Wow! It has been a long time since my last post. Life has been chaotic with school and work and everything in between that to sit down and write a blog post has been something pretty difficult to do. That being said I have been sneaky and behind your backs I’ve been continuing to do the things I love from brewing a few batches of beer to making artisanal breads. I never wrote posts on these just because the time I find it takes to do these things would have conflicted with school and work. But no more! School is in the rear-view mirror and I’ve got a new job that I believe will give me the time (and potentially the money), to do more of my fermented madness.
To kick things off again I decided, rather than getting right back into things, to talk about why I have this blog or rather why I’m so interested in fermented products in general. I’m doing this in part because I would like to instill in you the passion I have for these foods and beverages, but also because within the last little while, I’ve been reading more and more into the discipline and have become more and more fascinated with the multifacetedness of the subject. Fermented foods are amazing in so many ways! From their health benefits, to the craft of producing them and ultimately to the great depth of flavour that they offer. I’d like to spend this time to discuss these things further.
First off, the health benefits of fermented foods are actually something quite amazing. To start, there are of course, what many people already know as probiotics which are essentially the good bacteria and yeast that become introduced into your gut and help regulate your digestive system. With our modern medicine and antibiotics, more often than not our intestines are purged of their beneficial bacteria that we rely upon for nutrients to become more readily absorbed into our system. Without these bacteria many people struggle with digestive issues such as IBS and the like. Many fermented foods reintroduce these beneficial bacteria back into the gut and as a result help us to digest our food more efficiently. Although not a cure-all to any digestive problem it seems as if a diet that includes many diverse, probiotic-rich foods can at least help if they do not in fact cure these issues. I myself have suffered with digestive problems for quite some time now and recently I began drinking kefir (a fermented milk beverage), which contains over 30 unique probiotics (in comparison to most yogurts which only have 2). Although it very well could be in part due to a placebo effect, I feel as if I’m slightly more regulated; without as much bloating and stomach pain as I used to have.
In addition to the probiotics themselves, their by-products in the food are also extremely beneficial. For example bacteria and yeast essentially predigest food for us, which sounds gross I know, however this in turn can make many nutrients and minerals more readily available for digestion. As well as pre-digestion, the organisms present in fermented foods often are rich in vitamins themselves, most importantly B-vitamins which are important for everything from neurological health to making energy available from food. There even appears to be a link between beneficial bacteria and an overall healthy immune system—due to the body’s response to the presence of foreign bodies (probiotics) the immune system actually strengthens itself and becomes better able to fight off other, more harmful, organisms. Needless to say fermented foods are extremely good for us and a diet which includes them is much better than without.
That being said, the health benefits of fermentation are something I’ve only recently begun to appreciate. They’re more of a welcomed consequence of my enjoyment of these products. What I really enjoy about fermented beverages and foods has to do with the latter two aspects that I brought up; the craft behind their production and the depth of their flavours. To begin with the craft, I’m in love with the process of making these sorts of foods and drinks. Now that I’ve begun to make bread at home in addition to beer-making (with cheese-making and others on the way I hope!), I can really appreciate the artisanal craft that it takes to make them. The slight nuances to their production and the depth of knowledge that goes into making fermented food is truly awe-inspiring. I can’t pretend to be able to make amazing beer or bread, but through a constant attempt at perfecting them I slowly gain skills and knowledge which is what a craft is all about. It’s also interesting to think that in doing these sorts of things I place myself within a tradition that goes back thousands of years!
As I said in a previous post, to be able to put this kind of time, effort and thought into something and then by the end have this tangible product that you can appreciate and determine how it gained its qualities through the process that you undertook is absolutely thrilling and is one of the most exciting parts of the whole endeavour. I still get excited to crack open a new beer that I’ve brewed even though I’ve been brewing for well over a year now. In addition to this, having this end product allows you to share something with family and friends which is a prideful moment. I have fantasies sometimes about the future, when I’ve better mastered these processes, in which I’d host dinner parties where I’d serve a charcuterie board made entirely of the things I’ve made paired with the beer (or other alcoholic beverage) I’ve brewed. I know that sounds incredibly dorky, but I think it would be such a neat experience.
As to the last point to discuss about why I love everything fermented, I’d like to just say that fermented foods are absolutely delicious and have a depth of flavor that is unlike anything fresh you can eat. Not that fresh food is not amazing either, but the nuances to something like cheese or beer is unparalleled in the food world. There’s a reason why wine snobs exist—it’s because yeast and bacteria produce hundreds of flavour and aroma compounds which we can take note of and appreciate. As a result if we were to simply take grape juice and attempt to simulate wine by removing its sugar and adding alcohol, in no way shape or form could we get the delicate interplay of flavours that a mature wine has. There’s incredible depth to fermented foods and they’re something to be savoured and appreciated. I remember the first time I had a Belgian beer (which has lots of flavours derived from yeast), I noted flavours and aromas such as banana, baking spices and even bubble-gum I was blown away in coming to terms with the fact that all of these flavours were coming from a microscopic organism. I partake in the snobbery and really try to understand what I’m tasting when I eat these sorts of products. It’s both challenging and fun to understand what you’re tasting and to develop your palate in this manner. The depth of flavour that fermentation offers to your palate is something akin to a piece of music or artwork, cheesy I know, but the way in which the flavours can start off one way, meld together the next and then end with new and interesting notes is an intense experience and one I try to appreciate every time I enjoy fermented foods.
