NHC Days 2 & 3 The Gadgets.

Saw Some More Toys!

Even better  than the SABCO stuff (drool) and the all electric brewing system I saw down there (neat-0!), I had a chance to talk with the nice folks at Speidels about their “Braumeister” brewing system. This is by far the most innovative and compact brewing all grain brewing system I have seen in a long time.

The Braumeister takes brew in a bag to the next level. Instead of a bag to hold your grain and then laughter the Braumeister actually uses a perforated stainless tub that sits inside the kettle. After you have mashed, using the integrated heating element and temperature controller you either use a worm gear (for the 20l & 50l models) or a pulley (for the 200l model) to lift the mash tub and allow your wort to drain. When this is done you boil in the same kettle you mashed in. Pretty nifty.

The two downsides that I see to this system are:

1) The limits on how much grain you can actually get in there given that  this is a no sparge system. You cannot get above 1.060 OG without adding malt extract or boiling way down.

2) The Price. The 20L unit will rug you upwards of $2,000, the 50L over $3,000 and a whopping $14,500 for the 50L. Ouch.

Asside from the price this seems like an awesome concept and I can’t wait to see what similar systems are being built in the garage by all you innovative home brewers out there.

Some Braumeister Pics:

5oL Braumeister

20L Braumeister Taken form Speidel.com

Some more Cool Gadgets:

This interesting dispensing system was on display in the Hospitality Suite.

This generous home brewer shared some of his creations from a very portable draft system while we waited in a long line.

Inside this most portable draft system. It even holds a full size CO2!

Some of the most heavy duty HB mills I have ever seen by the folks at "Monster Mill". The larger ones just about took 2 hands to lift.

A new stand alone HRMS controller by SABCO with optional touch screen.

That’s all for now. I attended a bunch of seminars at NHC and plan to post more on those once I can link to the AHA’s lecture slides, but they are not up on the AHA website yet. Also sorry about the sideways images. The wordpress photo up-loader is a little finicky.

Cheers for now,

-Jeremy

NHC 2011 Day One

Went to some great Seminars today.

First Presentation: Chad Yakobson of The Crooked Stave:

Chad Yakobson of The Crooked Stave brewing gave a great presentation on brewing with brett. He had really easy to understand explanations on how to ferment with either 100% brettanomyces or blended fermentations. I thought it was really interesting that the time at which the brett is added during a brettanomyces/servomyces can really change to flavor of the finished beer.

Basically brett added later in the fermentation gives much more “funk” to the beer, while brett added earlier in the fermentation gives a cleaner, less “barnyard type of flavor. Chad also gave some really good information

Slides from his presentation are not available but you should be able to find them here in a few days http://www.ahaconference.org/conference-information/presentations/

You can also check out chads brewery here http://www.crookedstave.com/

and his website for the Brettanomyces project here: http://www.brettanomycesproject.com/

Second Presentation: What’s Wrong With My Beer, Randy Mosher

Randy did a great job of covering common off flavors in beer. He gave some great information on common off flavors in beer and how they result, with a specific focus on proper serving, pouring and handling of beer. I learned some particularly gross details on what a dirty draft system does to your beer. Yuck. Bacterial colonies in a faucet can actually travel all the way down a beer line and into a keg if a draft line infection gets bad enough.

Randy also had some great things to say about dirty glassware, or glassware that still has soap on it. He also had some great explanations on why it is a bad idea to serve beer on blended gas, and why so many pub owners do it (basically it makes the beer flat if you don’t do it right, but it also keeps beer from foaming).

You can find info on the Cicerone program here, which Randy has taken great steps to train beer servers, brewers and retailers on how to store, package, and serve a beer to keep all those wonderful flavors intact. http://www.cicerone.org/

Slides for his presentation can be found here as soon as AHA posts them. http://www.ahaconference.org/conference-information/presentations/

And of course the day would not be complete without checking out a little bit of bling:

The John & Crew of Blichmann Engineering gave us a sneak peak at their newest offering. “The Tower of Power”! The tower of power is a mudular structure that allows precise control over kettle temperature by regulating the gas flow to your top tier burner. He does this with a digital controller, a striker and a gas solenoidvalve to control the flow of propane into the burner. The Tower is also available with an integrated March 809 Pump, flow controller, & 3 way flow control valves. Very cool. I cant wait to have one of these in the shop to drool over.

Here are a couple of Tower of power Pics. In case you miss it in the pictures there is also a USB port in the back of it so you can plug in a laptop. And pictures:

Ohh yeah. The Blichmann Guys have also updated their “Quick Connector” design. They have changed the washer location (so they don’t fall out all the time), and added a silicone hand grip so you can grab the nut on these while the fitting is hot. They also have it available with an optional 90 degree bend on the output to keep your tubes from kinking when you put hot wort through these fittings.

Heres a pic of that design:

To finish off the night Owen from wyeast labs was kind enough to share a wide variety of belgains with myself, Sean Paxton, The guys from Northern Brewer & Midwest Homebrew supplies among others. We werent really sure what was what because all the labels were in Flemish or French, but the beers were really great. I particularly enjoyed one that was brewed with spelt and wheat. Very nice Belgium, very nice.

Here are some pics of our great Belgian Beer experience.

Thanks for reading guys. It’s back to NHC recovery now for me. More to come as I get time. Be sure to bug AHA to post those slides of you get a chance .

Cheers,

-Jeremy