Hey readers,
Last week, I met up with a friend of mine for coffee while killing some time downtown. He invited me over to his place that night to help brew up some beer. Of course, I happily accepted the invitation!
I've been obsessing about brewing beer for a while, pretty much since I started working full-time in the wine industry. As soon as you see wine all day, every day, and it's all over you and it's all you can smell, sometimes you just want a beer at the end of the day. Seriously. I think I'm actually becoming wine.
So I went over, drank some brews and just kind of watched everything he did, throwing questions at him the entire time. I missed some of the prep work since I was a bit late getting there, but I'm going to collect some of the introductory concepts of brewing here.
Some Terms Worth Knowing
Malt: Usually barley that's been soaked in water, allowed to start germination, is then stopped by kiln-drying the grains. The malting process helps develop the enzymes that become active during the mash.
Mashing/mash tun: The process of mixing the malted grain with hot water and maintaining a stable temperature for enzymatic (amylase) activity to occur. The mash tun is more of an industrial consideration—it allows for consistent mixing and insulation. The “home” mash tun is a big clean pot, clean spoon, a reliable heat source, and you. Mashing takes about 60-90 minutes—this is why it's good to have people around.
Wort: The resulting liquid from the enzymatic conversion of starches in the grain to fermentable sugars.
Sparging: In order to get more of the wort separated from the grain, brewers rinse the grain after the initial straining, and then strain it again. Too much sparging results in a weaker beer, so this is something that the brewer has to determine (the quantity/quality balance).
My First Taste of the Homebrew
The first thing I was told was basically “keep it clean”. Beer has a significantly higher pH than wine and is therefore less forgiving to spoilage microorganisms. If you don't remember what's been sanitized and what hasn't, sanitize it again. Having a well-organized space, even if it's not a lot of space, makes sanitation a lot easier.
You can make beer if you have a pail, a strainer, a racking stick, and a big pot. Get applicable equipment if you feel comfortable (or if you're looking to invest in this for a while), but as is the case with home winemaking, start-up cost can be quite a lot. Check out the existing equipment you already have in your place before dropping mad coin on fancy stuff.
The basic idea of beer brewing is to heat the malted grain of choice in order to convert starches to fermentable sugars, extracting them to the wort. Hops are included for preservation (I'm interested in experimenting with honey in my home brews too). Use a mix of different malts! There are lots.
Watch temperatures closely while you're “mashing” the malt. Too low a temperature, and not enough enzymatic activity will occur in order to make available sugars for the yeast to ferment. Too high a temperature results in denatured enzymes and therefore also less available fermentable sugars. I was given a range of 140 - 160 F (approximately 60 - 75 C). The mash also has to stay around the same temperature for about an hour, so you can find a way to insulate it for that period of time, and overshoot 150 F--a little bit--in order to not fall below 140 F. Since this post is meant to be introductory, I'm just including what I picked up in my first session, plus things from a little extra reading of interest. If you want to check them out, hit up the Beer Advocate, or even the Wiki entry for a decent historical background.
Anything can really be done with beer (add flavouring by way of fruit, spices, honey, oak...) and if it's made well it can definitely age! During our session, we cracked open a honey brown ale that one of the guys had made a couple years prior, and it was fantastic.
Familiarizing with Style
Literally hundreds of different styles of beer exist all over the world. As usual, my recommendation is to taste everything available! Something I do is a kind of “beer roulette”: I go into the liquor store, and pick 6-10 singles of various styles, from as many different places as I can. I always include one or two that I know and love. I also found this page, The German Beer Institute website, and even if it's a slightly overwhelming list, it's a fun site to browse for styles.
The basic qualitative aspects of style are these: bitterness, sweetness, alcohol content, colour, weight (viscosity), and the inclusion flavouring agents like fruit, spices or honey. This is still incredibly general, but it's a start.
Next, categorically beer breaks down from generally “ale” into things like lagers, pale ales, wheat beers, dark lagers, porters...and so on.
Ale colouration is influenced by drying method: pale ales from kiln-dried, darker ales from fire roasted malt. Red, brown, and dark ales usually have flavour profiles featuring smoke, caramel, toffee, coffee, and chocolate. In this respect, it's just like the differing toasting levels on wine barrels lending different flavours: how the malt is toasted yields a variety of flavours and colours.
Opacity (“cloudiness” frequently found in yeasty wheat beers) is related to fining and clarification. “Lager” usually refers to cold fermentation and storage, which results in a crisp, clear, steely and refreshing style of beer.
Stouts and porters are related in their history: “stout” came first as generically a strong, dark style of beer made from heavily roasted malt. The “porter” as we know it is also a dark and heavy beer; usually the differentiation is specific to a brewing company and the “stout” is the heavier/stronger/more bitter beer. It's said that porters (carriers) liked this kind of brew, and the name “Porter” for the beer style came from the association.
As beer continues to grow in popularity, we'll see even more differentiation in the styles, and that's why it's good to get out and try these things: much of the stylistic considerations just evolved from a proprietary recipe or regional method. For now, this is just a primer.
For now, I have a mountain of books, guides and websites to look at on the topic. I'm glad I'm surrounded by patient teachers, too. I'm going to get brewing, and these entries will become more detailed as I learn about it. I'll be sure to keep sharing.
Cheers!
Melissa
Fantastic post. This is a great breakdown for the novice home brewer. Most beginners will start with a kit containing pre-made Wort and adding reconstituted dry yeast. Wort is produced by boiling and then quickly cooling the liquid extracted from the mash. During the boiling various hops are added at various times to add bitterness, flavor and aromas. The wort can be further augmented during the boil by adding in flavoring such as chocolate, fruit or various extracts.
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