Homebrewer newsletter #2

Released on November, 1986 (Circulation: 53)

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

homebrewer newsletter

 · 9 Apr 2024

The response to the first "brewsletter" has been fantastic, and the mailing list has grown enormously as a result of the "advertisements." A large percentage of respondents said they've never brewed before, but are very interested in doing so, and wanted help on getting started. There's nothing I'd rather do than travel all over the country and help people get started homebrewing, but since this is slightly impractical (though I'd be happy to assist new brewers around here- Fort Collins, Colorado and surrounding areas), I thought I'd start this issue with a "Getting Started Guide" for beginners. Experienced brewers might want to skip this.

Many of the experienced brewers expressed similar feelings about the use of additives and sugar in brewing: Namely, they aren't necessary, and better beer will be made without them. I am in agreement for the most part, but I believe there are some additives which the homebrewer should at least experiment with. Since this is such a controversial subject, I am writing an article for the next issue which discusses the most popular additives and their merits and drawbacks.

I'd like to have some discussion of beer quality, both homebrew and commercial beer, and so there's also an article on evaluation and rating of beers. I am hoping this will provide some common criteria for us to talk about beer with.

    Rob Gardner                     {ihnp4,hplabs,hpbbn}!hpfcla!rdg 
    Hewlett Packard                 or rdg%hpfcla@hplabs.hp.com 
    Fort Collins, Colorado          303-229-2048

In this issue

• Beginners' getting started guide
• Beer evaluation/rating
• Stuff from readers
• The William's Siphonless Fermenting Pail
• Swingtop Gaskets
• Great American Beer Fest results
• Bo Viger's Boston Sojourn
• Tim Antonsen's "poetry"
• A message from Tom Adams
• Miscellaneous:
• Rotokeg update
• Oktoberfest? Huh?
• Standard Request

Beginners' Getting Started Guide

I hope that the following guide can help some beginners with their first batches. I obviously can't cover every little detail of homebrewing here, but I have tried to give an easily followed outline of the process, along with most of the common pitfalls faced by beginners. I would welcome any comments or criticism on this section, as it will probably appear again, in hopefully better form.

