When I first did this, I realized that there was a tremendous amount of information out there which really got me into the properties of specialty grains and the characteristics they can add to each beer. By doing this, you’ll discover that many ingredients are repetitive or don’t add anything unique because it’s over shadowed by another ingredient. My advice from this is to take a look at your recipe and ask yourself why each ingredient is in there. This has changed my brewing technique by focusing on the quality of the ingredients, the yeast, and advanced brewing science not the number of adjuncts I can add. If I want to make my beer a bit crazier, I’ll add one or two adjuncts, but no more. Stupid.Īll of my beers now only contain three grains and two hops. When I brew now, I follow one simple rule: K.I.S.S. ![]() I learned from that competition that too complex and too many ingredients hurt your beer. The beer that won was simple and only used a few ingredients. The beer was too sweet, too boozy, and had too much going on. Most of them were, but our beer lost that competition. I wrote the rules expecting beers from members to be unique and complex. The rules of the competition were simple: Use special ingredients to make unique beers. My team brewed a beer with dark candied sugar, raspberries, pine needles, cinnamon, and maple sugar we called “Rudolph’s Revenge”. One year, our club hosted a homebrew competition to brew winter warmers. In almost every beer I used carapils, multiple crystal malts, expensive aroma hops to bitter, extracts, fruit, candy sugars, and other ingredients to add crazy flavors I thought would be good. I’d make beers with giant grain bills, multiple hop additions, and any other ingredient I could throw into the boil. The first year I was brewing, all of my beers received low scores in the 20s. Before they know it, the original beer is lost in the additions and it’s too complex to pull any unique flavors. They start by adding some fruit, then maybe some chocolates, then dive head first into extracts and adjuncts. Most of them are pretty excited to start experimenting. Since I work at Castle Rock Homebrew Supply, I get the opportunity to talk to a lot of homebrewers that have made a few good kits, so now they want some advice on making their own recipes. While the law may not apply today, I believe that only using these four ingredients is the best way to improve your beers and to become a better brewer. The most significant component left out was yeast, but back then they didn’t know yeast existed so I guess we can let that pass.Ī lot of brewers may resist only brewing with these four ingredients, but I encourage you to give it a try. So they did what any well-meaning government does, they passed a law that had significant unintended consequences based on sparse information that left out major components. This may seem like an odd law now, but back then they were concerned that brewers would use all the wheat in the country to make beer, instead of it being used to make bread. This law was enacted in 1516 as a way for the Government to limit brewers to only using three ingredients. This year, the AHA is encouraging participants to brew beers that abide by the Reinheitsgebot, by only using hops, water, yeast, and barley. ![]() The American Homebrewers Association also provides material online for hosts to use to coordinate and advertise their event, as well as provides a few recipes for brewers to try. That means it’s important to pack everything up the night before so you don’t forget anything and to grab some coffee and food on the way in. Since most recipes take about four to five hours to brew, brewers will be setup and brewing by 9am. We meetup at breweries, homebrew shops, or at people’s houses with all of our equipment and our ingredients. So to celebrate, homebrewers from around the world get together every year to brew. In 1988, Congress declared May 7 as National Homebrew Day. Raise a glass, drink a beer, and kiss, it’s National Homebrew Day! I know that sounds odd, so let me explain.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |