Trillium Brewing blog moving

As vaguely referenced in past posts, we have had increasingly burgeoning aspirations to take Trillium more seriously and see if we can make it in to a bigger part of our lives. Over the past ~2 years, we have been busy preparing ourselves for the moments that are upon us now. Esther and I have never been people to limit ourselves to one major life event, so in addition to her building her own business, having our first child, and moving to a new place (that's suspiciously close to a nice place we'd love to be able to buy our own beers one day), we also signed a lease on a 2300SF space in Fort Point in January.

This is probably not particularly new news for those that have found us over on twitter and/or facebook. We've even given a few sneak peeks at the interior of the space, and shared our excitement about the first few shoots of (unofficial) BSA barley grass leaping from the Concord, MA spring soil. Of course, as the fall weather sinks in, we are reminded this all happened well before we had a good appreciation for just how long the 1st building application, community hearing, zoning variance hearing, first facade/design review, second facade/design review and 2nd building permit application processes were going to take--going on 10 months now!

Other than the need to rally some support (which has been truly humbling) for the community hearing, we've tried to stay pretty quiet here. Of course, we've been pretty busy preparing Trillium behind the scenes. Loads of test batches and recipe formulation work that left my laptop keyboard a bit lupulin stained from time to time.

Kevin, Kaity and I cranked out the bones of the website ...but we have held off launching it (until right...now!), because we've been waiting for our building permit from the city. Well, I'm sorry to say we don't have that piece of paper in our hot little hands as of today, but I'm confident we are pretty close.

That, plus I figure the 7mo+ of silence here has gone on for far too long to be fair to those that have been regular readers over the past few years. The good news is that its while we are retiring the homebrewing blog, it'll take up new life here.

We've been giving away so much beer, that 5-10 gallon batches brewed up in a condo kitchen with an even less powerful electric kitchen range just didn't make sense any more. I'm not really a gear head, but experiencing the slumbrew lab was fairly emasculating.

So, that brings us to this past weekend, where a yet-again humbling experience was had when we took our own Trillium Laboratories brewing set up for a test drive. We landed on the Blichmann top tier based system to crank out ~20 gallon batches at Greentown.

Brilliant, kind and inspiring group of people. Honest, too. As one of the engineers strolling by noted as I was struggling to slide Plate C in to Slot 48, "Oh, its like the Ikea equivalent for homebrewing, right?" Yes, complete with the 8 hour assembly time and day after embarrassingly sore hamstrings.

Anyhow, we needed to prepare a bit before the first brew day. One of the very generous greentown companies helped us design, build and dialed in the thermoelectric powered temperature control system for the conical fermenter. Some turbo yeast and about $20 worth of table sugar and continuous data logging made me very confident we would have the all too critical tight temperature control over our ferments.

In the preceding week, I had mentioned to a few friends that we were finally going to fire it up, and we had another humbling show of support. And so glad they did, because there was loads of trouble shooting to tackle that anyone should expect on the first run of any system, homebrew scale or otherwise.

Once we did fire up the burner to heat the strike water, things went amazingly smooth. So much so, that the group even took a few moments to indulge the brewer to drone on about the beers he brought to toast the group (a wild variant of the trillium saison, black currant aged cuvee de tetreault)

Really enjoyed the convenience and efficiency of some higher end equipment (triclamps instead of barbed fittings, counter flow chiller instead of immersion...but yeah, mostly the propane vs electric burner).

So, Esther, Luc and I raise a glass to Jason, Ross, Mitch, Heather, Sorin, Mike, Chris and everyone at Greentown for their generosity and enthusiastic participation. Really feeling the Innovation District love. Also feeling simultaneously guilty and jealous that you are now dealing with the distraction of 20 gallons of Fort Point fermenting away just steps (arm's reach for Ross!) from your workspace! Promise the first keg is all yours, guys.

SPAb3 + bringing yeast back from the frosty grave

Brewed Stonington Pale Ale, Batch #3 yesterday.

Though I have 2 cases of the stuff from the October brew session, I can always use more bottles of this beer for gifts, parties, requests, etc. In the interest of CIP intended to incrementally improve the beer, I took the opportunity to tweak the grain bill just a little, using crystal 40 instead of 60, as 60L is usually above the higher threshold for pale ales nowadays. I also upped the crystal addition to 1lb instead of 1/2 lb...the beer is very dry, and perhaps could benefit from just a little more crystal sweetness/body. I also upped the flaked wheat to 11oz (not 12, because that's all that was left...I must have shorted myself at the LHBS).

