Do you remember how you got into homebrewing? John Compton III of Highway Manor Brewing, in Camp Hill, PA, remembers it all. One of his favorite beers was Franziskaner Dunkelweizen.
How John Got Started in Brewing
John started brewing in 2001. His parents, who were quite religious, were were not crazy about the idea. Since it kept him out of trouble, they felt it was worthwhile. The book that got him into brewing was “Brew Classic European Beers at Home.” He didn’t even get to try his first batch after those patient weeks of waiting because the dog got into it first. His woodworking career never took off, and John ended up devoting most of his free time to brewing.
Shortly after finding what commercial beer styles he liked as a drinker, he attempted to replicate them and their flavor profiles in his recipes. He used yeast dregs from Belgian beers. He felt it was key to understand everything about the ingredients and yeast.
In 2006 at Monk’s Café and Memphis Taproom in Philadelphia, PA, he had his first wild Belgian beer. At that time sour beers were a weird oddity and not widely available. Replicating Belgian sours was more difficult. He started doing more research on the wild yeast that predominated the area around the Abbeys. John asked himself how to get that yeast?
Replicating the Masters Before Him
First, he tried to capture the wild yeast that lived around his home. He set out one gallon jugs containing wort. Most were terrible and experience became wonderful teacher – if they smelled like dirty feet or blue cheese – he dumped them before trying them. A few attempts seemed promising.
In 2010 -2011 he met Terry Holbacher of Pizza Boy Brewing Company and Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing Company where he was introduced to more sour beers. John brewed a lot more sours and started entering homebrew competitions. Although sour beers were not yet main stream, they were in his future. He put together a plan; make about 3-5 great sour beers, make them stand out, and barrel-age them.
Going Pro
That is how Highway Manor Brewing got started in September 2015. But that is only the beginning. In the initial stages, it took five brews a day to fill one wood barrel. Fermenting and aging took about a year or more. There are as many as four different wild yeasts fermenting the sour beer at once.
The recipe formulation, legal paperwork, ordering supplies, and fixing things were was taxing as the 5-batch a day brew days. Tackling the consistency factor on wild brews was just icing on the cake. That is how wild fermentations are – sometimes they go from wild to crazy!!
John had to make more time for himself. He moved a bed into the brewery to save on travel time. Any startup brewer will tell you that there is more than just making beer. You have to sell it. That is a tale for a different day but in short, it takes a lot of time and effort.
So far the sour beers are available in Philadelphia, New York City, Rochester, New York, Florida, and Maryland while Vermont and New Jersey distribution is in the works.
Congratulations. You nailed your brew day, you’ve made it through what probably felt like several long weeks of fermentation, and your precious wort is now precious beer. Now just one step remains between you and a cold, bubbly glass of homebrew: Priming.
What is Priming?
Without priming, the beer a homebrewer has invested so much time, energy and money into will pour flat and lifeless. Proper priming gives beer its trademark carbonation and foamy head and can significantly benefit aroma, taste, mouthfeel and overall appearance. Priming is essentially the home stretch of the marathon that is homebrewing, but luckily it’s a simple process that’s made even easier by the wealth of equipment and resources available to homebrewers today.
Newcomers to homebrewing likely prime their beer directly in the bottle. This process, known as bottle priming, involves mixing dissolved sugar with beer, transferring it to bottles, and securing those bottles with an air-tight seal. Yeast leftover in the beer from fermentation eats away at that added sugar in the bottle and produces carbon dioxide gas, which remains in the beer until it’s ready to pour. It’s the same process that produces the air bubbles in an airlock during fermentation. The difference is that during bottle priming, homebrewers want to trap that CO2 gas in the bottles to create carbonation.
There are several “must-have” pieces of equipment a homebrewer needs to bottle prime, including a bottling bucket with a spigot, food-grade tubing, a siphon or racking cane, and a bottling wand (spring-loaded is best). However, the most important aspect of the process is sugar.
How much sugar, what type, and how it’s added to the beer can all impact the final product that comes out of the bottle. Fortunately, the Brewer’s Friend Beer Priming Calculator makes it easy for homebrewers both novice and veteran to dial in the priming of any brew. Simply enter the volume of beer to be bottled, the desired volumes of CO2 (more on that shortly) and the temperature of the beer being bottled. The calculator will then give an exact measurement of how much priming sugar to use.
However, before getting started, there are a few things every homebrewer should be mindful of when it comes to bottle priming. First, there is a very real danger of creating infamous “bottle bombs.” These are exactly what they sound like – bottles of beer turned into explosives by excess pressure produced from the priming process. Remember that the point of bottle-priming is to trap CO2 gas inside the bottle. However, a standard beer bottle has a limit on how much pressure it can contain before it explodes, which is why it is of utmost importance to use the proper amount of priming sugar AND use proper sanitation practices to avoid introducing unpredictable bacteria and wild yeast to the beer. You also want to ensure that the fermentation is actually complete and not just stalled.
As scary as bottle bombs may sound, they can be easily avoided by adhering to several familiar principles all homebrewers should follow: proper sanitation, careful handling of the beer, and attention to detail.
How Much Priming Sugar Do I Need?
With bottle priming, the first choice a homebrewer encounters is how carbonated he or she wants their beer to be. That carbonation is measured in “volumes of CO2,” which vary by style and taste. Most beers will fall between 2.0-3.0 volumes, which conveniently is the amount most standard beer bottles can hold. For reference, the Brewer’s Friend Beer Priming Calculator lists a number of beer styles and their appropriate ranges of carbonation.
The next decision regards what type of sugar to use to prime the beer. Different sugars will impact the final product in various ways, from the negligible impression of common table sugar to other options such as dried malt extract (DME), honey and candy syrup, which leave trace characteristics and take longer to carbonate. Table sugar and corn sugar are the most common products used because of their neutrality, availability, simplicity to handle, and the quickness in which they finish up. Beginners should stick to one of those until they have nailed their bottle-priming process, though the Brewer’s Friend Beer Priming Calculator will be ready and waiting with calculations for each type of priming sugar when homebrewers decide to experiment.
The last variable is how a homebrewer introduces priming sugar to the beer. The tried-and-true method is to dissolve the chosen sugar in boiling water, cool it down to approximately 80 degrees, and pour it into the bottling bucket. From there, the beer is carefully transferred from the fermenter to the bottling bucket where it mixes with the sugar solution. Splashing can lead to dreaded oxidation, so take care to transfer slowly (auto-siphons help tremendously).
Once the beer and priming sugar have been mixed in the bottling bucket, the beer is ready to be bottled, capped, and stored. Most table sugar-primed beers take 2-3 weeks to fully carbonate if stored between 65-70 degrees. However, it’s always a good idea to test the carbonation by refrigerating and testing one bottle at two weeks, another at three weeks and so on, until the carbonation levels off.
Note that while bottle priming is a process most common for beginners (compared to kegging), it is by no means unique to newcomers to the hobby. Many lifelong homebrewers, and many breweries at that, still bottle prime and bottle condition their beer because of the unique characteristics it can, and how much easier and cost-effective it is compared to kegging. Any homebrewer that can properly bottle prime his or her brews will never be in short supply of consumables for themselves and their fellow beer-lovers.
When I tasted my first homebrewed beer, I was proud of my creation and it sparked a desire within me to brew more and to create my own recipe. I dove headfirst into websites, forums, and podcasts to learn as much as I possibly could so I could design my own unique beer. What I found was that there is so much information out there that I easily got overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start the process. My hope and my goal are to break down some of the confusion so we can all heed Charlie Papazian’s advice of, “Relax. Don’t worry. And have a homebrew.”
