What goes into making a new beer?
I knew I wanted to be a professional brewer from the minute I made my first batch of beer at home. Instantly. To the point where I wasn’t sure I’d ever brew at home again because I wanted to do it at a brewery. That was over two decades ago.
What is the most difficult component of making beer to master?
I’m stuck in a mush. Boilovers. Keeping track of everything is a difficult task. For me, brewing is a one-person job. Any time there are any distractions, I run the risk of doing something that will damage the brew or possibly endanger my life.
You’ve got a lot of boiling wort on your hands. I keep it extremely quiet and don’t allow anybody to approach me when I’m brewing. I work consistently yet slowly in order to keep my mind focused on the task at hand.
What motivates you to brew?
My first beer drinking experience was in the late 1980s, when there was no such thing as a specialty beer industry. The drinks had arrived from Europe. They weren’t necessarily crafted brands, but they were created using the same old beer-brewing equipment and procedures that had made them renowned 50 or 100 years before.
Those were the tastes that blew my head. I was baffled as to how they created them. As a result, our beers maybe a little too nostalgic. I’m attempting to produce tastes that are unique to another location.
What goes into the creation of a new brew?
We’re roughly 75% certain how a beer will come out when we start. We understand the basic materials and the look we’re attempting to achieve. Fermentation alters things in unanticipated ways, so we sample as much as we can at each phase and make adjustments as needed.
What is one thing that homebrewers can do to make their beer better?
Cleanliness has become a cliche. I’m going to presume that everyone will be very tidy and sterilize everything. Another thing to check is if you’re pitching enough yeast and allowing enough oxygen into the wort.
The majority of the faults you taste in homebrewed beer are caused by the fermentation process, which causes them to become phenolic or estery. It will assist if you pitch enough yeast and stir the wort to introduce oxygen.
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Beer is made from malted grains soaked in water, hops added for taste, and yeast fermentation. Beer making is one of the most complicated and demanding undertakings in this book, despite its simplicity.
This is not to scare you, but rather to make your inquisitive cat whiskers tremble. Friends, here’s a challenge for you! If you can make beer, you can brew anything.
There are a few things to consider while creating your own beer recipe. Increased malty sweetness and alcohol are usually associated with more base malts. More flavoring and specialty malts in your beer will enhance the tastes of those malts.
The same may be said with growing hops. However, when it comes to hops, more isn’t necessarily better. Your brew will be too bitter to drink if you use too much high-alpha-acid hop (see Hops). Consider how the tastes of each component will mix, then make your own beer using previous recipes as a reference.
If you’ve never brewed before, try a couple of the recipes below to familiarize yourself with the materials and the procedure. Making your own beer formula may be difficult, and young brewing ninjas must learn to walk before they can run.
STARTER FOR YEAST
2–4 teaspoons malt extract (dry) 1 cup of hot water
2 teaspoons liquid ale yeast or 112 tablespoons (12 tube) liquid ale yeast (1 packet) yeast for dry ale
INGREDIENTS
2 quarts water
1 to 4 cups / 4 to 16 ounces flavoring malts, milled 1 to 2 cups / 4 to 8 ounces speciality malts, milled 1 to 212 tablespoons /.3 to.89 ounce / 10 to 25 grams hops (bittering) 12–112 tablespoons /.17–.5 ounce / 5–15 grams hops (flavoring) 12–112 tablespoons /.17–.5 ounce / 5–15 grams hops (aroma) 1/8 teaspoon Irish moss, dry (optional, for clarifying brews) For bottling, 3 tablespoons / 1 ounce corn sugar dissolved in 12 cup boiling water and chilled
EXTRAS WITH FLAVOR
1 to 2 pounds fruit (fresh or frozen) cacao nibs or ground coffee, 2 to 4 oz. 1 to 4 tblsp. herbs or spices, whole
EQUIPMENT
1 pint jar for canning
Stockpot
Cups and spoons for measuring
Spoon with a long handle
Thermometer with instant read
Thermometer for the oven (optional)
Fine-mesh strainer, large
Stockpot No. 2 (optional)
1 ice bag (7 pound) (optional)
Cheesecloth or flour sack towel
Hydrometer
Fermentation bucket (2 gallons) with cover Locked air
Stopper for a 1-gallon jug
Cane for racking and tip
hose with a siphon
Clamp for hose
Filler for bottles
Caps from bottles
10 (12-ounce) beer bottles or 6 (22-ounce) beer bottles may be capper
1 • Start brewing 6 to 12 hours before making the yeast starter.
Using a 1-pint canning jar and a spoon, sanitize them. 2 teaspoons malt extract in 1 cup boiling water, stir until dissolved, then cool to room temperature in the jar. (If you’re producing a beer with an ABV of 8% or greater, use 4 tablespoons of dried malt extract.) Cover the jar with a piece of plastic wrap held with a rubber band and add the yeast.
