Saturday 27 August 2016

Choosing Home Brew Ingredients For A Better Taste

By Virginia Cooper


The drive to brew your beer at home is anchored on the need to achieve a unique taste. Achieving such expectations will depend on the home brew ingredients you choose. It is frustrating when you have all the ingredients only to miss the mark on taste or texture. Here are other tips to consider so that your brew is excellent.

Insist on using fresh components. Beer is made from yeast, malt, crushed grains, etc. Their quality is determined by age and manner of handling. Fresh extracts provide a more refined taste compared to canned extracts. Storage of these components including dry malt, yeast, crushed grains and liquid malt matters. The idea is to use them before they are damaged by oxidation.

Brewing is partly an art and partly a science. While you are allowed to guess the artistic part of brewing, the science element cannot be guessed. To avoid mistakes that arise out of overconfidence in your recipe, it is advisable that you do your homework. There are applications and formulas that can help you calculate elements like color and determine dominant textures. Use these platforms to avoid costly mistakes.

The place of sterility in brewing cannot be ignored. Everything that goes into the pot affects the taste and quality of your beer. To avoid contamination, the apparatus used in the brewing process should be sanitized. After cooling, beer is exposed to bacterial and infection contamination. This derails fermentation. To avoid such a mess, sterilize using ordinary bleach or the specialized iodophor.

Your wort should be cooled quickly. The speed of cooling affects fallout of tannins and proteins which are bad for your beer. The idea is to avoid contamination with bacteria and infections. Invest in an immersion wort chiller which improves the quality and clarity of your beer. This process is especially significant for full batch boils.

Be sensitive on the duration of boiling your wort. Boiling for brewing purposes is more than bubbling. The aim of this process goes beyond sterilizing to cover vaporization or removal of certain undesired elements. Boiling also facilitates coagulation of tannins and proteins. It helps to eliminate bitter oils especially from hops. The duration of boiling varies between 60 and 90 minutes depending on desired texture and components used.

Glass or stainless fermenters are the best for brewing. Typical plastic apparatus can be used but they do not guarantee the best monitoring results. Glass and stainless steel are easier to sterilize and will provide a perfect oxygen barrier. The possibility of leaking makes plastics undesirable since it is difficult to determine the extent of fermentation. The stainless and glass apparatus are affordable in different sizes.

It takes time to obtain the best brewing results. Many brewers fail because they expect instant results. Achieving the desired results requires mastery of timing and several experiments with ingredients. Those who give up too early will not achieve desired results. Source your ingredients from reliable stores to be certain about their quality. This will affect the quality of your drink.




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