All-grain brewing is a bit more complex and doesn’ t use malt extract. Instead, the process starts with a mix of crushed grains( mostly barley malt) infused with warm water and held at ~ 152 o F for about an hour. This“ mash” is sprinkled with hot water( sparged) and strained( lautered) to collect the wort to be boiled.
Transferring to Fermenter and Pitching Yeast
After boiling, the wort is cooled and allowed to stand a bit, which allows the flocculated material( trub) to settle out. The wort is then transferred to a fermenter and yeast is added( pitched). Yeast turns wort into beer for the most part by converting the malt sugars into alcohol.
Fermenters have a valve near the bottom for removing the beer and an air lock at the top that allows bubbling carbon dioxide to escape but prevents air from getting in. Once wort has begun to ferment into beer, it needs to be shielded from oxygen.
Variations in Style
Malts, grains, and hops come in a myriad of types and can be mixed and matched depending upon the style of beer or the brewer’ s whims. The same goes for yeasts, which come in two fundamental types: ale yeasts that ferment at room temperature( top-fermenting) and lager yeasts that ferment at lower temperatures( bottomfermenting). Ale yeasts lead to fruitier profiles, whereas lager yeasts provide cleaner tastes. This is part of the fun. Some brewers love perfecting certain styles by rigorously following set recipes, while others revel in experimentation, even allowing funky wild yeasts into the mix to create truly unique styles.
Bottling and Kegging
Although beer may be transferred to a secondary vessel for a period of conditioning at cellar temperatures or lagering at cold temperatures, one can also go straight from the primary fermenter to bottling or kegging. For bottling, the beer must have finished fermenting( between four days to two weeks). A small amount of added sugar restarts fermentation, and the beer is siphoned into bottles and capped. Bottle fermentation provides carbonation that gives the beer its characteristic foamy head. Kegging is a little easier. You simply siphon the beer into a keg and attach it to a carbon dioxide cylinder for carbonation. The carbon dioxide pressure is later reduced to just enough to allow the beer to pour when the keg is tapped.
Conclusion
I really got into home brewing when I moved to Rome in the 1990s. There was a dearth of beer types available then, and the first wave of the craft brewing craze had just begun in places like Athens. With the help of friends and a local brew shop, I was able to brew many tasty styles not available locally. Now, with nearby breweries like River Remedy and taprooms such as Foundry on Fifth, I can happily find many of those styles when I’ m out and about, but I still keep my hands in home brewing a bit. I particularly enjoyed developing a hearty brown ale— made with real chestnuts— with River Remedy’ s head brewer Justin Shepard this past fall.
The relatively low cost of ingredients enables one to brew great beer at below market price. But savings isn’ t an incentive for most folks. More are driven by the fun of learning how to perfect an ancient art that goes back about 7,000
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Here are some great resources for budding home brewers:
Charlie Papazian’ s The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is the bible of home brewing.
You can read John J. Palmer’ s How to Brew book online at howtobrew. com.
BeerSmith( beersmith. com) offers inexpensive, user-friendly home-brewing software.
The Brew Depot in Alpharetta( thebrewdepot. com) is a fantastic area outlet for ingredients, recipes, supplies, educational materials, and home-brewing events.
years to the ancient Mesopotamians. That long history and the numerous cultures that have practiced brewing have produced many styles that can be replicated or riffed upon. It is art, history, and science all poured together( pun intended). Plus, you get to learn cool words such as wort, trub, and sparge.
Home brewing is easy, doesn’ t take up much space( a typical batch size is five gallons), and is safe( just watch it around the hot wort). Plus, properly bottled or kegged home brew keeps just as well as commercial beer, although it’ s best to drink most beer when it’ s fresh. So, Cheers, Prost, Chin chin, Sláinte, Salut, Na zdrowie, and Bottom’ s up!
Martin Cipollini is a retired Berry College professor who started home brewing in college. He earned a Craftbrewer’ s Apprenticeship diploma from American Brewers Guild in 2002, doing his apprenticeship at Big River Brewing in Chattanooga. His wife, Kathy Patrick, who writes regularly for NW Georgia Living, loves his Belgian-style saison the best. nwgeorgialiving. com | 27