It feels like it has been way too long but, I’m brewing up a new batch of homebrew tomorrow! For this batch I’m converting one of my old session IPAs into a hazy. I’m excited to see how it turns out.
One of the modifications is using Wyeast London Ale III for the yeast. I’m also adding a pound of flaked oats, and making modifications to the hop additions, especially during fermentation.
I will be sure to post the recipe if it comes out well!
For the yeast starter I also used Fast Pitch canned wort. It certainly speeds up the yeast starter process since I do not need to spend the time boiling and chilling the wort. I open the can, place the wort in a sanitized flask, add the same quantity of water, pitch the yeast, placed the sanitized stir rod, place it on the stir plate and that is all she wrote!
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Right now, while supplied last at More Beer, you can get FREE Shipping and A FREE Wort Chiller when you purchase the all new Robo Brew 3 electric home brewing system. The RoboBrew home brewery is an all in one electric and digital home brewery. It features built in electric heating elements for heating and boiling water and wort. It also has a built in home brewing pump for recirculation! The onboard water resistant control panel allows for setting and monitoring brewing temperatures, making for a simplified homebrew day! The removable grain basket makes cleaning the RoboBrew a snap and a built in spigot makes transferring your wort easy. The RoboBrew v3 Electric Home Brewery is loaded with high end home brewing features. Here are some of the specs on the New RoboBrew 3 home brewery:
Robo Brew Home Brewery
ROBOBREW 3 HOME BREWERY
Stainless steel construction
Large 9 gallon total capacity with a finished beer output of 5-6 gallons
Digital temperature controller
Standard 110 v power
Dual heating elements for total control (1000 watts and 500 watts)
Stainless steel 1/2 inch ball valve
FREE Immersion wort chiller included
Stainless steel malt basket
Volume markers
Glass lid
Magnetic drive pump for recirculation
Recirculation arm
Temperature reads in °F or °C
The Robo Brew 3 All Electric Home Beer Brewing System is the ultimate portable all grain home brewery! The RoboBrew uses standard 110 v power so you can brew beer anywhere. The built in magnetic drive pump easily recirculates the wort during the mash. Dual heating elements run off of a single 110 volt plug and have individual switches allowing for more control over the heating process. One element is 1000 watts and the other is 500 for a combined 1500 watts! Use both when you need to ramp up the temperature quickly either at the start to get to your mash temp or to go from your mash temp to boiling.
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Encasing some of the silicone tubing in stainless steel braiding on the home brewery. There are probably not too many realistic benefits to doing so, but I do like the way it looks!
We just finished brewing our most recent batch of beer! For this one, we took another crack at a Hazy IPA. Hazy IPA’s have quickly become one of my very favorite styles to both brew and consume. The combination of tropical hops and fruity esters from the yeast end up creating a hoppy fruitiness that is difficult to resists!
Just a word of caution, if you choose to brew this recipe, beware that there is a good deal of oats and wheat in it and depending on your system it could cause sparge and recirculation issues. I personally experienced that with this batch. It may be wise to add some rice hulls to the mash to help prevent it from sticking. It did finally clear, but it was a struggle for a little while. I ended up adding an extra gallon of water to the mash to help clear it.
Ss BrewTech Stainless Steel Conical Homebrewing Fermenter
Sanitizing the stainless steel Ss BrewTech conical fermenter. I ended up chopping the feet off of mine and using a flat top so that it fits inside my cest freezer for fermentation. I also traded out the racking arm for More Beer’s Ultimate Racking Arm solution. I am super happy with it and also have a 14 gallon version.
Here is the post boil whirlpool after I added the additional hops in at flame out! I let it whirlpool for approximately 15 minutes. I added a weldless stainless steel whirlpool arm from More Beer and it has worked out really well for me. It was easy to install into my kettle and has been completely leek free!
The Trub Trapper Post Boil
This is probably my best recent purchase! The Trub Trapper did an incredible job on this batch and really exceeds expectations when I use it in conjunction with a whirlpool process. It captures 90%+ of the hops and trub so that I can draw in clean wort to my fermentor with out worry!
Here is my West Coast Brewer Hazy IPA v2.0 beer recipe!
If you brew it, please let me know how it turns out for you!
