MBG Winter Beer Festival 2015

Hello again!

We have been gearing up for the Michigan Brewers Guild's 2015 Winter Beer Festival. It is truly one of the unique beer events out there. This outdoor festival has been expanded to two days this year, and it promises to be a true celebration of Michigan weather and Michigan beer.

(Now let's take a moment of silence in appreciation for all of the volunteers that will be busting their tails in the freezing cold to help pull this event off!)

I like to view the Guild festivals as a time to really try and put on the best show we can for festival goers. Usually that entails brewing up some specialty small batches that will only be available at the festival. It is a time to get creative and spread our wings. In the past we have done a version of our Honey Kölsch that we infused with green tea. That beer was the brain child of the well bearded Aaron Stryker, now of Rhinegeist Brewery in Cincinnati. We have made aggressive Imperial IPA's, blended barrel aged beers with cherries, coffee beers, and others.

However, with our production schedule as full as it is, this year we did not have time to brew a lot of small batches, but that doesn't mean we aren't still excited about what we will be pouring. We will be pouring a host of bourbon barrel aged beers (Wheat Wine, Robust Porter, Belgian Amber), some new lagers that we have been working on, a Munich Helles and a Classic American Pilsner. Our Propaganda Red IPA will be pouring as well as a couple of cask beers.

As of right now there are still tickets available to the Friday session of the festival, while the Saturday session is sold out. If you do have tickets, makes sure to stop by and see us at the Cranker's booth!

Drink good beer with good people!

Dry Yeast Rehydration and "Closed Procedure"

Below is an article that I wrote with professional side brewing in mind. It can have broader applications for both amateur and pro brewers, so I hope you enjoy.

 Craft beer is booming. The past decade has seen a meteoric rise in the number of new breweries dotting the landscape. Along with that, many homebrewers have stepped in to fill the growing demand for makers of artisan beer. The goal of this document is to help ease this transition to larger scale brewing by tackling an important topic, and discussing a key concept to the brewing process: yeast handling. The hardest working employee in any brewery is the yeast. A brewer can craft the finest wort possible, but if they do not create an ideal environment for the yeast to generate the desired flavors in the beer, an opportunity is lost.

Brewers pay a tremendous amount of attention to fermentation temperatures, yeast strain selection, and re-pitching approaches.  An often overlooked aspect is yeast viability and the roll that rehydration plays in providing your yeast an opportunity to generate the flavors and attenuation levels you want. This document is aimed at the importance of rehydrating dry yeast, but also the "closed" process that it utilizes. It is applicable to handling liquid yeast as well as finings (Biofine, gelatin, etc.). These processes utilize common brewery equipment and is adaptable to various brewing situations.

Why Rehydration?

I remember my first dry yeast packet. It came taped to the top of the liquid malt extract can the resided in my inaugural English Pale Ale kit. The instructions were simple. After cooling my wort, I was to combine the yeast and wort in my fermentation bucket and the rest would be history. First of all let it be said that pitching dry yeast directly onto the cooled wort can make excellent beer. With that said, as I further immersed myself into my new hobby, I learned that the dry yeast instructions for professional brewers was different. I had to find out why.

There are many reasons why dry yeast manufacturers recommend rehydration. First and foremost is yeast mortality. When dry yeast is pitched directly onto the wort, approximately 50% of the yeast die (White & Zainasheff, 2010). Following appropriate rehydration instructions per the manufacturer ensures that you are pitching a larger number of live cells into your wort. Rehydration also prevents a large number of dead yeast cells from influencing the flavor, attenuation, and consistency of your beers from batch to batch. The good news is that rehydrating yeast is a simple process that can utilize many items that amateur brewers already have and are also common to larger brewery operations as well.

Process and Equipment Options & "Closed" Procedure

At Cranker's Brewery we have a 15bbl system where we utilize dry yeast for the majority of our beers. The equipment we use to rehydrate are the items we use, but there are other options to achieve the same goals. Here is a list of items used:

• 5 gallon corny keg and the requisite disconnects
• Beverage tubing
• Triclover x barb connection
• Triclover gasket and clamp
• Use of our hot liquor tank (HLT)

Our process is simple. After cleaning and sanitizing the corny keg and all keg parts involved we draw hot water off of our HLT to the volume specified by the dry yeast manufacturer. This water has been charcoal filtered and has been held at 170 F for a minimum of twelve hours allowing us to put pasteurized water into our rehydration vessel (corny keg). We connect the triclover x barb connection to the butterfly valve on the side of our HLT, and allow the hot water to flow into the corny keg by opening the pressure relief valve on the keg lid. When the keg is filled to the appropriate level, we disconnect and allow the water to cool to 105 degrees F over the course of our brewday.