1. The first thing I recommend to the new brewer is to find a source of brewing supplies. It may be a local brew shop or a mail order store. Check out books on homebrew either at a library or bookstore. The book I recommend getting is Charlie Papazian's "Complete Joy of Homebrewing." This is easily one of the best homebrewing books around, and it is very useful for both beginners and experienced brewers. There are lots of other good books around, so don't worry if you can't find this one. One caveat: stay away from books published in the UK, as these can be confusing and/or misleading for the beginner. They specify ingredients that aren't found in the US, and generally give poor advice, like adding lots of sugar.
2. The next thing to do is buy a kit. Most brew stores sell kits that contain everything you need to make your first batch, except for bottles. They'll cost anywhere from $35-$60 depending on how fancy they are. I'd recommend getting a kit that includes a 5 gallon glass carboy as well as a plastic pail. Other useful items that the kit might not include are thermometer and hydrometer. The kit should include: 10 gallon plastic pail, siphon equipment, bottle filler, bottle brush, bottle caps, bottle capper, fermentation lock, chlorine cleaner, and perhaps ingredients. If the kit includes a carboy, it should also include a short length of plastic hose for the "blow-by," and a funnel. There might be some other odd items, such as a stirring spoon. The major difference between one kit and another will be the presence of a glass carboy, so in this article I will indicate when a difference in technique is called for. If the kit does not include ingredients, there are usually several kinds of malt extract to choose from. Try to pick something not too heavy for the first time; a light or amber ale is a very good choice. Also try to get a hopped malt extract the first time to keep it simple. If none is available, then get 2 ounces of fresh hops if available. Failing that, get 2 ounces of hop pellets.
3. Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew. Now you are about ready to start brewing. If possible, it is extraordinarily helpful at this point to find somebody who's done it before, and have them help you. Doing this will greatly improve your chances of success the first time, but don't worry if you can't swing it, your chances are still pretty good. Remember to tell yourself, "Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew." The first time, ordinary beer will have to do, but do try to drink homebrew whenever you brew - it will help you to not worry. (Worrying can ruin the taste of your homebrew.)
4. To begin, you'll need a large pot to boil the malt extract in. The pot should be large enough to hold at least 2 gallons of water - the bigger the better. Fill the pot up about half way (whatever that happens to be) with water and boil it. The idea is to boil as much water as possible, but to have room in the pot for foam that will be produced by boiling. While the water is heating up, remove the label from the can(s) of malt extract, and put the can(s) in some hot water to soften the extract. When the water boils, put in the extract and let it boil again, stirring frequently so the extract doesn't burn. When it comes to a second boil, watch out - it has a strong tendency to foam up and make a legendary mess on your stove. When the foam rises, remove the pot from the fire and let it settle down a minute. When you put it back, it will have (slightly) less tendency to boil over, but it needs watching.
5. If you have hops or hop pellets, add them now, and boil the wort (wort == unfermented beer) for at least a half hour (an hour is better.) If you're not using hops, but instead, hopped malt extract, then it is not necessary to boil very long - 15 minutes is sufficient.
6. While the wort is boiling, you should sanitize everything that will come in contact with the beer. This includes the fermentation container, fermentation lock if any, utensils, everything. Sanitizing is done by soaking in a solution of water and the sanitizing chemical that came with your kit. A few teaspoons of household bleach in a gallon of water is quite effective also. I generally fill a large bowl with bleach solution and throw in everything to be sanitized. After sanitizing, rinse well with clean water at least 3 times. Notice I keep saying "sanitize" and not "sterilize." Well, it would be nice if you could sterilize, but you can't. Sterilization is very difficult, i.e., boiling under pressure for an hour, so sanitizing is the best we can do. Needless to say, be careful not to breath the fumes or get any sanitizing solution in your eyes. Sanitizing might sound like a pain, but that's only because it is. However, it's absolutely the most important thing you can do to make your beer a success. You can screw up a dozen other things, but if you keep everything clean, you'll still liable to brew a good beer. But if you're not sanitary, the finest ingredients and techniques won't help - you'll brew quite undrinkable beer.
7. Now put about 2 gallons of cold water into your fermenter, and add the boiled wort. A funnel is handy at this point if you are using a carboy. If your boiling pot is very large, use less than 2 gallons-remember, we're eventually making 5 gallons. (Do not pour the hot wort directly into a carboy with no water in it - you are likely to crack the glass!) If you added hops, you'll want to use a strainer to remove them, but don't worry if you don't get them all. Now fill your fermenter up to 5 gallons with cold water. If you're using the plastic pail, it helps if you've previously marked where 5 gallons occurs - a magic marker works well. If you're using a carboy, fill it up to several inches from the top. Depending on how much water you boiled, the temperature of the wort might be too high to add the yeast. If so, let it cool until it is below 90 degrees F.
8. Now the packet of yeast may be added to the wort. If you like, you can "start" the yeast. I usually do this to give it a "running start" and also simply to be sure that the yeast is good. To start the yeast, sanitize a bottle, and mix 2 teaspoons of corn sugar with a half cup of 80 degree water, and add the yeast. Stick a fermentation lock on top and let it sit while the wort cools. By the time the wort is cooled, the yeast starter should be busy fermenting, and you should see bubbles percolating through the fermentation lock. Now just dump the yeast mixture into the wort. If you're using a carboy, be careful when filling it with water to leave room in it for the yeast mixture.
9. After the yeast is added, put the lid on the plastic fermenter and attach the fermentation lock. Don't forget to put some water in the lock. If you're using a carboy, force the short piece of plastic tubing through the stopper a little bit, and put it on the carboy. Place the other end of the tube in a bucket of water. This type of fermentation lock is known as a "blow-by," and is necessary because the fermentation will produce lots of foam and sludge, and it has no place to go except out. If you used an ordinary lock, it would quickly fill up with garbage. In a plastic pail, there is plenty of space for the foam to grow.
10. Now put the whole thing into a cool, dark, place to let it ferment. Dark is important because sunlight can damage the beer. Cool is important because beer-fouling organisms don't thrive as well at lower temperatures. Room temperature is usually fine - about 70 degrees F. If you can get it to 65 or 60, that would be better. Don't make it colder than 60, however, because then the yeast won't work very well. (Most beginners will be using top fermenting yeast, which works best at 60 degrees and above. Bottom fermenting yeast works fine all the way down to freezing.) If you can't get the temperature below 80, then you should look for a better place to keep your beer. If you are using the carboy method, check the bucket daily for overflow. Signs of fermentation should appear within a couple of hours, and by the next morning, it should be fermenting madly.
11. After a few days, it will start to slow down, and will finish sometime between 4 and 10 days after you began. If you are using the carboy and blow-by, replace the blow-by with a fermentation lock when it stops blowing out garbage and starts blowing only bubbles. How will you know when it's done fermenting? If you like, you can take hydrometer readings, and wait until it stabilizes (same reading on 3 consecutive days.) However, I've found it works just as well to observe the frequency of the bubbles in the airlock. When you watch it, but don't see any bubbles for a few minutes, it's quite ready to be bottled. When it finishes fermenting, you don't have to bottle it immediately, but it's best to bottle it within 3-4 weeks of beginning.
12. The first step in bottling is to acquire bottles. Go to a liquor store or bar and pay $2.50 for 2 cases of empty deposit bottles. Do not use the throwaway kind with the screw-off tops, as these are not strong enough. Chances are the bottles will be pretty scummy, so pour an inch or two of strong bleach solution into each, and let them sit for an hour. Then rinse them well, using your bottle brush if necessary, and your bottle washer if you have one (see issue #1.)
13. If you fermented your beer in a carboy, siphon(*) the beer into the sanitized plastic pail, and add a boiled solution of 3/4 cup corn sugar and water. If you used the pail to ferment, then you must "prime" the bottles with 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of sugar each. This added sugar is what produces the carbonation in the bottles. Do not use more than 1 cup per 5 gallons or 1 teaspoon per bottle, or you risk the danger (and social embarrassment) of exploding bottles.
14. Now fill the bottles with the siphon and bottle filler, and cap them. Store at room temperature for at least a week, then try to move the beer someplace a little cooler. (I keep mine underneath a window.) The beer should be drinkable 3 weeks after bottling, depending on ingredients. You might want to try a bottle every week after bottling just to taste the changes that occur.

