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Author Topic: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project  (Read 42893 times)

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #105 on: January 29, 2015, 07:13:26 am »
Oh yeah, as a follow up: I cranked it down to 0.039" gap. Doing no-sparge for a 5 gallon batch of ESB yielded 70%. I'll take it.

Wonder what I'll get with a single batch sparge? Hmm.

I'll bet on 80+ %.

I'll let you know when the weather gets nicer around here. Next batch is a 10 gallon batch of Pilsner. After all the wedding beers, I could probably brew a 10 gallon 1.050 beer with my eyes closed!  ;D

Yep, pils is pretty straight forward. Good stuff anyway !
Jon H.

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #106 on: January 29, 2015, 11:55:39 am »
Oh yeah, as a follow up: I cranked it down to 0.039" gap. Doing no-sparge for a 5 gallon batch of ESB yielded 70%. I'll take it.

Wonder what I'll get with a single batch sparge? Hmm.

I'll bet on 80+ %.

I'll let you know when the weather gets nicer around here. Next batch is a 10 gallon batch of Pilsner. After all the wedding beers, I could probably brew a 10 gallon 1.050 beer with my eyes closed!  ;D

Yep, pils is pretty straight forward. Good stuff anyway !

The ingredients are straight forward, the procedures can be more complicated.
Jeff Rankert
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BJCP National
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild
Home-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #107 on: January 29, 2015, 12:06:13 pm »
Oh yeah, as a follow up: I cranked it down to 0.039" gap. Doing no-sparge for a 5 gallon batch of ESB yielded 70%. I'll take it.

Wonder what I'll get with a single batch sparge? Hmm.

I'll bet on 80+ %.

I'll let you know when the weather gets nicer around here. Next batch is a 10 gallon batch of Pilsner. After all the wedding beers, I could probably brew a 10 gallon 1.050 beer with my eyes closed!  ;D

Yep, pils is pretty straight forward. Good stuff anyway !

The ingredients are straight forward, the procedures can be more complicated.

For sure. Fermentation and lagering definitely need to be managed well.
Jon H.

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #108 on: January 29, 2015, 01:15:03 pm »
Oh yeah, as a follow up: I cranked it down to 0.039" gap. Doing no-sparge for a 5 gallon batch of ESB yielded 70%. I'll take it.

Wonder what I'll get with a single batch sparge? Hmm.

I'll bet on 80+ %.

I'll let you know when the weather gets nicer around here. Next batch is a 10 gallon batch of Pilsner. After all the wedding beers, I could probably brew a 10 gallon 1.050 beer with my eyes closed!  ;D

Yep, pils is pretty straight forward. Good stuff anyway !

The ingredients are straight forward, the procedures can be more complicated.

For sure. Fermentation and lagering definitely need to be managed well.
Sometimes mashing, too!
Jeff Rankert
AHA Lifetime Member
BJCP National
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild
Home-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!

Offline AmandaK

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #109 on: January 29, 2015, 01:16:36 pm »
I'm a Hochkurz infusion masher when it comes to German lagers.
Amanda Burkemper
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Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #110 on: January 29, 2015, 01:19:12 pm »
Oh yeah, as a follow up: I cranked it down to 0.039" gap. Doing no-sparge for a 5 gallon batch of ESB yielded 70%. I'll take it.

Wonder what I'll get with a single batch sparge? Hmm.

I'll bet on 80+ %.

I'll let you know when the weather gets nicer around here. Next batch is a 10 gallon batch of Pilsner. After all the wedding beers, I could probably brew a 10 gallon 1.050 beer with my eyes closed!  ;D

Yep, pils is pretty straight forward. Good stuff anyway !

The ingredients are straight forward, the procedures can be more complicated.

For sure. Fermentation and lagering definitely need to be managed well.
Sometimes mashing, too!

I'll be honest, I single infuse mine.  So I'm betting yours are more involved (step?).  As for double decoction, I spent all day a few times and couldn't find much difference.
Jon H.

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #111 on: January 29, 2015, 01:25:51 pm »
Step or HochKurtz double sometimes.
Jeff Rankert
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Offline AmandaK

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #112 on: January 30, 2015, 07:05:00 am »
Jon, it's no more involved than raising the temp for mashout on our system.

If I'm doing a German lager, I'll usually do a rest at 145F, then one at 158F, then mashout. The time spent at the 145F and 158F flips between 30 and 45 minutes. If I want a more fermentable beer, I do 45 minutes at 145F and 30 at 158F. If I want more body, I reverse that.

Looks like the next few weekends are going to be too cold for brewing, so that will give me some time to source Saphir hops and maybe even get some more done on the basement bar. I have some custom lights coming in, I want to install a new fixture for spotlighting, I'd like to get some shelves on the bar back, maybe install the new bathroom door, get a frame around the map, and install a new sliding glass door to the deck.

