Homebrew Recipe: Belgian Tripel
by Carl • • 0 Comments
Author Archive for Carl
Carl Weaver is a writer, editor, and photographer based in Arlington, Virginia and is available for assignment around the world. He is the author of A Good Day to Die: Haiku in Traditional Form and Next Life in the Afternoon: A Journey Through Thailand and can make some kick-ass fried noodles. In his spare time, Carl enjoys reading, writing poetry, and being a traveling man. Sorry, ladies, he is not available.
Nitrogen: Ert or Inert?
by Carl • • 4 Comments
I just opened up the newest Zymurgy magazine and found a letter to the brew professor claiming that nitrogen is inert, search and thus could not be responsible for the off-taste the professor has experienced. Here is my response I just sent:
Dear Professor, visit
I have to comment on the letter I read in the Sept/Oct issue of Zymurgy in which the writer claims that the off-taste you associate with nitrogen could not be from the gas because nitrogen is inert. In fact, it is not inert. Only the noble gases are inert, and nitrogen is not among that group. Granted, it may not be the nitrogen causing that flavor (never experienced that myself), but that gas is definitely ert. Or reactive. I guess that is the correct term.
Yes, nitrogen is reactive. Perhaps there is nothing in the beer or hardware that it will react with, but it certainly can react. Think of nitrous oxide, which is essentially beer you can inhale. That is made up from nitrogen and oxygen. Just setting the record straight.
Homebrew Conversions: Grains and Extracts
by Carl • • 2 Comments
Andy and I set out to find some gifts we think most, drug if not all, brewers could benefit from having. Here is our list of the top ten things we think you should have to make brewing more enjoyable and successful.
1. Refractometer
A refractometer allows you to read the specific gravity of a liquid without needing to take a large sample from your fermenter, as you would if you were using a hydrometer. This device requires just a drop of solution and a light source so you can read the gradations. In addition, the automatic temperature compensation (ATC) means that you do not have to do any computation to offset the temperature.
2. The Brew Hauler
The Brew Hauler is a carboy carrier that makes a glass or plastic carboy easy and safe to carry. The webbing is tough and strong and the buckle makes the carrier easy to load and unload. I do not (yet) have one of these but my friend Jason does. It is much easier to move carboys around with these, rather than using one hand to steady the neck and the other to cradle the bottom. That is an accident waiting to happen. This device can save you some time and energy and possibly help you avoid a trip to the hospital.
3. Carboy Cleaner
This bottle and carboy cleaner is ideal for getting that stuck-on schmutz knocked off the inside of the glass and get all the junk removed before you need the container again. I used to discard bottles that had not been rinsed well enough and had some remaining junk dried to the side. Of course, now I keg my brew, but the fact remains that without using some sort of device like this, quality cleaning is tough to ensure.
4. Carboy Sprayer
To go along with the cleaner above, you can hook up this sprayer to a faucet or spigot and spray water all up in your carboys and bottles to wash away all the schmutz you removed from the glass. Schmutz – I guess I like that word. This device will screw on most hose spigots and utility sink faucets but if you want to use it at the kitchen sink, chances are you will very likely need an adaptor
5. Digital Scale
A digital scale like this one will help you measure out precise amounts of hops, and even help you when recipes call for a quarter pound of grain, for example, and your homebrew store only sells it by the pound. No more guessing. This is all part of the standardization of your brewing process. Rather than estimating, you will know for certain that your measurements are repeatable so you can replicate a process, or opt to change it.
6. Beer Glasses
These are advertised as “craft beer” glasses. Let’s be honest – that does not really mean anything. They are cool beer glasses that you can feel good about serving your homebrew in. Personally, I have a set of non-descript pint glasses, similar to what you would find in most bars. However, once I break enough of them I will probably get a set like this. Truth be told, there are optimal shapes of glass for different kinds of beer, but mostly it is just an intermediary vessel that goes between the long-term storage (keg or bottle) and the main processing unit (my innards).
