Phase 1 : Water, Barley, Yeast, Ferment

If I wanted cheap, perfectly serviceable beer, I would buy a kit and avoid the faff of full mash brewing. But cost isn't a key driver in this. Although I am expecting to be able to brew beer at some point in the future to a better standard than is available in the average pub, more cheaply than I would likely spend at the supermarket.

Good beer is made with at least the following ingredients:

• Malted Barley
• Water
• Hops
• Yeast

Most home brewers don't spend time worrying about their water and are happy enough with their product. Brewing is part art and part science and some degree of experimentation is necessary in order to assimilate the many sources of information into something that resembles beer. I am the type of person that remembers when I had a beer that was more than just acceptable. And as from the outset I desire consistency and aim to create beer that is more than just acceptable, I have chosen to try to understand the water source that is available to me and how it may be manipulated to coerce the ingredients to make a better product.

So phase 1 will involve keeping the moving parts to a minimum and brewing the same brew over and over in order to get a sense of what impact changes to the water will make.

Water

As mentioned we have hard water which from chalk aquifers rather than surface water. Boiling would not only precipitate Calcium Carbonate as CaCO3 or Chalk but would also get rid of Chlorine and other Volatile Organic Compounds (VCO's). This removes valuable calcium that would then need to be re-added as pure salts in the form of Calcium Sulfate (Gypsum) and or Calcium Chloride, dependent on the target taste. We may also need to add Epsom Salt to bring up Magnesium levels which is a trace mineral required by yeast.

Malted Barley

I have chosen Maris Otter Extra Pale which has a EBC colour rating of 2.5. Brewing with pale malts push the envelope in brewing with pale malts require soft water. Where I am situated, we have hard water. This will require some real tinkering to get the pH of the mash into the ideal target 5.4 to 5.5 range. Maris Otter is not a transparent barley in the way that a 2-row is, so we will have space to see what all the fuss is about with Maris Otter. Also later we can move to darker MO varieties which may require less water treatment.

Hops

Keeping it simple, adding bittering hops early boil, and aroma hops late and post boil. Also using hops from Kent to keep things local.

Yeast

Danster Nottingham Dry Ale Yeast is quick to attenuate, transparent and avoids the requirement for a yeast starter. This yeast is a viable alternative to liquid yeast which most people see as the way to get the best tasting beer. At these early stages using a transparent yeast before a liquid Yyeast will keep things simple. Later we can introduce a liquid yeast with a starter and see what all the fuss is about.

The recipe that I have chosen is a simple one.

Hop Back Summer Lightening Clone as published in the Graham Wheeler Book - Camra's Brew Your Own British Real Ale. This fits the requirements nicely as it is simple - i.e. good for begineers and keeps the moving parts down, pale so as to create a challenge with mash pH, and is apparently better with a liquid yeast, which we are not using in the first rounds.

Bottle Cleaning Attempt 1

So here are some pictures an videos from my first attempt to clean beer bottles. I have changed my approach but this is where I started and this what I learned:

1. Clean your bottles as soon as you can. If anything dries on, it will require soaking and may require scrubbing. 
2. Use PBW, rather than a general Oxy cleaner, as a soak for no more than 30 mins. Use general Oxy cleaners are you own peril. My career scrubbing Oxy residue out of bottles was a short one but seemed to last forever.
3. Flush the inside with water. For this I use The Blast - Bottle Washer which is great. 
4. Stand upside-down to dry. For this I use a Bottle Drainer.  
5. Once clean use aluminum foil to cap them to keep dust etc out. You can then either bake them to sterilize them for storage and use as required, remove cap and put in a Starsan soak on bottling day.

Attempt 1 pictures

I chose a 'Really Useful Box' as a washing up bowl. Added some Oxy cleaner and added the bottles.

As you can see some labels come off on their own.

Regardless of how easy labels come off, the glue residues need to be scrubbed with a green cleaning pad.

Some labels took a lot of work to remove.

There was one type that were a water-proof plastic type that pulled off in one go.

If you look closely you can see the bubbles rising out of the bottles as the oxygen gets to work.

My advice is don't leave this soaking for more than 30 mins then get them flushed out as soon as you can.

