I really messed up that brew.
Just another brewer's journey on the quest to make a perfect beer.
I really messed up that brew.
Relax. It's just beer.
One of my kegs is currently filled with a great attempt at a Bell's Two Hearted clone, if I do say so myself. My clone turned out really well and is darn close to its inspiration. But the funny thing is I thought it was going to be awful. Nothing went as intended from mash to kegging. I was a bit distracted on brew day. Every Friday night, if the weather is nice, my neighbors gather at my place for a round of driveway drinking. It's just what it sounds like, we set up lawn chairs in my driveway and enjoy good beer. We'll some of them bring wine or cocktails, but all are welcome. It's really just an excuse to chat with the neighbors.
Usually I don't brew on Friday nights, but I my stores were depleted so I was brewing every weekend. I had grain, hops and yeast and nothing else to do, so I fired up my burners. I should have paid more attention to my brew but I got lost in conversation. My mash was too hot and was resting at 160 so I had to add ice. I forgot to look at my watch so I have no idea how long I mashed. It was at least an hour, maybe more like an hour and twenty minutes. I also overheated my sparge water. More like, I nearly boiled it. It was 197 degrees. I added a lot of ice to get it back to 170. The boil was nearly as comical. I added my 60 minutes hops but my timer didn't start. I was going to hop again at 45, but who knows how long it was since the boil started. It was definitely longer than 15 minutes between first and second hoping. The neighborly conversation was great and everyone was curious about my process. I did a great job explaining all-grain brewing, but a poor job of executing it. I wasn't going to hop anymore, just needed to add whirlflock and yeast nutrient. Those went in around the last ten minutes, but it's any one's guess when they went in from the start of the boil. I shut off the burner by the amount of boil-off from my dipstick, I have no idea how long it actually boiled. I forgot to setup my chiller, so the wort sat an extra 5-10 minutes after I killed the flame. I eventually got the chilled wort into a clean carboy and pitched my yeast. Fortunately, nothing was wrong with the yeast.
So my brew day was a mess, but then I changed my procedure for fermenting too. Usually I'll move my beer to a secondary fermenter after 4-7 days, depending on how long fermentation takes. At that point, I also add hops if I'm dry-hopping, which I was. Then I'll age in the secondary for 2 week before kegging. This time, I added hops to the primary after 4 days and never racked it. I just left everything in the primary for ten days then kegged. So I kegged the beer an entire week earlier than I usually do.
You know what? I'm not sure any of it mattered. The beer is good. Really good. My neighbor drives to Kentucky just to buy Two Hearted (sadly, Bell's does not distribute in TN) and he agrees, its a great knock-off. I had a dozen ways to screw up this beer, and it still turned out. So don't worry about ruining your beer. Here's the thing, you're not going to hurt anything if you screw up a batch of homebrew. It's not like making shine at home, you won't kill anybody if you do it wrong. Your beer might taste horrible and folks will make faces and ridicule you, but they won't die. So don't sweat the little "mistakes" because there's a good chance your beer will be fine. If a batch turns out really bad, there's always next time. You can always dump it.
Fyi, here's the recipe I used.
- 10 lbs Domestic 2-Row
- 2 lbs Vienna Malt
- 8 oz C120
- 8 oz Carapils
- 1.25 oz Centennial pellets 10.80% @ 60
- 1.25 oz Centennial pellets 10.80% @ 30
- 2.5 oz Centennial pellets 10.80% @ dry hop (4 days into fermentation, in secondary if using one)
- 1 Whirlflock tablet@ 15
- Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 10
- Wyeast American II 1272
Mash per your usual methods. Honestly, I can't tell you how to repeat my mash from that night. 
You can take it with you.
Last time I blogged about beer fridges and how they're nice to have once you start kegging your homebrew. Corny kegs are a great way to dispense beer when all your friends visit. You can't beat it for parties... at your house. But kegs require a little planning next time you get invited to someone else's party. Kegging sure has it's advantages, but they aren't nearly as mobile as bottles. Filling bottles stinks, but their portability can't be beat. It's actually pretty easy to tote a corny keg with you as long as you don't need to keep it cold or pressurized. And there's the problem. How do you keep it cold and pressurized?
