To research and develop your malts, you are going to want access to datasheets. I use a lot of Briess products so I refer to the data sheets on their website often to get color and basic flavor profiles. You can find these here, if you only want to see an example of a data sheet, click here for a data sheet on standard 2 row. Mostly what I get from these sheets is the color, the type of roast, and general flavor profile. I can’t really control much else.

The major draw for me in making my own specialty and roasted malts is that it adds another depth of homemade flare to my homebrew. The downfall is that unlike commercial malts, you don’t usually end up with the consistency of the commercial product. If you can overcome that hurdle, home roasting your malts can become addicting. But let’s be honest. As homebrewers we tend to be quite anal about consistency. From mash temps to alpha acids to fermentation temperatures. Any minor change in a process or recipe can give you an entirely different beer. You can produce consistent malts at home, but you also need to be OK with minor differences from time to time. Also, because I use an oven and a nut roaster, doesn’t mean that is the only method of roasting. You can try coffee roasters, a grill, or whatever else you think may produce the result you are looking for. With all that out of the way, let’s look at my first run at making Special B.

First I had to look at what Special B is like. Special B is an An extremely dark caramel malt with a sharp, almost toffee like flavor. It should have a heavy caramel taste and is often credited with the raisin-like flavors of some Belgian ales. It is also 147 degrees Lovibond. Since special B is a Belgian Malt, I chose to use Belgian Pale Ale Malt as my base. Since it is essentially a very dark caramel malt, I decided to take that Belgian pale ale malt and simply use my caramel malt process to make the grain. Originally I was going to roast at 400 degrees in the oven to get the dark color, but as you will see in the pictures later, after drying, the grain darkened enough that I reduced the roast time and temp from 400 degrees for 40 minutes in my plan, to 300 degrees for 30 minutes. As you can see, you should plan prior to making a specific malt. you can also just wing it and experiment with creating your own malts. During my Special B project, I also wanted to make a very very dark caramelized Munich malt. You will see pictures of that during this post as well. That is why I wanted to mention it. Making this grain was just for fun and not based on anything in particular.

I started out Special B by taking a pound of Belgian Pale Ale Malt and soaking it for 4 hours. Once the grain is all soft, it is time to start “mashing” it in the husk. I bring my stove up to 180 degrees and place a thermometer in the grain. It is important to make sure the grain is kept in a thick pile to prevent it from drying out. You can even keep a little water in the bottom of the pan and stir often during the mash to make sure the grain always stays wet. After about 2 hours (which is how long I mashed this batch) then you are going to want to transfer the grain to a flat cookie sheet or shallow jelly roll pan for drying.

I mash the grain in a cake pan lined with tin foil. This ensures that if there was any oils on the pan do not get on the grains

Drying the grain on a large cookie sheet. For drying, make sure you keep the grains spread as thin as possible.

When drying, you do not want to roast the grain yet. If you have a food dehydrator, you may be able to use that but I wonder if it would take too long. I dry in the oven at 250 degrees and stir the grain often. It usually takes about 3 hours (sometimes more) to dry the grain. Once the grain is dry, you can then start the roasting process. If you have a specific malt in mind, you may or may not have to adjust the roast based on how far along the grain came during drying. This happened to me on the Special B Project and I adjusted my process to what looked to me like it needed 300 degrees for 30 minutes instead of 400 at 40, which a general roast of already dry grains will get you into that 145 degree lovibond range. This case, the grain already darkened a bit during the drying process.

Below is a picture of when i should have stopped roasting my Special B. I pulled the grain out 20 minutes into the roast for another stir and it looked to be right on. I took a picture of it, in case my extra 10 minutes made a drastic change int he grain. While it did not make a drastic change, it did bring the grain in a shade darker than it should be.

Special B, 20 minutes into the 300 degree roast

After the full 30 minutes was up, you can see that my first run at Special B brought in the grain a bit darker than it should have been. However, the taste is very close. As a matter of fact when I placed a small bit of each grain in each side of my mouth, the difference was very slight. My version has a little more of a roasted flavor, but both seemed equally as sweet and had very similar flavor profiles. Below is a side by side of commercial Special B and my home made version, I placed some Special B in the bowl on the left half and my home made version on the right half of the bowl. I had a few more darkened grains than what you see in the commercial version as you can see. I really wish I would have stopped at 20 minutes.

Side by Side of commercial Special B and my version

So all in all, here was the grains I made that day. The commercial Special B is on the left, then my version in the middle, and a dark roasted caramel Munich malt on the far right.

Home Roasted grains.

So Below is my recommended process for making homemade Special B.

Soak 1 Pound of Belgian Pale Ale malt  for 4 hours in filtered water. Place the malt in a cake pan (or pour the grain into a pile) the place in a 180-200 degree oven for 2 hours. Monitor the grain, and if the grain temp gets above 160 degrees turn off the oven for a while. Keep the grain in that 150 degree range for 2 hours, stirring often (about every 15 minutes). Once the mash is done, spread the grain into the thin layer and dry in the oven at 250 degrees, again stirring often. Once the grain is dry, based on the finished color, ramp up the oven to 300 degrees and roast for 20 minutes (or when the grain looks done). Let it rest for 2 weeks before using in a beer.

Dark Caramelized Munich Malt

Soak 1 Pound of German Munich Malt for 4 hours in filtered water. Place the malt in a cake pan (or pour the grain into a pile) the place in a 180-200 degree oven for 2 hours. Monitor the grain, and if the grain temp gets above 160 degrees turn off the oven for a while. Keep the grain in that 150 degree range for 2 hours, stirring often (about every 15 minutes). Once the mash is done, spread the grain into the thin layer and dry in the oven at 250 degrees, again stirring often. Once the grain is dry, ramp up the oven to 325 degrees and roast for 25 minutes (or when the grain looks done, but not burned). Let it rest for 2 weeks before using in a beer.

Have fun, and Experiment!

I also mentioned that you can experiment with other things while roasting. You can add another depth of flavor to a stout or porter by roasting some oatmeal. It will give you the benefit of the creamy feel of the oats, and a touch of toasty flavor as well. You really want to try something good, use a pound of the roasted oats in a brown ale. Very tasty. Below is a picture of roasted oats.

Oats before roasting

(EDIT): I would like to address a few questions I got by email. The questions are very valid and I just want to answer them for anyone else wondering the same thing.

Can I just mash the whole kernel in mash temperature water? I suppose you could. The only reason I choose an oven is, because you usually mash for longer than a normal 60 minute mash, I choose to use the oven. If I had a mash that I could control temperatures without adding more water, I probably would. If you want to try that it is fine. My methods are only a suggestion, I in no way ever claim to have the only method. So in other words there is no scientific reason I use the oven instead of my mash tun other than for temperature control.

I tried your directions for roasted malt and ended up with grain much darker than your guide states. Where did I go wrong? You probably didn’t. Just like everyone’s brewing system acts differently and you have to tweak your process to match your equipment, same hold true for roasting grain. Your oven may be hotter or cooler than mine, even if you set it at 300 degrees. You need to just use my suggestions as a guideline. Pay attention to the grain and pull it when it appears ready. Do not be a stickler for exact temperature and times that work for me. Just use it as a starting point.

Is it important to use filtered water when making caramel malt? Can I just use tap water? You could, but municipal water tends to have either chlorine or chloromine in it. These will get into your grain and could cause some off flavors in the final product. For piece of mind, I’d stick with filtered or bottled water. If you must use tap water, I would let it sit overnight before using it. This will help if your water utility uses chlorine, but will do nothing for the chloromine.

ORIGINAL HOME ROASTING YOUR MALTS PART 1 Post

Roasting your own grains is an awesome way to add another personal touch to your homebrew. I love roasting my own malts and even make my own crystal malt from time to time. It is so easy, and all you need is an oven and some time. Roasting your malts doesn’t take more than an hour at the most, except for crystal malt. Be aware that early on, I had found from my experience that roasting your own malt seems to reduce the amount of sugars you get, but since then I have found this to not be the case. Still, home roasting adds some awesome malt flavor to your beer. I have made several beers using only home roasted malts for the specialty grains and even made a beer using all home roasted malt as the base malt, a single malt ale with amber malt. I have also won several awards with some of the beers that have home roasted malts in them. One of them is my highest scoring beer with a 43 out of 50. So great beer with home roasted malts is quite possible. Granted, you don’t have the consistency of professional malts, but you have added more home-made factor to your beer. For more on this topic or how to do your own crystal/caramel malts I suggest buying Randy Mosher’s Book Radical Brewing, which is where I based my roasting methods off of. I have added some pictures of home roasted malts in comparison to straight 2 row malted barley. See below for the pictures as proof you can make some beautiful home roasted malts.

