I’m lucky to be acquainted with the master knife smith Burt Foster. He makes knives by hand that are intended to be passed down generation to generation. That’s remarkable given that so much of our culture has become disposable and disinterested with workmanship and artistry and permanence.
I was browsing his pages on “The Craft” and “Philosophy” and it got me reflecting on my own work. I work in technology and frankly a lot of what I do is disposable by design. I write code to fill gaps and needs, but that code will likely be refactored or completely tossed at some point in favor of something else. I am part of the disposable culture, then, and that doesn’t please me.
With that in mind I reflected on whether my adventures in brewing have something to do with a desire to be a craftsman of some sort, building something more visceral and generally satisfying. Though I’m still thinking about this I will admit that my greatest pleasure in brewing comes not in the consumption (though that is good) but in the creation. My philosophy about humans is that we are fundamentally creative by design, and brewing scratches that itch to be a doer, a creator.
It seems I am missing good opportunities for pictures lately. I excuse myself because I’d rather avert crisis altogether than document an unfolding crisis in pictures.
What crisis? It seems the Bold Holiday Ale, my first foray into beer other than the pilsner-styled beers I’ve been working on, is determined to expose me in every way to the difficulties that I see discussed on forums around the Internet. From a boil over during cooking to a narrowly avoided tragedy with a blocked airlock, this has been a learning experience.
Before I get into the blocked airlock saga though, I want to hypothesize something. Every single batch of beer I’ve ever made has seemed to have a far shorter ferment cycle than is directed in the instructions. I can verify that the fermentation has worked by using the hydrometer which typically has shown that 3/4 of the fermentation takes place in about half the predicted time. I think this is due to how I transfer the wort from the brewing pot to the fermenter. Basically, I pour the contents from one to the other without trying to be too “nice” about it. I don’t siphon the contents at all. In this process, I think that the wort gets very highly oxygenated, resulting in an environment that produces far more yeast than normal (lots of oxygen plus tons of sugar equals yeast reproductive heaven). With more yeast in the mixture, the mixture converts more rapidly to alcohol. At least, that’s the theory.
To the blocked airlock. The Holiday Ale had a super high sugar content which indicated that the activity of the yeast would be pretty high. I understood this to be the case, but didn’t really “get it”. Within 18 hours (when I woke up Sunday morning) there was foam coming out of the airlock and a good amount of the foam had reformed into liquid and pooled on the lid of the fermenter. The airlock water was brown. Shortly thereafter I noticed a change in the way bubbles were coming through the airlock - the bubbles seemed to be having trouble getting through. I took the airlock out of the grommet in the lid to put a hose in for a makeshift blow off setup and the pressure that I released blew little bits of foam and hops and other stuff several feet up the wall. I don’t know what would have happened had I left the airlock in. but it probably wouldn’t have been good.
So note to self - when expecting a really active ferment cycle (ie, when the gravity of the brew is above 50 or 60) I am going to start things out with a blow-off set up and then switch to an airlock when the really active ferment is over. Also, when removing potentially blocked airlocks, remove them slowly so as to not get beer spray all over.
The pilsner-style beer is getting bottled on Thursday - it has clarified well and I’m looking forward to trying it out to see how its character differs from previous beers I’ve made. It should be ready to drink (though not aged to perfection) by Thanksgiving!
Today was a day of first for me but before I get into that, a little about weakness.
I know that the next logical step in my home brewing evolution is to start using glass “carboys” for fermentation and secondary fermentation. Plastic wears out by simply deteriorating or becoming too impregnated with colors, smells and flavors from brews gone by.
Knowing this, I had figured that I would make the plunge into carboys eventually. I just went ahead and got one last time I went to the brewery supply store.
So below are some pictures of me “racking”, or transferring the beer out of the primary fermenter, into the carboy. Awesome. And it’s fine if you can’t appreciate me geeking out over my carboy. My precious.
So the carboy wasn’t a first today, it was Thursday, but I’m lumping it in with my day of firsts to pad the stats. Here’s my next first - I had my first boil over today.
