Ingredients
You need them. These are the one ones you need. There are plenty of other things you can add, so don't feel restricted. It's your beer. Own it.1. Malt
Malt is the bedrock of your brew and in addition to providing the sugars you need, it also brings body and flavour to your beer. Malt is the germinated grain of cereal crops - typically barley. Why germinated? Because germinated grains have the enzymes needed for you to extract various sugars essential to the brewing process. Malting is the process by which the grains are encouraged to germinate by soaking them in warm water before they are ruthlessly air dried to halt the process at precisely the right moment for them to be of maximum use. You'll need to decide if you want to brew from the grain, which is a bit more involved but surprisingly rewarding, or if you're going to use extract. Extract is where the sugars have already been extracted for you, hence the name. If you're a beginner, probably best to go for the extract. There are many different types of extract, the main ones being light, medium and dark, each affecting flavour and colour, with darker generally meaning stronger. It comes either as gloopy brown liquid malt extract (LME) in a big can or as powdered dried malt extract (DME or spraymalt) in a bag. The advantage of dried is that it's cheaper and doesn't give you that 'homebrew taste' that Sean always complains about.
2. Sugar
Like malt extract, the main purpose of this sugar is fermentation, with some responsibility for body and flavour. Some sugars are 100% fermentable and your yeast will eat the lot, leaving no trace in your final beer. Other sugars are non-fermentable, or contain flavours that are non-fermentable, and these hang around in your beer adding specific notes to the taste, like making it sweeter, more caramelly, more cidery, more milky (as per this year's recipe) etc. You can use pretty much anything as a source of sugar - glucose, brown sugar, demarara, honey, molasses, etc., with varying effects. Most home brewers use bog standard cane sugar (but not beet - apparently it can make your beer ropey, as I have since discovered after using it a few years ago). I still make ropey beer, but at least the sugar isn't to blame.
3. Crystal Malt
The main function of your crystal malt, which looks like a hybrid of muesli and fine gravel, is flavour. Basically, it's a malt that they've frigged about with to convert its sugars into stuff that can't be fermented, so it hangs around in your beer imparting flavour. That flavour is the toffee/caramel that you get in virtually all ales. It also brings sweetness. Again, there are heaps of different kinds of crystal malt, broadly ranging from light to dark, with darker being stronger/nuttier.
4. Hops
These supply bitterness, aroma and preservative properties and usually come in tight, vacuum-packed blocks that look a bit like something you might try and hide in your luggage after a long weekend in Amsterdam. It's an indigenous English hardy perennial climber that grows like a weed pretty much wherever you let it. You can pick and dry your own wild hops, but for the sake of consistency and because brewing beer for many is onerous enough, let's stick to cultivated hops. Hops contain acids, that are mainly responsible for bittering, and essential oils which add aroma. Because the essential oils are fragile and don't like being boiled to buggery, hops are usually added in stages, with bittering (or 'coppering') hops going in first and late hops going in right at the end of the boil so their oils survive. You can even dry hop a beer by adding them to the bucket during fermentation. I don't know about you, but I'm learning a lot.
5. Yeast
This tiny fungus is your active ingredient and usually comes in either an air-tight tub or a little foil packet. This is the party starter without which there is no party - it is the single ingredient that will do most to define the success of your beer - so it's really important to get the right one. Any old yeast will not do. There's an entire industry dedicated to cultivating specific yeasts for specific jobs and happily, ale yeast is high on their list of priorities.
6. Water
Water is water, right? Wrong. Water has two or three variables you need to consider. First, tap water has additives, like halogens, that can affect the taste of your beer. Second, water varies in hardness. Traditional British 'Burton' Ales call for special water, so you may need to add gypsum (calcium sulphate) to your brew. Finally, I said you're going to make 40 pints, but if you use less water (say enough for 32 pints) you'll get stronger alcohol and more intense flavour.
You will also need:
- Beer finings, which clear your beer during its first fermentation (in the bucket) by dragging all those fugging fogging particles down to the bottom.
- More sugar, which you'll use to get second fermentation started when you bottle this bad boy.
General guidelines on quantities
Malt extract: Between 2.25kg and 3.4kg of the dry stuff. The more you use, the stronger your beer. Add 20% to the weight if you're using liquid extract.Sugar: This should be in proportion to your malt extract. Go for roughly 15% of the weight of your dry extract. So if you're using 2.25kg of dry malt extract, use 340g of sugar. If you're using liquid malt extract, roughly 12.5% should do it.
Crystal malt: Somewhere between 250g and 400g, depending on how caramelly you want it. It's usual to go for more crystal in a stronger beer, but, hey, whose beer is this?
Bittering hops: These are the ones you're going to boil to buggery. They add the bitter taste, hence the name. Bullion, Brewer's Gold, Target and Challenger are a good bittering hops. Somewhere between 70 - 100g should do it.
Late hops: These are the ones you want for your delicate essential oils. You probably need less - somewhere between 30 - 80g - but again, it's up to you. Fuggles, Pilgrim and East Kent Goldings are, I'm told, very popular.
Dry hops: These are essentially really really late hopes, added after the wort has cooled and left to infuse for 3-5 days
Yeast: Safale do a good batch of ale yeasts. We've used their No 4 in the past, but I'm sure the others in the series also do a fine job.
Brewing Equipment
You can beg, borrow or share a lot of this stuff with your friends. Or you can buy an off-the-shelf kit for about £20.