Why it Works
The roasted grains you get from your homebrew shop, mostly start out exactly like the two or six you pale malt you are buying. The difference is how they are treating the grain afterwards. They have specific process that they follow each time and have exact temperatures and testing equipment to ensure a consistent and stable product. But in the end all they are doing with the malted grain is playing with the browning reaction called Malliard Reactions. Mainly this is an altering of the flavor and aroma of the grain by browning the starches and proteins inside the grain to a specific degree. The changes in color, again the browning of the starches and proteins change the chemical properties of the grain my changing the melanoidins in the malt. It is reported that this melanoidin change also helps preserve the beer by slowing the oxidation process of the beer.

Before We Begin
There have been some questions on whether it is necessary to let your grains rest for 2 weeks prior to using them. I highly suggest doing so, but if you find you can’t wait, just make sure you are using the lighter roasts. The rest time allows for unwanted aromas that are produced during the browning of the starches in the grain to dissipate. From what I can find, this is mostly for the darker roasts, possibly deep amber and above. I have found that as a general rule, the professional maltsters allow their roasted/toasted grains to rest for 4-6 weeks. I personally have used some grains after a week without any noticeable off flavors or aromas, but then again none of those were the richer roasts.

The Process

• For Pale Gold Malt (est. 10 L), which has a nutty but not toasty flavor, roast your base malt for 20 minutes at 250 Degrees F.
• For Gold Malt (est. 20 L) that is malty, caramelly and rich but not toasty roast your base malt for 25 minutes at 300 degrees F.
• For Amber Malt (est. 35 L) that is Nutty, Malty, and lightly toasty roast your base malt for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F.
• For Deep Amber Malt (est. 65 L) that is nutty, toffee-like; with some crisp toastiness roast your base malt for 40 minutes at 375 degrees F. (This one has quickly become my favorite roast of all. I do this one often. It seems to be a well balanced specialty grain.)
• For Copper Malt (est. 100 L)that has a strong toasted flavor with some nutlike notes roast your base malt for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.
• For Deep Copper Malt (est 125 L) that has a roasted, but not toasted flavor; roast your base malt for 40 minutes at 400 degrees F.
• For Brown Malt (est. 175 L) that has a strong roasted flavor, roast your base malt for 50 minutes at 400 degrees F.
• For Chocolate Malt (est 200+ L depending on time and heat): You need more heat and control than what you can get in the oven. For Chocolate malt use a clean stainless steel or cast iron fry pan on low heat, slowly bringing medium-high heat. You need to stir or shake the pan constantly and not let any kernels sit still or you will end up with scorching instead of dry roasting. I now use a nut roaster, so you can use that if you wish. I bet one could also use a clean wok if you have a gas stove. I have electric though. Here you are going to go more by color than time, but I find it takes about 25 minutes to 30 minutes to get the dark color I want. Remember, you are making chocolate malt, not burnt black malt. There is a difference. The key is keep the grain moving, be patient, and pull it when you think it’s done. Go too far and you will have an acrid and burnt grain that is not too pleasant. You can also make a very interesting sweeter chocolate malt by trying to soak it for a bit in water prior to roasting.
• For Crystal/Caramel Malt soak 1-2 lbs of pale 2 row in just enough water to cover plus about an inch (make sure you use distilled, filtered tap, or spring water). Let soak for a few hours, but no less than 2 hours and no more than 24, I soak for 3 hours. Then Put grains into a pan and keep grains about 2″ deep then place into a preheated 180 degree oven (make sure you have a probe thermometer in the oven and not to let the temps inside the stewing grain to go above 160. If they do reduce your ovens temperature) for 1 1/2 hours. Then spread out grain into 2 separate pans and make sure the grains are no more than 1″ deep. Then increase temperature in over to 250 and let bake for 2 hours or until dry. Then if desired remove from oven for light crystal, or use the roasting guide above to create your own darker versions of crystal malt. Personally I like the 350 degrees for 45 minutes for a sweet roasty crystal malt. Experiment with 1lb batches and see what you like. I find that 1.5lbs is perfect, 2lbs seems to take way to long to dry. To minimize any foul flavors, use distilled or filtered water.
• You can also do what I call Sudo-Caramel malts. To do these you just wet the grain a bit to change the flavor and aroma profile and add a bit of sweetness to the grain. You will not get as much sweetness as if you do a full caramel malt process above, but you will make a great grain for both all grain and steeping grain for extract. Generally what you are going to do is soak the grain for under an hour, I find a half hour works well to impart a bit of wetness to the grain. You can use the same temperatures above to produce similar grains but add a touch of sweetness.

In the end, everything is all up to you. Use these above processes as a guideline, but not as law. Have fun, try different temps and times. Play around with wet or dry roasts as well as caramel malt processes and develop your own specialty malts. There my friends, is a truly unique beer that will be difficult to reproduce. Just don’t fear roasting, your really can’t screw it up if you pay attention to temps and times.

The Photos. (you will notice I line my pans with tin foil to avoid getting any oil or grease from previous uses of the pans. You could use dedicated jelly roll pans if you want. But you do not want any oil or fat getting onto your grains)

This is our control picture. This is straight from the sack, 2-row Brewers malt. This is what it looks like before roasting.

This is Deep Amber Malt as described above halfway through the roasting process. I like to stir it halfway through to get a more even toast.

This is finished Deep Amber Malt as described above. This is probably my favorite roast to make.

This is Amber Malt as described above. Slightly lighter than the deep amber.

Here is a side by side of some pale golden malt as I have described above and some unroasted pale 2 row. It is hard to tell the differnece until you do a side by side, then it is obvious.

Golden Malt as I have described in the process at the top of the page.

Crystal Malt in Process.

I like to soak this way for three hours. Then I just pull up the collendar, and pour out the water, then let the malt drip dry for a while. It helps reduce the exess water. Generally, I do a pound to pound and half max.

This grain is not roasted, but it is wet grain. I place it in a small mound then cook it as I have described above. Essentially, you are mashing in the husk.

This is the finished crystal malt. The drying time is the longest part, but once dry and you start the roast, it's all up to you how to make your crystal/caramel malt. The one in the picture was roasted at 325 degrees for 30 minutes after drying.

Making a hop martini is one of the many things you can do with elixir!

Calling all hopheads out there! Have you ever craved the Ultimate hophead experience? Well, I have it here for you. I have made a hop infused vodka with my homegrown glacier hops that you can spruce up almost anything to fit your hophead needs….even a full on hop martini. The process is simple, and the possibilities are endless.

The process is very simple, you just take hops and place them in a vessel, say a mason jar. Then fill it 1/2 full (or more. I did about 3/4 full) then let it sit for 4 days or more (I did four days). The hops will absorb some vodka, so you may need to add vodka throughout the process if you used a lot of hops. What I also did, was every day I gently shook the jar to help bring out more hop goodness. I don’t have any scientific evidence on if it dissolves more lupulin, but hey, it worked for me. What you see in the picture was 4 days of infusing glacier hops in the Vodka. From there, I strained off the vodka and placed the hops in a strainer. I gently squeezed the hops to extract more liquid, but I did not wring them out. I wanted mostly lupulin and not so much of the leafy matter that I would get if I abused the cones too much. I took it to my homebrew club for evaluation, and we all agree, there is a ton of hop flavor and aroma dissolved in that Vodka. For me, the first two swallows are bit harsh, but after that, its smooth sailing.

Some will say the type of vodka you choose really doesn’t make a difference, but I disagree. If you use a cheap vodka that you have to mix with something to taste good, you probably will still end up with vodka infusion you really are not happy with. My favorite vodka by far is Tito’s Handmade Vodka. It is relatively inexpensive ($16.95 for 750ml here where I live), fairly easy to find, and is a top-notch vodka you can easily drink straight. To me, it’s the perfect vodka for this task. But you can use whatever you want.

