Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Nov 5, 2008, at 9:32 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> OR ... you can go lunatic fringe and grow the only two ingredients  
> you need,
> barley and hops, and make beer entirely off the homestead.

Let's go completely berserk and try to make a really superb beer. I  
mean, if I am going to take the time and make the effort, I want a  
fine reward.

Soak the barley in cold water over night.  The next day drain it and  
keep it
> damp in a collander or such by rinisng it once or twice a day with  
> cold water.
> I detest the metric system but this works out too close to not  
> mention it.
> You need about one kilo (2.2 lbs) of barley for a gallon of beer.

I presume that is dry barley weight?
> In six days or so the barley will sprout.  Look at the spire, the  
> stalk of
> the plant that grows from one end of the seed under the husk and would
> eventually emerge from the other end.  I say 'eventually' because  
> you only want to let
> the barley sprout until the spire is 1/3 the length of the  
> barleycorn.  At
> this point the roots of the sprouting corns will be 1/2 to 3/4" long.
>
> Dry the barley to check any further sprouting.  If you just dry it,  
> say in a
> warm oven or dehydrator, you will have crystal malt.  You can heat  
> the barley
> to caramelize some of the sugars giving you amber, brown or black  
> malt for
> darker beers.  The enzymes needed for conversion are not harmed up  
> to the brown
> stage, but are killed if the malt turns black.  That's why you only  
> add a
> little black malt to the wort and do not make beer out of all black  
> malt.

So this is a measure that must be learned through experience. Start  
with 50-50 brown to black?
> When the malt is very dry, break it into pieces by running it  
> through the
> likes of a Corona mill set on vary coarse or else use a dough roller  
> or bottom of
> a skillet to break up the corns.
>
> The dried malt will weigh just about the same as the original  
> barley.  Put
> the 2 1/4 or so pounds of malt into a gallon (or little less) of  
> water.

Do you use distilled water?

>  Here it
> is good to realize that you are going to activate the enzymes Alpha- 
> amylase
> and Beta-amylase.  Alpha-amylase breaks up the long chains of  
> starches in the
> middle of the chain resulting in shorter chains.  Beta-amylase works  
> on the
> ends of the chains to break off indivisual glucose molecules.  Alpha- 
> amylase is
> most active at about 150 degrees and Beta-amylase at abut 130  
> degrees.  So to
> get the best starch to sugar conversion, heat the wort up to 150  
> degrees for a
> few minutes and then let it cool a bit to around 140 degrees and  
> keep it at
> that temp for at least an hour.  This process is "mashing".

What is the effect as the warmth time is extended?
> A great deal of the starch will have been converted to sugar.  Drain  
> the wort
> from the bottom or siphon it (draining from a spigot or bung-hole at  
> the
> bottom of the vessel works much better).

Do you sterilize your various vessels and utensils?

>  Check your volume which will be
> considerably less than a gallon since the mash has soaked up and  
> retained a lot of the
> water.  Pour cold water through the spent mash and drain it just as  
> you did
> the wort.  This water dissolves more sugars.  Keep doing this until  
> you have
> your gallon.
>
> Feed the spent mash to the chickens.
>
> Tie up about an ounce and a half of hops in a cloth and put it in  
> the wort.
> Bring to a boil and  let it continue for at a low boil for a few  
> minutes.
> Remove the hops.  Let the wort cool to a simmer and tie up an  
> additional half
> ounce of hops in a cloth and let it simmer in the hot wort for a few  
> minutes.
> Hops contains resins that are released when it is boiled, these  
> resins are
> bitter, and so the first hops are the 'bittering hops'.  Alas, that  
> wonderful hops
> aroma and much of the hops taste is destroyed or boils off when the  
> wort is
> boiled.  So the second hops brews in the wort and is the 'flavoring'  
> hops.
> Much is made about using this or that hops for the one or the  
> other.  But any
> hops makes a decent beer and flowers from the same plant can be used  
> for both.
>
> Take out a pint of the wort, seal it tightly, and put it in the  
> refrigerator.
>
> Cool the wort to blood temperature.  In the ongoing brewing process  
> you will
> add the slightly soured dregs from a previous bottle of beer for the  
> yeast,
> but the first time use some sort of ale yeast.  Bread yeast is no  
> good and wine
> yeast isn't much better.   Pitch the yeast

What means "pitch the yeast?"

> and put an airlock on the jug (or
> whatever).  On a small batch, a balloon works fine.  Even stuffing  
> the neck
> with cloth or cotton works OK.  An airlock of some type is best  
> though.
>
> In about six days or so the fermentation will cease and the brew will
> clarify, all the solids percipitating out and settling to the  
> bottom.  Rack the brew
> off the lees by siphoning.  Then add the pint of wort you  
> refrigerated to the
> brew, this is to carbonate the beer.
>
> Decant the beer into bottles, eight old Grolsch bottles are ideal  
> for this.
> Leave the bottles at room temp for at least three weeks, six is  
> better.
>
> Then refrigerate the beer very cold.  This natural home beer has no  
> chemical
> anti-gushing agents and such so if you open a warm bottle, it is  
> likely to all
> come flying out of the bottle ... a tragedy, that.
>
> Pour the beer out of the bottle into a glass.  Do this slowly and
> deliberately, there are dreggs in the bottom of the bottle and you  
> want to sac the last
> half ounce of so of beer to avoid them.
>
> Real beer is NOT the same thing you buy in the store.  The closest  
> you came
> to it are craft beers, but even at that, a real, living, active
> (non-pasturized), all barley beer is even better.
>
> This outline works for any quantity of beer, the gallon proportion  
> is just a
> convenient place to start for math's sake.

Well thank you. That's a keeper.