7. The Complete Beer Course
Educating yourself on the finer points of beer is always good for someone who is in the business or hobby of making beer. All of us, no matter how experienced, can find something to learn in this book, and this piece is good for beer lovers young and old. While it is not technically a homebrewing book, it is informative and can help beer lovers understand what the different ingredients are and how they affect the flavor of their favorite drink.
8. Periodic Table of Beer
This is a good guide for how to classify beers, so that if you want to make a porter, for example, you can see what is related to porters and get an idea for something else to try that you might also enjoy. It is not an official BJCP diagram but it is a general way to classify beer. Fun, clever, and useful. Exactly the type of thing I enjoy. I think you will as well.
Anytime you are trying to convert homebrew recipes to your available ingredients, check
you have to do a little figuring and guessing, even experimenting. This is because different ingredients have different properties and substituting one for another may not give you the exact end product you want. However, in the end it will be beer, so you will never stray too far off course if you follow the directions and get good approximations for your substitute ingredients.
One problem comes in converting grain recipes to extract. I do not like to do this is because my grain recipes list specific grains I want in the mash. If I try to use an extract, I do not know exactly what kinds of grains were used. Plus, my general philosophy is that the more an ingredient is processed, the more it loses nuance and character. The base malts do not differ significantly but you can get more variation with actual grains than you can with liquid extracts. The same goes for the difference between dry malt and liquid malt. The more you process something, the more nuance you lose. This is not a scientific statement, I know, but I believe it to be true.
Top 10 Homebrew Holiday Gifts Under $25
by Carl • • 3 Comments
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Andy and I set out to find some gifts we think most, valeologist if not all, brewers could benefit from having. Here is our list of the top ten things we think you should have to make brewing more enjoyable and successful.
1. Refractometer
A refractometer allows you to read the specific gravity of a liquid without needing to take a large sample from your fermenter, as you would if you were using a hydrometer. This device requires just a drop of solution and a light source so you can read the gradations. In addition, the automatic temperature compensation (ATC) means that you do not have to do any computation to offset the temperature.
2. The Brew Hauler
The Brew Hauler is a carboy carrier that makes a glass or plastic carboy easy and safe to carry. The webbing is tough and strong and the buckle makes the carrier easy to load and unload. I do not (yet) have one of these but my friend Jason does. It is much easier to move carboys around with these, rather than using one hand to steady the neck and the other to cradle the bottom. That is an accident waiting to happen. This device can save you some time and energy and possibly help you avoid a trip to the hospital.
Hurray to the End of Prohibition!
by Carl • • 2 Comments
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I read a question on an online forum recently that asked why people liked to clone beers. In the whole world of creative control and making pretty much whatever a person wants, sanitary some choose to reproduce what has already been done. Doesn’t this go against the nature and spirit of homebrewing?
I say no. Cloning a commercial beer can be a good way to learn the craft of brewing while trying to make something that is already a known quantity.
Eighty years ago today, neuropathist
prohibition – that dark scourge that ravaged America – officially became a thing of the past. Prohibition reigned for nearly fourteen years until being repealed on this date in 1933. To celebrate, sick
here are two of my favorite quotes about it by famed writer Don Marquis:
Drinking used to be a mighty commonplace matter; but Prohibition has brought a smack of adventure into it that makes it really enjoyable.
Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into.
Eighty years ago today, visit this site
prohibition – that dark scourge that ravaged America – officially became a thing of the past. Prohibition reigned for nearly fourteen years until being repealed on this date in 1933. To celebrate, try
here are two of my favorite quotes about it by famed writer Don Marquis:
Drinking used to be a mighty commonplace matter; but Prohibition has brought a smack of adventure into it that makes it really enjoyable.
Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into.
Beer vs. Liquor: Differences in Brewing Processes
by Carl • • 4 Comments
I have made a number of presentations about brewing and home brewing and often get asked what the difference is between brewing beer and making moonshine, hepatitis bourbon, or other spirits. In truth, beer and whiskey are made of the same basic ingredients – grain, water, and yeast. So what’s the difference if you simplify the ingredients this much? Other than the various ingredients you might use to flavor beer, the big difference is the process used to make it.