In the meantime, here's a crappy quality picture of the table we built:


It got good use over the past weekend. Mario Kart N64 prior to a party we had:


I'm really going to have to take some proper pictures when this thing is all said and done. Cell phone pictures just aren't doing it justice.
Amanda Burkemper
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Our Homebrewed Wedding, AHA Article

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #113 on: January 30, 2015, 07:20:30 am »
Amanda, first, the bar is looking unbelievable. Love the table.  And I have done some Hochkurz mashing and liked my results very much. But I have also liked just mashing 148-151F and using water chemistry to manipulate the malt, hops (or both), too. You'd think somebody who's done as many split batches for different things would have had 2 lagers ready, one done single, the other Hochkurz. Maybe I need to revisit.
BTW, I love Saphir and used some recently.  Yakima Valley Hops appears to still have some  :
http://www.yakimavalleyhops.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=saphir
Jon H.

Offline AmandaK

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #114 on: February 01, 2015, 05:50:05 pm »
We did none of the things on our list, but we did do some day drinking at our favorite homebrew shop on Saturday and decided that the lower basement was in desperate need of more organization.

So we did some things today.

Before. Wine coolers (fermentation temp control for 5g batches) were on the floor of the basement with a mess on top of them. Crap everywhere.


After. Wine coolers raised off the ground, so we don't have to bend over to get to full fermenters in the coolers. Tiny side table for random crap.


The bottle storage below the tiny table was the whole reason we started the 'we need more organization tangent'.




Once I make it back to StL again we can get the shelves in the bar basement started. New light fixtures are supposed to ship on Monday!
Amanda Burkemper
KC Bier Meisters Lifetime Member - KCBM 3x AHA Club of the Year!!
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Our Homebrewed Wedding, AHA Article

Offline Alewyfe

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #115 on: February 08, 2015, 11:55:55 am »
This thread has certainly shared a bunch of good ideas. Thanks for posting all the pictures Amanda. Keep 'em coming.
Diane
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Offline yso191

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #116 on: February 10, 2015, 05:18:28 pm »
Amanda,

I just ordered the Power Grinder motor from All American Ale Works.  I'm curious how you resolved the keyway issue.  Which solution did you go with?  I'm also interested in any other tips you might have as I puzzle through piecing this together.  In case it matters I'll be connecting this to a Schmidling (JSP) maltmill.
Steve
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Offline AmandaK

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #117 on: February 11, 2015, 06:45:22 am »
As always, Jon, Diane, and everyone that posts here: thank you for the kind words of encouragement! I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I'm not learning all this stuff to keep it to myself! If I can pass on something I've learned from another homebrewer, then this thread is a success.  8)

Steve, I hand ground down the 7mm keyway until I could get the 6mm Lovejoy on the shaft. I bought a hand grinding stick-thing at Lowes and just went at it. It's not pretty or easy, but no one will notice except me.

Basically, you have this setup: motor -> 6mm keyway -> spider -> (whatever Lovejoy fits the Schmidling shaft) -> schmidling mill.

Depending on the mill's shaft height, you'll have to make a spacer from where you mount it to raise up the mill shaft to approximately the height of the motor shaft. It doesn't have to be perfect, just pretty close - that's the joy of Lovejoys. The wiring diagram you'll likely need to use for the Power Grinder is #2 in the hand drawn packet. #1 makes my MM3 run backwards. IDK which way the shaft is facing on the Schmidling, but I'm sure you can figure it out from the pictures I've posted and by looking at your mill.
Amanda Burkemper
KC Bier Meisters Lifetime Member - KCBM 3x AHA Club of the Year!!
BJCP Assistant (to the) Midwest Rep
BJCP Grand Master/Mead/Cider


Our Homebrewed Wedding, AHA Article

Offline coolman26

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #118 on: February 12, 2015, 03:34:53 pm »
This is awesome start to finish.  Love the mill!  I guess when my drill/speed controller burns out, I'll get that for my MM-3. Where did you end up with for your gap?  I'm in a house, but brewery is more like an apartment.  Nice work!  I need more organization and space
Jeff B

Offline AmandaK

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Re: Redbird Brewhouse - There's Always a Project
« Reply #119 on: February 13, 2015, 08:04:48 am »
Got some new lights in!  8) Custom lights from Wine Country Craftsman out in CA.


Pretty illustrative, no?  :D I didn't get a picture of the main light, but I did get one of the hop light.

HOP LIGHT!!


The nasty ceiling fan is getting replaced. I mean, look at this thing! GROSS. And yes, I still need to install the bathroom door and door trim in the back of the picture.


This is what's replacing it, sort of - mine is flush mounted. (Stock photo from Wine Country Craftsman's etsy site.)


Amanda Burkemper
KC Bier Meisters Lifetime Member - KCBM 3x AHA Club of the Year!!
BJCP Assistant (to the) Midwest Rep
BJCP Grand Master/Mead/Cider


Our Homebrewed Wedding, AHA Article