Brew Labs, Imperial Porter, the brewing process

This is my lovely face making some beer!

I have been home brewing for right around four years now and I would say that while I know some stuff, there is a tremendous amount of information, techniques, calculations, chemistry, and guidelines that I need to learn.

 In the four years of brewing, I have largely done extract brewing, with a little dabbling in the partial mash technique. Extract Brewing is a technique for brewing that is least effort intensive and will not set you back very far in the pocket book. My lack of experience with grain based brewing ended this past weekend. C took me for a surprise trip to Brew Lab KC in Overland Park.

Brew Lab is not just a beer shop for ingredients and equipment. The shop has a very knowledgeable staff

Three vessel all grain system at Brew Labs

that can literally walk you through the steps of the brewing process. I say literally because the shop also has extensively equipped stations for brewing beer. These stations include three tank systems that heat and circulate water as it transforms into wort. No matter what your experience is with home brewing, the people of Brew Lab can guide you through ingredient selection all the way through the tube hook ups, filtration, and pitching the yeast. I made an Imperial Porter that will be ready in about a month and a half. I learned A LOT about the brewing process, specifically the all grain process.

That's me! You know stirring stuff!

Sidenote: I might need help drinking the Imperial Porter, any volunteers?

Often during tours of commercial breweries a brewer/tour guide will use terms for their equipment that are second hand for them. Everyone taking the tour is in a rush to taste the beer at the end. They seldom ask the question, "Well what does that do? What purpose does that huge tank serve in the process?" Because I finally learned, took the time to ask those questions, while observing the brewing process through this past weekend here are some terms that are important to that brewing process.

• Extract
• A syrup like substance that is the result of water absorb sugars from the malts that would have been used in a batch of beer
• This syrup reduces the steps in the brewing process
• Extract brewers start with the boil instead of starting with a hot liquor tank and lauter/mash tun (Discussed below) 
• This is generally speaking the introductory brewing process for most home brewers
• Partial Mash
• This process is very similar to Extract brewing. While the water for the brewing process is getting hot for the boil, a brewer will place a mesh bag of milled grains into the water. This allows the heating water to rinse the grains of starches that will be converted to sugars during boil
• All grain

• The full brewing process of extracting starches from malted grains and boiling to convert them into dissolved sugars, along with the added hops
• Here are few pieces of the all grain process:
• Hot Liquor Tank
• This is a misnomer for me at least, there is no liquor involved with the Hot Liquor Tank
• This vessel heats water and that is it.
• The Brew Lab had a copper pipe spiral through the HTL from and back to the Lauter Tun quickly warming the wort to the appropriate temperatures
• Lauter tun (AKA Mash tun)
• This vessel is responsible for getting the grains stripped of starches so they can be converted to sugars during the upcoming boil
• This is done by rinsing the grain with hot water
• Sparging is a process to ensure that as much of the sugar is extracted as possible
• I found out there are a few different methods to sparge but for the purpose of this post we will leave it at that the wort is drained from the grains and water is added back to continue washing the grain
• Brew Kettle



A dark Imperial Porter! Yummm!

• This is where a majority of the ingredients are combined and dissolved using the heat of the boil
• Generally speaking this process is 60 minutes
• This time can vary as the whole point of the boil is to dissolve as much of the sugar in wort
• This makes beer a solution and for me the preferred solution
• Fermentation 
• Fermentation is the process of transforming wort into beer
• This is done with the addition of yeast after the wort has cooled from the boil
• Fermentation is usually done in a container that will let carbon dioxide out but not let in the outside air
• This is a delicate process as the beer is very susceptible to infection and going bad
• Yeast 
• Yeast is an organism that thrives on sugars around it
• The yeast will eat sugars in solution and leave behind alcohol and carbon dioxide
• DING! The lingering question about the importance of sugar throughout this process has just been answered
• Different strains of yeast can bring different flavors as they will react differently with the sugars present
• Just know a beer is not beer until yeast has pooped in it. Food for thought
• Adjunct
• Any fermentable ingredient other than malt, water, hops or yeast in a wort that affects the properties of the beer is considered an adjunct ingredient
• This can include anything from vanilla in a vanilla porter and raspberry in a raspberry wheat to yeast nutrient making the yeast more stronger during fermentation to corn and rice that lighten a beer's flavor
• For more on adjuncts reference a good article in Brew Your Own Magazine on Adjuncts

The anticipation as the brew ferments!

This is a lot of information! I am overwhelmed just typing it and I am still getting a hang of some of this jargon. Please ask questions if you have any, or correct me if you feel I have missed something. I would love to learn more. I know that the people at Brew Labs helped me get further down the path of home brewing.

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to brew a batch of beer or maybe you want to make a great present for friends and family, then go to Brew Lab in Overland Park.