I've been enjoying reading your posts. Thanks for the updates.
Average Joe to Brewing Pro - My two years of brewing school.
- Thread starter EricR
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OP
OP
Thanks for the kind words, I am glad to hear you have applied. There are a few international students, a couple from the new york state / buffalo area. How did you find the application process? Have you had to submit your portfolio yet? If you have specific questions about the program or how my application process went shoot me a private message.
OP
OP
Thanks for reading!
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Solid updates - keep 'em coming!
OP
OP
First brew day
I am falling behind on my updates, for that I am sorry. It has been quite a busy and exciting week for me, with my first day in the brewery getting to use the pilot system. The day started off at 8:30 with the eight of us in my group meeting outside the brewery. Soon we were told that we would be the first group from our year that gets to do a brew on the craft system. This means that everyone in the group gets a chance to brew, and we were all very excited about that.
First things first, we went to the barn behind the brewery to grab the malt we needed, as well as several cases of bottles as there would be bottling work to do as well. Once we acquired the necessary materials we returned to the brewery to be split up into our groups for the day. The way it worked was four people would get to brew on the larger craft system, while two groups of two would get to brew on the pilot systems. As I was near the top of the list I got assigned to one of the pilot systems along with three of my classmates. Some people may think that this is disappointing, not getting to use the larger system, but in reality the pilot system is where we will be doing most of our brewing throughout our time at the school and it is the only system we will be tested on later in the year.
For our brew we were making a basic pale ale to be hopped with bertwell hops harvested from this years hop harvest and dried out. The previous groups to brew (week 1 and 2) used different hops (fresh hops from the harvest on week one, and hops harvested last year for group two). We will be doing a side by side comparison of the beers in sensory evaluation to see the effect different hops can have on a recipe. Although our recipe was basic enough, learning the pilot system proved to be quite the challenge. There are lots of valves and switches and hoses, as well as all the dreaded (but necessary) tri-clamps to go along with them. With Jon’s supervision we managed to mash in okay, and I got a heck of an arm workout stirring the mash. Although not a large system, there was certainly enough grain for me to break a sweat. My group had a little trouble maintaining the proper mash temp (would have helped if we opened the steam valve, like we were supposed to) so we ended up doing a small addition of hot liquor to keep us around the required levels. After the mash comes the vorlauf, which is the process of running the wort over the grain bed in order to clarify it. The process took us about 15 minutes as we were doing it at a bit of a reduced flow rate. I had never done a vorlauf in my home brewing, so this was a new experience for me. It was interesting to see the difference in clarity from the start to the end of the process.
After the vorlauf comes the lauter, where we drained the wort from the mash tun into the kettle and sparged the grain bed to remove any of the remaining sugars. This took another 20 minutes or so. There is downtime during the brew process, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing to do. There is ALWAYS cleaning to do. Always. Once we were sure all our sweet wort was in the kettle it was time to start the boil. Following our recipe, we were to boil for 45 minutes with a hop pellet addition at the beginning of the boil, and whole hops to be soaked at 0 minutes and let to sit for 10 minutes in the wort.
Luckily our teaching brewery has a heat exchanger so cooling the wort down to fermentable temperatures was quick and easy, and we were able to do a quick transfer from kettle to fermenter by rigging up a very elaborate system of hoses. Now that we were done with the brew it was time to clean, and sanitize, and clean, and sanitize and clean some more. Once we were assured our system was spotless we moved on to cleaning kegs for the rest of the day.
All in all it was an awesome day, I learned a lot, but had a bit of information overload so I’m sure I’ll forget half of it by the next time I’m in there (three weeks and counting!). I guess I should try and volunteer this upcoming week, to get some more time in the brewery under my belt. Until then, I will continue to study the brewing process and work on some assigned projects.
Cheers,
Eric
I am falling behind on my updates, for that I am sorry. It has been quite a busy and exciting week for me, with my first day in the brewery getting to use the pilot system. The day started off at 8:30 with the eight of us in my group meeting outside the brewery. Soon we were told that we would be the first group from our year that gets to do a brew on the craft system. This means that everyone in the group gets a chance to brew, and we were all very excited about that.
