Tomorrow is the big pop quiz so tonight I'm studying hardcore. Not that it's any different than any other day this week, but I guess there's significance. I have been able to get to know the other fellows in the class more and more as the week goes on. We drink beer at lunch and after class at die bier stube. Sometimes it's hard to concentrate after lunch, but the beer is free and good. We've already killed a keg of Boston Lager and are moving on to Honker's Ale. I don't know if we'll get through that keg of Bud American Ale. The beer on tap is a long tradition included in the tuition. I thought it was just "really cool" at first but found that it indeed teaches a lesson. We are reminded repeatedly that as new brewers we are the "ambassadors" of the beer world. We are expected to drink beer and function or decide not to drink beer to function. Also, the teachers describe beer as "food" and "good for you". It provides protein, b-vitamins, essential minerals, and anti-oxidants. It is also better for you than wine. However, in the States our teachers can't publish that; ATF holds strict rules on those facts even though they have been published in scientific journals. Today we took class pictures to stand up next to the ones on the wall. They provide a jacket, shirt and tie if you should desire to look nice. Of course I put it on, combed my hair over and gave my best Augy Busch impression I could.I never thought I'd look forward to a Friday so much. The whole class is probably going to Piece Pizza and Brewery at the end of tomorrow. This week we learned more about barley, malt, specialty malt, hops, hop extract, and water than I thought I could ever know.
Here's some tidbits that homebrewers might find interesting:
Grape-nut cereal is flavored with base malt.
Manufacturing roasted barley is so dangerous that most malting companies keep the local fire department on the phone while it's being roasted.
At least one major brewery uses 50% adjunct
Budweiser used pellet hops and Willamette in the finish until bought out by InBev
Sam Adams uses whole hops (we learned how INCREDIBLY inefficient this is)
Despite my predisposition, hop extracts aren't that bad. We even got to sample some.
Breweries require a certain type of base malt and the malting companies make it for them. (I thought one malt from one malting company was all I could buy)
Many large breweries don't hop their wort; they add hop oils after fermentation.
Barley is alive before and after the malting process. I still don't believe this one.
Hops are not bought and sold. Alpha acids are bought and sold.
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3 comments:
I forgot that another good tidbit: the Germans use a wort stripper to remove DMS, then they use pressurized boil vessels because alpha acids are more solubile in higher temps.
Of course the stripper does not convert all of the SMM to DMS and some DMS is left in the wort unable to be released in the boil, giving german lagers their distinctive taste.
"Many large breweries don't hop their wort; they add hop oils after fermentation."
hm, I thought that to be quite interesting.
Adding bitterness post-boil is controversial. Hop flavor compounds change during boil and fermentation, so adding hops after is not only "cheating" but fake tasting IMHO. We got to try adding drops of these hop oils to beer to see what it was like. From what I could tell, it was like removing one flavor in the hops and magnifying it. So one might taste like flowers and be harshly bitter and another might remind of pineapple and only bitter the very back of your throat. Weird. Also, the use of rho-iso-alpha acids, tetra-, hexa-hydro-iso alpha acids allows a beer to be bitter, but light stable. So if you leave Corona or Heiniken in the sun it will skunk. Miller High-life, bottled in clear bottles will not skunk.
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