This morning I walked in to my "brew (fermentation) room", the fourth bedroom filled with accumulated junk, elated with the very lovely aroma of beer brewing only to find that the ceiling and walls were covered in yeast froth. The air-lock was clear across the room; my first blow out in twenty batches of beer since I began this addictive hobby last December of 2011. I had heard of the occurrence but had somehow avoided it. Perhaps I can chalk this one up to improved techniques in pitching yeast, preparing the yeast for pitch (this one being a Nottingham dry yeast re-hydrated in approximately 10 times its weight of sterile water), or worse yet, pitching at nearly 80*F then not getting the temp down fast enough. The pitch was the morning before so the blow out was less than 24 hours into the fermentation. (At the time of submitting this article there have been two blowouts, the second after fitting the bottle with a blow off tube.) At any rate, it was a new experience, which is, ultimately, why I wanted to write this article; to summarize what I have learned from my first year as a home brewer; as well as how it has effected my life, or rather, my living space. Some day soon, with the completion of the "official" beer room, I won't have all this stuff scattered throughout the house.
The art and science of home brewing is not such a foreign concept to me. My schooling has left me with a master's degree in Molecular Biology with all of its associated training in microbiological technique and basic cellular biology/chemistry. Many years earlier I had looked into brewing when presented with a re-gifted Home Brew kit, obviously not wanted by the original giftee, so to speak. I accumulated bottles from my occasional embibation and had good intentions of starting this road to home brewing, but yet, I somehow lost interest, got busy with other things or just plain forgot that I was going to do it, what with all the distractions a growing, healthy young male might encounter in the wiles of his developmental youth; aka - girls. That being said, last year while browsing the internet I happened upon an advertisement by Mr Beer, a major player in many home brewers initiation to the hobby. An online order and a few "how to" videos later, I was on my way. Needless to say, I've been hooked ever since with a continual desire to parooze home brewing supply stores, buy up gadgets and brewing kits for that all elusive massive hoard of home brewed beer to satisfy my needs for many years to come. Somehow that massive build up of home brewed beer seems to remain in a constant state of equilibrium with consumption. Sad, and yet not.
It has become increasingly clear that the brewing industry is undergoing a bit of a renaissance in the birth of many local micro-breweries and brew pubs. Here in the DFW metroplex there are no less than 6 micro-breweries, each with its own unique take on how to make a great beer. It is very highly enjoyable to attend the weekend "tours", sampling to my hearts content the many varieties of such a delectable beverage in all of its many forms and tastes. Having embarked upon this adventure I feel the same urge to launch out upon the road of master brewer, becoming a legend of the industry with loyal followers flocking to my brewery (see above) and the many restaurants who gleefully carry and serve pint after pint of my own "flavor of the month", finding that serving DrVertebrae's brews continually brings in those hungry and thirsty crowds of money toting patrons. Well anyway . . .
All that aside, I want to share some of the things I have learned over the many, or rather the "year", that I have been wielding my brew pot around the kitchen. In fact, here is a list of the things that I have discovered, quite totally on my own (right!), which seem to be important in the careful and successful manufacture of this, the Lords, holy brew:
- Maintain temperature control
- Patience, patience, patience; as in aging, lagering, maturing your beer
- Sanitation
- Yeast - Powdered versus liquid or starter
- Stratification (very interesting) - as it might effect OG, pitching and dry hopping
- That one beer I didn't like - it comes down to taste (yours of course)
I previously made one brew which seemed laced with banana; basically a result of fermentation temperature too high; the temp was maintained at about 72-74*F. I was severely uneducated at that time. Yuck. I used to think I liked bananas. Not in beer thank you very much. As I later found out, these extreme fruit flavors are the result of chemicals called esters which form in large amounts when the fermentation temp is too high. (Generally, most "flavors" we are familiar with are esters.) The banana flavor did, however, diminish and finally disappear from "view" with more aging. Which, of course, reiterates once again, the second important thing I have learned; these things take time. Lots of time is generally necessary, it seems, when one is anxious to taste the fruits, not necessarily the esters, of his/her labors. Most of the brews I have made were sampled too early and then, semi-regularly, until I would reach the end of the line some weeks later, when they were finally reaching their peak of deliciousness. Of course, by then they were gone. Oh, the times I have wished I had waited the time necessary to begin to embibe upon their glorious gift. Simply put then, keep the temps a bit lower and give it time. I made a cider which, at 7 months of age, is tasting pretty darn good.
