Homemade & Commercial

Wine, Beer, Spirits, Cider & Mead Guides

Alcoholic beverages; most commonly beer and wines made at home. Brews made from brewing kits purchased at shops specialized in spirits. The Beer Pirate features homebrew recipes, equipment requirements, and commercial productions information; and all the best practices needed to make that perfect batch!

As in wine making, clarifying beer should not be necessary as, if everything has gone according to plan, the beer will clarify itself in no time at all. However, it sometimes happens that everything does not go according to plan; we then have to resort to clarifying our beers. But do not attempt this unless the beer refuses to clear within three weeks after fermentation has ceased in the case of draught beers. In the case of bottled beer, the yeast should settle soon after bottling so that, held up to the light, the beer will be – or should be – as clear as a bell. As already mentioned, brilliant clarity as we want it in wines is not essential in dark beer and is not absolutely essential in ales of the light type that ordinarily one expects to see quite brilliant.

Isinglass is undoubtedly the best clarifying medium for beers. In treating draught beers, in jars, the best plan is to take a little of the beer – about a pint – and warm it. Into this stir about a teaspoonful of isinglass with a fork until it is dissolved, keeping the beer warm until this is affected. Do not let the sample become cold, otherwise it might gel – turn to thin jelly. When all, or most, of the isinglass is dissolved, strain through fine muslin and pour into the bulk. Bung down again and in a day or so the beer will be brilliant.

Where gaseous bottled beers are to be treated a problem arises, for in opening the bottles the gas is lost. Therefore, in treating bottled gaseous beer you will have to return the lot to a large vessel and treat as for draught beers. Then, when it is brilliant, siphon the clear beer off the sediment into another large vessel and prime it again – add 2t oz. of sugar to the gallon and a speck of yeast (a very tiny amount). This will ensure that renewed fermentation goes on to give back to the beer the gas lost during treatment. After priming, the beer must be bottled as before and put away in the normal fashion.

Final Words Before You Begin

I find the best way to get the fullest value from the hops in these recipes is to boil them separately and in a small muslin bag with something such as a glass marble in the bag to submerge the hops at once. So bear this in mind when reading the direction, ‘boil the hops…’ Some loss of liquid will occur during boiling but this does not matter.

When straining the wort into the boiler and again when straining into the fermenting vessel, make sure the straining cloth is fine enough to hold back all solids. Coarse cloths of open texture should be folded several times before use.

1£ using the hydrometer to ascertain the gravity of the wort before fermentation so that you can arrive at the exact alcohol content of the beer when it has finished fermenting, take the reading when the wort has been made up to four gallons (or two gallons as the case may be) and when the sugar has dissolved. As the warmth of the wort will affect the volume and therefore the reading, it is better to let it cool and to take the reading immediately before adding the yeast.

It will be seen that there is more than one recipe for each type of beer: for example, there are two recipes for brown ale. Each recipe in this case and others makes for different sorts of brown ale, or bitter, or whatever it is.

And finally, do not expect to turn out at first attempt a beer exactly like the last one you tasted at your local – this would be expecting too much. Take your first shot at this as an initial experiment into finding the recipe which is going to prove the one to make the beer best suited to your personal taste. All tastes vary, therefore it is unlikely that the first recipe you use will be the one you will want to use next time. Bear this in mind and be prepared to experiment a little and I assure you it will be very soon that you make beer to surpass your expectations.

Note

In the recipes in the following chapters you will come across the reference: ‘ferment for five-six days’, or whatever it happens to be. This is a general purpose instruction meaning that under favourable conditions fermentation will have slowed down or be nearly complete so that hydrometer readings may be taken. They may be taken every day after the yeast has been added if this suits you. But it is at this five-six day stage that we must take note of the progress of fermentation so that we can work according to whichever type of beer we are making. If fermentation goes on longer than the days suggested, do not worry; it may go on for several days longer, even a week longer, depending on how even a temperature is maintained and whether this is in the 600 -70 Of. range, as is best.

