Brews clues: Home beer brewers get creative with ingredients

Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2001 | 8:38 a.m.

Home brewmeisters have a popular saying: "If you can boil water you can brew beer."

Of course it isn't quite that simple, especially if you aspire to be an award-winning home brewer such as Jim Tudor, one of 150 members of the Southern Nevada Ale Fermenters Union (SNAFU).

For brewers of Tudor's class, making beer at home is both an art and a science. It isn't to be taken lightly.

To be among the best requires paying close attention to details, such as the specific gravity of the liquid that converts to alcohol, temperatures, hops, grains and the length of the fermentation process.

"Most people (who brew at home) just do it (without a lot of fuss)," says Tudor, who has a day job working surveillance at Mandalay Bay.

The process can be as simple or as complex as a person wants it to be. Most opt for simplicity, but Tudor is passionate about his pastime and stews over each step.

He even has a brewing-software package, Promash, produced by the Sausalito Brewing Co., which helps the do-it-yourselfer produce professional-quality brewskis.

Among its many tasks, the program calculates hop-time degradation, profiles the water, calculates alcohol content and specific gravity and helps create recipes. The home brewmeister types in the data and the program spits out the desired instructions and specifications.

Tudor has been making home brew for less than a year. In February the first batch of beer he ever made (peach wheat) won first- and third-place awards in the annual Las Vegas Winterfest, which is sponsored by SNAFU and held at Main Street Station's 777 Brew Pub.

More than 400 people competed in Winterfest.

The second time Tudor entered a competition at the 14th annual Southern California Regional Home Brew Championships, which were held in July in Corona, Calif., he won two first-place awards and a second place. The event was sponsored by the Inland Empire Brewers Club.

But Tudor wasn't a total novice when he started brewing -- he grew up in Carlsbad, Calif., in a family that made its own wine. He began making wine and mead (an alcoholic beverage with honey as a primary ingredient) about 10 years ago.

Tudor says he makes 18 different kinds of beer in addition to wine and mead. He is brewing beer for a SNAFU competition that will be held for club members in September. The organization meets on the second Friday of each month at the Beer and Brew Gear store on South Maryland Parkway, near East Tropicana Avenue.

Tudor makes one or two batches of beer each week, each about 3 gallons. While the beer takes about three weeks to ferment, it takes wine and mead a lot longer.

In his living room he has eight 5-gallon bottles of wine and mead that have been aging for about a year -- among them are wines made from watermelons, apricots, cherries and pomegranates, and meads with vanilla and cinnamon flavors.

He doesn't drink all of his home brews by himself.

"I share the wealth," he said.

Home brew, ha ha

"Beer is fermented sugar produced predominantly from barley, but also from wheat, rice, corn and other grains," Tudor explained on a recent morning as he tried to tutor a reporter who was ignorant about the brewing process.

Tudor had begun his latest batch -- a cream ale, which he described as very light -- at 6:30 a.m. and he wouldn't be finished with it until after 11:30 a.m. He won't know if he was successful for three weeks, when the fermentation process is over and he can bottle the brew.

His first step was to convert a blend of four barleys into syrup, which less-serious minded home brewers may buy pre-packaged (either in liquid or powder form).

The conversion (called doughing in or mashing in) began with placing 10 pounds of the malted barley (barley that has begun to germinate or sprout) into an Igloo ice chest which was adapted by Tudor for his home brewery.

Over a period of more than an hour Tudor poured 6 gallons of heated water (165 degrees) over the grain. The water released the starch locked inside the grain, producing sugar and protein.

"The process is called sacrification," Tudor said.

Sacrification activates the enzymes that convert the grain to sugar, which becomes syrup in the water. The syrup flows out a tube hooked to the lower side of the Igloo and into a 15-gallon steel keg below.

Two quarts of water for every pound of grain is the rule of thumb in the brewing process, but that may be varied to get more alcohol content into the brew. The more grain, the more alcohol.

"Different beers require going through a number of different temperature changes," Tudor said.

After the syrup from the barley is collected in the keg, the liquid is boiled for 60 minutes. Hops, which give beer its aroma, flavor and bitterness, are added during the boiling process. Tudor put a half-ounce of hops into the syrup 15 minutes after the boiling began and then a quarter-ounce into it 15 minutes before the boiling ended.

After the hops are added and the syrup is allowed to cool, brewer's yeast is added and the liquid is put into a jar to ferment.

During the fermentation process yeast eats the sugar and produces alcohol. The longer the fermentation, the greater the alcohol content. Tudor's beers (lager and ale) are about 7-percent alcohol, his wine and mead close to 20-percent alcohol.

Tudor ages some of his lagers for four or five months and his ales about three weeks.

"The difference between a lager and an ale is that lagers ferment below 50 degrees and ale ferments above 60 degrees," he explained.

While creating his most recent batch of light ale Tudor constantly read the temperature and specific gravity of the liquid, and when questions arose he consulted his Potmash program for directions. Specific gravity reflects the density of the sugar and is used to determine what the alcohol content will be after fermentation is completed.

School brew

"Jim is a star pupil," said Kent Bolton, who manages Beer and Brew Gear, which sells everything needed for a home brewery. "He is an advanced brewer and he's only been doing it for a year. He started winning ribbons right away. It took me quite a bit longer to learn."

Bolton (also a member of SNAFU) became a home brewer four years ago, in part because the Clark County School District didn't teach science in seventh grade classes.

"I learned (home brewing) to teach my son, Jack, some science," he said. "They weren't teaching science to seventh graders in this state at that time."

Jack Bolton was 11 years old when he learned to brew beer at home, and in the process learned a few things about chemistry and biology. That was four years ago.

"He has no interest in beer, but his friends think it's awesome," Bolton said.

His other son, 13-year-old Michael, is an eighth grade student at Hyde Park Science and Math Academy. He's learning the art of brewing, but is brewing soda pop instead of beer.

Chili not so hot

Becoming a home brewer is simple and relatively inexpensive.

Beer and Brew Gear sells starter kits that range from about $60-$100, and includes all of the paraphernalia needed, such as jars and hoses.

Ingredient kits sell for $19.95 and include, among other things, malt extract syrup, grains, yeast, hops and corn sugar.

There are numerous blends of grains and additives available at the store, but some brewers like to be different.

"One member of SNAFU made an A-1 sauce beer," Bolton said.

Some people make chili beer by using jalapeno peppers.

"I like spicy food and a cold drink, not spicy food and a spicy drink," Bolton said.

Others blend fruit into their brews or use rye as the base grain.

"Our beer of the month in the store here is mango pale ale," Bolton said.

Bolton points out that beer appears naturally. Wild yeast in the air may ferment rotting grains and fruits, something discovered thousands of years ago.

"It was found laying out in the open," Bolton said. "Man learned how to control the process and it became an important part of medicine and religion. A lot of monks made beer and wine in monasteries."

Brewing has made many advances since ancient Macedonians and Egyptians learned more than 6,000 years ago that bread and beer could be made from the same grains.

According to the American Brewery History Page (beerhistory.com), beer has always played an important role in American history.

For example, the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock in the Massachusetts Colony because of a shortage of beer. A historical time line on the History Page states that seamen on the ship forced the settlers off so there would be enough brew for the return voyage to England.

And, according to the website, the first non-Native American was born in 1614 in New Amsterdam (now Manhattan) -- in the Block & Christiansen brewhouse.

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