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One thing that is standard about geeks, is that they are pretty sure they can do anything better then it is currently being done.  For me personally, I try to bring that level of confidence, or arrogance depending on who you talk to, to most activities I get involved in.

One thing I have never tampered with is Beer.   Beer is very special to me, and I treat it like many people treat wine.  I am a beer snob, I don’t drink cheap beer (cheap in quality that is) and refuse to touch a Coors or Budweiser.   I have toured breweries in England, and the US and can tell you the best beers to drink with various foods and what type of glass you should be drinking your beer from.  I have always wanted to make beer, but have always been afraid to try, because I think that skunking a batch of beer would make me die a little inside.

So, when a buddy of mine told me that we had the opportunity to learn brewing from a brew master, I was excited to say the least.

The day began at 8 AM, which was good due to the recent heat wave in Southern California.  We were basically going to be spending the day in a garage boiling 15 gallons of Beer on the top of big propane burners, so getting started before the heat got too intense was pretty important.

We were brewing an Irish Stout, and there are a few different types of Irish Stout, so specifically we were going for a Beamish Irish Stout.

All the pics where taken with my iPhone, in a less then photogenic environment, so I apologize for the bad quality.

First, meet our Master Brewer, Shawn Olsson.

Shawn has been brewing for 14 years, and has been a part of several home brew organization and groups, and is actually looking to start a SoCal group.  Shawn was nice enough to have a bunch of us, myself being a complete stranger, in his home to share his knowledge of the brew.

Now, getting into the brew process.  It is important to know a few terms.

Fermentation - The total conversion of malt sugars to beer, defined here as three parts, adaptation, primary, and secondary.

Hops - Hop vines are grown in cool climates and brewers make use of the cone-like flowers. The dried cones are available in pellets, plugs, or whole.

Pitching - Term for adding the yeast to the fermenter.

Wort (wart or wert) - The malt-sugar solution that is boiled prior to fermentation.

Mash – The hot water steeping process that promotes enzymatic breakdown of the grist into soluble, fermentable sugars.

pH – A negative logarithmic scale (1-14) that measures the degree of acidity or alkalinity of a solution for which a value of 7 represents neutrality. A value of 1 is most acidic, a value of 14 is most alkaline.

Gravity - Like density, gravity describes the concentration of malt sugar in the wort. The specific gravity of water is 1.000 at 59F. Typical beer worts range from 1.035 – 1.055 before fermentation (Original Gravity).

Cold Break - Proteins that coagulate and fall out of solution when the wort is rapidly cooled prior to pitching the yeast.

Alpha Acid Units (AAU) - A home brewing measurement of hops. Equal to the weight in ounces multiplied by the percent of alpha acids.

These were terms that I heard Shawn mention during the process, and I am sure that missed a few, since we were also sampling beers while brewing beers.  Having taken note of these terms, I went and looked them up so I could get a better understanding of what was being talked about.

When we arrived, Shawn had already began the process of heating the water.  Now, I have always made the assumption that the water you should brew with should be as distilled and purified as possible.  This is not actually true.  The first thing we learned, is that water, and the minerals in the water, have a huge impact on the flavor and quality of the beer.  Minerals in the water in London, for instance, are what make an English brew taste like an English brew.

Depending on the “hardness” or “softness” of the water, that will help you decide the best brew you can make from your straight water.  As an example, the Czech Republic has very soft water, which is used for pilsner.  For the process of home brew, you can actually do an RO treatment on the water removing everything you can, then you actually add to the water, Gypsum, Salt, Chalk, and other naturally occurring minerals to make the water be the same as water found in the part of the world that you want the beer to emulate.

One very important element to remove is Chlorine. Most drinking water has been treated with chlorine using either gas or a hypo-chlorite solution similar to laundry bleach. In either case, the purpose is to prevent the growth of bacteria in the public water system. Unfortunately, chlorine can produce some undesirable effects in beer. For one, it can jack up the growth of yeast. It also creates unpleasant flavor compounds known as chloro phenolic. This adds a flavor of burning electrical wire. Not a good thing to include in your beer.

How much, and which minerals to add to your water will depend on what your brewing and what the current levels are in the water you are using.

Next he showed us the Barley Malt.  Here is an image of Barley I pulled off the “How Stuff Works” site.

Since we were going to be brewing a darker beer, we had a variety of Barley Malt.  Understand that barley is to beer as grapes are to wine.  Aside from the water, this is what is making up the beer.  Our barley had a combination of brown and black (roasted colors) barley.  It was very tasty.  It tasted like grape nuts, and I think I could have just sat and munched on it all day as a snack.

The barley was run through a mill to grind the barely for boiling. The crushed grain is called grist.  You crush it to aid in the starch to sugar conversion process.  You want to allow as much surface area as possible for the enzymes to attack the starch.

The barley is put into the water and the process of mashing is started.  The mash will contain wort which  is the sugars that are taken from the barley and that will eventually be fermented and create the beer.  Mashing is a controlled process of time, heat, and water.  Shawn recommended a temperature of 160 degrees.  I wasn’t sure if that was for all brewing, or if it was specific to the beer that we were brewing.

During the mashing process, we took the time to sanitize all the other components of the brewing process.   Not enough stress can be put on the sanitation process.  Even a small amount of bacteria will completely destroy your beer during the fermenting process.  There are, of course, many different ways to sanitize including the use of bleach.  If you choose to use bleach, know that you will need to rinse the hell out of the containers and parts so that you do not get the chlorine flavor in the beer.  Shawn recommended the use of [ Star San ].  It is widely used by commercial breweries and does an excellent cleansing job, while being very easy to rinse and clear away.