What Goes Into a Beer Recipe
Beer is essentially just water, barley, hops, and yeast. Basically, malted barley is crushed and then soaked or mashed in 145F-158F(63C-70C) water for about an hour to extract the sugars out of the grain. The sugar-rich liquid, or wort, is then drained off to boil for an hour. Hops are added during different parts of the boil to add bitterness, flavor, and aroma. After the boil, the wort is chilled down and transferred over to a fermenter where we add our yeast to begin the magical process of fermentation.
Just as many home brewers started, my journey started with a malt extract kit on the kitchen stove. Extract brewing takes out much of the work of the brewing process by removing the mashing step. Malt extract is exactly what it is called. Maltsters take the sweet wort after the mash and condense it down to a syrup, in some case a powder, so we can just add it to the boiling water and pick up the process after that point.
Following These Beginner Beer Recipes
Many beginner brewing kits use malt extract due to the ease of brewing and lack of extra equipment needed. Essentially, you need a pot capable of holding at least 4 -5 gallons of liquid and a food-grade bucket in which to ferment. There are many techniques and processes to brew beer, but I have included these extract recipes using as little extra equipment as absolutely necessary. To keep it simple, just bring 3 gallons of water to boil in your pot, add your malt extract, add your hops at the designated times and boil for 60 minutes. After 60 minutes, cool down your wort to yeast pitching temperature, an ice bath in the sink or tub works great. Now transfer your cooled wort to your fermenter and add some pre-boiled water to the fermenter to bring the volume up to 5.5 gallons.
For recipes with Steeping Grains, place the crushed grains in a muslin bag and raise the temperature of the water to between 150-160 degrees F. Add the grains and kill the heat. Let the grains steep for 20 minutes. Remove the grains then continue heating the wort to a boil. The hop additions listed in relation to how long they should be in your boiling wort (ie. 60 minute hops should be boiled for 60 minutes and 5 minute hops won’t be added until it’s been boiling for 55 of the 60 minutes).
Hops 1oz – East Kent Goldings – 60 minute boil addition
Other Additions 1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition
Yeast Safale S-04
Moving To All Grain Brewing
As I stated earlier, All Grain brewing adds the step of mashing your grains to the brewing process. Many brewers convert an insulated beverage cooler to mash their grains. This process requires a false bottom and a valve to drain the wort into the boil kettle. To streamline the process and use just your boil kettle, I recommend getting a grain bag big enough to fit your boil kettle. There are several suppliers and some allow you to customize the size of the bag to fit your specific kettle. The mash temperature range is from 145F-158F(63C-70C). If you mash at the lower end of the range then you will extract more fermentable sugars and your finished beer will be drier. Conversely, if you mash at the upper end of the range, you will create a sweeter finished beer. The rest of the brewing steps are exactly the same as we discussed earlier.
Hops 1oz – East Kent Goldings – 60 minute boil addition
Other Additions 1 Whirlfloc Tablet – 15 minute boil addition
Yeast Safale S-04
These recipes are fairly simple and designed to be as easy as possible to make with the least amount of equipment. It is important to remember that this is a fun obsession and you can make it is easy or as complex as you desire, but the important thing to remember is that we get beer in the end.
By: Ricardo J. Corbella – Brewmaster – Certified Beer Server Cicerone
Editor’s Note: This article was translated from Spanish. Every attempt was made to ensure proper meaning and grammar is true to the source.
Gose-style beer was first brewed more than a thousand years ago in a small town called Goslar in northern central Germany. That beer was probably significantly different from the Gose beer we drink today.
Gose, in German is pronounced “GO-zuh”, the name derives from the river that flows through Goslar, called Gose. As with most classic beer styles, it’s hard to know exactly when it originated, or what it looked and smelled like. This may be especially true for Gose, as it has a history that extends well in the past long before most beer styles.
The original Goslar beer, according to many sources, was fermented spontaneously or naturally, a culture that had established its residence in the wooden containers used to make and ferment beer. Overall, the process of elaboration before the 1400s was very different from today. The bubbling and boiling were usually not even part of the process. In some cases the brewers did not boil the must at all, and in others, they boiled the must, but not for long.
It could be assumed that Gose was initially prepared with grain or some kind of spice mixture and not with hops. It can also be concluded that these early Goslar beers would have been fermented by multiple types of organisms, probably several strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as well as lactic acid bacteria, Brettanomyces, other wild yeasts and probably a little acetic acid bacteria if the beer was left to age.
It is a highly carbonated wheat beer, acidic, and fruity, with a restricted character of salt and coriander with low bitterness. They are very refreshing and feature vivid flavors and typically have high attenuation.
Many things play a role in the formation of the final taste of a beer. Specific processes, time, cleaning, equipment design, brewer skill, and ingredients can all drastically change the results. But none can be more important than good ingredients, particularly the water and yeast to be used.
Water: It is known from many sources that water from the Gose River was used to brew beers in Goslar. In the case of Gose beer, the mineral content of the water, especially its salinity, is a good part of what this beer is all about.
Malt: Most Gose brewers adhere to tradition, using a grain bill that consists of wheat and barley in equal proportions with wheat occasionally taking a slight advantage. The malt for Gose beer should be pale two row, pilsner malt, or other well modified pale barley.
Hops: Herbs provided the scent in the earliest Gose renditions. Over time these spices stopped being used and only hops and coriander remain. Its remarkable low bitterness is one of the things that defines its style, so hops are used in small quantities. Another reason is that Lactobacillus is not a hop-tolerant bacterium, only 5 IBUs can affect the growth of some lactobacillus bacteria, and without lactobacillus, the Gose would not be a sour beer. Hop additions would have been enough to prevent unwanted bacteria but low enough to allow lactobacillus to do its job. Traditionally hops would be a noble German variety, a clean hops of flavor, soft with low cohumulone content to impart a milder bitterness. Classic German varieties such as Hellertauer Mittelfruh, Saphir, Hersbrucker or Perle might be good options.
Yeast: A yeast with a relatively neutral flavor profile will allow the acidity of the beer to shine. Attenuation can be important in this style. A highly attenuated yeast will leave the beer dry and crispy, while a yeast with low attenuation will leave a beer with more sweetness. Alcohol tolerance is not a problem for Gose as it is a beer with a low to medium-low alcoholic content, and the same goes for flocculation, as it is not a clear beer.
Spontaneous fermentation: Gose beers were most likely fermented spontaneously. These beers began fermentation in 12 to 24 hours so there should be an immediate source of microganies to get the beer fermenting quickly. It has been suggested that wooden vessels, sometimes spruce, were a source of bacteria and yeast needed for fermentation. These containers may have acted as a home for resident microorganisms, brewers may have intentionally prevented deep washing of these, as they could have noticed that a more informal cleaning resulted in the next fermentation starting faster.
Fruits: Traditionally, fruit was not added to Gose, but as with Berliner weisse, flavored syrups were sometimes added to beer when served. Contemporary craft brewers have taken this concept and continue to add fruits, both natural and in syrup-form. The addition of fruits on the hot side has the obvious advantage in that they are sterilized by contact with the hot wort. The disadvantage is the loss of some subtle and more delicate flavors and aromas during boiling. Many fruits have seeds and if they are not removed before heating, they can be the cause of harsh and bitter flavors in beer. The fruit added on the warm side can also release pectin which will cause turbidity problems after fermentation. The addition of the fruit on the cold side can give the beer the closest flavors to the real fresh fruit. Like spices, the downside is that it has not been sterilized. Fresh fruit has a lot more bacteria than spices. To alleviate this problem many brewers use frozen fruit, as most bacteria cannot survive for long in freezing, but some bacteria can. Purees of pasteurized fruits are safer, which have then been frozen. The closer to the beginning of fermentation the fruit is added, the more flavor and aroma it loses from the decomposition it suffers during fermentation, the production and elimination of carbon dioxide, in particular, may be responsible for the loss of many aromatic compounds.
