This tutorial was given on E! on the 16/May/2005 by Sabt-Pestnu.
Good Morning, Egypt!
I had been considering spending a little time in front of a mike, to discuss the making of beer, and here I end up near one...
But... is there anyone online both listening and interested?
If so, let me know.
Well, for all that it is early, my time, it looks like there are a number of people interested.
So you want to be a brewer, do you?
First thing you will need to invest in, is a beer kettle kit.
This will cost you 21 brass, some amount of copper (24, I think), and some time on a master casting box, and on a forge.
... or you can go trade for one from The Goods or your guildies...
You will also need at least one small barrel.
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Let me spend a moment talking about the barrels.
You need a small barrel on hand in order to empty the kettle and see the results of your yeast test, or of your beer brewing session, whichever you chose.
If the result is not a drinkable beer, you automatically throw out the result, and you keep your barrel.
if the result is a drinkable beer, you get the opportunity to label the keg.
When later you use the keg, either in making ambrosia, or at a tasting table, you will get your barrel back.
So unless you need to keep around a lot of beer, say, storing up for a party, you won't need a lot of the barrels.
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I've had a comment from one of you, that you already know this level of information, and were looking for something more advanced.
Could you give me an idea if I should fast forward?
OK, it looks like we have a mix of people out there, so I'll try to cover it fairly swiftly. Please do let me know if you have questions, that's mostly what I'm here for.
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Microbes 101: There are several types of microbe, but the only one that we like is the Yeast type.
In order to get a good beer, you have to have enough yeasts working on the contents of your kettle that the other types of microbe do not spoil it.
To do that, you need one (or more) yeast microbes to get there first.
Thus, the Yeast Test.
You put the beer kettle down somewhere, you get an option to perform a yeast test.
If you have no idea what the microbes are like at the place you put the kettle, you typically start with an "open kettle yeast test".
That is, you start a yeast test, and leave it alone until it is done.
When you "Take" the contents of the kettle, you get a list of all the microbes that enter the kettle, IN THE ORDER they entered.
This is important, because most times, you will want to get the yeast, and just the yeast.
And here is where we get into "seal times"
You will have noticed that once you start the yeast test, you have an option to "seal" the kettle.
Once you seal the kettle, no more microbes will enter the kettle, assuring your little yeast microbes all the sugars and vitamins they could ask for, without the nasty bad microbes competing.
But you need to find what time the yeast you want enters the kettle.
So now, you start doing more yeast tests, sealing the kettle at various times.
You will have seen, on the first yeast test, a countdown timer showing how long until the test is done.
Use this timer to measure when to seal the kettle.
When your test is done, you will have either "no microorganisms", indicating you sealed the kettle too soon, or one or more microbes.
The time listed on the countdown timer is the "seal time".
If you have microbes you don't want (that is, anything that is not a yeast), you will want an earlier seal time.
A word of caution here.
If you move your kettle, so much as 1 coordinate, your seal time may change.
This can be bad, in that it may turn a good seal time into one where you miss your yeast.
There's a bright side to this too, though...
You can use this fact to get closer to the yeast you want. If, for instance, you have two yeasts "first in line", and you have a seal time where you only get the first of the two, you might be able to move the kettle to "get closer" to the second yeast.
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Having found, and isolated a yeast, you are halfway there.
At this point, I must point to the wiki page on beer. (wiki.atitd.net/tale2/beer)
You will find there a list of factors influencing beers, but better, you will find links to spreadsheets that have those calculations in them.
Trying to calculate the results of a brewing session by hand is a miserable thing. I know this first hand.
Both of the spreadsheet programs that I know of, Excel, and OpenOffice, work equally well.
Many, many yeasts have their various attributes already calculated and listed on the wiki (and in the spreadsheets).
To the best of my knowledge, the time a yeast enters the kettle does not influence the brewing, only that it is present.
First, now, a word on beer tastes, and then a word on multiple yeast beers.
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You have direct control of two "Tastes" in a beer: the Barley taste, and the Honey taste.
You get more honey taste by adding honey late in the brewing cycle.
you get more barley taste by adding malt (except burnt) early in the brewing cycle.
