Burgers and Brew

In honor of the 4th of July we are posting a recipe from our customer (Glenn Sinish) and how he uses Tappecue to make his own home brewed American IPA and not much more is American than Burgers and Beer. So in combination with the Brew recipe here is one of my own recipes for smoked burgers.

BREWING RECIPE:

Brewing involves many steps and the step that Tappecue helps the most is the mash step. This is when the milled and crushed grains are steeped in water for a period of time to allow the enzymes in the malt to activate and turn the starches into fermentable sugars. The important aspect of this step is the temperature in which you mash at. Generally mashing takes place between 146F-156F. The lower the mash temperature the higher amount of simple sugars and in turn the beer will have less body and mouthfeel. A higher mash temperature will yield less fermentable sugars and thus will give more mouthfeel and body to the beer. The fermentable sugars created during the mash are taken up by the yeast and then alcohol is produced. The beer I am making is a newer style (if it is even a style at all yet) and requires less mouthfeel and body to give the desired taste. This style is the Brut IPA or Champagne IPA as some refer to it as. It is light bodied and very bubbly like Champagne. It has very little bitterness and low malt character. The idea is to create a light spritzy beer and add hops at the end of the boil to allow for the flavor of the hops to come through without the bitterness.

My first step was to create a recipe. I researched this style and even found some ideas that came from the originator of this style. I created the recipe in a homebrew software called Beersmith. The recipe is below:

Brut IPA

American IPA (21 A)

Type: All Grain

Batch Size: 5.50 gal

Boil Size: 7.23 gal

Boil Time: 60 min

Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage

Date: 15 May 2018

Brewer: Glenn Sinish

Equipment: Glenn's BIAB

Efficiency: 72.00 %

Ingredients

Amt Name Type

8.75 gal Spring Water Water

8 lbs Pilsner (Weyermann) (1.7 SRM) Grain

2 lbs 8.0 oz Rice, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain

1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.0 min Hop

1.00 oz Mosaic (HBC 369) [12.25 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.0 min Hop

1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35.49 ml] Yeast

0.55 ml Amyloglucosidase (Primary 3.0 days) Other

2.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop

2.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop

I began brewing on Friday May 25th. I milled the grains and prepared my strike water in my kettle. My kettle has an external thermometer that will give me the temperature of the water inside. This is useful when checking how close I am to getting to mash temperature or boiling but it is not 100% accurate. Once the was able to get the water up to 154F I then placed my brew bag in the water and then added the grains. The grains were added slowly and mixed in the break up any dough balls (clumps of grain stuck together and not fully hydrated). Now is when Tappecue comes in. I setup my Tappecue thermometer. I use the Extra Care Probe to ensure that the probe is waterproof and can handle a humid environment.

I then place the kettle lid on to help maintain a constant temperature and to make sure nothing falls in the water.

I then setup my session in the Tappecue app and I’m ready to go. I started with an initial mash temperature of 153F because I did not insulate the kettle. I wanted to end up at 148F which I

did.

The Tappecue thermometer allowed me to finish working on other brewing steps and anything else I wanted to do for the next hour. If I wanted to know the temperature all I had to do was check the Tappecue app. No longer do I need to constantly go to the kettle to read the thermometer on the kettle. I also set up a minimum and maximum temperature so that I could receive alerts if the temp fell too low. Fortunately, the temp maintained steady as evidenced by this graph:

Once the hour had passed and the mash was over I removed the Tappecue thermometer and then pulled my brew bag out of the kettle and allowed the wort to remain in the kettle. I brew using the Brew in a Bag (BIAB) method so I do not have to sparge and the filter the grains out of the wort. Then I boiled the wort for an hour and once that was completed I turned the burner off and added my hops while cooling down with the wort chiller. During this time, I created a whirlpool to allow the hops to infuse with the wort and also speed up the cooling. Once the wort was down to 70F I pulled my wort chiller and siphoned the wort to my fermentation chamber (glass carboy). I then added an extra enzyme (amyloglucosidase) to help further break down the sugar. This will aid in creating an extremely dry and light beer. Here is the wort in the fermentation chamber actively fermenting away:

Now I wait. I’ll add some more hops soon. Then once fermentation is complete I’ll transfer the finished beer into a keg and carbonate with CO2 while allowing the beer to get to serving temperature. All in all, the Tappecue has helped me tremendously with mash temperature control. No longer do I have to babysit the kettle just like I no longer have to babysit my smoker either.

BURGER RECIPE:

Making a smoked hamburger is super easy and oh so worth it!

Ingredients:

1lb Ground Chuck 80/20

1 egg Beaten

2Tbs Bread Crumbs

Garlic salt to taste

Tony's Creole Seasoning to taste

Couple Shakes of Worcester

Steps:

1st. Mix all ingredients

2nd. Form into patties