The miserable weather deterred a few of the rain-weary members, but a great core group showed up to see how their malt is made.  As brewers, we understand that we can get different types and colors of malt that have different impacts on our mash and beer.  However, because much of the commercial malt we use is made across the continent and indeed across the world, we rarely see the actual malting process and how it influences what ends up in our pint glasses.  Mike exposed us to what ‘malting’ is and explained how he mimics historic processes (rather than current ones used by many large malting facilities today). 

We started the day in his garage where he explained his basic processes and talked about the grain he grows around the Saanich peninsula.  He showed us examples including barley and oats.  We also saw an assortment of his amazing historical harvesting equipment.  While waiting for the rain to blow over, we peppered Mike with questions and sampled members’ homebrew.

Mike next showed us the malting house.  The traditional  ”floor malting” process he follows is exclusive to some of the oldest malting houses in Europe.  Grain is steeped in water and spread over a heated floor.  Over subsequent days, it germinates which activates enzymes within the grain.  Mike regularly turns the malting grains by hand to ensure even heating and germination.  It’s this time and labour intensive process that means floor-malted grain is in such limited supply.  Though malt made this way is highly sought after by the finest craft breweries in Europe and North America because it produces a rich malt character.  As Vancouver Islanders, we’re lucky to have our own maltster making this malted gold so close to home. 

While the malting process is an amazing craft that requires a great depth of understanding of biochemical processes, Mike was able to break it down in a simple-to-understand way that left everyone even more curious.  Mike could have spent the rest of the weekend answering our questions.

Finally Mike covered the roasting and toasting processes over more beer samples and great snacks back in the garage.  

All in all, it was a wonderful, educational event.  A big thanks to Mike for being so free with his time and generous with grain samples.  Thanks also to the great BrewVIC’ers that braved the weather, shared their brews and made it a fun day.

Michael Lewis, BrewVIC Founder

The Island Maltster, Mike Doehnel will give BrewVIC a tour of his malting facilities and the entire malting process. He will have his last batch of the season in process for the club to see. 

Saturday, February 18 from 12:00 to 4:00
8510 Alec Road (Saanichton)

Topics**
-Malting Education
-Brewers without Borders (brewing with US clubs to serve beer at NHC in Seattle)
-National Homebrewer’s Conference (Seattle June 21-23, 2012)
-Next BrewVIC event

Feel free to bring your own brews to share. If you’re wanting to go big (Since we know several people made use of the ontariobeerkegs.com sale), please make sure to bring cups and a designated driver!

There will be updates posted, but expect some carpools to be organized leaving from different places in Victoria.  See the Facebook group for more.

Not only is this the largest competition in Canada, but it is the onlyway for Canadians to advance to the National Homebrew Competition,which is the largest homebrew competition in the world. Additionally, any medals won will earn you points towards the Canadian Brewer of theYear award.

Our competition is sanctioned by the American Homebrewers Association and the Beer Judge Certification Program. Judging is conducted bycertified BJCP judges using the 2008 Style Guidelines.

If you are interested in attending as a judge/volunteer/guest, pleaseget in touch with us at competition@alesclub.com. There will be a full schedule of top notch social activities to partake in, including Brewers’ Dinners, one-off cask events, and guest speakers.

The competition is open to all 28 BJCP categories of homebrewed beer,mead and cider. Medals and prize packages are awarded to Gold,  Silver and Bronze winners in each category. Prize packages consist of a wide variety of donated items from our many sponsors throughout NorthAmerica.

The major awards are:

• Best of Show – Awarded to the single best beer entry. 
• Homebrewer of the Year – based on total points earned from category medals (entries must score a minimum of 30 points to count towardsHoY) 
• Rookie of the Year – all first time entrants are eligible, based ontotal points earned from category medals (entries must score a minimumof 30 points to count towards RoY) 
• Mead Maker of the Year – Awarded to the single best mead entry 
• Cider Maker of the Year – Awarded to the single best cider entry 
• Club of the Year – based on total points earned from category medals (entries must score a minimum of 30 points to count towards CoY)

Please check out our website at www.alesclub.com for full competition details. You can also contact us at competition@alesclub.com with anyquestions. Good luck!

The NHC is an amazing event that is put on by homebrewers for homebrewers.  The conference features two streams of conference presentations presented by pro & amateur brewers, authors, chefs and industry heavy-weights who are all there to help you improve the beer that you brew. Each evening of the conference there’s an amazing event: Pro Night (where local commercial brewers serve their finest to conference goers – imagine GCBF without the tokens); Club Night (where local homebrew clubs serve their best and most creative brews), and; the Closing Banquet (a gourmet dinner that’s paired with Rogue Ales is served while the prizes for the National Homebrew Competition are awarded).

