All you really need to make great beer.

Today, I will attempt to make a list of the things you really need to make great beer.  Not just OK beer.  Great Beer.  These are the things you need to make partial mash beer.  UPDATE: I HAVE 19 PARTIAL MASH RECIPES POSTED AT BREWTOAD.  JUST TYPE IN " ( REAL PARTIAL MASH ) "

• A willingness to learn coupled with a willingness to try and fail
• A desire to help others
• 2 Large pots 4-5 gallons each
• Some paint strainer bags
• A 6.5 Gallon Fermenter or two...
• or like most of us 6-11 fermenters
• A colander or sieve
• A wort chiller
• I realize I don't always use one.  I'm not the best example to follow in that way.   But I'm a dinosaur who has been brewing since the 1st Bush Administration.
• Some air locks
• A hydrometer.
• Refractometers are cool, but for my money use a hydrometer, the reading is what the reading is... no conversions, no calculations. 
• A thermometer
• A bottling bucket and some tubing
• A couple of large 30 gallon buckets (think laundry tub)
• For controlling fermentation temperatures
• I found mine at garage sales for $1.00 each. 

You can get all of this for under $250.00.   And with it you can make great beer.  Dare I say competition quality beer.   That's it.   You don't need a $10 K  eHERMs system.   You don't need a 3 tier gravity fed  brew sculpture.  Now those things are cool.  And they make brewing easier, and in some cases more fun.   And I will admit... I may have some of those things.  But I (fingers crossed) kinda promised SWMBO that I wouldn't keep getting too much more... (sorry honey, yes I do need a sliding door refrigerator/fermentation chamber in the garage from the used Restaurant supply place if you want your whirlpool tub back)  I digress, where was I... oh yeah these things are cool...But you don't really need them.

Here are some things that are nice to have.  

• A 5 gallon beverage cooler 
• A ball valve for the cooler
• A bottling wand
• An aeration stone and an aquarium pump
• A cheap turkey fryer with a large pot with a valve.  
• you can do full volume boils with 2 pots on the stove, but one big pot is nice to have. 
• I use and recommend the Cajun Injector Electric Turkey fryer.  it was about $100.00 and yes naysayers it can boil 6.5 gallons of wort.

All of these extra things cost you about $200.00.  So for $500 total you are truly set up to brew.  If you are industrious and if you are willing to go to garage sales, you can probably be set up with everything you could ever need to brew for less than $200.00 total.

This is my firm suggestion to you.   Give partial mash a try before you spend a bunch of money on a wort production system, try partial mash for a year or so.  You may find you never want to brew any other way.  Chris Colby editor of BYO and Beer and Wind Journal has written lots of great articles on partial mash, look them up.   http://byo.com/grains/item/2543-converting-to-partial-mash

If you're just itching to spend money on brewing, your first priority should be a temperature controlled fermentation system.   The guys at NC home brew have a great tutorial on this.  http://www.nchomebrewing.com/diy-mini-fridge-beer-fermentation-chamber-build/

So there you go.  This hobby doesn't have to be expensive, it does have to be fun and delicious.

Ok I said never again. But...

I tasted a raspberry wheat beer last night.  I forced a 1 liter in a sanitized coke bottle (PET).

I know I said never again, but Wow.  This may be the best raspberry wheat beer I have ever tried.   And I made it.   In my kitchen.

So the old adage, "never say never"  holds true.   Because this morning I find my self already planning my next raspberry wheat beer.   But I think Ill make some changes.    I'm going to try both extract and (fresh puree).

