fermentarium » Brewing beer

6 tasks you need to start for your home brewing season

DJ Spiess — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:17:12 +0000

Despite my best plans, I do little brewing in the winter. I might make a batch for Christmas parties and the SuperBowl, but from February to April there is little brewing activity for me. The summer months are non-stop brewing months. Here’s what I’m doing to prepare!

Clean the carboys

I hate finding out on brewing day that the fermenter I plan to use is also the fermenter I said I’d clean later. The best way for me to avoid this situation is to clean everything in advance. Go figure! Part of my preparation is to run a cleaner (like PBW) through all my fermenters. I’ll still sanitize the fermenters on brewing day, but making sure they are all clean in advance makes future brewing sessions go easier.

Every year I clean these out throughly, replace the seals, and test the pressure

Prepare the kegs

On the same line of thinking, the kegs need to be prepared too. This means cleaning and sanitizing the kegs, replacing all the o-rings, and testing the pressure on each keg in advance.

Test equipment

Somehow tubes that never leaked before, leak the following year. Seals on my larger fermenters never seal as well the following year. I check my wort chiller for leaks at the start of the brewing season by running water through it for about 10 minutes. This includes checking all the tubes for leaks. I also fill my larger fermenter with water to make sure it’s not leaking at the spouts.

Clear the hops

Hops are like kudzu, and they leave a ton of dead vines and leaves each year. I leave this in place over the winter to help insulate the roots, but it’s spring time. The dead stuff has to go. It’s also a fun excuse to see if any shoots are coming up, and cull any shoots your don’t want growing. My hops are trying to take over the yard in their yearly endeavor to choke me in my sleep, so there are always shoots to cull. This is also a good time to dig up any rhizomes you want to share with friends, or use to start new vines.

Inventory supplies

At any point during the brewing season I know what supplies I have on stock. This information falls out of my head as soon as the season ends. Check up on what grains you have left, how much sanitizer and PBW you have, and any other recurring supplies you need. This includes keg lube, Irish moss, carboy labels, and yeast nutrients.

Plan a list of brews

This is the fun part. I look over what beers I want to make, what beers needed improving, and the dates I need the beers. I make beers for park parties, office parties, an Oktoberfest party at the end of the summer, and a big Fourth of July party. Some beers take longer than others to make, so planning a schedule helps to insure you have the right beers at each party. For example, you might want a lager and an ale for a party in a month. If you can only make one beer at a time, you’ll need to schedule the lager first. If you’re making lots of beer for different event, a schedule becomes very important.

So what things do you do to prepare for brewing?

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ND proposal may allow homebrewers to sell beer

DJ Spiess — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:20:00 +0000

This could be an early picture of a major brewery operation someday!

In North Dakota, there is a bill proposed by Dan Ruby (R) to allow homebrewers to apply for a “domestic brewery license”. This would allow homebrewers to sell their beer, offer beer tastings, or even sell their beer to wholesalers to get their beer in stores. The bill will be heard by North Dakota House’s Industry, Business and Labor Committee. You can bet I’ll be watching this closely.

Wow! How do we make this happen in Colorado? You’d think with a governor like Hickenlooper, owner of Wynkoop Brewing Company, this might be possible.

(Source: Bloomberg.com)

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How to make a Stella Artois homebrew clone

DJ Spiess — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 23:04:26 +0000

A friend of mine was planning a big celebration for her daughter’s one year birthday and she wanted me to make the beer for the party. If you’ve been to a birthday party for a one year old, you’ll understand why you need the beer. Of course I said yes because I like making beer for large groups.

“What kind of beer would you like,” I asked with thoughts of flavorful Belgian beers, rich porters, or maybe a strong IPA.

“My favorite beer is Stella Artois. Can you make Stella?” she asked. That wasn’t the Belgian beer I was expecting.

Stella Artois is a lager you can find in most stores.

If you haven’t had a Stella Artois, you probably haven’t tried looking. It’s a very common plain lager ironically from Belgium. Well it’s originally from Belgium, but most of it is made in the U.K. Either way, it’s a mass produced beer from Anheuser-Busch InBev. Basically it’s Belgian Budweiser, even though Budweiser is technically Belgian and Stella is made in the U.K. I’m sure I’ll get some argument on that… but I digress. You can find it in every liquor store and many pubs.

“Sure,” I gulped wondering how I’d make it. While Budweiser, Stella Artois, Heineken, and other similar beers get a bad reputation for being bland, it really is difficult to make a beer taste that… well… bland. Bland really isn’t fair for these beers. They produce a very crisp and clean lager, which can be very difficult to reproduce at the homebrew level. While the style may not be every homebrewer’s favorite, it’s a very popular style for everyone else. I was up for the challenge.

The first thing I did was look to see what others have used for a recipe. I was shocked to see the number of recipes I came across which added wheat malt to the beer. The beer has a very clean profile, and wheat malt just seemed a bit too Hefeweisen to be a part of Stella Artois. Others added a touch of Munich malt, dextrin malt, Vienna malt, Cara Pils, corn sugar and a bazillion other variations. Nothing sounded right. I decided to do more research.

Then I stumbled upon a post from a brewer in Melbourne who claimed he worked at the Stella Artois brewery in Australia (can’t find the original post, but if you know the post I’m talking about, let me know and I’ll link it here). His recipe was exactly what I suspected. He said it was just pilsner malt and Saaz hops. That’s it! He didn’t know the yeast used, but I doubt the yeast used would be commercially available. Stella Artois uses a house yeast like most other major brewers.

Since the beer is 5% ABV, it was very easy to determine the malt bill. Using 9 lbs, 8 ounces of pilsner malt gives you an ABV of about ~5.1%. That’s close enough for me but if you want to shave an ounce or two, go for it. There are no other grains in the beer.

I used a single infusion mash at 150 F and let it go for 60 minutes. You want a very fermentable wort, since this beer is really crisp. Any warmer and you’ll get a beer which is maltier that Stella Artois.

The hop flavor and nose are very subtile, so there shouldn’t be too much hop to the beer. Most reviews I found put the beer in the low 20s for IBUs. I went with 22 IBUs. I’m adding 1.5 ounces of hops at the beginning of the boil, and then another 0.5 ounces 5 minutes before the end of the boil.

You'll want to make a good starter for this beer.

Yeast is the “trickiest” part of this beer. As I mentioned before, their yeast isn’t likely to commercially available. I made a guess and went with your basic German lager yeast (White Labs WPL 830 German Lager Yeast). You might try the WPL 850 Copenhagen Lager yeast if you can find it. Either way I’d ferment on the lower end of the yeast’s temperature range, about 50F – 52F. This will give you a cleaner flavor.

You will also want to make a good starter for this beer. While the beer isn’t high in alcohol, you don’t want any off-flavors creeping into your beer. A good healthy starter for this lager will go a long way to perfecting your Stella Artois.

The final recipe was

9 lbs 8 ounces German Pilsner 1.5 oz Saaz (@60 min) 0.5 Saaz (@5 min) Irish Moss WPL 830 German Lager Yeast 7.0 gal pre boil, 5 gal

Since this beer is so light in color, you’ll want to make sure you use finings to help the beer clear. I always use Irish Moss when making this beer, and I add it for the last 10 minutes of the boil. After fermentation, I also let this beer lager for a month. This helps the beer clear even more.

Ultimately I ended up with a good approximation of Stella Artois. The keg didn’t last very long, and everyone agreed it tasted like Stella Artois. Mission accomplished!

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What you need to know about adding oak to beer

DJ Spiess — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:32:13 +0000

Oak is commonly used in winemaking, but lately there is interest in putting the oak in beer. Oak can give your beer different flavors from vanilla to whiskey depending on the type of oak used.

Oak barrels are lots of work, but you can carbonate the beer at the same time.

Types of oak for your beer

There are many different types of oak. Oak usually comes in three varieties, American, Hungarian, and French. The American oak gives the strongest oak flavor, while French oak gives subtler notes with other sweeter flavors like vanilla. Hungarian oak is in the middle between these two extremes.

Each of these oak varieties can also be toasted to different levels (usually light, medium, or heavy), but I’ve also seen medium-heavy and other combinations of toasting classifications. The darker the oak is, the heavier the oak is toasted. Toasting brings out some of these flavors and changes other flavors. For example, heavy toasting will give more carbonized or caramelized flavors.

Other than the origin and toasting of the oak, the oak also varies on the shape and form of the oak. You do not necessarily need to use a barrel, since your beer will not care where it gets the oak flavor. Each form of oak does have it’s advantages and trade-offs.

Oak Chips

The most common oak additive sold is oak chips. These chips look like wood shavings. They have the most surface area, so they will deliver oak flavor to your beer very quickly. This can be an advantage, or a disadvantage depending on your goals. The other problem with oak chips is they are very messy. You best bet is to use a sterilized bag with these, otherwise you’ll need to find a way to separate the chips from your beer. And don’t make the mistake I did and assume the garbage disposal can chop them into a fine pulp. It can’t.

Oak Cubes

Cubes are also common. The wood cubes have less surface area than the wood chips, so the oak flavor is delivered slightly slower. The advantage of cubes is the cubes are much easier to separate from your beer.

These oak spirals give great flavor and are very easy to clean and reuse.

Oak Spirals

Sprials or staves are becomming more common, but not all homebrew stores have them. Oak spirals are a mix between chips and cubes. The spiral has a large surface area so they quickly provide flavor like wood chips, but they are even easier than cubes to use. There is only one stick you add and remove from your beer. The disadvatage is the spirals are much more expensive than the chips or cubes. You can reuse the sprirals, but they lose their flavor quicker than barrels.

Oak Barrels

Barrels are a mixed bag. The barrels provide the most surface area, but they can be difficult to work with. Barrels can leak, contain bacteria, and are difficult to maintain. Barrels are also expensive. You can however get the most reuse from barrels. Barrels also allow some oxidation, which is usually a bad thing, but in this case it is the flavor you’d looking for.

Used barrels can provide unique flavors. A used whiskey or sherry barrel can impart whiskey flavors to your beer. You do need to be careful with used barrels. A whiskey barrel usually isn’t a problem, but wine barrels must be sanitized before you use it. When you pick a used barrel, make sure it originally housed a flavor you want in your beer.

Ways to add the oak to your beer

You could add your oak to the primary, but I add my oak to the secondary because it’s easier to monitor the oak flavors after the beer has already fermented. You need to taste your beer at different intervals (usually every few weeks) to make sure the oak flavor is where you want it.

Boiling the oak will quickly extract oak flavor into a tea and sanitize the addition at the same time

There are a few ways to add the oak flavor to your beer. You can add the oak directly to the beer, make an “oak tea”, or infuse the oak in an alcohol. Adding oak directly to the beer is the simplest way, and I’ve had good results doing this.

Another way is to make an oak tea. Boil the oak chips covered in an inch of water. Add a bit of the water to your beer and taste it. Continue to add the oak tea until you reach the flavor you’re looking for.

If you are looking to add a bourbon or whiskey flavor, infuse your oak chips in the alcohol of choice for a week. Again add a bit of the alcohol to your beer until you reach the flavor you’re looking for.

The advantage of the second two techniques is you can taste your beer as you add the oak flavor. The first technique requires you to take samples as you go, but it is good for beers which require aging over time such as a barley wine. Allowing your beer to slowly soak in the oak flavor can give it more complex flavors. Beers with shorter aging times, like the IPA, would be better off with the second two techniques.

More Oak Tips

To prepare the oak, do not soak the oak in sanitizer solution. This will just transfer the sanitizer flavor to your beer. Your best bet is to steam the oak chips, cubes, or spirals. Oak barrels require something like Barrel-Kleen, sodium sulfite, or campden tablets.

If you decide you want to use a barrel, make sure it’s a whiskey or sherry barrel. The flavors in your barrel will be in your beer. You don’t want a wine flavor in your beer, so don’t use a wine barrel. (If you’re not sure, pour a bit of a strong red wine in your beer and see what you think).

Personally I recommend you go the cube or spiral route. These have worked the best for me. Barrels are difficult to maintain. Remember the beer doesn’t care where it gets the oak flavor, so it does not matter if you add your beer to the oak (barrel), or if you add your oak to the beer.

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A very cool hop chart!

DJ Spiess — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:15:41 +0000

I posted this earlier on twitter and it was very popular. This is a very impressive hop chart. It looks like it was done by a designer named Zeke Shore. You can see more about him on his web page, after you’re done drooling over the pretty hop chart. Enjoy!

A very cool hop chart!

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How to make a Key Lime Wit beer

DJ Spiess — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:21:03 +0000

If you’re paying attention at all to the beer world you’ve probably heard the lawsuit InBev and Labatts has brought against Ontario-based Brick Brewing for copyright infringement. Here’s how Brick Brewing has allegedly infringed on InBev’s copyright.

The Budweiser label has the letters “BL” with a lime under it. Brick Brewing has “Red Barron Lime” spelled out with a lime under it.
Both beers use a green and silver color scheme. (Look out Philadelphia, the Eagles logo might be next)
Both beers use a web site featuring attractive people in swim suits to promote the beer. (Lust for Lime vs Bud Lime)

Somehow the fact Red Baron Lime costs 25% less wasn’t listed as a reason for the suit. Here’s a recipe to piss Budweiser off. This beer tastes far better, and you can make it at home! Just make sure you don’t have images of limes in your logo, no green and silver, and use ugly people for your website (you can use pictures of me for that )

The Key Lime Wit Recipe

The recipe is a modified version of my Belgian Wit recipe.

4 lbs Belgian 2-row Pilsner malt
3 lbs Belgian wheat malt
2 lbs Flaked wheat
8 oz Belgian aromatic malt
4 oz Flaked oats

1.0 oz Kent Goldings (bittering for 60 minutes)
0.5 oz Kent Goldings (flavoring for 15 minutes)
0.5 oz Saaz (aroma for 1 minute)

3/4 tsp cracked coriander (for 15 minutes)
2 oz fresh Key Lime zest (for 15 minutes)

White Labs WLP400 or Wyeast 3944
SG 1.048 - 1.050
FG 1.010

Mash the grain at 150°F (65°C) for 90 minutes. Ferment the beer at 65°F.

When looking for Belgian wheat malt, look for the white wheat malt. It’s usually around 3°L, and makes the beer really white. I’ve had great results with this malt, but you can use wheat malt if you can’t find the white wheat malt.

I use key limes instead of regular limes. The flavor is better than regular limes. I think the reason is the store bought lime zest tends to lack flavor, while the key limes have a better zest. This is purely anecdotal, and if you have access to fresh limes you might get better results.

When you carbonate the beer, carbonate to 2-2.5 volumes. If you are bottle conditioning, use 1 ¼ cups of extra light malt extract that was boiled for at least 10 minutes.

If you need an extract version of the recipe, replace the grains with 7.5 lbs liquid wheat malt extract (LME Wheat).

I’d keep this beer cold for about 2 weeks after fermentation and carbonation if you are kegging. The beer has a slight bite at first, but mellows quickly. You should beok if you are bottling. When I brought this beer out to my neighborhood, the keg was drained in one night. This is the ultimate crowdpleaser… well unless Budweiser lawyers are in the crowd.

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How to connect multiple kegs to one CO2 tank

DJ Spiess — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:34:24 +0000

A reader from Chapel Hill Homebrew asked, “What additional equipment is required to run multiple kegs off of a single CO2 tank?”

Use a gas distributor

The easiest way to add more kegs to one CO2 tank is to add additional gas lines via a gas distributor. This allows you to supply gas to multiple lines. The distributor has one barb for gas input, and many barbs out for gas output. You simply connect the gas input to your CO2 tank, and then add gas lines for each gas out. The distributor also contains valves which allow you to turn off unused gas lines.

A double regulator like this allows you to keg at two different pressures

To add a gas distributor you will need the distributor, gas line from your tank to the distributor, gas line from each out barb to your keg, a gas disconnect for each line out, and clamps for each end of each gas line. You can find these parts at your local homebrew store or online at your favorite homebrew supply website. A two-way distributor can cost about $30 USD, while an 8-way distributor can cost about $120 USD.

Each keg you connect using the distributor will be at the same pressure to which your CO2 tank regulator is set. This set up is perfect for dispensing beer from multiple kegs, since the dispensing pressure should be the same for all kegs. If you are carbonating your beers at different gas pressures for each keg, then you will need a different approach.

Use a Double Body CO2 Regulator (or more)

To supply beer to multiple kegs at different pressures, you need more regulators. The regulator controls the pressure at which you supply gas. You will need a regulator for each pressure you want to supply gas. You can also find these online if you cannot find them at your local homebrew store.

A distributor allows you to split one gas line into multiple lines

To add a double body CO2 regulator you need the double regulator, gas line from each barb on your regulator, a gas disconnect for each line out, and clamps for each end of each gas line. This setup will allow you to carbonate one keg while dispensing from a second keg. A double body CO2 regulator runs about $130 USD.

Mix and match gas supply equipment

You can also mix and match. For example, my system uses a double body CO2 regulator which connects to several gas distributors. I use these to connect to a 20 pound CO2 tank so I can carbonate 8 kegs at once (at 2 different pressures). Piecing the parts together is very easy, and soon you can have many kegs running at the same time at your next party!

