The Layman Brewing Basics

Whether commercial or homebrewing, the basic process of making beer is pretty much the same. On a commercial system you'll likely have more control than you would have on a five gallon brew system in your garage, but the steps are similar.

Here are some of the steps in the brewing process to help you better understand how beer becomes beer. Why is one beer a different color, bitterness, sweetness, etc? 

 
1. Planning. This seems pretty obvious but it takes careful planning and preparation to make a great beer. The most basic of planning involves deciding the style of beer you want to make. What color? How Bitter? What strain of yeast? Combining various malts of various colors will change the color of the finished beer as well as the flavor. All light malt will yield a light colored beer. Add dark malt and you will start to darken the final product. The quantity and intensity of the malt will determine color. Imagine mixing paint in art class. You start with a white base, then mix various colors to achieve the desired hue. Adding a little bit of black to a yellowish base will lend a amber, copper, or brownish color. Add a lot of black color to the mix and it will inevitably make it completely black. This, as I had mentioned, will affect beer flavor as well. Lighter grains may lend a general light, malty sweetness where amber or "crystal" malts will add a note of caramelly sweetness, while dark roasted malts in high quantities may offer a chocolate, coffee, or burnt flavors. 

Mill

Malt

2. Milling. Once the brewer has decided from the plethora of types of malt, he must crack them or "mill" them in order to expose the starches inside the grain.

Mash

3. Mashing. The cracked grain or "grist" is sent to a "hopper" (a container that holds this cracked grain, sort of like a grain funnel). The hopper is then emptied into a mash tun and combined with hot water. This combination of grist and hot water is called the "mash"(in distilling it is often called the "wash"). Mashing allows enzymes in the malt to break down starches in the grain to sugars. Why is that important? To make alcohol, yeast eats sugar and converts it, but it can't eat starches which is why they need to be broken down into simple sugars. So in short, grain + hot water = sugar water.

Sparging

Mash Tun

4. Lautering. After the mash has successfully converted starches to sugars, we send the sugar water called "wort"(pronounced wert) to the boil kettle. The process of separating the grain from the wort is called "Lauterting." During this process we slowly rinse or "sparge" the rest of the grain to get all the sugars out.

Boil Kettle

5. Boil. We boil the wort for several reasons. One big reason is that it sterilizes the wort. This is why, historically, beer was safer to drink than water any many places. During the boil we add hops. Hops are extremely important as they add needed bitterness to balance the sweetness of the wort. Wort by itself is literally just sugar water so it needs some amount of bitterness. Hops are added at various times during the boiling process (which usually takes 60-90 minutes). Hops have resins and oils in them. Resins become bitter when you boil for long periods of time and oils add aromatics. In generally, the longer you boil a hop, the more bitter. The less you boil the hop, the more aromatic. So that "triple hops brewed" beer we all hear about is pretty typical. It just means they used hops at three different times during the boil. In fact, many, many beers are "triple hops brewed". Many beers have hops added five or more times!

6. Chilling. After the hops are added and the boil has commenced, the hopped wort needs to be chilled quickly and transferred to a fermenter. The wort goes through a heat exchanger which will chill the boiling liquid to around 70 degrees extremely fast. 

 

Fermenter

7. Fermenting. The chilled wort is combined with healthy yeast in a fermenter. In a matter of days or weeks the yeast will consume the sugars and make alcohol and carbon dioxide. 

Filter

8. Filtering (optional). In some cases the beer will need to be filtered to get rid of any yeast and clear up the beer. For this, the fermented beer is usually sent through filter pads where the filters catch all the yeast, sending a nice, clear beer to a serving vessel.




9. Misc. and Carbonating. Some beers are dry hopped, or aged in oak, or add fruit puree etc. This is usually done in the serving vessel. For sake of time I'll only discuss one of the many things that can be added to a serving vessel. "Dry Hopping" is when hops are added directly to the serving vessel. Because there is no boil, the aromatic oils will not evaporate, thereby making a very intensely aromatic beer. Lastly, Unless the beer is going to be bottle conditioned (meaning yeast is left in the beer and the beer will self-carbonate in the bottle), CO2 will be forced into the beer to carbonate it to the desired level.

10. Drink it!

Ignoramous to Beer Zealot - My Personal Beer Journey

It's been a long bumpy road, but I'm just getting started.

Not too long ago someone approached me and said, "You don't have a blog?!" I first replied, "Why? Should I?" I then thought, "Does anybody even read those? I assumed it was just a bunch of people writing poetry, complaining about life, and reviewing movies over an overpriced latte..." After googling the word 'blog' I realized there was a lot more to it than some 13 year-old girl gossiping about the middle-school dance.

