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Brewing beer starts with a few key ingredients--water, grain, hops, and yeast. Knowing how each of these ingredients is used can greatly increase your brewing efficiency and the flavor imparted into your final beer. Just like in cooking, sometimes creations come out amazing and sometimes you need to ditch what you made and order a pizza! The truth is that you can make the same recipe as someone else and have things taste totally different. Ever try to make your grandma's famous apple pie or lasagna recipe? You followed the recipe and it just fell short. Brewing is like that as well...the more you learn and brew, the more you dial in the best way to use ingredients to amplify the flavors you want to shine. This blog entry covers ingredients at an introductory level as you can spend a lifetime learning about each ingredient used in beer and the best way to use each ingredient. Therefore, advanced brewers will want to continue to study more about each ingredient and process in beer making to continue to develop their craft.
 Beer starts with water. Good water makes good beer; great water makes great beer! However, when you get started brewing, I'd highly recommend keeping things simple. At 2JBC, we use RO (reverse osmosis) water and then add in adjuncts to create a specific water profile. DO NOT START WITH THIS! Start simple and work on water profiles AFTER you feel comfortable brewing. There will be plenty of time for this later. Before you worry about adding in various salts and minerals, you need to fully understand what the purpose of water is in your brew and why you would want to add each salt or mineral. What are you enhancing? The time to worry about water profiles is once you fully feel comfortable with your brew process, and you feel something is missing from your beer. In the beginning, I'd recommend Spring Water. Water effects beer in a few ways. This is where the science and chemistry of brewing come in to place. Water can effect the pH of your beer, how you taste the flavors in your beer, and provide off-flavors from water contaminants. Now, you don't need a degree in chemistry or even need to remember everything about atoms and ions. Just remember that beer likes harder water. Hard water has a lot of calcium and magnesium in it. The mineral composition of your water will make a huge difference in how you taste your beer. The grains (we'll talk about those below) like a specific pH. Have a higher pH and your beer will taste dull while lower pH will make your beer lose its complexity. In a nutshell, the amount of magnesium, calcium, and salts added to your beer will greatly change the final outcome of your beer. However, many a brewer never messes around with water profile. Just don't discount the type of water you are using when analyzing the taste of your beer. For example, if you are brewing an IPA or hoppy beer, add gypsum (calcium sulfate) to accentuate the bitterness. Brewing a brown, add in some calcium chloride to make your beer a bit sweeter. However, when starting out begin with your tap or spring water and add in any water additives for the second batch. GRains The flavor and color of your beer largely comes from the grains. The goal of brewing is to steep the grains to extract the sugars the yeast will turn into alcohol when fermenting. Also, the protein in grains provides the cloudiness, mouthfeel, and head retention of your beer. Beyond simply adding fermentable sugars, specialty grains can add flavor in your beer such as toasty, toffee, bread, coffee, or chocolate. When brewing, the grains are crushed in a grain mill and soaked in water (typically, 145-155 degree water) to extract the sugars from the grain. If you are extract brewing (where you may want to start), you use malt extract for fermentable sugars and add in some specialty grain for color and flavor only. For all grain brewing, you extract the fermentable sugars from the grain without using malt extract. There is also partial mash brewing where you do a combination of grains and extract. Base malts make up the bulk of what is fermentable in beer and can compose from 60-100% of your grain bill. Typical base malts are Pale, Munich, Marris Otter, or Pilsner malts. These typically are light in color and work well in a variety of beer styles from lagers to IPAs and ambers to browns. Crystal malts are very common in homebrewing and provide color and sweetness to your beer. These grains are roasted and given a rating based on their color. For example, Crystal malt 20L is lightly orange and mildly flavored with a hint of toffee while Crystal malt 100L is very dark in color and has a very high caramel flavor. Typically, a combination of crystal malts is used to give variety and impart color and flavor. Flaked oats, barley, wheat, and flaked rice are added to provide complexity and mouthfeel. Flaked barley, for example, provides a creamy texture while flaked rice provides for crispness and dryness. Flaked oats provide the distinctive oat flavor in a stout while wheat provides the flavor in a hefeweizen. Roasted grains can provide dark coloring to beer and typically add in a coffee or chocolate flavor. Roasted grains give porters and stouts their deep color and flavor. A little goes a long way. Too much of a coffee flavor can make your beer taste bitter. Another factor with grains is the mash pH. Most of what I have read on mash pH suggests keeping the mash within a pH range of 5.2-5.6. Controlling mash pH can help dial in recipes and maximize your beer's flavor. Typically, pale beers benefit from a lower pH while darker beers benefit from a higher pH. Keeping your mash at the optimal pH allows you to