“A Wholesome Lubricant…”

Like I’ve said before, most commercially produced lager tastes pretty much the same to me.

Three Coins Lager included.

I’ve had more headaches than I care to remember from my Tsunami Emergency Response days in Sri Lanka, thanks to this superbly unremarkable beer.

Don’t care for my opinion? Take a look at what others have written:

Weak malty, some bready corny and light cardboard taste with short dry finish. Like I’ve expected, or maybe even worse.

I’m just saying.

 

But what Three Coins does have in its favor is possibly the best label ever. Really – the best label. Ever.

 

For those who can’t quite catch it, the middle paragraph is the money:

“Generations of beer lovers have valued Three Coins as a refreshing thirst quencher, a tasty relaxant, and a wholesome lubricant for social intercourse.”

 

Go ahead. Lubricate.

Improvise Your Own Beer Recipe

Okay, you’ve brewed a batch or two, and been mostly successful. You ended up with (very) drinkable beer and now you’re thinking that this not all that hard and you should probably try to start making it “your own.”

You’ve trolled the beer brewing websites and online forums, but the formula for crafting your own unique (and – it goes without saying – awesome) brew continues to elude you. How do you do it? Where do you go from here?

Here’s where you begin:

Assume five gallon [18.93 liter] batches (everything I’m about to divulge here is based on 5-gallon, extract-based batches).

For extract-based brewing (the only kind I discuss on this blog) you need to think in terms of controlling four elements -

• Yeast
• Malt extract
• Grain
• Hops

a batch of beer waiting to be set free

Yeast: The yeast you use to ferment is by far the most influential ingredient when it come to the taste of the finished product. Some books and websites will tell you otherwise. But trust me. Seriously. With the right yeast you can make convincing Belgian ale out of apple juice from Target. You can further influence the flavor and aroma by your pitching rate, fermentation temperature, hopping, and so on. But start with the yeast based on the style you’re going for, and everything else is gravy. I use primarily Wyeast products (check out their handy strain guide).  Here’s my quick round-up of the yeast styles I commonly use:

• Wyeast #1214 “Belgian Abbey” heads you in the general direction of Chimay, Lefe, etc.
• Wyeast #3068 “Weihenstephan” heads you in the general direction of European style hefeweizens.
• Wyeast #3944 “Belgian Wit” heads you in the general direction of Blue Moon, Shock Top, and Hoegaarden (but with a more intense coriander flavor).
• Wyeast #1084 “Irish Ale” heads you in the general direction of Guinness.
• Wyeast #1056 “American Ale” heads you in the general direction of all of the American ales and IPAs, including Ranger IPA, Dead Guy Ale, etc.

Once more: When creating your own recipe, begin with the yeast, based on the style you’re going for.

Malt extract: This is the body of your beer. The malt extract determines the underlying taste, mouth feel, color and alcohol content. When brewing with malt extracts, you have basically two decisions to make:

• Liquid or dry? Liquid Malt Extract and Dry Malt Extract (LME and DME, respectively) are identical in terms of the final product. However, you have have to keep in mind that since liquid is generally heavier than powder, it will take more LME to achieve the same sugar content (“gravity”) as DME. There are plenty of complicated formulae for determining the conversion, but basically, for a 5-gallon batch start with 6 lbs of DME and 8 lbs of LME.
• Color? Whether liquid or dry, come in the following options, in order from lightest to darkest: Pilsner, Gold, Amber, Brown, Dark.  Wheat malt extract falls somewhere between Gold and Amber. Some stores carry a Chocolate malt extract, which would be in the very dark category.

Grain for steeping and whole-grain brewing are generally ranked by a number which represents how roasted they are. For example .40L or .15L. In general, the higher the number, the darker the roast. .01L would be very light, .50L would make a nice amber ale, and 1.0L or higher would be getting quite dark.

Plan on 1 lb. of grain for a 5-gallon batch of extract-based beer.

Color? Color is determined by the combination of grain you use during the steeping step, and the color of the malt extract you use as the body. For a light (yell0w) beer, go with Pilsner malt extract and light/low-numbered grains. For a dark beer, go with darker malt extracts and darker/higher-numbered grains. It can take some practice to get the color right. But after the third round the color doesn’t typically matter so much.