And there you have; the reasons I’m a fermented foody! I hope at the very least some of you can see why I’m on this craze if I haven’t already converted you. With that said let’s see what I have planned for the blog in the next little while. An update about the HERMS system—it failed miserably and I have since decided to rejig the existing equipment I have to do more of a RIMS set-up (I’ll explain the difference when it is ready). This can’t happen until I get a few more things which in turn requires money that I don’t have. Hopefully very soon I can make this happen, but for the time being I may make another extract brew. Aside from beer I’ve been baking bread and I’m thinking that will be the subject for my next blog post. In addition to this I recently was given a gift of a kombucha SCOBY and so plan on making kombucha very soon as well. Other fermented things on the agenda will be sauerkraut, ginger beer and kosher pickles. I know I said I was planning on doing cheese next, but to be honest I don’t think I’ll be doing cheese in the near future just out of money considerations.
Damn money seems to keep on getting in the way. Speaking of which, because of my money woes I’ve started a gofundme account. I don’t really expect anything to come from this, but if you’ve come to enjoy the blog and would like to see me posting more often, a donation would greatly help me get the things I need in order to make these amazing products. The link is here gofundme.com/nsm6w6k4. Send what you can, and if not that’s fine too! Just your presence on this blog is more than appreciated!
And here we finally are with the finished product in our hands ready to be consumed. To digress from the review for a moment, I have to say that it is at this point that makes home-brewing and all the other home made fermented products that I’m interested in so fascinating and amazing. When you finally have something in your hands that you’ve invested a lot of your time and energy into; for it to start off as a mere idea and then to proceed with the simplest of ingredients to get something as complex and nuanced as beer, is something incredible and its why I have this blog and continue to learn about these sorts of products. I can’t say the same for cheese or aged meats (since I haven’t made them yet, although I imagine them to be the same), but I know at least with beer that when you crack your own bottle open and share it with others it is a prideful moment and all you can say is, “Hey I made this! Check it out!”.
Anyways, yes as you can tell I’m very excited to get this bottle open of course to enjoy it but also, and more importantly, to determine how each of my decisions in creating its contents affected the final outcome of the beer. So let’s get drinking shall we!
Look
Oh boy, it’s even more black and opaque than the previous stout (if that’s even possible). There is a slight garnet colouration at the edges, but aside from that it’s as black as a stout gets. The head is creamy and thick: made up of tiny bubbles, and it retains itself for quite some time. The colour of the head is slightly more brown than the first stout which I can only attribute to the extra chocolate malt (roasted barely doesn’t affect head colouration). In regards to its appearance it looks like a pretty decent beer to me!
Nose
Well I’ll get right to it: yes the extra roasted malts made a big difference! The coffee and chocolate notes are much more pronounced. The richness of those flavours is much more like an imperial stout which in considering the amount of roasted malt I used would have been much more akin to. There is also a sort of earthiness to it, slightly charcoal-like, which plays well with the chocolate and coffee. I also pick up some slight ale yeast characteristics with a touch of fruitiness although it is extremely mild and generally the beer fermented cleanly.
Taste
The taste follows the nose almost to a “t”. Baker’s chocolate and espresso, a slight earthy and woody character as well as toasted tobacco. The roasted malt is there and it is smacking you right in the taste buds. The beer hasn’t seemed to have attenuated as much as I thought it would have since there is a slight sweetness still lingering, but it is minimal and in fact helps round out a lot of the flavours present in the beer. It also helps with the massive amount of tannins present in the beer. Despite my best efforts to reduce them, the sheer mass of roasted malt has contributed that characteristic mouth, puckering astringency that only tannins can deliver. Although a slight downfall to the beer, they’re not so bad that it makes the beer undrinkable and only really become overly apparent after a pint of the beer. As I said before though the sweetness does help to counteract the astringency. In regards to the body it’s incredibly thick and chewy; just what I like in a stout.
Overall
It’s here where I come to a slight conundrum since I love the intensity of flavours I’m getting from the amount of roasted malts used, but the excessive tannins, although not terrible, need to be subsided in order to make this a more sessionable stout which is exactly what a dry stout is supposed to be. For a future dry stout I might try reducing the roasted malts only a little bit, but also trying to cold steep them overnight so as to get very little of the tannins. Since I’ll most likely be doing all grain mashes in the future I can make the steeped water my initial strike water (the water first used in the mash) and mash in with just my base malt. I think that might adequately deal with the tannins without removing the flavours that I’m loving in this beer.
In regards to a score I think I have to give it the same as the last stout. Where it improved in flavour it lost points in drinkability which is such an important factor for a dry stout. It was still a good beer however and I definitely enjoyed it (I’m down to only a couple bottles!!)
3/5
P.S I’ve been working hard at getting my HERMS mash system ready for its first brew . It’s cost a lot of money and time, but I’m hoping I can have it ready by mid September for a brew session. I think for my next beer blog post I’ll be doing a three part series on mashing. The first part will go over mashing science (what I understand of it), the second will go over my specific set up and why I chose what I did and the third part will be another brew day post with a specific focus on the mash and each step involved. Until then I might find other things to post on…hmm I think we’ve done enough beer; what about cheese?
These bottles are anxiously awaiting to be acquainted with the beer we’ve brewed.
