Posted on Mar 18, 2009 under home brewery |
When the chill Northeast wind blows,
And winter tells a heavy tale,
When pies and dawes and doobs
And crowes
Do sit and curse the frosts and
Snows,
Then give me ale.
16th Century English verse
When you’ve brewed your first batch of beer on your new home brewery, you may be confronted by a few often debated issues with regard to the manner in which you conduct your fermentation.
There are primarily three different issues for us to focus on, none of which are actually right or wrong, but should be considered as part of your home brewery. Let’s look at the first topic:
Should you lager (age) your beer, or just let it quickly mature? The answer to this lies in the style of beer you are brewing, the temperature of fermentation and the type of yeast being used. It is only with high quality lager yeast and fermentation temperatures below 7°C, that there are any benefits to lagering your beer for a long time. When brewing a beer on your home brewery with an ale yeast, it is rare to find fermentation incomplete after 2 weeks when fermented at around 18°C.
Another often considered point is whether or not to conduct a single or double fermentation. What this essentially means is allowing your beer to ferment in two different containers. What many people do is conduct the initial vigorous fermentation in one fermenter, and after a few days rack (siphon) it into a secondary fermenter, leaving behind a layer of spent yeast cells in the primary container. This is done to minimise the amount of contact your beer has with the dormant yeast. Over time this yeast will begin to degrade and lend undesirable qualities to your brew. Of course this only becomes a problem when brewing a style of beer to be lagered, as this feature of the yeast only occurs after about three weeks. So for most ales, there really is no need to conduct a secondary fermentation, as the beer will probably be bottled after about a week – long before the yeast begins to degrade.
Many people still wonder if they should conduct their fermentation in an open or closed type of fermenter. Since in brewing the biggest concern is proper hygiene and sanitation, I will always recommend a closed fermentation. The air around us is laden with wild yeast, spores and bacteria. It would be a great pity to lose an entire batch of beer so close to the finish line because of running the risk of infection falling into your fermenting brew! In this day and age there is absolutely no reason for your home brewery not to have a closed fermenter with a bubbling air lock fitting snugly in its lid. Most food grade plastic buckets come with tight fitting lids, and with the number home brew resources available to us now, we should easily be able to find a fermenter designed specifically for beer.
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Posted on Mar 16, 2009 under home brewery |
On the chest of a barmaid
In Sale
Was tattooed the prices
Of ale.
And on her behind
For the sake of the blind
Was the same information in Braille.
Anonymous
When using your new home brewery to brew malt extract beers, you are going to need to get together a list if brewing ingredients suitable for your particular home brewery. In other words, we’ll be getting together a list of either hopped or unhopped malt extracts or “kits”. It is important to remember that there is a wide range of different malt extracts and beer kits on the market, each designed to produce a different style of beer. One of the big variances between kits is the colour. The colours normally come in the range extra light, light, pale, amber, brown and dark. So, should you want to brew a light golden ale or lager, then you’d need to brew using a light or pale extract. Similarly, should you want your home brewery to produce a porter or stout, then choosing a dark malt extract would be the right call.
Here’s what you’ll need to put your home brewery to the test:
± 2,5kg hopped malt extract beer kit
Or 1,5 - 2kg hopped beer kit and 1kg light unhopped dried malt extract.
20 litres of water
1 Packet of ale yeast.
¾ Cup cane sugar for bottle priming.
Time to brew your very first, very own beer using your new home brewery!
1. Dissolve your malt extracts in 6 litres of water and bring to a full boil for 15 minutes.
2. Sterilize one of your plastic fermentation buckets by filling it with a weak bleach and water solution, and leave it to stand for at least 20 minutes.