Hops. There is a lot to know about hops. There are pages and pages online about hop profiles, there are iPhone and Droid apps for calculating hopping rates. Doctoral dissertations have been written about hop profiles. There are books written about IBUs and what it means when a particular variety of hop is “high alpha.” But for those mere mortals out there with real jobs and limited attention spans, trying to make a beer recipe on the side, here’s what you need to know:

For a five-gallon batch, plan on 1.5 oz. of hops: 1 oz. for aroma, .5 oz. for bittering. Put the aroma hop (1 oz.) in at the beginning of the boil and leave it there for the entire time. Put the bittering hop (.5 oz) in for the final five minutes.

Of course you can choose any hop you like, but in general:

• For American styles, go for American hops like Chinook, Northern Brewer, Willamette, Mt. Hood…
• For British styles (London Ale, Irish stout, bitters), go for East Kent Goldings, Stryian…
• For European styles (Trappist, Hefeweizen…), go for “Noble” hops: Hallertauer, Tettnanger, Saaz, Spatz.

And there it is. You’ve covered the four elements. Assuming you’ve been paying attention, a sample basic ale recipe would look like this:

• 1 lb. grain (crystal), cracked.
• 6 lbs. DME (8 lbs. LME).
• 2 oz. hops (1 for aroma, .5 for bittering (but they typically come in 1 oz. bags, so you just have to buy 2).
• 1 package yeast
• 6 gallons of water (allows for 1 gallon of boil-off).

Applying this basic foruma, a light or “blonde” American ale recipe might be:

• 1 lb. .10 L crystal
• 6 lb. Pilsner DME
• 1 oz. Northern (aroma), .5 oz Chinook (bittering)
• 1 package Wyeast #1056 “American Ale”
• 6 US gallons of tap water

the blonde ale recipe looks like this…

Or, using the same basic formula, an Irish Stout recipe might be:

• 1 lb. “Extra Dark Roast” crystal
• 6 lb. Dark DME
• 2 oz. East Kent Golding (1 oz. aroma, 1 oz. bittering) (stout wants to come out sweet, so maybe bitter a bit extra)
• 1 package Wyeast #1084 “Irish Ale”
• 6 US gallons of tap water.

Finally, be patient. Do one batch, let it age, taste it. Brew it again, but change one variable (one of the four elements). Take notes, take pictures, be meticulous about making the process the same every time. I typically brew three to four batches of approximately the same recipe back to back so that I can compare.

Too dark the firs time? Try a lower numbered grain or go with lighter malt extract. Not hoppy enough? Add hops (.5 oz at a time), try a more intense hop, or bitter more. Color and hopping is about right, but character is still off? Switch up the yeast.

Keep trying until you get the result you want. It’s ‘way worth it. Cheers!

the stout recipe above looks like this…

International Beer Reviews: Taybeh vs. Maccabee

And we’re overdue for an international beer review. This time: Israeli Maccabee versus Palestinian Taybeh.

Taybeh. Maccabee. Better have one of each.

After a hard day of tramping around in the desert, there really is nothing quite like a nice cold beer. Even more so, if that tramping around in the desert means specifically, say, a stroll around the crumbled walls of old Jericho or, perhaps, a long slog up the Mount of Temptation. And after your slog up and then back down the Mount of Temptation (because, somewhat ironically, there’s no beer available at the top), your local options are pretty much limited to Taybeh and Maccabee.

Both are golden lagers with an ABV of around 5%. Both clean, simple, and refreshing. Both worth the 6 or so shekels per bottle.

My personal favorite was the Taybeh. I normally think that all commercially produced lagers taste pretty much about the same. But in this taste-off the difference was clear. I don’t to start any fights, and I will not articulate a perspective on Gaza or settlements in the West Bank.

But I’ll say straight up that when it comes to beer, the Palestinians win, hands down.

Go for the Taybeh. Or as Nadim would say:

“Forget the rest… buy the best!”

Chill

By now you’ve successfully brewed a few batches. You’ve impressed yourself and maybe also the neighbors or friends at work. Your wife has mostly made peace with you tying up the garage and the dishwasher for a couple hours per month.

