BREWING BEER

MAKING THE WORT

48 hours before starting my brew I connect the external fridge controller, and set it to the correct temperature for fermenting. I also put all kind of containers of water into the freezer compartment to make ice, which will be used at the end of brewing to cool down the wort.

24 hours before starting my brew I make a solution of a desert spoon of honey dissolved in 300ml of boiling water. I put this into a plastic beaker, with a screw on lid, which has an airlock fitted to it. I put a small amount of water in the airlock and then put the beaker into a bowl of water with ice in it, to cool it rapidly. If there is too much water in the airlock at this stage, it may suck back into the solution potentially contaminating it. When the solution is at the right temperature for the yeast, I add the yeast and stir it with a sterilized spoon, before replacing the lid, with the airlock now containing the correct amount of water. This is now put into the fridge, which by now has stabilised at the correct temperature for the yeast. Over the next 24 hours I will occasionally swirl the yeast around in the beaker a few times, being careful not to allow any water from the airlock enter the container.

Yeast Starter Beaker

By the time I am ready to start brewing, the airlock should be bubbling quite rapidly. If it isn't I postpone my brewing session, until I have a batch of successfully started yeast.

First I clean the inside of the electric boiler and then half fill it with water and bring it to the boil. I then put the grain bag in and submerge it and continue boiling for 15 minutes. Next I put the hot wet grain bag into a clean bucket and put the lid on. Next I empty the boiler and discard the water before refilling with 16 litres of filtered water. My kitchen tap is fitted with a water filter, which can be optionally on or off. I filter all the water that will end up in the beer, including this batch which I am about to boil. The main reason I boil the filtered water is so that I can dissolve water treatment salts into the water, while it is boiling. I don't filter water I am going to use for sterilisation, since if it already contains some chlorine, so much the better.

I sterilise all plastic items I'm going to use with a mix of chlorine bleach and water and rinse them thoroughly with hot water. I sterilise steel items with boiling water since chlorine can attack steel.

Now I usually put a big (10 litre) stainless steel pot of filtered water on the kitchen gas ring to boil. later this will be used for topping up the boiler and for sparging.

Now I run a couple of cups of grain through my grain mill, to clean the rollers and discard the crushed grain. The most labour intensive part of the process now takes place, which involves crushing 5 - 6kg of malt grain depending on the recipe. Of course having exhausted my arms a few times, turning the handle, I now use an electric drill to do the hard work for me. A word of caution here. The first time I used the drill I underestimated the torque it would produce, and as a result did not hold the grain mill firmly enough. The result being a couple of kg of grain distributed all over my kitchen floor.

In the meantime I allow the water in the electric boiler to cool to about 70°C.

I suspend the wet grain bag in the cooling boiled water using two wooden poles (see pictures below), and empty the crushed grain into the bag, being careful not to spill any down the outside of the bag.

My Brewery

(Note the temperature controller on top of the large fridge)

Usually due to the cooler grain being added the overall temperature drops to well below 60°C. I let the boiler bring this back up to 65°C. At this stage I may also find that the warm water has not reached the top of the grain, so I might add a couple of additional litres of filtered water from the tap, and bring back to 65°C. Using a separate thermometer, I have found that to maintain the whole batch at 65°C I have to set the dial on the boiler to 75°C. Presumably the boiler was not originally calibrated to any great degree of accuracy.

When using the grain bag I find the temperature of the water around the outside of the grain bag tends to be hotter than that in the middle of the grain. To remedy this, I run off about 5 litres of liquid (through the tap near the bottom of the boiler), every 15 minutes and pour it into the top of the grain bag. I keep this process going for 90 minutes trying to keep the grain at 65°C throughout, since this is the optimal temperature for the sugar extracting enzymes to work. I also use a long plastic paddle to stir the grain from time to time. I have found it helps to also turn the paddle shaft clockwise and anticlockwise to help the grain to absorb the water. Remove the paddle insert it again in another part of the grain and twist it again and so on. If you find dry clusters of grain, when you later empty the grain bag out, you will know that you did not stir as thoroughly as you should have.

