How did you get started in homebrewing?

Like most people, got interested in the flavors of decent beer, although there wasn’t much of it around. I started to drink beer in 1970, pretty much the low point of good beer in this country, but when we did find some weird import we were all over it–if we had the money. By 1983, a friend named Ray Spangler and I finally stopped talking about it and ordered a kit, with we promptly made an ungodly awful concoction, which we drank anyway. Second batch was worse, but batch three was almost palatable. By batch eight, we had switched to all-grain and were poring over the ponderous professional brewing tomes we’d checked out of the library, and then, well, we never really looked back. Ray, BTW, won AHA Homebrewer of the Year in 1989, so eventually we made some pretty tasty brews.

You are one of the best known brewing authors.  How many books have you written and how did you get started writing?

Three books as of right now.   So, we’re brewing along, and I started to feel the need to keep track of things, so I cooked up a recipe sheet. Well, all those little spaces needed information–gravity, hop bitterness, etc–and so I made up some quick reference charts to aid with that. Then hop bitterness prediction, water treatment, and so on. Before long, I had a pile of stuff in my three-ring binder. Somehow Charlie Finkel of Merchant Du Vin got hold of me, and we hit it off, and he generously offered to publish the book through his homebrew business, Liberty Malt and Supply, in Seattle.

Radical brewing is a really unique brewing book with an eclectic style, and one of my favorites.  Where did you find the inspiration for it?

I noticed you are a graphics artist.  Did you do the graphics work on your books?

What advice would you give to experienced brewers looking to do something new?

Tasting Beer is another interesting book.  What made you move from books on brewing to a book on beer styles?

Just wanting to move to a larger audience. I’d been teaching a class for Siebel Institute called the “Professional Beer Styles and Tastings” class, and as I got this huge outline together, it just started looking like a book. Sam Calagione was kind enough to hook me up with his literary agent, and we’ve been conspiring ever since. It’s only 1/3 about beer styles. The rest of the book helps you understand what’s in the glass, how it got there, and how to get the most out of every little drop. It’s about becoming a connoisseur–or as we usually say, Beer Geek.

How has homebrewing evolved since you started?

The answer should be obvious if you just know that we started with basically nothing, and now, just look around. But now, even with all this wondrousness,  it’s really about ingenuity, creativity, self-expression. Oh, and making a beer to drink that no one’s ever tasted before.

Where do you see the hobby going in the future?

Homebrewing already went somewhere. It’s called craft brewing. It’s my hope that the tremendous relationship of pro and amateur brewers, based on mutual respect and human-to-human fellowship will continue, no matter what else. My far-out dream? A licensed cooperative brewery, a kind of a big open clubhouse where people can sign up to use the equipment and then enjoy other brewers beers at the end of the day.

Brewers Companion was focused on the beginner – any advice for homebrewers who have just started?

Be brave, be bold, dream big, and pay attention to the details, because they matter like crazy. And remember, beer is one of the defining acts of civilization.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I need a beer!

Thank you for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog, and thanks again to Randy Mosher for agreeing to do this interview.  Please don’t hesitate to subscribe or tweet this article if you enjoyed it, and have a great home brewing week.

• Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher – Book Review
• An Interview with Brewing Author John Palmer
• Homebrewing Holiday Season Gift Ideas 2009
• An Interview with Brewer Dan Morey
• Better Beer with The Burton Union Blow-off Method

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• Adventures in Homebrewing
• One Year of The BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog
• An Interview with Dan Listermann (of Phil’s fame)
• New BeerSmith Retail CDs
• The Barley Crusher Malt Grain Mill Review

History

Imperial Russian Stouts were actually brewed in England for the export to the court of the Tsars of Russia in the 18th century.  A high, malty alcohol content and high hop rate were intended to preserve the beer and also prevent it from freezing during its shipboard trip across the Baltic sea.  Thrale’s brewery of London brewed the style preferred by Catherine II’s court in Russia.

Later Thrale’s brewery changed hands and was taken over by Courage, renaming the beer as Courage Imperial Russian Stout.  The style has a high alcohol content of 9-10% alcohol by volume.  High gravity Russian stout’s are also brewed by Guiness and Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams). [Ref: Wikipedia]

While the style was regularly brewed in the 18th and early 19th century, this beer has enjoyed a resurgence the last few years with the rise of microbreweries.

The Russian Imperial Stout Style

Russian Imperial Stout is a rich, deep, complex beer with full bodied flavor.  It has a rich dark malt flavor that may vary from dry chocolate to slightly burnt.  A slight alcoholic warmth is normal.  It may have a fruity profile including complex dark fruits such as plum, raisin or prune flavors.   Like many British beers, it can have a caramel, bready or toasted flavor as well with roast malt complexity.

Color ranges from dark brown to jet black (30-40 SRM).  Alcohol content is usually high (8-12% alcohol by volume) with a high starting gravity (1.075 to 1.115 OG).  Bitterness generally runs high to balance the malty flavor (50-90 IBUs), but hop flavor should only be low to medium overall.   Many US versions have higher bitterness. Carbonation is generally low to moderate. [Ref: BJCP Style Guide]

Brewing an Imperial Stout

Imperial stouts start with a well-modified pale malt base, generally using UK pale malts.  The pale base typically makes up 75% of the grain bill.  Roasted malts of all kind are added, usually comprising of a mix of moderately colored caramel malt, chocolate malt and roast malt to provide complexity, body and flavor.  Together these make up the remaining 25% of the malt bill.  Other malts such as Munich and aromatic are occasionally used, though roast malts make up the bulk of the specialty grain bill.