Salt: Legend has it that Gose’s salinity once came from the mineral-laden water of the Gose River. And unlike other regions of the world, salt was plentiful in the mountainous region of Harz around Goslar, therefore, salt was not a very expensive product.
Here’s the recipe of one of the great personalities of the brewing world:
Strong English Gose Recipe
“Gordon Strong,” BJCP Director USA Original gravity: 1.042 (10.5oP) Final gravity: 1,008 (2.1oF) Bitternes: 9 IBU Alcohol: 4.5% by volume Apparent attenuation: 80%
Grain Bill
5.0 lb. (2.3 kg) German wheat malt 3.5 lb. (1.6 kg) Belgian Pilsner malt
Hops
0.7 oz. (20 g) Czech Saaz, 3% AA – first wort hop
Water
Reverse osmosis (RO) wáter 0.25 tsp. 10% phosphoric acid per 5 gallons (19 L) or until ph at room temperature. 1 tsp. (5 g) calcium chloride (CaCL2) to the mash
Yeast
Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) or White Labs WLP029 (German Ale/Kolsch) yeast.
*Two days before the day of preparation, make 1 qt. (1 L) yeast with the German strain ale, aerating the must thoroughly (preferably with oxygen) before releasing the yeast.
Additional Ingredients
0.26 az. (7.5 g) coriander seed, freshly ground 0 minutes. 0.35 oz. (10 g) kosher salt 0 minutes.
On the day of brewing, crush the malts to 149oF (65oC) into 13 gallon frames. (12 L) of water and keep this temperature for 60 minutes. Raise the temperature by infusion or direct heating to 168oF (76oC) for maceration. Recirculate for 20 minutes, spray with 168o F (76oC) of water until 6.5 gallons (25 L) of wort is collected. Lift the must until boiling and hold for 10 minutes. Do not add hops at this time. After boiling, I cooled to 95 degrees F (35 C). add the powder of 19 capsules of Swanson’s Probiotic L. Plantarum Inner Bowel Support (10B cells/capsule). Do not throw out the German ale yeast at this time. Purge the kettle with CO2 and cover. Hold for 12 or 24 hours at 95oF (35oC), or until the ph drops to 3.4. Add hops, boil the must for 90 minutes. Turn off the heat, then add the coriander into a mesh bag and salt. Steep for 5 minutes, then remove the bag. I cooled to 18oC placed the yeast initiator and fermented until complete. Once the fermentation is finished, ripen for a few days in cold, pass the beer to the barrel and force the carbonate to 3 volumes of CO 2.
Los Santos Hops – Gose Divino Recipe
Brewmasters: Ricardo Corbella, Juan Manuel Castagnini and Nicolas Piana.
Original gravity: 1,039 (10.5oP) Final gravity: 1,008 (2.1oF) Bitterness: 6 IBU Alcohol: 4.2% by volume Apparent attenuation: 80%
Grain Bill
12.12 lbs (5.5 kg) Malted Wheat 8.8 lbs (4 kg) Malta Pilsner
Hops
0.7 oz. (80 g) Czech Saaz, 3% AA first wort hop
Yeast
Yeast US-05, as it leaves us a neutral profile and works quite well despite the low ph of the must in fermentation.
Additional Ingredients
(0.8 g /L) fresh coriander and crushed 10 minutes before finishing the boil. (10 g /L) himalayan salt 10 minutes before the boiling is over. (3.5 L) pink grapefruit juice. (8 kg) frozen pink grapefruit pulp.
Souring Agent
To acidify the wort we use 2 liters of liquid neutral yogurt containing L. acidophilus and possibly other strains of Lactobacillus.
BREWING NOTES
Mash at a temperature of 149oF (65oC) for 60 minutes.
We boiled for 10 min.
Prepare the pure and maintain this temperature for 60 minutes. Raise the temperature by mixing the infusion or heating to 76oC to finish mashing. Recirculate for 20 minutes, spray with water at 76oC of water until 58 or 60 L of wort is collected to bring to the boil. Heat the must until boiling for 10 minutes. Don’t add jumps at this time. After boiling, I cooled to 95 degrees F (35 C). At this time, add 2 liters of natural whole yogurt. Do not add US-05 yeast at this time. Purge the kettle with CO 2 and cover the pot. Hold for 12 or 24 hours at 95o F (35oC or 40oC), or until the ph drops to 3.4. Add hops in first wort, boil the must for 90 minutes. In the last 10 minutes of boiling add the cilantro and salt. Then transfer to fermenter cooling to 18oC, add the yeast and ferment until it is complete. Add the pink grapefruit juice and frozen fruit pulp. Allow to mature for a couple more days, transfer to a keg, force the carbonate to 3.2 volumes of CO 2.
Sources: Gose: Brewing a Classic German Beer for the Modern Era. Fal Allen. September 7, 2018. Brewers Publications
Most experienced brewers will tell you that their beer took a major leap forward when they began to do Fermentation Temperature Control (FTC). This article shows the range of methods to control fermentation temperature, from the simple and inexpensive to the complicated and pricey. At the end of the article, I’ll point out a way you might avoid worrying about temperature control altogether. Most of the discussion here presumes ale brewing, but lagers have similar issues–there are optimal temperatures at which they should be fermented, and your ability to control those temps will reward you.
Why Temperature Control is Important
Different yeasts have different ideal temperature ranges. Yeast fermenting too warm will express unintended flavors, many of which are undesirable. Estery/banana flavors, an alcoholic flavor–these are to be avoided in normal beers and you can do that by preventing the fermentation temperature from becoming too warm.
There are a couple of exceptions; farmhouse or Saison beers use yeast designed to ferment at higher temperatures in order to express certain flavors; if all you brew are these beers, FTC may not matter to you. Kveik yeasts (covered below) can handle extreme temps up to 95 degrees without creating off-flavors. But for the most part, most fermenting beers benefit from some sort of temperature control.
Further, temperature control works both ways. There are times you want to warm up the fermentation (a diacetyl rest, for instance), and times you want to chill the beer (crashing prior to packaging, e.g.). The more control you have, the more you can do–and the more consistent your beers will be batch to batch. If you cannot control fermentation temperature, you’ll find it difficult to reproduce beers you like. Here are ways brewers control fermentation temperature, starting at the least expensive.
Ambient Temperature Only
Many new brewers assume that ambient room temperature is fermenting wort temperature. However, yeast is exothermic, meaning the yeast produces heat while it works. Actual wort temperature during fermentation can be 5-10 degrees higher than ambient temperature; further, the higher the temp, the faster the yeast works, and the more heat generated. If the ambient temperature is low enough it may not matter much–and by low enough, I mean in the mid-to-low 60s. You won’t be able to control fermentation temp but it won’t run away on you.
Swamp Cooler
The redneck way to cool things without electricity is to use a Swamp Cooler; you place a piece of cloth over a vessel, wet it, and as the water evaporates it cools the vessel. Put the fermenter in a turkey pan ($1 at the Dollar Store) filled with a couple of inches of water, and drape a t-shirt or similar over the fermenter, allowing the shirt to dangle in the water. The shirt will wick up water that, when it evaporates, will cool the fermenter. I was able to produce about a 5-degree drop with my swamp cooler setup, but your mileage will vary with ambient temp, relative humidity, and size of the water pan. Some brewers live where ambient is just too high for evaporation to work on its own. They use frozen water bottles added to the pan in the morning and at night to help keep the temp down.
