Midnight Brewer

By Steve Kranz
This year, as in years past, I left lists of suggested Christmas gifts in a conspicuous place (the Spousal Unit's purse).  Having gone out of my way to make sure the items on it were modestly priced (i.e. no $3,000 SABCO Brew Magic systems, etc.), I hit real paydirt this year and was the lucky recipient of a new wort chiller and a beer filter.  Both of these items were from Beer, Beer & More Beer (www.morebeer.com), where I also bought my stainless steel conical fermenter.
The wort chiller should be a nice step up in speed and efficiency, as it has twice the length of copper tubing as my current chiller, is specifically designed for cooling ten gallon batches, and also is specifically made to fit my 15-gallon converted keg brew kettle.
The filter, on the other hand, is something I have not used before so it will be fun to work with...a new toy.  The beer filters sold by BBB are based on a canister-type water filter housing, with hoses and quick-disconnect fittings attached in order to filter a non-carbonated, fermented beer using two five-gallon kegs (Cornelius-type).  The filter medium is a rigid, spun polypropylene tube which fits inside the canister filter.  Each filter pad is good for one five-gallon batch, and they are not recommended for cleaning and re-use.  These are available in varying densities according to the micron-sized particles you wish to filter out.  Beer is pushed from a full supply keg, through the filter medium under CO2

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This subject appeared as an article in our previous issue, and here are some additional suggestions which didn't make it into the prior article...

Larry Hitchcock

• When I know I'll want to share a batch at a tasting or other get together, I like to use 2 liter soda bottles when I'm bottling.  They can be used for any portion of the batch, and make bottling go quicker.


• Sometimes when I'm doing an extract batch, using dry malt is easier to use than liquid.  It dissolves much quicker, but seems to be more prone to boil-overs, so I keep a closer eye on it.


• When I know I may not have as much time as I'd like on brew day, I'll get the equipment and any non-perishable ingredients out the night before.  I'll even sanitize the fermenter and other miscellaneous equipment and let it soak, so after brewing, all I need to do is the rinse.

• The last time I brewed out on the deck was this past November, when it's already pretty dark by 5:30 PM.  We had two batches going, were still in heavy boil by then, and were about to do the flashlight thing when I remembered my clamp-on shop light from the basement.  Using my brewing racks, we had plenty of light wherever we needed it.

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