Strange Brew!! Home Brewing From A Modeler's Perspective

[Uncle Brett]

Home Brewin’ in the OC!!

Hey gang, how about something completely different? Sometimes we all gotta take a break from the models, if for only a weekend.

Some months back, our friend here on Giants, GremlinX, started a thread asking if any FGer’s brewed their own beer. My hand shot up in the air like a schoolboy while I was shouting, “I do, I do!!” This was back in the Fall when the weather was turning a little chilly, and since my brew days are a social event, I thought I’d wait until the days start to get longer and warmer to brew a new batch of beer. Well, that day came this week. The weatherman promised a beautiful, warm, late winter weekend, perfect brewing weather. The only question was, what should we brew? Lately, Max has been bringing over Newcastle Brown Ale and I’ve been really enjoying them so I thought, “Why not a Newkie clone?”. After searching the net for different Newcastle recipes that others have made, and seeing if my local water was compatible with a North England Brown Ale style of beer (it was), I formulated my own recipe and off to the Homebrew supply store I merrily went.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with home brewing, I’ll try to explain the process without getting too technical. If you have any questions, I’ll try to answer them here.

First off, let me say that if you like beer, home brewing is a wonderful hobby. You can make it as easy or as complex as you want and have something you can be proud of and share with friends.

Is home brewing legal? YES! and no. A little history first: In the US, when prohibition was repealed with the 21st Amendment, home wine-making was legalized. Home brewing of beer should have also been legalized at this time, but a clerical error omitted the words "and/or beer" from the document which was eventually passed into law. Thus, the home-brewing of beer remained illegal for several decades.
In November 1978, Congress passed a bill repealing Federal restrictions on the home brewing of small amounts of beer. Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, signed the bill into law in February 1979, (I wonder if brother Billy had anything to do with this?) and many states soon followed suit. However, this bill left individual states free to pass their own laws limiting production. For example, despite having several home brewing stores across the state, it is illegal by state code (28-1-1) to home brew in Alabama. In Georgia, home brewing is legal, but only in the reduced amount of 50 gallons per household per year, otherwise, a person (adult) can brew 100gal a year or 200gal a year per household if two adults reside there. Check your state laws if you want to give this a whirl.

As home brewers we have two different methods of brewing that we can use: Malt Extract brewing or All Grain brewing. Hopefully, here’s a simple explanation on how beer’s made and the difference between the two:

Beer is made from four basic ingredients: Grains (almost exclusively Barley), Water; Hops; and Yeast. The grains are very high in starch content and that starch needs to be converted into sugars so that those sugars can be converted into alcohol by the yeast. To do this, the grains are first steeped in a specific amount of hot water (between 145*-165*F) so that enzymes in the grain break down the starch molecules into sugar molecules. This is called “Mashing”. Once this conversion is complete (usually about an hour) the grain is then “Sparged” (washed with additional hot water to get all the sugars out) and then goes into the brew kettle. This liquid in the kettle is called “Sweet Wort” (pronounced “Wert”). The temperature that the grains are mashed at has a big effect on the body and sweetness, and to a lesser effect, the alcohol content of the finished beer. These are a few of the things, as an All Grain brewer, you can control.

Malt Extract has already had the Mashing done for you by the extract manufacturer so your control over the finished beer is somewhat limited. The Sweet Wort has been dehydrated to either a powder or viscous liquid that must be reconstituted with water in the brew pot.

Once the Sweet Wort is in the kettle, be it from extract or mashed grains, it’s brought to boiling, usually 60-90 minutes, and during this time the hops are added. Hops impart the bitterness and a distinct smell to the finished beer. In some styles of beer, like a Pale Ale, the hop’s bitterness and smell can be really pronounced. In other styles of beer, like this Brown Ale I’m brewing, not so much. This style of beer is more about the maltiness than the bitterness. Hops also have preservative effect on beer so shelf life is extended. This was discovered by the Brits when India was a colony. On the long voyage from England to India, the casks of beer were being spoiled by time and heat. The English Brewmasters discovered that if they over hopped the brew, it would be still be drinkable by the time it reached it’s destination. In fact it created a new beer style that’s still enjoyed today; IPA or India Pale Ale.

