Brewing System Information

In order to understand my processes and equations later, I need to cover some details now.  As I mentioned, I am using the 15.5 gallon Ruby System.  Here is an image from their website:

The Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) feeds hot water into the Mash/Lauter Kettle (MK) via gravity.  The HLT merely holds hot water used for dough in and sparge - I actually add my grains directly to water in the MK, so the HLT is only used to hold sparge water.  The MK uses the pump for recirculation of the wort as well as transfer to the Boil Kettle (BK).  The BK also uses the pump for recirculation (to sanitize the hoses and pump as well as assist in cooling via an immersion chiller) and transfer of wort to my primary fermentation (6.5 gallon glass carboy).

Each kettle is the same size, but the MK and BK both contain a false bottom:

In the next post, I will go through my calculated water amounts.  Before determining the amounts, I had to run through some tests on my system:

Test 1: Find losses when pumping water from one kettle to another.

• Basically I just put 2 gallons in my MK and then pumped the water to the BK.  The result was a loss of 1 quart.

Test 2: Find losses from boiling for one hour.

• Just as the test suggests, I filled a kettle with 3 gallons of water and boiled it for one hour.  Keep in mind that I am at about 5400 feet in South Denver, Colorado.  The result was a loss of 1 gallon and 3 quarts.

Test 3: Find how much water exists under the kettle's false bottom.

• I added water 1 quart at a time.  The result was that a full gallon of water exists under the false bottom

There are more tests that could have been done, but as you will see in the next post, I will use some pre-calculated constants instead.  That is it for now.  Next time we will use these numbers to figure out how much water I need to brew a batch.

Something New Brewing

I'm alive!  So I am going to take this blog in another direction.  Not that I am no longer interested in software development - after all, it is my job - but I have found a stronger passion.  So my software interests still reside in modular development, and I may revisit that topic from time to time.  My new interest involves brewing beer!

I have been in love with craft beer ever since moving to Boulder in 1994.  My love remained firmly in the tasting realm only.  I always had the desire to brew, but time, space limitations, job commitments and kids always seemed a good excuse not to get started.  The excuses ended in August of last year when I finally bought a self-contained brewing system that was easy to use, mobile and had a small storage footprint.

This was purchased from Ruby Street Brewing (a Fort Collins company) via The Brew Hut - my homebrew shop of choice - conveniently located right next to Dry Dock Brewing.  I can't say enough about how easy it is to use this system. The hose connections are super simple, the 15.5 gallon kettles are awesome, and the pump makes life so much easier.  Huge thanks to the folks at The Brew Hut for helping me get all the accessories needed for brewing...and there were a lot of accessories!

So, I want to start going through my brewing steps and documenting what I am doing in hopes of getting feedback as to where I am wrong and what I can be doing better.  I have brewed two batches already and I am in the process of building a recipe for my next batch - all designed to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can (who knows, maybe someday I can get out of that software job).

My plans for this blog (at least in regards to the brewing topics) is to go over my process, talk about recipes I brew, talk about software I use and document the calculations I am using to help determine water amounts, efficiencies and recipe creation.  I will also talk about some of the beer I have that I really like.  This isn't intended to be a how to brew series, but because I am new to this, hopefully others will find something useful here - or hopefully correct me where I am doing something wrong.

Hopefully someone finds this enjoyable, and by following my learning process they can learn too.