Palmer's Simple Explanation Of Brewing

[cpsmusic]

Hi,

Recently I was trying to explain the brewing process to a friend who's thinking about getting into brewing. I recalled Palmer's explanation from HTB:

1. Malted barley is soaked in hot water to release the malt sugars.
2. The malt sugar solution is boiled with Hops for seasoning.
3. The solution is cooled and yeast is added to begin fermentation.
4. The yeast ferments the sugars, releasing CO2 and ethyl alcohol.
5. When the main fermentation is complete, the beer is bottled with a little bit of added sugar to provide the carbonation.

This seems to be a fairly typical explanation.

I'm into malt-driven styles and I was thinking that this explanation leaves out how the malt flavour of beer is produced. According to this list the result would be "hoppy water with a hint of alcohol"

What about the non-fermentable flavour compounds from the wort and the boil (and also fermentation?). I'm wondering why these aren't considered as important? It's almost as if these are by-products of the process.

Anyway, this is just an observation.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[bum]

Man, I want to punch that word 'seasoning' every time I read it.

And his horrible analogies! GAH!

I can't read that book. Good as a reference but I cringe any time someone advises a n00b to sit down and read it cover to cover.

 

[felten]

I've always liked Brewing, science and practice's outline of brewing in their first chapter. They give a simple bullet point outline as above, and then delve into an overview of malting/water/mashing/fermentation and so on in a little more detail.

It explains some of the brewing nomenclature pretty well, but gets a little technical as well. If you're looking to move into AG from extracts then it's probably not too technical, though I can see that putting some people off.



Palmer is definitely more approachable for the new brewer, though his mashing analogy still does my head in.

 

[yardy]

Man, I want to punch that word 'seasoning' every time I read it.

And his horrible analogies! GAH!

I can't read that book. Good as a reference but I cringe any time someone advises a n00b to sit down and read it cover to cover.

so much hate.... tsk tsk.

 

[bum]

I know. Next thing I'll probably be doing is making unwarranted personal remarks! I have no self-awareness whatsoever.

 

[loikar]

FWIW

1. Malted grain is crushed and soaked in hot water to release enzymes and starches, the enzymes eat the starch and convert it to sugar.
2. The sweet "wort" solution is separated from the grain and then boiled with Hops for Bitterness, flavour and aroma.
3. The solution is cooled and brewers yeast is added to begin fermentation.
4. The yeast eats the sugars, releasing CO2 and ethyl alcohol and then has a snooze.
5. When fermentation is complete, the beer is bottled with a little bit of added sugar to wake a little bit of yeast in the sealed bottle which then provides the carbonation.

Is how I generally explain it.

 

[Bribie G]

Man, I want to punch that word 'seasoning' every time I read it.

And his horrible analogies! GAH!

I can't read that book. Good as a reference but I cringe any time someone advises a n00b to sit down and read it cover to cover.

These American authors do grate a bit. I recently read "Munich Helles" by an American. It was a good read and certainly helped me understand the style. But it was full of stuff like "When the average Bavarian gets together with his buddies to sling some suds ...."
Oh dear.
And, with Palmer, as for brush cutters, pruning hooks and twig munchers - he's lost me there

Edit: re the first book, when I got to Sydney after reading the book on the train I hit Lowenbrau in the Rocks and slung 4L of suds on the spot

 

[stux]

The yeast eats the sugars, releasing CO2 and ethyl alcohol and then has a snooze.

And esters

 

[Thefatdoghead]

These American authors do grate a bit. I recently read "Munich Helles" by an American. It was a good read and certainly helped me understand the style. But it was full of stuff like "When the average Bavarian gets together with his buddies to sling some suds ...."
Oh dear.
And, with Palmer, as for brush cutters, pruning hooks and twig munchers - he's lost me there

Edit: re the first book, when I got to Sydney after reading the book on the train I hit Lowenbrau in the Rocks and slung 4L of suds on the spot

And, with Palmer, as for brush cutters, pruning hooks and twig munchers - he's lost me there

Lol. When I first read that I thought WTF has mowing the lawn got to do with brewing :huh:

 

[popmedium]

"Take some water, add suger and some hops and then add yeast and ferment the bitch until the universe tells you it's ready"

It's a deep hole but you'll never get in to it if you don't take the first step.

