Here is my outline for the current state of my brewing
methods. In the upcoming months I plan
to put this all fully into practice and document a few brews to show how I vary
the process for different recipes.
1.
Brew with extract
I currently brew with extract to simplify
and shorten my brew day. This adds a
constraint to your brewing since you don’t have the same flexibility to choose
grains. It has the benefit though of
tailoring your boil length to your hop schedule and eliminating a lot of
worries. You also minimize the amount of
equipment to clean and store.
2.
Do a full-volume boil and hot-pack the wort
Hot-packing (search No-Chill method) is the
best thing to happen to homebrewing since yeast. Chilling wort is a time consuming PITA. You are essentially canning your wort so that
you can delay fermentation until you are good and ready for it. For me, this means a shorter overall
brew-day, which makes the entire hobby more practical. The ideal container for this is 5+ gallons,
so you really need to have that volume of boiling liquid to put into it.
This method also allows you to double
batches and ferment 1 at a time. Nice if
you want to re-use yeast or save a ton of time on beer that you want to have on
hand all the time. Hot-packed wort has
been proven to stay fresh for months on basic brewing radio.
3.
Use an anti-foaming agent (Fermcap-S)
I haven’t done this just yet but my first
bottle of Fermcap_S is waiting in the fridge.
I’ve often worried about all the hop matter that gets foamed onto the
sides of my kettle, and battled for minutes trying to keep the hot break from
blowing out all over the driveway. No
more.
4.
Use dry yeast, re-hydrate in water bottle
I almost always use dry yeast, because I
don’t want to make starters. I’m tempted
not to re-hydrate for convenience, but I discovered a simple method. I use a cheap bottle of spring water, pour
half out and warm it up in the microwave.
Dump the yeast in and re-cap. Shake
periodically. Un-cap and pour into
fermenter! This saves me from needing to
boil, cool, (contaminate?) my tap water.
5.
Shake to aerate
The process of pouring the wort, coupled
with shaking, has always served me well.
I’d rather not add equipment to clean and sanitize.
6.
Ferment in a temp controlled fridge
I have a dorm fridge I bought off
Craigslist coupled with an STC-1000 controller off of Amazon. So now I can temp control my fermentations to
the exact degree for less than $100.
This removes so much worry, you need it.
7.
Keg your beer
If I still had to bottle my homebrew I wouldn’t
do it. Bottling is from the devil. Also, when your beer is in a keg you can have
any size beer you want. I like to come
home and “check on the beer”. It’s a
nice way to put beer fest tasting glasses to work!