Traditional variations use classic English hops such as Fuggles or BC Goldings, though American microbreweries often also use US hop variants.  Hops are typically added as a single boil addition, since a lingering hop aroma and flavor is not needed here.  Instead a high hop rate during the boil provides the bitterness needed to offset the malt.

Since roast malts provide a very acidic addition, it is not uncommon to use slightly alkaline water when brewing imperial stouts.  Traditionally, English Ale yeast or Imperial Stout yeast provides the fruity complexity required for this style, though again some American variants use high attenuation US yeast variants for a cleaner finish.  Very high gravity options may require high gravity yeast such as champagne or barley wine yeast.

Imperial stouts are fermented at ale temperatures in the 63-68 F range, carbonated at low to moderate carbonation rates, and stored at ale temperatures or lower (as they were during the icy trip across the Baltic).  Often Imperials require an extended aging period to achieve full maturity due to the high starting gravity.

Imperial Stout Recipes

Here are some sample recipes from the BeerSmith Recipe Page:

• Cossack Imperial Stout – All Grain
• Jay’s ‘One at a Time’ Imperial Stout – All Grain
• Spiced Imperial Stout – All Grain

Thank you for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  Please consider subscribing for email delivery, and don’t hesitate to tweet or bookmark us using the links below – every little bit helps!

• Brewing an Irish Stout Beer Recipe
• Brown Ale Recipes: Brewing Styles
• Balancing your Beer with the Bitterness Ratio
• Beer Styles: Making a Porter Recipe
• Brewing Marzen and Oktoberfest Beer Recipes

The blog has been much more popular than I had imagined.  We started with zero regular subscribers two years ago, reached about 1000 at the first anniversary and have expanded to over 3000 now.  We had 60,000 visitors to the blog last month, and over 470,000 visits to the blog over the last year.  Its approaching the circulation of a small magazine.

I’ve tried to keep the focus of the stories primarily on home brewing and also to focus on the techniques, styles, and equipment that an average homebrewer might need.  I’ve tried to stay away from too many “fluffy” articles and vary the level from beginner to more advanced techniques to keep it interesting.  Finally, I’ve organized all of our articles into an growing BeerSmith Home Brewing Guide to make it easier to find what you are looking for.  Hopefully you have enjoyed it.

In the next year, I’m going to try to feature additional interviews and articles by expert guests where appropriate, but keep the focus firmly on homebrewing.  I also added a new domain name blog.beersmith.com which may be easier to remember if you want to recommend us to a friend.

Here are a collection of some of my favorite articles from the last year for you to enjoy:

• Beer Recipe Design
• Three Part Series on Home Brewing Beer for Beginners
• Bock and Doppelbock Beer Recipes
• Brew in a Bag (BIAG) Method for All Grain Brewing
• Partial Mashing
• English Pale Ale Recipes
• Seasonal Beer Brewing
• Balancing Beer with the Bitterness Ratio
• Marzen and Oktoberfest Beer Recipes
• Grandmaster Beer Judge Gordon Strong

Thanks again for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  If you have not already done so, be sure to subscribe for weekly delivery – you will receive an email once a week as we publish new articles.  Your comments, bookmarks and donations are also welcome.

• One Year of The BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog
• Bock and Doppelbock Beer Recipes – Beer Styles
• BeerSmith Software Video Tutorials
• The BeerSmith Home Brewing Guide
• Beer Recipe Design

How did you get started in home brewing beer?

Two old college friends of mine got me interested in craft beer and homebrewing in the early to mid 1990s. I tried their beer and liked it, and then naturally asked them what was involved. They loaned me some books, I bought a kit, and just started. My first efforts turned out very well, and I actually won BOS at the Ohio State Fair with my 5^th batch of beer. That was all the encouragement I needed.

You won the coveted Ninkasi award at the 2009 AHA competition for being the “winningest brewer” at the National Homebrew Competition. This was your second win (you won in 2008) – how did you do it?

It was a great honor. I knew I had to “bring it” if I was going to defend my title on Jamil’s home turf. So I first set out to have as many different beers ready as possible. Then I carefully judged them as if I were one of the competition judges. I only sent my best efforts, and I tweaked some of the entries to make them fit the style better. I then repeated this process for the second round, including rebrewing some of the styles that I thought wouldn’t hold up as well (such as the hefeweizen). Finally, I just was lucky in getting judges that liked my beers. Competing is a real crap-shoot, and some days you just get lucky. I had one in three beers place in both the first and second rounds.

You have been a freelance writer for several years on both Zymurgy and BYO – how did you get started in writing about homebrewing?

It’s a natural extension of talking about beer. I just put the conversations I have with brewers and judges into writing. I think I started by trying to give presentations at conferences, such as the AHA NHC and MCAB. I also did a lot of writing for the BJCP when preparing the style guidelines. I also had been fairly active in online forums. Finally, I was technical editor for both Radical Brewing and Wild Brews, and contributed to Brew Like a Monk. It certainly helps for editors to see that you can meet deadlines and express yourself well. Then I guess I just had gotten enough name recognition and exposure through my work with the BJCP and the AHA Governing Committee that the work started rolling in. I recently signed a contract with Brewers Publications to develop an advanced all-grain brewing book, tentatively called Brew Better Beer. That’s my major project at the moment.

You are the current BJCP President. Many brewers are familiar with the BJCP style guide, but tell us a little about the BJCP and beer judge certification.

The BJCP is the principal certifying body for homebrew judges in North America, and is becoming known for the same in other countries (Australia, South Africa, Argentina). We administer beer and mead judge exams, sanction competitions, develop style guidelines and competition materials, develop training and education materials, and track judge progress through a ranking system.

Judges must pass a three-hour written and tasting exam, which is very rigorous. The exam score, combined with experience points gained by judging in competitions, helps determine judge’s rank. The ranking system includes ranks for Apprentice, Recognized, Certified, National, Master and Grand Master judges. Higher ranks are earned through higher exam scores, more practical experience, and in the case of Grand Master ranks, service to the BJCP.

