I finally decided on a brewery name that sounds contentious enough for me. But it's more than just a title. "Spirited" certainly reflects me (and my teaching style so I'm told). I am often animated and sometimes mettlesome. But I also think it adequately describes my brews (spirited in flavor and aroma). The logo was done entirely by me in
GIMP. My first! I intentionally wanted something that looked like a poker chip. I figure I can get some made and hand out to folks that come over and enjoy my brews! Click on the chips for high resolution versions:
I started homebrewing in early 2008 after getting a beginner's kit as a Christmas gift. I actually asked for it since I had seen my father-in-law homebrewing for a few months and thought that it would be a fun hobby to take on (he had actually done it for years but stopped for a while and had just started again). I think the bane of my existence is the rather wide variety of hobbies that I have. They can be time consuming if you don't watch it.
The wonderful thing about homebrewing coupled with the fact that I'm a pretty curious guy--meaning that I am interested in knowing how the world works and why it works the way it does--is that it can be as involved as you want it to be. After a few tries, you can make pretty good beer at a fraction of the cost of what you'd find in the grocery stores. Plus, the horse piss they call beer (e.g., Budweiser, Miller, Coors, etc) pales in comparison to the stuff you can make--even early on. In the beginning, I enjoyed making my own beer because...well, just because I could enjoy something that I had made myself. It tasted good and cost on average about $0.50 per bottle. Over time, however, it has become more of a science to me. I am fascinated by the fact that so many variables can be changed over the course of brewing a batch of beer that can affect it in drastic ways. In effect, you start with a bunch of grains (mostly malted barley), some flowers (hops), water, and yeast. That's it! After a few weeks, you can bottle or keg your beer. A few weeks later (usually a month in total), you have drinkable beer! And it lasts a good while too. As opposed to drinking your beer very quickly as you might do with beers you purchase in the store, you can keep your homebrews for a year or more. Some beers only start to become good after several years and keep for 8 or more! Hops and living yeast act as preservatives. Commercial breweries pasteurize their beers, thereby killing the yeast. They filter it too. Homebrew is unfiltered. I've had some good brews (e.g., stouts) that were in the bottle for over a year and tasted incredible!
I initially began brewing extract brews. So in addition to the four ingredients to brewing mentioned above (grain, hops, water, and yeast), there's also malt extract; that's just a syrup or dry powder that's derived from steeping malted barley at certain temperatures for a duration in order to extract the fermentable sugars contained within the grain. Using malt extract saves you a lot of time and the headache of trying to extract those sugars yourself which is usually not as efficient and requires additional equipment, techniques, and a lot of patience. Plus, the variables I mentioned before increase exponentially; there are more of them to worry about! I transitioned to all grain brewing in early 2010 where I extract those fermentable sugars myself. I still brew using both methods, but it depends how much time I have: a little time means I'll brew with extract.
If you're interested, you can take a look at my
brewing process. I keep a brew log (of sorts) that manifests itself as a
busy spreadsheet (last updated on January 24, 2012 18:39:27). I recommend a spreadsheet over brewing software primarily because it's free and open source. But it's also easily modified and you can see the calculations being performed (which means you can learn, understand and change them). And yes, I use
OpenOffice (not MS Office) since it is both free and open source. Can you tell that I like free and open source stuff? Oh, and its designers don't constantly come up with a new version with different proprietary file formats to make it difficult for everyone to open such formats unless they purchase a new version or upgrade every time. That's a no-brainer for me. I protect my spreadsheets (without a password) so that I don't accidentally change or delete a formula. They can be easily unprotected should you feel the need to change something. If I had one piece of advice to convey to anyone interested in homebrewing, it would be to keep a detailed brew log. Of course, that's in addition to the most important thing in brewing: cleanliness and sanitation. That's like 75% of everything you'll do in the homebrewing world.
