Brewing Beer

[zerohour]

So I'm going to try brewing some beer tomorrow with a friend. I've got the basics down, and think that the first attempt will be interesting, and hopefully edible.


Does anyone have any tips, or recipes for future attempts? After the first couple of brews, I want to try and start experimenting soon, onc I have a better idea what I'm doing.

 

[daniel_gudman]

So I'm going to try brewing some beer tomorrow with a friend. I've got the basics down, and think that the first attempt will be interesting, and hopefully edible.


Does anyone have any tips, or recipes for future attempts? After the first couple of brews, I want to try and start experimenting soon, onc I have a better idea what I'm doing.

So no joke, I was just accepted into extremely topical grad school.

Anyway I'm going to assume you're homebrewing like a few dozen gallons.

Off hand... the most important thing is to preserve sterility after you boil the wort. Wort is sugar water, so there are a lot of organisms that absolutely love growing in it. Preventing infection is critical. And it's not just bacteria, but it's also parasites that could infect the yeast. DMS is bad enough, but some bacterial metabolites are straight-up toxic.

So sterilizing your equipment before use is basically a necessity. Cleanliness is key.

For a homebrewer, ales are easier than lagers, because the fermentation time is much shorter and at a higher temperature.

...In the small sector, there's a tendency to focus on the hops and adjutants, but if you don't have good mash conversion and your extraction (lautering, usually) is poor, then the wort will be bad. Like many other things in life, getting the fundamentals right first is absolutely critical.

 

[zerohour]

Congratulations on getting in man!

We're planning on brewing about five gallons for the first attempt, which will give us around fifty beers. Five gallons seems to be something of a standard for home brewing, because anything larger than that has difficulty with using a stove.

As for sterility, I am aware that brewing is about 75% cleaning, because bacteria and wild yeast can seriously compromise the quality of a beer.

We bought a beer kit, so we have a basic recipe so we can focus on making sure we understand the steps. Once we're sure we understand what we're doing and con avoid contamination, we'll probably branch out into experimenting with our own recipes.

 

[zerohour]

Well, finished the first stage of the first batch. There's probably some contamination, and I'm not sure it boiled as much as it should have, but I won't know how it turned out for about two weeks. In the mean time, I'm going to sit back and relax, and hope this sudden headache goes away..

 

[zerohour]

Headache is gone, and fermentation is underway. Nothing left to do for the next couple of weeks besides watch and see what happens.

 

[ThreadWeaver]

If you've been too close to fermenting beer in a closed space, you may have slight Carbon Dioxide poisoning, and that would cause a headache. Make sure to have enough air circulating to disperse the CO2.

Or you're allergic to one of the ingredients.

 

[zerohour]

Beer is sealed up tight, apartment seems to have good circulation, and I was in my room away from it for most of the time. I assumed it was because I stuck my hand in the diluted Star San, but CO2 poisoning could be something else. I'll keep an eye on it in the future though. Thanks for the tip.

The bubbling seems to have stopped by now. They mentioned that it would probably settle down after awhile, but now I'm wondering if I should try to agitate the brew to stimulate production. Thoughts?

 

[ThreadWeaver]

Usually the brew vats are unagitated in breweries. The movement of the CO2 gas stirs it enough.

Your bottle shouldn't be sealed tight. It should have a one-way burp valve on the top (or an airlock if it's in a bucket) to let the CO2 out, otherwise it could explode. If those are working correctly, then you've got CO2 coming into your apartment. As long as you have airflow, then it's no big deal. I've heard of people that used to ferment beer in big bottles (like an old glass water cooler bottle) and occasionally I'd hear a story of some person that sealed their jug and it either blew the cap off or exploded the bottle.

 

[zerohour]

Sorry, when I said it was sealed up tight, I didn't actually mean sealed. I'm using a plastic bucket, and I do have an airlock set up.

The headache started before fermentation really kicked off, so I doubt it was caused by CO2.

 

[ThreadWeaver]

Sorry, when I said it was sealed up tight, I didn't actually mean sealed. I'm using a plastic bucket, and I do have an airlock set up.

The headache started before fermentation really kicked off, so I doubt it was caused by CO2.

