HomebrewCon 2017: Day 1

Day one of HomebrewCon began quietly for your humble blogger. The morning sessions were for industry types, so I had a leisurely breakfast and wrote the prologue post before heading over to hit the expo floor. I learned from last year that there's a lot of swag handed out and many good products to check out, so I made a point to spend several hours checking out the booths. I work part-time at a homebrew shop so I was also on the lookout for products that might do well there. Just because I wouldn't buy some gizmo doesn't mean our customers won't.

I picked up the swag bag and it was already heavy. This year there's a commemorative beer by Surly called Walezbrah. It's an auburn-colored beer (7.5% ABV) and maded with an oaked pale wheat wort. "Whalezbrah! is tart, funky, wheaty, and contains waves of weird wood throughout," says Surly's webpage about the beer. "We’re never brewing it again, so it’s truly a whale. Brah." I managed to get extra bottles of last year's Airwaves, so maybe I can bag a second bottle later on.

This year we also got Beeginnings, a small (6.3oz) bottle of blackberry/raspberry/black currant mead (12% ABV) made with orange blossom honey. Three meaderies and a local homebrew club collaborated to make this clear, raspberry-colored gem and mead. There's also a small bottle of fruit puree (I got blood orange). Then there's a few stickers, a pen, two lip balms, a bottle opener, and some other small tchochke. On to the expo floor!

Weyermann's Axel Jany

Weyermann brought in Axel Jany from Germany to talk about the company and some of their products. He's a great speaker and quite entertaining. He passed around small samples of their various products so folks could do a little chew-testing. At then end, they gave away 10lb bags of a new floor-malted grain. They brought 100 bags, but there were way more than that at the demo. Yours truly missed out. Oh well.

I asked him afterwards what made floor-malted grain different (aside from the price). He chuckled and said there wasn't a huge difference. He said brewers were mainly interested in it for the "story:" It's how grain used to be malted, and some brewers want that old-school product. He said the Czechs can't get enough of it.

Later on I found myself at the Briess booth to get my free pound of Carapils Copper malt and to try some new (for me) varieties. I asked Bob Hansen how I could best use their Extra Special malt, and I got a 10-15 minute discourse on the various caramel malts and how Extra Special is different. The color in the Caremel malts is linear (1oz of Caramel 90 will give you the same color as 9oz of Caramel 10) but the flavors will be quite different. Extra Special is a 130L hybrid that has qualities of both caramel and dry malts. It's less roasty, and Bob said it would be excellent in an Irish stout like Beamish.

Then I got the lowdown on their CBW Rye, which I've used before and rather like. It was originally made for a customer to include in a beer kit, but Briess was later allowed to sell it separately. It's 20% rye with 10% Caramel 40 and 70% base malt (normally 2-row). Bob can talk your ear off, but that's enthusiasm for you. That's also why I come to these things.

Denny Conn, Marshall Schott, Drew Beechum
and Malcolm Frazier

After trying many tasty beers (Bent Paddle's amber ESB is fan-frickin-tastic!) I finally took in a seminar. The guys behind Brulosophy (Marshall Schott and Malcolm Frazier) and Experimental Brewing (Denny Conn and Drew Beechum) did a session on "citizen science" and their efforts to do experiments in the realm of homebrewing. It was a fun and enlightening session.

Then they said "dickchimp."

The "dickchimp" slide

Dickchimp is a verb meaning "to make a mistake, screw up." Denny hopes it will make it into the homebrew lexicon. I think we can make that happen.

Aside from being a hilarious word, the point was that you can learn a lot from your mistakes. Science involves a lot of mistakes, goofs and happy accidents. Also, YMMV: Your process may lead to different results than they got, so don't take their results as gospel.

I accumulated a lot of stuff on this day so I could spend more time in the seminars. The bag was almost full by the time I was done and boy were my arms tired.

Swag bag

And here's what I picked up:

The big contents

The flat stuff

This year seems to be the year for trucker hats. I was offered several, but politely took just one. Also, Spike Brewing is giving away a conical Friday and Saturday to someone wearing that bright green shirt. Guess what I'm wearing?

Surly's Omar Ansari gave the keynote speech. Very entertaining and passionate guy. After some good stories about him building hs brewery (and giving himself carbon monoxide poisoning in the process) he ended with a call to promote and protect craft beer.

The beer they poured was also tasty, but I have no idea what it was. Guessing a Surly brew. Maybe the commemorative beer?

Next time - Day 2.

