April 16, 2020 Episode

Hey, brewing in a small space is kind of hard. You have to make some adjustments. It’s just the nature of having to brew in a small space. Today we talk to George Pipala of Apratment_Brewing on Instagram about some of his tips on brewing in a small space. And we kind just shoot the shit about being in quarantine.

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Do you brew in a house or an apartment? — Homebrewing DIY (@HomebrewingDiy) April 15, 2020

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Show Transcript (A.I created it will have errors.)

Colter Wilson: If you’re like me, you’re probably sitting at home in home corn team because of the COBIT 19 crisis. Right now, a lot of us are sitting at home, but kind of one of the benefits of it is that I’m brewing more than I have in years because I’m home more. That being said, there’s a lot of us that are in small spaces, and so I have George papilla on the show today talking about burning from an apartment on homebrewing DIY.

Welcome back to homebrewing DIY. The show that takes on the do it yourself aspect of homebrewing gadgets, contraptions and parts. This podcast covers it all on today’s show. We’re talking with George Popolo. He’s going to talk to us about how you could start homebrewing in his small space, such as an apartment.

But first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over a Patrion. It’s because of your support that comes to us month after month that this show can come to you every week for free. So if you would like to support the show, you can always head over to patrion.com forward slash homebrewing DIY and give it any amount.

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I’d also like to make another announcement that we’ve built a new home brewing DIY community over at discord. I’ve had a discord server for quite some time. Most recently. It’s only been available for our patrons and really it’s been pretty cool. I’ve had really great relationships with some of our patrons.

We talk all the time, and I felt that the discord server was so fun and so cool that I had to share. So I went through. Kind of got it set up to be more of a public facing discord server. So if you head over to our website, homebrewing diy.beer. If you look on the top menu bar, if you’re on a phone, you can just hit the hamburger menu, but there’s one that says, join the discussion.

When you click on that, it’s going to throw you right into the discord server and you can join. It’s 100% free to join, and we have. Tons of conversations going on. Lots of people there already. We have almost a hundred people on the server already, so head on over. If you’re looking for a brewing community to chat, talk about homebrewing projects, whatever.

Head over to homebrewing. DIY is discord server. It’s a good time. All right, so I think we’ll hop into today’s episode. Today we’re talking to George kapala and we’re going to talk about brewing in an apartment.

I’d like to welcome George Mapala to the show. He’s got this. Instagram account that I’ve been following for quite some time called apartment brewing. And he really features a lot of beers that he makes in a small space in an apartment in New Jersey. So, uh, welcome to the show, George.

George Pipala: Hey, thank you for having me.

Colter Wilson: Well, thanks for being on the show. And I guess the first place to start is, let’s talk a bit about your home brewing history when you started and, and how, how, how you got to brewing in an apartment. Sure,

George Pipala: sure. Oh gosh. Ah, it goes back, um, a while ago actually. So the first thing that got me into brewing beer was, um, Dogfish head 60 minutes.

I’m sure a lot of brewers and a lot of people out there that like IPA is nowadays. Uh, originally, you know, cut their teeth on those old school iPad, like dog fish head, uh, goose Island, stuff like that. So I remember drinking these beers and being like, wow, Holy crap, they’re super hoppy and you know, what can I do to try to figure out how to, you know, replicate these or, or make these types of beers.

So I started brewing at my parents’ house and then from there. I moved on to moving to an apartment and then kind of figured out how do I brew in a, in a small space, uh, being that, you know, I, I live with my girlfriend at the time now wife and figure out how we could make this work with, uh, a lot of pieces of equipment and trying to figure out where to put all these things.

But, uh, on top of that, how to make really good beer.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. And I think that right now we’re kind of in a place where. People are cooped up, we’re in the middle of a

George Pipala: panic. People are saying,

Colter Wilson: yeah, people are stuck home. And I think that one of the cool things that you could do right now. I don’t know what the situation is on the East coast, but we’re here in Colorado where a shelter in place state right now, but the home brew shops are actually open and delivering.

And

George Pipala: so that’s a similar situation by us. Um, so actually currently we’re actually staying at, um, my parents in law. So over here I have a little different situation where I’m able to brew on a larger system. Um, however, though I’ve. Brewed countless batches in a small one bedroom apartment. And it’s definitely possible.

