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| Brewing with the SABCO system at Wooden Legs Brewery |
It all began one fateful Saturday morning, I got up early to make sure I had my carboy cleaned, sanitized and ready. I headed out early to swing by Ramsdell's to get my propane topped off and ready for a day full of brewing at
Wooden Legs Brewery. They were nice enough to let three homebrewers come in and use the
SABCO system that they used before the brewery opened (and if you've been there, this is the system you see right away when you walk in the door). Richard had put together and organized all of the ingredients we needed and who was responsible for what.
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| SABCO System |
This Saturday morning was also the time that my 3 year old son was getting his professional photos taken in Elkton, SD (about 20 minutes away from the brewery). So the plan was to meet up with Rich at the brewery and drop off the 10 gallons of distilled water and propane tank that I was responsible for bringing, and head out for his pictures. So I met Rich there, and we both looked at the brewery and the lights were off and we started to wonder if anyone was going to be there to let us in. The idea was to get most of the brewing done before they opened for the day at noon. Luckily Brant was in the back either fixing or putting up a new light fixture and was able to let us in. I was running a little late and ended up being late to my sons pictures (not by much), and about an hour or so later when they got done I drove right back to the brewery to join back in on the fun.
I got there after the grains were crushed and they had started heating up the sparge water to use for the mash (I think I explained that right). I'm still getting familiar with the all grain process so I just looked for ways to help and to keep learning. The first thing that I had helped out with was stirring with the mash paddle to help break up any clumps to get the mash loosened up. We did use a lot of grain in this batch, which lead to probably the main reason this ended up taking most of the day...getting stuck. I think Rich had said a total of about 5 times the system got clogged up with the grain. Each time turned into what looked like a high school chemistry class where people started swarming around the system and trying everything from blowing in the tubes to messing with the pumping system to figure out where the stuck had occurred.
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| Rich and Ethan working on the mash |
The dip tube in the mash tun ended up being the main problem area we kept getting stuck in. It was getting clogged with the grain that made it under the false bottom. Rich thinks it's because we put all the grain in first and that's how it got under the false bottom right away at the beginning.
So because of all the clogging we ended up staying later than expected, but it's not like eating the Wooden Legs deli sandwiches (which are amazing) and drinking craft beer on an early Saturday afternoon is a terrible thing.
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| Great sandwiches |
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| Craig's side batch |
Once we got everything into the next keg to start the boil, we realized there was still quite a bit left, so Craig seized the moment and went home to get some of his home brewing equipment, to start a side batch. Everyone was in agreement that we shouldn't waste this, so we might as well try to ferment it out and make more beer from it! So we ended up having 4 total home brewers involved with each taking home their own batch to ferment/bottle/keg/drink.
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| All 4 homebrewers pouring in the D 180 extra dark Belgian Candi Syrup |
It can't be said enough how helpful the Wooden Legs staff was to us on this day, not only did they let us use the SABCO system, and use the brewhouse to brew in, they also helped out through the entire process. Everyone from the founders (Seth and Brant) to one of their head brewers (Ethan - who wasn't even scheduled to work that day) ended up giving us advice and helping us through the entire process. I almost think there is something appealing to them about seeing homebrewers using that system and takes them back to the days where that was them, before the brewery opened. This shows how much people actually care and love brewing beer, that on a random Saturday they are willing to help out a group like us, strictly because of the fact that they love brewing. Just another reason why I love the homebrewing/brewing community, everyone is all about helping each other.
Cheers,
Matt