- 1 x Stockpot or similarly large saucepan (3 gallon - for extract brew only)
- 1 x Brewing kettle (for grain brew only)
- 1 x Mash tun (for grain brew only)
- 1 x Immersion wort chiller (for grain brew only)
- 1 x Brewing thermometer
- 1 x Long handled spoon (stainless steel or heatproof plastic)
- 4 x Brewing bags for hops and crystal malt
- 1 x Large colander or strainer (metal not plastic)
- 1 x Siphon tube (if your fermenting bucket doesn't have a tap)
- 1 x Funnel
- 1 x Chlorine-based sterilising powder
Bottling
You will need bottles sufficient to hold 36 to 40 pints. Equipment listed is for glass bottles with crown caps, because they look great and your beer just tastes better coming out of them.
- 40 x One Pint Bottles (you can either buy these new or recycle commercial ale bottles - these should be the robust, heavy duty type, i.e. Bombardier, not flimsy lager bottles that will blow up during fermentation)
- 1 x 100 Crown Caps (cheapest to buy in bags of 100)
- 1 x Crown Capper (a device that crimps the crown caps onto the bottles)
Alternatively, you can buy Grolsch-style homebrew bottles (don't use actual Grolsch bottles - they will blow up as well), or put them in plastic with screwtop lids. Don't, if you can avoid it. It's just wrong.
Making the Beer
Right, you've got all that stuff. Here's how to bring it all together into beer, glorious beer. Happily, it's dead easy. These instructions are for those using extract. Anyone brewing from grain presumably knows what they're doing already and won't be reading this. The big nerds.Step One
1. Clear the decks. You need a fair amount of space to do this.
2. Sterilise all your equipment (fermenting bucket, thermometer, spoon, etc) according to the instructions on your sterilising powder. Make sure all steriliser is washed off, or it will kill your beer.
3. Fill your 3 gallon stockpot about two-thirds full of tap water (2 gallons or 7.5 litres).
4. Put stockpot full of water on stove.
5. Tie your crystal malt and your bittering hops into a brewing bag. Divide your late hops roughly in two and tie into separate bags, giving you three bags in total. Ensure the tops are tight or the ingredients will escape and float about in your beer.
6. When the stockpot is just starting bubble (NOT boil), slowly stir in your malt extract. If you're using liquid malt extract, warm the can in warm water first to make it runnier. Expect it to foam a lot. Don't panic.
7. Stir. Don't let anything stick to the bottom of the pot. And whatever you do DON'T LET IT BOIL OVER. It's a bugger to get off the stove.
8. As it comes to the boil, add your bag of crystal malt and bittering hops. Keep stirring to hold down the foaming.
9. Boil as hard as you can for 30 mins. Don't put a lid on it - it will only encourage the blighter to foam and boil over. Stir occasionally.
10. At the end of 30 mins, add the first bag of late hops. This will add essential oils.
11. Boil for another 15 minutes, then add the second bag of late hops.
12. After 5 minutes turn off the heat and leave the liquid to stand. Don't be tempted to go for longer. It will destroy all the magic.
13. Boil the kettle. This is to rinse out the bag full of hops and malts.
14. Strain the liquid stockpot mixture (the wort) into your sparklingly clean fermenting bucket, using the colander. Be really careful - hot sugary water burns like nothing else.
15. Rinse the bag of hops and crystal into the fermenting bucket, using the kettle of boiling water.
16. Top the fermenting bucket up to just below the 5 gallon mark with cold tap water and stir with your long-handled spoon.
17. You can now add your sugar, although some people think it's best to let your yeast have a pop at the chewier maltose for a couple of days before adding the much more readily digestible dextrose or sucrose to the mix. This may be nonsense, but if you don't think it is, see step 23.
18. When the temperature of the mix has dropped below 23°C, sprinkle the yeast onto the surface.
19. If you're using an air pump, now is the time. Place in fermenting bucket and let is bubble for about 4 hours, then put the lid on.
20. If you're not using an air pump, put the lid on.
21. Store in a place where the temperature can be maintained steadily somewhere between 17°C and 23°C. You can wrap your bucket in towels to insulate. Check the temperature daily.
22. The brew should start to foam/bubble and ferment after 12 to 18 hours.
23. If you didn't add your sugar at step 17, add it two or three days after the beer went in the bucket. If it's dextrose, be prepared for it to foam like a bastard and possibly attempt to escape. Thus speaks the voice of experience.
Note: Keep the lid on at all times to prevent infection by bacteria, other yeasts that will make your beer go off.
Step 2
1. After 3 to 7 days, fermentation will cease and your beer will stop foaming/bubbling, and go flat.
2. When you're sure fermentation is over, you may want to add finings. These help clear the beer and should be added - and the beer left to stand - according to the instructions on the packet. Once that's done, your beer is ready to bottle.
3. Sterilise your bottles, funnel, syphon and crown caps. Make sure the sterilising solution is washed off completely, or it will kill your beer!
4. Being careful not to stir up the yeast sediment at the bottom, move your fermenting bin back to the kitchen.
5. Pour a half teaspoon of sugar into each bottle. Use the funnel.
6. Siphon your beer into the bottles, being careful to leave 1.5 to 2 inches of air in the top of each.
7. Crown cap your bottles and leave for a minimum of three weeks. Bottles should be stored where the temperature is between 17°C and 23°C.
8. Don't open until the beer has cleared. You can usually tell when this has happened, even with the dark brown bottles, by holding up against the light. If it's clear and you can hear angels singing, it's ready to drink.
No comments:
Post a Comment