Episode 59 - Beer with Ben - Homebrewing DIY

Today we talk with Ben Richards about his two-year-long project where in year one he grew all of the ingredients for a beer. In year two he grew and foraged for all of the ingredients. Ben has a website and podcast that chronicles this entire journey so check it out.

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Show Transcript

AI created it will have many errors.

Colter Wilson: On this week’s show. I think I’ve got a pretty cool. Little project that we’re going to talk about. Specifically, we’re going to talk to a brewer named Ben Richards. He’s out of the UK and he has quite the project going on. It’s a two year project where you’re one, he grew all of the ingredients to make a beer.

He’s doing the same this year, but he’s also adding the. Factor of being able to forage for a beer. So we’re going to dive into all of this. On beer with Ben. On homebrewing diy

Welcome back to home brewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself. Aspect of home, brewing gadgets, contraptions, and parts. This show covers it all.

On this week’s show, we’re going to talk to Ben Richards about his two-year-long project, wherein year one, he grew every ingredient to make a single batch of beer. In his own little garden, you might say. And then in year two, he’s doing the same project, but with a little bit of a twist, he’s also able to forage locally for ingredients as well.

So we’re going to talk to him about his podcast, that he’s created his website, that Chronicles the entire experience. And we’re going to dive into how he fulfilled some of these projects. So stick around while we speak with Ben a little bit later on the show. But first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over a Patrion it’s because of you that this show can come to you week after week, head on over to patrion.com forward slash home-brewing DIY.

And give it any amount your support’s going to help this show come to you week after week. And please don’t forget. I still currently have scrubber duckies that I have to give as a thank you gift for anyone. He at the $5 level. Also, if you would like to get a sticker and an ad-free version of this show, you can give it a $3 a month level.

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And doing so is going to let them know that we sent you. So use our sponsor links and help support the show.

Stick around a little bit later for the show after the interview, we’re going to do a bit of a feedback section. So that is the new format of the show where we’re going to do the interview. And then at the end, I will get into the feedback from all of the emails that people have sent me. , I got a lot of feedback on last week show where we were discussing small batch beers.

Lots of really interesting takes on why people are doing small batch beers. So stick around for, at the end of the interview and for some of that really cool feedback. Well let’s jump into this week’s show where we’re going to talk to ben richards

about beer with ben I’d like to welcome Ben Richards to the homebrewing DIY podcast. Hi Ben, how are you?

2-Ben: Hi, I’m good. Thanks yourself.

1-Colter-3: Excellent. Now, Ben is the creator of a website called beer with Ben, which is a easy to remember name. I kind of liked that and he also is creative. He has created a new podcast that’s called growing beer and kind of split up into a couple segments.

One figure, one fixated on growing all the aspects of your. Brewery and ingredients. And then the second one called . I want a series two called finding beer specifically focused on foraging for some of those ingredients. And I’m always fascinated by this style of brewing, because to me it’s something where this is where beer initially came from.

Right. And so I think. Let’s let’s, let’s hop right into the how, how, how did you decide to start? Hey, I I’m going to not do a home brewing kit. I’m going to just grow everything from scratch. What, what made you decide to go down this journey?

2-Ben: I think it started off like most poorly thought through ideas in the pub with friends. , we sat around at a pub garden with a couple of guys who were, who were brewers and we just got chatting. And I remember thinking, do you think it’s possible to do that yourself be genuinely sort of self-sufficient for those ingredients and the general chat said no, probably not.

And then now that idea has been planted. The seed has been planted and you keep thinking about it. You go, actually, I’m going to give it a try. , and then I made the kind of a series of, I won’t say mistakes, I’ll say dubious decisions whereby I thought I’m going to go for this, but I’m going to do it.

I’m going to get my allotment. But you know, in the UK, it’s just a bit of a 10 meter squared, um, kind of beds that you can rent each year, , to grow one, I use the space. , but then I thought, well, actually, if I’m gonna, if I’m gonna do this, I might get a couple of my friends to help out as well. And they said, Oh, actually you need some more advice.

Yeah. The different ingredients, how to grow it, that kind of stuff. I’m one of those same friends then said, well, if you’re going to speak to these experts, you should probably record it. You know, at least do the website, we can share it. And then before, you know, I’ve got a podcast and a website and, and it kind of just snowballed out of control, , , but you know, bring it back down again.

It was, , it was really just that interest in. , getting to the real kind of basics of brewing, you know, we, we all rely on and I’m lucky to be able to on these huge, you know, , yeah. Juices and processes and networks, we can order anything we want, but to actually just go back and learn about those ingredients, it’s just always interested me really.

1-Colter-3: . So we have four ingredients in beer and essentially, obviously water, probably the easiest one to come up with. It’s just going to either come out of your tap or if you have well water, it’s going to come out of your well, but then we talk about the other three.

Now we’re talking about some. Different aspects. And I would say the hardest one to come by is probably going to be malt or barley as far as the, the most work to actually create. So you said you S you started with some, some planting beds. What, how did you figure out how to not only grow it, but then to get into multi.

