Brewing 101

Ah, booze. The cause of and solution to so many of life's problems. Before distilling brewing of beer, wine, and mead (and all the odd hybrids between) was the only accessible way to get alcohol--and at some points in history, the only way to get something drinkable that wouldn't give you horrible bacterial infections. Today, we have access to plenty of brewed beverages of all types, as well as distilled spirits and clean water.

Well, that's awesome. No doubt about it. But as Clanfolk, we're crafty and creative people, and sometimes you want something not on offer or the satisfaction of something you made from start to finish. Or, you know, in case something terrible happens and human civilization as we know it ends, you still want a way to make booze. No problem! Brewing's easy. We'll cover the basics here and the specifics of brews like beer and mead in other articles, and there will be recipes for all types posted on this wiki, as well.

Yeast
Brewing (and, in its early stages, distilling) depends upon the biological action of yeast eating sugars and producing alcohol and CO2. Yeast is a fungus, a living, breathing organism, and is an old, old friend to man. Just like our other best friend, the dog, we've husbanded yeast into specialized strains and types. Some yeast, like a mongrel dog, is only needed for basic function. It'll make bread either way. Others, like dog show pedigree champions, are closely tracked for their attributes.

First off, there's Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This is usually called ale yeast, but it's also your standard bread yeast, as well as the species for the vast majority of wine yeast strains. The hundreds (if not thousands) of varieties all share a propensity for room temperature fermentation, floating on top of a sugar solution, and generally being pretty agreeable. Your basic brewing for beginners will get you very, very well acquainted with this species in one form or another.

Then there's Saccharomyces carlsbergensis (named for Carlsberg brewery, where it was discovered), now known as S. pastorianus for a lot of arcane reasons. This is the yeast that brought about the lager revolution in the beer world, eventually taking over from S. cerevisiae in terms of sheer range of use in beer. Whatever you want to call lager yeast, it likes colder temperatures (think: German basement; upper 50s-mid 60s F) and generally hangs out in the bottom of your solution. Lagering is usually not an option for new brewers, but with the right equipment or setting, it's doable.

Now, both types of yeast come in dry or liquid forms, and there are so many strains that most companies number code their strains on offer. Dry yeast usually comes in a packet (like bread yeast) and can either be pitched into a solution directly or rehydrated in a starter first. Liquid yeast can come in "smack packs" that make a starter for you, but in general will come in a small vial that needs to be mixed with water and sugar to get a good starter going. The general idea of a starter is to wake the yeast up (if dry) and give it time to start eating sugars, take in oxygen and nutrients, and divide to create a lot of stong, healthy cells. Strong yeast is happy yeast, and happy yeast makes for a good brew.

When done doing its essential work, yeast will usually settle into a layer of dead cells in the bottom of a vessel, usually called a yeast cake. From there, you can throw it out, wash the inactive but not dead yeast out, or even rack another solution onto the cake. Now, different strains of yeast will die off at different total percentages of alcohol in solution and add different by-products to the solution, so check the stats on your strain before pitching.

Sugar
Sugar. It's essential to life, and in one form or another it makes up the basic unit of energy for any and every living thing on this planet. And you can make booze out of it! Yeast eats sugar and craps CO2 and alcohol. But what kind of sugar you start with and what goes along with it changes what you call the results.

If 50% or more of the sugars of your brew come from honey, it's a mead. If that's sugar from malted barley, it's beer or barleywine. Any kind of fruit, and it's a wine. Rice? Crappy American beer and sake, but that's about it. Corn? That's the makings of whiskey mash, there. Potatoes? Boil 'em, mash 'em, make them into vodka. You can, in theory, ferment any sugar from any source, but those are the basics--mostly because those sources are geared by design to have readily accessible sugars. With the exception of honey, human agriculture has bred these sources specifically for their sugars--and, if you believe some anthropologists and archeologists, specifically for brewing. Grain is beer is life, and may the harvest be ever fruitful!

