You Don't Make Beer - But This Does

Good morning. With the holidays upon us, most people are hoping for ordinary presents - clothes, kitchen appliances, and anything you can buy on Amazon. Us homebrewing junkies are just hoping for the glimpse of some stainless steel when we unwrap our presents.

-Brandon Copeland

Who Really Makes the Beer?

In reality, homebrewers don’t “make” beer - we are just facilitating the ideal conditions for bringing the ingredients together. The true power to make beer resides with one special fungi: yeast. Yeast is the MVP; it does the hard work of converting all those sugars from the malted barley into alcohol.

Yeast is often an afterthought for the beginner brewer - if you buy a kit, you’ll notice that it comes with a little bag of yeast. Normally, this gets thrown into the refrigerator only to be brought back out once it’s ready to be dumped unceremoniously into the fermenter.

One of the best ways to start making better beer is to start thinking more about your yeast. The simplest way to increase the quality of your fermentation is to make sure you have enough yeast cells to convert all the sugars in your wort into alcohol.

The quick and dirty way to do this is to just pitch two dry packets of yeast. On bigger grain bills, with just one packet you may not have enough yeast to complete fermentation. If I’m in a hurry or feeling lazy, I always have some dry packets of Safale US-05 in the fridge to fall back on.

A better way to increase the cell count of your yeast is to make a yeast starter. Not only will a yeast starter increase the cell count, it will also lead to healthier yeast that will ferment faster. This adds some time and requires some forethought, but can lead you on the path to brewing great beer. If you’re interested in making a yeast starter, check out this article.

If you want to make a yeast starter but don’t feel like going to the trouble of making your own wort, you can use canned wort like Propper Starter. You still need to add your own yeast, and it helps to put it on a stir plate, but this can really take the guesswork out of making a yeast starter.

The final option homebrewers have is a liquid yeast like Wyeast or Imperial Yeast. These liquid yeasts don’t require a starter but you can also pair them with a starter to increase your yeast count even more if necessary. You’ll pay more for these yeast packs than you would dry yeast, but the quality of yeast is generally higher.

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Beer Trivia Question

🍺 In what country was pilsner invented?

Read to the end to find out if you're right!

Homebrewing Equipment Highlight

Deluxe Yeast Starter Kit

If you’d like to start making yeast starters, the Deluxe Yeast Starter Kit is a great way to get started. This kit includes an Erlenmeyer flask, a magnetic stir plate, a foam stopper, anti foam drops (very necessary to avoid boil overs), and dry malt extract.

It’s possible you could find all the materials separately for less, but if you want to just quickly upgrade to making yeast starters, this is an easy way to go about it.

Deal of the Week

Free $20 Gift Card With The Purchase of a $100 Gift Card on Northern Brewer

It’s the season of giving, and if you’re looking to give a nice $100 gift card to Northern Brewer to the homebrewer in your life, you’ll receive a $20 gift card for free in return.

Or you could just buy the $100 gift card for yourself and buy something nice with the extra $20…

Last Weeks Poll Results: How Do You Create Your Homebrew Recipes?

I had a feeling that Brewgr Search was going to be the winner of this poll - it’s arguably the best part about Brewgr. With such a large recipe database at your fingertips with the ability to clone the recipes and make them your own, it’s a pretty great way to find your next brew.

Brewgr Recipe of the Week

Short and Shoddy IPA

There’s nothing short or shoddy about this recipe - it’s a simple all grain IPA recipe with mosaic, citra, and galaxy hops. I feel like I can taste and smell this hazy just by reading the ingredients…

Credit: MikeP

And the Answer Is...

🍺 Pilsner was first brewed in the small town of Pilsen, Czech Republic in 1842 by Bavarian brew master Josef Groll.