Once the Mash was complete, we began the process of Sparging.  Sparging is the process of rinsing the wort and getting as much of the sugars away from the barley husks and into the brewing kettle.  This process consists of another huge kettle of temprature controlled water (in our case 160 degrees) being slowly run through the mash.

The fresh water is in the top kettle and the mash is in the middle. Then it is run into a whole other container, which would be used to do the boil.    All together, once the mash and the fresh water was filtered together we had more then 12 gallons to do the boil with.

The very first thing added was hops.  Hops are added in three different stages of the boil.  Initially it is added, before the sparging, and those hops look like little rabbit pellets.  Then in intervals during the boil, Hop leaves are added.

Hops are delicate (usually referred to as a flower) and they provide the bitterness that balances out the sweetness of the malt.  The malt, immediately after the sparge tastes AMAZING, it is like a super sweet cup of coffee, but better.

The amount of hops used, and they type of hop, depends on the type of beer that you will be brewing.  It is important to remember that your ingredients are going to play a major factor in how your brew comes out, so use the best possible ingredients.

The boil time is also something that seems to be different depending on who is brewing, and what they are brewing.  We took the time during the boil to drink more beer, and have some lunch.

After the boil, and the transfer, you are left with this at the bottom.  It is a collection of the hops added during the boil… looks kind of gross, but you know it did it’s job.

After the boil, you have to get the beer into the fermentation containers, while dropping the temp as quickly as possible.  For this process, we had about 40 pounds of ice, a large cooler, and a device called a Counter Flow Chillers.  The counter flow chiller is a tube with a tube inside.  The beer travels through the inner tube while freezing cold water travels through the outer tube.   This takes the temperature of the beer from over 200 degrees to 50 degrees in the time it takes to travel through the tube.  The helps to prevent the culturing of bacteria by keeping the beer outside the bacteria comfort zone.  The counter flow chiller is next to the green cooler in the picture below.

We transferred ours into 2 6 gallon glass containers.  The glass containers MUST be completely covered in a black garbage bag, as the beer can not be subjected to direct sun light at this point to prevent skunking it.

Once the glass containers are filled, then you have to add the vital component.  Yeast.  Now, you can not just dump some yeast into the mix and move on.  Yeast is a delicate beast, and the process of fermentation will stress the yeast out considerably, and could even kill it, which means that your beer will not be properly fermentated.  Several days before Shawn had prepared two yeast starters for our brew day, so I was not there for that process.  The following comes from [ breworganic.com ] :

MAKING A YEAST STARTER:

This is usually done the day before you brew. A yeast starter will start the fermentation of you beer more rapidly.

Equipment needed:

Starter vessel: quart size or larger jar (juice jars work well), a large beer bottle, or an Erlenmeyer flask

Stopper & Airlock*

Measuring cups, measuring spoons

Rubbing alcohol & cotton balls or swabs

*If you do not have a stopper that fits your chosen starter vessel, you may cover the container with a clean cloth that has been sanitized: boil the cloth for 10 minutes, and then soak it in a sanitizing solution. If using cheesecloth, or other loosely woven cloth, use 2- 4 layers so dust and bacteria are effectively trapped.

The starter should be at least 2 cups in size. Before making the starter, if using liquid yeast, follow the instructions above for starting the yeast growth.

To make a starter medium, use malt extract, dried malt extract, or some unfermented wort from a previous batch. It is important to use malt based sugars, as other sugars do not have sufficient nutrients for healthy yeast growth. Add water to the extract or gyle- the best specific gravity range for making a yeast starter is between 1.030- 1.040. Here are some guidelines for making starters with organic malt extract:

Boil the starter solution for 15- 20 minutes, allow to cool to 70 ^oF, and pour it into your sanitized yeast starter vessel. Add the yeast from the pouch, or the dry yeast. Shake well to add oxygen and cover or seal with an airlock. Add the starter to you unfermented beer as soon as it has cooled to 70 ^oF Before pouring the yeast from the starter container, swab the lip of the container with alcohol to kill bacteria living there. If you wish, you can save a small portion of the starter (1/4 cup is adequate) to reactivate for a later batch. The saved starter can be stored in the refrigerator with an airlock (a cloth cover is not recommended for long term storage!) on it for up to 1 month. To save your yeast for a longer period of time, make a new starter from the old one. When pitching stored yeast into your beer, you should also make a new starter.

Once the starter yeast has been added, the beer is moved into a temperature controlled environment, where the yeast can work its magic.  Shawn uses a temp controlled freezer chest, and you can see our two small children snuggled tightly in for their 2 to 3 week sleep and fermentation process.

So after the cleanup, our brew day had come to an end, and it was a blast.  I am sure that I  forgot a couple of things, since this was blogged from memory, so this should not be considered a step by step guide to home brewing, but rather the account of a very happy geek who got to make some beer. It was really exciting to be a part of the process that I enjoy the fruits of so much, and it took a lot of the FUD away from thinking about brewing myself, so a huge thanks to Shawn for having us and providing a great experience.

So, in true geek fashion, I have now subscribed to three different home brew podcasts and am looking at various supplies that I can get to begin doing some home brew myself.  Shawn has a pretty sweet setup, but it is not for the beginner.  He has been doing this for quite awhile.  For the beginner, you can get stuff that will allow you to do the whole process in your kitchen, and make 5 gallon quantities.   Shawn also has a very impressive excel spreadsheet that gives him the pH levels and starting gravities based on the water, hops and barely quantities, as well as the various minerals that he puts in.   As a beginner, that is probably bit much to try and wrap your head, but eventually if you stick with it, you will end up there as well.

Required reading, according to Shawn, is [ How to Brew ] by John J Palmer.

So, go forth and brew, and when bottling day arrives, don’t forget your favorite geek blogger.