This is my first attempt at blogging and I hope I don't mess it up too much. My wife actually convinced me to start a blog or two, likely in an attempt to get me to stop blabbing to her about my beer opinions and reviews. I hope to shed a little light on many of the local beer spots and breweries, some new brews entering the area and some interesting beer gossip and events. So here goes:


My name is Chad Rozniecki and I love beer, though it took me a long time to realize it. I think to understand where I'm coming from, and what makes me worthy to write about beer and bars, you need to see where my beer journey started. Growing up, I had fairly easy-going parents. Groundings were not a regular occurrence, granted, I never really got into trouble. My friends were mostly math nerds and band dorks. Playing Warcraft II and III was more fun for them than going to the high school parties. I wasn't a complete nerd though. I also was in rock bands which I feel raised my 'cool-level' a point or two, but whatever coolness I had achieved I think was erased by my tuba-playing, marching band endeavors. But I digress. In my household the topic of alcohol was never taboo. My parents weren't heavy drinkers but would have a drink with dinner or at parties. The fact that I was around it so often made it seem like it wasn't a big deal. Of course my parents discouraged underage drinking but didn't necessarily forbid it. If they knew we were going to a party they would simply say "be safe! And for God's sake, if you need a ride just call and we wont ground you, we just want you home safe!" I think they realized a long time ago that if they treated alcohol like some horrible thing and said 'NO NO NO' then we would rebel and do it anyway. All that being said, I never really had a drink before I turned 21. Not because I was above it, or for religious purposes, or due to family history etc. Perhaps it was because I was just too busy to bother, or because my friends didn't partake often, or because the only beer I had tried was my dad's Michelob Ultra, but for whatever reason, I never had anything more than a sip or two of a beer before my 21st birthday.

While I could make this next section last hundreds of pages, delving into my college experiences, bands, relationships, random jobs, I'll try to cut to the chase and focus on those experiences that shaped my beerducation. When I finally was of legal drinking age, I was performing at Mark's Bistro in Dundee Nebraska, and the guitarist who was playing with me bought me a Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. "WOW...This beer is like motor oil." I said. Then he bought me a Bud Light. "WOW...this tastes a lot like carbonated water." Especially after the Guinness. You could imagine, my palate was shocked after those two first beers. I started thinking that if these beers are so different, what else is out there? I immediately started visiting local Hyvees and grabbing 6-pack samplers of craft and import beers. Trying the typical progression of wheat beers to brown ales, German and English, Stouts to Pales, IPAs to Belgians, Imperials to Barrel-Aged and Sour beers. I started visiting the neighborhood Old Chicago before graduating to the craft beer bars like The Crescent Moon and breweries like Upstream and Nebraska Brewing Company. It wasn't long before Paul Kavulak (Owner of Nebraska Brewing Co.) encouraged me to start homebrewing. I became OBSESSED. While most homebrewers brew once a month or biweekly, I started brewing sometimes four or five times a week! I read dozens of books, subscribed to magazines, and read tons of online forums. I started frequenting breweries, picking the brains of the geniuses behind the beer. I started entering my own beer into competitions and started working for local beer bars and breweries. I quickly earned a job as a brewer at a local brewery, the hardest but best job I have ever had. Since then I have been involved in beer bars, cigar bars, restaurants, and now I own The Lauter Tun Craft Beer Bar near Oakview Mall in Omaha Nebraska.

It is these experiences that has led me to where I am today, and I'm just getting started.

I've gained a lot of great friends and contacts through my experiences and random jobs and hopefully very few enemies. I try to build and repair bridges and not burn them if at all possible. I'm very excited about the beer scene in Omaha and it keeps growing and evolving. 

Some people might wonder why I, a bar owner myself, would want to review other bars and and promote their events and upcoming beer releases. Am I stupid or just crazy? Well the jury is still out on that but I am all about promoting beer. I hope that the other beer bars and breweries in the area feel the same, but as for me, I just want people to find the right experience and the right beer to match it. I have no problem sending my guests to another local bar and have done so numerous times. If I wasn't able to get a beer that Krug Park in Benson has, I will gladly tell a guest to visit that bar and try it out..."but don't drink it all because I'll be down there later to try it!" I try to patronize the local beer bars, stores, and breweries as often as time allows to show my support, and I hope the feeling is mutual and reciprocated. There are plenty of patrons to go around and plenty of great beer to be had by all. And, to be clear, I will never bash on another bar or brewery or event. Every bar has it's merits and I plan to focus on those regardless of my own personal taste regarding the venue itself.

I'd be lying if I said I am not planing to promote my bar and events as well, but I will without a doubt be promoting the heck out of my 'competitors' as well.

If you are interested in other Omaha Events, please check out my wife's wonderful blog called Stalking Omaha.

So here's to beer!

Na zdrowie!

Chad