CASSIE: Hi, everyone.
I'm Cassie with WSU's
Global Campus Connections.
Welcome to tonight's
event on home brewing
with Dr. John Wolf, Keith
Tyler and Darren Bystrum,
all members of the
Home Brewers of the Palouse.
Thank you for joining us.
If you guys have any
questions or comments
to make throughout
the presentation,
go ahead and type
them in the chat box.
So let me introduce
our presenters.
Tonight we have John Wolff.
He is currently a
professor and geologists
in the School of Environment
who has been brewing ever
since graduate school.
Also with us today
is Darren Bystrum
who works as a
systems administrator
for the Office of
Research and has
been brewing for eight years.
Keith Tyler's also with us.
He has been a CPA trade,
a Paradise Creek brewer,
financial manager,
professional brewer.
Also, he's a 2008 WSU graduate.
So before we get
started, just want
to let you guys know that
the Home Brewers of the Palouse
are a loose knit
group of home brewers
located in the Palouse
area, Washington state.
They are not limited to
but include Pullman, Moscow
and Colfax.
Before we get
started, don't forget
to check out their website,
brewitwithhops.web.com
and look up Home Brewers
of Palouse on Facebook.
Last but not least, find
more global connections
events at open.wsu.edu.
So let's take a look
at their process
and then we'll come
back with the gentleman
of the Home Brewers
of the Palouse.
JOHN WOLFF: This is
a first step here.
We're drawing our
water for brewing
the beer through a filter here.
That's mainly to
get rid of chlorine.
And we're using a measured
amount of water here.
This is going to be important
so that we hit exactly
the right temperature when we
mix the grains into the water
for mashing, as you'll see.
We have the malt here
that's been crushed
and it's ready to-- it'll be
ready to mix with the water
when the water's hot enough.
The malt has to steep in
the water in a process
called mashing at a fairly
precise temperature.
We're going to be
about 152 degrees
Fahrenheit for about an hour.
That converts the starch
and the grains to sugars.
And the sugar is the raw
material for the yeast
work on to make alcohol.
The mash has now been prepared.
We're going to let
that mash for one hour.
And over the next hour,
the starch and the malt
will be converted
to sugars, which
is what we want for the
next stage of the process.
So what Keith is doing now
is recirculating the wort.
This is the sugary
solution that we've
been producing through
enzyme activity in the mash.
He's draining some of,
pouring it back into the top
just to help clear it up and
filter it, get the bits out.
So now Keith is lautering.
That refers to straining
the liquid off of the grains
for the process
called sparging, which
is flushing the grains out
and rinsing the grains out
to make sure we get
all of the sugars out.
It's not right.
JOHN WOLFF: There we go.
We're now making the
last hop addition.
We just killed the heat
under of the kettle
so these hops will
not boil in the wort.
The point here is to extract the
aroma qualities from the hops
to give the beer a hoppy smell
after the fermentation, which
is generally considered a
desirable characteristic.
DARREN BYSTRUM: OK.
We're now casting the wort into
the fermenter through a heat
exchanger here.
The wort is going to come
out into the fermentation
vessel between 60 and 70
degrees to chill the wort.
Then go into the fermentation
vessel and yeast will be added.
The yeast can only operate
between 60 and 70 degrees
so it's important
to chill the wort.
It's important to
chill the wort quickly
which is the point
of the heat exchanger
because otherwise other
bacteria, other microorganisms,
will get in there
and spoil the beer.
We don't want that.
We don't want to
give them a chance
so we chill it quickly
and then add the yeast.
Welcome home brewers.
For those of us that
joined us last time,
we were discussing mashing.
We're moving on to a later
part of the process, which
is a lot of fun, and that's
going to be the boiling
and fermentation.
So with that said,
starting out, when you're
moving towards the boiling
process, one of the reasons
you can do is another ingredient
you're going to add is hops.
In front of us here
we have a couple
of different types of hops, both
whole hops as well as pellet
hops.
Both are useful in
various processes.
Is kind of just depends on your
system what you'd like to use.
The pellet hops tend to store
a little bit longer and have
a better quality.
So if you're not going
to use them for a while
that might work
out better for you.
Part of the reason of using hops
is you add bitterness, flavor
and aroma to the beer.
Now, you get those
three characteristics
by where you add the
hops in the boil process.
So, traditionally, you might
use, say, a 60 minute boil.
So your bittering
hops, those that
are going to be added
earlier in the boil
so that they'll soak
longer in the kettle,
will be added right
at the beginning.
If you even want
to start beforehand
you could do what's
called first wort hopping.
So that's when you're bringing--
before things are boiling,
when the worts rather warm,
say after the draining the wort
into the kettle from the mash
tun, you can add those there.
They tend to hold on to some
flavor a little bit better.
And then, once
the boils started,
you can do your bittering hops.
And as you move through
the boiling process,
later on, say we'll call
it 10 to 20 minutes,
any hops you add will contribute
significant flavor to the beer.
And then, at the very
end, the vault oils
that are responsible
for aroma in the beer
are added anywhere from
zero to five minutes.
Now, the reason for boiling
hops is that their alpha acids
which are what is the
bitterness part of the hops,
are not soluble in liquid
unless they're heated.
Once heated, they undergo
a chemical process
which turns the alpha acids into
iso-alpha acids which are then
soluble and retain
into the beer itself.
We have a couple
pieces of equipment
that one would need to boil.
Here in front.
The intro brewer or
somebody starting out
might use this
particular kettle.
It's just a five gallon
stainless steel kettle.
Aluminum works
just fine, provided
you clean it-- keep
it away from bleach
and don't clean it too much.
For those that might want to
move to a larger setup, maybe
larger batches, we
have this keggle here
that has a ball valve
on the front the makes
racking to your fermenting
vessel rather easy.