This post will be short and sweet as the process involved in bottling is relatively uncomplicated (although more complicated than you may think). As well I won’t bother to write posts on future bottling days as the same procedure is involved. Now let’s get going!
As I said, bottling is pretty simple however not so simple that its merely taking the finished beer and siphoning it off into vessels. No, that would be too easy. The major component missing in our final product at this point is carbonation and it is an important one. Carbonation is a key part of what makes beer, beer. Without it we’re left with a flat rather unexciting beverage. It adds a bite to the palette, allows the flavours to dance on your tongue and even adds its own unique taste.
In commercial breweries and even with the more sophisticated home-brewer, the beer undergoes what is called forced carbonation where CO2 is pumped directly into the beer to the desired amount. Its the easiest and most controlled way of getting carbon dioxide into the beer. The other option is what’s called bottle conditioning where we get the yeast already in suspension in the beer to begin fermentation again by adding sugar. We do this not for the alcohol it will produce (which is minimal at best), but rather for the carbon dioxide that will be created. With the bottles sealed by air tight caps, the CO2 is not allowed to escape as it did during fermentation and so we get a beer that is now carbonated.
Bottle conditioning however is much more error prone since the amount of sugar in each bottle tends to vary and as a result so does the carbonation. The benefit of bottle conditioning for the home-brewer though is it is much cheaper than forced carbonation as the latter requires expensive CO2 tanks, kegs and more likely than not a kegerator (a device for refrigerating and dispensing beer). Bottle conditioning on the other hand only requires the bottles and sugar. So being the cheap, frugal student I am, beer on lees (a fancy name for bottle conditioned beer), is what works best for me and my budget. Now lets wake up those yeasties and get them carbonating.
My modest collection of Bellwoods bottles. I swear I didn’t drink all of this.
First thing to do is to get our bottles squeaky clean and ready for beer. I’ve been collecting Bellwoods bottles because they’re a great size (500ml) which means less bottles to fill and it’s also the perfect amount to fill a pint glass to the brim. Now as much as I love their labels it really isn’t their beer going in there anymore and so I need to make these bottles my own. I swear taking off these stickers and removing the adhesive is some serious work and so I think I can safely say I’ve made them my own through the amount of work I put into them (Bellwoods: why do you have to use the stickiest substance known to mankind??).
After removing the labels the next task is to clean the insides and sanitize them. The beer is still susceptible to infection and so we still need to be careful of foreign bacteria and wild yeast getting in.
Once again using PBW and Star San to do the job. Star San’s great since there’s no need for rinsing which could introduce bacteria into the bottle.Here we are sanitizing the equipment needed: a bottling bucket that will mix the sugar and beer together, tubing and our racking cane.The bottles are next.
After cleaning the bottles, the sugar must be prepped. It must be boiled with water for approximately 10-15 minutes to kill any bacteria and then cooled rapidly.
I’m using 59 grams of brown sugar to give me the desired level of carbonation.Boiling the sugar with some water.
After we’ve done this with the sugar, it’s time to mix it in with the beer in our bottling bucket.
Our finished beer after a little more than 3 weeks of fermentation and conditioning.Racking into our bottling bucket with sugar.Beautiful flowing beer.
Now that we’ve mixed the sugar and beer together its time to get it into our bottles and seal them up.
I use a specially designed bottle-filler which makes my life so much easier. Just ask Brew-bear how many times I spilt precious beer all over his carpet trying to fill bottles…
Next we cap with the orange capper shown in the first picture (sorry I didn’t take a picture of this process) and voila we have bottled beer we can call our own! It of course isn’t quite ready yet as the yeast needs approximately 2 weeks to carbonate (I know…this entire beer making process takes a long time; 5 weeks in total for this stout).
I got almost 15 bottles out of this batch. I can’t wait to drink them!
Next post I’ll be cracking one of these bad boys open and hopefully spilling all its goodness to you in the form of a great review!
Here we are again with another review except this time I’ll be reviewing my own beer. This is the original dry stout that I brewed about two months ago prior to the stout that was done in my previous blog post. The bottle that I cracked open tonight was the last one left and so I thought it was a necessity to write a review on it before there was nothing left. So on with the review!
Look
Opaque black with brown highlights around the edges. The head is thick and porous with varying sized bubbles. I love how long lasting the head is on this beer and it is quite aesthetically pleasing. There is a beautiful lacing (foam clinging to glass), that lingers for quite some time. The colour of the head is slightly brown around the edges (most likely due to the use of chocolate malt).
Nose
Generally light on the nose, not getting a whole lot. Light notes of coffee are at best what I pick up here.
Taste
Very crisp and light tasting beer. Not overwhelming on the palette which makes it very easy drinking and can go well with most meals. There is a light malt flavour to it up front with the roasted character coming on only near the end. I find a lot of the roasted flavour only being noted in the back of the palette and upon breathing out (also called retro-nasal scent). Baker’s chocolate is the most notable flavor as well as coffee. I had talked about it in my previous post, but I find there to be something slightly off about the beer (although it doesn’t really ruin the beer). I believe it to be oxidation as the descriptors of wet cardboard or sherry seem to fit although I’m not entirely sure how an oxidized beer tastes. Overall though a pretty tasty beverage.
Score
I think this beer is one of the better ones that I’ve brewed and a very solid attempt at a dry stout. With my own personal preferences though I think more roasted character would definitely be better. Hopefully this next batch can solve the issue.
