With the first two beers completed, there were some factors that were identified as potentially contributing to the success of both beers and others being downfalls within the methodology. Temperature, fermenting vessel choice, water chemistry, finings/flocculation, and hops are key factors which may help with future brews as I move towards making beers that I love and for others.
Temperature Control
Lil’ Buddy and Peach Belly were both made with Mangrove Jack yeasts in my garage with no temperature control other than being adjacent to my house. While not being in my shed where there is minimal insulation and too much direct sunlight, my garage does suffer in the morning and evening sun where either metal garage roller door is exposed to the spring and summer heat. Lil’ Buddy had the worst start with 28 degrees, but was more temperature stable at 23 degrees with the ideal temperature being 20 or less. Peach Belly had a great start with 23 degrees, and had some stable temperatures around 20 degrees, but there were some days where the temperature dropped below 16 or went above 26. While I can not be 100% sure how the starting temperature, mean and median temperatures and fluctuations affected the beer directly; the implications of high temperatures denaturing the yeast or causing funky esters while low temperatures making the yeast dormant have promoted me to invest in better temperature control for future beers and as cheap as reasonably achievable.
First thing, large fridge. Easy, wife wanted a new one for living so my trusty small family fridge I’ve had for 10 years was still going strong and would fit any fermenter in no troubles. However, the warmest temperatures were 8 degrees and could go as low as 2 degrees while testing. So purchasing a “Drip Bird” to connect to the fridge was needed. These devices plug into mains power, temperature probe to the fridge or chest freezer, and a plug for both cooling devices (fridge, freezer) or heaters (belts, pads) so the fermenting vessel is maintained at the set temperature. First testing is under way with my third beer which is a fruited lager which needs to be kept at a stable 20 degrees in Australian summer, so good thing I have acknowledged that issue early on. But the temperature of the fermentation vessel was one thing, the actual fermenter is another.
Sealed Fermentation
The first two beers were made in my brother-in-law’s Coopers fermenter while the third beer is currently in another Coopers fermenter I got as a present. Why mention the brand? That’s because it is an open barrel with no airlock to speak of, welcome to high chances of oxidation and wild yeast contamination. So the solution is simple, my wife got me a Mangrove Jack kit which has an airlock barrel fermenter.
Do I think oxidation impacted the session ale? No, seemed pretty good. Did oxidation reduce the quality of the second beer? Absolutely. And the third beer may indicate how good my brewing practices are with the Coopers fermenter, but the fourth beer with Kviek yeast will address whether airlock fermenters really are the gold standard.
Water Chemistry
“If it’s good tasting water then it will make good tasting beer”. Well, I often drank potable water from a certain tap near the local pool because it had a slight metal and chlorine taste, so my opinions are invalid. So for the past three beers I have used store bought filtered water for the body of the water and then used tap water to make the difference since it does have some chlorine in it which helps with hazy tasting…
Okay, so I have a minimal understanding of water chemistry and what my tap water would do. Some very basic advice from TheBruShow emphasises how chlorine to sulphide ratios will impact how bitter a beer may be perceived versus its mouthfeel if it’s a hazy or creamy style beer. pH also has a significant impact later on in my life if/when I decide to go with grain brewing since certain pH levels will allow for better conversions of starches into fermentable sugars, but too low of a pH (too acidic) can kill viable yeast.
The first step has been to get a water filter that attaches to my tap in order to have my own filtered water rather than purchasing a new 10L bag of water from the supermarket. Means that on a brew day, I can run the water the night before or on the brew day (if using higher temperature fermenting beers with Kviek) and have 10+ litres of water ready in a jerry can. Once I also get a further understanding of water chemistry, I will start to play with the water chemistry to better emphasis beers with malt extract kits and as I move towards fresh wort kits and all grain brewing.
Flocculation and Finings
Some beers are clear, and some beers are hazy. Some of them can be filtered just a bit and turn out fine while others need a lot of help primarily from the yeast you choose or the finings you add. And up until the end of Peach Belly, I didn’t think finings and flocculation mattered much to me. Well I was wrong…
Flocculation is the easiest to start choosing for since it applies to yeast. If a yeast has a high flocculation rate, it will clump together with its cell walls and drop out of the beer, therefore making clearer beers. The disadvantage is not having suspended proteins giving mouthfeel, there might not be yeast to help with bottle condition carbonation, and the yeast might not be around long enough to remove off flavours in the beer. Inversely, a low flocculating yeast will remain in suspension throughout the fermentation process and continue to be in each bottle during bottle conditioning which contributes to haze and the ability to ferment further in the bottle to generate substantial CO2 levels. So depending on how beer 3 goes with using 3 packets of Hophead M66 compared to the 1 packet used in beer 2, paying attention to the flocculation of a beer when brewing certain styles will make my life easier.