If you notice, inside
as well there's
a dip tube to try and get
every last bit of wort
possible within
the kettle itself.
Also, one of the
reasons of boiling
is that there's some flavor
compounds in the grain
that you'll want to push off.
Particularly if you're using,
say, a pilsner style malt.
There's a chemical
DMS-- you guys
want to jump in-- dimethyl
sulphide, correct?
KEITH TYLER: That's right.
JOHN WOLFF: Correct.
DARREN BYSTRUM: That
kind of has a vegetable
or cooked corn flavor.
And so part of
the boil is you're
going to be driving
off that chemical
through the boiling
process so that it does not
end up in your finished beer.
Once you're done boiling,
you can go ahead--
and an important part to end the
process-- you notice down here
there's a copper chiller that's
called an immersion chiller.
That's one of three pieces
of equipment home brewers
tend to use.
So what you'll do with
the immersion chiller
is that it'll be
added to the kettle
prior to the end of
the boil to sanitize
the chiller-- basically,
sterilize it at boiling--
and then you run cool water
through the chiller itself
and that brings the
wort temperature down.
Alternatives for chilling
are a counter flow chiller
which has basically a
tube inside of a tube
and you run cold water
in the outer tube
in one direction and your
wort through the inner tube
in the other.
And then you can get a
plate chiller as well.
It all-- varying cost for
the entry level home brewer.
Advanced as well.
And it's just one of the many
options you can choose from.
Before I move on, I guess
we'll mention some--
prior to chilling, you
may want to consider
some clarifying agents.
There's many you
can choose from.
One in particular that many are
familiar with is Irish moss.
And this is an additive that
can be added to the beer that
helps coagulate proteins.
JOHN WOLFF: It's actually
not moss and it's not Irish.
It's made from a seaweed.
DARREN BYSTRUM:
And another thing
as well is Whirlfloc is I
believe just powderized version
of Irish moss--
KEITH TYLER: It's Irish moss and
there's another chemical might
actually listed on there.
And I can't remember off the
top of my head what it is.
DARREN BYSTRUM: It's a
tablet sized form, basically,
that you can just
drop into the kettle.
Additionally, there's a powdered
version called Supermoss.
I'm going to guess
it's non pelletized
and probably maybe
missing that ingredient.
Keith, you might know better.
KEITH TYLER: It's actually--
it's not a Whirlfloc.
It's a very concentrated
derivative of Irish moss.
Basically, the active component
of which is carrageenan.
It's a very simple thing to use.
All you do is rehydrate it in
cool water for about 15 minutes
and dump it into
your boil kettle
with about 15
minutes left to go.
And it acts very
similarly to Irish moss.
DARREN BYSTRUM: We'll touch
on isinglass in a bit but--
JOHN WOLFF: Yeah.
I'd say later on.
KEITH TYLER: Couple other
quick things about chilling.
Darren went over a
couple of the options.
The immersion chiller,
the counter flow chiller,
there's plate
chillers out there.
When you're starting out,
the first few batches you
may not have some
of that equipment.
Another option to chill the
wort fast, or relatively fast,
is to get a larger vessel,
a bucket or something
that your kettle can fit
into, fill it with ice water,
and set it in there for about
a half an hour, 40 minutes.
And that'll get you somewhere
near pitching temperature
of 70 degrees or so.
You'll find out fast, that's
not a very fun option.
There's a lot of
chance of spillage.
The faster you can show
the wort the better
as far as forming
cold break and just
limiting the exposure to
microbes that you don't want in
your beer aside from the yeast.
JOHN WOLFF: You could also
set it outside in a snowbank.
KEITH TYLER: That
works equally well.
But leaving it in your
garage overnight or something
like that is generally
not preferred.
You want to chill it
as fast as possible.
Let's see.
So we're moving
on to-- sanitation
is something that we've
talked about a little bit
in our previous webinars.
And it's always important,
but especially at this point.
Everything prior
to the boil is all
going to go through almost
near sterilization process
in the boil.
So you don't have to worry about
it nearly as much as post boil.
Once your wort is
below 140 degrees,
you're at a point where other
microbes can infect the beer
and you can end up-- there's
always a possibility you could
end up with a great sour beer
in a year, but more than likely
it's just not going
to happen that way.
You're going to end up with
a moldy beer or all kinds
of off flavors that can occur.
Sanitation is paramount
at the post boil point.
So use a very good cleaner
to make sure there's
no gunk on your equipment.
Powdered brewery wash
or a homemade equivalent
is a popular soaking chemical
that gets rid of a lot of dried
on yeast, whatever might
be stuck on your equipment.
Once it's clean, make sure you
also sanitize the equipment.
I have Star Sandwich
I've mentioned
before which is-- what is this?
This, in itself, is a fairly
strong phosphoric acid solution
along with-- I'm not going to
even try and pronounce that.
JOHN WOLFF: Dodecyl
benzene sulphonic acid.
KEITH TYLER: Thank you.
Mix this to the correct ratio of
30 milliliters to five gallons.
You can actually use about,
I believe, a quarter teaspoon
to 20 ounces in a spray bottle.
Works equally well.
This is a contact
cleaner-- or sanitizer so
about 30 seconds of
contact time on any
of your already clean
equipment and you'll
be sanitized and ready to go.
So make sure your fermenters
are sanitized, your transfer
hoses, your auto siphon,
anything that you're using
that's going to touch the wort.
Make sure it's
clean and sanitized.
At this point, once
you have chilled wort,
you're going to transfer it
into a fermentation vessel.
And we have a few equipment
choices here which
I'll let Dareen point out.
DARREN BYSTRUM: So
one that might be more
for the more
advanced home brewer,
but I'll just start here
because it's next to me,
this is a conical fermenter.
And this particular case,
it can hold about 15 gallons
although it'd be for
10 gallon batches.