So what can you do with it? Well, obviously you can have a hoptini of any type, you can use this either straight like I did or find something sweet to mix it with. You could serve some hop shots with this for some hophead fun. But you can also use this to hop flavor to marinades, or other aspects of cooking. You can also make small batches to test the characteristics of different hops compared to each other. This would be an excellent tool for training your palate for judging. The last think I am going to mention is adding hop character to an underhopped beer. Let’s say you brewed a beer that just seems a bit bland to you. You can add this homemade hop extract to not only add a bit of bitterness, but mostly hop flavor and aroma to your brew. I have tested this with beer poured into a glass and adding a small amount of this hop extract to it. It works. I don’t know exactly how to measure up for a 5 gallon batch, but it could be done. The amount of alcohol you are adding is minimal. You have to think that Vodka is only 40% abv, so just under half of whatever you add is contributing to the alcohol content of the brew.

Mmmmm, hops.

DoppleBock Sauce

2 cups of Apple Cider
1 Bottle of Sprecher Dopplebock (or your favorite Dopplebock)
1 1/4 cup Ketchup
1/2 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
1 Cup Honey Dijon Mustard
1/2 Cup Yellow Mustard
1/2 Cup light dry Malt Extract (you can substitute Brown Sugar)
1/2 cup of Honey
1/2 Cup Molasses
2 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce
2 TBSP Frank’s Red Hot (or your favorite Hot Sauce)
2 TBSP Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon celery Salt
1 Teaspoon Fresh Ground Black Pepper
1 Teaspoon Hot Madras Curry Powder (optional)
1 Medium Onion (chopped)
2 Cloves of Garlic (chopped)
1 Roasted, peeled, and chopped Anaheim Pepper
Kosher Salt to taste (or sea salt, do not use Iodized salt)

Roast the Anaheim Pepper by brushing it with olive oil and either grilling it until the skin starts to char, or placing in the oven at a low broil. Turning every minute or two until the skin starts to char.Then place in a plastic bag to steam for about 15 minutes. When cool, the skin should peel off easily.

Add all the ingredients above to a large non-stick sauce pan. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer from 30 to 60 minutes, or the sauce starts to thicken. Allow to cool, then quickly run it through a blender or food processor to smooth out the peppers. Transfer to jars and keep cool until you give them away as gifts, or till you cook with it. This sauce will keep in the fridge for several months.

This sauce goes great with Chicken and Pork. However, try it with some grilled shrimp and you will fall in love. I guess you could use it on Lamb or even as a sauce for cocktail weiners too. It may be a bit too sweet to be used on Beef, but that’s your call. (EDIT: I have since tried it on a few beef dishes like Salisbury steak and as the liquid in beef stew, and it turned out great. Turns out it’s not too sweet for beef. My wife actually liked it so much she demanded we have some in the fridge at all times. )

Lamb Stew with Pere Jacques

Today I’m going to do things a bit differently. Instead of simply talking beer, or talking beer and food pairing, or cooking with beer. I am going to invite you in and show you a recipe I created using Pere Jacques from Goose Island. Although in this recipe I used lamb, this will work with pork or beef as well since dubbels pair nicely with both those. There are a few beer styles that pair well with lamb, but I chose the Belgian Dubbel because I felt the yeast character, particularly of Pere Jacques, would work well with the mild gameiness of the lamb.

My wife and I have discovered the joys of grass-fed animals. Come to find out, corn is not the natural food for cows, and this can lead to health issues, not only with the cow (or other grass-eating animals) meat, but some say it can be linked to the presence of E. Coli in the meat. Now, I’m not going get all preachy on it, but this was something interesting I learned. Moreover, grass-fed meat does taste a bit different, and I actually like the flavor. We get our meats from a place called grassway organics.

With all that, here is the recipe I came up with.

Lamb Stew with Belgian Dubbel

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil (more if needed)
2 pounds lamb shoulder or leg meat, trimmed of fat and cut into 1-1/2 inch cubes
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper to taste
1 bottle (12-ounces) belgian dubbel
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1-1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon mediterranean seasoning
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 large onions, sliced into rings
4 shallots
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 large potato cut into large cubes
3 medium-sized carrots, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 celery stalks
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary*
2 fresh basil leaves*
a few sprigs of fresh mint
3 bay leaves

*use dry store bought if fresh is not available.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add lamb to skillet in batches, being careful not to crowd the pan, and sear well on all sides.

Sear the meat.....

Remove from skillet.When all the lamb is seared well, return it to the skillet. Sprinkle with flour and stir to blend. Season with salt and pepper. Cook 3 minutes. Remove to a Dutch oven or slow cooker.

Degrease skillet. Place over medium-high heat; add beer and stir, scraping up any browned bits. Blend in vinegar, mustard, and mediterranean seasoning. Pour over meat mixture.

Add the beer mixture

Melt butter in same skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and shallots and sauté until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté an additional 2 minutes. Mix onions and garlic into meat.  Add carrots and potatoes along with  rosemary, mint, bay leaves, and celery.

Ready to cook.

Bring stew to a simmer. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook until meat is tender, about 1-1/2 to 2 hours.If the stew is too thick or dry, add a little more beer as needed. If too liquidy, cook uncovered until desired consistency or use a cornstarch and water mixture.

Now reap the rewards of your labor!

The first step is a bit dry. You have to become familiar with beer styles and generally flavors, aromas, and mouthfeel you can expect from these generic styles. There are a few sources for this information and they are all free. First you have the BJCP style Guidelines, but you also have the Brewer’s Association’s Style Guidelines. I find the Brewer’s Association’s guidelines a little less detailed, but those would work great for a quick reference of what to expect. For a more detailed breakdown, go to the BJCP styles guide. Also, you will find some slight differences in the naming and grouping of the styles, but both will get you what you need to know. Without having a general knowledge of these generic styles, it will be very difficult to figure out beer pairing on your own. So, as boring as it may be. Read at least one of these guidelines and become familiar with at the very least, the major styles.

The second thing you need to be familiar with is the ingredients, at least the key players, in the food you are pairing. Let’s take something I simply love, BBQ. I mean the real deal. Low and slow pulled pork. How would you go about pairing a BBQ meal with your favorite beer? It is a bit easier to pair if you are also the cook. You will know what ingredients and what type of food you are making. If you are asked to bring a beer to pair with someone elses dish that takes a bit of investigation. So you have to dissect what you are making. The base of your food is going to be a pork shoulder, slightly salty, a touch sweet, and sort of fatty. But chances are that is not going to be the key flavors of the dish. There, you look at your rub, your sauce, and consider the smoke. Is your rub going to be salty? Is it going to have some spice? What type of spice? Is your sauce going to be vinegar based or tomato based? Sour or sweet? Maybe spicy? How is it cooked? Is it roasted, charred, boiled? What type of flavor does this cooking method add? All these factors are going to have some influence on your choice of beer, but whatever your main flavor component is going to be, that is probably going to be your biggest factor. Just don’t forget the supporting flavors and aromas of your dish. This holds true for every dish you want to pair. Even something simple like roasted chicken. Are you going to use rosemary or just basic salt and pepper?

Now you want to put it all together. Looking at the pairing from a very high level, you have two basic interactions, balance or accentuate. Here is where you do have some easy to remember rules. Some attributes help balance others. Here are the three rules of thumb to live by when pairing.

1. Roasty, Bitterness (hops), alcohol, and carbonation in the beer will balance fat, sweetness, and Umami in the food (for more on Umami please refer back to my article “Being Honest with the Beer“.)

2. Sweetness and Malt in the beer will balance acidity and spiciness in the food.

3. Bitterness (hops) in the beer will accentuate spiciness in the food.

here is the dish we want to pair. Here is my pulled pork sandwich which is some Slow smoked BBQ pork shoulder, Sweet Salty and Spicy Rub, and homemade BBQ sauce. Topped with a bit of creamy cole slaw.

Now, one last stage of pairing is putting it all together. Generally, you probably want to balance. With balance comes haromony….most of the time. There may be times you want to accentuate a flavor or aroma. Both of these can be obtained by using the rules above, and combining it with finding common ground in steps 1 and 2 above. By understanding the flavor and aroma components of the beer, you can find flavor and aroma components that compare to your dish. You can have earthy, citrusy, roasted, burnt, sweet, caramel, Spice (like clove, vanilla, chocolate, allspice, ect), spice (heat, think pepper beers), and so on. Almost any flavor in food you can find a close match or at lease a balancing component in beer.