Many of us in BrewVIC would love to participate in Club Night, but bringing beer (in the required quantities) over the border presents many challenges (both legally and financially).  The solution to these challenges is very ‘homebrew’ in its spirit: “Brewers Without Borders”.

The idea being, we will collaborate with homebrew clubs in Washington to go down and brew in Washington.  The WA brewers handle the ferment and packaging, then on the way to the conference, we pick-up and bring the collaborative beers and serve at Club Night.  We’ll likely be brewing in April/May.

In order for us to commit our participation with the Washington State brew clubs, we need to know if you are going to participate.  Please do so in the forum.

Last year, almost 2000 homebrewers attended the conference, and this year’s conference will sell out yet again.  Conference registration opens February 1 and if you plan to attend, plan to register as early as possible.

For 5 US gallons…

6.3kg Pale Malt 81.9%
100g Carastan 1.3%
900g Munich 11.8%
380g Carapils 5%

Mash at 145F for 60m, 155F for 10m, then mash out 

90 minute boil

28g Warrior 7%AA at 90m
18g Cascade 7%AA at 30m
18g Centennial 10.5%AA at 30m
52g Cascade at 0m
52g Centennial at 0m

Whirlpool for 20 minutes (with the 0m hops), then chill to pitching temp. 

Chill to 65F and pitch Wyeast 1968 London ESB.  Over the next two weeks, raise to 72F. 

44g Centennial dry hop dose 1 (on day 3)
44g Cascade dry hop dose 1

30g Cascade dry hop dose 2 (on day 7)
30g Centennial dry hop dose 2
14g Amarillo dry hop dose 2
14g Simcoe dry hop dose 2

Transfer to keg and carbonate or prime and bottle.

• I know there is some chlorine in the Vic tap water but I dont have a filter system. I was wondering if buying the filtered water at the grocery store would be good and then adding some gypsum to harden it. 
• Ive never used any water hardener before, have read gypsum is good for hoppy beers and calcium chloride is good for malty ones. 
• Would you suggest using gypsum for my next beer, an oatmeal stout. Would this also be good if brewing with Vic’s tapwater, which I know is very soft. 

Victoria water is beautiful for brewing – just about a blank slate – but like all municipal water, it does have some chlorine but worse, chloramines (which do not volatilize (i.e., evaporate) out of the water with boiling or standing overnight).  I refer to both chlorine and chloramines as ‘chlorine’ below.

I’ve been considering a high-flow, ‘whole house’ water filtration system to strip the chlorine out of my brewing water – they cost about $100 all-in from Home Depot.  Important when choosing the filter is getting one that will actually filter out the chlorine (there are some filters that literally just filter out particulates rather than dissolved minerals).  ’Activated charcoal’ is what you need to get the chlorine.  There’s no need for a water ‘softener’ (which exchanges calcium and magnesium with sodium) here in Victoria – we already have beautiful rain-fed, surface-sourced (as opposed to underground-sourced) ‘soft’ water.

The really easy and cheap solution to get chlorines out of your tap water is to use campden tablets (which are made of potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite).  Pulverize and add them your water at a rate of one tablet to 20 gallons. It reacts with the chlorine and precipitates it out.  I just add it to my HLT water and stir before I start heating.

Adding minerals like gypsum (calcium sulphate/CaSO4) and calcium chloride (CaCl2) (note: chlorine = bad, chloride = good) to your brewing water can really help your beer too.  Calcium is valuable in the mash and is critical to good yeast flocculation.  [These minerals will also affect your mash pH (that you want to be at about 5.2 whether you're making a pilsner or a stout), but that's an even more complicated discussion - see How to Brew by John Palmer].  Because Victoria’s water is very low in calcium, adding CaSO4 and CaCl2 can get that valuable calcium into your water. Then you can think of ‘seasoning’ the water (the same way you do with salt or sugar on food): accentuate the hoppiness by increasing the sulphate (SO4); accentuate the maltiness by increasing the chloride (Cl2).