3. Rinse the fermenter well with clean water after the 20 minutes.
4. Fill the fermenter with 11 litres of cold water.
5. Pour the dissolved malt extracts into your fermentation bucket.
6. Top up the bucket to 21 litres with more cold water.
7. Once the temperature has dropped below 25°C, add your packet of yeast.
8. Attach the tight fitting lid with fermentation lock to the bucket.
9. Allow to ferment for 1 to 2 weeks.
10. Bottle and cap.
11. Wait another 1,5 to 2 weeks.
12. Crack open a frosty and enjoy!
You’ll be amazed at how simple it is to use your home brewery, and it is for this very reason that a lot of people don’t ever want to brew on anything more involved. The big point to remember when using any home brewery, or trying to decide on a type of home brewery is: is it fun? As long as you can answer yes to this question, then it really doesn’t matter how you go about brewing your own.
When it comes to dissolving your malt extracts in water, you may notice that the beer kit tells you to add a certain amount of sugar as well. It’s important to remember that while this will still produce a good beer, the beer can be made even better by using only malt extracts and eliminating the use of sugars. Also, you’ll notice that the beer kits don’t normally tell you to boil the extracts. Any malt extract brew is always enhanced and improved by boiling it for 15 to 30 minutes.
In brewing any beer, regardless of the type of home brewery being used, one of the most crucial steps in the brewing process is to clean and sanitise all equipment which might come in contact with your beer. There is nothing more frustrating than looking forward to partaking in a brew which has been aging and maturing for months, and which underwent a complex and time consuming brewing process, only to find that it’s undrinkable due to bacterial contamination and poor sanitisation practices. 2 table spoons of normal household bleach in 25 litres of water is enough to sanitise your fermenter.
When pouring your malt extract into the bucket, try and pour as gently as possible. The less splashing the better. When hot malty liquid (wort) is splashed or bubbled too much, it leads to what is known as hot side aeration, which results in lending a metallic flavour to your beer.
Top up your fermentation bucket to the 21 litre mark with cold water. The reason we fill to 21 and not just 20 litres is that about a litre will be lost as spent yeast sludge or slurry after fermentation is complete. You’ll only want to siphon off the clear, yeast free beer from above this yeast slurry.
You’ll need to wait for the temperature of your wort to fall below 25°C, otherwise the yeast may be seriously damaged or even killed. Once you’ve achieved the right temperature, sprinkle your packet of yeast into the bucket and close the bucket with your tight fitting lid. Add a bit of clean water to your fermentation lock, and you should see and hear it starting to bubble after a few hours. This bubbling is the result of carbon dioxide building up inside the bucket as a by product of the fermentation process.
After about one week, or when the bubbling has stopped, it is time to transfer the beer to your second sterilised bucket. To this bucket add ¾ cup of cane sugar and begin to siphon the beer into it. Sing a clean long handled spoon, gently rouse the beer as it flows into the bucket to dissolve the sugar evenly. Many people like to first boil this sugar in a small amount of water before adding it to the beer after it’s cooled down. This additional sugar is necessary to allow a secondary fermentation inside the bottles, which will provide the beer with a sparkle. When siphoning from the fermenter, do your best to avoid sucking up the yeast slurry sitting at the bottom of the bucket.
Again, using the siphon hose, siphon the beer from the second bucket into your cleaned and waiting beer bottles. Use either a small valve or racking cane for this job to avoid loads of sticky beer being spilt all over the floor. Fill the bottles to within 5cm of the mouth, and cap with new, clean crown caps.
This is basically the end of the process for your home brewery. All that needs be done now is patiently wait 2 weeks (I know it’s hard) for the beer to mature and carbonate. You’ll notice over time that although the beer was initially cloudy at bottling, it clears during maturation. All the remaining yeast cells will settle out to the bottom of the bottles once all the additional sugar you added has been used up by the yeast. Should you want to drink clear homebrew, simply be careful when pouring from the bottle to the glass. Do it in such a way that the sediment is not roused.
There we have it! Your first of many successful batches of homebrew, produced on your own home brewery! What could be better? Clean-up is a cinch, and all the components are easily stored away. So now that you know how easy it all is, what are you waiting for? Get your home brewery together and brew up a batch right away!
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Posted on Mar 15, 2009 under home brewery |
Beer he drank – seven goblets.
His spirit was loosened. He became
Hilarious. His heart was glad and
his face shone.
Epic of Gilgamesh.