2-Ben: So in the first project that growing bear, um, It started off in January, just as kind of rubbish strewn plot that I’d taken on. And I did, I broke it up, had a plan in place. , and so if there’s four ingredients, , I’d actually say that yeast was probably the hardest one to get the result you want from, but yeah, you’re right.

Bali is definitely the most work cause, , the, the hops, you put them in the ground in, in, in kind of late winter. As long as you’ve got a big enough pole and some string they’ll do the job pretty well without too much work. Walter, I had a few chances with this one because my, my plot had, , no spring, no tap.

Nothing like that. And the rule of the project was everything has to come from this piece of this small piece of land nothing’s allowed in. , so I really liked it made a rod for my own back very early on without rule, but there you go. So I had these, , you know, guttering and buckets out to collect rainwater.

, but that’s, that’s, you know, a little bit later on maybe. Yeah. The Bali I am with every episode I had for the podcast they ran throughout the whole year. I had an expert, , who was invited in to try and give me some guidance. Help me not go too badly wrong one way or the other. And so at the very start of January, I had, um, uh, like, uh, I guess, uh, national gardening, celebrity, , Toby buckle in the UK and he advised me, you want actually, how you plant the crop, a green crop and how you, you can set your, set your plot up to make the most of it and get that soil as good as you can.

But it was certainly the most work. It was absolutely, you know, days and days getting it ready. It was another couple of days actually sewing this core. It’s all done by hand. , and then just trying to kind of protect it. Cokes at Walter, it keep the birds off or that kind of stuff. , even down to the point that I was growing all organic, , um, which means you’ve got no way of, of, of, you know, dealing with, with pasts.

Um, with strengthening the plants, um, on organically, which is, yeah, well, I’d like to grow anyway, whenever we grow stuff, we don’t, we don’t add anything. , but, but you get to late July in the UK and you get the traditional British summer, which is just storms. Yeah. Sunshine then writing again. And you know, you lose a third of your crop in the night because it was storm came in and flattened it.

So the amount of work you have to put in on that basis really shows you. I know when in there, right. Mine does it and grows it themselves by hand. It’s all done in those huge scale.

1-Colter-3: Well funny, you say that. Cause if you, if you look at my back catalog, I have a gentleman called gene Giovanni and he was on this podcast and he’s got his own home malting set up that you wouldn’t believe, and he’s grown his own. And it’s like, but he lives in Italy, very different climate. And he also has.

A farm. So he has plenty of money plan to do it on. , but when we’re talking about a small garden plot, right? How much green did you get out of growing it? Like, like what, what would you say your harvest was? If you were to put it into kilograms?

2-Ben: it was like, I think I can remember it. It was 4.7 kilos. Which is, is not a huge amount. , I

1-Colter-3: it’s about eight pounds. That’s about eight pounds of grain here in the United States. A little bit, probably closer to nine or 10, but still.

2-Ben: a small amount of bear for what is a lot of work, but, , yeah, and, and, and what I hadn’t realized as well is that, , throughout that first project, I had some help from some really, really, really, , awesome groups who were kind of national multi, multi companies or national hop growers. All advising were helping me with some of that equipment and guiding me through that process and reducing, I guess, reducing the risk that I.

Brought to the situation by their expertise and their processes. , what, what came off the plot is like seven kilos of, of great actually ended up as less than five, once it was monitored and it was ready to brew with. So this is kind of continual diminishing of your, of your end product.

1-Colter-3: So you ended up with the, by the time you were done malting it, what, what would you say the batch size you ended up with and you could do it in liters. That’s fine.

2-Ben: Yeah, it was, , just under 15 liters, I think. So. Yeah.

1-Colter-3: what, what style of beer did you make here?

2-Ben: . You know, I thought at the start of the project that I’d be able to choose. I’m doing all the ingredients in the same way that you can like look at a list of grain and hops and yeast and go, right. I can choose literally a million different combinations here.

I thought I’m going to be able to have all these choices. And by the time I got to about halfway through, I realized I’m going to get what I get and that’s it. I have no choice. I see. And I assumed as well that I, because I’m yeah, I’m, I’m growing a agree Westminster. Bali, which is not Ganek variety.

And it’s used in the UK is one of the main organic ones. I thought I’m going to get this, you know, it’s going to be a fairly pale, um, standard malt. I was growing foggles hops and like a UK U S cascade. A variant, but again, UK hops, , I thought I’m going to catch it or try and get the wild yeast off of my plot.

, and I’m using really soft rain water. , so that’ll bring next to no flavor, , or kind of qualities to it other than just the softness. So, so I’m going to get myself an English pale ale. Probably like a, you know, a light better I expect. And then when we get to the end, the style was, was totally different.

Um, I had it lined up the final tasting, which I hadn’t tried. The first bottle, went to somebody else’s doing it straight to the podcast. And he’s an international beer judge who I know in the Southwest here. And he opened it and it came out like nothing. I was expecting that the yeast kind of completely did it thing.

And it came out like a German Visalia, which is, you know, insane for.

1-Colter-3: But in the end, we’ll, let’s get into the yeast in here in a second. After we talk about how you did the malt, but at the end, the end, it’s kind of, one of those things was something I say is a as a, as a home brewer is. I make wort and yeast to make spear. Right. And, and it’s, and like you said, you see it at some level, you’re going to get what you get.