To Clone or not to Clone: That is the Question
by Carl • • 3 Comments
viagra on Flickr” href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/motherscratcher/2288764665/” target=”_blank”>I read a question on an online forum recently that asked why people liked to clone beers. In the whole world of creative control and making pretty much whatever a person wants, this web some choose to reproduce what has already been done. Doesn’t this go against the nature and spirit of homebrewing?
I say no. Cloning a commercial beer can be a good way to learn the craft of brewing by trying to make something that is already a known quantity. You know you nailed it if you got the product you were expecting, or something reasonably close. To me, this is the strongest argument for clone brewing.
Aerating your Wort
by Carl • • 2 Comments
Aerating your wort is one of the more important steps when making beer. After boiling it for an hour or however long your recipe specifies, nurse
a lot of the oxygen that was in the water has come out. All those bubbles during boiling are water vapor – H2O – a third of which is O, or oxygen. This oxygen is a vital part of the fermentation process, as yeast are aerobic creatures, meaning they need oxygen to thrive and procreate, just like we do.
The problem is how to get oxygen back into the wort.
Beer Pouch: Lightweight, Reusable Growler Substitute
by Carl • • 8 Comments
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Extra strong, online or special, ed bitter (also known as ESB) style beers are a fun beer to drink and a relatively simple one to make. When you hear an Englishman refer to a beer is a bitter, traditionally this is the style of beer they are referring to. This style of beer has been around a while. It came about probably sometime around the mid-1700s but was likely significantly different from what the style has evolved into. The term ‘bitter’ was used to distinguish the style of beer from that of others beers that were not hopped, not necessarily because the beer was very hoppy, just hoppier than a beer with no hops. However, over the course of the centuries, ESBs have become slightly more bitter than the average ale, probably for no other reason than they have the word ‘bitter’ in their name. Now ESBs are characterized by having a fairly distinct hoppy bitterness that is relatively stronger than their ale contemporaries.
Gluten-Free Homebrew with Sorghum Extract
by Carl • • 2 Comments
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I just read an article about Anheuser-Busch telling a new microbrewery in London to change its name. AB apparently though the Belleville Brewery’s name was too similar to their own Belle-Vue beer because it starts with “Bell” and ends in an “e.” Pretty weak argument, in my book. Belleville Brewery, which has since changed its name to Northcote Brewery, is run by some fathers who met because their children all attend Belleville Primary School, and distributes its brew locally in south London.
Come on, AB. Just admit that you don’t want to share the sandbox with anyone else. A small start-up with a similar name that probably produces far superior beer is not your real competition. Squashing small-scale competition like this is ultimately bad for the industry. Granted, AB did not put the microbrewery out of business but it did cause a disruption, to be sure.
One theory of business growth is that a rising tide lifts all ships. That is, the more the industry grows, the better off everyone is. Perhaps Anheuser-Busch is not interested in seeing the industry grow. However, it is true. The more people buy beer and try new things, the more beer gets sold. Those of us who are into homebrewing and mircobrews do this because we find brands like Budweiser to be ultimately unsatisfactory, but the American light lager is a legitimate style of beer. What makes it undersirable is its prevalence in the market, not that it is inherently bad. Thus, some people who get turned on to beer really like that style and will buy it. Microbrews can be that gateway drink that helps people learn that beer can be good and eventually lead them to buying Budweiser and similar products. It is not the normal order of things, but it does happen occasionally.
Anheuser-Busch Eagle by Steve Snodgrass, on Flickr
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The trick to making good gluten-free homebrew beers with sorghum syrup is to add something that will give the brew some body. Sorghum extract ferments very well, which is great when it comes to alcohol production, but it makes a brew that is very light on flavor. Apparently it lacks the stuff that gives a solid body to traditional barley-based beers. The good news is that sorghum is rich in nutrients for the yeast, as well as enzymes that can help in head retention. Adding adjunct flavors to the brew will improve the overall experience.