Category Archives: Education

Presented by Brübakes IV

If you’re here with us at Brübakes IV today, we thank you for attending and for your interest in learning more about the foundations of our event!

Saison Beer History

The early history of Bière de Saison (beer of season) is fuzzy because documentary evidence is scarce until the late 19th century. Since the beer originated from the farmlands, urban writers didn’t pay much attention to it and farm brewers didn’t keep many records.

The current understanding is that the style dates back to at least the 18th century in the French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia (also known as the Walloon Region). It was primarily imbibed by the farmers and seasonal workers (saisonniers) during and after they toiled in fields during the warmer months.

The brewing of saisons served multiple purposes:

1. The beer was brewed during the winter months when the fields were idle.
2. It would be ready in time as a refreshment for the workers in the fields during the warmer months.
3. The spent grain would be used as livestock feed.

The ingredients in the beer would probably vary from farm to farm and year to year based on what was available and often including herbs and spices. Additionally, the mixed strains of yeast were likely shared and swapped among farmers/brewers, depending on what worked best.

Since the original saisons were designed to be “laid down” for some months, it is thought they were highly hopped and had an alcohol by volume (ABV) of 7% or higher to help with preservation. Then when it was time to be consumed, the beer was either diluted or blended to a lower ABV before being consumed. It probably would not be prudent to provide farmhands a strong beer when they are expected to be productive in the fields and wield sharp tools. Additionally, the tax system of the time favored lower-strength beers.

Saison Style Characteristics and Recipe Formulation

The saison style is fairly open to interpretation and can have a range of characteristics. Some recipes may include herbs and spices, or dry-hopping additions for flavor and aroma. Darker versions of the style will have more malt characteristics. Meanwhile funkier versions exhibit mild sourness and tartness.

Aroma

The aroma of the saison style should be fruity and spicy. Typically a saison yeast strain will produce phenolic (spicy), fruity, and earthy notes when fermented at 80-90°F. Spicy notes will be typical of black pepper, and not clove. Common fruity notes are citrus, pome, and stone fruit.

Appearance

Saisons are typically pale gold to deep amber in color. They should have a long lasting, dense, ivory head.

Flavor

Saison flavors are a balance of fruity and spicy yeast, hoppy bitterness, and grainy malt with moderate to high bitterness and a dry finish. Due to the high attenuation of the yeast strain, saisons do not have a sweet or heavy finish. A bitter, spicy aftertaste is noted.

Mouthfeel

Saisons are light to medium-low bodied with very high carbonation.

Recipe formulation

• Base malt - 2 row, pilsner, munich
• Cereal grains - wheat, oats
• Hops - noble, styrian, east kent golding (earthy, spicy, black pepper, fruity)
• Optional sugary adjuncts - belgian candi sugar, honey, etc
• Yeast - spicy-fruity belgian saison yeast

Common style misconception

Which is it? Saison, or Farmhouse Ale, or both?

As the name suggests, Farmhouse ales have their humble origin from homegrowing grain-to-glass on the family farm. However in the modern market, the name has become a descriptor for a beer with characteristics and flavors that mirror the types of beers historically brewed on these farms in France and Belgium, sometimes using traditional methods.

Today, Saison and Farmhouse are often used interchangeably when describing a beer, as they are now brewed all over the world in and out of the farm. In a historical context, all Saisons are Farmhouse ales, but not all Farmhouse ales are Saisons.

Farmhouse is a larger umbrella category that includes many other types of regionally brewed beers, including:

• Saison (strong, pale beer from Wallonia region of Belgium)
• Bière De Garde (“beer for keeping”, Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France)
• Bière de Mars (low alcohol last runnings of lambic wort, Belgium)
• Grisette (low alcohol subset of Saison, brewed for local miners)
• Sahti (Finish origin raw ale with juniper branches and baker’s yeast)
• Gotlandsdricka (viking era beer from island of Gotland, Sweden, smokey)
• Keptinis (baked, raw ale from north-eastern Lithuania)

Some of these styles can share similar characteristics, but with each differentiating themselves from their neighbors with certain key flavors, mouthfeel, origin, and brewing methods evolving into their own regional styles. Some are funky, some are sweet, some are smokey, some are effervescent, some are tart, some aren’t even boiled. The list goes on. Understanding what makes a Saison a Saison can easily set them apart from their fellow Farmhouse ales.

Baking With Spent Grain

What is spent grain exactly?

Spent grain is the byproduct of brewing that contains barley grain husks and insoluble residues such as wheat or maize. It may be a beer product, but it is actually healthy due to the presence of fiber and protein in every grain. We also can’t forget the low carbohydrate count spent grain possesses.

Fiber is essential for lowering sugar levels, monitoring total calories, and maintaining proper body weight.