When wort production is finished and the wort has been transferred to the fermenter, we begin the rehydration process. This is also where we begin use of our “closed” procedure. CO2 gas that is at 35psi is placed on the corny keg and the pressure relief valve on the keg's lid is opened. This allows the keg lid to be removed and placed in sanitizer. At this point there is a plume of CO2 gas that begins to flow out of the top of the keg. This plume is what prevents dust that bears beer spoilage organisms from falling into the keg. The dry yeast packages are then removed from the sanitizer that they were previously placed in and cut open with a sanitized knife. We then pour the entire contents of the yeast package into the 105 degree water. At that point, the keg lid is replaced and the pressure relief valve is closed. CO2 gas is then shut off. Once the yeast has received it's allotted thirty minutes of rehydration time, it is pumped into the fermenter with CO2 pressure using the same triclover x barb fitting that was used to take water from the HLT.

This method of utilizing positive pressure from the CO2 supply of the brewery is an effective way of creating as close to a closed transfer as possible in our brewery. This technique can also be applied to pitching liquid yeast, dry hopping, and using fining agents. With finings and dry hopping, the use of positive CO2 pressure allows the brewer to complete these standard brewery practices with minimal ingress of oxygen into the finished beer, thus minimizing one of the largest factors in beer staling.

Summary

Rehydrating dry yeast and utilizing “closed” transfers in the brewhouse are two ways that new and veteran craft brewers can make strides in beer consistency and stability. The equipment used in your brewery does not have to be identical, making the overall process adaptable and accessible to a wide range of situations. Hopefully these guidelines and concepts will be beneficial and employable in your workplace.

Drink good beer with good people!

Remedial Chaos Theory

Timelines were not merging the way they were supposed to.

The plan was for me to start brewing at Cranker's during my sabbatical from teaching during the 2010-2011 school year. After listening to countless interviews with professional brewers from around the world on The Brewing Network, I knew better than to think that everything was going to fall into place according to our time projections. When you are dealing with construction, alcohol, and all levels of government bureaucracy breweries almost never open on time. Still though, I figured I would have had months to brew at Cranker's prior to my March deadline to tell my school district my plans for the following school year. As it happened, I had to tell my superintendant that I would not be returning to teaching before I even brewed my first professional batch of beer.

At first the transition away from teaching was pretty smooth. When my teacher friends were going back to work after their summer off, I was beginning to volunteer at Arbor Brewing two days a week. My time there ended in late October. After that I spent my time working from home on social media for the brewery, piloting recipes at home, starting this blog, and label design for our beers. Honestly, the transition to being home was tough though. I had a major career switch that was looming and there wans't much more I could do to prep for it beyond waiting for the brewery to be operational. Looking back I was trying to accomplish all of these 'work' tasks, while in reality I was doing more important work. Thankfully with the patient example of my wife, in time, I managed to meld pretty well into the pace and schedule of our household.

Earlier that year we were blessed with our fourth child, Isaac. He was the first baby to be born in the summertime. Our first three were January/February babies, so I was always at school for the majority of our kid's infancies. With Isaac things were different. I fielded far more dirty diapers, logged extended rounds with the Baby Bjorn, and jammed my iPhone full of baby pictures. I just realized it today that I was experiencing this stressful time on sabbatical, but in reality, the most important task I was accomplishing was a deeper connection with my kids, and in a special way our new baby Isaac.

Transitioning from teaching to brewing has been a challenge, but it has been an amazing ride that I do not regret. I have left a one job that I loved and was passionate about, for another one that I am equally as crazy about. The unexpected concequence of this whole escapade has been a closer relationship with my family. I am in a good place and I am at peace.

Drink good beer with good people!

Brewery Construction: A Check In

Things are really coming into focus. This week I stopped in to the brewery to help Bruce, our Operations Manager, place our serving tanks in the mezzanine. 

