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February 2004

Serve Mine Cloudy Please!
by Bill Reddy

I have been involved in many beer competitions over the past years and there is something that continues to bother me. Home brewers seem infatuated with making crystal clear beer. Now this in itself is not all that bad. The problem is that a lot of brewers will sacrifice the quality of their brew for the sake of clarity. I have judged at competitions where beers scored high marks for appearance, but when the beer was tasted the scores dropped dramatically. It is much more important to make beer that tastes good. Let’s look at the reason we have such an obsession with beer clarity.

North American commercial breweries started it all.
German Hefeweizen beer is cloudy in appearance yet it is enjoyed by millions. Anyone who has visited the pubs in Britain can tell you that your pint is not always crystal clear. So if the rest of the world is not concerned about beer clarity why are we bothered so much by it? The answer is that our North American commercial breweries have conditioned us. For years they have had a monopoly on what type of beer we drank and have defined for us how beer should look and taste. There are still millions of North Americans who don’t even realize that there are hundreds of different beer styles available worldwide. The only beer they know and drink is the light-colored factory beers served up by our major breweries.

So now that we know the reason for our obsession let’s see what we should be doing as home brewers to improve the flavour of our beers.

Steps you can take to make your beer more flavourful.
Step 1: Start out by making the flavour of your beer the #1 priority. Use fresh quality hops and malt. Check expiry dates and avoid bargain brand products that are heavily adulterated with sugar. Reduce any added sugar to 10% of the total fermentables, that’s about 500 grams for an average beer kit.
Step 2: Most off-tastes in beer are the result of slow starting fermentations. Avoid this by using at least 2 packets of yeast. Better yet, make a starter using pure liquid yeast cultures. Liquid yeast cultures make a cleaner tasting beer—you should learn to use them. Ferment your beer at the proper temperature avoiding wide fluctuations.
Step 3: Use a two-stage fermentation. Begin your fermentation in an air-locked bucket or carboy. When the fermentation is complete transfer your beer into an air-locked carboy. Top it up with cooled boiled water and let it settle in a cool place for about ten days. Don’t splash when transferring. Don’t use buckets as a secondary fermentor Using improper secondaries will result in oxidized beer. Oxidation is the most common fault found in home brew. Transfer your beer only once. Some people transfer several times to try and achieve maximum clarity. This will ruin your beer. Each time you transfer your beer it picks up oxygen.
Step 4: Avoid splashing your beer when bottling. Remember oxygen is your enemy here. Fill your bottles to within 3/4 of an inch to the top. After your beer is carbonated store it in the refrigerator to maintain freshness and flavour.

So there you have it. If you follow these steps you will make your best-tasting beer ever and that is what really counts. I’ll be looking for you in the winner’s circle.

Bill has been an avid wine and beer maker for over 30 years. He is an owner of Brewery Lane and edits the Brewery Lane Brew News. He can be reached at billr@brewerylane.com

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Spring is just around the corner and it's time to get brewing! Use this coupon to get 20% of any purchase made at our Clickabrew online store. Hurry! Coupon expires March 1, 2004.

To receive your discount you must enter this coupon#   CB03014002  at the checkout.

You Asked Us

The instructions for adding yeast in my wine kit differs from the instructions written on the yeast packet. Which should I follow?

The instructions in most wine kits will tell you to sprinkle the yeast on top of the juice without stirring. The instructions on your yeast packet tells you to rehydrate the yeast in a small amount of warm water before adding it to the juice. Either way will work, but the rehydration method has the potential to give you more active healthy yeast cells. By following the rehydration instructions on the yeast packet exactly as written you can get up to 60% more active yeast cells. This means stronger, healthier fermentation with less chance of undesirable off-flavours and stuck fermentations. The caveat here is that if you do not follow the rehydration instructions exactly you may cause even more damage to the yeast cells. This is why the wine kit producers usually give instructions for the more foolproof sprinkle method.

Winexpert's Award Winning Trend Continues!

At WineMaker Magazine’s second annual WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition, wines made with Winexpert premium quality wine kits scored extremely well receiving 121 medals across 26 different wine categories! Wines made with Winexpert products received 28 gold medals, 40 silver medals, and 53 bronze medals.

There were a total of 1,499 entries submitted and most categories were open to wines made from grapes and/or 100% juice. Equally as impressive was the fact that every one of the Selection Estate Series wines won at least one medal and the Island Mist Peach Apricot Chardonnay received recognition as Best of Show Country Fruit and Best of Show Sparkling.

The tradition of award-winning wines continued on from Winexpert's results at the inaugural WineMaker International Amateur competition, where in 2002, Winexpert products received 63 medals in total including:

• Best of Show White - Selection Estate Series Washington Columbia Valley Riesling
• Best of Show Country Fruit - Island Mist Peach Apricot Chardonnay
• Best of Show Kit/Concentrate - Selection Luna Rossa™

Sulphites and Your Wine

Potassium Metabisulphite is a stable source of sulfur dioxide in winemaking. The use of sulfur compounds is not a recent innovation. The great Dutch shipping empire popularized the use of sulfur in the 16th century by refusing to ship any wines not treated. They insisted on sulphites because sulphite treated wines were the only ones that survived a long sea voyage without turning into vinegar.

Sulphites work by releasing free sulfur dioxide, which inhibits yeast, mold and bacteria. It does this in two ways: one, it kills some of the organisms outright, and two, it blocks the surviving organisms ability to reproduce. If your winemaking equipment is physically clean and you've rinsed it with a sulphite solution, nothing will grow on it.

Sulphites are also added directly to wine after fermentation, to help prevent oxidation. Oxidation in wine follows the same pattern that you see in the cut edge of an apple—the wine turns brown and takes on a flat 'cardboard' taste. Sulfur binds with the oxygen in the wine and prevents this damage.

Many people worry that they may be allergic to sulphites. True sulphite allergies are very rare. It's more likely that they have a histamine reaction to red wine, or that they have been over exposed to sulphites in the past. In the 1970's restaurants would douse their salad bars with 2000 PPM (parts per million) sulphite solutions in order to keep the produce fresh. Mixing with food acids, such as dressings or vinegar, would cause the salad to release clouds of sulphite gas, provoking unpleasant reactions.

Reprinted courtesy of RJ Spagnols.

Last Month:

Last month our feature article was "Oak and Your Wine". We also followed up RJ Spagnols Cru Select RQ2004 wine kits and Brew King Limited Edition kits. We also had a great tip on making a temporary wine rack. If you missed these or other interesting articles you can view our back issues at http://www.clickabrew.com/newsletters.html.