Take a look at some diseases fiber can combat:

• Hypertension
• Obesity
• Type 2 diabetes
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Take a look at some of the benefits that proteins offer:
• Burns calories and fat faster
• Boosts muscle mass and overall strength
• Improves appetite and decreases hunger levels
• Regulates proper weight loss

Spent grain has LITTLE TO NO CARBS at all. A low carbohydrate diet can improve insulin sensitivity and reduce the possibility of having cardiovascular diseases.

Proper storage of your spent grain is key!

You must make sure your grains are 100 percent DRY if they will be stored. You may achieve this by either storing in the freezer immediately which will remove the moisture. Alternatively, you can use a dehydrator or an oven at a very low temperature for 7-8 hours. If you would like to use your fresh spent grains “wet” in a recipe, you must account for the extra moisture.

Now you can process your grains into spent grain flour. Grind your grains into flour using a blender or a grain mill attachment to a stand-up mixer. Store in an airtight container. Something to note - this is not a one-to-one comparison with regular flour. It will be a smaller component of the recipe.

What can I do with my grains?

You could add the grains to your recipe directly, or you could mill them. Below are examples of how they can be used.

• Spent Grain Flour
• Spent Grain Banana Bread
• Spent Grain Sourdough
• Spent Grain Pretzels
• Spent Grain Pie Crust
• Spent Grain Pizza Dough
• Spent Grain Granola
• Spent Grain Granola Bars
• Spent Grain Crackers
• Spent Grain Muffins
• Spent Grain Cookies
• Spent Grain Pancakes
• Spent Grain Dog Treats
• Spent Grain for Chickens
• Spent Grain Horse Treats
• Spent Grain Compost

Sources

• “Saison: A Story in Motion”, Craft Beer & Brewing; https://beerandbrewing.com/saison-a-story-in-motion/
• “The Season for Saison: The Story of Farmhouse Ale,” Anchor Brewing; https://www.anchorbrewing.com/blog/a-saison-for-the-season-the-story-of-farmhouse-ale/
• "Belgian-Style Saison", Craft Beer; https://www.craftbeer.com/styles/belgian-style-saison
• "What Exactly Is a Saison?", Hop Culture; https://www.hopculture.com/what-is-a-saison-farmhouse-ale/
• "Saison", Beer Judge Certification Program; https://www.bjcp.org/style/2015/25/25B/saison/
• “How to Make Spent Grain Flour,” Craft Beering; https://www.craftbeering.com/how-to-make-spent-grain-flour/
• “18 Awesome Spent Grain Recipes for Your Baking Needs,” Homebrew Academy; https://homebrewacademy.com/spent-grain-recipes/

Images

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walloon_Region_in_Belgium_and_Europe.svg
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winter13.jpg
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drecheorge.jpg
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Handful_of_dried_spent_grain_from_a_distillery,2017(cropped).jpg

Baltibrewer Caiti opened several bottles of her wild fermented beverages and talked about her thoughts on cider and mead at our Feburary Meeting!

Some Traditional Ferments

• Basque sidra: Dry and sour, still, sharps and bittersharps
• Norman cidre: Dry, naturally carbed, cool & slow fermetations (keeving), bittersweets
• Welsh and English cider and scrumpy: Dry, funky styles from bittersweets, bittersharps
• Cyser, pyment: Cider + mead, wine + mead
• Methlegin: Spiced or herbal mead
• Braggot: Mead + hops and/or wort

Cider Process

• Select fruit - Sharps, bittersharps, & bittersweets preferable, though can amend with tannin or added wood at the end of fermentation. Mostly sweets/sharps commercially available
• Grind fruits - grinder or juicer
• Press - press or juicer
• Measure sugars (ranges widely - 1.040-1.055)
• Check for fermentation - may need to stir
• Monitor over 4-7 months and package when gravity reaches 1.000 or stable. Sulfite, back sweeten, and amend tannins if desired. If you don’t sulfite, assume any bottling sugar will completely ferment.

Mead Process

• Dilute raw honey at a volume ratio of 1:4 to 1:8 (12-6% finished abv)
• Stir to induce a wild fermentation - until air bubbles form, may need to stir multiple days
• Airlock and check back when vigorous bubbling subsides - monitor for a stuck fermentation (solution: add yeast nutrient and STIR)
• Monitor over 4-10 months and package when gravity reaches 1.000 or stable. Sulfite, back sweeten, and amend tannins if desired. If you don’t sulfite, assume any bottling sugar will completely ferment.

