| Brewing for Fun and Flavor by Jeff Gill Reprinted with Permission of the Author First Printed in July-August 2006 Issue of SevenEightFive |
| First of all, I’m raising a tall glass of homebrew to Topeka for that Fourth of July celebration! Topeka, Kansas. Truly one of the last bastions of pyrotechnic independence! Yeah, all those fireworks may have depleted the ol’ beer fund, but with a little bit of overdraft protection your beer supply shouldn’t have run too low. Here’s to you Topeka! Speaking of independence, I think pure beer independence deserves a shout out too. You guessed it, homebrewing! For centuries it flourished. Then along came hatchet-wielding prohibitionists, who made the oldest hobby in human history, well, history. Then a few behemoth companies, collectively known as BudMillCoors, for decades had us convinced that a cheaply-made, bland, beer-like substance was what we actually wanted. Talk about group-think in action. TASTES GREAT…LESS FILLING…TASTES GREAT…LESS FILLING. Repeat something often enough, and lots of people will believe its true. Just ask the government, they use that technique all the time! It was almost as if we were little kids who thought McDonalds was the greatest food on the planet. Then we got older and learned about other types of food, like barbeque, italian, or thai, that are a world different and so much better. Happy Meals soon went the way of comic books and baseball cards. Just like restaurants, there all sorts of different beer styles out there; from brewing mainstays like pale ale to exotics like eisbock. There is a unique beer style to fit almost any palate. Most were developed over centuries of trial and error and honed by the collective preferences of millions of people, to provide one thing: to give a person the choice of a beer they like best at the end of a hard day. And on the off chance you can’t find a beer style you like, you can develop your own, just as homebrewers have been doing for the past 30 years. A little more dark or pale, lots of alcohol or a little, hoppy or malty. If you are making it yourself, you decide on your perfect beer. But brewing up that perfect beer can be a challenge. Choosing the right style to brew can greatly increase your odds for brewing success. Strong flavored styles are like training wheels to a brewer, covering up some mistakes in the brewing process with robustness. A common error of many novice homebrewers is getting excited about a style they really like, which is typically a lighter beer style, they brew it, and the beer is disappointing because of some flaw in the brewing process. This can be a problem that keeps new brewers from trying a second batch. Luckily with brewing, if there is a problem, it requires more study. Studying means drinking more beer. I bet you can handle that! You gotta love this hobby! You may want to start studying by developing a taste for the darker beers, especially if you don’t like your newly brewed wheat beer, or you are thinking about starting to homebrew. Go to Blind Tiger and order a few stouts or porters, buy a six pack of Kansas City’s own Boulevard’s porter or stout, or down a few of pints of that old standby, Guinness. The problem of crossing novice brewing skills with delicate beer styles can be solved by getting the techniques down while brewing at a minimum (as beer robustness goes) an India Pale Ale or ESB. Porters and stouts are recommended. Those styles have nice, big, Barbie-bike sized training wheels for a homebrewer just getting started. They will hide mistakes and provide you with good, strong beer until you have the brewing process down pat. Then tackle those other styles. So, total beer independence doesn’t happen overnight, you have to earn it. Fortunately, earning that independence means you need to brew and drink more beer! This month I’ve included a recipe for porter. It’s got a bunch of ingredients, but ages after a month into a smooth, dark, and complex porter that I think you will like. Brewed now, it should be ready for when the weather starts to cool down in the late summer and fall. Purty Porter (5 gallons) All-grain Malt 11 # 2-Row Base Malt 3/4 # 120L Crystal Malt 1/2 # 60L Crystal Malt 1/3 # Chocolate Malt 1/5 # Black Patent Malt 1 # Carapils or Extract Malt 7 lbs of Dry Malt Extract Heat a gallon of water to 160°F and place the crushed specialty malts listed above in the water for 20 minutes. Then pour the resulting tea in the boil with 20 minutes left. This process extracts the richness of flavor and color in the specialty grains for addition to the boil. Hops 1.5 oz. Perle 6- 8% AA 60 min .5 oz. Cluster 7-10% AA 30 min .25 oz. Perle 4- 6% AA 15 min .75 oz. Perle 4- 6% AA 3 min Yeast Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast Boil for 30 minutes prior to adding first hops. At the end of the boil let it steep for about 20 minutes prior to quickly chilling and adding to the fermenter. Don’t forget Irish Moss in the boil! Happy Brewing! |
| Brewing Tips |
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