This is part one in a two part article on large scale home brewing and experimenting with a variety of yeast strains.
Doing the Monster Mash(Tun)
Outside brew area
Home brewing is an amazing hobby. There is so much to learn but even a newbie like myself can brew some good beer. All of my brews have been in five gallon batches. I’m excited because I’ve upgraded some of my equipment so I can brew 10 gallon batches. So when I had the opportunity to brew a 43 gallon batch of American Wheat beer with Steve Bailey of QUAFF I jumped at the chance (even to the point of making my wife mad at me). I was amazed, a home brewer doing 43 gallon batches at a time. Does this guy run an underground brewery out of his house? No, Steve is a normal guy, as normal as a middle school principal can be, who just likes to brew. As far as Steve is concerned 43 gallons is no more work than 5 gallons and the results last a lot longer.
Many Hands Make For Fun Brewing
There were several of us brewing with Steve that day. Thanks to Lucas, Brian and Kyle for making a really interesting brew day. Some of them very seasoned brewers and a couple of us really new. But the great thing was the common interest in beer and brewing and the willingness to share knowledge. I don’t think I’ve ever ground so much grain in one day. We were brewing an American Wheat beer. A simple recipe we used 50/50 Two Row and Wheat, but it was 33 pounds of each. The big difference was we did a decoction with about 30% of the original mash. We did this for two reasons: 1. to give us better head retention and 2. to give the final product some color. Without the decoction the final color would have been a pale straw color. With the decoction we’re looking at a deep amber/gold color.
Doing a 30% decoction
There’s really no difference with a 43 gallon brew and a five gallon brew, everything is just bigger and you have to have the right stuff. Electric pumps are required to transfer the liquid. The wort chiller was Really big. We ran all of the water used for cooling back into the swimming pool to heat up the water (man, that water was hot). As always when brewing the nest part of the day is sampling what people bring to the brew day.
Steve definitely has this process down. All the equipment is placed just in the right spot to ease of work. In the top photo you can see the commercial stainless steel sink, this is very useful in the clean up phase of the day. Planing out the geometry of your brew area is a lot like planning out a kitchen.
In the end I received five gallons of wort. Steve also gave five gallons to one of the other brewers. Our plan was to make three very different beers out of the same wort. I pitched my five gallons with White Labs 568 Saison yeast. After 10 days in primary fermentation I transferred the beer to a secondary container with cranberries, oranges and apple. The goal is to do something kind of weird with the beer and see what the differences are. I can tell you that from the tasting at the ten day mark the beer taste amazing. Its completely a wheat beer but with a hint of Saison spiciness. Can’t wait to see what the fruit does to it.
In part two we’ll get together with our three styles and do a tasting, compare notes, give you the recipes and tell you what we think.
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