Beer — Page 2

Contest Karate

October 1, 2018 by Chris Colby 3 Comments

These beers may win a medal at a homebrew contest. How will you know? If you can snatch one before I make them disappear, the answer will come to you. (If you were smart enough not to punch a hole in your computer screen, trying to grab one of the beers in the picture, you are ready to begin your journey.)

This is an article about how to increase your chances at winning medals at homebrew contests. At this point, a very valid question you may have is, “How the hell would Chris know how to win medals?” Well, I used to enter contests fairly frequently. And, towards the end of my contest-entering phase, I did fairly well. Not ludicrously well, but I won a few medals. Much more importantly, I’ve judged and otherwise helped out at numerous contests, and seen how things work behind the scenes. My homebrew club (the Austin ZEALOTS), also has a pile of guys who are big into the competitions, and I’ve learned a lot from them.

For the purposes of this article, I’ll assume you want to enter contests and win medals. If you simply want to continue brewing the beers you like, and occasionally enter a couple, that’s great. The point of homebrewing is to have fun. But this article is meant for someone who is looking to have fun by racking up a huge medal count and is willing to put the time and effort into doing it. So grasshopper — or cricket, or katydid, or whichever insect term you prefer — let’s begin your training. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Brewed For Thought Tagged With: beer categories, contest, entries, homebrew contests

Should I Dump It?

September 25, 2018 by Chris Colby 2 Comments

One of the most-asked questions on homebrewing forums is, “Should I dump it?” And, we’ve all likely been there. Something seems wrong with a batch and you are starting to fear that the worst has happened. With experience, you can learn which warning signs point to real trouble and which do not. For new brewers, however, unusual aromas, sights, or flavors can cause a panic. Here is a quick rundown of situations that lead brewers to ask this question, and what they should do. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Brewing Questions Tagged With: contaminated, don't dump it, dump, dump it, infected, off odors

Brut IPA (V: Carbonation and Packaging)

May 24, 2018 by Chris Colby 2 Comments

This article has four sections preceding it — the concept of a brut IPA, the grist, and the mash, the enzyme used to make a highly fermentable wort, hopping and the boil, and fermentation.

German hefeweizen bottles are a great choice for packaging highly carbonated ales, like this one.

Brut IPA is meant to be fizzy. And, there are a couple ways you can accomplish this. As with any beer, you can force carbonate it in a keg, or bottle condition it. However, given the high level of carbonation desired, you will need to approach this differently, in some ways, from when producing a beer with an ordinary level of carbonation.

How carbonated should a brut IPA be? Given that this type of beer currently only exists as a cluster of individual examples, you have some leeway to decide for yourself. The average level of carbonation in an ordinary craft beer or standard lager is 2.4–2.6 volumes of CO₂. Anything over this should count as more highly carbonated. For reference, Belgian tripels and Belgian strong golden ales are often around 4.0 volumes of CO₂, German wheat beers can have carbonation levels as high as 5.0 volumes of CO₂, and Champagne is often around 6.0. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beer Styles Tagged With: balancing a draft system, brut IPA, carbonation, force carbonation, residual CO2

Brut IPA (IV: Yeast and Fermentation)

May 22, 2018 by Chris Colby 1 Comment

This article has three sections preceding it. The first installment dealt with the concept of a brut IPA, the grist, and the mash. The second installment discussed the enzyme used to make a highly fermentable wort, amyloglucosidase. The third installment discussed hopping and the boil.

Once you have boiled the wort and cooled it, it is time for fermentation. Brut IPA is a pale ale to IPA-strength ale, so the fermentation should not present an enormous challenge. All the usual advice — pitch an adequate amount of yeast, aerate well, and hold your fermentation temperature steady — should be heeded. However, there are two additional considerations — attenuation and yeast nutrition. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beer Styles Tagged With: attenuation, brut IPA, fermentation, yeast strain

Brut IPA (III: Boiling and Bitterness)

May 17, 2018 by Chris Colby 2 Comments

The first installment of this article discussed the idea behind a brut IPA, the grist, and the mash. The second installment discussed the enzyme used to make a highly — to completely — fermentable wort. This installment will discuss the boil and packaging.