Luckily I had the foil down on the stove, so the boil over only ruined some foil that was going to get tossed anyway. Still, that was a first. Granted, I was trying to keep the two year old from killing himself at the time, so I have a good excuse but still, a first.
The boil over was on a new recipe, another first. I’ve only ever made the “Continental Pilsner” beer kits, but in recognition of the upcoming holidays I decided something a little more seasonal was in order. I got the “Bold Holiday Ale” kit. Bold, for those who aren’t aware, is code for lots of alcohol. I just learned this myself so don’t feel bad if you didn’t know.
So my pilsner-style beer comes out at about 4.5% alcohol by volume (ABV). The Bold Holiday Ale comes out at 8-9% ABV. That’ll keep you warm, which is the point I guess.
I order to achieve this remarkable figure the quantity of ingredients that’s used in the recipe is effectively doubled. Where as in other ingredients there’s one can of malt extract syrup, one bag of grains for steeping and two pounds of spray-dried malt, the BoHoAl doubles all those figures. I reduced the water volume of my boil back to two gallons from three last time (to improve cooling) and the consistency at the end of the boil was seriously thick, like lukewarm honey. When I moved the stirring stick through the mixture it left a trail.
The Initial/Starting gravity of the mixture was nearly 70. It was supposed to actually be above 70, but I had the boil over so I lost some sugars and stuff. Still, I think this beer is going to be pretty stout - it’ll put hair on my chest finally.
So the holiday ale is just in the fermenter and will probably thrash pretty good as a result of all that sugar. I think that the pilsner-style beer in the carboy will be finishing up secondary fermentation and be ready for bottling just in time to handle the secondary fermentation of the holiday ale. I’ll try and get more/better pictures at that point if I’m not too rushed.
I’ll post an update on the actual status of the beer in a little while, but first I wanted to share the following scan of the recipes that come with beer brewing kits. I’ve got the front and back side of the “Continental Pilsner” kit and the front side of the “English Brown Ale” kit below:
Click pictures to enlarge
The procedures used to brew the pilsner and the brown ale are identical, with only the ingredients being different. The following picture shows the area of primary difference in the two recipes: the hop International Bittering Units (IBUs):
As you can see, the bitterness of the pilsner will be much higher than the bitterness of the brown ale due to the much higher “alpha acid” content of the hops used in the pilsner, as well as the larger quantity of hops. The bitterness of the beer affects the “mouth feel” and the perception of how refreshing the beer is.
In addition, the malts used in the brown ale are “amber” as opposed to “light” used in the pilsner. This is going to impart a richer flavor to the beer with more nuttiness and grain character.
I started brewing thinking that I’d continually do the same variety over and over again so that I could become consistent in my brewing, capable of noting what differences subtle changes to my process and ingredients render. That’s going to go on hold for just a little while with the brown ale. Though I will continue to work toward pilsner-style perfection, the brown ale (and maybe a holiday beer with spices and other things) will be coming down the pipe in the immediate future.
A hydrometer check today shows that my beer’s gravity is 17 today (Thursday), down from 20 on Tuesday. My final target is a gravity in the range of 8 to 12, so at this rate it might be next week before I’m ready to bottle.
Bottling a beer whose gravity isn’t sufficiently lowered can be very dangerous. Since gravity is largely a measure of how much sugar is still in the beer, bottling a beer with a high gravity (and adding additional sugar for carbonation) can mean that too much sugar makes it into the bottles. When the yeast begin to convert that sugar, and the sugar has nowhere to go, the pressure of the newly made carbon dioxide can get high enough to explode bottles. Exploding bottles are generally considered double-plus ungood.
Given that I’ve got at least four or five days to wait until the beer is ready to bottle, I’ve begun to consider involving a secondary fermenter in my brewing process (my impatience forces me to act!). The purpose of a secondary fermenter is discussed in my previous posts. To get a list of my other beer-related posts, click here.
It’s Tuesday, 48 hours after the fermenter was sealed, and the active bubbling in the air lock has already ceased. Though various literature that I’ve read usually states that bubbling can continue for a period from three to seven days, I’ve found 48 hours of bubbling to be pretty consistent for me.
