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Beer

This is a guide on how to homebrew beer in the way I see most correct. This is documentation on my brewing method as opposed to an overview of brewing in general. The goal of my method is to account for all molecular factors at each step of the process to the point at which there are no blanks.

Ingredients

I follow the reinheitsgebot. This means beer is composed of the following:

  • Water
  • Grains
  • Hops
  • Yeast

However, each of these items has their own set of components:

  • Water
    • Mineral Content
    • Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, Sulfate, Chloride, Bicarbonate, etc.
    • Water Profile
    • Hardness
    • Sulfate to Chloride Balance
  • Grains
    • Malt Type
    • Base Malt
    • Specialty Malt
    • Flaked Malt
    • Grind
  • Hops
    • Pellet or Whole Cone / Whole Leaf
    • Bitterness (IBU)
    • Flavor Profile
    • Freshness
    • Cryo
    • Date Harvested
    • Wet
  • Yeast
    • Strain
    • Brand

So, there are actually quite a few things to consider. Here’s an overview of what I look for and why.

Water

One of the most important things if you want your style of beer to shine. Different styles of beer require different water profiles, with their own concentrations and balances of minerals. So far my favorite approach is acquiring spring water from my local artesian well. It has a very nice profile and is already accurately documented, so I don’t need to test it myself. I believe strongly in a natural approach to brewing as it is a natural process. This means I prefer to work with local ingredients and use a light hand when bending them to my will (minimum amount of additives, processing, etc.).

The various styles of beer are historically defined by their regions. This means that type of beer tastes that way largely because of the fermenting conditions available (mexican caves, sea voyages, etc.), the hops and grains available, and the water source the people had. They bent their recipes and methods around their environment, and thus a new style was born.

Additives I Use

  • Calcium Chloride and Calcium Sulfate
    • I want to swing the balance of sulfates and chloride towards chlorides as I brew malty delicate German style beers and don’t want sulfate getting in there making my water profile bitter instead of just dry and crisp. Calcium sulfate is also known as gypsum.
  • Phosphoric Acid
    • I add this AFTER performing an acid rest to use the minimal amount possible. I mix it in and take readings with my pH meter until I am in a satisfactory range.