And yeast is probably the most is probably the biggest component to that. When they say, Hey, you, you can put whatever, love you in into it. Whatever comes out. The other side is what the yeast decides is going to do. Right.

2-Ben: yeah. Yeah. Complete you, the flavors that came through in it, um, Well, not British traditional beer flavors at all. They were totally continental, totally yeast driven, you know, had the real clove banana bubble gum coming off of it, which is totally the yeast. So it was, it was a nice surprise, but definitely a surprise.

1-Colter-3: Hey, at least it was a good druggable beer.

2-Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Um, um, the, the guide judging said that if you entered this into, into like a wheat or vise category, it may even get to kind of bronze metal level, it met all the criteria you’d expect. How’d you try to make that bear. So complete challenge that came up that way. But yeah, I was happy.

1-Colter-3: That’s awesome. So let let’s talk about the malting process and how you learned, how to, so you grew this, you, you got about seven kilos from harvest after malting. You ended up with about five. And what did the malting process look like on such a small scale? Like how did, how did you actually do it?

2-Ben: Well that year. , I didn’t this year is where I am going to with this next project. So in the first year, , the rule was all the ingredients had to come, , from the plot. But I had an offer from, , one of the malting companies to say, we’ve got a tiny micro scale test mounting setup. And if you want to use that, you’re welcome to.

If you want. And I started at the end of the year, I’m going for that. I’ve done so much work now. I don’t trust myself not to ruin this like five kilos of grain. So in that case, it went through that process. But yeah, the second project, the finding beer. All through that first year, I was thinking to myself, I’m growing ingredients.

I’m learning how those are created and how you process and bring those on. But I’m doing it. As I said, with, with, you know, centuries of expertise behind me, all this really high end equipment. I mean, for the yeast, I had some guys at university lab do the identification and the process of DNA profiling of it.

You know, we really went to town on it cause we could resist. Yeah. I’m scanning it right back and it’s coincided, you know, it’s. I hate to say it’s a silver lining to the current situation, but I’ve been forced to do this. Like, you know, my predecessors would have been thousands of years ago. And so it’s this year I’m growing the grain and I’m also foraging for some grain, but I’m now having to review.

That malting process. And at the moment it’s looking like I’m going to go back to what would have been like a neolithic really early, um, process where I’m going to soak the grain. I’m going to let it grow on. Yeah, those are the roots. And yet Chris buyer come out, I’m not going to try and build my own little killed in my front garden so that I can, I can sit there probably for, you know, a solid day or so.

Um, just a little, wood-fire getting that hot air to rise up through. Help through the grain and dry it out that way. So it’s going to be a very, very old fashioned, very manual process, I think.

1-Colter-3: Well, I can’t wait to listen to the podcast on that, by the way. It’s, it’s, it’s going to be a really, really cool experience. So. Let let’s talk. So, so the malt process, then you took it to the bolster. They created the malt for you and got the Killam that you wanted for your beer that you made. And then you, you said you grew fungals and what was, and what was the other hops

2-Ben: Uh, focals a UK cascade.

1-Colter-3: and UK cascade.

And then. Water was rainwater that you collected on property. And let’s talk about what you did to actually capture the yeast and what that process looked like.

2-Ben: Yeah, it was, it was a long process. , but it started off in spring and I have a couple of them who have worked at local university work at a local university and they, , we had this wonderful kind of sequence of, of lucks of luck whereby , all of the people involved in one of the research labs. We’re really supportive of beer brewing had an interest in it.

So I was able to get their help and, and, and, and taking samples from that, from the plot. So I cut out any flowers, any growing plants, about 15 or 20 of them from all over the place, give them to them. They then put them through this, this. Yeah, awesome process whereby the they’re spinning the samples down at like 13,000 G to get the, any, any yeast and particles down there.

Then I’m doing this DNA testing. They’re cryogenically freezing them down to minus 80 for preserving any yeast they do find and bring you on the cultures. You know what I could do, and certainly what I’m doing this year anyway. , but we did that and then we did it in the spring. We did it in this summer and then we did it right in the autumn and all the fruits and the sugars are around.

, we, we, we tried that and we managed to isolate two yeasts in those first batches. One of them, , more closely associated with wine-making, , but still a Saccharomyces and another one, which is found in some lambic beers as well. , but we hadn’t at that point, found that servicio the, kind of the real, the one that does the work for us in a traditional kind of way that we’re expecting.

I then

1-Colter-3: Also produces a more clean off, a more clean flavor is what you’re looking for instead of more, uh, and to kind of explain this to a more layman’s terms is you’re looking for a wild yeast that doesn’t give you that kind of Cezanne flavor. Right?

2-Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I want something which is, well, it’s kind of open to, you know, whatever we got, I think in that, in that point, but yeah, we want one which can have. Go through most of the sugars. So we get a full fermentation as much as we can, and then produce, , either desirable flavors or not the off flavors that you can get from, from wild yeasts, rarely.

And that, that can be really hit or miss, I think. But we, we didn’t find that, that, that kind of workhorse traditional one that was hoping for. So the next phase was to try some insects. So while I was there with a little Petri dish, I’m just trying to coax like a, B N off of a flower to sort of step on.

