{"id":1298,"date":"2018-09-15T11:30:18","date_gmt":"2018-09-15T01:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/petaguy.info\/blog\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2019-02-12T09:38:39","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T23:38:39","slug":"brewing-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/petaguy.info\/blog\/trivial\/brewing\/brewing-journey","title":{"rendered":"A Brewing Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Discovering brewing and a bit of the 1850s<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The beginning<\/h2>
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Extracts from forum posts edited<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\nIt was suggested that I should blog my grand (overly?) plan to brew like\n my grandfather (5 times back) in the early to mid 19th century. I plan \nto post updates. Almost a blog. Pictures? Maybe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does this mean? Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n


It means I plan to make an English ale not too far distant from a Fullers Golden Ale. As far as I can tell, this is the approximate to what would have been brewed then. It is likely that my grand father’s brews would have been distributed to ale houses in the Stepney\/Whitechapel area of East London – including the old Blind Beggar Inn (see Cray Brothers for why this is interesting) before it was replaced by the existing building in 1899. The family lived in Turner St and had been in the area since the early 18th century. Prior to that the family had been in Chichester, Surrey since the mid 1600s (as far back as family records go) and were a brewing family – gentry in fact, according to an 1830s census. In Turner St, the extended family consisted of 12 and the house had many rooms across two floors. William Guy seems to have worked at the Anchor brewery in Stepney Green between 1825 and 1854 at least. A brewery clerk rather than a brewer per se … why let facts get in the way of a good story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to be a scientist when I went to Melbourne University a long time ago. I have a physics and chemistry background and therefore like the idea of experimentation and testing out theories. This is a lot of what appeals to me in doing home brewing. Playing with chemistry sets and testing theories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Am I trying to do?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I do a bit of my own backyard sustainability with fruit, citrus, vegetables, honey, corn, olives and nuts the current focus. I was thinking of what else I could do and brewing came to mind when I was writing about the 100th anniversary of my father’s birth last year. It has taken me until this autumn (2018) to get myself ready. You can see what I have done so far as at June 2018 below. What I want to do is to replicate something like what my grandfathers did around 2-300 years ago. Not that I plan to go back to the labour intensive ways of the time and I certainly will use modern equipment, grains and hygiene that were not available then. So what exactly do I plan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First is to learn\n about all stages of the brewing process. I will do this by doing my \nbrewing learning in an approximate reverse order of the actual process. \nThe process being:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Plant and grow malting barley and hops. Should be simple, right?<\/li>
  2. Harvest and malt the barley. A whole new world of pain and learning. <\/li>
  3. Process the malt and do the “brew”, adding hops. May variations to try<\/li>
  4. Yeasts and preparation for fermenting. Much to trial and refine here.<\/li>
  5. Ferment the brew and clarify it. Options include natural settling, finings, crash chilling and filtering<\/li>
  6. Store and condition and or carbonate. Plenty of options here too. <\/li>
  7. Bottle in actual bottles and small kegs. Two main options here – just bottle or fill bottles from a keg. <\/li>
  8. Have friends and other guinea pigs test the results and give me feedback<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The\n whole process is a long one and has quite a lead time. Therefore my \napproach of trying out the latter parts of the process and “debugging” \nthe process will give me a stable process to follow later. The very \nlabour intensive and time consuming part will be growing, harvesting and\n malting the grain. Hops similarly but with simpler processing. This \nmeans that the grand experiment will take from mid 2018 through to the \nend of 2019 and most likely beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Apart from the brewing there are several things I want to do as well. First is to look at a refined process that has tested as many tips and guides as I can manage. This is an iterative process that will involve some qualitative and some standardised testing. I am keen to see what equipment and techniques really make a difference. I will offer opinions and evidence on the way. The unfortunate consequence will be that I will have an excess of variable quality beer along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    SWOT<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Ok, a little bit anal … The strengths of this venture are that I already make bread, jams, juices and a wide variety of dishes made form home grown produce. I know yeast fairly well. I know how to grow organically and I have the space to do this, having remodelled a quite wide and deep back yard in Kaleen. I have a lot of the equipment needed already (large pots strainers funnels etc). I have large kitchen and laundry sinks. I have space for fermenting (a former hot water tank cabinet). Opportunity: I can be proud of my achievements and the link back to forefathers.