Refrigerator or Freezer Fermentation Chamber
This is probably the most common approach besides doing nothing. Brewers will use either a refrigerator or freezer and an electronic control like an Inkbird 308 to manage fermentation temps. The refrigerator is turned to as cold as it will go, and when the temperature probe indicates the wort is
too warm, the controller turns on the refrigerator to cool it. If a heat source is also used, the controller will turn that on when wort temp is too cold.
The temperature probe can be held against the fermenter with a piece of insulation and a bungee cord or string; the insulation ensures the probe picks up the temperature of the wort, not ambient temperature. Some will use a thermowell, a hollow tube that extends from the bung into the wort, and into which the temperature probe is inserted. Typically the brewer will also use a heat belt or mat wrapped around the fermenter to allow warming the wort toward the end of fermentation for a diacetyl rest or even just to help the yeast clean up after itself. It’s also common in areas where ambient temperatures in the winter, such as my garage here in Wisconsin, can drop well below the desired fermentation temperature. There needs to be a way to warm the fermenter at times like these. In fact, if you have a pretty cold area to manage fermentation, you might not even need a refrigerated fermentation chamber–just a way to heat the wort up to the level that the yeast requires.
Probably the two most common ways of warming a fermenter like this are a FermWrap, or a seedling heat mat. Wrapped around the fermenter and held in place with string, wire, or a bungee cord, they apply warmth directly to the fermenter and thus, the wort. If ambient is fairly cold, some insulation like a towel may be wrapped around the fermenter. Some brewers use a light bulb inside a metal can, or a reptile heat bulb to add heat inside the fermentation chamber, but it’s a slower and less direct way to control heat.
It doesn’t matter much whether you use a refrigerator or freezer; it’s a personal preference. I prefer a refrigerator, as I don’t like lifting a fermenter into a freezer. You can get these cheaply used; Craigslist is a good source. I use both a large refrigerator that can handle two fermenters at a time, and a tall dorm-style refrigerator which is perfect for those whose space won’t allow a larger unit.
Glycol Chilling Units
Glycol, which mixed with water reduces the temperature at which it freezes, is used to chill coils suspended into a fermenter. Commercial units range in price from about $700 to $1000. The advantage of glycol is speed and control, as the chilling is applied directly within the wort through stainless coils inside the fermenter. The better glycol chillers can handle up to four fermenters at a time; each fermenter simply needs its own pump to control flow. Some have had success with a DIY glycol chiller. I created a Glycol reservoir inside the freezer compartment of my large fermentation chamber; it was quite effective in controlling fermentation temp, though less effective in crashing.
Others have repurposed air conditioners to glycol chilling, and still, others have used small dorm-style refrigerators for this purpose. If you’re interested in researching this, search “DIY glycol” on Homebrewtalk and you’ll find a number of threads dealing with this, including my own.
Kveik Yeast
This last isn’t fermentation temp control but rather a way to ignore it. Kveik yeast is an ancient yeast that developed in northern European countries. It is fairly immune to high-temperature fermentation, meaning it can handle fermentations up to 95 degrees without producing typical
off-flavors. While Kveik doesn’t offer the variety of strains that dry or other liquid yeasts present, it is an option for those who for whatever reasons simply cannot keep ferm temps down. When using Kveik yeast, high temperatures aren’t a bug, they’re a feature.
You’ve been homebrewing for a while now and have pumped out some pretty tasty ales, impressing the hell out of friends and family; probably some IPAs, stouts, maybe even a porter or an ESB. Now you’re thinking you might want to try your skills at a crispy lager since you’ve been seeing them pop up more and more at breweries lately. Well, here are the most important things to consider before you take on the challenge of producing a tasty lager. The 3 most important things to remember when crafting a quality lager: Yeast, Temperature, and Patience! Let’s discuss further.
Your First Lager Recipe
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash
As far as recipe development goes, it’s best to keep it simple in the beginning. Start with a basic malt bill that uses high-quality Pilsner malt and only small percentages of 1 or 2 specialty malts. Don’t worry about step mashing for this recipe. Pick a single infusion temperature (around 150°F) and mash in just as you would with all the ales you’ve brewed. Next, collect all that sweet wort into your kettle and once again, keep your hop schedule pretty simple. Refer to the BJCP guidelines for the lager style you’re brewing and keep the IBU in the suggested range. Perhaps you’ll want to use a noble hop variety or two here to really capture those traditional aromas and flavors. Once your boil is complete, which you may want to increase to 75 or 90 minutes to help reduce some off-flavors associated with high levels of pilsner malt, try to chill as quickly as possible and transfer to your sanitized fermenter. This was the easy part! If you’re looking for a great go-to lager recipe check out the Oktoberfest recipe created by Daily_Brewer. You can also check out the recipe section for more lager recipe inspiration.
Yeast Strains For Lagers
Here’s where your lager really needs some tender love and guidance to reach its full potential. Since lager yeast moves slower & does its best work at cooler fermentation temperatures, you’re going to want to pitch at least double (or maybe triple) the amount you normally pitch into your ales. This yeast also needs to be fresh so check the packaging dates. I try to use yeast that is dated within 1-2 months of my brew date. If you can’t get super fresh yeast, you’ll either want to purchase more or make a starter to get your yeast ready to tackle your lager. Remember, the yeast is doing all the work here, so make sure you’re adding enough to make your first lager attempt successful. I find that the pitch rate calculator on Brewer’s Friend is an excellent resource to determine how much yeast I actually need to use. It’s better to pitch more viable, healthy cells than not enough!
Lagers And Temperature Control
Now that you’ve brewed the beer and pitched plenty of fresh lager yeast, it’s time to create the optimum fermentation environment for your lager yeast to do the important work it needs to do. In order to create a choice lager, you have to be able to keep your fermenter at consistent lager temperatures for a long period of time. This means in the range of 48-52°F for 2 weeks and then down to almost freezing temps for a month or more. Each variety of yeast that you use will have an optimum fermentation range so use this information as your guide. If you don’t have the ability to control your fermentation temperature yet, you may want to consider not brewing a lager at this point in your homebrewing career. Sorry for the brutal honesty here, but I’m just trying to save you the heartache of your lager not turning out very good!
Stay Patient With Your Lagers
Sticking with the theme of keeping it simple, hold this temperature for at least 7-14 days before you do anything. Now, you’re going to be used to the activity that you’ve seen from your ale fermentations; you’ve possibly even blown a few airlocks off the top of your carboy, right? Well, lager fermentation happens much slower. Picture the sloth DMV scene in Zootopia or maybe even your last service call with your utility company! I digress. There are a few very well-known techniques for attempting to speed up your lager fermentation by some very well respected brewers, but I would urge you to keep it simple for your first lager and stick to a basic fermentation schedule which takes a few more days, but is less complex and doesn’t require you to take a bunch of gravity readings. Once your lager activity starts to really slow down after 7-14 days, raise the temperature of your fermentation vessel a few degrees, to the upper end of the range that we talked about earlier from the yeast manufacturer, and hold at this temp for at least another 3-4 days. This warming at the end of the fermentation will give your yeast a chance to clean up any off-flavors that have been produced. This is also known as a diacetyl rest. Diacetyl is a buttery flavor that you don’t want in your finished lager so be patient and give the yeast a chance to tidy things up. If you’re still seeing some activity in your blow-off, take a gravity reading to see if your lager is getting close to being finished. If not, give the beer a few more days to wrap things up.
When all activity in your fermenter has stopped and you’ve hit your final gravity, it’s time to start cooling your beer down to start the lagering process. The word lager, or lagern in German, means “to store” or “to keep,” so really you’re just beginning to create the amazing flavors that you’ve come to love from a crispy lager. Lower the temperature of your fermenter about 2-3 degrees per day (patience, remember?) until you get down to 32-35°F and hold at this temp for as long as you can possibly stand it! Usually, 3-4 weeks is a good lagering time, but some of the more powdery yeast strains will need longer to drop out of suspension completely and some higher alcohol lager varieties will need even more time to fully mature. It is best to do this lagering phase with all of your yeast still in the fermenter, so don’t worry about racking into a secondary fermenter at this time. This allows your lager yeast to continue working its magic and creating the delicate flavors that you’ll want in your finished beer.