 

[manticle]

I think it's fine. It's a book that simplifies brewing so people don't become overwhelmed by technical jargon. It's written by a metallurgist homebrewer, not Salman Rushdie or Robert Frost.

Crybabies one and all.

If any criticism were to be levelled at him, it's the non inclusion of techniques like BIAB or the furphies about rapid chill being necessary for cold break production. Show me an author who's perfect on every score and I'll give you a box of freddos.

 

[Bribie G]

Not to mention bucket in urn B)

 

[technoicon]

i would probably say yeast converts the sugar. but not much difference.

when i started the simpler the better. figuring out what wort was gave me a headache.

 

[Muscovy_333]

FWIW

1. Malted grain is crushed and soaked in hot water to release enzymes and starches, the enzymes eat the starch and convert it to sugar.
2. The sweet "wort" solution is separated from the grain and then boiled with Hops for Bitterness, flavour and aroma.
3. The solution is cooled and brewers yeast is added to begin fermentation.
4. The yeast eats the sugars, releasing CO2 and ethyl alcohol and then has a snooze.
5. When fermentation is complete, the beer is bottled with a little bit of added sugar to wake a little bit of yeast in the sealed bottle which then provides the carbonation.

Is how I generally explain it.

You need to think of the enzymes (amylases in this case) as the keys that unlock the individual sugar monomers from a starch (Polymer) chain and help speed up the reaction. Starch is just a whole bunch of sugars stuck together in chains. They dont behave like sugars until they have been unlocked from the chain.

The enzyme definitely does NOT eat/but DOES convert starch (as you rightly said)


Seasoning...WTF!


(

 

[Bribie G]

Stepdaughter:

January: So those big bags of cereal looking stuff are what they call hops? No, that's malt
March: Wow are those black bins full of those hop things you told me about? No, that's the malt
June: The garden beds look great with all those piles of boiled hops on them. No, that's spent malt
August: What are those little green chook food things in your scales there that smell like old socks .. eeewwwww
...

 

[Fourstar]

Show me an author who's perfect on every score and I'll give you a box of freddos.

Don't think he's not joking, he won a box at the last Melb brewers meeting! :lol:

 

[stux]

Surely he was a nazi or something, right?

 

[popmedium]

Palmers book was even still complicated for me at certain points. I read the thing front to back and he gets in to the chemistry fairly early on. HAving about 10 brews under my belt I've come back to it and am now starting to understand everything more clearly.

Without a doubt, the best beginner book for me was 'Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast's Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home' By Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head - http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Brewing-Enth...t/dp/1592532934

It skips extract only brewing all together and focuses only on Extract and Specialty Grain Brewing. It's not a technical bible but it lays out (with pretty pictures) the basics for making a brew. It does focus solely on more extreme beers but I found that this worked for me in that my thinking wasn't weighted down style doctrine. Once I worked my way through this and came up with my first beers I then moved on to Palmers book and some of the more technical literature out there.

The most important think I think is to give as little info as possible at first, which sounds weird but the more infomation you lump on a person, the less accessible brewing becomes.

 

[loikar]

The enzyme definitely does NOT eat/but DOES convert starch (as you rightly said)

I use the term "eat" to most people so the person receiving the information can build a little movie in their heads to understand better.
I do the same for Yeast, so the person can imagine a little bug eating sugar, pissing alcohol and farting Co2 and rooting it's way through the beer.

 

[Fish13]

im currently reading david lines the big book of brewing. not bad for something written in the 60's and even some of science is over my head.