Procedures FAQ

Questions :

• How can I improve the quality of my beer?
• How do I reuse yeast?
• Does dry yeast really have to be rehydrated?
• How do I improve the head on my beer?
• Should I measure SG without the trub?
• Do I really have to boil my kit?
• Do specialty grains get boiled with the malt extract?
• Can someone explain kraeusening to me?
• How much longer does it take to brew all-grain?
• How can I increase my extract efficiency while mashing?
• What are some alternative ways to chill my wort?
• Which chiller is best, a counter-flow (CF), or an immersion?
• What's the best way to carbonate my keg?
• How much corn sugar do I use to carbonate my keg?
• When during the mash should I check my pH?
• What are the best pH papers to use?
• Has anyone experimented with using dry ice to pressurize bottles without any sediment?

Answers :

• How can I improve the quality of my beer?
  > I've got a couple of kits under my belt now, and the results
  > seem pretty good so far, but still not as good as my friend's
  > beer. What can I do to improve my beer?
  
  Here are a few things you can do to improve your beer. Keep in mind that any one of these things taken by itself may or may not have a noticable affect on your beer, but as you start combining several of them, the changes in your final product will indeed become obvious. Some of these measures require special equipment (like perhaps a larger pot), while others require nothing but a few more minutes of your time. The best advice we can give is to first do all the ones that don't require any special or expensive equipment, and if you want to after that (and you are sure you are going to stay with the hobby), then invest in a few more pieces of eqiupment.
  
  - don't use the yeast that comes with the kits, either use a good quality dry yeast (Coopers, Muntons Gold, and the new 'Saf' products are my favorites), or use liquid yeast
  - always rehydrate your dry yeast, or make a starter if using liquid
  - learn to use some specialty grains
  - learn to use hops
  - do a full-volume boil (non-trivial, but makes better beer)
  - minimize use of sugar - use light or extra light malt extract instead
  
  Kinny Baughman has a really good page on this question, so visit it for more details.
  
  
• How do I reuse yeast?
  It's pretty easy, actually. We outline several methods on our yeast page.
  
  
• Does dry yeast really have to be rehydrated?
  Well, to be absolutely literal, it doesn't "have" to be. But it certainly should be. It's all about general yeast health. It's tough enough for the little guys to be dried out and then rehydrated. That's an extreme shock to their systems. If you add a whopping pile of sugar during the rehydration process (by putting the yeast directly into the wort), you increase that system-shock quite dramatically. I've also found (in side-by-side comparisions with identical worts) that with rehydrated yeast my fermentation takes off on average twice as fast, which is another very positive thing you can do for your beer.
  
  
• How do I improve the head on my beer?
  > Here's one to raise a few blood pressures. Is there any practical
  > benefit to having a thick creamy head on a glass of beer?? I
  > poured a dunkel last week and it took four or five minutes for
  > the foam to subside enough where I could get the whole bottle
  > in the glass.

  Depending upon your tastes, there's a huge benefit to good foam, and you just experienced it. I always carbonate my beers and serve in such a manner as to give me the huge, creamy foam which takes quite a while to settle out. The benefit is purely aesthetical and depends on the tastes of the brewer, but personally I do it for every beer and to hell with styles guidelines simply because that's the way I like to drink my beer ;-) Isn't that what Homebrew is supposed to be about, afterall?

  But if you don't like a big foamy head, then don't make it that way.

  Anyway, aside from that don't worry about it. If you like the beer and want good head (on the beer ;-)), then read up a bit on how to do that. The best way to do this is to learn how to use Specialty Grains and also learn to do a mini mash with malted wheat, flaked wheat, and oats.
  
  

• Should I measure SG without the trub?
  > Also, when you measure your SG, is it appropriate to measure it with
  > the trub (and hot-break) in the fermenter. This would give you a
  > higher SG than if you racked off the trub and then topped off to 5
  > gallons, right?
  
