Saturday was a brew day for us at Phalanx Brewing and began with us constructing a new mash tun and liquor tank from a kit that we purchased from Northern Brewer. Overall, the kit was pretty easy to assemble. It included a 12 gallon mash tun with a false bottom and thermometer as well as a smaller hot liquor tank. All of the hardware that came with the kit was stainless steel rather than copper, which was nice to see. We did have one issue with the thermometer where it reported that the mash in the tun dropped by about 8 degrees over the course of a single hour long infusion. When the full hour had passed, we were able to take the temperature of the mash using a digital instant read thermometer which did not show any drop in temperature. We may have to take some time to see if the included thermometer can be calibrated. If it cannot, then I do not believe that it will be much use and would suggest that it not be used in place of a quality digital thermometer.
We also had a small leak in our liquor tank when pressure was applied to the ball valve that controls the flow of water out of the tank. I believe that this might have been caused by me tightening the bolts on the ball valve to much and deforming the rubber o-rings that form the seal. I will have to work a bit more on this issue to see if I can fix it. I believe that the worse case scenario would be buying a few dollars worth of additional hardware to make sure that there is a proper seal around the ball valve.
The recipe that we brewed in the new equipment was a modification of a recipe in Brewing Classic Styles by John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff. I based the grain bill off of the recipe for “Black Widow Porter” but modified the amounts of grain used in the bill because I had to source the grain in one pound increments.
Rahr 2-Row Malt, 12 Lbs.
Breiss Bonlander Munich Malt, 2 Lbs.
Breiss Chocolate Malt, 1 Lb.
Breiss Black Malt, 1 Lb.
Fawcett English Medium Crystal Malt, 1 Lb.
Because I was modifying the grain bill to include more fermentables, I also made some changes to the hop schedule.
UK Kent Goldings, 1.75 Oz., 60 min
UK Fuggles, 1 Oz., 15 min
UK Kent Goldings, 1 Oz., 0 min
The software that I was using to modify the recipe suggested that these alterations should yield a pretty great balance of hoppiness and malt flavors in the finished porter. When the wort had cooled to 69 F we pitched the yeast. Zainasheff’s recipe offered two suggestions for liquid yeast, but because I am not comfortable yet sourcing that from online, I chose to use Safale US-05.
The beer has been fermenting for three days now, but we did not notice any activity in the bubbler valve on top of the fermentor. This turned out to be due to a poor seal between the rubber cork that held the bubbler valve and the plastic lid on the fermentor. Once the cork was reset, activity in the bubbler began instantly. I believe that the pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the thermometer would have kept anything from infecting the beer inside.
I wish I could say that the risk to the beer was over, but we will also be attempting to rack this beer to a secondary fermentor so that it does not have to sit on the trub longer than necessary. This step will also expose the beer to airborne baddies that could spoil or infect the final product. If it survives both the loose cork and racking process, we should end up with a porter around 7.5% ABV. Here is to hoping!