So now you want to think about what you want to do as far as finding balance or accentuate the flavor of the dish. So using our example above of the BBQ pork shoulder, let’s find a type of beer that may pair well with it. In my pork shoulder, I use my own rub (See the bottom of this post for my Rub Recipe) which is a bit salty, sweet, and spicy. I tend to use a vinegar based homemade sauce with sweet onions, and hard rolls baked here at a local bakery. So I have a dish that is fairly balanced between the salty, sweet, and spicy, has some  acidity from the vinegar. Since the meat is sweet, there is some sweetness to the rub and sauce, I want to work on balancing the sweetness of the dish with the beer. Since it is smoked (I use maple, cherry, and applewood), I have some earthy and woody tones I can use as well.

Since I want balance, Look at rule #1 above. I may want something with a bit of roast, some carbonation, and maybe some alcohol or bitterness. Yet, I don’t want an overly roasty beer because I want some malt and sweetness to balance the spiciness from the rub. So here I am looking at a beer that is slightly roasty, has some malt depth and sweetness, a mild amount of bitterness, decent carbonation and/or alcohol. Since I don’t want to accentuate the spiciness of the food, I want to avoid highly hopped beers.

You want to match the intensity of the food. So it wouldn’t make sense to pair this pulled pork with a a heffeweizen or cream ale type of beer. I also want to match up the woodieness of the smoke. The smoke flavor is a key attribute to traditional BBQ. So I am thinking of getting a beer with some wood or smoke character. Although a Rauchbier is smokey, it is probably too smokey for my taste….although by all means it would pair nicely. Scottish ales may be a bit too sweet or not bold enough to stand up to our dish.  A Marzen/Oktoberfest would fit the bill nicely. It has the malt, with a toasty character (toasty is not roasty, but can help match up well with grilled food), not a lot of hops, but it does have decent carbonation. It would be  a good pairing, but we can do better. What Marzen is lacking in this case is the earthy woody character I am seeking. In this case I am looking at a porter, perhaps a brown ale. Some barrel aged English browns may work and pair nicely, Barrel aged American Browns may also work, but in some cases may be a bit too hoppy for the amount of heat in the dish. What I am looking for is a safe bet. So I am looking to the porters. A robust porter may provide too much roast. So here I have narrowed it down to a barrel aged brown porter or a barrel aged robust porter. If you look at the style guidelines for these two styles and add some wood from the barrel aging, you may have a very nice pairing for what we are looking to do in our dish.

That is the basic process and probably sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. But if you follow these simplified rules, this will get you into the right process for creating your own pairings. Just remember, it’s all about planning and understanding your ingredients, understanding your beer, and coming up with a plan on what you want your pairing to do. Balance and harmonize, or accentuate and showcase. Ido want you to keep in mind that there is no right or wrong pairing when it comes to food and beer. There are just some that are better than others. With my dish here, you could have easily gone with a Belgain Dubbel, where the malt, yeast, and alcoholic strength also would have enhanced the dish. For my taste perspective, I wanted a bit more roast than that. Also, you will need to consider the specific brand of beer. Some may appeal to you more than others. But finding this generic range, will help you narrow down your pairing. If you don’t know what is available at your local beer store, having this information will help one of the employees point you in the right direction. If you are able to tell them you are looking for a barrel aged porter, or a Belgian style dubbel, they should be able to steer you in the right direction (if they are good store and have somewhat educated people working the counter). You can also quickly deduce a good pairing based off the offerings in a resteraunt by knowing generally what you want to order, and a broad range of style that may go with the dish. That is if the resteraunt you are at offers a bit more than the big three and one or two other offerings.

As always, feel free to contact me if you feel I’ve missed something, have any questions, or just want to talk beer!

Barleypopmaker’s Triple “S” Rub

1 Cup Brown Sugar
1/3 Cup Kosher Salt
1 1/2 tbsp Black Pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp Paprika
1 1/2 Tbsp Onion Powder
1 Tbsp Chipotle Pepper Powder
1 Tbsp Cumin
1 Tbsp Cinnamon

So before I proceed, I just want to give a you a bit of my cooking background, all of which is as an amateur. Now, I admit, listening to that episode of The Home Brewed Chef inspired me to try something they had on the show, and that cooking experience I had today inspired me to write about it. But I have been cooking with beer for quite some time, just not at Sean’s level.  I did however, receive some email comments from Sean on my other site (which I have not transferred my food section over to this blog yet) that he liked what I was presenting and it could get people on the right track with some simple cooking with beer recipes. Coming from him that was a big compliment. Many of his ideas on his site, were incorporated into the type of cooking I do. For example, I have my variation of his Chocolate Ancho Chili Spice rub, into a variation that uses Chipotle peppers instead and a bit of brown sugar instead of organic sugar. I have also made his Stout BBQ Sauce as well. Also, I entered a cooking with beer contest, and I ended up as a top 10 finalist, but had to back out of the final cook-off because I just started a new job four days before the final cooking, and I didn’t want to ask off, four days after starting. At the end of this article, I will provide that recipe I had. But for now, I will talk a bit about cooking with beer, and give a simple recipe based off an idea that they talked about on the first episode of The Home Brewed Chef.

In my experience (and from what it sounds like others do too) is when cooking with beer you want to consider three things. The flavor of the dish you are creating, the style and flavor of the beer you want to use, and how these two forces will collide. As an example, you wouldn’t want to use a Heffeweizen in a hearty sauce, because it may be completely lost in the dish. If you are like me and light a slight sweetness to the sauce, you will want to find a slightly sweet, and more full flavored beer. Something that can stand up to the boldness of the tomatoes and beef,  yet not overtake the dish or come across as bitter. I like to use an English style old ale. I have found for me, the character of the beer comes through well, and the slightly wine-like vineous flavors mesh well with tomatoes. Same holds true for other aspects to consider, for example when pairing grilled ribeyes with an American amber ale, you could incorporate something with that amber ale into a side dish, or sauce that would go with that steak. That is where I was interested in an off the cuff idea that Sean Paxton shot out during that first show. You could take a roasty stout, where the roasted flavors of the grain may pair well with a grilled steak, and take some onions and shallots, saute them, then use a broth and the beer, reduce it to a sauce and pour it over the steak. It sounded so good I had to try it. So here is my version of that idea below. I used a smoked imperial porter with Chipotle peppers (Benji’s Smoked Imperial Porter with Chipotle Peppers from Tyranena to be exact) that I had in my beer cellar instead of a stout, but that’s what is great about cooking, you can change anything to fit your taste. Here was mine.

Here are the Ingredients, 1 cup of Benji's Smoked Imperial Porter with Chipotle Peppers, 3 shallots, 1 medium sweet onion, 1 garlic clove (not visible), butter, and 1 can of beef broth.

I sauteed the onions, shallots, and garlic until they started to clear.

I then added the broth and beer and continued to cook until reduced to a medium thick sauce.

These are just tenderloin steaks with hop salt and pepper. I have a hard time smothering fatty steaks like ribeyes. But tenderloins don't have much flavor on their own.

Grill 'em how you like 'em. I like medium myself.

Once the sauce is reduced to where you like it, plate the steak, let it rest, then just before eating spoon the sauce and onions on it. This was very delicious. I ended up serving it with pan roasted potatoes I also drizzled with the beer.

So that was it. When cooking with beer, you want to think about how the flavors are going to meld with your food. Will the bitterness go well in that cake? Probably not, but a great raspberry lambic may. Another think to remember is that when you are cooking with the beer, some of the water will evaporate, so you may also concentrate the flavors, this can work to both your advantage, or it will work against you. So if you are cooking with a hoppy IPA, and you concentrate that bitterness, you better have a bit of sweetness in the dish to try to balance out that part of the beers contribution.

Cooking Brats tip

Living here in Wisconsin, we have a strong German heritage. Brats, among other sausages are very popular. But in summer, brats are everywhere. People often par boil their brats in beer, or soak them afterwards in beer. Normally this is just some Bud, Miller, or Coors. But, this really doesn’t do much. The skin of the brat prevents the liquid from really penetrating the brat in that short amount of time. If anything, you get the aroma of the pot while it is boiling or steeping afterwards. But when you eat the brat, 9 times out of 10 you don’t get much flavor from the beer. I did find that if you soak the brats in beer 24 hours prior to grilling, you do get a lot of beer flavor. I like to use Capital Brewery’s Wisconsin Amber as my soaking beer of choice. Also as a side note, a true brat cooker will never par boil them. They should be cooked raw on the grill. But I promise you that if you soak them for 24 hours, then grill them, you will get many compliments on how much beer flavor your brats have.

