This past month, I bought my brother, who just started homebrewing, a red ale beer recipe kit. Checking in on his progress, he asked me this question:

“My beer is in the process of fermenting. We started fermenting it in the bottling bucket because we plan on racking the beer into a secondary fermenter to do a secondary fermentation on the beer, but we never got around to racking it, so the beer is approaching three weeks of primary fermentation. Do you think it would be worth it to try a secondary fermentation for a week, or do you think we should just go straight to bottling the beer at this point?”

After three weeks in primary, it’s highly likely that your beer is done fermenting, and it’s probably safe to go ahead and bottle your beer. But you can’t just bottle straight from your primary fermenter: it’s full of yeast and other trub that you should try to keep out of your finished beer.

Here’s what I would do:

• Rack the beer to your other (sanitized!) secondary fermenter and take a gravity reading with your hydrometer to see whether the fermentation is complete. It most likely will be at this point, but you want to be sure. Remember, if you take a reading directly in the bucket, your hydrometer should be sanitized beforehand.

• You probably won’t need to plan for an extended secondary fermentation period, but in any case, go ahead and rack your beer from the primary to the secondary fermenter. This will give you the opportunity to free up your bottling bucket and discard the trub. Go ahead and clean out the bottling bucket so it will be ready for brew day.

• After 2-3 days in secondary, you can go ahead and bottle, provided that you’ve reached somewhat close to your anticipated final gravity. Bottle as you would normally. You can mix in the priming sugar as it fills back into your bottling bucket.

Though the beer’s secondary fermentation probably won’t affect your gravity at this point, I’d recommend at least 2-3 days to allow the yeast, which will get stirred up when you’re racking, to settle again. This may also be a good time to add gelatin or isinglass if you find that your beer is especially cloudy. Racking beer into a secondary fermenter is never a bad thing.
Tip: Many aspects of homebrewing are made easier by thinking through the process in advance. Think backwards from the end of the brewing process to figure out your brew day or bottling day sequence so that racking and bottling, etc. are more convenient to your schedule. Good luck!
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

Today we will explore the beers from one of the world’s top brewing regions: Germany. Many of the world’s popular styles of beer are derived from classic German styles. Home brewing German beer is no harder or easier than brewing other types of beer, and the array of flavors is nothing short of fulfilling.

• Bamberg Smoked Beers
  Bamberg, in the central region of Germany called Franconia, is the home of rauchbier (rauch = smoke in German). The smoked beers of Bamberg are mostly lagers, ranging from pale in color to amber or brown. The smokiness can be anywhere from mild to very assertive. Brew your own smoked beer using Briess Smoked Malt. As little as a pound will add noticeable smoke flavor to any beer style. A classic rauchbier should be similar to Märzen in appearance, and may use as much as 100% smoked malt.

• Bavarian Wheat Beers (Weizen)
  The southern region of Germany is known as Bavaria, with Munich being the capital as far as brewing is concerned. Bavaria is home to weissbier (white beer), also known as weizenbier (wheat beer), to great German beer styles. Variations on the style include dunkelweizen (dark wheat beer) and hefeweizen, a wheat beer served cloudy with its own yeast (hefe = yeast). Some of the popular German brands include Erdinger, Schneider, and Paulaner. Bready, effervescent, with a hint of banana and clove, weizenbier is especially refreshing during the summer months. If this is your first time home brewing German beer, than this is a good style to start with.

• Oktoberfest/Märzen Lagers
  These amber lagers have been made popular by the annual Oktoberfest celebrations in Bavaria. Only breweries within the Munich city limits are allowed to serve their beer at the main Oktoberfest festival. These include Spaten, Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, and Staatliches Hofbräu-München. Check out our Oktoberfest blog post for more information and beer recipes for home brewing an Oktoberfest/Märzen lager. Anyone interested in home brewing German beer might best be served by giving this one a go.

• Kölsch
  Born in the Western city of Cologne (Köln in German), the Kölsch is a very pale lager/ale hybrid. Though fermented with top-fermenting ale yeast, this beer is conditioned at colder lager temperatures, which helps give it a clean, crisp character. In fact, lager is a German word meaning “to keep” or “to lay down.” Read our Tips on How to Brew a Kölsch and check out the Brewers Best Kölsch Recipe Kit to brew your own Kölsch!

