Guest Column: Technology and Home Brewmasters

This continues a new category of posts: Guest columns where friends and readers share how technology is reshaping their hobby – fishing, basket weaving, rugby – whatever.

This time it is our good friend from Spain, Dennis Howlett, whose ZDNet and other blogs you see linked very frequently on my other Deal Architect blog.

Here he is on his thirst for fine, home made beer.

"From the tender age of 17 right through to the time we moved to Spain, the production of beer held a fascination at all sorts of levels.

At its most fundamental, brewing is cooking although these days it seems to have been turned into something more akin to an exercise in chemical engineering. As a long time member of the UK's CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) I wanted to preserve a craft that goes back thousands of years. That's because there is something intensely satisfying about taking the most basic of ingredients and turning them into something that is always socially acceptable.

The technology may have advanced but the basics remain the same. Soak malted grains in hot water to extract fermentable sugars, add hops for bitterness and keeping, boil, cool down, pitch in yeast to turn sugar into alcohol, bottle or cask up, wait a few days and and then drink. Of course if it was that simple then we'd all be doing it and here's where the technology kicks in.

It's surprising just how much you can change the character of a beer by raising or lowering the extraction stage temperature (mashing in brew terms) a few degrees. Similarly, pitching different strains of yeast will radically change the characteristics of a brew. Throwing in a handful of the choicest hops at the end of the boil can add a wonderful aroma to an otherwise unremarkable brew. Is this science? I'd prefer to think of brewing as an art with scientific overtones. I can't for instance begin to recount the number of times I'd reproduce a recipe only to find that something 'changed' to produce a different result to the one I expected. It all drank well.

Over the years, equipment that was once the purview of the big brewers came within the range of the amateur. When once we slopped plastic buckets, we eventually gained access to stainless steel, fabricated contraptions capable of turning out high quality beer. In some senses, it took a bit of the 'hit and miss' fun out of the game. But then there really is nothing much more satisfying than reproducing a Fullers' ESB or Guinness clone. To do that, you need good equipment, capable of faithfully getting the right amount of fermentable sugars out of the right quantities of grain. HomeBrewMart has something for starters and more experienced brewers.

We had invested in a fairly expensive kit aimed at micro-breweries from Mossbrew that we ran out of a huge garage at our house in France. Brasserie de la Varenne produced three regular beers. A straw colored quaffing ale for summer. It looked like a lager, had hints of honey and drank like a bitter. A darker, more full bodied potion that would have been at home alongside anything Marston's produce was second up and finally a dark, full bodied creamy stout.

All the ingredients were imported form the UK, a relatively expensive exercise but one which made best use of the SUV on cross channel visits. We'd go to the Salisbury Plains to buy the best malted barley and up to Nottingham for yeast and hops.It was nothing for us to return with a quarter ton of grain.

The best beers were always made in the winter when it was a lot easier to control fermentation temperatures which should ideally be around 75 degrees and when conditioning temperatures of around 40 degrees were near perfect. Long hot summers were not so great for brewing, which was why we made plenty in 750 ml bottles and finished casking around the beginning of June, hoping we could keep the beer cool enough to last through September. The rig made around 90 liters a time and after a while we found the locals really taking to it. Our farming neighbor really liked that we made beer because it meant he could get 20-30lb of free grain to feed his flock of poultry. We got eggs in return plus the occasional chicken.

The rig was an ingenious contraption that combined a variable pressure pump with precise heat control for both the mash and boil phases along with a clever cooling system that allowed us to 'drop out' all the gunk at the point when we needed to pitch the yeast. Beer making is a leisurely pursuit but dropping the temperature from boil to 75 degrees as fast as possible is one of the best ways to ensure a clean, clear finished product. Pro heat exchangers are fine if you've got the money. We didn't so employed a series of copper coils that took cold water on one side and discharged warm on the other side. In order to conserve water, we transferred the warm water to butts for later use in the garden.

People came from far and wide to sample the stuff. What better way to build up a social circle in the middle of nowhere. We even set up a bar with English hand pull engines. I was really proud of those as a hand pulled pint that delivers is the epitome of the brewers' craft.

I didn't go as far as full chemical analysis though I was always keen to ensure we had a great strain of yeast on hand and that the ingredients were in the best condition possible. In an effort to maintain consistency, I used a commercial brew recipe calculation engine - today you can get some on the web such as TastyBrew.com . It helped considerably but nothing beats the 'rack of eye' approach to working a great brew. Man in tune with nature's gifts is how I like to think of it.

We were just at the point of truly commercializing the stuff when we departed for Spain. That ended my brewing escapades - at least for the time being. We live in Jaen province where the summer temperatures regularly hit the high 90's. Brewing beer in those conditions is almost impossible without a cold room or underground bodega. Winters here are ideal but priorities dictate that the home office gets sorted out first.

Another day? We'll see. My brewing days are not entirely over. Just on hold."

Comments

[sam winier]

as a fellow homebrewer i would encourage you to check you thebrewingnetwork.com, its a great resource for homebrewers like ourselves & i didnt know dennis liked homebrew either

[Build A Home Brewery]

Amazing. What temp is his fermentation? How long does he let it ferment? Does it do a secondary fermentation or take it straight from there? A really traditional feel and gentle brewing.