I Brew Better Beer

Sound arrogant?  Well what I mean is:

I have brewed some really crappy beer in my time.

Luckily, with experience I continue to get better and better.  A few changes over the years in my equipment, setup, and process have resulted in my ability to brew much better beer.

I'm not done yet--my beer still has plenty of room for improvement, but here's where I've gotten so far . . .

WORT AERATION
Yeast need oxygen to develop healthy cell walls, which are key to their surviving the rigors of fermentation.    Unfortunately, boiling actually drives off oxygen, so a well aerated post-boil wort is a must for healthy yeast.  I use a small plastic aeration tip at the end of my hose while transferring my cooled wort to the fermenter.  A small cone in the tip spreads the wort into a thin sheet as it exits the hose, introducing lots of oxygen along the way.  I also rock the fermenter for about a minute after pitching, just to make sure.

Aeration Tip:  possibly the best $2.59 I've ever spent on a
home brewing gadget

YEAST STARTER
Pitching the right amount of yeast will greatly improve your beer.  You can grow your cell count by pitching your yeast into a small amount of 1.030-1.040 unhopped wort a few days before brew day.  There are several means available for determining the amount you need based on yeast type and gravity of your beer.  Popular online pitch rate calculators can be found at mrmalty.com and yeastcalc.com.  Some beer design software packages also include pitching rate calculators.

I enter all my beers into BeerSmith, whether designing my own or simply inputting a popular recipe I'd like to try.  The "starter" tab in the software tells me how many billion yeast cells are ideal for the given beer's starting gravity, yeast strain and age, and also tells me what size starter I need in order to achieve the required cell count.  This is a very good thing--the less "math" I have to do, the better off my beer will be, I'm sure.

These days, all of my starters go on a stir plate.  This device creates a vortex or whirlpool effect in the starter, which helps the yeast grow healthier and more plentiful, more quickly, by constantly aerating the wort (remember how much yeast love oxygen in the growth phase?) and by keeping them in suspension for maximum exposure.

Magnetic Stir Plate:  It's because of stuff like this
that my kids think I'm a mad scientist.
My wife just thinks I'm nuts.

WHIRLFLOC, KETTLE SCREEN, A 15 MINUTE REST
With a strong rolling boil, certain proteins and other compounds will separate out of your wort as solids. Don't worry, you don't need them in your finished beer or even in your fermenter, so this is a good thing.  Boil strong.  While we're on the subject, there are also plenty of volatile nasties that you don't want--good news is these will evaporate away with a good rolling boil as long as you let them, so leave the lid off.  As for the solids separating out of the boil--"hot break" is what it's called--there are a few clarifiers that you can use in the boil to help prevent it from transferring to the fermenter with the wort.  I use whirlfloc, just a little white tablet that goes into the boil 15 minutes before flameout.  It dissolves into smaller particles that bond with the hot break and drag it to the bottom of the kettle like a bunch of evil little mermaids.  This, along with a long, strong stir at flameout (trying to emulate a whirlpool) and a 15 minute rest afterward seem to do a great deal toward depositing all the solids in a tidy pile at the bottom of the kettle.  With the help of a kettle screen, I am able to leave much of it behind when I transfer.

Kettle Screen:  This bad boy gets quite dirty during transfer.

FERMENTATION TEMPERATURE CONTROL
My beer quality took a solid jump forward when I gained the ability to control fermentation temps.

I used to just chill it down as much as possible post boil (maybe mid 70s to mid 80s), then pitch, throw it in the basement, and let it naturally drop to whatever it would drop to (maybe 70-75ish). What's the worry? We're in the ballpark, right? Wrong. Stressed out yeast.  Bad things happened.  Bad beer, actually.

Then, last year as a most awesome Christmas gift, my wife bought me a 7 cubic foot chest freezer and a Johnson temp controller.  The true purpose for this was and is to be converted into a keezer for my draft home brew.  That will happen someday. In the meantime, I'm content to lift the lid and pour a pint from my picnic tap, and the freezer doubles as a fermentation chamber.  Now with every batch, I pitch my yeast at the low end of its temp range, then as the most vigorous period of fermentation comes to an end, I gradually ramp it up a few degrees to facilitate attenuation.  Much happier yeast; much better beer.

DIALING IN

REPS
Besides possibly fermentation temp control, this is probably the most important factor contributing to my journey toward better home brew.  Practice.  Repetition.  The more I brew, the more comfortable I become with the process and the better I understand the effect each decision has on the finished beer.  When I first started out, I did things a certain way because the directions said to, or because I read in a book that I should do it that way.  When I stopped making decisions based on what I "knew" based on reading in favor of what I truly "understood" based on experience, my brewing rose to a whole different level.

WATER TREATMENT
This is the latest development in the evolution of my brewing.

When I began the hobby, I just used straight tap water, whatever the fine Borough of Hanover saw fit to send through my kitchen faucet. Eventually, I migrated to carbon filtered tap water, then more recently to store bought spring water.

I finally feel consistent enough in my process that I've decided it's time to sweat the water profile.  Still brand new at it, so I can only work from "knowledge" I've gained through reading, or through listening to interviews of experts like Gordon Strong.  No real understanding yet--that can only come with experience.  Only after enough reps will I begin to understand the effect that small adjustments in water chemistry might have on the finished beer, and which might play best to my own preferences.

For now, I'll have to rely on published wisdom, and the consensus seems to be that a good basic water profile can be achieved by starting with a distilled or reverse osmosis water (either one effectively a zero value, neutral baseline), adding 1 tsp calcium chloride per 5 gallons brewing water, and adding 2% acidulated malt to the mash.  So that's what I did.  My first brew using treated water is in the fermenter now, a 60 minutey IPAish kinda thing, so I also followed the guidance for hoppy beers and added half a tsp of gypsum.  Don't know why, just that its what others who do understand brew water chemistry better than I do suggest to add.  We'll see how it turns out--hopefully a bit brighter, cleaner, and more flavorful, with a hop presence that just pops.

So that's it.  Pay attention to your yeast; give it what it needs. Get some reps in; practice practice practice. If you're a beginning home brewer looking to take your brew quality to the next level, I'd say those two things would be the best place to start.