Tanks in the loft prior to being set in place

When I first walked in and looked at the four 15bbl serving tanks I was wondering how we were going to get two more 7bbl tanks up there. Bruce and I climbed the ladder to begin situating the the tanks with a hand truck. After some manipulation and a lot of talk about the final look and functionality of the loft area, I feel as if we came away with some really workable space and a look that will really be cool for the patrons of the bar and restaurant. 

In the loft with tanks arranged.

On the functional side, I was really excited to see the pitch of the floor, or the way the floor angles to the floor drain. That will really help out a lot for clean up, and the like. 

This was the first time that Bruce and I could really take a walk through the building that we will be working in and our time was very productive. We ironed out some issues with cleaning and sanitation that are particular to our equipment as well as concepts for spot keg filling and beer line chilling.

The interior walls are all studded out. The final flooring coat is going in on the brewery in days, then the brewhouse, various fermenters, etc. will be placed in the final week of February. As far as opening dates, a lot of that will depend on when we get our final inspection from the Feds. Stay tuned...

Drink good beer with good people!

Year in Review: 2011

This has been a pretty big year for me both professionally and personally. As 2011 winds down I would like to touch on some of the highlights.

Isaac Andrew is highlight number one. This is the first baby that I have been able to spend a lot of time with. As a teacher I always had summers off. Our first three kids were born in either January or February, making them four to five months old by the time the summer came around. We never did the daycare thing, but being able to be home with Isaac right from the start has been a special experience. Babies are amazing. They develop the same way, from the squirming to the squawking. It is fun to see our children's personalities form even as little ones. With Isaac, I feel that he was the first baby that I was really prepared to be a father to. With our other three children, I did a lot of grasping at straws. I don't know. Maybe I am still doing that, it just feels like parental acumen now due to repetition.

2011 was also the year that I began my sabbatical from teaching. Over the past several months I have immersed myself in helping to launch Cranker's Brewery. As part of that, I spent two days a week for three months at Arbor Brewing Company. I learned so much and made great friends. Bill, Mike, Dave, and Brian were all very good to me and made working there not just a great professional experience, but a tremendous personal one as well. Special thanks goes out to Bill, as he is the person that I will always think of as my guide into professional brewing.

The end of 2011 also brought about some great plans for 2012. Bill and I will be brewing our collaboration beer: End of the World IPA, hopefully in December of that year. We are gunning for a big, dry, red IPA that explodes with hoppy goodness. Kevin, Lou, and I will be knocking out #TGBBR in January. We are really excited about it and there will be lots of blogging that comes forth from it. It remains a secret for now, but I will not be lacking in content later. Of course there is Cranker's Brewery to look forward to in 2012. We are shooting for a March opening and things are really coming together. The second half of the brewhouse will be delivered in mid January and Jim and Co. just picked up the bottling line.

In closing, I would like to thank all of those who have supported us over the past year, and those that have been following my blog and twitter feed (@adammmills). In the coming year, if you get a chance to stop in to the brewery or get my beer in bottles, please contact me and let me know what you think! Until then...

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills

Online Store: The Goods Are In!

I put up the online stores today. They are available both from the Cranker's Brewery website, and from the Cranker's Facebook page. We ended up using the Intuit website designer, which proved to be pretty user friendly. One of the features that I did not expect was the store being available on Facebook. I thought that was pretty cool. We put up: hoodies, men's and ladies t-shirts, Mug Club memberships, and gift certificates.  It is so exciting seeing everything come together.

I have been doing some tweaking and refining to the beers in our lineup. I have just started working with WLP090 as a potential yeast strain. I am brewing test batches of Torchlight and Bulldog Red with it. I am trying to test it's boundaries, by fermenting Torchlight at 60*F, and Bulldog Red at 68*F. I will be interested to note both it's attenuation and ester production. I will report back with my findings.

The brewery build is going quite well. All of the walls are now up, with the hope of getting the roof up very soon. It is so awesome driving by it and watching it come together. I am a bit of a stalker in that regard; I drive by it four to six times a day :) Other than that, I have been busy with the four kids and getting ready for Christmas. I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas season!

Drink good beer with good people!

Twitter: @adammmills

Shirts Are In!

Well here they are. As of right now, they are only available from the Cranker's in Big Rapids. The online store on www.crankersbrewery.com will be up by the end of the week if all goes to plan. The logo is the creation of David M. Phelps. We are very excited with how the shirts came out.