You will also come across the reference ‘until the beer goes “flat” ‘. In using the word ‘flat’ I am describing the surface of the brew at the stage where fermentation has ceased. At this stage, when the yeast has been removed or where a bottom fermenting yeast is in use, the surface of the beer will indeed go flat; there will be no evidence of frothing or of bubbles breaking on the surface as we see the effect of drizzle-rain on a puddle. The beer does go flat in the sense that it is no longer lively – it does, in fact, become what it really is, draught beer. As already explained, this draught beer can be left as draught beer or primed to make it into a sparkling beer.

Any of the recipes may be made as draught beers, although all are designed for bottled beers with the use of the hydrometer. The difference between draught and bottled beer is that draught beer is flat in character (but not in taste), and bottled beers are gaseous or ‘fizzy’. In making draught beers all we have to do is to allow fermentation to go on until the wort goes ‘fiat’ – that is, when there is no longer any signs of yeast activity, no more frothing. This stage is usually reached in about eight days from the time fermentation began. Many beer types are of draught variety but all except draught bitter have a head on them when drawn from the barrel and served over the bar. This head – although it usually goes off very quickly – is most important from the appearance point of view, and that view only. I say this because the head itself adds nothing except an inviting appearance. The beer tastes the same after the head has vanished. In making draught beers we rarely get a head on them because no fermentation has gone on after bottling to give gas into the beer; and it is this gas produced by the ferment in the bottle which produces the froth or head we want. So, in draught beers made at home, there will be no head worth mentioning and if you are prepared to accept this then your draught beers can be first rate – except for the head. Heading liquid is obtainable from suppliers of home brewing materials; use this as directed and you will certainly get a first-class head, but it will add nothing but an appearance to the beer.

Draught beers may be put into tap-hole jars of whichever size is most suitable. I recommend the gallon size, as when some beer has been drawn off air is admitted. As soon as this happens, the beer begins to deteriorate. I do not mean that it will go off in a day or so. But as less and less is left in the jar, so the little remaining loses its character. If a gallon of beer is used in say, three or four days, the last pint out should be as good as the first one. But after a week, there would be a noticeable loss of quality in the last couple of pints. Obviously, where little is going to be used, the smaller the container the better. By all means use a two- or a four-gallon jar where there is going to be a lot of drinking in a short time. Tap-hole jars are particularly good for beers, as the yeast settles below the level of the tap and, apart from the first half-pint, which might come over cloudy, the rest may be drawn off beautifully clear.

Making draught beers is clearly the simplest form of home brewing and if tap-hole jars are not available use beer bottles kept for the purpose. Making bottled beers – gaseous or ‘fizzy’ beers – is the same as making draught beers except that either some sugar is left unfermented so that a little fermentation goes on inside the bottles to charge the beer with gas, or a draught beer is produced and a little sugar added at bottling time to give the re-ferrnentation required to charge the beer with the all-important gas. There is no point in adding sugar with the intention of producing gaseous beer if that beer is to be put into jars because as soon as the first pint is drawn off the gas will be lost – or most of it. Therefore, gaseous beers must be bottled and the best bottles to use are quart beer bottles with screw-stoppers or similar cider flagons – provided they are not clear-glass. All bottles for beers must be of brown glass, otherwise the color and sometimes the quality of the beer will suffer. The directions in the recipes will produce gaseous beer, but if you want to make a draught beer into a gaseous beer you will have to add sugar and then put it into the type of bottles already mentioned. The rate to add the sugar is not more than three ounces to the gallon. This should be boiled in as little water as possible until dissolved and then mixed with the beer prior to bottling. Add this sugar when the beer has been siphoned off the yeast deposit; otherwise mixing it in will cloud the beer and a heavy deposit will form in each bottle. By using siphoned beer, there is much less yeast deposit, but still enough yeast in suspension in the clear beer to bring about the fermentation in the bottles.

Too much sugar added will give rise to too much fermentation so that the bottles, which can stand enormous pressure, will burst. If they do not when too much sugar has been added, the result will be an almighty geyser of foam and your precious beer will have to be licked off the ceiling.

