Home Brew Rookie

[ledervin]

I brewed beer a few times in college. I have begun again and this time I am force carbonating the beer into a homemade kegerator system. Draft beer is so much easier than cleaning all those bottles.

The last couple of batches I made (english pale ale, american pale ale) have been lackluster in results. It just doesn't taste as crisp and hoppy as I am used to in say a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Any suggestions on what I could be doing wrong. I purchased kits with liquid yeast from

http://www.morebeer.com

Please Help!

[uberleet]

I used to make beer from extracts, and it was pretty good, but when I switched to all-grain, it was amazingly good. I kept brewing from extracts, but I'd boil the whole batch - all five gallons. Typically, the kit will advise you to boil 4-6 quarts. The main problem with boiling the whole batch is cooling; a wort chiller is a necessity. Kind of expensive, but worth it.

That will dramatically improve your flavor - especially the hoppiness.

Oh yeah, and use whole hops.

[Okbrewer]

Even if you are using hopped extract kits, you will probably still want to add between a half and full ounce of hops (pellets, plugs or whole flower) for the full boil (at least 60 minutes) and another half ounce at the final 15 minutes of the boil. That will help get the hop flavor and aroma that you are lacking. You might also want to try using liquid yeast (White Labs or Wyeast) if you aren't already, and build a yeast starter to get a good amount of yeasties in the wort to do their job as quickly as possible and to get good attenuation. Also be sure you select the appropriate yeast for the beer style.

How are you force carbonating? Are you using corny kegs or mini-kegs? Are you actually force carbonating or are you adding corn sugar and allowing the yeast to carbonate in the keg? If force carbonating, be sure to crank up the CO2 to about 25-30psi for about 3 days to carbonate. When ready to serve, release pressure and set to serving pressure, between 7-10 psi depending on your serving system. You can make good tasting beer from extract, but if you want even more control over your beer and better tasting beer, go all-grain.

[paul o' vendange]

I would agree on the all grain argument. Syrups are wort that have been mashed for a middle-of-the-road mix of long and short chain sugars; resulting in middle of the road fermentation profiles. Additionally, many syrups contain things other than pure barley malt, to save money. Check out your syrup's content.

Secondly, typically when starting out, as most here have said, the culprit for a less than "crisp" beer is a high final gravity - a good deal of residual sugars in the beer due to a less than voracious ferment on the part of your yeast. Go with OKbrewer's comments, use wyeast or white labs, do a good starter and, if you can afford it, buy an oxygenation system, which consists of a stainless airstone, filter and tubing to hook up to those mini-O2 supplies. I bought mine, I think it was, for $25. Prior to their anaerobic phase (fermentation), yeast require oxygen to respire, and to multiply. Each cell will typically produce up to 4 "daughter cells," and so on, up to the capacity dictated by the O2 content of your wort. With a poor O2 content, you will only get so much growth, and a limited number of cells will have to do yeoman's service on your wort - typically petering out and dying before the job is done. With oxygenation, and the proper amount of yeast, you will experience not only a more robust fermentation but a quicker one. Mine takes about 3 days to reach final gravity, and I brew strong beers (6%-8% a.b.v., some higher). Anyone, if you would like a spreadsheet listing wort volumes, starting gravities, and optimal yeast counts at various starting gravities (in terms of Wyest smack packs or white labs vials), let me know by PM and I will send you the spreadsheet I've developed (free - not a sales pitch).

Finally, my advice would differ somewhat from what the others have said. I would consider using pellets over whole hops. Hop bittering potential is housed in two essential acids in hops - alpha acids principally (humulone, co-humulone and ad-humulone), and to an almost negligible extent, oxidized beta acids. These acids are extremely volatile. Whole hops, especially those reserved for home brewers (commercial brewers typically get the lion's share of the "good," meaning freshest product), have a good deal of surface area exposed to air - and each month they sit in your homebrew supplier's store, they lose a considerable portion of the alpha acids to the air. To take an example from your Sierra Nevada, which I believe uses Perle, Nugget and the now ubiquitous Cascade Hop. Cascade stores poorly. Whole Cascade hops as "5.9% alpha acid" will only truly be 4.24% a.a. after 6 months at 40F, in your refrigerator, if they are not in some sort of oxygen barrier or inert bag. If they are in an inert atmosphere, they will fare better, 5%, but you get the point. Pellets are made by essentially milling whole hops and then pressing them into pellets. The pelletizing process is harsh, which many use to justify using whole hops. But once made, the surface area exposed to are is negligible compared with whole hops, and they will not degrade nearly as fast.