Now that you’ve completed your lagering stage you’re probably really thirsty and hopefully, you brewed enough ales before this lager to get you through the last couple of months! If you have the ability to keg and force carbonate your lager, you could be enjoying pints in just a few days. If you bottle condition your beer, then you’re going to have to wait a couple more weeks for your lager to fully carbonate. Bottle carbonation happens when the remaining yeast in your beer consumes the priming dextrose that you add at bottling, but since you’ve just finished a month-long lagering phase, there isn’t too much yeast left in your beer. So once again be patient because carbonation will take longer than usual. I probably don’t have to remind you, but I will anyway since you’ve come this far, sanitation is so important when making quality beer after your boil is complete. When you make a lager there is nowhere for off-flavors to hide, so make sure you’re cleaning and sanitizing everything that will come in contact with your beer once it leaves your boil kettle.
When it comes time to pour the first pint of lager that you crafted and cared for over the last couple of months, you’re going to have a new appreciation for lager brewing. Pay close attention to the delicate and subtle flavors of the pilsner malt and the traditional aromas of the German hops. Planning your next lager is a great thing to do while you enjoy your first few pints of the brew you just completed! Prost!
Exporting recipes from Beersmith and into Brewer’s Friend is simple and straightforward. When you are in the Beersmith program, you will have two options for exporting your recipe files. The “Export All” command exports all of the items in the current view or folder to a file which you can save to your computer or email to other brewers.
The “Export Selected Items” choice exports only the items you have selected in the current view. You can select multiple items by holding the Ctrl key while you click on the items you are choosing. The blue highlights in the view above show the chosen recipes.
Beersmith files have a *bsmx file extension which can be directly imported into Brewer’s Friend, or you can import those files as BeerXML files (with a .xml extension) as well. Brewer’s Friend accepts either one of those file formats, so you can also import ANY .xml files into Brewer’s Friend from other software programs or from recipes on the internet that have an .xml file type.
After you choose the “export all” or “export selected”, the following screen will appear:
Choose the file type that you would like to use for importing. Either *.bsmx or *.xml will work in Brewer’s Friend. Save to your computer or the cloud as in a dropbox if you have a very large number of recipes. In this case, this file was saved to the desktop for ease in finding it again.
Open your internet browser, and go to Brewersfriend.com.
Log into your account, and choose “Tools” in the orange tool bar.
Then choose “Import Recipes” in the dropdown.
A screen will appear, telling you to choose a file, or to drag it into the box.
You also have a choice about what to do with ingredients in the recipe that may not have an exact match in Brewer’s Friend. When importing from Beersmith, the bottom box should be checked, as this will allow those unmatched items to be listed in your recipe:
When you have made your selection here, scroll back up a little and once you have chosen the file(s) to import, click “import”.
When the import is finished, the new recipes will be listed in your dashboard under “My Recipes”.
You’ll see that a notice will say: “!Recipe just imported, Edit and Save to fill in stats.”
Click on the title of the first recipe you wish to save in Brewer’s Friend. Then, click “edit” on the right side near the top of the screen.
That will bring up the full recipe and here you can save it. You can also choose whether to make this recipe public (shared) or private by moving the slider (see below).
Once you click save, this recipe will be in “My Recipes” in Brewer’s Friend as one of your regular recipes.
That’s all there is to it! It’s quick, easy, and enables you to keep your entire Beersmith recipe files on our cloud. Cheers!
We’ve covered some of the basics of water chemistry in the last two articles, and now we are ready to put it all together.
The first step is to start with chlorine-free water of suitable quality for brewing and reducing the alkalinity if needed.
Once you have an understanding of targeting an optimum range for the mash pH and taken steps to use non-alkaline water for sparging, the next step is to consider using brewing salts in the water to further enhance the flavor of your beer.
Just as in cooking certain spices go well with certain foods, certain brewing salts can enhance certain styles of beers. Looking back at the list of our brewing salts, we can see what each of them brings to the table:
Calcium (in Gypsum and Calcium Chloride): Calcium is the primary ion that determines hardness of the water. It helps with lowering the pH during mashing, helps with precipitations of proteins in the boil (hot break), enhances yeast flocculation, and assists in preventing beerstone. Many lagers are made with very low levels of calcium, so it is not required but can be helpful in the amounts 50-100 ppm.
Magnesium (Epsom Salt or MgSO4): Also responsible for providing hardness to the water, it can provide a sour/bitter flavor to the beer in amounts of 30 ppm or more. It has a laxative effect in much larger amounts. Malt provides all of the magnesium required for yeast health, so it is not required as an addition unless adding sulfate in the presence of a high calcium level (using epsom salts, or MgSO4).
Sulfate: Sulfate is the ion that is used to accentuate hop bitterness by enhancing the dryness of the finish. Additions are normally avoided in continental lagers or only used in small amounts, often 30 ppm or less, and in most ales the ideal amount is 30-70 ppm. For highly hopped beers, the desired sulfate level may be much higher: 150-300 ppm for IPAs or west coast APAs. That will make the finish seem more crisp and dry. If using 150 ppm or higher, the chloride level should be under 50 ppm to avoid a minerally finish to the beer.
Chloride: Chloride accentuates a fullness or “roundness” of flavor in the beer, enhancing the malt sweetness. It is generally used in the 40-100 ppm range in many beers, but in the New England IPA style, the chloride is often over 100 ppm, up to 150 ppm.
Sodium (Non-iodized table salt or NaCl): Sodium rounds out the malt flavors, and can be used in modest amounts (under 150 ppm). A higher concentration can make the beer taste salty, and having a high sodium combined with a high sulfate level can create a harsh bitterness. It is generally recognized that keeping the sodium at 0-60 is a safe bet, and using brewing water sourced from a water softener is to be avoided.
Baking Soda (NaHCO3 or sodium bicarbonate): This is used if alkalinity is needed to raise mash PH, and also provides sodium.
Many of us can remember the older guy at the bar with a tap beer in front of him using a salt shaker to sprinkle salt in his beer. Looking at the list, we can see that the table salt consists of NaCl- both sodium and chloride. The sodium rounds out the malt flavor, and the chloride accentuates the fullness of the malt sweetness. We can do the same thing via these salt additions to the mash and/or preboiled wort.
Determining Brewing Water Additions
Check out the Brewer’s Friend Brewing Water Calculator
Adding the salts is done in very small amounts, typically grams. While it can be converted to other measurements (a teaspoon of calcium chloride is close to 5 grams), the amounts are generally very small so a scale that weighs to grams and/or tenths of a gram is very helpful. While it is easiest to just add a teaspoon or a half of a teaspoon of something to the mashing water, it’s best to look at a brewing spreadsheet showing the additions so you can see the results of adding the salts. There are also nomographs available and of course an enterprising brewer can calculate it by hand. The amounts are usually expressed in parts per million (PPM) and the spreadsheets themselves have guidelines on how much to add to avoid overuse. The salts are typically added to the mash, but can be added to the boil kettle in some cases. Make sure to never add baking soda or other alkalinity to the sparging water. In the rare case where you need to raise the mash pH, add the baking soda to the mash.