Easy Texas Two Step Raspberry Wheat Beer: Extract with Grains with Raspberry Extract.
(a raspberry wheat you can make in your kitchen or counter top)

1 lbs  Flaked Wheat
1 lbs  Honey Malt
3.3 lbs Liquid Malt Extract Preferably Wheat  I like Briess
2  lbs Dry Malt Extract Wheat
1 oz Cluster hops (7 AAU) at 30
1 oz Hersbrucker (4 AAU) at 5 Minutes
1 satchel of Fermentis US-05
1 tsp of yeast nutrient

• Steep Grains at around 155-158 for 30 Minutes in 1 Gallon of Water
• Rinse Grains with .5 Gallon of Water.
• Add Dry Malt Extract with heat off and stir to mix it all in to the wort
• Separate the Wort into two 4 Gallon or larger pots
• Add Near Boiling Water to bring boil up to 6 Gallons
• Bring both pots to a boil
• with 30 minutes left add Cluster Hops in a bag
• with 5 minutes left add Hersbrucker Hops in a bag
• with 4.9 minutes left add the Liquid Malt Extract (heat off ) stir in, heat back on.
• with 4.9 minutes left add yeast nutrient.
• At the end of boil you should have around 5 gallons of wort.
• Chill wort (or don't chill, you can just put the lid on at flame out, let it cool for an hour or two, wrap the top of the pot, where the lid sits with plastic wrap and let it cool slowly, when I do this I let it sit all night.) 
• Pitch entire satchel of US-05
• Ferment at 65-68F 14 days in Primary
• Right before you transfer to 2ndary, Create a raspberry puree of 3 lbs of frozen raspberries. 
• Add to pot, bring to 160 F for 10 Minutes
• Mash with a potato masher.
• Run through a fine sieve with cheese cloth. to remove all seeds and skins
• Rack beer onto Puree. 
• A slight new fermentation will start. leave it alone for 2 weeks.
• On bottling day add bottling sugar and 1-2 oz of Raspberry Extract to bottling Bucket.  The amount will depend on the flavor provided by the puree.   So taste it and decide.   The extract has better aroma, the puree better flavor. 
• Condition for 1 Week, or longer it gets better with age. 

This will work for any fruit wheat beer.  Try it with apricot...yum

All Grain Split Boil? Sacrilege

So I have some awesome brew sessions coming up.   Something you should know about me,  I am the only male (save the cat) in a home with not 4, not 5, but 6 females.  That's right 6.   It's no wonder I brew beer.  There are nights when the Kardashians, and the 19 kids... are so overwhelming that even the cat needs a home brew.  Lot's of women in my home....

This fact is salient for another reason, 6 is a lot of mouths to feed.   So when ever I can I look to save money.   One thing I can do to save money and make better beer is make all grain beer when ever possible.

WE NOW INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR SILLY TRADITION NOT BACKED BY SCIENCE

"You can't make all grain beer in your kitchen, unless you are doing a pico batch.   We the overlords of home brewing tradition have decided that pico batches are kinda cool so you can make those, but no, we can not allow, we will not tolerated 5 gallon all grain batches in your kitchen.  It wont work.  A team of  tradition enforcing magic gremlins will come and sprinkle DMS on your beer"

NOW BACK TO YOUR NORMALLY SCHEDULED BLOG

Some brewing traditions are great.  Some are crap.   As I have said before, your wort doesn't know if it is being boiled in two different kettles.   Or 3, or 4 for that matter.   Although the math gets kinda tricky when you have 3 differently sized pots.  

But I have a large mash tun, that was free, a 7 gallon plastic bucket, and two, 4 gallon pots.  So I'm gonna make some all grain cream ale, and some all grain raspberry wheat.   And then soon after I'm going to brew up some 20 minute Pale ale at full volume in 2 different 4 gallon kettles.   Stay tuned for recipes, and procedures.   I'll post pictures and recipes, and process notes so that you too can do this.   I also have to add a ball valve to my mash tun, because trying to control the flow of the wort with a tube is dumb.   So Ill post some stuff on that too.

Remember you can learn to make world class beer in your kitchen, with just a few more items than you have now.    Remember also that the place to spend money in this hobby is on temperature control of your fermentation.   You're goal is fermenting beer, not just producing wort.

