my grandfather graduated from LB Poly; my grandmother, father, aunt, and uncles all graduated from Wilson High School; my brother graduated from Millikan High School; and I proudly represent LB Poly High School class of 1994. Mike graduated from Millikan High School, and both Mike and I graduated from CSULB (BA degrees and teaching credentials). I started my teaching career at LBUSD, and Mike currently works at Jordan High School. We love this city and representing Long Beach at this event was wonderful. The fact that the event raised money for Rancho Los Cerritos was the cherry on top as the ranchos have always been a huge part of the city, and its' history. In fact, the opportunity to be a multigenerational Long Beach native and represent Long Beach at this event was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Knowing we would be pouring at the Rancho was the push we both needed to put ourselves out there. Once again, Long Beach has given us the push to move forward and be better brewers and people. We are glad that our city was represented so well and that so many people came from outside Long Beach to see what a truly wonderful, vibrant, and diverse community we have. We are definitely Long Beach proud. Cheers! 2JBC Normally, when we serve large groups of friends, we serve on draft from our keezers at the brewery. Recently, we purchased an SL1 Oktober Canning Machine and take cans to small gatherings or when we travel (i.e., camping, fishing, hiking, golf, etc.). However, for the Craft Beer LB Homebrew Invitational on March 19, we realized we needed to purchase a jockey box for serving a large crowd our beer on draft. Yes, we could just serve our beer from a picnic tap like we have done at many a party, but we wanted to present our beer to the crowd in the best way possible. So, we purchased a jockey box to help us control the temperature of the beer we are serving AND to present our beer in the most professional way possible. This brought us to a new problem...jockey boxes all look the same. So, what to do about it? Well, create a jockey box cover in 2JBC style of course! If you haven't guessed by our logo and color scheme, we are HUGE reggae fans. Growing up in Long Beach, both Mike and I fell in love reggae at a young age. In fact, Mike was actually a drummer in a reggae band for some time, so what better way to pay homage to the music that we love and is a huge part of our LB background than to paint our jockey box cover in rasta colors! Materials1X6 boards for slats 2x2 board for corners plywood board for top 1x1 trim for top and bottom borders Spray Paint (we used Behr Spray paint with Primer in No More Drama-Red, Blazing Bonfire-yellow, and Luck of the Irish-green; and Rustoleum black matte for the borders and top) 1 1/4 inch Spax construction screws bar mat (optional for the top) Metal logo sign (12x12 Metal Print with matte finish from Shutterfly; the matte finish is better for outdoors) Jockey box (we purchased one with front connections because we didn't want to deal with connections and hoses on the sides of the box) ***sizes of cuts and width of the box are really dependent on a variety of factors including the size of the cooler, where the hoses connect to the jockey box, whether or not you want trim, and so on. Therefore, we left the exact cut sizes off of the list. Below you can see the cuts we made. We cut the 1x6 boards to length for the sides (6 total boards, 3 for each side) and front of the jockey box cover (3 total boards). Then, we cut the 2x2 for the corner posts, 4 total pieces. The 1x1 trim was cut to match the length of the 1x6 boards, 4 boards for the sides and 2 boards for the front. After cutting each board, we lightly sanded the 1x6 boards and then spray painted one yellow, one red, and one green board for the front and each of the sides. The 1x1 boards were spray painted black. This was our first time using Behr spray paint, and we really liked how even the color sprayed on. After four coats and 24 hours to dry, the boards were ready to assemble. We attached the sides to the posts first. We assembled from the bottom up, starting with the black trim, followed by red, yellow, and then green which follows the color order in our logo. There was not enough of the 2x2 board to attach the top trim with a Spax screw, so we used a finishing nail to attach the top black trim instead. Below is one of the side panels assembled without the top trim. After the sides were assembled, we lined up the front boards with the side boards to ensure the stripes lined up correctly. After the sides were completed, we cut the plywood board to fit the top. We then spray painted the top black to match the top trim. Last, we added our custom metal Two Jacks logo to the front of the Jockey Box cover. The metal logo is removable for transport and to prevent any scratching or damage. Below is the view from the backside of the Jockey Box cover. You can see that there is plenty of room to grab the handles of the cooler to remove it. Also, there is plenty of room to check the ice, check the connections, and pour from the tap handles. Initially, we had planned to add handles to the cover, but we think handles wouldn't look as nice. We have seen several jockey box covers that fold down when not in use; while convenient, we opted for a simple box. One, we personally didn't want any visible brackets or latches on the front or sides of the Jockey Box cover. Second, we felt that we would most likely be storing the cover with the Jockey box which meant that we could just leave the box as a display on our brewery shelving unit when not in use.