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How I would reverse engineer Southern Tier’s Crème brûlée Imperial Milk Stout

DJ Spiess — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:32:43 +0000

Research the beer

I actually haven’t tried this beer, but several people asked me for a recipe on Twitter. There isn’t a recipe available in any clone books, but that’s never stopped me before. Last year I cloned Avery’s Samael for my sister with fairly good results. It’s not hard to clone recipes, it just takes some research.

When I cloned Samael, my first stop was to the web site to look at the description of the beer. Usually breweries give details about the beer which help to reverse engineer it. On Avery’s site they listed the ingredients used, the bitterness, and alcohol content. From there it wasn’t too hard to figure out the rest. I thought it was a fluke of good luck, but when I went to Southern Tier’s website I found the same information. Here’s what they said:

10.0% abv • 25º plato • 195º L • 22 oz / 1/6 keg
2-row pale malt / dark caramel malt / vanilla bean / lactose sugar /
kettle hops: columbus / aroma hops: horizon

This almost makes it too easy. If the site doesn’t give the exact details, you can still figure out much about the recipe from the description.

Another website to check out is BeerAdvocate. This site won’t have the recipe, but there will be many reviews from other beer lovers. The reviewers might pick out some flavors you might miss. BeerAdvocate also will give you insight into how dry or how sweet the beer is, what flavors other people notice, and other hard to find information about the beer.

Base Malts

The beer style is a sweet stout. This means the beer will use pale ale malt as the base malt. You can find this in the BJCP Style Guidelines if the website doesn’t give it away. You’re not going to find too many pilsner malt stouts.

The alcohol content will tell you how much malt to use. The beer is 10% ABV, so playing with the numbers in your favorite beer recipe program you can estimate the amount to use.

A little research can help you formulate recipes which are very close to your favorite beers

Specialty Grains

Since this beer has a malty caramel flavor, you’d naturally think crystal malts. If you didn’t, now you know (luckily their website helps us out). The dark colors could come from a variety of malts, but Southern Tier’s website claims they use “dark caramel malt” and no other specialty malt. I picked the darkest crystal malt in my software and added it until the SRM was within the style limits.

Adjuncts

This is the trickiest part to figure out, and probably will take some experimenting. The beer has a healthy amount of lactose and vanilla. I’d add a pound of lactose to start with. I’ve seen many reports about how sweet the beer is, so this number may need to rise higher. The high alcohol content with a pound of lactose will put this beer higher than the style guidelines, but it may need to go even higher.

The vanilla shouldn’t be added until after fermentation. You can use two vanilla beans soaked in a cup of vodka. This works well, but I would not add the beans directly to the fermented beer. I’ve added beans in the past, but the results are random and I hate explaining what are the little black dots in the beer. I make an awesome vanilla porter which uses 4 ounces of natural vanilla extract. The 4 ounces of natural vanilla extract produces the best results for me. I think this amount would provide a strong but not overpowering vanilla taste and aroma. Again you might want to experiment with this amount.

Hops

Their website claims Columbus bittering hops, and Horizon aroma hops. I probably would have guessed a different hop for this beer, and I certainly wouldn’t have added an aroma hop. The aroma hops really surprise me. I’d be curious to know why they are adding aroma hops to a “dessert beer”.

The website does not list the IBUs for this beer, so we’ll have to do some guesswork. We know the beer is sweet and malt forward from descriptions on Beer Advocate. Many of the reviewers note the beer is sweet, caramel-y, and like a dessert coffee. Some even said it was too sweet to have more than one beer.

The BJCP style guidelines list the milk stout style IBUs between 20-40 IBU. We’ll assume we need to be at the start of this range to make it sweeter. We should target somewhere between 20 and 30 IBU. Plugging this number in to our favorite beer recipe program yields between 0.75 and 1 ounce of Columbus hops (14% AA).

I would not add more than one ounce of the aroma hops for 5 minutes. Southern Tier lists Horizon hops as an aroma hop. I really think you can skip it, but to be safe to match the clone, you can add an ounce at the end of your boil.

Yeast

The yeast is a total guess. I went with White Labs WLP006 British Bedford or Wyeast 1099 Witbread Ale yeast, because both are a safe bet for sweet stouts. Both will finish with low esters, which will help bring out the sweet maltiness.

The Southern Tier’s Crème brûlée Imperial Milk Stout Clone Recipe

Here’s my guess at the recipe for the Southern Tier Crème brûlée Imperial Milk Stout.

14.75 lbs Pale Ale malt
3.25 lbs Crystal/Caramel malt 120L
1.0 lbs Lactose (milk sugar)
0.75 oz Columbus hops (14% AA - 60 minutes)
1.00 oz Horizon hops (12% AA - 5 minutes)
4.00 oz natural vanilla extract (at bottling or kegging)
White Labs WLP006 or Wyeast 1099

S.G. 1.104
F.G. 1.026
IBU 26.5
SRM 31
ABV 10.19%
Pre-boil 6 gallons / Batch size 5 gallons

Mash the grains at 160 F for 60 minutes. Carbonate the beer using your favorite method at 2 volumes. This is at the low end for the style, but I think this will help to give more of a creamy mouthfeel.

I probably won’t get a chance to try this recipe until August, but if you get a chance to try it before me let me know how close I got. Either way, this looks like a very tasty recipe I’ll make for my neighborhood’s Oktoberfest!

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What do you need to start kegging beer?

DJ Spiess — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:42:30 +0000

You need a keg to keg beer

Obviously when you want to keg beer, you’ll need a keg. The best type of keg for homebrewers is the old Pepsi style 5 gallon kegs. They are also referred to as Cornelius kegs (after one of the manufacturers) or Corny keg. I’m not sure what the options in other countries are, but in the United States this is the best choice.

These Pepsi kegs are perfect for homebrewing

You can find these kegs brand new for $100-130 USD. It’s not a good deal though. You can find these kegs used for anywhere between $15-35 USD. You can get better deals if you shop around and buy a pack of 4 kegs. They are usually in poor condition on the outside, but the inside is spotless. It does not matter what the outside looks like as long as the inside looks good and the keg can hold pressure.

You may need to replace some of the rings on the keg. These are the rubber rings which attach to the posts, the lid, and the liquid and gas tubes on the inside. Some homebrew shops and online outlets sell a set of these rings for $4-5 USD, but you can buy a bag of a hundred from McMaster-Carr. Here’s the part numbers and links:

Dip Tube O-Rings
5/16″ ID x 1/2″OD x 3/32″ width
9452K172 BunaN #109
Pkg 100/$1.89

Post O-Rings
7/16″ ID x 5/8″ OD x 3/32″ width
9452K23 BunaN #111
Pkg 100/$2.15

Lid O-Rings
3 1/2″ ID x 4″ OD x 1/4″ width
9452K218 BunaN #417
Pkg 10/$12.50

(Reference: St. Paul Homebrewers Club)

You might need to replace the posts if your kegs are in really poor condition. So far I’ve been lucky and all my posts and poppets arrived in good condition. If you are unlucky, you can find new posts online at Northern Brewer or possibly at your local homebrew store.

You also need a CO2 cylinder and the fittings

Once you have a keg and you’ve filled it, you’ll need to carbonate your beer. This requires a regulator, a CO2 tank, tubing and fittings, and a tap to dispense your beer.

The fittings are the gas and liquid disconnects which attach to the keg. The gray disconnect attaches to the gas post, and the black disconnect attaches to the liquid post. To tell the difference between the posts, the gas post usually has notches and has a star like pattern to the edges. The liquid post looks more like a hexagon, and does not have notches in the edges.

Most homebrew shops will sell you all this equipment as a draft system. Some places will omit the CO2 gas tank from the list of items in the draft system. I think omitting the CO2 tank is a much better deal, because many homebrew shops will exchange CO2 tanks but they will not fill it for you. It’s similar to the propane tank exchange at your grocery store. The exchange works out cheaper too, because you just need to pay a deposit for the cylinder. You don’t need to buy one. I had a hard time finding a place in Denver to fill my CO2 tank, and I wish I had one to exchange (I do travel to Aurora now to fill it).

Your best bet is to find a place that does gas cylinder excahnges. It's easier than finding a place to refill the tank.

The regulator in most kits is a dual gauge regulator. This means it displays the dispensing pressure and the pressure remaining in the CO2 cylinder. I’m not sure how useful the “remaining pressure” gauge is, since it will stay at one pressure (based on temperature) and then drop to zero when it is empty.

Another gauge is a double gauge regulator has two dispensing pressure gauges. It’s great for if you want to carbonate or dispense at two different pressures. I use mine to carbonate two different styles at two different pressures.

…and a tap to serve the beer

When I’m serving my beer I usually use a picnic tap. It looks similar to the taps you might have seen in college, but it does not require you to pump your beer full of air. You can also hook your beer up to a bar system with beer taps, but it’s something you get when you get deeper into kegging. For now, all you really need is the picnic tap.

So that’s all the equipment you need to start kegging. Just a keg, a regulator, CO2 cylinder, and all the fittings. After you clean your keg, all you need to do is pour the beer in and carbonate. It is MUCH simpler than bottles, but it does require a bit more investment.

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My Big Brew Day

DJ Spiess — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:32:23 +0000

Since 1988, the United States has recognized May 7th as National Homebrew Day. Big Brew Day is the day homebrewers get together to make beer and celebrate National Homebrew Day. It is an annual event held on the first Saturday of May. I decided to start making it an annual tradition in my neighborhood to officially mark the start of the brewing season. I make the beer for neighborhood, so this is my way of conning them into helping out.

If you asked someone who isn’t a brewer, I’m sure they wouldn’t know about it. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know about it. There are an estimated 750,000 homebrewers in the United States, but I’ll bet you a beer most homebrewers don’t know about the day. According to the American Homebrew Association this is a world-wide event. You can read the official word on the event at the beertown.com site. (Humorously they even mention Americans have been homebrewing since the Pilgrims – um… not exactly)

Unfortunately this year the weather was crappy in Denver (six f-ing crappy weekends in a row). It didn’t stop me. Despite the poor weather, I and a friend “celebrated” Big Brew Day. Here’s a few pictures of us brewing in the rain. Hopefully in the future the weather will be warmer so more people show up. If you’re a homebrewer, you should plan a homebrewing event with your friends too!

I usually share my brews on Twitter, follow me if you want to follow along!

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What do you really need to start brewing beer?

DJ Spiess — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:48:36 +0000

There are several ways to make beer, each with their own list of equipment requirements. You’ll need less equipment if you’re making an extract beer than you would if you were making an all-grain beer. But what is the minimum you will need?

The goal here isn’t to determine the cheapest way to home brew, however, buying only what you need will be inexpensive. In this economy, saving any amount helps. These lists represent the bare minimum equipment you need to make beer.

Bottle Brew

If you get the bottle brew kit, you’ll have everything you need. The kit is a two liter bottle of wort with a special cap. You drop the yeast into the bottle, attach the special cap, and you are done. Once the fermentation is complete, you refrigerate the beer and then enjoy. No equipment necessary.

No Boil Beer Kits

If you’re using a no boil kit like the Coopers beer kits, you’ll need very little equipment. You can mix the wort in your fermenter, so you do not need a “brewing” vessel. Normally I’d suggest getting a hydrometer, but in the no-boil case there is little chance you beer will not ferment out.

The Coopers kits are a great way to start brewing without bothering with the boiling of beer

The no-rinse sanitizer is a must. You need to make sure your fermenter is sanitized, and nothing is easier than a no-rinse sanitizer. You might be tempted to use bleach, but this is a bad idea. The chlorine can give your beer an off-flavor.

You do have the option of using a bottling bucket when it comes time to bottle, but you can fill buckets using your siphon hose. A bottling bucket is not 100% necessary, but it will make bottling easier. I strongly recommend the auto-siphon over using just a hose or racking cane, because it makes it easier to siphon the beer. No matter if you choose to siphon the beer with a hose, racking cane, or auto-siphon, you will need something to siphon the beer.

This is the minimum list of equipment you’ll need to make a no-boil beer kit:

No-rinse Sanitizer
Fermenter
Long Spoon
Bottles
Bottle capper
A hose to siphon beer, racking cane or an auto-siphon

Extract Brew

If you are making an extract kit, you need to boil your wort. This increases the amount of equipment you will need. You don’t necessarily need a huge pot for your boil, but you will need a pot able to boil about 3 gallons. Many large pasta pots are capable of holding 3 gallons. This is for a partial wort brew. You will boil about 2 1/2 gallons of wort. When you add it to your fermenter, you will top off the fermenter with 2 1/2 gallons of very cold water.

You need the thermometer to make sure the wort has cooled enough before pitching your yeast. You won’t necessarily need a wort chiller, although it will make it easier for you to chill the wort quickly. You can put your pot in an ice bath or add very cold water to the fermenter to chill the beer without a wort chiller. Either way you will need a thermometer to make sure the temperature is safe for your yeast.

This is the minimum list of equipment you’ll need to make a extract brew:

No-rinse Sanitizer
Fermenter
Long Spoon
Large Pot
Thermometer
Bottles
Bottle capper
A hose to siphon beer, racking cane or an auto-siphon

All-Grain Brew

The minimum equipment for all-grain is a bit tricky. You need some way to mash your grains. Before a few weeks ago, I would have suggested buying a cooler and converting it into a mash tun. This is the way I do my all-grain mashes, but the Australians have shown us the cooler mash is not quite “the minimum”.

They are doing all-grain mashes using a grain bag. After hearing about it on Basic Brewing and Brew Your Own Magazine, I’m convinced this is the minimum amount of equipment required. This adds a grain bag, large enough to hold all of the grain, to our equipment list.

All-grain brewing changes the equipment required to make beer, but with creativity you can still do it cheap

You cannot do a concentrated brew when you brew all-grain batches. This means you need a pot capable of boiling more than 5 gallons. The minimum sized pot required is 30-quarts. If you are making a 5 gallon brew, you can get away without a wort chiller. You will be soaking your pot in an ice bath for quite a while however. I recommend a wort chiller, but it is not absolutely necessary.

This is the minimum list of equipment you’ll need to make a all-grain brew:

No-rinse Sanitizer
Fermenter
Long Spoon
Large Pot (large enough for a full wort boil)
Large Grain Bag (large enough to hold all the grain)
Thermometer
Bottles
Bottle capper
A hose to siphon beer, racking cane or an auto-siphon

Did I miss anything?

There might be something I’m missing. I think these lists represent the minimum equipment you will need to make beer. What do you think? Is there anything I missed or is there anything I added which you do not need?

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Review: Coopers homebrew kit

DJ Spiess — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:06:45 +0000

The Coopers home brew kit

Coopers is a home brew kit company in Australia, but you can find their kits pretty much anywhere. MakeBeer.Net has all the Coopers kits available online too.

This isn’t a extract brew kit in the traditional sense. This kit includes a hopped malt extract, extra sugar fermentables, carbonation drops and dry yeast. The carbonation drops are cough drop sized candies which you add to each bottle to bottle condition the beer. This makes sure every bottle gets the correct amount of sugar for carbonation. I’ve never used these, so I’m very interested to see how well they work.

Coopers European lager kit - it's a no-boil lager kit that tastes pretty good!

All you need is water, a fermenter, and beer bottles, bottle caps, and a bottle capper. There are a few other things you can use, but the fermenter and bottles are all you really need. The kit does not need to be boiled. It is more like a wine kit where you just rehydrate the extract and add yeast.

The Coopers home brew kits range from $18 to $29, and if you need everything (you’re starting from scratch) they do have a $99 kit which includes the beer kit, bottles, fermenter, instructional DVD and more. It looks like their Microbrewery kit contains everything you need. I have most of the equipment already, so I am just reviewing the Complete European Lager package.

How easy is the Coopers home brew kit?

The kit is pretty easy to put together. If you want to watch the whole process watch the video at the end of the article. You simply mix the ingredients, add it to your fermenter, toss in the yeast and wait 6 days for the fermentation to complete. As I mentioned there is no boiling since the wort is pre-hopped and the starches are already converted. I boiled some of the water to make it easier to mix the ingredients, but the instructions say you can use hot tap water. Their process allows you to focus on the fermentation side of home brewing, without getting bogged down in the boil and cooling. Once everything is mixed up, you add the yeast and move the fermenter to a cool location in your home.

The hydrometer says the gravity was spot on

I think the kit took about 30 minutes to make, but the filming of the process definitely slowed me down (not the kit’s fault). All in all I thought the kit was very easy to make. If you have a friend who wants to try out home brewing, but doesn’t want to get involved with all the equipment, this might be a good place for them to start. Extract brewing is easy, but these kits are even easier since it removes the boiling and hop additions from the home brewing steps.

In a few days I’ll continue with the kit and try out the carbonation drops. After that we’ll taste the kit and see how good it is. Stay tuned!

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 5 from DJ Spiess on Vimeo.

