Stage 2: Out of the house and into all grain

Moving into the garage and outdoors allowed me to meet my next two goals, all grain brewing and full wort boils. While I had some decent beer made indoors, it was just a stepping stone. As I got further into the art of brewing I found myself scanning the net reading blogs, forums, and taking in the advice and experience of the collective community of home brewers. I wanted to be a part of it. First thing was I needed a “brewing sculpture”. At this point I didn’t have much of an idea exactly what that would cost. I quickly learned that what I wanted, I couldn’t afford; so I decided to build it myself. I knew that I wanted a system that was all on one level and employed a recirculation method. By recirculating my wort I could use the grain bed as a filter to get the cleanest possible wort. This also made it possible to add a RIMS unit if necessary. I decided to utilize two 10 gallon Rubbermaid water coolers as my Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) and Mash Lauter Tun (MLT). Coupled with a new 10 gallon Polarware brew kettle, 100,000 BTU banjo burner, and March pump I found on Craig’s list I had the beginnings of my system.

After much consideration and shopping around I decided to build a wooden brewing platform on casters. The platform surfaces are made of a butcher block type surface with a Plexiglas overlayment on every surface except for under the brew kettle. Under the brew kettle I used a single section of 18*18 ceramic floor tile. All of the wooden frame and surfaces have multiple coats of Minwax Stain with Polyethylene to seal the surface. To date this has provided a durable and easy to clean platform. Approximate cost for the platform, $300, mostly from Lowes.

The picture above is the rough frame version 0.9

To the right is the final system ( version 1) fully involved. You can see the wort from a Pilsner I am brewing recirculating. Version 2 that went into production in December 2011 added a plate chiller and additional plumbing and valves to eliminate disconnects/moving lines and to create a clean (no drip / spill) brewing day. If you look closely you'll also see a dimmer switch used to control the motor speed. Both the MLT and HLT have temperature gauges placed just above the spigot valves. I found that with this configuration I would lose only 1-2 degrees of heat over one hour without recirculating and 2-3 degrees with recirculation. I usually run the recirculation for only the final 10-15 minutes of mashing and also as part of the sparging processes; thus I have not added a RIMS unit to my stand.

This is also the time I moved to using software to design my recipes. I chose BeerTools Pro 2.0. My first brews focused on full wort boils using partial mash techniques. After a few of these, and a Gold Medal in the Dominion Cup for my Oktoberfest 2010 with an average score of 45, it was time to move to all grain brewing. I decided to go to all grain for a few key reasons, one I felt that using Malt Extract was cheating as the brewer gets to skip the wort creation process. Secondly, I wanted full control over my ingredients and flavor profile. Finally, malt extract is more expensive than grain.

As I started working with all-grain I ordered my grains crushed by the supplier; usually Midwest Supplies or Northern Brewer. I found that sometimes they would miss performing the crush or crush inconsistently and I would get either powder or barely cracked grains. Both caused brew day issues and clogged false bottoms. What did I learn? First get a grain mill and crush your own, second always check your order upon receipt, not on brew day, and third I modified my false bottom and haven't had a problem sense. I'll show that trick later.

Into 2011 I completed version 2 of my brewing platform and moved to BeerSmith 1.x. I have since upgraded to version 2.0 and I love it. As mentioned previously Brewstand 2.0 incorporated the grain mill, additional plumbing, and a chill plate in place of the immersion chiller. This past year I've brewed over 20, 5 gallon batches of beer with this configuration and get pretty good efficiency out of it (70+%), great results including a silver medal in the AHA regional competitions for my Irish Ale

Finished System below:

Stage 1: Mr. Beer

The fascination with beer grew into the next stage; how do they do that? I started Christmas 2008; Santa brought me a Mr. Beer. That’s right, beer in a box with a 2 1/2 gallon beer barrel shaped container and cans of malt extract. I jumped right in and I learned my first lesson. Good beer takes time. By nature I am not patient, I didn’t like that the wort and hops I boiled had to ferment for 1-2 weeks then condition 2-4 weeks more. I had to learn patience; ugh! After about three months I tried my own recipe, a raspberry blonde. Wow it turned out great, pretty cool. From there I started buying hops, then it went to steeping grains with Mr Beer extracts. Finally I said good bye to Mr Beer and hello to extract brewing. Still working from the kitchen, the wife was getting tired of the mess and the smell. It was time to start looking for somewhere else to brew.

Principle #1, at Mill Road Craft Brewing, all beer will be aged a minimum of 6 weeks. Up next.. To the Garage and All Grain Brewing.

Why Beer? Why Brewing?

Over the years I’ve come to realize that I have a passion for science, design and expressing that in a creative way. That may explain why my chosen career has been in the field of technology and architecture. Brewing beer or architecting technology solutions both require technical skill blended with creative expression. With brewing, the intersection of skillful design and creativity results in a well crafted beer that has an inner beauty, it’s simple in design, its elegant, balanced, and satisfies a desire; it can stand the test of time. That’s what Mill Road Craft Brewing is all about; finely crafted beers, not the latest trend or extreme beer, which are based upon the fusion of classic styles and inner creativity.

The journey begins:
Charting my own course and being my own boss has lurked in the back of my head for many years. However, starting and running a brewery is a fairly recent development over the past three years. I’ve always been a curious person and I love to know how things work, and that’s how it started with beer and brewing. A few visits to Capital Ale House got me asking these questions; why are there so many different beers on this menu? What’s the difference between them, and can I possibly drink them all? I can say with 100% surety that I have the answers and no, I can not drink them all; believe I have and continue to try. This leads to the next logical step, brewing it myself… how hard can it be right?