Notes to Consider

• Acetobacter: avoid by keeping your airlocks full and keep fermentations in a cool place.
• Sulfur: reductive environment - not enough dissolved oxygen (more stirring)
• Light isn’t a huge problem unless you are using hops. Avoid direct, prolonged light - but without hops there is nothing to “skunk”
• Good cider yeasts if you want to pitch something anyway: cider or white wine yeasts work well, including Red Star Cote Des Blanc, Montrachet, Premier Blanc, and Premier Cuvee.
• Apple varieties available locally (I recommend Brown’s Orchard in PA):
  • Jonathan
  • Rome Beauty
  • Crispin
  • Stayman Winesap
  • York Imperial
  • Northern Spy

Helpful Links & Books

• Brown's Orchard Harvest Calendar (with varieties available)
• Cider Apples Guide From Serious Eats
  • Sharps, Sweets, Sharp-Sweets
  • Bittersharps
  • Bittersweets
• USCAM Cider Style Guidelines
• Good Books
  • Make Mead Like a Viking by Jereme Zimmerman
  • Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner 
  • Modern Cider by Emma Christensen 
  • The New Cidermaker's Handbook by Claude Joliceour
  • Wines and Beers of Old New England by Sandor C. Brown

One of the tasks in our Baltibrew Yeast Capture project was to search through historical texts about Baltimore's brewing history to try and locate a Baltimore specific beer recipe. Unfortunately we struck out on the recipe but our investigation led to this happy little byproduct.

Presenting a map overlay of pre-prohibition Baltimore Breweries! If you've ever wondered who was making beer in your neck of the woods before the 18th amendment this overlay will give you a little window into the brewing history in your neighborhood!

Cheers!

Notes: Data taken from William Kelley's 1965 book, Brewing in Maryland. Overlay focuses on breweries founded before 1900. Most of these breweries changed owners and name several times before closing. Brewer listed corresponds to the original proprietor. Addresses are approximate and list is certainly incomplete. The page of first mention is included in the overlay card for each point. Source text is available in the Maryland Room of the main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Back when we started our journey to wrangle some wild local microorganisms the biggest question we faced was not if we could capture yeast, but if we could capture yeast that would make beer.

Now we find ourselves at a crucial juncture. We need to measure the attenuative properties of our yeast isolates to determine if any of the samples can ferment the more complex sugars in a malt based wort.

Yeast is everywhere in nature, living in places like flowers, fruit, and tree bark. It grows by converting sugars into the energy it needs to multiply, producing ethanol as one of its coveted byproducts. All yeast can consume simple sugars like sucrose, glucose, and fructose.

Over the centuries many cultures developed rich traditions of fermented food and beverage. Before humans discovered the organisms responsible and assigned them names, people had already modified these lifeforms by reusing material from pleasing results. Brewers yeast, with its ability to ferment the maltose that makes up the majority of wort sugars, has been under heavy selection pressure throughout the course of human history.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, SEM image

The packs of dried and liquid yeast available to modern homebrewers are the culmination of years of brewing study and science. We are fortunate to be able to choose from a variety of proven yeast strains (and other organisms) when crafting our recipes.

The beers produced from this panel would have no such advantage.

Our project began in April when we prepared and distributed capture kits to our members.

In June, we triaged the results and jumped into the lab to plate and examine the captured organisms.

Baltibrewer Becky set to work this July, isolating and culturing up quantities of 6 strains of budding yeast. We decided the quickest way to find out what we had was conduct to a survey of 1 quart samples. The finished fermentations would be checked for specific gravity and pH drops.  If any results were pleasing we’d bottle a 12 ounce sample. Yeast cakes would be saved for future use in larger batches.

Becky stepped up the cultures in the lab over the course of a few weeks and tested the samples for purity. On August 9th we met up with our yeast for a brewday!

Our yeast isolates!

For simplicity, we used Briess Light Dry Malt Extract and distilled water for our wort. We added a single charge of UK Sovereign hops for a bittering addition at 30 minutes.

While the wort chilled we sanitized jars and airlocks. Given the lack of headspace in our tiny fermenters we added a few drops of Ferm-Cap-S as we portioned the wort 7 ways (one extra jar for a US-05 control). We pitched our samples and to our pleasure within a day or two we were off to the races!

It begins!

Some jars showed more vigorous activity than others. We observed action in the airlocks of most. Given the homemade nature of our airlock fixture it was certainly possible our seals were not perfect. We decide to wait at least 2 weeks before checking the results. On August 29th, we gathered to investigate.

Getting down to the business of bottling.

We processed the beers one at time. A single jar was briefly opened and a sanitized pipette used to remove liquid for a Brix reading. After we assed attenuation, we moved on to a quick smell evaluation. Any interesting results were bottled and the finished pH noted. The rest of the sample would be transferred a smaller container and stored cold.

It was time! What would we find!

To our amazement, 5 of 6 samples showed a significant drop in gravity and pH! The threat of commercial contamination loomed in our heads as we recorded tasting notes from the uncarbonated beer.

To our pallets the cultures produced distinct flavor profiles in the fermented products, some quite notable! Between the variety of results, the different levels of activity and flocculation, and the fact that one culture did not attenuate well at all, we’re very hopeful these fermented beers represent true isolates from wild captures and our coolship barrels!