Yeah. You go and drop some yeast off. Hopefully, because I was contacted by a brewer in Denmark. You said I got it from bees. It was insects. Cause they go to every flowering and sugar source. And if there’s going to be yeast anywhere for sugar, it’s probably okay. One of the insects. So how’s that trying to capture the little bees very gently obviously, and let them to walk around and let them go again.

And let me run that through the same process. , but we find this we’ve kept finding the same yeast again and again, and by the end of the year, I didn’t actually find a kind of more traditional, , serve as the eyestrain we ended up brewing with, with those two strains.

1-Colter-3: Yeah. And funny people always talk about. I think it’s weird that you’re like, Hey, a bug is going to do it right. But I can tell you that I, and I’ve done some wild yeast wrangling in my bag yard in my past. And, and some of the best yeast that I actually captured were like off of a wasp that fell into my, that I was out setting in and then turned out to ferment, like, like if amended champ.

And so, because the, these are the insects that are going, like you said, from flower to flower there. Covered in different pollens and yeast and sugars and just the it’s an environment in which that they thrive. And so if you’re, if you’re doing some wild yeast wrangling out there and want to try something, go for the bugs guys, go for the bugs.

2-Ben: Yeah, we had, we had it on that day. We had a, , , the BBC were doing a bit for a gardening program and because we had this really strong crossover with growing ingredients on an allotment, they wanted to do a little little profile on it and they were just totally paranoid while I was filming this.

, cause that was the day I was collecting the yeast from the bees and they were just saying, we can’t do this. You cannot be seen to her to be on the BBC. We’ll be absolutely, you know, Run out of town. If you do that, you can’t be so,

1-Colter-3: You were like, I promise I will not hurt

2-Ben: yeah, guaranteed nobody’s will be harmed in the making of this beer.

1-Colter-3: then you, so you’ve got your four ingredients. And did you just brew this on your home system? Did you go to a brewery and brew it? How, how did you actually brew the beer?

2-Ben: Uh, I took everything to a friend’s brewery. Down there a few miles down the road and I’ve got a small kind of all in one. Yeah, the set up that was just the right size for the meager amount of Bali I managed to get throughout the year. Um, and, uh, my final thing think the last interview was with the brewer.

They were talking about the process equipment and kind of compare well, he had the proper, the proper stuff to my small set up and the ingredients that I had. So then we brewed it kind of in situ this tiny little table in the middle of a huge brewery, which was quite good fun for the night.

1-Colter-3: That’s awesome. And then once it was done, you had that sent off to a taster. That was a, uh, international beer judge and, and got feedback on the beer. Right.

2-Ben: Hmm. Well, we actually, um, uh, went to a pub, uh, knit. I drove down to see him, um, went into a pub. We sat there. Um, he, he, he, I think intention, he took his time really thinking things through. Forking the one bottle and, and, and it was a stressful moment. What are the most stressful moment of, of the entire year?

Um, partly because I, uh, when you’re see when you’re bottle conditioning and you want to get that kind of that second fermentation, a little bit of life in the beer, because my rule was, everything had to come from the plot. I can’t just put sugar in before bottling. I don’t have any cane sugar or source on plot.

So I kept back, um, some of the original work about a liter. Also. I froze it. And then once it finished that first fermentation, I was ready. Typical. I sought it out and I poured it back into the, into the now fermented beer before bottling it. So that acted like a sugar source for you to try and then body condition.

But I’m trying to work out your sugar levels and exactly what. What level of kind of conditioning and how much gas you’re going to put into the barrel CO2. It’s not, I didn’t find it that straightforward. So I’m sat there with this single bottle of a year’s worth of work. I’m waiting to see when he opens it.

Is it going to just be flat or I’m going to get this kind of gushing fountain of beer coming up the top. But fortunately it opened at Hess, nicely, nothing came out and then we were able to actually do it face to face, which was lovely.

1-Colter-3: That’s awesome. And you know, in the world of COVID, we don’t get to do anything face to face anymore, specifically a beer tasting. These are tough to do so, , man, one day it’s going to happen again,

2-Ben: so. I really hope so.

1-Colter-3: me too. Trust me. I, nobody needs a day at the pub like me,

so. Now you’ve gone on to this year where you’re doing foraging. Right. And, and, and why don’t you explain to me what year two’s project is or the second segments project is.

2-Ben: Yeah, sure. Well, year two, as I said, is that kind of throughout the whole, the first year, I was kind of becoming increasingly aware that I’m I’m, I’m, I’m relying on other people’s expertise and equipment and knowledge yet. What happens if we go right back, we go back to those first brewers that made it to, to British shores.

At least I’m trying to keep some kind of, uh, kind of, uh, A regional aspect to it rather than just brewing across the whole world. Um, and, and looking at what they would have had, the ingredients would have had what process they may or may not have gone through and what those, those drinks would have looked like.

So, um, it, it, it kind of not ignoring all of the skills and all the knowledge that we’ve got now, but it’s just looking at what they had available to them then and bringing it right back. So we know that sort of. Beer and brewing really started when, when grains arrived, certainly in the UK, that was at that point.

