A financial review of homebrewing

This evening SWMBOd noticed me pouring a pint, and asked if I had "saved enough money to pay for all the [brewing] crap I had bought".  I don't brew to save money - I brew because I love the process and the product - but I often tell my wife that I save us a bit of money every time I brew. . .

. . .so am I a liar?

Hopsteader

Our Garden on Brew-Day

So its nearly 10C below freezing, and I'm stuck in the garage.  That is the bad new; the good news is I'm brewing an American-style IPA.  Big hop flavour, and enough bitterness to make my Merlins Mild crawl into a corner and fear for its life. SWMBO'd named this beer Hopsteader - a name I hope it lives up to.

This beer is brewed slightly differently from most IPAs and other high-IBU beers.  Instead of hop additions for the full 90 minutes of the boil (to get the maximum bitterness from the hops), all hop additions in hopsteader start at 60 minutes into the boil - a mere 30 minutes from the end of the boil.  This means a lot of hops go into this beer to get the desired 65-67IBUs of bitterness - the four hop additions (30min/15min/5min/dry) amount to nearly 200g - almost a pound - of hops.  By adding this huge amount of hops late in the boil, this beer will have a tonne of hop flavour and aroma, while having a strong (but not overpowering) bitterness.

Recipe below the fold.

Tasting Notes: Merlins Mild

So the Merlins Mild has been in the keg for a while, and has cleared and carbonated.  Its not quite what I was hoping for - too 'mild' for my taste, and weakly flavoured compared to milds I've tried in the past.

Merlins Mild

Appearance:
The beer is darker than expected, an estimated SRM of 20 instead of the planned 15SRM. The beer is carbonated to a higher level than is normal for this style - by choice.  As off-style as it is, I simply do not like the low carbonation typical of some English styles.  The carbonation pushes up a nice head, but the head itself is short lived.  Even so, Belgian lace hugs the glass throughout the pint.

Aroma:
The beer itself has a malt aroma with a slight hint of hoppyness.  The low level of hop character surprised me - Fuggles at flame-out usually leave a nice hop aroma.  The hops added at flame-out could easily be doubled.

Flavour:
As the name would suggest, this beer is mild.  Problem is, it is too mild.  Minimally bitter, minimal hop flavour, subtle maltiness and few esters from the yeast round out this beer. I suspect the hops must have lost of of their alpha acids, as there should have been 20IBUs worth of bitterness; I'd estimate this beer has about half of that.  Initially I was worried about oxidation, as there was a slight cardboard flavour, but it appears to have faded.  On the plus side, the flavour lingers shortly after the sip, and is features a nice modest maltiness.

Mouthfeel:
This beer has a thin body, which is normal for the style. The higher level of carbonation gives it a nice effervescence and a slight carbonic acidity which is pleasant on the tongue. No astringency mars the beer, making it a great thirst-quencher.

Overall:
Its not a bad beer, but it lacks the hop flavour I'd normally prefer.  A good brew to convert a bud drinker to homebrew; not a beer to impress the guys and gals at the brewclub...

Brewing Challenge: The Grocery Store Brew

Home Malting Quinoa
L-R: Raw white quinoa, partly malted, dried & roasted.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of belonging the London Homebrewers Guild are the group 'group brews'; events where multiple brewers brew the same (or similar) recipe, and then have a sampling afterwards to compare results.  Its a great chance to see the effect of various brewing setups, methods, and fermentation conditions on a beer.  Its also a chance to try some things that as an individual brewer you may  not have the courage to try.

The first "group brew" of 2013 is more a challenge than a brew - the goal is to produce the best beer you can sourcing as many ingredients from the grocery store as you can.  The official rule is that a minimum of 50% of ingredients should be from the grocery store.  But many of us - myself included - are shooting for a higher percentage than that.  In my case, I'm going for broke and sourcing 100% of ingredients from the grocery store.

Since barley & hops are not normally found in grocery stores, I am adapting via a mix of historical and modern approaches - namely, replacing hops with a herb mixture used prior to the widespread adoption of hops, combined with a modern health-food craze - quinoa (pronounced "keen-wa") - malted, dried and toasted by myself, to replace the barley that normally comprises the base malt of beer.
This post is being assembled over several days, and will be fairly extensive, so all of the details can be found below the fold.

• Conception
• Malting Quinoa
• The Recipe
• Fermentation

Brewing Science: Gelatin & Clearing Beer

I was bottling my Merlins Mild this Friday, and while preping my gelatin, I realized it has been a while since I did an article on brewing science.  The two thoughts merged, leading to this article on how gelatin helps clear beer.

Firstly, a brief outline of how I use gelatin for fining my beer.  There are a lot of other methods out there, but this is what I have found works for me.

1. Cool the beer as cold as you can (crash cooling), you can do this in a fermenter or keg.  The colder it is, the clearer the final beer will be.  I've had good results at 18-20C, but for crystal-clear beer you need to be at 5C or cooler.  Don't freeze it...
2. In a lidded pot, add 1 packet (1 tablespoon) unflavoured gelatin to 250-350 ml (1 to 1.5 cup) boiled and cooled water (20C/room temp or colder).  Let sit 20 minutes to 'bloom'.  You'll notice that the gelatin will swell, from small prills to balls 0.5-1 mm in diameter.
3. Heat gently, in a pot covered with a lid, to 77C (170F).  Remove from heat, keeping covered, and let cool to room temperature.
4. Add to top of cold beer.
5. In 2-3 days, beer should be super-clear.  You can bottle at this point.  If in a keg, you can begin carbing as soon as the gelatin is added.

Note that pre-boiling the water is optional, but this does sanitize the water.  It is important to add the gelatin to room temp or colder water for blooming - warmer than that will lead to clumping and incomplete blooming.  It is absolutely essential to heat to 77C; a little cooler and the gelatin will not solubilize, a little warmer and it will gel in your beer.

The science behind how this works can be found below the fold...

A brewers life, animated

I'm sure all you homebrewers out there can relate to this.  Depending on your boss, this video may or maynot be work-safe.  It is not SWMBO-safe.

 

Merlins Mild - First Brew of 2013

Garage Brewing in January.
Merlin may be mild; the weather isn't!

You'd think by now I know better - 17 years of homebrewing and I still don't brew an extra batch near Christmas.  Once again, friends and holidays have left me with nothing but a few pints of Bad Santa in a keg, and two bottles of beer I didn't mail out as Christmas gifts.

So once again I find myself short on beer and in need of an emergency brew session. This weeks beer is a rapidly fermenting (and thus, quickly on-tap) style of beer called a mild. Rare in North America, this beer is a lower-alcohol brew that features a lot of grain and hop flavours, but with a level of hoppiness below what is typical of most English ales.

This mild is darker than most - the brewshop didn't have crystal 60, so I replaced it with an equal amount of crystal 80. The alpha acids of the hops were also higher than expected, so I adjusted the recipe to hit 20IBUs and threw the leftovers in at flameout to add some aroma. This is also my second time using yeast from the guild yeast bank that I manage. So the colour's a bit darker, the flavour a little more towards caramel than sweet, but it should still be a fine brew.

This batch is named "Merlins Mild"; not because of any historical link to the era in which Merlin supposedly lived (although, many beers from that time may have had some similarities). Instead, I was watching Star Gate while putting together the recipe and nerded out over the name...

Recipe below the fold...