I recently finished reading Gordon Strong's excellent book Brewing Better Beer and there were a great deal of useful tidbits and interesting new (to me) techniques presented in the book, but there was one particular part that I think will really bump my beers up to another level. I'm talking about chloramines.
Chloramines are used by some municipal water supplies to disinfect the water going to their customers' homes. Chlorine is also used for this purpose by some municipal water sources, but because people are more sensitive to the presence of chlorine and not as sensitive to the presence of chloramines, in terms of both taste, smell, and feel (dried out skin, etc.), more and more municipalities are switching to chloramines.
The only reason I know anything about this is because I notice the change every year in smell and taste in the tap water when my local water supply switches from chloramines to chlorine to make sure bacteria don't become resistant to it. I know that chlorine is bad for brewing water, since that is spelled out in most introductory/intermediate level homebrewing books and I've read a few of those. I didn't know that chloramines are just as bad and actually probably much worse since chlorine can be removed by simply running your water through a carbon filter (a Brita filter, for example) and chloramines form a stronger bond in water and aren't as easily removed.
This is probably the biggest thing I've been doing wrong with my brewing up until this point. The information on chloramines that I got from my municipal water supply's website said that chloramines are removed by the same type of filtration systems that remove chloramine, so I had no idea that this was not the case and that chloramines were probably the reason my beers always had a slightly astringent off-flavor that I couldn't place. It wasn't too bad, so I suspect that my Brita filter was removing some of the chloramines, but I noticed it and didn't like it.
The solution to this problem is to treat your brewing water with Campden tablets (sodium metabisulfite) to remove the chloramines before adding any malt to the water. The tablets work fast (less than a minute) and one tablet will treat 20 gallons of brewing water.
Although, the book is geared towards advanced homebrewers, I feel like this particular lesson would be useful for all levels of brewers and frankly can't believe that it wasn't mentioned at all in any of the beginner/intermediate books I've read (perhaps an idea for something to add in the fourth edition of The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, Charlie Papazian). So, thank you, Gordon Strong! I've tried this technique in a few batches already and have already noticed that the astringent flavor is gone and my beers are tasting better.
Showing posts with label brewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brewing. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Murphy's Law
Saturday's brewing session proved to us that brewing beer takes some experience, some trial and error, and some problem-solving skills. Or, it proves that Casey is a necessary and key component to our little group.
With Casey entertaining family, Dan and I descended upon his kitchen with two goals. We were going to brew the amber ale known as After School Special and we were going to bottle Slow Brains. No problem. This is our 6th brew together, so we have the whole thing down to a science.
Our biggest issues surrounded the bottling of Slow Brains. This was version 2.2 of Brains, the one aging in an oak barrel for a couple of weeks. Bottling is usually pretty easy. We timed it so the other brew was going on while we could bottle, usually a nice 45 minute window.
Issue #1: we wanted to bottle in 750ml bottles. We tested the bottle capper on one of the bottles and...oops. It's stuck. Really, really stuck. Turns out we can't use any bottles that used to have corks. I proceed to break through the neck of the bottle with a screwdriver to release the capper.
Issue #2: The spigot on the barrel is bigger than the hose we use to transfer to the other bucket. We use the other bucket to mix the beer with sugar, so we can bottle ferment the beer. I have to sit and hold the bucket so the beer doesn't spill on the floor.
Issue #3: There's still small wood chips and other crap inside the barrel that needs to be filtered out. Dan wraps cheesecloth around the spigot as a filter.
Issue #4: Something gets stuck inside the spigot of the barrel (maybe more wood chips?). There's still about a gallon of beer stuck in there! Well, so much for our carefully designed filtration method. I turn the barrel over and dump the final gallon out of the bung hole up top.
Issue #5: We run low on bottles (since we couldn't use about 10 of them) and rush to try to find other bottles to use. We end up throwing away about 4 bottles worth of beer since we can't bottle them and need to attend to the other brew.