You are a Grand Master BJCP certified judge – what does it take to get into beer judging?

I’m currently the only Grand Master V judge. Each Grand Master rank involves doing everything you needed to do to get the first Grand Master rank again – getting 100 experience points, 50 of which must have come through judging (judges generally get one experience point per competition), grading 50 exams, and continuing to perform service for the BJCP (such as administering exams, grading exams, holding BJCP office, or teaching training courses).

Anyone can be a beer judge. To be a member of the BJCP, one just has to take the BJCP exam. However, to do well as a judge, you need to study hard and do well on the exam. Then you need a lot of practical experience judging in competitions.

How does one get to Grand Master level V?

You have to score a 90 on the exam, which is something only 3% or so of examinees achieve. Then you have to get 500 experience points, 250 of which come through judging. Grading 250 exams and performing additional years of service towards the BJCP are also requirements. I’ve been a judge since 1997, so it took me about a dozen years to get there. It’s not something you can get through casual effort; you have to be deeply involved in judging for a long period of time.

How does the BJCP scoring system work in competition?

Beers are scored on a 50 point scale, with 12 points going for aroma, 3 for appearance, 20 for flavor, 5 for mouthfeel, and 10 for overall impression. A good beer will score over 30, while a great beer will be in the 40s. A perfect score is rare, indeed, since it’s almost impossible to hit a style perfectly, have no defects, and be perfectly fresh.

Teams of judges individually assess a beer, coming up with their own scores and detailed comments on their perceptions. The judges discuss the beer and come up with a consensus score, which is used to determine the winner of an individual flight of beers. The category winners are then judged in a best-of-show round that will determine the overall champion of the competition.

What do you look for when judging a great beer?

First of all, it needs to be well-crafted and showing the brewer’s art. It must be properly fermented, not have any technical flaws, and be fresh. All beers are judged against style guidelines, which are a reference for individual beer styles. A great beer must capture the essence of the particular style, having great balance and flavor, and generally standing up against the best commercial examples. In summary, a great beer must hit the style well, be free of flaws, and be fresh.

What would a first time competitor expect going into their first BJCP judged competition?

It’s an eye-opening experience. An entrant should receive at least two scoresheets for every beer they entered, each with a detailed evaluation of the beer and a score. The evaluation should describe what the judges perceived, and how well they feel it fit the style. If they detected any flaws, they may offer feedback on possible courses of action to improve the beer. If you beer placed in the top three for your flight, expect a medal or ribbon. The competition standings should show who won medals, and who won best of show. Some competitions will show scores, so you might get an idea of where you placed relative to other entrants in your category.

Judging can be quite variable, so entrants should submit their beers to multiple competitions to get a better sampling of opinion from judges. Remember that judging is subjective and not all judges will perceive the same things. So you’ll probably also be surprised to see differing opinions and assessments. Use them as data points, and compare them against your own impressions.

Any advice for competitive homebrewers?

Learn to be a beer judge. Understand what the judges are looking for, and then try to provide it. Understand competition mechanics. Then try to make the best beer you possibly can. When brewing for competition, pay careful attention to hitting the style. Not just the numbers, but the overall balance and impression. Taste your beer before sending it. Don’t send losers. Read the feedback carefully, and decide why your beer was scored the way it was. When rebrewing your beer, take the feedback into account and try to correct any mistakes. Try to give the judges what they want, and you’ll be ahead of the game.

Does one have to iterate several times to create an award winning beer?

No. Like I said, I won best of show with the fifth beer I ever made. You don’t have to iterate, but that means that you’ll have to start with good technique and a good recipe. If you plan your recipe wisely to fit the style guidelines and understand how to use ingredients and processes to get a certain outcome, then you should be able to make award-winning beers the first time. In many competitions, all you have to do is come up with a reasonably tasting beer that isn’t infected and superficially meets the style guidelines. In more competitive competitions, you’ll have to pay more careful attention to the style definitions and be sure your beer is fresh and tasty.

Where do you see the BJCP going as an organization?

We continue to expand at a growing rate. We had a record year in 2009 in terms of the number of people taking the exam and the number of competitions sanctioned. The hobby is becoming more popular, and more people want to be BJCP judges. I think it’s a good reflection on the organization to see demand this strong.

I’m also very pleased that other countries are asking to form local chapters. Australia has been a very successful story for us; we’re approaching 100 judges there with over a dozen competitions a year. We’ve had inquiries from Japan, Germany and England as well. To see that people in other countries are recognizing the value of our brand and the legitimacy of our guidelines and methods is a strong endorsement.

I see the BJCP continuing to grow both domestically and internationally, with more educational opportunities and resources being made available to our members. We continue to look for more programs to fund, such as providing sensory training kits to our members. We launched a mead judge program last year; we hope to do the same with cider in the future.

Our goal is to have the BJCP recognized throughout the world as the premier beer judge organization, to have our style guidelines and classification system adopted uniformly, and to provide the best training and education materials for anyone interested in evaluating beer.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I would like to encourage your readers to train to become BJCP judges and to join the American Homebrewers Association. Those two organizations do help you become a better brewer and judge. Come to the AHA National Homebrew Conference – it’s the best beer event of the year. I’ll also add a plug for The Brewing Network, which I feel is one of the best sources of online information on all things brewing. Get involved, have fun, and if you see me at a beer event, feel free to come up and introduce yourself. You get much more out of the hobby if you are actively involved. Most brewers and judges are great people who like to have a good time and talk with people with a passion for this hobby. You learn so much more through the relationships you build, so be sure to get involved and meet new people.