On a related note, someone asked me what I think are the most important (critical) things in homebrewing. I thought about this for a few moments and came up with a list of five things, sorted in decreasing order of importance (i.e., the most important at the top). Some of these help take your beer from good to great; some help with consistency (i.e., making the same beer taste, smell and look the same from batch to batch). One of the greatest compliments I receive consistently about my homebrew is that it looks, smells and tastes like commercial beer (i.e., it doesn't have a "homebrew" characteristic). I attribute this to most of the following list:
- Cleaning and sanitation. This is a must and, without it, you will end up with bad beer at one time or another. Although not everything needs to be sanitized, make sure to sanitize anything that touches the beer after the boil. It's also important to properly clean everything; for example, the keg out dip tube that is hard to clean unless you have a very long (and small) brush.
- Fermentation temperature. One of the key ways to be consistent from batch to batch is to ferment your beer at a constant temperature (and at the right temperature). Most ale yeast strains give off unwanted flavors and aromas if allowed to ferment too warm. Moreover, they can produce fusel alcohols which are reminiscent of jet fuel (don't ask me how I know this), have a warming feeling in the mouth, are usually harsh, and can give you one of the worst hangovers you've ever had. Most ale yeast strains ferment well at about 68-72F. Remember, however, that this is the temperature we want the beer to ferment at. Early on in the fermentation process when the yeast are very active and produce quite a bit of heat, that may mean an ambient temperature of 65F or so! I typically ferment my ales at 68F with an ambient temperature of 64F for two weeks. I then cold crash my beers at 40F for at least three days which motivates the yeast and other protein solids to flocculate (coagulate and fall to the bottom). My beer is then ready to bottle or keg. If I dry hop, I do so in the primary fermenter and increase the ambient temperature to about 72F (well actually whatever my house ambient temperature is currently set at). I then cold crash. Lagers must be fermented at colder temperatures. Most of the time, I ferment them at 50F until 75% of the fermentation is finished, at which point I increase the temperature to 65F to stir up the yeast into cleaning up one of their fermentation byproducts: diacetyl. I then rack the beer (transfer it) to a secondary fermenter and lager the beer (very cold conditioning) for a month at 35F. It's then ready to bottle or keg. Cold crashing (or lagering) allows the beer to turn out pretty clear without filtering. One can additionally use unflavored gelatin (added to water at 170F, allowed to bloom and poured on top of the beer in the keg or before racking the beer in the bottling bucket) in order to further help in clarifying the beer. Another benefit of cold crashing and using gelatin is that, if any chill haze proteins (proteins that produce a hazing in the beer when it is cold) are in the beer, the gelatin will help take care of those too!
- Yeast and oxygen. Yeast is everything to beer. We might think that the water, grains and hops determine the resulting flavors and aromas in the beer (and this is partly true), but it is the yeast that is the main workhorse and contributing factor to the resulting beer. So it is important that we pitch the proper amount of yeast cells and provide them with plenty of oxygen (O2) to start the fermentation process. One important thing to remember is that O2 is the yeast's best friend prior to fermentation (i.e., on brew day). After that, it is its worst enemy. So we must make sure that we do not introduce O2 once fermentation has completed. Pitching the right amount of yeast is a must and will greatly determine the resulting beer. There are a number of online calculators (e.g., Mr. Malty) that can assist with this. If pitching dry yeast, then we have no worries; we can just sprinkle a packet on top of the beer. If pitching liquid yeast, then it's usually time to make a starter (see my brewing process for how to do this). I typically make a starter about a week before brew day, allow it to fully ferment on a stir plate and cold crash it for at least 48 hours. When ready to pitch, I decant most of the spent wort, swirl what little is left and pitch. Properly oxygenating the wort prior to fermentation (but after cooling) is also crucial. Yeast first need to grow prior to fermenting the beer. This growth requires O2. During boiling, most of the O2 is driven from the wort so we must replace it. Commercial breweries target about 8-10 ppm dissolved O2 in the wort. We can achieve about 8 ppm with plain old air (which is 21% O2). To do this, we can agitate the beer. This was my preferred method prior to using pure O2. I used to let the beer crash into my fermenter as it was cooled and drained from my brew kettle. After that, I'd take my mash paddle (that has holes in it), hook it up to a drill and spin it in the beer for about a minute. Now I use pure O2 that is passed through a HEPA filter and dispensed in the beer through a diffusion stone. The first time I ever used pure O2 I ended up with VERY vigorous fermentation. The krausen (foam that sits on top of the beer during fermentation) blew through the airlock and out of the fermenter. It was not too bad, but I could certainly tell that fermentation with pure O2 is much more vigorous than without.