Besides that? No problem!
The actual brewing went fine. Our original gravity was a bit high, but it seems to have come out well.
Then...
Oh boy. THEN! Then I went home, barrel in hand, ready to test the gravity of our lager. I mean, it had been a couple of days. I wanted to see how it was coming along. I carefully take it out of the chest freezer and pop it up on the table. I turn the spigot down to take the reading and the spigot comes loose from the inside of the fermenter. Beer starts leaking from the spigot onto the floor. I uttered a few choice expletives and ran it over to the sink. I prepped for my surgery by scrubbing my arm with dish soap, rinsed off, and proceeded to stick my entire arm into the fermenter to tighten the spigot. Just great. We discussed changing the name from Tongue to Arm or Elbow. I kind of like Elbow Grease Pilsner. I hope my arm was not too diseased that it will ruin the beer. Once again, only time will tell.
With Casey entertaining family, Dan and I descended upon his kitchen with two goals. We were going to brew the amber ale known as After School Special and we were going to bottle Slow Brains. No problem. This is our 6th brew together, so we have the whole thing down to a science.
Our biggest issues surrounded the bottling of Slow Brains. This was version 2.2 of Brains, the one aging in an oak barrel for a couple of weeks. Bottling is usually pretty easy. We timed it so the other brew was going on while we could bottle, usually a nice 45 minute window.
Issue #1: we wanted to bottle in 750ml bottles. We tested the bottle capper on one of the bottles and...oops. It's stuck. Really, really stuck. Turns out we can't use any bottles that used to have corks. I proceed to break through the neck of the bottle with a screwdriver to release the capper.
Issue #2: The spigot on the barrel is bigger than the hose we use to transfer to the other bucket. We use the other bucket to mix the beer with sugar, so we can bottle ferment the beer. I have to sit and hold the bucket so the beer doesn't spill on the floor.
Issue #3: There's still small wood chips and other crap inside the barrel that needs to be filtered out. Dan wraps cheesecloth around the spigot as a filter.
Issue #4: Something gets stuck inside the spigot of the barrel (maybe more wood chips?). There's still about a gallon of beer stuck in there! Well, so much for our carefully designed filtration method. I turn the barrel over and dump the final gallon out of the bung hole up top.
Issue #5: We run low on bottles (since we couldn't use about 10 of them) and rush to try to find other bottles to use. We end up throwing away about 4 bottles worth of beer since we can't bottle them and need to attend to the other brew.
Besides that? No problem!
The actual brewing went fine. Our original gravity was a bit high, but it seems to have come out well.
Then...
Oh boy. THEN! Then I went home, barrel in hand, ready to test the gravity of our lager. I mean, it had been a couple of days. I wanted to see how it was coming along. I carefully take it out of the chest freezer and pop it up on the table. I turn the spigot down to take the reading and the spigot comes loose from the inside of the fermenter. Beer starts leaking from the spigot onto the floor. I uttered a few choice expletives and ran it over to the sink. I prepped for my surgery by scrubbing my arm with dish soap, rinsed off, and proceeded to stick my entire arm into the fermenter to tighten the spigot. Just great. We discussed changing the name from Tongue to Arm or Elbow. I kind of like Elbow Grease Pilsner. I hope my arm was not too diseased that it will ruin the beer. Once again, only time will tell.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Lager Brewing
Tuesday marked our first brew in quite some time. It felt like an eternity between sessions, but now we're doubling up and going again tomorrow. Tuesday was different for a couple of interesting reasons. First, we used my apartment since that's where the chest freezer is living. Second, we used leaf hops instead of pellet hops. Third, we actually used an online site to get the recipe correct.
A little about our creative process. I'm not ashamed to say that we use a Clone Recipe book as a basis for all our brews. We decide what type of beer to brew, look up some recipes and choose one. Then we decide how we want to tweak it to make it our own. This might include changing one type of hops, adding some sort of other ingredient (honey, brown sugar, etc.) Up to this point, we never paid attention to IBU's, temperatures or specific gravities. I mean, we measured the original gravity and final gravity to get an ABV reading, but never tried to hit a target. The thought process was that we would get the right amount of ingredients in at the right time and, voila, beer would emerge. And emerge it did. But it could be better.