(Forewarning: this is a long post with lots of information. Future brew day posts will not be as long as I’ll already have explained a lot of the information present here)
Happy brew day everyone! Sorry for the long hiatus, life is crazy and this blog stuff is a lot of work. I promised myself I would get this done this week though, so here we are. No more reviews and armchair connoisseuring, this is the real deal; where we get our hands dirty and make something amazing.
For today’s brew we have a dry stout on the agenda. For those of you unfamiliar with beer styles this is the kind of beer similar to a Guinness. It has a roasted character with notes of coffee and a light/dry, easy drinkability. Stouts are one of my go-to beers to drink as I love the intense malt flavour that they offer. A Russian Imperial Stout would have to be my favourite with the dry stout further down the list as it isn’t nearly as intense as an imperial. That being said there were a number of factors motivating me to do a dry stout. On the one hand it is definitely the cheapest to make. Imperial stouts are big, boozy beers meaning they need lots of malt (and as a result more yeast) to reach the high abv values. More malt = more alcohol = mo money mo problems. The other factor motivating me to do a dry stout is in fact that I’m brewing this beer not only for myself but for someone who wants to use it in ice cream. As a result I figured it would be best to go drier and allow them to adjust the sweetness in the ice cream as they see fit.
This is the second time I am doing a dry stout, the other being only 2 months ago. I decided to make a stout again as I found the first one not roasty enough, not thick enough and well…not stouty enough! I also believe there were some oxidation issues as it had a slight off flavour that I couldn’t quite pin down to fermentation issues (I’m not entirely familiar with all the off flavours in beer). I’m trying to up my brewing game so to speak and I think the best way to do this is to really try to refine recipes and troubleshoot anything that doesn’t seem to be working. There were a few issues that I had with the previous stout and so I attempted to deal with them better this time around. So on to the recipe!
DME in the back.
Here’s a little comparison between recipes:
Dry Stout #1 Dry Stout # 2
Batch Size: 2 gallons 2 gallons
Boil Size: 3 gallons 3 gallons
Malts
2 lbs Dry Malt Extract 2 lbs Dry Malt Extract
3 oz Maltodextrin 5 oz Maltodextrin
6 oz Roasted Barley 10 oz Roasted Barley
3 oz Chocolate Malt 5 oz Chocolate Malt
Hops
27 grams East Kent Golding 23 grams Golding
Yeast
Wyeast London Ale 1028 Wyeast Irish Ale 1084
Everything weighed out.
Now for a little explanation of the ingredients, why I chose them and just a little overall synopsis of brewing beer. First off I do a 2 gallon system at my place. There’s a number of reasons for doing so. For one it is definitely cheaper not only for ingredients, but for the equipment required to brew it. Another reason had to do with wanting to be able to brew indoors on my stove top. Brewing outside in the summer is awesome; hanging out with friends with the sweet smell of wort in the air, the sun shinning and drinking previous home-brew can’t be matched. That being said when the winter rolls around this is not as pleasant an experience and I know many-a home brewers cursing themselves having to sit outside with their propane burners in the frigid cold. Going with a smaller batch size lets me use my stove top to get to the roaring boil needed for brewing which means I’m comfortable all year round. The final reason I went with a 2 gallon size was because I had an extra bar fridge laying around that I wanted to turn into a fermentation unit. Being a bar fridge there isn’t a whole lot of room and the only carboy size I could fit inside of it was a 3 gallon one. 2 gallon batch sizes just came to make sense for me, and they’ve worked pretty well despite not getting as much beer in the end. The lack of finished product is a definite con to the system, however I’m not so interested in brewing my own beer to merely consume, but rather to learn the process of brewing and hone my skills. That being said I do plan by the end of the month to upgrade to 5 gallon batches when I start all-grain brewing. Speaking of all-grain…
Yes I know some of you hard-core brewers out there might turn your noses up at me for doing an extract brew; “Its cheating… it’s not as good as all-grain.”, you may say and I would generally agree with you. I don’t feel quite as accomplished with my finished product knowing that half the work of brewing has already been done for me and for a while I’ve been hoping to make the jump to all-grain. The two things that stopped me were once again money and also wanting to spend more time worrying about fermentation and getting my little yeast friends happy before I started worrying about the mash.
For those of you unfamiliar with the difference between the two processes let me explain. Extract brewing is when you use sugar that has already been extracted from malted grain. All-grain brewing on the other hand is when the brewer utilizes the malted grain itself and manipulates it through steeping at various temperatures to convert the starches into sugar. Extract brewing cuts out the extra steeping process (called the mash) and allows you to get right into boiling and adding your hops. This effectively cuts your brew day in half. In a nut-shell there’s less work and knowledge involved in extract brewing which makes it the perfect way to start out brewing.
That being said extract brewing is really not the best way to go in the end. For one extract is very expensive in comparison to the grain itself. One pound of extract is around 8-10 dollars where the same amount of sugar being converted from grain may cost only half that amount. Another downfall of extract is that there is only so much variety available to you in extract form. Generally you can only get simple base malts whose complexity is very limited. With all-grain a brewer is able to manipulate the wort (pre-fermented beer), in such a way that they can produce a number of different styles of beer. While extract can taste just as good if not almost as good as all-grain, the lack of diversity in styles is somewhat limiting and eventually leads the brewer, like me, to want to branch outwards. When I bring you the next brew day hopefully I’ll have a mash system and I can discuss how it works in relation to a recipe I’m working on.