Aside from that, the grain bill, hopping schedule and yeast remained the same.

Well, except that I pinned my hopes on the fermentation ability of what was to be the first reanimation from the frost-free depths of the frozen yeast bank. If you've been reading along, you'll remember that I started stashing away 25% glycerine saturated 50ml samples in my household, non 80C below bottom rack Kenmore freezer with the hopes of suspending my little wort hungry fungi friends for (much) later use. If you haven't been reading along, then take a look HERE.

Now, when I made the 1056 aliquots, I fully messed up, and didn't decant nearly enough of the resultant beer from the 1000ml starter to end up with a properly thick slurry that is recommended for frozen yeast aliquots. I placed the starter in the fridge for 2 days after signs of fermentation had ceased. The american ale yeast dropped out of suspension pretty well, but since 1056 is such a poor flocculator, as soon as I tilted the Erlenmeyer back to check the flow out of the neck, the yeast had fallen off of the bottom of the flask and immediately resuspended back in to the beer.

Dammit.

And I can't just stick it back in the fridge, and wait another day, as I was leaving the country for a week. So, I figured this relatively low cell count would be the ultimate test for the ability of the yeast to withstand the freezing (and thaw/freeze cycles purported to go on in a household freezer). I suspected the high % of water in this solution could only be detrimental to the possible ice crystal-preventing cryoprotective nature of the glycerine, but I had to press on. I don't know how 'thin' this slurry ended up being, other than to say, I wouldn't normally have otherwise even call it slurry. Working fast to avoid raising their temperature, I stuck the 5 vials in to the freezer, hoping for the best.

Now, these vials have only been in the freezer for a short while, but I figured this would be a good first test to see if there were any viable cells that survived the freezing process, albeit at this low concentration. From this AHA presentation, I gathered that if I get somewhere between 20-37% viability, I would count myself lucky. I took out the sample and let it thaw in the fridge overnight. I made up a 1/4 teaspoon wyeast nutrient+ 100 gram DME/1000ml water starter (likely somewhat large for the quantity of yeast I'd ultimately get from the vial). I thawed the tube upright, so the yeast settled to the bottom of the vial. Huh. Less than 5 mls. that's even worse than I thought it'd be.

I looked over to the smugly full vials of white labs commercial yeast resting comfortably in the fridge door, and I could swear I heard them snickering at my feeble yeast ranching attempt.

Not to be dissuaded, I decanted about 80% of the glycerine/beer liquid diluent, recapped, shook the slurry in to suspension, and pitched it in to the cooled starter. I put it on the new stir plate, and hoped for the best. The stirring action pulled a nice vortex, and was clearly creating an ideal home for this probably frost bitten/hopefully not dead yeast. If this yeast was going to grow, it was going to be in this starter.

Now, I probably looked at the starter every 15 minutes for the next 5 hours, until I went to bed that night. Took a big sniff before I went to bed to see if I could sense any hint of fermentation going on.

Nope. Nothing. And how completely non-turbid that thing looked.

I did, however, wake up to the first gurgles of primordial life asserting itself in this nutrient rich broth. Yahtzee!

Knowing that I started with a really low cell count, I stepped it up by adding another 600ml of 1.040 wort, and another pinch of nutrient. We left the house for a few days to arrive home to a starter busting at the seams. And it smells just like 1056 greedily fermenting starter wort in to beer. I stood there both fists raised in the air. Y'know, like a total loser would do. Well, I'm sorry, but you'll just have to excuse me, as these things make me happy...

So, this past Sunday, I brewed up that SPAb3, using the very healthy and likely large population of reanimated 1056 and the burgeoning and seemingly bottomless bags of hops from my inadequate freezer. I'm still amazed at the pungent aromatics of these 2009 leaf hops from hopsdirect.

The SPAb3 was brewed up without a hitch, and the yeast is happily fermenting her (him?) away now in my undersized fermenter, whose nicely fitting threaded caps were tossed with the rest of the busted 50L Pyrex. Oops.

Leon: brewed

A few things happened today at the ol' brewery...

