Homebrewing Techniques
by Gregg Smith
Selecting Your Homebrew Supplier
How often would you frequent a video store with only three titles in stock? Would you shop at a grocery store which didn't keep its dairy products cool? And what about staying in a hotel where they don't clean the bathrooms. These seem to have obvious answers, but do we judge our homebrew suppliers with the same high standards we use at other consumer outlets? And what about mail order? Perhaps it's time to formulate a knowledgeable opinion.
Homebrewing is one of the fastest growing hobbies in America, and if the "sin tax" proponents have their way it may expand even faster. All it takes is a casual look to spot plenty of new businesses ready to serve hobbyists' needs. Homebrewers should be thrilled; it makes it so much easier for us to practice our craft. However ease shouldn't be the only consideration. After all you just know what's important when selecting the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, it's - cleanliness, dependability, and integrity. So how do these stand up in the homebrew shop?
RETAIL STORES
Next time you buy supplies don't just hurry in and then rush back to the brew kettle. Take some time to do a little investigating. Let's start with one of the easy ones, cleanliness. Is the shop tidy? Are items carefully stacked and free of dust? If they mill grain for customers take a look around the mill. Is all in good order or does the area have signs of old husk and other debris lying about? Look at how liquid malt extract is stored. It's inevitable these cans or bags will occasionally break but how good a job is done with clean up? Does the shop buy its dry extract in bulk? Check to see if it's repackaged neatly with no residue left on the outside of the bags. The critical question is whether you'd be comfortable buying food from this store? After all, these are foodstuffs you're purchasing.
When you've evaluated the shop's housekeeping practices take another look at the way things are handled. Are the hops stored under refrigeration? How about the yeast? Heat especially can lead to rapid deterioration of both. Thus, the shop should have its own means of storing them in a cool, dry environment. What about the grain? Is it stored in large loose bags? This might not be so bad if, once again, it's kept cool and dry. But its an even bigger plus if stored in air tight bags. If the store does its own grain milling, and well they should, do they do it to order or do you get it pre-milled in a bag that's been on the shelf for an indefinite period of time?
By this point you've started to form a pretty good evaluation of the premises but what makes you go back to the same hardware store or auto mechanic time and again? Now we're into the area of credibility and integrity. First, take time to chat with the shop keepers. Have they brewed many batches of beer? Do they use kits? Specialty grains? Full mashes? Do you feel they could help you troubleshoot problems? Do they stock a wide range of both ingredients and equipment? Are there choices or is there only one type of funnel, or one size carboy, or one type of bottle filler. You wouldn't go to a store and buy just one kind of vegetable or one size of screwdriver would you? Does the shop have a refund policy and will they stand behind their product? You expect these things of other places you shop and you should get it here too.
MAIL ORDER SHOPS
What about mail order? It's not always easy to get to the shop and make these valuations yourself. Don't despair... there are several things you can do. First call the American Homebrewers Association and ask for the names of several shops supplying your area. But don't stop there. Ask which homebrew clubs are located next to those shops, then call the contact person at the club and ask about the shop. In general club members are a critical and honest lot. Another approach is to call the local Better Business Bureau and get information on how long the store has been in business and how well they settle any complaints. Finally, the BBB recommends you pay by credit card. It makes life a lot easier if you end up with a dispute. In fact, you can usually get your card issuer to "pull back" the charge is you present your case in a reasonable manner. Also ask how long it takes to ship the order, and what type carrier is used. You wouldn't want yeast sitting in a hot mail truck for countless days.
One last item to consider is how dedicated is the store to the homebrewing movement? Do they belong to the AHA and\or the local homebrew club? Do they give discounts to club members? Is the store an organizer or sponsor of local homebrew competitions? Quite often they'll act as a clearing house for local and regional brew events; is this information easy to find? Do they carry a large variety of brewing books? All these are signs of commitment.