Overall, this was a simple and easy project. We like the overall look and are pleased with how the jockey box cover turned out. The Shutterfly metal sign came out great and we like the raised look of it more than we would like a custom sticker. The fact that the sign can be removed and stored to prevent any scratches is a bonus. Even with wood prices incredibly high right now, the total cost to make the cover including the wood, screws, paint, and metal logo sign was about $120. We hope this is the beginning of many outdoor festival pours. Cheers! 2JBC We have to say, it was fun to see what everyone voted for the hops additions to the recipes. We gave our Instagram followers four options for our Much Love WCIPA recipe: 1. Centennial, Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo 2. Cascade, Simcoe, Centennial 3. Galaxy, Amarillo, Cascade 4. Azacca, El Dorado, Citra, and Simcoe And the winner is....option #1! Now we need to plan out how and when to use the hops and why. HOPS BACKGROUND and USESBefore we get started building the recipe, a little background on the various hops, and their flavor and aroma profiles. CENTENNIAL HOPS. Centennial hops are a great dual-purpose hop, meaning they can be used for bittering and aroma. They are a similar hop to Cascade and impart notes of pine, citrus, and floral notes (I think the floral tones are the smell of citrus flowers). They tend to provide an intense citrus aroma with lots of lemon. Many recipes use them for bittering, flavor, aroma, and dry-hopping. Basically, Centennial hops are excellent when used anywhere in the brewing process. CITRA HOPS. Citra is a dual purpose hop. It has a strong citrus aroma with flavors of grapefruit, lime, and tropical fruit (mango, passion fruit, pineapple, and peach). Citra is a favorite for dry hopping as the aroma is an intense citrus bomb. However, Citra is also widely used for flavoring and aroma in the late stages of the boil and flameout. SIMCOE HOPS. Simcoe is a bit smoother than Citra and has aromas of apricot, pine, passionfruit, citrus zest, and berry. Like Centennial, they are often described as "Cascade on steroids." Simcoe is a dual purpose hop that can be used for clean bittering, imparting flavor and aroma, and earthy notes when dryhopping. AMARILLO HOPS. Amarillo also has a citrus profile with notes of lemon, orange, and grapefruit; however, it does lean a bit more towards the orange flavor profile. It is typically used as a flavor and aroma, and for dryhopping. HOP SCHEDULE for MUCH LOVE IPAWe followed one of our usual methods for adding hops. For a 60 minute boil, bittering hops added at 60 minutes, flavoring hops added between 15 and 30 minutes remaining in boil, and aroma hops added at 5 minutes and flameout. We like layering flavors of hops, so we did add hops at 10 minutes as well. For the 0 minute hops, feel free to use those as flameout hops or whirlpool them. We left this open for brewers to choose how they'd like to use the hops based on their equipment and setup (We know not everyone has whirlpool setups). Whether used at flameout or in a whirlpool (We typically whirlpool for 10 minutes and let sit for 10 minutes before cooling the wort), the aroma should impart in the beer. For dryhopping, we followed a typical 2JBC schedule. We typically dryhop after fermentation and don't like the hops sitting in the fermenter for more than 3 days. BITTERING HOPS: Simcoe, Centennial BITTERING/FLAVOR HOPS: Citra FLAVOR: Simcoe AROMA: Centennial, Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo (added 3 times to layer the aroma) DRYHOP: Simcoe, Amarillo, and Citra We're hoping for a very citrus based IPA with subtle pine notes coming from the Simcoe and Centennial YEASTWe listed White Labs #WLP001 as the yeast in the recipe. However, the yeast is really the brewer's choice. White Labs #WLP001, Fermentis Safale S-05, and Wyeast Labs #1056 are all the same strain of yeast (Chico strain). Several side by side by side taste tests have been done by endless homebrewing groups and results vary. Some brewers say one brand tastes different and others feel that the difference is imperceptible. By all means, use whichever you feel most comfortable with as all three varieties will produce a clean tasty beer. Honestly, in our 2JBC taste test, we could not find any discernible differences between all three yeast brands. WATER PROFILE & ADDITIVESWe did not create a water profile for this recipe. However, we brew with RO water at 2JBC, so we typically add the RO water into the water profile section on Beersmith to find out what additives to include to give our beer the qualities we are looking for. For this recipe, we did look over the predicted mash PH and added acid malt to get the pH into range. We like our IPAs in the pH range of 5.3-5.4 and added acid malt to set the target pH of 5.3. However, feel free to remove the acid malt and/or add in additives