The Homebrewing Guest Blogger Returns!

Welcome to another whenever-I-feel-like-writing post on home brewing! From here on out I'd like to move from general brewing procedure to more specific brewing information. Truly, you don't need this knowledge, but that's like saying that, in order to eat, all you need to know is how to make sandwiches. You'd stay alive, but the boring flavor of sandwiches and lack of creativity involved in making sandwiches would be numbing.

I hate working at Panera.

Anyway, knowing more about brewing and the science of brewing can help you create better tasting, more consistent beers. The result of a little learning is a more flavorful, more complex brewsky that you can feel proud of.

So, mashing!!

Mashing is a complex process, involving enzymes, carbon sugars, and complex by-products that ultimately affect the final flavor of your beer to a surprising degree.

To begin with, the grain used in brewing contains several different carbon sugars. Mashing itself is the process of breaking down the grain structure using enzymes present in the mash in order to more effectively extract the sugars for fermentation. Different enzymes are most effective at different temperatures and pHs so manipulating these factors during your mash can be extremely beneficial. I’ll spare you the boring chemistry and simply tell you that your mash can be manipulated to most effectively break down the grain.

The technique I’ll teach you here is called multi-rest mashing. It involves resting the mash at certain temperatures, activating specific enzymes in order to break down key parts of the grain. The procedure is simple:

1. Heat your mashing water to between 114 and 119 °F
2. Add the grain and stir constantly until the temperature drops to 104 °F.
3. Maintain that temperature (plus or minus 2-3 degrees) for 20 minutes.
4. At the end of 20 minutes, apply heat again, stirring constantly, until the temperature reaches 140 °F.
5. Turn the burner off and hold at temp for another 20 minutes.
6. Apply heat again and raise the temperature to 158 °F.
7. Turn off burner and hold for the final 20 mins.
8. Mash out as normal and continue brewing!

From experience, the resulting beer is world’s better. The difference is immediately noticeable (beer is more developed, mature, with a smoother flavor profile) and the procedure itself truly isn’t that difficult. The most frustrating part of multi-resting is maintaining the temperature, but with practice you can master it.

So that’s it! If you have questions about the science involved or the execution of the procedure, feel free to leave them in the comments section and I will promise to attempt to remember to read them and maybe give an honest effort to possibly answer them.

But seriously, if you have any questions or comments, hit me up.

Homebrewing Guest Blogger: I got a job okay?

Welcome to the third installment of my whenever-I-feel-like-posting column about brewing your own beer! Last week (month?) I clued you into the equipment you’d need to become a brewmaster and this week I’ll be piloting my truth plane and carpet knowledge-bombing your brain with the steps it takes to successfully make your first batch (war jokes aren’t in poor taste are they?)

You may need some additional items if your kitchen does not have them already. These items include (for a 1 gallon batch) a stockpot (about 6-10 qts.), 12 empty swing-top bottles (Grolsch bottles or similar, can be ordered online), a strainer, a funnel, a thermometer, honey, and a lot of ice. Once you have these items collected, you’re ready to get started.

Alright, this first step is the most important. I honestly cannot stress enough just how important this is and believe me, when I hear people say that, my brain immediately shuts off. In this case, however, it really does make or break your beer.

Take the sanitizer included with your Brooklyn Brew Shop kit (or the sanitizer you diligently purchased yourself), mix in the proper ratio (given on the package), fill a measuring cup and a spray bottle with the stuff, and sanitize everything. Sanitize the spatulas, funnel, strainer, pots, and your dog. Soak the item, let it sit for a minute, then wipe down with a paper towel (you’re going to go through a lot of paper towels, they’re the most sanitary). Also, keep your tools in the cup of sanitizer to ensure that they’re clean for use.

Once you’ve sterilized your neighborhood, measure the amount of water indicated in your recipe and heat in a pot until it reaches 160 °F. Mix the grain in the water until the temperature drops to 150 °F. This mixture is called the “mash” and should resemble oatmeal (but will not taste like it). Cook this mash for 60 minutes, checking the temperature periodically and applying/removing heat as necessary to stay within the 144-152 °F range. At the end of this 60 minutes “mash out” by heating to 170 °F while stirring constantly.

In a separate pot, heat 1 gallon of water to 170 °F. Set up a strainer over another pot (called a “lautering tun”) in your sanitized sink and pour the mash through the strainer, collecting all the grain in the process; this is called “lautering” (not Lautnering; stop watching Twilight). Take the gallon of water and slowly pour it over the grain, rinsing the sugars from the grain. Recycle this liquid through the grain one more time and you have yourself some good ol’ fashioned “wort”!

Take the wort and apply heat until it boils. Once the wort hits a low boil, add your hops at the prescribed times given in your recipe and stir constantly throughout. The boil lasts 60 minutes and is probably the hardest step. If your boil is too hot, you’ll lose fermentable sugars. If your boil is too low, you won’t get as much out of your hops. It takes practice, but you’ll get it brewmaster. At some point your wort will foam up (called the “hot break”). Simply lower the heat and keep stirring to avoid boil over.

Alright, once the boil is done you’re almost home. Fill your sink with ice, and lots of it. Take the pot off the burner at the end of 60 minutes and place it in the ice bath until it cools to 70 ° (this will take a while). Set up your strainer and funnel over your fermentation jug and pour your cooled wort through it to introduce oxygen. Take your prepared yeast and “pitch” it (toss it in the jug). Shake the jug aggressively and I mean aggressively; I usually set mine on the floor and shake it all over the place. Put your rubber stopper and airlock filled to the second fill line with sanitizer in the top of the jug and place in a cool dark place for two and a half weeks. Note: skip the part in the BBS directions where it talks about a blow off tube since blow off tubes usually just result in the loss of valuable yeast.