It’s definitely, you’re definitely able to make very good beer on a small Bruin bag system, and I’m sure we’ll get into, you know, how to do it. But, um, yeah, there’s a lot of shops that are. Either doing shipping or you could, you know, go there. Of course, with the mask on and gloves and all that stuff, and, uh, pick out your grain.

Uh, there’s a really cool shop by me called the thirsty Quaker in Jersey city, not too far from Hoboken where my apartment is and where I brew. And they have a good selection of malts. Um, different hops, you know, East you could choose from. And, uh. You know, with everything being, I guess, to ship now and people trying to be very careful as to being exposed and going out.

You know, I would definitely, you know, put orders online, support these little businesses and of course, you know, try to support your local breweries as well. But you know, if you’re looking to brew beer, now’s no better time. You have more time at home. You could do the research on your computer. There’s a lot to learn, a lot of reading online.

There’s a lot of forms like Homebrew talk, uh, dot com and, um. Hey, just mess around, figure out little recipes you could come up with and uh, you know, it’s definitely possible to make that good beer. Just gotta put together a good recipe, order the ingredients, and yeah, take a good shot at it.

Colter Wilson: Absolutely.

And, and that’s kind of the situation we’re in here randomly. My Homebrew shop here, Thomson brew, I’ll give him a quick plug. He’s actually call ahead and when you show up at the door, they’ll, they’ll leave your order for you or right outside the door. So know we could do a contactless, uh, swap. I actually.

Funny, and I’ll probably have told this story before. I actually at the beginning of this show, but, uh, I have a CO2 leak and I’ve now gone through two tanks of CO2

George Pipala: in Alaska. So are you able to like get CO2 from the shop by just leaving the tank and be like, all right, give me the other one.

Colter Wilson: We’re just do a swap and call ahead and pay for it and here’s the tanks and

George Pipala: swap them out.

I was actually worried about that as well. And there’s another shop. Where I’m staying right now, currently in Warren, New Jersey, at my parents in law. And uh, so they, they stopped the whole going into the shop, picking out your grain, and you have to order online. However, you know these shops, I’m sure they’re going to work with you.

And if you give them a call and say, Hey, listen, I got a tank that needs to be filled. Obviously you can’t ship compressed CO2 or any gasses at that matter, you know, they could work with you and possibly. Do a swap right outside and, or even buying maybe bulk grain, I don’t know. Just got to give him a call and see, you know, if he’ll don’t accommodate that for you.

Exactly.

Colter Wilson: So luckily I’m in that situation and, and I’m actually in a situation where I have a glut of beer because I’ve been home for so long. I’ve been brewing,

George Pipala: I’m actually sipping on some Homebrew right now. Uh, I was lucky enough before this whole thing. Went down. Um, we were able to go to the Homebrew shop and, and make a nice batch of like a new England pale ale.

So got maybe like four gallons of that now. And I actually have another beer in the fermenter here. Um, actually brewed with the East so can actually get into that yeast cause that’s that one packet. If you’re able to get one packet of that yeast, you could make it last for like years.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. is kinda like that.

I’ve done like three shows talking about and still having a good batch with it, and it’s actually my next ground brewing is going to be a . It’s, it’s happening. I my, my main goal with though right now is I’m trying to wait till in to, I’m trying to wait till the summer because I want to have. The heat

George Pipala: outside situation.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. And right now I live in Colorado. It’s definitely the opposite

George Pipala: of warm here. Yeah, no, it’s still, it’s still chilly here in Jersey. You could easily get one of those wrap little heater things that you could, I’m sure you could get it on Amazon if they’re still, you know, little shops are still shipping, but um, yeah, you could plug it into an ink bird controller and you could get that thing crank into 90 degrees and yeah, ferment really warm.

Yeah. I can only put in like two teaspoons or a teaspoon of the yeast and then save the rest for another

Colter Wilson: batch. Yeah. This stuff is crazy. It goes along at a little, goes a long way with

George Pipala: it. It’s kind of crazy like that.

Colter Wilson: So let’s talk a bit about the apartment set up you have. So what is the, your one bedroom apartment, what is the square footage on that?

