hi I'm John Palmer I'm the author of how
to brew and I'm here today in beautiful
Minneapolis it's kind of an exception to
the rule I think but here at Northern
Brewer to find new Minneapolis store is
really one of the nicest stores I've
ever seen great layout great classroom
here and today I'm going to be brewing a
batch of what we call Palmers oked mild
this is a mild recipe a mild being a
British style similar to a brown ale but
lower gravity my name is Alan Clegg Asst
Mundt I've been working at Northern
Brewer since November actually helped
put together the Minneapolis store here
today I'm helping John Palmer brew is
oaked mild so we're having a lot of fun
and sip in a few brews throughout the
day this is a way I used to brew when I
was brewing at home in my kitchen as my
my equipments it has changed over the
years now I'm brewing more on the
Burkman top tier system with with the
metal the stainless steel pots you know
on all three burners but you know
starting out all grain 10-gallon got
cooler is your best your best tool and
this is how I used to Bruce we're going
to be mashing in the cooler we're going
to have two pots going we're going to
have our heating up our initial mash
water in our boil kettle we'll use that
to feed the mash and then we're also
heating up another 8 gallons of water
for sparging in another kettle here on
the stove depending on the equipment you
have you can go to two coolers like with
the Northern Brewer deluxe all-grain
system in this case we would be putting
this HLT water this sparge water in this
top cooler and gravity feeding this
water to the top of the master in our
sparge and that would be what we call
continuous sparging where you you
trickle the word out as you trickle the
sparge water in and you get a nice
transfer of an rinsing of the grains and
get very high efficiency that way what
we're going to do today is we're going
to do a batch sparsh
batch pardoning is a little easier to
accommodate in the
the typical kitchen these are Camden
tablets and one tablet will treat 20
gallons we're going to treat 8 gallons
with this one tower here but more
doesn't hurt his sodium or sodium or
potassium metabisulfite and it when you
do this to treat the water to get rid of
the chlorine you end up adding about 10
ppm of sulfate which is pretty
negligible amount really I mean compared
to the other salt additions we'll be
doing later
so but one can tablet will take care of
all your chlorine or chloramine problems
with your source water drop in there
okay so what we have here is 4 grams
each of calcium chloride and calcium
sulfate the water in the Minneapolis
area is pretty soft its surface water
from the you know mainly from the rivers
and so it's very low hardness low
alkalinity what we want for any beer
really is usually want between 50 and
100 parts per million of calcium those
levels of calcium helped the
fermentation chemistry they help the
mash chemistry it's just a 50 parts per
million of calcium is the starting point
of where you want to be I mean anywhere
up to 100 parts per million works great
so what we're doing here is we're adding
these total of 8 grams of calcium
sulfate and calcium chloride to 8
gallons of water that's going to give us
a total calcium content of about 83
parts per million which is you know
right in the middle there this will give
us a residual alkalinity in the
neighborhood of somewhere between 0 and
60 RRA
which is good for a tan beer style you
know an amber dark amber it's kind of
this very middle-of-the-road area in
terms of brewing we're sure Dov good
beer pH and that's what we're looking
for when we do salted dishes like this
looking at the temperature of the strike
water in the cooler we are a couple
degrees low to what we are what beer
smith said our
target strike water temperatures should
be which calculated about 158 we are
coming in at 156 you know around there
and I'd you know it's two degrees but
that could change our target mash temp
from 152 which is you know really good
to around 150 or maybe even 148
depending on more heat loss once we
dumped everything in the cooler and
stirred and you don't want to low on
mash temperature because then conversion
curves more slowly and the mash will
take longer you do get higher from
rentability from a lower mashed em but
low from yo high or high ferment ability
is not really the goal of this mild
recipe we're looking for good middle
road ferment ability so it's a lot
easier to take a portion of the water
out of the cooler we're going to bring
this to a boil or get it up higher and
then add it back and check our strike
temperatures about an OG of about 1038
you know the mid to high 30s Maris Otter
malt as the base and then some specialty
malts like one pound of crystal 64 I'm
talking in terms of five gallon batch
half pound a breeze special roast
special roast is an interesting malt
it's like a it's like a biscuit but it
it's killed a little differently and
