Small Batch American Pale Ale with Closed Transfer - Brew Dudes
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- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2024
- We sample a small batch American Pale Ale and utilized closed fermentation and transfer techniques to preserve and emphasize great hop character.
Mike has been exploring brewing smaller batches for convenience and less waste. Part of that has allowed him to repurpose some of his 5 gallon equipment for fermentation and closed transfer.
Trimming the dip tube in a 5 gallon corny keg makes an excellent instant fermentor. Not only can you use it for pressure fermenting but it also works well for doing complete closed transfer transfers. Using a jumper set up you can go from keg to keg through the beverage posts and CO2 pushing in from the gas side. This way you never have to open the keg.
If you do need to open the keg, as in the case of this APA with dry hopping, you can hook up your CO2 to gently keep the keg under positive CO2 pressure while you open it up to drop in dry hops. WORKS GREAT.
More on all of that in the future.
CHEERS!
#AmericanPaleAle #ClosedTransfer #brewdudes
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Good advice on the dry hopping. Another way to approach it, at the cost of a full purge (until the end) is to sanitise and empty an interim keg, add the hops loose, attach a filtered floating dip tube to underside of the GAS post. Purge with some CO2. Then fill the keg with beer down the liquid post. Once full, attach gas to the liquid post, then pull the prv. CO2 goes down the dip tube, comes up through the beer and foams. When foam starts to escape the prv, shut it off. You've effectively capped the keg on foam. After 3 days contact time, transfer to serving keg. Mike, your way is simpler and I'm not sure what factor of difference my method makes but seeing as Charlie Bamforth wrote 'a thimble of oxygen can ruin a swimming pool of beer' it's small percentages that we're playing with.
Interesting idea and approach. I may have to try it. Love that line by Charlie Bamforth. Cheers! -Mike
I love fermenting in a Corny keg. I was seriously considering buying one of those proprietary pressure fermenters but something was holding me back which I realised was that I just did not want to own or mess about with all that plastic 'stuff'. Sure you may miss some functionality fermenting in Corny key but it is such a simple and elegant solution, it makes life nice easy.and also keeps my head and brewing space uncluttered!
I've got a couple of kegmenters and like them a lot. You are probably right though, 3 or 4 corny kegs could do the job of those 2 kegmenters.
@@andrewbarker1190 Kegmenters look a like a lot more elegent solution than the plastic ones with all the stuff they come with which would do my head in, although Kegmenters are more expensive of course. The added benefit is that its repurposing my existing Corny which I love about it too. Happy brewing in the Kegmenters.
@@timothy4 I’m happier now that I clean my gas posts after every ferment. For anyone else reading, there are the all-rounder/snub plastic pressure fermenters, that are much simpler and more reliable.
If you ferment in a keg, I would recommend installing a really short dip tube and getting a floating dip tube as attachment that has it's length cut so you don't get any trub.
If I wanted to serve from the same keg that would make total sense. I prefer to push over to a smaller 2.5 gallon keg, freeing up the 5 gallon corny for more fermentation! Cheers -Mike
I recently started fermenting in corny kegs as well after downsizing my system (Now using a Brewzilla Gen4 35L) and so far, it’s been great.
Instead of cutting a dip tube I’ve just used a floating dip tube and I too fill up a serving keg full of sanitize and push it all out with CO2. It’s somewhat wasteful but the results of freshness are well worth it.
I agree. I care more about quality and freshness than I do the wastage I generate going smaller. Its a fraction of a cost really. Cheers! -Mike
Grain bill sounds great, I may try that for my next pale ale.
I purge my serving keg with the gas produced by fermentation. I run the gas through the liquid line so it goes to the bottom of the keg. Someone did the math and figured the huge volume of CO2 produced should be at least as effective as purging with sanitizer. I like it because I’m lazy, and it seems to work.
I think I’m going to pick up one of those new mega mouth 6gal kegs as my main fermenter, and sell off a stainless bucket.