George Pipala: So it’s actually a good question. It’s like 1500 square feet. It’s pretty small. It’s a one bedroom apartment, um, you know, kitchen, bathroom, and like a little. The hangout, living room area. Uh, I guess you could say. And, um, you know, there, there are some closets, but when you’re living with someone else, that closet space does become limited.

So you gotta kinda think about the size of the equipment you’re going to be using. And for that, I found that, I actually told my, my sister about using corny kegs for fermenting and it, and it seems like. For me. And if you want to make really good quality beer with, you know, the, the less risk of oxygen exposure brewing in a corny keg with like a, a clear beer draft system.

So you’re not pulling, you know, East from the bottom or dealing with cutting your dip tube and all that works super well because you’re able to, you know, brew or ferment in that. And. You know, dry hop could close it up, carbonate in it, and then you could either serve from that same keg or transfer it to, you know, like a, a 2.5 gallon corny keg.

And, uh, you know, keep that in a small mini-fridge. So, you know, that’s, that’s another thing though, is, is the space with having a fridge. So you’ve got to figure out if you, if you have that room, um, I know a lot of people might not have that room, so they might have to resort to bottling. So if you could still use a corny keg for fermenting, but, uh, instead of, you know.

Transferring the beer into a bottling bucket, risking oxidation. Um, you could actually get like a beer gun, like a min beer gun and fill bottles right from the keg. And then, you know, you could drop in the carbonation tablets and all, but I typically don’t do that. I, I go straight from it and the keg. Uh, use the fridge as a fermentation chamber, depending on, you know, what profile you’re trying to go after.

And then, uh, from there you could transfer it into a smaller CAG or, you know, even another five gallon keg. So the equipment does add up. Uh, I found, you know, stacking it in a, in a closet. Helps with reducing space. Um, but yeah, you just got to sometimes, you know, if you want to make good beer, you gotta, you gotta sacrifice and you’ve got to have some pieces of equipment just sitting out.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. And if you’re going to Bruin, an apartment, that small, one of the, the approaches is probably going to be brewing a bag,

right?

George Pipala: Yeah. So that’s exactly what I’m doing. So I got. A 10 gallon kettle with a ball valve on the bottom, so you could easily transfer the work once you’re done chilling the the war Bruin a bag, it’s perfect.

Um, you could use the online software software that they have to formulate a recipe, um, use Bruin water to figure out your, your water profile. So that’s another thing we should talk about is, you know, what water are people gonna use. Because you know, you don’t want to just use the straight tap water because I think chlorine is probably our biggest enemy.

Like, you know, you, you don’t have to really worry about so much of, you know, the calcium or sulfate and chlorides, all that. Um, I think chlorine would made it make a beer much worse. Um, so I found, actually I’ve been using, there’s this like little, um, I think it was called like an RV filter. It’s like a blue tube filter that you could hook up to a hose.

And I figured out a way to Jerry rig it and hook it up to my sink where I could take cold water straight from the sink, run it through the filter and, you know, fill up the. The kettle with five, five and a half, six gallons of water, and then that would be the water that I’ll use for, you know, Bruin, a bag, and then you could, you know, just a few with a SoFi or chloride levels depending on what type of beer you want to go after.

I mean, I do sometimes use distilled water, which that helps as well. However though, given these times, a lot of people aren’t going out and going to lug, you don’t five gallons of water from the store. So. Um, know, I’m just thinking off the top of my head. Using a little filter like that might, might help in this situation.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. There’s a, uh, those filters are pretty, the RV filters are pretty easy to get ahold of. Usually can find them on any kind of, uh, uh, RV website or something like that. And yeah, for me, luckily I don’t have a big issue with chlorine in my water. It, it’s actually pretty. Not heavy in the Corrine flavors.

George Pipala: So you’re lucky. Like here in Jersey, you’ll, you’ll go in the shower and you just smell like a pool.

Colter Wilson: Yeah,

George Pipala: definitely the opposite, depending where you are.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. I wear the same water as quarter’s. Not that everybody loves cores here, but I have my water source at my house is the same water source. That’s perfect.