• Added 5 vials of Wyeast 1056 to the frozen yeast bank
• Dry hopped and racked the 2nd batch of Stonington Pale Ale to secondary. This pale ale smells fantastic already...I can't wait to see what additional layer of hoppiness the dry hopping will impart on the beer. And 1056 is a terrible flocculator. I really wish I could cold crash this beer. I'll hit it with gelatin at the end of the dry hopping to give it some chance at clarity.
• Brewed up a big DIPA (who's moniker is also Leon). We didn't have the Simcoe, so replaced those additions with more Centennial. No worries, as there's always a next time, and it'll be interesting to see about changing this one element to the DIPA in a future batch of Leon. Jason and I intend this beer to play back up role to the late fall/early winter encore of what will surely be a stellar showing for Leon (the beer's namesake):

I also had to take the good with the bad, as my prized 50L Pyrex reactor cum fermentor shattered in to many life threatening shards of glass. Thankfully, its loss was the worst of it, as I only suffered a small cut on my left hand and many gallons of sanitizer (not beer) dumped on to the kitchen floor. Enormous jugular hungry shards of non-safety glass lay before me in a soapy mess that made Jason ask nervously 'are you alright, buddy?'

It will be replaced with plastic, and my chances of *dying* on a brewday will be greatly diminished.

Anyhow, here are some pictures from today that show the magic of whirlfloc on enhancing cold break formation.

Oh! and I racked the oh-so-black 2009 RIS to secondary, and grabbed a quick taste of the hydrometer sample, and though still very young, the taste revealed a very clean fermentation and some underlying dark fruitiness from underneath the big roast flavor. I was able to wipe my brow with the back of my freshly lacerated hand, as the sorachi ace that was used in part to bitter the beer didn't impart any lemon flavor or aromas that I feared, likely thanks to the extended 90min boil. There's enough headspace to add the planned medium toast american oak, I consider oak to be an addition to my RIS' that I doubt I could do without at this point.

Frozen Yeast Banking

After reading a thread on beeradvocate's homebrewing forum, I decided it was time to do a little reading on freezing aliquots of yeast slurry for long(er) term yeast storage. I would love to be able to buy any given yeast strain once, and then have a way to keep them stored, unharmed, in relative perpetuity, like Walt Disney's head, only with a slightly better chance of reanimation.

But, what were my other options?

Pitching on an existing yeast cake sounds great, but I haven't brewed sequential similar batches of increasing gravity (ie. APA-IPA-IIPA) and can't imagine being able to plan brewdays to line up properly.

Storing yeast slurry in mason jars in the fridge is ok, if you know you are going to use it in a month or so, but aside from maybe US05, I rarely will use the same yeast with such frequency. And Esther rolls her eyes when I have more than a couple samples in the fridge.

Everytime I dump the yeast down the drain, it just feels like such a waste.

So, freezing yeast slurry is, what appears to be my solution.

Being able to go to my yeast bank (clever name yet to be imagineered) and (eventually) pull from 15-20 different strains to make a starter without having to pay close to 10 bucks, and not have to either make a trip to the LHBS or wait for shipping, well, that's just a pretty attractive option for the homebrewer.

For freezing yeast, you really don't need much:

• some plastic screw top tubes (a fellow Boston wort, thanks Byron, donated some 50ml sterile centrifuge tubes to my cause). Otherwise, you can find them in bulk (100 tubes/pack) for about a buck a tube, or in smaller quantities on ebay. You could certainly use smaller tubes, and if you don't get the sterile tubes, you can sanitize them before you put your yeast/glycerine solution in to them. If you choose to boil sanitize, make sure the tops can be boiled, some are made from a lower temp compliant HDPE than the tubes themselves. Screw tops are important to ensure a good seal.
• 100% glycerin. This is the key to freezing yeast. It acts as a cryoprotectant, which means that it helps to prevent large ice crystals from puncturing the yeast cell walls. That's what would otherwise kill your slumbering yeast cells. With some internet shopping, and some trips to 3 local (massachusetts) pharmacies and the health food supplement section at whole foods, the best option I found was a double-16oz.bottle pack at amazon.com for ~16bucks, free shipping, no tax. tough to beat amazon, for price and convinience, once again. I understand that once opened, the glycerine doesn't 'go bad' either, so no worries about getting such a large quantity. If the link goes down, just search amazon for Now Foods Vegetable Glycerine. Found some glycerine at whole foods, but it was 10 bucks for 4ozs. uh... yeah.
• Turkey baster
• Santizer
• Freezer

You want to make aliquots with ~15% glycerine 85% water/yeast slurry. A thick yeast slurry is preferable, more cells=better cell count upon reanination. I plan to still make a starter to ensure good health and descent cell count prior to pitching.

