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Top 10 Steps to Better Beer Sep, 2005by Chris ColbyWhat's really important when it comes to improving your brewing skills and whatdon't you need to worry about as much? Find out.Everybody loves his or her first batch of beer. However, after the initialenthusiasm fades, most brewers start looking for ways to improve their beer.nd here, beginning homebrewers face a problem. !he problem isn"t a lack of

information# it"s a surfeit of it. From books to maga$ines to on%line forums,everyone has an opinion on how to brew better beer. &o you make a yeaststarter or try to mimic urton (pon !rent"s water? )hould you keep things cleanor build a HE*+) machine? Will a little $inc improve your drink? s avoiding hotside aeration the key to a great libation?

)orting out the critical from the trivial is not easy. )ome important aspects ofhomebrewing get relatively little press, while oceans of ink are spilled on lessimportant aspects simply because a technical e-planation of how they work isavailable.n this article, "ll give what think are the top / most important steps tobrewing better beer, in 0at least roughly1 their order of importance. +ost steps

are well%known, even to most beginners. ut hopefully, by ordering theirimportance, it will spur beginning 0and intermediate1 brewers to think about theirbrewing process.

#1 Cleaning!here"s no getting away from it, the most important part of brewing is also theleast glamorous 2 cleaning your e3uipment. Without sparkling clean e3uipment,there"s no way to saniti$e it and hence no way to brew 3uality beer.

Everything in your brewery needs to be cleaned. 4ertainly any surface thattouches wort or beer needs to be spotless, but so should other surfaces one3uipment and your brewing environment. 5therwise, soil can be transferred

from an unclean surface to clean e3uipment and then come in contact with wortor beer. 6eep in mind that your hands touch many things during a brewday. fyou"re going to handle a cleaned and saniti$ed piece of e3uipment after touchinganything of suspect cleanliness, wash your hands before proceeding.

5ne of the biggest keys to making cleaning manageable is to clean everythingimmediately after use. t"s relatively easy to clean brewpots, fermenters orempty bottles before the 7crud8 on them has time to harden. t will take someserious elbow grease after it has sat awhile. lso cleaning immediately preventsthe soil on your e3uipment from becoming a breeding ground for contaminatingmicroorganisms, which brings us to . . .

#2 SanitationWort 0unfermented beer1 is a rich growth medium for microorganisms. ut, theonly microorganism you want growing in it is brewers yeast. f bacteria or wildyeast begin growing in your wort or beer, sour, acetic, phenolic or other offflavors and aromas may result. Without proper sanitation, anything else you doon brewday is futile.

!he most important pieces of advice a new brewer should learn about sanitationis to use saniti$ers only after e3uipment is clean and only at their properconcentration 2 more isn"t better.

Finally, keep in mind that your beer is not e3ually prone to contaminationthroughout the process. 4ool, aerated wort is a very good growth medium for a

variety of microorganisms. eer is less so. !here are beer%spoiling organisms, butthe alcohol content and low pH of finished beer are a partial shield againstcontamination.

#3 Quality Ingredients

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n many ways, brewing is like cooking. !his is especially true when it comes toingredients. 9ou need fresh, 3uality ingredients to make good beer. )o, it pays toreview how to identify fresh ingredients.

Hops 2 whether whole, plug or pellet 2 should appear green and smell pleasant.Hops that look brown or smell cheesy should not be used. 5ptimally, your hopsshould be stored fro$en in vacuum%sealed bags.

:rains 2 including base grains and specialty grains 2 should smell and tastefresh. 5ld grain will smell and taste stale. ;opping a few kernels in your mouthand chewing on them should tell you instantly whether your grains are fit to brewwith. :rains should be stored in a cool, dry place and will last at least eightmonths if so. Whole grains retain their freshness much longer than crushedgrains, which should be used within a couple weeks of being crushed.

+alt e-tract also needs to be fresh and can be stored under the same conditionsas grain. f stored properly, dried malt e-tract 0&+E1 will last at least a yearwhereas li3uid malt e-tract 0/ water, your water must also be of high 3uality. Firstof all, it should taste good. f your water has off flavors, so will your beer. For tapwater that tastes acceptable, the biggest concern is chlorine 0or chloramines1.!hese chemicals are added to water supplies to help keep it sanitary and willreact with ingredients in your beer and cause off flavors or make it ageprematurely.

!o rid water of chlorine or chloramines, there are a couple alternatives 2 carbonfiltration or chemical treatment. carbon filter, especially the larger under%sinkkinds, should remove a sufficient amount of chlorine or chloramines to renderyour water suitable for brewing. lternately, treating your water with 4ampdentablets, at a rate of one per @/ gallons 0A=

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#5 Proper and Stable er$entation %e$peraturef you pitch an ade3uate amount of yeast, the ne-t most important factor is toferment your beer in the yeast"s preferred temperature range and to keep thewort temperature 0at least relatively1 stable throughout the fermentation.

f the ambient temperature in your house isn"t suitable, some low%tech methods2 such as covering a carboy with a wet !%shirt 2 allow for a small, though,reliable amount of cooling.

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batches of homebrew boiling well. )ome brewers, however, are tied to theirkitchen stove as a heat source. f this is the case, all is not lost. E-tract brewerscan perform a vigorous full%wort boil, or procedure that 7fakes8 it, with ust alittle e-tra energy. conceptually simple way to do this is to use the !e-as !wo%)tep techni3ue 2 boil your wort in two stages. oil half of the wort one eveningand the second half the ne-t day. t takes more time, but works well.

5ne way for e-tract brewers to dodge many of the problems of a concentratedwort boil is to use the e-tract late method. oil about half the volume of yourbeer, using roughly half the e-tract at the beginning of the boil.