Give the jar a thorough shake and set it aside until you’re ready to use it. You should notice little bubbles bursting on the surface of the liquid as the starter foams up. (For further information, see the Brewer’s Handbook.)
2 • In a large stockpot over high heat, heat 1 gallon of water to 160°F to mash the grains. Preheat your oven to 150° to 155°F while you’re doing this to produce a pleasant, comfortable climate for mashing the grains. If you don’t have this low of an oven setting or an oven thermometer, just preheat your oven for 5 minutes on the lowest setting. Once your oven has warmed up, turn it off.
3 • Turn off the heat and pour all of the grains—base malts, flavoring malts, and specialty malts—into the water, stirring constantly.
Check the mash’s temperature. The temperature of the combined water and grains should be about 153°F, which is optimum for sugar extraction.
4 • Place the saucepan in the oven with the cover on. Make a one-hour timer. Pull the pot out every 15 minutes to mix the grains and check the temperature. Maintain a 150°F to 155°F mash temperature. If it begins to fall below 150°F, place it on the burner for a minute or two to rewarm it. If it’s too hot, remove it from the flame and mix it for a few minutes to cool it down.
5 • Your grains are mashed after 1 hour, which means you’ve removed all the fermentable sugars from them. If you have problems extracting all of the sugar due to high or low temperatures, return the mash to the oven for additional 15 minutes.
6 • Heat the mash to 170°F in the saucepan on the fire. Keep it in this position for approximately 10 minutes. This will basically turn off all of the enzymes in the brew. Meanwhile, in a separate pot, boil the remaining 1 gallon of water to roughly 170°F.
This will be used to sparge the grains and increase the amount of the wort before the boiling phase in the following step.
7 • To sparge the grains, lay a big strainer in your kitchen sink over another large stockpot, your fermentation bucket, or any vessel large enough to contain all of the liquid from the mash process. Fill the sieve halfway with crushed grains.
The liquid, which is now known as wort, will gather in the pot below. Pour half of the hot water over the grains slowly, evenly washing them.
8 • Rinse off the stockpot that was used to make the mash and return the strainer with the used grains to it. Return the wort to the grains and pour it through them one again. This removes part of the silt and helps to wash all of the sugar from the grains. Repeat the sparging process two more times, finishing with the wort in your initial stockpot.
Depending on the size of your pot, add enough extra hot water to produce 112 gallons of total wort (a 2-gallon pot will be three-quarters full). The quantity of extra water required depends on the number of grains used and how much liquid they absorbed during mashing. The used grains should be thrown away.
9 • Over high heat, bring the wort to a rolling boil.
It will take between 30 and 45 minutes to complete this task. You’ll observe foam forming on the surface of the wort just before it comes to a boil. Keep an eye out for “hot break,” when this begins to clump together and fall back into the wort.
While this is going on, keep an eye on the wort to make sure it doesn’t boil over. Reduce the heat if necessary or stir the wort.
10 • Once your wort has reached a rolling boil and the froth has dissipated, you may begin adding hops. Most brewing recipes ask for adding hops in three stages for bittering, flavor, and fragrance, and the hop boil lasts around one hour.
Bittering hops are often added at the start of the hop boil (with 60 minutes to go), flavoring hops in the second half (with 20 minutes to go), and fragrance hops at the very end (with 1 minute to go). With 20 minutes left in the hop boil, combine the Irish moss with the flavoring hops. With 1 minute remaining in the boil, other ingredients like as cacao nibs, fruit, or spices are frequently added with the aroma of hops.
11 • As soon as the hop boil is complete, cool the wort down as rapidly as possible. It should reach 85°F in 30 minutes at the very least.
This allows the protein solids to settle down more uniformly (resulting in a smooth, clear beer) and keeps any undesirable germs out. Prepare an ice bath in your sink to help fast chill the wort. Fill the sink halfway with cold water and place the pot with the hot wort inside.
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Cool the wort even faster by putting ice cubes in the sink. Use a sterilized spoon to stir the wort gently. Replace the heated water in the sink with cold water and additional ice cubes after it has warmed up. Continue until the wort has cooled completely.
A word about temperature: Yeast kills at 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Around 75°F is ideal. The temperature of 85°F is a good balance between keeping your yeast alive and the practicality of chilling a significant volume of liquid in a household kitchen. In truth, the yeast will be alright as long as your wort is under 100°F.
12 • Clean your fermenting bucket and lid, as well as the airlock, a long-handled spoon, a strainer, a funnel, and a hydrometer. Set the strainer over the 2-gallon fermentation bucket after the wort has cooled down. If desired, line the strainer with a flour sack towel or several layers of cheesecloth (sanitized by soaking in the sanitizing solution) to trap additional silt; this will take more time and patience. Fill the fermenting bucket halfway with wort.