Um, but wondering, well, you know, what, what, what, what, what was there around? Could I actually forage a bear as well? Can I find some wild growing grasses or grains and use those is even possible rather than just depending on the, on the commercial domesticated. Bali that we have now, which is, which is really different.

If you look back at the, the older grains from three, 4,000 years ago, they’re tiny, they’re much, much smaller than, than the modern Bali is much less sugar in them. Much more work, really to get that sugar out, to make your beer.

1-Colter-3: When you look at really old beer recipes, you notice that their ABVs are really low. Right? And a lot of it has to do with the amount of sugars that you could extract from the grain. Also, I would say that they didn’t have the types of temperature controls that we had for mashing as well. So you look at like, and there are books here in the States where you can see beer recipes like spruce beer is made in the 17 hundreds.

And when you look at them, they’re average, ADVS probably two, one and a half, maybe at a high end, 3% alcohol and you know the grain just wasn’t as fortified as it is today.

2-Ben: No, and I think what’s gonna be interesting for me is finding out. Cause what we don’t know is that when you go sort of beyond written history, you got no idea what kind of strengths they were brewing at that

1-Colter-3: No idea.

2-Ben: guesswork. Yeah. It’s complete guesswork. So it’s, it’s, um, you know, I’m sure that there are, and there were the skills involved that you could tell what temperature things are at by kind of the appearance of the water and the characteristics of the mash to an extent.

So people were still skilled brewers, um, unable to replicate their bare time after time or the ale as it would have been back then, um, pre hops. Um, but yeah, certainly without those, um, without the modern measuring equipment and the tools that we’ve got now so much would rely on just the person’s intuition and, and their experience really.

1-Colter-3: So what you’re now in the midst of that project. Right?

2-Ben: Yeah.

1-Colter-3: And so where are you today? Like w if you were, if you were going to say, Hey, this year, this is, this is what I’m going to brew beer out of foraged ingredients. Where are you in that process?

2-Ben: so, uh, this year, um, I have, uh, we’ve now grown the Bali, so I’ve grown my, my, my crop again, this year, I’ve also been out and I’ve, I’ve tried foraging for fall. A wild variety of barley that I’ve found around where I live, because I live in a pretty rural part of the Southwest of the UK. If you’ve got lots of hedgerows, lots of countryside fields in the coastline around us.

Um, but I’ve got a pitifully, small amount of wild barley that, that the difference between growing a modern crop and trying to find an equivalent. The amount of work for what you get is just huge. The comparison between the two, you can completely see why we don’t forage for our grains at the moment, but, um, we’ve, we’ve got that.

So we’ve also, um, I’ve I say we, uh, I’ve got the wild hubs, so the pre hop equivalents, so things like meadow, sweet, um, uh, ground divey, yarrow. Um, things that grow in abundance around, around me here. And these would have been the hubs that were used for either bettering or flavor or a little bit of antibacterial and presence, uh, long, long before, um, hops arrived sort of yeah.

900 years ago in the UK. So that’s, that’s kind of dried cause we’ve reached the end of our summer. Now we’re in kind of late autumn. So if I haven’t got it by now, I’m not going to get it effectively. Um, and then, um, the current step is I’m also experimenting with journey as well. So those earliest of brewers they would have had honey as a sugar sauce.

And either doing it separately for meat or blending it with their barley. So this week I’m making up a very, very basic made using local honey and water. And then next week and the week after that are going to be the ones that we look at, the grain that I’ve got, I’ve got to build my own primitive mash, tun, build the kiln for the mounting before that stage as well.

It looks like it only occurred to me that the day, of course you didn’t have fermentation vessels 4,000 years ago made a plastic or, or you may have had like a primitive clay pot. If, you know, if you’re able to make those. So,

1-Colter-3: cask or something like that.

2-Ben: It’s likely, I think that even when you go back, possibly be like a clay from the local soil and then use that and then fire it in your little, little.

So I’ve got now look at that. I’ve got on my fermentation vessel to sort out. So I’ve suddenly gone from still fairly up to date growing. You’re my ingredients and foraging and walking around and finding them to go. And crikey, I don’t have all these tools in my kitchen right now. I’ve got to go back and make everything I need to make sure it’s as authentic as I can be.

And it’s kind of a dawning realization. I’ve got so much work in the next three weeks to

1-Colter-3: really, you really do. I mean, uh, and it’s not even not you’re you were just talking about the vet so that you’re going to try to do your mashing and the boil in. Right. And so, for example, if you look at how they brewed beers in just. You know, a few hundred years ago when a, a metal pot was not as easy to come up.

Right. They did have them, but they, you know, a kettle made out of metal was very, very expensive and hard for people to acquire. I mean, nails were a big deal back then. Right. And so that’s where like decoction mashing came from, right. Is you had one vessel to actually get things hot enough and. You would just kind of pour it in with cold water to get the temperatures.

Right. So you could, you knew it would mash and it’s kind of funny to think about those types of strategies came up before people had thermometers or any type of, of gadgets that we have today. It’s kind of amazing to think that they ended up making, not just beer, but good beer, right?