When deciding what additions are suitable for each batch of beer, consider what you want to bring out in the beer’s flavor. Also, keep in mind that “less is more” generally applies, until you know what you like in a certain beer recipe or style. For example, if you are making an American IPA you may want to use some gypsum (calcium sulfate), as the sulfate will help to provide a dry finish and a crisper mouthfeel to enhance the hops bittering. While some brewers will go up to 300 ppm of sulfate in these beer styles, you may want to start smaller at first to avoid perceptions of harshness. Since the easiest way to add sulfate to the beer is via gypsum which also adds calcium, this is commonly done. The other way to add sulfate is via magnesium sulfate (epsom salt), but it’s important to keep the magnesium level below about 30 ppm to avoid a bitter/sour flavor. Some brewers eschew the addition of epsom salts totally, feeling that the gypsum does the job without any issue.
For a beginning profile for something like an American pale ale or IPA, a modest addition of gypsum is may give great results. As an example, using 7 gallons of RO to begin the brewday for a 5 gallon batch, adding 7 grams of gypsum will provide 63 ppm of calcium and 148 ppm of sulfate. Looking at the list above, you can see that it is in a desirable range for both calcium and sulfate for a hoppy beer. Using a brewing spreadsheet, you can see that using this amount of gypsum in the mash is also likely to give an optimum mash pH as well, depending on the grainbill, so this is a great place to start. After the brew is finished and taste testing, a decision can be made for next time. You can even add a touch of gypsum to the glass, to see if you prefer the beer with more sulfate for next time. Starting with less than the maximum recommended generally gives satisfaction to the brewer.
For beers that have a lovely malt flavor, calcium chloride is a common addition. Looking at the list again, you can see that calcium chloride will provide calcium to the mash as well as the chloride. Since chloride enhances the fullness or “roundness” of malt flavor, and gives a perception of sweetness to the malt, adding it to a beer recipe can bring the flavor to the next level. If you’re making an Octoberfest or brown ale, adding some calcium chloride would be a great move. Adding 3 grams to a 5 gallon batch of brown ale maybe be just the ticket to making a very good beer great.
For brewing lagers, especially European style lagers, less sulfate is desirable and often it is completely left out. It wouldn’t be unusual to brew a German pilsner without any additions to RO water at all, so keep in mind that adding brewing salts is not necessary and is a matter of the style of the beer as well as the brewer’s taste.
For a good basic “all purpose” water profile to start, consider something like this:
Calcium: 75 ppm
Magnesium: 10 ppm (more or less, but under 25 ppm)
Sodium: 0-50 ppm
Sulfate: 50-70
Chloride 50-70
Mash pH of 5.3-5.5
There are a couple of cautions when adding brewing salts to your water adjustments. Many brewers will refer to the sulfate:chloride ratio because that’s been discussed in older brewing texts. The theory is that keeping a ratio of sulfate to chloride will make a beer more “hoppy” or more “malty”- but this is not so. When discussing a ratio, remember that 80 ppm of sulfate and 40 ppm of chloride is a 2:1 ratio, and according to a brewing water spreadsheet available online (EZ Water) the text says “may enhance bitterness”. That’s great- but 800 ppm sulfate and 400 ppm of chloride is ALSO a 2:1 ratio- and it also says “may enhance bitterness”. Common sense dictates that one beer will be far different than the other, while the ratio is exactly the same. The first should be just fine, although not with a particularly dry finish, but the second will be “minerally” and undrinkable. When you are cooking and add too much salt to your spaghetti sauce ,you cannot erase that by adding more pepper. When brewing, you also can’t “erase” too much gypsum by adding more calcium chloride. Instead of targeting a sulfate:chloride ratio, look at the actual numbers in ppm and the recommended limits of each ion, and make the decision based on that.
Another pitfall is to be so consumed with the numbers of the ions is to forget that the mash pH is the most important aspect of delving into water chemistry. An appropriate mash pH will provide the most benefit to your beer, while the flavor ions are the “seasonings” in your beer. Starting with a good recipe and using good water and targeting an optimum mash pH will make a very good beer. Tweaking the recipe by adding some gypsum and calcium chloride (as examples) may take that very good beer to very, very good or even excellent beer. To compare brewing to cooking again, adding the perfect amount of salt and pepper to your spaghetti sauce can make your very good sauce something memorable, and adding a bit of rosemary may make it exceptional. So it goes with brewing- starting with a great base and adding your brewing salts in the right amounts can take it to the next level. Adding too much is more of a danger than too little, so be aware of that in your additions as you start adjusting your water.
Entire books have been written about brewing water and water chemistry for brewers, as the subject is complex. Further reading is highly recommended. Some good sources are listed below:
For many brewers, water chemistry is treated as the last frontier of homebrewing. Oftentimes, it is ignored or at least not something homebrewers want to think about. The old adage “if your water tastes good, it’s fine to brew with” may be repeated, and believed. The brewer may work on refining recipes and take great pains to provide fermentation temperature control, but ignore the water used in brewing.
This is a mistake because the largest component of beer is the water. Managing the pH of the mash and the flavor contributions of the water can take a good beer to a great beer. While it’s true that poor tasting water will make poor tasting beer, the inverse is not always true. Great tasting water out of the tap may not be well suited to brewing. Additions to the water by the water supply company such as chlorine, or the more stable form called chloramine, keep your water supply safe for drinking but chlorine can negatively impact the flavor of the beer. In some areas, the water out of the tap may be high in bicarbonate or iron which can also negatively impact your beer. If you wish to not delve into water chemistry at all, it is advisable to use reverse osmosis water from the water dispensers at grocery stores or distilled water as it would be a blank canvas to start with. Even so, better beer can be made with paying attention to a few water additions and mash pH that will be discussed in this article series.
Where to Start With Brewing Water
Getting a water report from your water company, if using municipal water, is a great place to start. They should have all of the information available, but you may not get all of the information you need from them at first. They are required to test the water for safety, and will report contaminants and pesticides, but will not always give you the components that brewers are looking for in a water report. You can ask brewers around you about the water, but often the easiest way to get a report on what you need is by ordering a household minerals test from a testing company. If you have a well, this is likely the only way to get a report. One of the dangers will dabbling with brewing water is to add items per a recipe without knowing what you are starting with, so the report is crucial before beginning. A popular company is Ward Labs, but there are others out there. A basic test should run under $35 for what you need. You will require sodium, calcium, magnesium, sulfate, chloride, bicarbonate, and total alkalinity.
It’s also important to find out if your water company uses chlorine or chloramines for disinfection of the water. In order to use any water for brewing, this is a steadfast rule: the water must be chlorine free. Chlorine will off-gas and/or boil off, but chloramine is a more stable form of chlorine and will not easily boil off. It can be removed via campden tablets (potassium metabisulfite) easily. One tablet crushed and dissolved into 20 gallons of water and stirred well will remove chloramine (and chlorine) in most cases. Removing the chlorine, or purchasing reverse osmosis or distilled water should be the first step in dealing with water.
Understanding Minerals
The results from your water test will give you the ion concentrations in parts per million (ppm) or mg/l. These minerals are important for brewing water, because they can affect the suitability for use in brewing and have a flavor impact.
If you have iron in your water (look for discoloration in plumbing such as rust spots), it is generally poorly suited for brewing as it is detectable in very small amounts in the finished beer as an unpleasant metallic or even blood-like flavor. Iron should be under 0.1 ppm in the water. If you have sulfide flavors and aromas in your raw water (rotten egg-like smell), it will not be suitable for brewing. If you have some sediment, a filter will often help. Just be sure to send the water after filtering for testing if that is what you plan to use.
The major mineral ions will we be working with are as follows:
Calcium: Calcium is the primary ion that determines hardness of the water. It helps with lowering the pH during mashing, facilitates precipitations of proteins in the boil (hot break), enhances yeast flocculation, and assists in preventing beerstone. Many lagers are made with very low levels of calcium, so it is not required but can be helpful in the amounts 50-100 ppm.
