Sunday, February 9, 2014

Home Brewing


    “Eew!  It smells like a swimming pool in here.”
    It’s old winter’s song at our house.  Chlorine bleach sterilizes brewing equipment.
      Actually, I entertained the thought of not brewing this year, the first time in something like forty years.  It all began in the 1970’s when my sister-in-law gave me a subscription to Mother Earth News.
     I always thought Mother Earth News was a new hippie publication started in the 1960’s.  In reading the book The President and the Assassin, the story of President McKinley’s assassination, another sister-in-law gift, I find that Mother Earth News was around in the late 19th century as a publication of anarchists.  I also discovered in reading that book that terrorism was alive and well in the late 19th century, as some of the anarchists thought the only way to achieve the complete freedom they desired and a fair shake for the working man was to use violence.  So there were bombings and, of course, assassinations.  
      Back to brewing.  There was an ad in Mother Earth News for a complete brewing kit for something like $38 or something really cheap.  Not having learned the lesson about mail-order great deals, like the Ovaltine decoder in Christmas Story, I bit.  I got a six gallon brewing vessel complete with air tight lid and airlock, siphon tube and hose with clamp shut off, a can of malt extract, yeast, brewing sugar, plus enough brewing caps to bottle one batch. I thought the folks at home had a bottle capper, but it wasn’t to be found, so I had to spend another $14 for a capper (that had to be replaced in 2012).
      The first batch tasted quite good in comparison to the sour mash I remember from my youth when the folks brewed a batch or two.  (I think they used bread yeast, maybe.)  So I ordered a bunch more malt kits.  And I have been brewing ever since.  I have strayed to other suppliers in the intervening years, especially when the cost of shipping spiked, but I always end up ordering from Bierhaus International in Erie PA, where I started.
     For years, no one knew or cared that I brewed my own beer.  Then I had kids.  They went to school.  The word got out.
     When we first moved to this house, there was no heat in the basement.  So once I had a batch of beer bottled, I would set the bottles, usually 8 or 9 six packs, near the wood burning stove.  This warmed the beer up enough to reactivate the yeast which would carbonate the beer.
     One of the girls brought a friend home.  She asked if we were getting ready to have a party.  No, why?  Why did we have all that beer by the stove in the living room?  After a good laugh the Goodwife explained that she didn’t understand fully why, but that I brewed my own beer and I always warmed it by the stove for a week or two.  No, no party.
    It came to pass that for years after that incident, I had to answer two questions from my students, “Do you really brew your own beer?”  Stonewalling only increased the clamor, so, yes I do.  And then “When can we try some?”  Easy answer, when you turn 21.  To date, only two former students have ever shown up to collect on that promise.
     One other remarkable incident occurred some years ago.  Bierhaus always ships the cheapest way, sometime UPS, sometimes USPS.  One cold January day, we got a call from the post office.  We needed to come claim a damaged package.
     So we went one day after school to claim this damaged package.  The ladies rolled out this box that looked like it had been run over by a truck.  Leaking out of the seam of the damaged box was this fine, white powder.  Hmmmm.  “Did you call the cops?” I asked.
     They both laughed and said they thought about it, but then they looked at the addressee, and said, “No, probably not.”  So no cops. 
     Bierhaus had had a great sale on brewing sugar so I ordered 30 pounds.  When the truck ran over the box, or whatever happened, one of the ten-pound bags broke.  It turned out ok for me.  I reclaimed everything I could (cans of malt were dented but not broken) and somebody’s insurance replaced the whole order, so I got not quite double what I ordered.
      This so far mild winter led me to think I wouldn’t brew any this year.  I was keeping pretty busy outside.  Then January hit. 




     Dirt-blowing high winds finally turned to snow last week and high temperatures so far this February has been 24 degrees yesterday.  Inside sports like doing income tax and cleaning out the file cabinet, and defrosting the freezer have worn thin.  An email brought a price list; a phone call brought a box of ingredients.  So here we go.
     Clean and sterilize everything (“Eew!  It smells like a swimming pool. . . “)



                              Boil the water and mix in the syrupy malt extract, creating the wort.

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     Mix the wort, cold water, and yeast in the brewer.  Cap the brewer (the vessel, not the lad), install the airlock, wrap up and monitor for correct temperature.



 

     Just as there are all kinds of cooks and bakers, there are all kinds of home brewers.  Some brewers start from scratch, buying malted barley which they steep with a giant tea bag; malt, hops, yeast, all added at the correct time.  Other bakers crack open a Pillsbury tube of precut biscuit dough, slap them on a cookie sheet, throw them into the oven and call that baking.
      I’m in the Pillsbury school of brewers.  I buy malt in cans that is already hopped.  Boil the water, dump in the hopped malt syrup, boil a little more, and dump it in the brewing vessel.  Add the yeast when the temperature is just right—about 70 degrees.  Too hot kills the yeast, too cold and the yeast hibernates and increases the brewing time.  Thus the blanket, heating pad and thermometer.
       One week brewing time is just about right if proper temperature is maintained.  (Real brewers go by specific gravity checked with a hygrometer.)  The yeast will eat up all the sugar and give you thanks by peeing in your brewer. (Yeast secrete alcohol and CO2.)  Then the yeast will go dormant and sink to the bottom of the brewer.    
     Careful siphoning gets the beer out of the brewing vessel, leaving the dregs, and into the bottling bucket.  

  
      Meanwhile the dishwasher has been aiding and abetting by cleaning the bottles.  Then comes the hard work, filling, capping and stowing bottles.



      When the bottling is completed, clean the brewer with the same bleach used on the brewing bucket and siphoning equipment. (“Eew!  It smells like a swimming pool. . . .”) Boil up another batch.  A week later, bottle again.  Three or four batches usually provides a year’s worth of mostly good stuff.
      I was planning on trying a scratch batch using my chemical-free wheat, but the malting process is pretty involved.  You have to soak the grain until it almost sprouts, without letting any mold grow on it.  The deal-squelcher was when I read that the wheat should not have a lot of protein in it.  The protein causes problems.  This year’s crop had 14% protein, too high.
       Then you have to roast it to the right color.  Determining colors has always presented a problem for me.  Back to the Pillsbury recipe, at least for this year.     
      One of these years I will get a little barley seed, the two row or six row or whatever is the right kind for brewing, and grow some of my own.  I’ll fetch a few wild hops from the mountain property of friends.  That leaves the yeast problem.  I don’t know how to cultivate brewing yeast.  Still, it will be pretty close to totally home-grown.



4 comments:

  1. Can't you just do it like you do a boule? Put a catcher out on the kitchen counter and see what you catch!
    Also, I do NOT miss the swimming pool days.

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  2. I think the quality of the yeast must have a whole lot to do with the taste. I'd be afraid to risk a batch of beer on what's floating around in the air, probably.
    And what's a little chlorine among friends? You wouldn't want to be in a swimming pool without it, would you?

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  3. But that's exactly how you make sourdough (if you do it the "right" way). Also, chlorine is so terribly old-fashioned. And bad for Mama Earth you know. (Don't tell Joe I started a sentence with and please.) The cool pools are all doing saline these days, for the record.

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  4. Sourdough bread is one thing. Sour beer is quite another. There must be a way of preserving and propagating a good yeast. I'll deal with the bad side of chlorine. Salt has its downside, too. The old homemade ice cream makers used to say dump the brine from the machine onto the asparagus because it kept the weeds down and the asparagus liked it. Well, asparagus tolerated salt, one of few plants that do.

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