Make sure you have 1 gallon of wort on hand (the fermentation bucket should be half full). If you’re a bit short on water, don’t worry about it; if you’re a little over, don’t worry about it; just remember to use less sparge water next time. To figure out the original gravity, use a hydrometer (see the Brewer’s Handbook).
13 • To start the fermentation process, add the yeast starter into the wort and aggressively mix to disperse the yeast and aerate the wort. Aerating the wort helps the yeast get started early after brewing and promotes vigorous primary fermentation.
Insert the airlock after snapping on the lid. Place the bucket out of the way, away from direct sunshine, and at a comfortable temperature. Within 48 hours, bubbles in the airlock should indicate active fermentation.
14 • Allow the beer to ferment for at least 3 days, but up to 7 days, until fermentation has slowed and the brewing sediment has settled. The beer is now ready to be taken off of the sediment and into a smaller 1-gallon container for secondary fermentation.
15 • Clean a 1-gallon jug, as well as the stopper, racking cane, tip, siphon hose, and hose clamp. Fill the jug with all of the beer (see Brewer’s Handbook for instructions). To drain all of the liquid, tilt the bucket toward the end. When the liquid in the siphon hose becomes hazy due to silt, comes to a halt. Insert the airlock and close the jug with its stopper.
16 • Set aside the brew for 2 weeks in a cool, dark place. There should be no traces of fermentation left at this time. Keep an eye on the airlock: if you don’t see any bubbles after 2 minutes, the fermentation is almost done. Whether you detect a bubble, wait a few days to see if it disappears.
17 • Sanitize a stockpot, a hydrometer, ten 12-ounce beer bottles or six 22-ounce beer bottles, their caps, the siphon hose, the racking cane, its tip, and the bottle filler before attempting to bottle the beer. To calculate the final gravity, syphon 12 cup of beer into the hydrometer. Once the beer has been consumed, return it to the jug.
• Fill the stockpot halfway with corn sugar solution. Pour the beer into the stockpot with as little splashing as possible to combine with the corn sugar solution.
19 • Bottle the beer, cap it, and label it. Allow at least 2 weeks for the bottles to fully carbonate at room temperature, away from direct sunshine. You may keep them for up to a year in the refrigerator. Before serving, chill it.
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TERMS OF BREWING
BROILING: A 60-minute or longer time during which the wort is boiled and hops are added for bittering, flavoring, and fragrance.
BOTTLING SUGAR: Sugar is applied just before bottling to carbonate beer or other brews. In the brewing business, this is commonly referred to as “priming sugar.” Any sugar will do, but maize sugar is recommended since it dissolves quickly and leaves no taste behind.
When the froth that forms on the top of the wort as it comes to a boil starts to break apart and fall back into the pot, this is known as a HOT BREAK. Make sure the wort doesn’t boil over while this is going on. As required, stir the wort or adjust the heat.
MASHING: The method of extracting sugars from grains by steeping them in hot water. “The mash” also refers to the mixture of grains and heated water.
PITCH: The yeast is added to the cooled wort.
SPARGE: To rinse the mashed grains and filter the wort to remove the sugars from the grains.
WORT: The liquid that collects after grains have been steeped. This is a beer that hasn’t been fermented.
HOPS There are so many different hops available to homebrewers these days that you could brew with a new sort in each batch for years. The quantity of bittering resin in a hop, and hence its bittering potential, is indicated by the alpha acid percent (AA percent).
Hops with a high AA percent are often used to provide bitterness to beers, whilst hops with a lower AA percent are typically used for flavor and fragrance. Middle-range hops may be utilized for either.
SAAZ (3–5 percent AA): soft and herbal CHALLENGER (3–6 percent AA): spicy and woodsy FUGGLE (3–6 percent AA): earthy and spicy SAAZ (3–5 percent AA): soft and herbal CHALLENGER (3–6 percent AA): spicy and woodsy
CASCADE (4–8% AA): grapefruit and pine HALLERTAU (4–7% AA): flowery and spicy CASCADE (4–8% AA): floral and spicy
PALISADE (4–8% AA): fruity and herbal CLUSTER (5–8% AA): floral and neutrally bitter AMARILLO (8–10% AA): citrus and floral COLUMBUS (10–16%): herbal and spicy CHINOOK (12–14%): grapefruit and pine SORACHI ACE (13–18%): lemon candy and white pepper
Keep an eye on the alpha acid percentages if you start switching hops. Hops with identical percentages may be substituted for one another.
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Use the following formula to move from one level to the next:
AA percent Hop A (grams Hop A) AA percent Hop B (grams Hop B) AA percent Hop C (grams Hop C) AA percent Hop D (grams Hop D) AA percent B-hop
The original hop is Hop A, while the replacement hop is Hop B.