253 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
253 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
# What do we need
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I'll outline how my brewing process unfolds over time to help list out all the things we need in the basement.
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All amounts are based on a **20l to 25l** end product.
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## Brew day
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My brew day takes about **3 to 4 hours** from start to finish.
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Doing 10l or 20l is pretty much the same time.
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I haven't done any brews much bigger than that but I suspect anything up to 30l is doable in the same amount of time with a similar system as the one I'm describing.
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### Preparation
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I start my brewing session by milling grains, about 5kg for a 20l batch.
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For this you need two things.
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1. a kitchen scale to weigh the grains
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1. a mill with adjustable spacing
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1. a container of some sorts to weigh the grains in
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1. a container of some sorts to catch the milled grains in
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I use my Kenwood kitchen aid to mill and a 10l food grade bucket to collect the milled grains.
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This takes about 10min.
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### Mashing
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I used to mash on my stove top, but recently switched to a bucket system.
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For the stove top brew I did a BIAB (brew in a bag) system which is basically a huge tea bag you dump into the pot.
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Anyway, the point of mashing is to steep the grains for **60min** at about **64°C** in about **20l** of water.
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I use a 2000watt submersion boiler I got off amazon which takes about 30min to go from 40°C to, what we call striking temperate, which is about 67°C.
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My heating element is plugged into a temperature controller, also from amazon, and this keep the mash stable for the whole duration.
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So, in short we'll need:
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1. a source of fresh water
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1. a mashtun (big vessel we can heat up to our desired temperature)
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1. a heat source of some sorts (can be electric, gas, ...)
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1. a big spoon to stir the mash from time to time so it doesn't get stuck
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During this hour there is not much to do but wait and have a beer.
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At about 15min from the end, I start heating up about 10l of **sparge** water to about 70°C.
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This will be used in the next stage.
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I often weigh my hops at this stage, so we'll also need:
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1. a kitchen scale
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1. a couple, two or three, small containers to put the weighed hops in
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### From mashing to boiling
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Once the 60min are up it is time to extract the wort from the mash.
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Wort is basically the water without the spent grains.
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For this we'll need a filter system.
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With a BIAB system this is super easy, you just lift the grains out and let them leak into a **second** bucket.
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We'll probably end up with a all-in-one system that has this built in though.
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We'll now try to extract the most sugars as possible from the mash.
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The spent grains will have absorbed a lot of water, probably about 5l so we'll need to make up for that.
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This is what the **sparge** water is for.
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It is poured over the spent grains and caught in the **second bucket**.
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While this is happening, which takes some time, we can already bring the wort to a boil.
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At this stage we'll need:
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1. a bucket to collect the sparge water in
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1. a heating source to go from 67°C to a rolling boil
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1. a vessel to boil the wort in
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The sparge water is added to the wort and brought to a boil all together.
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Going from 67°C to 100°C takes about 30min on my 2000watt system.
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### Boiling
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Not a lot is happening here so it's time for an other beer.
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We need to boil the wort for about 60min and add hops at specific times.
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The amount of hops and timing is very variable but I tend to go for two additions.
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One in the beginning for bitterness, and one at flameout (the end) for flavor.
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At the minimum we'll need:
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1. a couple of hop bags
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I use this time to prepare the fermentation vessels.
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This is basic sanitization.
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For this we'll need some specialized products, the most famous one is called Starsan.
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1. sanitization product
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### Chilling
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Once the boil is finished we want to cool the wort as quickly as possible.
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We want the wort to go to about 30°C at the maximum, and colder is better, with 20°C as a minimum.
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My current system is very ghetto, I cool by placing a bit metal pot in my sink with cold water that I refresh every 15min, but there are very nice systems on the market.
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1. a chilling coil
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1. a water pump
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1. about 100l of cold water
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### Transfer to fermentation
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Once the wort is at room temperature we can go ahead and transfer it to a sanitized fermentation vessel.
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Here we'll add the yeast, put on a water lock and clean up.
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1. precision scale to weigh the yeast (about 10g for a 20l batch)
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1. fermentation vessel
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1. water lock
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### Clean up
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We'll have about 10kg of spent grains to get rid of, plus heaps of tools to clean.
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I do everything by hand in my shower and kitchen so some sort of flexible wet room is advised.
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1. basic cleaning products
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1. lot's of water and a way to get rid of it
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## Fermentation
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Nothing to do here but wait.