it's got a real depth of bread crust and
biscuit and genuine melanoidins flavors
but not as much as like a munich on top
of that the the Maris Otter pale malt
and the special roast we've got a half
pound of flaked wheat we've got a
quarter pound of chocolate to give a
little you know that color that you
expect from a mild and then we've got
the half pound of toasted oats and all
of these all these malts kind of combine
to give you know a nice deep amber color
and complexity to the to the bread
crusts and biscuit and cookie flavors
that we're looking for in this beer
a drain and two to three quarts into
this pitcher to help set the grand bed
I'll pour it back in do a couple more
I'm looking for coming through the tube
is I'm looking for fair clarity you know
the it's not going to be clear it's not
going to be like apple juice it's going
to be like apple cider what I'm looking
for is to make sure I don't have any bit
noticeable pieces of grain coming
through the hose we want to set the set
the mash spread over the false bottom
get get that filtering going and be
looking for a substantially for particle
free work coming out that's the bore
loft step or recirculation step for
clarity and it's you can see some stuff
coming through but as we as we drain and
rinse every circular and that's going to
drop off yeah we got a real nice color
and we did we took a refractometer
reading a few minutes ago and we're
getting about 1070 which is typical for
first runnings so imma close this and
pour this back in with the grain bed as
deep in you know the latter times deep
as this is pouring this backing isn't
going to really stir anything up so you
can see through the hose and in the bin
there we're not seeing any particles
coming through we're just seeing a nice
you know amber work it's a it's pretty
clear so I think we've got we've got our
recirculation successfully completed
here we've set the grain bed on pour the
recirculation work back in the ton and
now we will drain to the boil kettle and
that's the nice thing about bachelor
genus in continued you you simply drain
the work that's there to the boil kettle
and then you add more water stir it up
recirculate again and drain again you
know a lot of a lot of thought is taken
out of the process continuous sparging
is nice if you've got a gravity setup
kind of like we've got to set up here
where if we had all of our water in this
second cooler up here we could gravity
feed water into the mashed
slowly and slowly drain the mash tun
through this hose into the boil kettle
and achieve a nice slow rinsing and
moving the the sparge water through the
grain bed rinsing the the grain and
getting a nice uniform rinse going
continuous you know doing that slow
rinsing takes a while you should spend
anywhere from half an hour to an hour
sparging if you're doing a continuous
part to ensure that you're not
channeling or you know running the
though the sparge water down the side of
the cooler to the drain because that's
when you really look at poor efficiency
from your lauder so when you do a
continuous part it's got to be slow and
to get make sure you get the uniformity
with the batch barge you're not you're
not planning on rinsing of the grain as
a function of flow what you're doing is
you're you're you're drawing off the
work the first Runnings we call it
putting then dumping more water in
stirring you know taking the residual
sugars out of the grain and and and it's
like a tea bag where your your-your-your
steeping the grain in this new hot water
setting up a concentration gradient
extracting the remaining sugars making a
homogeneous solution of the remaining
sugar in the grain and then draining
that word out if you're to do the batch
barge a third time or the same time then
you would pull out some more but it's a
gradually diminishing return you know to
four to Runnings the initial first rains
here that we're going to do and then one
sparge or one the second Runnings is
really all you need to do in batch
sparging not going to drain too fast i
don't want to come you know rapidly
compact a grain bed especially as we can
start getting you know lower down the
wort level will get lower and it's
running off nicely one of the nice
things about working with the bleakman
Boilermaker pots is the sight glass on
the side and when your batch sparging it
really helps to know
volumes you to get the best efficiency
of a batch barge you want the you want
the too sparse volumes to be the same
ideally that your first running should
be half of your boil volume your then
you dump in your sparge water and
recirculate and drain that second
Runnings volume should also be half of
your boil volume and having the sight
glass on the side of the boil kettle
makes that you know volume determination
a lot easier we're looking to collect
about five five to six gallons well
probably five five gallons out of our
ten gallon batch here in this first