Just due to size, you want
to leave some head space
because the
fermentation will drive
a lot what's called, krausen,
into the either airlock
or blow off tube.
KEITH TYLER: Or your ceiling.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Or your ceiling.
If you get a-- to
elaborate on that a bit.
So this is a three
piece airlock here
and you want to put some form of
a-- likely, a dilute sanitizer
solution in there to
help keep oxygen out.
But as mentioned,
if the krausen gets
so much that it's
hitting the top of the,
in this particular
case, the conical
and starts evacuating out
of the airlock, the yeast
itself will get clogged
inside the airlock.
You'll end up building pressure
inside the vessel itself
and eventually
either the bung will
explode with a large
amount of pressure behind
and you'll have a nice
fountain depositing beer
all over the room.
I know I've had one.
Gentlemen, have you?
KEITH TYLER: Well, if you take
a look at this bucket here.
This is a fermentation
bucket that's
just kind of a standard
cheap fermentation vessel.
That lid locks on to that
bucket very, very well.
And I had a small
blow off tube on it
just because of the size
of the hole connected.
It was about a 3/8 inch tube.
I had five gallons of an
imperial stout in there
that actually
exploded the lid off
of the bucket once the
blow off tube clogged
and through about a gallon
and a half of imperial stout
all over the bedroom.
So be careful with
the blow off hoses.
Some other options.
Keith mentioned the bucket.
There's the traditional
carboy that most folks
have used in the past.
We have two options,
both glass and what's
called a Better Bottle.
It's a brand name.
There's also various
plastic equivalents.
Both are almost--
well, glass, obviously,
is impermeable to oxygen
provided the seals still
in there.
And then the plastic
vessels, I believe,
are almost impermeable.
KEITH TYLER: Almost.
DARREN BYSTRUM: There's some--
JOHN WOLFF: It's
polycarbonate, I think.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Yeah.
It's a fairly good equivalent.
Both will work just fine.
As mentioned-- Keith mentioned
earlier with the cleaning--
you want to leave
these soaking if you're
trying to get yeast out.
I would not use the
bottling brush or any type
of abrasive cleaning apparatus
on the plastic bottle
as that may scratch
the interior and then
you'd have a place
for microbes to grow.
Which is never a
good thing if you're
trying to make delicious beer.
Before we showed have a
three piece airlock as well.
This is another two
chambered airlock.
It's just another way to keep
the oxygen out of the beer.
I prefer the three
piece for, I guess,
earlier in the
fermentation process.
And then if I happen to be aging
beers for an extended period
of time, I'll use the
two stage as there
tends to be somewhat less
evaporation of the cleaner.
And in the case there may
be varying temperatures,
you will get less actually
sucked back down into the beer.
So another good reason
to use a dilute sanitizer
within the air locking
case. [INAUDIBLE]
come back into the beer.
KEITH TYLER: Star San is
a good airlock as well.
Yeah.
It's being a food
grade sanitizer,
it's just a weak acid solution.
I wouldn't recommend it but
you can drink it straight
and it's not going to hurt you.
JOHN WOLFF: So they say.
KEITH TYLER: I've tried it.
DARREN BYSTRUM: And
he's still here.
KEITH TYLER: I'm still here.
It's fine and if it gets
a little bit sucked back
into your beer it's
not going to hurt you.
Whereas if you
just use tap water,
there's a chance that that tap
water can become contaminated
sitting in the airlock.
And if, then, that gets
sucked back into the beer then
you can contaminate your beer.
DARREN BYSTRUM: And now
another option as well
to keep basically auction
out, an airlock purpose,
is to use a blow off tube.
We had mentioned
before the airlock's
getting clogged with yeast.
One way-- good way
to prevent that is
if you get a larger
diameter tube
and affix it-- I
think it's, what?
A one and a half inch tube.
They tend to be pricey.
Will fit inside the
neck of a carboy.
Otherwise you can just use a
bung and a smaller diameter
tube.
Run that tube out to a
vessel of some sort that
has sanitizing solution in it.
So if that krausen
does happen to get
to the top of the
vessel, it will
blow out into your collection
airlock, I guess, vessel
and you don't have to worry
about beer on your ceiling
and cleaning up a mess.
KEITH TYLER: The best way to
avoid it-- and it's always
going to happen--
but the best way
to avoid it is to
use an appropriately
sized fermentation vessel.
Like you mentioned, 15
gallon conical fermenter.
A 10 gallon batch
is perfect for that.
You don't want to put a five
gallon batch of five gallon
glass carboy because you're
going to lose at least a
half gallon of beer into
the blow off bucket.
JOHN WOLFF: OK.
So Darren and
Keith have actually
been talking about some
misadventures of fermentation.
So let's talk now about
fermentation itself.
We've discussed--
in past weeks--
we've discussed malt,
water, and hops.
And tonight a little
bit more about hops.
The fourth ingredient
in there is yeast.
And it's just as important
as the other three.
I think the best
way to start this
would be if we go
to the PowerPoint
and we'll just walk through
some basic aspects of yeast
and fermentation.
And then we can see how that
relates to the equipment we've
been looking at here.
So if we could have the first
slide of the PowerPoint.
OK.
This is another one for the
science heads among you.
But we don't need to
worry too much about this.
What it shows is the metabolic--
in a simplified form--
is the metabolic
pathway the leads
from glucose to
ethanol or alcohol.
Which is what the
yeast actually does.
And incidentally,
most living organisms
use the same or very
similar metabolic pathway.
So we start out with
glucose, it goes
through a number of reactions.
If you just follow
the arrow leading
from glucose-- it doesn't
have to be just glucose,
it can be other sugars that
are broken down into glucose
by the action of the yeast.
And that arrow then leads down
to pyruvate, acetaldehyde,
byproduct.
CO2, and then around ethanol.
That's the primary
product of fermentation.
That's what fermentation does.