(these are mentioned on the wiki page, by the way)
ALL OTHER TASTES are dependent on only two things: the amount of alcohol in the beer, and the yeasts that made it.
Many yeasts do not produce enough of any of the exotic tastes to notice. But some yeasts ALWAYS do.
So if you are looking to brew a festival beer, or just looking for some exotic tasting beer, you need to find the proper yeast. No recipe will help a yeast that simply doesn't taste like that.
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Multiple Yeasts...
You might have a situation where you have several yeasts in your kettle, all acting on your brew
I cannot say anything with authority, but I can make some educated guesses...
First, average the "taste" values, and the vitamin consumption rates.
Multiply these averages by the lowest alcohol cap.
Now take out of those averages the yeast with the lowest cap, count how much alcohol there is to the next cap, multiply it by the new averages, and add it to the previous totals.
Continue until you run out of yeasts.
Assuming you don't run out of sugar, or vitamins, the result of all that should be fairly close to your actula results.
This is only my guess, though.
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Blackness, and Potency, I have a question on.
Blackness is dependent on the malts you use, and when you add them to the brew.
The earlier you add the malt, the more "color" (blackness) is added to the brew.
the longer the malt was roasted, the more color there is to it.
In fact, Burnt malt is pretty much only useful for adding color to a beer.
To get a black beer with no flavor of barley, you would, yes, add a ton of burnt malt early.
This does lead me into the topic of substitutions in recipes, but I will resist for the moment, and discuss potency.
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Potency is, specificly, how much alcohol is in your beer.
All yeasts have an "alcohol cap" - nothing you can do will increase the alcohol that yeast will produce.
801 alcohol is Potent, 1201 and higher is Very Potent.
You CAN arrange to have alcohol levels lower than the "alcohol cap", generally in two ways:
You can limit the amount of vitamins in the brew. Each yeast has a lower limit for vitamins. Once the yeast eats the vitamins down to that level, it stops.
This is the vitamin floor, and the rate of vitamins to alcohol is the vitamin consumption rate.
I should note here, that there appear to be cycles of vitamin consumption, so relying on the vitamin floor to limit your beer is somewhat chancy.
Again, check the wiki for references to current theories.
The other way to limit alcohol is by limiting the sugars in the brew.
This is, in my humble opinion, a much more reliable method. It is not always possible, though, with certain beer types.
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Back for a moment on multiple yeasts.
As I said, I was pretty much guessing... I do have some solid input from Airmid, though, who has apparently done significant study of two-yeast brews.
While time of entry for a single-yeast brewing does not seem to affect the brew, time of entry of additional yeast microbes apparently does.
The closer the two enter, the more effect the later yeast has.
For calculating it, my best guess would still be to run the spreadsheet on the first yeast, then run it on the second yeast, and, it would see, give a weighted average between the two.
The first run you do should give you a good idea of how to weight the values of the different yeasts.
Unfortunately, doing an accurate calculation for this is beyond the talents of a simple spreadsheet.
Ack.
One more time, I fear...
Airmid reports that a brew he does with two yeasts, both of which have lower alcohol caps, in combination seem to exceed the alcohol cap of either individually.
This MIGHT be due to the cyclic nature of alcohol generation, but it requires more study. So I cannot say with authority.
Alcohol generation...
The later you add malt, or yeast, the more vitamins it adds to the brew.
Each yeast converts vitamins to yeast at some rate (called the vitamin consumption rate).
Honey added late in the brewing adds a fair amount of vitamins, but adding light or raw malt late in the brewing adds a great deal more.
Each yeast also requires a minimum amount of vitamins to continue producing alcohol.
as I mentioned earlier, there are signs that this is a cycle of "if the vitamins are more than X, produce another, ever increasing, round of alcohol" making it more difficult to find that "vitamin foor" point.
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At this point, I am pretty much done with brewing basics. I have time for a few more questions.
I will have to cover substitutions later, if folks want me back.
So.
Any questions?
It looks like that's all for this morning then. Please do feel free to chat me with any beer questions that come up; I'll answer them when I can.
Thank you, Airmid, for providing the information on multiple yeast beers
and thank you to the various folks who came up with questions
Good day!
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