Beer Name: West Coast Brewer Hazy IPA v2.0
Beer Style: New England IPA / NEIPA / Hazy IPA / Vermont Style IPA
1 oz Mosaic – 5 Minutes
2 oz Citra – 5 Minutes
1 oz Mandarina Bavaria – 5 Minutes
1 oz Citra – 0 Minutes – Whirlpool for 15 Minutes
1 oz Mosaic – 0 Minutes – Whirlpool for 15 Minutes
Other: DO NOT USE A CLARIFIER
Yeast: London Ale III Wyeast #1318
Fermentation:2 Week Primary @ 72F
– I ferment this at a slightly higher that usual temperature to increased ester production
and to create a more active fermentation)
On day 3 of active fermentation make the following hop additions
2 oz Mandarina Bavaria
On day 7 of fermentation make the following hop additions
2 oz Mandarina Bavaria
2 oz Citra
Once fermentation has completed or on day 10, cold crash and transfer to keg or bottle.
I initially purchased my March home brewing pumps about 7 years ago, well before stainless steel homebrew pumps were really a thing. Once stainless pumps became more popular, I considered upgrading, but my existing pumps worked fine and I could not justify the cost. Then Blichmann released their RipTide home brewing pumps which feature a tri-clamp attached head!!! In my opinion that is a big deal because it allows you to easily gain access to the pump cavity for easy cleaning. As it stood, I had to rely on hot water and PBW to do all of the cleaning unless I wanted to spend an extra 30 minutes breaking down, clean and then reassembling each of my March pumps; which is really not something I wanted to do after a long day of beer brewing. The one down side was that a new Blichmann Rip Tide home brewing pump will run you $199+. So I waited…..
Then, Blichmann release the RipTide Upgrade Kit! The Rip Tide Upgrade Kit allows you to upgrade some of the most common existing home brewing pumps to a Blichmann Rip Tide, for just $99. With this RipTide Kit, you can upgrade your March or Chugger pump with the Riptide’s Tri-Clamp housing. The RipTide’s head is made from stainless steel and can rotate 365 degrees to fit almost any home brewing setup. The kit also comes with Blichmann’s integral linear flow valve, which provides superior control and eliminates the need for an upper ball valve in must situations.
Blichmann Rip Tide Home Brewing Pump Upgrade Kit
Here is a list of home brewing pumps that the Blichmann Riptide upgrade kit is compatible with.
After verifying that the Blichmann RipTide Upgrade Kit would work with my current March homebrew pumps, I place my order for two of them. After placing my order, it took about 8 days for them to arrive. I purchased them from More Beer, but the pumps were shipped directly from Blichmann.
Next step was to read the instructions (which were relatively simple), make sure I had everything needed (which was just a screwdriver, a couple of wrenches and some PTFE thread seal tape. The instructions from Blichmann came in black and white and unfortunately the contrast made it so that it was difficult to see where the washer was supposed to go, so I included some color photos here to help you out if needed. I began by breaking down my existing march pump per the instructions and removing my existing fittings. It is important that you just remove the pump head and NOT the magnet collar! The pump head was held on by 4 stainless steel screws in my case. Here is an image to help:
Blacihmann Rip Tide Upgrade Instructions
Next I mounted my home brewing pump on to the included stainless steel pump riser. This was not required in my situation but I like the idea of it because it raised my pump up a couple of inches, bringing it close to my kettles, reducing the amount of tubing that I needed and giving me a little more space to empty the pumps when I had to clear wort from them. Everyone’s situation is a little different, but it works well on my home brewing rig. After that you will want to mount the Tri-Clamp adapter bracket on to your pump. Blichmann includes two sets of screws to use, so make sure that you select the appropriate screws for your pump. Be careful not to over tighten the screws; doing so could crack the bracket or damage the pump. Next, place the impeller housing and the impeller into the pump magnet as shown in the following images:
Blichmann Rip Tide Home Brewing Pump Upgrade Instructions
Next is where I nearly had a problem. Install the pump head o-ring and washer to the stainless steel RipTide pump head. My first kit was missing the washer and the photo quality on the instructions that came with the kit were so bad, I could not tell if I was suppose to use one of the mounting washers. Something did not seem right and I would have then been missing a mounting washer, so I checked my second pump kit and could see that there was a smaller washer that was intended for the pump head. It thankfully had two in that box, so all was good. Here is an image to help you see where to place the o-ring and washer into the Blichmann RipTide pump head:
RipTide Upgrade Kit Installation Photos
Lastly mount the Blichmann RipTide pump head on to your pump using the include stainless steel 3″ Tri-Clamp and attach any fittings that you may have. The entire process took me approximately 30 minutes per pump to upgrade an re-install onto my home brewing stand. Except for the issue with the washer, it was very painless. Here are a couple of photos of the Blichmann RipTide homebrewing pumps after they were installed on to my homebrewing rig.