It turns sugar into ethanol with
carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
And carbon dioxide is quite
important because, of course,
that's what gives
beer it's fizz.
It's carbonation.
Some carbonation is naturally
present in all beers.
In most commercial brewing and
many home brewing operations,
we also add the--
artificially add CO2
from outside using
kegging equipment--
which we'll talk
about later-- in order
to get the beer just the
right amount of fizz,
the right amount of head.
Now, all yeasts go
through this process
shown on this PowerPoint slide.
What distinguishes one
yeast from another,
and an important part of
distinguishing one type of beer
from another, things that are
not shown on the slide, which
are byproducts.
These include chemicals
such as phenols,
[? esters, ?] higher alcohols.
And different yeasts produce
these in different degrees
as by products of fermentation.
It's quite a complex subject.
So as I said, it's
not shown here,
but the type of yeast you use
will determine the type of beer
you produce.
And the large part of
the reason for that
is the byproduct that
different yeasts produce.
For example, lager
yeasts tend to ferment--
we say they ferment quite clean
because they don't produce
very much apart from ethanol.
Ale yeasts, such as
are used for brewing
traditional British
style beers, produce
quite a lot of [? esters ?]
and sometimes higher alcohols
as well.
That adds to the
character of the beer
and gives it its
characteristic flavor.
Belgian ale yeasts
are really wile.
They produce a whole range
of these byproducts including
phenols and have
very-- produced beers
with very, very distinctive
flavor characteristics.
So let's go back to the basic
function of yeast, then.
If we could go to the second
slide, second PowerPoint slide.
It shows a yeast cell in the
act of budding or reproducing.
Like all organisms,
yeast love to reproduce
and they do so by
simple cell division.
And this takes place during the
early stages of fermentation,
or what's called
the growth stage.
As well as turning sugar
to alcohol, or actually
before they really start
turning sugar to alcohol,
during the fermentation
process yeast grow.
They reproduce.
And the yeast mass
may increase anything
from two or three times
to 10 times or more
during the course
of a fermentation.
In order to do this,
the yeast need oxygen.
And this is the
one time you want
to let air or oxygen
into the brewing process.
You don't want it
there when you're
mashing, making
your wort, you don't
want to splash the beer
around too much when you're
boiling because that
will oxidize the wort
and produce off flavors.
But yeast have got to
have some oxygen in order
to grow and prepare
themselves for fermentation.
This can be done on
the number of ways.
You can just splash
the chilled wort
as you're draining it
into the fermenter.
That's the easiest way.
So after the wort's been
chilled using the copper coil,
as it's being transferred
from one of the kettles
into the fermenter, you
can splash it around.
Another way to do it is to
just use a little aquarium
pump and a couple filters and
blow air through the beer.
A lot of people do that
using an aeration stone.
It's exactly the same
set up that aquariums
use to aerate the water for--
so the fish have something
to breathe.
More expensive option
that long-term or advanced
home brewers and many
commercial breweries use
is to actually blow pure
oxygen through the beer
to-- through the wort,
I'm sorry-- to make sure
that the yeast will have enough
oxygen with which to grow.
Also notice on this image
of yeast reproducing,
there's, on the larger,
the parent cell,
there's some-- there are
three bud scars visible.
Those are where the
yeast has split off--
budded and split off one, two,
three new cells before the one
you see growing here.
We'll come back to
that in a while.
The third PowerPoint slide.
A commercial brewery
and some home brewers
actually have a little lab
where they examine the yeast
microscopically.
And if you look at yeast and
wort under the microscope,
this is what you'll see.
And this looks like a fairly
healthy yeast population.
The yeast are round,
they're spheres or ovoids.
For most ale and lager
yeast, this is what you want.
Belgian yeast can get
a little more unusual.
What you definitely don't
want to see when you look down
a microscope is a highly
deformed yeast cells,
things like sickle cells
or even worse, rod shaped
things or tiny little dots.
Because they're not yeast.
Rods or dots are
contaminating bacteria
that you do not want
in the beer except for
certain special types of beer.
OK.
Most of home brewers don't resort
to microscopic examination.
So if we could go to the
fourth PowerPoint slide.
When you're brewing
you use yeast in one
of the forms shown here.
In the middle of the
slide, right under the home
and home brewer, is a
little-- in a dish--
is a little pile of dried yeast.
That's the type of yeast that
most home brewers use especially
when they're starting out.
And it comes in packets--
little foil packets--
with various names.
Safe Ale, Windsor, Nottingham,
and so on and so forth.
Dry yeast is very easy to use.
It's got a long shelf life.
You simply, as we discussed
last week in fact,
you just mix it up
with a little boiled
so it's sterile, warm
water to rehydrate it.
Let it sit for a few minutes
and then add it or pitch,
as we say, into the wort.
And the yeast will do the rest.
More expensive but
probably-- well,
most home brewers would
agree they make better beer.
Liquid yeasts.
They're more expensive, they
don't have such a good shelf
life.
These come in two forms.
One is in the tube on the
right hand side of the slide.
This is produced by a
company called White Labs.
It's a tube full
of liquid yeast.
And you just take
the cap off the tube
and pour it into the beer.
The other one named
Activator, that's
actually a very large
foil pack about six
or eight inches in size.
That's a little more elaborate.
It actually has two
compartments inside it, which
is liquid yeast and a nutrient.
What you do is you
smack the pack--
it's called a smack pack--
to break that partition.
That mixes the liquid
yeast with the nutrient
and you wait until
the pack begins
to swell up indicating
activity and then
pour it into your beer.
All of these methods
work quite well.
The Activator packs are made
by a company called Wyeast.
And both they and White
Labs have literally dozens
of yeast available for any
conceivable style of beer
that you want to brew.
The next slide.
If everything goes smoothly and
you've done everything right
and you've used one of these
transparent carboys-- which
are down in front of me here
which Darren demonstrated
a few minutes ago-- after
about 36 to 48 hours
your beer should look like this.