runnings we'll see what we get and then
we'll we'll sparge with about six
gallons and to get our boil volume of
eleven to twelve gallons which we expect
to get about a 10% evaporation rate and
end up with you know roughly ten gallon
batch going to the fermenter
so one comment I'll make when you're
when you're draining a batch barge is
you know be aware of your flow rate the
the loitering in batch barging is not
flow rate sensitive but a keep in mind
that we've got a false bottom in this
cooler and if we were to open up the
valve wide open and drain as fast as we
can
chances are we would suck the green bed
down and end up with a stuck barge I
mean you know we don't want to leave any
work behind in this first running so we
want to drain it all so I'm not opening
it up wide open because I don't want to
suck the green bit down him and compact
it and getting you know get a stuck
sparge so I've got it you know halfway
we've got a good flow rate coming in and
out you know I'm in turn trying to
ensure that we're going to be able to
drain the entire mash got about five and
three-quarters gallons out of our first
runnings it's very good the OD gravity
on this is around 1070 1075 typical
first runnings first runs gravities are
entirely you know rate Grist ratio based
most recipes you know
in terms of first frames are roughly the
same gravity it's one how much you
dilute them from there that changes the
final gravity so we're going to take our
sparse water we're going to dump it into
our cooler
we're not pouring on top of a lid or
anything we don't care about that we're
just going to pour it in ooh we are
going to be closed sweet now we'll just
stir this up again and what we're doing
it with the batch sparge is where we're
stirring up the grain bed that was
previously set and we're gonna you know
riri soak all the grains we're going to
take it where this new water that we've
put in is going to help diffuse out any
residual sugar that's in the grain and
trying to stir around the edges make
sure that I get all the grain kind of
exposed to the new water here then we'll
recirculate and drain again and that's
all there is to it to this method of
sparging it's you know it takes if if
you're brewing in your kitchen or your
apartment and you know you don't have
room for a gravity-fed system or
something like that or a pump this you
know takes a lot of the effort out of
sparging one question I get asked a lot
is you know about acidification of
sparge water or you know do I need to
change the chemistry to sparge water in
general what you're doing if when you're
trying to change the pH of sparge water
is you're trying to bring down
alkalinity if you're a brewer in Texas
or out what other places out west or
Fargo North Dakota for instance we're
anywhere where you're sitting on the
ground you're using groundwater from
that's heavily alkaline you know
limestone aquifers and so on you get
high alkalinity water which has a pH of
like eight and a half to nine high
alkalinity water when you sparge is
going to drive the mash pH from the five
two to five five range it's going to
drive it up towards the sixes and when
you get up towards a pH of six then you
start extracting more tannins from the
grain husks you start extracting more
silicates from the grains and that's
when you get the
that very astringent tastes out of the
beer very grainy or very drying on the
palate and that's why people that live
in those areas they will talk about
adding a Sid acid to the sparge water
they'll try to bring the pH of that
water down to say six or something but
here in Minneapolis where we're working
with surface water and low hardness low
alkalinity surface water at that
sparging with this water is not going to
change the mash pitch the grains have
organic you know buffers in them and
they that those buffers in the grain
will maintain the mash pH for us the
sparge water is not going to
significantly change that so whether
you're fly sparging or batch sparging
at this point here in minneapolis we do
not need to add acid now we're going to
recirculate again reset that green bed
really only five minutes has passed
since we've added the sparge water and
stirred it up again and now we're
recirculating you can see the work color
is lighter but as we're going to we're
going to drain about you know three
quarts here and then put it back and
drain a little more looking again for a
substantially clearer work coming
through the tube and once we've achieved
that then we will drain again to our
boil kettle and and proceed with the
boil open about the same and we're off
and run no pun intended
are pulling out about four bricks okay
it's about starting gravity or specific
gravity of 10 16 yep so we're getting
our six gallons of 10 16 that's what
another 32 as you know almost another 64
points of sugar going in from this barge
we're about 45 degrees C if we'd be down
around a higher temperature drives the
pH lower now that pH has moved down to