This time we fed our recipe into a recipe calculator (at www.hopville.com) and made sure to match the temperatures to get specific IBU's and ABV. Amazingly, we hit all of our targets on the first try. That isn't to say we didn't have any trouble. About 40 minutes into the boil, I realized we put the wrong amount of water into the calculator. Suddenly, our IBU went from 39 to 25. Holy Crap! Luckily we had extra hops and the website. Dan and I (Casey was out grabbing our Ledo's Pizza) fed some quick numbers into the calculator and now our lager is quadruple-hopped and is 36 IBU's. Disaster averted.
The other odd change was the whole leaf hops. I'm used to the pellet hops just disintegrating as they are poured into the wort. I don't know why I was surprised, but the leaf hops don't do that. They steep like tea. Now, instead of a clear wort, we have a pound of hops boiling in water. That's fine, but straining that out took some creativity. We scooped the hops into a strainer, then Casey used the bottom of a pot to press out the extra wort. That was not in our original plans.
In the end, I'm really excited about this lager, named Tongue. It's sitting in my freezer and fermenting at about 50 degrees. The Irish Moss we used was already clarifying the beer, so hopefully it will be a nice, clear yellow color. The competition is weighed heavily on accuracy to style and cleanliness. That's 85% of the score. Fingers crossed, this will be our first excellent beer.
A little about our creative process. I'm not ashamed to say that we use a Clone Recipe book as a basis for all our brews. We decide what type of beer to brew, look up some recipes and choose one. Then we decide how we want to tweak it to make it our own. This might include changing one type of hops, adding some sort of other ingredient (honey, brown sugar, etc.) Up to this point, we never paid attention to IBU's, temperatures or specific gravities. I mean, we measured the original gravity and final gravity to get an ABV reading, but never tried to hit a target. The thought process was that we would get the right amount of ingredients in at the right time and, voila, beer would emerge. And emerge it did. But it could be better.
This time we fed our recipe into a recipe calculator (at www.hopville.com) and made sure to match the temperatures to get specific IBU's and ABV. Amazingly, we hit all of our targets on the first try. That isn't to say we didn't have any trouble. About 40 minutes into the boil, I realized we put the wrong amount of water into the calculator. Suddenly, our IBU went from 39 to 25. Holy Crap! Luckily we had extra hops and the website. Dan and I (Casey was out grabbing our Ledo's Pizza) fed some quick numbers into the calculator and now our lager is quadruple-hopped and is 36 IBU's. Disaster averted.
The other odd change was the whole leaf hops. I'm used to the pellet hops just disintegrating as they are poured into the wort. I don't know why I was surprised, but the leaf hops don't do that. They steep like tea. Now, instead of a clear wort, we have a pound of hops boiling in water. That's fine, but straining that out took some creativity. We scooped the hops into a strainer, then Casey used the bottom of a pot to press out the extra wort. That was not in our original plans.
In the end, I'm really excited about this lager, named Tongue. It's sitting in my freezer and fermenting at about 50 degrees. The Irish Moss we used was already clarifying the beer, so hopefully it will be a nice, clear yellow color. The competition is weighed heavily on accuracy to style and cleanliness. That's 85% of the score. Fingers crossed, this will be our first excellent beer.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Brains 2.2 Brew Day
This past Thursday we got together to brew our last barleywine of the year. This version is basically the same recipe that we used for Honey Brains, but we added brown sugar instead of honey. We don't have an official name for this batch yet, but I like "Slow" Brains, as a reference to the molasses that the brown sugar is made from. We also bottled our hefeweizen, which we are currently calling Theros, but I think we should change the name to Eisenhower, since our friend Jillian pointed out that hefeweizen is corrected to Eisenhower when using spell check. Although, as I am writing this, the firefox built in spell checker is suggesting Weisenheimer, which I think I like even better, haha. Omar was on hand to photograph the days events. I think his pictures came out great. Here's a selection to give you a feel for how the brew day went.