After the Wort has boiled for the set amount of time, it’s quickly cooled to 70-80F and put into the fermenting tank, in my case an old glass water bottle(s) and the yeast is “Pitched”, meaning, “Yeah, I threw the yeast in there, grab me a beer!”. The yeast then goes into action converting the sugars into alcohol. Yeast are microscopic little organisms that absolutely love to eat sugar. The more sugar there is, the happier they are. In fact, they get so happy eating sugar that they burst in two. Some call this multiplying but I like to think that the wee beasties are so overjoyed in sugar nirvana that they explode with happiness. The byproduct of this sugar rush is alcohol and C02. Like all living things, whatever we eat is converted into energy to sustain life (or in the case of yeast, explode with joy) and what the body doesn’t use, is expelled as waste. All you Yapaleno eaters know what I’m talking about! Anyway, Yeasty’s waste is a little different than ours, and thank the Almighty for that! The yeast eat the sugars in the Wort, then piss alcohol and fart C02!! And they’ll keep fartin’ and pissin’ and multiplying until the party’s over, or at least until there’s no more sugar. Then they’ll fall asleep and settle down to the bottom of the fermenter. In a sense, it’s kind of like what we do on Thanksgiving day. It takes about two weeks for the yeast to do their thing and fall asleep. After that the beer (that’s right, it’s beer now, not wort) is “Racked” (siphoned) off the sleeping yeast bed into clean tanks, or water bottles for the home brewer, which are called “Secondary Fermenters”. They are left to age, or condition, for another month or so to let the flavors marry. If the beer is a Lager, then it conditions for at least couple months.

That my friends is, basically, how beer is made.

Malt extract is the easiest way to home brew and is the way that most home brewers do it. It’s also the best way to get into the hobby and also the least expensive. Almost all home brew supply stores (either local or online) carry brewing kits that have everything you need to get started for around $100, excluding the brew pot. These kits include fermentation and bottling buckets, floating thermometer, hydrometer and flask, a bottle capper and caps, and a book that explains how everything works and how to brew. Also included is a beer kit to make 5gal of beer. The beer kit consists of malt extract (your choice depending on what kind of beer you want to brew) hops and yeast. What is usually not included is the brew pot. What’s needed is a stainless steel stock pot of at least 20qts (5gal) that you can find at the brew supply, online, or sometimes Costco. Figure to spend from $30- $60 depending on where you buy and thickness of the steel. So figure initial cost to be around $200 or less, and that includes a 5gal batch of beer. After that, all you need to buy is additional beer kits or ingredients for 5 gal batches that are around $25.

The other way to brew is to go All Grain. This is where a lot of home brewers eventually go when they really get into the hobby. The reason for the switch, as I’ve said before, is that the brewer has much more control over the beer which he’s brewing. Things like; body, color, sweetness (or lack of), flavor, alcohol, and generally the character of the beer can be controlled by the brewer to a much greater degree than with malt extract. That’s not to say that you can’t brew excellent beers with extract, you can. So why not go all grain right off the bat instead of extract? Well, cost is the number one reason. There is quite a bit more equipment required to brew all grain beers than to brew malt extract beers, also, it’s almost impossible to brew all grain in your kitchen.

As I’ve said, brewing at the Dick House is a social event. Since I brew 25-35gals at a time, it pretty much takes all day to brew so there’s a lot of down time waiting for the mash conversion, sparge, and boiling the Wort. During that time, friends will pop over for a game of darts, a cold one, and BS. In fact Brew Day, for those that don’t know, is how I got my screen name here on Giants. Friends will always bring their friends over to watch and enjoy the brew day and many times I’d never met their friends before. Sometimes there would be so many new faces that I couldn’t remember everyone’s name so it was decided that everybody’s name would be Dick, even the womenfolk. That made it so much easier on this addled brain of mine. Over time many of those people I met in my garage on brew day became close friends to this day. Even though I now remember their names, we still call each other Dick. A typical example would be; I walk into my local pub and a friend will see me and say, “Hey Dick!” and then of course I’ll respond, “Hey Dick!” back. It’s kinda like on Cheers when Norm would walk in, only instead of everyone saying, “Norm!”, they say “Hey Dick!”.

