A layperson's introduction to Homebrewing
Whats this about?
@wanda-seldon started a thread over at ~science in hopes of generating more user created content. My plan is to post some introductions myself, in fields like mechanical engineering and automation (is anyone interested in it anyways?). But until I feel like I would do it proper, I figured I'd try something similar with a much lower barrier of entry. I'll write about some hobbies of mine, in a way that goes more indepth about the process, but still shallow enough to function as an introduction. And if folks are interested in more in-depth stuff or pointers on where to go, I'll take care of that.
So on todays topic, homebrewing. What is it, why would you bother, and what's actually involved in it?
What's Homebrewing?
Put simply, homebrewing is the art of making beer yourself. It's not really that complicated to be honest.
Why Homebrewing?
- It's (relatively) cheap.
If you got a few basic kitchen items (pots, ladle, cups, etc), you already have most items needed for brewing a small quantity. A few additional tools will be required, like a food grade plastic container, a water lock, etc. but if you treat them proper they can be used for years after years. Ingredient cost is neglible.
- Quality.
A common reaction many have with homebrewed beer is how thick and rich in flavour it is, compared to your average supermarket beer. Especially if your experience is with light beers (in which case I believe Monty Python said it best, it's fucking close to water). It's like comparing that sad pie you can buy in the cooler section, compared to something fresh out of the oven with the sweetest fruits and crispiest crust.
- Easy to learn, hard to master.
If your goal is to make a good beer, you only need two "skills". Good working hygiene and patience. Beyond that, any complication you want to add is up to you. You can start with a simple ale and work your way towards horribly complicated recipes that seem more like a chemistry exam than a hobby.
Whats actually involved in it?
So what do you actually do? I'll keep it short, even though I could write a book if I wanted to cover everything. Brewing is made out of three phases. The actual brewing, the fermenting and the bottling.
Brewing
You mix malts (and/or barley, wheat, oats, etc) with water, which you will draw a wort from. The wort will be the basis of your beer. A wort is a bit like a tea from a tea mix in this sense. Also it's sickly sweet (so taste test on your own risk). The sugar from the malt will be what is turned into alcohol during fermentation. In a similar way, that we use fruit sugar for wines/ciders or honey for mead.
Fun fact: In Sweden and Norway, elks drunk on rotten (fermented) fruit they eat from the ground is a rare but real phenomena.
Once you have a wort, the wort is boiled up and hops are supplied. Usually hops are divided in two categories. Bitter hops and aroma hops. Though that has more to do with when you add hops in the brewing process. The hops add flavour primarily from the oils (which give the fresh and fruity taste) and the resin (which gives the bitter taste). The resin takes a certain amount of boiling time to properly release, so hops added early in the process will contribute to bitterness.
The liquid is then cooled and stored in a container with a bit of yeast. That marks the start of the fermentation period.
Fermentation
Fermentation is fairly straight forward. Yeast loves sugar. And will keep eating it until most is gone. Alcohol, is a byproduct of this process.
Bottling
Once fermentation is (nearly) done, the beer is transferred into bottles. After a few days of waiting, a pressure should have built inside your bottles which will create the nice bubbliness we know from beers. Toss on a label if you wan't to brag and want to make sure that graphical designer education was not for naught.
Swell, how do I get into it?
How do you get into it? Technically speaking, you could start with no-mash brewing. Though I would recommend against it, as it takes out the charm of actually brewing, since you just add water and call it a day. Alternatively, there are several good sources on this. The american homebrewers association for instance have a good quick guide for some instructions. Though if you wan't to go serious about it, I recommend to read up on the specific processes, and what influences them.
Afterwords
Does it sound interesting? Bring a buddy, and make a day of it. Make your own labels too if you wan't to brag to friends and family. If you have questions, I will answer anything. Need help setting up or want a plan, I can help with that too.
Edit: Would recommend reading @piratepants comment in the comment section. It expands a lot of the things mentioned here, and goes a lot more into the actual processes while brewing. If you got this far, it's worth continueing.
Haha. The single biggest lie every homebrewer tells themselves and their significant other.
I think the biggest issue with this write up is that you don't really tell the reader what brewing is. You talk through the steps, but miss the big picture. Brewing, at it's heart, is nudging a natural decomposition process to an end product we like. Beer is made with grain. To get that grain to start decomposing, we have to trick it. We make the grain think it's found a good place to sprout and get it to start growing. Once it's started to grow just a little, we kill it and dry it out. This process is called malting. There are several other steps that can be done during malting to alter the end product which might alter the flavor or other properties, but as a homebrewer, you don't have to worry too much about them. You will most likely buy your grain pre-malted and never malt anything in your life. The important part to know is that we have now taken a living thing and killed it. Like all dead things, it's going to decompose, and it's our job to steer that to what we want. I think it's important to make this point because the longer malt sits around, the more it will (slowly) decompose on it's own and it won't necessarily be what you want. Old malt doesn't make as good a beer and fresh malt.
