Still catching up -- we have two batches completed, drank, and well reviewed. My wife and I have two batches in fermenters, one ready to bottle (a petit saison) and another working it's way to being ready to dry-hop (Surly Furious). It'll be the first dry-hopping I've done.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Temperature
I've not brewed much, but I have read.
Temperature affects the metabolism of yeast, as well as selects for various characteristics. When making bread, a long, slow rise in the refrigerator allows for more flavor than a fast rise in a warm location.
The taste of hefeweizens can be altered by changing the temperature at which the yeast live and eat - the fermenting temperature. I am lucky, in that there is an unfinished storage room in my basement that stays relatively cool, a perfect place for me to store my fermenting wort. One day I will hack a chest freezer for more accurate temperature control, but since my beers have stayed below 70 degrees Fahrenheit so far, this upgrade may be delayed.
Temperature is important on brewing day as well. Just like with fresh chicken, you want to keep your wort out of the bacterial danger zone, at least until it's got a big gang of yeast cells and is protected from further inoculation. The FDA puts the danger zone from from 40 to 140 F, but advises further caution between 90 and 140. Above 140 F kills bacteria, and if you can keep your wort aseptic as it cools, you have effectively Pasteurized your wort. Unfortunately, these temperatures also kill yeast.
You have to cool your wort before letting your pack of hungry yeast loose on it. The longer you sit in the danger zone, the more bad microbes fall into your cooling wort. These nasties probably won't ruin your beer, because your yeasts will outcompete them, but they will introduce unsavory flavors. New brewers usually cool their wort in an icewater bath in their sink. My brewing buddy happens to be a HVAC Mechanic, and rigged up a wort cooler for our use. This reduces the cooling time from 40+ minutes to about 8 minutes, from boil to 90 F.
I sincerely think that we have been able to brew good beer from the start largely due to the wort chiller and fermentation temperatures.
First Beer - NB's Caribou Slobber
Caribou Slobber
Moose Drool
Great names for beer, huh? The first is Northern Brewer's name for a clone of the second, which is Big Sky Brewing's name for their brown ale. I don't normally especially like brown ales, but I knew this to be the beer that the NB gang brews in their instructional video. I was pleasantly surprised by both the beer and the video.
First, the video: I'm no video expert, but it seems to have decent production value, though this is not the part that surprised me. What surprised me is that it was entertaining enough, and informative enough, and brief enough to watch several times. There really is no shortcut to it; it is faster to watch the video than to explain the brewing process.
Second, the beer: I can't get Moose Drool on the east coast, though I will try it as soon as I see the opportunity. I'm not a huge fan of brown ale, though I loved Newcastle in college, that being one of the more exotic beers commonly available in Blacksburg in the mid 90's. Brown ales are known for malty sweetness, and I favor the humulus. Fortunately, Moose Drool has plenty of both.
I've recently moved about an hour away from my old house, and haven't visited with many of my old friends. We're all at the age where we spend more time with work, wives, and family. Brewing is a good excuse to hang out for the afternoon, while doing something productive. I invited one of my old friends over for my inaugural brew, a friend handier than I, fortunately.
The brewing was uneventful. A large pot, that I had purchased from a restaurant supply store, the starter kit, the recipe kit, and a 'smack pack' of yeast, which I smacked the morning of brew day. The highlight of the brew is getting to taste and smell each of the ingredients before they mix. Liquid malt extract is sweet enough for cereal. Hop pellets smell amazing. I'm pretty sure that dried malt extract is what they make Whopper candies with. There aren't really any hard parts to brewing, if you can follow directions and keep focused on one task for about an hour.
The gist of brewing is this: you make a sweet tea from grains, and let yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae) consume this tea and excrete alchohol and carbon dioxide. Brewers call the grain tea wort. Brewers also stack the deck in the favor of flavorful yeast by pitching a population of desirable yeast cells into the tea, and by using sanitation to exclude undesirable fungi and bacteria. It is said that brewers make wort, yeast makes beer.
[pictured: first glass of home-brewed Caribou Slobber]
Prologue
Bringing the blog up to speed: I've been brewing beer for a few months. I've brewed three batches, two of which I've bottled and drank. Both of the beers I've tasted have been very good -- and I am something of a beer snob.
Brewing is not hard, not for people who can cook and keep things clean. I picked up a brew kit from Northern Brewer, as well as a recipe kit from them. The starter kit comes with a great short video, entertaining and informative.
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