Beer Brewing Blog

Here I go again…thinking I’m a valuable resource to bring knowledge to the masses. Oh, well.

Anyway, slowly but surely I want to bring a detailed how-to guide for how I brew beer. Good, bad, or indifferent, this may prove useful for some and at the very least provide a means for documenting my process in preparation for the day when I get knocked on the head and suffer from full amnesia. What kind of a world would it be if I could not brew, then drink copiously, beer. That’s not a world I want know…no sir’ee…..

So, lets start from the beginning after ingredients are gathered. My normal schedule is to order from Northern Brewer or Midwest Supplies on the weekend, have it shipped to arrive on Friday and then pick it up Friday evening. I’ll prepare my starter Friday night so it is nice and ready by Sunday for brewing. You want at least a day for the yeast to propagate and take off, two days is usually better. In a pinch, I’ve done just 12 hours but it almost defeats the purpose of using a starter.

The basics:

What is a starter? A starter wort is a small batch, usually a half liter to a liter for a 5 gallon batch, or wort you make to pitch the yeast and begin their propagation. This will increase the number of yeast and increase their activity in order to make sure your yeast is healthy and active by the time you pitch into your main batch.

Yeast: What kind do I use?

Dry - only if you are truly desperate or a noob. These suck. I used dry yeast for my first four batches when I started out and of the four, one I had to dump because the yeast never took off, one barely took off and took much longer than it should have, and the two performed as they should. I then moved to liquid yeast and never had an issue. Make bread with these, not beer.

Wyeast - These guys have pure culture Propagators and Activators. These are liquid yeast and what I use most. The Propagator is pure yeast with a small packet of yeast nutrient to get you started before you pitch. The Activator is similar to the Propagator, but with more nutrient and made to act as a mini-starter to save time in the brew process. Both come in nice size packets called smack packs which you use as stated: you smack it to break the inner packet of nutrient and get the yeast going.

White Labs - These guys make pure liquid cultures and come in little plastic test tube-like containers. Similar to Wyeast, but no nutrient pack to get you started. You simply shake and pitch.

While I generally use Wyeast, I’m actually indifferent to the brand and generally look at the selection of yeast and choose from this.

Here is what I do:

First: Smack the smack pack. Take the packet, if applicable, and break the inner packet of nutrient to get the yeast moving. I try to bring the yeast up to room temp, 75 F or so, before I do this in the case the smack pack has been in the fridge. Once the yeast starts to feed on the nutrient, the smack pack will start to expand and build up pressure. During this time, I move toward making the wort. Here are a couple of smack packs from a recent brewday:

While the yeast is getting happy, I start on the wort. The basics of this is to boil 1 liter of water per 1/4 of light DME (Dried Malt Extract) for 20 minutes to sanitize the wort. Simple, just heat up the water, add the DME, boil for 20 minutes. FYI, boil-overs are big problem with DME. Once your water is boiling, turn off the heat, add the DME, mix thoroughly and then turn the heat back on. Keep an eye on it though, it can turn ugly fast and you don’t want to clean burnt wort from your pans and stove.

As the wort is boiling, I start on sanitizing the rest of my equipment. As with all aspects of brewing, sanitation is of utmost importance. My gear is for each starter:

(1) 1 liter flask

(1) rubber stopper

(1) airlock. I use three piece; one piece break far too easily

(1) small funnel. A recent edition, not necessary but make the job easier

For sanitizing, anything works. I use what I have available: BTF (iodine basically) One step or Starsan Here is a pic of what I had going for these two starters:

Each flask is filled with sanitizer, I have a separate container for the small pieces and the wort is just a boiling away.

From here, I let the equipment soak for 10-15 minutes and then rinse thoroughly. The next step is to fill each flask with the wort. You can do two things here: 1) cool the wort in the pan with an ice bath or what I do 2) fill the sanitized flask with the boiling wort, plug the flask with the stopper and airlock and stick them in the fridge to cool off. The idea is to cool the wort as fast as possible to pitch temp (70 F - 80 F) and then pitch. In my opinion, it is better to cool the wort in the sanitized environment of the flask rather than expose the wort to the air for the length of time it takes to cool wort. Here’s what it looks like:

I fill the airlock with vodka (sanitizer could work) and stick in the fridge for a couple of hours. After that, I’ll take the flask out, check them with just my hands and once it seems room temperature, I’m ready to pictch. before I do this, I take the airlock out, soak in sanitizer again, and why waiting for the this I shake the flask like an overwhelmed mother off her depression meds trying to shut up a crying baby. The purpose of this is to aerate the wort and add the oxygen the yeast will need to feed. I’ll shake for at least three minutes, pitch the yeast, and shake for a few more minutes. When I’m done with this, I’ll take off the stopper, rinse this and sanitize again, and then place the sanitized stopper and airlock back on the starter. At this point, I have a nicely aerated starter wort to put aside until brewday when I pitch into the main wort.

After a few hours you should see the starter start to come to life. While the yeast will sometimes come to full krausen, meaning highest point of fermentation, with a thick yeasty foam.  More often than not, what I get is just a a mixture exuding a large amount of tiny bubbles but no real foamy head.

Take note of this:  Until the last few batches, what I would do is just before pitching into my 5 gallon batch, I would just shake up the starter and pitch the whole starter.  When you shake an actively fermenting wort, or beer by this point, alot of the gases (read CO2) will come out of solution and create pressure.  In some cases, alot.  It is better gently stir the mixure to create a yeast slurry rather than shake.  Aside from any oxidation issues, this pressure can catch you by surprise.  I did this only and ended up with yeast slurry all over my walls, ceiling and floor.

Upon speaking with other homebrewers, I found out that it is actually best to carely dump the excess wort to just pitch a slurry of mostly yeast.  To do this, assuming your yeast is mostly settled out, just carefully pour off the wort in the starter trying not to pour out any of brown and while yeast cake at the bottom of the flask.

As the yeast are working, they begin to settle out forming a creamy white layer on the bottom of the flask.  The white stuff if what you want.  Here is what it will look like:

Getting Fancy

So this is how I do it.  If you want to take it farther, you can get a stirrer plate and use this with flask to keep a steady rate of oxygen introduced in the starter.  These are expensive an not necessary.  Use your own judgment.