Busywork

Yesterday marked day 2 with Brewer Bear. I will try to restructure what I learned. We did not brew this time around. Today was a transfer/cleaning day. These two time-consuming tasks work well in conjunction together. Instead of hurryupandwait, we would bounce back and forth between the cold room and the brewery, as activated tasks ran their course. I think I will describe them as two separate events, for I fear my shortcomings as a writing stylist will muddify particulars of the actual events.

Transfer: The ESB from fermentor to serving tank. First thing to do is to taste the beer. Rough life, I know. Brewer Bear filled one pint from the side spigot on the side of the fermentation tank, after a quick sanitizing spritz from the iodophor bottle. This is a tiny spigot at the bottom of a 15 barrel tank. These tanks, pretty small to moderate in brewery sizes, hold 465 gallons of beer plus another 1/3 volume head space. One barrel is 31 gallons, if that helps. Some ancient measuring system that exists now chiefly to confuse number-retarded people like myself.

Oh the beer. This beer has been nitrogen-conditioned in the tank, after fermentation had ceased. There are different gas lines coming into the room, some with CO2 and some N. Conditioning post fermentation is as simple as capping the tank so no gas exits and plugging in one of those lines to carbonate. Since fermentation produces CO2 beer will carbonate itself if there is some yeast activity still present. Additional CO2 can be added to further carbonate, but is mostly use to create pressure to go from here to there.

Right, the beer! Besides the nice nitro cascade, it held a cool copper color and fresh hop aroma. Mild, semi-sweet with no punchy hops one would expect from American-style ales. This is a decent example of English-style ale as I understand it, though can't speak for its authenticity.

Hm, I haven't described any transferring so far. I think I'll devote more time to it in a future post when I understand it a bit better.