You’re starting to think that this home-brewing thing might be a bit more than just a teenage crush, and maybe it’s time to take things to the next level. You start to think about more and better brewing equipment…

Before you drop too much coin on a fancy stainless steel brewpot (aluminum works just fine) or that 6.5 gallon glass carboy (6 gallons is all the headroom you need for 5 gallon batches), think about a wort chiller. Your carefully boiled wort is never more vulnerable to infection than right after the boil as it sits in your brewpot waiting to cool down to the 70-75 degrees F. required for pitching your yeast. Wort left to simply cool in the ambient temperature can take up to 24 hours to reach 70 deg. F., depending on the weather. The cold water and ice treatment can take 3 or even 4 hours, depending on how much ice you use. But with a submersible wort chiller, you can have your wort ready for transfer to the carboy and yeast pitch within as little as 30 minutes.

Commercially produced wort chillers can run you as much as $70 USD or more(!). But before you go buying one online from Amazon, consider that you can make one yourself for a quite a bit less, with parts from Home Depot or Lowes. Here’s what you need:

• 20 ft. coil of 3/8 in. copper tubing.
• 10 f. coil of clear plastic flexible tubing (large enough to fit snugly over the copper tubing).
• 4 small hose clamps
• 2 garden hose “spray nozzles” (see picture)
• Optional: garden hose valve.

everything you need to make your own wort chiller

Very carefully bend the copper tubing to make a vertical coil about 10 in. diameter. Run the bottom end of the tubing up through the inside, then bend both ends so that they make a small arch (see photo). It’s important to bend the copper tubing very carefully so that you don’t collapse it.

coil the tubing; bend a gentle arch on each end…

Once your copper tubing is coiled and bent as shown, cut the clear plastic tubing in half (end up with two 5 ft. lengths). Carefully work the end of one piece of clear plastic tubing over one end of the copper tubing. Secure it in place with a hose clamp (don’t over-tighten). Do the same thing with the other piece of clear plastic tubing and the other end of the copper tubing.

secure the plastic tubing in place with a hose clamp (one will work just fine – my friend Mike was an over-achiever here…)

Do the same thing with each free end of the clear plastic tubing and the garden hose spray nozzles.

Secure the garden hose “spray” nozzle with a hose clamp. This one has a garden hose on/off valve added.

Your homemade wort chiller is now ready to use. You can add a garden hose on/off valve to one end if you want. This just makes it easier to control the water flow through the wort chiller, but of course it will still work just fine without it.

To use your wort chiller, you just put it into the brew pot long enough before the end of the boil so as to totally sanitize it. I usually put it in about 30 minutes before the end just to be certain. Make sure the arched ends of the copper tubing hang over the edge of the brew pot, and that the clear plastic tubing does not touch either the pot or your stove or fryer (whatever your heat source is), as it will melt.

make sure the arched ends of the copper tubing hang over the edge of your brew pot.

As soon as you’re finished with the boil, turn off the heat, attach your garden hose to the spray nozzle at the end of one of the clear plastic tubes (IMPORTANT: if you’ve added the optional garden hose on/off valve, be sure to attach your garden hose to that end!).

Slowly turn on the tap to get water moving from the garden hose through your wort chiller. Be careful because the water coming out the other end will be very hot! I use it to wash out everything I’ve used up to then – stirring spoon, grain and hop bags, etc. Once the water coming out the open end of the worth chiller starts to feel cool, you can lift the wort chiller up and down and swish it around.

Use a sanitized thermometer to check the temperature of your wort. It should take about 20-30 minutes to cool it down to 70-75 degrees F. Once it’s cooled, remove the wort chiller, pour your wort into a carboy or fermenter, and pitch yeast.

Easy!

Boys of Summer

Two words: Hefe. Weizen.

Literally “yeast” and “wheat” in German. And so, as the astute reader will immediately recognize, “hefeweizen” is really just another way of saying “wheat beer.”  There are many popular styles derived from this basic formula – dunkelweizen, witbier, weissbier, to name a few. But the original, basic hefeweizen is one of my favorite styles of beer. Ever.

So with the exception of a single attempt to copy Duvel, my home-brewing summer has been dedicated to tweaking out my hefeweizen recipe and process.

I did three variations on a single, basic recipe. Here it is:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Malted Wheat (crystal)
• 1 lb Pilsner DME
• 6 lbs. Wheat DME
• 2/3 cup corn sugar
• zest of two lemons
• 5 US. Gallons tap water

Procedure:

1. Bring 5 gal 150 degrees. Add grains.
2. Steep grains for 30 min. at 150 degrees.
3. Maintain heat, remove grains. Add all DME + 1 ½ oz. hops.
4. Boil 60 min.
5. 5 minutes before the end of the boil, add lemon zest.
6. 2 minutes before the end of the boil, add ½ oz hops.