Then you're probably sensitive to the raw form of one of the ingredients. Wouldn't surprise me one bit. Making Chili (the thick beef dish) gives me migraines, but I can eat the finished product just fine. Weird as hell, it is.

 

[toraneko]

One of the popular homebrew additives is cocoa. It goes really well in stouts, as it can help offset the hoppiness of a lot of dark brews.

 

[zerohour]

I'll keep that in mind.

Current ideas for beer I want to rey once I understand what I'm doing:
Hellfire: A beer with enough spice in it that it burns. I want to need to drink another one after I finish it to cool off my mouth.
Black Bomber: No idea for flavor, but a nice, strong beer. At least 7% alcohol, preferably upwards of 10%

 

[daniel_gudman]

7% APV is high gravity, that's going to push you towards lager strains. "Black" in the name makes me think you're going for a dark malt, and like toraneko said, a cocoa flavor is a popular additive to complement the smokey or burned flavor of a stout.

...The original way cacao beans were eaten was by mashing (and sometimes fermenting) them, because they were too bitter and indigestible raw. It was unsweetened; when the Spanish arrived they preferred the Mayan version which could be flavored with chile or vanilla or other spices compared to the unflavored Aztec variety, and they added the cane sugar to deal with the bitterness. Well, that's something I know as a person from New Mexico, not from brewing.

If you're using that as an additive, then you might want to back off on the hops, so you don't make the flavor over complicated. Well, if you don't want to cook out you're flavors, you'll probably want to add them close to the end of your boil, like 5 minutes before you finish the kettle boil, just enough to cook the flavors in (well, cook the flavanoids out of the addition really) without getting that over-aggressive hop (after)taste.

...I looked around at Chile beers a little bit, and most of these are pretty dark malt and maybe high gravity (they don't list degrees Plato or SG on these pages), with an ABV anywhere from 4 - 9%.

I don't know what kind of yeast you're using, but 10% is pretty well the upper limit on tolerance for most strains. If you're cooling them down (ie, mild refrigeration) then you can probably push that up, but if you want to reliably get to 10%, then you'll need to pick a good yeast for it. Well, or you could add a distillation, but that's like, not beer anymore (by definition!), plus it's illegal, plus you might accidentally blow yourself up in a steam explosion.

So, actually, you might be talking about two characteristics ("Dark" and "Pungent"/"Spicy") of the same beer.

 

[zerohour]

Tried brewing another batch today. I actually remembered to use the hydrometer, and got a gravity significantly lower than I expected. It was supposed to be around 1.080, but I got something closer to 1.020.

Any idea what could have caused it? My current guess is that I needed to let the wort boil longer, but I'd like to get a second opinion.

 

[daniel_gudman]

1) What was your SG before boiling?

2) Was the wort the same temperature taken into account? SG is temp dependent.

3) Did you make sure that you took a homogenous sample?

A difference that dramatic makes me think you made a systemic error, either you didn't get the mash to water ratio right, or you took a sample at high temp so the density of water was low, or you took a sample from a heterogeneous fluid with layering going on.

 

[zerohour]

Could be temp related. I took the sample right after I finished cooling the wort, so it might have still been a bit high.

Pretty sure the sample was homogenous. Everything looked the same, and nothing was floating in it.

As for SG, I kind of forgot to take it, unless SG is OG.

 

[zerohour]

Update after nearly a month.

First up: Had my first exploding beer. Hopefully it was simply a flawed bottle, but to be safe, I put the rest of it in the fridge.

The Witbier turned out pretty good. Tasted like a Blue Moon. Put a six pack aside to try again in a few months so I can see if it improves or not.

Belgian Tripel was decent, though it tasted a bit sour when I drank it. Room mate says it has a bready aftertaste, but I think he's drinking some of the yeast.

Currently making a Whiskey Barrel Stout. I'm curious to see hwo it turns out, but it will take about two months for the whole process toc complete, since it needs to absorb some of the oaky flavor from the wood chips.

Current Beer Plans:

Since the Witbier turned out pretty well, I'm going to try making it again, with some added malt extract to increase the alchol percentage.

Going to pick out a new type of beer to see how it tastes.

Got the basic idea for the chili beer. Not going to start it yet because I need to carboy free (it won't be for at least a month) and I need to soak the peppers in vodka for a couple of weeks anyways.