Pub Skirt Steak Fajitas with Beer Braised Onions and Peppers

With that, here was my Pub Style Skirt Steak fajita’s recipe I promised earlier in this post. This is the one that earned me a top 10 spot, and I would put money on winning the thing I would have been able to compete. In all honesty, the amounts are estimated, I normally don’t cook with exact measurements. So play around with it and suite it to your taste.

Skirt Steak
1-2 lb skirt steak (Fat trimmed)
1 cup of Sprecher Pub Ale (1/4 cup reserved for grilling)
2 limes (you will need the juice from 1 and 1/2 limes or about 3 tablespoons for the marinade and the other half a lime for grilling)
1 teaspoon of cumin
3 dashes of Tobasco sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Place the skirt steak in a gallon freezer bag, along with the beer, 3 tablespoons of lime juice lime juice, cumin, and tobasco sauce. Allow to marinade overnight. If in a hurry, allow to marinade at least 3 hours before grilling.

When ready to grill combine 1/4 cup of Pub Ale and juice from 1/2 lime into a bowl or pour into a clean spray bottle.

Remove steak from the marinade and lightly salt and pepper the meat. Place it on a medium high heat grill and grill using direct heat. For an average skirt steak grill for about 5-6 minutes per side, while spritzing with the beer and lime mixture (or basting if you used a bowl)

When done, allow to rest for 5 minutes before cutting into 1/4″ slices. Cut the skirt steak at an angle.

Serve on warm tortillas with the below onion and pepper mixture.

Beer Braised Onions and Peppers

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium sliced red onion sliced thin and in half
1 small red pepper grilled then cut into strips
1 small green pepper grilled then cut into strips
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/4 cup of Sprecher Pub Ale
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon of salt

Melt butter under medium heat (use a side burner on the gas grill if you have it), then add onions and sugar cook until the onions soften. Stir in the ale, vinegar, grilled peppers, and salt. Cook over medium heat while stirring until all the liquid has nearly all evaporated.

Serve with the above flank steak on tortillas (This mixture also goes great with brats. I soak my brats in beer 24 hours prior to grilling, do not par boil. Just grill them. Serve with this same pepper and onion mixture)

So what do you need to do to produce your own style? Nothing, you can pretty much do anything you want and call it anything you want. But if your goal is to get your style recognized, that is a bit beyond your control. You can however, spark a trend that may move in that direction. Generally, creative homebrewers do spark the new styles. Here is one way it may work. Let’s say you are the first person to brew the Black IPA. You are on a homebrewing forum and mention you have this idea for an IPA, but you want it to look like a porter or stout. Some others are intrigued and ask you to try it and let them know how it turns out, post the recipe, and so on. So you do it and you like the results. You post back that it turned out great and maybe you are planning on sending some to some competitions  under category 23. A few others try your recipe you posted and report back that they too liked this version of the beer (A few also may tweak it to their taste). Now you win a few awards for your beer, and maybe even a Best of Show. More and more homebrewers brew that style and enter it into competitions and do fairly well. Now you are getting close. Soon enough a few craft brewers pick up on the trend and brew a version of their own. Now several competitions are getting so many “Black IPA’s” that they can have a whole flight of them. The BJCP may consider making it a recognized style and need to come up with a guideline for it (which you can also do yourself here ). Now that is just one way a beer that is not a historical example can become a beer style. Sometimes style comes out of need. For example, with the hop shortage that happened a few years back, there was speculation that a few new beer styles that used other bittering agents besides hops would emerge, and although it would have been interesting, I still prefer my hopped beer to beers similar to gruit.

Granted, you can’t expect to brew a new style, like it yourself, and send off that template to the BJCP and expect them to create a style. There has to be a large enough demand for it, and preferably a few commercial examples that can be used for comparison. But creating new styles is something that we as homebrewers can be proud of. So get creative, and try to come up with something new. Who knows, you may be the next creator of a new recognized beer style.

My infected beer

As you can see I have what are called gushers. What exactly causes the gushing is not known at this time, but it is thought that whatever the infecting agent is, forms some sort of protein that allows for nucleation points and gives the CO2 a place to form and gush out of the beer. Sort of like dropping Mentos into a Diet Coke. This gushing happens when you pop the top of the bottles, the beer foams out and sometimes comes out in a stream. It acts a lot like a shaken up beer, but you did not shake it. Normally it will also continue to foam out of the bottle for some time. There can be a few causes of gushing, one is from a fungal infection in the grain called Fusarium. Fusarium is killed during the malting process, and if it were to survive there it would surely be killed in the boil. The toxins produced from the fungus withstand the boiling process though. The use of Fusarium infected barley is a common cause of gushing. However, Fusarium infection is not the only cause of gushing. It can be a few factors and I don’t think Fusarium is the cause of my problem.

When this happens, it helps to think about something you may have done out of the ordinary during this batch. It also helps you narrow down a cause if every bottle is infected, or if it is just one or a few. If it is one or two, it was probably something with the bottle. The whole batch however, is a different story. Did you use a different fermentation vessel than you normally use? Did you not sanitize your bottle tree? Did you think you could get away with a shortcut you normally don’t take? Did you drop something into the beer on accident?  Basically, what was different?

In my case, everything I did was as I normally do. The auto-siphon I used was fairly new, it was clean, and well sanitized. The hoses were new, and sanitized. The aeration stone was boiled and the hoses were sanitized. I had a micron filter put in place between the pump and stone. I sanitized everything that came in contact with the cool beer. I did not mill any grains in the area, or around the time of brewing or bottling (raw grains naturally have bacteria on them, like lactobacillus). I checked my bottles and sanitized them with a long soak in Star San.

So what did I do? Well, the only thing I can figure out is that I used Coopers Carbonation drops. I used these before in a batch that I kegged and I bottled, so I had some left over. I thought they would be alright because I had them sealed in a bag. This is the one thing I can think of that I did differently. I don’t think the carbonation drops in the original package are sterile, so I figured it would be OK. However, when I think of it, they have been sitting for some time and could easily have harbored some sort of bacteria or wild yeast that was slowly consuming the sugar. There was some time for humidity to set in and make the outside of the sugar moist at one time. I am willing to bet that this gamble is where I went wrong. I used those drops in every bottle in the batch, and the beer was infected in every bottle. It makes sense that this infection took place after bottling because during bottling the beer tasted excellent. Also, right after carbonation it tasted quite good. It was not until 2 or 3 weeks after they were carbonated that I thought the beer started to taste a bit off, with a funky overly bitter and sour taste.  Then a week or two later the beer seemed to really pop in the bottle, like it was over carbonated. Then not too long after that, we have this.

So I am willing to bet that whatever took hold, did so during bottling and the carbonation drops seem to be the perfect villain in this story. So if you ever use these to bottle a few bottles, as well as keg. Don’t use the leftovers. You would probably be better off figuring out the dosage for the amount of bottles you want to use, and boil corn sugar and add that to the beer instead of using a few carb drops.

Finally, you may be wondering what I do now that I have an infection. Well, this part can get a little pricey, but I feel it’s the most effective way to ensure your next batch is not infected. That is to replace all the parts you can. Although I don’t suspect my autosiphon, it may very well be the cause and I just don’t know it. So at this point it is better to replace all plastic parts and hoses. So I am replacing my autosiphon, my hoses, and micron filter. My aeration stone is getting an extended boil to kill anything that may be inside there. Bottles are easy. I am just cleaning them and sanitizing them now. Then when my next batch is done, those bottles will be sanitized again. Carboys should be cleaned and sanitized and plastic buckets replaced. This may not be feasible for everyone because of budgets, but do the best you can. At the very least replace the autosiphon and hoses. Right now I am sanitizing my bottles are I write this.

Now grated there could have been many other causes. It could have been something in the air that day when I bottled, I could have had some solid particulate in a hose or some little nook somewhere, there may be a small crack harboring some bacteria. But because of my practices and how I check my equipment over, I just think those are less likely causes. The only real way to be sure that it was the left over carbonation drops, would be to replicate the mistake. But when it comes to infected batches, that is one process I don’t want to replicate. Now if I brew again and this same batch develops something, that will take a bit more digging.