=> Thank you (and Gordon!) for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  If you enjoyed this week’s article don’t hesitate to subscribe for regular email delivery, retweet or bookmark us somewhere.  Have a great brewing week!

• New BJCP 2008 Style Guide and BeerSmith Batch Sparging Release
• An Interview with Brewer Dan Morey
• An Interview with Brewing Author John Palmer
• BeerSmith Blog Second Anniversary
• Beer Recipe Design

Starting a New Recipe

When I build a new beer recipe, I almost always start by picking a target beer style.  This is not to say that the style defines the whole beer as there is plenty of room for interpretation and creativity, but by starting with a beer style, you establish the baseline for the beer you are going to brew.

A good starting reference is the BJCP style guidelines.   Organized by the Beer Judge Certification Program, the style guideline provides detailed specifications and suggested ingredients for nearly 100 different styles of beer.  So if you want to brew an Irish Stout, or Bavarian Weisse, this is a good place to start.  These guidelines also provide ranges for average bitterness, color and original gravity for the beer which can help you achieve the appropriate balance for the beer.

Choosing the Ingredients

The next step in designing the beer is to pick appropriate ingredients.  Beer is made from malt, hops, water and yeast (occasionally with a few spices).  Before you jump to doing detailed design, do a bit of research to determine what ingredients in each category are typically used your target beer style, and in roughly what proportions.  For proportions, I prefer to work initially in percentages such as 80% pale malt, 15% carmel malt and 5% chocolate malt – this makes it easier to scale things later on.

The BJCP style guide provides some information on typical ingredients used, but often does not have detailed breakouts of proportions.  The BeerSmith Blog Style Articles do provide more detailed information on the history of different beer styles and percentage of ingredients used.  Our recipes page also provides some great examples, as do a number of other online recipe web sites, though one must be careful when using someone else’s recipe as often they are far from the actual beer style.

Another great resource is brewing books – one of my favorites is Ray Daniel’s book Designing Great Beers, which has detailed analysis of percentages of ingredients used in award winning and commercial beer examples.  Finally, you can often find articles or messages for a particular beer style using a simple google search or search on a discussion forum.

The goal of all of your research is to determine ingredients appropriate to the style.  Using the wrong ingredients, or selecting the wrong proportions will result in a beer with the wrong flavor and balance.  You will rarely go wrong using ingredients that are authentic to the style.

Brewing by the Numbers

Once you have your ingredients selected, and have them apportioned in roughly the correct way its time to actually enter the beer into a spreadsheet or program such as BeerSmith, and run the numbers.  This is an important step, which many beginning brewers skip, but if you don’t have the recipe properly adjusted and balanced for your equipment and your settings you will likely end up way off your target style.

The critical parameters to look at as you enter and adjust your ingredients are:

• Original Gravity (OG)– A measure of how much fermentable and unfermentable malt you have added to the beer.  The original gravity typically determines how much potential alcohol you will have in the beer, as well as how malty the beer will be.  The style guideline provides a range for this parameter.
• Bitterness (IBUs) – Bitterness from hops balances the flavor of your beer.  For beer design, you want to estimate your bitterness in International Bitterness Units (IBUs).  Again you want to use the style guideline to determine the appropriate IBU range.
• Color (SRM) – You can estimate the color of your beer from the ingredients used.  Estimating the color is important, as you don’t want your pale ale to be black or your stout to be blonde in color.  Obviously darker malts add color.
• Bitterness Ratio (IBU/GU) – The bitterness ratio gives you a rough measurement of the bitterness to malt balance for the beer.  A hoppy beer will have a high bitterness ratio, while a malty beer will have a low one.  We have a separate article on calculating bitterness ratio as well as the ranges for different styles.
• Final Gravity (FG) – While it is very difficult to accurately predict final gravity ahead of time, I often look at the final gravity for the style to get an idea of the attenuation needed from the yeast.  Attenuation refers to the percentage of sugars consumed by the yeast, and some styles require high attenuation yeast to achieve a smooth clean flavor, while others need low attenuation yeasts for complex flavor.
• Carbonation (Vols) – The carbonation of the beer should match the style.  Carbonation is measured in volumes, where one volume would essentially be a liter of carbon dioxide gas dissolved into a liter of beer.  Fermented beer at room temperature with no additional carbonation contains about 1.0 volumes of CO2.  Authentic English ales are often served with little or no carbonation (1.5-2.0 vols) while many German beers are highly carbonated (up to 3.0 vols).  If you research the style, you can often determine the correct carbonation level for the beer.

Brewing Techniques

After you have the proper ingredients and have balanced the recipe by the numbers, the final step is to look at the techniques needed to brew this style of beer.  Different styles definitely require application of a variety of brewing techniques.  Some of the techniques to consider include:

• Hop Techniques ­– A variety of hop techniques are available, most of which are covered in our article on hop techniques.  Examples include first wort hopping, dry hopping, late hop additions, bittering hops, and use of a hopback.  Different beer styles require different methods to achieve the appropriate balance.
• Mash Techniques – For all grain and partial mash brewers, adjusting your mash temperature is critical to achieving the appropriate body for your beer.  Lower mash temperature during the main conversion step will result in a lower body beer and higher mash temperatures result in more body.  In addition, advanced brewers may want to consider advanced techniques like decoction mashing if appropriate to the style.
• Fermenting, Lagering and Aging – The temperature for fermenting your beer should be appropriate for the yeast and beer you are using.  Yeast manufacturers as well as most brewing software publish appropriate temperature ranges for fermentation of each yeast.   Aging and lagering should also match your target style.

Beer design is clearly one part art, and one part science which is what makes it an interesting and enjoyable hobby.  However, if you do your homework, select quality ingredients, run the numbers and follow good brewing techniques you can make fantastic beer at home using your own recipes.