• Save yeast slurry from a starter or from a primary, and wash the yeast, if desired. I didn't wash, which isn't ideal, but sometimes extra steps are just another chance to introduce contamination. At least that's what I tell myself sometimes. Store the slurry in the fridge. I can't quickly find the reference, but storing the yeast in chilling temps causes the yeast to build up trehalose in the cell wall, further increasing its ability to survive the freezing/thawing cycle.
• Make a 50/50 solution of glycerine with water (glycerine is soluble in water), and microwave to boil to sanitize for a few minutes, cover with plastic wrap and cool in the fridge.
• In order to make 15% glycerine solution, I'd need 7.5ml of glycerine in my 50ml tube (50 x .15 = 7.5), if I fill them. I don't plan to completely fill them, in order to leave some headspace to allow for expansion when freezing, but I'll still shoot for 15ml of the sanitized cryoprotectant solution. I made 1/4 cup + 1/4 cup, way more than what I needed for this small batch of tubes. Those 16oz bottles will last me a while, which is great.
• Insert your santized turkey baster in to your yeast slurry, holding down on the bulb, then when you hit the top of the slurry, try to suck up the top most part (highest yeast cell concentration, if you didn't wash).
• Store the mixed yeast slurry/glycerine in the fridge for a couple days, before freezing. Rationale here.
• Ideally, you'd then store in a chest freezer vs. a regular home freezer to prevent damaging multiple freeze/thaw cycles, but I don't have one. I've read anecdotally that other homebrewers store their frozen yeast in the 'coldest' part of their freezer with very acceptable results, so I feel pretty good about trying this.

I'm making 5 aliquots of 3rd generation Wyeast 3944 for the start to the yeast bank.

I'll be sure to report back when I re-animate for the first time.

BrewHome Depot trip

I used some comp time today, duly earned from a weekend business trip to Brazil, for a trip to Home Depot. For a homebrewer, there are aisles and aisles of great stuff to be repurposed for homebrewing. Ok, well, mostly its in the plumbing aisle, but my original intent was to get some galvanized pipe to make some hops trellises for my burgeoning plants.

Given advice from this post on BA and after talking with my pop, I went with a ten foot section 3/4 inch galvanized pipe (~$17), a 30inch section (~$7), and a coupler ($3). I also got some 7/8-1 1/4 inch stainless clamps to afix three coir hop twines to the top of the post. I bought a heavy (5lb) mallet, which I used to pound the 30inch section in to the ground. I used a scrap piece of 4x4 that was lying around next to the trash area to prevent damage to the threads (lots of projects in the gardens yields a reliable source of scrap wood). I was able to drive it almost all the way in to the ground, then twisted on the coupler, then the 10 foot pole. Huh. its pretty stable. Cool. Hopefully it'll still feel stable when the twine is loaded with hops and the eventual summer thunderstoms hit.

I tied the three twine lengths to the fence where the hops were already climbing (and looking for more) and wrapped the sun seeking bines around them.

Well, that was pretty easy, fast, and not too expensive. I think if I had to set up a structure that could support multiple hills, I'd likely employ 15ft 4x4 pressure treated posts and run a wire across the top from which to drop twine (which would be more economical on a per plant basis) similar to what you see commecially, but for a single hill, I think this "trellis" will work very well.

Oh, and I got a 10 gallon rubbermaid cooler for $38, quite a bit cheaper (almost half) than what you see the LHBS and online shops selling them for. Looks like the next Home Depot project will be to get some copper tubing for my new mash tun.

an Indian Brown Ale plus lots of firsts

The IBA spent a little more time on the dry hops than I would have liked, but finally got to bottling it this past Monday night (18May). FG at 1.020, leaving it a bit higher than I would have liked, but expected for extract, I suppose. Nonetheless, the hydrometer sample revealed a pleasantly bitter and fresh hop aroma and flavor. I didn't really swish it around and analyze the malt profile very much, but I think that the properly carbed up version will be quite enjoyable. The color was a nice brown, just what I was going for. Maybe a touch of redness to it, but only when held up to the light, at the edge.