five three five two you know we're
definitely in ballpark of where we want
to be for the Mashpee
here you can see we started our boil
we've gone through the hot break
actually we're at the 45 minute mark of
our hour so in other words it's been
boiling for about 15 minutes we're going
to do our single hop addition here at 45
minutes this is a half East Kent
Golding's and half of progress we're
doing it at 45 minutes as opposed to an
hour that will result in a little bit of
hop flavor carrier carryover mostly it's
going to be better than us though
conceivably we could go with it in you
know a 60 minute addition of another hop
a high alpha hop and you know did not
plan on any hop flavor making it through
but since this is a mild it doesn't
count on a hop presence but we like a
little bit of hot presence going into
this particular recipe and that's why
we're doing it 45 minutes so we'll dump
those in and we're done with our hop
addition I typically brew all grain
myself I do still do quite a few extract
batches even though I'm not brewing the
number of batches a year that I'd like
to I do have a couple of favorite beer
recipes that are extract only I do a
hundred percent wheat malt extract one
more beer
that's noble hops 10 1045 OG and it's
just an easy drinking summer beer but
the I feel the wheat malt gives it a
little lighter palette than oh they on
all barley malt extract of the same
gravity wood Brewers shouldn't have any
prejudices again about the method
they're using for the brewing you can do
extract only because we've got great
extract these days 20 years ago and I
started brewing you know all the extract
we were getting was old and you know
there's a real aversion to liquid malt
extract because of it usually it bends
it sat around for a couple of years we
promoted using dry malt extract is
having longer shelf-life and being more
stable and getting a little better beer
out of it there was a real push then to
get into all grain growing
because then you got better freshness
and better flavors out of the beer but
these days extract is really fresh and
brewing with extract can make great
beers I have no doubts about that moving
the chiller around in the pot you get
better chilling getting you know get
some get some work movement not trying
to whirlpool anything at this point all
I'm doing is moving the word around with
the chiller just a kit to keep cuba
moving make sure I don't get any
stratification of temperature so often
people are siphoning to you know using a
siphon to transfer from the pot to the
fermenter and it's so often plastic
hoses get contaminated and you know that
will just inoculate an infection right
to the fermenter I recommend that
everybody exchange their vinyl tubing if
they're using a siphon you know exchange
that out every six months you know
depending your brewing frequency
you don't want take a chance on that
getting contaminated the nice thing
about having a pot like this with the
with a spigot on it you know is that you
can you can get a fresh piece of tubing
stick it on there in this case we got
quick disconnects drain it right to the
fermenter cleanliness of the fermenter
cleanliness of the room you're in
because I mean granted you know let's
say you're going to take this now then
this would be more applicable to a five
gallon batch and you're going to dump it
into a five-gallon bucket you know if
you're doing this in the garage or in
the woodshop or you know outside you
know any anything in the air is getting
mixed into that that batch as you're
pouring it and you can you know you can
get some beer spoilage wild yeasts and
so on going at that time so it's really
when you're doing work transport now
that we're we're chilling it it's going
to be cool it's best to do that on as
under controlled condition as possible
very low air
movement clean room just to just play it
safe here's here's our beer the final
result we've got it transferred to two
fermenters here nominally a 10 gallon
batch but I always kind of go over like
11 in this case so we have more beer to
fill up and then when we actually rack
to the keg we get a full 5 gallon keg
our final gravity came out at 10:39
which is you know right where we wanted
to be just a touch high but you know
right really where we wanted to be with
it tasting the hydrometer sample it's
got a really nice upfront bitterness
that doesn't last if we did the finish
of the beer is more of the sweet and and
cookie and bready malty Ness that we
were really looking for so I have high
hopes for this beer the plan right now
is that one of these fermenters will be
oak and the other one won't be and since
I won't be around the after this weekend
to taste them they're going to bottle up
a few bottles for me and send it to me
and then hopefully we can do an online
tasting session over Skype where I can
taste them alongside Alon and others to
kind of comment on the beer and should
be a lot of fun
you