Cool. Pitch yeast. Ferment 14 days (no racking). Bottle using corn sugar (1 cup boiled in 3 cups water). Age 2-3 weeks.

“But what about the yeast? And the hops???”, I can hear you all ask. Well…

Variation 1:

• 2 oz. Hallertauer hops.
• Wyeast #1010 “American Wheat”

Variation 2:

• 2 oz. Tettnanger hops.
• Wyeast #3068, Weihenstephan

Variation 3:

• Tettnanger hops.
• Wyeast #3056, Bavarian Wheat Blend

* * * * *

Spoiler alert: They were all delicious.

Every single bottle of every batch was perfectly refreshing on a hot summer day. Some of the best beer I’ve brewed to-date. Seriously.

Variation 1 – “American Wheat” was very close, although slightly more complex and a tiny bit darker than Widemer Brothers “Hefewiezen.”  6% ABV. My neighbor John pretty much drank this batch out by himself.

Wyeast #1010 “American Wheat”

Variations 2 and 3 – “Weihenstephan” and “Bavarian Wheat” were very similar.  Both came out at 5.6% ABV, and both had that very distinctive German hefewiezen aroma, taste and mouth feel. The “Bavarian Wheat” (Wyeast #3056) was slightly darker and less foamy than the “Weihenstephan” (Wyeast #3068). The “Weihenstephan” was slightly more complex than the “Bavarian Wheat.”  John’s wife says it has a bit of a “cloves”, and she keeps knocking on the door asking for more.

“Bavarian Wheat Blend” on the left, “Weihenstephan” on the right.

I don’t taste the cloves, but I otherwise agree with her: I prefer the “Weihenstephan” version. It’s interesting to see how much difference the yeast can make, not just in terms of the final taste, but color and clarity, too.

I probably will not brew variations 1 or 3 again, but will instead focus on improving variation 2. I personally prefer the flavor of Wyeast #3068 – the “Weihenstephan.” In the next variations (next summer) I’ll probably introduce light or Pilsner DME, while reducing the proportion of wheat DME in order to achieve a lighter color.

mmmmmm…

Cheers!

Cloning Duvel – Part II

The results of my first attempt to copy Duvel with an extract-based recipe.

(Remember, the recipe)

Here’s how my version looked:

Not too bad. Forgive my pride, but the photograph doesn’t do it justice. This is actually a very pretty beer in real life! Very clear (for unfiltered), and very rich color.

Here’s real Duvel, just minutes later, on the same day:

And… while of course you can see that they’re not quite the same color, for the sake of easy comparison, here they are side by side:

real Duvel on the left; my first attempt copy on the right

Color: obviously, my copy is darker and less bright. This is partially a result of the fact that I’m brewing with extracts, partially a result of the fact that I’m sub-micro brewing (five US-gallon batches inherently have more sediment per bottle, than mass-produced). Next time I might bump up the corn sugar, reduce the DME, and reduce or eliminate the 1.1L crystal to lighten the overall color. I might rack once more at, say 11 days, to increase clarity.

Head: You can see a difference in head retention. This is partially a result of the fact that I poured my copy first, and then let it sit for several minutes while I photographed real Duvel, before putting them side-by-side. In real life, real Duvel still had better head-retention, but the difference was not quite as stark as what you see in the photograph above.

Carbonation: I have to say… maybe I was already, er, ‘compromised’ after a round each of my copy and real Duvel.. But I couldn’t discern a difference in carbonation.

ABV: Real Duvel is 8.5%, while mine finished at 7.5%. Next time I might add additional corn sugar and/or Belgian candy sugar to bump up the ABV.

Taste: This one is the real kicker. Overall, my version lacked both the fruity aroma and dryness that are so characteristic of real Duvel. This is almost certainly a result of the yeast the I used, as well as possibly the ABV controls. Next time I’ll go to extra lengths to get my hands on that Wyeast #1388. Otherwise, the hop and malt profiles seemed pretty close.

Other: I noticed a very marked improvement in flavor and overall enjoyability of my clone after four weeks of bottle conditioning. It tasted great at four weeks, and beyond great at six. If you try this recipe, note that it needs at least a month in the bottle.

Final Verdict?: This recipe definitely gets you headed in the general direction of Duvel, but it’s not Duvel. It needs a few tweaks, most notably the yeast.