Mineral Reference List

  • Calcium
    • Ca2+ ions are by far the most influential mineral in the brewing process. Calcium is instrumental to many yeast, enzyme, and protein reactions, both in the mash and in the boil. Yeast flocculation is improved by calcium; most yeast strains require at least 50 mg/L Ca2+ ions for good flocculation (Taylor, 2006). Calcium reacts with phosphates, forming precipitates that involve the release of hydrogen ions, in turn lowering the pH of the mash.
  • Carbonate
    • CO32- ions and their effect in raising pH can result in less fermentable worts (a higher dextrin/maltose ratio), unacceptable wort color values, difficulties in wort filtration, and less efficient separation of protein and protein-tannin elements during the hot and cold breaks. High carbonate waters can affect hop flavor too—hop bitterness becomes increasingly harsher. It is essential, therefore, that temporary hardness is removed from brewing water.
  • Magnesium
    • Magnesium Mg2+ ions react similarly to calcium ions and malt phytins, but since magnesium salts are much more soluble, the effect on wort pH is not as great. Magnesium is most important for its benefit to yeast metabolism during fermentation.
  • Nitrates and Nitrites
    • Nitrate NO3¯, in and of itself, is not a problem; it has no effect on beer flavor or brewing reactions. However, high nitrite levels may reduce the fermentation rate, dampen the rate of pH reduction, and give rise to higher levels of vicinal diketones (Taylor, 1988).
  • Phosphate
    • Phosphate compounds are prevalent in malt and wort. Phosphates (HPO32-) are important pH buffers in brewing and useful for reducing the pH in mashing and during the hop-boil (Briggs et al., 2004).
  • Potassium
    • Like sodium, potassium (K+) can create a “salty” flavor effect. It is required for yeast growth and inhibits certain mash enzymes at concentrations above 10 mg/L (Sanchez, 1999).
  • Sodium
    • Na⁺ has no chemical effect; HOWEVER, it contributes to the perceived flavor of beer by enhancing its sweetness. Levels from 75 to 150 mg/L give a round smoothness and accentuate sweetness, which is most pleasant when paired with chloride ions than when associated with sulfate ions. In the presence of sulfate, sodium creates an unpleasant harshness, so the rule of thumb is that the more sulfate in the water, the less sodium there should be (and vice versa).
  • Chlorides
    • Calcium and magnesium chlorides give body, palate fullness, and soft-sweet flavor to beer. The certain roundness on the palate given by sodium chloride (NaCl) (common table salt) makes this salt eminently suited for all types of sweet beers—for both dark beers and stouts.
  • Sulfates
    • SO42-, positively affects protein and starch degradation, which favors mash filtration and trub sedimentation. However, its use may result in poor hop utilization (bitterness will not easily be extracted) if the levels are too high. It can lend a dry, crisp palate to the finished beer; but if used in excess, the finished beer will have a harsh, salty, and laxative character.
  • Iron
    • Fe2+ in large amounts can contribute to negative flavor characters to beer, such as metallic and astringent.
  • Chloride
    • Cl¯ is common in most water supplies. Chloride ions contribute to the mellow, palate-full character of beer.
  • Copper
    • Cu2+, in concentrations as low as 0.1 mg/L can act as catalysts of oxidants thus leading to irreversible beer haze.
  • Zinc
    • Zn2+ plays an important role in fermentation and has a positive action on protein synthesis and yeast growth. It also impacts flocculation and stabilizes foam (promotes lacing) (Bamforth, 2006a).
  • Manganese
    • Mn2+ is important for proper enzyme action and has a positive action on protein solubilization and yeast. It does this by converting ground state oxygen to reactive oxygen species. You can also very easily have too much Manganese, its function is also performed by iron and copper.

Grains

Specialty Malts

I believe in minimizing the amount and variety of specialty malts in a non-dark style of beer. These specialty malts are heavily relied upon in modern brewing in my opinion largely due to the fact that modern brewing does rarely utilizes decoction. Specialty malts are almost always toasted during their malting process to a certain Lovibond (SRM) (color measurement).

How Much

The amount of grains you need for a given beer is going to be dependent on your batch size and brewing efficiency. I believe it is better to learn towards the safe size. If you find you have wort that is too concentrated (original gravity reading too high) you can always correct it by adding water.

Preparation (Grind)

Grains do not have volatile compounds like coffee or pepper. They can therefore be stored ground for extended periods of time without losing their character. They do however, like coffee, benefit greatly from having the correct grind applied to them. This is because we are doing an extraction, the same as coffee. Therefore, grains should be milled to ensure an equal and even granule size, and the grain should not be overly fine (do not pulverize them into flour!). Getting your grains pre-milled or milled at a brewing store is perfectly good.

Hops

Whole Leaf vs Pellet

Whole hops are always preferable to pellet hops. The only reason pellet hops exist is convenience. They are more shelf stable and more compacted than dried whole cone hops. Pellet hops are nearly-powdered pressed hops. They promote over-extraction of alpha acids, and their fine particulates contribute to haze and general junk. They are also much more annoying to initially strain out after boiling. Even after straining through an ultra fine mesh, I can still see a green layer of crud at the bottom of my carboys.

You can get more good hoppy compounds out of whole hops before hitting an IBU level than with pellet hops. They also retain more of their more delicate compounds. Whole leaf hops are not always available. Check with hop suppliers to see when they might get a shipment of what you’re looking for. Store hops in a deep freezer (chest freezer etc.) and they should keep for almost a year.

Hop Compounds

Alpha Acids

humulone, cohumulone, and adhumulone The source of bitterness in hops. Alpha acids can be isomerized to iso-alpha acids during the boiling phase. The longer hops boil, the more alpha acids are isomerized, thus more bitterness.

Beta Acids

lupulone, colupulone and adlupulone Noble hops have the closest ratio oh 1:1 of beta and alpha acids. Other hops which bitter more consistently over time are closer to 2:1 alpha to beta.