Thank you again for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  If you enjoyed this article, don’t hesitate to subscribe, tweet, bookmark or vote for our articles on BrewPoll.  Also I recently added a “tip jar” to the left sidebar here.  If you feel the blog provides value, you can make a contribution of any amount.

• “Designing Great Beers” by Ray Daniels – A Book Review
• Ten Reasons to use Beer Brewing Software
• Brewing German Altbier Recipes
• Steam Beer and California Common Recipes: Beer Styles
• Balancing your Beer with the Bitterness Ratio

Aeration Explained

Lets start with some basic definitions.  Aeration is the injection of oxygen into the wort during the brewing process, usually after boiling and cooling cooling and just prior to fermentation.  The act of boiling wort forces most of the oxygen out of solution.  Unfortunately, as we covered in our article on fermentation and the yeast life cycle, yeast requires a great deal of oxygen during the “lag phase” when it is rapidly multiplying in the wort.  Without enough oxygen, the yeast will fail to reproduce sufficiently, leaving an incomplete fermentation.

Before we get to how to best add more oxygen, lets look at two other important terms.  Another term you may hear is “hot side aeration”, which refers to exessive splashing or aeration of the wort during the boil or before we’ve had a chance to cool the wort down.  The problem with adding oxygen while the wort is hot is that it can oxidize the melanoidins in your beer leading to a stale flavor.  A study by the late George Fix suggests that hot side aeration can occur at temperatures as low as 86F (which is pretty low!), so it is important to cool your wort before aerating it.

A third term, called oxidation is closely related to the first two.  Oxidation occurs when you add oxygen after the lag phase of yeast growth (i.e. later in fermentation, or after the beer has fermented).  In this case, the effect is exactly what is seen when you left your pony keg at college out for a few days with an air pump on it.  The air oxidizes the finished beer, leaving a strong stale flavor.  So you clearly don’t want to introduce oxygen in your beer after lag fermentation has started.

Aerating your Wort

So far we’ve learned that hot side aeration is bad, oxidation is bad, but proper aeration of the cooled wort is good.  Now lets look at how to put this information to good use in our beer.  Yeast needs between 8 and 10 parts per million (ppm) of oxygen to properly reproduce in the lag phase.  A level of 8ppm is achievable using air alone (which is 21% oxygen), but achieving a higher level requires a tank of pure oxygen.

The best time to aerate your wort is as soon as it is cool.  Ideally this can be done during transfer to the fermenter or immediately after transfer to the fermenter.  If you aerate after pitching your wort, do not aerate for long as the lag phase generally starts withing a few hours of pitching the wort.

There are three basic methods for aerating wort:

• Splashing – Splashing the wort around in the fermenter can actually add some oxygen to the solution.  You can achieve the same effect by splashing the wort around during transfer – for example using a cap at the end of the siphon that splashes the wort out the side a bit.  While splashing will not achieve as high an oxygen content as injection, it is a good option for those on a limited budget.  Splashing is far superior to no aeration at all.
• Agitation -Agitation is done by stirring rapidly with a spoon, whisking the wort around with a wisk or rocking the entire fermenter.  Generally a sterilized whisk is best if you have open access to the wort.  Whisk the beer vigorously for several minutes before adding your yeast.  Agitation is a step above splashing, as it generally gets more oxygen into the solution.
• Injection – There are many ways to inject air or oxygen directly into the wort.  The simplest setup involves using an inexpensive aquarium pump with a inline sterile filter.  Note that the filter is needed to prevent bacteria and other organisms from being drawn in with the air.  I also recommend using some kind of carbonation stone or aeration stone at the end of the tube to help diffuse the air.  Care must be taken to sanitize the stone and tube before using it.  A more elaborate injection system would use an actual oxygen bottle and regulator to inject oxygen.  However, even the relatively cheap aquarium pump injection system can achieve the 8 ppm ideal aeration level needed for your wort.

For many years, I used the splashing/agitation system, but for less than $25 you can move up to an aquarium pump, filter and carbonation stone and significantly improve the fermentation of your beer.  I will add a final note – don’t forget the use of a properly sized yeast starter, for without a starter you still risk poor yeast production and subsequent problems in your beer.

Thank you for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  Don’t hesitate to subscribe, tweet or bookmark this article if you enjoyed it and also check out our BeerSmith Home Brewing Guide for more great articles.

• Beer Yeast, Fermentation, and Home Brewing
• Bottling Beer: 10 Tips for Home Brewers
• How to Brew Beer – 5 Steps for Making Beer at Home – Part 2
• Using a Hop Back for Homebrewed Beer
• Ten Top Tips for Home Brewing Beer

How did you get into brewing beer at home?

Dan Morey and Friend

I got started in homebrewing back in 1992.  Prior to homebrewing, I had an interest in better beer.  In college, I was drinking the likes of Orval, Young’s Old Nick, Samuel Smith Taddy Porter, Anchor Libery Ale, and Lindemans.  There was plenty of Huber Bock too, those bottles can in handy later!  With plenty of family in Wisconsin, instead of heading south for spring break, I would round up some friends end head north on brewery tours.  After a couple of years of tours, I decided it was time to give homebrewing a try.  How hard could it be?

My first batch was a lager kit, one of those kits in a 3.3 lb can.  The yeast was questionable and it was half sugar.  The result?  Well it was drinkable.  Not bad, not great.  But extract brewing wasn’t for me.  I felt like I was making orange juice from a can of concentrate.  Don’t get me wrong, this hobby is about fun.  So whether you are extract, partial mash, or all-grain, keep what you are doing as long as you are having fun.  So back to the story.  I’d been on several brewery tours and considered myself an above average cook so I took the all-grain plunge.  Who needs books anyways?  Well my first all grain batch was 100% black patent ground to a flour!  Needless to say it didn’t work.  That’s when I decided to get some books and read how it was really done.  The first books I had were Papazian’s New Complete Joy and Byron Burch’s Brewing Quality Beers.  It took about a year, but I finally started making some decent all-grain beers.  I’ve been brewing ever since.

