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Cold side manipulation

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by Jamie Martin, Brewmaster, Dells Brewing Co.

Adding flavor on the cold side can be fun and adds a whole new dynamic to your beer. Warning though, since this isn’t part of the natural brewing process these processes open the door to contamination. Great care must be taken in sanitation and preparation to ensure product quality is maintained.

Adding Fruit: There are about four ways to add fruit to your beer.
Fresh fruit; first clean it thoroughly, then freeze it and grind it up (Freezing helps lower the microbial count and breaks down the cell walls).

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Odd, but cool, yeast practices

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by Jamie Martin, Brewmaster, Dells Brewing Co.

Aerating yeast – I stumbled upon this by process accident one day when I was short on oxygen. First I transfer my yeast into the fermenter along with two to three gallons of whatever beer the yeast came from. The result is a yeast slurry that is very loose and wet. Next I bubble oxygen in from the bottom of the tank at 5PSI for 15 minutes. The yeast gets all the oxygen it needs and I am not adding oxygen to my wort that could cause stalling. The key to this process is the addition of the beer/wort to the yeast so it is loose.

Using yeast as yeast nutrient – Happy healthy yeast already has all the nutrients it needs, so on a brew day instead of using a commercial yeast nutrient you can pull some yeast (I use 100ml/BBL), and add it to the boil. The cell walls will break down and the nutrients will be added to your wort.

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Adjustments during the brewing process

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by Jamie Martin, Brewmaster, Dells Brewing Co.

Whether you’re a new brewer, or an experienced one working with a new brewing system, the best calculations in the world can fail from time to time. Don’t worry there are back up plans.

Going lighter – You’ve mashed in or got to the boil stage and the color of your beer is too dark. Maybe your red looks brown or your blond is a little orange; dilution with water can bring your beer back to the color you want to achieve (remember you either haven’t boiled or are not done boiling it). The dilution will lower your gravity and affect your flavor profile but just slightly and that can be fixed with concentrated brewer’s wort or sugars during the boil. If you get all the way to the cold side and the color is just a little too dark adding a BBL of a lighter beer can be just the thing to bring the color down from brown to red.

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Some Words of Wisdom

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by Jamie Martin, Brewmaster, Dells Brewing Co.

Controlled Experiments – As a brewer you should always be learning and trying to improve your beer. Running a controlled experiment from time to time can give you situational knowledge specific to your equipment that you can’t get from a textbook or article. First and foremost make sure you have the basics of brewing down before you start to change things; you can only learn from experimentation if you understand the process and what normally happens. A few guidelines: Only change one thing per brew. This could be anything like using 2-Row Copeland instead of 2-Row Metcalfe barley, mashing a degree or two higher or lower than normal, or adding your hop addition 10 minutes sooner or later then normal. These incremental changes are small and subtle, usually only you will notice in the final product. If someone has a pint at your brewery and then comes back two months later, they shouldn’t be able to detect a change in the beer, but if they come back a year later, they should find your beer has improved 100%. Those subtle changes may not change the flavor profile much, but our goal should always be improving the overall quality of the entire beer.

Write everything down – Everything that happens in the brewery should be written down; the good the bad and the ugly! First of all it’s the law. We produce alcohol and need to have detailed account of the process and the materials involved in producing our beer. Second, if something goes wrong you’ll need to be able to research that particular batches process and material bill to locate where the problem occurred and correct it. Recording each step also creates a great reference library for you. If you document mistakes and your troubleshooting process, then later, if a similar problem arises, you’ll have a record of the steps and missteps you took previously and you can avoid wasted time and frustration. Your record can also be used as an invaluable training tool for your support staff.

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Cleaning and Sanitation

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by Jamie Martin, Brewmaster, Dells Brewing Co.

The cleaning process and chemicals a brewer chooses vary widely from brewer to brewer and worksite to worksite; many factors contribute to the costs involved in this very important and essential aspect of brewery operation.

Chemical and equipment requirements are determined by the personal preference/training of the brewer as well as; mandated health/workplace code requirements, type of surface, contaminate (soil), and brewery environment.

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Stupid Stuff

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Things that all brewers should know but often don’t

by Jamie Martin, Brewmaster, Dells Brewing Co.

Table of Contents

– Cleaning and sanitation
– Brewhouse operations
– Some words of wisdom
– Implementing adjustments during the brewing process
– Fermentation & cellaring tips
– Odd, but cool, yeast practices
– Fermentation troubleshooting survival kit
– Cold side manipulation
– Things that will ruin your day!
– Stupid Stuff Q&A

Introduction

Jamie-Martin-pro

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Refrigerant safety

posted (updated Jan 18th, 2023) by

The following article was originally published on April 24, 2014. It has been reviewed and updated as necessary by the ProBrewer editorial staff. 