* siphoning: don't suck on the tube to start it, that will introduce lots of bacteria into the beer. A good trick is to fill the siphon with water to start it. Remember that the level of liquid in the source container must be higher off the ground than the top of the destination container in order for the siphon to work.

Now don't rush to brew the second batch quite yet. Why not wait a few weeks and see how the first turned out? That way, if you really did something wrong, you have a chance to find out what, and avoid the problem in the second batch. Good luck!

Beer evaluation/rating

When I get together with people and drink beer, homebrew or otherwise, at sometime during the evening there is the inevitable "critique" of the beer. This is fun, but at the same time, it bothers me a bit that a particular beer rarely generates consistent comments on different occasions, even by the same person. The heart of the problem is that the criteria used to judge the beer is only loosely defined at best, and changes with the weather, moods, and phase of the moon. I came to this realization after seeing several rating systems mentioned in books. I decided to give it a try, and rated several beers using the following criteria:

(Taken from "The New Brewer's Handbook" by Patrick Baker. There was no notice in the front saying "Don't copy this or else we'll cut your fingers off," so...)

• Superior beers - rated above 14
• Very good beers - rated between 12.0 and 13.9
• Good beers - rated between 10.0 and 11.9
• Acceptable beers - rated between 8.0 and 9.9
• Marginal beers - rated between 6.0 and 7.9
• Faulty beers - rated less than 6.0

I don't mean to present this as the absolute, only way to rate beers, but just to argue that criteria must be agreed upon by all beforehand in order to compare various beers with some sense of fairness. I rated my first batch of homebrew at 6 (marginal) but I gave a 10 (good) to a friend's first batch. At least this agrees with the general comments that went along with the beers, "yyyynnnnn" vs. "mmmmmmmm." (Got that?)

To demonstrate this idea a little better, why don't we try to rate some beers? Perhaps some readers could rate some beers and send in their results. I'll present them in a future issue, and we'll see if we can come up with consistent results. I'll start by rating (what I think is) a widely available American beer here to demonstrate how the points _might_ be assigned.

Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve:

Now for a not-so-widely-available brew.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale:

Stuff From Newsletter Readers

This from Ted Manahan (hplabs!hpfcla!hpldola!tedm):

I bought a _William's_Siphonless_ fermenting pail. This is a pail for fermenting five gallons of beer, with a hole in the lid for an airlock and a spigot about 2 inches up from the bottom of the pail. You use the spigot to empty the beer after fermentation, instead of siphoning.

I like this pail a lot more than using a carboy and siphoning. In fact, I even bought a priming pail, with a spigot almost at the bottom. I add the sugar for carbonation to the whole five gallons of beer, instead of to each bottle. This makes it much easier to measure, and the carbonation level is consistent from bottle to bottle. The bottles are filled up using the spigot. I've made about eight batches of beer with these pails.

