Beer 102: The Brewing Process
It will be particularly important that, come brew time, everyone involved hands-on with the project will have to know exactly what the Hell they're actually doing. The risk of batch contamination in an apartment housing four guys and a penguin is pretty substantial, and in the case of preventable loss of beer, I may be driven to stab somebody's eye out with a bottle capper.
The following procedure is extracted verbatim from the Dierksenkougan Beer Bible, AKA Marty Nachel's Homebrewing for Dummies. My comments are in brackets. Brownie points for those who borrow it from me for further instruction. Read on:
"The following list covers 24 steps that walk you all the way though the brewing process. Twenty-four steps may sound pretty intense, but I assure you they are easy, quick, and painless steps...Besides, when you're done, you brewed your first beer!
1. Fill your brewpot about 2/3 full with "clean" tap water or bottled water [we will use Culligan filtered water from Meijer. We don't want to be causing kidney stones] and then place it on the largest burner of your stove. ... The exact volume of water is not of great importance during this step, as the cold water that you add to the fermenter later brings the total to 5 gallons.
2. Set the burner on medium-high.
3. Remove the plastic lids from the kits and set the yeast packets aside.
4. Strip the paper labels off the 2 cans of extract [or however many cans we are using] and place the cans in a smaller pot or saucepan filled halfway with tap water. Place the pot or saucepan on another burner adjacent to the brewpot. ...
5. Set the second burner on medium.
6. ... Flip the cans in the warming water every couple of minutes.
[6.5. As this is happening, we will augment this very elementary procedure with the addition of specialty grains, which allow for a greater production variety of beer styles. To do this, we will use a mesh nylon baggie containing anywhere from half a pound to 2 pounds of specialty grain and steep the contents in a seperate saucepan containing hot, sub-boiling temperature water. After about 20 minutes of leeching the colors and flavors, the liquid will be transfered to the large saucepan and soon mixed with the extract.]
7. As the water in the brewpot begins to boil, turn off the burner from under the smaller pot (containing the cans), remove the cans from the water, and remove the lids from the cans.
8. Using a long-handled spoon or rubber spatula, scrape as much of the warmed extract as possible into the water in the brewpot.
9. Immediately , stir the extract/water solution and continue to stir until the extract is completely dissolved in the water. [Now you officially have "wort"] ...
10. Top off the brewpot with more clean...water, keeping your water a reasonable distance--about two inches--from the top of the pot to avoid boilovers.
11. Bring the wort to a boil (turn up burner if necessary).
12. Boil the wort for about an hour. [Never put the lid on the boil, and always stir the solution every couple of minutes]
[12.5. As the wort is boiling, since we will not be using pre-hopped extract, hops will be added, also steeping into the boiling wort. Bittering hops, the most essential, need at least one hour of boiling time, so they will essentially be added as soon as the wort begins to boil. Flavoring hops, added for secondary taste and less for their bitterness, need approximately 10 to 30 minutes of boil time. Finishing, or aromatic, hops are added in the last 5 minutes of the boil, and add a negligible amount of flavor, but instead make sure your beer smells discernably different from a dead rodent. Consumers appreciate this courtesy.] ...
13. When an hour has elapsed, turn off the burner and place the lid on the brewpot.
14. Put a stopper in the nearest sink drain [or bathtub], [and] put the covered brewpot in the sink and fill the sink with very cold water. ...
15. After 5 minutes, drain the sink and refill it -- as many times as is needed until the brewpot is cool to the touch.
[16. & 17. This part of the text details using dry yeast. Dierksenkougan will likely use liquid yeast, which comes in a "smack pack" and is prepared three days prior and refridgerated. It is ready to be added to the wort immediately upon brewing, and comes in a larger variety of styles and is less prone to bacterial contamination than dry yeast cultures.] ...
18. When the brewpot is relatively cool to the touch, remove the brewpot lid and carefully pour the wort into the fermentation bucket. Make sure the spigot is closed!
19. Top off the fermenter to the 5-gallon mark with cold, clean water, pouring it vigorously into the bucket. This splashing not only mixes the wort with the additional water, it also aerates the wort well. [Aerating the wort replaces oxygen, which the yeast need small amounts of to get a healty start. Soon, they will consume that oxygen and begin fermenting--violently] ...
20. Take a hydrometer reading. [A hydrometer measures the density of the fluid. This is important because as the yeast begin to ferment, they remove heavy sugars and replace them with lighter compounds like carbon dioxide and alcohol. As your density falls, your alcohol content rises, and every beer recipe has a projected final gravity (density) that tells you when to move onto secondary fermentation or bottling. If you don't wait long enough, your beer is too sweet and not alcoholic enough for you to be too drunk to care. Wait too long, and the yeast will run out of grain sugars and autolyze, or eat themselves, and produce a rotten-egg sulfur flavor that is best characterized as skunky.] ...
[21. Add yeast to wort. Shotgun a beer and give somebody a high-five Bayside style.]
22. Cover fermenter with its lid and thoroughly seal it. ...
23. Put the fermenter in a location in your home that is cool and dark, such as a basement, a crawlspace, or an interior closet.
24. ...Fill the airlock with water...and attach the rubber stopper."
!
Congratu-frickin'-lations if you got through that one, because there's 300 more pages where that came from. But it's all up here (points to head), and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone, informed or otherwise, screw up a single bottle of Dierksenkougan.
Next class: Beer 103: Secondary Fermentation and Bottling. Don't worry, it's a snap compared to this.
