Lord Madoc Arundel, CACM, CT, CLM, PCS, Fyrdman
mka Christopher Miller, http://www.thehomebrewstore.com
The basic concept of brewing is a simple one: if you can boil water, you can brew beer. Many people try to make more of it than it really is. "It's organic chemistry", they say… or "It requires years of schooling with Sam Adams". While these may be true (or true in a commercial world, anyway), the art of brewing at home and the science of zymurgy are not mutually exclusive. You can brew your own beer without being a licensed chemist.
Zymurgy (zi'mur'je) n. Technological chemistry that deals with fermentation processes in brewing.
Homebrew (hom'bru') n. An alcoholic beverage, esp. beer, made at home.
As you can see, the difference between the two meanings differs only in the location. Zymurgy has none specified, while homebrew specifies my kitchen. It is with the comfort of this knowledge - that Noah Webster himself believes me capable of producing palatable alcohol - that I proceeded to make the attempt to brew at home. The results after this message from our sponsor.
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So, now that we have assuaged your fears and convinced you to "take the plunge," how do you get started?
EQUIPMENT
Very little equipment is necessary to actually produce alcohol. The absolute basics are: a bucket or crock to ferment in. Of course, I can't vouch for the quality of your beer when you're done. So, I recommend taking it a step further. The basics I recommend are: A stainless steel stockpot (16 to 20 quarts), a large stainless steel spoon or plastic paddle (for stirring hot liquids), a 6 to 6-1/2 gallon food-grade plastic or glass fermenter, a 6 to 6-1/2 gallon food-grade plastic bucket with a spigot (for bottling), a lid (for the bucket) or rubber stopper (for the glass jug) with a hole drilled in it, an airlock, a siphoning kit consisting of a bottling wand, 4 to 5 feet of plastic tubing, and a racking tube or siphon starter, a funnel, and a bottle capper. This is the bare minimum with which I would begin.
Of course, there are other pieces of equipment that aid the brewing process without being absolutely necessary. These are: a hydrometer (for measuring specific gravity and determining alcohol content), a thermometer (for monitoring temperature), a jet washer (for rinsing bottles), a strainer plate (for the funnel), and strainer bags (for keeping grain and hops particles out of the fermenter). Strainer bags may be either nylon (reusable) or muslin (one-time use only).
Finally, there are those items that are sheer decadence: a wort chiller, a bottle tree, and a book on brewing (I recommend The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian).
Of course, if you are planning on doing any all-grain (mash) brewing, other equipment is necessary, but I am going to deal mainly with partial-grain and extract recipes in this article. Look for the basics of all-grain in a later installment.
So, now you've collected your equipment. What next? Well, you will need to acquire the ingredients and expendables that you are using. For the sake of this discussion, I will define "ingredients" as any food-related product that will contribute to the overall taste, color, body, consistency, or carbonation level of the finished beer. This may include grain, malt extract, fruit or fruit flavoring, sugar, hops, or any clarifying agent. I will define "expendables" as any non-food-related product that is used up during the brewing process. This may include sanitizers and cleansers, bottle caps, pH test strips, etc.
CLEANSERS AND SANITIZERS
Cleansers and sanitizers are two distinctly different products. Cleansers clean dirt, grime, and scum off of the surfaces you are attempting to clean and/or scrub. The cleanser contributes to the loosening of the dirt and makes it easier to wash it away. Cleansers clean things, but do not necessarily sanitize.
Sanitizers (on the other hand) kill germs, bacteria, and stray yeast particles bent on the destruction of your beer, but do very little to clean off the dirt and grime that has collected on the inside of your fermenter during the last two decades in your barn.
For best results, both cleaners and sanitizers should be used. First, scrub every piece of equipment clean. Standing dirt tends to hide bacteria from the sanitizers and must be removed. Once the equipment is clean, it should be thoroughly rinsed, and then sanitized.
There are two types of cleansers/sanitizers: Rinse and No-Rinse. No-Rinse cleansers are food-safe, and generally become inert within 20 to 30 minutes of being introduced to water. What this means is, they will spend 20 to 30 minutes killing all the bacteria on your equipment; then dissipate without having to be rinsed off. This alleviates you of the responsibility of trying to make sure your yeast will survive contact with your fermenter at the end of this process.
Rinse products include such mundane items as household bleach, iodine, and tri-sodium phosphate (TSP). These are all hostile entities, and remain so for a long time. If you use any of these to clean or sanitize your equipment, you must make sure they are thoroughly rinsed away afterwards, or they will attack and kill the good yeast later (without any provocation - the bastards)!
