Normal Brew Session

 

A normal brew session for me is very simple. I follow checklists. I used to just wing it when I made beer. Well, the product that I produced was good but not great. Let’s face it, no one likes beer that tastes like crap. I discovered early on that I truly enjoyed this hobby and I wanted to be proud to show off my beer.  It will take a new brewer some time to figure out their brewing process and to become comfortable with the whole idea of crafting beer at home. For me, I love watching someone who normally does not like beer enjoy beer for the first time, my beer. I love nothing more than watching a beer geek enjoy my beer. This would not be possible if I just winged it. So, I developed my process and created a few checklists for every part of my brew session with the exception of my inspiration phase. This way, I do not forget a step that will cause me stress or impact the quality of the beer that I produce.

So here goes, this is what I do in a typical brew session.

Inspiration, Research, and Design

Designing my beer is the easy part of the brewing session for me. I think this step in the brew session is the most fun. I normally get my inspiration from a commercial example. I can be inspired by a walk through the park or even a trip to Starbuck's. I may get inspired from a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout, Boston Brewery’s Cherry Wheat, or even a Fat Tire from New Belgium.  Whatever the inspiration, I will need direction. Lets say I decide on a standard American India Pale Ale, where do I begin? I run to the store and buy a bottle or six pack and do my research!!! I told you this part of brewing was fun. I rely heavily on Google to help line me out. I start be looking at the BJCP guidelines, this will get me started. I also look at brewery's web site or possibly email the brewery. Chances are they will have a good description of their beer on the web. Anyway, it will give me a place to start.

I try to keep my recipe and grain bill simple. I try to use no less than 85% base malts, I rarely use less than 90%. I think my beer is too cloying when I use more than 15% heavily malted grains and adjuncts. Since my example is an IPA, take a look at Avery’s IPA.  This is a very simple beer, however the malt bill will not hide mistakes in my brewing technique (This is why I have checklists). Avery’s web site a is very good source of information.  They are not afraid to give you details about the beers they brew. Here, take a look:

Beer Style: India Pale Ale
Hop Variety: Columbus, Simcoe, Crystal & Centennial
Malt Variety: Two-row barley, Munich 10L, caramel 120L
OG: 1.058   Alcohol By Volume: 6.3%   IBU's: 69
Color: Golden

OK, I know what hops to use, the types of grain, and the overall description of the beer. Let’s start with the grain bill for a 6 gallon batch.  I use 89% pale 2-row malt for the base grist, 6.25% Munich Light to give the beer a little complexity, and 3.75% Crystal 120 malt to give the beer a nice malty backbone. This will make a golden color and to give balance with the high alpha hops. After all is said and done, this grain bill will yield a target ABV of 6+-%, based on my brew house efficiency.

Now the for hop bill. This is what makes this recipe outstanding...  I love hops. I use 0.5oz of Centennial (10% alpha), Simcoe (13% alpha), and Crystal (3.5% alpha) during runoff (first wort hopping), 0.75oz Columbus (13.5% alpha) for 60 minutes, and Dry hop for 14 days with 1oz of Simcoe and Centennial.  This will hit my target IBU based on Avery's description.  Use White Labs California Ale yeast (WLP001) with a good size starter. This will make a damn good IPA.

Planning and Preparation

Good planning will make the brew day awesome. The last thing I want is a stressful brew day due to the lack of planning and preparation. So, I have already decided on a style and recipe, now I (keep it simple) follow the checklist. Things to consider with the checklist are the type of beer, the style, and my personal schedule. On a normal brew session, I start my checklist 3 day before the brew day. Whereas with lager or high gravity beers, I start the checklist 5 to 7 days before brew day. With any beer, I need the right amount of yeast to fully ferment out the beer. I use Jamil Zainasheff’s Mr Malty's Pitching Rate Calculator™ to determine how many yeast cells I need to finish the beer. The secret to brewing a great beer is healthy yeast cells. Under pitching yeast will cause the yeasties will be stressed.  We do not want stressed yeast cells. I need to clear the calendar to insure I have the time to prepare for the brew day. I brew to relieve stress not to create stress. So, I only brew when I can fully prepare for the brew day.