About 1/2 of this batch was put in to 12oz bottles, and is currently conditioning at the office. Final destination is the group of guys who kindly donated the reactors to my homebrew cause. I put the rest in larger flip tops, as I expect to drink this one in its peak condition, which would be within 2months.


Finished at ~6.5%abv.
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Back from Phoenix yesterday (26April), and racked the IBA to secondary on to an ounce each of Cascade and Centennial. The fermentation vessels don't have an airtight seal on the screw caps, so I wasn't able to dry hop in the primary as I intended. No worries there, but I'll probably put a bead of silicone on the inside of the caps to get that good seal for future brews. While stuffing the whole hops in to the 5 gallon carboy neck, I was reminded why the wide top opening in the reactors would expedite the process vs. a regular carboy neck. Keeping the carboy in a water bath in the spare bathroom tub, as springtime temps expectedly jumped up to the 80s over the weekend.


The primary ferment was done before this happened, so I'm hoping no off flavors from a warmer than optimal fermentation. holding in the mid to high 60s in the water bath now.
______________________________________
Brewed up this Indian Brown Ale tonight as a thanks for the fermentation vessels. here's a nice shot of the beautiful foamy wort after squeezing out the hop matter post wort cooling.



I had 6lbs of northwestern amber LME that I received as a gift from my sister Chelynn, so this recipe is a partial mash. The taste of this LME was phenomenal...rich, fresh, smooth. Almost like a soft and sweet molasses with no 'iron bite' that can sometimes be associated with it.

Anyhow, I chose a hoppy american brown ale, as I figured the guys will appreciate a decidedly hoppy brown. Oh, and plus I've really been wanting to make one. The roasty chocolate malt combined with a touch of caramelized sugars from the crystal30, and some soft belgian biscuit malt will play a backup role to the bitterness provided by the zeus and american aroma and dry hop thoroughbreds: Cascade and Centennial. If Centennial is good enough for Bigfoot and Ruination, its plenty good for my little 5 gallon batch of IBA.

I added alot of new variables to my brew day:

• Tore in to my 25kg Canada Malting ltd pale ale malt. This is base grain that I'll be using for the to-be-determined 3rd wedding beer, so it'll be good to get a sneak peak.

• Of course all of this grain is uncrushed, so I unleased my barley crusher for the first time... here's a snippet of the titillating video!

It tore through the 5.5 lbs of grain to reveal a wonderfully fresh and aromatic crush. From the mill and in to mash in minutes...I can already tell this is going to improve my beer.

• I used 1 teaspoon of 5.2pH stabilizer in my mini mash...I'll have to wait to get a taste of the brew to see if it made much of an impact. I added 1oz of burton water salts to my nearly naked boston sparge water, so I'm not too sure if this was the best time to introduce the 5.2pH stabilizer variable (to discern effect), but I figured it couldn't hurt and would probably help.
  

• I finally cracked in to my freshops stash. wow. the 16.4AA% zeus is almost sticky. what fun. I suspect freshops will become my sole retail hops provider to supplement my (eventual) 6 variety hops field (more on that in a future post).
  

• And of course, the inaugural fermentation in my 25L reactor. The larger central opening is going to really help when it comes time to add the dry hop addition. It could also be useful for top cropping, should I ever want to do that.
  

Without further ado, the relevant details:

Hoppy American Brown
American Brown Ale

Type: Partial Mash
Date: 4/19/2009
Batch Size: 5.00 gal

6 lbs Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM) Extract 52.17 %
4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 34.78 %
8.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 %
1.00 oz Zeus [16.40 %] (60 min) Hops 50.9 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [7.20 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops
1.00 oz Cascade [7.20 %] (5 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops
1.00 oz Centennial [9.00 %] (5 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops
0.50 oz Burton Water Salts (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
1 PkgsUS-05 Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.56 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.58 %
Bitterness: 50.9 IBU
Calories: 317 cal/pint
Est Color: 23.9 SRM

Mash In
Add 2 gallons of water at 159.5 F
150.0 F

Mash Out at 170F, 60min boil

Barley Crusher added to the Trillium arsenal

The Barley Crusher finally arrived yesterday, so I can do some on-demand grain crushing instead of having it pre-crushed and staling if I don't get to my brewday right away. It will get its first workout this Saturday when I make ...another Russian Imperial Stout (surprise, surprise). (post hoc note...this RIS never got made...)