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Saving homebrew money with your yeast

DJ Spiess — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:40:11 +0000

There are several choices for reducing costs with your yeast. You can reuse the yeast cake, harvest your yeast, create multiple starters from a single liquid yeast pack, or use dry yeast. Each of these choices can save you money, but there are also trade-offs. Here are a few things to consider with each method.

Pitch your wort on your yeast cake

The first option is to rack your second beer on top of your yeast cake. The idea is once your first beer has completely fermented; rack the beer leaving just the yeast behind. Then pour your second beer over the yeast. It’s like adding a very large starter to your wort.

The fermentation should go quicker the second time around. You do need to be careful with this method because you are over pitching. Autolysis (when the yeast cells die and degrade) usually happens when you leave your wort on the yeast too long (months), but it can happen much quicker when you over pitch.

You can crop yeast or pitch on top of your yeast cake to save money, but both methods come with risks.

Autolysis happens much quicker when you over pitch because your yeast is skipping over the aerobic phase of the yeast life cycle. Fewer new cells are created and your fermentation will not be optimal. You are creating a retirement community of yeast cells. The yeast will not be as healthy and will die sooner. Too much dead yeast creates a really nasty off flavor in your beer.

With that said I’ve added new wort onto yeast cakes and produced good beer. Of course I did this a while ago before learning more about how yeast works, but you can do it. In fact I didn’t come up with the idea myself; I heard it from another brewer (who probably heard it from someone else too). Many home brewers add new wort onto their yeast cakes. It saves you money, but it is risky.

If you pitch on your yeast cake you are overpitching, which can lead to autolysis
I’ve done it and it went fine

Become a yeast farmer and harvest your yeast

A better alternative is to properly harvest your yeast. You should always harvest from the fermenter with the fewest generations. If you are harvesting yeast for the first time this is not an issue, however, if you are continually harvesting you want the youngest yeast.

You also do not want to harvest yeast from beers with alcohol contents over 6.5% ABV. The higher alcohol brews will stress your yeast. These changes can have negative effects on future generations (darn you evolution), and produce off flavors in your beers. It’s a good practice to use the yeast on similar beers, or go from light beers to dark beers.

Harvest your yeast after you have racked your beer from your fermenter. Swirl the remaining liquid and yeast slurry. Collect some of the slurry in a sanitized jar about half way. If you are collecting your yeast from a conical fermenter, try to get the yeast in the middle. The yeast at the bottom is likely to be dead yeast and trub (stuff that isn’t beer, water or yeast). You’ll get better quality yeast from the middle.

Then fill the rest with cold boiled water. You want to boil the water you add and then cool it back to room temperature because you want to add sterilized water with no oxygen. Boiling water lowers the amount of oxygen in solution, that’s why it’s important to shake your carboy before pitching your yeast. In this case, the oxygen will cause the yeast to use up their glycogen reserves (energy reserve carbohydrate).

Let your jar of water and yeast sit for a few minutes. During this time the trub should settle to the bottom. Pour out the top part of the yeast solution into another sanitized jar leaving the trub. Repeat this process until your yeast has a very light golden color, and very little trub is left at the bottom of the jar.

Close the jar and save your yeast in your refrigerator. Do not keep the yeast for more than a few days (5 days max). The sooner you use your harvested yeast, the better. If it turns dark brown, discard the yeast. When it’s brown, the yeast died. If you open the jar, the yeast will smell awful.

Before you use your yeast, make sure it smells like yeast. Smelling the yeast before using it is your best defense against ruining your beer with infected yeast. If you pitch infected/bad yeast your beer will be ruined.

Wyeast recommends you pitch slightly more yeast, than you would from a first generation laboratory culture. They state “the [harvested] culture can be void of sterols, enzymes, and glycogen, as well having possible poor cell membrane health”.

If you are not brewing beer once a week, you probably do not want to use the above two methods. There is real risk of contamination, and you could ruin a few batches. You have been warned. Still there are other ways to save money on your yeast.

Yeast harvesting is good if you frequently make beer
If you pitch bad harvested yeast, your beer will be bad
Keep your yeast cold and use your harvested yeast within 5 days
Don’t harvest your beer from high alcohol brews

Create more starters from smaller batch

I usually brew at least 10 gallons of beer at a time, sometimes more. My reasoning is the brewing process is just as difficult making 5 gallons as it is making 20 gallons. The problem is you will need several vials or smack packs of liquid yeast. This gets expensive quick. At $8 a vial, I would be spending $32 on yeast alone.

Creating multiple starters and building them up might be another way you can save money

If you create multiple starters, you can make your one vial go a long way. I’ve created several starters a few days before my brew day. I just pour half of the yeast into each starter. I’ll grow the yeast up until I have the correct amount of yeast for the size of the wort I am planning to brew. This gives me the yeast I need for a healthy fermentation, but I only have to buy one vial of yeast. The best part is it safer than the first two options.

With a starter you will need fewer vials of yeast, but you can still pitch the proper amount
Safer than harvesting yeast

Dry yeast is not your granddaddy’s yeast

You’ve heard the saying you get what you pay for. This used to be true for dry yeast, but yeast manufacturers are getting much better at producing quality yeast. In the past your dry yeast choices were ale or lager, and the yeast was susceptible to infection. While dry yeasts still do not have the wide variety liquid yeasts have, the yeast quality is getting better. The best part is dry yeast is significantly cheaper than liquid yeast. You also might not need to create a starter, depending on the starting gravity of your beer.

There are also other benefits with dry yeast. A dry yeast sachet can last up to two years in your refrigerator. This makes buying in bulk another option for saving money, and you will always have yeast on hand. A liquid yeast pack will last only for a few months.

If you are creating a beer where you do not need a specific strain of yeast, dry yeast is a good option. The dry yeasts produce great results, especially if you want a neutral or absent yeast profile in your beer. If you are looking for a specific flavor from your yeast, you’re still better off with liquid yeast.

Do not reuse the yeast from a dry yeast package. According to Danstar, you can repitch the yeast slurry like any other yeast (up to 5 generations), but they suggest verifying the cleanliness of the yeast first with equipment which would not normally be available to the homebrewer. This comment might be directed at professional breweries. Fermentis does not recommend reusing the yeast since the risk of infection outweighs the cost of new yeast. Since dry yeast is so cheap, I wouldn’t bother reusing the yeast.

There are more dry yeast strains available, but not the number liquid yeast enjoys
It may not be worth reusing, since it is easy to just buy another pack
You can store dry yeast for up to two years

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How to get a creamy feel in your homebrew beer

DJ Spiess — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:57:24 +0000

Nitrogen in the beer (beer gas)

The main reason the above beers taste creamy is how they are carbonated. Instead of using regular CO2, these beers use nitrogen for “carbonation” (carbonation isn’t really the right word since you’re adding mostly nitrogen, not CO2). The beer gas used is not all nitrogen; it is a mixture of nitrogen and CO2. The presence of nitrogen gives the beer smaller bubbles, and will give a creamy mouthfeel.

The foam in a nitrogenated beer is much more stable than other beer heads. The reason is the atmosphere we breathe is mostly nitrogen, so there isn’t much driving force between the nitrogen in the beer and the nitrogen in the air. The faucet used to pour the beer perturbs the beer to produce the milky head.

A stout faucet has special parts to make the nitrogen/CO2 beer more frothy.

This isn’t the easiest method to change the mouthfeel of your beer. You will need a nitrogen system if you want to use beer gas. This includes a nitrogen (beer gas) tank and a nitrogen regulator. You cannot fill your CO2 tank with beer gas. Once you have the nitrogen setup, you “carbonate” your beer the same way you would carbonate with CO2.

You will also need a proper stout faucet. The faucet has a restrictor disk with small holes inserted in the path of the beer which causes the pressure to drop and release the beer gas. Then the faucet has a flow straightener. This helps direct the flow of the beer into a single direction after passing through the holes.

Most places which sell CO2 will also sell beer gas. If you are having troubles locating beer gas, you might check with your local homebrew store or homebrew club. They should be able to help you find the beer gas.

Higher Temp Mash

You can get a thicker mouthfeel with more unfermentable sugars in your beer. These unfermentable sugars increase the viscosity of the beer, making it feel thicker. So how do you get more unfermentable sugars in your wort?

If you mash your grains at a higher temperature, you will get more sugars the yeast can’t eat. The enzymes that break down the starches work at specific temperatures. Some only work at lower temperatures. The alpha-amylase enzyme works best at temperatures 150F-158F (60C -70C), but the beta-amylase enzyme is denatured at 150F. Mashing your grain at 158 F will produce a more dextrinous wort.

You can’t do this in an extract brew because you don’t control the temperature. You can add malto-dextrin however, which will give the beer a thicker feel.

Oats and Flaked Barley

Oats and flaked barley add beta glucans to your wort, which are mostly unfermentable by yeast. This will add viscosity to the final brew. The more unfermentables in your beer will make the beer thicker, but oats or flaked barley will give the beer more of a silky feeling in your mouth.

These cannot be used in an extract brew because both have starches which need to be converted. If you are an extract brewer who wants to use oats or flaked barley, you’ll need to look into partial mashing.

There's nothing like good head on a beer

Lactose

Lactose is a semi-sweet sugar which is often found in milk. Lactose is not fermentable by yeast, and it will give your beer a milky mouthfeel. Lactose is added to Milk Stouts to increase the body of the beer, and give it a creamy mouth feel.

In the UK, these beers are called Lacto Stout or Sweet Stout. The USA doesn’t have the same laws regarding labeling, so they are usually called Milk Stouts. A good example of a Milk Stout is Left Hand Brewery’s Milk Stout.

Be careful to let your friends know the beer contains lactose, since some people are lactose intolerant. According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, some 30 million to 50 million Americans are lactose intolerant, including up to 75 percent of African Americans and American Indians and 90 percent of Asian Americans.

Lower carbonation

Lower carbonated beers also will feel “thicker” in your mouth. You’ll notice this in oak aged ales or other British ales. The beer won’t taste milky, but the lack of carbonation will give the beer more body.

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How to make an ESB (Extra Special/Strong Bitter)

DJ Spiess — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:29:17 +0000

I remember travelling to England for the first time. I landed in Gatwick about 7 am local time. Completely jetlagged, I barely knew where I was, but to “adjust” to the European time zone I needed to stay awake for the rest of the day. How do I stay up? I headed for the nearest pub, of course!

OK, so maybe it wasn’t the best plan adding alcohol to an already exhausted body, but I had limited time in London. I was leaving the next day for Norway, so I needed to experience as much as I could in the short time allowed.

I remember it well, because at the time my most “exotic” beer was Samuel Adams – I was young. I really didn’t know what to order, so the girl behind the bar poured an ESB. I’m not sure why she picked this style. Maybe she was trying to scare the American with a beer which actually had flavor. Wow, the beer was really good! It was far bitterer than any beer I had ever had before, but it also had a nice caramel sweetness. I’m not sure, but it might even have been my first real ale.

Here's a selection of commercial examples of ESBs

All about the ESB

Bitters and pale ales really are the same beer, and ESBs are just a specific type of bitter. The BJCP style guidelines break the beers into different categories, however if you look at the style guidelines you will see very little difference between the different beers. There is some difference in the color between the different beers and pale ales end to have more hop aroma, but everything else is almost identical. ESB beers are slightly more bitter than other bitter styles and contain a bit more alcohol (about 1% more on average).

The pale ales also tend to be lighter in color than bitters, but it is not unusual to have a pale ale slightly darker than a bitter. The same can be shown for bitterness and starting gravity. Bitters have slightly less hop aroma than a pale ale, but again there is overlap in the acceptable ranges. IPAs tend to have higher alcohol, but this comes from the evolution of the style.

Best bitters are the “brewer’s best” bitter made from the best ingredients. Extra Strong Bitters are the higher gravity version of best bitters (not necessarily made with the “best” ingredients, but could be). A best bitter usually has an alcohol content of 3.8 – 4.6% ABV, while the extra special bitter usually varies between 4.5-6.2% ABV.

In England, an ESB is brand unique to Fuller’s ESB. This makes it very easy to determine which beer the barmaid served me. Fuller’s was founded in 1845 on the historic Griffin Brewery which was built in 1654.

ESB Recipe

The basic recipe is very simple; use English pale ale malt as your base and crystal/caramel malt as the specialty grain. The English pale malt is important and gives the beer the biscuit flavors typically found in bitters.

Since the ESB is stronger than the normal bitters, some recipes use sugar as an adjunct. Sugar will thin the beer, so do not use more than 10% of the fermentables as sugar.

For hops, use Goldings, Challenger, or Fuggles. Other hops can be used, but these are the most commonly used hops in ESB. While the beer should have a solid bitter hop flavor, the bitterness should be slightly outpaced by the malt. Many recipes add too much hops, which pushes the beer closer to an American Pale Ale or and IPA style beer. If you like more hoppiness, make an APA or IPA. The ESB hop aroma can be anywhere in the middle from moderately-low hop aroma to moderately-high hop aroma.

Here’s the recipe I use for ESBs:

11.0 pounds of Pale Ale malt
0.50 pounds 20 Crystal malt
0.50 pounds 40 Crystal malt
2 oz Fuggles (5.0% AA – 60 minutes)
1 oz Fuggles (5.0% AA – 0 minutes)
White Labs WLP002 English Ale or Wyeast 1968 London ESB
SG 1.068
IBU 41
5 gallon recipe

Mash the grain at 152 F. Collect 7 gallons or wort and boil for 60 minutes to 5 gallons. 2 ounces of Fuggles will go into the wort at the start of your boil, and 1 ounce will be used for aroma. Ferment the beer at 65 F. Carbonate the beer to 1.5 to 2.0 volumes.

Burton-on-Trent Water

Many homebrewers believe to Butonize your water; you just buy the pack of salts and toss it into your water. It works for many, but this most likely is a bad plan. The reason is water in one local might be completely different from another local. Your water might come from a reservoir, while water down the road may come from a well. Each will have a completely different mineral content.

If you’re not convinced consider this. Sulfates can increase the bitterness of your beer at 150 ppm – 350 ppm and get nasty at 400 ppm, but concentrations over 750 ppm can cause diarrhea. Your best bet is to get the water mineral content analysis for your local area, and then calculate the correct amounts of salt to add.

The water in Burton-on-Trent, UK is very hard. To match Burton-on-Trent, UK water exactly, your water should have the following profile.

Calcium	295.0 ppm
Magnesium	45.0 ppm
Sodium	55.0 ppm
Sulfate	725.0 ppm
Chlorine	25.0 ppm
Bicarbonate	300.0 ppm

Most water in the United States is very soft by comparison. Other places in the world vary to some degree between very soft (low minerals) to moderate hardness (medium minerals). Once you have your local water report, your best bet is to find a chart online or use software like BeerSmith to calculate the correct additions to Burtonize your water. Another option is to use purified water, and then add the correct minerals.

If you are making an extract brew, don’t worry about the water profile. The reason is the water profile can affect the starch conversion in your mash. With extract brews, the sugars are already converted. Burtonizing your water for an extract brew will have little effect, and if you add the wrong amounts it might actually taste bad.

Water profiles can be a whole article in itself. For more info on how to calculate your water mineral additions, check out How To Brew by John Palmer. The book and website will give you everything you want to know (and some) about modifying your water profile.

Finishing touches

If you’re looking for some beers to compare your ESB, try Fullers ESB or Redhook ESB. There are many more available, but these examples are the easiest to find. Keep in mind, the commercial versions of ESBs will have a slightly higher carbonation than the style suggests. Another discrepancy is most ESB beers will tend to be fruitier and hoppier. Fullers is different because it is maltier.

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Does your Belgian beer really need recultured yeast?

DJ Spiess — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:40:31 +0000

Your favorite bottle of Belgian brew has gone through quite a bit to get to your hands. The beer was produced, bottle conditioned, sent over seas, stuck in a warehouse, put onto a truck, a stuck on a store shelf (for who knows how long) until you purchased it. The yeast in the bottle are not going to be at their best. I understand you want “authentic” Belgian ale, but there is another alternative. The yeast you want is available commercially, fresh and viable.

Isn’t “fresh and healthy” better than “tortured, jetlagged, and left for dead”? You can buy the same yeast used to make your bottle of Chimay in a fresh, healthy and much happier state. Wyeast and White Labs have already done the work for you. The best part is these yeast are happy and healthy! Here’s the list of commercial yeast, and the Belgian or Trappist source.

Wyeast
1214 Belgian Ale	Chimay
1762 Abbey II	Rochefort
3522 Belgian Ardennes	Achouffe
1388 Belgian Strong Ale	Duvel
3538 Leuven Pale Ale Yeast	Corsendonk-Bocq
3724 Belgian Saison Yeast	Saison Dupont
3787 Trappist High Gravity	Westmalle

White Labs
WLP500 Trappist Ale	Chimay
WLP510 Bastogne Belgian Ale	Orval
WLP515 Antwerp Ale Yeast	De Koninck
WLP530 Abbey Ale Yeast	Westmalle
WLP540 Abbey IV Ale Yeast	Rochefort
WLP550 Belgian Ale Yeast	Achouffe
WLP565 Belgian Saison	Saison Dupont
WLP700 Belgian Golden Ale	Duvel

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Are you ready to fruit or spice your beer?

