OnTap Magazine

ATTACH THE FITTINGS S T E P 03 SETTING UP S T E P 04 You will need to get the correct fitting to match the inlet and outlet of your housing. You can either use push fittings (John Guest or DMfit) or barb fittings. Either will work, it just depends on the availability of fittings you find to match your housing. Attach your fittings to the housing making sure to use sealant tape on the threads so that you have a sealed fit. Place the seals in your filter housing, cover the PVC pipe with the filter bag, and insert the pipe into the head of the housing, making sure it is oriented so the holes sit a maximum distance from the inlet and outlet. Fill the filter head (on the outside of the pipe) with your infusion ingredients and attach the base. Make sure it is tightly sealed. Connect a beer line between the inlet of the housing and your keg coupler (or connector). Connect another beer line between the outlet of the housing and the tap. For a jockey box set up using a chill plate or coil, connect the cooling element between the Randall and the tap so that beer is cooled after infusing. The flavours will infuse better at warmer temps and the beer will reach the tap nice and cold. DISPENSING TIPS 1 2 3 INFUSION Try all sorts of flavour infusions. I’ve used hop pellets and cones, fruit, coffee and spices to great effect. I’ve also split the beer line from the keg and run a single beer through two separate Randalls carrying different infusions. FOAMING Foaming can be a problem with some infusions. Try serve at a low pressure with the flow restrictor on your tap at ‘full-open’. Slowly increase the pressure to try find a sweet spot. I have a fairly long beer line coming out of my chill plate for added resistance which helps as well. ORIENTATION Be careful to orient your pipe filter cartridge properly. More contact time in the Randall makes a difference, and you can’t easily change the orientation once you have begun dispensing. BREW-IT-YOURSELF New England IPA (6.6%) Homebrewing veteran Mike Heydenrych took the top spot in the BJCP-judged competition at this year’s Wort Hogs Summer Beer Festival. Here he shares his winning recipe. Nuts & Bolts Batch size: 70 litres Estimated OG: 1.062 Estimated FG: 1.016 Estimated ABV: 6.1 % Boil time: 60 minutes Bitterness: 37.1 IBUs Estimated colour: 5.1 SRM Mash Ingredients Pale malt 16kg Flaked oats 1kg White wheat malt 1kg Boil ingredients Mosaic [12.25 %] 200g - steep/whirlpool 20 min Citra [12.00 %] 100g - steep/whirlpool 20 min Ferment ingredients WLP008 yeast Mosaic [12.25 %] 150g - dry hop 7 days Citra [12.00 %] 100g - dry hop 7 days Mosaic [12.25 %] 150g - dry hop 3 days Citra [12.00 %] 100g - dry hop 3 days BREWER TIPS When making NEIPA, it is tempting to leave out Irish moss to get that cloudy appearance from cold break.  Cold break is very astringent, so I preferred to stick with my Irish moss and the haze is then derived from the low-flocculating yeast and extensive dry-hopping. The zero-minute hop addition also needs clarification.  In order to get enough (smooth) hop bitterness, it is important to whirlpool about three times in a 30-minute whirlpooling step.  The additional stirring breaks up the hop cone and gives better hop utilisation.  I also use an unusual hop addition at the start of fermentation; some say there are "biotransformation" reactions that occur in the fermenter.  Whether that is true or not, it makes the brewery smell wonderful during the fermentation phase. ontapmag.co.za | Winter 2018 | 57