Brewing¶
Reinheitsgebot: Water, Grain, Hops, Yeast.
This is documentation on my brewing method. The goal is to account for for all factors through the brewing process.
Ingredients¶
Water¶
Different beer styles require different water profiles. My approach: local artesian spring water (aquifer) with documented and very low mineral content. Otherwise, reverse-osmosis is a solid plan.
Beer styles are historically defined by their regions—the water, local grains, available hops, and fermenting conditions (Mexican caves, sea voyages, etc.) shaped each style.
Additives¶
| Additive | Adds | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Calcium Chloride (CaCl₂) | Ca²⁺, Cl⁻ | Shifts sulfate:chloride ratio toward malty/sweet |
| Gypsum (CaSO₄) | Ca²⁺, SO₄²⁻ | Shifts ratio toward dry/bitter |
| Phosphoric Acid (H₃PO₄) | H⁺, PO₄³⁻ | Lowers pH (flavorless, no ions beyond phosphate) |
| Whirlfloc | — | Protein/haze coagulant (last 5 min of boil) |
| Irish Moss | — | Protein/haze coagulant (natural seaweed alternative) |
| Campden (K₂S₂O₅) | — | Removes chlorine/chloramine from tap water |
| Yeast Nutrient (DAP) | Zn²⁺, N | Ensures healthy fermentation |
RO Water Building Salts¶
| Salt | Ions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Calcium Chloride (CaCl₂) | Ca²⁺, Cl⁻ | Primary chloride source; very soluble |
| Gypsum (CaSO₄) | Ca²⁺, SO₄²⁻ | Primary sulfate source; sharpens hop perception, drier finish |
| Epsom Salt (MgSO₄) | Mg²⁺, SO₄²⁻ | Use sparingly; excess Mg tastes sour/mineral |
| Table Salt (NaCl) | Na⁺, Cl⁻ | Rounds out malt sweetness; use non-iodized |
| Baking Soda (NaHCO₃) | Na⁺, HCO₃⁻ | Raises pH; for dark malts that need alkalinity |
| Chalk (CaCO₃) | Ca²⁺, CO₃²⁻ | Poorly soluble; must dissolite with acid or add directly to mash |
| Magnesium Chloride (MgCl₂) | Mg²⁺, Cl⁻ | Rarely needed; Epsom covers Mg²⁺ and you rarely want Mg without sulfate |
Mineral Reference¶
| Ion | Source | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ca²⁺ | Calcium Chloride, Gypsum, Slaked Lime | Enzyme/yeast reactions, flocculation, lowers pH | ≥50 mg/L for flocculation |
| CO₃²⁻ | Water, Baking Soda | Raises pH (bad) | Causes harsh hop bitterness, poor filtration |
| Mg²⁺ | Epsom Salt, Magnesium Chloride | Yeast metabolism | Less pH impact than calcium |
| SO₄²⁻ | Gypsum, Epsom Salt, Glauber's Salt | Dry/crisp finish, aids protein degradation | Excess = harsh, salty, laxative |
| Cl⁻ | Calcium Chloride, Table Salt, Magnesium Chloride | Body, fullness, mellow character | Pairs with Na⁺ for sweetness |
| Na⁺ | Table Salt, Baking Soda, Glauber's Salt | Enhances sweetness (75-150 mg/L) | Harsh with high sulfate |
| Zn²⁺ | Zinc Chloride, Yeast Nutrient | Fermentation, protein synthesis, foam stability | — |
| NO₃⁻/NO₂⁻ | Contaminated water | Nitrate harmless; nitrite slows fermentation | Raises VDK levels |
| Fe²⁺ | Pipes, water source | Metallic off-flavors | Avoid |
| Cu²⁺ | Pipes, equipment | Oxidation catalyst, causes haze | ≥0.1 mg/L problematic |
| Mn²⁺ | Water source | Enzyme action, protein solubilization | Excess harmful |
Grains¶
Philosophy¶
Minimize specialty malts in non-dark beers. Modern brewing over-relies on them because decoction is rarely used. Specialty malts are pre-toasted to specific Lovibond (color)—decoction creates these compounds fresh via Maillard reaction.
Amount¶
Dependent on batch size and efficiency. Err toward more grain—excess gravity is corrected by adding water.
Grind¶
Grains lack volatile compounds (unlike coffee)—store ground indefinitely. Mill for even granule size; do not pulverize to flour. Pre-milled from a brew store works fine.
Hops¶
Whole Leaf vs Pellet¶
Whole hops are always preferable. Pellets exist for convenience (shelf stability, compaction). Problems with pellets:
- Over-extraction of alpha acids
- Fine particulates cause haze
- Difficult to strain (green crud layer persists)
- Lose delicate aromatic compounds
Store whole hops in a deep freezer—keeps nearly a year.
Hop Compounds¶
Alpha Acids¶
Primary bittering compounds. Isomerize to iso-alpha acids during boiling—longer boil = more bitterness.
| Compound | Notes |
|---|---|
| Humulone | Primary alpha acid |
| Cohumulone | Associated with harsher bitterness |
| Adhumulone | Minor component |
Beta Acids¶
Do not isomerize—instead oxidize slowly during aging. Contribute harsher bitterness over time as they convert to hulupones. Noble hops have ~1:1 alpha:beta ratio; high-alpha hops are ~2:1.
| Compound | % of Beta Acids | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lupulone | 30-55% | Strong antibacterial (MIC 0.98 µg/mL) |
| Colupulone | 20-55% | Highest antibacterial activity |
| Adlupulone | 10-15% | Narrow range across varieties |
Essential Oils¶
Over 250 compounds identified; ~22 significantly affect aroma. >90% volatilize during boiling—whirlpool and dry-hop preserve them.
