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crush




Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 706
Location: Telemark, Norway


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote


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Greg wrote:
Yep, that's true, it all adds up quick in pieces and price. No meth lab er electric brewery here though, no room. I guess it's my digital scrapbook before it all goes together. I may have to make an ale just to test this all out as it would be done faster than the 2 lagers I still have fermenting. I still need to get new keg seals and poppets. I went to the Pepsi plant again yesterday but the guy that came out wasn't too eager to get me what I wanted except offering a few top-post o-rings he had on hand. He was more willing to argue that he's never had a problem with odors/off-tastes from tainted seals in his homebrew and they've always cleaned nicely in bleach so therefore so should mine. I'm not willing to risk 3 months of waiting to have it ruined by rancid Mountain Dew and stale Pepsi which I can still smell even after thorough cleaning. Too bad, they could be selling little kits in the sales office for people like me. I even mentioned it to the brew store here about making a deal with them. Either case, I'll just order away for now.


Brew an ale! That will be enjoyable in itself, and a pleasant point of dryness comparison when your lager is finally ready. Very Happy yum!

As to kegs, when I built my keezer about 3 years ago, I bought all my kegs from http://brewersdiscount.com/. They were $25 each then with a complete set (5) of new o-rings already fitted. Just checked now and they are out of stock. Are cornies still being made? Just my impression, but it seems may suppliers are out of stock of used ball lock kegs.

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Greg




Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 92
Location: Paradise, Newfoundland


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 4:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

crush wrote:
As to kegs, when I built my keezer about 3 years ago, I bought all my kegs from http://brewersdiscount.com/. They were $25 each then with a complete set (5) of new o-rings already fitted. Just checked now and they are out of stock. Are cornies still being made? Just my impression, but it seems may suppliers are out of stock of used ball lock kegs.

Well, I bought my kegs straight from Pepsi for $20 each as Newfoundland is about the only place left in Canada, so they told me, that still uses them as they want to keep the product quality high with filtered water vs bag-in-box and tap water. Since the switch over there was a huge surplus of used kegs on the market so it had to run out at some point. The kegs are still made new by Firestone and Cornelius if you want new.

That being said I had a bad tasting Pepsi at the mall last week that either came from a keg which either contained Mountain Dew prior or was poorly cleaned although my guess is skunky seals. It just had that whole old soft drink aroma and taste of it, something I want to avoid in my beer.
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Greg




Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 92
Location: Paradise, Newfoundland


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The deed is done, I my beer fridge can never becoming just a fridge again. Holes are drilled, shanks and taps installed. I'm a little irritated with myself as the right faucet is about 1/16" farther apart than the other 2. I installed that one first just to see how it would look; determine if I wanted to use the black backing plates which I hate; figured out the spacing to allow 1-2 additional faucets for future upgrades and decided on 2.5" between dead center. My own stupidity, I didn't remove the shank from the first to be a little more precise rather than eye ball it using a measuring tape from the top and for the next hole. Ah well.

Perfect fit! It's nice having a digital caliper on hand to know what size hole saw to get. The shank is 7/8" and luckily they make a 7/8" bi-metal hole saw.






Fridge Door Guts


I've had the sign up for about 6months, at least now it's true.
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brewmcq




Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Posts: 123
Location: Northern Maine


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OMG!! 1/16"?? Look at that gap!! It looks like the frigerator is gonna tip over sideways! Razz

I'm really looking forward to getting to the point I can justify (afford) setting up taps in the Pub for homebrew... already have my tap setup and refrigeration all designed. Smile

I enjoy photography as well... we have a really nice Nikon D60 DSLR that we've been using for everything. Talk about having a good tool to make someone look skilled. Smile

Lately though, I've been taking a break from brew setup stuffs... working on a small-scale home coffee roaster (4 or 5 pounds) that will be upscaled to 15-20 pounds for a local coffee enterprise.

Might have to brew another something or other soon though... the female half has already gone through most of the spent grains with her bread-making spree, and it is GOOD bread... Smile
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Greg




Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 92
Location: Paradise, Newfoundland


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

brewmcq wrote:
OMG!! 1/16"?? Look at that gap!! It looks like the frigerator is gonna tip over sideways! Razz

See, that's what I'm worried about. I mean, if you noticed it that much imagine everyone that comes over, LOL. But in all seriousness I'll forget about it soon enough, I've just always been a perfectionist so yeah it's annoying it isn't closer to being perfect as the difference is visible

I thought about roasting coffee locally but a guy down the road started up a few years ago. That idea only sprung in my head as I was on a quest for brewing the perfect cup of coffee or the best I could make it. Then I realized I hate coffee or what it does too me but I absolutely love the smell of it all. I can't handle the caffeine symptoms if I venture for a second cup as I get jittery with boardline nausea.