Essential Oils
  • Humulene
    • The ratio of humulene to caryophyllene varies from one hop variety to another, but many brewers consider a good aroma to be one that has a ratio of greater than 3:1. Such hops tend to be floral, herbal, and spicy in character. Some varieties, such as Hallertauer Mittelfrüh and U.K. Kent Golding, may contain 30% or more of their essential oils in humulene, but, because humulene is highly volatile and hydrophobic, only trace quantities of it may actually reach the final beer. Oxidation products of humulene, on the other hand, especially humulene mono- and di-epoxides, can impart significant amounts of aroma to beer. Humulene epoxide III is one of the most potent flavor compounds in Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, for instance, a variety that is high in humulene but relatively low in total oils.
  • Linalool
    • A potent odorant in hops and beer. As an alcohol, it is considered part of the oxygenated fraction of hop oils and consequently is more soluble in wort and beer than its counterpart myrcene. Linalool has a distinctive floral aroma reminiscent of rose as well as lavender and/or bergamot. It also has citrusy and woody notes. It can be a very noticeable component in a beer’s aroma. It is commonly present in regularly hopped beers at a range of 1 to 30 ppb, but it may reach as much as 100 ppb or more in dry-hopped beers. Agronomically, linalool concentration in hop oil can vary significantly within the same variety, even in the same hop yard, but from different years—sometimes by as much as a factor of 2. Some researchers believe that linalool serves as a marker for hop aroma in beer, especially when German lagers are flavored with German aroma hops, simply because higher levels of linalool in beer tend to correlate with hoppier aromas in lagers.
  • Myrcene
    • Levels are typically 50% or more of the total oils at harvest time. In some instances, they even exceed 70%, as is often the case with such American varieties as Cascade and Centennial. See cascade (hop). Myrcene has a green and freshly herbaceous aroma that is distinctively “hoppy.” It has the lowest odor threshold—13 ppb—of the main hydrocarbons in hop oil, and is, therefore, the most potently aromatic. Beers that have been heavily dry-hopped with American hop varieties can have a pronounced myrcene aroma. Myrcene, however, is very volatile, which means that prolonged boiling causes virtually all of the myrcene to escape through the kettle stack, and very little remaining in the beer. The precursor to myrcene is the chemical geranyl pyrophosphate. Its oxidation, as well as its subsequent chemical rearrangements during the hop growth phase, can lead to a range of floral, fruity, and citrusy compounds. These include linalool (floral–citrusy), nerol (citrus, floral–fresh rose), geraniol (floral–rose, geranium), citral (citrus–lemon–candy like), and limonene (citrus– orange–lemon).

Yeast

Yeast is what makes a beer. You should always endeavor to pick the best strain for the beer you’re brewing.

Wet vs dry

Will have functionally no impact if the strain you’re using happens to be available in both forms More yeast strains are available as wet yeast Wet yeast does not have to be bloomed before pitching

Brands

Imperial yeast is the best. They are the spiritual successor to Wyeast and are an improvement in many ways.

Hardware

Metrology

Thermometer

Thermapen One is the best. 0.5F accuracy, <1s read times.

PH Meter

I am using a garbage one off Amazon at the moment. I do not think it is necessary to be hyper-precise here as any meter is going to be able to tell you if you are well into the good pH range for your beer. I swirl mine around a lot without caring about it.

Milligram Scale

Cheap is totally fine here, it doesn't need to be crazy. I use this for water additives and hops since they are very powerful.

Food Scale

To weigh grains

Hydrometer

For checking your gravity.

