Back To Basics: Hops

Hops are flowers that are used to add flavor, aroma, clarity and shelf life to beer. These qualities are present in all hops, but not in the same magnitude. Some hops are very well suited for bittering a beer, but might not have the best aromatic properties, and vice versa. Some hops are well suited to impart different flavors to beer besides bitterness, and can add citrus, floral, piney, grassy, spicy, etc. flavors. Meanwhile some hops are well balanced, and are usable to add many different characteristics. Because of all of these variants, there is an ever expanding selection of hops being genetically engineered to provide aroma/flavor/bitterness combinations that are the most desirable.

"Triple Hops Brewed" is now a common term thrown out by Miller Lite to explain how they get their "Great Pilsner Taste", and even though I disagree with them on their taste they are touching on a fundamental aspect of adding hops to beer. Don't tell Miller, but depending on the style most homebrewers add hops to their wort at least three to four times. This is because different characteristics can be created or destroyed within the beer depending on how long the hops are in the wort, and the temperatures that they are subjected to.

The bittering of the wort is the easiest characteristic to extract from hops, but it takes the most amount of time. When the wort is being boiled 60+ minutes this bittering aspect is the reason. Resins within the hop flower aren't very soluble, and require boiling to isomerize in the wort. These resins contain alpha and beta acids that are responsible for bittering the beer. Alpha acids are the stars of the show, because they are usable when the hop flower is fresh. The percentage of alpha acids compared to the weight of the hop flower will be given to a brewer by the hop supplier, and will indicate how much bittering "bang for your buck" that that hop will provide.

These hops that have been in the boil for 60+ minutes have added bitterness to the beer, but most of the other characteristics that the hop could have provided have already boiled off at that point. That is because these flavors and aromas are located in oils within the hop flowers. Heating these oils will cause them to boil away with steam vapors. This is why hops will be added during the last 45 or 30 minutes of the boil for flavoring, and 15, 10 or 5 minutes of the boil, or during the whirlpool or secondary fermentation stages for aroma.

All of these hop additions would add bitterness, flavor and aroma in different amounts depending on the type of hop used, and the length of time that it is in the boil. It is standard practice to use the bittering characteristics of a high alpha acid hop during the beginning of the boil, and hops that are known for their flavoring and aromatic properties later. Don't limit yourself to this notion of "Triple Hops Brewed", because there are many different times that hops can be added to wort, and they will each add different complexities to your beer.

Back To Basics: Barley

Barley is one of the earliest cultivated cereal grains, but very little of it is directly used for human consumption anymore. Now it is primarily used as livestock feed, and as an ingredient in alcohol. Barley, in its harvested form, isn't usable in making beer, and that is why the malting, kilning and mashing processes are needed.

Barley seed during the malting process

Through using heat and moisture the malting process tricks the barley into starting the germination process. This process releases newly created and preexisting enzymes from the aleurone layer.

These enzymes begin to break down the insoluble starches, proteins and carbohydrates within the endosperm into smaller carbohydrates, amino acids, lipids, and soluble starch. The whole reason that these transformations are taking place is to give the acrospire energy to grow, and eventually become an adult plant. 

We don't want this process to waste energy growing the acrospire any longer than necessary when it could be saved to be turned into alcohol instead. That is why the process is stopped by kilning the barley when the proper balance between resource conversion and acrospire growth is reached. 

The process of kilning drys and roasts the barley. The temperature that the barley is kilned at determines the characteristics of the finished product. Base grains and specialty grains are the two classifications of kilned barley, and they have very different functions in the brewing process.

With a lower kilning temperature, base grains have retained a majority of their enzymes, and have a lighter roast. These grains will be the source of the majority of the fermentable sugars that will be present in the wort, but they don't contain these sugars until they go through the mashing process. The mashing process creates these sugars by soaking the barley in hot water with the correct conditions for the enzymes to break starches down into fermentable sugars. The liquid that results from the mashing process can then be dehydrated to create malt extract.