The Nikon will definitely help in getting some good delicious been shots when needed. I was going to upgrade my K100D to the Pentax K-5 as I needed it for work but plans changed.
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Castermmt




Joined: 03 Jan 2011
Posts: 863
Location: Lowell, In

Drinking: Steelhead Porter, Alt-Toids, Hefty-Weizen, Terry's Kolsch, African Amber, Pumpkin Ale, Double Dog Ale

Working on: Janet's Brown Ale, Terry's Kolsch, Pilsner


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anyone who comes over just hand them a beer, they won't see sh*t. Honestly, I wouldn't have seen any difference but you pointed it out, the only way anyone but yourself can see it, is if you tell them to look. Brewmcq is just joking with you, have a beer and relax you did a nice job. Castermmt Mug
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brewmcq




Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Posts: 123
Location: Northern Maine


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Greg knows I'm funning him.. besides, Caster is 110% correct... on the OFF chance someone does notice the slight difference, they won't care much at all once that first glass of frosty homebrew is placed in front of them. Smile

And in case anyone's interested in my roaster thus far: http://www.javajavahey.com/roaster/

Smile
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Greg




Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 92
Location: Paradise, Newfoundland


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Edit: Due to my slow postingness brewmcq beat me to the fact I understood his joking.

Thx for the kudos Castermmt! Thumbs Up I wonder if a beer will help alleviate my headache.
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brewmcq




Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Posts: 123
Location: Northern Maine


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mug

Yup.. typically beer forum folks are much more laid back than say.. coffee forum folks.. Wink
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crush




Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 706
Location: Telemark, Norway


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 9:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

brewmcq, can you say more about making bread from the spent grains? How are they used/prepared etc.? Any recipies you have to share would be great! It would be nice to use the grains for something other than just throwing them on the compost heap. (And also gives me motivation to clean up early rather than leaving them in the cooler until the next day and be greeted by that awful funky smell....)
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brewmcq




Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Posts: 123
Location: Northern Maine


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 9:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

crush.. I'll have the female half weigh in on that... I have NO idea how she did it.. I just eat it. Smile
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brewmcq2




Joined: 06 Jan 2011
Posts: 3
Location: northern maine


PostLink    Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 2:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi there.
(female half here) LOL, for some reason that just sounds silly...
I tend to lurk a great deal, but not talk quite so much, but since i was asked Smile

as far as the grain itself goes, I simply scooped it out of the mash tun after Himself was all done with it, and it had cooled a bit, put it into big plastic freezer bags and threw what i wasn't going to use into the freezer just as it was. I have kept some in a bag in the fridge as well. I would, personally, freeze it if i wasn't going to use it within a week because it is already wet. In the freezer it should keep for up to a year....although, in less than a week i have already gone through half of the 11.5 pounds of grain that i had. LOL. there is some possibility that we eat too much bread!

I have not been using any special preparation, although it does have husks and whatnot in it, they are not unpleasant in the slightest in the bread. The husks could be separated with a little effort i suppose. Some people do recommend grinding it a bit in a coffee grinder, but i would dry it out again before trying that personally. In the drying and grinding process it will lose a bit of nutritional value.

Bread and beer have a lot in common here. Just as a darker grain will darken the beer and impart stronger flavors, it will do the same to the bread. My recipes tend to be a bit, open to modification, but i will be as specific as i can.

I generally use a bread machine for mixing/kneading the dough and the first rise, but works just as well by hand, I have not personally tried baking in the machine. I can fairly easily modify any recipe to fit use with the spent grains and have sourdough recipes, pretzels, pizza dough, etc.

Any basic bread recipe can be easily modified to spent grains as long as you remember to have enough flour to allow for glutenizing. Spent grains could easily replace another whole grain, 12-grain cereal or oatmeal in a bread recipe.