How does your home brew supplier rate? Do your own evaluation. As criteria use the questions outlined here. If you're dissatisfied with what you find you have all the options you would have at any other store. The customer may not always be right but stores do listen to the law of supply and demand. As a consumer you have the right and responsibility to make known the quality and service you expect. If you're in a club you might organize an evaluation of local shops. A sample evaluation checklist is provided at the end of this article. What ever your approach get out there and do some smart shopping and good brewing.
Brew supply store checklist areas
1. Cleanliness criteria:
a. Shop clean, dusted and tidy?
b. Milling area clean and free of debris?
c. Any evidence of old, spilled extract?
d. Residue on the outside of dry extract bags?
e. Rating for overall cleanliness.
2. Material Handling criteria:
a. Grain stored in secure container or in open bags?
b. Grain stored in cool dry area?
c. Hops stored in air tight bags and under refrigeration?
d. Yeast stored under refrigeration?
3. Service criteria:
a. Grain milled to order?
b. Wide variety of equipment in stock?
c. Shopkeeper knowledgeable and capable of troubleshooting?
d. Refund\exchange policy clearly posted?
e. Credit cards accepted?
f. Any unresolved complaints at the Better Business Bureau? Are they a member?
4. Commitment to homebrewing criteria:
a. Wide variety of brewing\beer books available for purchase?
b. Member of AHA and\or local homebrew club?
c. Discounts to local homebrew club members?
d. Organizer or sponsor of local homebrew competitions\events?
e. Shop acts as a clearing house for local brew info?
Scoring:
Assign a 5 point maximum for each criteria. Less than 10 points in any area or total score of less than 70 may give you cause to consider the shops adequacy. A score over 90 is probably a very good shop.
Fermentation, where would a brewer be without it? Certainly beer wouldn't be the same. Without yeast doing its job beer would be a very sweet cup of tea indeed. Of course you usually don't give it a second thought, just add a pack of yeast and let those little guys go to town right? Sure, and not quite.
Let's take some time to cover what can be done with the yeast to make your homebrew more like the commercial beers you enjoy. When you go in they'll ask several questions. First, what style of beer do you want to brew? Homebrew shops usually start new brewers off with ale kits, and they have a very good reason. Ale yeast has a natural characteristic of working best in warm temperature ranges, generally in the neighborhood of 60-75 degrees Fahrenheit. Most homebrewers lack the sophisticated temperature controls required for fussier lager beers, making ales the logical style for new brewers.
Perhaps you've been purchasing kit beers. Those kits often come with a little packet of yeast under the can's plastic lid, convenient and a no-brainer. But under what conditions was that yeast stored? Sensitive to temperature extremes, the yeast may have suffered considerale damage in transit. Far too often the kit yeast produces a sluggish fermentation, or worse, one which never starts. Instead, purchase a pack that your homebrew shop refrigerated. When arriving home treat the yeast as you would any other perishable item; place it in a zip plastic bag and store it in the 'fridge.
Okay, you've switched to a high grade, yeast variety, what's next? When you first began brewing you simply opened the packet and sprinkled it into the fermenter. So here comes the first change in technique. Before pitching (adding) the yeast allow it to acclimate first. You wouldn't go from couch potato to overnight marathon runner would you? Don't expect this of your yeast either. Give it a chance to get in shape. At the start of your brewing day take the yeast out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature. Next, about fifteen minutes before the end of your boil get a sanitized bowl and add tepid (about 90 degree) water. Pour in the yeast and stir gently. Brewers call this "rehydrating the yeast", think of it as warm up exercises. After cooling the wort (the malt /hop mixture in your brewpot) to around 70o degrees add the water\yeast mixture. Of course, your yeast considers breathing just as essential to a healthy life as you. When you first pour water into the primary fermenter slosh it around a bit, this will increase the amount of oxygen available for the yeast.
Once you've pitched the yeast place it in a temperature range of 60 to 75 degrees. Over the next day or two it should start churning and bubbling. Ferment comes from the Latin word fervere, "to boil". Don't fret. Mother nature and the yeast will take care of everything over a week's time.
