Krausening Home Brewed Beer

 

 

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Krausening Home Brewed Beer

via BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog by Brad Smith on 3/22/10

Krausening is a traditional German method for carbonating beers without using sugars or other adjuncts.  Instead actively fermenting malt wort is added to the fermented beer to provide the malted sugars needed for carbonation.

The History of Krausening

The "Reinheitsgebot", or German purity law, originated in Bavaria in 1516.  It specifies that beer may only be made from the three basic ingredients: malt, hops, and water.  Interestingly yeast was left out of the original law as it was unknown until Louis Pasteur discovered microorganisms in the late 1800's.  It was recently replaced by the "Biergesetz" in 1993, which also allows the use of malted wheat and cane sugar, though the term "Reinheitsgebot" is more commonly used.

Since sugars were not allowed in beer, malt wort was used instead.  Krausening was widely used in Germany particularly for lagers.  Many lagers are cold fermented and aged, often causing the yeast to go dormant.  By adding actively fermenting wort for carbonation the lager could be properly carbonated.  Krausening was less commonly used in Kolsch or Alt, as these ales were fermented at warmer temperatures leaving active yeast.

Krausening

In a brewery, krausening would be done with fresh wort taken from the most recent batch made.  For the homebrewer, Krausening is most often done with a small amount of wort made from dry malt extract.  Alternately you can use a fresh batch of wort or keep some wort in a sterile container in the refrigerator from your last batch.

A key question is how much wort to use for proper carbonation?  A good rule of thumb is that you should add enough wort to raise the gravity of the beer three points.  For simplicty you can try the following formula from the Home Brewing Wiki:

Quarts_of_wort = (12 x Gallons_of_beer) / ((Specific_gravity_wort – 1.0) * 1000)

For example, if the krausening addition of wort (also called gyle) has a specific gravity of 1.060, and we're krausening 5 gallons of beer, the result would be (12 x 5)/((1.060-1)*1000) which works out to exactly one quart of wort we add at bottling.

Traditionally, the krausening addition is added at the most active point of fermentation.  Ideally you should add yeast to your krausen and monitor it for active fermentation, but try to catch it before a lot of the malt sugars have been consumed.  You need to measure the specific gravity of the krausening addition and do the above calculation before adding it to the wort to get the appropriate amount.

After you add the krausening wort, you can bottle or keg your beer and naturally carbonate it just as you would if you were with sugar carbonation.  Store your beer in a cool, dark place for a week or two to allow it to carbonate and then lager or age as desired.

Krausening is a great way to add some variety to your beer brewing techniques, and assure that your beer is made from pure barley malt.  Thanks again for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog.  Please subscribe or retweet this article if you enjoyed it!  Have a great brewing week!

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Pale Belgian Sugar Experiment Tasting

 

 

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Pale Belgian Sugar Experiment Tasting

via The Mad Fermentationist by madfermentationist@gmail.com (The Mad Fermentationist (Mike)) on 3/10/10

Probably the most debated question among homebrewers when the topic of brewing pale Belgian beer (Belgian Blonde, Strong Golden, Tripel etc...) comes up is which sugar to use.  These beers don't need a characterful sugar (like a Dubbel of Belgian Strong Dark), just something easily fermentable to boost the alcohol while leaving a light body.  For years the answer was clear candi rocks, since it was assumed that these were the most authentic.  Then a few years back Brew Like a Monk came out, with the suggestion that those rocks were just overpriced sucrose, changing the answer to table sugar (cheap sucrose).  Then Dark Candi started selling clear candi syrup, the same stuff Orval (along with many others Belgian breweries) uses... and what about corn sugar?  Is sugar really necessary anyway? 

These were the questions I set out to answer for myself a few months ago on a wintery December day. I split one 5 gallon batch of 100% pils wort between the main sugary contenders, including one gallon with no sugar at all. Two weeks later each batch was primed with the same experimental sugar (the no sugar got light DME) and bottled.  Last night I finally had the chance to sit down to do a full, blind tasting, to see what results I could tease out of my experiment.

As expected the five batches were very similar, so I'll forgo a full review of each to focus on the flavor and aromatic differences. All of the batches had an identical golden-yellow/orange body with a nice white head with moderate-poor retention (I poured from left to right in the picture, so the first two are a bit less heady).  They were all crystal clear as well, so the sugar had no influence on the appearance.  The aromas shared a similar bready/pils malt character and the flavors had just a hint of hop bitterness.  All finished plenty dry within .001 of 1.006 (certainly within the margin of error for my hydrometer reading skills), and none of them came across as more boozy or alcoholic than the rest.

Table Sugar: The most apple character, a bit more sulfur/yeasty, and the spice is more toward pepper.  The sulfur has mellowed from when this batch was young when it was clearly different from the rest.

No Sugar: Brighter, the spice comes across as clove, the flavor also had a bit of less-fermented "worty" character. The hops also came across a bit more than the rest, maybe a testament to the lower alcohol or milder fermentation.