It's got a thick
foam head on the top.
And that state is called
high krausen, krausen
being a German word,
and it just describes
the high standard foam on
the top of a fermenting wort.
That foam consists of
fermenting beer and yeast cells.
The amount of yeast
in it actually
depends on the type of yeast.
But that's kind of a detail.
This is the stage that, if
it's not managed correctly,
can lead to explosions
if you don't
have a decent-- a good
way of venting the gas.
And remember, on an
earlier PowerPoint slide,
we saw that the
yeast produced CO2.
That's the source of
the excess pressure.
That's the gas that's produced.
Plain old carbon dioxide.
After a few days,
that head will subside
and the beer fermentation
rate-- because it is beer now,
it's not wort anymore--
will slow down.
But things are not over yet.
If we could go to the next
PowerPoint slide, number six.
There's a little chart
here and the blue hump
shows the activity.
The early stage in the yeast
growth and fermentation cycle,
labeled aerobic in the top
left and corner, that's
when the yeast is
using oxygen and that's
when the yeast is growing.
And then the big
blue hump called
krausen, that's when most of the
fermentation is taking place.
That's when you get
big foam head seen
in the previous slide.
That stage is usually
over after a few days,
but you can see on
the PowerPoint slide
there's long tail off
of activity for a week
or even up to two weeks
while the yeast is still
slowly fermenting.
The length of that tail
depends on the yeast again,
the strength of the beer, the
type of beer, the temperature.
Those are the principal factors.
In general, you don't want
to drink just about any kind
of beer before it's--
before about two weeks.
Three weeks is really a minimum.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Not for
health reasons but for flavor.
JOHN WOLFF: For flavor.
Yeah.
That's right.
And when the yeast has reached
the end of its life cycle,
the individual yeast cells
can do one of two things.
The very old cells that have
budded off so many offspring,
as it were, that their
entire surface is
covered with bud scars, die.
They can't reproduce
anymore and they simply die.
Most yeast cells, however-- this
is the final PowerPoint slide
now, number seven-- are
like the one on the left
without bud scars or
without many bud scars,
when there's no more
sugar for them to chew on,
they just go dormant.
In either case,
the yeast settles
to the bottom of the fermenter.
In the case of
the glass carboys,
it should form an even coat
over the base of the carboy.
In the case of the conical
fermenter that Darren
demonstrated a few
minutes ago, the yeast
collects in the
bottom of that cone
where it's easily separated
from the fermenting beer.
In fact, many
commercial breweries
use a larger version of
that conical fermenter
and that's how they capture,
recycle, and reuse their yeast.
They just drain
it out of the cone
and pitch it into
the next batch.
No matter what you're
using, you want
to remove the beer from the
yeast after one to two weeks
and store it in
another container.
You can put it in another
carboy if you want to let it
age some more before
bottling or kegging it.
Or you can transfer it
straight to a keg or bottle.
Keith, you want to say a
little more about that?
KEITH TYLER: Sure.
So once your beer
is done and assuming
that you don't want to go
into a secondary fermentation
or long term aging,
once you're ready to get
your beer ready to drink, you
have two-- mainly two options--
of storage.
The standard bottle.
This is just a 22
ounce plain bottle.
Use about, for a five
gallon batch, 29 of these.
You can use 12 ounce
bottles as well.
I like to use the
22's because you only
have to be about half as many.
You can transfer
your finished beer
into a bottling bucket
which we don't have here
but it looks very similar
to this other bucket
but it has a plastic
spigot attached that you
can attach a bottle filler to.
Fill the bottle, put a cap
on the bottle, and cap it.
This is just a standing capper.
That's just really nice
because you can just
use it on a bench or
a table, adjust it
to various types of the
bottles that you're using,
pull the lever, and it caps.
Another option,
and a lot of these
come with a beginning
home brewer kits,
is just called a wing capper.
Same basic principle but
put your cap on the bottle--
maybe-- put the bell
of the capper over
and just close the
wings down like that.
If you're bottling straight
from your finished beer,
you're going to want to
add some priming sugar.
Remember that
fermentation is complete,
the fermentable sugar is either
gone or reached its limit
with the yeast, so
you're going to want
to add a little bit
of-- a measured amount
of fermentable sugar to actually
produce more CO2 in the bottle,
build up pressure inside,
and allow it to redissolve
to carbonate the beer.
I think the general
rule of thumb
is about four ounces of
corn sugar or dextrose
in about eight to
16 ounces of water.
Bring it to a boil, let it
cool down to room temperature
with the lid on the pot to keep
any microbes from entering,
pour it into your
bottling bucket
and siphon your
beer on top of that.
If, on the other
hand, you decide
to get into kegging which I
greatly prefer-- I actually
use bottles if there's anything
that I want to age long term
and I don't want to tie up a
keg for a year, year and a half,
I'll go with the bottles.
But otherwise,
these Cornelius kegs
which are old basically soda
kegs that are no longer used--
they're getting
harder and harder
to find if they're used-- but
you can buy them new as well.
You can simply just rack
your beer right into here,
connect it to your
Kegerator, and carbonate
it-- force carbonate
it-- with a CO2 bottle.
You can also use this
as a giant bottle.
Put your priming
sugar inside, let
it sit at room temperature
for about three weeks,
and you'll have carbonated beer.
You will have a little bit
of sediment on the bottom
if you naturally carbonate.
But once you put it in your
ferment-- your Kegerator,
actually-- let it settle
out for a couple days
at serving temperature and pull
the first pint of slurry off,
the rest will be pretty clear.
JOHN WOLFF: There are many
health benefits to drinking
the slurry, however.
Yeast is good for you.
KEITH TYLER: Yeah.
But will take some
use-- getting used to.