The brewers making preparations.
Brown Sugar! How come you taste so good?
More Pictures After the Jump
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Bottling/Brewing and New Capacity
Tomorrow promises to be quite an exciting evening for us here at the DC Beer Journey. We're going to bottle our hefeweisen "Theros" tomorrow. This is our first foray into an ale that is not a barleywine, so I'm psyched to see the color and grab a taste before bottling. If all goes well, we'll be entering this beer (along with Honey Brains) into the BURP.org Spirit of Free Beer competition in May. Dan is housing the fermenter so he's the only one who's tried it during primary fermentation...he assures me it's great.
During bottling, we'll also be starting our last barleywine of 2011. In Brains 2.2, we'll be using a pound of brown sugar instead of honey. After primary fermentation, we'll finally use the oak barrel I purchased at the Beer, Bourbon and BBQ festival at the beginning of April. The poor thing has been filled with water the whole time. Water! (On a related note, does anybody want to buy 5 gallons of oaked water? I hear it tastes delicious. Or terrible. One of the two.) At first v2.2 was going to be called Sweet Brains. But since we decided to use the barrel, I've been wavering. I kind of like Barrel Brains, or maybe Wood Brains. Charred Brains? Sweet Brains? Does anybody have a preference?
On top of that, we've recently expanded capacity and capabilities. I went over to MoreBeer! and purchased my own home brew kit. Now we can brew more than once every two weeks. I also purchased a chest freezer and digital temperature control. Hello lagers! We have about three months to figure out a great pilsner for the Pilsner Urquell home brew competition in August. We hope to get started in the coming weeks.
Last thing: apparently we have an audience tomorrow for this whole thing. Our friend, Omar, wants to tap his inner photographer (pictures coming to the blog!) and other friends want to hang out and see what it's all about. In case you were wondering, it's mostly about standing around waiting for the wort to boil for the right amount of time. At least we can have somebody else disinfect our bottles (my least favorite job) while we can take our time measuring out grains and hops. Even taking our time, that should take 6 minutes. Our brewing and bottling also entails classic rock and drinking beer. This is what brewing for a living is like...right?
During bottling, we'll also be starting our last barleywine of 2011. In Brains 2.2, we'll be using a pound of brown sugar instead of honey. After primary fermentation, we'll finally use the oak barrel I purchased at the Beer, Bourbon and BBQ festival at the beginning of April. The poor thing has been filled with water the whole time. Water! (On a related note, does anybody want to buy 5 gallons of oaked water? I hear it tastes delicious. Or terrible. One of the two.) At first v2.2 was going to be called Sweet Brains. But since we decided to use the barrel, I've been wavering. I kind of like Barrel Brains, or maybe Wood Brains. Charred Brains? Sweet Brains? Does anybody have a preference?
On top of that, we've recently expanded capacity and capabilities. I went over to MoreBeer! and purchased my own home brew kit. Now we can brew more than once every two weeks. I also purchased a chest freezer and digital temperature control. Hello lagers! We have about three months to figure out a great pilsner for the Pilsner Urquell home brew competition in August. We hope to get started in the coming weeks.
Last thing: apparently we have an audience tomorrow for this whole thing. Our friend, Omar, wants to tap his inner photographer (pictures coming to the blog!) and other friends want to hang out and see what it's all about. In case you were wondering, it's mostly about standing around waiting for the wort to boil for the right amount of time. At least we can have somebody else disinfect our bottles (my least favorite job) while we can take our time measuring out grains and hops. Even taking our time, that should take 6 minutes. Our brewing and bottling also entails classic rock and drinking beer. This is what brewing for a living is like...right?
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