George Pipala: Yeah. Making a clean Pilsner like that. I mean, that’s. The best you want to actually. So a lot of times, so I’ve been getting a lot of my water from, I have a friend that has a property up in upstate New York, so he has a well there, and I actually get that water tested and that water is literally perfect.

It has like nothing, and it’s like, like five PPM of calcium, barely any sulfate or chloride. So, uh, you know, I’m basically starting with a blank slate, so I could just add the chloride or sulfate, whatever, you know, I want to do with the type of beer. And, um, go from there. Uh, and then of course, you know, I think one of the more important things is just make sure that your pH is in check.

So getting a good pH meter will definitely help with making good quality beer.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. And let’s talk about. Size. Right. So you said you had a 10 gallon kettle. What, what kinds of things do you do to store that and keep everything compact so that your homebrewing equipment isn’t spread throughout your house?

I’m married, trust me. If I buy home brewing equipment, starts to leak out of the garage. I hear about it. So what is the w what kind of tricks do you have for storing your equipment?

George Pipala: Yeah, so I’m actually really lucky. My wife loves beer, so she’s fine with it. It’s, it’s actually. It’s a very, it’s a, it’s a good thing.

But, um, so what I do is I’ll actually store the kettle in a closet and then just stack things on top of it. Like, you know, our cleaning stuff, or, you know, boxes, you can put towels in it or w or whatever that you’re storing in like bulk plastic. Almost like a big Tupperware container. You could just literally put on top and stack it and use almost as like a little shelf.

So if you throw that in, you know, a closet being next to the bathroom or you know, bedroom, um, that definitely helps, you know, get things out of the way. Cause you’re not going to be brewing every week because you know, in, in a small space like that, you might brew. You know, five, you start out with like five gallons of water, and by the time everything is said and done, you’ll end up with two and a half gallons of beer.

So, you know, that will usually last a month or two depending on how much you drink and how much you share with your friends. But yeah, and I mean that, that stuff could sit away for a little while in a closet and you don’t have to worry about it.

Colter Wilson: And do you ferment in your kitchen fridge or do you have a separate fridge for that?

George Pipala: So, yeah, so I got a, I got a small Danby fridge, I think it’s like 4.4 cubic feet and a, I think you can get them in Costco, not that expensive, like 100 bucks or a couple of hundred bucks depending on if you get a good sale or not. Um, but yeah, I converted that to a little, you know, fermentation chamber where I hooked up an ink bird to it and I could, uh, you know, keep it at 66 or whatever the temperature is, and then, you know, crashed the beer from there.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. And just tape the, the temp probe like on the side of the, of the CAG right

George Pipala: now works fine. I mean, the whole temperature with. The beers is going to become, you know, on the outside, it can be the same temperature as the inside. I know these do crank out a lot of heat, but you know the kegs metal and it’s going to radiate that heat.

So you could, yeah, tape on that temp probe, or even if it makes you feel better, put a paper towel or put a little cloth to insulate it a little bit. But I found that. You know, even the one degree off, it’s not really gonna ruin things.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, I totally agree. Especially when you’re looking at such a small space with the, like, like the keg fits in there, but there’s not a lot of extra room

George Pipala: and you could put ’em.

So with that, so when you’re fermenting in a keg like that, I found that. Um, if you get, uh, like a CO2 hose that you would normally put onto one of the posts with, um, you know, like the ball lock, disconnect and, uh, just get like a jar. You could just cut a piece of tubing that fits to that ball lock, disconnect on the CO2 post and, and, you know, just bubble CO2 will bubble out into that jar.

And once it’s done fermenting, you disconnect it. Um, or before that, you know, you could, you could even, when you dry up. So you’re making a hoppy IPA. Um, you could turn the sea, you could hook up the CO2 tank to that post and then purge it with CO2 as you’re adding the dry Hopsins. So you’re not. Going to, you know, oxidize your beer and then close it up.

So it’s, it’s, it’s really, you know, oxygen free and very clean because I found, like I started out with using small carboys and transferring, and I know a lot of people are making the hazy beers now. So when you’re dry hopping in a car, boy. You know, you have a risk of oxidizing the beer like crazy, especially when you’re cold crashing.

