Begin Brewing!

After reviewing the judges' feedback from my homebrewing competition entries earlier this year, and combining it with my own observations, it's clear that for some styles I am not quite hitting my target for mouthfeel and (where appropriate) sweetness. I did some research into how you can improve these qualities in your homebrew, and have uncovered the following variables which can be altered during brewing to give a beer more body and/or sweetness: Add unfermentable sugars:   This can be done with sugars like lactose, which yeast won't ferment.  This will add a sweetness to a beer like a milk stout.  I've done this in the Stout Chocula beer I brewed earlier this year to good effect.  However, I don't see lactose working well in a Belgian beer.  Add Calcium Chloride:   This can reportedly enhance the maltiness of a beer.  This is something I haven't tried, but will tinker with in the future. Increase Caramel Malt:   Increasing the amount of...

As a home brewer, there is one question that almost every non-brewer asks me: "How long does it take to make a batch of beer?" This question might mean any of the following, or all of them: How much time and effort goes into brewing and bottling a batch of beer? How long does it take to go from grain, water, yeast, and hops to a finished glass of beer? How long does the brewing and bottling process take, end-to-end? They might even be asking a combination of these questions. The unfortunate part is that you can't give a single answer to the question. Brewing effort is affected by: The brewer's experience and skill level The brewer's equipment Whether the recipe is an extract brew, all-grain brew, mini-mash, or extract with steeping grains The temperature in the brewing area (e.g, if it's cold, it takes longer to heat water) The recipe being made The yeast strain being used The availability of temperature control during fermentation What ...

In the previous installments, we covered recipe adjustment and ingredient prep , mashing , boiling , fermentation , and cleanup . Continuing on in the series about my brewing process, today we'll talk about bottling the finished beer. Below is what I do to get my beer out of the fermenter, into bottles, and ready to drink. Getting the Bottles Ready Before you can bottle a batch of beer, you need enough bottles. I use recycled bottles almost exclusively. I use bottles from beer I purchase, from samples I receive from other home brewers, bottles friends bring me, or from previous batches of my own beer. I remove the labels from the bottles, typically by soaking them in hot water and generic, unscented Oxy Clean. After the bottles are de-labeled, I run them through our dishwasher with detergent. This ensures that the bottles are clean and ready to use. I typically do the above steps days or weeks before bottling. Sanitizing Everything Before I bottle my beer, I want...

In the previous installments of this series of posts, we've looked at recipe creation and prep , mashing , boiling , and fermenting .  Now it's time to look at cleanup. The more batches of beer I've done, the more I refine my cleaning process and activities. I try to do cleaning when I'm not actively working on brewing the beer. For example, during the mash there are long stretches of time where you can clean or sanitize equipment. The same is true during some parts of the boil process. If you use your time effectively, you can get most of your cleanup done by the time you pump the wort into the fermenter. This will reduce your overall elapsed brewing time. After the sparge process is finished, I lift the grain basket off the kettle and place it inside a 5-gallon stainless kettle that it fits comfortably inside. As the wort heats to boiling in The Grainfather, I begin scooping the grain out of the basket and into a plastic bag or trash can for disposal.  (If you...

In the first two parts of this series, we covered recipe selection and adjustment , getting the ingredients ready, and performing the mash in The Grainfather. This week, we'll look at the boil. The Grainfather makes the boil process pretty simple. The kettle is deep enough that boil-over on a 5-gallon batch is unlikely. The thermal cut-out switch reduces the chances that you'll scorch the wort when adding sugars, syrups, or other ingredients. When we last saw our example beer, it was just starting to boil. When it finally reaches a boil, I take out my stainless steel spoon and stir the hot break foam back into the wort.  Once the foam stops forming on top of the wort, I'll rig up my hop spider and place it in the kettle. I take two soapstone rocks and drop those in the bag to weigh it down. I use binder clips to ensure that the hop bag stays on the spider and doesn't drop into the kettle. Hop spider in place, ready for hop additions As I mentioned in the f...

In the last post , I talked about how I select and modify recipes to match my equipment, process, and efficiency. I also talked about how, before I start to brew, I clean, measure, and arrange everything so that the actual brew goes as smoothly as possible. In this post, we're going to look at the mash process and how I typically do it. My brew day sheet tells me how much mash and sparge water I've calculated that I will need based on the grain bill and equipment. I begin by filling The Grainfather with the mash water and dropping in a Campden tablet to remove chlorine and chloramine. I fill my sparge water kettle with the sparge water amount, plus one gallon to account for dead space in the Mega Pot kettle. When The Grainfather has reached the mash temperature (or the temperature of the first step in a multi-step mash), I begin scooping in the crushed grain. Adding crushed grain to the mash water Every few scoops, I stir the grain with the stainless steel spoon you s...

A couple of homebrewing friends have asked me about my process. They want to know how I go from a recipe to a finished beer, the steps I follow, why I follow them, and the tools I use. This post is an attempt to capture and share all the information. It's important to note that my process changes a bit as I learn new things, gain new equipment, or discover better or easier ways to do things. Consider this post a "snapshot" of my process and equipment as it stands right now. Six months from now it could be different. The Equipment My current brewing equipment consists of the following: iMake's The Grainfather RIMS brewing system: This handles mashing, boiling, and chilling of the wort. I also added the Graincoat accessory to reduce heat loss and speed up kettle heating time. An induction cooktop and Mega Pot 1.2 kettle: This provides heated sparge water. I have it on top of a tall table, at a height that I can open the valve on the kettle and have sparge...