So you've got beer on tap at home and you get invited to a friend's party. What to do? I had the same dilemma and was planning to go to a well-attended Superbowl party at my Pastor's house and expected about 50 people. I knew I wanted to take a keg with me and had just carbonated a full 5-gallon keg of cream ale. So I went to Rebel Brewer and got an ice blanket and a Keglove to keep the beer cold. I bought the Genuine Innovations CO2 charger that screws onto a threaded gas-in ball-lock disconnect. I've been a fan of Genuine Innovations products for 20 year. There's not much difference between their keg charger and a bike tire inflater, btw.
Here's the Rebel Brewer Keglove...
And the CO2 Keg Charger...
The verdict? The system worked well and the only problem was the keg went dry in the middle of the 3rd quarter. It strikes me as funny in the Bible-belt south, but my church loves my homebrew (it's OK, we're Presbyterian). The beer stayed cold and was easy to dispense. I used 3 16g CO2 cartridges and thought it was a lot easier than lugging a big CO2 tank with me. I think cream ale was a great choice too for a broad audience. I was happy to see so many people enjoying the beer I made. I usually have a cream ale on tap, it's one of my go to recipes. And now, I can take it with me.
Cheers!
Get a beer fridge.
I started this blog to help new brewers avoid the mistakes I've made. One thing I didn't think about was where I was going to store the beer. Since May, I'm brewing 2-3 times a month and there's no letting up. One advantage of homebrewing is having a lot of beer around the house. But a disadvantage, if you can call it that, is having a lot of beer around the house. My wife was OK with a bunch of bottles in her kitchen fridge, but she balked at my idea for taking out a shelf to make room for a corny keg. So instead, I found a good beer fridge for the garage. What should you look for in a beer fridge? Does it run? Does it get cold? Then you're good. Seriously, it's in the garage. It doesn't have to be pretty, smell nice or even be that clean when you get it. Mine hadn't been turned on in years and had an interesting aroma inside. Definitely not a kitchen fridge, but a perfect one for the garage.
You know the best part of a getting a beer fridge? They're cheap, maybe even free. Craigslist is full of old refrigerators less than $100. Please do not go to Sears and buy a fridge for your beer. It's a garage. No one cares if the fridge is a little beat up or perfect. Mine was nearly free, it was sitting unused in a friend's basement and I traded them a small old chest freezer that I didn't need. Start asking your friends if anyone knows of an old fridge that needs a home. Offer them beer. If that doesn't work, check the classifieds. Used refrigerators are dirt cheap.
Once you have your beer fridge, you can start picking up the interesting beer here and there and get a nice collection going. My fridge stays full, but I try to limit myself to one beer a day, maybe a few more on Fridays and Saturdays. Most of the beer will be shared with friends and neighbors. The guy across the street wanders into my garage every week or so and asks, "Got any beer?" Yeah, he already knows the answer to that. And he knows I'm happy to share.
Here's my beer fridge. Room for three five-gallon kegs and an assortment of craft brew. Currently on tap are my hoppy dark wheat, a Two Hearted clone and a four-hop black IPA. I have bottled beers from Bells, Founders, Great Lakes, New Belgium, Sam Adams, North Coast, Stevens Point, Brooklyn, Stone, Omer, Guinness, Magic Hat, Yazoo, Lucky Bucket and Goose Island. Not a bad assortment, especially since some of those brands do not distribute in Tennessee.
You know the best part of a getting a beer fridge? They're cheap, maybe even free. Craigslist is full of old refrigerators less than $100. Please do not go to Sears and buy a fridge for your beer. It's a garage. No one cares if the fridge is a little beat up or perfect. Mine was nearly free, it was sitting unused in a friend's basement and I traded them a small old chest freezer that I didn't need. Start asking your friends if anyone knows of an old fridge that needs a home. Offer them beer. If that doesn't work, check the classifieds. Used refrigerators are dirt cheap.