Cleaning

  • Star-san
  • PBW
  • Bottle brushes (for carboys and kegs)
  • Copper scrub pad (gentler than steel wool and doesn’t rust)

Vessels

Mash Tun

  • Cooler or kettle with a bazooka screen into a ball valve spigot drain
    • Best sparge drain is a bazooka. The best bazooka is custom making a copper “pitchfork” (rectangular tun) or a spiral (circular tun) and drilling a ton of holes in it.Its more clog-proof.
  • Silicone hose for draining into boiling pot to prevent oxidation

Pots

  • Boiling Pot
    • At least half a gallon larger than your maximum boiling volume, to prevent boil-overs
  • Water Pot
    • Metal pot for heating up sparge water. Must be able to hold all needed sparge water.
  • Decoction Pot
    • Pure copper pot for performing decoctions in. Must be able to hold max decoction size. (roughly 3 gallons for a 5 gallon homebrew)

Fermentors

  • Glass carboy or stainless keg. Must be able to hold primary fermentation volume with percentage of headspace.
    • If using a glass carboy get a piece of blackout fabric, cut a hole in the top, and drape over to prevent light. HDPE buckets aren’t great because they trap smells and cause permeation, and degrade over time.
  • One-way valve

Other Hardware

  • TWO small containers for sparge recirculation
  • Funnel + strainer mesh, or stainless strainer for straining hops out of wort
  • Stirring spoon or whisk (I like the whisk)
  • Burner for heating things (outdoor propane burner is best by far)
  • Copper chilling coil
    • And a hose to run it with
  • Racking cane (big one is WAY better)
  • Silicone hose for racking cane

Mashing

Now it gets interesting. Mashing is where the real brewing happens. Mashing determines the amount of sugar you get, what kinds of sugars they are, what kinds of complex flavor compounds your beer will have, its alcohol content, everything. Extraction brewing is not real brewing, I will not waste time with why. Single infusion brewing is lazy and puts all of the load on the malt selection and how well they were prepared. Step mashing is better and the most common, but still relies on the specialty malt preparation for any complex flavor compounds.

Decoction brewing is the original brewing method. This is because you can accurately heat your mash without a thermometer by boiling specific volumes of mash, which in turn yields a specific amount of heat energy i.e. temperature increase. The most important feature of decoction brewing today is that it cooks and brown the grains, thus imparting a Maillard reaction. Specialty toasted malts have this done to them at the factory, so brewers today get away with leveraging that when they don’t decoct. Decoction adds depth, body, and maltiness to any beer. It is the only method I will ever brew with.

Decoction Methodology

Take note, once the temperature of a mash is raised, it cannot in good conscience be lowered back down. This is because the various enzymes you work with in a mash are present at the beginning, have an activity temperature range, and beyond that are irreversibly denatured. Now, you might be thinking “but decoction mash boils portions of mash, doesn’t this impact enzymatic activity?” the answer is yes it does. You mitigate this by raising each decoction to saccharification temperature and hold for at least 10 minutes before bringing to a boil.

The other components of decoction mashing are amount of mash decocted, time boiled, and thickness of mash decocted.

Procedure

The amount of mash you decoct should be calculated based on the volume of mash you have, the current temperature, and the desired temperature gain. The length of time you boil a decoction impacts how dark it becomes, this is because the grain is being toasted at the bottom of the pot. Typical light German beers have decoction times of 10-15 minutes. However, you could go as long as 45 minutes on darker varieties. The thickness of each decoction is something I am still looking for concrete data on. My experience thus far is you want a very heavy (thick) decoction at the beginning, and you can thin this out as you go along to decoctions 2 and 3. You want it to be thick because that will maximize the grain that is being browned. Furthermore, at the point you start pulling decoctions you will already have extracted much of the grains enzymes so don’t be too worried about losing them.

Mashing Schedule:

Here is where things are going to get complicated.

Mashing can be broken down into the following items. Note that the temperature ranges on the enzymatic activities denote their optimal ranges and they will still exhibit activity outside of these ranges to a degree.

Dough-In

The initial mixing of the grains and the water. This is typically done at 95F as that is the maximum temperature before things start to happen. A 10-20 minute rest here helps ensure all the grains are saturated and the temperature is even before moving on to stages.

I am doughing in at a very thick mash to grist ratio, and my first temperature increase is simply adding hot water to bring my mash up to acid rest temperature while at the same time thinning it out. This saves me a decoction and lets me get a nice efficient boost to my acid rest at the beginning with my dough-in temperature.