You are famous for the “Morey Equation” for estimating beer color.  How did you come up with the equation?

I got to admit, I was shocked when I found out “real” brewing software was using the “Morey Equation.”  At the time was writing my own brewing software.  The original version was in Quick Basic and was really limited.  I decided wanted something that was executable and had editable databases, so I went to work on transferring it to Turbo Pascal.  One area I was really unhappy with was color estimation.  By using just the MCU value I felt my beers were usually lighter than the prediction.

So, Ray Daniels’ article in the NOV/DEC 1995 Brewing Techniques caught my attention.  At first, I was going to use the three linear approximations:  MCU for the low range, Daniels in the middle range and Mosher at the higher end.  But the idea did not apeal to me.  I didn’t like the ideas of discontinuity in the curve.  So I decided to manipulate the data, so see if I could fit a single curve that approximate the “Z” shaped curve from the assumptions I made.  Turn out I was able to get good correlation, so I wrote Brewing Techniques.  My hope was that either Ray or Randy would apply the same form of curve to the raw data they used to develop their linear models.  Brewing Techniques then contacted me.  Turns out there was a lot of interest this series of articles and they wanted to establish a web depository for all the related responses and they wanted to include my work.

I never really thought it would become so widely accepted.  I think a lot of it was due to Jeffery Donovan having good correlation between the model and the beers he measured.  While the formula was being debated on the HBD, Kyle Druey fit power curves to the color tables published by Daniels and Noonan.  The curve fit for Daniels’ is very similar to the approximation I proposed.  The fit to Noonan’s rose more quickly and started to taper fairly quickly at 15 MCU.  Attached is paper I wrote for my club BABBLE, when they asked me to talk about color.

You wrote a bit for Brewing Techniqies and Zymurgy magazines.  How did you get started writing about home brewing?

Actually, I only had the one letter to the editor that was published by Brewing Techniques.  I have contributed two articles in Zymurgy.  “Maximize your Mash” and “Beyond Barley Wine” both which appeared in 2005.  What I enjoyed about writing is it driven some goal I have had in homebrewing.  Whether it is studying a topic in depth or conducting a series of expirements.  Regardless if the story is for publication or some presentation, it give a focus to the task.  For example, the goal behind “Beyond Barley Wine” was to really understand:  wheat, rye, and oats.  As a judge I find there are still misconceptions concerning wheat and rye among judges and brewers.

So I set out to brew huge beers from 100% malt other than barley so there would be no mistaking the contribution of wheat, rye, or oats.  It was one of the funnest projects I ever did.  I couldn’t quite pull of the rye, I believe I ended up at 86%, but I did achieve 100% with both wheat and oats.  I did my own evaluations and also entered the beers in competitions to get independent feedback so that I could describe the character of these malts.  Besides describing the malts, I wanted to give tips on how to brew with them.  The oat beer was just cool and it got the best comment ever, “Experiments like this is why people should homebrew!”  One project I planned was writing an article on saisons.  Turns out Drew Beechum thought so too and beat me to it.  But it still drove my brewing schedule for that year – to brew a sasion for every season.  One thing I’d still like to try is some simple home test to estimate AA% of homegrown hops.  Perhaps titrated acid or pH of hop tea could reveal a correlation.  I guess if I had to some it up in on word it would be Passion.

I see that you are a regular beer competitor – do you have any advice for fellow brewers who wish to compete?

Aside from good basic cleaning and sanitation, know where you are going and determine how to get there.  Rarely is there a beer you just through together with random ingredients that is a winning beer.  It maybe excellent and interesting, but most categories are about meeting styles.  Volunteer and local events.  Get to know the judges.  Talk to them about beer styles you are interested in.  I’ve judges many competitions from regional to national including a few NHC 2nd rounds.

One thing is clear, there are regional preferences and local preferences.  So if you understand the preferences of the region, your chances of winning are better.  Perhaps one location prefers a certain hop character.  Maybe there is yeast preference.  Do saisons win more often or Belgian pale ales.  These are thing you can learn by volunteering.  Pick styles you are interested in that maybe less popular.  If there are several tables of stouts with a mini-BOS and only one table of porter, you probably have a better chance with porters.  Finally continually improve your technique.  Look for common threads in your feedback.  This should point to real opportunity to improve.

You are the organizer for this year’s Babble Brew-Off.  Can you tell us about the upcoming competition?

This is our seventh year doing the Brew-Off.  It started out in 2004 as the Leap Beer Brew-Off.  In non-leap years, we just use the name BABBLE Brew-Off.  We have grown from 126 entries in our first year to averaging over 220 the last four years.  Entries come from across the nation and we’ve had international entries.  For 2010 we are planning on 31 flights and estimate we’ll have 251 entries.  There will be seperate Best of Shows for Beer and Mead/Cider.  We are fortunate to be able to draw many excellent judges from the Chicago area up through Milwaukee.