Could cause some
gastrointestinal distress
otherwise.
JOHN WOLFF: I've
got here a couple
of the types of different
container that yeast comes in.
The one thing I didn't mention
is that a lot of home brewers
get into exotic beer
styles after a while
and they may use more
than one type of yeast,
or even more than
one type of organism.
And when you add that
depends on the type of beer
you're trying to make.
You can add it during
the primary fermentation
or you can add it during
maturing and storage in a keg
such as Keith described.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Additionally,
through the maturation process
of the beer, you have some
options to add some more
flavors if you want.
You can always add more hops
in a method called dry hopping.
Traditional English
breweries tend to do that.
That's where it started and most
American home brewers these days
will continue to do so.
Alternatively, if you have a
number of yeasts in your beer
and you want a very
clear beer, say
the yeast is not settling
out that well, you
can use what's called an
eisenglass, which is--
well, fish bellies, isn't it?
KEITH TYLER: Yeah.
It's basically powdered
swim bladder of Sturgeon.
DARREN BYSTRUM: And so the yeast
will bind with this powder,
it'll form almost a layer
on top and fall out.
Another option is
plain old gelatin
you can get that you'd use for
Jell-O. Traditionally you can
that at the store.
That will form a film on top
that will settle out over time.
And then you'll definitely want
to rack off of both eisenglass
and gelatin and dry
hops into another vessel
so that you're not
going to be drinking
that particular concoction.
KEITH TYLER: One
important distinction
to make with the finings
that we're talking about
is, there's basically,
well, two large categories.
There's the kettle finings
which are the super mosh,
Irish moss, Whirlfloc tablets.
Those are the ones that
you add during the boil
and they help precipitate a
lot of the excess proteins
and other material in
the wort at that point.
The eisenglass or gelatin
are used post fermentation.
They're not going to be any
good in the boil kettle.
And, actually, I
don't even know what
it would do in the boil kettle.
But it would be a fining.
But those are used more to drop
out yeast and chill [? haze. ?]
Other things that
haven't-- other byproducts
of fermentation, things that
haven't precipitated out
already.
DARREN BYSTRUM: With
enough gelatin in the boil
you could make agar.
KEITH TYLER: That's true.
DARREN BYSTRUM: That wouldn't
make you any beer so--
KEITH TYLER: You could make
a nice yeast starter plate.
JOHN WOLFF: One thing to keep
an eye on, or-- actually,
let me back up a little.
Even-- it helps to understand
that even brilliantly clear
beer, if it's a
craft product, still
has quite a lot of yeast in it.
I forget how many thousands
or tens of thousands
of cells per milliliter but--
DARREN BYSTRUM: I think
Sierra Nevada naturally
carbonates in their
bottles and they
aim for about 100,000
cells, I think,
when they're bottling
to carbonate.
So it's, by all accounts,
not very much in the way
that yeast goes.
But there's some in there.
KEITH TYLER: Unless
it's a filtered beer
there's going to be plenty
of yeast to carbonate.
And even if you're lagering
for a long period of time--
I've had beers that I've
lagered for six plus months
and then carbonated naturally
with no trouble-- it
may take longer to
do so, generally
about a three week process.
And I think, some of those
longer lagers that I've had,
it took up to eight
weeks to carbonate.
But there's still-- there should
be enough activity unless it's
a super high alcohol beer
that's going to kill off
the yeast with the alcohol.
JOHN WOLFF: And
so what this tells
you is that during storage your
beer is changing all the time.
It's really worthwhile if
you can have the willpower
to just make a batch of
beer and drink maybe one
bottle every week or every
two weeks until it's gone
and see how it changes.
One thing to pay attention
to, and this is maybe
a finer point, but
if you want to brew
authentic styles of beer
from different countries,
it's very important to keep an
eye on the carbonation level.
So for example,
English cask ales
have a very low
level of carbonation.
American are also
typically a bit higher,
German lagers a little
bit higher still,
and some Belgian beers are
very, very highly carbonated.
Almost as much as a soda.
You do this by
adjusting either the,
if you have a artificial
carbonation set up--
a gas bottle and a keg-- you
can simply do this by adjusting
the pressure on the keg.
If you do it with natural
carbonation in the bottle
by adding sugar, it's a little
bit more of an art form.
You've got to be very careful
of the amount of sugar you add.
You don't want an over
carbonated English ale
and you don't want an under
carbonated Belgian tripel
or a hefeweizen I guess.
That's another very, very
highly carbonated beer.
KEITH TYLER: And
if you're naturally
carbonating in the
bottle, you definitely
want to pay attention to
the higher carbonated beers
and what kind of
bottle you're using.
These standard glass bottles
of 12 and 22 ounce bottles
will-- I think they're rated
to about three volumes.
JOHN WOLFF: Something like that.
KEITH TYLER: Which covers
most styles of beer.
But if you're talking a
Belgian beer with 3.2 or up
to four volumes
in some cases, you
want to go with a thicker
glass like a champagne bottle.
There are specific,
well, obviously,
Belgian ale bottles that'll
take a cork and cage instead
of a cap.
Those are rated to withstand
the high pressures needed
to carbonate those beers.
And I wouldn't use
these for those styles.
JOHN WOLFF: One question
that's often asked
is, how long does it
take the beer to mature?
And that really depends
on the type of beer.
Some types of beer, I
guess some English ales
such as bitter
ales, session beers,
can be drunk as soon as three
weeks or so after brewing.
Other beers can
literally age for years.
That's especially
true of strong beers
such as barley wine, old ale.
And it's also true of
certain special beers that
require long aging on wood.
German lagers and--
well, and American lagers
for that matter-- should be kept
at near freezing temperatures
for at least two months.
That's what word lager means.
It means to store.
And they don't develop their
proper characteristics,
a nice, smooth sensation on
the pallet as you drink it,
until they have
been, in fact, stored
near freezing temperatures
for that length of time.