Cleaning and Sanitizing

Apparently Brewing is 75% cleaning.. need to look up that quote...

Cleaning steps for brewing : Clean, Sanitize, Sterilize

Cleaning

For general de-greasing and crud removal, word on the street is that Oxy is the thing. This stuff looks and behaves like laundry powder. Most Oxy products that you get from your local supermarket will be mostly marketed as laundry powder. In brewing PBW is popular and from experience rinses with water easiest but it is expensive compared to what you can get at the local supermarket. You have to make sure that you do not use one that lists 'perfume' as an ingredient or it will likely leave a residue that is difficult to get off, i.e. its designed to leave a smell on laundry after it is rinsed.

I use PBW for cleaning items that are directly involved in brewing. I use a cheaper Oxy cleaner for general cleaning.
I have also had a degree of success with the following product. However I no longer use it on bottles as I found that if left for long periods of time soaking,  a residue can stick to the surface of glass that needs scrubbing to get off. And when you have to scrub inside a bottle thats when the fun really starts.



PBW

Oxygen based cleaner

Data sheet

Sanitising

There really is only one option for sanitizing

Starsan

No-rinse sanitize solution. Comes as a concentrate. 15-20 seconds of contact with the solution sanitizes and can and should be the last thing that touches surfaces that come into contact with your beer post boil. Popular saying 'don't fear the foam'. Its ability to sanitize pH based meaning that it becomes mostly innocuous once its pH changes. If you mix with distilled or soft water it will last longer as the relative alkalinity of hard water makes it less acidic. When its pH goes out of bounds, it goes a milky white which is helpful. If you have a pH meter you can use this to test if the solution is still viable.

Data sheet

Boiler

In the Graham Wheeler book Camra's Brew Your Own British Ale, he suggests getting a 30 litre Burco tea earn. I figured that even if I do eventually get a Braumiester or similar I will still need a HLT. So I decided that this would not be wasted as a long term purchase. I picked up one of Amazon and someone had helpfully reviewed this as a brewing boiler which helped me decide what to get.

The Burco Cygnet came with a black tap and brass back nut. The odd thing about this was the hole the back of the tap passed through was for a 3/4" BSP nipple, but was not  circular, but was oblong. Most stainless steel fittings from home brew suppliers is 1/2"BSP, so we were alone on this one with with various pipe supplier catalogs.

As most of the brewing world has settled on 1/2"BSP, we decided not to go with a 3/4"BSP Ball Valve. We used a Dremel with a grinder attachment to bur out the hole to accept a 3/4" BSP Nipple

The parts list was a bit of trial and error and I ended up with a few parts that I haven't used. We also purchased a sight glass which required a new hole to be drilled. 

Below is an illustration of the ball valve setup. Its not pretty, but with some PTFE (teflon) tape it is sound. Actually this point is very important. When using a nipple to go through the side of the boiler, use 5 x turns of PTFE along the entire thread before starting the installation. I also find that adding food grade silicone to the outside of the PTFE helps.

 Filling up to check the seals.

 Checking out the ball valv

Just because I am a curious type, I took the base off to see what the element looks like and hey its circular.

Mash-Tun

I have had my eye on a Braumiester 50L but at around £2,000, at present I can't justify the cost. So I have to use what I have around me where possible. We have had a 47 litre coleman coolbox for a few years and it seems that this is a perfect size to be converted into a Mash-Tun.

I removed the handle, drain plug fitting and lid and used an Oxy cleaner and scrubbed at it for about an hour until it was squeaky clean.

Then I attempted to pick my way through the options for metalwork.

Many youtube videos and blog articles later I decided :

1. Where possible all metal should be 316 Stainless Steel
2. I needed 1/2" BSP 3 part ball valves
3. I would construct a copper manifold to be a wort strainer to be placed in the base of the tun

This would allow for a simple no-sparge setup, where:

- all of the strike water is added to the tun
- then all of the grist is added
- cover it up for 90 mins
- drain

The secret to getting this right is adding the correct amount of base malt to match the 65% efficiency of this method. But get the calculation correct and it will costs an extra 50 pence in malt and do away with the potential problems of sparging.