Once you have your beer fridge, you can start picking up the interesting beer here and there and get a nice collection going. My fridge stays full, but I try to limit myself to one beer a day, maybe a few more on Fridays and Saturdays. Most of the beer will be shared with friends and neighbors. The guy across the street wanders into my garage every week or so and asks, "Got any beer?" Yeah, he already knows the answer to that. And he knows I'm happy to share.
Here's my beer fridge. Room for three five-gallon kegs and an assortment of craft brew. Currently on tap are my hoppy dark wheat, a Two Hearted clone and a four-hop black IPA. I have bottled beers from Bells, Founders, Great Lakes, New Belgium, Sam Adams, North Coast, Stevens Point, Brooklyn, Stone, Omer, Guinness, Magic Hat, Yazoo, Lucky Bucket and Goose Island. Not a bad assortment, especially since some of those brands do not distribute in Tennessee.
They say confession is good for the soul, so be gracious with my sin. Somewhere deep inside the fridge are 6 cans of Bud Light. Obviously, they are *way* past their born-on date and I honestly I can't remember where they came from. I can't bring myself to throw away beer, even bad beer. And besides, there's always the guy across the street. Until next time, cheers.
I love the smell of PBW in the morning.
Most everything I've read about homebrewing is about the main activities of the process - mashing, sparging, boiling, fermenting and bottling/kegging. But there are two other activities that are just as important in the homebrewing process, yet they don't get as much press: pre-brew preparation and post-brew clean up. Maybe that's just human nature. We like the activity, but not necessarily the thing you have to do before and after it. Sometimes prep feels like it slows us down from getting to the thing we love doing (we'll talk about prep work some other time). A lot of folks think clean up sucks and view it as a necessary evil. Guess with part of the complete brewing process I like best? Clean up. Seriously. I'm not joking. I know I'm weird. A little OCD and proud of it. I think that helps my clean up attitude.
I don't think I this happened by accident. I spent a lot of high school and college working in restaurants where cleaning and maintaining food service equipment was a big part of the job. I loved working at Pizza Hut, my first real job. There was always something to clean. I actually thought cleaning a walk-in freezer, dough mixer or pizza dough roller was fun. The best part was the cleaning of the massive conveyor pizza oven. That was a chore we only did completely every few month and involved some major disassembly.
One of my summer college jobs was working in a butter factory. The churn was as large as an SUV and from it flowed a constant 6x18 inch ribbon of butter. Cleaning the churn, and any equipment that touched butter, took a lot of steam and a thorough sanitizing. It was hard work, but I loved it. Cleaning and sanitizing the cream tanker truck required getting into the tank. Definitely not a job for the claustrophobic. I came home every day smelling of warm cream. It was gross... and I loved it.
To me there's something satisfying about making a very messy peice of equipment shiny and pristine. The stuff was literally clean enough to eat off of. I think clean equipment shows that you take pride in the process. It also makes prepping for the next brew day easier because you don't have to clean to get started. Do you love cleaning too? Am I the only one who loves the clean up after a good brew day? You feel like you've accomplished something when there's a new batch bubbling in the carboy and all your brew gear is clean and neatly put away. If you're wondering, I use PBW to clean and Star San to sanitize. As you can imagine, I've started buying them in bulk. Until next time, cheers!
Dude. Chill. (Part 2)
Last time I wrote about some basic reasons for chilling your wort and the common chilling methods used by homebrewers, ice baths and immersion chillers. Let's continue and get a little more complicated (but not really). If immersion chillers are good, counterflow chillers are better. Hot wort passes through the chiller in a small copper pipe, while cool water flows across the copper pipe in the opposite direction through a larger pipe. It's confusing at first, but once you see it in action, it makes sense. There are typically two types: counterflow chillers made from different size pipes and plate chillers. A plate chiller is like a radiator, the fluids never mix but they pass each other in adjoining plates.