I use the gas from fermentation to purge sanitizer too, works great! And when I fill the empty I use the gas in it to purge another, except for the last bit and hook up the co2.
I haven't gotten into this step yet. But its something I plan to play with soon enough. Cheers! -Mike
I think that fits the hazy pale ale guidelines. Maybe that's not a bjcp thing yet but it will be.
What are the hazy guidelines? To me haze is an after shot of the technique and ingredients. I was shooting for a dry moderate body ale. 4.5-5% ABv and moderate bitterness but noticeable hop nose. At the time of shooting this beer was hazy than it really ends up. Drinking it now is clearer with just a bit of dry hop haze to it. Cheers! -Mike
Been doing closed transfer since I bought my kegmenter in 2020. I'm glad I did switch to that and ditched the carboys.
Brew on! Cheers. -Mike
Great stuff guys!
Going to try and brew this recipe! Thanks!
Right on! Cheers! -Mike
I love Verdant yeast. There's really fewer and fewer benefits to liquid yeast when you can use something like Verdant, which performs as well as 1318 at half the cost.
I think that's what's really working so well here. I might rebrew with a couple other strains for the channel. Cheers! -Mike
I've switched to smaller batches recently as well for exactly the same reasons. I can turn over beers quicker and try different different hop and malt combinations much quicker and if its not great its only about 15L maximum of beer! The only difference is i ferment in a PET keg made by kegking, i think blichmann sell those in the USA now as well 🍻
Sounds like a good move. I'm using the 5 gallon kegs because I have plenty of them and if I need to do a 5 gallon batch I have one or two at the ready. Cheers! -Mike
Sounds like a good one boys!!!
Thanks much! Cheers! -Mike
Interesting video, thanks. Mike have you considered doing a video on the process you described?
Once I get a couple more brews under my belt doing it the way I am doing it I'll reveal it in video form! Cheers! -Mike
Yes yes yes! All of the above, I been thinking about this a lot lately, I usually make smaller batches because I like variety as well and I don't have a lot of friends that like the beer I brew yet. I think I'll try the floating dip tube and cut it slightly shorter than the 5 gallon keg. Thank you very much for recovering this this process
Stay tuned for more discussion on smaller batches! Cheers! -Mike
Simple recipes facilitate repeatability. Sounds like something to keep on the regular list.
And I love repeatability. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Especially when the juice is worth the squeeze. Cheers bud.
Just ordered the ingredients for this recipe - sounds awesome. Gone through a few Belgians and Christmas Ales in the last few months, an APA will hit the spot. I scaled up to 5.5 gals with the hops and added a little cascade charge at flameout. Also added 8oz of carapils because I couldn’t get that Belgian pilsner. Just want to make sure there’s some enjoyable body.
Sounds awesome. Good luck. Cheers! -Mike
Yup good one - I love fermenting in kegs. Even tho I bought a fancy unitank, I almost always ferment in kegs these days. It’s easier and maybe better! It works to use two kegs 3 gallon each for a “full batch” but it’s been really worth it for me to get the 7 gal kegmenters.
Awesome endorsement of repurposing equipment you already have. Cheers! -Mike
Dudes, great video and I am a big fan of fermenting in the Corny. I’m using a floating dip tube rather than cutting the beer out line. Just put your recipe into BeerSmith for 5 gallons and ibu’s comes in at 67 ibu for a OG:IBU ratio of 1.2. Is that correct? 5 kg of grain.
Great method to get great beer. I have been doing something vaguely similar to this for a couple of years for all of my beers and wouldn’t do it any other way. Only difference is that I put the dry hops in at the same time as pitching the yeast so no need to expose the beer to O2 ever. It works great !!
Adding dryhops at fermentation seems like a common theme amongst us who want to focus on completely closed systems post yeast pitch. Cheers! -Mike
Great video! I also ferment in a keg. I use a 6.5 gal torpedo keg so that way I can do a full 5 galleon batch still. So nice to be able to close transfer to a serving keg.