Other related resources on ProBrewer: Refrigeration Glossary of Terms and Keg Safety 

Servicing and maintaining your refrigeration system should only be performed by certified and trained technicians. Anyone working with refrigerants, or around refrigeration systems, should always follow these safety tips:

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Refrigeration – What to Know Before You Buy

posted (updated Jan 22nd, 2023) by

The following article was originally published on April 24, 2014. It has been reviewed and updated as necessary by the ProBrewer editorial staff. 

Additional related resources on ProBrewer: Refrigeration Glossary of Terms

Whether you are just starting out, or have outgrown the capacity of your existing chiller system, shopping for a new chiller system is challenging. There are a lot of suppliers offering a wide variety of different types of systems and not all systems are created equal.

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Chiller Troubleshooting 101

posted (updated Jan 22nd, 2023) by

The following article was originally published on April 24, 2014. It has been reviewed and updated as necessary by the ProBrewer editorial staff. 

Other related resources on ProBrewer: Refrigeration Glossary of Terms and All About Refrigeration

There is a good chance your glycol chiller system is often completely forgotten about, until that dreaded day you arrive to find high fermenter temperatures and your glycol chiller system is not running.

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Refrigeration Glossary of terms

posted (updated Jan 22nd, 2023) by

The following article was originally published on April 24, 2014. It has been reviewed and updated as necessary by the ProBrewer editorial staff. 

BTU – British Thermal Unit. In scientific terms, it represents the amount of energy required to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. One BTU is the equivalent of the heat given off by a single wooden kitchen match. For your home, it represents the measure of heat given off when fuel is burned for heating or the measure of heat extracted from your home for cooling.
Capacity – The output or producing capability of a piece of cooling or heating equipment. Cooling and heating capacities are normally referred to in BTUs per hour (BTU/h), which represents a heat transfer rate: the amount of heat energy transferred from one place/object/space to another, in one hour.

Compressor – The heart of a refrigeration system. It is part of the unit that pumps refrigerant. The compressor maintains adequate pressure to cause refrigerant to flow in sufficient quantities in order to meet the cooling requirements of the system.

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Malting barley varieties: Copeland

posted by

Bill Ladish
Cargill Malt, Specialty Products Group

In a previous article we discussed the drop in acres planted to Harrington in Canada during the mid- to late-1990s and afterwards, after a long and distinguished reign atop international commerce. The declines were driven by the comparatively improved agronomics of newer lines of crops which compete with malting barley for average in Canada, and by the improved agronomics of newer 2-row malting barley varieties released in order to keep malting barley competitive with these other crops.

The newer 2-row malting barley varieties are primarily Metcalfe, Kendall, Stratus, and Copeland. Metcalfe and Kendall were discussed in previous articles. Stratus has not been successful in the marketplace compared to Metcalfe and Kendall. Here we discuss Copeland.

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Malting barley varieties: Metcalf

posted by

Bill Ladish
Cargill Malt, Specialty Products Group

The Canadian 2-row malting barley variety CDC Harrington has long been the standard bearer of international commerce. Its smooth and neutral flavor profile, combined with enzyme levels significantly higher than traditional European varieties of the same level of total protein, makes it well suited for the production of lager beers. Harrington was developed by Dr. Bryan Harvey at the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Hence the initials CDC. Dr. Harvey just retired as the dean of Canadian malting barley breeders, with the development of Harrington being his proudest accomplishment.

However, Harrington was registered in Canada in 1981. So it has been on the scene for more than twenty years. During that extensive time period the development of new barley lines, and more importantly the development of lines with improved agronomics in those crops which compete for acreage with malting barley in Canada, has proceeded unabated. By the late 1990s it was apparent that Harrington was losing acreage. Harrington reached its highest percentage of the total area seeded to barley in Canada in 1993 at about 38%. That figure dropped to about 21% in the year 2000, and to about 8% in the 2004 crop year. The trend is anticipated to continue with the 2005 crop.

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Malt Storage tips

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Malt in general can store for long periods of time if kept in a clean dry environment. The majority of malts are below 5.0% moisture, and quite simply at that low moisture very little can sustain life. Molds won’t grow, and many grain related insects will not be able to thrive in an environment that dry. There are some specialty malts that have higher moisture levels, and keeping all things equal, would not stand the test of time as well as malt that is below 5%.