Now, sugars are readily available in honey, so all you need to do is mix in water and yeast and let mead happen. But for most grains (and yes, corn is a grain), you'll need to "mash" the sugars out. Generally speaking, this means crushing the physical husk of the grain seed and hitting it with hot water (usually 150-170F) so the sugars leech out of the husk and into solution. For fruit, nothing quite so complicated is usually required, but crushing the physical fruit is necessary, either by juicing it or freezing it to break down the cell walls.

Of course, sugars are just simple carbohydrates, and some more complex carbohydrates get involved in brewing, too. In general, longer carbohydrate chains can't be broken down by yeast without effort, so they'll stay in solution (Would you rather eat an apple, or a watermelon? Remember, you don't have a knife or hands). In beers, these longer chain carbs give body and heft, and account for a lot of the drinking experience. In wines and meads, those same long carbs are the sweetness that presents itself in the finished product.

The amount of sugar in a solution is generally measured in specific gravity, and the amount of alcohol made by the disappearance of sugar during fermentation is measured in just this way. Most brewers, when speaking about how effective a fermentation is, will note "OG" Original Gravity and "FG" Final Gravity. How this is done we'll cover under equipment.

Water
Water. You're made of it, it's 70% of this planet's surface, and all of biological life as we know it depends on it. Somehow that doesn't stop some douchebag director from making a movie where a species that gets burned by water like we are by acid shows up naked to invade our planet. Because, you know, that makes sense, right? UGH.

Anyway, water quality is important. As the universal solvent, water dissolves a LOT of trace minerals and metals into itself, and that can have serious ramifications on a finished brew. The sulfur of "egg water" here in the South is a problem for brewers, and the mineral content of well and artisinal water can make or break a beer or whiskey. Abita beer is nothing without Abita spring water. Always know your water source, and when in doubt use prepackaged spring water from the store.

Of course, water is also the home of the vast majority of terran microbiological life, which leads us to the next point.

Sanitizer
"You have died of dysentery." Oregon Trail is a cruel, cruel mistress, but then so is living on a planet where we must drink a liquid that might contain any number of tiny germs that can kill you. Normally, a brew's active yeast colony will consume so much sugar and crap out so much CO2 that there won't be much room, food, or oxygen left for mean microbes. But to quote Dr. Ian Malcolm, "life, uh... finds a way."

Sanitation is key to ensuring that the only microbes in your brew are the ones you WANT in there. Any containers you use, any fermentation vessels you use, any tools you use, any fruits you use whole, anything that might touch your brew at all should and must be sanitized. Beer gives you some leeway here, as its production involves boiling. Anything glass, metal, or sturdy enough to take the heat can be boiled. For things like tools and bottles, the dishwasher works great as an ad hoc autoclave. For everything else, there's chemical sanitizers.

There's all sorts of chemical sanitizers made for brewing, but the thing most folks have in their house is bleach. One teaspoon per gallon, let sit 30 minutes, then rinse with clean water until no bleach smell remains. Now, that's fine, but it's imprecise and might leave chlorine behind. There's also iodine, in various forms, but again, trace iodine can really mess with a brew. There's acids and bases and powders and all sorts of commercial sanitizers, but the only one the Clan's brewers recommend is StarSan. It's a beautiful compound of phosphoric acids, which not only wipes out germs but bubbles to get into every nook and cranny. Its residue even becomes food for yeast. Know it, love it, use it.

If you don't know if something is clean, CLEAN IT AGAIN. There's no such thing as too much sanitation.

Fermentation
So you've cleaned everything. Your sugar is in solution with clean water. Your yeast is strong, healthy, and ready to go. So... what happens?

Fermentation itself is basic. Yeast eats sugar, craps CO2 and alcohol, and then dies off when there's too much alcohol for it to live. But Darwin was right. Not all the yeast dies off, and some is more alcohol tolerant and lives on to make more alcohol. And of course, you need to remove the alcohol from the dead yeast, or you end up with something that tastes... well, like dead yeast.