With my background in biology I find it natural to handle things like glassware and foods in a sanitary fashion; maintaining sanitary conditions and keeping contamination to a minimum, which is certainly all important, can be underestimated. Yet, for all of my knowing laziness with regards to sanitation and brewing, being less than totally careful from time to time, I find that it is not actually the all encompassing concern to homebrewers one might think from the reading on the subject. Note that many of those who brew mead (I have five under my belt) don't boil, pasteurize or even heat their concoctions and have, by their own accounts at least, turned out some mighty good tasting stuff. Of course those things dangerous to us of the human variety, bugs like bacteria, don't like the lower temps associated with brewing, although just about anything has the potential to be pathogenic. Thus one should strive to maintain a good clean work environment, wash the hands a lot, sanitize things to the nth degree, assume anything not sanitized to be contaminated with something potentially harmful (both to you AND your beer), clean up afterward, wash out bottles the very minute they are emptied, get rid of any visible build up on brewing containers like better bottles and even kettles, etc, etc. It's not that difficult or time consuming. Why take chances, right? But at the same time, if something does happen, don't sweat it too much. The chances of everything turning out OK are very good. And don't let brewing interfere with cooking a nice meal either. Observe my kitchen below. There's a lot going on there including the preparation of a pot of beans. Below left is a dishwasher in full swing, emitting a bit of steam in and around the room. I have given my brews adequate opportunity to be contaminated but it just hasn't happened yet. So be clean and sanitary, but don't sweat it that much.
Then there are the yeasts, those beautiful little makers of delight. There has been so much to learn about them. First of all they come in two basic forms or packages; liquid and powdered. Is there a big difference in results from one form to the next? Do you need to make a starter for pitching? I'll just say that I have done all methods of pitching; dry dumped right into the wort, dryre-hydrated, and complete starters in active growth. Basically, I have had many good results using all three methods but I must say, fresh starters and properlyre-hydratedpowdered yeasts have produced beers with much less of the off flavors as has been produced by just throwing (pitching) powdered yeast or even the liquid yeasts poured right into the wort. One could obviously say that my sample size for drawing this conclusion is rather small but my memory and notes on my brews, at least to my satisfaction, have born this out. Of course if you read about it, the "experts", those that write books, will concur with that. Faster start times, more vigorousfermentation, more completefermentation, fewer off flavors and compounds are the result. Thus, if I begin with a liquid yeast sample, I will put it in a bit of sterile wort for a day or two prior to pitching. That way I can see that it is healthy and growing when it is pitched. With the powdered variety, I just do the recommendedre-hydration; that being basically just suspending the yeast in approximately 10 times their mass of water. So 10 grams of yeast is re-hydrated in 100 ml of sterile water. The brew I mentioned earlier which blew itself all over the room was pitched with Nottingham yeastre-hydratedin about 100ml of water. For what it matters, from a biologists point of view, I would rather see the yeast swirled rather than shaken. Proteins are denatured if shaken in a liquid environment although not in excess, but in my dealings with growing bugs and suspending various compounds into solution, good technique dictates no vigorous shaking. Of course, aerating your wort requires a pretty vigorous shake but I would recommend doing that prior to pitching. Just sayin'.
Additionally, on the topic of yeast and aeration, it would appear that it takes a good bit of shaking to get fair aeration as opposed to actually bubbling oxygen onto the wort. The recommended is about 10ppm O2, but according to what I have read, 5 min of vigorous shaking will only get you to about 5ppm. But here, we can utilize some basic physical science; that being, gases dissolve better in cold solution than warm. First get your wort down to pretty low temps and shake big time. Next, the water that you bring the final volume up with can be refrigerated and shaken big time as well. The lower temp of the refrigerated water will result in higher dissolved oxygen levels. Thus you will be adding highly oxygenated water into the wort. Then shake some more.