Finished Images Of The Blichmann RipTide Pump Upgrade Kit
Blichmann RipTide Home brewing Pumps On My Homebrewing Rig
Close up Image of the Blichmann RipTide Home Brewing Pump
After that I tested the RipTide home brewing pumps for leaks and checked to make sure all of the ball valve connections were free from leaks as well. All was good and I also took a short video in case anyone was curious about the type of pressure or flow rate that you could expect from the RipTide upgrade kit.
I do not know about you, but I am not the biggest fan of having to store and maintain propane tanks. They take up space, run out of gas in the middle of a boil, the pressure changes when the tank gets too low and they are expensive to refill; and all the while I have natural gas available 10 feet away from my home brewery. So I decided that I would try converting my banjo burners from propane to natural gas. Let me start off by saying that I am not a professional plumber, a mechanical engineer, or a scientist that specialized in flammable gasses; so you should consult a professional. PLEASE CONSULT A LICENSED HEATING PROFESSIONAL FOR INFORMATION ON CONNECTING YOUR OUTDOOR BURNER TO YOUR HOUSE NATURAL GAS.
My home brewing setup uses 3 banjo burners and a 120v electric RIMS system to generate heat. So my first step was purchasing the natural gas valve to replace my existing propane valve. Since natural gas is pushed with a lower pressure than compressed liquid propane, you can not simply use the same valve. The good news is that the replacement valve is not that expensive.
Banjo Burner Natural Gas Valve
Williams brewing sells the valve for $9.99 and this Banjo Burner natural gas conversion valve is compatible with the Bayou Classic KAB4, KAB6, and BG14 Banjo burner. To use this valve, you will need a gas connection hose with a 3/8″ female flare end to attach to this valve to your natural gas source. This valve has an orifice diameter of approximately 1/8″, and features 1/4″ male npt threads to attach to your gas burner. These home brewing burner natural gas conversion valves also fit the Blichmann Top Tier Burners and Blichmann Floor standing burners. You can see the difference in the two burner valves in the following photo.
Converting Bayou Home Brewing Burners to Natural Gas
The natural gas replacement valve is on the left. You can see the gas outlet diameter is much larger than the propane on the right.
The process was pretty painless and I was able to replace all three burner valves and test for leaks in about 60 minutes. I used natural gas safe teflon sealant on all of the valves. One important factor to keep in mind is that natural gas is lower pressure than propane and you are going to put out less BTUs than you would with a propane tank. So if you were already struggling to achieve a boil with a propane tank, converting to natural gas is probably going to be a bad idea. I have yet to test how long it takes to reach a boil, but the flame tests all look great so far!
Converting A Home Brewery From Propane to Natural Gas
Once I have the test in, I will let you know how it work out!
Like with many hobbies, home brewing has a learning curve. Initially there is a lot of information to take in and many processes to keep track of. In time, you gather knowledge and experience and you master the fundamentals of brewing. Where home brewing differs from many hobbies is that once you have done so, there are a variety of tangents that you can pursue. For instance you can explore water chemistry and the impacts on different styles of beer, design your own beer recipes and figure out which hops best compliment a specific yeast strain, try different mashing techniques and focus on boosting your brew house efficiency or even build and customize your own brewing hardware. At some point along the way, if you home-brew long enough; what makes your beer unique is all of the small things that you learn, apply in your process and customize along the way.
On the topic of all of the small things, one of the things that I should have done long ago was place a notch in my mash tun lid to accommodate my sparge arm. Prior do doing so I had to leave my lid ajar, allowing heat to escape from my mash tun, requiring my RIMS system to use more energy to compensate. I am not going to lie, any upgrade or project that requires me to drill into or cut in to one of my stainless steel Blichmann kettles make me a little nervous. After all, the last thing that I want to do is ruin one of my vital pieces of home brewing hardware. The good news is that I almost never use a lid on my Boil Kettle, so if I jacked up the mash tun lid bad enough, I had a backup!
I used three tools for this project, an angle grinder (costs about $30 if you do not already have one), a file to clean up the rough edges and sharp spots and a dremel (or drill) with a fine grinding bit to shape the groves more precisely so that the lid would fit snugly against the sparge arm. Although initially intimidating, it really was not so challenging. My best advice is to measure conservatively for your initial grinder cut and use the dremel to remove any excess metal. The vertical cuts are easy with the grinder, but the horizontal cut can be challenging if you are not careful. As a final touch I may add a silicone stopper and trim it to fill some of the small gaps that still exist; but even with out that I am very happy with how it turned out! Also, if you are looking for an incredible stainless steel sparge arm, I can not recommend the More Beer Ultimate Sparge Arm highly enough. I have used it for around 3 years now and it had performed flawlessly.