DJ Spiess — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:20:53 +0000

A good spiced or fruited beer is an amazing thing. When the beer is off however, the beer is really off.

Start with a good base beer

Make sure you have a good recipe to start with. Fruit or spice beers are like making a house. A poor foundation means the house won’t stand. The same is true for beer. If your beer has off-flavors, the fruit or spices will not improve the beer and could possibly make it worse. If you’re adding fruit to improve your beer flavor, you might want to think again.

Key Limes work great in Belgian Wits

Lose the hops

Hops usually do not mix well with fruit or spices, especially flavoring and aroma hops. The grassy flavor clashes with other flavorings. You’ll want to remove your flavoring and aroma hops from your recipe.

You will want to back off the bittering hops as well. You want to make the beer a bit sweeter than normal to stand up to the fruit. Usually you should remove about 10% of the bittering hops from the recipe. If the fruit you are using is really sour, you might want to reduce your bittering hops as much as 20%. You are using the sweeter maltiness of your beer to balance the sourness of your fruit. This works for spices too.

Hops are still required in fruit beers, but you want to add just enough to balance the beer. Too much will clash with the fruit flavor.

Make an extract for some spices

There are many good extract flavorings (not fruit extracts, see below) you can find at the store. I use vanilla extract at kegging to get a fuller vanilla flavor in my beers. Sometimes you won’t be able to find the extract you need and you’ll need to create your own.

For example if you want to flavor your beer with some vegetable, you might try soaking the vegetable in vodka for a week first in a sealed jar. Use vodka because the spirit is very neutral and has little flavor. This method works great with chili beers (yes, I know chilis are fruits-anything with seeds is a fruit). After a week or so, the vodka should be infused with the flavor you desire.

Not only is this a good plan for flavoring the beer in general, it is also great for controlling your late flavorings. If you didn’t get the flavor you wanted in the secondary, you can always add more flavoring. You can create an extract of the flavor and then add it to your beer in controlled amounts until you get the flavor you desire.

Don’t use too much

Do not go crazy with the spices, it is easy to do. You want the flavors from your adjuncts, but you do not want the spices to overpower your beer and taste like a spice rack. Your best plan is to add less spices than you think you need late in the boil. Then after the first fermentation, taste the beer. If you need more spice, add a bit and try it again in a few days.

Using the homegrown extract method in the previous section, you can fine tune the spice flavor. You can add a little flavor, taste, and repeat until you dial in on the perfect flavor.

Another thing to consider is the number of spices. It might sound like fun to add half a dozen spices to your beer, but it might be very difficult to pick out each spice when drinking the beer. Too many spices will remove the beer flavor. Remember, you are making beer with spice flavoring not spices with beer flavoring.

Add to the secondary

Add your fruit to your secondary. You will lose less fruit flavor, color, and aroma if you add it after your primary fermentation. Adding fruit at the secondary allows you the opportunity to sample the beer before you add the fruit to detect any off-flavors, lets you control the amount of time your beer sits on the fruit, and you can be less concerned about bacterial contamination from the added fruit.

Add spices at the end

Add spices at the end of your boil, usually between 15 minutes and knock out. You add the spices late in the boil for the same reasons you add fruit in the secondary – to preserve the aromas and flavors of the spices. If you boil the spices too long, much of the aromatics will boil off.

Using pectic enzyme

Pectin is a carbohydrate found in fruit. When you heat pectin, it tends to gel. This is how you make jams or preserves. This is great if you’re making something to put on your toast, but it can make a beer cloudy like orange juice. The pectin causes two problems in your homebrew.

The first is pectin makes your beer cloudy. This is entirely cosmetic, and if you are making a cherry stout or cranberry porter you won’t see it at all. The second problem is if you are filtering, the pectin gels and makes your filtration almost impossible. Not all fruit has the same amount of pectin. Strawberries, pears, and apricots have low amounts of pectin, cherries and raspberries have a medium amount of pectin, and apples or citrus fruits (oranges, etc) have high amounts of pecin.

Add pectic enzyme to get rid of the haze. The pectin enzyme will increase juice yield by breaking down the cellular walls of the fruit and will help with flavor extraction.

Don’t use fruit extracts

Cherry extract tastes like cough syrup, and not the good kind (if there is possibly a good cherry cough syrup). Orange extract can taste like Tang or baby asprin. When you’re choosing a fruit flavor for your beer, avoid using fruit extracts. The flavors rarely come out like you hope, and they almost always taste artificial. There are some extracts which are good, but more often than not it will taste horrible. Personally I don’t like to chance it.

The only reason I can think to use the fruit extracts is if you didn’t get enough fruit flavor from your fruit and you want to “kick it up a notch”. You might try adding a bit of acid blend first if you can taste the fruit flavor, but you’re just missing an extra “tartness”. You might actually have enough fruit flavor, but the acidity is not low enough to have the fruit tartness.

Watch out for the fruit volcano

The best time to add fruit is in the secondary. Crush your fruit to a pulp or use fruit puree. Put the fruit into your secondary and then rack your beer on top of it. Make sure you use a blow off tube or rack to another fermenting bucket. The yeast from the fermentation will chew though your fruit like a tornado through Kansas. If your airlock gets clogged, it can create a dangerous situation. In best case you will find half of the fruit on the ceiling (really bad if you used raspberries), and worst case your fermenter will shatter.

This Mandarin orange hefeweizen added a nice orange hue to my basement ceiling, racks, bottles, etc...

Some fruits are more equal than other fruits

Some fruits are much stronger than other fruits. Keep this in mind when you are deciding how much to add to your beer. 10 pounds of strawberries might give you a hint of strawberry, but 10 pounds of sour cherries might remove all beer character from your brew.

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Review: The Big and Easy Bottle Brew

DJ Spiess — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:50:40 +0000

A month ago I noticed something new at my local homebrew shop. It’s called the Big and Easy bottle brew. The Big and Easy is a two liter “no brew” beer brewing kit and I can honestly say there is no easier way to make beer. The kit comes in three flavors, Mexican cerveza, premium pilsner, and red lager. With these “fancy” beer styles, I must admit I had serious doubts about any possible quality the beer kit might have. I tried the Mexican cerveza at the suggestion of the store clerk.

The Big and Easy Bottle Brew comes with everything you need to make beer

Dropping Yeast

While making the beer my six year old quickly pointed out, “You are not making beer daddy. You are just dropping yeast into a bottle”. She couldn’t be more right. To make the beer, you twist off the bottle cap, drop in a capsule of dry yeast, and then screw on a new special cap. Store the bottle and wait for the fermentation to complete. The whole process takes 30 seconds to make, and about 2 weeks for the fermentation.

The yeast is a dry yeast, and comes in a small pill

The special cap is similar to the “balloon brewing” from days past. The special cap serves as the airlock for your fermenter. The cap is a normal soda bottle cap with a hole drilled through it. The hole is covered from the inside with a rubber bladder. The bladder has a tiny pin hole. CO2 produced from the fermentation escapes the bottle through the tiny pin hole.

Even though all three beers are lagers, you can ferment the beer at room temperature. I fermented mine at 65 F. Since the fermenter is a two liter bottle, you do not need much room. You can brew this beer anywhere. It is perfect for anyone short on space (like a dorm room – but you never heard that from me), or anyone who wants to get their feet wet with home brewing.

The Big and Easy Bottle Brew airlock is a twist cap with a hole drilled in it. Inside the cap is a rubber bladder with a small pinhole to allow gas to escape.

Looks

The beer produced was mostly clear. It had a very slight haze, but it was much clearer than I expected. The beer was clear as possible without being filtered. The bottle instructions recommend you store the beer in the fridge 10 hours before serving, but I kept mine chilled for about 2 weeks. This wasn’t planned; I wanted to wait until I had several people to help me drink it.

The color was a very good light gold color. The cerveza had a good head to it, but dissipated quickly. The head lasted as long as you would expect for the beer style. Other than the very slight haze, I could see nothing wrong with the looks of the beer.

Aroma

There was very little aroma from the beer. It had a very slight hint of hops. It might be unfair to comment too much on the aroma, since it was in line with any other Mexican cerveza I’ve had. The beer has the same aroma you might get from a Dos Equis.

Taste

The taste of the beer was far more than I would ever expected. Yes, I did drink the beer while watching a Denver Broncos win, but at the time I opened the bottle the game was tied at 6 apiece so the positive review isn’t due to “home team winning” euphoria. The beer has great flavor. It has much more body than Corona or Dos Equis, and the beer was slightly maltier. The Big and Easy bottle brew tastes great, and is very impressive for a two liter “no brew” beer kit. I was really surprised how the beer stayed carbonated. The cap holds just enough pressure to keep the beer carbonated.

Conclusion

I’m planning to try more of the Big and Easy brew kits. I really enjoyed this beer. I think the kit does take all the fun out of making it since you just drop in a pellet of yeast, but it does make a great introduction to homebrewing. In fact the kit is perfect for someone who might want to try homebrewing, and doesn’t want to invest in equipment. Everything you need comes with the kit.

I saved the cap so I can try experimenting with 2 liter brews. It would be fun to make small test brews during the winter, without bringing all the equipment into the snow. I’ll write about future projects with the bottle cap.

The kit cost me $7.99, but I’ve seen it for $5.99 on the internet (more proof my favorite homebrew store is a bit spendy, but that’s another story). Either way, I’d recommend the kit as something fun to try. The kit takes little effort, and it produces a good beer. I give it 10 2L Coke bottles out of 10.

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Should you put olive oil in your homebrew?

DJ Spiess — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:49:30 +0000

Why use olive oil in your homebrew?

Your yeast need oxygen for a happy and healthy fermentation. Yeast use oxygen during the lag phase to synthesize sterols and unsaturated fatty acids for its cell walls. If there is not enough oxygen, the yeast can not grow and die off early. Low oxygen leads to stalled fermentations and off-flavors. This is the reason you need to shake the carboy before pitching your yeast.

The problem is with too much oxygen your wort can become oxidized. An oxidized beer will taste like cardboard ass (or sherry but not in a good way). Any time you add oxygen to your beer, you run the risk of some oxidation. The olive oil solution is an attempt to avoid oxidation.

So why would you add olive oil? The idea behind olive oil is instead of giving the yeast oxygen to manufacture the unsaturated fatty acids, give the yeast an unsaturated fatty acid. Your wort doesn’t get oxidized and your yeast get what they need for their growth.

Oxygen is used by yeast to synthesize sterols and unsaturated fatty acids for its cell walls
Ale yeasts need about 5 parts oxygen per million in wort, while lagers can need 10 to 12 parts oxygen per million.
Olive oil gives yeast the compounds synthesized for cell wall construction

You'll need barely a drop of olive oil in your starter

Where did this crazy idea come from?

Adding unsaturated fatty acids like linoleic acid to wort was attempted in several studies, but in 2005 Grady Hull, with the help of New Belgium Brewery, decided to try using olive oil. Olive oil was chosen because it is much more readily available and olive oil contains the same unsaturated fatty acid beer yeast produce. Linoleic acid is not naturally produced by yeast. It would seem olive oil was the perfect choice.

The olive oil experiment was in a 2005 thesis by Grady Hull
The experiment was conducted at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado

How well did it work?

The experiment worked quite well for Grady Hull’s goals. The original goal was to compare the effects of adding olive oil to storage yeast vs. traditional wort aeration. They found they could achieve similar results in the final product using olive oil. The paper did note ester production was higher than the traditional aeration beer, but the additional esters were within production limits; in fact the flavor panel at New Belgium preferred the higher ester flavored beer. They also found the fermentation times were slower.

The New Belgian Brewery was also looking to increase shelf life for their beers. Less oxygen means they can keep their beers on the shelf longer. Hull reported increased flavor stability in the olive oil beer. Based on the goals set out by Hull, the experiment seemed to hit a home run for macro breweries, but the question everyone wanted to know still remains. How well would olive oil work on my homebrew? No one really knows yet.

The olive oil beer produced more esters and took longer to ferment – both were still within accepted norms

How much olive oil do I use in my homebrew?

In the study, Hull added olive oil based on the total number of cells. He didn’t list actual volumes in the paper because there can be variations in yeast slurry thickness. In the first trial they added 1 mg of olive oil per 67 billion cells pitched into 360 hl of wort, and the final trial they added 1 mg per 25 billion cells pitched into 2100 hl of wort.

So how much olive oil is this on a homebrew scale? Going by their numbers you would need about 0.036 ml in your starter for a 5 gallon batch. In short, less than a drop. Probably not even that much. Most brewers adding olive oil in their homebrew are sticking a pin tip into olive oil and rinsing it into their wort. Even this small amount is likely too much if the numbers are correct.

The study’s authors added their olive oil to the yeast slurry about 5 hours before use. To do this at home, you need to add the olive oil to your yeast starter.

Use the tip of a pin to get a small drop of olive oil
Add the olive oil to your starter

Questions left unanswered

The first question I had after reading the thesis is: would this work for lagers? The study reported higher esters in each of their trials, but since they were making Belgian ale the esters were desired. In the case of a lager, you do not want increased ester production. This technique would be good for big beers or ales where esters are expected, but I have to question how well it will work in lagers.

Many homebrewers in brewing forums using this method and claim wild fermentations, wonderful beers, etc… but unfortunately this is anecdotal evidence. The study at New Belgian Brewery claimed their olive oil fermentations actually took 20% longer than normal fermentations. If this is accurate, your fermentation at home should be slower not faster. It would be interesting to devise an experiment to try at home to see how well this scales to homebrew breweries. If you’ve tried this before, let me know how well it worked for you in the comments below.

Interesting idea, but it needs more experimentation for home use
Increased esters might be bad for a lager

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What does sugar do to your beer?

DJ Spiess — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:38:14 +0000

Sugar will carbonate your beer

If you bottle your homebrew, you know how sugar is used for carbonation. The reason we use sugar is to use something neutral in flavor. You don’t want to change the flavor of your beer at this point. Usually corn sugar, table sugar, or rice syrup solids are used to carbonate the beer.

If you force carbonate, you will notice little to no difference in the flavor of the beer. The carbonation (if equal) will be the same from force carbonating or bottle conditioning. Carbon dioxide is the same, regardless of the source.

Other recipes can add other sugars at bottling to give the beer a little extra flavor. These cases are rare, but you might come across a recipe using something other than the normal carbonating sugars.

Rock candy, Belgium candy, sugar... it's all C12H22O11

Sugar will lighten the body of your beer

Sucrose sugar (cane or beet sugar) is completely fermentable. It will not increase the body of your beer since the sugar will convert completely to alcohol. Since alcohol is lighter than water, the beer is much lighter and thinner.

Sugar is commonly used in Belgian beers to lighten the body of their higher alcohol beers. The sugar the Belgians use is actually a liquid form for the Belgian candi. According to “Brew like a monk”, Belgian brewers use either the liquid form of Belgian candi sugar or they use sucrose and dextrose. The liquid syrup used is about 65% sugar.
A good example is Chimay , Duvel, or other strong Belgian ales. These beers push 9% ABV, but they have a light mouthfeel.

Most of my neighbors have learned the hard way; lighter beers do not mean lower alcohol. The first summer I brought out my tripel, most people hit it like you might drink Budweiser. Because the beer was lighter, they didn’t know they were in trouble until too late. The beer is now named “Tripel Trouble” to warn newer neighbors.

Sugar will increase the alcohol in your beer

Sugar will lighten you beer because it converts directly to alcohol (which has a lighter density than water)

The “trouble” in the beer was the higher alcohol. Table sugar will add about 1.046 points per pound per gallon. So if you add one pound of sugar to a five pound batch, you should see a gravity boost of about 1.009. If you’re looking to increase the strength of your beer without increasing the body, sugar is your answer.

Some extreme beer recipes, where the alcohol content is close to 20% ABV, slowly feed the fermentation with sugar over time. As the yeast ferments the sugars in your beer, some yeast adapts to the harsher conditions in your wort. You feed the yeast more sugar and nutrients until you reach the alcohol content you’re targeting.

Other sugars like honey, maple syrup, or corn sugar will also add varying amounts of fermentables to your beer. Maple syrup will add the least (about 1.031 per pound per gallon), while table sugar adds the most. Everything else is somewhere in between.

One sugar that will not increase the alcohol is lactose. Yeast cannot ferment lactose, so this sugar will stay in your beer to the end. Lactose is used to sweeten some stouts and give the beer a smooth “milky” mouthfeel.

Some sugars can alter the flavor and color of your beer

Dark Belgian candi will change slightly the color and flavor of your beer. The darker candies will impart intense molasses and burnt-caramel characters to your beer, and possibly darken the beer. The amber candi has a butter caramel flavor. The color change really depends on what color your beer was when you started, but amber candi usually has a Lovibond rating of 75° L and dark candi has 275° L.

Brown sugar is just normal table sugar with some molasses added. Molasses will give your beer a rum like character. Honey and maple add honey and maple notes to your beer (of course).