On a much more interesting note, I have learned that many different types of yeast can be used in the same brew. In addition, it would appear that the times they are pitched plays a key role in the flavor of your beer. Apparently the key flavor components are produced in the first few days of fermentation. Many yeasts that produce very flavorful beers do so in that time but many of these will not attenuate as much as you might like, depending upon how sweet or alcoholic you want the final product to be. I prefer dryer beers or "less sweet" varieties. I also like them highly attenuated which is essentially the same thing (at least in government work). I have learned that we can follow our initial "flavor" yeast (which we pitch first) with a more attenuative variety after about 3/4 of the fermentation process is completed, thus yielding a more attenuated but still flavorful beer. This idea of combining yeast strains offers a near infinite number of possibilities and combinations when one considers the wide variety of grains, both base and specialty, one has to choose from when concocting a new recipe. I am getting ready to try all grain mashing/brewing. The possible varieties have my mouth watering to say the least.
At the risk of being overly verbose (that means talking too much) about shaking and mixing your wort, I have discovered something which I found rather interesting which emphasizes the need to get things mixed up pretty well before you set your brew aside to ferment for weeks at a time. It has to do with stratification within your fermentor. I have read some articles and some forum threads regarding variable measurements of OG as possibly not actually being the true OG of the batch. Take a look at the picture below.
That is five gallons of water into which I added 1oz of Star San. Look at the level of stratification or rather the level of "not mixing". Imagine if I had just pitched my yeast or combined my wort with water to adjust final volume to five gallons. Even with pretty vigorous mixing and shaking, some level of stratification was difficult to overcome. One can see how problematic it would be to get an accurate reading of OG if the wort is not thoroughly mixed. Or imagine how the yeast would initially behave if it stratified in to one region and not another. Basically, anywhere the yeast is not at, is a dead spot. I've read how the shapes of the huge fermentation kettles in commercial brewing could affect the final product due to stratification and the resultant dead spots but I never imagined it could so readily occur in a five gallon jug. The take home lesson here is that without good mixing, the wort will not have adequate oxygen to kick off good yeast growth and your OG could be off as well.
Yes, I am still quite the beginner but I am learning. Of course the test of the beer AND the brewer is in the taste. It is interesting that one doesn't find too many home brewers being very critical of their own brews. But you know, we all love our children and each one of our brews is a child of our efforts. Honestly, however, we probably all remember at least one of our batches that we just plain didn't like. For me it was a wheat beer. It didn't gag me but it certainly wasn't one I would want to make again. On the other hand, I had once bought a beer touted as the best beer in Texas per a group of "beer judges". In that instance I don't think I could have distinguished between it and the IPA I had in a keg at that time. The bottom line is in how you like your beers. If you do then continue on. If you want to make efforts to change them or possibly change them into something you might enjoy more, I hope that there is something of my experience here that might help. Simply having better control of temperatures plus a little patience will make a huge difference and go a very long way toward truly good beer.
Oops, I forgot to mention bottling, kegging, using a secondary, dry hopping, using bigger brew kettles, specialty grain steeping, flavor hops versus aroma hops, etc, etc. It just goes on. I know that by now my current brew has settled down to the temperature it needs to be. I guess I'll find out later just how much that little bit of fermentation at too high of a temperature has effected it. If not ruined, then I'll be able to share how that little change altered the brew. Assuming I don't drink it up too soon. From my experience, I'm betting it turns out just fine. If it goes bad, I'll just have to repeat the process. After all, repetition is the secret to learning. It is also the secret to enjoying a nice homebrew.
Also, don't forget the other fun things to brew, Mead and Cider. They can be flavored with fruits, spices and just about anything you can think of. A favorite of mine is the Mead-mosa (mead and orange juice) or as my lady friend calls it, vigorous orange juice. The first ones are soon to be bottled.
Something else, in addition to the brewing is all the stuff that goes with beer and brewing. Everything from openers to glasses and T-shirts with your home designed emblem on them. The DragonFly Brewery image at the top of this article was designed by my artistic teenage daughter. So far I have had it placed on a custom painted cap and had it printed on a custom made T-shirt. Next will be glasses and I envision framed, stained glass mirrors and windows. It's endless and I am just a beginner but for less than a year, I've learned a lot. I hope this information is helpful to my fellow newbies to the hobby.