Yeast!

Hello all, well they were right about this being a really hard week. It has been nothing like the first 2 weeks. A lot more to learn, a lot of stuff i don't know much or anything about. also terms i've never heard before this week and its only tuesday. I'm pretty much studying 3-4 hours every night right now. Here are the topics for this weeks lectures, Intro to microbiology, yeast morphology, brewing yeast characteristics, yeast nutrition, yeast metabolism, yeast cultures/propagation, yeast physical behavior, fermenting operations, yeast flavor compounds, yeast quality measurements, yeast-genetic characteristics, yeast handling/management, dried yeast products, yeast nutrients, genetic tech.:yeast identification, genetic tech.: detection of contaminants, and processing aids. So if you know that you a better man than i. The saving grace to the day was we did another styles tasting. This time it was American style beers. The pictures here are what we had. The teacher we have had all this week so far but left this afternoon was from Scotland. He has a few brewing degrees and a PhD in yeast physiology. The man knows more about yeast that i'd ever care to know. Alright enough time on here back to the books.

Mod 2

so heres what i've been up too. Fridays classes were kind of a big blur, mostly brewing calculations that we don't need to know and a section on testing beer with equipment that no small brewery could ever afford. The last section of class friday was sensory analysis of english, scotish and irish beers. That was a good way to finish classes on a friday. After more than a few beers at school i wound up at the maproom and had a couple nicer beers before i headed back to my hostel. Being in a hostel is ok except for when you get woken up at 2:30 in the am by the guys down the hall playing a guitar and partying. not fun. sat was uneventful, drank some beers with a out of town friend. I did some studying for class next week as they say the next two weeks will be the hardest of the entire course. All next week is on yeast. It should be an interesting week. I threw up some pictures of the class room and the school bar. We got a half barrel of Lagunitas IPA on tap friday. Most people up at school don't really find it to be anything special. We should be getting another keg of something tomorrow. Alright, i'm off to finish watching the hockey game.

Weekly quizzes

So today i'm currently studying for my quiz tomorrow and i'd thought i'd share just what topics it would be over. We go through a 3 inch binder of material a week, here is what we went through this week. Brewing water, Brewhouse design, brewing books, mashing- enzymes, adjunct types, malt handling/milling, mashing tech./wort, cereal cooker, lautering, mash filters, wort boiling, wort clarification, wort cooling/ aeration, brewing calculations. This was only over 4 days due to the field trip on tuesday. So its quite a bit to study. As is well though as i have been studying by butt off. We finished the half barrel of sierra nevada pale ale which is good, everyone was getting tired of only having another america pale on and the same kolsch that has been almost the entire time we have been in class. Well i might post something later but its back to studying for me.

Briess Trip

So It was a long day yesterday. everyone made the 7am bus which was very quite. Most people slept until we got there 3.5 hours later. Once we were there we learned about how briess does there malting process. Interesting fact is that its in an 109 year old malt house and its the smallest malt house in the country. The tour was cool but no pictures were aloud inside so i can't show you the cool stuff. Most of the malting equipment looked like it was from the 30's era. The storage facility was also really old, it was pretty old fashion with all of the old wooden levers to move grain from one place to another. The basement was pretty short. lots of ducking and weaving through the support beams. I should point out that our hardhats on the inside said they were not to be used as hardhats. One of the cooler parts of the facility was the package line. It was completely automated, to fill the 50lb sacks from start to finish. For those that know what super sacs are they filled those there as well. Everything went straight onto a truck and nothing was stored there. After the tour we went back to briess headquarters for lunch and another speaker. At this point they started feeding us beer. Once the uneventful lecture was over it was back on the bus for the ride home. The only different on this ride was the 5 coolers placed throughout the bus fill with beer for us to drink. Lets just say the ride home was no nearly as quiet as the way up. By the time we got back everyone was either drunk or "buzzing like a chainsaw" and some people including myself had another beer at the beir stube. After this of course we went out to a bar for more drinks and cheap burgers. I then promptly passed out at 9:30 and had the best night of sleep here so far. The whole ideal of studying on the bus ride never happened. Oh well just means more of it tonight.

Closet

So here is just a little imagine of my closet and what i brought up here to help cut my beer expenses. I should also note i brought up a 1/6 barrel of apa which got put on the school bar and promptly was emptied within a day.

Week Two

Well week two began today with lectures from ray Daniels on milling, mashing enzymes, and adjuncts. As the time goes on the days seem to be going faster and faster. I'm still learning a lot more than i ever thought possible. At the end of class today we watched a video from the early 90's which was titled "deadly dust 2", It was about as good as you could imagine. It was about grain dust explosions, and it had horrible special effects. Most of the day was spent on mashing enzymes, a lot more in-dept than just your alpha and beta amylase. It involved phytase, Cytolytic and protolytic enzymes. All of this went down to the chemical level and what was happening during each stage of mashing. I'm rambling a bit and i should be going to bed soon as we have to be at school before 7am so we can take a bus up Wisconsin to a Briess malting plant. I' have a post and pictures up later this week.

Week One

Well I finished week one and its been a very interesting week. The first three days this past week we spent learning about barley and anything you might want to know about barley. Very informative but many times it was dry material. Our teacher is a director of something over at rahr. She had never taught this before so there were issues with missing information and information she just didn't know. Thursday we spent learning about hop, hop products, structure and what not. I didn't learn a whole lot but I definitely more knowledgeable about the subject now. Friday we had our first quiz. Throughout the week other students and I have been studying every night and it pays off. I finished the quiz with no issues, likely got an A. The rest of the day we went over brewing water and I finally get it. I knew why we treated water and its purpose before but know i get all the little things that go into it and how it all comes together. I got a simple water program that is fun to play around with. Basically its a spread sheet that has all the information about water and the minerals that go into it to help you determine you water composition for different beer styles. Well I'll hopefully have some pictures up soon of our field trip to a certainly malting on Tuesday. It should be fun.

Day One

Today was the first day of class. Imagine 8 hours of learning about barley structure, barley evaluation and steeping. There is a lot of information and a lot of studying to do. All of my class mates are all really nice, it seems I’m one of the more experienced people here. There are a lot of home brewers and people looking to make career changes. With a class size of over 40 it was bigger than expected but that number will slowly get smaller as people leave for work or family, we have students from all over the world including Tunisa, Columbia, Germany, Russia. Every Friday we will have an hour long quiz of the weeks lessons. We are also going on a few field trips to briess and a few local breweries. Come lunch time and one classes are over we tend to hang around the “bier stube” (the school bar) and we talk about the days class and anything beer.

beer school?

Ok, so if you have ever wanted to know what it would be like to go to brewing school or if you are just wanted to see what I am up to theses days here you go. School is a 3 months program, 7 weeks in Chicago and 3 weeks in Munich and 2 weeks on a tour bus traveling around Europe. Chicago is 9-5 of lectures with weekly quizzes; Munich is hands on brewing experience. The Sunday before class started we had a meet and greet (beer and pizza), this was nothing to special besides good beer and the fact that Ray Daniels (writer of designing great beers) was there. Great guy and good conversations were had. I found out he will be teaching some of the modules for the class.