HomebrewCon 2017: Prologue

I'm attending the 2017 National Homebrewer's Conference (aka HomebrewCon) in Minneapolis this week. I was sitting on a bunch of airline miles and hotel points, so why not? 😁
I flew in on Wednesday to give myself a little time to explore a new city... and drink its beer. I'm not going to write a blow-by-blow travelogue here. I'll keep it something akin to long-winded tweets on a page.
After checking in to the Hilton Minneapolis, I followed a tip from my Lyft driver and hit a place called Hell's Kitchen for lunch. Their marquee item is a cheese-filled burger called the Juicy Lucifer. It's tough to eat such a thick patty, but it is delicious. The cole slaw was the real surprise with a true-to-theme spiciness to it.

Hell's Kitchen's Juicy Lucifer 

Practically next door is the Angel Food bakery. (They're at street level, while Hell's Kitchen is in the basement. The ironies were not lost on me.) The have an outpost at MSP and man their stuff looked fantastic. I hit them up this morning and got their crullers. Mmmmm. I didn't know crullers could be so airy.

Angel Food cinnamon sugar (L)
and plain cruller

Just across the street is Haskell's Wine. It's the closest liquor store for local beer purchases. Other stores probably have better beer selection, but being less than two blocks away wins out.
And just up the street from there is Target, the hometown big-box retailer. Perfect place to get some cheap lunchable-type food and B-complex to survive several days of drinking.
All this convenience is within two blocks of the hotel. I may never leave. Well, I would when winter comes.
The Minneapolis Convention Center is about two blocks away. It can be reached using the city's extensive Skywalk system of pedestrian corridors, but the weather up here is fantastic, so I might as well walk on the street.
I took the Hoppy Trolley's hop-on, hop-off shuttle to Near Northeast to hit some breweries up that way. It's $1/ride, which is a bargain at twice the price if you're leaving or returning to the Convention Center.
I hit 3 breweries: Able, 612 Brew and BauHaus. They weren't too busy so I managed to chat with some of the brewers. 612's rye IPA was fantastic (17% rye, per the brewer), and BauHaus's "belgo-american" ale was superb.
Last night I hoofed it up to Target Field to watch the Twins play the Mariners. The home team lost 6-4, but they do have a nice roomy stadium that feels very social.
The expo floor opens shortly, so I get to kill some time there while waiting for the first round of homebrewer seminars this afternoon.
Follow me on Twitter! I'm @Zymurginian
Cheers!

Review: Blichmann Beer Gun 2

I still had some tax-refund money burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought a Blichmann New BeerGun from Home Brewing Warehouse. I had been using a macgyvered beer gun made up of a picnic tap and bottling wand to bottle beer for competition. It seemed to work OK, but the judges consistently pointed out the carbonation was low. The time had come for a purpose-built beer gun.

The New Beer Gun in its case

What's In the Box?

Blichmann has a reputation for making quality stuff, and it was evident the moment I unboxed it. Inside the plastic case is the New Beer Gun, a roughly 6' gas line, a cleaning brush a 10ft beer line with a MFL attachment on one end, a liquid MFL quick disconnect and the ever-important instructions. Most of these small parts were sold by Blichmann as a separate kit, but they've been included here.

The New Beer Gun with gas line, beer line, cleaning brush
and liquid MFL quick disconnect

The New Beer Gun looks more like a gun. It has a molded plastic grip that reminds me of a semi-automatic pistol. It's comfortable to hold, with an ambidextrous thumb lever for CO2 and a trigger for beer. The previous model had exposed pipe, so the operator's hand would slightly warm the beer during filling and cramp up during long bottling sessions. The gas line runs from your CO2 tank to a connection at the bottom of the handle (or - sticking with the semi-auto pistol metaphor - where the magazine well would be). The beer line goes from your keg and slips over the back end of the fill tube (or the breech of the barrel). At first, this seems like a bad idea, but the gun is meant to be used at low pressures (<4 PSI).

Gas attaches at bottom of handle, while beer
line simply slides over end of fill tube

The barrel is two pieces, with the fill tube running inside a larger diameter gas tube. Pressing down on the CO2 lever opens a valve and sends gas down to purge the barrel. (The guys at Brulosophy recently did an experiment putting the older Beer Gun up against bottling with a picnic tap. They purged the bottles for 45 seconds.) Pulling the trigger pulls the beer tubs back from a small rubber ball clipped to the end of the gas tube.

