West Coast Brewer Home Brewing Blog
Keg Airlocks
Keg airlocks are now available if you decide that you would like to use your kegs to ferment your beer. I conduct my secondary fermentation in kegs because I am able to store more of them in my fermentation refrigerator than carboys. Since there is only minimal fermentation occurring during secondary, head space is not a real issue.
Below is a photo of a keg airlock.
Keg Airlock
The following is a quick video on how to clean a 5 gallon Corny keg.
To clean a keg you will need the following items:
1) PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash) or similar food grade cleaning agent
2) A scrubbing sponge or brush
3) A socket wrench or crescent wrench to move the body connects
4) Warm or hot water
5) A sanitizing agent such as Star San if you wish to sanitize the keg at the same time
Food grade cleaning and sanitization chemicals can be purchased here:
Home Brewing Cleaning and Sanitization Chemicals
A Kolsch beer (pronounced “koelsch”) is similar to a pilsner in flavor and appearance, but usually has a touch more malt sweetness, a bit less hop bitterness, and some subtle fruit notes picked up from the yeast. It is a clean tasting and light bodied beer. For me, summertime is the best time of year to enjoy a nice cold Kolsch. Its crisp flavor and low ABV make it the perfect beer for a hot day. Perhaps it is the warm weather right now that has inspired me to write this blog entry about a beer that, in my opinion, does not receive the attention that it deserves.
Kolsch gets is name from the city that it is brewed in, Koln, also known as Cologne, Germany. It is a very light colored beer with a SRM as low as 3, and is one of the palest beers brewed in Germany. Kolsch beers are known for their clarity and bright blonde color. As far as bitterness goes, Kolsch beers typically come in at right around 20-30 IBU’s delivering a moderate and not overpowering hop flavor. The typical alcohol by volume for a Kolsch is between 4% and 5.25%.
One of the characteristics that makes Kolsch beers so unique is that they are fermented with a Kolsch-style top fermenting ale yeast, such as Wyeast 2565, at a temperature of about 60F, as opposed to with a bottom fermenting lager yeast. After primary fermentation has concluded, the beer is then cold lagered at approximately 40F for several weeks until it has fully cleared and conditioned.
Also interestingly, Kolsch has a geographical appellation. The Kolsch appellation became recognized by German law in 1997 and only approximately 20 breweries located in and around Cologne may legally claim their beers as a Kolsch. Breweries outside of Cologne who brew Kolsch beers are to refer to the beer as a Kolsch style beer as opposed to an actual Kolsch since the name implies it was brewed in Cologne. The appellation works very similarly to champagne and the Champagne region of France.
If you are interested in brewing an all grain batch of Kolsch style beer, here is a great home brewing Kolsch recipe: Click Here for the Kolsch Beer Recipe
A photo of a Kolsch Beer
Kolsch Beer
Below is a video of a two-row malted barley grain shown under the magnification of a microscope. The video allows you to see a closeup of the structure of the grain. The footage was taken under approximately 100 power magnification.
Here is a still shot of the grain under magnification:
Crushed Malted Barley – Malt shown under magnification.
A wort chiller is a device used to rapidly cool the wort after the boil has completed. Typically the wort is knocked down from boiling temperatures to less than 80° F as quickly as possible so that yeast can be pitched. Once the wort falls below boiling temperatures, it becomes susceptible to bacterial and wild yeast contamination. It is important to get the wort below 80° F without splashing or aerating it too much, as hot side aeration can oxidize your wort above that temperature.
There are three typical types of home brewing wort chillers. Immersion chillers are large coils constructed of copper or stainless steel. They are placed inside the brew kettle while cold water is pumped through the chiller, cooling the wort. Plate chillers are made of fused plates and have channels where the cold water is pumped in from one end, causing it to intersect with the plates being heated by the wort from the other end, which rapidly cools the wort. Lastly, counter flow convolution chillers have hot wort flowing through one tube as chilled water passes over it from the opposite direction in a surrounding tube. I personally prefer the counter flow convolution chillers because they permit me to cool my wort quickly while also being easy to clean, since hops and trub are less likely to get lodged in the tube than they are in a plate chiller.
Below is a photo of three examples of home brewing wort chillers: an immersion chiller, plate chiller and a counter flow convoluted chiller.