Wow, look how I’ve digressed… back to the recipe! Next is the malts. The dry malt I’ve basically already explained. 2 lbs in 2 gallons of wort gives me a low alcoholic beverage and provides the backbone of the beer I’m going to make. All beer starts off with this sort of base malt that provides only a slight malty taste, but most of the beers fermentable sugars that will be converted into alcohol by the yeast. The other malts being used provide the bulk of the flavour which is especially important in a stout where it is all about the maltiness. The grains I’m using, chocolate malt and roasted barley, are what brewer’s call speciality grains. They generally provide very little fermentable sugars (in the case of roasted barley – none), but a lot of the beers flavour. Because they don’t really provide any sugar to the beer there is actually no need to mash these malts, but rather they can be steeped quite traditionally (like you would tea), to extract the flavour and colour from them. This is perfect for extract brewers as they can steep these speciality grains on top of the base dry malt and add more malt flavour to their beer.
Malts kilned to varying degrees.
In regards to this specific recipe the chocolate and roasted barley are heavily roasted malts that provide the dark colour to the stout, but also some of its characteristic flavours. The roasted malt lends notes of coffee while the chocolate well, chocolate (there isn’t actually any real chocolate in this malt, it’s been roasted to a degree that gives it a similar taste to chocolate). Most dry stouts stick simply with the roasted barley and avoid the chocolate. I chose to add it into this recipe because I felt that it would give another depth of flavour to the beer without altering it too much. The huge increase in roasted malts between each recipe comes from me personally feeling like the first beer was seriously lacking those coffee and chocolate notes. I might have gone overboard, but if that’s the case I can find a happy medium between the two that should work. Brewing is an art that is all about balance, which you can only get from trial and error.
The other ingredient here is maltodextrin. Now some of you might see this and think why are you adding some crazy chemical to your beer? First off, there is nothing scary about maltodextrin. It is derived from the malt itself (hence the name) and is not a synthetic compound. All maltodextrin is, is a more complex sugar molecule (more like a starch) that hasn’t been broken down into simple sugars. What this means is that the yeast can’t actually consume it as they can only eat smaller sugars. In turn this means that the maltodextrin is something that lingers into the finishing product. The purpose of this is essentially to thicken up the beer; adding more mouthfeel and chewiness. Although maltodextrin is a sugar, it is more complex than the simple sugars that we normally taste as sweet. Maltodextrin thus doesn’t add much flavour or sweetness to the beer, but rather adds the aforementioned thickness to the beverage. The mouthfeel is important for dry stout as it is characteristic of the style; without it the beer comes across as thin and watery. The increase in maltodextrin is similar to the increase in roasted malts; there just wasn’t enough thickness to the beer.
I should note that as I’ve slowly enjoyed the first dry stout over the course of a few weeks I’ve noticed its character slowly changing and becoming more and more like the stout I imagined. The increase in ingredients here might have been premature, however I don’t think the beer will be anything undrinkable and regardless will offer me an interesting point of contrast upon which I can compare how such changes to the wort really affect the final product. Let’s get philosophical here and say that beer making is like life; the mistakes you make are not negative things, but rather an opportunity to learn and grow. Okay Nathan… enough of the cheesiness… back to beer!
Now lets talk about hops. The hops involved in a malt-forward beer like a stout should not be complicated at all. In fact any hop aroma or taste is generally considered not to style in this type of beer. Although you don’t have to keep to the style, I tend to agree with the style guidelines on this as adding any sort of hop aroma takes away from the malt and possibly creates a beverage whose tastes becomes too convoluted. Less is in fact more. Because of that there is only one hop addition done at the beginning of the boil. Any hop additions that get added later on will add more hop aroma and flavour as less of the hop’s oils that contribute to these aspects will be boiled away. By adding the hops right at the beginning we simply utilize the hop’s bittering capacity to help balance out the beer. The use of Golding hops is merely keeping to style, but any number of hops could potentially be used (since hop flavour and aroma is not important and won’t come through). Once again we only care about bittering for this specific style (if it were an IPA, then the hops would definitely be taking more of an upfront role in the beer and so more additions of hops later on in the boil and even beyond would be used).
Finally we have the yeast. These are the guys we want to make as happy as possible since they will actually be making the beer itself. Brewer’s simply provide a good environment for the yeast to do their thing without them we could never have beer or for that matter a number of other fermented products. As I’ve already said, the yeast eat the sugars present in the wort and in doing so produce a number of different compounds (there are actually so many and the process so complicated that fermentation is something still not completely understood). The two major products produced by fermentation are ethanol and carbon dioxide, but there are tons of other compounds, many of which we may want in certain beers (such as fruity esters in Belgian beers) and many of which are considered off-flavours (such as diacetyl – a buttery flavoured compound). In a dry stout the yeast character should be at a minimum and so we want to have very good control over our fermentation so as to avoid the production of any off-flavours. The major way to do this is through controlling temperature. High temperatures (usually 70 F and above), tends to produce more off-flavours as the yeast speed up their metabolism and do a messier job of fermentation. The increase in temperature means the beer is fermented faster but in doing so more yeast by-products are created. Lower temperatures mean the yeast work much slower, but it produces a cleaner beer. Now some of you may be saying, “Hey Nathan, why don’t we always just ferment at lower temperatures then?” Good question. There are two major reasons why. For one some styles as I’ve said are characterized by their yeast derived flavours. Most Belgian beers taste the way they do because the yeast is allowed to ferment slightly warmer. The other reason we don’t use lower temperatures is because there is only so low you can go with certain yeast strains before they go dormant. The beer needs to be warm enough to encourage yeast metabolism otherwise they get lethargic and can no longer produce the alcohol we want. Ale strains such as the one being used here (Irish ale) can generally ferment to the low 60’s, sometimes high 50’s. Lager yeast on the other hand ferments as low as the mid 40’s (these are very clean beers where the yeast has very little effect on the beer’s flavour). Irish ale is the traditional yeast strain used for dry stout (Dublin, Ireland being the origin of the style), and so it is used here as well to keep to style as best as possible. The fermentation unit that I discussed earlier is what will allow me to keep the temperature right where I want it (approximately 65 F for this particular beer style).
