I don't post much as I'm only returning to my watersport after a long bbreak and hence have little useful knowledge.
However I like to make (and critique) beer, and if I must say so, I do a pretty good job.

This is a long post so if you don't like beer flick to another topic now.

I know I am a little more extreme than others when it comes to beer, my friends call me "the beer nazi" and I have a rather low opinion of many of the mainstream beers here in Australia so I make my own.
Like many I started off making kits because they are cheap but I've evolved into what's known as a "mash brewer". This means I make beer from grain (barley) and hops.
I thought you may be interested in how I spend many Sunday afternoons so here's how I make beer.

Making beer is very simple.
1)You put the barley in some water at the right temperature, this stimulates enzymes into action which convert the starch into sugar.
2) Rinse the sugar out, throw in some hops in the liquid and boil it all up.
3) throw in the yeast and let it do its thing for a few weeks.
4) Bottle it and wait.
5) drink it.

Heres all the starting ingredients. [URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]
The green stuff that looks like chook pellets is the hops. Hops provide bittering, flavour and aroma. Different varieties of hops are used for each purpose.
The red packets is a specialty yeast I use that is made in germany.
The bucket contains the barley, crushed and ready to go.

The ingredients are no good without the right equipment.
Heres my equipment as it stands today.[URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]

The important gear is the keg with the insulation. This is the "mash tun" which is where the grain is put to let the enzymes do their thing. The large cloth wrapped tank is the hot water tank and the copper coil is my heat exchanger for cooling liquids quickly. I've also gone "flash" and I use thermostat controlled temperature and pumps to transfer liquids. All this equipment is not neccesary, my first all-grain beer was made in an esky and a bucket, but it does make things easier for me.

Here are the brewers essential tools.[URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]
A spoon, a thermometer and a hydrometer.

Once my water is at the right temp (78 degrees C) I pour in the grain and mix it in.[URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]
[URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]

This drops the temp to 68 degrees C which is where I want it to stay for and hour or so while the enzymes turn the grain starches into sugar.

After the hour is up I rinse the grains with hot water (a process called sparging) to wash to sugar into my boiler. [URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]

The liquid is then brought to the boil and the hops are thrown in. Bittering hops need to be boiled for 60+minutes to extract the bittering compounds. taste hops need 15-20minutes and aroma 0-5minutes.
here is the boiling pot. [URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]
The boiling also coagulates proteins in the liquid that have been extracted from the grain, this makes them easy to remove as they cause unwanted flavours if left in the liquid.

I then run the boiled liquid through my heat exchanger (copper coil) to cool it quickly (causes more proteins to coagulate). It is then made to volume with water as the liquid is always too thick. I determine how much water to add by the specific gravity of the liquid. this allows for variations in grains, milling size etc and allows me to make a reproducable beer. The yeast is "pitched" after a good vigorous stir to aerate the liquid- yeast needs oxygen to breed. Once fermentation is started a brewer tries very hard to keep oxygen away from the liquid as it promotes unwanted reactions (ie helps your beer to oxidise).

After the yeast is pitched I throw the fermenters into a temperature controlled fridge. [URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]
Lagers are brewed at 5-15 degrees while ales are brewed at 18-25 degrees. (A lager is a cold brewed beer, an ale is a warm brewed beer. This is the distinction betweed the two styles - it has nothing to do with colour or viscosity of the beer)

After a week I transfer the beer into another fermenter where it stays for another 2-3 weeks before I bottle (I'll leave it longer, up to 4 months, if I'm making a lager I want to enter in a competition).

The final product. [URL=/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif.html] [/URL]

It's Walter White aka Heisenberg, I'm impressed with your lab there and wondering if we can meet up?

OP, i think you're a legend. Can you make me a decent IPA?

Great read.

You've probably had no reason to try, but have you ever experimented with gluten free beer? I'm wondering what grain (sorghum maybe) would be best used instead of barley.

Mcguyver! I used to tip a coopers tin into a bucket but it got a bit hard.

Chef said...
Toph , Ballarat brewery ( Vic ) also do a good range of gluten free beer , believe head brewer and maybe CEO are gluten intolerant

Jefin will be posting on this one... as soon as he comes down from the high of watching PJ yesty at the 'Big Day Out.'

Might be enjoying a few mash brews of our own over the weekend. I'm sure a few of yours will be consumed next week when you're home chef.

At last a topic that is worthy of 22 pages (unlike the shark sh,t).
Great post with all the info , I have been doing it the slack way , with a can of Mexican Cervasa and putting it into kegs, but you have given me new enthusiasm to cook it up.
Never had any complaints about the brew I have been doing , and I love it , so something new is going to be an interesting challenge.
Unfortunately, I am in Thailand at the moment (not really) and I will have to put up with Singha for the next 2 weeks .
Probably going to spend more on beer in the next 2 weeks than I have in the last 6 mths.
Damm expensive that home brew stuff $ 30 for 19 litrs
As for you non brewers, keep blowing your hard earned money on all that headache giving crap

Once again, Great post Brewman!!