How Clear Is Your Beer?

Beer is more than just a great tasting beverage.  While many choose not to partake, beer is a large part of the American--indeed, even the human--experience.  Benjamin Franklin famously said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."  The fact that a culture has grown up around the joy of making and enjoying fine beer testifies to how much beer has become part of our culture.  Enjoying beer is about far more than just the taste of the brew itself.  Beer is an experience, very much about where you have your beer, the company with whom you drink it, what you drink it out of, and how the beer looks in the glass.  And while you as a home brewer cannot control many of those factors, you can control the quality of the beer you make so it not only tastes great but is visually appealing as well.

If you pour a commercial beer from a bottle or a can, you may not be aware of how much those beer makers put into not just the taste but the affect your other senses have on the beer drinking experience.  The way the beer pours.  The aroma as you pour it.  The head of foam that wells up in your mug. How the beer looks in the glass.  These are all just as important as the beer's flavor.  The emphasis the big beer producers put on ascetics is so extreme that they even make the sound the can makes when you "pop a cold one" to be unique because they know that sound alone can prepare you to receive the taste of a great beer drinking experience.

The truth is none of that will change whether the beer itself is of high quality or is good to drink, but visual appeal matters.  One area of visual appeal that you have some control over when making your own beer at home is clarity.  Clarity simply refers to how the beer looks in the glass.  If you can see through the beer and it is a consistent beige or amber color, that is visually appealing.  But if things are floating around in the beer, even if they are perfectly harmless byproducts of the brewing process, that can diminish how inviting your beer is to enjoy and even diminish how enjoyable the beer is to drink even if the beer itself is of high quality.

A lot of the "stuff" that floats around in beer comes from the yeast that is crucial to the fermentation process, which makes beer beer.  Some yeasts are better than others about settling out of the beer during fermentation.  Another source of visible material in the beer comes from what is referred to as non-microbiological particles or NMPs which are a byproduct of the brewing process.  Again, none of these visible materials are harmful to consume nor do they reduce the value of the beer.  They just look bad and hurt the clarity of the beer which is one way beer is measured for quality.
Many of the NMPs are introduced during the initial creation of the wort which is phase one of any brewing operation.  The wort is boiled at a high temperature for a significant enough period of time to cause the proteins in the ingredients to break down and become part of the fluidity of the wort rather than remain in a substance state or a "floc" which remains visible in the finished product.  To avoid this make sure your boil sustains a temperature of 215F for 60-90 minutes to assure complete processing of the proteins.

Another important brewing step that you can do to reduce visible agents in your beer is to cool the wort very quickly.  It is, of course, advisable to cool your wort quickly anyway in order to get the yeast working as soon as possible and avoid hang time that allows bacteria and wild yeasts to contaminate your brew.  But by bringing the temperature down rapidly, the clarity is vastly enhanced as well.  When you transfer the cooled wort into your fermentation vessel, be sure to leave behind the debris that is in the bottom of the brewing kettle--in addition to spent hops, there is what is called "cold break," which has a lot of solidified proteins that lead to cloudy beer.  As a beginning home brewer, I used several methods to cool my wort--ice baths in the kitchen sink, leaving the wort in a sealed fermenter outside overnight, and even sinking the hot kettle in a snowbank for an hour or so, but by far the best method, for a minimal investment of money, is an immersion chiller.  This is a simple apparatus made of metal (usually copper) tubing coiled up so it fits into your brewing pot, and some rubber hose or tubing.  Cold water flows in one end, takes on heat transferred from the hot wort liquid, and comes out hot on the other end.  A simple wort chiller can bring five gallons of boiling wort down to yeast pitching temperature in ten to fifteen minutes.  A scaled-up version of the wort chiller is the counter flow chiller, but while highly recommended for being faster and more efficient at chilling your wort, a regular single-direction immersion chiller is certainly sufficient and gives you plenty of bang for your buck.

Finings, or additives, are another option for keeping your beer clear.  Irish moss, isinglass, gelatin, and bentonite are all products added either during the boil or after fermentation that clear your beer (or wine, in some cases!) at the microscopic level.

If you want to get really involved in clearing your brew, there's always filtration, which we'll talk about in more depth another time.