2-Ben: yeah. Perfectly drinkable stuff. Well, I’m, I’m, it looks like I’m gonna have to go back even further than that. And if you look at the really early sites where there’s evidence of brewing my, I think it was the third episode in this series when it’s coming up in a couple of weeks, that was with an archeologist who specializes in early brewing and actually live on Orkney now where they’ve got these old sites and they said the evidence there is that.

People were heating up stones or rocks in a fire. And they were dropping him straight into the Maston, probably the wooden trough or whatever they were using and using those stones in with the grain to bring it up to mash temperature. And because it’s a, these were raw ales as well. These are pre hop.

There’s no need to boil. It. Just want to get up to temperature to get the sugars out. That was it. You just pulled it off, let it cool. And then you put it in your pot, cover it and whatever your yeast strain that you’ve got working, then. Fingers crossed just a job for you and you make a drinkable, but it’s like, it’s much, it wasn’t a quick process then, but by our standards, it’s certainly much shorter number of steps and a much quicker drunk products too.

I think.

1-Colter-3: Yeah. And so is that your process you’re going to attempt to do is possibly heating up the stones or is, or are you still trying to figure out how you’re going to do it?

2-Ben: Yeah, it’s probably going to be the stones. I think so. Um, I’ve got a little pile of stones outside the front of my house. We’re ready to go. Unfortunately, cause I’ve grown such little barley and I’ve got such little forage. Barley is still small batch again. So it’s, hopefully it’s quite manageable, but I’ve spent the last few days trying to, um, basically out a tree stump or like a broad log that I’ve got.

So I’ve got my kind of curved. Yeah. Based on the Scandinavian sort of farmhouse. Style, uh, Kerner. So, um, a lot of what, um, we know it’s coming out. So in the last few years about, you know, farmhouse bringing Scandinavia, that’s still there. It’s still being used. That tradition hasn’t gone away at all.

There’s still what the farmhouse yeasts look like. All of those absolutely makes sense with what would have been happening in the UK. To me, at least thousands of years ago, you know, fast, fermenting, hot fermenting beer that you could put by the fireplace and it’s done its job in two days, and then you drink it.

Why wouldn’t you do that? That’s.

1-Colter-3: I asked myself that now, because that’s what, how I’m brewing beer these days is I’m using . Uh, if you go look right now at my taps, I have.

2-Ben: Yeah,

1-Colter-3: I still have some meat from the summer on, but I have two beers on tap and both of them are convict beers right now and they are clean. They’re good. And I fermented them in the eighties.

It’s insane to me.

2-Ben: yeah, no, it does. It does this kind of like, uh, you know, for me. Stumbling upon Raul rails and that’s Scandinavian way at the same time as I was doing this project, it just all fits in really nicely that you would have had a, uh, that kind of yeast that you could dry, that you could store from batch to batch easily, that you could, you know, use time and time again.

You could do it hot. You could do it quickly. It’s just, yeah, it makes sense. It seems to, to me, at least anyway.

1-Colter-3: Exactly. So if I were to want to, let’s say I am a homebrewer and. I’m fascinated by your project and want to dive into your podcast, but even your project that you did last year, where you grew, all of, all of your materials were, where would I find that?

2-Ben: Uh, if you ever look on either kind of the Apple podcasts or Spotify, um, look for growing bear. That that, that will come up with a podcast, um, or you can listen on my site, it’s bare with ben.co.uk. Um, and that’s got the episodes on there as well. So any one of those should help you find the previous series and the stuff that’s coming out between now and this December?

1-Colter-3: And if I were trying to do a very similar project myself and wanted to reach out to you, could I go to your website and find your contact information to ask questions?

2-Ben: Yeah, definitely. There’s a, there’s a contact form that people are very welcome to say hi. Um, or if they have a look on, on various different social media, so on Insta, Facebook, Twitter, that’s growing beer in there as well. So yeah, people are very welcome to come out and say hi and, and let me know if they’ve done anything quite silly or they just want to find out more.

1-Colter-3: Hey, you think it’s silly, but I get being in the home brew. Media section. I definitely talked to a lot of brewers that are doing similar projects and it’s something where I don’t know. It’s just kind of, to me, even in my brewing history, there’s been aspects of where I’ve tried to create my, get my own yeast for my backyard.

And there’s just something about using those local ingredients. That’s really intriguing to me. And I think that you have a unique flavor of your own beer at your house. That’s that’s cool.

2-Ben: Oh yeah, no, it’s awesome. To be able to have made a beer, which is entirely your work. I think the reason why I say, um, You know, it’s a slightly questionable decision to make, spend that much time and effort on it. At the end of the first year, I worked out some of the numbers on it and it turns out that I had, I think of top of my head, it was 700 hours in total, well spent on, on the project over the one year for what worked out to be about 40, 45 bottles of beer.

And we’re talking three thirties, not, not big ones. Um, Of which, cause I had so many people, they interviewed over the 12, 11, sorry, episodes. I said, Oh, there’s always a beer in it for everyone else. And I had a tasting party at the end and the whole year built up to where I have a beer to drink on Christmas day or not.

