Episode 70- New Order Lagers with Dan Moore

This week we talk to Dan Moore about pressure fermenting lagers at ale temps. Here is a link to his facebook group on the subject: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1195873584129605

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Show Transcript it is AI generated and will have many errors.

Colter Wilson: On this week’s episode, we talked to Dan Moore of new order lockers. Dan Moore’s a professional brewer gone back to his home brewing roots, where he is delving into making non-traditional loggers under pressure. So we’re going to talk to him this week and dive into new order loggers on home brewery, DIY.

Back to homebrewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself, aspect of home, brewing gadgets, contraptions, and parts. The show covers it all on this week’s show. We’re talking to Dan Moore of new order loggers. We’re going to talk about making non-traditional loggers under pressure. And some of the benefits that you can get from doing so under pressure.

So stick around and listen to the interview we have today with Dan, but first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over a Patrion it’s because of you that this show can come to you week after week, head on over to patriot.com forward slash homebrewing DIY, and give it any amount today. Another way to support the show is head on over to coffee.com.

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Now I think we’re pretty much done with announcements. Let’s jump into this week’s episode where we are talking to Dan more about new order loggers.

welcome. Dan, more to the show. He’s the former head brewer over at Nighthawk brewing here in Broomfield, Colorado. And which is the next town over for me. And then you used to also work over a great divide. Is

Dan Moore: that right? Yes, sir. I worked in the logistic department for, uh, about three years.

Colter Wilson: That’s awesome.

So. I, I will say Dan, you’re probably one of the first pro brewers we’ve had on the show though. You’re not pro brewing. You’re doing, yeah. I, I I’ve mainly only had homebrewers and so, or a lot of brewing authors, uh, I mean I’m into those, but uh, most

Dan Moore: of us come full circle. You know, we start with home brewing and go back into pro brewing.

And I know a lot of guys from the industry that have left the industry got back into, into home brewing. Like, man, I missed this part of it.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, well, isn’t that funny because that is where you are right now, right? It’s so, uh, Dan, Dan actually runs a very small Facebook group, but less than a hundred people and it’s called new order loggers.

And it’s a, it’s a group that I’m a member of and you do a ton of loggers. I, if I would say what you pretty much brew exclusively as logger pretty much. Would we

Dan Moore: say that a hundred percent loggers? I haven’t. I don’t think I’ve pitched ale yeast in anything and probably going on three years now. Wow.

Colter Wilson: That is a while.

And so the reason we’re going to, what we’re going to talk about today is I want to talk about loggers. Uh, I know that with new order loggers, the idea is that these are, and we’ve talked about this on the podcast before these different kinds of pseudo loggers or, or, or loggers at ale temperature kind of.

Strategies that we have out there. And really this is, this is a Facebook group that really is kind of lead into that. And I’ve done shows where we’ve talked about doing things with Quebec, East and hybrid beers and things like that. But I, I want to point out that you do a lot of loggers under pressure.

And so I wanted to have you on the show to talk about pressure fermenting in general and, and, and making great loggers with pressure fermenting. So let’s just start there. Uh, you know, if I, if I wanted to get into a. Logger or what, how about a better way to start is what would you say a new order lager is to you?

Dan Moore: Uh, to me it’s just, uh, getting the end product of traditional lagers was taking non traditional methods of doing, um, even not so much having to do just a pressure fermentation. But the people that are doing the high temperature loggers, uh, using yeast that are conducive to it, like 34 70, I mean, you can just take your car boy pitch 34 70, and you’re going to get it pretty close to traditional lager result because it’s such a flexible yeast.

And I started out doing, doing just that. Well, actually, no, the very first one I used was a harvest, uh, East from Imperial. Just because I saw the temperature ranges that it was good for, but I, I did a couple of 34 70 unpressurized at first and, you know, they, they come out pretty close, uh, you know, on the home brew scale, the taste very lager ish, not something I would ever try to pass off professionally as a logger, but, uh, you, I just.

I kind of wanted to look into ways that I could do stuff quicker, faster, more efficient than anything. My burn philosophy from even doing a back when I was known, when I started at Nighthawk cause a real big sour guy throughout the home brewing community and getting into the professional community. But I always took unconventional approaches to doing it.

I mean, back when. I was really starting to get into sours. People were still stuck on the mash, super high leave, a ton of long chain dextrins leaves have a lot of carbohydrates. This stuff’s going to take you three, four or five years. It can be a long process. And I started thinking a little while was, can we do it at that time?

People were just starting to play with, uh, fermenting, very low finishing off, very, very dry beers, and just really starting to discover that pretend to my, especially. Did not need those long chain sugars to chew on. You know, so everyone said they need something to chew on. We were just starting discovered that they were taking other compounds and processing them into different flavor and aroma compounds.

It didn’t matter if there was long directions or not. If there’s POF positive yeast, those use we’re going to take compounds and turn them into stuff that we used to think took years to produce.