First things first, we went to the barn behind the brewery to grab the malt we needed, as well as several cases of bottles as there would be bottling work to do as well. Once we acquired the necessary materials we returned to the brewery to be split up into our groups for the day. The way it worked was four people would get to brew on the larger craft system, while two groups of two would get to brew on the pilot systems. As I was near the top of the list I got assigned to one of the pilot systems along with three of my classmates. Some people may think that this is disappointing, not getting to use the larger system, but in reality the pilot system is where we will be doing most of our brewing throughout our time at the school and it is the only system we will be tested on later in the year.
For our brew we were making a basic pale ale to be hopped with bertwell hops harvested from this years hop harvest and dried out. The previous groups to brew (week 1 and 2) used different hops (fresh hops from the harvest on week one, and hops harvested last year for group two). We will be doing a side by side comparison of the beers in sensory evaluation to see the effect different hops can have on a recipe. Although our recipe was basic enough, learning the pilot system proved to be quite the challenge. There are lots of valves and switches and hoses, as well as all the dreaded (but necessary) tri-clamps to go along with them. With Jon’s supervision we managed to mash in okay, and I got a heck of an arm workout stirring the mash. Although not a large system, there was certainly enough grain for me to break a sweat. My group had a little trouble maintaining the proper mash temp (would have helped if we opened the steam valve, like we were supposed to) so we ended up doing a small addition of hot liquor to keep us around the required levels. After the mash comes the vorlauf, which is the process of running the wort over the grain bed in order to clarify it. The process took us about 15 minutes as we were doing it at a bit of a reduced flow rate. I had never done a vorlauf in my home brewing, so this was a new experience for me. It was interesting to see the difference in clarity from the start to the end of the process.
After the vorlauf comes the lauter, where we drained the wort from the mash tun into the kettle and sparged the grain bed to remove any of the remaining sugars. This took another 20 minutes or so. There is downtime during the brew process, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing to do. There is ALWAYS cleaning to do. Always. Once we were sure all our sweet wort was in the kettle it was time to start the boil. Following our recipe, we were to boil for 45 minutes with a hop pellet addition at the beginning of the boil, and whole hops to be soaked at 0 minutes and let to sit for 10 minutes in the wort.
Luckily our teaching brewery has a heat exchanger so cooling the wort down to fermentable temperatures was quick and easy, and we were able to do a quick transfer from kettle to fermenter by rigging up a very elaborate system of hoses. Now that we were done with the brew it was time to clean, and sanitize, and clean, and sanitize and clean some more. Once we were assured our system was spotless we moved on to cleaning kegs for the rest of the day.
All in all it was an awesome day, I learned a lot, but had a bit of information overload so I’m sure I’ll forget half of it by the next time I’m in there (three weeks and counting!). I guess I should try and volunteer this upcoming week, to get some more time in the brewery under my belt. Until then, I will continue to study the brewing process and work on some assigned projects.
Cheers,
Eric
OP
OP
Monday I received a slew of test results, and I must say I am quite happy with them. In math of finance I got 97.77% and my professor requested that I become a peer tutor. Anyone who knows me and my history of schooling is now probably laughing so hard that they are out of breath. In brewing ingredients I scored 78% on our first major test. Not bad, but I look forward to doing better in the future.
Today my class brewed what is going to be our graduation beer. We decided to make a Russian Imperial Stout and it will age in a bourbon barrel from now until we graduate in 2014. It will be interesting to compare the beers we can make then with this one we made now, which is essentially our first ever brew. For anyone who is in the area, an un-aged version will shortly be available in the school's retail store.
No other major developments at this time, lots of assignments to get started on however, so I will be keeping busy.
Cheers,
Eric
Today my class brewed what is going to be our graduation beer. We decided to make a Russian Imperial Stout and it will age in a bourbon barrel from now until we graduate in 2014. It will be interesting to compare the beers we can make then with this one we made now, which is essentially our first ever brew. For anyone who is in the area, an un-aged version will shortly be available in the school's retail store.
No other major developments at this time, lots of assignments to get started on however, so I will be keeping busy.
Cheers,
Eric
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OP
OP
Well, it’s been some time since I had much to say about whats been going on at the school, as we settle in to a routine it becomes a bit more difficult to find exciting stuff to write about. Perhaps all the coursework has made me reluctant to take free time to sit in front of a computer screen, but I feel it is time to get back in to it, so here it goes!