And then if you’re trying to transfer it into a corny keg and you get a clogged tube and everything, it’s just a pain in the butt. So I found that using the clear beer system or the dip tube floats on top and it has a little screen. It works awesome.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. So anybody who’s questioning the clear beer is, is like a floating dip tube for the.

The, so that your beer draws from the top. And even if even if you don’t have an apartment and you’re trying and you’re not fermenting in corny kegs, this, this flow is pretty cool because one of the things is that when you. Do keg beer, there’s still yeast in there. Uh, for me, when I personally brew and I transfer to a keg and I go straight from my fermentor, I have a closed system that goes from, from a fermentor straight into a keg.

But even then, and I try to. Keep as much yeast of that yeast cake out of there. You still, for the first four or five beers, if you’re drawing from the bottom, are going to have basically sludge beers is what I call them. Yeah. And I’d still totally drink them.

George Pipala: And that’s what’s, that’s what’s great about using the, the keg with that system because yeah, you could do everything in that one system and you don’t even have to transfer and then worry about oxidation or contamination.

And I mean, a lot of people are drinking these beers fresh and quick anyway, so within a month. I mean, a lot of people overthink things and think like the yeast is going to go bad or you know, the yeast are going to die and leech flip off flavors into the beer. Like I, I’ve never had that. I’ve tried many situations where I’ve left the beer for a couple months, three months, and it was fine.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. Well, and to be honest, that’s what lawyering is anyway. You’re sitting there

George Pipala: on East for

Colter Wilson: multiple months. That’s how you bulk age a logger. The actual term lawyering means you’re sitting beer on yeast

George Pipala: and

Colter Wilson: yeah, and cold conditioning it. So in all reality, there’s not there, there isn’t a flavor that comes from that, but it’s not a bad flavor.

And the other part I would put it into that. That sitting on yeast. Yes. If it is sitting on a cake of dead yeast for two years, yes, you could possibly have an off flavor from that, but if we’re talking about a fresh beer, you put into a keg, that keg is sitting on some yeast and you’re drinking it quickly, you’re going to have zero issues with it.

George Pipala: Yeah, and even if you have dry hops in there, they could sit for. You know, a month, and I know people say, Hey, you’re going to get vegetal or like green flavors. I’ve never had that. I’ve even dry hopped lightly lagers or pilsners that I brewed where literally the hops were in the CAG with the floaty system for a couple months and it was awesome.

The beer was great.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, I agree with that. The way I make the hazy IPA, I throw my hop straight into the fermentor and then I do it. Like I said, I do a close transfer and so. They’re still hops floating in there. When I transfer it, I mean I’ve had dip tubes get clogged from hops, so obviously they’re still floating in there and I’ve had zero issues as well.

George Pipala: Yeah. That’s what’s great with, you know, fermenting in a corny keg with that system. Cause you don’t, it filters out with the floaty. Keep calling it floating system. That’s what, uh, my sister and I call it, but the clear bear drafts system, it comes with a little screen. That connects to where the beer flows into and you don’t have to worry about any hop matter getting, you know, into the keg post and it’s just clear veer and it works.

Great.

Colter Wilson: What’s the normal size of batch that you brew? I, I know you, you, you ferment in a five gallon corny keg. So what’s your actual target

George Pipala: for your finish? So I’ll start with, all right, I’ll give you a quick rundown as to like, say you’re making a hazy IPA. Um, I’ll start with 5.5 gallons of water that’s be pre mash.

So I’ll treat that water depending on what style of beer I want put in the grains, you know, do the whole mash for 60 minutes. Make sure your pH is within good range, being around, you know, five point. A two and 5.5, 5.4 around there anywhere. And, um, after 60 minutes, pull it out. I don’t like really squeeze the bag, but I try to get around five gallons of pre Boyle work.

And, um, after I let it boil for 60 minutes, I’ll end up with around. Four gallons of war and then I’ll transfer that into the corny keg. So after dry hop and of course the East case cake and you know troub and all that, you’ll end up with a good, you know, two and a half to three gallons of beer. Okay. So

Colter Wilson: you still get that like one gallon loss.