The fermenter costs $17.90, which is a lot of money for a plastic pail. I think it is worth it, but you are really paying for convenience. The priming pail isn't listed in the latest catalog. It may be discontinued. Write for a catalog to:
William's Brewing
703 Castro St. #2
San Leandro, CA 94577

[William's Brewing is run by Bill Moore, according to Zymurgy's (American Homebrewer's Association magazine) list of Business Support Program Members. Their phone number is 415-895-2739, if you're inclined to call for a catalog. This sounds like a useful product, but a bit expensive, so I picked up a spigot assembly for $2 at the Brew-it Shop here in Fort Collins, and I made my own. I used an ordinary plastic fermenting pail, drilled (uh, hacked) a hole in the side near the bottom, and attached the spigot. It works!]

Also from Ted Manahan (hplabs!hpfcla!hpldola!tedm):

Does anyone out there know where I can get cheap gaskets for used Grolsch bottles? I have a lot of these bottles, and it is somewhat easier to use them than the 12 oz. domestic bottles. These gaskets can only be used once, or some will fail to hold pressure. The gaskets cost over ten cents each by mail order, which seems quite expensive.

[My experience is that these gaskets last through many uses, and will hold pressure just fine as long as the tops are seated correctly. Explanations for failure that come to mind: too much pressure in the bottle, alcohol attacking the rubber, rubber becoming brittle over time. Can anybody else report any experiences with the gaskets? By the way, the gaskets are available at the Brew-it for about 7 cents each.]

In case anybody didn't see this in net.wines:

Here are the results of the popularity voting at the 1986 Great American Beer Festival held in Denver Colorado on October 3rd & 4th.

1. Samuel Adams Boston Lager - Boston Beer Company, Boston, Mass.
2. Boulder Festival Ale - Boulder Brewing Co., Boulder, Colo.
3. Dock Street Amber Beer - Dock Street Brewery, Havertown, Penn.
4. Pennsylvania Pilsener - Pennsylvania Brewing Co., Philadelphia
5. Portland Lager - Main Coast Brewing Co., Portland, Maine
6. XIII [13] Colony Amber Beer - Savannah Beer Co., Savannah, Georgia
7. Schooner Double Bock - Chesapeake Bay Brewing Co., Virginia Beach, Va.
8. Vienna Style Lager - Vienna Brewing Co., Milwaukee, Wisc.
9. Olde Heurich Amber Lager - Olde Heurich Brewing Co., Washington, D.C.
10. India Pale Ale - Yakima Brewing and Malting Co., Yakima, Wash.

This years festival was a great success. Over two nights a crowd of close to 4000 had an opportunity to sample 100 different beers from all over the United States. The beer styles represented included stout, porter, alt, wheatbeer, pilsener, pale ale, amber ale, Vienna and Munich. The 1987 Great American Beer Festival should be next June.

Jim Homer
ihnp4!drutx!homer

This from Bo Viger (hplabs!hpfcla!bo):

WHO MAKES THE BEST BEER IN AMERICA?

So you didn't make it to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver on October 3^rd and 4^th? Tsk, tsk, tsk, what kind of beer connoisseur are you? Probably not unlike me, since I didn't make it either!

So what did I miss, you ask. Frankly, I don't know, but as Rob mentioned in his first issue of Homebrew Newsletter, Denver TV news made it look like a lot of fun. Word has it that Samuel Adams Boston Lager won first place again, with a "Special" brewed by Boulder Brewery coming in second.

Evidently, Boulder Brewery is upset about all the marketing hype surrounding "Sams". As some of you may know, the owner of Samuel Adams has a campaign going about the quality of imported German brews. Claiming that most imports couldn't qualify for sale in Germany because they don't adhere to the _Reinheitsgebot_, the law dictating that beer sold in Germany may only contain water, yeast, barley malt (is Weiss beer an exception?) and hops, the owner says that his is the only American beer that qualifies to be sold in Germany and is, therefore, better than the imports (not to mention, other American beers).

The hype begins with the name "Samuel Adams Boston Lager". It isn't!! It's actually Samuel Adams Pennsylvania Lager, because they contract some large generic brewery in Pennsylvania to produce "Sams" according to the recipe provided. Also, it isn't the "only" American beer which qualifies for the German law. Those of you who have been through Boulder Brewery know that their ingredients comply, unless they lie through their teeth about the actual ingredients. How many other American Microbreweries qualify is unknown without further research on this author's part, which, of course, will require actual taste testing of any possible brews to get a comparison of the taste versus the ingredients listed on the label! But that's another story...