For those of you that might be interested in trying home brewing, there are many websites dedicated to the hobby and they are a lot of help. Here’s just one of them but a Google search will turn up a bunch more.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/index.php

On to the pics!

[Uncle Brett]

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[Uncle Brett]

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[adrian]

:Banane3 5::20 5:

[Uncle Brett]

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[sprice50]

Nice work!

[2.6m-rod]

hey dick, looks like a good brew

[Kiwi]

You better put a date on the next brew day mate.

It looks worth a trip even from far away Chile to see the mixmaster at work.

I´ve made lots and lots using kits and its a ton of fun, hard part is keeping up the empty bottle supply as the hobby grows. I have had a good few head aches and hangovers trying to keep up with the growth.

Brett, do you bottle it in quart sized glass or have you perfected a way to hold in kegs and save the bottling process.

[bradyrc]

Brett

Bring some to The Nall, nothing like to some good brew in South Kahkalaki!!!

[snap a saurus]

Nice work Dick, I wonder how many people will try that.

[Boulder]

Never thought I'd be this thirsty this time of the morning

Nicely done Brett!!

[Simpleton]

	Quote: Originally Posted by heydick
	And they’ll keep fartin’ and pissin’ and multiplying until the party’s over,

Hey, I've partied with these guys!

[Toro]

Excellent story, and way interesting to me. Gimme a call next time you do a batch, I would love to come down to HB for the day and hang with Brett the brew master...

Side story:

Last year post Joe Nall, Max, Brett, and I had a day to kill before we headed home. We headed into Greenville SC and were able to plop down in a hotel for the day and get a nap. Later that afternoon, we thought we needed one last day of debauchery, and fun so we headed into downtown which was a short walk. We found a little micro brewery, and Brett proceeded to bring class to order. School was in. I think the bar tender in this little micro brew bar in SC was damn impressed with some slick talking California guy knowin' bout all this beer and stuff...

[Wojcigitty]

Awesome thread, Dick! Very well written.

I love beer, and I've always wanted to try this. Maybe I'll bit the bullet this summer, or take out another student loan for some supplies before then. Nothing beets an ice-cold crisp IPA or rich, malty stout, in a warm place on a cold evening. Or a cool place on a warm evening. Or...whenever.

I think that FlyingGiants carboys should be available along with the shirts and hats. Or more reasonably, how about some beer glasses? I'd buy several.

[Uncle Brett]

It really is a lot of fun guys. For those interested in brewing, when you first start, get an Ale kit not a Lager(Pilsner) kit unless you have an old refrigerator with an accurate thermostat. The reason is that Lagers ferment at lower tempuratures than Ales, around 45*-55*F, and it could take up to a month to ferment out. Then you have to turn down the temp to 32*F and lager it (which means "to store") for a couple months before it's ready to drink. With an Ale, you can brew, ferment and drink it in about a month if you want. However, letting it condition a little longer than a month usually improves the taste. The fement temp for an Ale is 60*-70*F.
Kiwi, I gave up bottling a long time ago. I keg the beer in 5gal stainless soda kegs called Cornillius Kegs and dispense them through a kegerator. When you brew as many gallons at a time like I do, bottling can be a real PITA. I did make up a counter pressure bottle filler, that's in one of those pics above (funny looking wooden thingy) that I use if I want to bottle some homebrew, that's already carbonated, to a party or a friends house.
Toro, I thought you were going to tell everyone how I ordered a Shirley Temple in that Pub instead of a beer. I'm glad you didn't because I'd probably never live that one down when I see my friends at the Nall this year. PHEW....at least our secret's safe