Here is how I do it…

 

Pre Brew Day Checklist

• Recipe
  • Call or e-mail Ray to see if he has everything I need
  • Make adjustments to my recipe based off of his inventory
  • Order ingredients from More Beer or Northern Brewer if needed
• Check Supplies on hand
  • Water, distilled
  • Filter Element
  • Propane (nothing worse than running out of propane 15 minutes into the boil…)
  • Salts, Minerals, Finings, Yeast Nutrients, Sanitizer, Cleaners
• Check Storage
  • Fermenters needed
    • Space available in the Fermentation Frig.
    • Water Tubs
  • Ageing
    • Space available in either fermentation frig or serving frig
  • Serving
    • Kegs available
    • Space available in serving frig or fermentation frig
• Calculate Batch Size
  • Cost
    • If I have the cash to brew big, I brew a bigger batch
  • Storage
    • If I have the cash and the storage available, I brew a bigger batch
  • Supplies needed
• Shopping
  • Gather all supplies and ingredients
• Yeast Starter
  • Warm Yeast
    • Warm yeast to room temp
    • White Labs yeast vile, sanitize cap, burp vile and shake vile through-out making the starter.
    • Wyeast warm, rupture smart pack at least 4 to 8 hours before
  • Gather needed equipment
    • Scale
    • Flask
    • Stir plate
    • Stir bar
    • Tin foil
    • Brew pot to cool wort
    • Thermometer
    • Funnel
    • Spray bottle of sanitizer
  • Gather all ingredients
    • DME
    • Yeast
    • Yeast nutrient
    • Defoamer, boiling wort foams (a lot)
    • Ice
  • Clean and sanitize work area
    • This is critical, I do not want to pick up a wild yeast or a nasty bug. 
    • We have 2 big dogs; it is my son’s job to keep them out of the kitchen.
    • Try to keep the movement in the work area to a minimum.
    • Spray all surfaces with sanitizer; don’t forget the surfaces above the work area.
  • Clean and sanitize equipment
  • Make starter wort (Mini-Beer)
    • The goal is to propagate yeast cells, so aeration is needed through out this entire process.  If you do not have a stir plate, you will need to swirl the propagation vessel every so often to keep the yeasties in suspension.
      • Up to 7% ABV
        • Make 1000 ml starter with a gravity of 1.040, 2 to 3 days before brew day
        • Make 1000 ml wort the night before
        • Aerate and add the first batch to give you a 2000 ml starter
      • 7% ABV and above
        • Make a 2000 ml starter
        • Aerate with a stir plate (if you have one)
        • Make an additional 2000ml wort
        • Aerate with a stir plate
        • Continue until you get the amount of yeast cells needed to finish the beer
  • Chill, pitch, cover flask or vessel with foil, and sit on stir plate (if you have one)
    • Agitate yeast often to keep them in suspension.  It is a rule in our house, whenever anyone walks pass the yeast, give it a swirl.   The yeast have a tendency to fall down to the bottom of the vessel.
• Brew Area Prep
  • Clean the brew area
  • Gather and inspect brew equipment
  • Clean equipment
  • Calibrate measuring equipment
  • Prep equipment for brew day

Brew Day

OK, the big day if finally here. I live in the south and it normally is very hot. So, I tend to brew either early in the morning or late in the evening. For me, this is time to spend without cell phones, e-mail, or the constant rat-race we all live in. Normally, this is a time spent with family and close friends. Occasionally, we will have someone come by curiously wanting to know if we are cooking up moonshine or boiling crawfish. Nope, we are making beer. My typical brew day takes about 6 to 8 hours. That is if I have completed my Pre Brew Day checklist. There is nothing worse than when then having to find something when you need it the most. That is why I have the checklist. I will give you the detailed version of Brew Day checklist.