As you develop into a more experienced brewer you'll start hearing of liquid yeasts. These present yet another improvement. Liquid brands of yeast provide a more pure strain. As with the dry yeast, store it in the 'fridge and remove the pack a day before you plan brewing. Allow it warm to room temperature and follow the directions to puncture the "inner" packet while the outer package remains sealed. Over the next day you'll notice the pack begin to swell. Don't panic, it should expand into a blimp shape. In this manner the yeast gets a head start and in fact brewers call this a "starter". After brewing and cooling the wort you open the liquid pack and pour the contents into the primary fermenter.
Liquid yeast provides many advantages foremost it has minimal amounts of off flavors and aromas. Liquid yeast achieves this by the quick "head start" which leaves little room for wild microbes to establish themselves in the beer. Although slightly higher in price, experienced brewers swear by the results obtained from liquid strains.
One other fermentation hint; place the fermenter on a table. This will make life a lot easier when it comes time for racking (transferring the beer to a secondary fermenter or bottling bucket). Secondary fermenter? Quite simply it's a method of letting your beer age a bit while removing it from contact with all the trub and other gunk in the bottom of your fermenter. After active fermentation appears complete (a couple of days after it quits churning and bubbling through the airlock) sanitize a hose and carefully siphon the beer into another fermenter called a secondary. When siphoning don't slosh the beer and be sure to siphon from a level just above the layer of gunk at the bottom of your "primary" fermenter. Now you just let it sit an additional 5 to 10 days 'till you're ready to bottle. The effort will yield a more mature beer with a thinner layer of sediment in the bottom of your bottles.
To review: buy a well known quality yeast, store it in the refrigerator, rehydrate the yeast, maintain fermentation temperatures in the correct range, and rack to a secondary fermenter. Next time we'll discuss priming, bottling and storing. But right now a cold home brew's calling.
One last temperature factor can ruin all the efforts you have taken so far. The best temperature for ale yeast to do its work is about 60 to 70oF. Once you start fermenting above 75o you enter the range where fusel oils can be produced. Fusel oils add a solvent like aroma to your beer, a very undesirable character.
In warm weather locations it's very common to be above 70o for much of the year. What's a poor amateur brewer to do? First, try putting the fermenter in the north east corner of a basement. Don't have a basement? Place it near your air conditioner (and cover it from light). Still a bit too warm in either the basement or near an air conditioner? No problem, wrap a towel around the primary fermenter and place it in a pan of shallow cool water. The towel will wick up the water and natural evaporation will give you and additional 2-4o of cooling. Need a little more cooling? The breeze of a small fan can buy you a couple more degrees. If it's still too warm you may need to invest in a second-hand refrigerator and modify it with a thermostat kit.
Improving Your Extract Brewing: Simple Steps to Better Beer
You're a beer enthusiast, you must be or you wouldn't be reading this column. So far we know that much about you. You're also fairly new to this intriguing hobby of brewing. Cool! It means you're prepared to join a group which included America's earliest settlers, our founding fathers and thousands of others who've rediscovered their beer roots. Of course entering this hobby also positions you to be the envy of your non_brewing (but beer loving) friends.
This piece is about adopting some simple steps to improve your beer. But first let's get something straight, "home brewing" is a relatively new term, invented actually. Sure, what you're doing is in the home, but homebrew has a connotation of prohibition beer, and today's equipment and supplies makes a brew far removed from grampa's concoctions of the 20's and 30's. So, the first thing you need to do is drop the word "home" out of what you're doing. You're a brewer.
When your grandparents made beer back in prohibition days it was a rather simple process. They went to the store and picked up a can of malt syrup, they asked the shopkeeper for some brewer's yeast and concluded their shopping with a bag of sugar. Grocery clerks all across America rang up the purchase with knowing smiles. At home they mixed the malt and sugar in a big pot of water, and added some hops, if they had a supply or knew where wild ones grew in the woods. Then they boiled the mixture, transferred it to a large washtub, waited till it cooled and added the yeast. After a week they added a little more sugar as they bottled their homebrew.