Click here to check out our Facebook page that has pictures of the shirts, sizes, and prices. Like our page to get the latest updates on everything Cranker's.

More to come...

Drink good beer with good people!

Good Friends

I have a lot of amazing friends. This is one of the main lessons I have learned during the process of helping to open a brewery. Today I am especially thankful for my friends David and Andy. They have volunteered their talents to help me create the visual feel that I want for the brewery. David is behind the logo concept, and Andy has made awesome visuals like the one below to pitch my concepts to my boss. They make me look good.

Below is a mockup of what the glassware we will be selling at Cranker's will look like. The style of pint glass is called a Willi Becher. It features a slight angle in around the logo that aids in capturing aromas and it is an all around solid beer glass. 

Glass shape really does play a large roll in how the beer tastes and smells. Test it out. Compare a craft beer poured into a water glass like this:

Try it side by side with a glass that has a lip that curves in, like these:

Great glass from New Belgium

Even a classic brandy snifter can be great for craft beer

Anyhow, this is a topic that can receive a lot more attention, so I may dig in deeper in a later post. In the meantime...

Drink good beer with good people!

Merchandise Coming Soon!

I just saw the previews of what the Cranker's Brewery shirts are going to look like and I am pretty excited! The first order that we made are for brown t-shirts, ladies t-shirts, and pullover hoodies. It has the brewery emblem on the front with Big Rapids, MI wrapping the bottom.

The phrase "Drink good beer with good people will be on the back.

I will get pics up of the shirts as soon as possible. There will be a larger lineup of merchandise in the coming months: stickers, bottle openers, glassware, winter hats, etc.

Drink good beer with good people!

Torchlight Munich Blonde

Torchlight is an example of what 'light beers' are supposed to taste like. It is inspired by the Munich Helles style using pilsner malt and german hops to create a crisp, yet flavorful pint. Truly a taste of Bavaria right here at home.     4.9% ABV  -  20 IBU

Drink good beer with good people!

Shifting Gears

My boss told me last week that when I went to Arbor Brewing that Thursday, that it would be my last trip down there. My new focus is going to be working with our chef in developing food and beer concepts. I am looking forward to this new direction in prepping for the brewery, but that doesn't stop that fact that I make the transition with a bit of a heavy heart. It was tough leaving Arbor, I made some friends on staff there, and those two days that I was spending there each week was something to look forward to. However, I don't see this as an end of my time with Arbor.

Bill and I have been talking about our first collaboration beer: End of the World IPA. As you may know, the world will totally cease to exist on December 21, 2012.

Thanks Mayans

We plan on making a big dry IPA, then loading it up with multiple dry hops. We figure that we don't have to worry about wasting hops because we won't need them on 12/22. Stay tuned.

We are also closing in on getting some Cranker's Brewery clothing out there. It looks like we are going to start with men's and women's t-shirts, and hoodies. They will feature the Cranker's logo:

The handiwork of David Michael Phelps

Personally, I love the logo and think that it will make for some rocking brewery swag. There have already been people requesting Dickie's work shirts with the logo. As we move forward we will add more and more variety to our merchandise lineup. Our plan is to make our merchandise available in the Cranker's Restaurants, and eventually, on our Cranker's Brewery website that is in the works.

Drink good beer with good people!

Old Siberian: An English Style Strong Ale

Here is a look at the first in a line of seasonal beers that will be offered by Cranker's Brewery. Old Siberian is an English style Strong Ale that features rich complex malt, dark caramel, a touch of roast, with a sizable dose of British hops to balance this 8% treat.

Old Siberian: Making five months of winter a little more palatable. 

Drink good beer with good people!

Logo and Label Release!

Here is a sneak peak as some of the design concepts that we will be using as our brand at Cranker's Brewery. Below is a mock up of what our coasters will look like. We are very excited about our labeling lineup and will be periodically releasing the concepts. Let us know what you think!

Drink good beer with good people!

One Small Step for Man, One Small Leap for Construction

The metal construction fence has been put up around the future location of Cranker's Brewery in Big Rapids, MI! It is just one small step toward groundbreaking, but it is still very exciting to see.

Break on through to the other side.

In other Cranker's news, we are rounding out our branding and logo concepts. They are coming along nicely and I am very excited to get some beers into packages with these labels!

Until next time kids, drink good beer with good people!

Salute!