This gives a large pool of judges with several National and Master judges available.  Some notable judges we have had:  Jeff Sparrow, Joe Formanek, Dave Norton, and Rodney Kibzey.  What is also great is the number of excellent brewers who compete in this event.  Again the like of Formanek, Kibzey, Michael Shannon, and Dan Schlosser provide excellent competition, it is no easy feet winning.  Some of the things we try to do:

• Get the best judges we can and return results within a week.
• Besides judging feedback, we try to make sure every entrant is given something donated by our sponsors.  Some examples of what we have given out are:  yeast, hops, and cleaning chemicals.  It is our way of saying thank you.
• We try to make sure each flight winner recieves a prize beyond their ribbon.
• We have an Entrant Appreciation Drawing.  One participant will recieve a special prize just for entering.  Each entry qualifies you, so the more you enter, the better chances of winning.  It is another way of saying thank you.

For more information see the BABBLE website  http://www.babblehomebrewers.com (Editors Note: BeerSmith is sponsoring Babble prizes this year)

The Babble Brew-off is part of the Midwest Homebrewer of the Year Circuit – can you tell us how this circuit works?

We joined the Midwest Homebrewer of the Year Circuit back in 2006.  Eligible brewers from the following states are awarded points based on their place of finish:  Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.  The winner must enter at least 10 different BJCP categories during the yeasr and enter at least four different contests.  Only the highest placing beer per category give the brewer points.  First place is 8, 4 pint for second, and third place is awarded 2 points.  So if someone one second place for a Belgian blond ale, they would be awarded 4 points.  If later they one first place for a dubbel, they would get 8 points, but the 4 points for the previous blond would be dropped since they are both category 18.

Finally, they take the raw score (sum of all the highest category points) and multiply that by the winning percentage.  So while the 4 points for the blond would have been dropped, the ribbon would count towards winning percentage.  Basically the contest is set-up to encourgare brewers to brew a wide variety of styles and it discourages flooding competitions by using the winning percentage.  It also limits the impact of someone have one killer beer and continually re-entering it to rack-up points.  In the end, the overall winner is awarded a trophy and gift certificate from Northern Brewer.  Some notable winners of MWHBoY are:  Ray Daniels, Joe Formanek, Curt Stock and Kris England.

Beer brewing has changed a lot since you and I started brewing beer.  What advice would you have for today’s brewers to make great beer?

Good question.  The basic and simple answer is good cleaning and sanitation practices.  But this has always been true.  One of the biggest changes has been equipment.  Seems like HERM and RIM systems abound today.  A lot of brewers are paying good money for fancy mash system and I just don’t get it.  I’d like one, but that is not the first place I’d invest a large chunk on money if I wanted to brew better beer.  I mean I know people who have dropped $3-5K on these systems.

There is great beer made from all different kinds of wort from 100% extract, to partial mash, and all grain.  What I recommend, when you are ready for a big purchase, invest in temperature control of you fermenters.  Get a frig or freezer with a temperature controller, a brew belt, or a heated and cooled conical.  By controlling the temperature of your fermentation you can do more to affect the quality of the final product.  Hit the correct ester profile, get the right attenuation, limit fusels, have repeatable results.  The best made wort may not make the best beer when fermentation is all over the place.  Focus you efforts on fermentation before worrying about wort.

Why do you brew?

It’s flat out fun!  I’ve been playing around with different suagrs lately.  I was assigned the dark soft candi on team golden strong when the BBB did the candi sugar swap.  I have taken that same basic Belgian golden strong and brewed it several times changing the specialty sugar for each batch.   Besides the dark soft candi, I’ve used regular table sugar, date syrup, grape molasses, and maple syrup.  There is such anticipation each time you open that new beer.  What awaits you?  Is it something wonderful?  The mystery is waiting to be solved, just open the tap.  Homebrewing is an artistic outlet.  Some people paint, others make music or perform, even other may work with hot molten glass or sculpt.  While they inspire and bring enjoyment, I know no other art that embraces all the senses like beer.  I make beer!

Do you have anything you would like to add?

I’m sure I’ve gone too long.  I do have a page on MoreBeer Buzz were I try to keep anything that I think might be interesting or useful to homebrewers:    http://morebeer.ning.com/profile/DanMorey

Once again I would like to thank Dan Morey for taking the time to do today’s interview.  Thank you for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  Please don’t hesitate to subscribe, twitter or bookmark us if you enjoyed this article.

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The Malting Process

The story of diastatic power starts as part of the malting process.  As we covered a few weeks ago in the article on Malting at Home, the malting process consists of placing raw barley grains in water and germinating (sprouting or growing) them until the acrospire (the little leaf growing inside the husk) reaches a length close to that of the grain itself.  The malt is then kiln dried, and the tiny sproutlets fall off, leaving malted barley.  For darker and specialty grains the malt is roasted at varying degrees of time and temperature to achieve everything from caramel malt to stout roast.

The purpose of the malting process is primarily to develop the sweet sugars needed for fermentation of beer.  In fact, you may often hear the term “modification” of the malt.  Highly modified malt has almost all of its grain starch converted to sugars, while undermodified malt still contains a significant portion of unfermentable starches.  A secondary effect of malting, however, is to develop the enzymes needed for mashing.

Diastatic Power

Diastatic power refers to the enzymatic power of the malt itself – its ability to break down starches into even simpler fermentable sugars during the mashing process.  The term “diastatic” refers to “diastase” enzymes.  There are two “diastese” enzymes, the first is alpha amylase and the second is beta amylase.  These enzymes might be familiar to many of you who have been brewing all grain for a while, as they are the primary enzymes active when you mash your grains in the normal temperature range of 148-158F.

So why should an average homebrewer care?  If you don’t have sufficient diastatic enzymes in your mash, you simply will not be able to properly convert sugars during the mash.   This will leave you with a partially fermented very sweet beer, with very low alcohol content.

