Homebrewed is Best

It’s nearly April, not that that means anything by itself, but I’ve wanted to brew a bitter for a while now. I reread Pete Brown’s ‘ManWalks Into a Pub’, an excellent book on the evolution of the British public house, and frankly that made me very thirsty. I’ve also been reading TheDoghouse, a pub-based periodical from Ludlow, who also run a micropub from the same office. Fancied a pint.

But no, I’ve wanted to brew a bitter since before then, too. I meant to brew one for the Belfast CAMRA ale festival in November, but missed the deadline by some months. On paper I’d been messing around with a recipe (mainly hop and yeast selection, and a standard malt bill), and so as far back as probably July I’ve been thinking about Bitter.

Bitter is my favourite beer style of all, and it just doesn’t seem to exist in great quantities in Ireland, apart from my occasional trip to Wetherspoons in Derry, where it is served on handpull. It’s time to brew one for the house, for my own set of beer pumps.
 

The recipe is fairly standard, except that I’ve used a lot more wheat than usual, as I want to really nail the head retention this time. I’m also watching the calcium content for the same reason. The brewing guidelines I’m using today come from Nigel Sadler’s book ‘Notes on Craft AleBrewing’. It’s and excellent reference book, full of calculations and science, and has helped fill in a few gaps that other books have missed. The ‘rules’ that I’m specifically adhereing to are the water guidelines, hop rates and method, yeast pitching rates and so on. If you’ve read the Brewing Elements series, then I can recommend this book too, though it’s more use as a postscript than an introduction.

The yeast comes from the dregs of a bottle of Fuller’s IPA. Yeast culturing is something I haven’t had a proper go at yet, normally opting for sachets of dry yeast (I see nothing wrong with dry yeast, except for the lack of variety, which Mangrove Jacks have gone some way towards rectifying) or the slightly more expensive liquid options. WhiteLabs are fantastic; their standard range, plus the Platinum seasonals, strange new yeasts and bacteria thanks to Yeast Bay, and now even rarer yeasts WhiteLabs ‘the Vault’, it’s a great time to be a homebrewer. However, in the microbrewery, it’s nearly ten times as expensive (or thereabouts, nobody will actually give me a proper price) to buy liquid as dry, for the quantity I need, so I wanted to do a few trials of the stirplate first. I couldn’t be happier with my first effort! The idea is to buy an €8 vial of WhiteLabs and culture it up to the 750g yeast that I need for a brew. This will open up a world of yeast for use in the brewery, without the increased cost.

Just like cats, homebrewers know the warmest places in the house.

Instructions for making a stirplate and starter are readily available online, and I made mine for nothing, using stuff I had lying about the house. One of the options to consider is one magnet or two. That decision was made for me by misplacing one of the pair. The magnet sits in the centre of the computer fan, and works fine. I expect both ways have their merits. Practice using your stirplate with a glass of water first, to see what stirbar size and speed etc will do. I bought a packet of stirbars in various sizes from eBay, which gives me plenty of options, from the tictac sized stirbar for small starters, through liquorice torpedo sized, onto half-a-fudge, which should works in a demijohn.

Just FYI, then, I added 200ml of 1.020 unhopped wort to the dregs of a bottle of Fuller’s IPA, stirred that, increased that to 500ml at 1.030, then one more step to 2 litres of 1.040.

The recipe itself is standard enough:

Pale, 3240g (81%)

Crystal 80, 320g (8%)

Wheat malt, 400g (10%)

Chocolate Malt, 40g (1%) for colour adjustment – I’ve been drinking golden beers for ages

Mashed at 67oc, with water adjusted to
<40ppm alkalinity,
150ppm Chloride,
300ppm Sulphate, and
100 - 200ppm Calcium.
Spargewater the same.

Copper volume, 24litres at 1038, should give me a 20 litre ferment at 1040.

Northdown 6% to bitter, to 30IBU (29g pellets)

Pilgrim 10% at 15 minutes, 15 grams, and ten more at flameout. Some protafloc at 15, too.