Today's brewing supplies are now much more refined, improved, and custom made for small batch brewing. But surprisingly the brewing process is still very much like the steps Grandma and Grandpa followed. In fact it will make drinkable beer. It'll even be a little better tasting than what they made in the old days. But with just a little more knowledge and some easy to follow steps you can make a beer you'll prefer over anything you can buy in the local convenience store.
Most articles on easy brewing techniques start something like this..."Ready to improve your beer? The first thing you do is throw away the yeast and directions under the lid." Yes indeed, most advice begins that way _ not ours. Early in the "homebrew boom" the supply shops were, like new brewers, fairly unsophisticated. They stored yeast under the plastic lid of malt cans along with a set of directions. You still get a packet of dried yeast with your kit but now most stores will pull the pack from the refrigerator and place it under the lid when they sell it to you.
Shop keepers are also fairly knowledgeable about the brewing process and will probably make one other suggestion. Odds are they'll advise you not to add 3 pounds of cane sugar as called for in the directions. What will follow is a convincing argument to purchase an extra can of malt. If you think something's going on you're correct. The shop keeper is actually trying to help you make better beer. Can you make beer with the cane sugar? Of course you can, but it will be different from an all malt beer. Cane sugar is less expensive than malt, it also produces a couple unbeer_like traits. It'll be somewhat cidery in taste and the carbonation will be more harsh than what you're used to. The shopkeep probably suspected you were a fan of microbrew styles and the push toward an extra can of malt is not an exercise in taking advantage, it's trying to appeal to your taste. The best bet is to take this advice and also ask for a one pound bag of dry malt extract. We'll come back to that dry extract later.
Shopping: If you don't have a large (at least 12 quart) stainless steel pot and a brew kit with fermenter, ask the shopkeeper for a recommendation. Then it's time for the ingredients: 2 cans (3.3 lbs each) of unhopped malt extract, 2oz of Northern brewer hops, 1 oz of Williamette hops, 1oz of Kent Goldings hops, 1 packet of M&F ale yeast, 1 packet of Irish Moss, and a one 1lb bag of light dry malt extract. When you get home place the hops, yeast and Irish Moss in a storage bag in the refrigerator. NOTE: Different combinations of hop varieties are used by the world's great brewers in making their distinctive beers. The hops suggested here will produce an effect similar to an English style ale. Your shopkeeper should be able to make recommendations to alter your hop additions depending on the style of beer you want to brew.
If you are an intermediate level brewer the addition of specialty malts is equally important. For this English ale try steeping 3/4 pound of milled crystal malt in your brew water (155 degrees for 20 minutes.) Remove the grain before adding the extract and beginning the boil.
So now you're the owner of a brand new brewery. Yup, the pot, bottling buckets, hops, malt extract, bottle capper and other goodies is a scaled down version of the same process used by your favorite microbrewery and the big brewers as well. The first thing to do with your brewery is to put some effort into the same start up process they use in big operations_ cleaning.
Cleaning? Yes. In a brewery cleanliness is next to...well, you know. Start days before you brew by securing a bottle supply. Actually this can be fun if you intend to empty them yourself. What you want are the "tall necks". Don't get twist off bottles, the thin glass in that style won't withstand recapping. Next, remove the labels, this is easier than imagined, simply ask your homebrew shop for a powdered caustic sanitizer. Place 2 or 3 teaspoons in the bottom of a bucket and fill the bucket 1/3 full of hot water. Fill the bottles with hot water and stand them in the bucket. Then add water to the bucket until it is just under the top of the bottle. Within a half hour the labels should easily come off. More on cleaning later.
Brewday preparations: Place your cans of malt extract in the sink and fill it with hot water (it'll help the malt flow easier when you open the can). Set 3 gallons of good tasting supermarket spring water to chill in your 'fridge as you take the hops, yeast and Irish Moss out. Toss your airlock, large metal cook spoon, a soup bowl and fermenter lid into your plastic fermenter and place that in the bath tub. Add either a couple tablespoons of caustic sanitizer, or 1 cup unscented chlorine bleach in the fermenter and fill with warm water.