 

Brew Day Checklist

• Place yeast started in frig
  • Depending on what style of beer I am brewing, I may or may not do this step. Sometimes the beer from the yeast starter will impart flavor to the main beer. So I tend to always chill the starter before pitch time. This will cause the yeast to flocculate and fall to the bottom. Now decant the beer off the yeast cake to only pitch the very hungry and lively yeast.
• Setup Brew Stand
  • I brew outside, so I need to wheel my brew stand out of the garage. I then place my boil kettle and Hot Liquor Tun (HLT) on the stand.
  • Connect all my connectors and hook up all my thermometers, hoses, and gadgets.
• Water
  • I run a white water hose from the spigot to the brew area and connect it to an “Y” splitter.
  • Connect carbon water filter to one side of the "Y" and a common garden hose the to other.
• Propane
  • Hook up and test burner
• HLT
  • Fill HTL to the desired levels. This will include the mash volume, Mash Tun warmup, and sparge volume.
  • Add distilled water to build the needed water profile for the style of beer.
  • Add salts and minerals to correct the water profile.
• FIRE – target temps
  • Fire up the burner to hit your strike temp (more on strike temps later)
• Setup a Cleaning bucket with PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash)
• Setup a sanitizer bucket with Iodophor
• Prep ingredients
  • While my water is heating up, I like to have everything laid out and ready to go.
  • Hops
    • Using a digital scale, I lay out all my hop additions. I use bowls to hold each addition and label the bowls as to when and where they are used during the boil.
  • Adjuncts
    • Same as the hops.
  • Finings
    • Same as the hops.
  • Nutrients
    • Same as the hops.
• Set timers
  • I use a multi-countdown timer. I will set the times for overall mash time, overall boil time, and for each addition. I hate having to keep up with the clock. This is one of my most important tools.
• Setup and warm mash tun
  • I use a cooler as my mash/lauter tun. It is very important to warm this thing up before the strike water is added. If the mash tun is cold, I will lose a lot of water heat.  Then I will not get the correct temperature during the mash in when I add the cold grains.
  • When the HLT temp reads 160F, run 2 to 4 gallons through the mash tun to warm.
• Prepare mash out water
  • Add the needed amount of water for the mash out step to the boil kettle.
  • Fire up the heat until desired temp. If I reach the temp before it is needed, I cover and lower the flame to almost nothing. This usually maintains the temp.
• Strike water
  • This is dependent on the recipe. I normally shoot my strike water 2F over due to lose during transfer.
  • Calculating the strike temp is very important in all grain brewing.  I start by recording the known:  my target infusion (mash temp), the poundage on grain, the ratio of grain to water, and the initial temp of the mash.  Now I need to throw another variable into the equation, the temperature of the mash tun.
• Mash
  • Let the fun begin!
  • Slowly add the crushed grain into the strike water. Be sure to stir throughout this step.  If you do not stir you would end up with a bunch of clumps (Dough Balls), much like when you add water to oatmeal.
  • Once all the grain is in the mash, start the timer for the time needed for this rest.
  • I gently stir the mash every 15 minutes or so.
• Prep sparge water
  • Raise the temp from the strike temp to the sparging temp, this will take a little time.
  • I normally have the right amount of water needed to sparge in the HLT. I like to have about 2 to 4 gallons over just in case I need hot water for something else.
• Mash-Out and Vorlauf
  • When it is time, I will add the mash out water to the mash. This will stop all enzymatic conversions in the mash.
  • After mash out, I will start recirculating wort through the grain bed to clear the wort. This will pack the grain bed and filter out all the debris from the wort.  I vorlauf until the wort is crystal clear.
  • Brewing with clean wort will add to the overall quality of the finished beer.
• Transfer to Boil Kettle
  • I will slowly crack open the HLT to shower the grain bed while at the same time drain the wort over from the mash tun to the boil kettle. The hard part is to have the same flow rate with both HTL and mash tun.
  • I take a gravity reading now. This will tell me how the mash went. From this reading, I will be able to tell if I messed or if I’m on track. This is called the pre-boil gravity.
    • If I messed up, meaning I did not get enough good stuff from the grain, I may have to do one of two things. One, alter hop bill to match this new unexpected beer. Or two, add fermentable sugar to the wort to bring up the gravity. I have had to do both in the past.
• Fire
  • Fire up the burner when I am about 1/3 of the way into the kettle.  This will save time.
• Prep Wort Chillers
  • While I am running wort, I hook up my pre and post wort chillers. This is a good time to make sure you do not have leaks.
  • After I test for leaks, I place the post chiller in the sanitizer bucket.
• Sanitize Fermenter
  • While waiting for the boil, fill a clean carboy with sanitizer. One less thing to do later.