Should we take
some questions now?
CASSIE: So one of
them was, is there
a difference between baker's
yeast and brewing yeast?
JOHN WOLFF: Oh, yeah.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Well,
technically, they're
both saccharomyces cerevisiae.
So the same genus of yeast.
We had actually a
former hops member
do an experiment with this and
he fermented a sample of beer
with baker's yeast.
And it did produce
a rather clean beer.
If you're going for
a particular style,
though, you're going to want to
move towards something that's
made for a particular beer.
And so something like an English
strain or a Belgian strain
is going to be more
useful for that.
KEITH TYLER: Like John said,
the differences in the yeast
come from the
byproducts of the yeast.
So the flavor components,
the phenols, esters,
any other compounds, the
level of attenuation,
flocculation, there's a lot
of the small differences
in the yeast that really make
big differences in the kind
of beer you end up with.
JOHN WOLFF: If you
want to save money,
it's really just not
worth using baker's yeast.
There's no point.
This dried yeast
is really cheap.
I don't know.
What do these cost?
DARREN BYSTRUM: Three bucks.
KEITH TYLER: $2.50, three bucks.
JOHN WOLFF: Yeah.
Three bucks.
You're talking five gallons
of beer or 10 gallons of beer.
It's just not worth saving a
few pennies here and there.
KEITH TYLER: If you really
want to save money on yeast,
you can reuse your
yeast batch over batch.
Like the professionals
do, you can pull out yeast
for using a conical fermenter.
If you're using a
carboy, there are
ways to, after you
siphon your beer off
to bottle or keg, the trub,
and the crud on the bottom
can be washed and re measured
for use in a later batch.
Usually the shelf life
on those reused yeast
is pretty short so you want to
use it within a week or two.
But it is doable.
CASSIE: Another question.
Do you guys have
any recommendations
to replace for gluten
free beer for someone
with wheat allergies?
DARREN BYSTRUM: Well,
options are certainly--
sorghum syrup is one of
the more popular ones.
Millet, quinoa I
think you can use.
KEITH TYLER: Yeah.
Quinoa.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Personally,
I haven't made any, though.
You guys have any experience?
KEITH TYLER: Cider.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Yeah.
Cider.
KEITH TYLER: Hard cider.
JOHN WOLFF: Cider.
Yeah.
Also there's an enzyme
now on the market
available to home brewers
that you can add to the mash
I think that removes
most of the gluten.
Some commercial brewers
are using it-- I
forget the name of the
brewery but it's here
in the Northwest-- they
make-- it's regular beer,
it's brewed with barley,
but it is gluten free
at least by the EPA definition.
KEITH TYLER: Find filtration
will help as well.
JOHN WOLFF: Or the FDA
definition, I should say.
Yeah.
KEITH TYLER: But,
generally-- and this
is not medical advice--
but the levels of gluten
in a beer in parts per
million, it varies beer to beer
obviously.
A hefeweizen is going to be
much higher than some others.
But it's a very low
amount that tends
to be lower than the
threshold of someone who's
gluten intolerant.
Although there are
certainly people
who are more sensitive
to it than others.
CASSIE: And one last question.
How would you incorporate
different flavors
into the beer such
as orange or cucumber
as you might see in the store,
those different flavors?
JOHN WOLFF: Cucumber?
KEITH TYLER: That's a new one.
DARREN BYSTRUM: If
you're going to do, say,
use spice additions
or-- orange zest
you can add during the
boil, spice additions
you can't add during the boil.
Personally, I find you
get a much nicer flavor
and you retain some of those
aromatics of the spices
or whatever additive or adjunct
you're adding to the beer,
by adding it either after
the primary fermentation--
so as a secondary storage
[? or what would ?] be
your secondary fermentation--
or just lagering.
KEITH TYLER: Yeah.
There are a lot of-- I mean,
the best way to figure out
the flavor profile you like
is to play around with it.
But you can add
it during the boil
or after the boil, pre
fermentation or post
fermentation.
A lot of the, like you said,
a lot of the oils and flavor
and aroma compounds are
going to be pretty volatile.
So heat from the boil tend
to drive a lot of them
off pretty quickly.
A lot of citrus oils
are very volatile.
And not only that, but if you
put it in pre fermentation,
the yeast tends to,
in my experience,
metabolize a lot
of those as well.
And it can produce
an off flavor.
In my experience,
it more than often
just does away with the flavors
or aroma that you're going for.
JOHN WOLFF: There are many,
many additives that can be used.
Spices, dried fruit, fresh
fruit, herbs, the list
is almost endless.
Some of them work better
than others, of course.
Again, the many
traditional continental
European, especially Belgian,
beer style's use fruit.
Raspberries, especially,
blackberries, peach, cherries.
All of these are used
in Belgian beers.
In other types of
beer, coriander
is used again quite a bit
by Belgians, orange peel,
and so on and so forth.
Christmas ales, I guess
originated in the UK
but are very popular
in the US now,
seasonal ales, often use
of spices such as cloves,
cinnamon, allspice, I guess what
you'd call pie spices or cake
spices.
And then, of course, there's
the infamous pumpkin ale.
The pumpkin doesn't-- if you've
seen recipes for pumpkin ale,
the pumpkin doesn't
add any flavor at all.
It's all in the pumpkin spices.
KEITH TYLER: I would
recommend that whatever flavor
you're going for, use the
actual food or spice rather than
an extract.
The extracts tend to be
give it an off flavor
and it can be chemical
or harsh or just not
exactly what you're going for.
You tend to get much
higher quality, flavor,
aroma with the actual food.
JOHN WOLFF: Did you guys
want to talk about wood
at all or [INAUDIBLE]?
DARREN BYSTRUM: Another time.
KEITH TYLER: Unless we
have questions on sour.