convert all of the starches in the grain and can even enhance the flavor of your hops. At the end of the day, a balanced grain bill produces a good beer. Keeping track of the temperature you are steeping your grains at can ensure you extract all of the fermentable sugars you will need to produce alcohol. Further, if you steep at too high of a temperature, you may create off flavors in your beer. Just think of how over or under cooking rice or pasta effects the final pasta you eat. Grains are much the same way...too hot or too cold of steeping temperature, and your mash can ruin your fermented beer. Hops Hops are added for a variety of purposes into beer and provide flavor, bitterness, and aroma. Brewers add hops in the mash, boil, whirlpool (if using one), or after fermentation (dry hopping). Hops, like their cannabis cousin, are cone shaped flowers from the female hop bines (yes, it is bine with a B) that have a sticky resin called lupulin. Lupulin is a yellow gland that holds hop acids and essential oils used to add flavor to your beer. The bitterness of hops is based on the International Bitttering Units or IBU composition. The higher the IBUs, the more bitter the hops; the lower the IBUs, the less bitter the hops. However, hops do not only add bitterness to beer. If you've ever walked by a hop bine, you know that the aroma from hops is wonderful. Add hops at the end of your boil time, and that aroma will permeate throughout your beer. Looking to add a lot of bitterness to your beer? Add high IBU hops at the beginning of your boil (typically at the 60 minute mark). Want a more rounded hop flavor? Add your hops at varying times throughout the boil for a full body hop flavor. Hops can also add flavor without bitterness to your beer. The timing and use of hops is dependent upon what you are trying to add to your overall final beer profile--flavor, bitterness, aroma, or a combination of all three. Hops also come in a variety of forms--pellets, leaf, oil, and extract. Most home brewers typically use pellet hops which are hop flowers that have been dried and compressed. When measuring hops, brewers typically need a scale and measure hops by the ounce. There are thousands of varieties of hops, so I'd recommend looking at what hops are added into beers that you love drinking. When we made our first beer from a kit, I had no idea why we were adding specific hops beyond it saying to do so in the recipe. Now, I can drink a beer and realize if the hop is one I like or don't. The next time you drink a beer, look for the label (on the can or posted at a brewery) that states what hops are in the beers, and you might notice a pattern of what hops you like or don't like. Also, if you are not a huge fan of IPAs but like a hoppy pale ale, start paying attention to the IBUs listed for the beer. Taste can be very different from one person to another. Mike will often describe a beer as sweet when I find it earthy; he describes IPAs as dank where I tend to pick out the grain profile more. Every beer drinker has their own preference of flavors. The more you start to recognize patterns of what you like, the more you will find yourself being able to create your own recipes that start with ingredients you know will match well together. Also, you might start to realize the "off flavor" in a beer you can't put your finger on, could be from a hop variety. There are several hops that I have tasted in a beer that I just did not like the smell and/or flavor of...this is perfectly fine. The beauty of brewing is there really is an endless variety of flavors and hops to choose from to satisfy everyone's flavor preferences.
 If you want alcohol, you care about yeast! Just like with baking bread, different yeast strains react differently and need the optimal environment to thrive. Get your yeast too hot, and it dies. Don't get it hot enough, the yeast will stay dormant. Give yeast the right environment, and it will turn the sugary wort you collected from the grains into alcohol, provide carbonation, and help impart some flavor into your beer. The two types of yeast most commonly used are lager yeast and ale yeast. Lager yeast ferments on the bottom, meaning that the yeast sits on the bottom of your fermenter while it ferments. The optimal temperature for lager yeast is between 48-58 degrees . Ale yeast ferments on the top, meaning the yeast floats to the top while it is eating. Also, ale yeast ferments at a higher temperature than lager yeast, between 50-70 degrees. Homebrewers have many options for getting yeast in beer. Most homebrew shops carry dry yeast, yeast smack packs, and liquid yeast. Dry yeast comes in a packet much like Fleishmann's yeast envelopes you can buy at the store for bread. Smack pack yeast is a liquid yeast in a pouch reminiscent of the instant food pouches used for hiking. Inside the smack pack is a smaller envelope that you smack to break open some yeast nutrient. Once the smack pack is opened, the pouch will swell and is ready to use. With liquid packs, the yeast is in suspension with yeast nutrients. Typically, homebrewers using liquid yeast will make a small yeast starter to wake up the yeast and ensure the yeast will be viable in their brews. Obviously, there is more involved with yeast. I'd recommend starting with dry yeast and then trying other yeast options later. For one, dry yeast is cheaper to use and rarely fails. We still use dry yeast and recommend that every homebrewer have a stock of dry yeast available for use...it comes in handy! There is more to learn about each ingredient, but I hope this has provided you with some beginning understanding. Next week, we'll go through how we mash our grains at Two Jacks Brewing Company.