That said, it’s a delicious, crisp, refreshing beer. It is absolutely still in the strong, blonde category (7.5% ABV ain’t exactly Bud Light, or even Fat Tire… and after the third round it could almost be real Duvel).

Cloning Duvel – Part I

Duvel is probably my favorite commercially produced beer of all time (so far). I think I could drink Duvel every day and not get tired of it.

Actually, once, in what turned into a 5-day stopover in Amsterdam, I did drink Duvel everyday. Lots of Duvel. Because, as it turns out, one of those little bottles of Duvel that sets you back US $4.50 in the “Land of the Free”, goes for less than 2 Euros in Amsterdam.

The tiny little bit that I remember of that trip involved me sitting down in random Amsterdam pubs and plunking down my 2 Euros for a round of Duvel, while watching well-heeled Dutch couples splurge on 5-Euro (roughly US $6.00 as of today) bottles of Corona Light (complete with a lime wedge stuck in the top).

And so – once I got over my Amsterdam hangover – it was inevitable that I’d get around to trying to clone Duvel (or at least come close) with an extract-based recipe.

[For those who don't know, Duvel is a strong, blonde Belgian ale; very light in color, overall fruity in character, understated hoppiness, moderate carbonation. On the bottle it says 8.5% ABV.]

The first step in my quest to clone Duvel was research. The good news is that Duvel has a fairly large following within the N. American online community of home-brewers. Sadly, most of the discussions look like this (conversation hardly fit for the casual, suburban extract-based home-brewer).

Duvel, as it turns out, is not particularly easy to copy. And it is particularly difficult to copy with an extract-based formula. In fact, I was not able to find even one single extract-based recipe for a Duvel clone. No prior expertise on which to build. Which meant that I was on my own. What to do?

beautiful… just beautiful

Build your own recipe. My first move was to put together a basic blonde-to-light ale extract grain bill: 6 lbs. of “Pilsner” dry malt extract (DME) formed the basis. At one point in the research I’d discovered that “fine Pilsner malts” accounted for the original Duvel grain bill, so I added 1 lb. of Pilsner crystal (1.1L) for the steep.

Noble hops – Saaz and Styrian Goldings -were the most obvious choices. Sadly, my brewing supply store was out of both on the day I went to buy the ingredients for this batch. A quick check of the dog-eared home-brewing grimmoire beneath the counter revealed that Mt. Hood and Sterling hops would make adequate substitutes (er… okay).

The obvious choice of a serious, second-tier home-brewer would be to culture actual Duvel yeast from a bottle of actual Duvel. At the same time several of the “copy Duvel” discussion threads I found seemed unanimous in the opinion that Wyeast  #1388 “Belgian Strong Ale” was more or less the same as the Duvel yeast. But there again, sadly, my brewing store only got #1388 on special order. So, in the weakness of the moment, on a time crunch between humanitarian deployments (thus, no time to wait for special order), Wyeast #1762 “Belgian Abbey II” would just have to do.

I ended up brewing this recipe:

Duvel Clone – First Try

• 1 lb. Pilsner malt (“Crystal” 1.1 L)
• 6 lbs. Pilsner DME
• 4 cups corn sugar
• 1 tablespoon Irish moss
• 1 oz. Mt. Hood hops
• 2 oz. Sterling hops
• Wyeast #1762 “Belgian Abbey”
• 5.5 US gallons water

Process:

• Steep grains (Crystal) at 150 deg. F. 30 min.
• Add Pilsner DME + Mt. Hood hops. Bring to boil.
• After 45 min. of actual boil, add 1.5 oz. Sterling hops + corn sugar.
• After 55 min. of actual boil, add Irish moss.
• After 59 min. of actual boil, add 0.5 oz. Sterling hops.
• After 60 min. of actual boil, turn off heat. Cool.
• Pitch Wyeast #1762 at 70-75 deg. F.

Ferment:

• 14 days.
• rack once at 7 days.
• Original gravity: 1.072
• Final gravity: 1.016.
• ABV: 7.5%

But the real question is, “How did it taste???”

Answer: read the next post…

Process 102: Bottling your first batch

About two weeks ago, now, you brewed your first batch.  And like a new mother enthralled with her firstborn, you’ve spent the past fortnight gazing lovingly at your amber-coloured creation softly bubbling away in your coat closet, or maybe a warm corner of your garage.

But now it’s time get that beer (it’s no longer ‘wort’: once it’s fermented, it’s beer!) into bottles for carbonation and conditioning.