as you feel is necessary. You'll notice that the grain bill is a bit different from last week's due to the change in starting gravity from the addition of the acid malt; the change brings the estimated ABV to 6.7%. RECiPE NOTESWe created this recipe using Beersmith's equipment profile for all-grain brewing in a standard 5 gallon Stainless steel setup. We used a very generic setup and not the actual 2JBC setup. If you use Beersmith, we highly recommend that you type in the recipe for yourself and adjust the recipe to your beer equipment profile. Also, we highly recommend you set the AA% on your hops to include the actual values for the hops you are using as this can change the final IBUs. Recipe notes: Gravity: 1.064 Bitterness: 60.0 IBUs Color: 5.3 SRM Est FG: 1.014 Est ABV: 6.7% Bitter Ratio: 9.37 Adjusted mash pH (w/ Acid malt): 5.26 MUCH LOVE IPA RECIPEWe hope you enjoy the recipe. We are planning on brewing the Much Love IPA recipe after the CraftLB Homebrew Invitational on March 19. We'll be using the same IBUs and grain percentages with slight changes to accommodate our brewing equipment. Please let us know if you try the recipe and your thoughts. We always appreciate feedback!
Cheers! 2JBC 2022 has given 2JBC much to celebrate. We are preparing for our first ever Homebrew Competition on March 19 at the Craft LB Homebrew Invitational, we have finally (fingers crossed) dialed in our new 1 barrel brewhouse, and we are celebrating 1000 followers on Instagram! We are so excited and thrilled to see what is next! I mean, it’s homebrewing, so anything goes, right? While we are both excited and nervous for March 19th–I mean, what could wrong when you are pouring beer in a garden with no access to water or electricity?--we wanted to take the time to celebrate all of these accomplishments. We have been enjoying learning more about brewing, meeting more brewers, and developing new techniques to improve our beers. While we love that our friends and family enjoy our beers, there is nothing like the camaraderie of other brewers. Only a homebrewer truly understands the thrill of opening up a bag of hops, waiting for a shipment to arrive, geeking out over a pH meter, or that Umami taste in a beer that you created and shaped. To celebrate with other homebrewers, we wanted to create a collaborative beer with you. We will develop the beer recipe with input from our followers and share each step of the creation with you on our blog. Based on the results of our first question, the overwhelming winner was a West Coast IPA. In fact, second place was a West Coast DIPA, followed by a Pilsner. Because of this, the final result will be a beer we call Much Love IPA and will share with all of you. You are free to brew the beer, critique the recipe, make changes, update it, and share it with others. However, we only ask that you give credit where credit is due and share that Much Love IPA was created and shared by 2JBC. History of IPAsAll IPAs are not created equal and have their own unique flare. After everything I have looked over and read, it appears that the various IPA styles are very indicative of the areas in which they are produced and the tastes of the people who live there. The original IPA stemmed from the need to ship beer overseas from England to British soldiers in India. It was too hot in India to brew beer, so beer had to survive a six month journey over the seas to reach British soldiers. To survive the journey, the beer was made with high alcohol and lots of hops so that the flavors remained when the beer arrived. And the IPA was born. The first American IPA was from the Ballantine Company and was brewed until they went out of business in the 1970s. From there, Anchor Brewing Company brewed Liberty Ale with the newly grown Cascade hop and the rest is history. West Coast IPAs are most likely born out of the proximity to hop farms that produce Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, and Columbus. Blind Pig IPA was the first super hoppy IPA which led to other brewers to follow including Stone, Green Flash, Ballast Point, and Pizza Port. Besides the different hop varieties available, American IPAs tend to have different grains than the original British IPAs. British malts tend to be a bit more malty or bready than American malts. The bready flavor of the British malt lends itself to a more balanced bitter in the IPA while American IPAs tend to have a more mild 2-Row base that is paler in color and a bit drier on the palate. The result is the bitterness of the hops really shines through. Now, the NEIPA is what we think of as a hazy IPA while an East Coast IPA is a balance between the British and West Coast style of IPAs (think Dogfish IPAs). Breakdown of IPA stylesOf course, there are more styles than I have listed (i.e., Sour IPA, Black IPA, Milkshake IPAs, etc.), but the four below are a good starting point to understanding IPA flavors.