And you’re fermenting! It may have made your fiancé complain about the smell (but I’m not bitter) but you’re well on your way to completing your very first batch of homemade beer.

Next time I’ll be discussing bottling and some of these steps in more detail. As always, if you have any questions for me feel free to leave them in the comments section or send me an email at barker.ianjohn@gmail.com.

Cheers!

Homebrewing Guest Blogger: You’re Going to Brew Dammit

Welcome to the second weekly installment of "Ian J Barker's Kosher Brewing Funtime Extravaganza For Adults, Mazeltov!" This week I'll give a brief rundown of the brewing types and go over the equipment you'll need to make your first batch.

Types of Brewing

Let's get right down to it. For homebrewers, there are generally only two methods of brewing beer: extract brewing and all-grain brewing. Extract brewing uses malt extract while all-grain brewing uses actual malted grain. The difference you ask? While malt extract brewing is easier and more consistent, all-grain brewing is considered by most to be the true brewing experience.

Malt extract consists of the dehydrated sugar collected from cooking malted grain and some hops. It comes in cans, jugs, or bags in different roast levels and, like I mentioned earlier, results in a more consistent brew, primarily because the extract is pre-prepared. All-grain brewing on the other hand allows the brewmaster (that's right, call yourself a brewmaster) to customize the sugars and starches that come out in the cooked wort. By cooking the grain yourself, you will have infinitely more control over what your beer tastes like.

Equipment

Now, for your first batch I recommend buying a brewing kit. The 1 gallon brewing kits at Brooklyn Brew Shop are what I began with and I swear by them. They give you all the instructions, equipment, and, most importantly, confidence to really get your feet wet. Furthermore, the size of the kit makes it easier (and less costly) to experiment.

The kit comes with a few items: a 1 gallon glass carboy (jug), a 3-piece airlock, a rubber stopper with a hole in it, a lab thermometer, some plastic tubing, a tubing clamp, a racking cane, and a packet of sanitizer, along with the grain, hops, and sugars needed for brewing whatever beer you choose. If you choose not to purchase a kit with equipment, then these are the essential pieces you need to purchase (though not many retailers sell one-gallon sized equipment and five gallon brewing is simply too much until you know what you're doing).

However, I do recommend that, no matter how excited you are, whether you purchase your equipment independently or not, that you at least purchase an ingeredient kit with pre-measured grain, hops, and sugars. Frankly, I don't even know how to make successful recipes yet!

So you're thinking, "what do I do now, oh Guru of the Grain, with all these dohickeys, thingamajigs, and WTFs?" Well, children, that story will begin to unfold...

Next week.

Cheers!


Note:
Now, at times I may be throwing a lot of information at you all at once. I promise it will all be cleared up. Some of the information in the coming weeks may get a little technical, but I promise I'll do my best to give you the know-how you need to become a real brewmaster. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section or drop me an email at barker.ianjohn@gmail.com. As an unemployed college graduate, I have nothing better to do, I assure you.


Note from Brian:
I’ve got a lot of readers in Des Moines and wanted to give a little info for those in the area. Homebrewing supplies in the area are available from Heartland Homebrew Supply or Beer Crazy. Right now the Heartland Homebrew site is under construction and the Beer Crazy site is pretty weak. Both of the stores are pretty good though, go in and check them out.

Many other readers are around Fort Worth. Around there check out the American Firehouse Brewing Supply, Brewhaus, and Brew-Monkey. I haven’t been to any of those so I can’t vouch for them, but please let me know if you’ve been there.

If you have any other suggestions for homebrew shops in your area feel free to post them in a comment!

Homebrewing Guest Blogger

Okay, good news! I've tried homebrewing three or four times and it worked out okay, but I have a friend who is much better at it! Over the course of the next few weeks a more accomplished homebrewer and close friend of mine is going to be writing a series of posts on the topic of homebrewing. Ian was regularly published in the Iowa State Daily, keeps a blog here, and of course, is an avid beer drinker. In fact, we might even be lucky enough for him to write on a few other beer topics sometime down the road as well.

So with no further adieu, Ian!

Ever since my first sip of Hoegaarden in the summer of 2008, I've had a love affair with craft beer. The taste, the texture, and the sense of place that comes from a quality brew is as much a spiritual experience as it is a physical one. Which would explain why monks are so daffy for the stuff...

But even more interesting than drinking the beer is making the beer. At a place like Anheuser-Busch or Miller-Coors, they use the same ol' process, over and over again, with little creativity outside of the advertising department and then hock it on unsuspecting college kids (read: me) while quietly raking in mountains of money. Craft brewing on the other hand takes creativity, consistency, and a certain instinct. Craft beer can be frozen or aged, chocolate or raspberry, light or dark, and everything in between and this continuum of beers comes from a continuum of methods, each more radical (read: ridiculous) than the last.

But truth be told, basic beer making isn't that difficult. You (read: you) can make a high quality brew for even cheaper than you can find it on a store shelf. The fact is that with a little know-how, some persistence, and some diligent note-taking, anyone can make good beer.

There's only four steps: mashing, lautering, boiling, and fermentation, the equipment that you need really doesn't cost that much, and the sense of accomplishment you get from tasting that first delicious (while rough around the edges) batch of your beer is indescribable. Like woodworking or dog-grooming, it's a hands-on, good-for-the-soul activity that brings far more real pride than I can possibly describe (so maybe it's not quite like dog-grooming).

So, if you find yourself inspired, curious, or even disbelieving, feel free to follow AHU for the next few weeks as I outline the equipment, steps, and resources required for brewing your first batch of beer. I'll make some more explicit recommendations for equipment brands and books but feel free to explore for yourself.

After all, it's that exploration, that inconsistency, and that utter accomplishment when it all comes together that makes craft brewing what it is: perfect.