Acid Rest

  • Optimal temperature range for this enzymatic activity is 95F-113F. Typically here we'd target 113F on the dot.
  • Lowers mash pH
  • Must run for at least 60 minutes to see meaningful change in pH.
  • Phytase is what is active in this. It breaks down phytin which releases phytic acid, thus lowering mash pH.

I will always perform an acid rest to minimize the acidic additives (in my case phosphoric acid) that I need to use to achieve a desired pH level.

Protein Rest

  • Peptidase
    • Optimal temp range: 113F-128F
    • Chops up moderate/short chain proteins into their component form.
    • Generally good to avoid as you could run into problems with head retention
  • Protease
    • Optimal temp range: 131F-137F
    • Chops up long chain proteins into medium length chains
    • Good for under modified malts as it will break down gums
    • Will aid in body fullness and head retention
    • Helps with efficiency

For my protein rests, I’ve been targeting 130F-132F. This is because I want to favor protease much more than peptidase, while trying to stay out of the way of beta amylase as much as I can, in order to maintain clearer control over how much I am favoring that enzymatic activity. Here are some charts that show a rough idea of the optimal and overall ranges for these enzymes. I’m also targeting this range to allow for 1-2F of temperature drop in my mash tun.

Saccharification

  • Beta-Amylase
    • Optimal temp range: 140F-149F
    • Denatured at 160F and above
    • Optimal pH of 5.1-5.3
    • The primary producer of fermentable sugars. Breaks down amylose and amylopectin and limits formation of dextrins (dextrins are the primary factor in beer body)
  • Alpha-Amylase
    • Optimal temp range: 145F-158F
    • Denatured at 170F and above
    • Optimal pH of 5.3-5.7
    • The primary producer of unfermentable sugars. Chops molecules randomly into long glucose chains. Creates some fermentable sugars like maltose but also unfermentables such as dextrins.
  • Dextrin activity increases more sharply above 152F

Now that’s out of the way. Here’s the first trick I’ve recently been trying. If you look at the chart below you can see the “Brewers Window”. This window is here because it allows you to perform a single temperature saccharification for an * hour to achieve a desirable result.

My problem with this is that in this window, the beta and alpha amylase activities are very volatile. To create any accurate and repeatable flavor profile we are looking at sub-single-degree temperature windows. So, my recent idea has been to do two saccharification rests at the optimal or near-optimal temperature windows for beta and alpha amylase respectively. Now the question is how to balance out the time. I’m still new to this so my research is currently showing that beta amylase works faster than alpha amylase. I take that into consideration and am currently running a 15-20 minute beta rest at 145F and a 30-40 minute alpha rest at 156F. As the slopes of these enzyme activities are much lower at these temperatures, they are therefore much more forgiving to temperature fluctuations and inaccuracies.

Here is a mashing schedule I used for a Kolsch and Mexican lager. I never overshot a temperature target, and if I undershot, I corrected with another small quick decoction just to boost it up.

Sparging

Sparging is the act of the actual extraction you perform on the grains. Your goal is to acquire all the sugars and flavor compounds you’ve created while not leeching tannins (astringent, polyphenolic molecules) or draining out particulates into your finished wort.

The first step to avoiding this is to establish a tightly compacted grain bed, which will act as an ultra-fine filter for itself. You do this by gently opening the ball valve and draining wort into one of two cups and pouring it back into the mash tun gently. You repeat this process until the product is clear and free of particulates.

Once you’ve done this you start draining wort into your boiling pot. Hook up a silicone hose to the spigot to prevent the wort from aerating while it drains. Oxygen in the presence of even slightly warm wort will react with it and create all kinds of nasties.

Now, your goal is to get the MASH as close to 170F as you can. A common misconception here is that your sparge water should be 170F-173F. This may be true if you have a nice high volume batch with a fly sparge rain system, and you let the grain bed drain. However, the best homebrew approach is batch sparging. For this you can even pour in boiling water, as long as you carefully distribute it and monitor the mash temperature so it does not exceed 170F.