This week we were supposed to have our first midterm, in Brewing Ingredients. There is a ton of stuff to review as the test is cumulative of everything from day one up until now. I spent a good chunk of the weekend typing up notes, reviewing, studying, reviewing and typing up notes (get the idea?). Sunday night rolls around and we get an email from our professor saying that the midterm has been pushed back. This is both good, and bad news. I am happy that I didn’t have to write it yesterday, as I don’t think I would have done as well as I would have liked, but now we have no set date for the midterm. It would have been nice to have it done before our reading week break, which is coming up next week. I guess it will be just one more thing to work on over the week.
Today we are going to be doing some review in Sensory Evaluation for our midterm which will be the Tuesday after the break. As we have yet to receive our flavor standards the test will be solely on the theory we have learned so far. How to set up a tasting panel, the different kinds of biases, and perhaps the proper process to evaluating a beer, as taught to us by our teacher.
We have several papers due this week as well. One for sensory evaluation, where we were given a case study of a brewery and some complaints they were receiving about their beer. We were each assigned a complaint to investigate and tasked with finding out the source of the problem and identifying how to fix it. The problem I was given was that some customers were wondering if its normal for the beer to smell like Parmesan cheese. As this beer was not, indeed, a Parmesan cheese beer, this was certainly a problem. A little bit of investigation proved that the brewery was not storing their hops properly, allowing them to age and oxidize, which allows Isovaleric acid to do its thing and create the cheesy aromas. The solution? Proper storage and monitoring of the hops. The brewery was not storing their in a cold room which was speeding up the process. Next, I finished up an essay for workplace communications, and started work on two other midterm papers due this week.
The upside of this crazy hectic week is that it is once again my turn in the brewery, which is good, because one of the midterm papers I have to write is on how to properly use the pilot system in the teaching brewery. Although I did get a chance to use it three weeks ago I am in dire need of a refresher on the subject. This week is also special because we have been invited to attend the Ontario Craft Brewers Conference this Friday in Markham, Ontario. The OCB was kind enough to invite us and give us free admission, and I am really looking forward to attending the conference and meeting some people in the industry, as well as taking notes during the lectures. Yes I will be taking notes, no I am not ashamed!
Over the reading week I have two major assignments to work on, once of which, on hop products, will be due as soon as we get back to school, so no slacking off for me.
This has been a large general update on the goings on at Niagara College, but I will soon be doing some course related updates for those interested in the day to day teachings. Stay tuned for more!
Cheers,
Eric
This week we were supposed to have our first midterm, in Brewing Ingredients. There is a ton of stuff to review as the test is cumulative of everything from day one up until now. I spent a good chunk of the weekend typing up notes, reviewing, studying, reviewing and typing up notes (get the idea?). Sunday night rolls around and we get an email from our professor saying that the midterm has been pushed back. This is both good, and bad news. I am happy that I didn’t have to write it yesterday, as I don’t think I would have done as well as I would have liked, but now we have no set date for the midterm. It would have been nice to have it done before our reading week break, which is coming up next week. I guess it will be just one more thing to work on over the week.
Today we are going to be doing some review in Sensory Evaluation for our midterm which will be the Tuesday after the break. As we have yet to receive our flavor standards the test will be solely on the theory we have learned so far. How to set up a tasting panel, the different kinds of biases, and perhaps the proper process to evaluating a beer, as taught to us by our teacher.
We have several papers due this week as well. One for sensory evaluation, where we were given a case study of a brewery and some complaints they were receiving about their beer. We were each assigned a complaint to investigate and tasked with finding out the source of the problem and identifying how to fix it. The problem I was given was that some customers were wondering if its normal for the beer to smell like Parmesan cheese. As this beer was not, indeed, a Parmesan cheese beer, this was certainly a problem. A little bit of investigation proved that the brewery was not storing their hops properly, allowing them to age and oxidize, which allows Isovaleric acid to do its thing and create the cheesy aromas. The solution? Proper storage and monitoring of the hops. The brewery was not storing their in a cold room which was speeding up the process. Next, I finished up an essay for workplace communications, and started work on two other midterm papers due this week.
The upside of this crazy hectic week is that it is once again my turn in the brewery, which is good, because one of the midterm papers I have to write is on how to properly use the pilot system in the teaching brewery. Although I did get a chance to use it three weeks ago I am in dire need of a refresher on the subject. This week is also special because we have been invited to attend the Ontario Craft Brewers Conference this Friday in Markham, Ontario. The OCB was kind enough to invite us and give us free admission, and I am really looking forward to attending the conference and meeting some people in the industry, as well as taking notes during the lectures. Yes I will be taking notes, no I am not ashamed!