Once the wort is in the kettle, and the enzyme treatment is over, the brewer should proceed to the boil. Brut IPA is supposed to have a lot of hop aroma, but not as much hop bitterness as a normal IPA. How much bitterness is, of course, up to you. The main things to consider when choosing a level of bitterness are the OG and FG of the beer, and — of course — your personal preference. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beer Styles

Brut IPA (II: The Enzyme)

May 16, 2018 by Chris Colby 16 Comments

The first part of this article describes brut IPA and discusses the grist and the mash.

Moonshiners like it, too.

A step mash can yield a highly fermentable wort that results in a dry to very dry beer. However, if you wish to go beyond “ordinary dryness” — as the pioneers of brut IPA do — you need something extra. That thing is an exogenous enzyme (i.e. an enzyme you add) that will degrade the “dextrins” in your wort to a degree beyond that accomplished in any mash. For the brewers of brut IPA, the enzyme of choice is amyloglucosidase. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beer Styles Tagged With: amyloglucosidase, brut IPA

Brut IPA (I: Description, Grist, and Mash)

May 15, 2018 by Chris Colby 9 Comments

Not a brut IPA

Many brewers are excited about a new type of beer that originated last year (2017) in California — brut IPA. Brut IPA is a dry, fizzy beer with plenty of hop aromatics, but not as much bitterness as a typical American IPA. The first commercial example is attributed to Kim Sturdavant of San Francisco’s Social Kitchen and Brewery. The name “brut” is taken from the terminology used to rank sweetness in Champagne and other sparkling wines — brut is the driest category in that ranking (although it is sometimes subdivided into brut and extra brut).

Now, I’m sure some brewers are wondering if this beer is just a fad or if it is going to become an official beer style, and if so what will the style guidelines say about this beer? In addition, some will likely question if it should really be called an IPA given its comparatively low bitterness. I’m sure someone out in beer writing land would love to pontificate loudly on these questions, so I will leave that to them. Instead, I will address the much more practical question — how could a homebrewer brew a brut IPA at home? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beer Styles Tagged With: amyloglucosidase, brut IPA, Champagne, dry beer, highly carbonated

A Surefire Way to Improve Your Beers . . . And Why You Will Ignore This Advice

December 5, 2017 by Chris Colby 8 Comments

I once met a fellow brewer who had built his own RIMS system. He had two temperature probes in his mash vessel and had fiddled with the engineering of the heating loop and wort return. He had also tweaked his process, varying how the wort was heated, his pump speed, etc., and finally arrived at a point that he was proud of. He could hold his mash temperatures steady, within only 0.5 °F (~0.25 °C) over time or between different places in the mash (except for inside the heating loop, obviously). He could program virtually any step mash into his controller and the rig would carry it out. He was very proud of his accomplishment (as he should have been) and he offered me one of his beers. It was contaminated. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Brewed For Thought Tagged With: improve, improvement, weakest link

Time to Get Happy

October 3, 2017 by Chris Colby 1 Comment

Grapes rotting — er, I mean turning into wine — in a pot.

OK, it’s time for me to get happy. And to do so, I’m going to brew another version of one of my favorite beers — Ancient Sumerian Happy Juice. Several years ago, I read the English translation of the poem Hymn to Ninkasi. This poem praises the goddess Ninkasi, who the ancient Sumerians believed watched over beer production. From the poem, I came up with a “beer” recipe. The beverage contains honey and fruits, as well as grains, so it’s really a hybrid beer, wine, and mead. The basic idea was that dates were crushed and made into wine. Barley was milled and mixed with honey and baked into bread, which the poem called bappir. Malted grains were then mashed along with the bread. The wort from this was boiled and then cooled and the fermenting date wine was added to it. I used some smoked malt in the recipe as I figured that ancient malting techniques may have yielded malt tainted with smoke. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Brewing Recipes

20 Brewing Questions

May 30, 2017 by Chris Colby 2 Comments

So you think you know brewing, huh? Well step up to the plate and try to answer these 20 brewing questions. If you can pick the right answers from the wrong answers, the doubly wrong answers, and the answers that are so wrong that they just might be right, you will have our undying respect. This quiz is meant to be challenging, but also fun. And, given that you’ll score it yourself, you can still score 100% no matter what you answer (you know, like most online quizzes). If you’re brave, post your answers — that you gave without Googling — in the comments section. I’ll post the answer key with explanations of everything — and hopefully better jokes — on Thursday. So, grab your #2 pencil, then set it back down because you shouldn’t draw on your computer screen and . . . begin the quiz! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Brewed For Thought Tagged With: quiz, test