ANOTHER method is if you’re mashing in a kettle, simply increase the temperature to 170F and then sparge with 170F water. YET ANOTHER method is to perform one last decoction to boost the mash temperature to 170F. both of these methods are various ways of performing a mash-out.

You will want to calculate the amount of sparge water you’ll need. It is nearly impossible to accurately gauge it due to the amount of grain, and the type of grain, which will vary its absorption and liquid retention.

Sparging

While sparging is a part of mashing, I am giving it its own section as I find it to be procedurally its own thing.

Sparging is the act of the actual extraction you perform on the grains. Your goal is to acquire all the sugars and flavor compounds you’ve created while not leeching tannins (astringent, polyphenolic molecules) or draining out particulates into your finished wort.

The first step to avoiding this is to establish a tightly compacted grain bed, which will act as an ultra-fine filter for itself. You do this by gently opening the ball valve and draining wort into one of two cups and pouring it back into the mash tun gently. You repeat this process until the product is clear and free of particulates.

Once you’ve done this you start draining wort into your boiling pot. Hook up a silicone hose to the spigot to prevent the wort from aerating while it drains. Oxygen in the presence of even slightly warm wort will react with it and create all kinds of nasties.

Now, your goal is to get the MASH as close to 170F as you can. A common misconception here is that your sparge water should be 170F-173F. This may be true if you have a nice high volume batch with a fly sparge rain system, and you let the grain bed drain. However, the best homebrew approach is batch sparging. For this you can even pour in boiling water, as long as you carefully distribute it and monitor the mash temperature so it does not exceed 170F.

ANOTHER method is if you’re mashing in a kettle, simply increase the temperature to 170F and then sparge with 170F water. YET ANOTHER method is to perform one last decoction to boost the mash temperature to 170F. both of these methods are various ways of performing a mash-out.

You will want to calculate the amount of sparge water you’ll need. It is nearly impossible to accurately gauge it due to the amount of grain, and the type of grain, which will vary its absorption and liquid retention.

Boiling and Chilling

Boiling

Boiling concentrates wort, creates a means to extract and isomerize hop compounds, and removes volatiles like SMM (precursor to Dimethyl Sulfide which is yucky). Boiling is generally scheduled around 60 minutes, and to which a standard “hop schedule” follows. Boiling longer will, with greatly diminishing returns, further remove volatiles. It will also further concentrate your wort. If you lost too much volume during your boil just add some water afterwards to get the gravity back into specification. DO NOT EVER COVER A BOIL it will defeat the purpose of boiling off volatiles and you’ll end up with garbage.

When coming up to boiling temperature on your wort begin to taper off the heat and be ready to kill it at a moments notice to prevent an explosive boil over. I also like to do this to preserve as many beautiful proteins I can which I find contribute massively to head retention.

You can boil for longer with a shorter hop schedule.

I have not tried whirlpooling yet however I find it easily incorporable with my current chilling method, so I’ll simply leave it out.

Chilling

After your boil has finished you are now going to chill your beer down to a level the yeast will be happy with. You should pitch on the far low side of the yeast’s acceptable range to prevent stressing it with heat which will produce off flavors. Your yeast has been sitting in the fridge for months, cold just makes it hibernate.

Have ready a glass carboy with a funnel and 500um mesh strainer (I just use a fine mesh bag) over it to catch hop junk. Have a chiller coil ready and tested for spraying water everywhere. Place chiller coil gently into your wort and DO NOT AERATE. You may gently stir it around to contact the wort much faster. I find this very necessary to chill the wort down at an effective pace. Once your wort has reached below ~80F, you now will aerate it with the chilling coil by grabbing predominantly the end which connects to the bottom of the coil, and thrusting it up and down into the wort. This will also cool it very effectively which is especially helpful once the temperature delta has gotten so low.

I prefer to pitch my yeast into the wort pot and then to strain into the carboy. You’re going to have to constantly be cleaning your “sieve” out otherwise the hops will clog and make it come to a standstill.