Using the hydrometer reduces both risks; that of exploded bottles and accidental home decorating.

Good yeasts stick well to the bottom of the bottles so that all but the last dregs may be poured off without clouding the beer in the glass. This is not so important with dark beers as any cloud will be masked by the color of the beer. It is with dark beers that the beginner should get his experience. Any yeast cloud will not impair the flavor of the beer; indeed, the heavy froth one sees on the top of most stouts and particularly Guinness – to which I am especially partial – is mostly yeast forced to the top of the glass by the gas rising. If you take a look at the bottom of an empty Guinness bottle you will almost always find some yeast lurking there. Certainly it does no harm; in fact, it is probably one of the most nourishing natural things next to mushrooms, which incidentally, are said to be the most nourishing thing known to man. Good yeasts do not impair the flavor, but baker’s yeast and some dried yeast will give a bake-house mustiness into the best of beers, and will in any case cloud the beer from top to bottom of the bottle simply because even if it does settle, the slightest disturbance will send it rising like smoke from a bonfire on a breezy evening. So use a good yeast that will stick to the bottom so that most of the beer may be poured off clear.

Trying to get a light ale or pale beer free of deposit can prove a problem. Firstly, if the beer is gaseous, there will inevitably be a deposit at the bottom of the bottle. This is because in allowing fermentation to go on in the bottles to produce the gas, yeast had to be present in the beer when it was bottled and this yeast reproducing itself produced more yeast. But as I have already mentioned, this yeast – provided it is a good one – will stick so that all but very little of the beer can be poured off without disturbing it. Pour carefully, inclining the bottle slowly, lowering the glass to meet it. If the quart bottles mentioned are used, the little beer left behind with the yeast, so that the yeast is not poured out as well, will not be missed. If only a pint of the quart is to be poured, far better to pour the quart into a jug so that the second pint may be drunk down in a little while. If one pint is poured and the bottle returned to upright, the yeast might stir up to cloud the whole of the remaining pint. A little practice and the application of a bit of common sense will soon show you how to get this problem settled to your satisfaction. But if you are as clumsy as some people cannot help being and simply do always disturb the yeast, serve your beer in a tankard or beer mug and you’ll not know whether there is a yeast cloud in it or not.

How does the trade get the yeast out of dear ales?

The fact is that they let them ferment right out, and then siphon the still beer (without gas) into bottles, or other containers and then charge them with gas. The word used is ‘carbonated’. Maybe one day there will be a means by which any home operator will be able to do this; until then, the commercial brewer has the advantage over us.

All bottles and stoppers must be thoroughly washed in warm water. If, when bottles are held to light, evidence is seen of yeast stuck to the bottom or sides, they should be soaked in a medium-strength solution of water and domestic bleach, such as Brobat, for an hour or so. They should then be rinsed free of this with repeated doses of water. All bottles must in any case be treated with sulphur dioxide solution made up as follows. This is cheap, effective and ensures that any wild yeast or bacteria lurking in the bottles waiting to ruin your finished beer are destroyed.

Get 2 oz. of sodium metabisulphite, or potassium metabisulphite (there being two forms) from any chemist for about nine-pence and dissolve this in half a gallon of warm water. Try to use a glass-stoppered bottle for this as it keeps better than in one with a cork. This is sulphur dioxide gas in solution. When bottle time comes along, half fill the first bottle, shake it up while stopping the neck with the thumb and then, using a funnel, pour into the next and then the next and so on. This half pint or pint will do a dozen bottles; afterwards, it may have lost its strength so throw it away. There is plenty left in the half-gallon jar to do several more dozen bottles. The stoppers should be soaked in enough to cover them for ten minutes or so.

Having sterilized the bottles they should be rinsed with boiled water that has cooled enough not to break them. Some writers on wine making assert that boiled water at this stage is not necessary, but it is, because water quite often contains wild yeasts which boiling destroys. The stoppers may be shaken free of the solution – no need to rinse them unless you want to. When bottling, I merely fill each bottle, take a stopper from the solution, give it one flick from the wrist and then screw it home.