CASSIE: I don't have any other
questions so any last comments
or things you guys want to add?
KEITH TYLER: Thanks, everybody,
for coming and watching
the webinar.
Hopefully we helped out and
got you moving on your path
towards being a
great home brewer.
JOHN WOLFF: And don't forget
the hops websites and Facebook
page.
Feel free to post
questions there
and we'll do our
best to answer them.
CASSIE: Great.
Well, that concludes
our event tonight.
Thank you guys for coming and
be on the lookout for more
Global Connection events.
JOHN WOLFF: Because
it's fulfilling
and personally rewarding.
Man, I love beer.
It's like any
other creative act.
You're making your own thing.
An artist probably
feels the same way.
It's something
you've done yourself,
from your own resources,
your own knowledge and skill.
And if the results are
good, you give yourself
a pat on the back.
If the results are
bad, you, I guess, deal
with their depression
by drinking it away.
Most difficult is that it's-- if
you're doing the brewing as we
are here-- what we're
doing here is in micro,
what any commercial
brewery would do.
And it's a little
bit time consuming.
For the hobbyist
there is a shortcut
that we'll explain
here pretty soon that
involves the use of a
substance called malt extract.
What we've done
up to this point,
in fact, is just
made malt extract.
Yeah.
It's the time involved
that's probably
the most difficult part.
But it's-- if you get a
good product it's worth it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
The worst beers-- for most
home brewers, the worst brewing
experience is when a batch gets
infected with microorganisms
that you don't want.
And that can result in
just undrinkable beer.
So you pour it out.
I've had that
happen a few times.
The best experience is
when you brew a beer
that you know is world class.
You know, I don't
really have a favorite.
I like pretty much all beer
except maybe some dodgy fruit
beers.
My favorite style
of beer to drink
is English bitter like we're
brewing here at the moment,
and dark beers such as
porter, stout, and Munich
dunkel and bock.
DARREN BYSTRUM: Yes.
I brew because it's intriguing,
there's a lot going on,
there's good friends to be
had, and at the very end
you have something to
drink and share and enjoy.
What I enjoy most
about home brewing?
It's a phenomenal mixture
of both art and science.
You have the creative
side of things
where you try and idealize
what your beer is going to be.
And at the same time, there's
the science behind it.
There's a number of
factors, chemistry, biology,
that take a huge part
into making a good beer.
And trying to get everything
together to make it excellent
is a lot of work.
It can be a lot of work.
For instance, stopping by
here, hauling our equipment,
there's a lot of
manual labor involved.
The bigger breweries that
do it professionally,
having everything in place
makes it a lot simpler.
And someday putting either a
home system that's in one place
or brewing professionally
would be a lot of fun.
Advice I would give
to beginning brewers.
Try and keep it simple.
There's so many
things you can find
an the internet, so much
information, so many books
to read.
But what it comes
down to is just
paying attention to the various
things such as temperature.
Just paying attention
temperature both in your mash--
if you happen to be all grain--
or if you start extract just
at the very end of things,
fermentation temperature
is going can make a world of
difference in a good beer.
And from there you can research
and go into something much more
elaborate and take
it from there.
I originally got
started, a roommate
had a Mr. Beer kit some
eight or nine years ago
that made terrible beer.
And I remember thinking,
I can do better than this.
And so I ended up researching
for awhile and decided,
yeah, this is going
to be a lot of fun.
And eight years later,
yeah, it's still blast,
it's still enjoyable and I can't
imagine having a better hobby.
KEITH TYLER: There's
a lot of things
I like about home brewing.
As they've said, I enjoy the
science of it, the art of it.
There's always
something new to brew.
You never get bored doing it.
I've found it's something that's
just-- there's always something
new to learn, new
processes to check out,
and it's just a lot
of fun all around.
My favorite part
about brewing is just
learning new things every time.
There's a lot of
literature out there,
there's a lot of other
experienced people--
and that's actually one of
the best parts about brewing
is just the camaraderie of
the home brewing community.
There's always people out
there willing to help,
willing to come by and
drink a beer with you
and show you some new things.
The worst part about home brewing
is not having the space
to keep expanding your hobby.
You can spend as much
money, get as much equipment
as you want to do whatever
you want to do with the hobby,
but constraints are
usually space and money.
And it can get expensive.
This is slightly embarrassing.
Three years down the road now,
but I got started with brewing
because I wanted to
clone a Mac & Jack's.
Looking back on that
now, that may not
have been the best
one to try and clone,
and I haven't done
it since, but not
being able to get
Mac & Jack's at home
or in a bottle, at the
time, was how I got started.
NICHOLAS CRABB: Because it's
the hobby that never ends.
You can learn as much as you
can about any kind of hobby,
but you're never going to stop
learning about home brewing.
Every person that
I come in contact
with about home brewing always
sheds new light on the subject.
And it's like this ever evolving
hobby that just never ends.
What I like most
about home brewing
is being able to step back
once the product's done,
once we're done brewing
and it's done carbonating
and conditioning,
and you get to reap--
you get to reap the benefits of
your [? sewing ?] or whatever.
The hardest part is
definitely sanitation.
Making sure that everything
is as clean as you can get it
is the key to
making a good beer.
And it's also the hardest
part because infections
are the worst part
of brewing a beer.
Don't get discouraged.
I made a bunch of really
undrinkable beers.
I've thrown out some batches
when I first started.
And not giving up hope.
It's a learning process and
the best thing that you can do
is just power through
those, I guess
they would be the equivalent
of like a C on a test
or a D on a test.
You keep working and
then you'll get the A.
How did I get started?
A friend of mine
showed up with a kit
and was like, hey, we're
going to brew some beer.
And I said, well, I've
got nothing better
to do today so let's do it.
And it snowballed from there.
It's a hobby that snowballs.
Once you get started, it's--
you're a brewer after it
starts.