So is the beer ready to bottle already? Nope. Even though the bubbling has stopped, fermenting is still happening. This is something that can be confirmed with the use of the hydrometer. I didn’t take a picture of the Initial Gravity measurement on Sunday, but the reading was 48. The beer will be ready for bottling when the hydrometer reading is around 8 to 12. Today’s reading showed 20:
If I assume that 12 is the upper limit, ready for bottling at that point, then I’m only 8 points of the Hydrometer away - 3/4 of the work has already been done by the yeast in the wort, but the last 1/4 of the work will probably take at least the same amount of time, if not longer, to complete as the first 3/4.
With that in mind, I will be taking another hydrometer reading on Thursday to confirm that the yeast are still active and working. It’s possible for yeast to stop early for any of a number of reasons, but a stuck ferment cycle is usually caused by something pretty severe, such as extreme temperature variation (ten degrees or more).
Seeing the mixture in this state makes beer a little unappetizing. In my own process I toss the whole lot from brew pot into the fermenter, though some people try to separate things such as hops and other bigger solids out when “racking” into the fermenter.
Aside from the floaters, the mixture itself is very cloudy. There’s still a lot of stuff suspended in the mixture - protein solids and other things that aren’t harmful to flavor or anything but make for a cloudy beer. Given time a lot of this stuff will settle out of the beer, but some people use a process called “secondary fermentation” in order to refine their beers flavor and look even further. If I was using a secondary fermentation I’d probably be racking the beer out of the primary fermenter on Thursday, putting the secondary fermenter in the basement to settle and age for a week or two longer before starting the bottling.
Why not just let things sit in the primary fermenter for a couple weeks? The answer to that has to do with the yeast in the solution - there’s a lot in there right now because I made sure the beer was extra fertile ground for them Sunday night. Not only was there a lot of food, there was a lot of oxygen suspended in the water. This encouraged the yeast to multiply. When the oxygen was exhausted, the multiplication stopped and the conversion of alcohol ramped up (no yeast energy wasted on reproduction).
Long story short, food is starting to run out for the yeast. The sugars that are left in the mixture are getting fewer and farther between, and more difficult to metabolize. A lot of yeast are going to start dying in a few days and if they die in the solution they’re going to impart a skunky smell and flavor to the beer. Moving the beer into a secondary fermenter reduces the amount of yeast in the solution dramatically, leaving only enough yeast to consume the remaining suspended sugars.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Things are on track - fingers crossed that it all continues going in the right direction.
It’s only been about 12 hours since the yeast was put into the cooled wort (unfermented beer) and I’ve already got a pretty healthy amount of activity in the air lock. See video of the bubbling by clicking the pictures below:
It’s not really visible but there’s a small hole in the lid of the air lock that allows for the escape of the gas once the gas has escaped the inner chamber thingy.
With all my beer from the previous batch gone and holiday season fast approaching, I realized I better brew another batch or get stuck serving store-bought to my guests. Foo to that, so Sunday afternoon and evening was spent slaving over the brew pot.
I actually really enjoy brewing beer. I’ve talked about some of the reasons I brew in other posts, but I’ll recap here anyway. Aside from the simple fact that home-brew tastes great, it’s also an interesting hobby with an amazing history and broad appeal. In addition, it’s also a very social activity in that people seldom turn down a home brew and some actually even want to help make it! If you have trouble making friends, try home brewing. Seriously though, brewing is a fun activity that I think more people would participate in and enjoy if only some of the mystery and fear of the unknown was taken out of the process.
So, in order to serve the end of education - for the greater good of society, mind you - I’ve taken and will continue to take pictures of my latest batch of home brew as it moves along in the process. Today was brewing day, so that’s what will be covered below. Fermenting is happening now, and will continue for about a week or a week and a half. Following fermentation will be bottling, with the beer carbonated and ready to sample a couple days after that (though it might be a little “immature” yet).
A couple notes before we begin. I am still a beginner, so I am “extract brewing” my beer. This means that I am getting my malt content from extracts/concentrates rather than from manually steeping the grain, a process called “full-grain” brewing. If what this means is unclear to you, simply understand that it means that I’m doing this the easy way. It’s the difference between an eight hour brewing day and a two to three hour brewing day.