Sugar should not make your beer cidery

Well the good news is sugar shouldn’t make your beer cidery. If your fermentable list is more than 20% sugar you may get something that cidery, but I think the cider flavors from sugar is more myth than reality. I’ve never used more than 20% sugar in a batch, so I can’t say for certain if it will make your beer cidery. The most sugar I use is in a Chimay White clone which has no cidery flavors, and a cider which is supposed to taste cidery.

If you add too much sugar, your beer will just be sweet. If your starting gravity is too high, the yeast may have troubles starting or fermenting to completion.

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Why does my beer taste bad?

DJ Spiess — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:34:46 +0000

There are several ways your beer can go wrong. When you have a bad beer you can cry in it, or you can learn from it. In the next few articles, we’ll look at what bad flavors your beer can get and what causes the particular off-flavor.

My beer tastes like green apples (acetaldehyde)

Green apples are great, but pretty crappy in beers. If your beer has the flavor or aroma of green apples, this flavor is usually caused by acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde, sometimes called ethanal, is formed by the yeast before the Glucose is converted to alcohol.

Glucose -> pyruvic acid -> acetaldehyde -> ethanol

Since acetaldehyde is an intermediate step, usually “green” beers have this off-flavor.

The green apple flavor means the fermentation process halted before completion. This could be caused by pitching into wort with too little oxygen, not pitching the correct amount of yeast, or just racking your beer too early. If you haven’t already racked and kegged/bottled the beer, the solution is to warm up the fermenter a bit so the yeast can “finish the job”.

Some literature and several books state adding too much cane or corn sugar will give beers a cidery flavor. It’s more likely the wort was nitrogen-deficient, oxygen deficient, or missing something else the yeast needed to complete the fermentaion. Many Belgian beers use sugar to lighten the body of the beer. I haven’t come across too many unintentionally cidery Belgian beers.

The reason many cite sugar as the culprit is table sugar is sucrose, a sugar which yeast cannot easily ferment. Sucrose (table sugar) however breaks into fructose and glucose, both easily fermented by yeast. Heat and acid (your wort) will easily break the bond of this disaccharide.

Green apple beers are usually “green beers”
Acetaldehyde is the compound usually associated with hangovers
Sugar isn’t usually the cause of cidery beer
Pitch proper amounts of yeast at a cooler fermentation temperature to avoid “green apples”
Time can fix this problem

Is your beer tea-bagged? (astringent)

If your beer makes your mouth pucker up faster than a very strong Earl Grey tea, your beer may be too astringent. This means there is too much tannin in the beer and anyone drinking it will get the instant “bitter beer face”.

One source of tannins comes from sparging your grains in wort where the pH is too alkaline (greater than 6) or your sparging water temperature is too high. When the wort pH is over 6, tannins and silicates are extracted from the malt husks. Tannins are also extracted if your sparge water temperature is too high (over 170 F).

You can get this off flavor in an extract brew as well if you steep your specialty grains too long or at a high temperature.
Another source of this bitterness can come from a bacterial infection. Acetobacter is a genus of bacteria who can convert ethanol (your beer’s alcohol) into acetic acid. This astringency will taste more like vinegar.

The tea bag flavor usually comes from too many tannins
Don’t mash your grains too hot
Some bacterial infections can some vinegary astringency flavors
Modify your brewing techniques to avoid this in the future

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Shorten your brew day with overnight mashing

DJ Spiess — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:06:11 +0000

You’ll often hear all-grain brewing takes around four hours minimum, but I’ve seen bad brew days extend as much as 7 hours (it was cold, and many, many things went wrong). I’ve found breaking the brew day into two days helps improve brewing enjoyment and keeps me sane.

The Overnight Mash

It doesn’t matter how you all-grain brew, you can overnight mash if you batch sparge or continuous sparge. The idea is to mash your grains overnight in a cooler. That’s it. Start your mash and then go to bed. The next morning you can pick up brewing right where you left off.

You'll need a cooler like this one to hold your temperature overnight. Make sure you test it before committing grains to it.

I sometimes alter the process by starting the mash early in the morning, and then pick back up later in the afternoon. The “overnight mash” really should be called an extended mash. The only problem with this method is you need to start very early or brew late. This kinda defeats the whole point of making the brew day shorter, but it can give you time to run errands in between the mash and the boil.

The overnight/extended mash will have the same effect as a 90-minute mash. The mash efficiency might actually be a bit better, but you do no need to worry about dramatically increasing your attenuation. Your starting temperature determines the fermentability.

I usually start my mash in the evening after dinner. If you are brewing in a colder area, you’ll want to bring your cooler inside and put a blanket around it. This will help your mash maintain temperature overnight.

Mashing overnight splits the brew day into two smaller sessions
Once the starches are converted, the mash is just occupying space until you start your brew.

Watch your temperatures

Your cooler should hold temperature as close as possible to your target mashing temperature, especially for the first two hours of your mash. This is the time period when your starches are converted to sugars. During the first few hours the amylase (enzymes which break down starches to sugars) do their work. Once they are done, your mash is just hot sugar tea ready for boil.

Leaving the mash overnight will not affect the attenuation, even if you are targeting a lower fermentable mash. The reason is at 150 F the amylase will denature within the normal mash time. After a few hours, there will be no amylase left. Everything that is going to happen happens in the first two hours. Losing temperature after this point will not affect your wort’s attenuation, but it may cause other headaches for you.

Holding your temperature is important if you are continuous sparging. If the temperature gets too low, you won’t be able to dissolve the sugars in your grain bed and you’ll get a lower efficiency than planned. To avoid this situation, you should do a mash-out. The mashout is raising the temperature of your mash to 170 F prior to lautering. This will help dissolve the sugars and improve your efficiency. This problem is avoided in batch sparging the same way when you add your strike water.

Another concern is a bacterial infection. If your temperature drops below 130 F, your wort might be susceptible to a bacterial infection. The bacteria will be killed off in your boil; however it might produce off-flavors before the boil. I’ve never had this happen because I’ve never had my temperature drop below 145 F. Your mileage may vary, however even if your temperatures go below 130 F the risk is low.

Temperatures are important, but don’t stress so much that you are checking the temperature all night. Check the temperature the next morning when you start your sparge or boil. The morning temperature will tell you if you should add blankets to the cooler next time, or sleep easy through the night.

A mash-out may be required if you continuous sparge
Most bacteria will die off in temperatures over 140 F, but if you go below 130 F you might get off-flavors
Requires more planning and fore-thought

Proper Equipment

I use a Coleman Extreme 5-day cooler for my mashes. The cooler lid sits inside the cooler and the whole thing is heavily insulated. I’ve had great success maintaining temperatures overnight with this cooler. Even in the cooler months of the year the cooler holds the temperature well; however this cooler is best suited for batch sparging.

Keep a thermometer in the mash tun so you can make sure your mash tun stays on temperature

You could use any cooler, but you might need to “supplement” the insulation with blankets. If you are using buckets or another mash tun without insulation, you’ll need to use lots of heavy blankets to hold temperature. You may need to be creative with Styrofoam insulation. Just try to hold your mash temperature for the first few hours, after that stay above 140 F.

5-day coolers work best for overnight mashes. In my experience, I lose no more than 5 degrees overnight with a 5-day cooler.
The color of the cooler does not matter, but I prefer blue.

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How to make Hefeweizen beer

DJ Spiess — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:01:50 +0000

One of the best summer beers you can make is Hefeweizen. This Southern German (Bavarian) wheat ale is incredibly simple to make, but has great complex flavors. The beer can have strong banana flavors or strong clove flavors, and everything in-between. There can even be some vanilla flavors or other citrus flavors.

The beer has a light mouth feel, which is why it makes a great summer selection . Hefeweizen translates to wheat with yeast (mit hefe), since the beer is traditionally cloudy. The cloudiness comes from the unfiltered yeast. There is a clear version of Hefeweizen called Krystal. The Krystal is a filtered Hefeweizen for “crystal clarity”.

Here's a traditional German hefeweizen from Hacker Pschorr

Hefeweizen Yeast

I think one of the most important factors in making a Hefeweizen is your choice of yeast. There are several wheat beer yeasts and each will produce a very different Hefeweizen. You need to decide what flavors you want in your Hefeweizen. Some Hefeweizens have a clove-like flavor, while others have a citrus or strong banana flavor.

From White Labs you can choose Hefeweizen (WPL300), American Hefeweizen (WPL 320), Bavarian Weizen (WPL 351), or Hefeweizen IV (WPL 380). The WPL 300 yeast will produce more banana flavors and the Hefeweizen which is traditionally associated with the German variety. WPL 351 and WPL 380 will accentuate the clove flavor.

There is actually quite a bit of variety for hefeweizen yeast. Most break down into either banana flavor or clove flavor.

From Wyeast you can choose German Wheat (3333), Bavarian Wheat (3638) or Weihenstephan Weizen (3068). The 3638 will give banana flavors like the WPL 300, while the 3333 and 3638 will give more clove flavors.

WPL 320 of course will produce an American version similar to the Oregon American wheat beer. You can also use American ale yeast for the American variety. This will result in a slightly crisper flavor and much higher flocculation. You probably won’t get the cloudiness you would get in the German varieties using American ale yeast.

Personally I like the banana flavor, so I tend to use the WPL 300. If you like experimenting, I think the banana flavors play well with other fruits.

Hefeweizen Recipe

The recipe is brain dead simple and is often listed as a beginner recipe. I almost feel guilty writing an article on such a simple beer.

The recipe is usually 50-50 wheat malt and either pilsner or 2-row malt. To make a true German version, you need to add at least 50% wheat malt by law. (Those Germans are so strict!) The style guidelines state you can use up to 70% wheat malt. I add a bit of Crystal 20L to give the beer slight sweet flavor, but you can omit the Crystal malt to keep it simple.

If you are looking for a break from all-grain brewing and want to make a quick extract beer, you can even get away with using 100% wheat malt extract. If you decide to go the extract route, make sure you do a full wort boil. You don’t want the beer to darken too much. It is supposed to be a pale straw color. The beer can be as dark as a dark gold color, but most Hefeweizens tend to be light. The SRM (Standard Reference Model) listed in the guidelines state the beer color should be between 2 and 8.

The hops in the beer are almost non-existent. According to Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels, some of the older recipes dispensed with the hops all together. I would not recommend eliminating the hops however, since the hops provide an antiseptic quality which prevents bacterial infections.

Hefeweizens use Nobel hops, but not much. I use an ounce of Hallertau per 5 gallon batch for bittering (4% AA). I don’t use any aroma or flavor hops. The beer should have little to no hop aroma or flavor.

8.5 lbs Wheat Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
1 oz Hallertau (4% AA – full boil)
White Labs Hefeweizen (WPL300) or Wyeast German Wheat (3333)

SG 1.050
FG 1.012

Boil the beer for at least 60 minutes. You might even want to boil for 90 minutes to reduce the DMS levels as much as possible. (In Colorado, I try to boil the beers longer because of the higher altitude – as much as 90 minutes. The boiling temperature is about 200 F in Denver.)

If you want to make this beer using an all-grain recipe, just use 5.5 lbs of wheat malt and 5.5 lbs of pilsner malt. You can use German varieties, but I really think the yeast is what makes this beer. For all-grain versions, I’d use local malts. Mash the grains at 152 F for 60 minutes.

Fermentation

You will want to ferment the beer on the lower end of the temperature range for the yeast (60F – 65F). The lower temperature produces a cleaner flavor. My basement is a constant 65F, and I’ve always been pleased with the results. If I could ferment at a cooler temperature I’d try it. Brewing Classic Styles suggests fermenting the beer as low as 62 F.

Carbonate the beer at 2.5 to 3.0 volumes.

Experiments with fruit

Lately it seems Hefeweizen is the new beer playground for fruit. I think since the recipe is so simple, people feel the need to play with it. I’m just as guilty, and usually fruit a portion of the beer.

Harpoon makes a raspberry Hefeweizen, Schöfferhofer has Grapefruit Hefeweizen, and there are many others. I recently even tried a mandarin orange Hefeweizen. I think the citrus and banana flavors mix well with other fruits.

When you “fruit the beer”, you want to add the fruit after the primary fermentation. If you ferment the fruit during the primary fermentation, the yeast will chew through your fruit leaving little fruit character. The amount of fruit you add really depends on how much fruit flavor you want to add. Personally I like a hint of flavor from the fruit, not overwhelming fruit.

I’ve had an Apricot Hefeweizen I tried at an Arizona beer festival. The apricot flavor was very strong and tasted great in a 1 ounce taster. A full 12 ounce beer of the strong flavor was difficult to stomach. In fact it gave me a stomachache. My friend had bought a case of the beer based on the tasting. It took several months to finish the case of beer.

With that said, I’d add about 2-4 lbs of fruit to your secondary depending on the fruit you choose. Cherry is very strong so you might want to add less, while strawberries are faint so you need more. I use fruit puree instead of fresh fruit. The reason is the fruit puree is less likely to contain any unwanted organisms.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Hefeweizen is a very easy beer, and lends well to experimentation! Let me know how your’s turns out and what experiments you try.

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How to make Mexican Lagers

DJ Spiess — Tue, 06 May 2008 04:43:38 +0000

Mexican lagers have always been an enigma to me. I’ve been all over Mexico, and I can say with certainty the place is hot. The last time I was in Mexico was for a football game between the Miami Dolphins and Denver Broncos in Mexico City. The game was at night, but seemed as hot as a summer day in Denver. At the game I learned a few things. One, the Mexicans love the Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raiders in that order. Two, the Denver Broncos are at the bottom of the list of favorites, right under root canals and spinal taps. Three, Mexican beers taste awesome when it is really hot out!

Mexican beers aren't just for Cinco de Mayo

Mexican Lager History

Some places like Puerto Peñasco are dry and hot, others places like Acapulco are humid and hot. All in all, Mexico is hot (did mention it’s hot in Mexico?). Making an ale would not surprise me too much, but lagers seem to be an odd choice for such a warm climate. I have troubles with lager temperatures in Colorado, so Mexico seems like a “lager impossibility”. Believe it or not, the first lager brewery in Mexico, the La Pila Seca, was opened by a Swiss immigrant in 1845. That’s impressive since commercial refrigeration really didn’t take off until 1856.

Still Mexican lagers are a great choice for a summer beer. If you want to make some for the Fourth of July, now is a good time to start. You’ll need to lager the beer for four weeks after fermentation. These are great summer party beers to drink through the hot summer days and nights. The lagers are yet another good session beer, but a bit stronger at 4.5% ABV to 5.5% ABV.

Vienna Lagers

The Mexican lager we’re going to look at is really a Vienna lager. The Vienna lager died out in Germany, but not before Santiago Graf and other Austrian immigrant brewers in the late 1800s brought the style to Mexico. In fact two popular beers, Negra Modelo and Dos Equis Ámbar are heavily influenced by the Vienna style. The Vienna style shouldn’t be an exact match of these Mexican beers, since the commercialization of these beers have altered the profile of the true Vienna lager. They now add corn syrup and other adjuncts to reduce costs. The lager should be maltier than your typical Pilsner, more so than Corona or other lagers based on the American-style Pilsner lagers.

There are many Mexican beers, but few are like the Vienna style beer

The Mexican lagers, like the Vienna style lagers, are a reddish amber to copper color with a good off-white head. The head should last a bit. This beer is similar in flavor to the Märzen/Oktoberfest beer , but not quite as malty.

Many Vienna lager recipes use some darker malts for color, but they should not impart any flavor or aroma. The beer should not have any caramel flavors. The flavor is more like toast. Since this is a North American beer, you can use any quality Pilsner malt as your base malt. The beer should have a crisp clean lager finish, almost dry. The body of the beer should be a bit creamy, and have mild carbonation. Most Mexican lagers unfortunately do not have the flavor of the original lagers. While the current commercial incarnations are heavily laced with adjuncts, the future for Mexican lagers looks brighter. The microbrew industry has taken America by storm also is taking hold in Mexico. We may yet again see accurate versions of the Vienna lager in Mexico.

Recipe

 3.75 lbs. of Continental Pilsner Malt
 5.0 lb. of Vienna Malt
 1.0 lb. of Munich Malt
 6.0 oz of Crystal Malt
 1.5 oz Hallertau (4.0% AA) for 60 minutes
 0.5 oz Hallertau (4.0% AA) for 10 minutes
 White Labs WLP838 Southern German Lager or Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager

 SG 1.051
 FG 1.013

Mash the grains for 90 minutes at 152 F (67 C). You’ll want to boil the beer for 90 minutes to eliminate any DMS (dimethyl sulphide).

Ferment at the wort at 50 F, the lower end of the recommended temperature for the yeast. Once the fermentation is complete, you’ll want to lager the beer for at least 4 weeks. If you can make the beer in February or March, the beer will be even smoother by summer.

Carbonate the beer 2 to 2.5 volumes.

Do I fruit the beer?

It’s really up to you if you want to “fruit the beer” with a lime. The origins of the lime were to prevent insects from getting into the beer, but many like the flavor so it has since become a tradition. Burt Renyolds and Miller Beer can’t really be trusted on this subject. They said “don’t fruit the beer”, and a few months later released Miller Chill. Go with how you feel, and forget what everyone else says.

