There is
something about full grain mashing that really makes you
feel like a proper home brewer. No longer are you
relying on liquid malt extract produced to somebody
else’s recipe. You decide what you do and how you
are going to do it, there are no restrictions on what
raw materials you use and how you use them. It
really is down to your skill as a home brewer and of
course the equipment that you possess. For the
home brewer moving from malt extract brewing to full
grain mashing there is usually an initial investment
required in mashing equipment and there is quite a
choice available. To try and make the decision of
what to buy a little less daunting, in this article, we
will quickly review what is required and highlight the
best available equipment on the market to match your
budget.Read More
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness - A Home Brewers Guide to Sanitisation and Sterilisation.
Article posted 15-11-2012
If cleanliness is next to
Godliness then we as home brewers should be approaching
the sanitising and sterilisation of our brewing
equipment with saintly vigour. Although cleaning is not
the most enjoyable part of the hobby its importance to
the brewing of top quality beer cannot be understated.
The last thing any brewer wants is to brew a batch of
beer and then have it spoil due to an avoidable
contamination.
The trouble I find with cleaning is where do you begin?
Perhaps a good place to start is to define what we mean by the terms sanitised and sterilised. A vessel or piece of equipment that has been sanitised is something that has been subjected to a process where any and all surface soil has been removed. The vessel is clean or sanitised but this is not to say that the equipment or vessel is sterile as this requires some form of treatment to remove any microbiological contamination.Read More
The Advantages of Liquid Malt Extract in Home Brewing.
Article posted 20-10-2012
For many home brewers the use of liquid
malt extract to brew beer verges on the sacrilegious.
For devotees to the art of brewing the only way to home
brew is full grain mashing and by using extract you are
compromising your values as a home brewer. But let’s
face it extract brewing is where many of us cut our home
brewing teeth so perhaps it is unwise to be too
critical. On the face it of a well made extract does
have some massive advantages over full grain mashing and
that is what I would like to look at in this article.
What is malt extract?
The simplest answer is that liquid malt
extract is concentrated brewers wort.
Article posted 25-09-2012
For some
fermentation is a bit like the dark arts, what
really goes on in that churning barrel is a mystery,
but when it has finally finished working its magic
the results are fantastic. But whilst that magic is
working its best left well alone. However, for
others fermentation has to be constantly monitored
and tweaked to ensure absolute quality in the final
beer. For me, I sit somewhere in the middle of the
two groups. I find that there is always a sense of
reassurance gained from the gentle gurgling sound
that emanates from the fermentation lock on my
fermenter. As long as that sound starts and doesn’t
finish too quickly I am happy that the fermentation
is moving along quite happily and I don’t have to
interfere risking potential contamination. Read More
Can you really use olive oil in Home Brewing
Article posted 10-09-2012
It is an interesting and,
for some, wacky concept but using olive oil instead of
wort aeration has been utilised by both professional
and home brewers for a number of years. However
for many brewers, and this includes home brewers,
using the olive oil method goes against the grain as
it flies in the face of traditional brewing
dogma. Therefore in the interests of brewing
science and, just because we thought it would be fun,
we have had a look at the brewing literature to
identify the advantages and disadvantages of using
olive oil.Read More
Green Hops and How to use them to brew fantastic beers
Article Posted - 01-09-2012
At this time of year the
brewers mind starts to mull over the likely impact of
the hop harvest. With the cones maturing on the bine it
won’t be long before harvest begins and, for some
brewers, this means using green hops to brew a
celebration beer. It was 20 years ago that Wadworths
brewery in Wiltshire first brewed Malt and Hops a 4.5%
abv beer made from green hops. They claim to be the
first UK brewery to have brewed a beer from green hops
and they have continued to brew it ever since. Other
brewers have joined in the practice and this year the
Ramsgate Brewery plan to brew their beer within 12 hours
of the hops being picked. Eddie Gadd head brewer at
Ramsgate has dubbed the beer Beer-jolais in a nod to the
practice of vineyards competing to bottle the first
Beaujolais.Read more
What is the
Strike Temperature of your mashing liquor and why is
it important?
Article Posted - 26-08-2012
It is easily done, you mash
in expecting to hit your desired mashing temperature and
when you measure the actual temperature of your mash it
is either too cold or too hot. The question is
does this really matter and what can be done to achieve
the correct mashing temperature when mashing in?
What is the problem if the mashing
temperature is not correct?
The mashing temperature is critical
in achieving your desired final beer. For example
if we consider the fermentability of wort this is
directly affected by mash temperature due to the heat
stability of the two amylases α and β-amylase. It
is β-amylase which is critical to the fermentability of
your wort as it breaks large unfermentable
carbohydrates, known as dextrins, into fermentable
maltose and it just so happens that it is quite
sensitive to temperature.