The 1998 Annual Brew-In

Meeting Notes

by Charlie Webster

Brewing has been called both art and science. Well, the brewing at this year's annual Brew In, held in the Brewmaster parking lot, was mostly art, and very little science!

Unlike other years, when several brewers brought their own equipment, this year we only made one batch of beer on the shop's three tier system.

Club members Charlie Webster, Bob Jones, Roger St. Denis, Lewis Leung, Paul Marshall, Bob Wilcox, and briefly, Mike Wood were joined by visitors Jeanette Weber and Brian Walsh for the annual event hosted by Tom Baird of the Brewmaster of San Leandro. We made 8 gallons of pale ale according to an ancient family recipe that we devised on the spot. Ingredients for the brew and a nice barbecue lunch were generously provided by Tom Baird and assistance throughout was provided by Chris ???

While Lewis and Brian heated mash water, Bob, Charlie, and Tom milled the grain using the shop's giant mill out in back. We used 10 pounds of DeWolf-Cosyns Pale Ale malt, 10 pounds of Hugh Baird Pale Ale malt, 5 pounds of Great Western Pale Ale malt, and 1.5 pounds of 20 L. crystal. The eclectic mix of grains derived from the fact that those were the bags on the front of the shelf.

We mashed in at about 180F and achieved our desired mash temperature of 158 (or so) without the addition of either hot or cold water. While the mash was progressing we adjourned to the back room of the shop and started munching on veggie and dip appetizers and sampling brews. Charlie brought a couple of liter bottles of "beer" that started out to be an Anchor Steam clone, but didn't even come close. Bob Jones brought a bottle of ???, Bob Wilcox brought a bottle of his Pilsner (these are all from memory, I didn't take notes on the beers and meads), and Roger brought several bottles of mead, ranging from his Rose Petal mead to his famous Marmalade Mead.

Somewhere along the line, the mash was deemed complete and we began the sparge. While we were conducting the sparge, Tom grilled sausages and chicken breasts to go with the potato and macaroni salads and fruit platter for dessert. We sparged until we collected a kettle full of sweet wort and started the boil.

We threw in two ounces of whole Cascade hops for bittering at the beginning of the boil, another 2 ounces for flavor at the mid-point (~30 minutes) and another 2 ounces at knock-out for aroma. Hop additions were not calculated in any manner, and since the hops weren't labelled as to alpha acid content, we'll never know how many IBUs were used. We cooled the wort with an immersion chiller and siphoned the beer into carboys, where we pitched each carboy with two rehydrated packets of Danstar London Ale yeast, and left the beer at the shop to ferment. Siphoning the beer out of the kettle was the single most difficult task of the day. Seems that the kettle in the shop system doesn't have any kind of hop strainer in the bottom, so the drain in the bottom of the kettle promptly clogged beyond redemption immediately upon our starting the wort out. After messing about with a couple of siphon techniques (which didn't work) we used a plastic strainer gizmo that Bob Jones found in a drawer. It worked OK and we finally were able to drain the kettle.

As Brew Ins go, this one was not the most successful in terms of number of systems or number of participants, but I think it was the most successful in terms of the amount of fun and knowledge shared among the brewers. Since we were all brewing on one system, there was plenty of time to share our experiences and chat. Brian Walsh was looking for tips and techniques for moving to all grain, and we were able to give him plenty of advice.

All in all, it was a terrific day. We'll have to wait until the next meeting to see how the beer comes out.