Yeast

There are three different types of homebrewing yeast that come in countless different varieties. The two main yeast manufacturers are Wyeast and Whitelabs. Both of these are liquid yeasts, but they are a little different from each other. The last type is dry yeast. There are also numerous manufactorers of dry yeast.

Wyeast comes in two different packages. The first is the activator and the second is the propagator. The only difference between the two is size. The activator has 100 billion yeast cells where the propagator only has 25 billion. The way these work is there is a little package inside the foil cover and also some liquid. You break the inside package without opening the outer package. This releases the yeast into the liquid and after 4-6 hours the outer package will begin to swell. After it swells as large as possible you can pitch the yeast into your beer.
Whitelabs yeast comes in a vile. The only thing that you need to do is take it out of the refridgerator before you start your brew and when you are done just open up the vile and pitch the yeast into your fermenter. The vile contains 75-150 billion yeast cells.There are numerous manufacturers of dry yeast. These include Muntons, Coopers, BrewFerm, Safbrew, Safale, Lallemand, and many others. Dry yeast has been around for a long time where as liquid yeast is relatively new. Just open the package and pitch the yeast into the fermenter or rehydrate it in warm water prior to use. Both ways work just fine.

Each of these yeasts have their pros and cons. While the liquid yeasts are more expensive they also come in many different strains. If you go to Whitelabs yeast library there is over 50 different strains tailored to specific styles of beer. With dried yeast you are limited to maybe 10 different strains of yeast. I choose to use the liquid yeast. I have used both Wyeast and Whitelabs before and couldn't tell you what one is better. They both make great beer. The cost of liquid yeast can be offset. The yeast can be reused after the beer is transfered off the yeast. You can either clean the yeast and save it in a jar or just put your freshly brewed beer onto of the yeast leftover from your prior batch. Many people do this to get the yeast cell count up to brew higher gravity beer. They will start with a low alcohol content beer and work their way up to a barely wine which can be as high as 13%.

Sanitation

Sanitation is one of the most important steps in making good quality beer. It is necassary to give yeast a clean working environment, since the fermentation is powered by a living organism (yeast). I will talk more about the yeast next week. If you fail to sanitize your equipment you can end up with infected beer.
That is an infection, although a planned one. It was posted in a homebrew forum thread on lambics. Which is a beer fermented with bacteria and wild yeast. If you get something that looks like this without wanting it you might not want to try it. It isn't going to kill you, but it may taste a little funky. The only reason that you will ever get this is if you didn't sanitize your equipment properly. Everything that will touch the beer after the point when it was boiled needs to be cleaned and sanitized to ensure nothing is introduced into the beer. This includes fermentors, bottles, and any tubing or transferring device that will be used. Lets go over some of the types of sanitizers:
Product Description:

PBW by Five Star: PBW stands for Powdered Brewery Wash. This product is widely used in commercial breweries across the country. Use 1 – 2 ounces per gallon for cleaning boil kettles, ¾ of an ounce per gallon for fermenters, kegs and other brewing equipment. Soaking overnight will easily remove stubborn, caked on organic deposits without scrubbing. PBW is environmentally friendly, biodegradeable, and will not harm septic systems.

Product Description:

Star San: This is an acid based no rinse sanitizer. Use only one ounce per 5 gallons of water. Star San is odorless, flavorless, and requires only one to two minutes of contact time. This product does tend to foam, which has advantages and disadvantages. Foaming action helps to sanitize cracks and crevices, but you need to allow extra time for draining. You can minimize the foaming effect by adding Star San to the vessel after the water has been added, and by siphoning as opposed to pouring the solution between vessels. Since Star San is acid based, contact with soft metals, plastic and rubber should be kept to a minimum. Kept in a sealed container, a Star San solution will stay effective for as long as three to four weeks.


These are the two most common choices among hombrewers; although I don't use either of them. Many brewers have found that oxiclean works just as well. I use oxiclean versatile and I have yet to run into a problem. I just add a scoop per 5 gallons of water and let my equipment soak for a while and then rinse well. It also works well for taking the labels of commercial crack off bottles that are being saved.

My Dream Brewery

Although the beauty of a brew stand doesn't make quality beer, it sure will look cool sitting in your garage or basement. In my previous post you have seen my brew stand which is all fed by gravity (which never will fail). It isn't the most beautiful thing in the world, but it makes good beer and that is good enough for a student with no income. When I graduate I plan on building my dream brew stand. It was originally built by Lonnie Mac of www.alenuts.com. I contacted him and he was nice enough to send me a PDF file of the exact instructions for the build of this system.This is a picture of his system. As you can see it is a single tier system that is fed by two pumps. This system is not only beautiful but is functional. It is controlled by two controllers that keep a constant temperature of the hot liquor tank and the mash tun to +/- 2 degrees. This means that the process of brewing a specific recipe can be duplicated with far greater accuracy. This is a picture of the control panel of Lonnie's "Brutus Ten." As you can see the digital readout gives the brewer up to the second temperature readings and control over these temperatures. The "Brutus Ten" is still powered by propane, but the tank is connected to the back 2"x2" beam which doubles as a gas beam. Every burner is attached to a control valve and then to the beam. When the system sees that the temperature has dropped 2 degrees it kicks open the valve and sends gas to the burner raising the temperature 2 degrees and then shutting the value again. During this process the wort is constantly being recirculated by one of the pumps. It draws the wort off the bottom and returns it to the top. The temperature is taken as the wort is being drawn out. This ensures that the mash is evenly heated and the sugars don't scorch on the bottom of the kettle. When it is time to sparge all that is done is the lid from the boil tank is put on the mash tun, and the lid from the mash tun is put on the boil kettle. Then the pumps are turned on and you are mashing.

Here is a video of Lonnie brewing on the "Brutus Ten." He gives a good explanation of how the system works and how to brew with a semi automated system.

American Light Beer

I had an interesting question a few weeks ago about making miller light. It got me thinking about why people homebrew and some of the beer that people drink. Most people like light beer because it is cheap and it isn't filling (which means it is easy to drink a lot of)! Although it is possible to brew a light American lager, it isn't the point of home brewing. Most people that homebrew like an actual beer. A beer with flavor and character. The point of brewing your own beer is to have a high quality craft beer that you have made yourself, not to make a beer that you can drink massive quantities of. Lets get back to the question of brewing an American light lager. I stated that it is possible, but it isn't feasible. This is because since there isn't a lot of anything going on such as flavor, malt, hops, and aroma, it is hard to hide mistakes that may be made. Most peoples home breweries aren't as sophisticated as commercial breweries where the process can be duplicated many times over without a hitch. With a home brewery it is very hard to get everything the exact same every time. Another factor people don't brew American light lagers is because it is a lot cheaper and easier to go out and buy it. If you have the time (month) to basically waste waiting for a miller light go for it, but I say brew something that is worth the month wait. I urge you to go out and experience some actual beer and if you like real beer homebrewing is a hobby you should try. If not $18 24-packs of barely pop are for you.