Plate chillers are the bomb. If you're serious about homebrewing, it's an investment you'll be glad you made because they are super fast and cleaner. The top of the heap is the $200 Blichmann Therminator. As Ferris Bueller said, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." The $100 Shirron chiller is great, but Rebel Brewing has the best deal with its $79 20-plate chiller. Rebel also has a $120 40-plate chiller that looks like it can rival the Therminator. I've seen the Shirron in action and own the 20-plate Rebel chiller. Both are impressive, and I can only imagine the larger plate chillers are even better.
There are a couple caveats with plate chillers, the main one is you need a brew kettle with a valve so you can drain the kettle through the plate chiller into your carboy. I use gravity, but you can also use a pump to move the wort. You'll also need some high-temp hose from the kettle to the chiller, hose from the chiller to the carboy and hose clamps. You'll also need two garden hoses to get cold water into and out of the chiller. I like a counterflow chiller because there are less ways for bacteria to get into your beer. If you set it up right, wort can flow from the kettle to the carboy and never contact air or unsanitized surfaces.
I started with ice baths then moved to an immersion chiller after a few brews. Using the "stir-the-hot-wort" in an ice bath method, wort chilled to a safe yeast pitching temperature in about 45-60 minutes. The immersion chiller cut my chilling to about 15 minutes. The time savings alone made the purchase worth it. I switched to a plate chiller the same time I made the leap into all-grain brewing. The immersion chiller wasn't wasted, I'm still using it as a pre-chiller with my current setup. I run my input hose into the immersion chiller, which sits in a cooler full of ice water (aka, my hot liquor tank) then run that chilled water into my plate chiller (see pic below). I'm chilling 5.5 gallons of boiling wort to 75 degrees (or less) in about 5 minutes. I'm convinced my early beers would have been better if I chilled them faster. My brewing skills are improving, but I believe a big factor of better beer is the more efficient and sanitary methods of wort chilling. If you have a kettle with a valve, go with a plate chiller, but if you can't drain your kettle, opt for an immersion chiller. Until next time, cheers.
Dude. Chill. (part 1)
If you're anything like me, the best thing about picking up a new hobby is getting all the gear. Whether it's mountain biking, motorcyling, backpacking or homebrewing, I like to be well-equipped. Yes, I confess... I'm a gear geek. Most homebrewers get started with a basic homebrewing kit, and for some, that's all they'll ever need. (Not me. I'm lusting over everything Blichmann Engineering makes.) But if you've just started brewing and you ask me what piece of equipment you should get next, I recommend a wort chiller.
Chilling your boiling wort is important for a lot of reasons. You need to get your wort down to 65-75 degrees before you pitch your yeast. There's a lot of scary bacteria and other nasties that thrive in the 80-120 degree range, so dropping below 80 ASAP is important. Faster wort cooling helps reduce funky flavors (it's complicated, but you can read more about it in John J. Palmer's "How to Brew"). Also, quick cooling helps cold break to happen, where proteins solidify and fall out and make your beer clearer. If you want to know more about chilling, check out Palmer's book, or Dave MIller's "Homebrewing Guide" or Gordon Strong's "Brewing Better Beer."
The easiest and cheapest way to chill your wort is to fill your sink with ice and water to create a nice ice bath. Set your kettle in the ice bath, and there you go. Stir frequently with a sanitized spoon to accelerate the cooling. This method works, but it has a few downsides. I don't like waiting 30-45 minutes for my wort to cool. Plus, that wide open kettle and frequent stirring provide more ways for bacteria to get in the wort. Ice bath chilling is the slowest way to cool wort, but nearly every new homebrewer starts this way. I know a lot of folks using ice baths, not that there's anything wrong with it. But I'm an inpatient guy. If you are too, keep reading.