Some Actual Facts about Home brewing

You can make great beer in your Kitchen: 

The beer doesn't know where it is being brewed.  There is no magic in propane burners, there is no extra flavor gained by using Submersible heating elements.

Beer is really pretty simple.  Your goal is to ferment the maltose (and other sugars) that come from your grains and extract in such a way that you produce something delicious to drink.  Or at least interesting to drink. 

You can do that in your kitchen.   For too long new home brewers have used partial boil of extract kits to get started in home brewing.   The single greatest change you can make to improve your brewing is... temperature controlled fermentation.  (got you there didn't I?) But coming in at a close second is switching to full volume boils.   "But I don't have a large enough pot?  But, I don't have a turkey fryer... but but but"  Take your excuses and shove them in your... closet.   Go buy another 4 or 5 gallon pot.   They're $22 at Walmart.   You spent more than that on your ingredients.  

Split your extract batches in 1/2.   3 gallons in one pot, 3 gallons in another pot.  Believe me the extract doesn't know it is in two pots.  Split everything right down the middle.  The extract, the hops, the adjuncts... all of it.  You will see an immediate improvement in your beer.  It will be cleaner, less melanoidal flavors.  (twang)  Your hops will actually bitter the way you want them to bitter the beer.   With two pots, partial mash full volume boils become very possible.  And that is when you will really start making excellent (competition worthy) beers.   I defy anyone to drink a well made full volume boil partial mash and tell me it isn't awesome. 

Oh one more thing,  You do not need to do 60 or 90 minute boils for most of your beers.  You only need to boil long enough to meet your hop schedule.   More to come later.   Of course for a DIPA you may need to boil for a full 90 Minutes.  But for a cream ale? or a raspberry wheat?  What are you thinking?   And Please don't talk to me about DMS when you aren't using 6 row or Pilsner Malt. More to come later. 

A Return to Common Sense Home Brewing

It's time.  In fact, it is long past time for a return to common sense in home brewing.   It is time for a focus on the things that actually matter.  I understand this is a weird way to start a blog entry, but it sums up where I am with this hobby I love.   It is my core philosophy, and it was inspired by a conversation I had recently when getting ingredients at my LHBS.  The conversation went something like this

Me: "hey brewer X, how have you been?"
X: "good good, times are a little tight, you know we have 2 in college, and the oldest just had a baby..."
Me: "that's awesome congratulations"
X:  "Thanks,  so yeah, I have to brew up some cheap beer for a while"
Me: "How are you brewing now? all grain?  Do you still have your gravity system? Did you put your eHERMs on hold?"
X:  "No No... the Basement brewery is all tricked out... eHERMs,  super grain crusher 2000, ceiling crane for grain removal, even put up subway tiles... you should come check it out... I've spent a fortune on it lets brew sometime"
Me:  "yeah, sounds like fun"
X:  "so how are you brewing now?"
Me: " Still doing partial mash split full volume boils in the kitchen"
X:  "I don't know how you can do that man... doesn't that take forever?"
Me:  "about 3 hours"
X:  " Oh...uh... really?  3 hours? that's not too bad..."

Times are tight, and the guy just spent 10-15K on a home brewery.  To my knowledge he has never won a single award, and although his beer is very good, it was very good before he built the basement brewery.

PEOPLE LISTEN TO ME.  YOU CAN LITERALLY SET UP A 2 BBL BREWPUB BREWERY FOR LESS THAN THESE GUYS ARE SPENDING ON THEIR HOME RIGS.  AND BSG OR WHOEVER WILL COME SET IT UP FOR YOU.

I will proudly stick to the things that matter.  Full Volume Boil with common sense.  Correct Mash temperatures.  Correct Fermentation Temperatures, Correct Pitch Rate of Yeast.  I will proudly avoid weird grain or hop bills.   I will comment on each of these thing in days to come.