Homebrewing

Homebrewing is something that's becoming more and more of a hobby for me, and is something that will hopefully one day move beyond just a hobby. The spectrum of homebrewers ranges from people basically making soup, adding in prepackaged powders and hops, to those who grow their own hops, crush their own malted barley, brew with these ingredients on thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and sometimes tuck their beers away for a year or more before even bottling (or kegging) them. Many started back in the 80s out of necessity, there was no more reliable way to get better beer. Despite the craft beer resurgence we're now in, many continue as a first step towards a career in brewing, as a creative outlet, or just to see if they can make beer as good as the guys with millions of dollars of equipment.

As you'll no doubt hear on any brewery tour, the four basic building blocks of beer are malted barley, hops, water, and yeast. The malted barley will ultimately give the beer its color and, more importantly, provide sugars. Some of these sugars will end up food for the yeast later on, while others will remain behind to give the beer its sweetness and body. Hops are added to provide bitterness, which balances out the sweetness from the malt, and also provide certain citrusy, flowery, or herbal flavors and aromas. The chemical makeup of the water used for brewing can impact how the flavors from the malt and hops shine through in the beer, depending on the levels of certain minerals and salts. Some homebrewers go so far as to obtain water reports and treat their brewing water with salts to alter the profile of the water to better accent the particular beer in question. Finally, yeast is what actually gives us beer. At a minimum, yeast consumes sugars from the malt and produces alcohol (hooray!) and carbon dioxide. Depending on the specific yeast strain used, not to mention the temperature fermentation takes place at, esters and phenols produced by the yeast may be a minor, or major contributor to the beer's flavor profile as well. From here countless other ingredients (other sugar sources, spices, etc) can be added to further tweak the final product, but the groundwork is laid with these four ingredients

The first step in any successful homebrew is a recipe. Some homebrewers prefer to leave this to others. There are many books with tried and true homebrewing recipes, as well as recipe kits offered by most homebrew supply shops, not to mention recipes posted in online homebrewing forums. Others (myself included) prefer recipes of their own creation. Ingredients may be pulled together to brew something approximating a commercial beer, or fit within an accepted style, or they may be combined to make something truly unique (I recently came across someone working on a recipe for a stout brewed with vanilla and basil). Garrett Oliver (brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery) has often said that brewers are more akin to chefs than vintners or distillers, and it is in the formulation of recipes that one sees the truth in that.

Once a recipe is in hand, it's time to actually brew the thing. Brew day for me usually entails a solid 4+ hours from first setting up equipment to finishing clean up. The basic process begins with what's called the mash. The malted barley and other grains are crushed (some crush their own, others buy them pre-crushed from the homebrew supply store) and soaked in water at a specific temperature (usually between about 144 and 158 degrees) for a length of time (usually about an hour). This allows enzymes to convert the starches present in the grain into sugars. The specific temperature determines what kinds of sugars are produced (specifically, how much of the resulting sugars are able to be consumed by yeast). Next is lautering, where the sugar rich liquid (now called wort) is separated from the spent grain. The wort is then brought to a boil, and hops are added. The boil typically lasts from 60 to 90 minutes, and hops added at the beginning stages of the boil contribute a beer's bitterness, while those added later on will contribute aroma and/or flavor. After the boil the wort is chilled as quickly as possible to a safe temperature to pitch the yeast. At this point, once the wort has been moved from the boil kettle to a fermentation vessel and the yeast has been added, work is done for the day.

It is over the coming weeks and months that we actually get beer, as the yeast ferments the sugar present in the wort. Some beginner guides may have you bottling in a week or so, but the more commonly accepted practice is to wait closer to three or so weeks. In reality though, we're at the mercy of the yeast, and no matter what must wait for fermentation to finish before anything is bottled. If a beer is bottled and capped mid fermentation, the carbon dioxide produced from post bottling fermentation will likely build up until it reaches a breaking point and the bottle literally explodes. That said, brewers may wait longer than that, whether it be to let a big beer mellow out a bit, or to add more hops (called dry hopping) or spices or other additives. Eventually though it's time for bottling, and the beer is mixed with a precise amount of sugar (usually table sugar for simplicity) right before going into the bottle. This extra bit of sugar will be fermented over the next week or so and produce hopefully just the right amount of CO2 to properly carbonate the beer. Finally, usually 4-6 weeks after brew day, it's time to enjoy the fruit of one's labors.

I'll be documenting all of my homebrewing adventures here, my first "hands-on" post should be up after bottling a recently brewed saison on Saturday