Beer Feeds

My tap water is sanitized with chloramine. I wanted to experiment and see how I could eliminate chlorine/chloramine from my municipal tap water.

I purchased a bottle of 25 test strips intended for home aquarium use. The product used was Lifegard brand Chlorine/Chloramine Test Strips from Pentair Aquatics. $17.99 retail, Part Number R440006

Chlorine/Chloramine Test Strips

Simple to use. Dip a strip in you water sample for 2 seconds, remove and wait ten seconds. Presence of chlorine/chloramine (test does not make a distinction) turns the test strip a progressively darker purple color. Compare test strip to color chart on bottle to determine chlorine or chloramine concentration. The scale on the bottle reads from .1 PPM to 10 PPM with 6 steps between. A zero PPM chlorine/chloramine reading is white or no change of color.

Here are the results of my test results:

1- Tap water, unfiltered: 3 PPM (I understand this is a typical concentration level)
2- Tap water, filtered with PUR faucet mounted carbon filter: ~.5 PPM
3- Tap water, filtered with 5 micron carbon water filter: ~.75 PPM
4- Tap Water, filtered with 5 micron carbon water filter & 1 campden tablet per 5 gallons: no reading
5- Tap water, unfiltered with 1/2 campden tablet per 5 gallons: no reading
6- Tap water, unfiltered with 1 campden tablet per 5 gallons: no reading
Note: I took readings 5 & 6 very quickly after adding the campden tablets.

Conclusion: Campden tablets are very effective at removing chloramine. You will probably use 1/2 a tablet per 5 gallons. Check with the supplier of water and ask about concentration levels of your water. I do not know of any side effect of over using campden tablets some, say 1 tablet per 5 gallons. Use your best judgment.

zymot

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As many of you all are aware, Wyeast has the Roselare blend available one again! I am very excited about this opportunity to try my hand at another sour ale. My first experiment was a super saison which was soured with a bottle of Orval’s brett and it is fantastic. Now I know that the classic Rodenbach-style Flemish red ale or an Oud Bruin would be the standard go-to options for this yeast, but I thought it may be fun to throw some ideas around about some different alternatives for the blend. IIRC, alcohol tolerance is around 9% and it will take 18 months to fully mature. Sour beer seems to be the next major trend in craft brewing, perhaps we could throw some ideas around and do a group brew with some different ideas and share our results when we are done. Anyone in?

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We warmed up with a beer tasting and food pairing for show 108. Studio A celebrated the fact that Brooklyn Brewery is now available in Indiana. We picked 3 beers from the tasting, grabbed Sean Harless from World Class Beverage and recorded a show. The show features Brooklyn’s IPA, Winter Ale and […]

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Can I get some thoughts on my Mild Ale recipe? I’m making a dark mild, like a bunch of folks on the BB seem to be doing. Here’s the recipe:

Recipe Type: Partial Mash (-ish, more like extract plus grains)
Batch Size: 10 gallons

Fermentables:
8.5lbs Munton’s Light LME
1lb Pale 2-row Malt
1lb Brown Malt
1lb Crystal 150L
1lb Torrified Wheat
.5 Chocolate Malt

Hops:
1.75oz 6.2%AA East Kent Goldings at 60min (for 26.7 IBU according to Pro-Mash)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1318 London Ale III

Target O.G. (65% eff assumed): 1.038

I’m considering Williamette instead of the EKG, or possibly mixing it in equal amounts with the EKG and adding a flavor addition …. dunno, many of my beers lately have been grassy in how hoppy they were, so I wouldn’t mind at all if I made something with a low hop flavor/aroma.

Thanks!

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Blistering cold day here (low of -4, high of 9 -20-something windchill) so I decided to hunker down for the day. I brought in a mountain of firewood, watched some b-ball, and did some projects. One of my projects was to work on my Therminator. My typical routine is after the brew day, I fill my boil kettle with 3-4 gallons of hot water, dump in some cleaner and pump a loop through my pump and chiller. A couple times I did an acid rinse for beer stone, but that’s it. I figured that should take care of whatever was produced from the brew day.

First step is I let it soak in hot cleaner for an hour or so. (local PBW substitute — non-caustic alkaline cleaner). I moved it around good to make sure all the channels got some cleaner. Flushed that out with hot water. Some crud came out. Figured lets get medieval — I put it in the pressure cooker for a half our. Water was copper-ish with some floaties. Figure what the hey, MSU is losing, lets to it again. Water still a little discolored, but better, figured I was good to go, lets make some soup for dinner. Then tonight, decided to do it right and hit it up with caustic cleaner then an acid rinse. I boiled up some water, added caustic and soaked it in there for 15 minutes. When I pulled it out, all kinds of floaties came out. Interesting. Lets put it back in for another 15. Pulled it out, more floaties. Well, lets flush it. What a mess! It filled the sink with swamp crud. I couldn’t believe it. It was absolutely disgusting.

I highly recommend anyone with a Therminator or Shiron plate chiller find some caustic and do this. Be very careful, wear goggles and elbow chemical gloves. That crud can’t be left in there.

The good news is I pulled my pump heads apart that they were clean as a whistle.

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