  Trub doesn't matter, but topping off does. Since trub isn't dissolved, your SG is the same with or without it. But adding that top-off water is sure going to make a difference. But the difference is linear. So if you have 18 litres, and top off with 1 litre, you simply adjust your SG number by multiplying by 19/18 or 18/19 (depending upon which way you want to convert).
  
  After addition of top-up water SG will be lower than before.
  
  
• Do I really have to boil my kit?
  > I received a can of "Morgans Blue Mountain Lager". The instructions say to
  > combine the ingredients with warm water and that "no boiling is required".
  >
  > Has anyone used this method?
  
  Although the Morgan's kits are otherwise pretty good, their instructions can be tossed out just like most of the other kit instructions. Instructions like this are put on the can by marketing people who want to make their product look as easy as possible to make.
  
  Yes, it will make reasonably good beer if you don't boil, but it will make better beer if you do. For kits like Morgan's even a 5 to 10 minute good rolling boil in 10 litres (quarts) of water will be sufficient to give you a good hot break. That means proteins in the malt extract will coagulate together (just like when you drizzle egg into boiling soup for eggdrop soup) and eventually settle out of the beer before you bottle.
  
  Getting rid of the proteins will make a clearer beer with a cleaner taste. Since you aren't adding your own hops, a 5 to 10 minute boil is sufficient. I think it is Morgan's which puts aroma hops into their kits, so keeping the boil time short like this will also help preserve those armomatics.
  
  cheers,
  -Alan
  
  
• Do specialty grains get boiled with the malt extract?
  > Should I have boiled the specialty grains with the Malt extract?
  
  Absolutely not! It will impart very unpleasant bitter flavours, because oftannins in the grain husk. Specialty grains should be steeped between 150F and 170F. Steep for about 15 to 30 minutes, then strain out the grains. If you get into the habit of using the temperature range of 150F to 160F, however, you can also start using malted grains and doing mini-mashes to really add some life to your beers.
  
  
• Can someone explain kraeusening to me?
  
  I thought it best to put this question to an Efriend Hubert Hanghofer, who runs the most excellent website http://www.netbeer.co.at/beer/
  (which has both English and German mirrors). Hubert's answer follows :
  
  > Can someone explain Krausening to me?
  > One source indicates that it is the act of adding unfermented wort
  > into a almost completed batch of beer.
  
  That's not Krausening but "Speisegabe". Speise could be literally translated by "food" (for the yeast), Speisegabe by "feeding".
  
  Purpose: adjusting extract (gravity) for carbonation -- primarily for wheat beer. In Germany priming with sugar is generally allowed only for top fermenting beers, but with the exception of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg and Baden, where any addition of sugar is forbidden.
  
  > The other indicates adding actively fermenting beer to a beer.
  > which is it?
  
  The latter! Kräusen (Kra:usen, Kraeusen) has two meenings:
  A) Rocky head during fermentation.
  B) Fermenting beer at high krausen -- usually 35-45% apparent attenuation.
  
  So in any case it is used in conjunction with fermentation! I've seen German texts that extend the term Speise to include Krausen (eg. something like ...first runnings, knock out wort or _krausen_ can be used as Speise... ) -- seems logical, krausening is also some kind of feeding. But I never came across a text that uses Krausen for unfermented wort!!!
  
  > What is the real purpose?
  
  Fermenting beer is used in several ways like eg. pitching with krausen etc. but I think the term krausening refers to the German term "aufkra:usen" witch has the same purpose as Speisegabe (carbonation). It's sometimes prefered because the fresh yeast gives a better attenuation. -- Note that in Germany generally an apparent attenuation over 80% is strived for. Despite popular believe body and full mouth feel (fullness?) are primarily determined by the colloids (proteins) and not unfermented or unfermentable sugars!
  
  Hope this helps
  
  
• How much longer does it take to brew all-grain?
  > My questions are:
  > a) How much longer does it take to brew all-grain? This -is- a hobby,
  > but I can't dedicate 6 hours, if that's what it really takes.
  