Seeking beer clarity can become a major passion of yours as a home brewer and there is a whole science to using clarifying agents such as Irish Moss to enhance beer clarity without diminishing beer quality or taste.  Learning good techniques for making your beer clear and appealing is just another step in your ongoing quest to become the best amateur beer maker possible.  And that is a quest worth pursuing!

Going to the Source to Learn About Home Brewing

I know from experience that the time between when it first dawns on you that you could start learning to brew your own beer at home and when you actually take a stab at it is often a long one.  For one thing, it takes a pretty significant learning curve to even begin to visualize that it possible to make beer at home.  Sure, you may have heard about home breweries but to think of doing it in your own home setting is a leap of understanding that takes some time to get through.

The internet is often a source of information that we go to start learning more about a new area of life like home brewing.  Perhaps that is how you found this article and that’s good.  That means you are off on the right foot and using free information from people who have already learned a few things about brewing at home to get your orientation to what it would take for you to learn to brew your own beer at home.

As often happens with any new area of interest, if your fascination with how to brew beer at home starts to get some momentum, it’s a good way to go to log on to the major home brewing web sites and begin to get oriented to the methods, the equipment and the process of brewing beer at home.  Do be aware that some of these sites get very technical and it's easy to get intimidated. 

But if you can just get an understanding about the equipment and the ingredients and some basic ideas of how the process would go if you were the one doing the brewing, that is a good start.  Because online articles and web sites mix expert knowledge with newcomers orientation, if you do stumble into a section of those sites that you don’t understand, just surf on to pages that are intended to help you where you are and understand that when you get to that level that that technical sophistication, you can always come back to these pages.  Just build a good bookmark library because it will serve you well.

But to pick up speed on learning the real details of what brewing is all about, you don’t have to depend just on reading or books.  Because brewing beer in your own home is more than just book knowledge, it is handling of equipment and ingredients, the more direct exposure you can get to the brewing process, the better.  But it is also very likely that you developed your interest in home brewing while enjoying a good brew at your local brew pub.  Most towns have brew pubs where home made beers are sold in just about every flavor, color ant texture.  Many times these brew pubs grew up out of a home brewing hobby that just got bigger and bigger until it became an enterprise and a money making business.

That is why most brew pub owners are more than happy to give tours and lessons in home brewing.  This is probably some of the most value exposure you can get to how the process of home brewing works.  By walking through a brewery where the beer you love is made, you can step through the process to get a feel for how you will proceed.  You can see the boiling pots, how the strainers are used and the filters and fermenters and everything that is needed to take beer from raw materials to the finished state of a fine brewed beer.  In fact, with a little charm and by working for free, you may be able to apprentice in the brew pub making beer.  This time will be tremendously valuable to you to help you learn the ropes of making your own beer.

You combine this hands on knowledge with what you are learning on line and from other training sources along with what you can learn by networking with other experienced home brewers and you have a powerful source of knowledge that will pay you well when you start making your home beer yourself.  And that knowledge will result in some great tasting beers from your kitchen so you will be glad you took the time to learn all you can before taking the plunge.

Benefits of Brewing Your Own Beer

I love beer. Drinking a few bottles of good beer after a stressful workweek is one of the reasons why I am able to maintain a happy disposition in life. As a fan of both beer and cooking, about a decade ago I figured it was a natural progression to making my own beer.  Since then, home brewing has not only been a mere hobby for me, but a passion. When I take into account the many benefits home brewing can provide, it's not difficult to see why. I also have no qualms about recommending this wonderful hobby; if you need some convincing, here are several good reasons to take up home brewing.

It's a Rewarding Hobby
Being able to brew your own type of beer with its own unique flavors can give a home brewer a great sense of pride and accomplishment. The act of brewing your own beer also gives you that mad scientist feeling (or at least for me), not to mention the satisfaction that you feel every time your beer-guzzling friends rave about your concoction.

Better Quality For Your Beer
Home brewed beer, unlike commercial beers, doesn't have cheap additives. It's also typically all malt beer, giving it that full  bodied taste that you don't normally get from mass-marketed beers purchased from stores or bars. You can also use ingredients that are not normally used for commercial beers to add exotic or traditional flavors.