Anyone have a good source to learn about hops? They are where most of the flavor comes from, so I want to have a bit more information about them.




Out of curiosity, who rated this a one star thread?

 

[zerohour]

Alright, bottling the Whiskey Barrel Beer and the new Witbier this weekend or early next week.

Next up is the Chili Beer, the Chocolate Beer, and for a friend of mine, Gluten Free Beer.

Chili and Chocolate will take at least a month and a half to absorb the flavors. Gluten Free should be much faster, unless there is a secondary fermentation stage.


Good news: Looks like Root Beer beer will be easier than I thought. Beer store sells Soda Kits, and it seems that the syrup will not be consumed b the yeast. Probably will need to create a mild beer recipe so that the Root Beer is noticeable, but not overwhelming.

I need to read the Yeast and Hops books this weekend. Knowing how they affect the flavor of the beer will allow me to start experimenting with new recipes with at least some idea about what I'm doing.

 

[zerohour]

A necro, but relevant.

So, I attempted to brew some Root Beer flavored beer, and it turned out alright. Not great, but alright. I was aiming for "Not Your Father's Root Beer," but got closer to "Sprecht's Hard Root Beer." Easy enough to fix, I just need to add in more root beer syrup, and more lactose to increase the root beeriness and sweetness respectively.

An interesting problem with the root beer beer: I think it needed to ferment a bit longer, as one of them exploded after bottling. I recapped most of them to relieve the pressure, but there were no more explosions, so I assumed it was a damaged bottle, until last night.

My roommate opened one of them, and the entire thing literally shot out of the bottle. It jumped probably four feet into the air. and came crashing down on the table and my roommate. There was nothing left in the bottle. All 12 ounces or so were so pressurized that they launched themselves out like a little, alcoholic rocket. My only regrets are that 1: I didn't get to film it, and 2: That I didn't get to film an inverted opening to see how far the bottle could shoot itself.

 

[daniel_gudman]

It sounds like you might be getting a secondary fermentation in the bottle. In that case you're going to get undesirable flavor profiles because the yeast keeps chewing away on your sugars (especially if you already think it's not sweet enough!) and turning it into gas.

Adding more sugars to the wort would make that worse, not better (especially if your strain of yeast is lactose-utilizing).

That means you'd be better off thermally shocking the yeast (cold-crash to force it into hibernation and filter most out, or pasteurizing it in the other direction) to shut it down before bottling.

...As an aside, I think you should take the danger of pressure explosions and glass shrapnel a little more seriously.

 

[zerohour]

I do take it seriously. I put all of my beers in a box and then cover it to prevent glass from flying everywhere. After the first explosion, I relieved the pressure, and recapped all of the bottles, or so I thought.

So far, the issue hasn't happened again with the batch, but I am keeping an eye on it, making sure to chill them before serving, and cracking them open instead of taking the whole cap off.

No one was hurt, and in hindsight, and beer jumping out of its bottle is funny, so I phrased it in a humorous way as a result.

I currently think that I simply bottled it too early, as I put more fermentables into this batch than I usually do, and a higher gravity generally means a longer time fermenting. I generally wait at least two weeks to let it all process, but I probably should have waited a month for this.

Thanks for letting me know some strains will process lactose. That may have been a factor in why this happened. I'll be sure to get one that explicitly doesn't do that for the next iteration of this beer.

Next up: Caramel Apple Beer! Just need to make sure I get replacement equipment tomorrow before work. This one has been sitting for about three weeks, so explosions shouldn't be an issue.


Google isn't helping right now, so anyone know how much Honey I should put into Five gallons of beer to carbonate it? I know it's between three quarters of a cup and one cup, but don't remember the exact number. If I don't get a reply before bottling day (Tuesday or Wednesday), I'll stick to 3/4 cup, and accept lower carbonation in exchange for a minimal chance of explosions.

 

[zerohour]

Finally got around to bottling a caramel apple beer.

Definitely has the apple flavor, but I'm not really tasting the caramel. It was a first draft, so I'm not too surprised there were issues. Next time I'll add more lactose, and maybe even use caramel syrup as a for fermenting.

I'll let you know how it turned out in a week or two.

Edit: Damn, I let that sit for about three months? I guess school distracted me a bit, but I really should have gotten off my ass sooner.