Brewing: Add a gallon of water to the brewpot. Open the cans of malt and with your sanitized cook spoon (rinsed off) thoroughly mix the malt with the water in the pot. Add water to make a total of two gallons, turn on the heat and bring to a rolling boil. As the boil starts add 2oz of Northern Brewer hops for bittering. Carefully watch the pot for a few minutes each time you add hops because it could boil over. You will continue this boil for 45 minutes. When you're 15 minutes into the boil add the 1oz of Williamette hops for flavor. Then 30 minutes into the boil add 1 tsp of the Irish Moss (it'll help clear the finished beer.)
After ensuring the Irish Moss doesn't boil over get the sanitized soup bowl, rinse it off, fill it half way with warm water and sprinkle in the yeast. Back at the brew pot you take action again. During the last minute of the boil add the ounce of Kent Goldings hops for aroma, turn off the heat and cover the pot.
Now it's time to cool it down. Toss the ice cubes in the sink with a couple inches of water and settle the pot into this ice bath. Add a little more water to bring the ice/water level to an inch below the pot lip. Keep the lid on the pot to prevent wild airborne bacteria from infecting your beer as it cools.
Go to the bath tub and empty and rinse off the remainder of your brew equipment. After the pot has been in the ice for fifteen minutes add the chilled spring water to the fermenter, then pour the brewpot contents into the fermenter. Pour in the yeast, snap on the lid, place the airlock (half filled with water) in the fermenter, and place the fermenter in a cool (65 degree) dark place for 8 to 9 days. As you become more experienced (and a regular customer) your homebrew shop will eventually try to steer you from dry to liquid yeast. Again, they'll be trying to help you. Although liquid yeasts are more expensive they are, in general, much more pure strains than dry yeasts. The smoother taste of liquid yeast may well be worth the extra money you pay.
Bottling: Sanitize your bottling bucket, bottle caps, bottles siphon tubes and fillers in the same manner described in brewday preparation. Let it sit at least 15 minutes.
NOTE: Here you have an option for easy bottle sanitation. If you have a dishwasher you can rinse out the bottles and place them upside down on the dish rack make sure the labels are removed prior to placing bottles in the dishwasher. Turn the dishwasher on the last rinse and heat dry cycle. It will adequately sanitize your bottles.
Remember the bag of dry malt you were told to buy? Take a cup of the malt powder and mix it with two cups of water and boil it for a minute. Place the remainder in a ziplock freezer bag for storage. Rinse off all your sanitized equipment and bucket. Pour the boiled malt mixture into the empty bottling bucket and siphon the beer into the bucket. This addition of malt will prime (carbonate) your bottled beer.
You should note that the amount of priming malt varies according to the style of beer made. For the English ale we've been describing one cup of dry malt is sufficient. However, a wheat beer, which is known for high effervescence, will need up to one and a half cups dry malt.
Next fill the bottles to within three quarters inch of the top and cap. Place the filled bottles in a cool dark place.
About 3 weeks after bottling the beer should be carbonated. The next part is where the fun starts. I want you to chill your beer and invite me over.
Early in medieval study of brewing, beer scientists of the day, monks and other clerics, searched for a means to preserve their beer. There was no refrigeration and beer, as a food stuff could, and did, go bad. The good brothers of the cloth worried about maintaining a supply over the summer months when it was just too warm for yeast to product beer. In fact, their inability to preserve this vital beverage was the primary reason breweries remained small. Why brew more if you could only keep it fresh in the area immediately surrounding the abbey? Knowing their product was perishable led to experimentation and an incredible array of attempts to stabilize beer. They tried adding herbs, spices, and peppers. Even tree bark was tossed into the brew kettle. Finally around 800 AD brewers discovered an answer in the flower of a climbing vine. In fact, the use of this flower, hops, became so commonplace that by the year 1516 Germany listed it as one of only four ingredients allowed in beer. To this day hops are an indispensable part of brewing although their original purpose has been largely forgotten.