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6 questions to ask yourself before pitching your yeast

DJ Spiess — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:44:00 +0000

Like a horse after a long ride, you may find yourself racing to the finish line at the end of your brew day. If you cross the finish line too soon, you may create more problems for yourself. Here are six questions you should answer before pitching your yeast into the beer.

Is your wort cool enough for happy yeast?

Yeast does not respond well to higher temperatures. The metabolism of yeast changes as the temperature changes. If your wort is too hot, the yeast will be shocked and most likely will take a long time to start fermenting. You can kill your yeast en masse if your temperature is not low enough. If your temperature is not boiling but still well above the recommended temperature range, you may not kill the yeast but you will unnecessarily stress your yeast. Stressed or shocked yeast can lead to bad flavors, and slowed or stalled fermentation. Make sure your beer is within the recommended temperature range for the yeast you are using.

Boiling wort looks hypnotic, but it's a death pool for yeast. Make sure it's below 80 F (27 C) before pitching.

Does your wort have enough oxygen?

Like most organisms, yeast needs oxygen. The oxygen is needed for cell-membrane components which are used in reproduction. Unfortunately, hot wort contains little oxygen. If you just cool your wort and pitch, your yeast may struggle. Poor aeration can also cause higher than normal ester production in your beer.

Ale yeasts need about 5 parts oxygen per million in wort, while lagers can need 10 to 12 parts oxygen per million. To make matters worse, the maximum dissolved oxygen you can achieve in your wort using air is around 8 parts oxygen per million. Splashing your wort by rocking the carboy will help, but it most likely will not come close to the theoretical maximum. White Labs states shaking will achieve about 10-30% of the needed oxygen levels.

You should aerate your wort for higher gravity brews. The reason is higher gravity brews decrease the solubility of oxygen. You would need to shake very hard to get enough oxygen into your high gravity wort

You can get an aeration stone from an aquarium shop or your local homebrew store. There is some debate among homebrewers if you really need to use oxygen, or if air will suffice. Personally I use air, and have had no problems.

Are you pitching the correct amount of yeast?

Long before pitching your yeast, you need to know how much yeast you need to pitch. Homebrewers notoriously under pitch their yeast. Commercial brewers pitch at least 10 million yeast cells per milliliter of wort.

According to Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer, you need to pitch 0.75 million yeast cells per milliliter of wort per degrees Plato. Wyeast and White Labs recommend 1 to 2 million yeast cells per milliliter of wort per degree Plato if you are reusing your yeast. This yields the following equation:

(0.75 million yeast cells) x (milliliters of wort) x (degrees Plato)

One degree Plato is about 1.004 of specific gravity, so to get degrees Plato divide the gravity of your wort by 4. If your wort is 1.060, your degrees Plato would be 15°P.

You really need a yeast starter for most 5 gallon recipes

1 US gallon equals about 3785 ml, so a typical 5.5 gallon batch is about 20,817 ml. If you enter these values into the above equation yields 234,196,875,000 yeast cells. Your typical smack pack is 100 billion cells. For a 1.060 beer, you need three smack packs to properly pitch. Your best bet is to create a starter.

You can over pitch too, but that usually is a problem only when you pitch 400 billion cells in a typical 5 gallon batch.

Do you have enough nutrients for your wort?

Yeast needs three things to be happy: a happy temperature, oxygen, and nitrogen. The nitrogen can be a bit nebulous for the homebrewer. The best advice is to look at your ratio of grain to adjuncts. Most of your nitrogen will come from your malt. If you are using more than 25% non-barley adjuncts, you need to consider adding yeast nutrient.

What temperature are you fermenting at?

As I mentioned before, higher fermentation temperatures can have a negative impact on the flavor of your beer. Higher temperatures can cause the yeast to produce a fruity flavor. If your temperatures are too low, the yeast will be sluggish and take longer to ferment. The longer the fermentation, the higher the possibility something else (like bacteria) can take hold in your beer. Make sure that you can ferment your beer within the recommended temperature range.

What’s your starting specific gravity?

You should measure your starting gravity before you pitch your yeast. You still have some chance to adjust your starting gravity before your yeast is pitched. Ideally you want to know your starting gravity before you boil, but checking at the end of your boil is important. The initial gravity will let you know how the boil affects your gravity (how much water is lost to evaporation). This metric is also important to determine the attenuation of your yeast, and help you estimate how much alcohol is in your beer.

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All-grain brewing vs extract brewing: Is it really cheaper?

DJ Spiess — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 05:18:45 +0000

There are cost differences between the two methods, but what is the real difference. I’ve examined the “must have” equipment required and what the difference is in cost. All-grain takes more time to brew, so you will need to determine if the price difference is worth the cost difference to you. For price references, I’ve used Northern Brewer. There are other places to purchase equipment and ingredients, but I wanted to give you a feel for the differences. The purpose is not to declare one homebrew store better than any other. You might be able to vary the prices a bit with some bargain shopping.

You have more flexibility with all-grain, but is it cheaper?

To make a fair comparison between the brewing styles, I’ve picked a simple recipe from the book Beer Captured by Tess and Mark Szamatulski. I’m picking a recipe from the book because it gives a complete recipe for both all-grain and extract, and it is a very simple recipe.

You will need more beer equipment

I am assuming you already have a 10 gallon pot. I was using a 10 gallon pot long before I made the switch to all-grain. If you do not have a pot capable of a full-wort boil, you will need to add a pot to your list of costs to switch. A 10 gallon pot will cost anywhere between $100-$200 USD.

I use a cooler to batch sparge my all-grain beers

You will also need a mash tun. The simplest possible mash tun you can construct is a batch sparge mash tun from a cooler. You can buy a all-grain continuous sparging system made from two rubber maid coolers for $249.99 USD. A batch sparging system is much cheaper.

To construct a batch sparging mash tun you will need a 5-day cooler, a cooler conversion kit, and some sort of filter. You can buy the Bazooka screen or construct your own from a bathroom stainless steel braided hose. I’ve done both, but I prefer buying the bazooka screen. The price difference is about $5 USD.

5-day cooler 70-quart	$37.88 (WalMart)
Cooler Conversion Kit	$29.99
Bazooka Screen	$20.50

You can buy a smaller cooler (48-quart) for $28.88, but I would highly recommend getting the largest cooler you can. This allows you to increase capacity or to make some very high gravity brews.

If you do not have a wort chiller, this is also highly recommended. With extract brews you can brew half of the brew and chill it with cold sanitized water. When you do all-grain brews, you are brewing the full wort. It can take a long time to chill 5 gallons of boiling wort. I would add a wort chiller in the “almost necessary” column. The cheapest wort chiller will run $57.99 USD.

The last item in the “highly recommended” list is a propane burner. These cost around $50 USD to $60 USD. They will make your life much better, because you will be able to boil your wort within a reasonable amount of time. If your burner on your stove is electric, you need a propane burner.

This is all the “above and beyond” equipment. The fermenter and other equipment you used for extract brewing is the same for all-grain brewing. This means if you want to switch to all-grain brewing, you will need to spend at least $88.37 USD. If you need the wort chiller or brew pot, you should add those too. Your total out is anywhere between $88.37 USD to $296.36 USD.

Recipe differences

The recipe I selected for comparison is the Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale recipe. Here’s the extract recipe:

5 oz British 55ºL Crystal Malt
3 oz British Chocolate Malt
6 lbs Extra Light Dry Malt Extract
1 ½ oz East Kent Goldings
½ oz Fuggles
Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale

Here is the all-grain recipe

9.25 lbs British 2-row Pale Malt
5 oz British 55ºL Crystal Malt
3 oz British Chocolate Malt
Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale
25% less hops

The yeast is the same in both recipes, so I will exclude it from the comparison. The all-grain method does use fewer hops, but I have never purchased hops in a smaller increment than 1 ounce. In either recipe we will be buying 2 oz of East Kent Goldings and 1 oz of Fuggles, so I will eliminate the hop comparison as well. Fewer hops will make a difference if your recipes grow larger than 5 gallon batches.

That leaves the grain bill. Since the specialty grains are also the same in both recipes, I am going to compare the prices of malt extract to grain.

The malt extract is $13.50 USD for 6 lbs. The price for grain crushed is $16.18 USD. For this example, the price for all-grain is $2.58 USD higher. Maybe I picked a poor example?

All-grain kits are $0.51 cheaper

The extract English Pale Ale kit from Northern Brewer costs $27.50. The price for the all-grain English Pale Ale kit is $26.99. At these price differences, you would need to make many all-grain kits to recoup the cost of your extra equipment.

So why do so many people believe all-grain is cheaper? If you purchase your grain in bulk, the prices drop dramatically. A 50 lb bag of 2-row will cost about $56.99. You most likely can get this even cheaper from your local homebrew store. The cost of your grain for this recipe is now $10.54 USD – a savings of $2.96 USD. Recipes which use more grain will be even cheaper. If you only make Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, you will need to make a minimum of 30 batches to recoup your costs. If you brew triples, the number of brews will most likely decrease (not by much though).

Why switch to all-grain at all then?

The point of all this is to help you make an informed decision. The real reason you want to switch to all-grain is for the control over your brews and ultimately to make better beer. According to a Univ. of Saskatchewan study (listed in Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels), here are a few reasons why brewing from grain can be better:

You can produce lighter colored beers from grain

93% of the extracts tested fermented slower than all-grain equivalents

Some extracts will not ferment to the desired final gravity due to higher amounts of dextrins in the extract

Some extracts tested contained high amounts of non-malt syrups (even some labeled 100% malt extract)

With all-grain brewing, you know exactly what is in your beer. If you want to make better beer, all-grain is the way to go. If you are happy with your extract beer and you’re not really looking for that extra edge, save yourself the money and stick with extract. I’ve made great beers for years with extract.

I ultimately switched to all-grain for the control. I want to make the best beer possible, and I want to know exactly what is in my beer. All-grain allows me to fine tune recipes, experiment a bit, and give to me experience to become a better brewer. A better way to look at all of this is, after equipment purchase, it is only a little bit more to go all-grain. You ultimately have to make the choice for yourself. Hopefully this will make your decision more informed.

[EDIT]

There was some feedback in the comments expressing concern about the prices and necessary equipment. Here is Bill Velek’s well thought out criticism

http://home.alltel.net/billvelek/ferm-1.html

and my response

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10 summer homebrew beers you need to start now

DJ Spiess — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:31:44 +0000

If you have not started getting your home brewery in order, you better get to it. It takes beer 5 weeks on average to ferment and to be ready for consumption, it many take longer.

For spring and summer beers, you want something that is light, crisp, and generally lower in alcohol. The beers listed here are session beers, or beers that you can drink for most of the day and night without hating yourself the next morning.

Here are 10 excellent choices for summer beers.

Summer is a great time for beer. The only problem is choosing one.

Pilseners and Light Lagers

Lagers are a mainstay for hot summer days. In fact, you can find some variation of this beer made on every continent (save maybe Antarctica). These beers are the number one choice for hot summer days. If you want to make lagers for the summer, you need to start now. These beers typically take two months of lagering. Lagers are known for their low hops and crisp dry flavor are often 4% ABV to 5% ABV.
Commercial Examples: Pilsner Urquell, Heineken, Gordon Biersch Pilsner

British Bitter

Despite the word “bitter” these beers are quite smooth. Bitters are light yellow to light copper and have a very light to no floral hop character with a sweet malt taste. According to the style guidelines, the balance is slightly towards bitter, but it should not overpower the malt or hop flavor. The alcohol content is usually 3.2-3.8 % (ABV) which makes these great sessions beers. This is the beer you want to drink on your porch with friends during the cooler summer nights. This beer is best served at 55F (13C) on draft.
Commercial Examples: Bodington’s Pub Draught, Young’s Bitter

American Pale Ale

American pale ales are closely related to British bitters. American brewers distinguish the two styles because they are separated in competitions. There are other subtle differences. The American pale ales often have stronger hop aromas from late kettle additions or dry hopping, less caramel flavor, and less body. The American pale ale is less carbonated than the British bitter. This beer’s alcohol strength is between 4.5-6.2% ABV. If you are looking for a good summer beer, stick to recipes that have lower alcohol contents.
Commercial Examples: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Kölsch

Kölsch is a German beer that comes from the city of Köln. The beer is also called Kölschbier. It has very little malt aroma, and little to no Nobel hop aroma. This beer is very balanced. Kölsch beers have a cooling period similar to lagers, but the beer is brewed with ale yeast. This is an ideal beer for those looking for a lager, but do not have lagering equipment. In fact, many tasters might mistake this beer for a lager. The low alcohol and high carbonation of this light beer make it a great choice for hot summer days. This beer is 4.4-5.2% ABV on average.
Commercial Examples: Reissdorf, Gaffel, Alaska Summer Ale, Harpoon Summer Beer

Witbier

What beer list would be complete without a selection from the Belgians? Belgian Witbier (“white beer”) gets its name from its cloudy haze, although the beer is usually a light straw color. This refreshing beer has spicy notes from the coriander and orange peel added to the brew. You might even detect vanilla or honey flavors. Witbier also has citrus flavors from the saaz hops that go great with a slice of lemon or orange. This beer is typically 5% ABV, but drinks like it’s 2% ABV.
Commercial Examples: Hoegaarden Wit, St. Bernardus Blanche, Celis White, Blue Moon

Cream Ale

For homebrewers without the ability to lager beer, cream ales are another good choice for the summer months. This beer was created by brewers in the American Midwest to compete with the larger lager breweries. This beer is similar to the light American lagers. It has almost no hop aroma and little to no maltiness. Since hops are dramatically understated in this beer, you can use almost any bittering hop. This beer is much higher in carbonation than your typical ales, but is so smooth it is often referred to as the “lawnmower beer”. The ABV is between 4.2% ABV to 5.6% ABV.
Commercial Examples: Genesee Cream Ale, Little Kings Cream Ale

Hefeweizen

This German wheat beer is very easy to make. The grain bill is usually just pilsner malt and wheat malt. According to German law, 50% of the grist must be wheat malt. The wheat malt gives the beer its cloudy color, similar to the Belgian Witbier. This beer is filled with fruity esters, which give the beer a slight banana flavor. These beers are 4.3% ABV to 5.5% ABV.
Commercial Examples: Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, Schneider Weisse Weizenhell, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen

Raspberry Wheat

Nothing says crowd pleaser like raspberry wheat. The refreshing flavor of the hefeweizen is enhanced with the crisp flavor of raspberries. This beer can be made by adding a bit of raspberry flavoring at kegging or bottling. These beers are also 4.3% ABV to 5.5%ABV.
Commercial Examples: UFO Raspberry Hefeweizen, Schlafly Raspberry Hefeweizen

Mexican Amber Lager

Mexican lagers are really just North American cousins of Vienna lagers. They are very light and refreshing. These beers are also slightly malt forward, but finish very dry. These are great beers to drink through the hot summer nights. This is yet another good session beer, but a bit stronger at 4.5% ABV to 5.5% ABV.
Commercial Examples: Dos Equis Amber

California Common

The California Common (or “Anchor Steam”) beer is an American original from San Francisco. Several beers used to be known as Anchor Steam beers, but 30 years ago Anchor Steam Brewery trademarked the name. Now other steam beers are called California Commons. The California Common has stronger hop flavors from the Northern Brewer hops added to the beer. The beer is also is fermented with a lager yeast that tolerates higher temperatures. This beer sometimes has a bit of fruitiness, some caramel biscuit flavor, and a dry finish. The alcohol content is usually 4.5-5.5% ABV making it a slightly stronger session beer.
Commercial Examples: Anchor Steam, Southampton Steem Beer, Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber Lager

Making beer in the summer is only second to drinking beer in the summer!

So those are my recommendations. There are other good summer beers, but I think these are some of the best representatives. It is mid-March now. If you want beer for the summer, you had better get brewing. Oh, and if you’re planning to make a Marzen for Oktoberfest, that time is now as well! Get brewing.

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All-grain brewing: How to batch sparge

DJ Spiess — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:01:01 +0000

Sparging is sprinkling water over mash to rinse the fermentable sugars from the grain. The rinsing helps to extract about 70-80% of the fermentable sugars from the grain. These sugars eventually become your alcohol and beer. There are two common methods to sparge your grains: continuous sparge, and batch sparging.

Continuous (or Fly) sparging

Continuous (or Fly) sparging is the most popular, and this method is similar to how the big breweries sparge. Many homebrewers use this method as well. A sprinkler is positioned over the mash, and water is trickled over the grains to drain the sugars. The rate of liquid drained is equal to the amount of water added to the grain. This trickling of water “rinses” the grains and uses the grain bed as a filter to keep back any solids. Fly sparging usually requires some specialized equipment, but you can build your own system. Continuous sparging usually results in 70-80% efficiency if done correctly.

The problem with continuous sparging is that you can over sparge. pH is important for your mash, but with continuous sparging the pH can rise over 6.0. The higher pH will extract tannins from the grain husks and give your beer off flavors. Continuous sparging also requires more attention. You must monitor the temperature and the rate of water in and out of your mash. Stuck sparges can result if you are not careful.

