Making "Daddy Soda"

Alright, here - I'm not doing any sequence pics or things of that nature because there's a lot going on and I've got about 3hrs to get it done and in the fermenter.

Anyone makes a comment about my kitchen and I KILL U!

Hope this uploads okay, it's the basic kit for a pseudo three level sparge system, but you can make the process a lot easier than this - this is just what I've gotten used to using/doing.

I'll be back later to answer questions/explain what it all is...


Alright, everythings cleaned up and the drive/walks are shoveled so on to explanations -

This is my typical brewing rig.  I brew all grain, so because of that I need some additional parts (mash tun) over just a kettle and a heat source.  Now, you don't necessarily NEED a mash tun to do all grain, there's lots of folks that use a technique that was developed in Australia called "Brew in a Bag" where they start with a huge pot (10+ gallon), and use all the water upfront and mash/boil in the same pot in a large mesh bag.  Uses less water, less resources to heat/boil, but it's not as effecient so you need more grain to compensate.

Mine is more traditional, I use a cooler as a mash tun so the temps hold steady (+/-3F) during the conversion phase, then drain it off into the catch bucket and then rinse (called a sparge) to get my total boil volume.  All that goes into the boil pot, which is insulated because it's faster.  I'm using an induction plate to heat the stainless pot, which works pretty good considering I'm boiling quite a bit of liquid with only 1800W (1635 actual measured to thermal transfer).  Boil is 60min, with hop additions staggered to put bitterness/aroma per the recipe. 

If you do extract, you need a third of the stuff in the picture,  as all the conversion work is already done.  Bad part is, extract is much more expensive vs all grain, and while extract has gotten a LOT better with malt options, it still is a drop in the bucket compared to the different grains you can use in AG brewing.

The only thing not shown in the pic is my chiller coil and the plastic carboys I use.  The Chiller is nothing more than a 25' 3/8" copper coil that could be confused for something else, and it placed into the hot wort after the boil and cold water run through it to drop the temp of the wort to pitching temp as soon as possible (around 67F, takes about 5min right now with our groundwater as cold as it is) and the carboy looks like a giant water cooler bottle.

This beer was pitched onto an existing yeast cake (eg, I racked a beer off into a keg, left the yeast/trub from that batch in the bottom, and then poured the cooled wort onto that sludge and shook it like hell to mix everything back up. It's been about an hour and the airlock's already going away so the yeast is still happy to find new sugar.

At this point, it's just a waiting game.  Everything will be done in about 5-7 days, I usually leave it a week more to clean up, then rack it into a keg to forcecarb for another week and drink.

If you were bottling, figure 21 days to bottling, then about two weeks to carb up in the bottles.

The more beers you have going, the more beer shows up when you least expect it - I usually have between 3-4 beers going at any time, with a few in kegs ready to swap in to the keezer. 


Beer is good.