Recognize when you sanitize!

When brewing beer, one of the easiest mistakes to make is to not sanitize enough.  Sanitizing is quite easy during the boil since the temperature of the boiling wort will kill pathogens and wild yeasts.  These tiny invaders are drawn to the sugary wort like teenage girls to a vampire love story ("They sparkle in the sunlight!" - gag).

Given the chance any number of bacteria or wild yeast would love to get at your brew.  Especially before the brewers yeast has had a chance to turn the wort alcoholic naturally inhibiting infections.  If however, your brew does get an infection there are a couple of outcomes you can expect.  Best case scenario:  a possible discoloration or a harmless white film on the surface of the fermenting beer.  Worst, and more probable scenario:  mold growth, off flavors, and sour beer.

Even if you are not a controlling person by nature, its important to control the conditions in which you brew to minimize the chances of infection.  This can be accomplished through diligent use of a no rinse sanitizer during the brewing process.  Everything that comes in contact with your brew MUST be sanitized, especially after the boil.

I learned quickly during my first batch of beer that life is better when you brew with a friend.  I'm lucky enough to live with my uncle who shares an interest in beer and brewing.  Uncle Roommate spent years working in kitchens so he has great kitchen intuition.  In order to keep things sanitary, we followed the directions of the container of sanitizer and filled a large Pyrex dish with the solution creating a cleansing bath for all the cooking utensils we would use.

Twelve hours or so after I sealed the fermenter, I checked on it.  No bubbling in the air lock yet so I checked the fit on the lid and noticed that the rubber grommet that the air lock fits into was not seated properly.  I messed with it, paying careful attention to keeping the fermenting beer from any contamination.  Once the grommet was properly in place and the lid was back on the fermenter the air lock began to bubble releasing CO2 from the fermentation process.

I know that the first couple batches of home brew can be difficult to get right.  I couldn't help but wonder if contaminates had gotten into my brew before the fermenter was properly sealed.  Only time would tell, and with the better part of two weeks left before bottling, I had plenty of time to worry about the health of my brew.

But why bore you with the details...

Alright, I wrote a post the other day that went through the procedure I used for my first attempt at brewing beer. It was infomative, honest, and quite a bit boring. So far, no one is even following my blog and already I feel compelled to entertain you.

But I am no Giada. Seriously! I'd be up in the night if I thought anyone would be into a play-by-play of the brewing process as told by yours truely. I am a lot of things, but a cooking show host, unfortunately, I am not.

I have decided instead to focus this blog on my observations and experiences with home brewing beer and not on the entire process "Food Network" style. I will point you in the direction of some great resources in future posts so hopefully I can entertain and inform at the same time.

Ok, now that that is settled; I made my first wort on New Year's Eve 2010. The ingredient kit I purhased was for a wheat beer. This recipe was very straight forward: boil the malt extract with the bittering hops (German Perle) for 45 minutes. Then, add the finishing hops (Czech Saaz) continue to boil for 15 minutes, chill, place in the fermenter, pitch the yeast, seal the airlock, and let nature take its course.

The hops that I used were pelletized for longevity in storage and ease in use. I only had one fabric steeping bag as supplied in my ingredient kit. I cut it in half so that I could make two 'teabags': one for the bittering hops and another for the finishing hops. I noticed that this made for tight little bundles of hops, not quite what I would have hoped for. I decided in the future to have extra bags on hand for hops or to just let them float free in the wort. I really value hops flavor in my beer and I think these are the best options to achive that.

Since I needed to measure the specific gravity (more on this to come) I was able to taste test some of my wort. It was sweeter then I expected it to be. Perheps do to poor hops dispersal? I guess I will have to experiment and see.

So there sat my fermenter. Full of wort waiting for yeast to grow, colonize, and eat the sugars converting them to alcohol and CO2. I watched with anticipation for the first tell-tale signs of fermentation: bubbling water in the airlock. Oh, I can't wait!

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World Peace and Malt Extract

Ah, Christmas!  The season of happiness and cheer, where the hope for peace on Earth and goodwill to all is a dream shared by many.  Now don't get me wrong, I think that peace on Earth would be just swell.  Probably, as attainable as a hen that lays golden eggs and almost as cool as a having a cat that you trained to pull romex through an attic.  Never-mind all that.  The point is that my Christmas experience is divorced from much of the cheery, gushy, holiday spirit that normally stalks you from the seedy dark corners of Christmas carols.

One holiday sentiment that I DO agree with is that it is better to give than to receive.  But even this old favorite was ripped away from me this year when three of my sisters went in on a home brewing kit for me.  The outlook for world peace is improving.  Imagine the sheer glee I felt when I unwrapped the gift.  My eyes filled with wonder, and I was speechless.  Talk about the gift that keeps on giving!  It totally blew the year I got an EZ-Bake Oven for Christmas right out of the water!

I spent the next few days reading everything I could about home brewing online and in books.  My brew kit came equipped with an instructional DVD about home brewing beer that I watched with the same earnest attention that a toddler would give to Finding Nemo.  By New Year's Eve I felt ready enough to try my hand at a brew.  A visit to the local home brew supply shop (I know, how progressive that we have one IN Utah!) and I was armed with the ingredients I needed to begin.  I decided on an American wheat beer.  It seemed to be a fitting choice since the first beer I ever had was a wheat.

One of the great things about brewing your own beer is that the whole process can be kept fairly simple.  Until you are ready to use more advanced brewing techniques, extract brewing is the way to go.  Basically, the process of mashing the grains (more on this later) has been done for you.  You are therefore free to focus on the basic mechanics of beer making without getting hung up on the more complicated aspects of beer until you are ready for them.  In my next post I will describe my first experience brewing beer by way of malt extract.

In the beginning...

Homer Simpson once said:  "Beer!  The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."  I grew up in a home where I was taught that consumption of alcohol is a sin.  Oh how my parents would hate to find that, even tangentially, they share common ground with Homer Simpson a.k.a. The Yellow Devil.  Ok, maybe they never called him that out loud, but I know that their feelings for The Simpson clan as a whole are forever mired in disgust.  Whatever. My parents were just trying to raise their family right and I won't fault them for that.

The truth is, I decided to not drink until I was old enough to do so legally.  Before my 21st birthday, I had only had alcohol on two occasions and neither one of those instances motivated me to continue drinking.  Shortly after I turned 21, I went to dinner with my older brother Josh and had my first beer.  It was a locally brewed Hefeweizen that he suggested I try.  I remember the flavor being similar to bread.  It was crisp and earthy at the same time.  Although I didn't love it at first, I didn't hate it either.

Fast forward five years and I've come a long way from that first pint.  I've enjoyed sharing a brew at local bars with friends, relatives, and even strangers.  Beer is a historically significant drink with a rich heritage that is often overlooked.  With all the big commercially available beers on the market, its no surprise that most people find a draft or two they like and never branch out.  But there are so many varieties out there, and each time I try a different one, I find something else I can appreciate about beer.  Its this curiosity that has brought me to try my hand at home brewing beer.  I want to experiment with flavors, techniques, aromas, and methods.  I want to create beer that is enjoyable and unique. 

I decided to write this blog so that I can document my experience, so that I can learn from others that read it, and so that I can help others avoid mistakes in their own home brews.  I hope that reading this blog will be insightful, as well as fun to read.  I'm going to enjoy sharing my interests with readers and having some home brews along the way.