Specialty grains don't need to go through this mashing process, because they have been roasted in a way that no further sugars could be extracted from their starch reserves. Instead of adding fermentable sugars their function is to add flavor, color and body to beer. These grains only need to be steeped to impart their characteristics on a beer.

Barley is one of the basic building blocks of beer. Using barley that has gone through the malting, mashing and kilning processes can produce a wide array of complex color and flavor profiles in your beer, but most importantly it will provide yeast with fermentable sugars to be turned into alcohol.

Back To Basics: Yeast

I understand that my first few posts are a bit random and not a great place to start if learning about brewing, so I am going to dial it back a bit and talk about yeast.

Yeast is a relatively new ingredient in the brewing process. I'll let that sink in for a second. For thousands of years yeast wasn't something that brewers put into their beer. The original German beer purity law, Reinheitsgebot, only allows brewers to put malt and hops in water to make beer. This changed in the mid to late 1800s when yeast was discovered by Louis Pasteur. 

Yeast is a naturally occurring microorganism that is present as "wild strains" all over the world. Over the past 150 years brewers have mutated strains of yeast to impart different qualities to their beers. Homebrewers now can boil off any wild strains of yeast that are present in their grains, and populate their wort with only the specific strain that they want the characteristics of.


Commercial breweries could give you their exact recipe, but without their exact proprietary strain of yeast you would only be able to get close to their beer's taste. These breweries employ entire biology departments to ensure that the yeast strain doesn't mutate. If something bad does happen, more of their yeast is sitting in a high security vault ready to save the day. Yeast to these breweries are on the same level of importance as seasonings are to KFC, and Coca-Cola Classic's recipe is to Coke. 


Below are some of the more common terminology that is used when talking about yeast: 

• Pitching - Putting yeast into the wort.
• Types - Top fermenting, also know as ale yeast ferments at the top of the wort at higher temperatures. This yeast ferments quicker, and can impart more esters on the beer. Bottom fermenting, also known as lager yeast ferments at the bottom of the wort at lower temperatures. This yeast ferments slower, and gives beer a crisper, cleaner taste.
• Strains - The strain of the yeast is a sub-category of the type. There are an unlimited number of strains of yeast, because any minor mutation results in a new strain. 
• Attenuation - Sparing you the math involved for now, attenuation is the percentage of the malt sugars that are converted into alcohol during the fermenting process.
• Flocculation - Flocculation is a term that relates to how well the yeast settles to the bottom of the fermenter after fermentation is complete.
• Lag Time - Lag time refers to the speed at which the yeast, after being pitched, has depleted the oxygen in the wort during the reproduction process, and starts to turn sugars into alcohol and CO2.
• Esters - Esters are the flavors that the yeast give to the beer during the fermenting process.

Stupid Stuff for Smart Brewers - Part 2 - Fermentation

In the second part of Stupid Stuff for Smart Brewers I am going to sum up all of the fermentation tips, tricks, and information from "Stupid Stuff All Brewers Should Know But Often Don't" by Jamie Martin.

Here is the "F-you Bill, I am just going to read the actual article" link. 

Since we now know that it is incredibly important to keep all of your brewery equipment clean and sanitized to keep all the baddies out, we will go over some common fermentation problems that can happen in even the cleanest brewing equipment.

Fermentation Doesn't Start

If your fermentation doesn't start here are a few of the most common easily fixable reasons why:

• Oxygen Level - When in a brewing situation yeast goes through two different stages. The stage that gets the most attention is anaerobic glycolysis to turn sugars into CO2 and alcohol, but to be able to get to that stage the yeast needs to use oxygen in reproduction. If there isn't enough oxygen present in the wort, then the yeast won't be able to reach a high enough cell count to ferment at maximum efficiency. The simple solution for this is to add oxygen to your wort. Depending on the size of your operation, you can accomplish this by bubbling oxygen through the bottom of your tank, or taking the lid off and shaking your carboy.
• Wort Temperature - When you pitch your yeast the temperature is very important. The temperature needs to be within a range that is comfortable for the yeast. If your wort is too hot, then there is a chance that you could cook your yeast. If this happens, then all you have to do is wait for the wort to get to a good temperature, and pitch new yeast. If the wort is too cold, then heating the wort to a good temperature to activate the yeast already in the wort, and no additional yeast needs to be pitched.
• Yeast - This is more of an issue if you reuse yeast. There are many factors that could make your saved yeast unusable. Yeast doesn't like being stored under pressure, with too much dead yeast, and in fluctuating temperatures. If any of these conditions were present then there is a possibility that your yeast is either dead or very unhealthy. If you think this is the issue, then move the wort off of the bad yeast, and pitch new yeast. If you leave the bad yeast in the wort then there will be a chance that it will create off flavors, or compromise the health of your new yeast due to yeast autolysis.
• Time - If you believe that your fermentation didn't start, you might just need to wait. Some yeast works faster than others, so waiting an extra day before hitting the panic button might be a good idea. 

Stuck Fermentation

If your fermentation stops before the target specific gravity here are a few common reasons why:

• Malt - For any number of reasons you might not have gotten as much extract as you were expecting out of the malt during the mashing process. There is nothing that you would be able to do to alleviate this situation, and it would leave you with a sweeter beer with a lower alcohol content than you were expecting.
• Yeast -  Your fermentation might not be stuck. Some strains of yeast work very slowly in high alcohol environments at the end of fermentation. If you didn't reach the gravity that you were hoping for, and it appears that fermentation has stopped, then there is a chance that this might be your issue. Yeast can still be working at this slower rate for up to two more weeks, and this could have a large impact on your final specific gravity.

Stupid Stuff for Smart Brewers - Part 1 - Cleaning and Sanitizing

To get the ball rolling, and get myself into the swing of blogging, I am going to start with a two part series that sums up the points in "Stupid Stuff All Brewers Should Know But Often Don't" by Jamie Martin. 

Here is the "F-you Bill, I am just going to read the actual article" link.

Part 1, just like the first rule of brewing, and what every brewer has formed an unhealthy OCDesque obsession towards...is all about cleaning and sanitizing.

Brewing beer involves keeping the right living things happy in your wort, and keeping the wrong things out. The only way to get the highest probability (nothing is ever 100%, in brewing) that this happens is by rigorous cleaning AND sanitation. That's right, AND. Cleaners don't sanitize, and sanitizers only work on already clean surfaces.

*NOTE: It is important to take the time to disassemble any equipment that wort passes through, because there can be a lot of nooks and crannies for baddies to hide. If disassembling isn't an option, then back flushing is a good idea. Don't forget to clean CO2 lines too!

CLEANING

There are three variables when cleaning, and if you are running low on any one you better increase the other two. These variables are:

• Time: Obviously the easiest variable to add, and longer is better.
• Temperature: hotter is NOT always better. A range of 140-180ºF is the best, because it is hot enough for pasteurization, but not so hot as to allow "organic contaminates to precipitate proteins which can inhibit cleaning."
• Concentration: Always measure, and follow directions. If you use too high of a concentration, then it could lower the lifespan of your equipment, and if you use too low of a concentration, then it will not clean as effectively.

*NOTE: After cleaning stainless steel, it is reccomended to use an acid wash to coat your equipment with a protective passivation layer.

SANITATION

Sanitizers are important, because they remove all microorganisms from your brewing equipment. Most sanitizers are oxidizers, so it is important to completely dry you equipment after sanitation to prevent any residual sanitizer from oxidizing your beer.

First Post

"First Post"....wow. Talk about a total lack of creativity, but here it goes anyway.

Hello world, my name is Bill Krayer. I have been homebrewing for the past four+ years, and a beer snob for awhile longer. My brain is full of an ever expanding amount of information, and I would like to share everything that I learn from here on about the beer brewing process with you.

If there is no "you"s out there that are interested, then at least I have a resource to come back to when I inevitably forget something.

Now that I have justified doing this blog to myself, lets move forward with the learning.