Clear Candi Rocks: This one is the only one that was a bit over-carbonated.  It comes across with a softer/rounder character though, and it also has a nice pepper zip. 

Clear Candi Syrup: The cleanest/mildest of the bunch, no real defining characteristic (although it certainly still had a distinct Belgian yeast character).

Corn Sugar: Another clean/mild one like the syrup, except for a bit of extra clove (second only to the plain).

I would like to emphasize that the flavors/aromas of these batches were all very close (say 95%) and I had to let them come up close to room temperature to get some of these differences. I think most of these differences could not be detected unless you were trying them side-by-side.

The most surprising result was that I picked out the table sugar (for whatever reason) as the most appley, a shock as I have long been a doubter of the so-called "cider" character some people claim cane sugar gives. It also was the only one that showed some signs of sulfur when it was first in the bottle a few months back.

I found it interesting that both the beers with sucrose (table and candi rocks) came across with a spice character of pepper while the no-sugar and corn sugar leaned more towards the clove.  Not sure what this indicates, but it may be that 3787 (Westmalle strain) has different byproducts when it ferments sucrose.

I also found it interesting that I didn't notice much body/alcohol difference between the no sugar batch and the other four with sugar, although I did pick it out as being wortier.  This is a testament to the fact that all of these sugars are easily fermented by Saccharomyces and left nearly identical final gravities, with just alcohol as a byproduct.

In the end my take away from this was that the difference between these different clear/white sugars when brewing a beer this clean is probably similar to the difference between using two pilsner malts from different maltsters.  That is to say something that you might play with when really trying to dial in a beer, but not something you need to to worry about the first time brewing a recipe.  While these beers did have slight differences, they were so slight that I really didn't have a preference for any above the rest.

I'll be running the five samples by more people in the future to get a broader sampling of what people can taste as the difference between these sugars.

 

 

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Hops in the Mail!!!

Ordered 9/24/09 Thursday

Quantity	Name
1	Centennial 1lb *One Week Sale*
1	Tomahawk (Columbus) 1lb *One Week Sale*
1	Simcoe 1lb (2007 crop) *One Week Sale*
1	Willamette 1lb *One Week Sale*
1	Warrior 1lb *One Week Sale*

Now it's time to figure out some recipes!

Update: Hops Arrived 9/28/2009 Monday - Fast Shipping! (Over the Weekend)

SUPPLIERS

http://www.nikobrew.com/

Grain Storage

Vittle Vault Stackable Airtight Container a bit pricey a about $40 a pop but a very nice option

(There are some non-stacking models that are half as much)

New Brew Supplies!

As of Monday night

2.5 cases of cap ready bottles
4x5 gallon carboys
capper
hydrometer
floating thermometer

cost = one 6 pack from the first 5 brews. Now you just can't beat that!
Thanks Marlin! We will put this to good use.

CO2 tanks

there are different size tanks you can use for co2: 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 lb, etc.
it might make sense to think that the cost to fill a 5 lb tank would be twice as much as a 2.5 lb tank, and to fill a 10 lb tank would be twice as much as filling a 5 lb tank, and so forth
but it turns out that at welding supply shops, the cost to fill a tank that is larger is usually only a few dollars more than for a tank half its size.
these costs are off the top of my head, but at a welding supply shop, the prices were like this:

2.5# - 8 dollars
5# - 10 dollars
10# - 12 dollars
20# - 13 dollars
50# - 15 dollars

so to fill a 50 lb tank, was less than twice the cost of a 2.5 lb tank, yet you get 20 times as much co2.
the '#' sign and lb are interchangable, and the '#' is stamped on the tanks.

when i say 'fill' i actually mean swap for most places. what this means is you take in your empty tank, and swap it for a full tank for the cost of the fill. you will lose your pretty new tank if you do this, but i bought all my tanks used anyway.

also, if you didn't know, the tanks need to be hydrostatically tested at least every five years. this means the tank is filled with water to a certain pressure, and the integrity of the tank is measured (i believe they measure the expansion of the tank and contraction of the tank during and after the water to see the durability of the tank) plus they look for micro cracks that can develop around the valve.

what this means to you though, is if you find a tank used (and i recommend you do! such as on craigslist or ebay - but check for shipping costs), always ask for the most current test date. if it is longer than five years, or close to five years, expect to pay for a hydrotest, and deduct that from what you are willing to pay for the tank. just so you know i bought almost all of my tanks for 20 dollars, and they were all out of test (i have a 50 lb, 3 x 20 lb, 2.5 lb, and used to have a 5 lb). so to get a full tank within test, cost me about 50-60 dollars a tank.
hope this helps!

Local Brew Shops

KS
OVERLAND PARK
HOMEBREW PRO SHOPPE
913-768-1090
2061 E. Santa Fe
Olathe, KS 66062

http://www.brewcat.com/

KS
SHAWNEE
BACCHUS & BARLEYCORN, LTD
913-962-2501
6633 Nieman Rd., Shawnee, KS 66203

http://www.bacchus-barleycorn.com/