I went with the 7lb hopper vs. the 15lb hopper (the smaller one to the left), as I'm comfortable with taking the time to load the hopper more frequently to save a few $. I also liked that I didn't have to fabricate anything like I would for other grain crushers. The BC would be essentially ready to go out of the box. I'll power it with my cordless drill. The knurled rolls have a pre-set gap, and have read that people get great efficiency at the factory setting, so I'll go with that to start. Good to know that I can adjust to tighter spacing if I ever need/want to.

I was putting together an order for a lot of specialty grain from Midwest Supplies (in preparation for the wedding brewing), so added the BC on to the order. I priced out the difference on this purchase between Midwest and Northern Brewer. The final tab put Midwest out front by ~$10, even given the flat shipping rate at Northern Brewer. What really put this over the edge for Midwest, was the greater selection of specialty grain and my good experiences with their products in the past.

O Rings, Corny Kegs and you

McMaster Carr is the most inexpensive source of bulk replacement o-rings for your corny kegs...homebrew shops (most) will set a set of these to you for $5-7, so it probably makes sense just to get them in bulk.

(1) Dip Tube O-Rings5/16" ID x 1/2"OD x 3/32" width
9452K172 BunaN #109
Pkg 100/$1.89

(2) Post O-Rings7/16" ID x 5/8" OD x 3/32" width
9452K23 BunaN #111
Pkg 100/$2.15

(3) Lid O-Rings3 1/2" ID x 4" OD x 1/4" width
9452K218 BunaN #417
Pkg 10/$12.31

total cost, shipped was 33.66, with $5.00 shipping.

or, here's a cheap source for O ring sets ($2.50) and poppet valves, and, well... pretty much anything corny keg related:

http://web.iwebcenters.com/brewersdiscount/index2.ivnu

...more stuff

Thank you, Boston Wort Processors. Went to my first club meeting this month, and aside from connecting with a bunch of likeminded homebrewers, I got ....more stuff.

I now have 165lbs of grain (55 each of pils, pale, and golden promise) to explain to the fiance.
'its, uh...ingredients for the wedding beer!'

oh, and I also picked up some kegs last week.

price was just too good to pass up: $15/ for cleaned pressure tested kegs w/ a new set of o-rings. The bulk purchase was arranged through the worts. We ended up with a haul of 50 kegs, 8 of which are sitting in the trunk of my car.

Wort Chiller

I use a 25ft copper immersion wort chiller, with a faucet stainless sink adapter. When I received it, the vinyl connections to the copper arms leaked at the stainless clamps. I tightened, but water slowly trickeld at the connection points. WTF. Thinking that I wasn't getting enough focal pressure to create a water tight seal, I pulled the tubing out to the edge of the stainless clamp, and tighened as much as I could muscle. problem solved.

takes about 10-25 minutes to chill work to pitching temps, depending on the time of year. I place the chiller in the kettle at flame out to sanitize, if not doing a flame out hop addition. If doing a flame out hop addition, then I'll add with 5 minutes left in the boil. I wish there was a way for me to use the hot/warm water that is dumped out the other end of the chiller, but I don't have a garden to water (well, not one that's close enough for this to be feasible), I don't have a washing machine to load up. Something I'll do when I get out of the condo.

7.5 Gallon Mash/Lauter Tun, 11 Gallon Brew Kettle

44 quart (11 gallon) Bayou Classic from amazon.com serves as my brew kettle. ships for free with super saver shipping. that's tough to beat. Brought to my uncle's shop to drill a hole for a weldless spigot. He used a hole bit, with a long piece of scrap 2x4 on the workbench, extending in to the inside of the kettle. Worked great. Attached the weldless spigot, and held water, no problem. Able to bring ~8-9 gallons of 165F wort up to a boil in about 40 minutes. suprises me that it would boil at all, but it does.

7.5 gallon stainless turkey fryer serves as my mash/lauter tun (got it for ~$66 bucks, swear to god, now its showing me a price of $189.99) was made in the same way, but with the addition of a bazooka screen. no problems with the screen collapsing at all, and I have LOADED that puppy with up to 18lbs of grain, thus far. I haven't used the burner from the turkey fryer kit, that's packed away, until I can brew outside.

I do wish these had aluminum clad bottoms for better heat distribution, but the heating elements in the electric stove seem to disperse heat pretty well. wonder if scorching will be more of an issue when I finally get to use the outdoor burner...