Also, if you’ve been thinking about trying home brewing but are afraid you might produce something dangerous, don’t worry! The hops and alcohol in beer will kill any known pathogen - your beer might not be great, but it won’t kill you. What you do after you drink the beer is a different story. Don’t be like this guy:
Go ahead and give brewing a try - you’ll be glad you did. Let’s get started.
The Materials
I’ve got a pretty basic setup and keep my procedures simple. You can certainly go way higher budget than me or get more complicated, but as a beginner I’m trying to minimize the number of things I can mess up and not throw money in at things I might decide I don’t need later. Here’s the gear I’ll be using today:
(Click images for larger versions)
Here is just about everything I used for the brewing today: fermenting bucket with air-tight lid and grommetted hole for air lock, said air lock, stirring spatula, boiling pot, hydrometer, thermometer and ingredients kit. Not shown is my sterilizing agent and some random common kitchen tools. Some people say that using an aluminum pot for the boil is a bad idea (imparts a bad flavor) but I think that’s snobbery. My pot is stainless steel but I’ve read of plenty of good results achieved with aluminum.
The Pot in closeup.
Here’s a close up of the air lock without water filling it. Later you’ll see a picture of the air lock correctly set up, filled about half way with water. The air lock is composed of three parts and it is very important that you have a properly working air lock. This is not something I’d suggest making or improvising. The airlock works to let the considerable amount of CO2 that is created during fermentation escape, while preventing bacteria-laden air into the vulnerable mixture. Air locks that get plugged lead to explosions in the case of glass fermenters.
The ingredients kit. Ingredient kits exist for all manner of beers, from stouts to pale ales. I prefer Pilsner-style beers, so this is the variety I’ve used and have received compliments from my taste testers.
What’s going into the beer
Any beer that’s worthy of the name is a combination of water and grain malts (usually barley or wheat) that has been “bittered” with hops. Yeast is introduced into this mixture and consumes the sugars in the solution, turning them into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The ingredients from the package that I used today are malts in three forms - spray dried malt (powder), malt extract (syrup) and crushed malt (grain), two flavors of hop (one for bittering and one for aroma) and the yeast packet. The priming sugar will wait until bottling.
Note that both the spray-dried and extract malt are highly concentrated and can be very messy. The spray-dried malt has a tendency to absorb lots of moisture really quicly and become tacky and difficult to work with once the package is opened. Since boiling pots tend to be steamy don’t open the bag until the last moment.
Actually getting started for serious
My kit contains actual grains that need to be steeped for 20 minutes prior to adding the malt. The grains are placed in the cloth bag as shown below and placed in the pot to steep (not boil) at 160F to 170F. Room is left in the bag to allow for expansion of the grain during steeping.
My recipe calls for two gallons of water in the pot but I put in three. I’ve read that more water doesn’t alter the taste of the end product significantly and makes your pot less likely to burn on the inside. I bumped the amount in the pot up to three gallons, so we’ll see.
You don’t need to get bottled water for brewing - unless your water is exceptionally bad where you live (has really offensive odors, or you live in Texas), you should be able to use tap water with no problems.
With the grain bag in the water it’s time to get the temperature up for steeping. I found that setting the dial on the stove to 6 would get me there in about 15 minutes. Here’s what the thermometer looks like when it’s in the pot. The thermometer is designed for use in liquid and is weighted so that it will always keep the temperature gauge facing upward. Handy.
I forgot to lay down foil on the stove beforehand so I had to remove the pot, wait for the heating element to cool, foil the stove and resume the heating to steep the grain. I don’t think there was any harm done, as I don’t think the temp had raised in the pot much above 100F when I removed it. If you are going to be brewing inside make certain to do this to your stove, as a boilover of the sticky malts later in the brew can be a real pain to clean up.
The smell of the grain when it is steeping is much like Cream of Wheat or Malt-o-Meal. The color of the water, and the clarity, is much the same as chicken broth at the end of the steeping.
With steeping finished it is time to remove the grain bag. Notice how the grain has swollen to fit the entire bag.