Immersion chillers are great. You can get one for $50-75 bucks, but the time you save is worth every penny. Don't let the crazy twisted copper (or stainless steel) scare you. Just drop the chiller in your wort in the last few minutes of boil. The boiling wort and steam will sanitize the chiller, although you'll want to be sure it's clean before you drop it in your kettle. After boil, hook the chiller up to you sink, turn on the cool water and there you go. You can collect spent cooling water in buckets for later use (like in your washing machine). An immersion chiller is the easiest way to start cooling your wort rapidly. And as good as immersion chillers are, there are better ways. More about that later. Until next time, cheers.
B-Double E-R-L-O-G (Beer Log, to the tune of Beer Run)
One of the things I like about the homebrew community is the willingness to help each other. Everybody I've met has been passionate about making good beer and working on improving their skills. The best part is that most seem to want to help others do the same. I've got a lot of good advice, but one of the best tips I got as a newbie brewer was to log my brews. I started using extract kits, so I wrote down the basic info about the brew on my instruction sheet. Just some basic info and dates but not much else. At the time, I didn't know what I didn't know. It did the job, but wasn't a great system for record keeping. I hadn't thought about creating a central log until an experienced brewer mentioned it to me. With something like Google docs, it's easy and you can access it from anywhere. That day I entered all my info into a spreadsheet and now I can reference any past batch and think about the lessons learned from each.
What you track in a beer log is up to you. My log has evolved a lot since the summer and I'm sure I always be tweaking it. But for now, here's what's in my beer log.
- Recipe Source - Did I use a kit, find it online, get it from a friend or just make it up myself.
- Brew Date - Brew day.
- Secondary - The day I racked the beer to a secondary fermenter.
- Bottle/Keg - They day I bottled or kegged the beer.
- Ready to drink - When the beer is ready to pour into a frosty glass.
- Days in primary - A calculation based on brew day to secondary day.
- Days in secondary - Calculation based on secondary day to bottle/keg day.
- Days in bottle - A calculation based on time for carbonation, days from bottling to ready.
- Days total - Another calculation of days from brewing to ready to drink.
- Extract or All Grain - Source of wort.
- Grains - Amount and description of grains used for steeping (extract) or mash (all-grain).
- Hops - Amount, description and time spent in the brew kettle.
- Yeast - Type of yeast, noting if a yeast starter is used.
- Other - Any adjuncts or flavors added to the beer.
- Carbonation/Priming - Method of carbonation, like priming sugar (bottles) or forced carbonation (keg) notes.
- OG - Original gravity of the wort going into the fermenter.
- FG - Final gravity of the wort at kegging.
- ABV - Alcohol by Volume based on OG & FG
- IBU - As estimated per the kit or BeerSmith software.
- Color - As estimated per the kit or BeerSmith software.
- Fermentation notes - Anything I noticed about the speed, duration and oddities that occurred during fermenting.
- Comments - Anything not related to fermentation that happened during the brewing or bottling that I want to record.
I'm sure there's more to log. If you know of something I should pay attention to, please let me know. Until next time, cheers!
Extract or All-grain?
Last week I had the privilege of meeting Dave Miller, the brew master for Blackstone Brewery. He was hosting a meet & greet at the Mt. Juliet Beer Company, where Blackstone growler fills were coincidentally on sale. Dave is real nice guy and answered all my questions with pleasure. As a fairly new brewer, it was great to learn from the experience of someone who has brewed since 1976. (Yes, that is technically 3 years before homebrewing became legal in 1979.) His book was on sale and he was signing it for anyone who purchased, so I got in line to fill my growlers and buy a copy of the book. When I returned he was talking to someone who's thinking about brewing. His questions were familiar, I'd asked most of them myself when I was trying to figure out if I could homebrew too. It all seems a bit complicated before you start, and there's so much to learn. Dave enthusiastically answered the questions and encouraged the brewer-to-be to get started.