Not sure what sorts of recipes you are interested in but a couple basic ones i have done so far with the grains from a red ale:

Spent Grain Soda Bread--this will be a rather dense chewy bread with less breakdown of the grains as it is a very quick bread to make (no rise time needed)
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups spent grain
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or sour milk
1 tsp baking soda

Mix all the dry ingredients and spent grain. Add in the milk. Mix till blended. (this should form a sticky dough, depending on how wet your grains are, you might need to add a bit of flour). form into a round loaf on a greased cookie sheet, prepared stone, etc. sprinkle with oatmeal if you choose. Bake at 375 for about 40-50 minutes. (bread should sound hollow when tapped)

Spent Grain Bread (this is a modifiable recipe)
3 cups spent grain
1.5 cups warm (tepid) water or milk (or use leftover wort from the mash tun and reduce the sugar by half)
1 TBS dry yeast (bakers yeast, it's cheaper LOL)
1/3 cup sugar (or honey, molasses, brown sugar, etc)
3-4 TBS butter or oil (optional)
1 egg (optional)
1 tsp salt (optional)
3-5 cups flour

White flour is going to work best with the weight of the grains. I have also had good luck with whole wheat flour by adding some vital gluten (2-4 TBS)

Proof yeast in mixture of water and sugar or in wort (make a starter)
put spent grain in large mixer bowl, mix in starter and start adding other ingredients. Begin mixing in flour. Kepp adding flour until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky. place dough in a large bowl, cover with towel, let rise until doubled (about an hour to hour and a half depending), punch down and split in half creating 2 loaves, either in two greased bread pans or on a cookie sheet with a thin layer of cornmeal under the loaf. Cover and allow to double in warm place. (1-1.5 hours) Bake in 375 oven 30-40 minutes until browned and hollow sounding. (for a french type crust, place a pan of water in the bottom of the oven or spritz bread)


You can also make doggie treats as long as there are no hops involved (hops are bad for some doggies). Our big silly mutt likes these ones a lot:
Spent Grain Doggie Treat
4 cups Spent Grains
4 cups Flour
1 cup Peanut Butter
1 Egg

Preparation:

Mix equal parts of spent grains and flour in a large mixing bowl. It's not necessary to dry the grains first, and the type of flour you use is up to you. Add in the peanut butter, and egg (it's good to beat the egg before adding). Work the mixture together until all of the dry ingredients are damp. You don't want it any wetter than necessary to make the flour damp, so if it's too wet, add some more flour. If it's too dry, add a little water.

Press the mixture into a lightly greased cookie pan. Ideally, it should be about 1/2" thick. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 15 minutes into the baking, pull the cookie sheet out of the oven. and score the dough to the size and shape you want to make the treats. If you want to get fancy, you could also make shapes using a cookie cutter. When the 30 minutes baking time is up, turn off the oven, but leave the treats in the oven with the door closed.

Allow the treats to sit in the oven for 8-10 hours, or overnight. (you could also bake them a couple hours at 250ish if you wanted to hurry it or live in the frozen tundra like us and like the oven heat in the house lol) You want to make sure the treats have completely dried out. Other wise, they might mold. Once they've dried completely, break the treats along the scoring you made, and let the dog (or in our case, Himself) try one. You can store the treats in a zip lock bag in the pantry. There's no need to refrigerate them.

Didn't mean to wander on quite that long, am really having fun with the kitchen end of brewing, and it totally makes up for the slight destruction of the kitchen LOL. Very much looking forward to some more experimentation and hopefully making some authentic irish barm brack which uses some of the leftover yeast and such from the fermenter.
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crush




Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 706
Location: Telemark, Norway


PostLink    Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 2:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, thanks for a fantastic drill down on spent grain breads and treats! This definitely should go in it's own bread thread.

I particularly enjoyed all the beer cross-references - clear to see you enjoy the brewing hobby too - and amazing there are so many uses for beer things in bread and parallels between the two. Just as well you mentioned using bakers yeast, I was half way planning using Belgian wit yeast in an orange and coriander bread, and Irish yeast in a potato flour bread!

I was wondering about the wetness of the grain, but clearly that's not a problem and can be just thrown in with the rest of the ingredients. And you say the grain can be frozen wet is very good to know!

We have a bread machine, which gives good results both for kneading and baking, so I'm definitely going to give this a try...or should I say, encourage Herself, to give it a try Very Happy since, I'm too busy brewing in earnest effort to make the spent grain Very Happy

You mention that gluten is needed to support the weight of the grains. That's not a problem, we can make gluten bread, although my eldest has a gluten intolerance - nothing serious, just makes him a bit energetic. I wonder if drying the grains overnight (or during the day to keep the oven warm, we also live in pretty cold climes too...about -22C now outside) would help make the grains lighter. And being dry, could they then be whizzed up in a coffee grinder, or ran through the grain mill again on a really fine crush?