So just how good is "Sams" anyway, and did it deserve first place at the GABF for the second time in a row? Well, I had the good fortune to spend the first week of October in Boston; seeing the sites, sampling the seafood, catching a Sox game at Fenway (mega-fun!), drinking many Samuel Adams, and, ah..., er..., ahah, I knew there was something else, working the HP booth at the ADEE trade show!

Well, after tasting my first "Sams" at lunch on the day before the trade show, I liked it. I had a second, and I liked it, too! A lot! So every time we congregated for a meal, or for a before-breakfast, oops, dinner drink, you saw a lot of "Sams" being drunk.

Was it popular because you can't buy it here, so the mind distorted the actual flavor into something it wasn't? Don't know, but remember when you bought bootleg Coors beer because is wasn't available in your home-state? Tasted great then, but now it tastes like piss-water! Frankly, I'm not sure if "Sams" is better than other American beers, and if you didn't make the GABF, you probably don't know either.

By chance, I returned from Boston with a six-pack of "Sams". Not only was it not cheap ($6.70), but I had a "hard time" getting it through security in my carry-on at the airport:

Lady guard at the x-ray machine: "Sir, you will have to remove the glass bottles in your luggage for inspection."

Me, after removing my camera bag, 4 sets of underware, a sweater, a book, and socks, so I could show her the sealed box of Samuel Adams Boston Lager: "It's (puff) a sealed box (puff) of Samuel Adams Boston Lager."

Lady guard, with a smile: "I'm sorry sir, you're only allowed to carry four, you'll have to give me the other two!" (Smile widening to BIG grin.)

Me: "Sorry, no, but you can have my socks!" (We both laugh)

Lady guard: "Have a nice flight!"

I tend to digress. I have, of course tasted the Samuel Adams again since I returned from Boston, and it still tastes "Real Good". However, I wouldn't rank it better than a number of European brews I tend to be fond of such as Paulaner, and especially Pilsner Urquell, which, if it's a good batch, I would consider the finest pilsner made. If you ever get out east, be sure to ask for a "Samuel Adams Boston Lager". You may not agree with their advertising methods, but it's a damned good beer!

Fermentably yours,
Herr Biermeister Beau, Brewer of BeauBrau
Slogan: "Tonite, let it be Beauwenbrau!"

This from Tim Antonsen (hplabs!hpfcla!hpcnom!tim):

Air locks that glug and go burble
are better than those that don't gurgle.
When you hear the gas go
then you can't help but know
that your homebrew has passed its first hurdle.

Now with air locks that silently sit
you don't know if the yeast's dead or fit
It could be a good batch
Peerless, without match
But who knows? It might taste like ...

This from Tom Adams (ihnp4!sw1e!uusgta):

When I got interested [in homebrewing] I did what everyone does and sent off for catalogues. Since I used troff and typed in the addresses of a few companies I thought I would send the addresses and letter I used so you could distribute/update it if you feel it's worthwhile. I am interested in other addresses and mail order sources of supply.

[Tom has sent me his list of stores, along with scripts that generate letters. If you are interested in them, contact me or Tom directly.]

Miscellaneous

Rotokeg Update

I have discovered the cause of my problems with the Rotokeg: it has a small crack in the bottom, and beer squirts out under pressure. I believe the crack was caused by a defect, and the manufacturer has agreed to send me a new one. So, the Rotokeg story is not over. Stay tuned.

Moron American Oktoberfests

Well, another useless American Oktoberfest took place here in Fort Collins a few weekends ago. They didn't even have German beer. I guess they figure that they can serve Coors and Bud, and Bratwurst on hot dog buns and call it an Oktoberfest. Well, at least at the Oktoberfest in Denver they had Paulaner Oktoberfest beer, and even served it at the correct temperature. I don't know why I even bother to go to these things. Can anybody report a remotely authentic Oktoberfest in North America?

Standard Request

Once again, I invite anyone or everyone to share their experiences with newsletter readers by writing an article. Article content will not be edited, but commentary may be added to it. Suggestions, recipes, advice, or anything you think might be of interest to homebrewers is welcome.

In future issues:

• The Wort Horn wort cooler
• Plastic fermenters vs. glass
• Additives - pro/con
• Temperature: brewing, conditioning, serving
• Hop pellets and extract vs. fresh
• Lager beer & Refrigerator brewing
• Bottle sources
• Book reviews
• Anecdotes
• Recipes