Cause if I make an a five gallon batch, I’m going to make six gallons of of work going into my fermentor. Leave about a gallon behind just because exactly. I don’t want to suck the yeast cake into my keg. Right. And. And so you’re, you’re ending up around three gallons left and you put that into what, a 2.5300000000000002 gallon keg.

George Pipala: So either, you know, you could serve it or drink straight from that. Fermentor keg that you used or yeah, you could transfer it into a purge, 2.5 gallon, corny keg. You could get those. Um, they’re a little expensive. I know they’re about the same price as a five gallon corny keg. Uh, but they work great. Uh, they’re good for even like bringing to a party.

You can fit it even right into a cooler. Uh, that works great. Especially, you know, summertime’s coming up. I don’t know if we’re going to be, you know, going to the beach or anything like that anytime soon, but. You know, it gives you that option of going around and you know, sharing your beer with your friends.

Um, but if you’re going to sit home, you could either just leave it in that same, you know, one system vessel, almost like a unit tank or a, you could transfer it as well, you know, of course, making sure everything is purged of oxygen and everything is clean.

Colter Wilson: That’s totally true. I love 2.5 gallon kegs.

They’re super convenient. Uh, they also, because my kegerator really only holds, I have a full house. I have a kegerator with three taps in it, but if I wanted to add additional kegs, I’ve thought about doing a 2.5 stacked on top of each other so that then I could split that into having two more taps and then having more options.

So yeah, definitely 2.5. Because that size of batch two and to be honest, if you think about fresh beer is 2.5 gallons is about how fast you’re going to drink it. It’s harder for me to get through five gallons of a fresh IPA versus 2.5 gallons. And when you’re talking about. These hazy IPA A’s that are so huge, and you are on the East coast, so I’m sure every IPA, you’re getting sassy right now.

Uh, but the idea is that those beers in a couple of weeks are different. They change so quickly.

George Pipala: Absolutely. And I always say, and I, I feel that. Honestly let some of those hazy IPA like age a little bit, it’s not going to hurt them. As long as you’re, you know, you’re, you’re, your system is sound and you know, you’re, you’re transferring everything oxygen free and clean.

I mean, you could, I’ve, I’ve had some of my beers lasts for two, three months, four months, and they’re still drinking. Great. And the, actually, sometimes it improves during that time. Exactly. A lot of, a lot of the hops in East falls out and then you’re just left with clean, bright beer that’s still hazy.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. Eh, I’ve actually got a similar situation right now where I have a hazy IPA that is drinking so well, and it’s, it’s just. That perfect amount of haze. It’s not, it’s not orange juice colored. It’s, it’s actually, you could tell all of the, all of the floaties of have dropped out of it, but it’s still got the Hayes, the proteins in there.

Right. But it has this amazing flavor and it’s so drinkable. Uh, it’s, and I totally get what you’re saying, but, uh, I guess the, I’m digressing now, so we’ll, we’ll, we’ll get into the next piece, which is. You know, I think that a lot of people think that they need to start off with an extract kit, which I think extract kit.

It would be an easy way to get started when you’re in an apartment, but I also think that because of Bruin, a bag, you could almost just skip that step and go to all-grain right.

George Pipala: Yeah. So, uh, so the first few beers, including that, you know, Dogfish had 60 minute that I told you about before, that was all extract.

Um, which was fine. And you know, it’s easy to do. And when, once you’re starting to learn about the process and ingredients and you know, everything that it takes to make beer, um, you honestly don’t really need that. And if you want to make good beer, that’s just as good as. Some of the beer you could get at breweries.

Um, all grain is definitely the way to go. And it’s honestly not that that hard. Um, as long as you keep, again, everything, uh, clean, make sure your pH is in range and, uh, your mash temperature is in range and you don’t mash too hot or too cold. I mean, you’re going to make damn good beer. So I, I, I think that’s, you know.

Definitely a plus. And as long as you do your research too, there’s, there’s so much information online and, um, you know, I’ll start posting some tips and tricks as to, you know, what type of process I use or even, you know, the equipment, uh, within the apartment space that really, you know, helps make a good beer.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. I, I think that, uh, you know, specifically right now, there’s probably a lot of people sitting in apartments going, Hey, what could I be doing to. Maybe now’s a good time to pick up a hobby, or I’ve always thought about making beer. Now’s the time. Do it. Uh, you’re, you’re never going to have more time at home as you will right now.