Building a WCIPA RecipeSo how do we build a West Coast IPA? We start with the grains. Why? Because a West Coast IPA tends to have lots of early boil bittering hops that are really pronounced and the star of the beer. WCIPAs also are heavily dry hopped and have lots of aroma hops to complete the flavor. To achieve the background needed to accentuate the hops, the base beer needs to be clean and crisp. For this, the majority of the grain bill should be 2-Row malt. To give the beer a bit more color, a bit of Crystal Malt (in small quantities) can be added. This also helps to give a bit more fermentable sugars to drive up the ABV. A bit of Carapils adds a nice mouthfeel, fuller body, and better head retention. The Grain BillWe'd love to hear your feedback on the grain bill. Since this is really the foundation for the Much Love IPA, we'd love to hear feedback! Check our Instagram Story and Feed to share your ideas for hop selections as next week we add in the hops!
Cheers! 2JBC When we started brewing, we basically did a lot of research and figured things out independently. Fortunately, Mike and I are good at researching and were able to find products and processes that worked well. Unfortunately, we felt like we were spending a lot more time researching and troubleshooting than brewing. When we decided to try our hand at making our own recipes, we were at a loss for how to do it. We had read books that included complicated calculations to determine mash temps, but we wanted something simpler. We came across Beersmith, purchased the software, and have been happy ever since. Below is a video tutorial of how to save a recipe in Beersmith and make some changes. I highly encourage anyone who wants to use Beersmith to not only watch our video but to also take advantage of the Beersmith tutorials. The tutorials are embedded throughout the program and cover every aspect of the program. Some topics covered in the video: - How to save a Beersmith recipe to your recipes - How to make changes and substitutions in Beersmith - How to setup a water profile - How to make pH changes - How to keep session notes - How to make a folder and move recipes into the folder - How 2JBC uses versions to keep track of changes to recipes PRO TIP: Every hop pack you buy has a AA% listed. If you want to make sure you have your IBUs accurate, change the AA% for the hops to the actual hops you are using. If you need to adjust the IBUs, Beersmith will adjust the IBUs for you and adjust them throughout the recipe to keep it balanced. This is a great way to ensure you have consistent IBU readings across recipes. We hope you enjoy the video. Cheers! 2JBC The first time Mike and I brewed a recipe from a kit, we were a bit confused. I clearly remember reading the hop additions and checking what was included a thousand times. The recipe asked for the same hop to be included at different intervals. I don't remember the exact hop that was used, but let's use Citra as an example. The recipe said use Citra Bittering and Citra Aroma hops. I thought these were two separate hops, so I kept looking for two separate packages of hops. I finally realized Citra was one hop, and the timing of the hops dictates whether it is used for bittering or aroma. We chuckle about this today. My hope is that anyone new to brewing can look over this blog on recipes and feel comfortable on their first brew day and not feel as overwhelmed and confused as I did. Disclaimer: This blog references Beersmith software. We paid for a subscription to Beersmith and have been using it for many years. This is not an endorsement of one beer recipe software over another. We happen to include Beersmith because we use Beersmith. The overall way you read a recipe is the same regardless of what program you choose to use. Also, we have not been compensated for using Beersmith in any capacity. Sample RecipeBelow is a free recipe you can obtain through Beersmith and not created by Two Jacks Brewing Company. We are using this recipe solely to share how to read the recipe. The recipe is sectioned off from top to bottom to discus each portion of the recipe. Name & Batch sizeThe information on the top of recipes shares some key information to the brewer. First, we get the name. In the example above, the name of this beer is "Sierra Ale" and created by Brad Smith on 8/21/2003. From the information above, we know this is an all grain recipe and will create 5 gallons worth of beer. We also learn that this recipe requires a 60 min boil and uses a 6 gallon (or larger) brew pot and uses an Igloo cooler for mashing in. The equipment used becomes important because your equipment may very significantly from what was used by the recipe creator. For example, at 2JBC, we do not mash in an Igloo cooler, and our Brewhouse Efficiency is 90% not the 72% listed above. Because of these differences, I would need to adjust this recipe to work with my equipment and efficiency. These changes can be made within Beersmith, but this particular blog is only focusing on the basics of how to read the recipe. Next week, we will go a bit more in depth in how to change a recipe. IngredientsJust like a cooking recipe, ingredients are listed for everything you need for the recipe. For brewing, these