You can purchase the wort chillers here:
Home Brewing Wort Chiller
Brewing yeast strains are unicellular fungi that convert simple sugars into approximately equal parts of alcohol and carbon dioxide during the fermentation process. There are two main types of beer yeast varieties: saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is a top fermenting ale yeast, and saccharomyces pastorianusis, a bottom fermenting lager yeast.
A wide selection of home brewing ale and lager yeast can be found here:
Below is an image of a fermenting Flanders Red Ale style beer in two glass carboys with a flask of yeast in front of them:
Yeast and Fermenting Beer
Wort is the name given to the sugar rich liquid that is extracted from the mash prior to fermentation. Prior to the boil, when the hops have not yet bittered the wort, it is known as sweet wort. After the boil but prior to fermentation, it is known as bitter wort since the beta acids from the hops have imparted a bitter flavor upon it.
A photo of sweet wort being transferred from the mash tun to the boil kettle after sparging had completed:
Wort (unfermented beer) being transferred after sparging.
Step infusion is a beer mashing method where differing temperatures and quantities of water are infused in the mash tun from the hot liquor tank at specific intervals or steps in the mash process to control sugar conversion and extraction.
Pitching or yeast pitching is the term used for when a brewer adds yeast to the cooled wort to begin the fermentation process. Yeast should be pitched to the wort as quickly as possible to diminish the possibility of wild yeast strains or bacteria taking control of the sweet wort before your selected yeast has the opportunity to. Additionally, your pitched yeast should be as close to the same temperature as the wort that you are adding it to in order to avoid shocking the yeast and to help the yeast acclimate as quickly as possible and lower yeast lag time. It is critical that your wort is in an appropriate temperature range for the yeast to be able to survive and thrive; for most ales that temperature range is between 65° and 80° F for pitching, but you should always consult your yeast’s packing for the specific temperature range of the variety you are using.
Cooled wort being aerated, just prior to having the yeast pitched.
Yeast pitching and aeration just prior to fermentation.
Primary fermentation in beer brewing is the initial fermentation process where yeast will convert most or all of the wort sugars to alcohol and CO2 (carbon dioxide). After the yeast has been pitched into the wort, there is typically between 2 and 24 hour yeast lag time where the yeast acclimates to the fermentation environment and begins to replicate consuming sugars and the available oxygen in the wort; there is little alcohol conversion and CO2 generated during the lag phase.
Once the lag phase completes, a foamy head called a krausen begins to form in the fermentation vessel. The krausen is composed mostly of proteins, yeast, and the carbon dioxide that the yeast is rapidly producing. During primary fermentation the yeast is producing approximately equal parts of both alcohol and CO2. Depending on the style of beer, original gravity, quantity of yeast pitched, and fermentation temperature, the primary fermentation for an ale will last between 5-14 days, then it will then be transferred to a secondary fermentation vessel to allow the beer to condition and finish out its fermentation. In some cases only a primary fermentation is completed, and the beer may spending additional time in the primary fermenter or condition in the bottle, keg, or holding vessel.
Primary fermentation occurring two days after the yeast was pitched into an American Wheat style Hefeweizen. The krausen has formed and a great deal of alcohol and CO2 is being produced.
Primary Fermentation
Priming a beer is the process of adding sugar during the bottling process in order to carbonate the beer. You can bottle condition and carbonate your beer by priming it at the time of bottling with a specific amount of sugar. Using approximately .5 teaspoons ( ½ tsp) of priming sugar per 12oz bottle will provide adequate carbonation for most beer styles.
Typically you will want to prime your beer with corn sugar (dextrose). It is critical that your beer completes its fermentation prior to priming and bottling, as residual fermentable sugars can create excessive pressure in the bottles and cause them to explode. It is also critical that the yeast is still viable so that the priming sugar is converted to CO2 in the bottle, and you do not end up with a flat and overly sweet beer. As in all aspects of brewing, cleaning and sanitation is always paramount. Take special care to ensure that your bottles and caps are clean and sanitized prior to bottling.
Liquid Malt extract or LME is typically used in extract beer brewing, yeast starters, and in some cases, all grain brewing. To make liquid malt extract, the sugars from a brewing mash are transferred from a mash tun or lauter tun and dehydrated and reduced in a vacuum chamber. When the process is completed, the liquid malt extract is only 20% water. Typically, hops are not added to a malt extract.
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