We buzzed with excitement as we cleaned, dreaming of things we could do with the saved samples! But as we looked to the future, we also reflected on the road to this point. Capturing this many strains of yeast that could complete a fermentation was somewhat unexpected. How did we end up here?

Was our capture medium with its low OG, IBU, and pH a sufficient filter for the small amount of malt friendly yeast to take hold? Did the large number of initial captures followed by aggressive triage of moldy and failed samples set us up for a better success rate once we got into the lab? Were our expectations set too low to begin with? We’ll continue to reflect on the project as we wait to taste the carbonated samples at our next meeting.

With fall on the horizon we are eager to continue our quest to make beers with native strains of Baltimore yeast. Cheers and happy homebrewing!

A big milestone in our project: bottled beer and saved yeast from successful fermentations.

In April we distributed homemade yeast capture kits to the club at our monthly meeting. Our goal? To capture and isolate a strain of yeast native to Baltimore and use it to make a fermented beverage!

Members were eager to try their luck. The weather was poised to cooperate. Lows would bounce between 40 & 50 F for the next few weeks, a range said to be helpful when harvesting wild yeasts.

Things were looking up as we grabbed flowers from our backyards & local parks, swabbed out barrels used for coolshipped wort, or left our covered jars tucked safety outside. All that was left for us to do was to sit back and wait for the airlocks to start bubbling. So we waited!

And waited.

And waited.....

Several members saw no activity at all. Others observed growth of mold or other non-yeast organisms.

This doesn't look too good.

As the reports came in it was clear that we were not going to see widespread examples of obvious & vigorous fermentation. So we began to triage the captures. Anything clearly growing mold was disposed of. The few samples that did report airlock activity were shipped off for early plating. The coolship barrel swabs proved more promising and were left to themselves for a month before streaking. When all was said and done the club selected 4 captures from a total of 16 trials:

• Open Air Capture - Riverside Park
• Kwanzan Cherry Flower - Locust Point
• Coolship Barrel #1 (Big Barrel) - Pikesville
• Coolship Barrel #2 (Little Barrel) - Pikesville

While not the quantity we were hoping for it was nevertheless time to move this party into...

The Laboratory

We're very grateful to Baltibrewer Becky who is doing the detail work on this project. Her first step, check the gravity (all samples stared at a Brix of 6.4 or 1.025 SG):

• Riverside Park - 4.4 Brix/1.017 SG
• Kwanzan Cherry - Negligible change
• Big Barrel - Negligible change
• Little Barrel - 4.2 Brix/1.017 SG

We found it interesting that two samples did not register a gravity drop. They both showed airlock activity, became turbid, and accumulated a layer of sediment on the bottom as activity slowed.

Did we incorrectly measure the first Brix reading? Was there really no decrease in gravity?

A happy capture?

Cultures taken from the samples would tell us more. One drop of medium was transferred to individual Sabouraud Dextrose (Sab) plates. Plates were streaked for isolation and incubated in the dark at room temperature (approximately 68 degrees F). Within days they showed abundant growth.

Open Air (Riverside Park) Plate

Kwanzan Cherry Plate

Based on morphology the following organism were identified:

• Riverside Park - 1 budding yeast & 2 types of motile bacteria
• Kwanzan Cherry - 1 budding yeast & 2 bacteria morphologies
• Big Barrel - 2 types budding yeasts & a bacteria
• Little Barrel - 1 apparent pure yeast strain

Success from failure? Possibly.

While the yeast strains are isolated and grown up, it's worth considering what we've accomplished and where we might go from here. The original plan was to isolate native organisms for use in a malt based fermented beverage. We now have at least 2 wild Baltimore yeasts on our plates and 3 more selected from barrels used after coolshipping. Two showed at least moderate attenuative properties in the capture media.  Several did not.

Trials will tell us more but it is fair to suspect that these yeasts may not do well fermenting a malt based wort on their own. So is our plan still viable?

Michael Tonsmeire of The Mad Fermentationist blog and Sapwood Cellars (opening soon) stopped by our June meeting to share funky beers and talk about his brewing philosophies. One topic he spoke on was recognizing and embracing your individual strengths and scales.

As homebrewers it can be hard to make an Octoberfest that nails the style as well as commercial brewers. They have first pick of malts, laboratories to grow up strong & pure pitches of yeast, rigorous fermentation & packaging controls, and employees devoted entirely to quality control & sensory evaluation.

On the other hand we are not beholden to the demands of bulk production. This affords us flexibility. For example, we can experiment with secondary additions from local crops, using fruits that aren't grown in large enough quantities to be an option for commercial offerings. Just last month Mulberry Trees in our area started to yield ripe fruit. For anyone not familiar the mulberry is a delicious, mildly sweet & jammy tasting fruit that looks a lot like a blackberry.