RECIPE
Ingredients are broken down thusly:
| Fermentables | vs. | Non-fermentables |
| Sugars | vs. | Adjucts |
| Contributory | vs. | Non-contributory |
Fermentables include anything you put into your beer that, when mixed with yeast, will produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. Fermentables are almost always sugars, but not all sugars are fermentable. The most common fermentables are malt and malt extract, sugar (sucrose or dextrose), honey, fruit (fructose), molasses, and the like.
Non-fermentables are used for a variety of reasons: to add body, color, or flavor without increasing alcohol content, or as a clarifying agent just to name a few. Just about anything ending with -ine is a non-fermentable (e.g. dextrine).
Sugars include all the fermentable kind listed above, but there are also some non-fermentable sugars. Malto-dextrine is a non-fermentable used to add body to beer and increase head retention. Lactose is the sugar compound in milk and is used in lambics (a beer intentionally soured - reminiscent of the classic Belgian Lambic).
Adjuncts are primarily starches, but may be fermentables of a different type than barley or wheat. Some common adjuncts are non-malted barley, rolled or flaked oats (oatmeal), cracked corn, rye, and others. These are used to achieve certain effects in the beer that are not possible with the classic barley or wheat malts. Many of you are probably familiar with the most popular adjunct in commercial American brewing - rice - a starch used to give artificial body to American light lagers without increasing the alcohol.
Contributory ingredients are any that contribute to the end product with regards to taste, body, head, and color. Non-contributory ingredients are those that are added to treat the water (gypsum, calcium carbonate, water salts), clarify the beer (Irish moss, gelatin, etc.), or assist the yeast in more efficient production (yeast nutrient or energizer, for example).
While this all sounds very complicated, don't get too hung up on it. As a beginning brewer, no one is going to expect you to start banging out your own recipes. I merely highlight all of these terms so that when you are using an existing recipe, you understand what each of the listed ingredients may be for.
A typical recipe will consist of a large amount of fermentable (usually measured in pounds), a small amount of adjunct and/or non-fermentable (usually measured in fractions of pounds and/or ounces), and some scattered non-contributory (usually measured in spoonfuls.) The recipe will give exact instructions on when to add each ingredient, as well as what the end results of each stage should look like. As an example, I will list a partial-grain recipe here, and we will follow it through the remainder of the article as we go along.
Ingredients: 4 pounds amber dry malt extract
1/2 pound crushed 20L crystal malt
1/4 pound crushed black barley (non-malted)
3 ounces grated orange peel
1-1/2 ounces Hallertau hops (bittering)
1/2 ounce Saaz hops (aroma)
1 Tbsp gypsum
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp Irish moss powder
1 pkt (6 grams) dry ale yeast
Right off the bat, we identify the 4 pounds of amber as the fermentable in this recipe. This will be a fairly low-alcohol beer (6 pounds fermentable being an "average") at about 3%. On the surface, the crystal malt also looks like a fermentable; but since we will be "steeping" rather than "converting" the crystal malt (explained below), it is counted as an adjunct along with the black barley. These adjunct grains will contribute flavor and body to the beer, but will otherwise remain as non-fermentable starches.
The contributory ingredients include the amber malt and the grains, but also include the orange peel, hops, and yeast. The gypsum is used as a water treatment (helps to harden soft water for better results), the Irish moss is a clarifier, and the yeast nutrient is a "vitamin pill" for the yeast to help it perform better. These are all non-contributory.
PROCESS
Water Treatments
Generally speaking, the water treatments can be added at any time during the boiling process. As a rule of thumb, I usually add mine when I have 30 minutes remaining on my boil. See below in "Other Ingredients".
Clarifiers
Most clarifiers work on the principle of being some kind of "goo" that will float around in your beer causing stray particles to stick to it until it gets so heavy that it falls to the bottom. The key to making clarifiers work is knowing when to add them to your beer so you get maximum "goo" without breaking the "goo" down too much to be effective. Since I chose Irish moss as my clarifier, I will have to include it in the boiling process. See below in "Other Ingredients". Other clarifiers may wind up being added during boiling, or added later in a hot water mix.
Yeast
Liquid yeasts work best, but they are expensive. Dry yeasts are cheaper, but you have no control over the flavor they impart, and they tend to be less reliable. Even so, I chose dry ale yeast for this recipe (probably a Danstar Nottingham for a low alcohol amber ale). Before brewing, the yeast should be hydrated. This helps the yeast to "start" before introducing it to the fermenter.