Before you start bottling, make sure you’ve got the following on-hand and ready:

Enough bottles to hold five gallons of beer. This works out to roughly 44 12 oz. bottles. I usually bottle a few larger (22 oz.), and sometimes a few smaller (10 oz.) ones with each batch, but make sure I have enough bottles cleaned and sanitized to have a few left over.

Bottle caps & capping tool. Enough caps for all the bottles you have.

1 cup of corn sugar for ‘priming.’ This is what will make your beer carbonated. Adding sugar just before bottling will give the yeast a bit more to ferment. As it ferments it will emit carbon dioxide (the same as what bubbles out of the airlock when your beer is in the fermenter). However, in the bottle, with an airtight cap, that CO2 will have nowhere to go, and your beer will become carbonated.

(As you get more practice and get into more advanced recipes you can try priming with other things (molasses, DME, etc.). But the standard for basic, straightforward home-brewing is corn sugar: It carbonates in a just a few days and does not impart any flavor to the finished product.)

A long-handled mixing spoon or spatula.

A ‘racking cane’ or enough tubing to siphon your beer out of the fermenter. A racking cane is just a straight, stiff clear plastic tube with a crook on one end (looks like a cane, hence the name). You put the long part of the cane down into your fermenter, and then attach a siphon tube (about four feet) to the crook end at the top.

5 gallon bucket with a spigot added: perfect for priming and bottling.

A 5-gallon bucket for mixing your beer with priming sugar.

I’ve put a food-grade spigot (buy online or at a brewing supply store) about 1/2 inch up from the bottom of mine to make bottling easier.

Several old towels. Bottling can get messy. Good to have towels around for wiping up spills.

Got everything? Great – now you’re ready to start. To bottle your beer, do these steps in order:

1) In small saucepan bring 1 cup of corn sugar and 2 cups of water to a boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes (to totally sanitize it). Cover and cool to room temperature. It takes a while for this to cool, so I always do this step first, then worry about everything else. You can put the saucepan into the refrigerator to cool it down faster.

2) Move your fermenter to wherever you plan to siphon the beer into the bucket you’ll use for priming. I use the laundry room – set the fermenter on the dryer (one of the old towels underneath). When you move the fermenter, you’ll slosh the yeast slurry on the bottom around a bit. Doing the move early allows it to settle back before you siphon (helps your finished beer look clearer).

3) Sanitize all of your equipment thoroughly. I use iodine sanitizer. It’s 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of cold water. immerse everything and then allow it to air dry: the inside and outside of the racking cane and siphon tubing; the mixing spoon; the inside of the bucket you’ll use for priming; all of the bottle caps…

This is an extremely important step: Follow the directions with whatever sanitizer you use carefully and take the time to do it properly. It doesn’t matter how good your recipe is or how well you brewed, if you get this step wrong, you’ll ruin your beer.

You’ll have to sanitize all of your bottles, too. I sanitize bottles using regular iodine solution, and then running through a fast dishwasher cycle (no soap, just water).

4) Siphon (‘rack’) your beer into the priming bucket and add your priming sugar.

Putting as little of your lips as possible on the end of the tube, suck (siphon) until beer starts to flow into the bucket…Take the airlock off of your fermenter and insert the long end of the racking cane down into the beer. Attach your siphon tubing to the crook end of the racking cane and dangle the other end down into the bucket (you sanitized it, right?) that you’re siphoning into. (see photo)

Once you have about an inch of beer in the bottom, slowly pour your cooled priming sugar solution into the bucket (don’t stop the siphon), and very gently stir with the (sanitized) mixing spoon.

After you’ve added the priming sugar, continue to rack (brewing word for ‘siphon’) the rest of your beer into your priming bucket, stirring occasionally with the sanitized mixing spoon.  Stop racking just before your racking cane begins to ‘suck’ up the sludge from the bottom of the fermenter.

Note: if you use a hydrometer to calculate alcohol content, be sure to capture beer that has not been mixed with priming sugar, as this will throw off the reading. I usually just put my measuring cylinder under the siphon tube to catch beer as it flows into the priming bucket.

5) BOTTLE!

If your priming bucket has a spigot, all you have to do now is fill the bottles. I usually do this in a kitchen sink (put the priming bucket on the counter with the spigot hanging over the sink).