Colter Wilson: Well, the funny thing is, is that when you talk to sour brewers today, that’s not something that people even talk about anymore.

Right. And so it’s almost changed on its head at this point on that philosophy.

Dan Moore: Oh, right. And I’m not even talking about doing a kettle sour and this was back, you know, just being able to make a Saison base, dry it out, finish it at zero costs in some jolly pumpkin drags. And you know, in like three, four months, man, you’ve got a respectable sour.

Something that has a lot of character to it. A lot of funk, a lot of flavors and people just cannot believe you’re doing this this fast. So I’ve always been a fan of that. And then moving into some of the stuff we started experimenting with that Nighthawk, I’ve always been, I read a lot of the forums quite a bit.

I’d stay active, what people are experimenting with. Uh, I mean, I love the brew Los puffy guys. I love seeing just how they’re taking ideas and changing and I’m like, Hey, let’s try it. Let’s try one against the other. Uh, I mean, pretty early on, I started doing a lot of IPA’s with a hundred percent Whirlpool hops and people were like, well, it’s not going to work that way.

Like, while you’re drinking it, you’re liking it. So it must be okay. Uh, I even had, uh, uh, Keith via came by the brewery one day, you know, Keith via of blue moon fame. He was the first PhD in brewing science in America. Happened to be a friend of my sales rep and he came and hung out and he was trying to one of my IPA’s and he said, was drinking.

I was like, okay, so what kind of ideas do you think you’re running? I’m like, well, you know, I’m using an experimental method by the calculations I’m using. I think I should be somewhere in the 60 to 62. IBU range is just, again, I’m going at a blind. I don’t have the equipment here on this tiny little seven barrel craft brewery out, running off a dairy equipment.

And so he’s like, well, I don’t know. It’s like, it tastes pretty good, but I don’t know if your calculations are right. Tell you what bottle up, some stuff, send it to me. We’ll take it to Coors, we’ll run through the chronograph, we’ll do all that stuff. And I’ll be damned if my beer didn’t come back at 63 IVs on the dot.

And we’re just all blown away that you get this flavor and aroma without the extreme bitterness, just in a different way of doing things. So getting into longer stuff before night hockey clothes, I had started looking into this, how we could possibly. Move into what was right then a really burgeoning early adaptation of the craft lager movement in America, but without investing a ton of time and money into it, because let’s face it, a lot of craft breweries just do not have the time and space to do a 60 to 90-day ferment and age on a beer.

You got to crank it as fast as we can. Uh, you know, most breweries do run. Right on that edge of red and black. Okay.

Colter Wilson: And when you got a seven barrel system, you’re not, you don’t have the space to just hold up a fermentor for that long, like that. You’ve got to. You your, your, your production is always you’re, you’re, you’re thinking through how can I get as much throughput through the system as possible.

And, uh, and I’m just going to slow that down

Dan Moore: just over his paycheck, sitting in that tank, waiting to be poured out and paid for. Yeah, exactly. So I started seeing experiments of people taking these different methods of doing it. And it actually came by through an experiment after I had been at, I hadn’t touched a brewhouse in about a year.

Uh, I was in the planning process of a previous brewing project and it was taking way longer than we thought it would as it always does. And so I just got kind of bored. Like, man, I’ve got all this equipment sitting around from back in the day. I haven’t, home-brewed in probably five, six years. Let’s bust it out and do something.

I feel like making and a beer. And I ended up having an issue with, uh, My calculations, cause I hadn’t done it in so long on my system. I ended with 10 gallons of beer and I did five gallons, one way, and five gams, like, what am I gonna do with this? And it’s like, well, you know, maybe, maybe we’ll go pick up this packet of 34 70 and see what happens.

I’ve been worried about this. And I, what I originally intended to do was make an alt beer because my plan with the old project I was working with was doing a lot of German ales. From the Northern part of Germany. I mean, there’s a lot of great beers. Don’t have a ton of a ton of traction here in America, but they all had a lot of merit, you know, different types of wheat beers, a lot of stuff from the cologne region with Cole, Shan, all fear, just different things they’re doing there.

Adam beers, uh, stick at all. There was a lot of experimentation. Could it be done? But I had a beer that didn’t turn out, right. So I went a different direction and it kind of led me down this path to getting into the alternate fermentation lagers. Uh, not long after that one, I looked into, you know, how I could do it a little better, a little cleaner, get a little closer to traditional without having to build a fermentation chamber, go through the long steps.

Uh, you know, I had a buddy, my old president from the Homebrew club. Hey, I talked about like, Oh man, you got to do a half a degree a day for 30 days. That’s the only way to make lager. And, and the guy made a lot of, a lot of great beer. He want a lot of metal. So I believed in what he said, but I figured there’s gotta be a better way of doing this.

I mean, I just, I love efficiency more than anything. And so I started reading up on the spending valves and all that, and the pressure fermentation and how Elise. It technically is in theory, but we are seeing that the pressure does suppress the females of esters from ever developing at these higher temperatures that we run ales.