Right,

George Pipala: right. Exactly. So,

Colter Wilson: uh, you know, what, what kind of heat source are you using? Do you have an electric stove? Is it gas? W w what are you using to actually get up to a boil?

George Pipala: That’s a great question. So, um. So my sister, have you actually spoke with her in the past? Um, so she actually uses an electric stove.

I’ve never brewed on electric system or electric stove, but I could imagine, you know, the difficulties of it because, uh, you know, the heating up part of it, it takes much longer. And then even maybe cooling down, uh. There’s a lot of change or not much change. Um, whereas like gas, you have more control. But where I brew, uh, there is a, a gas stove, so I’m able to just put the pot right on top of the stove and I use gas and you know, control it that way for, you know, a slow simmer or aggressive boil or I’ll, uh, turn it on to increase the mash mash temperature a little bit.

But make sure, you know, everything is stirred because. You know, if you’re using a stove top, especially electric, it takes much longer for it to heat up. And if you say, turn it on, it gets really hot and then turn it off on the bottom, it’s going to get super hot and it’s going to stay hot for a while. So you want to make sure you’re mixing all that, that liquid, and you know the grains together so you have a, an equal temperature all through the mash.

Um, I feel like that’s, that’s definitely an important step. Um, yeah, some apartments are going to have gas, some apartments are going to have a electric. The, the most important thing is get yourself a very good thermometer, one that’s waterproof, and that you could leave in the mash, you know, throughout the whole process.

And then just keep things, you know, stirred, make sure everything is the, the correct temperature. Um, you know, if you’re making hazy IPS or just any beer, you want to keep the temperature. Between, you know, one 50, one 55, if you want the beer sweeter, of course you could go up to one 60, but then you’re going to maybe risk, uh, getting some tannins pulled out of the, the grains.

So you just gotta, you know, keep an eye on temperature. And, um. Yeah. Just pay attention to detail and take notes.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. Well, and I think that that’s the same for if you’re brewing in any situation, right? Whether you brew from your house, you brew from an apartment there, the tried and true things of keep things clean, keep detailed boats, make sure that you ha try to be as consistent as possible.

Those situations never go away. Right?

George Pipala: Exactly. Yeah.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, I mean, the fundamentals of making good beer are the same no matter what size, the space.

George Pipala: Yeah. And another important thing to add is like, you know, the, the things you use for cleaning. So someone like starting out, you know, you could use your sink to clean the kegs or fermenters.

Um, I’d be very careful with glass carboys just because, you know, they could break. And that’s a lot of glass going everywhere. So I know they’re old school, they work great. They keep oxygen out. Um. Except for, you know, when you’re transferring the beer. But, um. You gotta be careful cleaning those. Uh, you could use your shower to use my shower to clean kegs.

Uh, the sink works great. Um, but if you get yourself, you know, P P BW cleaner and a, some hot water, you could put it in the CAG. Shake the water up for, you know, five minutes or so. Make sure it gets all the surfaces. You’d get a brush in there if you need it. I found out using that process, cleans it up pretty well.

And then of course, star Sam for your sanitizing needs. You just use filter water, follow the directions, and use the proper amount of star sand for the amount of volume of water that you’re using. And you know, you just got to keep things clean. Exactly.

Colter Wilson: My favorite star Sans trick, you’ll hear it from me time and time again on this show, is the spray bottle with distilled water and star sand.

George Pipala: Yeah, absolutely.

Colter Wilson: You just walk around your brewery spring star San on every little thing, and it’s a. I’ve had the large bottle of star San for the last two years that I have not gone through yet, just because I’m able to only make. Bigger batches of star Sans as needed when I’m doing bigger things like kettles or kegs.

But when it comes to a small thing, I don’t have to make a large batch of star Santa, and that’s

George Pipala: very handy.

Colter Wilson: And in a small space, that’s even more important to not have to have buckets when you don’t need them. Right.

George Pipala: Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I know it might be hard to come by now, but, uh, the 70% I suppose.