Primary Hydrocarbons (80-90% of total oil)
| Oil | % of Total | Aroma | Threshold | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Myrcene | 30-70% | Green, herbaceous, resinous, "hoppy" | 13 ppb | Most potent; volatile—boiling removes it |
| Humulene | 15-40% | Woody, herbal, spicy/clove | — | Humulene:caryophyllene ratio indicates variety |
| Caryophyllene | 5-15% | Woody, earthy, peppery | — | High in English hops (EKG) |
| Farnesene | 0-20% | Woody, herbal, citrus, floral | — | High in noble hops (Saaz, Tettnanger) |
Terpene Alcohols (oxygenated fraction—survives brewing)
| Oil | Aroma | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linalool | Floral, rose, citrus, lavender | 1-100 ppb in beer; marker for hop aroma |
| Geraniol | Floral, sweet, rose | Common in American/NZ/AU hops |
| Nerol | Citrus, rose, wisteria | — |
| Citronellol | Citrus, lemon | — |
| β-Damascenone | Honey, berry, rose, blackcurrant | — |
| β-Ionone | Raspberry, violets | — |
| Humulenol | Spicy, pineapple, cedar | Humulene oxidation product |
Humulene:caryophyllene ratio >3:1 = floral, herbal, spicy character (desirable).
Yeast¶
Yeast defines the beer. Pick the best strain for your style.
Wet vs Dry¶
Functionally identical if strain available in both forms. Wet yeast: * More strains available * No blooming required before pitch
Brands¶
Imperial Yeast is the best—spiritual successor to Wyeast with improvements across the board.
Hardware¶
Metrology¶
Thermometer¶
Thermapen One is the best. 0.5°F accuracy with sub-second 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¶
For weighing grains.
Hydrometer¶
For checking your gravity.
Cleaning¶
- Star-san (sanitizer)
- PBW (cleaner)
- 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. The best bazooka is custom making a copper "pitchfork" (rectangular tun) or a spiral (circular tun) and drilling a ton of holes in it. It's more clog-proof. Use a silicone hose for draining into the boiling pot to prevent oxidation.
Pots¶
| Pot | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Boiling Pot | At least half a gallon larger than your maximum boiling volume | Prevents boil-overs |
| Water Pot | Must be able to hold all needed sparge water | For heating sparge water |
| Decoction Pot | Roughly 3 gallons for a 5 gallon homebrew | Pure copper preferred |
Fermentor¶
Glass carboy or stainless keg. Must be able to hold primary fermentation volume with a 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, cause permeation, and degrade over time.
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¶
Where the real brewing happens.
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. Extract 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 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 (temperature increase). The most important feature of decoction brewing today is that it cooks and browns 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 holding 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.
Decoction Variables
- Volume: 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.
- Time: The length of time you boil a decoction impacts how dark it becomes, 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.
- Thickness: My experience 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 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 grain's enzymes so don't be too worried about losing them.
Mashing Schedule¶
Mashing can be broken down into the following stages. 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 95°F 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¶
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Temp Range | 95-113°F (target 113°F) |
| Time | At least 60 minutes for meaningful pH change |
| Enzyme | Phytase (breaks down phytin, releasing phytic acid) |
The purpose is to lower 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¶
| Enzyme | Temp Range | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Peptidase | 113-128°F | Chops up moderate/short chain proteins into their component form. Generally good to avoid as you could run into problems with head retention. |
| Protease | 131-137°F | Chops up long chain proteins into medium length chains. Good for undermodified 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 130-132°F. 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. I'm also targeting this range to allow for 1-2°F of temperature drop in my mash tun.
Saccharification¶
| Enzyme | Optimal | Denatured | pH | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| β-Amylase | 140-149°F | 160°F+ | 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). |
| α-Amylase | 145-158°F | 170°F+ | 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 152°F.
There is a concept called the "Brewer's Window" around 152°F. This window exists 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 approach has been to do two saccharification rests at the optimal or near-optimal temperature windows for beta and alpha amylase respectively. Beta amylase works faster than alpha amylase, so I take that into consideration:
| Rest | Temp | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Beta | 145°F | 15-20 min |
| Alpha | 156°F | 30-40 min |
As the slopes of these enzyme activities are much lower at these temperatures, they are therefore much more forgiving to temperature fluctuations and inaccuracies.
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 170°F as you can. A common misconception here is that your sparge water should be 170-173°F. 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 170°F.
Mash-out Methods
- If you're mashing in a kettle, simply increase the temperature to 170°F and then sparge with 170°F water.
- Alternatively, perform one last decoction to boost the mash temperature to 170°F.
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 & 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 moment's notice to prevent an explosive boil over. I also like to do this to preserve as many beautiful proteins as I can, which I find contribute massively to head retention.
You can boil for longer with a shorter hop schedule.
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 500µm 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 ~80°F, 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 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.