Cheaper Beer
Home brewed beer is cheaper than commercial beers. Home brew stores have been popping up all over the country and the internet for the past several decades, so you can get ingredients and brew 5 gallons at a lesser cost than the cheapest beer brand in your nearby store.  As the popularity of home brewing increases, it can only get better since the cost of malt and hops is bound to get cheaper.

Reduced Hangovers
A beer-drinking sesson doesn't have to provide you misery in the morning. Home brewed beer reduces the severity of hangovers due to high amounts of Vitamin B.  It's known that home brewed beer doesn't undergo pasteurization and filtering which can remove huge amounts of Vitamin B.  For that reason, beer that you brew yourself has more amounts of yeast with Vitamin B.

Improves Social Life
I've lost count of the good friends I've made and great conversations with strangers I've had because of my interest in beer and brewing.  Brewing in particular has led to some great friendships over the years.  I find that people who take up home brewing are always brimming with enthusiasm, either about their new hobby or about their old passion if they've been doing it for a while.  It seems every brewer is on a quest to find the perfect recipe, and rather than being secretive about their search, they usually bubble over with excitement when they talk about their journey. I don't have a scientific explanation for this--maybe it's the effect of the beer, but if you've spent any time around a home brewer, you know what I mean. I would also recommend joining a home brewing club. At best, you can persuade your friends to take up the same hobby.

Health Benefits
This is perhaps the best benefit of them all. While it's true that overdrinking can have grave consequences to your health, it's been scientifically proven that alcohol in moderation can improve it. Why? It's because of the high flavinoid content contained in dark beers. It's also generally true that a 12 oz serving of beer has fewer calories than 12 ounces of juice, milk or soda.

There you have it!  There's no doubt that home brewing has many benefits, and the best part is that you yourself can discover many others on your own.

Common Homebrewing Mistakes

Beer lovers take note.  If you're reading this blog, you already know that you can make your own beer at home--and that it doesn't involve any rocket science. The process is much simpler than what many think, and this is the main reason why home brewers are on the rise in the United States and in many other countries.

There new innovations in home brewing equipment being developed almost daily, and there is a growing body of materials available online ready to be downloaded. It's easy to concoct your own brew. But just a little reminder--don't let your over-eagerness get the best out of you. Exercise some restraint as well when trying home brewing for the first time. You don't want to go the way of many first-timers who become frustrated simply because they failed to know some of the more common home brewing mistakes.

To learn from others' mistakes, you must first be aware of them. Listed below are some of the most common ones made by first-timers in the field of beer making at home.

Sanitation.  This one is huge.  Many upstart home brewers don't realize the importance of sanitation.  A single cell of just the wrong wild yeast or bacteria strain can ruin a whole batch of beer.  It should be remembered that the unfermented beer (wort) is packed with malt sugar, and bacteria and wild yeast love this. If a brewer is not concerned with cleanliness in the work space, this will often come through in the flavor of the final product, and nobody likes drinking dirty or infected beer!  So what needs to be done in order to address this concern?

The best thing to do is to ensure the cleanliness of equipment every time. All the equipment used in home brewing should be sanitized. This doesn't mean that you have to invest in pricey sanitizing products. There are many products available to the home brewer, but I use a simple bleach solution--an ounce of Clorox in a gallon of water--when cleaning anything that will touch the wort in the brewing process. Rinse with hot water.

Another common mistake is not using the right temperature to ferment the beer. As a home brewer, it is important that you know the balance between too hot and too cold a temperature. There is a right temperature for use in home brewing and this is dependent on the kind of yeast strain selected for the brew--ale yeasts typically ferment between 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and lager yeasts work in the 40's.  Fermenting at a temperature outside these ranges can result in undesirable flavors in your beer.

Perhaps the most common mistake is impatience on the part of the brewer.  Novice brewers, for example, will often bottle the brew too early.  Remember, good things take time!  If you bottle the beer before the fermentation is complete, all you will end up with is a fridge full of bottle grenades.

Bottom line, the best thing you can do is read everything about brewing that you can get your hands on.  And be patient.  Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is good beer!