Brewing Technique
I always follow the same method for making my beers, because most of them are of a similar style. A brew generally takes about 5 hours from start to finish, but only a small part of this time is actually involved in making beer. It can easily be done in an evening, and I find that I've plenty of time to eat, watch television etc. while it's going on.
The first thing I do is decide what beer I'm going to make and check that I've got all of the ingredients. I'll usually weigh out the ingredients for the grist the previous day. On brewing day, I'll heat up 23 litres of water and add my brewing salts. While it's heating I'll check the temperature of the grist. Some years ago I used a sensitive temperature probe attached to a Fluke digital thermometer to measure the internal temperatures of my mash under varying situations and plotted the results. From this, I created a simple look-up table which I use to determine my water temperature based on the grist temperature and the mash temperature required.
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Grist | |
| 66 | 74.0 | 73.8 | 73.7 | 73.5 | 73.4 | 73.2 | 73.1 | 72.9 | 72.8 | 72.6 | 72.5 | 72.3 | |
| 67 | 75.1 | 75.0 | 74.8 | 74.7 | 74.5 | 74.4 | 74.2 | 74.1 | 73.9 | 73.8 | 73.6 | 73.5 | |
| 68 | 76.3 | 76.1 | 76.0 | 75.8 | 75.7 | 75.5 | 75.4 | 75.2 | 75.1 | 74.9 | 74.8 | 74.6 | |
| Mash |
It's necessary to heat the water about 4°C hotter than the required temperature, as it will cool down slightly when you transfer it to the mash tun. The amount of mash water (in litres) to add is calculated as 2.3 times the weight of the grain for mashing - so if I have 5kg of grain I use 2.3 x 5 = 11.5 litres of mash water.
When it's at the right temperature I add the grist, stirring while it's being added, and continue stirring to ensure that there are no lumps. Then it's on with the lid, cover with a blanket, note the time and leave it alone.
I find that 75 minutes is plenty long enough for conversion of the starches to sugars with the sort of beers I make, so after about an hour I'll top up the water in the boiler back to 23 litres and add further brewing salts in the right proportions. As most of my beers use around 11 to 12 litres for the mash, I add half of the brewing salts which I'd calculated necessary for 23 litres. The boiler is then turned back on and the temperature raised to between 78° and 80°C. (I have marked on the boiler thermostat the setting which will hold the temperature at this value.)
After 75 minutes mashing it's time to run off the wort. It is important to do this slowly or else you're liable to get what is called a 'stuck mash' - I have timed my runoff and it is about 1.2 litres/minute. The initial run off will be cloudy and I run off about 4 litres, carefully returning this to the mash, in order for the grain bed to create a good filter and allow the wort to run clear before I start transferring the wort to the boiler. After a few more litres have been run off it's time to start sparging and I carry on sparging until I have 6 gallons (or 27 litres) in the boiler. About one gallon will be lost in evaporation, liquid in the hops, trub etc. before it finally ends up as near enough 5 gallons in my barrel.
While it's coming up to boil, I'll weigh out the initial batch of hops. As the wort approaches boiling point it's important to keep a close eye on what's happening. A head will form and it's easy for it to boil over (similar to the way that milk will boil over in a saucepan), so it's necessary to have one hand on the temperature control (to turn off the power if necessary) and to keep stirring the head back into the liquid. It's at this point that I adjust the thermostat for a gentle rolling boil. Everything will stabilise after a minute or two and it's then that I add the first batch of hops and note the time. The hops initially have a tendency to float on the surface and boil over and again it's necessary to keep an eye on things, stirring the hops back into the liquid when necessary. As they get saturated they'll naturally sink and it should be possible for the boiler to be left to look after itself. Now is the time to calculate when it will be necessary to add any extra ingredients, and note down these times.
If sugars are used in the recipe, I generally add them about half way through the boil, but it's not critical and I've added sugar right at the start of the boil along with my bittering hops with no problems.
If, like me, you do your brewing in a kitchen, you'll need ventilation. Boiling 6 gallons of liquid in a small room produces lots of water vapour. I haven't got an extractor fan, so I keep windows open and have a desk fan blowing air over the top of the boiler towards an open window which helps.
During the boil, between adding any extra hops or sugars, there's plenty of time for clearing out the spent grains from the mash tun and giving it a clean. I initially just use regular washing-up liquid for this, then later sterilise with a combined cleaner/steriliser (I currently use a product called VWP).
Even if you do not suffer from skin problems, I would suggest wearing rubber gloves when using cleaning solutions. Marigold manufacture some heavyweight outdoor gloves (model G17K) which are tougher and come in a larger range of sizes than the usual domestic variety sold for washing up purposes. They are also a nice black colour, which some men might prefer to the more usual pink or yellow colours which are commonly available. If you live in Devon or Cornwall, Trago Mills stock them.