Yeast, Fuller’s IPA (I hope it’s not a lager strain used for bottle conditioning, now I’ve gone to all that effort!). Pitched the fresh slurry at 22oc, god knows how much or how little, but

Tasting notes to come.

Eyes on the prize... Yeast handling

What's that thing you say about wise men, or the more you know the more you whatever? Well, the same applies in brewing. I've spent the last four years honing my brew kit, my mash efficiency, bottling and kegging, recipes and above all else speed, or brewday efficiency. I'm getting the hang of it now, I think. However, one thing still stands in my way; taking good care of my yeast.

My process has been honed over the years, as I've improved my recipe design, mashing, boiling, hop additions and all the processes in between and after (bottling and kegging, serving temp, condition). The intermediate step, fermentation, is all down to the yeast. Mishandled yeast can, at best, behave a little odd, throw out some unusual flavours, or take a while to start or stop. Sometimes a poorly treated yeast will give you some bad flavours and aromas. I've got to the point now where that kind of thing is no longer tolerable, and it's apparently bad form to blame the yeast. Acetaldehyde (green apples), Diacetyl (butterscotch), solvents (pear drop esters at best, nail polish remover at worst) phenols (smokiness or pepperiness) and some rubbery aromas if allowed to die and disintegrate in the wort.

So, in the same way as I developed my other brewing skills, I'm now paying some close attention to my yeast. I do have a microscope, but haven't been able to use it properly yet, as I can't get hold of Haemocytometer plates. Nevertheless:

1: Pitching rates- at it's simplest, for a standard strength ale (up to SG. 1060) a single sachet of dried brewers yeast will work fine. For a lager, buy two. They're not expensive. Rehydration can take place before, or by addition to the cooled wort. Rehydration advice found here: http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/SFA_S04.pdf

For wet yeast (or liquid yeast) I believe one vial treated well will work for a standard strength ale, and again cough up for two if you're brewing a lager, but preparing a starter is the best treatment here.

Repitching yeast from a previous batch (slurry) can help reduce the cost of buying two or more sachets or a vial. Depending on how fussy the yeast, or how obvious it will be in the final beer, I'll either pitch straight onto the yeast cake in the fermenter, or scoop some out (in a sanitary manner) for use later.You wouldn't pitch a pale beer straight onto a stout yeast cake, for example.

2: Temperature- best not to pitch while too hot, or to have a temperature jump from yeast temperature to wort, or large fluctuations in temperature during fermentation (with the exception of a specific fermentation profile, like crash cooling, Diacetyl rests or increasing temperature for Belgian style beers or for attenuation). Also, keep the beer at a suitable temperature for the beer. Warmer temperatures tend to create more esters, while cooler fermentations, though slower, produce a cleaner beer.

Most beers ales are fine fermented between 16 and 20 degrees C, but do check. Also, picking yeast best suited to your actual ambient temperatures can work. WLP029 Kolsch yeast is a warm lager yeast, fermenting a clean beer at ale temperatures, and I've got Nottingham to work quite well at quite low temperatures.

3: Style- pick a yeast suited to the beer style brewed. I'm spending a few extra euros for wet yeasts, of which there is a much wider variety. Spending more money on Saaz and brewing water adjustments, pilsner malts and making space in the fridge is a waste without the perfect yeast for the job*. That's not to say that good beers can't be brewed with other yeasts, of course. Stout brewed with Belgian yeast, IPA with Brett,

My next step is to make a stir plate (read here for the reason I chose not to http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=70926), and aquire some Erlenmyer flasks in order to make some starters a few days in advance. I've bought a pressure cooker to sterilise wort in jars, and then I'll feel I've really got the hang of brewing.

*And for this prize of which I mention in the title, the yeast is Vermont IPA yeast (Conan). This is being fermented warm in my specially designed fermentation chamber (which has cost about a tenner to make from begged stolen and borrowed gizmos). The beer is an America IPA for the Galway brewer's competition. It didn't make it in, after all, but I enjoyed drinking it, I suppose.