If your bucket does not have a spigot, you’ll need to use a kitchen funnel (with a nozzle small enough to fit into the mouth of a bottle). It will take two people to bottle this way – one to pour, and one to hold the bottle and funnel steady.

Either way, you’ll want to pour slowly to avoid a foamy head coming up out of the bottle. This loses space in the bottle, and increases the chance of ruining the beer by infection.

Let the foam subside before filling to within about 1 inch of the top

Fill each bottle to within about 1 inch of the mouth, then cap tightly with a sanitized cap.

Using a capping tool.

flip-top bottles are super easy to bottle in and reusable, too!

6) Aging. And…. we’re back to the waiting. After bottling you’ll need to age your beer for at least 7-10 days for the yeast to do its’ work on the priming sugar and carbonation to take effect. Most home-brew recipes are drinkable after 1 week (7 days), but I find that most of the ones I’ve made really started to taste good after about 1 month in the bottle.

At any rate, it’s worth experimenting a bit from batch to batch. Keep track of when you bottle which batches and make notes of how they taste at 1 week, 2 weeks, and so on. This way, if you make that same recipe again, you’ll have a better idea of how long it needs to age for optimum taste.

Because taste is what it’s all about right? And this is the perfect segway to…

7) Drinking the finished product…

No explanation needed.

Process 101: brewing your first batch

So, you’ve got your basic equipment. You’ve found a nice recipe for basic ale online. And your wife just gave you a hall pass for Saturday morning. You’re ready to brew your first batch of beer!

Today we’ll cover what you need to turn a grocery bag full of ingredients into five gallons of fermenting beer (we’ll cover bottling in a later post). There are four basic steps:

1) The steep. In this step you bring 5 gallons of water to 155 degrees F. and then place malted, cracked grains (often called “crystal”) in it for 30 minutes. It’s a bit like putting dried leaves into hot water to extract the flavor and aroma when you make tea.

In the process of making beer from malt-extract, this step accomplishes two main things. First, it extracts fermentable sugars from the grains, which increases the alcohol potential of the beer you’re making. Second, at the same time it extracts flavor from the grains – flavor which eventually ends up in your beer. When brewing extract-based recipes it’s easy enough to get fermentable sugar (if all else fails, you can just add white table sugar), but the flavor which comes from grains in this step is one of the controls that you have over the taste of the final product.

So get your five gallons of water into the pot, over the fire on your camping stove or turkey fryer, get the temperature up to 155 degrees as quickly as possible, and then turn down the fire enough to maintain that temperature. Put the grains into the hot water, and stir gently with a large kitchen spoon. Steep for a full 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 30 minutes, turn off the heat and remove the grains. If you had your grains in a steeping bag, just take the bag out. If not, fish them out with a regular kitchen strainer. The water should be a distinct beige -to-brown color, depending on the roast of your grains, with steam rising gently off the surface.

remove steeped grains

2) The boil. Once the grains are out, you want to crank up the heat and get that brown water to a boil as quickly as possible. Be sure to watch the pot closely once you begin to see little bubbles coming up from the bottom. At the first sign of boil…

Stir in your malt extract. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using liquid malt extract (LME) or dry malt extract (DME) – the process is exactly the same: get it stirred in and dissolved in your five gallons as quickly as possible. You want to stir constantly during this step a) to keep your malt extract from carmelizing on the bottom of your brew pot, and b) to make sure that you don’t boil over during this step. You’ll know when your wort is about to boil because it will become very foamy on the top and start to rise quickly.

5 gallons with extract added, just about to boil...

Once your malt extract is all stirred in you’ll maintain the heat under your pot until you get a full boil. Add your aroma hops at this stage, too. I usually add aroma hops immediately after stirring in my malt-extract, while the pot is coming to a boil. It is very important to monitor your pot carefully and turn down the heat just as the boil starts so that you don’t have a boil-over. Turn down the heat just enough to maintain a strong boil without boiling over.

You need to boil your wort for a full 60 minutes, measured from the boil begins after you add the malt extract.

10 minutes before the end of the boil (at 50 minutes), add your bittering hops.

At 60 minutes turn off the heat, remove your hops and cover the pot.

3) Cooling the wort. Once the boil is finished you want to chill your wort down to about 70 deg. F. as quickly as possible, as this is the phase where you are most likely to  ruin your batch by infecting it. (It is critical that nothing touches the wort which has not been sanitized. So sanitize everything – more on sanitizing in a later post). You can simply cover your pot tightly and let it sit as ambient temperature to cool, but I don’t recommend this as it will take 5 – 7 hours to cool sufficiently – 5 -7 hours during  which your wort is extremely vulnerable to infection.

