Category: Life

Beer Watcher II: Bottling

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

It was bottling day yesterday at Bill HD’s for our latest batch of “hefeweizen” beer. This picture shows Bill (seated) and Steve B running sanitizer through all of the bottles– remember, clean is your friend when bottling beer– but the process for getting the beer in there is the same. Beer comes out of the bucket, which the beer has been transfered into from the carboy (see video below), it’s put into bottles, it’s capped, and we wait.

I think it’s fair to say that we’re all a bit more nervous about this batch than the last one we made. On first taste, this beer tastes… well… okay, but we hope that it benefits from a bit of bottle aging. At least two weeks. Since we’ll be out of the country in two weeks (and I don’t think it’s worthwhile to take a homebrew with me to Germany), my share of the loot will be even more aged. On the up-side though, there doesn’t appear to be any problems from the previously mentioned “blow-off,” which we thought might contaminate the batch. Our assumption is that if there was some sort of problem, the beer would taste like poo. And while it isn’t a great beer, it isn’t a poo-flavor, either.

I took some video with my camera, but I also learned a valuable lesson I will apply on our upcoming vacation: if I turn the camera sideways, I end up with sideways video. So, to properly view this footage, please turn your computer and/or monitor 90 degrees counter-clockwise before viewing.

It’s not particularly exciting footage, either; it’s beer being siphoned through a tube from the carboy to the fermenting bucket (aka “ale pail”), from which we will later bottle. Twenty-two seconds worth, and it’s 6.6 MB. I would have included the other movie I took, but Steve B. and Bill kept making rude gestures. Bastards….

… there’s always this advice for making cheap wine. As the writer emphasizes, this is “hobo wine.” No doubt.

Direct from Bill HD (aka (“The Beer Master”) himself:

The beer racked into the carboy:

What brewing is really all about:

(Which, btw, is why I am more or less a beer watcher rather than a beer master– ed.)

What’s a “hefeweizen?” you ask?

According to the German Beer Guide, it’s

“Hefe” means yeast, “Weizen” means wheat. Hefeweizen is a top fermented, unfiltered, bottle conditioned wheat beer with a noticeable yeast sediment and a cloudy appearance. Wheat beers are also referred to as /Weissbiers/ (white beers) because before the invention of pale lagers and pale ales, most beers were dark. Wheat beers were the exception as the wheat content lightened the colour of the beer.

Hefeweizens are usually quite sweet and fruity, with a full body. The typical hefeweizen taste, which distinguishes it from its Belgian wheat beer cousins is produced by the types of yeast used in Bavaria. There are often medicinal or clove flavours, produced by chemicals called phenols engendered by the yeast. Other chemicals produced by the yeast, called esters, produce bubble gum, banana and vanilla flavours. Esters are also used in sweets like pear drops or fruit gums. Hefeweizens are very lightly hopped so have little bitterness and harshness. The ratio of wheat to barley malt used is commonly around 50:50 but the wheat portion may rise to as much as 70%. With the exception of Gose, German wheat beer brewers don’t add coriander or other botanicals and spices to their beer as Belgian brewers do.

Bill also expressed some concern about potential contamination because of the blow-off, but I’m guessing we’ll be okay. We’ll get Bennie to taste it first just to be sure, though.

From “the beer master” Bill HD comes news:

Well, some drama happened regarding our wort. I went down to check it last night and the airlock was blown off the top – it had clogged with hops and foamy beer stuff and there was some on the wall nearby too. So I guess we had a very vigorous yeast colony going. When I opened the lid it was quite foamy in there too. Not sure what that means for the whole process – I cleaned up the airlock and put it back on and it was hopping and popping normally.

This could be bad, I guess, if there was any contamination. Also, the beer guy says that if the yeast is too active for too long, they basically eat everything and the beer doesn’t have any flavors at all. I don’t think this is going to be the case since it was some sort of airlock clog that caused the mishap. But we’ll see come racking time, I guess, whether it is worth continuing or whether we have our first failed batch.

Bill further consulted his guru/master, “The Beer Guy” (aka the book he has), and discovered that this event is common enough in home brewing to have a name: a “blow-off.” Apparently, it isn’t as serious as we had originally feared:

If the fermentation is so vigorous that the foam pops the airlock out of the lid, just rinse it out with sanitizer solution and wipe off the lid before replacing it. Contamination is not a big problem during the primary phase. With so much coming out of the fermenter, not much gets in. If the fermentation keeps filling the airlock with crud and popping it out, there is an alternative, a blowoff hose.

Bill went on to add:

I cleaned out the airlock, sterilized it again, stuck it back on and it seems to be going along fine. It also smells very much like a normal batch, for what that’s worth. As for why, the books I have consulted say that it just happens sometimes when you get a vigorous ferment. They recommend having a blowoff tube for such occasions, or going to a 7 gallon primary fermenter. But it seems to be a minor issue by all accounts.

So, we’ll see what happens. I guess the beer master will be getting the first taste and the beer watchers will be watching not the beer but the master for the results.