ingredients are usually listed by type of ingredient--grain, hops, additions, and yeast. You'll notice that the grain is weighed by the pound. Please note that the grains need to be milled. Homebrew shops will typically weigh and mill the grain for you. For example, you can email Windsor Homebrew Supply in Costa Mesa, California your recipe (for all ingredients) or your grain order, and they will pull all the ingredients and mill the grain for you BEFORE you come to the shop. The grains above have an SRM listed after the grain. This refers to the color the grain will impart in your beer (we will go more into this next week). Hops are usually weighed by the ounce. If you look above, there are two hop additions in the boil--Pearle at the beginning of the 60 minute boil, and Cascade with 5 minutes left in the boil. The third hop addition is during dry hopping. This particular recipe states that Cascade will be dry hopped for 5 days. The yeast in this recipe is a liquid yeast from White Labs; however, you can substitute a dry yeast such as Safale US-05. A note on hops additions: recipes are written by boil times. If a recipe lists a hops addition at 60 minutes, it means the hops are added with 60 minutes left in the boil. You can really think of it as the hops need to boil for 60 minutes. A 30 minute hops addition means the hops will boil for 30 minutes. This can become a bit confusing the first time you make a recipe that requires a 90 minute boil. Just remember, if the hops state the addition is at 60 minutes in a 90 minute total boil time, that means that hops only need to be in the boil for 60 minutes. Just boil for 30 minutes and add the hops. Flame out hops will be listed as 0 minute hops addition because there is no additional boil time left. My honest opinion on dry hopping is not to really try it until you have accomplished a few brews. The first few batches you make, there is too much going on. If you do dryhop, remember that dry hopping happens AFTER fermentation ends. Let the yeast do their job and then add your hops. I time it so that I am racking out into my keg after the dryhop is completed. Beer profileThe beer profile provides you with information on specific gravity readings before (original gravity) and after (final gravity) fermentation. For our first recipe, honestly, we struggled with finding the gravity. Reading a hydrometer takes time. I think Mike and I double and triple checked our readings until we could both agree on the same number. Now, we use a refractometer for our original gravity reading (actually we take a brix reading and convert the reading to an original gravity using an online calculator). This recipe has the potential to have 4.72% ABV; the actual alcohol by volume is estimated at 4.3%. This discrepancy is due to the fact that this recipe was written for a brewhouse efficiency of 72%. This means that some of the sugars are not fully extracted from the grains. The final gravity is taken AFTER the yeast has finished attenuating (i.e., fermentation is complete). To find the ABV, I use an online calculator and input my original and final gravity to find the ABV. Last, you'll notice above that the recipe also includes information on bitterness (IBUs), color (SRM), and calories per pint. Some personal advice: I always have a pen and hardcopy of a recipe handy to take notes during a brewing session. I note any issues we encountered (i.e., flame that was blown out, propane tank that went out, stuck sparge, etc.) along with any minor changes made (i.e., extra hops added, a hop substitution, change of yeast, etc.). While brewing, I also take a pH reading of the mash and keep track of my BRIX readings. For more complicated recipes, I also check off where I am in the recipe so that I don't accidentally miss anything (it can really ruin your day when you realize you forgot to include a hops addition...not that I would know from personal experience, of course!). Mash profileThe mash profile section is really where the directions of how to mash are included. In this recipe, water needs to be heated to 170.5 degrees (called strike water). Once heated to the correct temp, the grains will be mashed in to the water. Note: ALWAYS add the grain to the water and then stir the grain in. Doing this prevents the formation of dough balls which can lower your efficiency and prevent some of the sugar conversion. If you notice, the temperature once the grains are mashed in should be held as close to 158 degrees as possible for 45 minutes. You may be thinking to yourself, why do we have strike water at 170.5 degrees to then hold the temp at 158 degrees? Excellent question! The difference of temperature accounts for the lowering of the water temperature once the grains are added to the water. The beauty of using beer recipe software is the software takes the guessing out of what temperature to make the strike water and provides you with the temperature. Since this recipe uses a mash cooler, typically the grains would be mashed in and let to sit in the cooler for 45 minutes and then vorlaufed (i.e., recirculated) before lautering or rinsing the grain. Our 2JBC setup is a bit different as we use a temperature controlled recirculated mash. In Beersmith, you can make changes to