This is what I ended up with.

 Close up of the steel nut and silicon high temp o-ring

1/2 BSP 316 Stainless Steel Ball Valve

Cleaning the lid.

Cleaning the metalwork before its first use, with Oxy. Note ball valves have been dismantled.

Drying.

Water

The condition of brewing water is adequately covered in this blog article by Braukieser on Mash pH.

For a deeper look into brewing water, this is the defacto guide, which gets heavy in places. The John Palmer book : Water - A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers

The basics:

• Hardness in water is present as Carbonates, Bicarbonates and Carbonic Acid
• Grain and water combine to form a mash pH which is best measured 10 mins into the mash and the sample should be cooled to room temperature before testing
• Base malts and crystal malts have an Acid buffer effect on the water in the mash and the strength of that bufferring effect is correlated to its colour
• Roasted darker malts do not have an Acid buffering affect
• Water pH and hardness details are not important. Mash pH - where the pH rests when base malt and water is combined - is important as this drives key processes that start in the mash and follow into the brew, such as the conversion of starches to to ferment-able sugars (sugars that yeast can eat which makes them piss alchohol and fart CO2)
• Chloride does not effect mash pH
• Sulphate : Chloride ratio 1:1 = balanced malt to hop taste. Adjusting salt additions to effect this ratio will accentuate malt or hop dominance.  
• Acceptable Mash pH range is 5.2 - 5.7
• Ideal Mash pH range is 5.3 - 5.5

This is what I am aiming for with water treatment:

Transparent

That it removes impurities such as heavy metals, paracites, VOC's etc and adds pure salts

Simple

Difficult to get wrong, easy to repeat

General 

As source water is likely to vary slightly, the treatment should work without further testing other than checking the mash pH 10 mins in to the mash

Zero Chlorine

Chlorine and Chloramine (Chlorine + Sulfur) is terminal for yeast.

Recipes 

Works for pale and extra pale malts, which would require a total alkalinity of less than 25ppm

Water Source

As we are located in the South Downs in East Sussex, we know that our water is hard.

'Unless you put a number to it, you haven't proved anything'. 

(i'll dig out the quote source at some point).

After some googling around I cam across this blog post on Jims Beer Kit about water alkalinity. I followed this and obtained  a Salifert KH + Alkalinity Prof-Test Kit which is designed for Aquarium hobbyists. This gave me the following results:

Water Treatment	KH value in dKH	Alkalinity in meq/L	mg/L Calcium Carbonate CaCO3 (Chalk)
Plain Tap Water (Unfiltered)	10.7	3.82	191
Filtered* Tap Water	10.7	3.82	191
Filtered* Tap Water, boiled in the Kettle	6.7	2.39	119.5
Filtered* Tap Water, boiled for 30 mins	2.2	0.79	39.5
Filtered* Tap Water, boiled for 60 mins, allowed chalk to settle out	1.4	0.5	25
Filtered* Tap Water, boiled for 60 mins, allowed chalk to settle out, then britta water filtered	0.6	0.22	11

* Frank 3 FilterFlow tap installed in our kitchen sink

This was a good start. Points of interest from the numbers above:

• The Franke 3 Filter Flow filter has no effect on hardness. This correlates with their literature.
• The water is of a medium hardness. I had previously thought it was very hard.
• Boiling for more than 30 minutes precipitates more chalk.
• That this method can get the water hardness down to below 25ppm & mg/L required for usage of pale malts, i.e Pilsner, 2-row etc.

I then set out to find out more. I discovered the Brewers Friend website where they have a set of helpful calculators. In particular their Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator seemed to be useful. This requires:

Calcium (Ca+2)
Magnesium (Mg+2)
Sodium (Na+)
Chloride (Cl-)
Sulfate (SO4-2)
Alkalinity (as CaCO3)
pH

I started at my water supplier, Southern Water and found a page call How Hard Is Your Water?

I was able to find out:

• Southern Water do not add Chloramine to the water. Although this can occur naturally in stream water in the area. 
• They don't test for Calcium, Magnesium & Sulfate
• Hardness in CaC03: 234 ppm average
• Sodium: 17.4 ppm average (low=15.4, high=21.8)
• Chloride: 33.25 ppm average (low=30, high=40)

So there were still some numbers that I didn't have.