So I got into that. I bought a spawning valve from the local home brew shop, quirky, Homebrew, and North Northglenn. They happen to have one on a shelf sitting there. I also decided to build one myself through an article I read off of Homebrew fines. And I’ve still got both those he’s in both today. The one that I bought from quirky works a lot better.

I prefer to use that, but I got into it and started reading some different yeasts that were a little bit more flexible and, uh, Oh God probably experimented with probably about six or seven different strains of traditional lotteries. I’ve settled on about three or four now that I use consistently for everything.

And. You know, I’ve had a lot of really hardcore traditionalist lager guys come over and drink at my house. Uh, you know, guys like Ryan pack Meyer, who you’ve had on, he’s been over a few times and had stuff. Uh, Scott Jackson, he’s also part of the new order lager group. He’s actually one of my brewing mentors.

He taught me how to make saisons. He taught me a lot about Belgium brewing. Just taught me a bunch about everything. Uh, from my early days in the Homebrew club and he comes over, it’s been awhile now, but I mean, he used to come over once, twice a week just to, to see what was on tap and, you know, actually it impressed upon him so much.

He bought a spending valve set up and now he’s doing the press fermentations and he’s texting me, Hey, how should I do this? What should I do? What temperature is this going to work? Right. And he’s cranking out some good stuff too.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, let’s talk specifically about some of the yeasts that do well under pressure versus ones that don’t do so well under pressure, right there.

There obviously is. There’s a wide variety of alias out there. There’s just as wide a variety of, of blogger use probably a smaller subset, but still there’s variety there. And I could totally see where some yeasts do better, you know, like maybe a Southern German lager isn’t going to do as well as a, as a dried CFL lager.

Ye so which ones do you find do best under pressure

Dan Moore: so far? I haven’t found anything that I really don’t like the only use that I’ve found. They’ve had not any, any positive results at all so far have been from mangrove, Jack, their steam male yeast. I think it’s the

but again, that’s kind of a hybrid D so that could just be a bad East anyways. Um, one of the V the, one of the very first ones I used, in fact, I think it was the second lager yeast I ever used was the L 17 harvest for Imperial. Um, It’s been a very solid performer since day one. In fact, almost going on two years, I’m still using repayments for my original culture.

Colter Wilson: Wow. Yeast has lasted me too. Yeah. And I will say Imperial yeast is probably one of my favorite go-tos when it comes to just. I like the fact that they’re double pitches, they come in those convenient bags. They’re like, but I’ve only done Ailes. I’ve never actually done a lager with their yeast personally.

I should. Uh, but yeah, I, I think that they just have really fresh high quality yeast to start with. Um, obviously you sound like you’re re-pitching uh, are, are you doing yeast? Slurry repitching are you growing up from like, It’s like a mixture of both,

Dan Moore: um, either, uh, you know, harvesting slurry and I might make a starter and grow it up and then split it and split it and split it.

Or I might just take the whole pitch. Just kind of depends on how the brewing schedule is going and what I’ve got on hand. Um, about a year ago, I decided to start experimenting with. The white labs, nine 40 Mexican lager yeast, which is a source from Modelo brewery. Yep. Just because they decided with this, uh, the new brewing project that I am working on to open brewery, I’m going to, I’ve been thinking about doing a lot of Mexicans style lager, focused beers, you know, throwing some corn in there.

A little bit of Esther, just, uh, a little bit different. Uh, a couple of other spurs have done that here before. Unfortunately I think they were ahead of their time and they close like Del Norte. But I think with, uh, with how popular some brewers are doing with the Mexican style beers, it’s something that could be profitable.

So I started playing with that and I had read that that could be a finicky yeast when you’re doing traditional styles. I it’s known it could toss a lot of diacetyl, which I’ve never had a problem with taking tonsils, you know, some green Apple Ester, which I have not had a problem with. Again, under pressures it’s performed very well.

Um, The absolute rock star that I discovered just through hanging out at the home brew shop and talking with guys, and they’re like, Hey, we got this cool vault strain from white labs. It’s the, an index lotteries WALP eight 35, the cluster and ex brewery. It’s, uh, it’s a monastery brewery in Southern Germany in Bavaria, extremely flexible yeast, this stuff for months.

Just like a monster. I get sick. Super great attenuation better than 34, 70 actually has a little bit of flavor to it. It has a strange quality that it leaves a really silky mouthfeel, almost kind of like, uh, the French 37 11 stays on use. Like it leaves some slickness to it. So you can dry a beer out to 10 Oh four, 10 Oh six and it tastes like a 10, 10 beer.

And the mouthfeel and it’s, it’s extremely repeatable. I’m on probably generation 13 or 14. Wow. At any temperature, people are having really good success with it. Even people that are doing, um, open atmosphere, high temperature brewing. It’s a great East. Uh, see I played with, uh, eight 33, the East, which it does perform well.