the recipe to account for your equipment and brewing style. After mashing, remember that you will be boiling the wort. In this recipe, you need to look back to the section on Name & Batch size to find that the wort will boil for 60 minutes. Also, you will need to look back to the Ingredients section to see the hops schedule for the recipe. Recipes DO NOT include information on chilling the wort (at least, I have never seen one that does). Just remember, you need to chill your wort as quickly as possible and then introduce yeast once the temperature of the chilled wort is cool enough for the yeast. Note: You will notice that this recipe is in Imperial measurements, some recipes may be listed in metric measurements. While I am a dual citizen of the UK and the USA, I am not ashamed to admit that my ability to convert from Imperial to metric measurements is lacking (much to my British mum's dismay). So, be prepared that some recipes from European countries may require a bit of conversion from metric measurements prior to brewing. CArbonation & STorageCarbonating the beer is really Mike's area of expertise. However, every recipe includes some information on storage temperature, how long to age a beer, and temperatures for storing a beer. Some recipes will suggest racking out to a secondary for conditioning your beer before service. Personally, I omit this step. In all the beers we have made, we have never racked over to a secondary. I suppose this is more of a brewer's personal choice. As with everything today, I'm sure brewers have strong opinions one way or another. After our beer is done fermenting, we rack over to kegs. Occasionally, we may need to add Silafine (some brewers use gelatin) to clear out a beer. Most of the time, we just tap the keg and enjoy. The only time I could think of racking over to a secondary is if I was adding an ingredient while dry hopping that I felt would be bad for my fermenter. In all of our brews, this hasn't happened yet. Also, I have never bottle conditioned beer...it's just not my thing. Cleaning and sanitizing bottles is very unappealing to me. However, I have tasted homebrews that were excellent and bottle conditioned. My point is, there is no write or wrong method...you will find the method that works best for you. Next week, I will be sharing a video blog on how everything looks in Beersmith and what features we use to help us create recipes.
Cheers! 2JBC Now that the you've made wort from the grains and boiled it with hops, it's time to move the wort to the fermenter. At 2JBC, we have spent a lot of time on the cold side of the brewing process. Brewers spend a lot of time fielding questions about RIMS tubes, mashing techniques, and hop spiders; however, it is the cold side that really stands out to us as the game changer. Cooling the wortOnce the time is up on your boil, most people begin cooling their wort as fast as possible. However, at 2JBC, we take an additional step to Whirlpool our beer for 10 minutes and let it sit for another 10 minutes to coagulate the proteins in the wort and separate the trub from the clear wort. After the whirlpool is complete, we then begin to cool our wort as quickly as possible and lower the temperature for fermentation to begin. We have tried many types of wort chilling including ice baths, immersion chiller (a copper chiller that uses water to chill the wort), plate chiller (water runs in one direction over the plates while wort runs over the plates in the opposite direciton to cool the wort), and a counterflow chiller (similar to a plate chiller but there are coils instead of plates the water and wort pass over). All have pros and cons, but we have settled on the Brutus Counterflow chiller from Exchilerator. Using the Exchilerator, we have been able to cool down our wort in 10-15 minutes and get the wort to pitching temperatures very quickly in a closed system (i.e., the wort leaves the kettle and no longer touches air). Once the wort is cooled and in the fermenter, we connect either the SS Brewtech Chronicals or the Sanke fermenters to the glychol chiller. We then pitch our yeast, hookup a blowoff tube, and then wait for fermentation to start. The blowoff tube is a piece of silicone tube attached to an opening in the fermenter that allows C02 created during fermentation to escape the fermenter. I know, I know. You heard that oxygen is bad for beer. No...you haven't? Well, oxygen is bad for beer. Oxidized beer creates an off flavor that tastes and smells like wet cardboard or old wine (yeah, there is a guy that probably tasted cardboard to know the flavor). Well, the reason the beer doesn't become oxidized is that the other end of the blowoff tube is put into a bucket filled with sanitizer. The C02 from the fermentation mixed with the closed end in sanitizer creates an environment that prevents oxygen from reaching the wort. When fermentation starts, the sanitizer will actually bubble due to the C02 created during active fermentation. After fermentation ends, the beer is transferred to either kegs or bottles. fermentersWhen we first started brewing, we transferred our beer to plastic buckets to ferment in a dark spot in our garage. We quickly realized that beer likes a constant temperature, so we upgraded