Getting to Know your Malted Barley

Two row barley in the field.

With an embarrassingly large variety of grains available to the homebrewer these days, it can be difficult to make choices among them.  There is so much to consider. For instance, a small amount of dark crystal malt will result in the same color as a larger amount of lighter crystal malt, but the flavor and aroma will not be the same.  It is necessary to have some understanding of the malting process, and to develop familiarity with the different types of malts to make choices that will result in the beer ending up the way you want it to.

The Malting Process

A discussion of the malting process could easily consume all of the space intended for this article.  To stay focused, we will cover it as concisely as possible.  The grain (typically barley, but others such as wheat or rye are also used) is steeped and germinated.  Read the rest of this entry »

What to brew… what to brew?

The basic home brew kit

For Christmas or for your last birthday your wife/parents/kids bought you a homebrew kit. Maybe you treated yourself to that collection of the odd assortment of equipment: a bucket, a kettle, a thermometer, a hydrometer, maybe a couple of carboys. You want to brew a beer.

You love beer. You especially love that Pale Ale brewed at your local brewpub or that Kölsch brewed at the microbrewery just down the street. You want to make beer that tastes as good as that, or better. You know you can do it. You are all psyched up for that first brew day. You’ve read Papazian; you’ve read Palmer (twice); you’ve digested Brew Chem 101. You are ready to make your first batch.
For a minute or two you contemplate making some Goat Scrotum Ale just so you can hand your buddy a bottle and say, “Here suck on some Goat Scrotum,” but you start to think you need a better reason to pick a recipe than the potential for beer-belly laughs from your mates — you’re going to make 40 pints of this stuff after all and you want it to be good. What should you brew? Read the rest of this entry »

Hops Style Guide – What hops in what beer….

One thing I love about home brewing is that when it comes to recipes, anything goes, you can add or do what you want.

Recently while taking inventory, I found that I had several ounces of random hops; Saaz, Styrian Goldings, Argentinian Cascade, Cascade, Hallertauer… I decided to throw some recipes together that were indicative of the representing hops. Short of reading the BJCP Style guidelines, I compiled information for the list below for an easy quick reference. I’ll be cleaning it up and adding more info as time permits. Read the rest of this entry »

Making a yeast starter for home brewing

How to make a yeast starter for home brewing…

I had posted a previous article on yeast starters, but here is a more focused methodology (I hope) on the why and how.

The prepared liquid yeast you buy (Wyeast smack packets, White Labs vials) really don’t contain enough yeast to get a fermentation going as quickly as you would want it to, especially for high gravity worts and lagers. For low gravity brews (Lower than 1.058) the smack packs or vials are fine, but sometimes you just really want a vigorous fermentation that starts rapidly in a couple hours rather than the next day!

The benefits of a starter culture are several-fold: Read the rest of this entry »

Home Brewing: Fermentation Stopped Early (Stuck Fermentation)

A “stuck fermentation” is a fermentation that has stopped before completion, more technically – before the  expected percentage of available fermentable sugars have been converted by yeast into alcohol.

Often in beginning home brewing, a stuck fermentation is perceived when activity in the primary fermenter ceases or declines rapidly within the first couple days. More often than not, it’s not stuck, it’s done. In a more accurate scenario of a stuck fermentation, the wort ferments for several days but the final gravity gets “stuck” at a higher level than the true final gravity of the wort. Read the rest of this entry »

Of Lagers and Ales – A how to lager overview.

I think of lagers as a polite, refined, gentleman to ale’s gruff, rough and tumble demeanor. A lager is in no rush and takes it’s methodical time to get ready, until it is very clean and their character is smooth and refined. Ales are known for it’s sometimes wild or fast and furious bursts out of the gate, finishing with a certain complex, deep and edgy personality. Lagers sit well among the wine sipping crowd, with their fancy imported Dijon cheeses in a fancy setting and such, while ale is fit to be swigged down in pewter mugs by knights in chain maille and Hobbits in a medieval pub.

Either are splendid to drink and relatively similar to make. Homebrewing a lager, however is not for the impatient! Making an ale is like flying in a jet cross country verses lagering which is akin to taking a train. I love ales; dark, pale, dry hopped, you name it. Though there is something wonderful about sipping a nice cold, lager in a tall, chilled glass on a summer’s day. Read the rest of this entry »

My beer isn’t fermenting, what do I do?