"Muzzle" of Beer Gun barrel with the trigger fully open.
Photo: Blichmann Engineering

Filling bottles

I hooked everything up and started filling 6 bottles for an upcoming competition. I first hooked the Beer Gun up to my keg of Star-San and ran a quick blast through it to sanitize. Mechanically, the Beer Gun worked great. I had the pressure up too high, so I got more foaming than I would have liked. Blichmann recommends slowly releasing pressure on the keg, then putting on just enough pressure to push the beer. I chill my bottles before filling to reduce foam, so I also recommend chilling the Beer Gun and tubing before filling to reduce foaming.

Cleaning Up

This thing breaks down easily for cleaning and requires no tools. The back end of the trigger slips into a notch on the beer tube. Simply pop it out, and then slide the barrel off the handle. The rubber stopper pops off easily. The gas parts stay put, but something would have to go horribly wrong to require cleaning. The cleaning brush is just the right size for cleaning the barrel. Blichmann advises against long soaks in PBW-like cleaners as it can damage the steel.

To Sum Up: It's a Buy If You Bottle A Lot

Like so many brew toys, the New Beer Gun is great if you need it. If you keg and rarely bottle, save your coin. But if you pull off many bottles for competitions or giving away, it's well worth a look.

Small-Batch Brewing with an Induction Burner

Starting the boil

Since the IRS was kind enough to refund some overpaid taxes, I spent a bit of it on some new brew gear. I bought the Secura 9100MC 1800W Portable Induction Cooktop and the Cook n Home 8-quart stockpot from Amazon. These would allow me to make small batches outside (or inside if the Mrs allows). This cooktop isn't quite strong enough to handle my larger batches: Its weight limit is 25lb, which isn't enough to support my current kettle and 3-gallon extract boils. Nevertheless, it is excellent for small BIAB batches and heating up mash water.

Initial Impressions

The cooktop is pretty easy to use. There's a simple power setting (1-10) and a temperature setting where you can pick from

The first job was to figure out how much the new pot-and-cooktop combo will boil off in an hour. I put one gallon in the pot and set it on 10 power.

My first check was to see how quickly it could get up to mash temperature (~170°F). The burner got it there in about 12-13 minutes. I say "about" because I was double-checking my Polder thermometer with my ThermaPen instant-read thermometer and they didn't agree. The Polder hit 170F in just over 12 minutes, but the ThermaPen didn't hit that mark until 13 minutes and change. Not too bad for mash water, but I'm starting to question the accuracy of my old Polder.

Thermapen: 211F
Polder: 237F

Onward to boiling.  And it didn't take that long.

The Thermapen recorded 212°F after 21 minutes of heating. The Polder recorded 237°F! Even more worrisome since this was the thermometer I was using to monitor my wort cooldown in previous batches. The probe is replaceable, but this is the second one and it's probably better to replace the whole thing.

Now that we've achieved boil, it's time to set the timer for an hour and let it steam away. After the timer went off, I cut the heat and carefully poured the water into a large glass measuring cup. I had just over 4 cups of water, so roughly half a gallon boiled off. Not too shabby.

Mashing and Boiling

A week later, I prepared a small BIAB recipe to test how well I can mash with this setup. This particular cooktop can be set to a certain temperature, which suggests it could possibly hold at mash temperature. The cooktop's temperature sensor is in the cooktop itself, so it's regulating that temperature, not the temperature of the pot or what's in it. Also, you can only select one of several preset temperatures. The only settings close to mash are 140°F and 170°F, so I tried 170°F to see how well it worked.

Mashing in

Like the previous test, it got the water up to 170°F and did a good job holding it there. I turned the cooktop down to 140°F, but it took a while for the water to cool down. My grain bill was pretty light, so it didn't bring the temperature down very much. It eventually held at 154°F, though I was doing this test outside on a cool and breezy April afternoon. While the temperature setting is convenient, it'll take some tinkering to figure out how to make it work for mashing.

Once I was done mashing, I cranked the temperature setting up to 235°F, which was what my Polder indicated as boiling in previous worts. It got the wort up to a slow boil and held it, but it eventually turned itself off due to overheating. At that point, it had been running for well over an hour between mash and boil. After a short cooldown and reset, the boil was back on. I wasn't that impressed with the boil ferocity based on temperature, but it was getting the job done since I could smell the DMS in the vapors. In the future, I'll just use the power setting to get a rolling boil going.