- Mash temperature. There are a large number of variables that we can tinker with during brew day. Perhaps one of the most important in terms of affecting fermentation is mash temperature. When brewing using all grain methods, we mash the grains (usually for an hour) at some temperature. This temperature is crucial to determining how the yeast will ferment the beer. For example, if we mash at 148F or so, we will motivate the yeast to fully attenuate (thereby producing a dry beer with less residual sweetness). If we mash at 158F or so, there will be more residual sweetness in the beer once it's fermented. The temperature at which we mash essentially affects the enzymes in the grain and how they convert the starches in the grain into sugars. These sugars are converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide by the yeast. Mash temperature is not the only thing that affects how the yeast ferment the beer. Certainly, our choice of grains (among other things) is a contributing factor.
- Water chemistry. Although we can brew great beer without paying attention to the water that we use, we will never be able to truly be consistent or to exactly clone our favorite commercial beer unless we address the chemistry of the water we use to brew. I used to brew with spring water that was filtered and passed through reverse osmosis. One day I decided to try my city's tap water and the result was tastier beer. At the moment, I don't personally alter the chemistry of the water I use to brew, but certain minerals in the water can affect the flavors and aromas in the beer as well as the fermentation process (although perhaps not anywhere as influencial as other processes such as yeast and oxygen for example).
A word about the dangers of homebrewing...
Some bloke once said... Can anything pathogenic live in beer? The short answer is no, no, no, NO! Is that clear? There is zero chance of pathogens living in beer, wine or distilled spirits. Period.
Pathogens are organisms that are harmful and potentially life threatening to humans. There are some 1,400 known species overall encompassing viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and helminths. Of those, we are only interested in the ones that can be foodborne. Quite simply, if it can't survive in food, it isn't in beer. That knocks out all but bacteria and fungi. Viruses need specific circumstances to be passed around (e.g., on the lip of a glass or a bottle and not the beer in it). Can you say, "Aaaaaaaaaachoooooo!"
Pathogens as a rule are very fastidious beasts, meaning that they want specific temperatures, acidity, nutrients, and other conditions to thrive. Bacteria that
could live in wort cannot survive even a little bit of fermentation. There are several reasons for this. One is the magic of hops. It is the isomerized alpha acids in the hops that provide a preservative effect to beer and also happen to inhibit pathogens! That's good for fresh wort. Another reason is the drop in pH from fermentation. In addition, yeast emit their own enzymes and byproducts, all in an effort to make the environment hostile to other creatures (except, of course, for us consumers of beer). The major one, of course, is alcohol (ethanol actually) but their enzymes will break down less vigorous organisms (and they become sources of trace nutrition). Now the latter is very minor compared to the effect of alcohol, but it does exist. Most of the time, these enzymes work on the wort (young beer) and not organisms until late in the process. That's good for beer (and wine too).
On botulism specifically: did you know that it is an anaerobic pathogen? Its toxin is one of the few that is broken down by boiling. It is also strongly inhibited by isomerized alpha acids, even in water. Since fresh wort has a healthy amount of oxygen in it, the beastie cannot even get started; then once the O2 is consumed by the yeast, it doesn't even have a chance against the hops or yeast. And so all that's left are a handful of acid producing bacteria that will surely ruin a batch of beer. And what we're talking about here are off flavors and aromas, nothing harmful. Overall there are less than 200 organisms that can survive in beer and lend flavor effects. None of these for very long or very often. Lambics, of course, are the sole exception. And if pathogens could survive in beer, that's where you'd find them. In lambics. But they're still damn good!
And so, yes, there are dangers to homebrewing. But they mainly involve dropping heavy things on your toes, accidentally pouring very hot liquids on your hands or doing something stupid during brew day that gets caught on tape and uploaded to Youtube... And ultimately, these harmful things are avoided if you are not an idiot and are aware of what you're doing at all times. Trust me when I tell you that it isn't the hot wort that causes the pain; it's the idiot that spilled the hot wort in the first place. Kind of like the fact that it's never the pencil that causes one to fail a test or the alcohol that causes one to get into an accident or the gun that causes one to kill someone else. The human is always the weakest link; it's never some inanimate object.