About 20 minutes before the end of the boil I add Irish moss/finings as directed on the container (usually about 2 teaspoonfuls of Irish moss). I prefer a product called 'Whirlfloc' over Irish moss and usually use that, especially on the lighter coloured beers, even though it's more expensive than Irish moss. It comes in a tablet form (use one tablet for 5 gallons) and is available in the UK from 'Hop and Grape'. I do not find it necessary to use anything else for clarifying my beer.
At the end of the boil the boiler is turned off and I leave it for 10 to 15 minutes to allow for the hops and trub to settle at the bottom. As it cools slightly, you should start to see the 'hot break' forming, as the protein which has precipitated out during the boil starts to clump together in the liquid and settle towards the bottom to form the trub. I have made a stainless steel gauze filter formed into a tube which fits into the tap inlet on the inside of the boiler to stop it becoming clogged with hops. A more common method is for the boiler to have a perforated 'false bottom', and I have seen a copper pipe drilled with holes and pushed into the outlet used as well. Whatever is used, the filter can be fairly coarse as it is the hops which act as a filter for the trub.
After everything has settled down I run the wort off into the fermenting bucket and start cooling using my Immersion Chiller. The chiller is attached to the kitchen tap using a device meant for garden hoses. A better technique for cooling might be to use what is called a counter flow chiller which cools the wort as it goes into the bucket [there are excellent instructions on how to make one, complete with drawings and photographs, on Martin Berriman's website] but unfortunately I do not have room in my kitchen to place the boiler near to a water supply. As the water comes out of the chiller I collect it in an old fermentation bucket and use this hot water for cleaning the boiler and sterilising the mash tun and other equipment.
As the wort reaches around 30°C you should start to see the 'cold break' begin to form. This is similar to the hot break - more protein which has precipitated out during the boil will start to clump together in the liquid and settle towards the bottom.
When the temperature reaches around 25°C it's safe to add the yeast and aerate the wort thoroughly. I'm happy with the results I get using dried yeasts and prefer to use DCL's SAFAle S-04, but if I can't get it I'll use Munton's Premium Gold or the Nottingham dried yeast from Danstar instead - they're all excellent and worth the extra money over cheaper brewing yeasts. Many English microbreweries use SAFAle S-04 yeast, so if it's good enough for a commercial brewery, it should be good enough for you too.
I prefer to rehydrate my dried yeast, even though the manufacturers of SafAle say that it's not necessary. I use a (sterilised) mug, about 1/3 full of water at 30°C, sprinkle the yeast into it, swirl once then cover with cling-film. This is left for about a quarter of an hour before adding to the wort. An advantage of this is that it acts as a check to see that the yeast is OK. I have only once had a dried yeast which was faulty and which failed to do anything when it was rehydrated, and I was able to get another one going satisfactorily before pitching.
As I state on my Equipment pages, I aerate using an aquarium air pump and airstone and this takes about 20 minutes. While this is going on there is time to wash up, clean any remaining bits of equipment and generally tidy up.
My fermentation bucket is fitted with a lid and airlock, although the airlock is not completely necessary as the lid is not particularly tight fitting. Until the yeast is going strongly and formed a head the beer is open to infection so it's a good idea to have it covered initially, and the lid is for practical reasons too, as I keep the fermentation bucket in the kitchen and don't want things falling into it.
Beer fermenter
SafAle works fast and the yeast should be going strongly the next day.
I leave the beer in the fermentation bucket for four days. By then the initial main part of the fermentation has died down and the protective head on the beer has disappeared. I then syphon the beer into a large 'wide neck wine and beer fermenter' with airlock - the sort of thing which is often used by home winemakers - leaving all of the old yeast behind. The idea of this is that the sediment may have all sorts of bits and pieces in it - dead yeast, bits of hop etc. which may produce off flavours in your beer. I don't know if it's true, but it doesn't seem to do any harm! I give a quick squirt of CO2 to expel any air before screwing the lid on and fitting an airlock.
The beer can stay in this container for quite a while, but I usually transfer it to a pressure barrel after a further five or six days. There is just a thin layer of clean yeast at the bottom and I can transfer the beer via a tap near the bottom without disturbing it, so there's no need to use a syphon.
I have three pressure barrels and they are of varying ages. One is nearly 20 years old (a Rotokeg) another is over 11 years old (Hambleton Bard) and the newest is about 2 years old (KingKeg), so they can last a long while. I prime the barrel with about 1/3 cup of dextrose monohydrate (what homebrew shops call glucose powder or brewing sugar). If I'm bottling, I'll prime 500 ml bottles with half a level teaspoonful of glucose powder. Once again I give a quick squirt of CO2 to expel any air before screwing the lid on. I use a smear of vaseline (petroleum jelly) on the rubber 'O' ring to help it seal and then give another squirt of CO2 through the valve. I like to leave the beer in the barrel for at least two weeks before drinking.
If I need to add extra CO2 to the barrel I use the cylinders and equipment from Widget World (Midget Widget). This is a far superior system to the Hambleton Bard S30 cylinders which are commonly available in UK homebrew shops. One MidgetWidget cylinder can last me up to a year.
And that's how I make my beer.