The oldest narrative tale Circa 3000 BC.
The simplest and most common home brewery is the one designed to brew beers from extracts or malt concentrates. This type of home brewery is ideal for many people and for several reasons. It is probably the least expensive home brewery to assemble, as well as the least complicated. It is also a type of home brewery which is easily disassembled after brewing and stored away neatly and out of the way. Should space for brewing be limited such as in a flat, this home brewery will solve the dilemma as it requires hardly any space. And of course for those who are just venturing out into the world of brewing, or for those who don’t want to complicate matters with a more complex approach to brewing, will find the malt extract home brewery ideal.
Let’s get straight into the equipment you’ll ned to accumulate in order to piece together your home brewery for the purposes of brewing malt extract beers. The following list of items will enable you to brew 20 litres of beer at a time.
1. A 15 litre enameled or stainless steel cooking pot.
2. 2 x 25 litre food grade plastic buckets with tight fitting lids.
3. 2 metres of 10mm plastic tubing
4. A fermentation lock.
5. A rubber bung or stopper to fit the fermentation lock to the lid of one of the buckets (you may need to drill a hole to get it to fit).
6. A large plastic funnel
7. A thermometer.
8. A brewing hydrometer.
9. A bottle washer (although not imperative, it does help)
10. Plenty of new crown style bottle caps.
11. A bottle capper.
12. 60 x 340ml bottles.
13. A bottle of regular household bleach, preferably unscented.
The above equipment list forms the nuts and bolts of your home brewery to be. All that needs to be done now is to know which item to use at which point in the brewing process, and of course to have a beer recipe and ingredients ready to be put to the test on your new home brewery!
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Posted on Mar 14, 2009 under home brewery |
There are few things in life more rewarding than being able to appreciate something you have made yourself, and which you can impress others with. Sometimes it’s as simple as cooking a good meal which others enjoyed, rather than dining out, or brewing a perfect laté from you new espresso machine. This applies especially to brewing beer yourself at home. As the global beer market increasingly becomes awash with homogenous lager brands, more and more people are turning their hands to establishing a home brewery of their own.
Of course, before undertaking the task of building your own home brewery, a few considerations must be made. Firstly, is your intended home brewery going to be used solely to brew malt extract beers? If so, then the home brewery needs only to consist of a large pot big enough to dissolve the syrup and sugars, and boil the hops in (if using an unhopped malt kit), a plastic bucket in which to conduct fermentation, and enough bottles to bottle your brew once fermentation is complete. Of course you’ll need a few lengths of plastic tubing to conduct the siphoning of the beer from one container to the next.
Should your intention be to brew all-grain beers, than your home brewery will need to be a lot more sophisticated. Although there really is no need to stress out. What your home brewery will need is again a large pot in which to “soak” the grains (mash tun), a gas burner or electric hot plate to heat the mash tun, some form of separating the grains from the water – now called wort (a lauter tun), and lastly another pot large enough to boil the full amount of wort for your intended brew – this is called the copper or kettle. While it is not imperative, it is definitely a good idea for your home brewery to also have some form of wort cooler, whether this be a copper coil immersed in your brew kettle with cold water running through the coil, or some other form of cooling apparatus, the process of brewing is certainly hastened. Of course you will again need an appropriate food grade container for the fermentation, a length or two of plastic siphon tubing and enough bottles handy to package your brew. These items will complete your home brewery.
The level of sophistication needed for your home brewery will depend on yourself, the type of brewing you want to do, and the level of involvement you want. There are many resources available which can pave the way for you to start designing and building your own home brewery. Some are simple and consist of only a few pots and pans, while other home breweries are either semi or fully automated! The one thing you can be certain of any home brewery however complicated or simple it is, is that the beer will almost always be fantastic! And the pride and fulfillment of drinking a fresh beer brewed by yourself on your own home brewery is awesome.
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Posted on Mar 08, 2009 under home brewery |
I found a very entertaining article on how the drinking of Home Brewery beer at a contest can help to fuel the creation of biodiesel. Most people would not find the connection between home brew and biofuel. But it seems that the people of Wrightville Beach have made the connection and decided to create a contest to see who can drink the most beer in aid of biodiesel creation.