Batch sparging

Batch sparging is a method that was popularized by Denny Conn (he calls it the “Cheap ‘n’ Easy” batch sparge brewing ). This method is not really sparging, since batch sparging removes the sugars from the grain through diffusion. The grain is not “rinsed”.

When the mash is complete, the wort is drained completely. The grain is then sparged all at once with a second infusion of water. This is similar to how the English create “small beers”. The second runoff is a lower gravity wort since most of the sugars are collected in the first runoff. The small beer is the second runoff. In batch sparging, the second runoff is combined with the first runoff.

Batch sparging does not suffer the same problems as continuous sparging. The mash is “set and forget”. When the time has passed, you drain the wort and repeat the process. You do not need to monitor the pH because the wort does not get weaker (and higher in pH) over time. There can be a lower efficiency for batch sparging, but this is up for some debate. Many brewers have reported the same efficiencies as continuous sparging, but on average it might be slightly less. This reduced efficiency can be accounted for with a 5-10% higher grain bill or an extract addition to your wort. Adding extract at the end is probably the best method because you can hit your target gravity with more accuracy.

The cooler

To batch sparge, you need a cooler converted into a mash tun. The cooler is “converted” to include a drain and a filter. The cooler is nothing more than your average beverage cooler. I use a Coleman Extreme cooler because it holds the temperature much longer. This is great if you want to mash overnight and split your brew time into two days.

Just about any cooler will work for batch sparging, but try to look for one that keeps temperatures steady for 3 days.

Red vs. Blue

You might see comments on brewboards arguing between red and blue coolers. This is actually an inside joke, and the color of the cooler has no effect on the batch sparge method. Just find a good 40L cooler (for 5 gallon brews) that can hold a temperature for more than a few days.

The simplest method for creating a filter is to find a water supply line with a stainless steel braid at your local home supply store. The end of the water supply line is removed along with the inner plastic hose. The remaining stainless steel braid is used to construct your filter. (The actual steps and supply list for this conversion will be covered soon in another article.) There are also cooler conversion kits sold at your local homebrew supply store.

Here's how my braid looks inside the mash tun

Steps

Batch sparging has the following steps: calculate your water, mash, infuse with water, drain, sparge with a second infusion, and drain. You can repeat batch sparging, but usually 2 is the magic number. Here are the steps in more detail.

1) Calculate your water additions

You need to calculate the water for your mash and each sparge. Typically you will only calculate water for your mash, one batch infusion for your first runoff, and one batch infusion for your second runoff. You can have more than one runoff, but two is usually sufficient. The total volume of all runoffs should equal your total pre-boil wort volume.

Your first runoff volume should equal half of your total pre-boil wort volume. If you intend to start your boil with 7.5 gallons of wort, your first runoff should be 3.75 gallons.

Total volume = First runoff + second runoff + ….
First runoff = Total volume / 2

The first calculation is the amount of water to use in your mash. Your mash should be about 1.2 quarts per pound of grain. If you have 10 pounds of grain in your recipe, you will need 12 quarts (3 gallons) of water for your mash.

Mash volume = pounds of grain x 1.2 quarts of water

Grain will absorb some of this water. Typically grain will absorb 0.1 gallons for every pound of grain in the recipe. Again assuming that the recipe calls for 10 pounds of grain, you will lose 1 gallon of water due to absorption. We were using 3 gallons of water for the mash, and if we lose 1 gallon that will leave us with 2 gallons of water. (I’m so glad that I remember from college 3 – 1 = 2!)

Since we want the first runoff volume to be a total of 3.75 gallons, we will need to add 1.75 gallons of water at the end of the mash.

First runoff = (Total volume / 2) = Mash Volume + First Infusion - Absorption

The last batch sparge is easy to calculate if you are doing only one additional runoff. Our first runoff was 3.75 gallons, and the remainder of runoffs should also equal 3.75. Since we only have one additional infusion, our last calculation is 3.75 gallons.

2) Complete the mash with the first water addition

Heat the water calculated for your first runoff a bit higher than your target mash temperature. For example, if your target mash temperature is 150 F, heat the water to 165-170F. Add this water to your cooler, and then add the grain. Adding the water to a cooler filled with grain will create dry clumps and make it more difficult to mash all of your grain.

Once your mash is complete, add the first infusion of water. This additional water should be heated to 180-190F in order to get the grain bed temperature to 170F. The higher temperature is to help dissolve any remaining sugars.

Wait 10 minutes before progressing to the next step.

3) Drain the mash

Drain your wort from the cooler. The first few pints should be recirculated back into the cooler, until the runoff comes out clear. Recirculating the wort over the grain bed is also called vorlauf. Once the runoff is clear of grain particles, drain as much wort from the cooler as you can. While you are draining the first runoff, heat the second batch of water.

4) Add the second water addition

The second addition water should be almost boiling, so that you can get the temperature as close to 170F as possible. I usually try to get the water between 180-190F. Add this water to the emptied grain bed.

Wait 10 minutes before progressing to the next step.

5) Drain again

The instructions for this step are the same as step 3. Recirculate the first few pints until it is clear, and then drain as much as you can.

Why it works better

Batch sparging is superior to continuous sparging in the following ways:

1)   Entrance fee is cheap. The equipment involved is a cooler modified with a filter.
2)   No babysitting required. Since the water is added all at once, you do not need to worry about stuck sparges or pH imbalances. Just fill and drain.
3)   Avoids channeling. When you continuous sparge the rinsing water can enter into channels, which will leave areas of your grain un-rinsed.

Hopefully you will find batch sparging an excellent introduction to all-grain brewing. The only “trick” to this method is accurately calculating the required water at each step. Other than that, this method is very low maintenance. Let us know if you have any questions in the comments. Happy brewing!

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How to make a Chimay White Clone

DJ Spiess — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:29:08 +0000

The History of Chimay

Since 1862 Chimay beers are brewed by the Cistercian Trappist monks of Chimay. The monks produce 120,000 hectoliters annually so that they can afford to be monks and help those less fortunate. The monks belong to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance.

Most of the world knows Cistercian Trappist monks as Trappist monks. The Order of Cistercians originally came from the Abbey of La Grande Trappe, France, which is why they are often referred to as Trappist monks. The beer that you can buy at the store is brewed on site at the abbey and bottled down the road.

This Trappist beer is lighter than you would expect with a strong kick

There are eight Trappist abbeys, six in Belgium, one in the Netherlands, and one in Germany. Due to the worldwide popularity of Trappist beers, many breweries were abusing the Trappist name by claiming that they were a Trappist beer. The monks even had to resort to a lawsuit to stop one brewery from claiming that they were a Trappist beer. In 1997, the eight abbeys formed the International Trappist Association (ITA) to prevent non-Trappist commercial companies from purloining the name to promote their beers.

Chimay White (Blanche) is like “beer champagne”. The beer is light, very carbonated, and slightly bitter. The balance in the beer demonstrates the monks drive for perfection. It is one of those beers that you want to share with all your friends, but not at $9 a bottle. (maybe your really good close friends)

If I wanted to introduce this beer to friends, I needed to find a way to make it myself. I searched a long time for a good recipe; unfortunately the recipe wasn’t covered in any of the clone books. I did find this recipe a few years ago, and I’ve found it to be a very close clone of the Chimay White.

The Recipe

10 lbs of Belgian Pilsner malt
1 lb of Belgian Wheat malt
0.25 lbs of Rice Hulls
1.5 lbs of sugar
Lemon juice (tablespoon)

2 oz East Kent Goldings (5.8% AA)
1 oz Hallertrau Hersbrucker (1.3% AA)
White Labs WLP500 or Wyeast 1214

OG 1.071
FG  1.010

You can substitute very light dry malt extract (DME) if you are an extract brewer. I’d use 8 lbs of extra light DME. You might have troubles matching the color or Chimay with anything darker than DME. If you use extract, omit the grain and rice hulls from the recipe.

Prepare the sugar before starting the boil. The main difference between Belgian candi and table sugar is that Belgian candi is inverted. Belgian candi is also made from beets instead of cane, but I do not believe anyone can really taste much difference. Heat the sugar with a small amount of water (enough to make a syrup) and a teaspoon of lemon juice. The lemon juice will help invert the sugar into simpler sugars. After about 15 minutes the sugar will turn a very light yellow color.

Mash the grains for at least 90 minutes in a converted cooler at 150F (I batch sparge). Add 1.5oz of the East Kent Goldings and 0.5 oz of the Hallertrau at the start of your boil. Also at the start of your boil, add the sugar syrup that you created earlier. Boil the wort for 90 minutes. 5 minutes before the end of the boil, add the last of your hops, 0.5 oz of East Kent Goldings and 0.5 oz of Hallertrau Hersbrucker.

You can culture your own yeast from a bottle of Chimay, but I think it is easier to just use the White Labs WPL500 yeast. You could also use Wyeast 1214. These yeasts were cloned from the Chimay yeast, and you’ll get great consistent results using either of these yeasts.

Give the yeast a good chance to ferment the wort as much as possible. You want this beer to be very dry. That is why Chimay White can taste like dry champagne. Start it at the higher end of the temperature range (70F). Once it’s started, move it to a location where it ferments at the lower end of the temperature range (65-60F).

For carbonation, you could use 1 cup of corn sugar. If you are kegging, you’ll want 2.0 to 4.0 volumes of CO2. I would plan for an even 3.0 volumes. This beer will have a large head if you pour it too fast.

This beer is light, but will sneak up on you. It is higher in alcohol, but because of the sugar you won’t notice the alcohol too much. My neighbors have learned the hard way, and now everyone refers to the beer as “tripel trouble”. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

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Fix a stuck sparge before it happens!

DJ Spiess — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:59:38 +0000

Another way to avoid stuck sparges is to batch sparge. If you continuous sparge, rice hulls are great insurance.

A stuck sparge can ruin your brew day. A stuck sparge means that you cannot vorlauf or sparge your mash because the grains are so compacted that the wort cannot flow out. This leaves your precious wort stuck with the grain. If you are using wheat or oatmeal for your beer, stuck sparges can be quite common. There are methods you can try to avoid a stuck sparge, but the simplest method is to avoid the stuck sparge to begin with.

Adding rice hulls are the best insurance policy. You usually add 2% to 5% rice hulls to your grain bill. This will dramatically decrease the likelihood of a stuck sparge. Usually rice hulls are about $1 USD per pound, but you’ll only use about a third of that. That’s a $0.33 USD insurance policy. Peace of mind rarely comes cheaper!

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How to make lambic (one ugly beer!)

DJ Spiess — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:33:36 +0000

My wife likes one beer – Lindeman’s Framboise. Every other beer, she turns her nose up. As an avid homebrewer, this is difficult to take because I haven’t made a beer that she appreciates. Since she likes the lambics, I decided to take the plunge into the scary unknown and make it for her.

The wild yeast

The “scary” part of making lambic is the yeast. Search on the internet, and you will find many warnings about making lambic with lambic yeast. True lambic brews are not made with particular yeast. The wort is just exposed to the local critters and Mother Nature does the rest. If we tried that outside of Belgium, our results would be bad to horrible. The reason is the wild yeasts and bacteria local to parts of Belgium are used to make lambic. The rest of the world must use a commercial lambic blend.

It looks scary fermenting, but lambics are worth the scare.

The lambic blend includes Brettanomyces, Saccharomyces, and the bacterial strains Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. There are other yeasts and bacteria, but science has determined that these are the critters that produce the flavor we want.

There are many myths surrounding these yeast and bacteria. Since they are “wild”, it is assumed they have supernatural powers above and beyond the normal beer yeast. Brewers worry the critters will lurk in every crevice of your home or brewery and infect every beer you ever make again. If you are brewing in porous wood barrels, uncovered fermenters, and/or you don’t clean or sanitize anything you may have something to worry about. Using proper sanitation and properly cleaning your equipment will protect you from these “wild” yeasts and any truly wild yeast living in your home brewery. When you are finished, clean all of your equipment as you normally would. If you feel extra worried, you can soak your equipment in star san a bit longer. These micro-organisms are just as susceptible to the acid-based sanitizer as all other brewing critters.

Making the beer

The recipe I used is as followed:

0.5 lb Gambrinus Honey Malt
4.5 lb Belgian 2 Row
1.5 lb Belgian Wheat Malt
0.5 lb Flaked Wheat Malt
2 oz Saaz hops
American Ale yeast
1 can of Oregon Seedless Raspberries
Pectic Enzyme
Lambic Blend Yeast
4 oz natural concentrated Raspberry flavoring

Mash the grains at 150 F (65 C) for 90 minutes. For the boil, add the hops from the start and boil the wort for 60 minutes. The beer we are making is a very basic ale. You can use any neutral ale yeast.

Ferment the beer using the ale yeast as you normally would. Once the beer has fermented completely you are ready for the second stage.

Adding the raspberries and second yeast

In your secondary fermenter, add the raspberries, pectic enzyme (for 5 gallons), and the lambic yeast. Rack your fermented ale on top of the raspberries and lambic yeast. Seal the top of your fermenter, and store in a cool place.

The long wait

The lambic yeast will create a layer of bacteria on top of your beer. If you have a clear fermenter, be prepared to be grossed out. The beer will look infected—which it is, but in a good way. Do not show this to anyone who might drink the beer. The likelihood of them liking the beer will drop dramatically with every glimpse of the film on top of the beer. The Belgians smartly store lambics in opaque wooden barrels. The lambic should be stored for about 6 months.

Rack and carbonate

Once the time has passed, suppress your gag reflex and poke a hole through the bacteria layer and rack your beer. Add the raspberry flavoring at this time to taste. You can rack it into a bottling bucket, add sugar and naturally carbonate, or you can just keg it and add the CO2.

There is some debate over how carbonated the lambic should be. Authentic lambics are not very carbonated. Lindeman’s has a cork and is very carbonated. You will have to experiment to see what you like, and report back to us.

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Top 10 ways to improve your homebrew beer

DJ Spiess — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:38:42 +0000

10. Add specialty grains to your beer to fine tune flavors

If you are brewing extract brews, adding a bit of specialty grains will improve your beer flavor and can give it a better head. The specialty grains also give the beer a bit more depth in flavor. Specialty grains are steeped in hot water, 158F (70C) for 20 to 60 minutes. This creates a “grain tea” that is added to your wort when you start your boil. The grains used for steeping are not part of the mash, because these grains do not require enzymatic conversion.

9. Use a one step sanitizer

If you are not using a one step sanitizer like star san, you should start now. A one step sanitizer sanitizes your fermenter, spoon, or anything else the might come in contact with your wort within minutes. The best part is that the one step sanitizers do not require you to rinse. A one step sanitizer is an odorless and tasteless weak acid, so it will not change the flavor of your beer. Proper sanitary procedures will dramatically reduce the chance for infection, and thus give you a better beer.

8. Full wort boil

A full wort boil is when you boil the full 5 gallons of your wort. If you are creating Belgian Wits or Hefeweizens that are too dark in color, a full wort boil will help you lighten it up. The darker color originates from boiling concentrated wort; the sugars tend to caramelize. The higher concentration also makes it harder for you to extract the bitterness from the hops, since there is less “room” for the hop flavors in the wort. Boiling the full amount will help you create lighter colored beers and extract more hop flavor (better hop utilization).

7. Use a wort chiller

Before you can pitch your yeast, you must cool the wort. Once the wort temperature goes below 140F (60C), your wort is susceptible to bacterial infection. The best protection from bacteria in your beer is your yeast. The yeast will change the pH of your beer and make the conditions harsh for invading bacteria. Unfortunately, you can not add yeast until your beer temperature is around 70F (21C), so the sooner you can get your wort to this temperature the better. A wort chiller can cool boiling hot wort to less than 90F (32C) within minutes. The other advantage of chilling your beer quickly is getting a “cold break”. If you chill your beer quickly enough, the proteins in your beer will form solids. These solids are believed by some brewers to cause off flavors in the beer. Removing these solids will produce a cleaner tasting beer.

6. Keg your beer

If you are still bottling your beer, you should consider kegging. Kegging is much easier than bottling, and it is not expensive in the long run. You can often find good deals on four packs of used kegs for less than $100 USD. The CO2 cylinder, regulator, and a single used keg can be found for around $100 USD. Why would kegging improve your beer? Kegging will produce a more consistent carbonation for your beers. Your beers will also be clearer, and you also do not need to worry about the “yeast sludge” at the bottom of each bottle. This is strictly presentation, but clarity does count for a good looking beer.

Kegging your beer allows you to produce a consistent product with each pour.

5. Use liquid yeast

While dry yeast is much cheaper than liquid yeast, there is far more selection for liquid yeasts. A wider variety can give the brewer more control over the flavor of the beer. Yeast contributes the most flavor to your beer of any ingredient. The drying process can also contaminate your yeast with bacteria. This can cause off-flavors. If you are spending $20-$30 USD on your beer, an extra $5 for liquid yeast is a very small price to pay. If you are cutting costs, the yeast is really not the place to do it.

4. Oxygenate your wort

Oxygen is very important for your yeast in the early stages of fermentation. If your yeast do not get enough oxygen, they will become stressed. Stressed yeast produce off flavors. You want happy yeast. It takes very little effort to stir, splash or vigorously mix your wort before pitching. A siphon sprayer costs $3. There are attachments that connect to your drill to stir your wort for you. Shaking the fermenter before pitching the yeast is free. You really do not have an excuse to not do this. Happy, healthy yeast will ferment faster and produce a cleaner tasting beer.

3. Switch to all-grain brewing

All-grain brewing is much more approachable and easier than you think. Batch sparging has become very popular in the past few years. You can build a complete batch sparging system for around $60-$80 USD. If you have a good 40 quart (10 gallon) cooler you don’t need, you can convert it for $20-$30 USD. All-grain brewing allows you to create more complex tasting beers. It also allows you to create much lighter colored beers, something that is very difficult with extract brewing. You can create excellent extract beers, but all-grain brewing can give you the fine tuning that lets you take your beers to the next level.

All-grain brewing is a fun way to fine tune your beer recipes

2. Use a starter

According to Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels, most homebrewers severely under pitch their beer. The popular smack packs claim to have 2.5 billion cells when the package has expanded. If you try to match the commercial pitching rates, you would need 200-400 billion cells for a 5 gallon batch, however the minimum pitching rate recommended for a 5 gallon brew is 20 billion cells. Creating a starter will help you get much closer to the recommended pitching rate and produce a much crisper tasting beer, with fewer off flavors.

1. Try different beers

The best way to determine how your beer should taste is to try different beers. This will give you an idea how the different styles should taste. More importantly, trying different beers will expose you to different styles you might not have tried before. You will find new beers that you like, and will eventually try to make at home. You might even improve on the recipe! Hopefully these tips will help you improve your beer. If you have any tips we missed, let us know in the comments!

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How to clean a homebrew keg

DJ Spiess — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:16:06 +0000

Kegging beer is very simple. Fill the keg, connect gas, then drink. Once the keg is empty, cleaning a keg seems a bit more daunting. Cleaning a keg is very simple once you know the steps.

It's much easier to clean one keg than 40 bottles.

Gather your equipment

First assemble the equipment that you will need:
•   PBW cleaning powder (or equivalent)
•   StarSan sanitizer (or equivalent)
•   7/8 inch wrench
•   O-rings if you plan on replacing them
•   1 dirty keg

A 7/8 inch wrench is used to remove the posts. You can use an adjustable wrench, but this one makes it much easier.

Rinse Keg

To start, rinse out the keg with water. This will remove any larger particles or left over beer.

Clean Keg With Cleansing Solution

A wrench like this is manditory for kegging

Prepare a gallon of PBW solution using one gallon of water and 2 oz of PBW powder. If you are using another cleanser, refer to the directions for the correct amount. Put this solution into the keg. You can mix the solution directly in the keg; just make sure you don’t add too much power. It can be difficult rinsing out the power crystals that don’t dissolve. Seal the keg back up, and shake the keg hard. If there were solid parts near the top, you can store the keg for 30 minutes upside down. This should dislodge any stuck particles near the top.

PBW cleans all given enough time

Next pour out the PBW solution. Save some of the solution in a bowl or jug. You will use this solution to clean the keg posts. Unfasten the keg posts and place them into the bowl. It is ok if the poppets come out, but be careful not to lose them. Rinse out the keg with water. Make sure there are no particles stuck to the inside walls of the keg. Rinse the keg until you no longer smell any chemicals.

Rinse Keg

Rinse off the keg parts. Make sure you rinse the parts inside and out. The dip tubes should be rinsed inside and out.

Clean and Lube Keg Parts

Remove the rings on the dip tubes. Place a small amount of keg grease on the rings. You can buy this grease at most homebrew stores local or online. Place the rings back on the tubes. If you are replacing the o-rings, toss out the old ones and replace with new ones. Most homebrew stores will sell the o-rings individually, or you can get a great deal on the o-rings if you buy 100 of them online from McMaster-Carr.

These are the different keg parts you'll need to clean

Make sure there is still some grease on the ring. You can be a bit liberal with the grease. The grease is odorless and tasteless, and it does not dissolve in beer or water. (You will discover just how well it doesn’t dissolve when you try to wash it off your fingers later) Remove the poppets from the keg posts and apply a bit of grease to the tops of these.

Resecure parts

The keg lid is really three parts if you count the release valve

Place the tubes back into the correct locations. The short tube is the gas tube, and should be placed in the “in” spot. The longer dip tube is for the beverage, and should be placed in the “out” spot. Replace the poppets into the posts and secure the posts back onto the keg. You’ll notice that one of the posts has (should have) notches in the sides of the post. That post is the gas post. The other is for the beverage.

Clean and lube keg lid

Remove the o-ring on the lid, and clean both thoroughly. Liberally apply grease to the o-ring. Make sure the grease covers the o-ring. The grease will help seal the lid to the keg, and make it less likely for leaks.

This is the stuff I use to lube the rings. It's water insoluble and makes a great seal

Sanitize and pressurize keg

Create 1 gallon of a sanitizing solution using StarSan, or some other no-rinse sanitizer. You can create this solution in the keg. Seal the keg, and again shake the keg. Wait for about a minute after shaking.

Push the sanitizing solution out of your keg using your CO2. This will make sure that the sanitizing solution touches everything. Once the keg is sanitized, it is ready for use. Keep the keg under pressure until you plan to use it. Keeping the keg under pressure will protect the keg from mold or bacteria until you are ready to use it. It will also help you spot any slow gas leaks that you might find.

Once you’ve filled the keg with beer and carbonated it, your next step is to empty the keg. Happy drinking!

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Beer on steriods: How to fortify beer

DJ Spiess — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:58:52 +0000

If you are looking to increase the alcohol content of your beer to produce something like a barley wine, there are a few easy methods. Making a very strong beer without fortification (like Samuel Adams Utopias ) will be covered in another article.

Fortify your beer

The first method to fortify your beer is to just add whiskey to your beer. Whiskey is a distilled hopless beer (sort of), and is the best choice for flavor. The idea for using whiskey is to add “like with like”. This probably is not the best method, but if you age your beer for a while with oak chips, this could result in a nice winter warmer. We would recommend stouts as the best choice for this method, but we’re sure someone out there will prove us wrong with an awesome fortified pale ale.

You can other alcohols like Everclear. When you choose your fortifying spirit, it’s better to use less of a higher proof alcohol than more of a lower proof alcohol. Everclear could be a good choice, because you have to add less. Adding less to your beer means you will dilute your beer less. Everclear is often used to make port wine by homebrewers for this reason. Everclear may be too neutral. It depends on what you are looking to accomplish.

The spirit should be added after fermentation. If you add it too early, not all of the sugars will ferment. If you are aiming for a “port-like” beer that is slightly sweet, adding a high proof spirit late in the fermentation is your best bet.

The best way to calculate the correct amount of alcohol to add is to use a Pearson’s Square .

Fortifying your beer will makes the alcohol content much higher

Freeze your beer

Another method to fortify beer is to freeze the beer, and then remove the ice. Technically this falls under “fortification” according to the laws in the United States, and thus is illegal. Other countries might have different laws regarding this (let us know in the comments if you know the laws for your country). We have not heard this rule enforced for a home brewer in the United States; however consider this your warning and our disclaimer. Freeze fortification works because water and alcohol have different freezing points (32 F 0 C and -178 F -117 C respectively). Your freezer is not cold enough to freeze alcohol.

The method of freeze fortification is very simple. Take your fermented wort and place it in a clean, sanitized bucket. Seal the bucket and place in a freezer overnight. Make sure there is room in the bucket for the ice to expand. Do not use glass, as this could have disastrous results if you do not leave enough space. The next morning, remove the block of ice. The remaining liquid is fortified ice beer.

The results of these methods may produce jet fuel initially, and may require extended aging. Just place them away after bottling, and try a bottle until the harsh notes of the alcohol mellow out. If you make a great one let us know, or better yet send us a bottle!

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I got alot of pot for Christmas!

DJ Spiess — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:34:44 +0000

I’ve been brewing 5 gallon beers for a while now, but my thirsty neighbors have required that I increase production. I added a 25 gallon (100 liters) brewpot on my Christmas list, figuring that if I didn’t get one I would buy one. I never stopped to consider just how big a 25 gallon pot is. I just knew I wanted to make larger batches of beer.

I got alot of pot for Christmas!

The brewpot is big – very big and very heavy. For an idea of size, I’m 5-11 and 180 lbs (the shirt is baggy, honest!!). I cannot imagine what the brewpot will weigh when it is full, although I’m sure we could calculate it. The new brewpot does raise several issues I will need to address. Here’s a list of things to think about if you are planning to get a larger brewpot.

First, large brews will require a pump. It would be improbable, if not impossible, to move the brewpot while full. Even if I could lift the full pot, I would not want to drop a 25 gallon pot of 212F (100C) beer on anything, let alone me. Maybe the cat.

You can fit many beers in a pot this size

Heating the beer will be another issue. 25 gallons of wort will require a larger heat source, and more time on my tiny turkey burner. Until I get a larger burner, my brew times will be much longer.

Finally I’ll need to address what container I will ferment the beer in. I’ve got a few 20 gallon trash can fermenters I use for wine. That is about 5 gallons short, more when you consider I need space for active krausen.

Of course these are challenges I will be happy to encounter. It is a much better problem than a dry keg, and dry fermenters because I thought 5 gallons will last at least a month!

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How to brew beer

DJ Spiess — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:04:52 +0000

This method assumes you have never brewed beer before. You will need to get some equipment. You can find this equipment online, or at your favorite homebrew store. They usually will sell this equipment in one kit. Depending on what is in the kit, it should cost somewhere between $40 USD and $70 USD.

Here's what typicaly comes in a beer kit

Minimum Equipment needed

Pot large enough to hold 5 gallons
Large metal spoon
Grain Bag (if using specialty grains)
Funnel with a Strainer
Bucket
Fermenter with airlock
Sanitizer
Hydrometer
Thermometer
Lots of ice (does NOT go in the beer)
Tub large enough to hold the pot and icewater
Extract Beer Kit
3-4 gallons of spring water
Siphon
Bottling Bucket
Bottle caps
Bottle Capper
Beer Bottles

Setup

The most important step for homebrewing is the first one. You must start by cleaning and sanitizing everything! We are creating a food product and adding micro-organisms (yeast). If we are not careful about cleaning, other unwanted micro-organisms might move in too. The resulting beer would not be toxic, it would just taste that way. There are no known pathogens that can live in alcohol, but we don’t want to ruin the beer. Make sure everything is very clean.

If you are using a plastic fermenter, make sure you use a very soft sponge. Do not use the abrasive side of the sponge, because this will scratch the fermenter and give bacteria a good place to hide. Once everything is clean, you will need to sanitize your equipment.

Sanitizing is not sterilizing. Sterilizing the equipment would likely require an autoclave, and it really isn’t necessary. We are not trying to kill every micro-organism. That is a very difficult task. We are just trying to create an environment where our good yeast can easily out-compete any other micro-organism. Too many other bad micro-organisms can create off-flavors.

Star San is one type of "no rinse" sanitizer

The best sanitizer to use is a one-step sanitizer like Star San. Star San is a blend of phosphoric acid and dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid. It is a weak acid that with 2 minutes of contact will kill most micro-organisms. It is odorless and tasteless. It does not matter if you use the foam sanitizer or the non-foam sanitizer (Sani Clean), both are very effective. Make sure the solution touches every part of your equipment that will touch the wort after the boil. Wort is the unfermented sweet liquid which is created from the mashing and boiling process. It becomes beer once it is feremented. Make sure the funnel, strainer, fermenter, airlock, hydrometer, and thermometer are all sanitized. Keep the items in the solution until you are ready to use them. Do not rinse anything! The foam is ok, and will not affect the flavor of your beer.

Remove your yeast from the refrigerator at this time, and store it somewhere at room temperature (75F, 25C). Most likely your kit came with some form of liquid yeast, usually in a vial or an unfortunately named “smack pack”. If you have a “smack pack”, do not smack the pack. Smacking the pack can result in an explosion of yeast and nutrient covering everything in the room. If you have a “smack pack”, now would be a good time to get it started. Lay the package down on a firm surface. Feel around inside the package. There will be another smaller package inside the larger package. When you find it, gently apply pressure to the inner package with your knuckles until you hear a pop.

Specialty Grains

Usually you soak specialty grains in a grain bag like this

If your beer kit came with specialty grains, you will need to add them to a grain (steeping) bag. With the specialty grains we are going to make “grain tea”. This “grain tea” will help to give the beer more complex flavors and a better mouth feel. This also converts any starches in the grains to sugars for the yeast. Heat a gallon of water per instructions. This is usually between 150F (65C) and 180F (82C). Your beer kit should include instructions for the specialty grains.

Soak the grains in the water, keeping the temperature as close as possible to the temperature given in the instructions. Occasionally stir the “tea” to saturate the grains as much as possible. After thirty minutes, remove the grain bag from the “wort”.

Soaking the specialty grains, usually at about 150 F (65 C)

Extracts and Adjuncts

Remove the wort from the heat. Add any liquid or dry malt extracts to the wort. You should also add honey, candi sugar, or any other sugars at this time. Stir in all ingredients well. Make sure none of the syrup from the malt is unmixed on the bottom of the pot. Heat the solution just to a boil.

Hops

At this point, start your clock. You will boil the wort for another hour. Hops are added to the wort at different scheduled times. Hops that are identified as bittering hops are usually added at the very beginning. These hops make the beer bitter to balance the sweetness from the malt. The next schedule of hops is called the flavoring or finishing hops. These are added very near the end of the boil. The last schedule of hops added is called the aroma hops. These add to the aroma of the beer and are usually added immediately after the boil is finished.

Your kit instructions should tell you when to add the hops. Usually the bittering hops are added at the beginning, the finishing hops are added 50 minutes into the one hour boil, and the aroma hops are added right after the boil is finished and the flame is turned off.

When you add your hops, be prepared for a boil over. It might take a few minutes before your pot returns to a gentle boil. Stir the wort and reduce the heat until the boil calms down.

Cool off beer

After 60 minutes of boiling the beer, you will need to cool the beer. Carefully place your sanitized thermometer into the wort. Make sure the thermometer is able to read temperatures higher than 212F (100C), otherwise your thermometer will break. The temperature of the wort should be around 212F (100C). You need to cool off the wort as quickly as possible.

Prepare an ice bath in your tub. You can use your bathtub if you need to. You need something large enough to hold the ice, your pot, and some water. Do not add the ice directly to the wort. This could contaminate you beer, and produce some very nasty flavors. Gently stir the wort in your pot. This helps cool the wort faster, because the heat exchanged through the pot is constant.

Once the wort is below 80F (26.6C), you are ready to strain the wort into your fermenter. Remove your thermometer. Make sure that your fermenter, funnel, and strainer are all sanitized. Carefully strain your wort into the fermenter. It is ok if some particles get into the beer. Fill your fermenter to five gallons with the spring water. You should not use tap water unless the tap water was previously boiled and then cooled. Tap water can be a source of contamination.

Remove a small amount of the wort using something sanitized like a sanitized glass or “wine thief”, and pour it into your hydrometer jar. This is so you can tell how much alcohol your beer can potentially contain. Use the hydrometer to determine how much sugar is in your wort. Record this in a brew journal.

Yeast

At this point you are almost done. Open your yeast package and pour it into your beer. This is called pitching the yeast. Seal the fermenter, and add the airlock to the lid. You can use water in the airlock, but vodka would be better. Any micro-organisms that want in your beer will be deterred by the high alcohol in vodka. Place your fermenter in a dark cool place. Basements are perfect. You want the ambient temperature to be around 65F-75F (18C-24C). The cooler the better. At this point you can relax, clean up, and have a beer!

Fermentation

Some time between 8 hours and 48 hours, your airlock will start to bubble. The total time for fermentation depends on many factors; yeast used, ambient temperature, amount of sugar in the beer. A fermentation that starts late is not a bad sign. Sometimes it just takes longer. If you do not see activity within 72 hours, you will want to peek into your fermenter. If there is krausen (the foam which appears on top of fermenting beer), you’re ok. It just means that your fermentation or airlock has a leak. You can correct that next time. If there is no sign of fermentation, there might be another problem. You can pitch another batch of yeast. You should also consult your nearest homebrew expert or homebrew store for more advice.

After some time, the bubbles will slow down or stop. You are now ready to rack and bottle your beer.

Bottling

Rack your beer into a sanitized bottling bucket. Racking the beer is simply siphoning the top part of the beer into a new container. Make sure you leave the sediment (lees) behind.

Your beer kit should come with “bottling sugar”. This sugar is used to carbonate your beer. Gently mix in the sugar with a sterilized spoon. The remaining yeast will eat this sugar and produce CO2, the carbonation for your beer. Fill each bottle with your beer from the bottling bucket. Leave about 1 1/2 inches of airspace. Seal the bottles with a capper and store the bottles in a cool place, 65F-75F (18C-24C). After 2 weeks, your beer should be ready to enjoy. Chill a bottle, and then open it. Enjoy!

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fermentarium » Brewing beer

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