So now onto the next step, which ducks labels as brewing, but is properly known as mashing. Your malt has a big store house of starch. This starch was supposed to be the initial food source for the new plant until it could establish itself and start making it's own food. Instead, we want to use it's own natural processes to break down this starch into sugar. Mashing is the crushing of malt, mixing it with water, and leaving it at a certain temperature so the enzymes present in the malt will break down this starch. It's much like making a porridge or oatmeal. Given enough time and the right temperature, you will see this thick, sticky mess go thin and become sweet. That's the first level of decomposition.
Now you have something sweet with a bunch solid leftover material you don't really need. Most of the time, you want to separate the liquid part from the solid part. This process is called lautering. There are all kinds of ways to filter out the solids, but in homebrewing it usually involves a mesh bag, a finely braided metal sleeve, or finely perforated plate. Once you have separated your solids from the liquids, we call the liquid wort and the solids garbage ;-)
Like small children, everything in nature loves sugar. It's a easily consumed source of energy. So, as soon as your wort is made bacteria, yeast, and other microbes that were on the malt, in your house, and even floating in the air will want to start eating this sugar and starting the next phase of decomposition. We don't want this. We want to control this next phase of decomposition as well. So we will boil the wort to sanitize it and kill off any microbes present. Boiling also has the great advantage of vaporizing things that might make our beer less tasty (think husky, hay like flavor) and gives us a chance to add more flavor to the party. Typically, this means adding hops, but could also mean adding other herbs and spices. Hops are added not only for flavor, but to balance the sweetness of the wort with bitterness, and also to act as a natural antiseptic against all those microbes we don't want in our beer. We boil the wort with our hops for a prescribed amount of time based on the kind of beer we want to make, but typically it's an hour. Once done, we chill the wort (or allow it to cool naturally) to approximately room temperature so that we can start the next phase of decomposition.
Now that we have our chilled wort in a carefully sanitized vessel for the next phase of its voyage, we are going to do the one thing we've been trying to avoid up until now; introduce a micro-organism to the sugar. It's not just any micro-organism though, it's typically saccharomyces cerevisiae or brewer's yeast. Why do we want this micro-organism compared to all the rest? It will primarily spit out the two things we really want, alcohol and carbon dioxide, without a lot of things we don't want it to do. All you need to do is add the yeast to your wort (called pitching the yeast in brewing terms), keep other organisms from messing things up, and wait. Keeping the other organisms out is easy, you seal your vessel with an airlock. Like Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part. Be patient, rushing things now does your beer no favors. The yeast will eat up the sugars at the rate they want to work at. The only thing you need to concern yourself with is keeping an eye on the process and understanding when it's done or almost done. When it's almost done, you want to transfer your liquid, which is officially called beer at this point, to a sealed vessel. That usually means a bottle, but it could also be a can, cask, or keg. The carbon dioxide given off by the yeast will be trapped and go into solution in the beer carbonating it. If your yeast had already eaten all the sugars in the wort, you can always add a bit of sugar to get the process started again to get the CO2 you need.
Now, why did I emphasize this the way I did as opposed to how ducks wrote it up? Two reasons:
If you understand the process of fermentation, you can make all kinds of things, not just beer. You can make wine, hard cider, mead, kombucha, sauerkraut, kim chi, pickles, sausages ... the world is your (fermented) oyster!
This is a natural decomposition process and therefore it's really hard to screw up. Even with you doing little to nothing at all, fermentation wants to happen. So don't be scared of screwing up. Sure, something might go wrong and you end up with something that isn't exactly as you planned. If you're making beer, it'll still have alcohol, you'll be able to drink it, and probably won't get you sick. Don't stress too hard and give it a try!
I have been known to post on r/homebrewing. I just chose a new name when I came over here.
Oh yes, you can start quite cheaply. No disagreement there. I was more referring to the fact that homebrewers rarely stop at the bare necessities and there's always some new item or upgrade they want for their brewery. You should homebrew because you find it interesting or like making your own beer. If your reason for homebrewing is "I can make it cheaper than I can buy it in the store", that rarely works out once you factor in equipment and labor costs.
Since you mention equipment prices in NOK, I do hope you read Larsblog (http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/), right? He's one of my favorite reads.
Great writeup, super interesting.
How much do you think you have spent on this hobby?
How much did you have to spend to get into it?
How much time and effort is involved in, say, your house beer? I don't mean storage time, but active brewing time.
Awesome, great answers. So.... what was the certain incident? That sounds like a fun story time!
That's unfortunate, but what an amazing story.
Is your house brew your favorite of the beers you've made or is there another one that you've enjoyed more but don't brew as much?
There's a saying I've heard among homebrewers that "you're not a true homebrewer until you have beer on your ceiling".
Also if someone is interested, here is my house beer:
For 25 liter:
Boil time is 60 minutes
Scottish Strong Ale yeast
Fermented at around 20C.
Well, if you or your husband have any questions, I'm sure ducks and I could help. Just shoot one or both of us a line!
What is the best beer you've produced? What is the hardest-to-produce beer that turned out well for you?