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Home Brew News No.9 9th September 2009
Welcome to Newsletter No.9 Spring is here and for those of us who live in the colder southern states, now is the time to start brewing and getting the stocks back to normal. These days there are a wide range of good quality products from grains, hops and yeasts to cans of “hopped liquid malt” and other brewing adjuncts which can be used to produce some wonderful beers. In fact, most people don’t realise how little it costs to set up their own brewery and create their own beers to their own tastes. Nor do they realise how having their own brew set up opens up a whole new world of different, interesting and far more flavourful beers than is available from commercial breweries. And, if you live in the warmer northern states, now is also an excellent time to brew up before it gets too hot.
Home Brewing in Mansfield In Newsletter No.8 we reported that the Mansfield Community Men’s shed had received a grant of $4900.00 for the establishment of a Home Brewing facility. This is almost complete and congratulations to Don and his team of volunteers for putting this project together. Hopefully, it will be finished in another 2 weeks. Life Expectancy for Fermenters There are several estimates on how long a fermenter will last. These range from 3-5 years and 50 brews. However, our best guess is a bit longer if it is well maintained and kept clean at all times. Please remember to regularly replace the tap (which is where all the nasties hide and is almost impossible to clean), the grommet and the lid “O” ring which do harden over time. Frangelico – Hazelnut Liqueur Recipe 50ml Edwards Hazelnut Liqueur Essence 850ml Spirit @ 40% 350g White Sugar 260ml Water Beer Ingredients Brewing beer is itself a fairly simple process. It is really only made up of four main ingredients. Malt is usually barley grain which has been through the malting process where the barley grains are soaked and allowed to germinate. Once they have germinated they are dried in an oven. This process is carried out as the germination and drying process develops a lot of sugars, soluble starches and starch to sugar converting enzymes all of which are valuable in the brewing process. A number of different types of malted grains can be produced which effect the colour and flavour of the beer. Most home brewers use the pre-prepared cans produced by Coopers and Morgans. The liquid malt in these cans is basically a condensed version of the end product of the mashing process used by brewers to extract the sugars, etc from the malted grains. Hops has been widely used in beer making in Europe for over a thousand years but the English have only regularly used it for over the past 150 or so years. Over time many other “herbs” have also been used such as spruce, ginger, ground ivy, sage, wormwood, etc. Hops became more popular because of their antiseptic and preserving qualities, ease of cultivation, flavour and aroma. So, one of hops major purposes of hops is the preservation of the beer. An example of the use of this property is in the style of beer called English Indian Pale Ale. This brew came about because the English wanted to supply beer to the troops in India. Due to the heat there were obvious difficulties with the transport and keeping of the beer. They developed a Pale Ale which was highly hopped to boost the beer preservation. The other major things which hops contribute to beer are flavour, aroma and bitterness. You may have tried Cascade beer from Tasmania, the unique flavour and aroma of this beer is due to the variety of hops used in the brewing of the beer. There are many hop varieties which have different levels of bitterness and different flavours and aromas. For example, CUB use Pride of Ringwood and Willamette hops in their beers. Yeast is basically just a bacteria and the process of fermentation is really just a natural process of the fluid or “wort” going off. The fermentation process involves the yeast “eating” the fermentable sugars and producing alcohol and carbon dioxide amongst other by-products. It’s these other by-products which separate the “good” yeasts from the “bad” yeasts. In the air around us there are many different types of bacteria or yeasts. Some of these will, if allowed to take hold in your wort, produce a reasonable beer but you may be just unlucky enough for a yeast to take off which will only produce a cidery tasting or stale beer. This is the reason why closed fermentation is better than open, cleanliness is extremely important and introducing a known yeast strain to your wort is far better than playing “Russian Roulette” with your beer. Water makes up the major part of any beer but it is given the least consideration. If you think about it, when you are adding 20 odd litres of water to your brew whatever flavours that water will flavour your beer. If it tastes of rust, chemicals or other horrible things then those flavours will be passed onto your beer. Always use the best available water. Happy Home Brewing Regards Aussie Brewmakers |