If you think there may be something wrong with one of your beers. You can get some hints on what those may be. Sometimes flaws are not caused by infections of bacteria or wild yeast, but could be something that went wrong in the brewing process. Feel free to check out the beer evaluation page to get some links and documents on troubleshooting your beer.

So let’s take a look at this puppy, even though it probably could use a few more days conditioning since I bottled it only 10 days ago.

Jaba's Busted Nut Brown

OK, this beer did have some issues, which is why it is a “busted” nut brown. But the minor brewing issue aside (my grains did not come crushed, and since I had someone coming to watch me brew, I had no choice but to improvise my crush. Not an ideal situation), the rest of the brew day went well. Once I opened the fermentor to bottle it, it smelled a lot like New Glarus Fat Squirrel. It also tasted quite good at bottling, but it is hard to get an exact feel without carbonation.

Aroma: Very nutty, with sweet almonds. There is some solid crusty bread and a hint of toffee. Nothing as far as hops at all in the aroma. A bit more hops would probably help, but in this case I wouldn’t add any more. (8 points)

Checking clarity

Color: A nice clear dark amber with reddish highlights. It poured a decent head that dissipated quickly, but does leave a thin layer until the end. (3 points)

Flavor: The beer has some nuttiness to it, that is for sure. The beer starts off a bit sweet, but does not finish sweet. I also wouldn’t say it finishes dry, but it just sort of drifts off. I do like the toffee flavor that is in the finish as it trails off. There is also some light biscuit and a touch of toast. The hop flavor and bitterness are spot on I have to admit. There really is no hops in the flavor and zero bitterness. Personally, that is a new one for me, but according to the guidelines that is OK. The only thing I feel this beer is lacking is overall malt depth. Although all the components are there, it feels a bit too small for me. Also, there is a bit more of a fruity flavor than I would like, but it is still on the lower side. (14 points)

Mouthfeel: To me it feels a bit too thin. It may be in the medium-light range, but it does feel to be solidly in the light range for me. At this time the carbonation is also low, but it is also a bit early. (3 points)

Overall: Overall I am very happy with how this beer turned out. Not having an ideal crush probably made the difference. With a better crush, I am sure the malt profile may be a bit more full. Still, all the right flavor and aroma components are there for exactly what I am looking for. With a bit more malt depth and a bit more body, I really think I have a solid winner here. Still, this beer may take some 1st place awards in competition, so I will be sending it off. But I do want to re-brew this fairly soon and hit it right on. I am not going to change the recipe, but want to re-brew it with a proper crush before making adjustments. (7 points)

Overall I gave it a 35 out of 50. With a bit more body and malt depth, this beer probably would be up in the 38+ range for me. Still, I am proud of this beer as it is right now.

If you want to brew this beer, you can find it in my recipes section on this blog.

1 – Valve Stem from an old inner tube (A.K.A. Schroeder valve) ($0 if taken from an old inner tube, or a buck or two if you buy one new.

Here is what the valve stem looks like

4 – 1/4″ hose clamps
8″ of 1/4″ inner diameter vinyl tubing or nylon braided vinyl tubing. (Less than $1.00)
1- Faucet Assembly with 3″ shank (2″ will work too) wing nut, tap handle, nylon washer and tailpiece and short segment of beverage tubing (or use the picnic tap tubing that came with the philtap). ($35.00)

1 – 28qt cooler ($10.00)

**optional 6″ of 1″ inner diameter tubing cut in half and glued to the inside for storage of 2 extra CO2 cartridges.

All I did was Drill the holes in the cooler with a small hole saw and for the tubing used a large drill bit. All you need to do is assemble the faucet assembly (it’s so self explanatory I am not going to list how to do that.)

For the gas line you have 2 options. You can do what I did and use the valve stem, or you can cut the gas inlet tube off the phil tap, and use the 1/4″ I. D. tubing as a jumper. What I did was drill out the stopper valve in the valve stem and then placed the vinyl braided tubing in boiling water to soften it. I then put a little bit of caulk on the valve stem and inserted it into the softened vinyl tubing. I then tightened a hose clamp around the valve stem. I now have a gas in hose. Slide the tube into the hole you drilled out for it and fill the gaps with caulk and let them set. Then connect the other end to the phil tap and secure it with the other hose clamp. You should be all set from there.

I also had some old 1″ tubing left over from a blow off tube and I just cut some small sections and glued a plastic bottom on them and glued them to the inside of the cooler. That way I can have 1 co2 cartridge in the dispenser and carry 2 along with me so I know I will not run out of CO2 at a party.

This cooler also fits perfectly in my beer fridge and it was how I kept beer on tap in my bar.

I am trying to dig up some old pics from somewhere, but here is the only picture I can find of the draftbox.

Only photo left of the draftbox at this time. It fit 2 mini-kegs inside

If I find the pictures from inside the draftbox I will post those for clarity.
EDIT: I could not find one anywhere. I can’t believe I deleted them. Anyway, here is a crude drawing of what the inside of the cooler would have looked like, then from the outside above, you get the picture.

Crude drawing of the innards of the draftbox.

So why go all grain if you can make perfectly good beer with extract, and extract takes less time? Well, the simplest answer is that you have more control over the brewing process and you can more accurately brew styles that are very difficult to master with extract. The reason is because when you brew all-grain, you are mashing whatever grains you want or need for that beer. If you use extract, the bulk of the grain bill is decided by whomever produced your extract. Even using light or extra light extract, you have not control over what brand of grains or the mashing temperature. In all grain, you are creating your own extract, just not concentrating it. This gives you more control, more room to be creative, and you can create styles using grains that require mashing. Also, lets be honest. There is a a step up in the pride factor as well for brewing a beer you created 100% from scratch. I want to stress this, all grain brewing does not produce better beer. If you are having a hard time making good beer with extract, you will not make good beer all-grain. You will read all over the net, several homebrewers stating that all-grain makes better beer, or once they switched to all grain their beer got better. This is all bunk. If that were true, all-grain beers would be winning all the 1st place, gold medals, and best of show in competition. What it does do is produce a wider range of styles more accurately than extract, and many times ferments out a bit more than extract. The “All Grain=better beer” mentality comes from a combination of more brewing experience, “I did this all myself” pride, and the control over ingredients. Not many brewers start out with all grain, and when they make the jump to all grain they know that they love the hobby enough to stick with it so are committed to brewing quality beer, and have learned to pay attention to sanitation and brewing practices. There is also a mental sense of pride when you do something all by yourself from scratch, that makes the product seem….well, better. We already covered the range of ingredients that all grain covers, and that is every single grain available. If you use fresh malt extract (the age of the extract does make a big difference in extract brewing), and pay attention to cleanliness and sanitation, you can make beer that is almost indistinguishable from an all-grain beer. I promise you. The part most often ignored is finding extract that is as fresh as possible, most imported extracts are not good in my opinion just because of this factor.

There is a few downfalls to all grain brewing. The first is you are probably going to add a few hours to your brew day. You have more water to heat, the mash takes 60 extra minutes, you have the sparge (even batch sparging will add a few minutes), and most of the time the wort takes longer to get to boil if you are not already doing full boils. There are also a few more technical details that can go wrong. I am not going to cover them in detail, but you need to be aware of them in case you need to troubleshoot your beer. You may need to do water adjustments if you have problems with your PH in your mash, you will need to monitor the crush you get from your grains, and water temperature is crucial in all grain brewing (this I will explain later).

So to show you how easy all-grain brewing can be, I am going to show you how to make a simple Nut Brown recipe, without making any water adjustment or using any complicated equipment. All you need is a mash tun (home-made is just fine and cheap), a good thermometer (preferably a digital one where you can set an alarm when it reaches a specific temp) a boil kettle big enough to hold 7 gallons, and a smaller pot to use as a hot liquor tank, and a fermentation bucket or carboy with an airlock (I personally like buckets. I used glass carboys for years but like the bucket for easy cleaning, will not shatter, and they are cheap to replace). That is about it. Optionally you can use hop bags, stainless mesh balls, and either an O2 or aquarium pump with aeration stone, hydrometer with test cylinder, and PH meters . But those are not required to make good beer, but having them will help make consistently good beer.