Last month, I did another mash for a competition beer using this set-up. It was a hot mess. Instead of just letting the mash temperature drop, I tried to use the cooktop to hold temperature. It was way too hot (170°F) and knowing it takes a while to cool, I added a few cups of cold water. Then it was too cool (140ish°), so I tried warming it up. It got to about 150°F, but I wasn't happy with the rollercoaster. Despite this (and a lovely late boilover) the blonde ale tied for first in the competition with 41 points.

Verdict: It works!

I managed to make one pretty good beer with this combo, so it has earned a place in the new brewery. But like a lot of new gizmos, it will take a little while to figure out how to get the most out of it. It works great for strike water and the boil, but I'll need to keep tinkering with it on the mash.

National Homebrew Competition: Thanks for Playing

I got my NHC scoresheets in the mail last week. Two of my beers (Fruitcake Ale and amber rye ale) scored in the low 30s and earned a silver certificate. My other entries (an attempted Black Butte clone and the autumn seasonal Oktober Surprise) did quite a bit worse in the low 20s, thus earning a womp-womp.

NHC scoresheet for Amber Ale. Judge's info
redacted (poorly).

Even though the NHC version of the score sheet is abbreviated - lots of checkboxes - I got more feedback than I was expecting. One judge even offered a few pointers on mash pH and fermentation temperatures for my acetone-tinged Black Butte clone. The most cutting comment was on the lack of hop character in Oktober Surprise: " It's not bad, but it's not beer."

I made one rookie mistake with my flavored beers by listing what I put in it rather than what can actually be detected. You're more likely to get dinged for something you say is there but isn't apparent to the judges.

The Fruitcake Ale has a lot of stuff in it, which I documented in this blog. The citrus and apricot were drowned out. Ginger, cherry and allspice have been the most prominent flavors in several judges' eyes (or tongues and noses). I'm entering Fruitcake into at least one more competition, so I now know what to declare.

I Won Something!

I recently got results back from the Spirit of Free Beer competition and hot damn, I won something! The fruitcake ale took second place in the Spice Beer category, which included autumn and winter seasonals.

My second-place swag bag and medal 

I entered this beer mainly because I had a ton of it left over, but I'm always eager to get feedback on a fairly complex tincture recipe.

For this winter seasonal category (30C), entrants have to declare the base style and what fruits/spices were included. I made the rookie mistake of saying what I put in it rather than what someone is likely to taste. While there is citrus zest and a tiny bit of spice in there, it's not apparent so I hobbled myself by declaring it. That said, the cherry and ginger do come through. Nevertheless, the judges had good feedback (it scored a 35) and I'm already thinking how to tweak this for next year.

So what does one get for placing in a category? I got a 8oz bottle of StarSan, a pound of PBW, a triple-scale hydrometer (whose merits and drawbacks I recently discussed), a bottle of Oskar Blues hot sauce and some random tchotchke. Not too shabby.

Oh, and there's the medal. Shiny!

I also entered my amber ale base beer, which is tough since it's designed to be tinkered with when its finished and wasn't intended to stand on its own. It scored a respectable 32 and the judges raved about its appearance, but it did not place.

BURP put on an event last weekend to award the prizes and - living up to the name - drink up all the leftover free beer. Despite the cool and rainy weather, it was good to meet a new bunch of homebrewers and get some live feedback on my beers. Also a good opportunity to scoop up some empties for later competitions.

Free beer in the rain

Some empties, and a few leftover entries from Category 11

My lone entry into DC Homebrewers' Cherry Blossom competition - Snowzilla oatmeal milk stout - did not place. The two judges were a bit at odds over the beer. One thought it was alright, but said it would be a lot better if I just took out the lactose. The second judge couldn't taste the lactose and didn't think much of the brew in general. Huh? This is why you enter the same beer into multiple competitions if you want meaningful feedback.

Also, none of my NHC entries advanced out of Austin. The national comp uses a streamlined scoresheet which won't contain any narrative, but I hope to get some useful info.

Happy National Beer Day!

There's a day for everything, and that includes beer. There is a National Beer Day, which is officially observed on April 7th. Even the Governor of Virginia says so.

So why April 7? That was the day in 1933 that the Cullen–Harrison Act went into effect. It allowed the production of low-alcohol beer, which it defined as 3.2% ABW or the more modern 4.0% ABV. This was the first legislative blow against Prohibition in the US, which would be fully repealed with the ratification of the 21st Amendment later that year.

After signing the bill into law, President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said: "I think this would be a good time for a beer."

Indeed it is.