Tuesdays with Nate | How to brew beer
Saturday was a great day. Instead of spending the day working on our new studio space, like we probably should have, I spent the day brewing beer with one of my good friends and past grooms, Ian. Brewing beer is a lot harder than one would think. Doing it right, making really GOOD BEER, requires a combination of art and science, precision and understanding of the entire process, selecting the right ingredients and using/building the right tools. For example, if the water you put in the grain is lower than 150 degrees, you won’t get enough sugar out of it, if it’s higher than 170 degrees, it will release bitter tannins that can ruin your flavor. We spent the day boiling, pouring, measuring, heating, cooling, and hopping a traditional brown ale. I’ll let you know how it tastes in a few weeks.
We used 3 kinds of hops, added with about 45, 30, and 5 minutes before the beer was finished boiling
One of the hardest parts, it turns out, is cooling the beer from about 215 degrees to below 80 as fast as possible (around 1/2 hour) so that bacteria that could harm the yeast doesn't have time to grow. 50 feet of copper tubing with ice water flowing through them will do the trick.
I have a friend that makes his own beer. His house was flooded last year so when they remodeled it He actually made his own beer room add on. He is always telling me it’s an exact science… I’m just along for the free drinks :) Great post. let us know how it goes!
That’s awesome Nate. I just got my first brew setup and can’t wait to try it out. I’m gonna brew up an IPA. Would love to hear how it went.
I love this Nate.