More folks gathered around and had more questions for Dave, so the new guy and I started talking. He asked me a lot of new brewer questions, and surprisingly, I was able to answer them. I wanted to say "the pro is over there" but I figured I knew more about brewing than the new guy and I'd love to see him take up the craft. That's why I started this blog, to help other learn from my experience and mistakes. I think that's the thing I like most about the homebrewing hobby, folks want to help others make great beer. So we talked a while about brewing, topics like first-timer equipment, the basics of the process and the ingredients used. The guy was quick to understand the difference between extract and all-grain brewing and his next question was "what should I start with, extract or grain?" Now your opinion may be different, but for me, the answer is simple. Extract brewing. All-grain brewing is awesome, but I don't thinks it's right for someone who's never brewed. Not saying you can't, and some people may do a great job with an all-grain first brew, but I think there are a several reasons to start with extract brewing. Here's a few to ponder...
Extract brewing has lower initial expense because there's a lot less equipment required. You can find starter kits for $60-80 from online sources like Northern Brewer, Midwest Supplies or Rebel Brewer (I've used all of them, great shops). If you're lucky enough to have a local homebrew shop, check there too. It may cost a bit more locally, but you'll also have access to real people you can ask you brewing questions. Also, you'll need an ingredients kit, usually $25-35. There are dozens of beer styles available in extract kits so I'm sure you'll find something you'll like. Another reason to start with extract brewing is it's easier and takes a lot less time. My normal all-grain session takes about 6 hours with prep, brewing and clean up. Extract brewing sessions always took me about 3 hours. Once you're boiling, the process is the same, but with all-grain you'll spend a lot of your time just making your wort. And there's another advantage of extract brewing, someone else makes your wort for you. You can make great wort, good wort and so-so wort with all-grain. It all depends on your skills, experience and sometimes, a little luck. But when you crack open a can of Briess Golden Light extract, you can be sure you're getting a consistent product as long as it's fresh (watch out for past date extract).
I don't believe you'll learn more, or learn more quickly, if you start with all-grain. Sure, you can learn to make wort, but when you start with extract brewing you'll learn everything about boiling, hopping, yeast pitching, fermenting and bottling. That's enough lessons for anyone to master when they're just starting out. Trust me. Take the time to become experienced in those things before you add mashing and sparging to the list. I hope I've made a convincing case to start homebrewing using extract kits. However, I've got just as many reasons why you should make the jump to all-grain brewing once you have built your brewing skills foundation. I'll get around to sharing those someday. Until next time, Cheers!
Be careful around your brew kettle.
I was going to call this post "Don't drop thing in your wort" but hey, that's obvious. I bet 99.9% of homebrewers know to keep random things out of the kettle. Obviously, I'm not as smart as the rest of the homebrew world. This blog will cover all things homebrewing, but its focus is the things I've learned from the mistakes I've made learning the craft. So today's post may seem like a no-brainer, but it was my first newbie brewer mistake. (That boiling-water yeast hydration screw-up was actually mistake number two. Sadly, those weren't the only two mistakes in my first batch, but you'll hear about those later.
I was nervous starting off, but brewing had commenced and I was following the directions carefully. I'd just finished steeping a pound of specialty grains at 155 degrees for 30 minutes. As directed, I removed the kettle from the heat and steeped the grains another 10 minutes. Things were progressing splendidly, and I thought, "You really can make beer. Nothing to worry about." Next up, pour the 1/2 gallon of Midwest's Gold liquid malt extract (LME) into the kettle. Why, any idiot can do that, emphasis on the "idiot." My LME went into the kettle and I fired the gas stove and waited for my first wort boil. That's when I noticed it, something foreign floating in my sweet wort. A yellow plastic ring. Even to a newbie, that didn't seem right. It was one of those lock rings that snap off when you open a jug of milk. The LME was shipped in a 1/2 gallon plastic milk jug. I twisted off the cap, poured and the lock ring went into the kettle with the extract.
The take away from all this is just be careful around your brew kettle. If you get something in there, it might be an easy fix of fishing out a plastic ring (luckily for me) or it might ruin the batch. One time I made a pizza during my boil, can you imagine if I had grabbed the oregano instead of Irish moss? (Hmm... Italian Spiced Ale??) So, newbie tip one, don't drop things in your wort. And more importantly, keep the wort in the kettle. That's some seriously hot liquid there, you don't want to burn yourself or someone else. Take care around the kettle, it's just one more thing you can do to make your beer better.