I just finished up my latest batch of NEIPA, North East IPA, Vermont Style IPA, New England Style IPA, Juicy IPA or Hazy IPA; however you chose to label it and it turned out incredible so I wanted to share the recipe in case anyone else out there was interested in brewing one. The basis for this recipe is MoreBeer’s Haze Craze IPA which can be purchased in either an Hazy IPA Extract Beer Recipe Kit or Hazy IPA All Grain Beer Recipe Kit. I just made a couple of small tweaks to mine. Although the West Coast was slow to latch on to the NEIPA trend, we have sunk our teeth in and they are currently all the rage. The haze of the yeast, hops and yeast esters pushes the boundaries of what an IPA is and can be. In order to fully enjoy them you need to discard your expectations of what an IPA is and embrace the haziness and sometimes juicy and tropical flavors that are created by new varieties of hops and unconventional yeast strains.
Hazy NEIPA All Grain Beer Recipe
Beer Name:
Hoptic Thunder Hazy IPA / More Beer Haze Craze IPA
11 LBS Pale 2 Row US
1 LBS Flaked Oats
2 LBS Flaked Wheat
8 oz Carapils Malt
8 oz Wheat Malt
4 oz Honey Malt
Hops:
.5 oz Warrior – 60 minutes
1 oz Citra – 10 Minutes
2 oz Mosaic – 0 Minutes
1 oz Citra – 0 Minutes
Other:
DO NOT USE A CLARIFIER
Yeast:
London Ale III Wyeast #1318
Fermentation:
2 Week Primary @ 70F
– I ferment this at a slightly higher that usual temperature to increased ester production
and to create a more active fermentation)
On day 3 of active fermentation make the following hop additions
2 oz Mosaic
1 oz Citra
On day 7 of fermentation make the following hop additions
1 oz Mosaic
2 oz Citra
Once fermentation has completed or on day 10, cold crash and transfer to keg or bottle.
Notes:
The More Beer Haze Craze IPA Beer Kit can be purchased here:
The Kegerator has been filled to capacity once again thanks to lots of holiday home brewing. I am carbonating a hazy New England IPA and MoreBeer’s Hop Gatherer IPA. I plan on reviewing them in a week or two once they are fully carbonated and have some time to condition.
I dry hopped both of these batches, but what was unique about the Hop Gatherer IPA beer kit is that it came with something I had not previously used, Chinook distilled Hop oil. It comes in a tiny vial but smells incredibly potent! It is used as an alternative to dry hopping but I decided to use it in conjunction to help really develope the aroma in this West Coast IPA!
Distilled Hop Oil
As you can see from the photo above, the vial is tiny and only holds about 10 drops or so of the distilled Hop oil. I dumped it right in to the keg immediately prior to putting the hatch on the keg to carbonate. The oil smelled strong to say the least. I put the empty vial on a shelf and my garage still smells like hops, which makes me happy; talk about aromatherapy!
I added my first round of dry hops to my new Hazy – New England style IPA. As opposed to adding the hops to the beer after the fermentation has completed which is typically for a West Coast style IPA, with a Hazy you add it early in the fermentation; in this case after 3 days. I will do a second round of dry hopping at day 7 of the fermentation as well. At this point I added 2 ounces of Mosaic hops and 1 ounce of Citra hops. The fermentation chamber is smelling incredible to say the least!
I was fortunate enough to get a little time off of work before New Year’s and decided to try and make the best of it! I was able to dedicated a good deal of time to some home brewing projects and all in all I was able to brew 4 batches. I made a 5 gallon batch of hard cider that I am aging on Oregon tart cherries, I brewed an Irish Stout that I am again on Irish Whiskey oak cubes, coffee and Irish Cream flavoring which I am calling car bomb, MoreBeer’s Hop Gatherer IPA which uses distilled hop oil and a slightly modified version of More Beer New England Style IPA called Haze Craze, their Hazy IPA. In the coming weeks I will post recipes and reviews on all of them. For now, here are some photos from my most recent home beer brewing sessions.
Home Brewing Mash of an Irish Stout on a Blichmann 20 Gallon Mash Tun
Recirculating the mash using my stainless steel RIMS temperature controller and More Beer Stainless Steel Ultimate Sparge Arm
Transferring my stout to my stainless steel SS BrewTech 7 Gallon Conical Fermenter
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