Generally, fermentation is divided into stages. Primary, the most active stage, is when most of your yeast is active and the fermentation is rapid. This is anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks, but no longer than that (usually). As some of the less resistant yeast dies off, it settles out and falls out of solution. Now you've entered secondary fermentation, and it's best to rack off the liquid from the dead yeast. Now, secondary still has active yeast in solution, and depending on your yeast this can stretch for YEARS, though generally it's weeks or months. Now you can add new and exicting flavor compounds, sugars to crank it back to primary, or just wait for the last of the yeast to settle down. There will be a smaller cake of dead yeast, and now you can rack off to age or bottle.

Bottling, in beer and champagne, generally involves the introduction of more sugars, meaning there's a short burst of new fermentation. That puts CO2 into solution in a sealed container, which is how you carbonate naturally. For everything else, bottling is only a smaller form of aging, letting the finished brew rest and the more volatile flavors age out as their compounds break down. That can be good, it can be bad, but it's generally agreed that most "new" flavors aren't great. You can age in a larger container, of course--like, if you want to put it in a barrel, or put in things to give flavors--and that's fine, too. It really depends what you're going for.

Gear and Equipment
So you know the basics. What do you need to make it work?

Carboys - Basically oversized glass or plastic jugs for fermenting and aging your brew in. These are awesome, and you want to have at least a couple.

Brew buckets - Like a carboy, but with a big lid to make adding things that don't fit in the mouth of a standard carboy. Some also have a spigot at the bottom to make bottling easier. It's good to have one of each.

Airlocks - Either S-type or three piece, these basically allow CO2 to escape your brew (thus not auto-asphixiating your yeast) and keep nasty bugs out. You'll want spares, and it's good to keep a cheap vodka or everclear around to fill them with.

Sanitizer - Go back and read that section again. It's important.

Tubing - Absolutely essential. Good, food safe tubing helps with racking and bottling.

A racking cane and/or autosiphon - You need to rack your brew. This helps. Either you siphon the brew out the old fashioned way or you get it going with a few quick pumps. Autosiphons usually have a filter tip, as well.

A capper or corker - Bottles need to close, and most folks aren't Groelsch drinkers.

Bottles - Well, duh.

A brew pot - Generally anywhere from 3 to seven gallons, for boiling beer wort. A good choice is a stainless steel turkey fry pot.

A scrub brush - For cleaning inside bottles and carboys. Totally essential.

Cheesecloth bags - Used for tossing hops into beer wort, but also great for adding fruit to mead and wine (it's easier to pull out a bag than filter through a lot of dead fruit).

A big, long spoon - Stainless steel recommended, but heavy plastic is fine. Wood's a bad idea.

A wort chiller - For cooling boiled beer to pitching temperatures quickly. Otherwise you're using an ice bath.

A thermometer - Well, duh.

A stirrer - For aerating big batches, you can get a drill bit stirrer that will put a LOT of air into solution, providing plenty of oxygen for yeast.

Corks, plugs, etc. - To put your airlocks in and seal your carboys.

A bottle valve - Makes bottling REALLY easy.

Yeast nutrients - Can't hit the alcohol level you want or your fermentations are crapping out early? Feed your yeast. Fermax is recommended, but anything with diammonium phosphate (DAP) will work.

Irish moss - used in a beer boil to clear haze from proteins (Gluten is bad, bro).

Pectic enzyme - breaks up pectin, the main structural protein of fruit, thereby clearing meads and wines with fruit.

Oak spirals and chips - Can't afford a barrel? Toss these in a carboy or bucket and get all the barrel taste with none of the barrel cost.

Kegs - Maybe bottling isn't your thing. Kegs are a GREAT alternative.

CO2 tank - Useful for kegging, but also useful for making sure there's no spare oxygen in a carboy or bucket for aging--keeps the germs from growing in a finished and aging brew

Taps - Gotta get that brew out of that keg, right?

A Regulator - You could just hook your tank to your keg, but then you might over or under carbonate. Best to be precise.

Tap handles - Next to labelling your bottles, this is the classiest, most professional way to personalize your set up.