The Math of Beer

"Fight the man, make beer, occupy beer bottles."

Me.

Well, September and October were both busy months. I had intended to have had made at least 3 to 4 batches of beer by now, with multiple blog posts as well.  Instead I got laid off and somehow, things got very busy.

Renovations take up a lot of time. I ripped out the remaining carpet in my house, put in hardwood flooring in the master bedroom and laminate flooring in the office. The closet in the office is now my brew closet. There is some nasty stuff that I couldn’t get out of my carpets and when I pulled them out I got sick for a couple of days.

I also got side tracked by the blackberry season. Not wanting to waste free fermentable berries, I picked 7.5 kg of blackberries and started a 19-litre batch.

When you make wine from any kind of fruit than grapes, you have to add water to it, because it will not make a balanced wine just as it is. But since you have to add water, that means that you are diluting the sugars of the fruit and have to add more, actually quite a lot, 4.5 kg (10lbs) of the stuff (depending on the fruit and the recipe of course). I have a strawberry wine on the go that I did just that to it. But the sugar left the wine quite sulfuric in it smell. So, I decided that instead of filling up this black berry wine with dextrose sugar, I would try honey.

I got 6kg of honey from a store near by called The Honey Bee Centre. I used 3 kg of clover honey, 2 kg of orange blossom honey, and 1 kg of “Dark blend”  (which is their left over honey blended together). I would have used 6 kg of orange blossom honey by itself, as it the most amazing honey I have ever tried. But it also costs a pretty penny, so I mixed and matched.

When I transferred it over to the secondary and got to try it, I could have wept liquid joy. It was at about 12% alcohol and has 2% more to go. The flavours already coming through at this stage is nothing short of amazing. The orange blossom is really evident under the blackberries. I simply find it almost unbearable that I cannot drink this stuff right now. I will require some distraction.

Now, don’t worry, I have not forgotten my beer challenge. Being laid off, and having to worry more about money, I will be reducing the beer production to only once a month… however,  I have decided to up the challenge in another way.  I will make the rest of the beers with my own full recipe.

What this means is, I have to study the style of beer I am going to make next, figure out what the guild lines are for that beer and formulate my recipe. That doesn’t sound too hard does it? Well, when I say formulate, I mean I have to use mathematical formulas to determine how much of each types of grains and hops I am going to use. Why? Well, you could just randomly choose what is going into your beer by the old, a pinch of this and a dash of that method. But then you wouldn’t know how much alcohol is going to be in your final product. Since I am aiming to make a particular style of beer, I need to shoot for the particular range of alcohol within that style.

This means I have to work backwards. I start out knowing that if I am shooting for say, 5.5%. Then after I figure out what kinds of grains I want in my beer, (some will make the head last longer, some add a chocolate, roasted, caramel or creamy flavours and textures) I have to use math to make sure I are using the right amount of those ingredients. Because each kind of malted barley gives sugars for the yeast to turn into alcohol, it is necessary to find out how much alcohol each type of grain will give, and add them up until you have 5.5%. At least, this is my method. I know you can get software that will help you out. But, I want to learn this art form inside and out. I want to understand what, and why I am doing something. Therefore, I am going to study recipes, styles and do the math.  So far, I am excited to do it.

Those who know my failure and dislike of math know what a bold statement that is.

That said, I have already started this new grand adventure. I have made my first recipe and bottled it. What is it, you ask ? It is an Oatmeal stout. Actually two.  I split the recipe in two, and made a lighter ale with one kind of yeast (London). The other half is darker, maltier, chocolatier, fermented with another kind of yeast (Irish).

So why make my very first beer recipe an Oatmeal stout? Well, mostly because my wife and I were in New York recently and we went to a brewing pub at the foot of  the empire state building (Heartland brewery). There we tried a sampler tray. On that sampler tray was an Oatmeal stout (Farmer John’s Oatmeal Stout). The chocolate malt really came through and became the first beer that Melanie really, really liked. Therefore, I make this beer to make her happy. When she is happy, I am happy.  And Next week, it should be ready enough to start drinking.

My next beer is a beer for myself. A Scottish Ale. I will attempt to make my own version of Innis & Gunn. The beer that made me really, really like beer. Tomorrow I get the ingredients to it.

I have saved some yeast from both my Irish Oatmeal Stout and the London. I will use the Irish yeast in my next beer and the London yeast for a cider that I just started last night. Liquid yeasts are quite expensive, so saving some to use in the next batch is a very good thing.  Drinking or making beer and or wine shouldn’t be an economic burden therefore…

Fight the man, make beer, occupy beer bottles.