Over the reading week I have two major assignments to work on, once of which, on hop products, will be due as soon as we get back to school, so no slacking off for me.
This has been a large general update on the goings on at Niagara College, but I will soon be doing some course related updates for those interested in the day to day teachings. Stay tuned for more!
Cheers,
Eric
Good luck on the mid terms!
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Lumpy16 said:
You going to the hip show in feb?
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Lumpy16 said:
What's a good pub nearby with a decent craft beer selection? Gotta plan this out...
The best beer in down town Guelph is at the woolwich arrow. It's just around the corner, less than a 5 min walk. Not the best atmosphere, more of a restaurant than a bar. It's nice though and there is a bar to sit at. They always have a couple casks on which is sweet.
Thanks for posting up these updates. It's great to hear about what it's like to go through Brewing School. It's something that would interest me, but I will never have the opportunity to do. I'm pretty sure there's more than just me living through you in these posts.
When you talk about setting up a tasting panel and sensory evaluation, you're referring to a panel of the same beer with different off flavors?
When you talk about setting up a tasting panel and sensory evaluation, you're referring to a panel of the same beer with different off flavors?
Nice blog - thanks for sharing! What size batches are you brewing on the pilot system vs. the larger system in the brewery?
OP
OP
Right, that is part of it. We are actually waiting for the flavor "spikes" to come in, which is what we need to start doing exactly that. As of right now we have been learning more about the theory of setting up an effective panel, as well as doing blind tastings and being asked to identify which brand or what style of beer it is.
Basically the process for this is we sit down at our table, and we go through the beer selection with the whole class first. We evaluate clarity, aroma, mouthfeel, taste, retro-nasal effect and so on. Then we leave the class and the teacher re-arranged our glasses and when we come back in we are asked to list which beer is which. So far I have been doing well, 5/5 on both quizzes given, so I am pretty happy. The main focus of the class, however, will be on identifying off flavors and where they can occur in the brewing process. Just waiting on the spikes.
As for never having the opportunity to do it, you would be surprised by the range of classmates I have. Sure, there are quite a few people like me who are young and this will be most likely our first career, but there are plenty of others too. We have an ex-lawyer in our class, a guy who has been a glassblower and landscaper for over a decade and several others. Never say never, if you are truly passionate then you never know what may work out. In the meantime try and find some local beer related courses you can take! If you are interested send me a PM and I can refer you to an online beer course which although more focused on the tasting and serving of beer is quite a solid course.
The pilot systems in the brewery make around 60L of beer at a time I believe, and we have so far been combining two brews in to one fermenter, as we are working on very specific recipes. As the class is split into 3 different brew groups we have been focusing each time on a variation of one ingredient. For example the first three brews we did were focused on hops. One week the group did year old hops, the next week did wet hops and my week did fresh hops, but not wet hops. Now we are focusing on water, and when we are done we will do malt.
The "large" system in the brewery does 5bbl at a time, but we have had a large demand for our beers and are in the process of building a much larger brewery off premises, I believe, as we currently have two of our "production" beers contract brewed by a great local Ontario brewery. The new brewery won't be ready any time while I'm in the school but it is exciting to see the program expanding so soon since its inception. I hope the future brewmaster students will get more days in the brewery as a result!
As always feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like. I really enjoy answering them, and, as we all are, am very passionate on the subject!
Cheers,
Eric
What beer style are you brewing when you look at modifying a recipe for each varable? (I guess another way to ask is, when you used the different hops and different water profiles, etc. were you brewing the same style beer?)
OP
OP
Good question! Yes, we brew essentially the same recipe each time. It is a very basic Pale Ale recipe, kept simple to profile the different changes made. All the beers get sold in the campus retail store, which is pretty neat.
TuttleCreekBrewing
Well-Known Member
Thanks for putting this thread together -- I'll be following with great interest! Keep the updates coming! 
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Lumpy16 said:
Saw it at Bloor/Royal York LCBO last week. Two different kinds. Hands were full of spearhead IPA so I did not try it.