Boil about a pint of water with about a tablespoon of corn sugar or malt extract. Once the sugar is dissolved, pour the water into a sterilized jar with a lid, and set in your refrigerator. Once the water has cooled to room temperature, sprinkle the dry yeast into the water and put the lid back on. Let the yeast dissolved into a pasty-looking mess, than give the jar a quick shake and set it aside. The yeast will start to activate while you brew.
Malts and Grains
There are two ways to get the "good stuff" out of grain. One is to steep it. The other is to mash it. Steeping will result in the "good stuff" emerging as a non-fermentable starch that will still contribute body and flavor to the finished beer. The process of mashing actually converts the starches to fermentable sugars capable of also contributing alcohol to the finished product. A reminder: No matter what you do to a non-malted grain, you will never achieve conversion.
Our recipe does not involve mashing the grains, and the mashing process will be taken up in a separate article. We are going to steep our grains in order to leech out the caramelized flavor of the crystal malt and the "dirty coffee" flavor of the black barley.
The first thing to do is to crack the grains. While this can be done with a grain mill (most supply shops will crack the grain for you if asked), a mill can be expensive. Another way to do it is to place the grains in a one-gallon Ziploc bag, lay it flat on a counter, and run over it a few times with a rolling pin. The desired end result, no matter what tool you use, is to crack the hull of the grain without reducing it to flour. You want the hot water to be able to reach the kernel, but you don't want a lot of dust or shredded hull, which will affect the flavor of your beer.
Once cracked, place the grain in a strainer bag. Muslin or nylon strainer bags work great, but you can also use clean nylon stockings or other porous material. Put about 1-1/2 gallons of cold water in your stainless steel boiling pot, and drop the grain bags into the water. Set the burner on about 7 or 8 (on a scale of OFF to 10), or about a medium-high flame (for gas ranges). As the temperature of the water climbs, you will see the grain essence leaking into the water just like a teabag. The very instant the water starts to boil (rolling boil, not the tiny bubbling from the bottom of the pot), remove the grain bags and squeeze the liquid into the pot. You can now save the grain to make bread, feed it to your pigs, or dump it on your compost heap.
How long to boil? A good question. The answer is to boil long enough to liquefy all the ingredients and meet the intent of the recipe. This is very ambiguous, but let me explain. We now have a bubbling pot of non-fermentable starchy liquid in a pot. We are going to add malt extract, which will immediately "clump up" when it hits the hot water and will need to be boiled down. We also have hops. In order to get hop flavor into the beer, we need to boil long enough to extract the hop oils, and continue until they are broken down and mixed with the rest of the liquid. For this recipe, I will boil about an hour.
As soon as I remove the grains, I will pour the amber malt extract into the pot. I must constantly stir the mix while I do this, as malt is very heavy and will sink to the bottom and scorch if I do not. I will notice two things: First, the malt will form hard clumps or "candy balls". This is normal, and they will break down as the boil continues. The second thing I notice is that my pot has stopped boiling. This is also normal, as I have just introduced a "room temperature" ingredient to a pot that was barely over the boiling point. Turn up the heat one number, and give it 5 to 10 minutes (stirring often), and it will start to boil again.
NOTE: Once the malt extract is in the boil, you will notice a tendency for the mix to "foam up". Watch it constantly for the first few minutes of the boil, stirring and adjusting the burner temperature in order to keep it "rolling" but without boiling over. This is called the "heat point", and is temporary. It will settle down to a nice roll in a few minutes.
Once the mix settles into a rolling boil again, I set my timer for 60 minutes, and continue to stir about every 3 to 5 minutes to keep the malt from scorching.
Other Ingredients
We have three additional ingredients to consider: Flavor or "bittering" hops, Aroma or "finishing" hops, and grated orange peel. The amount of flavor and aroma these contribute to the finished product is based on the amount of hops used, and when it is added to the boil. As a rule of thumb, the longer hops is boiled, the more flavor and less aroma it will impart. (This is true up to a point, although excessive boiling may start to reduce the flavor aspect. We are not going to boil nearly long enough for that to happen).
Hops come in three forms: pellet, plug, and leaf. Different people will swear by different forms, but I have found no significant difference between them. Because pellets are easy to measure and store, and are usually a few cents cheaper, I will use them.