• Clean mash tun and equipment
  • Normally I have some time to kill, so I try to clean everything I can while waiting for the boil.
  • Scoop out the spent grain and clean the mash tun.
  • I feed my gardens with the spent grain.
  • If time runs out, big deal. Clean it out later.
• Prep for boil
  • I have 2 spray bottles filled with filtered water. This is nice to have on hand to knock down the foam. I really hate when the wort boils over.
  • I layout all my additions, timers, brew paddle, and whatever else I will need. You do not want to go too far from the kettle when it starts to boil. Without a doubt, the moment you step away, you will get a boil over.
  • It is very important to not cover your boil kettle during the boil. This is a common mistake made by most beginner all-grain home brewers. All malted barley contains Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS). DMS will leave a vegetable taste in the finished beer. We vent the majority of DMS out of the beer during the boil.
• Prep for cooling
  • Note: Everything at this point MUST be sanitized! We have work really hard by this time to end up with a contaminated beer.
  • With 20 minute remaining in the boil, set the post chiller in the brew kettle.
  • I have the pre chiller setting in an old ice chest. I fill the chest half way with water and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. After flameout, I will dump a bag or 2 of ice into the solution. This will help cool the wort really fast.
• Flame out
  • Take another gravity reading. This is called the original gravity (OG). The OG will help you calculate the finished Alcohol By Volume(ABV) percentage in the beer.
  • As soon as I flame out, I turn on the chillers and start whirl pooling the wort.
  • In order to not waste tons of water, I run the chiller exhaust into a big plastic tub. This is a great way to collect hot water for cleanup. I also, run the chiller water slow at the beginning until my wort is about 120F.  This will also help save water.
  • Note: from boil to 140F you must keep the cover off of the kettle. This goes back to the DMS issue. DMS will continue to vent until the wort reaches 140F.
  • Note: From boil to 100F is the danger zone for contamination. Cover the wort at 140F and keep it covered until it is safely in the fermenter.
  • When the wort temp reaches 80f to 85F, I attach sanitized connectors to the kettle and transfer to the carboy.
• Prep fermenter
  • As soon as I finish the whirlpool, I rack the sanitizer out of the carboy. My chillers normally take, depending on the outside temperature, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. I cover the neck of the carboy with sanitized foil if it empties before the chillers are done.
• Prep for pitch
  • I place the carboy full of finished wort in the fermentation frig whenever the transfer is finished.
  • Take out the yeast pitch from the frig and decant off the starter wort whenever the main wort is ready to pitch. (See yeast starter above.)
  • Aerate and pitch.
  • I use a blow off tube instead of an airlock mostly due to the amount of fermentation I have with all my beers.  It is good to pitch the right amount of yeast cells.
• Cleanup
  • Clean everything. I keep all my brewing equipment in the garage. One time, I had to make a quick getaway and did not clean everything well. I forgot to clean the valve on my mash tun. Big mistake! My wife came home to a smell that cannot be described. We thought something died in the garage. We tore the whole garage apart looking for the dead thing to discover the smell was coming from the mash tun. Damn!!! The only thing that can be said about that is DAMN!!! There are only a few things worst the spoiled grain, only a few.
  • From that point forward, nothing goes into the garage until it is completely cleaned and dried. Also, this will make your Pre Brew Day check list easier.

 

   

Fermentation

OK, now we added yeast to the wort... We Have BEEEEER. The fermenter is bubbling away nicely, what else is there to do? This is the time when I start to dream about my beautiful creation.  You know, taking long strolls through the park with the Carpenters playing in the back ground…  Hell No, there is STILL a lot of work to be done. Now I need to think about the fermentation:  where am I going to put all this beer, what if the beer turns out bad, did I pick up a nasty BUG (contamination)?  It is a good thing to take gravity reading throughout the fermentation process just to know how the yeast is doing. Also, we sample the beer to gage the quality. I check the beer daily to insure the fermentation frig is at the correct temp and to note how the yeast are holding up. When the yeast are finished doing their thing, I lower the temperature of the frig to help clear the beer.  I take my final gravity (FG) reading at this point.  Using the OG and the FG, I am able to calculate the ABV.  After a few days, it will be time to rack the beer to the conditioning vessel. This is when I will age and carbonate the beer.

Are We There Yet

So you think we are done, not just yet. This next step is absolutely the most taxing and important step of them all.  Sit back with friends and enjoy a quality hand crafted pint of homebrew!!!