Mulberry Fruit & Leaves (Andre Abrahami, May 28th, 2007)

Perhaps we won't end up with a yeast that can make a beer. But perhaps we will end up with several capable of producing local fruit wines and ciders! We will stick to our strengths as homebrewers and stay nimble. Cheers and happy brewing!

Read more as we take our isolates out of the lab for a test drive!

Budding Yeast & Motile Bacteria

This is the final entry in our three part series on Baltimore's water and how it relates to brewing beer. Follow the links below for information on our water sources and municipal treatment.

We’ve seen where it comes from.

We know how it gets here.

So let’s talk about Baltimore’s water. What’s in it? And what does that mean for Baltimore area homebrewers?

The Baltimore Department of Public Works publishes a water quality and a water content report annually. The first report demonstrates to the public that the municipal water is safe to drink. The second report provides a mountain of data for anyone interested in a in depth look at what’s coming out of their tap. DPW monitors the water leaving each plant and records monthly data points across 23 different categories.

Using the information from the 36 months beginning in 2015 and ending in 2017, we get a picture of what Baltimore are brewers are dealing with and how it changes over time. The water leaving the Montebello and Ashburton plants is:

• remarkably similar; and,
• remarkably consistent.

Brewing Water Report

As brewers, we tend to focus on a subset of water attributes that are known to have great impact on the brewing process and finished product. The 2017 averages (all measurements are in ppm except pH) for those brewing centric categories are:

Baltimore’s water is low-moderate in hardness and is relatively low in flavor ions (chlorides being the exception). Ashburton water is a touch softer than Montebello, but across the board the water content is largely the same. All told, it’s a great starting point for brewers.

Mr. Consistency

Month-to-month the water changes very little, drifting off its averages about 5% in either direction. Further, when we look year over year, the levels recorded in the data set are quite stable.

So now that we know what’s in it, what does it mean?

A Tale of Two SRMs

If you’re on municipal water it doesn’t matter much which plant you are drawing from when managing your mash pH. Let’s examine the stories of two very different beers. In both examples, we’ll assume a batch sparge system with 75% efficiency & typical volumes, a target of 5 gallons into carboy, and an original specific gravity reading of 1.050; some fairly common targets and methods.

We’ll start by brewing a pale beer, say a pilsner. For our grist we’ll use 100% Pils Malt and treat our Baltimore tap water with only a Campden tablet for Chlorine. How much Acidulated malt do we need to hit a a target mash pH of 5.3?

• On the Montebello Supply we’d need 5.1%.
• On the Ashburton Supply we’d need 4.9%.

Now let’s consider the other end of the spectrum. A stout with a grain bill of 80% UK Pale, 10% C80, & 10% Roast Barley. How much Acidulated malt do we need to hit a target mash pH of 5.3?

• On the Montebello Supply we’d need 2.1%.
• On the Ashburton Supply we’d need 1.8%.

The amount of Acidulated malt required for each beer is almost identical regardless of the municipal source. Both sources are comparably low in Calcium, Sulfate, and Chloride, making it fairly straightforward to adjust the flavor ions using Gypsum (CaSO₄) and Calcium Chloride (CaCl₂). Additionally, if the water isn’t soft enough for your brew diluting with to a 1:1 ratio with distilled water will approximate the famous Pilsen water profile to a surprising degree.

Wrapping It Up

All considered, Baltimore’s municipal water is an asset to any local brewer and, with minimal effort, can be tweaked to a variety of profiles. Perhaps it is no wonder that Baltimore developed a rich brewing tradition rapidly after founding.

No matter how you decide to manage your water on brew day we hope this series of articles has shed a little light on the history, operation, and content of the Baltimore municipal water supply. The water here has the potential to make great beer.

Cheers and happy homebrewing!

This is the second in our three part series on Baltimore's water and how it relates to brewing beer. Follow these links for information on water sources or water content analysis.

Last week, we traveled from the beer in our glass back to the genesis of our brewing water. To the streams and rivers the City of Baltimore captures to provide a vast amount of freshwater for its citizens and industry. It is this water, from the Gunpowder Falls and Patapsco River (and occasionally the Susquehanna), that makes up the largest portion of our finished beer.

But let’s be honest, we’re not really brewing with river water are we?

Our public waterworks are a massive network of dams, pipelines, treatment processes, filtration mechanisms, and distribution systems all working in concert to deliver clean water to our homes and businesses. Put a glass of water from Loch Raven and one from the kitchen sink side-by-side and I know which one I’d rather put in my kettle. Our water undergoes an enormous transformation before it ends up at our faucet.