Uh, my big issue with it is it’s really long to clarify. It is a stubborn East to draw clear.

Colter Wilson: And if you do in loggers, you got to have a clear beer, right? It’s it’s gotta be crystal

Dan Moore: clear. Yeah. And I do love the results that I get from it, but ultimately, ultimately, what I’ve been doing with these experiments is.

Something I want to take and move on to this brewing project that I’m doing on a professional scale. And that time is a hindrance. You know, my goal here is how fast can I make this stuff at a high quality and get it turned over to where I’m making lagers on the, on the ale timetable. Yeah. So that is kind of, yeah.

So let’s talk for 70 Optum obviously works really well. Uh, I haven’t found anything that does not work well, but I have not played with the Czech lager yeast yet, but that is coming up very soon and, uh, probably in the next month or so I’m going to start playing with using something like either like Boockvar or the Pilsner Kell yeast, and you know, all that.

Stuff’s going to be over at new order logger going through what’s happening with that and how that project’s going.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, let’s talk a bit about what that process looks like for fermenting under pressure, right? So let’s assume I’m a brand new brewer. I like to kind of take this from that, that viewpoint, right.

Yeah. Yeah. And let’s say, you know, Hey, I’m a, I’m a guy who’s, I’ve made a couple extract batches and I’m brewing in buckets. And I, I want to take on a logger and I don’t want to have to go get a fermentation chamber, similar situation you were just talking about. Right. And so, but, but before we dive into that, let’s take a quick break.

I’m going to grab a beer. I’m going to do, we’ll do a commercial break. And then when we come back, Let’s dive into the process of what it takes to actually get a set up, to do some pressure fermenting for some, for, for, uh, for some waters. Sound good.

Dan Moore: Fantastic. I need to refill too. Awesome. I’m going to go

Colter Wilson: fill up a beer.

All right now, we’re back. And we’ve got Dan Moore, a new order loggers, and we’re going to have a conversation. We just went to the commercial break. We were going to hop into how to pressure ferment a lager. So, you know, like I said, the question was. Let’s say I’m a brand new brewer I’m brewing. I maybe you’ve done my first all-grain brew in a bag batch.

I’m still fermenting in, in buckets. I w what stuff do I need and how do I get to a pressure fermented lager? So I don’t have to go out and buy a bunch of fermentation chambers and go crazy. So, w w what would be your advice there?

Dan Moore: Well, Coulter, I mean, if you’re already doing in a bag and going into buckets, you’re, you’re like three quarters of the way there.

There’s not a whole lot of extra equipment, especially if you’re already a brewer that is serving at a kegs, you already have some of the equipment. If you’re a guy that’s into serving out of kegs, you’re constantly finding kegs to pick up each check Facebook finds and the home brew meetup pages and let go, stuff like that.

You accumulate kegs. And so when you have a couple extra sitting around, you start getting the idea, Hey, Megan, start fermenting in these. I’ve seen that thread of Homebrew talk. It’s like 300 pages as long. There’s something obviously going on about this. Um, I mean, as far as fermenting, the only piece of equipment and you need, besides the keg is going to be responding valve, you know, as yeast is fermenting and turning maltose.

And to awesome, beautiful alcohol and everything is doing all. It’s converting all these sugars and stuff. It’s going to produce CO2. If you’re just in a sealed keg, it’s going to keep producing CO2 until the cat gets away. Nobody wants, nobody wants a beer grenade. I mean, if you think you’re right, which is

Colter Wilson: around 140 PSI, that’s when the, the, the little pop top actually gives it.

I think that’s what it

Dan Moore: was. Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you think your wife was pissed off about your blow off tube, going to the ceiling, wait until you actually blow up a room with a beer.

I have a wife, so I can’t come up yet

Colter Wilson: completely. I do. And if I did a beer Claymore, I’d be dead. So it has never happened to me. So

Dan Moore: really need is you need something to let off that pressure in a controlled fashion. And that’s what a spawning valve does. Your splinting valve is going to attach to your, your gas in port on your corny keg.

And it’s going to be set at a certain pressure and I’ve played around with a lot of different pressures anywhere from four PSI up into the 14 PSI. I find for the most part, the sweet spot has been in that 10 to 12 PSI range for a good range of temperatures, anywhere from the low. Low sixties in the winter time to, even into the high she’s getting into the higher seventies in the summertime that 10 PSI range seems to do really well.

It suppresses the esters, it suppresses females from forming. Uh, one of the great benefits of doing the, you know, the closed pressure fermentation. Is you actually get to keep some of that natural carbonation in your beer. And if you can keep things in that eight to 12 PSI range constantly, when you’re done fermenting and you have to crash it, you’re reabsorbing that CO2 back into the solution that you used to be forcing with CO2.