The flavor or "bittering" hops will be the first ingredient I add after the malts and grains. I have chosen Hallertau as my flavor hop because it is a medium alpha acid, German hop with a mellow aftertaste. (NOTE: Alpha acids are measured in percent, generally a scale from 2% to about 16% with most falling in the 4%-9% range, and are an indicator of how bitter a hop is. The flavor of a hop is determined by the locality where grown and the hop variety. A Hallertau grown in Missouri will taste somewhat different from one grown in Nurnberg). I decide that I want a moderate amount of the bittering to come through (partially to offset the sweetness of the malt, but also to the "candy" flavor of the orange peel), and elect to boil it for 45 minutes. Measuring out 1-½ ounces of Hallertau hop pellets, I pour them into another strainer bag and wait for the timer to read "45". I then drop the bag into the boiling wort (Wort: Beer that isn't beer yet). I could drop the pellets directly into the wort, but they would dissolve, swell, and be a real mess when I go to pour the wort into the fermenter. Continue to give it a stir every 3-5 minutes.
My next threshold is at 30 minutes to go. This is where I normally add my water treatments and other flavorings. For this recipe, I will add the gypsum, yeast nutrient, and orange peel when my timer reads 30, and continue to give it a stir every 3-5 minutes. Since orange peel won't swell or break down much, I just drop it into the pot loose.
At 15 minutes to go, I add the Irish moss. 15 minutes is generally long enough to leech the gelatinous substances from the moss without breaking them down excessively. Throw it in loose.
The aroma or "finishing" hops is extremely time sensitive. As little as one to two minutes will leech the hop oils from the pellets, and as little as six to seven minutes will break them down to the point where they are almost useless for aroma. Most recipes will call for a finishing hop boil of between two and five minutes.
"What difference does it make?", you may ask. Well, the concept of aroma hops is that the hop oils are lighter in weight than the beer. Because of this they will tend to float, and will rise to the surface of the mug along with the carbonation (the "head"). These oils will then impart their delightful scent to your nostrils as you raise the mug to your mouth to drink. Too little boiling - no oils leeched out. Too much boiling - oils broken down into "flavor" instead of "aroma".
For this recipe, I chose Saaz - a Czech hop of delightfully floral character. I will use 3 minutes remaining as my boil time, and I will use a strainer bag, because even as little as ½ ounce of hop pellets will swell and clog my funnel strainer later. Drop the pellets into the bag, and drop the bag into the boiling wort with 3 showing on your timer.
NOTE: When the timer goes off, don't just shut off the burner. Remove the pot from the burner entirely in order to immediately lose the heating (especially on electric ranges). Leaving the pot on a hot burner will continue to break down the aroma hops.
FERMENTING
Never pour really hot wort into a fermenter without adding cold water first. Sterilize your fermenter (and lid, if applicable). Add about 2 gallons of chilled water to the fermenter. Using a funnel with a strainer, slowly pour the hot wort through the strainer into the fermenter. Add more cold water to bring the volume to 5-¼ to 5-½ gallons (this allows for the loss of some volume when siphoning off the sediment layer at bottling time). Give the fermenter a good stir to blend everything. Check the temperature of the wort. It must be below 80 degrees Fahrenheit before adding the yeast.
NOTE: Before adding the yeast, take a hydrometer reading and record both the reading and the temperature of the wort. This will help determine alcohol content.
When it cools, take the yeast starter you made earlier and pour it into the fermenter. Give the fermenter another good shake and/or stir to lend some oxygen to the new yeast, and cap it off. Install your airlock, and set in a dark, cool place.
"How long do we ferment?", you ask. Well, it depends on the amount of fermentable sugars and the style of beer. An American Light will go about 7 days. An Irish Stout will go 3 to 6 weeks. This is a low-alcohol amber. I will let it go approximately 2 weeks or until the airlock stops bubbling plus two days.
BOTTLING
When you have determined that your beer is done fermenting, it is time to bottle. There are many different ways to bottle your beer, but I will deal with two of them: bottles and kegs.
Bottles
For beer, any glass bottle with a crown cap (no twist-offs) will work. Some commercial beers still use crown caps, such as Moosehead, Guinness, Sam Adams, etc. You can also buy new bottles at your supply store. They come in various sizes (12 oz, 16 oz, 22 oz, and 32 oz). Champagne bottles (25 oz) can also be used, as they will hold a standard bottle cap. You may also have some "Grolsch bottle" handy - the ones with the wire and ceramic closure. These are great, but check the rubber grommets to make sure they are not crushed too much to provide a good seal.
