I injured my back a few weeks ago, so my plans to brew in late June early July were sidelined like Danny Hultzen. Brewing is a very physical and mental process, but not like pitching for the Seattle Mariners'. After several trips to the chiropractor, I felt good enough that I needed to brew an IPA, since it was hot outside and an IPA sounded real tasty. Of course, it's the middle of July in Houston so working outside is about like trying to work in a 350F degree oven. Add to that notion that the process takes nearly 8 hours and I was

Back to the IPA. I may have mentioned before that the other variable was changing water supplies. To minimize the effect this has on my beer, I make my own water. No, I'm not pounding hydrogen and oxygen atoms with a hammer hoping they stick together, I use RO (Reverse Osmosis) water and add minerals back into it. The water we have here is terrible. They say it's safe for drinking, but it tastes like stagnant pond water and you can't make

Wait, you didn't know that different beers require different waters? Think about this for a minute; is Guinness known for their Pale Ale? No. That's because they can't make a good one with the water that occurs naturally there. Of course, nobody knew why when this all started, it took a long time to figure this out. Essentially, darker grains lower the pH (increase the acidity) of the mash where all the beery enzymatic magic happens, so if your water contains more buffering minerals (like chalk or bicarbonate), you can add more dark grains like for stout and porter and still get great beer. If your water has minerals like sulfides or chlorides, you should use paler grains (like for pale ale and lager). To make my water, I use a 3 beam balance scale like you used in high school chemistry because it's accurate to a gram and I'm not making huge adjustments to the water. For example, in this IPA I'm using 9 gallons of mash water to which I'm adding 21 grams of these salts:
- 2 grams of chalk (CaCO3)
- 4 grams of gypsum (CaSO4)
- 4 grams of calcium chloride (CaCl2)
- 6 grams of epsom salt (MgSO4)
- 2 grams of baking soda (NaHCO3)
- 3 grams of salt (NaCl) - pure, not iodized table salt

That's less than an ounce of various salts in 9 gallons of water. See, not much. I use a coffee filter because it weighs next to nothing. I tried using a small plastic bowl but it weighed so much I was measuring the weight of the bowl and not the salts. I'll add the same 21 grams of salts to the boil kettle to get the right flavor in the finished beer, instead of adding them to sparge water (clean water used to rinse the grains of all sugars after the mash). FYI -No, I do not have a meth lab like Walter White.
Here on the right you can see the auto-sparge which appears to have been modeled after a chrome toilet fill valve and that I'm still using the same hacksaw and copper pipe manifold I used in the old mash tun, I have had real good luck with it not clogging and getting excellent extraction from the grains. Extraction can be affected by several other variables, I won't bore you with today. Maybe another time! I know you're
looking forward to it.
looking forward to it.


As can be seen in this last picture, the 15 gallon tun got pretty full with 9 gallons of water and 32lbs of grain. I'm real close to the limit of my system. I'm thinking that anything over 1.070 gravity (around about 8% ABV) would require the addition of some extract or sugar to the kettle. The best part by far was how easy it was to clean. I struggled with the old keggle to get the spent grains out of the thing in the first place and then to try and clean all the bends and folds in the metal was a major pain. This was super easy. The grain just dumped right out into a hefty bag and a quick rinse cleaned it up real well.
This has been a real long post. I hope you enjoyed reading it. If not, leave your comments for me and I'll be sure to ignore them.
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