Whew! That was a lot of information and I hoped those of you new to brewing could follow along, and for those of you who know all this stuff already, were not too bored and maybe learnt something! Now let’s get down to the actual process itself!
(I’m sorry for lack of pictures for each step of the process. Brewing can be too immersive during important steps and it can be hard to remember to grab the camera to document. I’m sorry!!)
First off is steeping the speciality grains:
This is Brew-bear who’s identity will remain anonymous (he’s pursued by the ladies enough as is). If you don’t have a Brew-bear to help you I suggest you get one; they make everything so much easier.
Only a gallon was used to steep the grains in. More water leads to more tannin extraction from the husk of the barley. Tannins are a type of phenol that add a bitter astringency to beer. Though not entirely unpleasant in small amounts (think red wine and tea), too much is definitely an unenjoyable experience.
You can steep generally between 150-160F. We chose to go on the lower end to reduce the amount of tannins being extracted from the husk.
Next we added in our base DME (making sure to kill the heat so as to not scorch the sugars):
Already added in…sorry!
Now is the time to be vigilant. With the heat turned back on, once the wort reaches a rolling boil we must be careful with the hot break. The hot break is when proteins in the wort begin to coagulate together and produce a dense foam on the liquid. This can be so vigorous that the wort can spill over the sides of the pot creating a huge mess not to mention a loss of beer.
The hot break.
Simply spraying the wort with a fine mist of water breaks down the protein structures causing them to fall back into suspension in the wort.
After this point we add our hops and let everything boil for 60 minutes. This ensures that we utilize as much of the bittering capacity of the hop as efficiently as possible (less time and we don’t extract as many bittering acids, more and we’re wasting our time as most of the acid has been extracted at this point).
There’s a lot of waiting around in brewing. Here we see Brew-bear getting excited about the NHL Entry Draft (as if he thinks it’s going to make the Leafs any better…)
While we wait it is the perfect time to sanitize our equipment that will come in contact with the wort after the boil. It is important to do so as to not infect the beer with foreign bacteria or yeast. We want only the yeast we’re introducing into the wort to ferment the beer, anything else will lead to a pretty terrible tasting beer (don’t worry, none of it can kill you if it gets in 😀 ). I use PBW (Powdered Brewing Wash) and Star San as a cleaner and sanitizer respectively.
Cleaning the carboy and other needed equipment. Yes its being done in the bathroom…I know what you’re thinking. It all is extremely clean otherwise we couldn’t get a great tasting beer.Only 5 minutes left in the boil!
Next we have to cool the wort down to the temperature we want to pitch the yeast at. If its hot we’ll simply kill the yeast. Even if its cool enough not to kill the yeast, the warmer temperatures are not good as those off-flavours that I discussed earlier will be produced. We want to get the temperature down to 65F as quickly as possible to avoid contaminating the wort and reduce the exposure to oxygen (oxygen will stale your beer in the long run).
Here our model Brew-bear shows us how to cool beer with a bathtub full of ice water.
Next we need to transfer the wort into our carboy.
I told you ladies…he’s hard to resist.
We also want to aerate our wort by introducing oxygen into it. Some of you may be saying, but wait didn’t you just say oxygen was bad a moment ago? Yes I did, however there is a difference between aerating when the wort is cool and oxidizing when the beer is hot. When the wort is hot, oxygen can bind to the molecules in the wort and will stay there for a very long period of time before being released into the beer. Oxygen in finished beer is what leads to staling problems. The oxygen being introduced to the wort at cooler temperatures (under 80F), does not bind to any molecules but instead becomes used by yeast cells in order for them to asexually bud and reproduce. The aerobic pathway for yeast multiplication is an important one. We want our yeast to reproduce as quickly as possible so they can properly ferment our beer. I utilize an air pump with a micro stone attachment for 20 minutes to supply enough oxygen to the wort.
Sorry for the lack of picture quality.
After all of this we can finally pitch our yeast and put the beer away for approximately 3 weeks. After doing the first stout I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of the fermentation schedule so I can avoid taking gravity readings (determining how much sugar is left to be consumed). I start off the primary fermentation at 65F and after 2 days raise the temperature to 71F for a diacetyl rest [this removes the aforementioned chemical by giving the yeast a kick in the butt to clean up after themselves (yeast can actually go back over and reabsorb a lot of the by-products they originally produced)]. After this is what’s called the conditioning period where the yeast clean up after themselves; creating a smoother more delicious beer. Conditioning is an extremely important aspect of beer making. Although most the alcohol has been produced at this point, the beer (no longer wort), will be rough around the edges. The yeast will continue to go through the beer and clean it up. This is why bottle-conditioned beers continue to age well, since the yeast can continue working on the beer, well after the primary bulk of fermentation has taken place. I drop the temperature down to 54F (cooler temperatures are better), and allow it to condition for a further 3 weeks.
