Techniques for Home Brewed Beer

The world of beer is vast and multi faceted. There are hundreds of different varieties of beer made around the world, and many variations on the production of each. I will discuss here some of the different techniques used to produce differing flavors, body, alcohol levels, and color in your home brewed beer.

My first technique for homebrewed beer has to do with really bringing the flavors out of your malt – crafting what’s called a raw ale. This has to do with the temperature at which your wort is boiled. Most kinds of beers are boiled at or above 100 Degrees Celsius. Through this process, a beer gains some of its bittering qualities, which many brewers try to bring out in their stouts, pilsners, and other bitter ales. By controlling the temperature of your wort, you can bring out different, and to many, hidden, malt characteristics of your beer. To achieve this, it is a simple process – one must have a thermometer to test the wort – simply heat your wort no higher than 70-75 degrees C. (150-158 degrees F.) for the boil. This process leaves in many of the rich flavinoids, essential oils, and malt character of your homebrewed beer that the boil usually drives out. Note that during the “boil”, the wort does not actually boil, although it is still heated at this high temperature for one full hour.

This process, the “raw ale” boil, is essential for Mead production. Over heating the mead wort will not only drown out the delicate flower essences, but also affects the sugars in the honey, making them carcinogenic. This is according to Ayurvedic doctors, practitioners of the ancient medical practice of India. Although the health benefits of honey and mead are widely known in the brewing community, this tip is less known and very important.

Another technique that I use in the production of some kinds of beer is what is know as the fortified ale. A fortified ale is an ale that has some amount of spirits, or hard liquor, added to the beer to increase its alcohol content. While this is a fine benefit, I fortify my ales for a different reason. I utilize the fortified ale as a method of imbuing the beer with fresh herbal tastes and qualities extracted by the alcohol. For a wintry treat, one might make an alcohol tincture of mint in a liter of 40 proof vodka, and add that to a five gallon batch of stout or porter. This is a seasonal ale I make for the Mardi Gras season.

One new trend in home brewing is making beer with differing adjuncts and replacements of the sugars or malt in your beer. I have known brewers to use maple syrup, honey, and even molasses in their homebrewed beer to add a new dimension of flavor and body. The molasses stout is a particularly intriguing brew, as it produces a beer of unrivaled thickness. The mineral content of molasses really comes through, a little too much at first. A molasses ale takes longer to ferment than a regular ale, as well. Mine took one and a half months (but I made it quite strong!). The harsh flavors of the molasses need about one and a half to two months of aging to settle out of the brew. After this, you have a distinct, sweet, and flavorful brew. Good for heating folks up on those cold winter nights!

For a clear, beautiful homebrewed beer that is pleasing to the eye, the technique of racking is essential. Racking your beer is a process by which you periodically siphon your beer off from the primary fermentation vessel, leaving behind the gluten and yeast sediment, which settles out of the beer during fermentation. One siphons the beer into another glass carboy, the secondary fermentation vessel. Racking at 1 week, 10 days, and 12 days will ensure that sediment does not stir up into your beer during the bottling or kegging process.

There are an unlimited amount of techniques, tips, tricks, and secrets that different brewers use to fine tune their brews to taste. One of the fun aspects of home brewing is discovering these, and networking with other brew fans to find out what works best for you to produce your favorite homebrewed beer.