And this it’s all pretty anecdotal. There’s not a ton of evidence about it, but a lot of people are doing this, do see a, a. I guess you could say a softer CO2 presence in the beer. You get a lot more, the smaller bubbles. You’ll see people talk about small bubbles versus big bubble, forced carbonation. You get the big bubbles.

You’re just, you’re forging that CO2. You’re creating a lot of carbonic acid and you get a bite to the beer when you’re doing the natural pressure. , you’re getting a softer rounder feel to your palette.

Colter Wilson: Well, and I’ll also add too, is that totally it’s free. It’s there. And one thing I’ll add is, is that like, I, I have a friend who Craisins all of his beers, which is essentially this, exactly that right.

Same idea. He, he holds back some of his work from his original beer and he calls it his green beer. And he’ll ferment out his beer and then when he’s done, he’ll actually start fermenting some new beer and throw it into the, into whatever he wants to carbonate. And that’s actually how he carbonates all of his kegs and he makes phenomenal beer.

I know it’s anecdotal, but, and I will agree with you. I personally perceive that splendid beers and beers that have a different type of carbonation and I believe it as well. So I’m going to agree with you on that. So, so if you’re going to spun beer like that for combination, is it, you know, that you’re a couple points away from your final gravity and then just pull the Balvin.

Let it pressure up. What does that look like? Oh, that’s been

Dan Moore: traditional way of doing it for many years. Uh, people would say, Hey, watch when you’re about two, maybe three points away from gravity and then cap your beer. I even go back 10, 15 years in some of these Homebrew talks threads, and people will be fermenting in a car boy, and they’ll be watching it.

And as soon as they get down to about that, you know, if my beer is supposed to finish at 10, 10:00 AM at 10, 13, 10, 14, I’m going to transfer it. To my keg and let it finish. And they’re essentially, they’re getting the same end result. They’re getting some natural carbonation. Whereas what we’re doing with the pressure fermentation is we’re maintaining that pressure, the entire tie.

Yep. So a day after my beer starts fermenting, you know, a day or two days into after pitch, it’s carbonated beer the whole time. Granted it’s warm. So it releases it very quick. It’s not going to stay in solution very long. But the carbonation is there the whole time and, you know, production again, going back to being a pro the production standpoint of it is, Hey, I’m cutting two days off my production time.

If my beer has already carbonated, when they start crashing, it’s absorbing this CO2 because the cold thing, you know, we all know the colder beer is the more it absorb CO2. If it’s already there, it’s cooling down. I’m cutting off that time. I don’t have to throw it in a bright tank and just. The crash and pressure the heck out of it, there’s a ton of loss and cost of CO2 in the head pressure and the beer to try and get this into a service product.

So again, back to my goal of efficiency, everything I can do to shave off time is increasing my profit. And again, if you get a better product out of it even better, so it works out really well. And, uh, You know, another big part of it. I think, um, I’m getting some pretty successful beers out of this is the reduced oxygen contact know when you’re fermenting in a keg, you’re fermenting in a closed environment.

There is no oxygen ingress. And when you’re done fermenting, I’m using CO2 to transfer from my fermenting CAG over my serving keg. It’s not touching oxygen at all either. You know, we purge the keg out. Was run it through. So the beer is not seeing oxygen from the time it leaves the kettle until the time it’s in your glass.

And I do think that does have some effect. Um, recently I just filled out the couple of growlers for some friends just to get rid of the keg. Cause I was sick of drinking it. When you start moving into 10 gallon batches, you end up with a lot of excess beer and you get really sick, pretty fast. That’s something I really miss from pro brewing is not having to drink my entire batch of beer.

That’s great.

Colter Wilson: COVID COVID, it’s made that worse, right? Is like you, you can’t have, you can’t have five friends over to drink it either.

Dan Moore: You know, I got a pretty big yard so I can space them. Yeah.

Just putting, putting this beer into a, into a growler and you know, I didn’t purge it or anything. I just filled it up off the tap. Capped it off in a sat there. I was going to give it to one neighbor. He didn’t want it, give it to another neighbor. He’s got to take a break from drinking due to medications, such as sat there.

And I was going over to a buddy’s house from work. And I was like, Oh, Hey, I’ve got this growler bureaus, take it over there. He likes beer and we crack it open. And he’s like, Oh, this is so great. I drank it. And I’m like, Oh wow, this got oxidized. Like, this is not the way this beer supposed to taste. Yeah.

And so the oxygen does play a fate of a flavor factor into everything.

Colter Wilson: Right. I couldn’t agree more. And, and like, for example, you know, I’m recording the show. I am having a beer with you and you’re having a beer with me remotely. And I personally, for men cakes as well. And I ferment like, like for example, I’m drinking a hazy IPA right now, which is a beer that is super susceptible to oxygen.

Right? Oh, bad. They get oxidized, they turn purple. I actually, you know, I have a friend that sent me a bottle of one, which like, there’s no way you can oxidize it. If you put it in a bottle and poured it out. And it went, and it was a great beer, but it was purple as hell. Right. And so it’s something where, uh, the, the.