to a fermentation chamber (i.e., a temperature controlled freezer) and glass carboys. However, Mike got tired really quickly of lifting glass carboys with 5 gallons of liquid into a freezer, so we upgraded to SS Brewbuckets. After buying our brew buckets, we decided to find a way to brew lager beers that require colder fermentation. We settled on Sanke kegs that we modified with 6 inch ferrules (easy to clean) with Cool Zone wraps. At first, we pumped cold water through the wraps and changed out ice constantly. When we moved to a glychol chiller, we were able to really "set it and forget it" with our fermentation. We are now fully transferring our beer in a closed system to minimize oxygenation of the beer. We now have six Sanke fermenters and two 1 barrel Chronicals to ferment in. We have since gotten rid of our glass carboys and plastic buckets; however, we still have our 7.5 gallon SS Brewtech Brewbuckets that we have since added a thermowell to help monitor the temperature (we use the Cool Zone wraps for these). Today, we use our fermenters to brew 5, 10, and 20 gallon batches. How to serveAt 2JBC, we have not bottle conditioned beer where priming sugar is added to the bottle so that the beer can develop C02 (i.e. bubbles!). Instead of bottle conditioning, we have always transferred to a keg and force carbonated beer with a C02 tank. Once the keg has enough C02 dissolved in the beer, the C02 is used to push the beer out of the keg and into your glass. At 2JBC, we made keezers to transfer our beer instead of using a purchased kegerator. We also have a storage chamber that allows us to store beer under C02 pressure to be ready to serve when one keg taps out. We also now have several other service types--an Oktober canning machine so that we can easily bring our homebrews camping or golfing and a jockey box that allows us to serve at competitions. Now that we are entering competitions, we need to learn how to bottle beer (from the keg, not bottle conditioned) so that we can ship our beers to competitions which seems to be the preferred method for judging competition beers. This is a beginning guide to our process. If you have any questions, please reach out. We are always happy to help fellow or future brewers and provide any help we can.
We'll see you next week when we go over how to read a recipe! Cheers! 2JBC After going over the basics, it's time to dive into how we go about using our kettles to make delicious beer. By now, you know that our goal is to extract the fermentable sugars from grains and create clear WORT that the yeast will enjoy eating. equipment we use:1. Recipe, pens/pencils, & ingredients (water, hops, grain, water additives) 2. pH meter 3. Brew Paddle (ours is stainless steel) 4. 3 propane burners 5. 3 Brew pots (we have two 50 gallon Brew Built pots and one 50 gallon SS Brewtech pot) 6. False bottom for the Mash Tun 7. RIMS Tube w/ sight glass 8. 2 Chugger pumps 9. An assortment of silicone hoses with Quick Disconnect Fittings 10. Whirlpool 11. Hop bags (we have tried a variety of options, but we prefer using hop bags) 12. Refractometer 13. Brewing gloves (heat resistant and help when moving hoses with hot liquid) 14. Small pitchers/buckets to hold the silicone hoses, hot liquid, etc.
In the picture above, you can see our brew cart setup. Traditionally, the three vessels are setup from left to right as the hot liquor tank (HLT), mash tun (MT), and boil kettle (BK). However, we setup our cart in a different order to accommodate the rolling cart that holds our RIMS tube. Our HLT is actually setup in the middle of our cart. You can see that we have two carts for pumps. We attached our pumps to furniture dollies purchased at Harbor Freight for under $20. This is a very inexpensive way to make your carts more mobile. If you look closely, you'll see that our pumps have outdoor faucet attachments. Those faucets allow us to purge the silicone tubing of air bubbles so that the hot liquid can easily flow through the pump. Also, if we get a stuck mash, we can open the faucet and have any small particles of grain dump out before hitting the pump and clogging it. This system has worked out well for us. Also, the reddish orange (they were once bright red) mats on the wood cart are BBQ mats that we repurposed to stop hot liquid from getting into the wood. The mats have worked out well and keep the cart from becoming sticky from spilled hot wort. In the future, we hope to build a stainless steel cart that will have pumps in a permanent location; however, we don't see the need to spend the money on that as this cart is working well for us. When we brew, there are several steps that we take before we even begin to heat up water. The night before we brew (or several days before), we "make" water by filtering our water through our reverse osmosis system. We also print out our recipe and reread it to make sure we have all ingredients on hand--we started doing this because we have brewed a few times and realized, oops! we forgot the yeast! Currently, we are dialing in our larger system, and we decided to stop making yeast starters and focus on yeast starters and harvesting yeast once we feel more comfortable in the rest of our setup. So, for now, we are using dried yeast