Finings is the other way to make clearer beer. The main one I came across early on during the “prototype” brew with The Beer Factory was Irish Moss, which researching now essentially is a seaweed derived substance that has a negative ion charge which pulls positively charged ionic proteins from the brew during whirlpool stages to allow clearer beer to go into the fermenting tank. Great, except currently I am making malt extract brews which leaves little to no possibility of doing that with standard cookware. For that reason, having a stainless steel boiling vessel which can allow brew in a bag set ups, but also hop standing, in line filtration and the use of Irish Moss and other finings will become crucial. But this will come about with time.
Hops and Timing
I never went fully in-depth into what happens when you add hops to the boil at different times. I honestly thought for the first beer (the session ale) that the 15 minute boil acted as the bittering hop while the dry hopping gave the flavour characteristic. Well I was right to some degree but so misguided in others.
Abridged version: “60 minute hop additions” (when boiling, and this means 60 minutes to go until finished) will add the most to the bitterness side of things since this gives the alpha acids the most amount of time to be released from the hop pellets or hop matter, as time decreases and you get towards 30 to 15 minutes, hop additions will lend more towards the flavour of the hops due to the essential flavour oils being released by not evaporated. Finally whirlpool additions or flameout additions, along with dry hopping on certain days will provide more of the aroma to the beer. There isn’t to say that 60 minute additions will add aroma, or dry hopping can add a small amount of bitterness, but generally if you want the most amount of bitter for the beer you add a high alpha acid at 60 minutes while aroma and flavour come from later in the boil or dry hopping with high to low alpha acid hops.
Why is this important? The idea of my “house pale ale” using Nectaron hops since I love the flavour from Nectaron hopped beers but didn’t want to waste them by not getting enough flavour from them or under/over utilising them when other hops can do similar jobs or compliment the hop. So learning a bit more about hop addition timing and especially pairing that with my self critiques on flocculation, temperature control and the air tight fermenter will hopefully result in a great house pale ale once I get onto that part of the thesis.
Beers 3 and 4
I have mentioned in this article about a third and fourth beer that are fermenting during the writing of this article in late December/early January. Beer 3 otherwise known as “Going Merry” is the result of my parents giving my wife and I a Coopers kit for Christmas, and not wanting to waste the lager extract kit that comes with it and the opportunity to replicate another YouTuber’s video, I went ahead and made the “Two Can Pash Mash” or whatever the Woolies Lager Appreciation Society calls it. I was sold on the idea of a “lager crossed with Passito” beer when Johnny from Just Have a Go At It made it, so given the opportunity of course I would make it. It will not only use up the ingredients that came with the Cooper’s kit, but also uses up the Amarillo and Galaxy hops that were used in the Peach Belly experiment.
Modifications were using three of the Mangrove Jack’s Hophead M66 yeast instead of his 3 packets of US05, and using El Dorado hops along with the Galaxy and Amarillo to make up the final hop mass rather than Mosaic and Citra that Johnny used. I did film the entire brewing experience and will hopefully put the video together at some point.
Beer 4 is the standard contents that came with the Mangrove Jack’s starter kit that my wife got me for Christmas. With the air tight barrel and bubbling airlock, I was originally going to wait unti the fermentation fridge was finished with the Going Merry, however digging through the box to find discount vouchers for my local homebrew store, I noticed it came with Kviek yeast. So in my hands I had a golden lager malt extract, dried malt extract, Mangrove Jack’s Voss Kviek yeast M12, and some Calypso hops and other bits I had purchased ready for next year in brewing. So it was decided to remake the first beer Lil’ Buddy but obviously change some of the ingredients around to make it “Shiny Lil’ Buddy”. Utilising Citra and Calypso as 15 minute boil additions along with dry hopping with Calypso and Hallertauer Huell Melon, with Kviek imparting some citrus esters and Huell Melon adding to the rockmelon aroma; Shiny Lil’ Buddy will hopefully do what the first beer did but be better in theory?
So that’s where everything stands and what I have learned from my mistakes with the first two beers. After brewing the next two, I will have a few more data points to go off and hopefully have a better understanding of what I am doing with home brewing and where to progress from here.
Through an amateur's eyes 