Brew Day - Weizen

Today is a brew day for a Bavarian Weizen or a Weiss Bier. According to German Reinheitsgebot or purity law, only four ingredients can be used to brew beer. Water, barley, hops and yeast. Strictly speaking, making beer with only these four ingredients is limiting. Many brewers today use malted barley or wheat and some adjuncts. The purpose of the law was to ensure a minimum quality to the outcome.

The brew day is approximately 6 to 7 hours long. My normal batch is 10 gallons/four cases of beer. First the water is raised to a specified temperature, then circulate the heated water over crushed malt (mash) to change the starch to sugar. Next the sugared grain is washed (sparge) with more hot water to extract as much of the sugar as possible. Then the wort - sugared water - is boiled with the addition of hops to give the wort a bitterness and aroma. This process is about 1½ hours which also reduces the quantity of liquid by approximately one gallon per hour. Next the wort is cooled rapidly through a counter flow chiller where the wort travels from the boiler to the fermentor in one pipe and cold water travels in an outer pipe in the opposite direction - counter flow. When all of the wort is in the fermentor and the wort is the right temperature, the yeast is pitched into the wort. The yeast uses the sugar as food and changes the wort to beer by converting the sugar to alcohol.

Since there are only four main ingredients, how are the different flavors develope? Yeast is a big contributor to flavor. But so is water. Grain and temperature can change the character and the mouth feel of the beer. Natuarally soft water yields a lighter style beer such as a pils whereas water with large concentrations of carbonates and calcium are best to produce darker beer like porter and stout.

Temperature changes during the process can alter the way the beer tastes. For example, if the heated water circulating over the crushed grains is kept between 144F and 150F, more of the malt will be converted to fermentable sugars thus making a higher alcohol content which also gives the beer a drier taste. If the temperature is between 151°F and 158°F, more of the malt will be converted to unfermentable sugars thus lowering the alocohol content. The resultant wort will be sweeter - having a bigger mouth feel.

Therefore, a recipe using the same ingredients can be altered by changing the process temperature. As a homebrewer, I normally try to stay within the guidelines for a particular style such as weiss, Alt, Pils or Octoberfest. I see no reason to mess with success.

After the yeast is pitched, the beer is then lagered/conditioned for one to many weeks. Ales can be ready to drink in about one week after pitching the yeast whereas lagers will be conditioned for several months. Conditioning a lager is a necessary step for a smooth crisp taste.

The final step to the process is to carbonate the beer which can be done by adding a sugar solution to the beer in the bottle or force carbonating the beer in the keg. Homebrewers seldom filter their beer so the residual yeast will act on the added sugar to produce the necessary carbonation.

Really, the final step is . . . well come on over and have a taste with me.