Beyond a few days and no fermentation – What to do!?!
Let’s say you’ve gone over 36 hours and there are no signs of any activity what can you do?

First off – Don’t worry! If your wort takes up to three days to show signs fermenting, don’t panic.
This is especially true if you used liquid yeast and didn’t make a large (half-gallon+) yeast starter and aerate well. It is also worth noting that no bubbles in the air lock does not mean it isn’t fermenting.

After the third day, if nothing seems to have happened, take a gravity reading to make sure you haven’t missed the fermentation. Most brews see activity in 6 to 18 hours after pitching. If this doesn’t happen then it doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. You may just not be seeing it or it’s taking it’s time. If this is among your first few brews, it is quite easy to get worried after 12 hours to 24 hours. Relax and don’t panic.

Getting beyond the third day…

If you are fermenting in a bucket, wash your hands and wet a paper towel with a little sanitizing solution. Wipe down the lid around the rubber stopper/airlock, pull out the rubber stopper and peer into the bucket, if you can’t get a good look through the hole in the lid, wipe down the edge of the lid with sanitizer and then carefully pry open the lid (careful not to get anything in there; hair, spittle, etc.). If there is no sign of a sludgy foam (krausen) and the surface of the wort is free of any signs of bubbles, check the temperature of the room (I recommend the adhesive thermometers that stick to the outside of the fermenter , that way you know the temperature of the wort). If the room temperature (or wort temp.) is below 62 degrees F, put the lid and airlock back on and move it to a warmer room. – If you feel the need to stick a thermometer into the wort to get the temperature – remember to sanitize it first!

If after 12 – 24 hours of moving your fermenter Read the rest of this entry »

Avoiding boil overs when home brewing

Wort boil overs usually occurs after adding your malt extract and returning the wort to a boil, the addition of hops at boil also may hasten this.

Tips on avoiding the dreaded homebrew boil over:

1. Pay constant attention to your kettle – Once you add your extract and return the kettle to the burner (stove), DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED! In fact, as it begins to boil and you notice a layer of foam developing on the surface of your wort, don’t even turn your back on it. Boil overs can flare up in a matter of seconds. As soon as it begins boiling and you notice the foam layer begin to actively rise, don’t put a lid on the kettle (this will make matters worse), carefully remove the kettle from the burner until the foaming subsides, then return and adjust your heat down to a gentle, rolling boil. If you are using an electric stove, you’ll have to be more focused, as reducing heat on an electric burner isn’t as responsive as a gas burner.

Read the rest of this entry »

Basic Ingredients of Beer (Home brewed, micro brewed, and commercial)

The main ingredients found in beer are water, malted barley, hops, and yeast.  There are other ingredients such as flavoring, sugar, and other ingredients that are commonly used.  Starches are used as well, as they convert in the mashing process to easily fermentable sugars that will help to increase the alcohol content of beer while adding body and flavor.

Historical Ingredient Reference of Beer
In Germany the “Reinheitsgebot” law, or “German Beer Purity Law” stated in it’s original text written in 1516, that the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley, and hops. The Reinheitsgebot was designed to prevent inferior methods of preserving and flavoring beer that had been used before the introduction of hops, which is a natural bactirial inhibitor and major flavor component of modern beer. Prior to this, medieval brewermasters had used many problematic (and toxic) ingredients to preserve beers, including, for example, soot and fly agaric mushrooms. More commonly, other herbs had been used, such as wormwood, yarrow, stinging nettle and henbane. Pre-hop beers are generally referred to as “Gruit”.

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Can I make my own beer?

Really?

If you can boil water, follow instructions, and keep things clean, the answer is yes! There are differing “levels” of home brewing, from very simple to fairly complex (but all are doable):

All-in-one kits: If you are wanting to dip your toe into home brewing, but not quite ready for a commitment to getting the usual brewers equipment, then these are for you. These kits contain everything you need, are relatively inexpensive, easy to use and produce good beer – Mix, Brew, Bottle, Drink!. The only con is that the ingredients come all pre-mixed, so you don’t have the same control as with extract and all grain brewing.

Read the rest of this entry »