Batch #1 Post #1

In hindsight, I was a little ambitious on my first batch. I chose a semi-complicated beer to brew. I got the kit off of www.austinhomebrew.com. They seem to have one of the top HomeBrew ingredient sites on the web, and offer a wide variety of their own recipes. Since I was flying a bit blind but eager to jump in, I chose their Belgian White Ale.

Something I'll explain briefly about picking a beer that I came to learn. Pretty much every HBer starts out with Ales. There are two prime categories of beer - ales and lagers. The difference is in the type of yeast they use. Ales use top fermenting yeast and lagers use bottom fermenting yeast. The bottom fermenting yeast usually requires a fairly cool environment to work. It's in the 50-60 degree range. Ale yeast, however, ferments best right around room temperature, making it much easier to use for HBers. I believe lager yeast also sometimes lets off a sulfuric smell that Ale yeast doesn't.

So back to my selection. I had to pick an ale, and I like Belgian Whites. That was pretty much my reason.

The ingredients:

Grains
1/2 lb. Flaked Wheat
1/2 lb. White Wheat Malt
1/2 lb. Belgian Pilsner

Malt Extract
6 lbs. Liquid Wheat Extract

Hops
1 oz Amarillo (half for bittering, half for aroma)

Spices
1/2 oz. Crushed Coriander
1/2 oz. Bitter Orange Peel

Yeast
White Labs Belgian Wit Ale 400 #00015


Right now I'll break down the basic process. Since, at the point that I brewed this batch, I didn't understand that much more. The crushed grains and malt extract are sort of the same thing. That is, malt extract is the extract of grains, and all you need the grains for is to extract stuff from them. You can get it in dry (more concentrated) or liquid form (which has the consistency of molasses). This happened to come with LME. From what I've read, it doesn't particularly matter which one you use, you just have to make sure to use the right quantity. DME is basically LME without ANY water, so you use less by weight of the DME. There's a specific percentage but I don't have it on hand right now.

So why use grains at all and not just all ME? ME is bland and doesn't have as much variety. It is a good base to use, but you can get a lot more variety in using grains. You could use all grains, but this requires a lot more time and extra equipment. One day I think I'll venture into this stage, but it is a ways off.

So the reason for the grains/ME is to give the beer flavor and the yeast something to eat. This is basically what they are going to be turning into alcohol.

Hops bitter the beer, give the beer flavor, and also aroma. From what I've read they also can preserve the beer better. Hop selection is very important, but I don't really know enough about it to write intelligently on the subject, so I won't for now. Basically though, you need to select the hops with the correct bittering and flavoring/aroma potential for the style of beer you are brewing.

The Yeast might actually be the most important ingredient, and the least understood ingredient by HBers, and that is true for me. I know what they are doing, but I don't really know what makes one strain better for a type of beer than another. What I do know is what they tell me, and that's why I went with my choice.

I'll add another post on this batch later.