Purple alcohol, however you say it, that’s, that’s very effective as well for keeping things clean, especially when you’re transferring beer from, you know, the kettle. Once it’s cool to the CAG or from your CAG fermenter to the keg where you’re going to serve the beer out of a, just spraying everything down with that alcohol, you know?

Definitely helpful. Plus, it’s very helpful. Now, if you’re going to the supermarket and you’re getting groceries or even your, your mail, you could spray that down. So no one gets any infections, but, um, that’s, that is definitely effective.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. One thing is, one of my favorite things that’s happening right now is a, you go to the Reddit homebrewing page and the right at the top of it, it’s star sand is not.

Yeah. What does it say? Star San is not rated for viruses like they have the, in a great big bold letters, because trust me, it’s already crossed my mind. Can I just spray this all down with stars saying,

George Pipala: yeah, I thought about that. But then also you could literally drink a glass of properly diluted star sand and be fine.

Like that’s another thing when you’re cleaning things with star sand being your fermenter, um, or even bottles or whatever it is. Like, like they say, don’t fear the foam, the phone’s fine.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, it’s good stuff. It, it works really, really well and it’s acidic and that’s how it, it sanitizes that pH gets down to a certain level and the microbes can’t live.

And to be honest, I think that the pH is low enough for viruses. They just have never officially had a tested for viruses. And so therefore, you know, that’s where that disclaimer comes from. Uh, but yeah, let’s, uh, you know. Uh, you know, what, what kind of things are in your future, or are you gonna stay in an apartment and, and go that road, or is a house in your future?

W

George Pipala: what

Colter Wilson: are you looking like?

George Pipala: So we were locked up in Hoboken, you know, for a co a couple of weeks, uh, with this whole thing going on. And, um, I’m an outdoors type of person, so like, I can’t stay in a closed space for very long. I mean, unless I had. A lot of mall and beer to drink, then I could do that. But, uh, you know, you need to go outside and that’s definitely healthy, um, and everything.

But, um, no, I definitely think that I’ll get a house, you know, one of these days in the future have a little system there and a home brew. Um, it’s definitely a big part of my life. I love it. Um, it’s fun and interesting. Creating different types of beer, different let, definitely too, I feel like it’s, it’s artistic.

Um. You know, you, you can’t always overthink things and think about, you know, all you need this amount of malt and that amount of all, like, like there’s different, obviously there’s different percentages of malt that you could use and over doing, some is going to be detrimental to the beer. Um, but it’s, you gotta experiment and it’s fun.

So using different hop combinations with malt yeast. Uh, for your fermentations, it’s gonna make things much more fun. So definitely don’t overthink it. Um, but yeah, I think, um, I’ll definitely move somewhere else and, and have more room. Um. I would love to have a brewery, uh, given what’s going on. Now, as you could see, a lot of these breweries are having a hard time.

They have to change their whole business plans and the way they conduct business. So that’s definitely a challenge. Um, but people there, they’re getting through it and people are buying beer. And I, I think it’s always going to be around forever. It’s just making a very good product and to having, you know, a good brand.

That’s very important.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. Couldn’t agree more. Well, George, I want to thank you for coming on the show. Uh, it’s been a great conversation and I feel like I’ve learned a bunch of cool tips and tricks. If I were brewing in a really small space, which you’d ever know, uh, I could end up in an apartment very soon.

I’m kidding. Uh, but the idea is that, uh, the idea is that we could. I think that you gave us some really great insights on, on what it takes in that it is possible in a smaller space.

George Pipala: Yeah, it definitely is. And, uh, there’s tons of information out there that you could go online and research or reach out to me if you have any questions, I’d be more than happy to help.

Um, and yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a hobby that. Could bring you a lot of joy and a lot of, uh, you know, creations that would make you happy. I, I love it.

Colter Wilson: I’d like to thank George for taking the time to come on this week’s show. It’s very informative, and if you have any questions, if you have a small space and want to learn a bit more, just head over to home brewing diy.beer. Look in the show notes, and I’ll have links to George’s Instagram account. And if you’ve.

Become friends with him or follow him. You could shoot him a message and ask him a question, or you can ask me a question either way. Well, that’s it for this weekend. We’ll see you next week on homebrewing DIY .

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