Our first article in this series focused on a simple improvement to kit beers by replacing sugar with malt. This time you'll take yet another step, it will prove as large an enhancement as switching to all malt. For most homebrewers adding fresh hops starts them along the path of fine tuning their beer. With that let's move on to the next big step in brewing technique...hop additions.
When you started brewing your local supply shop probably recommended a very simple kit which included a can with small pelletized hops already blended into the rich malt syrup. If you looked closely enough you could even see the little green specs. At home it was quickly dumped into your brewpot for a boil, next you cooled it, added yeast, and got - BEER! Great, and although it tasted good (nobody's baby is ugly) it probably was a little bit different than those flavorful micro brews you've been drinking. To bring them closer in taste you substituted malt for sugar. Customized hopping will bring you closer still, and after formulating your own hop additions you'll never go back to pre-hopped kits.
Start by picking up a couple of cans of unhopped malt. Next you must consider, how much, when, and what varieties of hops to use. Sounds quite complicated, but it's important to remember brewing is basically a very simple process. This explanation of adding hops will keep it simple.
Hops are added at three different points of your boil to produce bittering, flavor, and aroma. This requires only a little forethought and planning. In a basic five gallon brew you need to add about one ounce of bittering hops at the start of a 45 to 60 minute boil. This is the minimum time for the heat to convert the bittering resin in the hops from an oil, which doesn't mix with water, into a form soluble in wort (the malt, water and hop mixture). This ounce will provide the bittering component to balance the malty sweetness in your beer.
The next timed addition is for the last 20 to 30 minutes of the boil. These "flavor hops" produce unique flavors without a masking bitterness. The result- more complex flavor in the finished beer.
A final addition of hops comes with the very last minute of the boil. Finishing hops, as they are called, produce a flowery aroma. Beware, the elements which produce the aroma are volatile because they boil off very quickly. Thus, they're added only at the last minute. Boiling a finishing hop more than a minute sends most of the aroma out of the pot in a cloud of steam. It'll smell great but little will be left in your finished beer. It will have long dissipated with that cloud of steam.
Choosing the variety of hops to use has impact equal in importance to the time they're added. It doesn't mean you have to travel to the hop yards and pick them fresh, it's choosing the right variety. Hops can differ as much as a bell pepper from a jalapeno.
When starting out the vast majority of home brewers begin with ales, partially because the fermentation temperature needs less control than lagers (subject of an upcoming column). Ales are generally divided into two classes, English and American. English style ales use traditional bittering hops like Brewers Gold for the full 45-60 minute boil. For flavor try Fuggles or Kent Goldings for 20-30 minutes then reserve the last minute of boil for Goldings, a classic aroma hop. American renditions of ale frequently employ bigger, bolder hops. For these use Galena or Northern Brewer in the 45-60 minutes of bitter enhancing boil. In the 20 to 30 minute flavor addition select Cascade, Williamette, or Mt. Hood and finish with aroma hops of Cascade or Williamette. To duplicate the really big flowery nose character of many brews try using an aroma finish of Tettenang hops.
For the homebrewer, hop additions are made easy by your supplier. Usually they package hops in one ounce bags. Add them in what's called your "hop schedule" which means your timed boiling of bittering- 45 minutes, flavor- 25 minutes and aroma hops- 1 minute. Use an ounce of each for flavor and two ounces for bittering.
The last factor to keep in mind is hop storage. Hops can go stale and may suffer from oxidation so treat them like other food. Place them in a lock top storage bag, remove as much air as possible and keep them in your refrigerator.
One more BIG HINT. Anytime you add something like hops to your boiling wort it results in a reduction of surface tension. Translation: it means more vigorous boiling and the possibility of boil over. Respect the intelligence of brew kettles. They always pick a moment of inattention to erupt. So be sure to watch your brew kettle extra carefully for a couple of minutes after you toss in your hops.
That should do it. Your local homebrew supply shop will help you match the correct varieties of hops with the style beer you plan to brew. Get hopping! Brew with your own hop recipe, and save a bottle for us.