Here we see primary fermentation well under way. The krausen (foam on top) is thick and the airlock is bubbling.
In the original stout I had racked off the beer into another carboy to avoid off-flavours associated with leaving the beer on top of the trub (all the leftover sediment from hops and barley protein), but given I believed there to be oxidation issues with that stout I wanted to try leaving the beer in one fermentation vessel for the entire conditioning period. Apparently off-flavours from trub don’t really start occurring until 4 weeks or so anyways. Regardless of how it turns out I’ll have a good idea as to what works for future brews.
So that’s about it! Brew-day happened about 2 weeks ago now and the beer is still conditioning away for another week and a half or so. After that I will bottle (a post will be put up about that), and then a further 2 weeks until it can be enjoyed!
I apologize for the extremely long post, but I thought it was important to explain a lot of what’s going on behind the process. For those of you quite familiar with brewing this is probably old news. That being said maybe there was something important I missed? Or maybe there’s some advice as to things I could do better? For those of you new to the art of fermentation and brewing, if you have any questions or are confused about anything please leave a message and I’ll be sure to explain anything you’re struggling with.
Brew Day would not be complete without a selfie to document it. #brewdayselfie
I know what you’re thinking; “Oh god Nathan, another review… When you be getting to the good stuff?”. It’s true, two reviews in two days on other people’s products is not what this blog is about. That being said brew-day is just around the corner (I promise) and I also was feeling the need to fill the bare walls of my empty blog home.
Instead of doing another beer review I decided to focus on the other craft products I’m interested in; bread, cheese and cured meats. Lately I’ve been creating these platters with a bit of each (plus a few other goodies) as a light snack in between meals, but more importantly to try to combine new flavours. Going food shopping has become a severe hazard for me as whenever I see something I haven’t had before I immediately want to try it. Given the somewhat expensive nature of cheese and charcuterie, I have to be careful not to go overboard (a very difficult thing to do let me tell you). Today I semi-restrained myself from getting that extra piece to add to the board (a bresaolo) so I think I deserve a pat on the back.
Even if you’re not as crazy about these sort of artisanal products as I am I highly recommend trying to do a platter like this. They are super easy with literally the bare-minimum of prep work to be done. If I didn’t spend so much time trying to take these damn pictures and make everything look pretty for you guys I could have thrown everything together in under 10 minutes.
I also treat my time enjoying the platter as a little class; an education in flavour if you will. Since I’m trying something new I take the effort to savour every bite of what I’m eating. I enjoy each product on its own, but I also combine them in multiple ways and in this manner the platter becomes like a painter’s palate where I can mix different flavours to create something new and interesting (speaking of artists, the presentation is another little fun thing to do although entirely optional). Seriously guys, if you’re lazy like me, toss together some interesting cheeses, meats and whatever else you think might go together and have at it. Its worth the 10 minutes it takes to do. Now on to the review!
There are three major products I focused on with this platter. The first was a rye sourdough from Blackbird Baking Company.
Blackbird is a local bakery situated in Kensington Market (Toronto ON). I’ve had the chance to have their bread once before and thoroughly enjoyed it. Today I was strolling through Kensington when I got the inspiration to buy some sourdough by walking in front of their store and getting a big whiff of sweet, delicious bread. Upon venturing in I saw that they didn’t have a crazy amount of selection, but what I gathered from the cashier is that there’s a weekly schedule where each day has its own variety of breads being baked. Today there was a rye that caught my eye (rhyme totally unintentional).
Taste
Sharp and yeasty with a lovely and subtle rye spice that lingers. The crust is chewy and loaded with flavour. Just adding a touch of olive oil brings all the flavours out even better. I could eat this on its own everyday. This is really what artisanal bread is about!
The second product is a black truffle salami I found in my local supermarket. I love salami and they had a number of these dry cured meats with various adjuncts added. The black truffle was intriguing as something different and unique. Hell if I’m going to spend 10 dollars on a little piece of dried meat I might as well go with the luxurious one, right?
Taste
The truffle is actually quite prevalent and up front. Very earthy and woodsy. After that settles down the bulk of the acidic salami flavours come on, but even still the truffle lingers. Very complex.
I saved the most interesting story for the last product; a black peppercorn double-cream brie. I haven’t had too many bries before as I generally like harder cheeses, but I always like to push my own envelope and try new things or in this case go back and have something I typically don’t like. (Not that I hate brie or anything it’s just that I would prefer something else).
So I grabbed the brie and at this point had the final workings of my platter. Given I’m not as familiar with brie there was a surprise waiting for me when I got home!
Taste
Before I get to the actual taste, a little back-story. Now I know some of you might think this blasphemous, but I was a little too eager to get my platter going so instead of letting the cheese and salami sit out for the recommended 30-60 mins, to get to room temperature, I instead went right to town and laid everything out. Ok enough back-story now for the actual tasting!
I ate the whole cheese, not bothering to remove the rind as it adds additional flavour. The rind gives a nice nuttiness to the cheese. The cheese is creamy and rich with the peppercorns adding little bursts of flavour, but wait…what the hell am I tasting right now? Its like I’m chewing on a pool cover. This is really not pleasant. What’s going on??