  Your first couple of times you can expect it to take as much as 7 or 8 hours from the beginning of the day until you have everything cleaned up and put away. I've got it down to about 5 hours including cleanup and all. I can't imagine it getting a whole lot shorter than that. Of course, I brew 10 gallons at a time, and could brew 15 in the same time. Increase your volume and you decrease your time per volume. Also keep in mind that only about 30% of this time do you have to actually be actively doing stuff. The other 70% of the time involves waiting, so you can use the time to do other stuff around the house if you like.
  
  
• What are some alternative ways to chill my wort?
  > I keep reading about how good it is to chill my wort as quickly
  > as possible, but I can't afford an immersion or a counterflow chiller
  > right at the moment. What are some other options for me?
  
  Most people are already familiar with the idea of taking your hot brewpot and immersing it into a sink (or bathtub) of cold water. Though this does work, it isn't very efficient in that it can take quite a while to cool the wort, even if you do regularly change the cold water.
  
  A much better method that we developed on our own the odd time we do an extract batch is freeze a couple of 2 litre soda bottles ahead of time. Then after the boil I cut the plastic away from the ice and carefully lower the ice right into the kettle. BE REALLY CAREFUL ABOUT DOING THIS THOUGH, AS YOU CAN SPLASH BOILING WORT ONTO YOU. We find the best way is to put the block of ice into a large grain bag and hold the end of it to lower the ice into the water.
  
  Our extract batches are usually brewed with about 10 litres of water in the pot. So obviously to do this you are going to need about a 20 litre (20 quart) pot. But it works like a charm. In the time it takes the ice to melt (10 minutes) it brings the pot contents down below 100F. Then when we add cold water to it in the carboy, we're already down to fermentation temp. All it takes is 2 x 2 litre soda bottles.
  
  It works like a charm. Just make sure those soda bottles are well cleaned and sanitized on the inside. Be careful putting the ice in, and also be careful cutting the plastic off the ice. As soon as you get a good sized cut in the plastic, the pressure differential caused by the cut will cause the ice to crack violently, making a huge noise that will likely scare the pants off you if you don't know to expect it. I'd wear eye protection when doing this, since a piece of ice could conceivably fly off during that cracking, and could take your eye out.
  
  cheers,
  -Alan
  
  
• Which chiller is best, a counter-flow (CF), or an immersion?
  We've already got a page dedicated to this question, so please refer to it.
  
  
• How can I increase my extract efficiency while mashing?
  > What tips would you have to increase one's mashing efficiency? Mine is
  > around 70% and I'd like to improve it a little.
  
  See my mashing pages for more info. Mashout helps quite a bit, as does George Fix's 40/60/70 schedule (do a search on http://www.hbd.org/hbd/). The latter there is a bit much for me personally, as I prefer single infusion mashing. If you can mash out, though, do so. I noticed huge increases in extraction efficiency when I added a mashout to my schedule. Also, make sure your sparge water is kept high (170F) and not allowed to vary in either direction by more than 3F . If you can get your sparge water pH to the 5.5 to 6.0 range, you'll help yourself out a bit, as well.
  
  What kind of lauter-tun are you using? This is important, too. Especially the straining mechanism you use. I got better performance in my system moving from an EC-masher to a manifold, then again moving from the manifold to a false bottom.
  
  Remember that as with many aspects of brewing, each little thing by itself may not win you much, but put them all together and they add up.
  
  
• What's the best way to carbonate my keg?
• How much corn sugar do I use to carbonate my keg?
  > I've been reading a lot about kegging, but there seems to be a lot of
  > very different recommendations on carbonating. Some use DME, others
  > use Corn Sugar, and still others use their CO2 tanks. I also see varying
  > reports on just how much sugar to use.
  
  Well, all of those will get your beer carbonated sooner or later. Let's take the last question first : if you are priming with corn sugar (or DME for that matter) use the exact same amount that you would use if you were bottling. We see a lot of people who recommend using only 1/3 the amount, and frankly, we'd like to choke the person (whoever it is) who originally started this myth. There is nothing magical about a keg which means you need less sugar. A volume of beer is a volume of beer, no matter how you slice and dice it. So use 125g (3/4 cup) plus or minus according to your own tastes.
  