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It takes about 2 weeks for the main fermentation to complete.
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## Dry hopping
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When making an IPA, you'll want to add fresh hops after about 2 weeks, and let them in for a small week.
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For this we'll need an other hop bag and scale.
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The bag should be sanitized.
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1. a kitchen scale
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1. hop bag
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## Bottle day
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For a 20l batch you'll need about 70 bottles cleaned, sanitized and ready to go.
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Make no mistake, cleaning takes a lot of time.
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To clean a big batch of bottles I need about an hour and a half by myself.
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The tools are easy though.
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1. steady flow of water
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1. bottles to clean
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1. sanitizing product
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To actually *bottle* we'll first transfer the fermented liquid to a **second** vessel with a **tap** at the bottom that has been sanitized.
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In this vessel we'll need about 7grams/liter of dissolved sugar (in water) for bottle carbonation.
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I do this with a silicone tube and old school suction power.
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1. silicone tube (about 2m max)
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1. scale to weigh the sugar
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1. kettle to boil some water
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Once the fermented beer is in the secondary vessel we can bottle.
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For this we need a bottling tool and a capping tool.
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It's handy to have the bottling tool on some tubing so you're more flexible.
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Anyway.
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1. some tubing
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1. a bottling tool
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1. a capping device
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## Final cleaning
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There is not much to clean up on bottling day.
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A *just* bottling day takes about two hours for a 25l batch with a very minimal cleanup.
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# Recap
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1. a kitchen scale to weigh the grains
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1. a mill with adjustable spacing
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1. a container of some sorts to weigh the grains in
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1. a container of some sorts to catch the milled grains in
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1. a source of fresh water
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1. a mashtun (big vessel we can heat up to our desired temperature)
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1. a heat source of some sorts (can be electric, gas, ...)
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1. a big spoon to stir the mash from time to time so it doesn't get stuck
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1. a kitchen scale
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1. a couple, two or three, small containers to put the weighed hops in
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1. a bucket to collect the sparge water in
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1. a heating source to go from 67°C to a rolling boil
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1. a vessel to boil the wort in
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1. a bucket to collect the sparge water in
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1. a heating source to go from 67°C to a rolling boil
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1. a vessel to boil the wort in
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1. a couple of hop bags
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1. sanitization product
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1. a chilling coil
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1. a water pump
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1. about 100l of cold water
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1. precision scale to weigh the yeast (about 10g for a 20l batch)
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1. fermentation vessel
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1. water lock
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1. basic cleaning products
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1. lot's of water and a way to get rid of it
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1. a kitchen scale
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1. hop bag
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1. steady flow of water
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1. bottles to clean
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1. sanitizing product
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1. silicone tube (about 2m max)
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1. scale to weigh the sugar
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1. kettle to boil some water
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1. some tubing
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1. a bottling tool
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1. a capping device
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# Grouped recap
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1. a scale
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1. a kitchen scale to weigh the grains
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1. a kitchen scale
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1. precision scale to weigh the yeast (about 10g for a 20l batch)
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1. a kitchen scale
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1. scale to weigh the sugar
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1. a mill
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1. a mill with adjustable spacing
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1. a few large, 20l, containers
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1. a container of some sorts to weigh the grains in
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1. a container of some sorts to catch the milled grains in
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1. a bucket to collect the sparge water in
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1. a bucket to collect the sparge water in
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1. small pots to temporally store stuff in
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1. a couple, two or three, small containers to put the weighed hops in
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1. water supply
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1. a source of fresh water
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1. about 100l of cold water
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1. lots of water and a way to get rid of it
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1. steady flow of water
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1. a brew system
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1. a mashtun (big vessel we can heat up to our desired temperature)
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1. a heat source of some sorts (can be electric, gas, ...)
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1. a heating source to go from 67°C to a rolling boil
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1. a vessel to boil the wort in
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1. a spoon
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1. a big spoon to stir the mash from time to time so it doesn't get stuck
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1. hop bags
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1. a couple of hop bags
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1. hop bag
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1. cleaning products
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1. sanitization product
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1. basic cleaning products
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1. sanitizing product
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1. cooling coil
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1. a chilling coil
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1. a pump or flowing water
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1. a water pump
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1. fermentation vessel
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1. water lock
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1. bottles to clean
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1. silicone tubing
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1. silicone tube (about 2m max)
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1. some tubing
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1. kettle to boil some water
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1. a bottling tool
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1. a capping device
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