    Weaknesses: this is a quest worth of Don Quixote<\/strong>. It will take time and effort. Threats: My home may smell like a brewery. Cost may become high if I commit to too much convenience over hard work. Work may require me to be away for long periods of time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Scientific questions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    There are a few things that I think need to be verified. There are many things in life subject to diminishing returns and I am keen to see where these are in home brewing. My findings will relate to what I am doing and not to some other setup or set of objectives. As they say, your mileage may vary. It is me recording what I am after and that is the end of the disclaimer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q1<\/strong><\/span>: I want to find out what really makes yeast work best. By this I mean what can be done to get the most out of a yeast and what is worth the effort. Dried yeast, liquid etc will be tried<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q2<\/span><\/strong>: I want to find out about the water chemistry and how it affects the brew and fermentation – including results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q3<\/span><\/strong>: I want to see what kinds of scientific equipment work best. Using some I already have and some I plan to borrow and test. One or two devices I will buy because they work and are needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q4<\/span><\/strong>: What is the optimal equipment setup for me. This is part of the learning. The concept is to keep it simple and convenient. Regardless, I have low tolerance for things that do not work …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q5<\/span><\/strong>: What are the optimal brewing techniques for achieving a balance of quality beer, simplicity and time effectiveness. Cost may come into it as well but not the most important thing overall. There may be more than one optimum depending on what I find – ie a time optimum and a quality optimum<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q6<\/span><\/strong>: Natural\/traditional methods for getting clarity in the ale, chill conditioning, filtering. What is the most convenient and effective. Again an optimum is probably the most important thing to find<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q7<\/span><\/strong>: Can and should I preserve a yeast and reuse it across multiple brews. The fermenter allows this so it might be a good thing and allow a trial of a premium yeast that is reputedly from Fullers. I understand that my grandfathers were of the opinion that the yeast they used was their competitive advantage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q8<\/span><\/strong>: Is there a sufficient difference in quality of beer to justify the greater work required for partial grain and full grain brewing techniques. This will be confirmed by third party blind judging from bottles specially prepared with these variations. All other factors will be kept stable. I may even do two at the same time to keep environmental variable consistent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q9:<\/span><\/strong> What level of housekeeping works best. Another optimum, I suspect. How clean is good enough. Oxygen. Good and bad, just depends on what stage of fermentation? Contaminants? Storage? Those kinds of thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Q10<\/span><\/strong>: What process to use once the other questions are settled enough to stabilise the process. Especially keen to work on fermentation under pressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So – to try a lot of variations, I will need to keep accurate records, label well and form interim hypotheses to test. Then retry based on what I find; and do a bit of regression testing after refining processes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What I have done to date<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    First I bought a very basic brew kit to see what I thought of the idea. It was ok and yet I was not very pleased with the setup. So I got myself a Fermentasaurus and did a lot of reading. Conical fermenters do seem to have some benefits and the one I have is capable of doing a wide variety of things that can be tested for efficiency and quality of outcomes … ie beer. More specifically, Ale. I think I can do better with temperature control and getting the aerobic and anaerobic processes working better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I learned the basics of fermenting in three \nbrews. The basics of grain malt and brewing at that level of complexity \nin one effort at doing a partial grain brew has given me a sense of the \nnext few challenges. Bottling and conditioning experience comes with \nterritory. I decided to buy a few secondhand kegs to store and condition\n in and to also test the theories about carbonation and clarity. I have a\n filter system as well so I can test this. I have an order in for 40kg \nof seed barley that will be sown for a late Summer harvest this year and\n early harvest (planted in May) next year. I will impose upon members of\n the club for rhizomes and tips for growing hops. I am currently \npreparing a 5 x 4 plot for growing intensive barley and several types of\n hop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Here are some of the things I have done in a bit more detail:
    <\/p>\n\n\n\n