Magnesium: Also responsible for providing hardness to the water, magnesium can provide a sour/bitter flavor to the beer in amounts of 30 ppm or more. It has a laxative effect in much larger amounts. Malt provides all of the magnesium required for yeast health, so it is not required as an addition unless adding sulfate in the presence of a high calcium level (using epsom salts, or MgSO4).
Sulfate: Sulfate is the ion that is used to accentuate hop bitterness by enhancing the dryness of the finish. Additions are normally avoided in continental lagers or only used in small amounts, often 30 ppm or less. In most ales the ideal amount is 30-70 ppm. For highly hopped beers, the desired sulfate level may be much higher: 150-300 ppm for IPAs or west coast APAs. That amount will make the finish seem more crisp and dry. If using 150 ppm or higher, the chloride level should be under 50 ppm to avoid a “minerally” finish to the beer.
Chloride: Chloride accentuates a fullness or “roundness” of flavor in the beer, enhancing the malt sweetness. It is generally used in the 40-100 ppm range in many beers, but in the New England IPA style, the chloride is often over 100 ppm, up to 150 ppm.
Sodium: Sodium rounds out the malt flavors, and can be used in modest amounts (under 150 ppm). A higher concentration can make the beer taste salty, and having a high sodium combined with a high sulfate level can create a harsh bitterness. It is generally recognized that keeping the sodium at 0-60 is a safe bet. Using brewing water sourced from a water softener is to be avoided.
Bicarbonate: Bicarbonate plays a huge role in water chemistry for brewing. It raises the pH of the mash, so should be kept under 50 ppm for pale/light colored beers. An amber colored beer could use a bicarbonate amount of up to 150 ppm (depending on the grainbill). A very dark beer with roasted grains (like a stout) could easily go up to 200 ppm or even a bit more, as more bicarbonate is needed to balance the acidity of the dark roasted malts. As such, there is no ideal range for mashing water except that what is needed to achieve an appropriate mash pH. In sparge water, low bicarbonate water is desired to avoid tannin extraction from the grain. This will be discussed at length in our next article on water and mash pH.
Brewing Salts
The common brewing salts are gypsum, calcium chloride, epsom salts, chalk, sodium chloride, and baking soda. These are available at the homebrew supply store, or can sometimes be found at your grocery market.
Gypsum (CaSO4 or calcium sulfate) is used in brewing to bring calcium and sulfate to the water. This can reduce the mash pH, in a small amount as can calcium chloride.
Calcium chloride (Pickle crisp or CaCl2) is used to add calcium as well as chloride, and epsom salt (MgSO4 or magnesium sulfate) is used for the magnesium and sulfate contribution. Plain old non-iodized table salt (NaCl2 or sodium chloride) brings sodium and chloride to the table.
Chalk: (CaC03 or calcium carbonate) has been traditionally used to raise mash pH in cases where it may be needed, but it doesn’t dissolve well without extraneous measures and is to be avoided in general.
In those rare cases where the mash pH should be raised, baking soda (NaHCO3 or sodium bicarbonate) is most useful.
Lactic acid or phosphoric acid are the most common acids used to lower the mash pH if needed.
A helpful comparison to brewing salts may be seasoning salts in cooking. Just as making chicken soup with a great recipe and fresh ingredients can be improved with a bit of salt or some bay leaf, a great beer base can be improved with a bit of tweaking of brewing salts. Too much salt in the chicken broth can ruin the soup, however; and too much of a brewing salt can ruin the beer. Using more conservative additions with the “less is more” idea is a great way to approach adding brewing salts to your homebrewing repertoire. You don’t want a “minerally” or harsh beer in the end after all your hard work!
There are brewing spreadsheets and books available to help you decide where to target your ideal concentrations of those ions, and Brewer’s Friend has both a basic and advanced water calculator to help you reach your goals. We have given you give a range, and it is recommended to stay at the lower end of the range until you know what you like. You can always add more next time, but you can’t take it out. One pitfall that many brewers fall into as they delve into water chemistry is finding a water profile from a historic city, and set that up as a target. That can be problematic, as it may not be what the breweries themselves actually used, as they may have preboiled the water to drop the bicarbonate, or used water from another source. If a profile seems to have very high numbers, and you’d still like to make an authentic London porter, dig a bit deeper into what the breweries in that area did with the water before brewing with it. Brewing water with less than your ideal ion targets may seem a bit bland (think of the chicken soup seasoning analogy) but won’t be undrinkable as it would be if you add far too much of a good thing.
A good way to see what the brewing salts may do to your beer is to try it out. Pour a pint of your beer, and add a dash of table salt to it to see what chloride brings out. Next time, add some gypsum, to see what that brings to the beer.
If you are just starting in water additions, you can get by with gypsum, calcium chloride, baking soda, and lactic or phosphoric acid. We will discuss using those items as we discuss mash pH and delve deeper into water chemistry in the next article.
Hefeweizen, weissbier, witbier, white ale… Whatever your preference; wheat beers are abundant, effervescent, and different. They can be served with a slice of orange or lemon, with all the yeast “mit hefe” style, with raspberry syrup, or filtered crystal clear. They vary in color from the light witbier to copper-brown versions of weizenbock. They can smell and taste of: bananas, clove, coriander, bitter orange, and even bubblegum. These refreshing, mostly session strength ales are usually associated with summertime sunshine. However, there are a couple of higher ABV styles that would pair well with a cold evening by the fire.
Wheat Beer Grain Bills
The typical wheat contribution to the grain bill can be as high as 70%, with rare exceptions like grodziskie (an oak smoked wheat beer) making up 100% of the grist.
Wheat beers nearly went extinct in the 1500’s due to the Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity law. The Reinheitsgebot stated that only barley, water, and hops could be used as ingredients to produce beer and thus prohibited breweries from using wheat, or other grains such as rye. According to a Brew Your Own article from 1999 the original purpose of the law is somewhat debatable. Certainly it was a consumer protection law to ensure people were in fact getting beer when they went to the local watering hole, but some sources claim it was meant to prevent a shortage of bread. Further down the rabbit hole of conspiracy is the idea that the pale white beers were only brewed by, and for, the nobles and clergy and not for the common man, who was left drinking the dark swill of the lower class. The law was later amended to include yeast, after its discovery.
Wheat beers have become somewhat of an American spring and summertime tradition. They often were considered to be the jumping off point for those interested in expanding their palates to include more than mass produced lagers but lately it seems like that is more the space of the mass produced IPA . Be that as it may, for those of us who live in the permanent summertime of California, we still enjoy a nice crisp, refreshing wheat beer in the sun year round. If big beer had any sense they would take a hint from Corona and show Shock Top or Blue Moon being happily consumed on beach volleyball courts by freakishly tall men and women, at high noon.
Styles of Wheat Beer
As long as we are on the subject of Belgian Wit and American summers let us take a look at Allagash White:
According to the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program), the standard guidelines for homebrew beer styles, Allagash White, along with Hoegaarden Wit, are prime examples of the wit style. Belgian Wits are generally brewed with 50% unmalted wheat and a light base malt like pilsner or 2 row pale. They can include oats to add to the haze and body. Noble hops are used to add a light bitterness, but nothing too noticeable, or overwhelming. Allagash White includes the traditional spice addition of coriander seed, which is the seed of cilantro that smells strikingly similar to Trix cereal. Allagash also uses the traditional curacao orange peel, which adds to that zesty zing in the aroma and flavor. I tried putting an orange slice to my pour and it was totally unnecessary. It added nothing to the beer and was ultimately just an obstacle in the drinking process. The beer is delicious on its own. Light, refreshing, nicely carbonated, and extremely flavorful.
I did a side by side with the macro produced Shock Top and it was comparable to watching a cover band at the local dive bar trying to fiddle their way through a Led Zeppelin song. On paper they are the same. Belgian style beers brewed with coriander and orange peel, but the difference between the two is painful. My suggestion, as far as adding an orange for garnish in the Shock Top, is to disregard the beer, and eat the orange. Also, for anyone learning about off flavors, the Shock Top tasted like cardboard. Paper and cardboard are aromas and flavors commonly associated with oxidized beer. If you have a buddy that insists on drinking this farce of a Belgian Wit I suggest you sneak some Allagash White into his/her cooler at the next outing. They will thank you later.
Have you tried the Hefe?
For the Hefeweizen (pronounced hay-fuh-vy-tsen) I chose the ultra-approachable Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier. According to them they are “the World’s oldest brewery” and the beer was brewed in accordance to “the purity law of 1516” which is slightly confusing considering the purity law clearly stipulated that barley was the only acceptable grain to brew with in 1516. This is how conspiracy theories get started. Give me a couple hours of online research and I’ll blow this whole Reinheitsgebot scam wide open! Further adding to the confusion, Randy Mosher in Tasting Beer stated that “Weis, Weiss, and Weisse all mean ‘white’ in German and have long been used to describe the pale, hazy beers containing wheat…” and “Weizen means ‘wheat’ in German and refers to the Bavarian or suddeutsch form of weissbier.” Even further: “hefe indicates Weissbier with yeast…” There is also a filtered version known as Kristalweizen…
The Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier, however, is very good. I never realized there was such a striking difference between the Belgian Wit style and German Hefeweizen. I always assumed they were the more or less the same, but different in small ways, like English Pale ale and American Pale Ale. I was wrong. The hefeweizen is much less aggressive in its flavor and brewed with 50%-70% wheat. It is softer and seemingly more rounded. The 4-vinyl guaiacol which is responsible for the clove like aroma and flavor in the yeast is in the forefront while the beer also hits notes of banana with a hint of bubblegum on the nose and taste. There is little to no bitterness or hop presence and it is extremely drinkable.
American Wheat
American wheat is one of those styles of beer that will forever be burned into my brain as uncool for reasons I don’t remember, but I don’t care, as I like it. I have vivid memories of my first times drinking these non-lager beers, after turning 21, of course. While going out to dinner with my mom, or my dad, I was quietly exploring beer menus and learning about the life I would lead after 40oz. malt liquor stopped being the norm. This was before IPAs became a staple offering at most establishments and back when hefeweizen just meant beer served with a lemon or an orange added on the rim. My memories include copious consumption of Widmer Hefe and Pyramid Hefeweizen. Since Widmer Hefe holds a space in my heart I opted to try it again to make sure it was still worthy. Upon revisiting it, the beer seemed dulled down, non-threatening, and different than I had remembered. It smelled like a hefeweizen, minus the yeast aroma, which is basically all the aroma of a hefeweizen. I went to their website to research if the recipe had changed or if my memories were better than the truth. Then as I entered my date of birth, and accessed the site, I saw a picture of the Widmer Hefe with a lemon garnishing the glass. That’s when I realized what I was missing. Having no lemons I opted for the trusty orange. I could have gone back to the store, but I had already had a tough enough time finding the Shock Top for this tasting. None of my go to stores carry it! I spend all this time seeking out small breweries and then when I need the macro stuff I can’t find it, go figure. Needless to say the orange brought the Widmer Hefe right back to where it was when I killed an oversized pitcher of it, at a burger shack, with my future wife, my mom, and my step-dad.
This is one, of many, reasons American beer has had a bad rap for so many years. It is the dumbest dumbed down version of a true hefeweizen. The yeast is a clean ale yeast and everything about it is subdued. The BJCP states that the use of American hops and more hop character, in general, is desirable. Call me crazy, but with all these American hops floating around in our IPAs, there must not be much left for our American wheats, because even at 15-30 IBU’s they are gentle and lightly bitter.
And now for something a little different.
Dunkel weissbier is a dark German wheat beer that maintains the yeasty banana and clove flavor other German wheat beers while also having a toasted bread or caramel flavor from the use of darker Vienna and Munich malts. Traditionally a decoction mash was used. This is a process in which a portion of the mash is removed and then brought to a boil and then added back into the main mash to bring the mash temperature to different rests. Decoction mashing aids in the darker caramel flavors associated with caramelized sugars and the maillard reaction, but this is a method that is generally no longer used in commercial breweries. Low on bitterness and hop aroma, the Erdinger Dunkel is like a dark Hefeweizen with some additional bready and caramel aspects. Malty yet dry, it is a nice change of pace that is sure to please novice beer drinkers and nerds alike.
Hefeweizen on steroids
Weizenbock is an obscure style that doesn’t come up in conversation too much. It is a sleeper and I’m sure once American craft breweries discover it they will be brewing it for their yearly holiday beer. It is similar to a hefeweizen, but stronger, bigger, and, some would say, better. It is like banana bread in a glass and can come in light or dark versions. The extra malt usage adds to the higher ABV of anywhere from 6.5%-9.0% it has even more of that banana and clove flavor. Dark versions will utilize Vienna and/or Munich malt and can have more dark fruit character like plums, prunes, or raisins, and even a light chocolatey, but not roasted, flavor. I opted for the light version brewed by Weihenstephaner called Vitus. This is a good winter warmer for anyone looking to break from the traditional imperial stout or barley wine. I imagine it going great with some chocolate dessert by a roaring fire while the snow falls. Unfortunately, living in Los Angeles, I may never get to test my theory. I have, however, had an imperial stout on a cool 80 degree evening, so there’s that.
There are a few other beer styles to consider that use wheat as a fair portion of their grain bill
The classic Berliner Weisse, from none other than Berlin, is a low ABV sour that dates back to the 16th century. It is often served with raspberry syrup or with woodruff syrup to round out the mouth puckering tartness. The Berliner Weisse uses as little as 25% wheat in the grain bill, but at around 3.0% ABV. that is more than enough. During fermentation lactobacillus bacteria is introduced to create the tart, distinct sourness. It is an extremely low hopped beer in the single digit IBU range, which is evident in the lack of bitterness and hop aroma. These beers are around, but they are nowhere near as popular as they were at their peak. They are meant to be consumed young. Even with the recent interest in sour beers, some travel and effort may still be necessary on your part to find a prime example of a Berliner Weisse.
Lambic is spontaneously fermented wheat style that originated in Brussels region of Belgium. The beer utilizes hops that are 2-3 years old and an open overnight cooldown that exposes the wort to all the microorganisms that will do the hard work of fermenting, and souring the beer. Once cooled and exposed the wort is transferred into wooden fermenting vessels such as barrels where more wild yeast and bacteria are living and eager to feast on the fresh wort. They will remain in the vessels for at least one year and sometimes for several. Word on the street is one must travel to Brussels, specifically Brouwerij Cantillon, to try them.
After a few years in barrels older Lambic is blended with younger Lambic to create Gueuze. Which is bottled and then carbonated unlike the base beers, which are served with no carbonation. These highly sought after blends are still going strong in breweries such as Cantillon and can be found, in rare instances, on strong (read: STRONG) beer menus and at well curated bottle shops.
Fruit Lambic is another variation. Coming in varieties such as: kriek (cherry), frambroise (raspberry), or pomme (apple) as well as others, the fruit lambic is traditionally made by adding fruit to the year old Lambic and essentially creating a secondary fermentation which is then bottled and carbonated. Once again, look to Bouwerij Cantillon in Brussels for prime examples of this style. If you know someone who knows someone maybe you can secure a bottle for a rainy day, or better yet, a hot summer swelter.
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