The journey starts when water from the city reservoirs is transferred via underground pipeline to one of the two filtration sites at Montebello or Ashburton. Water from the Loch Raven reservoir is gravity fed to Montebello (plants I and II) while water from the Liberty Reservoir is transferred to the Ashburton Plant. So while the plants may treat the water with the same processes they begin with different supplies.

A map of the Baltimore water service area & supply & treatment facilities.

The reservoirs themselves play the first part in cleaning our water. The dams that feed the filtration plants are a great place for some particulate to settle and rough filters at the reservoir keep out large pieces of debris.

Arriving at one of the treatment plants, the water is subjected to Pre-Chlorination. Chlorine kills bacteria, protozoa, and viruses as well as prevents the growth of algae during the treatment process. The city adds enough of the chemical at the start of the process to target a residual level of 1 ppm chlorine in the distribution network. This level is necessary to prevent any regrowth on route to customers.

After this preliminary chemical treatment the water is still full of suspended impurities. What are these things and why are the suspended? The impurities are charged colloids and very light particulate. Animal waste, air pollution, and surface runoff are some of the chief contributors of this matter that refuses to sink either because of its charge or its density.

Fortunately, there are methods to encourage the particles to drop out of our water. This step is Coagulation & Flocculation.  Aluminum Sulfate (alum) is added to the water which is then rapidly mixed. The solution is transferred into large tanks with slowly rotating paddles that encourage the alum and the particulate into contact. The particulate clumps together and the clumps continue to combine as they encounter each other.

The impurities are now heavy enough to drop out of the water during the next process, Sedimentation. The water is transferred into a set of long tanks where is slowly makes its way from one end to the other. This lazy journey allows the flocculated material to fall to the bottom of the tank just like yeast groups together and drops to the bottom of our carboys as fermentation completes. Water is drawn off the top of the tank, leaving much cleaner than it entered, and the debris is periodically scrapped from the bottom of the sedimentation tanks.

The water is now ready for its last mechanical cleaning process, Filtration. What’s happening here isn’t really much different than what happens when you fill up a filtered water pitcher. The water enters the top and is forced through a bed of sand and gravel, stripping out small particles and other impurities. Clean water exits the system from the bottom and is pumped to holding tanks to undergo final adjustments. Each plant contains a bank of filters which are backwashed on a rotating schedule to clean the filter media and ensure uninterrupted service.

Baltimore City performs three post-filtration adjustments before the water enters the city distribution network. Fluoride is added to the level of 0.7 ppm, Chlorine is added (if needed) to reach a level between 0.2 & 1 ppm, and the pH of the water is raised to 8 using Calcium Oxide (lime). These final adjustments promote dental health, ensure the treated water remains clean as it travels for delivery, and protect against leeching from pipes in the distribution system.

Depending on where your home or business is located in the city you’ll find yourself inside one of Baltimore Department of Public Works many distribution zones.

A map of the Baltimore municipal water zones.

Water from Montebello and Ashburton serves zones 1 & 2 via gravity while being pumped to the others. The cleaned and treated water ends up in taps all over Baltimore City and parts of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, & Howard counties. DPW tests and publishes reports on the water quality & content as it leaves the plants and samples water from taps all over its network to monitor the integrity of the city supply.

So enough already! Baltimore’s waterworks are certainly impressive. A lot of effort goes into the capture, cleaning, and delivering our drinking water. As Baltimore area brewers we’re plenty interested to see what’s in it.

Up Next: Baltimore's Water: The Goods!

This is the first in our three part series on Baltimore's water and how it relates to brewing beer. Follow these links for information on municipal treatment or water content analysis.

Beer! What is it?

As brewers, we often think of our beers as a recipe: a combination of malts & sugars, hops, yeast, and other flavorings. We talk of phenols, esters, and aromatic compounds that play with our grain bill to produce finished beverages. Our beers can be barrel aged, fruited, dosed with brettanomyces or finished with tinctures of cocoa & vanilla. Yet, when we break a prototypical beer into some very basic categories one item dominates.

Water. Plain. Simple. H2O.

It’s fair to say the other parts of beer add strong flavors and aromas to the drink, driving the character of our finished homebrew.  Still, no matter how we choose to craft our recipe and handle the production all those ingredients and processes must sit upon a canvas of water.

The water you brew with has a measurable effect on your final product. It drives interactions in the mash (pH) & boil (break, hop utilization) and affects flocculation & other cold-side processes. It contains flavor ions that contribute character (calcium, sodium, magnesium, sulfates, and chlorides) and shape the profile of the beer.

So what does that all mean to us as homebrewers? There is a boatload of literature and a heap of anecdotes detailing how water affects beer. Baltibrew even had a QC technician from a local brewery come out to give a talk on his philosophy regarding water treatment. For the modern homebrewer information and opinions on how to handle your water abound.

So what about Baltimore's water?  It turns out Baltimore water has a reputation as great brewing water!

