How To Brew Beer At Home

No all of us are perfect and eventually when making your own beer you are going to make a bad batch, and unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about it, except of course throwing it out as a very very last resort.

But I guess it doesn’t have to be this way, don’t you want to know why the batch has gone bad, what it is you might be able to do a bit better next time to prevent the batch from going sour? Well let me do my best help you uncover the smells and tastes of awful beer.

Vinegary (Acidic) Taste and Smell

This type of smell and taste is caused by bacteria, most commonly acetic acid bacteria. Often this type of reaction can be  caused by fruit flies, or even dust particles that is getting into the mixture. The best way to prevent this type of flavour from your home brew is to ensure your fermenter is well sealed and fitted with an airlock type arrangement.

Cure? If your beer tastes like vinegar and smells just as bad.. then you have no choice but to tip it out.

Rotten Egg Smell (Sulphuric)

Working with certain yeasts – especially those used in beer, a sulphuric reaction can occur during fermentation (often due to the bottle being small). This sort of reaction usually causes a really bad smell, one a bit like rotten eggs and should only last for about 30 seconds.. which isn’t usually a problem unless the smells stay. This can be caused by the beer being left on the yeast and if this yeast is re-used in another brew this can often cause this type of reaction.

To prevent this from happening to your next batch, make sure you always use good sanitation, cleanliness and healthy clean yeast. The Yeast should have a nice aroma, taste great and should have a pale, light amber dusty appearance.

Fruity or Vegetable Smells

If your yeast takes too long to ferment, you may get some Fruity, Vegetable Smells from your batch. which you can’t really cure. Your best bet to preventing this is again to use fresh non stale yeast and to make sure the wort is well aerated prior to pitching your yeast

Lactic Acid Bite

Have you ever tasted your home brew beer only to find that it bites back? This is usually caused by Lactic Acid that has infected your batch, and is often caused by your supplies not being well cleaned. Keep all your beer making supplies clean!

Very Foul Odour

If your batch really stinks, and I mean REALLY stinks, then there is a chance that the hops has deteriorated in the bottle. Often caused by being exposed to sunlight or ultraviolet light – even Fluro light tubes can cause this.

Your best way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to store your beer in the dark for as long as you can. This will give it a much longer shelf life and help your beer to maintain a fresh, clean taste.

Diacetyl Flavour

If your beer tastes like butterscotch, then it may have a minor infection of lactic acid. This can be caused by not having enough active yeast in your home brew, too much aeration during fermentation or possibly transferring it to another fermenter too soon. They say that the buttery flavor comes from the type if yeast being used and pitching your yeast too hot is also a factor in this type of result.

Read the temperatures that manufacturers suggest for the yeast, and make sure you stick by them if there is any variation it can make a dramatic change to your overall flavour. If you are still getting this sort of flavour even after doing all of this, maybe its time to change your yeast type.

Fruity Aroma

If you are fermenting, it is important to watch the temperature and not let it get too hot. You may get a fruity, or apple like aroma and a weak aeration of Wort. People often have this issue when they brew in summer, especially if the temps rise above 30C. If you live in a climate that reaches these types of temps, we suggest that you place a towel over the top of the fermenter and put the ends of the towel in a tray of water on each side. This should help keep the beer at a moderate temp of no more than 25C.

Its important that you taste a sample of the brew before bottling, if it does taste fruity and you have a fridge available, store the fermenter of beer in the fridge for a couple for weeks at 5C-10C. This helps. It is basically the same as lagering. Even ale yeast will absorb some of the ester & diactetyl flavours.

Beer tastes like Medicine

Even though they do say beer is the nectar of Gods, it shouldn’t take like medicine! If you beer does have a medical type taste then it is likely that your home brew beer has a bacteria, or the yeast is a wild type yeast. Other causes of this could be that there is chlorine in the water supply, if you know your local water supply does have chlorine in it, then a trick is to fill the fermenter with water and leave the lid off for at least 24hours, this will let the chlorine evaporate.

So, in a quick re cap, in order to make sure you get the best brew every time, you must always follow these few simple guidelines;

• A clean work area, sanitary beer making supplies will prevent infections and problems
• Make sure the temperature of where you store your beer making ingredients is consistent, not too hot nor cold
• Ensure you always use good, clean healthy yeast.

Happy Brewing!

Beer prices set to increase (because people have so much extra money lying around)

According to this CNN Money article sent in by long-time reader and Hurricane aficionado Justin, AB InBev is set to raise prices on beers across their portfolio on Tuesday:

“We plan on taking price increases on a majority of volume and in a majority of markets this fall. The increase helps cover some input costs.”

AB InBev isn’t the only large brewer responding with price hikes. Rising commodity costs and lowered volumes have caused others to follow suit. Heineken has also raised prices globally, and credit price increases to helping the company turn profits in spite of slower volume sales.

Earlier this month AB InBev stated that total beer volumes were down 1.5% in the 2nd quarter of 2009 vs. last year. It’s hard out here for a pimp. But who knows, maybe higher prices for Bud Light will give microbrews a little more attention from people who wouldn’t normally consider them. When is Dogfish Head coming out with their lime-flavored lager again?

Image source: rick gerber

Delving into the world of home brewing and learning how to brew beer comes with many questions and the last, but most important of these is which type of container you’ll choose to store your home brew. You have several options available to you, so before you go out and buy anything, you should consider just what you want to place your beer in.

The most common is a glass bottle with caps, but there are also plastic bottles with threaded tops, and then the less common glass bottle with a metal clamp. Because glass won’t pollute the taste of beer over time, it is preferable for many home brewers.

However, the downside here is that they require a special tool to seal, and even then, they do occasionally leak. With plastic, you’ll get a tight fit that rarely leaks, but a less than professional look, and is not as great in terms of keeping the beer fresh.

Whichever method of bottling you choose, and no matter if your bottles are new or not, you’ll have to sanitize them first. Each bottle which you plan to use should be cleaned thoroughly with a bottle brush, and then dipped into a sanitizing solution. The easiest way to get your bottles sanitized is to run them through the dishwasher on the hottest temperature setting available. Once this is complete, the bottles should be allowed to drain and dry completely before you use them.

Home brew has to be primed for carbonation before it is bottled, since there is still some live yeast in the mix, by boiling three fourths cup of sugar in water and letting it cool, you’ll have your primer for carbonation. The easiest method of bottling beer is by using a siphon house. When bottling, make sure to keep the hose about an inch from the bottom of your bucket, as you want to get as little sediment as possible in your bottles. Remember to leave extra room at the top of your bottle, or the carbonation from the extra yeast will force the lid and possibly pop it off.

Now you need to decide on a name for your beer, and maybe even start to make some labels, but we will cover that in another article.