Diastatic Power is measured in degrees lintner (often denoted with a big °L), though in Europe a secondary measure of Windisch-Kolbach units (degrees °WK) is often used.  You can convert from one to the other using Lintner=(WK+16)/3.5 or going the other way as WK=3.5*Lintner – 16. A malt needs a diastatic power of approximately 35 °L to be considered “self converting”.  Some of the newest American 6-row malts can have a diastatic power as high as 160 °L.  (Ref: Wikipedia)

You can get the lintner values for many common malts from the malt supplier’s specification sheet, or from our BeerSmith database.  Lets look at sample lintner values for a few commonly used grains:

• American 2 Row Pale Malt: 140 °L
• American 6 Row Pale Malt: 160 °L
• British Pale Malts: 40-70 °L
• Maris Otter Pale Malt: 120 °L
• Belgian Pale Malt (2 row): 60 °L
• German Pilsner Malt: 110 °L
• Munich Malt (10 SRM): 70 °L
• Munich Malt (20 SRM): 25 °L
• Vienna Malt: 50 °L
• Wheat Malt, German: 60-90 °L
• Wheat, Unmalted (flaked, Torrified): 0 °L
• Crystal Malt (all): 0 °L
• Chocolate Malt: 0°L
• Black Patent Malts: 0 °L

A few things become obvious looking at the above examples. With the possible exception of the very lightest specialty base malts such as Vienna or Munich, few specialty malts provide very much enzymatic power.    Almost all of the enzymes needed to convert your mash are contained in your base malt, so the selection of a good base malt is important.   Wheat provides diastatic power nearly equal to barley so it can be used in large proportions to make wheat beer.

Diastatic Power for All Grain and Partial Mash Brewers

How does this affect your all grain brewing?  Clearly if you are brewing an all grain batch with a high power base malt like American six row, you will have plenty of enzymes available to convert your mash, and it will also convert at a faster pace than it might otherwise.  However, if you are using a low power 2-row British malt with a large number of specialty malts, the sugars will still convert but might take substantially longer to do so.

A few specific styles can also cause problems for the all grain brewer.  Lets take the example of Belgian Wit, which typically is made from 60% pale malt and 40% unmalted wheat (often flaked or torrified).  If you select a Belgian Pale Malt base malt with low diastatic power, you may be in for a very long mash as the unmalted wheat contributes no enzymes to the process.  The grains will likely still convert (little of the unmalted wheat will convert in any case) but it may take a long time to reach full conversion.

Diastatic power plays an even more important role for partial mash brewers.  Many beginning partial mash brewers tend to take several pounds of specialty malts and try to mash them without a pale base malt.  This can cause very poor conversion, as the fermentable portion of the specialty malts lack the enzymes to convert.  It is important that you mash with sufficient base malt to provide the enzymes needed in the mashing process.

Estimating Diastatic Power for your Mash

To get a quick idea of whether you have sufficient diastatic power in your all grain or partial mash brew, I recommend you simply average the weighted diastatic power of your ingredients and see whether the final number is greater than the 30 Lintner minimum needed to convert.  The overall diastatic power for your mash would be the sum of the diastatic power for each ingredient times its weight divided by the total grain weight.  To get this number, just multiply the diastatic power for each grain times the weight of that grain, add the numbers up for all of your grains, and divide by the total grain weight.

Lintner_for_batch =  Σ(lintner_for_grain * weight_of_grain) / (total_batch_grain_weight)

Lets look at a quick example: a partial mash using 2 lb of Caramel Malt, 1 pound of chocolate malt, and 1 pound of British Pale malt, with a diastatic power of 50 Lintner.   The Caramel and Chocolate malts both have a diastatic power of zero, so they each contribute (0L x 1lbs) and (0L x 2lbs) for a total contribution of zero lintner-pounds.  The pale malt is (50L x 1 lb) for a total contribution of 50 L-lbs.  Now we add the contributions for all three up (which is 0+0+50) or 50 L-lbs.  Now we divide by the total grain weight in the mash which is simply 3 lbs, which leaves an overall average diastatic power of 50/3 or 16.6 Lintner.  Since this number is smaller than 30 L needed to convert the overall mash, another pound of pale malt or one with higher diastatic power might be warranted.

I will note that the above calculation is a rough approximation, as the specialty grains are only partially fermentable and contain many non-convertible starches, but I usually prefer to err on the side of more enzymes rather than end up short in the mash.  Also, I don’t like to wait forever for my mash to complete, so I will often shoot for a number higher than the 30 L limit shown above.  Note that this calculation is really only needed for mashes with high percentages of specialty malts, as most modern base malts have very high diastatic power.

Thank you for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  Have a great 2010, and don’t hesitate to subscribe, tweet or share this article with a friend as it does help us spread the word.

• Malting Barley Grain at Home
• Converting All Grain Recipes to Malt Extract
• Partial Mashing
• Mashing for All Grain Beer Brewing
• English Pale Ale Recipes

Links to the Videos

• BeerSmith Overview (4:00)
• Creating a Recipe with BeerSmith (2:57)
• Making a Personal Equipment Profile (3:37)
• Scaling the Size of a Recipe (1:53)
• Adjusting the Gravity of a Recipe (1:16)
• Changing the Color of a Recipe (1:17)
• Importing Recipes from the Web (3:25)
• Using the Shopping List (2:18)
• Converting a Recipe from All Grain to Extract (1:41)
• Overview of Standalone Tools (3:27)
• Using English and Metric Units (2:50)

I have to say that putting together the videos was a fun experience for me.  Every aspect of the project from selecting basic sound equipment, finding good screencasting software, to editing and packaging the final videos was interesting and challenging.  Previously I had not spent much time with video editing software, audio recording or screencasting.  I hope you enjoy the result.

If you have suggestions for other tutorials you would like to see, please leave a comment below.  I plan to build additional videos as time allows.  Thank you for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  I’ll be back next week with more articles on homebrewing.

Happy New Year!!

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