Sterilize all your bottles by boiling/heating (above 170 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. I use the "sani-rinse" cycle of my dishwasher) or with a sanitizing agent. Make sure you rinse thoroughly if not using a "no rinse" product. I highly recommend picking up an inexpensive bottle tree to keep the bottles on after sanitizing. It allows the bottles to be stored inverted so they drip-dry as well as keeping out any contaminants that may fall through the air.
Boil your bottle caps and/or rubber grommets.
Sanitize and rinse your bottling bucket and siphoning equipment.
When bottling, you need to add a "priming agent" to carbonate your beer. Before you start anything else, measure out your primer (Rule of Thumb: Honey - 2/3 to 3/4 cup; Corn Sugar - 1 to 1-1/4 cup; Dry Malt Extract - 1-1/4 to 1-1/3 cup) and boil it with about 3 cups of water until dissolved. Set it aside to cool while you siphon.
Siphon your beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. Take care to keep your siphon from sucking up the sediment in the bottom of the fermenter. Your siphon should have a plastic tip on the end to help reduce this. You may need to tilt the fermenter near the end to get the maximum liquid with the minimum sediment.
NOTE: Before adding the primer, take a hydrometer reading. Record both the reading and the temperature of the liquid.
Add the primer to the bottling bucket. Using a sanitized stir-stick, stir the beer well enough to ensure an even distribution of the primer. Attach the plastic tubing and bottle-filler wand to the spigot. Fill each bottle all the way to the top. As you remove the bottle-filler wand, the level of fluid will drop to exactly the right level for proper fermentation (this is called "headspace"). Cap the bottles immediately, and place in a cool, dark place for two to three weeks to carbonate (up to six or eight weeks for heavier beers).
Kegs
With kegs, you don't need to worry about priming agents, headspace, or bottle trees. Five-gallon soda kegs will hold a 5-gallon batch of beer, and allow you to carbonate using carbon dioxide over-pressurization (forced carbonation).
You still need to sanitize your keg, and it helps if you run some of the sanitizing agent through the tubes and spigots as well, since the residue from the last batch may be lurking there.
Siphon from the fermenter directly into the keg. Seal the keg. Attach the CO2 tank, and dial up the pressure to approximately 40 PSI. Leave it sit for 12 hours, shaking vigorously for a minute or two every 30 minutes. After 12 hours, dial the pressure down to about 10 to 12 PSI, and let sit for another 12 hours. After it has settled, squirt about 8 ounces or so into a glass. This removes any residual sediment and leaves you with a keg of clear, carbonated beer. 10 to 12 PSI makes a good serving pressure, but if the beer appears to foam excessively, you can reduce pressure to around 4 PSI and still pour.
See your supply store for a more detailed explanation of kegging systems.
DRINKING
Chill it, pour it, drink it, and remember the most important thing: Always smile when you drink your own.
Oh… and what about the alcohol content? I had you take a hydrometer reading both before adding the yeast at the start of fermentation, and before adding the priming sugar at the start of bottling. What do we do with those numbers?
Hydrometers measure "specific gravity": the density of the liquid. The concept of hydrometer readings as a measure of alcohol content is based on the theory that sugar makes liquid thicker (more density) while alcohol makes liquid thinner (less density). The difference in density between start and end of fermentation times a constant number representing the relationship between sugar and alcohol (128) gives us a rough alcohol content by volume.
Hydrometers are usually calibrated to measure specific gravity at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. We can use them at other temperatures, as long as we provide a correction factor. Warmer liquids are less dense, so at higher temperatures, we must add a correction. At colder temperatures, we must subtract a correction. Use this table:
| Temperature | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 40 degrees | -0.003 |
| 45 degrees | -0.002 |
| 50 degrees | -0.002 |
| 55 degrees | -0.001 |
| 60 degrees | +0.000 |
| 65 degrees | +0.001 |
| 70 degrees | +0.002 |
| 75 degrees | +0.003 |
| 80 degrees | +0.003 |
| 85 degrees | +0.004 |
So, let's say your beginning gravity was 1.040 at 80 degrees. Adding .003, we get a corrected reading of 1.043. After fermenting, our reading is 1.017 at 65 degrees. Adding .001, our corrected reading is 1.018. Subtracting the final gravity from the beginning gravity (1.043-1.018), we arrive at a difference of .025, which we multiply by 128 to get our alcohol content by volume of 3.18%.
Lord Madoc Arundel, CACM, CT, CLM, PCS, Fyrdman