Perfect. Cheers! -Mike
I replaced a few of my keg lids with the ones with additional liquid posts that I now use as fermenters for split batches. The result is 3 small kegs of unique beer. One for each yeast and a third with a mix of both.
Very cool and interesting. Thanks for the post. Cheers! -Mike
I use those 3 hops in diferent ratios in a lot of my beers. I really like the way they play with each other. I have been meaning to have a go at Verdant yeast, will have to go get some and give it ago now. Might have to give closed transfers a go to help keep those aromas and flavours fresher longer.
The Verdant really opened my eyes. I think for APA#7 I'll do a three way yeast pitch for comparison. Cheers! -Mike
I've been doing closed fermentation and transfer for a while now and do my dry hop just before the end of fermentation to negate and oxygen introduced. I too add co2 when I dry hop, can't hurt.
Yep, sounds perfect to me. Cheers! -Mike
Been fermenting in kegs as well, been able to ferment 4.5+ gal in a 5 gallon keg by using a few drops of ferm cap. Would suggest it to allow you to keep the closed process when moving to bigger batches
That's why I'm working at the 3gallon scale. Works with my brew system and I don't have to add fermcap to control the foam. Just let it ride. I'm sure even at three gallons if I got a super aggressive ferment (sugar based adjuncts) I might get some blow off. Cheers! -Mike
Another great one ya’ll. This week i’m brewing a hefe with omega bananza yeast… ester bomb! Could be a fun experiment to try for ya’ll
Sounds like fun. Best of luck. Cheers! -Mike
Ok, I think I will give this idea a whirl. It seems simple enough if I can get my freezer to hold a steady temperature at 18°C. The only thing that throws me a bit is that I like to bottle conditioned beers so I can give away, enter comps, and have numerous types of bottled beer on hand. I guess that’s quite doable but I probably need some specific unit at the end of the bottling hose eg blichmann beer gun
I have been working on a solution to that problem. I want to bottle off carbonated beer for saving and making more fridge space for kegs. But I have already done at least one batch with 5PSI to move the beer through the out post rigged on a bottling want. Fill as usual and drop in the Coopers Carb drops. Its been working great do far on uncarbonated but fully fermented beer. Cheers! -Mike
Great video! What did you use to trim the length of the dip tube? I purchased some dip tube filters from the electric brewery and those suckers don’t always fit quite right because of the dip tube length.
I've used a hacksaw most of the time, but I also used a tubing cutter I use on copper pipe projects. I usually hit it up with a light file to clean burrs. Cheers! -Mike
How long was fermentation in progress before dry hopping? Perhaps if early enough, any oxygen ingress from opening the fermenter would be consumed by the continuing fermentation process?
Fermentation was maybe 6 days along if I remember right. Its possible there was some activity going on. Cheers! -Mike
What is it about dingmans pilsner malt that you like?
There is something a little more sweet bread like that's different from German Pils. German Pils has that crisp crackery thing going on. The Dingmans is just different. If anything its the aroma in the brew house with it that makes the brew day super pleasant. Cheers! -Mike
What was the grain in pounds
4# pil, 1#Munich I (7L). Cheers! -Mike
How many ibu was this recipe please guys?
1.5oz of cascade was 54IBUs for the 60min boil. The 10min additions of Amarillo and Cascade, is another 60 IBUs calculated. I don't really believe that last part. Or at least I think the concept of IBUs so late in the process is meaningless seeing how in this beer it translated to all flavor and aroma. Hope that helps. CHEERS! -Mike
@@BrewDudes thanks Mike. I’m enjoying the channel mate and hi from Australia 👍
… bitterness ratio of 1.2 that is.
That sounds about right. I am more of a hop flavor guy not a big bittereness guy. I still like a balanced bitter to malt profile. And its 5lbs of grain. Cheers! -Mike