I say that every time the next day after I brew a batch of beer. It is a great feeling that I prepared the wort correctly so the yeast I add can turn it into beer. Even though I understand what is happening it seems to be a miracle every time it happens. I am sure I am not the only homebrewer that feels this way. During the brew day the brewer makes the sugary wort and then adds our little friends, yeast, that digest the sugars and turns them into alcohol. With in a matter of weeks the beer is ready to be consumed.
Here is a synopsis of my typical brew day and the steps afterward to assure that I have a finished beer in a few weeks. My typical brew day begins with the gathering of my equipment and supplies. My equipment includes a stainless steel boil kettle, a turkey cooker and a few more items that will mention later. Needless to say I have to do my brewing outside because the lack of proper ventilation inside. Lucky for me we have a small concrete stoop outside of our basement door that I can set up on. Yes I have brewed in rain, snow and cold. Each present a different difficulty but all can be overcome.
I am an extract with grains brewer, that means I purchase malt extract and some specialty grains to make my beer. There are also all grain brewers that only use grain and make their own extract through a process called mashing. There is a third group of brewers that are partial mash brewers, it is kind of like a combination of extract and all grain brewing.
Once I have my burner and kettle set up I add my water and specialty gains, bring them up to 160 degrees F and let them sit for 30 minutes. Then I remove the grains and bring the wort up to a boil. Once it is at a boil I then add my extract and bring it back up to a boil and boil for 60 minutes. During the boil I add my hops, fining agents and other flavour compounds called for by the recipe. Also at 15 minutes before the end of the boil I add my wort chiller. At the end of the boil, also know as flame out, I turn on the the water to run through the wort chiller and bring the wort down to fermentation temp.
A wort chiller is a piece of equipment used to cool the wort. The wort chiller I use is an immersion chiller, as the name implies it is immersed in the wort. It is the most basic wort chiller, there are other more advance types though. There is a counter flow chiller that has water going in one direction and the wort in the other direction. Also the most advanced and efficient is a plate chiller. Each chiller accomplishes the same objective cooling the wort.
Once the wort is cooled it is time to add the yeast, there are a couple choices here as well dry or liquid yeast. Lately I have been using dry yeast, it has a couple advantages over liquid yeast including lower price and no need to make a yeast starter. One thing to be sure to do with dry yeast is to rehydrate them before adding them to the wort. Liquid yeast does have benefits as well, there is a wider selection of liquid yeasts that gives the brewer the ability to make a wide range of beers. Yeast is the worker of magic fermenting sugars into alcohol and making beer.
I leave the beer in the fermenter10-14 days. The actual yeast fermentation is normally 3-5 days and the rest of the time the yeast is busy cleaning up after themselves. As the yeast cleans up it is becoming inactive and settles out of the beer. At the end of the 10-14 days I then transfer my beer to the keg, a 5 gallon corny keg. At the time of transfer I hook up CO2 and carbonate the beer. So in a matter of 2-4 weeks a beer is made and ready to be consumed.
If you don't homebrew and want to learn more come to our next meeting of MUGZ next Sunday 2pm at Great River Brewing in Davenport, IA. Also you can learn more about MUGZ at our website http://www.mugzhomebrew.org/.
Cheers!
QC Beerguy
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