The hop content in the, and there’s so many hops in them. They’re just so susceptible to oxygen and, and, and fermenting and kegs is easily. The solution, one thing that I found is I use a floating Dick dip tube, right? Is that I use that so that when I, when I transfer from one keg to another, to get it off the yeast cake, uh, it’s pretty simple because the floating dip tube works great.

Is that what you’re doing with your setup with the spending valve? Or are you using feeding tubes or not?

Dan Moore: I actually, I have floating dip tubes. Um, and most of my serving kegs, I have tried it with my fermenting kegs. And honestly, I was not a big fan of it. Um, I bought a, they call it a keg mentor for more beer.

Yep. And it’s a 13.2 gallon. I forgot what that is in liters, but it’s a European size that somebody cut a hole in the top and they put up a four-inch TC valve onto it really cool for men or for more beer. And I end up getting again from quirky and I was like, cool. I can do, I can do like 10, 11-gallon batches with Headspace and everything has all this time.

My problem, especially on the bigger batches with the floating dip tube is as you’re getting to the bottom. I’m sure you’ve seen that floating dip tube starts moving around and it starts whipping. Yep. And it sat there and start whipping up all the trouble. Yes, it was defeating the purpose on hold. The, the two kegs that I’ve dedicated to just doing the two, five gallon kegs that I’ve dedicated to doing the pressure fermentation.

I ended up one of them. I cut about three quarters of an inch off the dip tube. The other one, I just took him bent it. Yeah. I mean, I just literally just took it out and bent it an inch up. And also you get about the same results out of them. Um, besides the two, five gallon corny, I have also picked up through a Facebook Homebrew sale group, two 10 gallon corny.

And it was the same thing. I took them, popped it out. I kinda of played around a lot with. Putting some water in the keg, measuring, taking it out, putting it in, measuring, taking it out and chopping off some bits and pieces to where I leave about. Oh, about a quarter of a gallon, maybe a little bit more of a quarter of a gallon left in it.

And it’s working out really well. Just using the straight dip tubes. There are a lot easier to clean. I don’t have them whipping around and stirring up the troop and everything. It just makes for a little bit cleaner, finished beer. Plus one of the things, when you’re doing the pressure under fermentation, you do not get the same yeast growth that you do with a open atmosphere fermentation.

So your cell reproduction is kind of

Colter Wilson: reduced. Okay. So you have a smaller yeast cake, essentially.

Dan Moore: Yes. Cause you’re not the, the yeast is being more, more controlled. They’re not a free for all. So you’re getting less troub production. But it still seems to be producing just as much, especially when you consider the fact that when you’re doing the pressure fermentation, especially with loggers, what we’re talking about today, you do not need those big, gigantic, huge, massive yeast pitch that really scares off a lot of home brewers.

I know when I

Colter Wilson: was first starting again. Yeah. When I, when I’ve done traditional lagers out.

Dan Moore: Yeah. Talking about like 10, 10 liter yeast

Colter Wilson: pitches. Yeah. Oh dude. I, well, when I’ve done traditional lagers in a five gallon batch, it’s like a three liter. These pages. It’s huge. Oh, and

Dan Moore: that’s probably to the most traditional guys it’s under pitching.

If you’re not doing the

Colter Wilson: 5,005,000 liter, uh, flask, but I would, you know, I didn’t want it to overflow, so I’d always do three liters in it. Right. Give it some Headspace, but even then, yeah. But, but that’s the point is like you’re and then you’re just pouring a buck, three liters of like gross half fermented beer into it.

Right. That, that was always the thing that killed me.

Dan Moore: Or you’re having to deal with crashing it. And you’re talking about your starter is a week and a half to two week process. You’re really committed to brewing that day. And everything’s on a very tightly regulated schedule to get your yeast starter propped up.

And if you’re not buying multiple pouches, which is expensive, I mean expensive. If you’re talking to Imperial, you want two pouches you’re into the 20, 25 bucks. That’s a lot of money. You might as well just go buy a case of Carlsberg and call it good. Save you time and money. And probably a lot of heartache in the

Colter Wilson: home.

Yeah, totally. You got

Dan Moore: taken to the fact of crashing it and some of these lager use are very slow to crash. I mean, they’re when you’re talking about yeasts that are used to. Actively fermenting into the forties and fifties, you’re crashing. It’s not like an alias. You gotta be like three, four or five days of cold crashing to get everything dropped out.

And it’s just so much time and planning and everything is so precise. And if you screw something up, life happens. Yeah. You’re kind of in a

Colter Wilson: pickle. Yeah, well, and they’re also used to the logging process, right? Uh, for example, a traditional lager let’s use an Oktoberfest, right? Uh, the reason like FAS Fest Bureau or a Marzen was made in March and drank in October, September and September.