Wet Grain Suspended in the Grain Bag

After switching off the boiler, I run off the liquid into a clean plastic bin. I check the temperature of the previously boiled water on the kitchen gas ring and warm it back up to 70°C. I then transfer it into a plastic watering can, with a rose on it, and spray water over the top of the grain (this is called sparging, the water washes residual sugar out of the grain). When my plastic wort bin contains about 22 litres of liquid, I stop. I remove the grain bag, lifting it straight onto the neck of a plastic bin liner. It is useful to have some help at this stage, because the still damp grain is quite heavy. So long as the bin liner is big enough, it is then quite easy to remove the grain bag, while leaving the spent grain in the bin liner. I now top up the water in the pot on the gas ring and boil it again.

After removing the grain bag there is still about 2 - 3 litres of wort in the bottom of the boiler, which is poured into the wort bin, by tilting the boiler towards the tap, bringing up the total volume of wort up to about 25 litres. (I really don't know why I have been tipping this additional wort out, when I look at my next statement. Clearly there is an opportunity for process re-engineering here!).

Next I return the wort to the boiler (having first closed the boiler tap). Usually I do this transfer using a jug, at least for the first 15 litres or so, since lifting and pouring 25 litres in one go, is likely to strain muscles and leave more than half the batch on the kitchen floor.

Now I switch the boiler on again and set the temperature to maximum. When the wort begins to boil I add 40gm - 50gm of hop pellets (depending on the recipe). I now let this lot boil for 90 minutes. This is where things really start to foam. I once made the mistake of putting the lid on the boiler, I ended up with hop/malt sludge all down the outside of my boiler, despite it's apparent oversize capacity. So far this has not happened when I left the lid off, though the foaming does get very close to the top.

During this boil with the hop pellets, all kinds of strange visuals go on in the wort, first there is green sludge violently bubbling on top, reminiscent of the filthy swamp called "the bog of eternal stench", in the movie Labyrinth. Then the sludge disappears and the liquid goes almost clear, with various small solid looking bits circulating in it.

Boiling Wort - Hop Pellets Cause the Greenish Tint

15 minutes before the end of the boil, I drop my previously cleaned copper cooler into the wort (the water flow is not switched on at this stage, but the hot wort further sterilizes the cooler). A few minutes later I add Irish moss. The instructions say to make this into a paste before adding it. I make it into a very thin paste, almost a liquid, otherwise it tends to hold together as a lump. By now due to evaporation I have lost about 4 - 5 litres of liquid. I add previously boiled water to make up the batch to a litre short of it's eventual intended volume.

The boiler is switched off and the cold tap is switched on. Cold water now flows through the copper coils, cooling the wort. After a few minutes (enough to get the wort well below water boiling point (remember that wort contains sugar, so heats up to above 100°C)), I add a litre of hop tea. I make this by adding 10 -20gms of hop pellets to a litre of boiled water that has cooled to about 90°C. The earlier boiling of hops added bitterness to the wort, but the high temperatures destroyed much of the fresh smelling aroma, so the hop tea is added to help restore this.

Because tap water in Singapore tends to be similar to air temperature, the copper cooling coil, is unlikely to bring the wort down to below 35°C, and cooling the last few degrees by this method takes a long time and wastes water. So when the temperature is down to around 40°C, I remove the copper cooler.

Now I drain the liquid into my sterilized fermenting bin. The lid is loosely fitted and the fermenting bin is placed in a large plastic dustbin (it needs to be large enough to accommodate the fermenter with it's tap fitted). Water and the ice I previously made the freezer, are carefully added (making sure the larger blocks of ice don't fall on and damage the fermenter tap). Once the wort reaches the target temperature for the yeast I take a sample for gravity measurement, then I pour the yeast in, put some sterile water in the airlock and tightly fit the fermenter lid. I then place the fermenter in the fridge, which is already running at the correct temperature for the beer I am making.

It should go without saying that it is best to wash all equipment during the process, both before it is used and immediately after it has finished with being used. After use and washing in hot water, I hang the grain bag on a washing line to dry, otherwise if stored damp it is likely to grow mildew.

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