OP
OP
I will share a small secret with you, the beer in the LCBO currently was not brewed by us. The demand for the beer outgrew our small breweries capabilities so we have had to brew it off-site while the new brewery is under construction (currently in the planning phase). If you make a trip out to the college you can try a whole variety of different beers all brewed by us students and available for sale in growlers.
OP
OP
Today was our first day back after Niagara College's first ever reading week. The week was mostly uneventful, as I spent most of it studying for exams and writing papers. Tomorrow is our midterm in Sensory Evaluation, and I have just about done as much reading on the subject as I can. We also found out today that our Brewing Ingredients midterm will be next Monday, and now has an expanded scope to include some barley physiology which we went over today. There is lots of studying to be done for that test, as well as a few assignments for Communications to work on, so until I get through those updates will remain small.
Today in Brewing Ingredients we went over how to calculate mineral additions to your brewing water using Molar Mass. It has been many, many years since I have had to look at a periodic table and to say I was a bit rusty would be an understatement. Heck, I never understood it when I learned it the first time. Fortunately, it wasn't as intimidating as I thought it would be and we managed to avoid having to do specific calculations for the midterm - we only need to know the general steps. After Molar Mass we got to draw a diagram of a barley grain and then label it with the many components that make it up. Another thing to commit to memory. Oof.
On the plus side, due to scheduling conflicts we will no longer be having a second test in the course. Instead we will be given another assignment to do. I say on the plus side, but I'm not sure which I'd rather do.
I forgot to mention that we started the day with our math midterm, which went pretty well. I made one mistake that I know of, as for some reason my mind shut itself off and I blanked out on how to calculate the break even point in sales based analysis (set the price to 1$, if anyone was interested).
Anyhow, I will work on typing up some notes and drawing out a diagram or two to share with anyone who wants more specific information. Also, expect a post on Hop Calculations as it will be on my midterm and it is fairly interesting (arguably one of the most useful things we have learned so far).
Cheers,
Eric
Today in Brewing Ingredients we went over how to calculate mineral additions to your brewing water using Molar Mass. It has been many, many years since I have had to look at a periodic table and to say I was a bit rusty would be an understatement. Heck, I never understood it when I learned it the first time. Fortunately, it wasn't as intimidating as I thought it would be and we managed to avoid having to do specific calculations for the midterm - we only need to know the general steps. After Molar Mass we got to draw a diagram of a barley grain and then label it with the many components that make it up. Another thing to commit to memory. Oof.
On the plus side, due to scheduling conflicts we will no longer be having a second test in the course. Instead we will be given another assignment to do. I say on the plus side, but I'm not sure which I'd rather do.
I forgot to mention that we started the day with our math midterm, which went pretty well. I made one mistake that I know of, as for some reason my mind shut itself off and I blanked out on how to calculate the break even point in sales based analysis (set the price to 1$, if anyone was interested).
Anyhow, I will work on typing up some notes and drawing out a diagram or two to share with anyone who wants more specific information. Also, expect a post on Hop Calculations as it will be on my midterm and it is fairly interesting (arguably one of the most useful things we have learned so far).
Cheers,
Eric
Are you sure about that? Doesn't seem right to me (but I only took Economics/Account at high school level). I would of thought you would set you profit to $0
OP
OP
profit = 0 but the price of the item being sold gets set to 1$. In a sales based analysis you are only given the sales figures, the variable costs and the fixed costs. The variable costs to sales are a fixed ratio and can be represented by VC/S. In order to find break even, you need to know the price of the item, but since it is not specified we are told to set the value of the item to 1$ and then proceed with the calculations. I very well could be wrong about this, but I think that's how we were supposed to do it.
I think I just clicked, this is for multiple products right?
OP
OP
It is hard to tell, as we can brew whatever we want on certain days, providing there is fermentor space, and it all has to be sold in the store. I know the project for the second year students this semester is to brew a bitter, a stout and a hefe, so there is a good chance at least one variation of those will be on tap as well as our NC Ale, Lager, and Bitter. There is normally at least one other beer on there as well, but I couldn't predict it. If you tell me when you are planning on coming down I'll let you know whats on tap. You do of course get to sample the beer before committing to a purchase
This specific question was just for one product. I will try and dig up an example of the question so you can see what I mean. Check back tomorrow and I'll have that for you.
Thanks, good luck with you studies! Sounds like the University I wish I had gone to, damn engineering school! One day... one day...
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