Raw Materials and Technology of Brewing
I took a semester off brewing school in order to catch up with life a little. My boyfriend was finally moving to San Diego and the holidays were approaching so it felt like the right time to take a break.
The last two classes I took were Wort Production and Recipe Formulation and Food Pairings and Beer Dinners. I included a quick summary of each below.
Wort Production and Recipe Formulation
Wort production focused mostly on brewing equipment and the entire process from barley to finished canned/bottled/kegged bright beer. Everything from valves, to cleaning, to ingredient selections was covered. I found the most difficult part of this class to be the topic of ingredient selection according to beer type. For example, if you were to brew a German Style Schwarzbier, which barley and yeast would you select? I have not done many home-brews (maybe 5 or 6) so ingredient selection is not my strong suit at this point.
Food Pairings and Beer Dinners
This class is taught by the incredibly knowledgeable and hilarious Gwen Conley who works at The Lost Abbey. You will hear her name frequently during classes because, well, shes rather amazing. See link below for further proof. This three session class dove into taste receptor cells, interaction between different tastes, mouth feel, and food/beer pairings. Each class was filled with delicious snacks, beer, and stimulating conversations. I was excited to go to class for each session and sad when it ended so quickly. The main points of the class are summarized at a very general level below
- The five basic tastes are: sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and umami
- Salt can cut through bitter
- Sweet cuts heat
- Bitter enhances spicy (think burrito & IPA)
More info about Gwen Conley
When January came around I was ecstatic to begin my classes again. This semester I enrolled in Technology of Brewing and Raw Materials and Malting.
Technology of Brewing is focused on the pumps, valves, tanks, CIP systems, etc that are important for a full scale brewery. Our first class we did a group assignment where we did a brewery layout rough sketch. Even without space or monetary limitations this assignment still proved to be difficult making decisions with 6+ people. There are many considerations when opening a brewery such as tap room size, break-room, flow of fork lift traffic, sufficient storage, etc. This assignment was eye-opening to see how many decisions are required of a brewer when designing their system. The main take away was to plan for the flow of your process and also for expansion. The main regret of most brewers is that they did not plan for success and the desire to expand.
Raw Materials and Malting breaks down the four main ingredients (water, yeast, hops, and barley) and spends two classes covering the details of each. The instructor also discusses adjuncts and hop alternative products such as hop extracts. The key points so far in this class is the amazing importance of water quality in brewing. The author of the book Water was a guest speaker and helped us understand the importance of pH balance and mineral content of brewing water. I think this may be an after thought for some new brewers. For example if they are tasting a harsh bitterness they may think the hops are the cause, while it may just be their water profile.
More to come, these two classes are still in session.
I took a semester off brewing school in order to catch up with life a little. My boyfriend was finally moving to San Diego and the holidays were approaching so it felt like the right time to take a break.
The last two classes I took were Wort Production and Recipe Formulation and Food Pairings and Beer Dinners. I included a quick summary of each below.
Wort Production and Recipe Formulation
Wort production focused mostly on brewing equipment and the entire process from barley to finished canned/bottled/kegged bright beer. Everything from valves, to cleaning, to ingredient selections was covered. I found the most difficult part of this class to be the topic of ingredient selection according to beer type. For example, if you were to brew a German Style Schwarzbier, which barley and yeast would you select? I have not done many home-brews (maybe 5 or 6) so ingredient selection is not my strong suit at this point.
Food Pairings and Beer Dinners
This class is taught by the incredibly knowledgeable and hilarious Gwen Conley who works at The Lost Abbey. You will hear her name frequently during classes because, well, shes rather amazing. See link below for further proof. This three session class dove into taste receptor cells, interaction between different tastes, mouth feel, and food/beer pairings. Each class was filled with delicious snacks, beer, and stimulating conversations. I was excited to go to class for each session and sad when it ended so quickly. The main points of the class are summarized at a very general level below
- The five basic tastes are: sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and umami
- Salt can cut through bitter
- Sweet cuts heat
- Bitter enhances spicy (think burrito & IPA)
More info about Gwen Conley
When January came around I was ecstatic to begin my classes again. This semester I enrolled in Technology of Brewing and Raw Materials and Malting.
Technology of Brewing is focused on the pumps, valves, tanks, CIP systems, etc that are important for a full scale brewery. Our first class we did a group assignment where we did a brewery layout rough sketch. Even without space or monetary limitations this assignment still proved to be difficult making decisions with 6+ people. There are many considerations when opening a brewery such as tap room size, break-room, flow of fork lift traffic, sufficient storage, etc. This assignment was eye-opening to see how many decisions are required of a brewer when designing their system. The main take away was to plan for the flow of your process and also for expansion. The main regret of most brewers is that they did not plan for success and the desire to expand.
Raw Materials and Malting breaks down the four main ingredients (water, yeast, hops, and barley) and spends two classes covering the details of each. The instructor also discusses adjuncts and hop alternative products such as hop extracts. The key points so far in this class is the amazing importance of water quality in brewing. The author of the book Water was a guest speaker and helped us understand the importance of pH balance and mineral content of brewing water. I think this may be an after thought for some new brewers. For example if they are tasting a harsh bitterness they may think the hops are the cause, while it may just be their water profile.
More to come, these two classes are still in session.