Let’s dig a little deeper into this aquatic topic. Where does this water come from? How does it get to our faucets? And what’s in it, anyway?

The Baltimore municipal waterworks draw water from three sources, all of which are surface water. The big name in the mix is Loch Raven Reservoir.

Loch Raven Reservoir and dam. It provides drinking water for the City of Baltimore and most of Baltimore County, Maryland.

Located just north of the city, Loch Raven Reservoir and the upstream Prettyboy Dam impound the waters of the Gunpowder Falls. Prettyboy’s function is to keep the level in Loch Raven constant, important because this water is fed to treatment plants via gravity. The two dam system ensures there is enough pressure on the water for it to make the trip via underground pipeline for treatment at one of Baltimore’s filtration plants.

Next up, Liberty Reservoir.

Liberty Reservoir Dam, Baltimore County and Carroll County, Maryland

Located to the northwest of the city this dam holds water from the Upper Branch of the Patapsco River. The combined watersheds of these three reservoirs pull water from the north & west of the city and extend as far as southern Pennsylvania.

A map of the Baltimore reservoir watersheds. (2006)

Finally, a pipeline arrives from the northeast that can pump water south to Baltimore from the Susquehanna River. Currently, the Department of Public Works only draw from this source during periods of high demand or drought. Projected growth of the region forecasts the need to pull water from the Susquehanna on a regular basis by 2025. These sources hold 86 billion gallons of fresh water for city and parts of the surrounding counties. They represent over a century's worth of public works projects to secure a quality and consistent water supply for the city.

The history of Baltimore's public water supply goes even further into the past and features a name not typically associated with clean, tasty water. The city's first successful water distribution system pulled from the pristine, picturesque...Jones Falls.

A screen placed across Jones Falls traps trash and keeps it out of Baltimore harbor. Although not foolproof-a heavy rain can break the screen-it is effective when cleaned regularly.

Over 200 years ago it looked a bit different (and modern restoration efforts of the Jones are ongoing).

Cut and bridge on the railroad at Jones Falls, Baltimore.

After several failed legislative attempts to create a public waterworks (starting in 1797) a stock company was formed in the early 1800s that impounded the Jones at Calvert & Center Streets. This company improved many aspects of its water system and was eventually sold to the city in 1854 for the sum of $1.35M. Public expansions of the system continued.

The Druid Hill Reservoir was completed in 1873. The Gunpowder Falls was captured in 1881 with Loch Raven Dam completed in 1915. In response to public health concerns the city began chlorination of its supply in 1910. The Montebello Filtration Plants (I and II) went online in 1915 & 1928. To keep up with demand the Liberty Dam was completed in 1954 and the Ashburton Filtration Plant began its operation in 1956. The system now produces 360M gallons of drinking water every day to meet the needs of its residents and business, a true feat of modern engineering.

As Baltimore area homebrewers if you start your brew day by opening the faucet to fill a kettle these are the waters you pull from. Every time we crack a homebrew it is the end of a long journey down the Gunpowder Falls & Patapsco Rivers and through a public water system designed & built over hundreds of years.  A journey that passes through our recipes, our kettles & carboys, and ends right in our glass.

Cheers and Happy Brewing!

Next up: Baltimore's Water: The Journey!

Baltibrew members hail from a wide range of professional backgrounds, from the service sector to the arts to engineering and finance.  Among our ranks are several bonafide microbiologists.  Drawing on their expertese, the club has embarked on a challenging and multi-part project for the year: we're going to try to capture, isolate, culture, and evaluate a Baltimore native brewers yeast!

Finished capture kit for club members.

While a number of our brewers produce tasty beverages via spontaneous and mixed fermentation, there are a several challenges in an attempt to isolate a strain of yeast for brewing purposes.

1. Capturing anything interesting at all!
   Leaving our capture media outside doesn't guarantee we'll end up catching something that will ferment instead of just spoil.  We'll be casting as large as net as we can in the hopes of finding candidate organisms.

2. Capturing something that will ferment strongly on its own.
   In a mixed fermentation, the processing of various sugars into ethanol and other compounds is a team game.  We're looking to isolate a strain of yeast that can do the job itself and there's no assurances that the yeasts we might capture will be able to tackle the simple and more complex sugars found in wort.  After we've selected candidates from our captures, we'll need to test them to see if they are up to the job.

3. Capturing something that is not the Chico strain.
   We're brewers and we're surrounded by brewing yeast!  It's in our homebrew.  It's likely floating around our houses.  We'll need to take care that we don't end up "capturing" an organism that we've brought into our local environment.