After doing a little bit of research I discovered that this is quite common for brie. The culture that is in brie and other mold-ripened cheeses such as camembert is penicillium camemberti which over time eats the proteins in the cheese producing ammonia. If the cheese is left wrapped up in the refrigerator the ammonia doesn’t get the chance to dissipate, but instead seeps into the cheese hence the fowl taste. Simply leaving the cheese unwrapped for a period of time will generally solve the issue.
So lesson learnt: always let your mold-ripened cheese breathe a little and for that matter make sure you let your meats and cheese sit out for a while before serving. Hey look, it really was an educational experience!
The Others
Pretty basic; kalamata olives, green apple and strawberries as well as an olive ciabatta picked up from my local supermarket.
Winner of Best Combo
Olive Ciabatta and Black Truffle Salami
The olives and the truffle created a beautiful depth of flavour that totally transformed the two. They become intensely earthy, almost like fresh top soil. Once again a touch of olive oil brought out the flavours even better.
So the platter was a success, baring my one silly mistake. Are there any products you’d like me to try out? What are your favourite meats and cheeses? Also if you’d like to send me some pictures and descriptions of your own platters (if you decide to be crazy and weird like me) please do. We can have a platter-off!
And so begins my fermented adventure; my very first post! I decided to start off with a review since I had this wonderful bottle from Bellwoods sitting around just waiting to be enjoyed and I don’t have a brew-day or anything else coming up for a bit. That being said, I haven’t done many reviews and I’m definitely trying to work on developing my palate, but I figured I would go for this anyways despite my lack of experience. So here goes.
For those of you not familiar with Bellwoods they are a local brewery here in Toronto ON, Canada. They brew up some seriously good malt beverages, but what I love most about them is they are never afraid to push the boundaries (quite evidently here). I went to a recent tasting event held in their tiny brew-pub on Ossington Ave where I got the chance to talk to one of their brewers who discussed the politics behind deciding their brew schedule. Apparently there is very little bureaucracy that occurs; the brewers get together and discuss what they’d like to do next where not much is off the tables. Given the fact that they are a small establishment, not governed by marketing research teams determining what beers are selling best, Bellwoods is able to be experimental with their beers in a way other larger breweries cannot. It also helps that they are situated in a very hip neighbourhood of Toronto (Queen West) where the community is more knowledgable about beer or at the very least accepting of the more exuberant side of the craft beer scene. No Rest for the Wicked reflects this daring approach, but does the beer’s taste match its zeal?
The Review
Look
Deep black, with some slight ruby highlights along the edges. Has a creamy tan head made of very fine bubbles.
The tulip glass I find perfect for this style of beer.
Nose
Vanilla, cherry and other fruit. Lots of brett derived aromatics (this is about as descriptive as I can get with brett beers as I find the aromas extremely complex and yet the standard barnyard funk descriptors don’t entirely match up for me). Most of the stout characteristics seem well hidden beneath the brett although I get a slight hint of milk chocolate.
Taste
I’m hit up front with lots of sourness; sour cherries, sour grape, maybe even sour green apple (though definitely not acetaldehyde). The sourness is balanced by a slight malt sweetness that helps round it out. I find the stout characteristics once again lost, it is only at the end that I notice some cocoa and coffee like notes. That being said there is a mouth puckering tannic structure to the beer which is definitely being derived by the heavily roasted malts. In fact I find the beer reminds me of certain red wines with both the tannins and brett playing off one another in an interesting and complex way. For a 9.5% abv beer the alcohol is hardly noticeable even when its been sitting in the glass for quite a period of time.
Pairings
I feel like given the acidity of the beer it would go great with oily/fatty food, helping to cut across them and give a slight refresh to the palate. The intensity of flavour requires this beer to be paired with something of equal depth in order to not overpower the pairing. Pork dishes come to mind or maybe even something like a beef bolognese. I feel as if many red wine pairings could easily be substituted with this.
Score
I enjoyed this beer quite a bit, as I sipped it before going to bed and finished the whole bottle . The brett and sour notes from the lactobacillus are the major flavour contributors here with the roasted malts taking a more supplementary role. It is an extremely complex brew, one in which I feel I can’t fully appreciate all of its subtleties, but still enjoyed none-the-less.
Hello my fellow yeast/bacteria loving homo sapiens,
My name is Nathan and I’m devoting this blog to my journey through the craft of fermented/aged beverages and food. The foods and drinks I’ll be discussing will generally pertain to beer, cheese, charcuterie, bread and spirits, but possibly many others (is that sake I see on the horizon?). I have very little experience in making these sorts of products and so you’ll be witnessing my trials and tribulations. This will be a learning process and I hope you can follow along with me and we can give one another guidance along the way.
The posts will be about 4 varying themes. The first will be devoted to recipes and the actual process that I go through in making a particular product. The second will be involving critiques such as any sort of review I conduct, from my own beer, cheese, etc. to books and equipment related to the subject. The third possible post I might write will be about the equipment needed for making the products I love, more specifically the builds involved in creating them. And finally some posts may be about going behind the scenes as I attempt to explain some of the science behind fermentation and other related topics. *Warning* I will not advocate my expertise in the subject, only relaying what I’ve come to understand. Basically take everything I tell you here with a grain of salt (mmm…salt)
fermentedfoody 