Now, if you have a filter and you are simply straining your wort into your fermentor, you will need whole hops as they act as a natural filter bed. If you use pellets, you can create a whirlpool - stir the whole wort for 5 minutes, creating a vigorous whirlpool. Cover, and let settle for at least 1/2 hour. Siphon off the side and you should obtain a brilliantly clear wort.

Carbonation is a function of pressure and temperature, to obtain the actual amount of C02 in solution. Typical amounts for ales range from very low for "real," cask ales, to 2.5 volumes +/- for bottled ale, slightly less for draft beer, say 2.3 (or whatever your taste is). Lagers are typically higher. I maintain 2.5 volumes, as I counterpressure bottle fill all my products. To obtain 2.5 volumes, at 40F, you would need to set your pressure gauge to 12.3 PSI. Either leave this in the fridge for several days, or, as I do, place your tank on the counter, hook up your system, and rock your keg back and forth. First, you should do what you can to bleed air from the keg; I waste a lot of CO2 by filling and then bleeding the tank innumerable times, as air ruins beer. (the only effective way to prevent air intake is to counterpressure rack - beyond most homebrewers). But if you still have yeast in your beer (you will unless you've filtered it), the still-living yeast will help to respire the residual oxygen.

You will hear, as you agitate, the gas seeping in from your tank - a good thing - and then will stop as the pressure in your keg equalizes with the pressure in your tank. When it stops, continuing rocking, and so forth, until rocking further results in no more CO2 going into your keg. At that point, presuming your keg is still at 40F (it won't be), you have 2.5 volumes of CO2. I typically put the keg back in the fridge for a few hours, and repeat. (By the way - the tank goes on the counter so that the regulator assembly is higher than your keg gas intake - although pressure out from the CO2 tank should prevent any beer backup, putting the gas tank higher ensures no beer backs up into your tank regulator as you agitate).

Finally, at serving, unless you've got a dedicated tap system (as in a bar), I would think serving at 7-10 psi would be high - Bernouli's principle, your 1/4" beer line, at 7-10psi, will cause the beer to rock out the gate and you end up with a glass of foam. When I don't have my beer hooked up to a tap, but rather just a 3/16-1/4" line and plastic tap-spout, I back the pressure off to 2-3psi to serve, and then back up to 12.3 or so to maintain.

Force carbonation is not complicated, but it is probably a thread unto itself. PM me if you want further info.

To recap, in my opinion:

- You will only get so far using syrup, as the mash profile is out of your hands.

- Use pellets, not whole hops, to have a better chance of using hops closer in actual bittering performance to the listed alpha acid percentage.

- Force carbonate at 40F, 12.3 psi for 2.5 volumes CO2. Higher temps will mean less carbonation; lower PSI will as well. There are pressure/temp charts available to find the carbonation level you would like.

Any questions, feel free to PM me.

Paul

Formerly, Goose Island Beer Company

Edited March 31, 2004 by paul o' vendange (log)

[uberleet]

Paul, great comments. I agree with you on the pellets for bittering; I always use whole hops at the end, but I generally use pellets for bittering. I get more consistent results that way. I should have noted that in my original comment

[sylunt1]

Agreed, all grain is the way to go for the maximum control. Paul has some excellent comments as well. Don't forget about dry hopping. While it doesn't add much, if anything to the flavor it sure does give you a wonderful aroma.

Paul, if you want to send me the spreadsheet and if you would agree - I could possibly post it on my site.

Thanks,

Chris

[paul o' vendange]

Chris, just came back to the thread after being away. You bet, will send the spreadsheet when I get home.

I actually have a ton of things I wrote while briefly a student at Heriot-Watt, and while working in the industry - including an exhaustive protocol for establishing the quality control regimen for a "real ale," cask-conditioning brewery. More than happy to share with any who want it.

Paul

P.S.: neglected to mention originally, with Chris fully on the dry hopping. With the exception of some of my dark ales, just about every one of my beers - bitters, IPA's, ESB's, at times even my robust porters and imperial stouts - gets a strong dry hopping regimen. If any want to know that routine as well, just let me know.

Cheers,

Paul