In preparation for adding the malt extract, I heated it in a bath of water for approximately 10 minutes. This ensures that the liquid will come out easier. Think of the extract as honey - it is sticky and hard to manage, but will be easier to deal with if warmed.
The malt extract is very dark and thick. The water that the grain was steeped in now needs to be brought to a boil before the malt extract and spray-dried malt are added.
Boilovers are most likely to happen right after the malt extract and spray-dried malt are added to the mix. Note that the side of the pot shows that the mixture reached pretty high before I was able to subdue it. Adding the remaining malts will cause the mixture to cool enough to stop boiling, but it should be brought back to a boil as quickly as possible. With the mixture brought back to a boil, the bittering hops are added.
My kit includes hop pellets. Hops have an amazingly strong aroma. I like it, but many don’t, and find the part of the brewing cycle that involves hops (most of it) to be offensive. This is true even among people who like the taste of beer.
With the bittering hops in the pot and boiling away, it’s time to wait. Fifty five minutes seperate the introduction of the bittering and aroma hops. The aroma hops are added with only five minutes left in the hour-long boil. If the aroma hops are added any earlier they lose their aroma character.
The color of the mixture was darker than I expected when I started brewing. The color changes somewhat over the process of aging and also due to settling of solids that were in suspension.
With the boil complete it’s time to cool the mixture as rapidly as possible. Various proteins are brought out of solution if the mixture is cooled fast enough, resulting in clearer beer. Additionally, and most importantly, beer is very vulnerable to bacterial infection between the mid and low hundreds farenheit. The quicker the beer is brought through this danger zone, the better. I filled the sink with cold water and ice and stirred both the beer and the water in the sink to cool things off. Note that even if your beer is infected, it will not hurt you. The worst that can happen is that the bacteria eat most of the sugar and you are left with a brew that’s not so alcohol and has a bad taste.
Once the mixture is cooled to about 70F and enough water has been added to bring the total to five gallons, it’s time to add the yeast. Here is the yeast, sprinkled over the beer.
Brewers use a different yeast than bakers (though I understand one could be used for the other in dire circumstances). A traditional pilsner will use a bottom-fermenting “lager” yeast, while an a ale uses a top-fermenting yeast. The yeast that came with my kit is an ale yeast, so my beer won’t be really authentic, but ale yeast gives me the benefit of not requiring super strict temperture control of my beer. While I don’t want to subject my fermenting beer to extreme temperature swings, as those could “shock” the yeast and cause them to die or pause in their fermenting, I don’t have to keep the beer itself very cold like I would have to with a lager yeast.
And finally the lid is on and the air lock set. It’s all in God’s hands now.
After Action Review
Every time I do this I run into things that I wish I would have done differently than I had. For example, it took longer than I had hoped to get the beer cooled after the boil. I think this was partly due to the fact that I was trying to cool 50% more beer than I have in the past (I had three gallons in my boil instead of two). Also, I didn’t get a bag of ice to help cool things down like I was planning and so only had ice from the ice trays. Lame. I also have cooled the mix in the steel pot in the past, and don’t feel that cooling in the plastic fermenter was a good idea.
Other than those cooling related woes and the issue with the foil on the stovetop, everything went exactly to plan. I didn’t touch on cleaning, though it is very important. Maybe I’ll deal a bit with that during the week while we’re waiting for the fermenting to happen.
One thing I didn’t get a picture of was the hydrometer in action. The hydrometer reads the “specific gravity” of water - in this case the hydrometer tells me how much sugar is in the beer ready to be consumed by the yeast. Beer recipies have “original” and “final” gravities, with the final gravity allowing you to know that the ferment is over and the different between the two measures allowing for the calculation of alcohol content.
Next big post will be when the ferment is over and the bottling can take place, but I’ll post video of the air lock “bubbling” when that starts happening (about 24 hours). It’s fun to watch.
With all my beer from the previous batch gone and holiday season fast approaching, I realized I better brew another batch or get stuck serving store-bought to my guests. Foo to that, so Sunday afternoon and evening was spent slaving over the brew pot.