4. Capturing something that makes a pleasing beer.
   And here's the big question.  Even if we capture and isolate a yeast or yeasts that are up for the job, there's no way of telling if they'll make a pleasing product.  After all, brewers yeasts has been living with humans for a very, very long time and have been heavily subjected to selection pressure.  People have been knowingly (and unknowingly) changing the organism by reusing pleasing results, selecting for attenuation, floculattion, expediency, and taste.  If we are successful in wrangling a pure strain of yeast that will ferment a wort of malted barley, are we lucky enough that it should make a tasty brew?

After discussing the challenges, we set about designing a simple protocol and capture media to distribute to club members at our April meeting, with the intention of collecting promising candidates at the next.  We prepared and processed the capture media into 8 oz mason jars. Starting with 1 liter of distilled water and 143 grams of DME, we calibrated a pH meter and added enough lactic acid (~.5 mL) to drop the solution below 4.50 pH. The wort ended up at 1.025 SG (as converted from a Brix reading of 6.4) and a pH of 4.38. We processed 20 jars filled with 100mL of the media and half of a hop pellet each in a pressure canner at 15 PSI for 15 minutes.

Pressure canner heating up.

While the canner ran, we crafted airlocks from extra mason jar lids, rubber grommets, and S-type airlocks.  The goal here was to provide a members with a simple way to limit oxygen exposure after capture, hopefully keeping some of the less favorable aerobic organisms in check.

Airlock lid for after capture.

The capture media, modified lid and airlock, clean cheesecloth, and a protocol sheet were bundled into a capture kit for members to take home.  Members may choose how to conduct their capture; either directly from a biologic sample like a flower or fruit, or from the outside air itself.  Admittedly, the odds are low but the fun is be in the attempt.  Read more as we take our captures into the lab!

Sterile capture media.

What is Baltibrew?

A homebrew club dedicated to the discussion and exchange of fermented beverages!

Who is Baltibrew?

Great question!

Having never conducted a membership survey we decided to put a small set of questions to our brewers to get a bit of sense of who Baltibrew is.  With a response rate from dues paying members of slightly over 50%, we received 23 complete surveys (1 of which only provided the written feedback).  All percentages are based off the sample of actual responses.  Let's dig in!

What age range do you admit to?

• 48% - 30-40
• 24% - Under 30
• 14% - 40-50
• 14% - Over 50
• 1 person admits nothing!

While homebrewing is fairly strong in the 30-40 demographic, Baltibrew skews young with 72% in the 20-40 range (the 2013 AHA Survey had 60% in the 30-50 cohort).  Our membership is somewhat less skewed when compared to the results captured by the Brulosophy online survey in 2017 (65% in that under 40 cohort, 44% 30-40 & 21% <30).

Profession

• The survey categories were too granular to bucket in any meaningful way.
• Well over 50% were in the sciences, engineering, or technology related fields.
• Other industries are represented, including publishing, broadcasting, retail, manufacturing, construction, the arts, servicing, education, finance, real estate, marketing, legal.

Experience

• 50% - 5+ years
• 45% - 3-5 years
• 1 person in the 1-2 year range

What types of fermented beverages do you produce

Half of our membership dabbles with funky brews.  We have many more sour brewers (50% vs 30%) than the Brulosophy average.

How often do you brew?

• 41% - Monthly
• 18% - More than once a month
• 18% - Quarterly
• 14% - Not actively brewing
• 10% - A few times a year

What is the average volume of wort produced during a typical brew day?

• Almost 70% do 5+ gallons, 20% doing 10+ gallons, and the remainder doing 2-4 range.  No 1 gallon brewers.

Which is your primary method of wort production?

• 73% are all grain brewers, the rest are evenly split between extract and partial mash.  Which means we’ve more partial mash brewers than the Brulosophy survey captured.

All Grain Brewers: Which of the following best describes your methods?

• 47% us batch sparge, 30% Fly Sparge, 23% BIAB (either full volume of w/ a sparge)

What is your average pre-boil efficiency?

• 75% hit that 70-80 % efficiency, and all but 1 of the rest is above that.

Which of following readings do you take during brew day?

Which of the following readings do you take during/after fermentation?

Which describe your use of secondary fermenters?

• 27% always use a secondary, 27% never use a secondary, and the rest use it for specific things, the most common being extended aging.  

What best describes you preference for yeast?

• 40% have no attachment to dry/liquid/starters/direct pitch/rehydration/pitching from the cake.
• Among those who do have a preference, liquid yeast is king, with only 3 brewers in camp dry.

How do you most commonly package your finished products?

• Two keggers for every bottle conditioner in the club.

The prototypical Baltibrewer is….

• A mid-thirties, STEM inclined brewer who’s been at it for 5 or more years.  They produce multiple types of clean and funky fermented beverages via all-grain fly or batch sparging and kegging the final product.

And lastly, why do we brew?

• Common theme in the responses is because we like to!
• Enjoy making or creating things
• Mixing art and science, experimenting
• Enjoying the company of other homebrewers/beer drinkers
• Oh course, drinking the finished product