After receiving the water report from Murphy & Sons I now have most of the important mineral content levels, PH and hardness. They don't test for Sodium but I have that figure from the Southern Water Report - above.

	Murphys Water Report	Southern Water Report	Home Testing
pH	6.93
Nitrate	2.5	33.308
Calcium (Ca+2)	77.59
Magnesium (Mg+2)	2.71
Chloride (Cl)	43.72	Low:30-Avg:33-High:40
Sulphate (SO4-2)	12.68	Low:13-Avg:16-High:21
Alkalinity (CaCO3)	175
Sodium (Na)	Not tested for	Low:15-Avg:17-High:21
Total Hardness (CaCO3)	207		No boil:199 /boil .5h:90 / boil 1h:35 / boil 1h+filter:11

NB: All values in ppm which is equivalent to mg/L which is equal to the same value as ppm

Water Prep

The water treatment I have settled for

Equipment

Burco 30 Litre Boiler - modded with ball valve and sight glass
Frank 3 FilterFlow tap installed in the kitchen sink
2 x 23 Liter PET Carboys

Overview

1.    Run water slowly through Franke 3 activated carbon and ceramic filter

2.    Boil for 1 hour

3.    Filter with a brita filter

4.    Add Calcium Sulphate and Epsom Salts to the grain bill prior to mash

Procedure

Slowly fill Carboys with filtered water and carry to boiler
Fill boiler to 26 liters
Bring to boil

Maintain boil for 60 minutes
An amount of the water at the bottom will be allowed for chalk precipitation 
Leave to cool

10% boil off will result in 26 Litres - 2.6 Litres = 23.4 Litres

Transfer as much as possible from the boil kettle to carboy leaving chalk behind
Repeat to fill 2nd carboy

As added to boiler for use, put through britta carbon filter

Effect of Boil

As chalk (temporary hardness) is precipitated from the water as CaCO3, the calcium levels will be too low and salts will need to be added. Usually this is done by adding Calcium Sulphate (Gypsum), or Calcium Chloride which also pull the water towards acidity.

Salt Adjustments To Grist Pre-Mash to lower pH (raise acidity)

Salts are best added to the grist before adding to mash tun. Calcium can also be added to the mash if it has been measured as having too high a pH.

Optional additions:

Calcium Chloride
Calcium Suplhate
Epsom Salts

Acid Adjustments to Mash to lower pH (raise acidity)

German beers rely on Lactic Acid for their use of pale malts. This is the way I want to go. 

The maximum Lactic acid that can be added to a mash is 1ml per KG of grist.

ml per KG			Malt kg	Min to achieve a movement of 0.1	Max ml in batch before flavour negatively impacted	Min Possible Change	Max Possible Ph Change
0	.	25	5.1	1.28	5.1	0.1	0.4
0	.	26	5.1	1.33	5.1	0.1	0.4
0	.	27	5.1	1.38	5.1	0.1	0.4
0	.	28	5.1	1.43	5.1	0.1	0.4
0	.	29	5.1	1.48	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	30	5.1	1.53	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	31	5.1	1.58	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	32	5.1	1.63	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	33	5.1	1.68	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	34	5.1	1.73	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	35	5.1	1.79	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	36	5.1	1.84	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	37	5.1	1.89	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	38	5.1	1.94	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	39	5.1	1.99	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	40	5.1	2.04	5.1	0.1	0.3
0	.	41	5.1	2.09	5.1	0.1	0.2
0	.	42	5.1	2.14	5.1	0.1	0.2

Examples:    By adding the maximum 1ml/KG the maximum change will be between 0.2 and 0.4           
    To move the Ph by at least 0.1 requires between 1.28ml and 2.14ml for 5.1KG of grist

Finally!

I have all the information! So I can now use the Brewers Friend Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator

It is likely that all additions will be with the aim of reducing pH. The plan would be to add salts to grist prior to mash then add Lactic Acid should the pH require lowering.

The salt additions will very depending on the recipe, i.e. use of base and crystal malt. Hence the requirement to use a mash calculator.