Tips and Tricks Vol. 1

Tips and Tricks, Vol. 1

 We're brewing another Belgian Stout this week, so if you want to learn more about that, see a recipe (a really good one) and get into that big beer world, check out the Bourbon Barrel Belgian Stout entry.

So instead of repeating ourselves, we are going to help you out with some tips and tricks we've learned along the way. We've made pretty much every mistake you can possibly make, so we decided to help you not live like us. 

-How to avoid bottle bombs: Bottle bombs, or when over-carbonation creates a foam volcano billowing out of the bottle, or even exploding due to the extra pressure. Exploding bottles can take out the neighboring bottles as well, a tragic event that does occasionally happen. To avoid this, and under-carbonation as well, a good practice is to stir your primed beer (beer with priming solution) well before your bottle. After every 4-6 bottles you fill, or 5 minutes if you take your time, stir the mixture again. This will ensure that the priming solution stays evenly incorporated with the beer. The priming solution and beer have different densities, so over time they will begin to separate, leading to bombs and/or flat beer. Stirring throughout the process keeps the two melded well, guaranteeing perfect carbonation every time.

-SG too high: Some beers will end with a higher than expected gravity. If you are brewing a big beer with a lot of dark malts or something with a lot of unfermentable sugars (lactose) or flaked grains (oats, wheat, barley, or corn), the yeast will simply run out of sugar to eat, leaving your final gravity reading high. You are just going to have to live with that. One way around this would be to add some extra sugars to your boil. For instance, in our Belgian Stout we add a pound of Dark Belgian Candi Sugar to bump the ABV to where we want it. That Candi Sugar is 100% fermentable, countering the unfermentable (yet delicious) ingredients. 

-OG too low: There are several reasons why your Original Gravity could be too low. First thing is to check the pH of your water. If your pH is too low, you won't get proper conversion, leaving sugars behind that will help your beer. Water chemistry is important, especially if you are doing a full mash. Get a water test done, or try to retrieve that information from your water company if you can. Another reason for low OG is poor sparging. If you don't sparge correctly you can get channeling, where the sparge water just runs through certain paths and doesn't collect the sugars from the rest of the mash. When mashing, you want to make sure you mix your grains in well. You don't want balls of grain or dry spots. If you grain your grains to finely, you will end up with a doughy mash, and the sugars won't convert as well.

-Working with LME: Before you open your canister of LME, warm it up in hot water to thin out the syrup as you would with honey or molasses. This will help the LME incorporate into the liquid more easily and it won’t sink to the bottom of your kettle, thereby raising the risk of scorching your beer. If the LME does get scorched, your beer will have a burnt, campfire flavor and aroma and there is very little you can do to fix that. Once the LME is in your boil, stir the hell out of it. Incorporate it completely as quickly as you can, so it doesn't have the chance to sink and scald.

We hope these little tricks are helpful and you can avoid unnecessary stress during your brewday. If you have hacks of your own that work for you, we would love to hear them as all of us have developed cheat techniques to make our brews more efficient. Hopefully will have some more of these, with input from you all, in the future.

Cheers!