And I had three bottles left. So, um, that worked out as less. I think it was a slightly more than a millimeter per milliliter per hour. Of work. Um, I was putting into for that beer. And then when I factored in that, if I was trying to sell this just to break, even if I’ve paid myself minimum wage and that’s not including all of the experts and kind people have massively helped me out throughout the year.

I think I have the, uh, I may be wrong on this, but I think I created the least viable beer ever. Um, It worked out at about 1025 pounds a pint. if I was going to try and break even on my time, which is, you know, it’s just a, just a subtle warning for those that think this sounds like a good idea. It’s it is a good, it’s great fun, but it takes a while.

1-Colter-3: Yeah. And you also have to look at it, is that the reason beer is so cheap as really the scale and the fact that it is economical, right. We look at it and. To be honest, if you look at the British styles in the history of IR great Britain was pretty much who in re truly invented industrial sized beer and brewing specifically with porters.

And it’s, it’s kind of something where that’s a tradition. That’s now spread all over the world. And that’s why you have, you know, gigantic companies that are making gigantic vats of beer on an industrial scale and, and hours and hours of farming. And. Thousands and thousands of hours of farming going into making that grain and the hops production.

It’s. When you think about how many jobs are actually built into the scale that goes into making a pint of beer, it’s kind of mind boggling. When you look at the entire process to actually get a pint from like a large scale brewery,

2-Ben: Yeah.

1-Colter-3: you don’t really think about that much work. And when you try to do it at your home on your own level, it really comes into focus.

2-Ben: Oh, hugely. I think over that year, um, there’s 11 episodes of the podcast and each of those covers are slightly different topic with a different expert. So that, including me, that’s an absolute minimum of 12 people’s expertise and time going into a box of beer, you know, and that, and that it’s crazy.

1-Colter-3: It really is crazy. Well, well, Ben, thank you so much for coming on homebrewing, DIY. I will, you know, if. As you get finished with the second project, love to hear more of how that one is turning out. And, and obviously I’ll, I’ll follow on your podcast and fall on your website because when I found it, I’ve, I’ve been intrigued.

And so my, my, I can’t wait to see how this entire second year project turns out. It’s going to be pretty exciting to see when you pop the beer.

2-Ben: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It’s I think it’s a blend of exciting and terrifying, but yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve got a little bit of work left to go, but I’ll let you know how it, how it, how it pans out. Definitely.

1-Colter-3: Awesome. So if you’re listening to this podcast right now, and you want to find out more about the beers that Ben here is making, please look in the show notes. I’ll have links to all of that. Also follow me on my social media and we’ll, we’ll share that as well. Well, Ben, thank you so much for coming on the show and we’ll definitely have you back some other time.

2-Ben: You’re welcome. Thanks very much.

Colter Wilson: All right. So now we’re going to jump into some feedback. And specifically, I got. A few pieces of feedback. From last week’s episode when we talked about one gallon, batches. The first email that I received was from James and he sent me an email. It was called one gallon batch reasons. And I’m going to read it to you now. Pay Coulter.

I enjoyed the episode on reasons for one gallon, batches. I thought you gave a lot of great reasons. I’m very new to brewing and I’ve done it with friends for the most part. I have a minimal, I have minimal equipment and I’m hoping to get more gifts when my BD and the holidays roll around. That being said, I just brewed a one-gallon batch and we’ll be ready to bottle on Sunday. And I did it because my group had postponed our next big brew session and I didn’t want to lose my momentum. So since I’m starting a new hobby, I wanted to keep it rolling.

Also, it was really quick. And when using an extra kit, brewed it in about three hours and mainly because of the heating up and cooling down time. One gallon is a lot faster than when doing a larger volume. Bonus benefits. My white join me and is now very interested in going to, in doing more bruise.

And she liked being able to stay inside the cool rainy fall Sunday. Instead of sitting in the chili garage, uh, to brew a batch on a burner. Also keep an eye on your six-year-old twins without bro. Without being too far away. And being near the kettle, which is the way has helped save my boil over from most of my boil overs from happening.

So love the show. And I really helped me shorten my learning curve on being a new brewer. Cheers, James. And thank you, James so much for the feedback, and I can agree with you enough. And I responded saying how lucky he is that his wife actually bruise with him. I kind of in the situation where my wife doesn’t really drink beer. And so therefore,

I am one day going to make a beverage. She likes, I am just yet to get there and I’ve been brewing for almost decade hard. And so we’ll, we’ll figure it out one day.

All right, let’s jump into the next piece of feedback. This one is from T dash other one. And this is off of Reddit. And he said. Decent breakdown. I apologize in advance for the wall of text, but you asked for it literally at the end of the show. Uh, and. T dash other one, I’m actually glad you listened to the entire podcast. That makes me really happy.

I brew nothing but one gallon, batches. I’m nearing a hundred batches and I don’t foresee scaling up anytime soon, unless it’s an occasional two gallon batch. And for tried and true recipes. The amount of experience that you can gain quickly accumulating through the practice and the minimal amount of space that it takes up, especially if you live in an apartment, makes it an awesome option for a lot of people. Unfortunately, people looking down their noses, that it doesn’t help when you’re trying to feel like it’s.