which has been working out fine so far. In the morning, Mike and I divide up the brewing tasks. Mike sets up the cart and RIMS tube while I measure out the water additives and hops needed to brew. When it comes to the actual brewing, I focus on the mash pH, the Brix & gravity readings, the timing of the mash, watching the recirculation & boil, and hop additions. Mike focuses on setting up the silicone tubing and pumps, prepping the wort chillers and fermenters, and all things related to cleaning and sanitizing. Having separate duties while brewing has created a more efficient brew day that gives us each a clear purpose/direction for the day and keeps us from running into each other. We each take part in the cleaning after brewing with me focusing on cleaning the kettles while Mike focuses on cleaning the pumps, RIMS tube, and hoses. The video above shows the transfer of water heated to strike temperature in the HLT and pumped to the MT. You can see the water come up from the bottom of the MT and through the false bottom. Once the water is completely transferred over, we recheck the temperature of the water and once it reaches the temp required, we mash in our grains. Unfortunately, we don't currently have a video of us mashing in. Basically, Mike starts slowly adding grains to the water while I stir the water with a brew paddle to prevent the formation of dough balls. The strike temperature is always slightly higher than the mash temperature as adding the grains to the water will cool the temperature. The false bottom keeps the grains off the bottom of the MT and helps to prevent a stuck mash (i.e., the grains preventing the liquid from leaving the MT).
After we mash in the grain and break up any dough balls, we begin to recirculate the liquid in the MT. A ball valve on the bottom of the MT is opened up and the liquid flows to the pump and through our RIMS tube. The rims tube has a heating element that keeps the liquid at a set temperature and then pumps the liquid through a sight glass to the sparge arm. This process of moving the liquid from the bottom of the kettle and back to the top makes the wort crystal clear and cleans out any leftover debris from the grain. This process continues at a set temperature until the desired amount of Brix is reached (i.e., the desired amount of sugar is extracted from the grain). Typically, this takes 60-75 minutes, depending on the grains used and style of beer created. After 10 minutes, we take a pH of the mash to determine if we need to make any adjustments to the mash. In the videos above, the left video shows the recirculating mash process; however, the video uses water to demonstrate the process. The video on the right shows how the sparge arm works. We leave the valve on open to start the recirculating process and then lower the amount of liquid coming out of the sparge arm to more of a trickle. After we finish the recirculating mash process, we begin to sparge or rinse the grains and transfer the liquid wort over to the BK. First, we reheat water in our HLT and then pump the water through the RIMS tube and sparge arm. This water rinses the grain bed. As the water trickles over the grain bed, the MT is opened and the liquid flows into a second pump that pumps the liquid into the BK. The trick is to keep an inch or two of liquid above the grain bed through the process. You continue to rinse the grain bed until the required amount of liquid is in the BK. The video above shows the sparging process. Once the liquid is transferred into the BK, another Brix reading with the refractometer is taken along with another pH reading. The liquid wort is then brought to a rolling boil. At this point, it is critical to watch the BK as a hot break happens where proteins and polyphenols coagulate and cause a boil over. To prevent the dreaded boil over, you can turn down the flame on the burner or spray water on the foamy top of the boil to cause the proteins to coagulate and fall back into the pot. A typical brew day consists of a 60-90 minute boil depending on your recipe and type of beer being brewed. During the boil process, hops are added at various intervals to add flavor to the wort. In the last 15 minutes of the boil, we typically add either Whirloc or Irish Moss to the kettle to help clear out the wort from any debris. Once the boil ends, we turn off the flame and begin a 10 minute whirlpool followed by a 10 minute rest. During this time, the liquid in the BK is pumped out of the kettle and through the whirlpool to force the liquid to move in a circular pattern. The circular motion of the whirlpool causes the debris from the hops and grain to congregate in the center of the BK and remain in the pot while clear wort is transferred to the fermenter. The picture on the left shows the boil. You can see the foam towards the left and the foam on the right that has dissipated. This is from the hot break. In the right picture , you can see the tube used for the whirlpool and the leftover sediment left in the BK after racking over to the fermenter.
And this concludes our hot side brewing process. Next week, we'll show you our cold side process. Cheers! 2JBC |
AuthorTwo Jacks Brewers Archives
May 2024
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