Cheers! 2JBC
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When Mike and I started brewing, I didn't know anything about the process. Mike had brewed beer in the past a few times with his roommate. However, the truth is that Mike drank beer while his roommate brewed it. Needless to say, we both had a lot to learn about the process. I had no idea when I bought a beginner brew kit as a gift for Mike that we would have an entire garage brewery that includes glychol chillers and 12 taps. My point being that everyone starts somewhere, and it can be overwhelming to see people's fancy setups. Don't worry! Most people start with plastic buckets and an extract kit. Our blogs this year will show our current brew process, but I hope you remember that there are different techniques, different systems, and different styles of brewing. Go with your comfort level and have fun! How we got started: We started Two Jacks by brewing with a cheap kit that included 2 plastic buckets, bottles, bottle caps, priming sugar, sanitizer, an extract kit, and a large pot. We made our first beer in our kitchen which turned into a hot mess as the wort bubbled and boiled over. It took me an hour to clean up the sticky mess. My point being that you will stumble along the way, you will make mistakes, and you will be shocked at how far your brewing can come in a short amount of time. In the last 8 years, we have gone from plastic buckets to glass carboys to stainless steel fermenters. We have moved from making 5 gallon batches to 25 gallon batches. We have gone from brewing other people's recipes to creating our own. Currently, we are hoping to update our brewery to include a grain mill and yeast collection (we are short on space, though). Getting Started: My suggestion would be to start with extract brewing. Here are a few tips: 1) Buy a home brewing kit; 2) Take a class at a local homebrew shop; 3) Watch a friend brew and join them on brew day!; 4) Start small, especially if you have no experience; 5) Don't be intimidated; 6) Have fun! It can be overwhelming to see fancy equipment and advanced brewing processes when you are getting started. Don't worry about it. The most advanced and award winning homebrewer started out not knowing anything as well. There are tons of blogs and videos related to questions brewers have. As a teacher, I always approach everything with the mentality that I can always learn and improve. Mike and I learned through videos and trial and error. We have developed our brewing process over the past 8 years and adjust things after each brewing process or whenever we feel we need to update our system. That's part of the journey. So, try brewing...enjoy the process!
 A basic homebrew starter kit starts at around $70. The one pictured is from morebeer.com. I would post a picture of our old plastic bucket setup, but we no longer have the buckets. We did repurpose them in the brewhouse for cleaning after we upgraded, but the buckets eventually wore out. With this particular kit, you will also need to purchase bottles, caps, a boil kettle, and an ingredient kit. Most companies make more elaborate kits that include everything; just read what is included and stay within your comfortable budget range. Another great place to start is your local homebrew store. We shop at Windsor Homebrewing Supply in Costa Mesa (they also have an Anaheim location). They have a complete starter bundle that includes everything you need to get started and a ticket to their beginner's class. The package is currently $200. We like Windsor Homebrew because the owner, Scott, is a super cool dude, and all of his employees are very knowledgeable. We have picked up quite a few tips from his shop and appreciate how many questions he has answered for us over the years.
Our current brewing system: Fermenters and Beer Garden Cheers!
2JBC It's been awhile...but, Covid has really given us a drive to brew more beer and perfect our craft. Mike and I love to carouse and miss spending quality time with our friends and family enjoying laughs, beers, and stories. So, here's a start to us blogging more and explaining the brewing process we love so much.
The BASICS: There are really only two types of brewing--extract and all grain. All grain brewing is more advanced and allows brewers to be more creative with their recipes. Essentially, the brewer extracts sugar from the grains which produces a liquid called wort. The wort is then separated from the grain bed (called lautering) and boiled. Hops are added at various times in the boil for flavor and/or aroma. Extract brewing involves purchasing extract which is concentrated wort. Basically, a company has already extracted the sugars from the grains and concentrated the liquid. An extract brewer adds water to the extract, boils the liquid, and add hops. Within these two types of brewing are various brewing styles. At 2JBC, we are all grain brewers; we create our own recipes and use a 3 burner propane system with a RIMS tube (more on that in a future blog). Our brewing process involves the use of 3 large 50 gallon pots (or kettles)--a Hot Liquor Tank (heats water), a mash tun (for steeping the grains), and a boil kettle. Our general brew day has only a few steps: 1) Prepare your ingredients and equipment. 2) Brew (Hot Side)--steep grains, boil, and add hops. 3) Ferment (Cool Side)--chill the hot liquid, add yeast, dry hop. 4) Kegging--transfer from fermenter to keg, tap the keg, and drink. Obviously, this is a very oversimplified list of steps, and our actual process is much more involved. But, you have to start somewhere, right? Besides, the teacher in me doesn't want to overwhelm anyone with too much information at one time. Some Brew Vocabulary: Mash Tun--a large pot that grains are steeped in to extract fermentable sugars; the process of extracting sugars from the grain is called mashing. Hot Liquor Tank--liquor in this case means water, so the HLT is a large pot that heats up water Strike Water--heated water you add to the grains to extract the sugar Wort--the liquid extracted from mashing (i.e., sweet liquid with fermentable sugars) Lautering--separating the extracted liquid with fermentable sugars from the grain bed Wort Chiller--used to cool down the hot wort to a lower temperature so that you can pitch yeast. If the temp is too high, you will kill the yeast. If the temp is too low, the yeast will be sluggish. Fermenter--the vessel you put the chilled wort and pitch the yeast; this is where the liquid changes from wort to beer (i.e., alcohol). Keezer--a freezer turned into a kegerator to serve beer out of. Next week's blog--a walk through of what we do on a typical brew day (hot side). This will have pictures, an explanation of the steps, and a breakdown of the equipment we use. Happy Brewing! :) |
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May 2024
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