Your Brewmaster,
Sam Reese
PS. Shirt orders are in, so it's too late to take any more requests. They should be printed a week or two after Spring Break. Roll up your pennies and wash your best pair of jeans.
The following procedure is extracted verbatim from the Dierksenkougan Beer Bible, AKA Marty Nachel's Homebrewing for Dummies. My comments are in brackets. Brownie points for those who borrow it from me for further instruction. Read on:
"The following list covers 24 steps that walk you all the way though the brewing process. Twenty-four steps may sound pretty intense, but I assure you they are easy, quick, and painless steps...Besides, when you're done, you brewed your first beer!
1. Fill your brewpot about 2/3 full with "clean" tap water or bottled water [we will use Culligan filtered water from Meijer. We don't want to be causing kidney stones] and then place it on the largest burner of your stove. ... The exact volume of water is not of great importance during this step, as the cold water that you add to the fermenter later brings the total to 5 gallons.
2. Set the burner on medium-high.
3. Remove the plastic lids from the kits and set the yeast packets aside.
4. Strip the paper labels off the 2 cans of extract [or however many cans we are using] and place the cans in a smaller pot or saucepan filled halfway with tap water. Place the pot or saucepan on another burner adjacent to the brewpot. ...
5. Set the second burner on medium.
6. ... Flip the cans in the warming water every couple of minutes.
[6.5. As this is happening, we will augment this very elementary procedure with the addition of specialty grains, which allow for a greater production variety of beer styles. To do this, we will use a mesh nylon baggie containing anywhere from half a pound to 2 pounds of specialty grain and steep the contents in a seperate saucepan containing hot, sub-boiling temperature water. After about 20 minutes of leeching the colors and flavors, the liquid will be transfered to the large saucepan and soon mixed with the extract.]
7. As the water in the brewpot begins to boil, turn off the burner from under the smaller pot (containing the cans), remove the cans from the water, and remove the lids from the cans.
8. Using a long-handled spoon or rubber spatula, scrape as much of the warmed extract as possible into the water in the brewpot.
9. Immediately , stir the extract/water solution and continue to stir until the extract is completely dissolved in the water. [Now you officially have "wort"] ...
10. Top off the brewpot with more clean...water, keeping your water a reasonable distance--about two inches--from the top of the pot to avoid boilovers.
11. Bring the wort to a boil (turn up burner if necessary).
12. Boil the wort for about an hour. [Never put the lid on the boil, and always stir the solution every couple of minutes]
[12.5. As the wort is boiling, since we will not be using pre-hopped extract, hops will be added, also steeping into the boiling wort. Bittering hops, the most essential, need at least one hour of boiling time, so they will essentially be added as soon as the wort begins to boil. Flavoring hops, added for secondary taste and less for their bitterness, need approximately 10 to 30 minutes of boil time. Finishing, or aromatic, hops are added in the last 5 minutes of the boil, and add a negligible amount of flavor, but instead make sure your beer smells discernably different from a dead rodent. Consumers appreciate this courtesy.] ...
13. When an hour has elapsed, turn off the burner and place the lid on the brewpot.
14. Put a stopper in the nearest sink drain [or bathtub], [and] put the covered brewpot in the sink and fill the sink with very cold water. ...
15. After 5 minutes, drain the sink and refill it -- as many times as is needed until the brewpot is cool to the touch.
[16. & 17. This part of the text details using dry yeast. Dierksenkougan will likely use liquid yeast, which comes in a "smack pack" and is prepared three days prior and refridgerated. It is ready to be added to the wort immediately upon brewing, and comes in a larger variety of styles and is less prone to bacterial contamination than dry yeast cultures.] ...
18. When the brewpot is relatively cool to the touch, remove the brewpot lid and carefully pour the wort into the fermentation bucket. Make sure the spigot is closed!
19. Top off the fermenter to the 5-gallon mark with cold, clean water, pouring it vigorously into the bucket. This splashing not only mixes the wort with the additional water, it also aerates the wort well. [Aerating the wort replaces oxygen, which the yeast need small amounts of to get a healty start. Soon, they will consume that oxygen and begin fermenting--violently] ...
20. Take a hydrometer reading. [A hydrometer measures the density of the fluid. This is important because as the yeast begin to ferment, they remove heavy sugars and replace them with lighter compounds like carbon dioxide and alcohol. As your density falls, your alcohol content rises, and every beer recipe has a projected final gravity (density) that tells you when to move onto secondary fermentation or bottling. If you don't wait long enough, your beer is too sweet and not alcoholic enough for you to be too drunk to care. Wait too long, and the yeast will run out of grain sugars and autolyze, or eat themselves, and produce a rotten-egg sulfur flavor that is best characterized as skunky.] ...
[21. Add yeast to wort. Shotgun a beer and give somebody a high-five Bayside style.]
22. Cover fermenter with its lid and thoroughly seal it. ...
23. Put the fermenter in a location in your home that is cool and dark, such as a basement, a crawlspace, or an interior closet.
24. ...Fill the airlock with water...and attach the rubber stopper."
!
Congratu-frickin'-lations if you got through that one, because there's 300 more pages where that came from. But it's all up here (points to head), and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone, informed or otherwise, screw up a single bottle of Dierksenkougan.
Next class: Beer 103: Secondary Fermentation and Bottling. Don't worry, it's a snap compared to this.
Your Brewmaster,
Sam Reese
PS. Shirt orders are in, so it's too late to take any more requests. They should be printed a week or two after Spring Break. Roll up your pennies and wash your best pair of jeans.
posted by Sam Reese at 7:54 PM
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