  The big question here is : why use corn sugar or DME to prime in the first place? This provides food for the yeast, which causes them to multiply and eventually flocc out, causing sediment in your keg. To us that just seems to be defeating part of the whole purpose of having kegs in the first place : sediment free homebrew! Yes, you can simply drain the first glass or two and pour it out, but that's wasteful in our eyes.
  
  If you are patient, simply affix the CO2 and set it according to the temperature of the keg, and the amount of CO2 you want in the beer. This is one of the few things we don't yet cover on our pages, but you can go here for more information, and visit our kegging page for more details on using your CO2 tank to carb your beer.
  
  
• When during the mash should I check my pH?
• What are the best pH papers to use?
  
  > I'm getting ready to brew my first all grain batch.
  > 1) Should I just check the PH of the water prior to mashing or should I
  > check it during the mash?
  
  First of all, if it's your first all grain then forget the pH. Or at most measure it only for your records. Don't waste money on a pH meter you may never use again - at this point you may yet discover that mashing isn't for you. But realistically, pH papers are fine. Don't waste your money on a meter at all.
  
  If you really want to, then check the pH both of the water prior to the mash, and of the mash itself. Also check your sparge water pH, especially if you treat it with some sort of acid.. I check mine every time, and only seldom does the pH fall out of ideal. Even then it's still well within the range considered acceptible. But I still check it anyway, mainly for my records. Realistically if it is your first mash you won't know what to do about an off pH anyway. I've been mashing for 3 years now and can't say I'd know what to do if some of the readings I regularly take didn't fall in the right place (which they always fall into). That's a bit of an exaggeration. I'd know where to go look up what to do, but I wouldn't know off the top of my head.
  
  > My concern here is that the meter says it has
  > a range of 32F to 122F.
  
  Um, then why did you buy it?
  
  > I was not going to use PH papers since I heard MANY complaints ranging
  > from 'completely useless' to "very hard to read" especially with
  > darker beers.
  
  That's common for the pH papers made out of paper. But if you get the plastic strips (like the Mercks ColorpHast that everyone here talks about) this problem majically disappears.The paper ones soak up water which throws of the reading. Plastic doesn't soak up water. The only potential problem with the papers is if you are colorblind. I am a bit, and sometimes I have trouble reading them, depending upon the lighting.
  
  cheers,
  -Alan
  
  
• Has anyone experimented with using dry ice to pressurize bottles without any sediment?
  
  Now there's something I've never heard of before. However, a guy in a former brew club we were in was a chemistry professor at the University who does a lot of similar stuff with dry ice, so I put the question to him.

  He puts on shows for local highschools where he puts a small piece of dry ice into a plastic soda bottle with a bit of water, then caps it. The thing explodes quite impressively.

  Moral: dry ice can be extremely dangerous and we strongly discourage you from trying to do this!

  Reply From the Chem Prof Scott
  If I understood your question clearly, you should use 0.58 cm^3 or 0.92g of dry ice to produce 500mL of nonpressurized CO2. Careful, a mistake and you've made yourself a bomb!...but let me come and watch :-)

  our comment to that
  Since according to Mark Hibbert "green beer" already contains about 0.90 volumes of CO2 at 20C (please check his tables for other temperatures, as it varies dramatically), then we'd obviously need about 1 to 1.5 grams of dry ice to carbonate 500ml of beer.
  
  However - and here's the cincher - under normal conditions carbonation forms very slowly in beer over a period of a week or more. Because it happens so slowly, the beer is able to absorb the carbonation which is produced. If you tried the trick with dry ice - even if you did put in the proper amount - it would release the entire amount of carbonation in only a few seconds. This would almost definitely cause a very violent explosion, so please do not try this!
  
  

Last Updated 2003.12.23 @ 11:45
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