Generally speaking, I end up adding between 10-20 grams of minerals to my 10 gallon batches (ultimately 15-17 gallons of water). The quantity and ratio I use depends on the kind of beer – if I’m making an IPA, maybe 15g CaSO4 and 5g CaCl2, if a helles, maybe 7g CaSO4 and 10g CaCl2.  If making a stout, you may also want to add some calcium carbonate (CaCO3), which will compensate for the acidic nature of roasted grains.  ’How to Brew‘ will get you as deep into water and mash chemistry as you like. He has an Excel spreadsheet for calculating suggested salt additions (at the bottom of: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html).  He also has ‘classic’ brewing cities’ water listed there too (if you want to emulate a particular city’s water (e.g., Burton on Trent or Plzen)).

Here’s the baseline Victoria water analysis (that you’ll need for the spreadsheet):
http://crd.bc.ca/water/waterquality/documents/2010Table2JGAN10.pdf

I had a great time brewing at the beer festival this year.  What made it so great was hanging out with and meeting the other homebrewers from around the island.  Thanks to Luke, Neil, Michael and John who worked the tent with me.  It was great having your help over the weekend.  I had a short conversation at the end of Saturday night with Gerry and he’s happy to have us back next year, so let’s think about how we can improve the whole experience.

For those of you who stopped by the tent, we’re really hoping that BrewVIC fills the homebrewing club gap in the Victoria and on the Island.  There are so many of us here – I met guys from all over the island (from as far away as Ucluelet), we can surely build a great group that will ultimately help us all make better beer (and have a great time making that better beer).  Please get in touch with us if you’re interested in contributing to our group.

Look for BrewVIC meetings in early October and definitely a November meeting for ‘Learn to homebrew day’.  Sean Hoyne has generously offered space in the parking lot of his new brewery (located across a parking lot from Driftwood) for that meeting.

We’ll do a tasting of the fest beers (a Best Bitter and American Pale Ale) at the ‘Learn to homebrew day’ event – let’s hope not too much dust from the ball field made it into the wort.

We’ll be on the festival grounds actually making beer while the hordes drink themselves silly.  And here’s what we’re making:

On Friday it will be a Best Bitter (a middle-of-the-road English Pale Ale):

09-09-2011  JZ I'm Not Bitter, I'm Thirsty

A ProMash Brewing Session Report
--------------------------------

Brewing Date: Friday September 09, 2011
Recipe:       JZ I'm Not Bitter, I'm Thirsty

Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal):        12.00    Wort Size (Gal):  12.00
Total Grain (Kg):         9.75
Anticipated OG:          1.047    Plato:            11.70
Anticipated SRM:          11.0
Anticipated IBU:          42.3
Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Alc by Weight:  3.61      by Volume:  4.62  From Measured Gravities.

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 88.4     8.62 kg.  Pale Malt(2-row)              Great Britain  1.038      3
  4.7     0.45 kg.  Aromatic Malt                 Belgium        1.036     25
  4.7     0.45 kg.  Crystal 120L                                 1.033    120
  2.3     0.23 kg.  Special Roast Malt            America        1.033     40

Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
106.31 g.     Goldings - E.K.                   Pellet   4.75  36.6  60 min.
 49.61 g.     Goldings - E.K.                   Pellet   4.75   5.7  20 min.
 42.53 g.     Goldings - E.K.                   Pellet   4.75   0.0  0 min.

Yeast
-----
WYeast 1968 London Extra Special Bitter

Saturday will be a clone of Firestone Walker’s Mission Street Pale Ale (a terrific American Pale Ale).  The grist for this includes pale ale malt grown on Vancouver Island by Mike Doehnel.

Brewing Date: Saturday September 10, 2011
Recipe:       Mission Street Pale Ale

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (Gal):        12.00    Wort Size (Gal):  12.00
Total Grain (Kg):         9.64
Anticipated OG:          1.045    Plato:            11.31
Anticipated SRM:           5.9
Anticipated IBU:          12.4
Brewhouse Efficiency:       72 %
Wort Boil Time:             90    Minutes

Alc by Weight:  3.44      by Volume:  4.40  From Measured Gravities.

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 80.0     7.71 kg.  Pale Malt(2-row)              America        1.036      2
 15.0     1.45 kg.  Munich Malt(light)            Canada         1.034     15
  5.0     0.48 kg.  CaraPilsner                   France         1.035     10

Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 14.18 g.     Fuggle                            Pellet   5.00   5.6  90 min.
 14.18 g.     Chinook                           Pellet  13.00   6.8  30 min.
 48.19 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.75   0.0  0 min.
 48.19 g.     Centennial                        Pellet  10.50   0.0  0 min.
 48.19 g.     Cascade                           Pellet   5.75   0.0  Dry Hop
 48.19 g.     Centennial                        Pellet  10.50   0.0  Dry Hop

Yeast
-----
WYeast 1968 London Extra Special Bitter