Until next time, cheers!
Don't rehydrate dry yeast with near-boiling water.
I was really excited about becoming a homebrewer. I've wanted to get into brewing since the late 90's and I'm not sure why I waited until 2011. But I finally got around to it and I envisioned that I'd prove the naysayers wrong and my first batch would not only be drinkable, but delicious. It was neither. My first time was kind of a disaster. I remember getting the kit from Midwest Supplies and worrying over the details of the instructions. It seemed like there was so much to do and I wasn't sure how I'd keep up with it. It's funny how little things seem so big when you're starting out.
The directions had me thoroughly confused. The part about the yeast was straightforward but I still managed to screw it up. If you are using dry yeast, you can re-hydrate the yeast in luke-warm water (90-100 degrees), let it stand for 10 minutes and pour into the wort, or you can just sprinkle the dry yeast over the top of the beer. But somewhere else I read you should boil the water first, so I boiled but didn't let the water cool. I didn't have a thermometer so I just threw the yeast in and pitched it in my wort. After 4 days and no bubbles, I assumed, and rightly so, that something was wrong with the pitched yeast. So I drove to my local homebrew store, bought a pack of dry yeast and sprinkled it in my fermenting bucket. Fermentation eventually started, but the resulting Irish Red was too awful to drink and it went down the drain.
Even though my first brew was an utter failure, it taught me the importance of pitching healthy, viable yeast. You can make the best wort and keep everything tidy and sanitary, but if you pitch bad yeast you'll never make good beer. So, lesson one, be careful about what you read online about brewing and double check things you don't understand. I didn’t understand how to prepare water for dry yeast. Lesson two, don't rehydrate dry yeast with nearly boiling water. Living organisms don’t like boiling water. And lesson three, take care of your yeast and you'll be rewarded with good beer (as long as you don't mess up a few other things). Since then, I really like the reliability of liquid yeast from White Labs and Wyeast. I'd love to go into what I love about each of those brands, but that can wait until a future post.
Until next time, cheers.
The directions had me thoroughly confused. The part about the yeast was straightforward but I still managed to screw it up. If you are using dry yeast, you can re-hydrate the yeast in luke-warm water (90-100 degrees), let it stand for 10 minutes and pour into the wort, or you can just sprinkle the dry yeast over the top of the beer. But somewhere else I read you should boil the water first, so I boiled but didn't let the water cool. I didn't have a thermometer so I just threw the yeast in and pitched it in my wort. After 4 days and no bubbles, I assumed, and rightly so, that something was wrong with the pitched yeast. So I drove to my local homebrew store, bought a pack of dry yeast and sprinkled it in my fermenting bucket. Fermentation eventually started, but the resulting Irish Red was too awful to drink and it went down the drain.
Even though my first brew was an utter failure, it taught me the importance of pitching healthy, viable yeast. You can make the best wort and keep everything tidy and sanitary, but if you pitch bad yeast you'll never make good beer. So, lesson one, be careful about what you read online about brewing and double check things you don't understand. I didn’t understand how to prepare water for dry yeast. Lesson two, don't rehydrate dry yeast with nearly boiling water. Living organisms don’t like boiling water. And lesson three, take care of your yeast and you'll be rewarded with good beer (as long as you don't mess up a few other things). Since then, I really like the reliability of liquid yeast from White Labs and Wyeast. I'd love to go into what I love about each of those brands, but that can wait until a future post.
Until next time, cheers.
Bio Link
Hi. I'm Kendall, a relatively new brewer from Nashville, TN. I'd call myself an Advanced Newbie at this point. I've done 20 batches, the last 6 all grain. I just learned to make a yeast starter and keg my beer. But I make a lot of mistakes, so I wouldn't call myself an intermediate brewer yet. But each mistake gets me closer and that's what this blog is about.