Yeah. Yeah. So the idea, but the, the re it was done fermenting by the end of March, but. They kept it in cold storage for that long to get the beer to clear out. And it’s crystal clear by the time you drink it, but it’s basically sat in cold aging for seven months. And so, you know, w when you think about producing beer at a small brewery level, like you worked at a seven barrel brew house, right.

Or. You think about doing it at a Homebrew level, even cause like, for example, I only have so many fermentation vessels right. To clog up a fermentor for that long could be an expensive endeavor for a single beer and yeah. Yeah, don’t get me wrong. Sour production is also a commitment like that, but that’s a whole other show, but the idea is that,

Dan Moore: Oh, good Lord.

That’s a whole other, that’s a whole entire realm of Berlin.

Colter Wilson: Wait, but, but the idea is that you got a dedicated for a mentor for this thing to bulk age. Right. And so it’s, it’s something to me where pressure for mentoring kind of gets past all of that. Right. You’re you’re, you’re in a situation where in April time, And it ill temperatures.

You can make this crisp, clean, beautiful beer that is super crushable and crispy and, and don’t get me wrong. I am drinking an IPA right now, but the idea for me is like, Uh, I respect the lager more than, you know, and so it’s a, for me, is, is something where I feel these are great benefits for a home brewer when it comes to clogging up your, your brewing pipeline, because the homebrewers still has a pipeline.

Dan Moore: Oh, definitely. And it’s, it’s a tough balance. Like I was talking the other night when we were planning out the show, I did not plan my plan, my pipeline out very well. Now I have a massive excess of beer that I’m trying to drink through so I can get kegs, you know, crashing and moving beer through and just didn’t time it outright.

But they, the great thing with the fermenting under pressure gives you that much flexibility too, because like right now I had a. A couple weeks ago, probably when I brew that beginning of December, I did a 10 gallon split. I did a Pilsner base and you know, the first half I racked off to just be a straight up Pilsner.

And the second half I dosed the whole bunch of hops to be an Italian Pilsner. But just with the way everything worked out with, right. I thought we were in drink the beer that I already had faster and we didn’t, and I made some stronger beers that I thought I was bottle and I just, well, my lazy ass hasn’t gotten around to bottling it.

So it created a, hit a bottleneck in the pipeline. The great thing with just the straight up traditional Pilsner it’s been sitting in that fermentation keg for, Oh, probably two, three weeks past when I could’ve started crashing it. But because everything is controlled and sealed and, and just know very sterile inside that beer can sit there and wait for it.

It’s turned to get into the crash and into the system and going through and finding everything because there’s no exposure to oxygen. I don’t have to worry about oxidizing whatsoever. That beer is going to taste probably just as good. And two days when I’m able to rack to the, uh, serving keg as a would have three weeks ago when I could have absolutely.

Served it when it had finished fermenting. So it just gives you that, just that more flexibility of timing, everything out. Cause that can be a real tough thing with brewing, especially in the Homebrew level. When you know, this is a hobby, this is something you do on the side. This is something you do when Jimmy soccer practice got canceled or the wife side of town, or, you know, you have the flexibility to do that.

In a pro setting. It’s not a big deal. It’s what we do. Everything is juggle. That’s, that’s what we’re focused on a hundred percent is making the beers and they all happen on the 10th schedule. We want them to happen on the Homebrew scale. That doesn’t happen. No, it does. For 99% of us. It’s a hobby and it’s as we have time to do it.

So when you introduce the pressure fermentation part of it, it just gives you the more flexibility that you don’t have to worry so much. And when you can take the stress and the hassle out of it, It makes us so much more enjoyable because that’s what we’re doing is to have a good time.

Colter Wilson: Well, Dan, I w I want to thank you for coming on homebrewing, DIY.

This was a fun episode to talk about all these different styles of loggers and pressure fermenting and just

Dan Moore: beer in general. No, I had a blast. Can’t believe it’s

Colter Wilson: been almost two hours. Well, it’s been two hours for you, but if you’re listening to this show, it’s probably gonna be more like an hour. But, uh, the point is, is that, thank you so much for coming on Hubbard, DIY.

I think we have more to talk about. And so we’re definitely going to have to have you back on the show. Uh, and, and because Dan is local in Colorado, he’ll be easy for me to get back on the show. And, uh, yeah. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Right. Well,

Dan Moore: maybe after, maybe after COVID ends, we can, uh, uh, film this show in person and we can be drinking beer on the camera.

Colter Wilson: At the same time. I have a remote podcast set up if we need to, we could totally do that. And, and I will say, if you, if you’re listening to show, head to the show notes, I will have a link to new order loggers. You can interact with Dan there. If you have any questions about doing better loggers. Just click on there, hop on it.

This is a Facebook group. Uh, Dan is on my discord server now. I don’t know if he’ll use it a bunch. I hope he does, but uh, we’ll see. He’s not a big discord guy, but if he is on here, you could always tag him and see if he’ll, uh, he’ll answer your questions there. But yeah, the idea is, is asked Dan questions.