Jaba’s Busted Nut Brown

(download the recipe below if you want to brew this, it is basically Northern Brewer’s Nut Brown Ale Recipe)

Brewsheet – BeerXML – Beersmith Format

The first thing you need to do is determine your water volume. By far the easiest way is to use brewing software. What this does is take into account the amount of grains (because the grains will retain water after the mash), the evaporation loss, and loss to trub and transfers. Next the software will ask what temperature you want to mash at. I wanted to do this at 154, so with adjustments made (by the software) for grain and mash tun temperature, I need to bring my water to 169 degrees to have my mash equalize at 154 degrees.

Almost there....only 2 degrees left.

So once the 2.66 gallons of water was added to the mash tun, then I added the grain and stirred. It showed a temperature of 153......which is not bad. But it has not equalized yet, you may get readings a few degrees higher and lower for the first few minutes.

I stirred the mash to make sure there were no dough balls, or other dry spots in the mash. You want to stir it very well, then place the cover on to allow it to equalize. I leave the thermometer in the mash to monitor temperature.

……and now it equalizes at…….

....at 154. Just as the software calculated. Sweet! Now if you are off by a degree or two, it is not the end of the world. A slightly cooler temperature will result in a more fermentable and dryer beer, while temps higher than 156 will yield a more full bodied and sweeter beer.

Now you wait 60 minutes after the temps equalize. Halfway through the process you want to start heating your sparge water. I do batch sparging because it is both faster and easier to do than fly sparging. But you can choose whatever method you wish. You want to heat your sparge water to above 180 degrees, but I like to avoid boiling. Too hot and too long of a sparge can extract tannins from the grain husks. So I heat my sparge water to between 180 and 185.

Once your mash is done and the sparge water is heated. You want to get your boil kettle ready to catch the first runnings of wort. If you have only 1 pot, you can run your beer into a plastic fermentation bucket until you are into your final round of sparging. I do 2 to 3 rounds of sparging, depending on what I need for a final water volume (which again is determined by the software). In this case I needed 5.75 gallons of sparge water. Below are some pictures of the first runnings and sparging.

You want to run your first 2 to 4 quarts of wort into a pitcher or bucket then re-circulate into the top of the mash. The reason is the first little bit has a lot of protein and husk material that when poured back into the top is filtered by the grain bed. This will result in a better looking beer, and reduce the chances of tannic astringency.

Recirculation...the cheap way.

Some people defuse the pour by using the back of a spoon. I have not found any difference in using a back of a spoon or not, so the choice is yours.

Once the 1st runnings are out of the mash tun, you want to quickly pour in your hot sparge water. If you wait too long the grain bed can become compact and a bit harder to work with. Once the sparge water is in, you want to stir well to dissolve any sugars in the grains.

Here is just a shot of how I collect my wort. Directly into my boil vessel.

Now I did two rounds of sparging here. Below I am showing you three pictures, all of the same beer. What this will show is the amount of sugars and other goodies you are extracting from the grains. The first picture is from the 1st runnings, look how dark the wort is. This is the highest concentration of malt sugars, then compare that to the second and third runnings. This is normal.

1st runnings

2nd runnings

3rd runnings

Here are the spent grains. You will have some sugar left in them, so if you taste it, it will be slightly sweet. If it is real sweet, you probably didn't stir your sparges very well or used too little water.

From here on out is the same as any extract batch. But for fun, here are some more pics of my all grain process.

I don't have many of these, so they don't work well for very hoppy beers. But for 1 or 2 ounce additions these things are great. THey help keep the hop mess down when it comes time to drain the cooled wort. You have to remember that the hops will expand when wet, so I only fill them to less than half full. But they work better than hop bags in my opinion. They don't float and keep the hops submerged.

2 balls perfectly hold 1 oz of pellet hops.

Chilling is very important in all grain beers. From my experience, you have higher DMS levels in all grain beers compared to extract, but maybe that's just me. So the faster the chill and more vigorous the boil, you eliminate the DMS factor.

I also like to Aerate. This is not a requirement but it does help with yeast health and getting a solid full fermentation from your yeast. Here you see my home-made set up. I use an aquarium pump with an inline hepa filter, and a racking cane with vinyl hoses. All this NEEDS to be sanitized well because it comes in contact with the cool wort. I boil my stainless diffusion stone and soak the lines in Star San.

Aeration set up

Last, add the yeast. I love to use a good quality dry yeast. I use US-04 for clean and American styles and s-04 for British styles. Other styles I use liquid yeast because those special strains just are not as good in dry form. But for your basic American and English ales, dry yeast is very good. For this beer I am taking a suggestion from my Brewer Interview and using more dry yeast. For the same cost or even cheaper than 1 vial of White Labs or 1 smack pack of Wyeast, I get 2 packets of dry yeast with a very high cell count and no need to do a starter. (I also sanitize the yeast packets prior to opening them and sanitize the scissors that I use to cut the packets open)

That’s about it. I would like to give a quick shout out to Mike and his buddy who did not participate in this blog entry, but a good time was had none-the-less.

All of these tools above will help you create, tweak, and store recipes. Some even allow you scale recipes, like if you have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and you do 5, or you have a pro brewing friend who gives you one of his recipes for a 30 barrel system and you need a homebrew scale. I own and have used Beer Tools Pro, and I use Beersmith for almost all my recipes. I really like how user-friendly Beersmith is. For the purpose of this post, I am going to take shots of all the software, just to help show all of you sitting on the fence, just how this software can make your life so much easier. All of these major software brands do have free trial offers to test drive them for yourself. In part 1 of this topic, I will take a look at Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro.

Beersmith

In this picture you can see the opening screen and options for Beersmith.

In the above picture, this is the default screen you come to when opening Beersmith. Here is where you can format a recipe, select if it is extract, partial mash, or all grain. You can see, if you look at this picture for a while, there are options for converting recipes (for example if you have a friend who sends you a recipe for all grain, but you are an extract brewer, you can convert his recipe to an extract recipe and vice versa), scaling a recipe (which can be either scaling it up or down), an inventory feature where you can enter what ingredients you have at hand, and many other tweaks you can make. Under the file tab, there are options for importing recipes you may receive from a friend or off of websites who may use the Beersmith format, and there are many options for tweaking water, measurements, what equipment you have, and brewing processes. But what I like is there are default features you can use right from installation without tweaking it to your system right away.

In the next few pictures, I will show you what a basic all grain recipe will look like in Beersmith, then last convert that recipe to extract, and scale that recipe up to 10 gallons.

Below, you can see what the software shows you when you have a recipe entered. I used one of my favorite homebrew recipes, a chocolate stout of mine called Vader’s Fist. You can see that it gives you estimated starting gravity, finishing gravity, color, and IBU’s. It gives you the range for the style you picked. And once you brew it and take measurements you can add in what the actual gravity’s were and it gives you the ABV. What you can’t see, is further below you have fermentation and bottling/kegging options.

Recipe in Beersmtih

In the following picture, this is just showing the preset mashing and sparging options. All you have to do is pick one. If you want to tweak them you can edit and save the changes you make to these options. Of course, if you are doing extract you don’t have to worry about this.

Beersmith Mashing Options

Next if you noticed in the upper right side, there is a button that says “Preview Brewsheet”. You can hit this button, then have the option to print out a handy brewing schedule for your recipe. It will look something like this.

Brewsheet

Now lets hit that Convert button and convert this recipe to extract. One thing I want to note is you want to create a copy in your recipe list of the original recipe, because once you convert it, you sort of lose the original recipe. Unless I am missing something, this could cause problems. I simply make a copy of the recipe (copy and paste in the recipe list) then covert the copy.

The convert option in Beersmith

As you can see, if your all grain set up used a keggle but you want to do a partial boil for the extract, you can do this. You just select the equipment you have for extract. You can then select the type of malt extract you want to use for your base (Dry or liquid, extra light, light, amber, dark, ect). Finally either check or leave it blank the option for auto converting grains that must be mashed. This does cause an issue when converting because some grains need to be mashed. If you must, you can substitute some grains that don’t need to be mashed, but the end result may not be exactly the same as the all grain version.

Last, here is the scale option.

Scale the recipe up

This is pretty simple also. Select the new batch size you want, select the efficiency, and also if you want to fix the amount based on your equipment. Most of the time you want to do this unless you have many different sized pots or mash tuns.