When you’re trying to feel like it’s becoming less common. But I agree. And I’m going to interject here. I agree. I don’t like it. When people look down their noses about any way that people brew. And I think that whether you brew a one gallon batch or your brew a hundred gallon batch, it doesn’t matter. It’s still brewing beer.

So get back into this. I imagine that I’m in the minority since most, every discussion that is about it is a fun alternative to brewing a real size of beer. But anyway, I think tiny batches are the single best way to learn and are very viable way to brew in general, provided that you aren’t sharing your beer a ton and that you enjoy the process of brewing.

So for learning, especially you can’t beat it. In my opinion. It’s easy and cheap to start. And most people already have the usable stockpot like you said, but the biggest things for me is that you have way fewer consequences. If your brew day goes bad. I can’t imagine having to dump 40 plus bottles of beer, but then again, I can’t imagine having to drink my way through.

40 plus bottles of beer of the same exact beer, especially starting out. But each their own. I don’t know how many people. Do it and feel like if more people started out on small batches, More people would stick with brewing all grain. Secondly, it forces you to brew and therefore the necessity. The necessarily forces you to become better brewer quicker.

If you want to get the swing of it, you have to really. Get the respectable, the variety of the styles and have the same footprint as a single batch on a normal system. Further. And this is kind of secondary. It gives you the real world brewery practice in a different way, bottling and et cetera, more carefully than for five gallons. You don’t want to spill it.

In a tiny bit more work. But for the fact that you can get multiple brews out in a single ounce of hops and for a pack of yeast, it really stretches your money. And for once you can get into it and have a brew pub size selection on a single shelf in your fridge. Yes. Normal batches are still cheaper by the bottle.

But. I personally don’t care too much about that. I’m still saving money, hand over fist on the non commercial beer. And I don’t feel that any pressure to not buy commercial beer. So. It’s just the best of both worlds also, frankly. I just don’t. Can’t wait to drink that much anyway. That’s my rant. And there were a couple overlook things that I’d like to add, just in case you heard on the show and, and.

Somebody heard on the show and wants to start out. Some of you, some of you, some you did touch on, but they’re still important to others. And there are things that I mentioned a lot that are overlooked or untrue. So these are the bullet points. It’s absolutely not the same amount of work for less beer. Everything goes quicker. And regardless of its home brewing or not home drinking.

It doesn’t if you don’t like the process, just visit a brewery and buy their beer. No one, there’s no need for a war chiller. You can cool it pretty quickly in an ice bath in your sink. Equipment bottles, fermentation area takes up way less room. If you’re in an apartment everything’s cleanable in your sink, you don’t need to have hoses and whatnot.

With your careful planning, you can really maximize the use of your ingredients. You can also bottle use a bottling bucket. If you want. In a skinny plastic fridge, water dispenser works great, and they don’t take up much room. Practically, no need for starters, for every little worry for other pitching yeast, because obviously you can get multiple batches out of a single pack of yeast.

And most importantly, you can get the level of control over your fermentation champ. Change your fir mentioned fermentation temperatures. With a low tech setup that you could never get with a normal batch size. Since there’s less thermal mass, it’s easier to keep temps down. And I did a lot of measuring when I first started a gallon stays about 1.5 or so degrees above the tip outside during the peak of fermentation.

With a cooler, full water, like with a full water in my closet. I can basically control my temp throughout. Yes, it requires a little more work than with a fridge, but the space constraints, money, et cetera. I don’t see any reason to upgrade at the moment. And without going, without going to a bigger, bigger batch size.

Although the ability to cold crash, which you did mention and lager in your fridge without having to buy. Without having to move around much food. In means that you get the cold side pretty well taken care of with little effort and investment on your part. Lastly, anybody wanting to dive in more should get into a couple of specialized pieces of equipment. You already read. Venturing mentioned the mini racking cane.

But a refractometer is, uh, It at a jewelry scale so that it can get to a hundredth of the gram is really helpful for hops and water additions. Anyway, sorry about the novel and keep up the good work. Cheers. Yes, that was a really long post, but it did have some really, really great pieces of information on why you should brew what gallon batches.

All right. Well, that’s it for feedback. And I want to thank everyone who did give us feedback this week on the one gallon, batches, and. Let’s uh, wrap up the show.

I’d like to thank Ben for taking the time to come on this week show. I think that we had a really great conversation talking about. The. Really unique project that he’s got going on with forging and growing his own beer. It’s a pretty amazing feat that he has there for not a lot of beer, but still very, very cool.

The other thing is, is you can always leave us feedback. I’d love to hear maybe some of the extremes that you’ve gone to when it comes to getting your brew day done, that that would be kind of a cool, some cool feedback. So send that feedback to podcast at home brewing DIY dot ear, or head to home brewing DIY dot.

Ear and hit the contact form on our website. And that will shoot me an email as well. Lastly, we are getting towards the end of the year. And for our end of the year show, we always do our home-brew hack show. So start sending those in, just, uh, put into the. Put into the, into the subject line of your email Homebrew hack so that I can put that away for that show and love to hear any kind of cool tip or trick that you have when it comes to home brewing.

Well, that’s it for this week. And we’ll talk to you next week. Uh, homebrewing DIY.

Episode 59 – Beer with Ben

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