A very common way to cool wort is to put your brew pot in a large laundry sink and surround it with ice and cold water. Be sure to keep the lid tightly on the pot so that nothing gets in to contaminate it. When the water in the tub becomes warm, drain it out and replace it with new cold water. Use a sanitized thermometer to check every 10 – 15 minutes (I use a photographic dark room thermometer). If you use ice, you should be able to cool 5 gallons of fresh wort down to 70-75 F. in about 1 hour.

A final way is to use something called a “wort chiller” – basically a coil of copper tube that sits down in your brew pot. Running cold water through the copper tubing chills the wort. You can buy these online for as low as less than $40 USD. Or you can make your own with parts from Home Depot. If you do use a wort chiller, you’ll have to sanitize it completely before immersing it in your freshly boiled wort. Most home-brewers simply put it in during the final 15-20 minutes of the boil to sanitize it.

4) Pitching the yeast. Once you’ve chilled that thick, sweet nectar down to 70-75 degrees, you’ll have to transfer it to your fermenter. If you are fermenting in a plastic bucket, you can just pour it in (slowly, so you don’t get too much of a head). If you are fermenting in a carboy, you will need to use a large funnel. Make sure that everything that touches the wort – fermenter, funnel, anything else.. is totally sanitized.

With your wort safely into the fermenter, you are now ready to pitch the yeast. Sanitize the pack that the yeast came in and cut it open with sanitized scissors. Then just slowly pour it in. As soon as the yeast is poured in (“pitched”), close the top of your fermenter and attach an airlock.

Now put your fermenter full of fermenting beer into a dark place that’s not too hot and not too cold (you want to ferment between about 68 – 75 degrees F.). I use a coat closet.

Voila! You’ve brewed your first batch of beer!

In about two weeks we’ll bottle it…

Recipe: “Feels like the first time”

Another regular feature, here at Ales From the Hood, will be some of my favorite recipes: here’s the first one.

“Feels Like the First Time” is a strong, Belgian-style ale. When made properly, this recipe comes very close to Chimay Red (a classic “Dubbel“). So close, in fact, that it’s almost painful. A lot like, you know, the first time. Thus the name…

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"Feels Like the First Time"

Recipe Type: Extract

Volume: 5 gallons

Ingredients:

• .5 lb. Belgian Special Roast Malt
• .5 lb. English Crystal Malt (80L)
• 10 lbs. Sparkling Amber malt extract (liquid)
• 1.5 cups Belgian candy sugar
• 1 tablespoon, Irish moss
• 5 US. Gallons distilled water

Hops:

• 1 oz. Northern brewer
• 1 oz. Cascade
• 1 oz. Chinook

Yeast:

• Wyeast #1214 “Belgian Abbey” (get the “Propagator” [small] pack).

Procedure:

1. Bring 2.5 gal. to 150 degrees. Add grains. Reduce heat to “Low.”
2. Steep grains for 30 min. at +/- 150 degrees F.
3. Reduce heat, add extract, sugar, additional 2.5 gallon of distilled water, and northern brewer hops.
4. At the first sign of boil, add Cascade hops. Bring to full boil.
5. After full boil for 30 minutes, add Chinook hops.
6. After full boil for 45 minutes, add Irish moss.
7. After full boil for 60 minutes, turn off heat, cool to 72 deg. F, pitch yeast.

8. Pitch Wyeast #1214 pitched directly from pack (do not make starter) into wort at 72 deg. F
9. Maintain fermentation temperature at around 70-76 degrees.
10. Ferment for 10 days
11. Prime with 1 cup corn sugar/3 cups water.
12. Bottle condition for at least 14 days

Notes:

Yeast: it is important to use the “propagator” (small pack) of Wyeast #1214 Belgian Abbey without making starter. Under-pitching is a crucial part of what makes this recipe work. Just smack the packet approximately 36 hours before pitching.

Fermentation: Fermenting above 72 degrees F. is crucial to the overall finished flavor as well. If you ferment cooler than 72 F. the result will not be as complex or estery (and less like Chimay Red as a result).

Aging: This recipe is drinkable after 2 weeks in the bottle, but really starts to shine after two months. Don’t be in too big a hurry to start drinking this one.