Well, that is the basic overview of Beersmith. Lets take a quick look at Beer Tools Pro. This one will be a bit quicker for two reasons. First, I am still learning this one because I think it has a bit longer learning curve than Beersmith. And second, I don’t see scale or convert options to show you. I will use the same recipe as I did in Beersmith for this example.

Beer Tools Pro

As you can see the user interface is a lot better looking that Beersmith. I really like the slide scales and the color of the beer picture. Once you enter the recipe from the ingredients categories on the left, and drag and drop them from the pane at the top (above the pint glass), most of your recipe control will take place in the “Display” tab to the bottom right below the pint glass. Here you can enter your equipment, mash schedule, other adjustments, ingredients, and so on. Also, you can see various aspects of your beer and brewing schedule under the tabs labeled: style, analysis, schedule, summary, carbonation, and notes.

Let’s take a look at how you would enter your mash schedule.

Mash Schedule

Here is how you do your schedule in Beer Tools Pro. Under the display tab you can select “Schedule”. Then in the blank area, right click and select an option, such as “New Mash In” , “New Infusion”, “New Rest” , or “New Sparge” (there are more options but these are the most used by me). Then enter the information as you need to. This is very easy if you have your equipment entered in and calibrated, which can be a pain, but I will not cover that. You can do that with the instructions if you purchase the program. Once things are in, all you should have to do it enter your target temperature and the program will update the other fields for you. You do this for all the infusions or sparges you are going to do. For example a single infusion with a batch sparge will look like this.

Single Infusion with Batch Sparge

And the last thing for this basic overview is the option to print this off.You can select what aspects of the recipe to print off.

Beer Tools Pro Print Option, no brewsheet?

There is no handy brewsheet that I can see. However, the print off you do get will do the trick. I do like the “check it off” style of Beersmith, but Beer Tools Pro has a great look to it that makes up for some shortcomings like no conversion tool. No scaling tool either. But the tweaking options here are almost endless. Also, I could be wrong. Just because I don’t see the option does not mean it is not there. If you want to learn more about Beer Tools Pro, they have an online Wiki for Beer Tools Pro you can read that will probably give you more insight and in depth instruction than I am giving here. This is just a top down look at the software.

A Styrofoam cooler is cheap, large, a good insulator, stackable, and easily replaceable.

…a Styrofoam cooler. I store them under my bar, and they do the trick. Now there are a few things to consider when using this method. You need to have a cool basement. On average, my basement is 62-65 degrees three feet up from the floor. It is cooler at the floor level (upper 50′s to 60 depending on what time of year), and by placing it on the cement floor itself it is in the about the best way to get the coolest I can. The main thing to worry about is keeping the beer out of light, keeping a constant cool temperature, and avoid drastic temperature fluctuations. All of this is achieved with a Styrofoam cooler.

Here is a shot inside of a cooler. This one has some New Glarus Unplugged from 2007 (Belgian Quad, Bourbon Barrel Bock), Third Coast Old Ale, Bigfoot, Imperial Saison and Iced Barleywine from last year, Lagunitas Imperial Stout, and Thomas Hardy Ale from 2005 to name a few.

For long term storage, like if you plan to age something for more than 10 years, I have an idea to help reduce the oxidation that may occur over time, even through a cap. Even if this does nothing, it also does not hurt anything. I vacuum seal beers I don’t plan on trying for many years. Here I have two beers I don’t want to open until 2015 or beyond.  A barleywine from New Glarus and 2005 Thomas Hardy Ale.

vacuum Packing, does it help? I don't know, but it can't hurt.

OK, so to start to wrap this post up, you don’t have to have an expensive walk in cellar or build a fancy multiple shelf system if you don’t have the space or budget for it, just some good insulated coolers will do the trick. They HAVE to be kept in a cooler than a normal place though. You want to age big beers in the range of no warmer than mid 50′s to mid 60′s. Beers of average strength and below are recommended to be stored at temperatures even cooler than 55. For these, I simply keep them in a fridge (Please note that many beers today come corked, and a refrigerator has a drying unit in it to keep humidity out. So this can dry out a cork. Store corked beers in a humid environment or they will dry out and ruin the beer, trust me, I had it happen to a nice Gueuze I had kept in the fridge).If you don’t have access to a separate beer fridge, I don’t recommend buying more beer than you can easily drink in a short period of time.

Keep average strength beers in the fridge if you don't have access to a temperature controled cellar.

Keep those beers cool and out of light my friends, no beer likes being kept 70 degrees or warmer for extended periods. Also, keep beers stored upright, not on their sides, unless its corked. But even then it probably is not necessary, most corks today are part synthetic and will not dry out under normal conditions (Only if very dry climates or the fridge, so if you live in the desert, maybe keep your corked beers on their sides).

The New Tongue Map, Mosher, R. (2009). Tasting Beer: An Insiders Guide to the Worlds Greatest Drink.(p. 32)

There have been many new discoveries in the realm of taste but not many have been talking about it. The most I have read as it relates to beer is in Randy Mosher’s Book, Tasting Beer. So what exactly is new you ask? Well, what we have been taught since we were kids about how the tongue perceives flavors is completely wrong. The sad thing is, many places are still teaching the old tongue map, where you taste sweet at the tip of the tongue, salty on the front sides, sour on the back sides, and bitter on the back side of the tongue. What they have found, is that all of these flavors are tasted equally over all over the tongue. However, there does seem to be a bit more sensitivity to bitterness on the back and some sour on the sides. This does make sense to me, because when I have something sour, I do taste it everywhere, not just on those front side portions of my tongue. I taste it throughout my whole mouth.

If you look at your tongue, you will see many small bumps, these bumps are not taste buds, but rather papillae. Inside these papillae are your taste buds, and there are many contained within one papillae (usually between 50 to 150 taste buds per papillae). These buds taste many different flavors and the combination of what we have been taught sweet, sour, bitter, and salty among other chemical components give us taste. Aside from these traditional flavors it has been discovered that fat is a flavor as well, and people can taste fat. There is also a new member to the arena and this new one is called umami, which mean savory or deliciousness. Umami occurs when foods or beverage with glutamate is eaten or drank, MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) for example is a glutamate. Beer can contain Umami, and will usually occur in the bigger beer styles, I think it mostly comes from the aging of the beer and breaking down of the yeast cells, but I could be wrong. Umami can come across as mushroomy, meaty, or just overall a savory sensation. Now on a personal note, I have seen Umami being described in beers that I personally couldn’t see there being the sensation of Umami present, but just like anything new, people want to jump right on it and appear to be in-the-know. So just be careful when describing Umami, just because a beer tastes good or is delicious, does not necessarily mean Umami.

Another important consideration, especially if you are tasting and talking with others about a beer, is that not everyone perceives chemicals of the same concentration the same. Contrary to what people think a beer (or wine) judge or expert should be, we are not identical machines manufactured to the same specs. All people perceive different concentrations differently, even not at all. For example, over time I have learned that I am not sensitive to Diacetyl.  This means that if I pick up diacetyl in a beer, chances are the concentration is pretty high. When it comes to this, I need to rely on other judges to pick this up in lower doses. What I am sensitive to is Dimethyl Sulfide, or DMS when it comes to aroma. I seem to be able to pick this up in many beers. Since I know I am almost overly sensitive to it, if I pick it up in very low amounts, I probably don’t even bring it up. But if it smashes me in the face, I know it is at least at the level to mention it as a flaw. Being aware of your level of tolerance for different chemicals is important when working with others. If they ask you if you get DMS in the beer, but you can’t normally pick it up, you should explain that.

Being honest with what you taste is also important. Because we all perceive flavors and aromas differently, nobody can tell you what you taste and/or smell. They can suggest what they smell or taste, and you can agree or still not get it. Just because someone thinks a beer has a winelike character, does not mean it does. It means that according to that persons experience, and their perception, they think it does. When in fact you may think it is more like dark fruit, like a plum. Both of you are right. What bothers me the most when someone tells someone else what they taste or smell. Granted, some people are more accurate than others, but you have no real way of knowing that someone is not in fact tasting caramel in a beer, even if that other person does not get it.

This holds true for all aspects of both flavor and aroma perception. Just remember that if you are honest with what you perceive and how you perceive it, you are doing your job. If you are faking what you taste or smell, that does nobody any good.