It’s it’s he he’s he’s here to help you make better loggers. And, uh, so head over to newer loggers on Facebook and I’ll leave a link in the show notes to get you there. Uh, other than that,

Dan Moore: I got out to a Corky home brew supply here in Colorado.

Colter Wilson: Oh yeah. Yeah. I use quirky all the time. It’s great.

Dan Moore: I mean, great.

Greg is the guy that got me my job at my Hawk.

Colter Wilson: That’s awesome.

Dan Moore: He’s a, he’s a dear, dear, dear friend of mine. And he’s the one that gave me the push from going Homebrew to pro. That’s awesome. That’s a huge

Colter Wilson: factor of it. That’s awesome. And I, I gotta be honest. I buy all my malt from quirky. It’s uh it’s. They have everything.

It’s great. Great

Dan Moore: internet pricing locals.

Colter Wilson: Yup. Yup. Great. It’s a, it’s an amazing Homebrew shop. So yeah, I would also recommend corgi Homebrew shop if you’re in Colorado. Well, thank you so much, Dan, for coming on the show and we’ll, uh, talk to you next time.

Dan Moore: All right. Cold. It’s been great. We can’t wait for the next one.

Colter Wilson: All right. Now we’re going to jump into this week’s feedback section and not a ton of feedback. I, I only have one piece of feedback this week and then we’ll, uh, wrap the show up. So. The one piece of feedback we got this week is from Jonesy Malone. And he sent me this message on Instagram, and he says I’m brand new to homebrewing since the day after Christmas.

And your podcast is amazing. I can’t stop listening, but I do have a question. Can you lead me to a Thermo? Well, I can use that. Can you link me to a Thermo well that I can use with a glass carboy and also a different thermal well that I can use for a brew bucket. Thanks in advance. Also linked me to where I can support you and helps the most.

I’m all in friend. Well, thank you, Jonesy. And hopefully I will see some support that that’s completely up to you. I’m just very, very happy that you’re a listener. So thank you very, very much. I did go and link him to a Thermo, well, specifically one that I have on that that is on homebrew.org, just because it’s easy to get.

I also recommend one from brewers hardware as well. They have. Any type of thermal? Well, but the big thing that I recommend in a Thermo well is getting a spun Thermo well that instead of the ones that are crimped at the bottom, you can get very, very inexpensive ones on sites like AliExpress or Amazon that are like four bucks and, you know, shipped on Amazon prime, for example, But the big problem with them is they have a crimped bottom on those Thermo Wells.

And I just think that that leaves you a place that it’s hard to clean. And I like the ones that are from brewers hardware, or the one on brewing.org that has the. Spun bottom and is got appointed tip on it. It’s just easier to clean. Also, they have a really nice flare top so that if you have a cork in the top of a carboy, or even if you just use the orange carboy cap, which is about $3 and it just fits over the top of a carboy, that Thermo is going to fit right in there.

Cause it has the. Two pieces. And then you can use a piece of tubing on the other one for a blow off tube. That’s a really great solution. Or if you have a double hold stopper, that would be another way as well. And for the plastic bucket, you can use the same Thermo. Well, so you could buy two of them or you could have one, if you do have to, the thing with the Thermo, well is you now have two temp probes that you have to have.

And so, for example, if you’re using like a Fermin track system, You now are trying to keep two different temperatures. So what I would recommend if you’re using the same fermentation chamber, just use one Thermo. Well, and that’s your beer. That’s kind of controlling the temperature of the chamber and you just kind of have to go with the other one.

Just throwing that out there. You could, if you had multiple tilts or multiple ice spindles in there, you’d be fine too. Then. Tr monitor and track the temperature, but to adjust the temperature, if you’re using a single chamber with two, with multiple beers in it, you kind of pick one beer and that’s the one that’s kind of controlling the chamber.

So just throw that out there. I will say that when doing a brew bucket, I just drill an additional hole in the top of the lid, add a grommet to it. That is the same size as you would use for an airlock. And then I just pushed through the Thermo. Well, because it has that flare top, it just sits right in in there and it works great.

So thank you so much Jonesy for that feedback. And. And, and that question about Thermo Wells. It’s a pretty exciting, I am going to say overall, the, if you want to give feedback to homebrewing DIY, one of the best things you can do is just send us an email to podcast at homebrewing, diy.beer. And last I’d like to say, thank you for listening.

I’d like to thank Dan more for taking the time to come on the show and talk to us about new order loggers. It was a great conversation. There was so much more to that conversation. We ended up talking all night. Drinking beers. It was, it was a good time to meet and, and have the company. Dan, you can always follow us on social media, head on, over to at homebrewing DIY on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

We’re on all those spaces. And that’s it for this week. And we’ll talk to you next week on homebrewing, DIY

Dan Moore: Yeah.

Episode 70- New Order Lagers with Dan Moore

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