Therefore, the best way to store large quantities of malt is in a clean, dry, silo. Not only can it be the most efficient and economical way of storing grain, but also provides the brewer the ability to maximize the malt’s “shelf life”. Larger brewers do not store malt for any length of time because they are receiving malt deliveries weekly, and for the largest breweries on a daily basis. However the smaller craft brewer, who is benefiting from volume pricing by purchasing truckload quantities can end up storing their malt for several months. This can be done easily using a silo, but there are just a few considerations or tips. First, it is a good practice to empty the silo completely a few times a year.

This reduces the build up of chaff, which is all the dust, and pieces of debris, that are created any time you move grain. The movement of grain in a silo is such that the lighter particles will rise to the top, so if you never completely empty your silo, continuing to create chaff, you will eventually wind up with a bunch of material in the bottom that you can’t brew with. Another source of chaff build up could be from high pressures used during pneumatic unloading. Cargill recommends unloading its trucks between 3 -5 psi, which is adequate to move the grain while minimizing breakage. Also there are more insects that can easily use the fine dusty debris as a food source, therefore limiting the quantity will lessen the likelihood of getting an infestation.

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The malting process

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The earliest known “malt house” was a simple structure located at the bottom of a hill or mountain adjacent to a stream, which could supply low temperature water by gravity. These houses had massive stone walls with floors of stone or mortar. Small windows set in these heavy walls were the only means of ventilation. Barley would be received into the top of such a house, and dropped into deep cisterns for steeping. From there, it would be deposited in a pile onto the stone floor of the house for germination.

As growth commenced and heat was generated, the malt was shoveled from this pile and spread in a thin bed toward the front of the room. Any necessary further cooling could only be accomplished during the cool evenings or night hours when experienced workmen shoveled the first thin layer of malt forward to another spot on the floor, throwing it into the air, and allowing it to fall in a thin shower. The proper moisture was applied by the simple old-fashioned sprinkling can.

The process of shoveling to control temperature gradually moved the bed from the rear to the forward end of the floor, and as each successive steep was deposited onto the floor from the steeping cistern, it followed its predecessor down the length of the floor. In this way there were on each floor, a number of beds of malt in varying stages of germination. When the malt reached the front of the floor, its germination was completed, and it was shoveled by hand through a trap door into wheel barrows beneath, by means of which it was transported to the kiln for drying.

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History of malting

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Malt, in substantially the same form as we know it today, was an important product long before the days of recorded history. Although its actual origin is buried in antiquity, there is a legend that early Egyptians manufactured malt by placing it in a wicker basket, which was then lowered into the open wells of that time. It was first lowered into the water for steeping, after which it was raised above the water level for germination. The rate of germination was controlled by adjusting the height of the basket within the well. As germination progressed and heat developed, the basket would be lowered to a lower temperature level thus retarding growth and dissipating heat. To accelerate germination, the basket was simply raised to a higher level.

The malt was kept from matting by raising it to the top of the well and agitating the basket. Drying was by natural means, probably a simple process of spreading on the ground, and subjecting it to the direct rays of the sun. The use of malt at this time was thought to be exclusively for beverage purposes. Of course, production of malt during this period was limited by the number of wells, and in efforts to increase production, maltsters next employed man-made cisterns and natural caves. These natural processes continued for centuries, because the next advancement in the malting process is found in the middle European countries. There, as the requirement for malt increased, it was found necessary to develop artificial means of controlling the temperatures and humidity.

The earliest known “malt house” was a simple structure located at the bottom of a hill or mountain adjacent to a stream, which could supply low temperature water by gravity. These houses had massive stone walls with floors of stone or mortar. Small windows set in these heavy walls were the only means of ventilation. Barley would be received into the top of such a house, and dropped into deep cisterns for steeping. From there, it would be deposited in a pile onto the stone floor of the house for germination.

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Brewery filter applications

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In the case of pub breweries, the entire beer clarification process is accomplished with the use of sheet or lenticular filters. However, for larger producers, especially package brewers, separation into separate clarification steps helps to reduce costs and achieve longer term beer stability.

Generally there are four main clarification stages including primary filtration, trap filtration, fine filtration and final membrane filtration. Filtration at each stage is for a particular purpose:
1. Primary filtration removes solids and bulk yeast from the beer.
2. Trap filtration removes DE or other process additives
3. Fine filtration may reduce yeast level and removes fine particulates that could foul a final membrane filter.
4. Final membrane filtration removes organisms (bacteria and yeast) that could spoil the packaged beer.

In the case of pub breweries, the entire beer clarification process is accomplished with the use of sheet or lenticular filters. However, for larger producers, especially package brewers, separation into separate clarification steps helps to reduce costs and achieve longer term beer stability.

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