Thinking of hops, I've yet to do any mash hopping and don't plan to for a while, so the grains will be without hops, but that got me thinking, what does bread taste like with hops in it? Do you add more sweet ingredients to balance, or do they not taste bitter?

The only bridge for me between cooking/baking and beer has been making beer batter for fish and chips, battered prawn/shrimp, steak and ale pie and such, so this is an exciting new avenue! Thanks for sharing!

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Last edited by crush on Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:01 am; edited 1 time in total
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brewmcq




Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Posts: 123
Location: Northern Maine


PostLink    Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 2:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe Kal can split the thread starting with the female half's (aka. tess) post..?
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brewmcq2




Joined: 06 Jan 2011
Posts: 3
Location: northern maine


PostLink    Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You could easily use the same yeast you use for brewing to make bread, the reason i specify baking yeast is actually that it is cheaper! (if you rescue some of the yeast cake from the fermenter this would be ideal for bread baking) In reality, before yeast was commercially available this was often a source of yeast (hence the Irish barm brack bread...Barm is actually an older word referring to the detritus that is remaining from brewing, most likely this "yeast cake" which would have been a readily available source)...
LOL...sorry for the history lesson. I do enjoy the brewing process as well and plan to stay involved (especially for as long as it is in the kitchen, someone has to clean up the spilled wort!!! lol)

for a beginning baker i would just think of the grains as an addition, much like making a "12 grain bread" by adding cereal or oatmeal bread through the addition of oatmeal. My next experiment is going to be a sourdough spent grain bread for which the proof is currently hanging out in the kitchen skillfully avoiding resident cats!

The bread machine is helpful given the weight of spent grains Smile

As for gluten free. The spent grain could easily be used in a gluten free bread recipe, of course accounting for any wheat/rye grains etc that are in the mix, depending on the level of the gluten tolerance.
Soda bread could easily be made using a gluten free flour and the spent grains. It actually won't care a whit.
as for a traditional yeasted bread...any gluten free bread recipe, using probably xanthan gum addition can be modified by adding the spent grains, they are not a flour replacement, especially wet, but i would simply try adding a cup or so of spent grain to a gluten free recipe, adjusting the flour to get a proper dough texture and bake...it might take one or two experiments to get the grain proportion just right but should be good along the way as well Smile

I haven't tried bread with the hops in it...however, i often use beer (out of the bottle) as a liquid in bread and it tastes yummy....but it sounds like an experiment for the next brew day!!!! Smile If i were to use some hops...i think i might use some of the wort as part of the sugar in the bread (sugar is for sweet but also just for yeastie food)
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crush




Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 706
Location: Telemark, Norway


PostLink    Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Clearly you are passionate about breadmaking, just as we are with brewing! Lots of great info here about how to use the grain in different breads, and quite a bit to digest (sorry no pun intended!)

I've done a little baking, but not much bread, just naan bread for my curries! yum! My other half takes care of baking "real" bread. How did your sourdough experiment turn out? Hopefully you got to it before the cats did!

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crush




Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 706
Location: Telemark, Norway


PostLink    Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's a lot of useful information on breadmaking with spent grains, so I thought it would be good to create a new thread. it's here: http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24672
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silverspoons




Joined: 21 Dec 2010
Posts: 555
Location: Webster NY


PostLink    Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:52 pm    Post subject: Pizza Stone? Reply with quote

will be trying some bread baking after the next brewday which is after i get the last remaining two parts for my system and after i build my new brewstand.. all hopefully within 48 hours. thanks for the info on baking..

we have a pizza stone in our oven all the time.. can i bake directly on the stone with some cornmeal in between?
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crush




Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 706
Location: Telemark, Norway


PostLink    Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

can we take this to the bread baking thread? http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24672
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brewmcq




Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Posts: 123
Location: Northern Maine


PostLink    Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey gang..

The semester is already in full swing and I'm putting in 36 hours at work, 7 hours of class and about 32 hours into clinical each week.. that doesn't include fun stuff like the band and brewing and coffee roasting, so things are at kind of a standstill at the moment.

My Irish Red Ale is still in the bucket. The only thing I've done to it in the last couple weeks is make sure it was still at ~68F. We're going to rack it this weekend and let it sit for a few more weeks.

In the meanwhile.. does anyone have anything to say about Morebeer.com's porter? http://morebeer.com/view_product/18390/102189/Porter_-_All_Grain_Beer_Kit_Advanced?a_aid=theelectricbrewery

[Edit by Kal - added "?a_aid=theelectricbrewery" to the end of the Morebeer URL to give our website credit for the sale if clicked!]
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