Brewing

There are a few ways to skin this cat, but producing beer involves 3 main steps, mashing, boiling and fermenting.

Milling Grain

I lied, there is a step before mashing.

Milling your gain is an essential step to ensure you extract all the sugary goodness possible. Its not rocket science, you want your grains busted up to the point that they are no longer solid pieces of grain, but not to the point where they resemble flour. If you don’t grind your grain enough, you will likely see a lower O.G. when you start the boil, that is you didn’t extract as much sugar as you were expecting. If you grind your grain too much, well then everything will get clogged, draining will be a nightmare, etc. The general rule is that if you have a grain mill, set it such that the gap between the rollers is approximately the width of a credit card.

Once you have your grain all milled up, you are ready to mash it.

Mash

The purpose of this step is to convert the starches stored in the grain into fermentable sugars. Essentially steeping the grain in warm water activates the enzymes found in the grain to convert the long chain starches into fermentable sugars. There is a good explanation of this process at John Palmer’s How To Brew site. There is a ton of good information on his site, and I highly recommend going through it if you are just starting out, he explains start to finish how to brew using various methods in much more detail than I care to.

In general it is recommended to mash for 60 mins at somewhere in the 145F to 155F range doing what we call a single step infusion mash. The only real exception I have for this is if you are using a lot of rye, in which case you should probably include a Beta Glucanase rest somewhere in the 95F-113F range as this enzyme is not active at normal mash temperatures. As well 60 mins may be overkill, but usually I am busy cleaning, drinking or doing whatever during the mash and 60 mins goes by quickly.

At the end of the mash if you have the power, raising the temp up to somewhere around 165F before draining the grain should help slightly increase your extraction efficiency.

Summary

• Mash 60 mins
• 145F-155F
• Rye? Add a Beta Glucanase rest at 95F-113F for 20 mins

Boil

The boil serves a few purposes, sterilization, hop additions, sugar concentration, boiling off other shit. Once we get to this point the warm sugary liquid pre-fermentation is called wort, pronounced wert, neither of which sound particularly appetizing.

In general the boil is 60 minutes long and is when you will make your hop additions. Hops added earlier on in the boil will contribute more to the bitterness of your beer. This happens because as you boil the hops, the lupulin (alpha acids) in them become isomerized into isohumulones (iso-alpha acids) which have a much higher solubility in water or wort than they would in their non-isomerized state. If you are using a hop for bittering it is suggested you choose one with low levels of cohumulone as this is the one humulone that apparently contributes to harsh bittering. It is assumed that after a 60 minute boil all possible alpha acids will be extracted. The later in the boil a hop is added, the less it will contribute to bittering your beer and the more it will contribute to the hop aroma of your beer.

Now for the aforementioned other shit. There exist compounds like dimethyl sulfide or DMS, which are present in pale malts (especially pilsner). If you are brewing a beer that is high in pilsner malt, it is recommended that you ensure you boil at least 60 mins (I actually boil my Kolsch 90 mins) and that you ensure that you boil uncovered, to ensure that this compound boils off, and does not drip back down into your wort. For the most part this is the main compound we want to avoid. That being said, there is a lot of pseudo-science out there in the beer world, and the topic of DMS producing off flavours in beer is of great debate. You can find a good article here in which an experiment was done to test out different boil times to see if one could identify DMS off flavours in a Koslch, in 30 min and 90 min boils which seem to indicate even a 30 min boil should be sufficient.

Summary

• Boil 60 mins in general as this will sterilize your wort and allow for hop additions
• Hops added earlier in the boil contribute more to bittering
• Hops added later in the boil contribute less to bittering and more to aroma
• Vigorous boil is recommended
• Uncovered and with minimal boiled off liquid falling back into your wort is ideal

Fermentation

So the boil is done, you now need to convert all the sugars you have extracted into something, mostly ethanol, this is accomplished using yeast.

Today there are a vast array of yeasts available to the home brewer. Since this section is really an overview, I will keep it simple. Pick an ale yeast (US-05) and ferment your wort. US-05 is a clean fermenting ale yeast that is very forgiving, it’s cheap, it freezes well and is usually easily obtained. If you are making a standard pale ale or IPA, there isn’t much sense in using anything else. Essentially we want to cool our wort down as fast as possible and pitch our yeast to make sure the bugs we pitch in are the ones that will win the race and eat up all available sugars. Its ideal to use some sort of cooling method, such as an immersion chiller or plate chiller to get your wort down to temp as fast as possible and to lock in your hop isomerization, but if you don’t have a chiller you can still make perfectly fine beer if you wait till the morning to pitch your yeast to allow things to cool. A chiller is definitely recommended and will help to produce more consistent results but you can add one later if you are just getting started. You should look up the ideal temperature ranges for the yeast you are pitching and try to pitch in that range. A little warm is fine, but you don’t want to pitch so warm that it cooks them and prevents them from doing their job.

Either before pitching or while pitching it is recommended that you oxygenate your beer. I achieve this by attaching a degassing wand to the end of my drill and blasting the wort for a few minutes. Using this method I have never had an issue with lack of oxygen, as well this stirs the yeast I pitched into the wort. Some use an oxygen tank, some shake their beers, and I’m sure some do nothing at all and everything works out fine. In general I open ferment for the first few days anyway, so the yeast accumulating on the top of the wort should have plenty of access to fresh oxygen.

Traditionally you would primary ferment in a bucket for a few days, then transfer to a secondary fermenter to complete fermentation. To me this is a waste of time and effort, I have switched to fermenting in a single vessel. To me this reduces effort, eliminates a step that could contaminate your beer, and also reduces oxidization of your beer as you aren’t stirring it up unnecessarily. If you are planning to let your beer sit in a carboy for several months before bottling or kegging, yes you should probably use a secondary vessel, otherwise, if you are making an ale, skip this step.

When is fermentation done? That depends on a lot of things, but in general if it tastes good to you, its done. If you are bottling and don’t want your bottles to become over-carbonated, maybe wait an additional week. If you are like me and kegging, I usually transfer to a keg once the thick layer of yeast drops and visible fermentation has stopped, this is one of the benefits of fermenting in a glass carboy. In general I usually transfer to a keg and let sit at room temperature for a few more days before I move it to the keg fridge. I find that the act of transferring the beer stirs the residual sugars and yeast up and helps to get that last bit of fermentation done.

Summary

• Pick a yeast
• Cool your wort down using a chiller or by just waiting it out
• Oxygenate your wort
• Pitch your yeast once you are in a good range for your yeast
• Transfer to a secondary fermenter if you have nothing better to do

Dry Hopping

I lied again, there is another optional step that you can take depending on the style of beer you are making. If you are making a hoppy IPA, or a dry hopped sour, or anything else that calls for dry hopping, you want to add hops to the fermentation vessel. The vast majority of dry hopping is done once fermentation is complete. It usually calls for a liberal dose of hops, and it also will require you to wait until the hops drop out of solution before you transfer to a keg or bottle. Dry hopping infuses your beer with a lot of aroma and hop flavour, but I find over time this flavour fades. Dry hopped beers are best enjoyed soon after kegging or bottling.