Take a look at my brewing process if you have the time.
Upcoming brews (this changes all the time):
- Overdose IPA
- Clorona
- Heil Bier! (Warsteiner clone)
- Hopfully IPA
- Residuum Pale Ale (designed to "get rid" of odds and ends)
- Smoke Your Ass (rauchbier)
- Belgian Dubbel
- Trippin' on the Tripel
- Belgian Quadrupel
- American Pale Ale
Vessel Status:
- Fermenters (1 and 2 are white-top, 3 through 10 are blue-top):
- Back in Black IPA
- Back in Black IPA
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- Carboys (1 is 5-gal glass, 2 is 6-gal BB, 3 through 5 are 5-gal BB):
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- Kegs (1 through 10 are Cornelius ball lock, 11 and 12 are Challenger ball lock):
- A Right Scunner Scottish Ale
- Amber Experiment (gluten "free" amber ale)
- The Ballbreaker Scottish Dry Stout
- Dread Pirate Roberts Old English Ale
- Soul Stripper IPA
- Soul Stripper IPA
- Hakuna Matata Pale Ale
- Hakuna Matata Pale Ale
- Kolsch It!
- Doormat APA
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On Tap:
- Dread Pirate Roberts Old English Ale
- A Right Scunner Scottish Ale
- Hakuna Matata Pale Ale
- Amber Experiment (gluten "free" amber ale)
- The Ballbreaker Scottish Dry Stout
Brew Summary (click on the beer name for a brewsheet of most brews from 2010 onward):
Oh, and if you're from the government, you might (or might not) know that the federal government allows me to brew 100 gallons of beer per year per adult 21 and over in my household (to a maximum of 200 gallons per year). The state of Louisiana accepts this and goes further to say that I can transport up to 20 gallons of homebrew at a time to events such as homebrew club meetings, parties, etc. This is a fairly new thing that the governor signed into law in 2010.
And a little bit of paraphrase from
a friend for those that are inclined to whine and complain (by the way, my mantra is "Stop Global Whining!"):
"I'm a child of the [70s]. I grew up in an era where any meddling in one's personal business by any government entity was unheard of. One lead his life as he saw fit and as long as he didn't hurt anyone, nobody bothered him. Also, I was taught to take responsibility for my actions and not to try to blame others.
I still live by that philosophy. As such, you might find things on this site that, if you're a meddlesome panty-wetting nanny, you might think could be illegal. Some things, if you try them at home, might very well get some bureaucrat's panties in a wad. You might even hurt yourself! (Who to blame, who to blame?????????)
Therefore this site is presented for its educational and entertainment value only. If you try to duplicate any of my work you may suffer the ire of some government do-nothing who is jealous of people actually doing things. More importantly, your pecker could fall off, you could be maimed, your hair could fall out, you might go cross-eyed, your blue smoke might leak out, you could become a Republican, you could become a Democrat, you could get fat, your voice might go high. Heck, you might even kill yourself.
So. Read and enjoy this stuff but don't try to run with the big boys. If you ignore my advice here then you're on your own. I take absolutely no responsibility for what you might do. It's a full time job for me taking responsibility for what I do. (Isn't a sick commentary on the world today that I even have to say such things?)"
A few pints (among other things):
Irish Stout
Bock
Canadian Ale
Sweet Raspberry Wheat
Liberty Cream Ale
Hop Scare IPA
Hopfully IPA (R), clone of Green Flash West Coast IPA (L)
Hakuna Matata Pale Ale (R), clone of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (L)
Purple Daze (Abita Purple Haze clone)
Ska Modus Hoperandi IPA clone
Harpooned IPA v2 (Harpoon IPA clone)
Hopfully IPA v2 (Green Flash West Coast IPA clone)
Hakuna Matata Pale Ale v2 (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone)
Soul Stripper IPA
She's Got Balls Double ESB
Back in Black IPA
For Peat's Sake Smoked Porter
Back in Black IPA v2
Hopfully IPA v3
A Right Scunner Scottish Ale
Clorona v2
Brother Cain's !IPA
Peach it Brother!
Peach it Brother! getting peached!
More pics here!
Jean Gourd 