They will be using the proceeds from the contest to support the Cape Fear Biofuels co-op reactor in Winnabow, NC. There will be live bands and more than 36 different home brewery beers. I would imagine that there will be a lot of people there to try the different beers. There will also be food available.
What better way to drink beer than knowing that the money that you are spending on beer is going to fund fuel which is good for the environment. So if you want to try some really good home brewery beer, get down to Wrightsville Beach.
Link to article
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Posted on Mar 07, 2009 under home brewery |
More and more people are getting into having a home brewery. Is this a trend or is it simply a fad? I believe that as more people realize that the beer being produced by the big beer companies doesn’t taste like beer should, they will turn to the only other option available and that is to brew the beer themselves.
There are plenty of home brewing kits available online, for example at places like amazon.com. The kits include everything you need to brew your first beer. There are also numerous books on the subject of how to brew your own beer. And finally, there are plenty of forums and blogs discussing the art of home brewing.
As people become aware of the art in home brewing and the ease with which they can get hold of the tools to do this, the home brewery will become even more popular. The home brewery industry was one of the only industries that experienced any sort of growth during 2008. I believe that this trend will continue into 2009. In fact, I think we will look back in years to come and identify this as the real start for the growth in the home brewery industry.
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Posted on Mar 06, 2009 under home brewery |
It’s really exciting to see where the home brewery industry is going. It is growing
year on year as more and more people turn away from big breweries to micro or home breweries.
I found an aritcle in the Deeside Today.
A home brewer, Rob, has moved his home brewery to a new location in Deeside.
This is due to the fact that he simply could not produce enough beer in his home. The reason that I think this article is important is because it shows how the home brewery industry is growing daily.
‘A Former micro-brewery is producing 30 times as many pints a week after moving to larger premises in Deeside.’
The home brewery industry is really catching on with the public and we are seeing more and more micro breweries, brewpubs etc popping up all over the world.
Rob’s business is growing steadily and he is hoping to soon be producing beer for the whole of Scotland.
As people grow more and more aware of the great beers that are being produced by home breweries, we are going to see a huge growth in this industry. I for one am very excited by this trend.
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Posted on Mar 06, 2009 under home brewery |
It seems that the home brewery industry is growing by leaps and bounds. I found this article regarding the growth in the industry in Northern San Diego.
“It is the new hot spot for a “cold one.” North San Diego, a short drive from the desert, is now home to more than 30 award-winning microbreweries offering a bounty of beer-related activities from festivals and food and beer pairing events to behind-the-scenes tours.”
It is very exciting to see all these home breweries popping up all over the place.
There are tours and classes with the various home breweries and according to the article, you can easily become a beer connoisseurs.
I can’t wait to see the huge growth in this industry in 2009.
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Posted on Mar 06, 2009 under microbrewery |
I found an article in the Evening Telegraph about a Beer Festival in Derby. I am so excited to see the growth in the home brewery and microbrewery industry and how they are taking on the big breweries. This festival gives the English public the chance to taste some beers which they might not have come across before and is a perfect chance for the home breweries to showcase their beers.
“Now in its eighth year, the event, which is organised by the city branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, is taking place at the Assembly Rooms.”
As the home brewery industry gathers momentum, it is important that people support these small businesses.
Hopefully, a festival such as the one taking place in Derby will attract as many vistors as
the Beer Festival in Munich.
Link to article
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Posted on Mar 06, 2009 under home brewery |
England has a new tv show to tune into on Tuesday nights. Oz and James Drink To Britian takes a look at the home brewery and micro brewery industry in Britian and tries to find the best one. It seems that they will be heading north in the second episode to find out what the North East has to offer.
They all locate what is believed to be the home brewery which is located furthest north in Britian.
“Millions are expected to tune in next Tuesday to watch the second episode of Oz and James Drink To Britain.”
What is really exciting is that so many people are tunning in to the show. It really shows
the interest in home brewed beer.
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