• Roggenbier
  Roggen is the German word for rye. Roggenbier is native to Regensberg, in Bavaria. It is similar to the German Dunkelweizen (dark wheat beer) except that malted rye is used in place of malted wheat. Rye can get sticky in a mash; rice hulls can help avoid a stuck mash. A classic roggenbier may use as much as 50-65% rye malt, with the rest of the grain bill coming from pale malt, Munich malt, wheat malt, and/or crystal malt. The weizen ale yeast should be used to achieve the banana/clove characteristics of this style.

• Altbier
  Altbier literally means “old beer.” Not that the beer is especially old! The name just means that the beer is brewed in the old style. Northern German Altbier is defined as a moderately bitter brown lager. It’s a great beer to start with for someone thinking about home brewing German beer styles. Though they may be made with ale yeast, they should be fermented cool and lagered. Altbier is also popular in the German city of Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf Altbier differs from Northern German Altbier in that it tends to have a more robust (but not roasty) malt flavor and more assertive noble hop bitterness.

• German Light Lagers
  Lumped together in this broad category are a number of notable styles, including Munich Helles, Dortmunder Export, and Pilsner. Helles means “light” in German, in reference to the color of these beers. These pale lagers are relatively new styles, since pale malts weren’t made until advances in technology during the Industrial Revolution. Each of these lagers are very clean and pale in color. The dominant flavor in the Munich Helles should be the light grain, often Pilsner malt. German Pilsner tends to feature more noble hop bitterness and flavor. The Dortmunder Export is a slightly stronger lager than the Helles or Pilsner, featuring more substantial body and a good balance between malt and hops.

• German Dark Lagers
  Prior to the mid-1800s, all German lagers were dark. Munich Dunkel (dunkel = dark) is a classic lager, featuring loads of rich Munich malt, as much as 100% of the grain bill. The color of a Munich Dunkel ranges from copper to dark brown. Even darker than the Dunkel is the Schwarzbier (Schwarz = black). Though it tends to be more brown than black, schwarzbier is chocolaty and full-bodied, often with a dry, tangy finish. Contrary to what a drinker might suspect, schwarzbier is exceptionally smooth and sessionable. For this reason, it is one of the better German beer styles for home brewing. Intrigued? Brew a schwarzbier with this malt extract schwarzbier recipe.

• Berliner Weisse
  This is a very pale style of beer usually brewed with 30-50% malted wheat. The defining characteristic however is that the beer is fermented with a lactobacillus bacteria culture, which gives the beer a tart, sour acidity that’s actually quite refreshing. There was a time in Germany when Berliner Weisse was extremely popular and referred to as “the Champagne of the North.” Though it is not as popular today as it once was, the style has made a resurgence among craft brewers in the United States. This recipe for a Cranberry “Lambic” allows the homebrewer to replicate the tartness of the Berliner Weisse without the bacteria culture.

• Bocks
  Bockbier was developed in Northern Germany. The name likely comes from the town of Einbeck, where bocks were first made as early as the 14th and 15th centuries. German bocks are very strong lagers, ideal for consumption during the colder months of winter and early spring. Bocks tend to be smooth and malty sweet. Doppelbocks are even stronger versions, usually at least 6.8% ABV, and often with the suffix –ator in the name. Paulaner Salvator is the classic example. Maibock or Helles Bock is lighter in color, though just as potent as a traditional bock.

Home brewing German beer recipes is an excellent way to get you brewing “chops”. We have several beer recipe kits featuring German style beers. All the way from Kölsch to Bock, there is a favorite German beer style waiting for you. Which one will you brew first?
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

For all-grain brewers, sparging is the final step of the mash process when the grains are rinsed with hot water to remove the last remaining sugars from the mash. There are two sparging techniques: batch sparging and fly sparging. This article will explore the two methods and help you decide whether you should do a batch sparge or a fly sparge when homebrewing.

What is Fly Sparging?
Fly sparging is a sparging technique that is typical of the way many professional brewers rinse their grains. A rotating sparge arm or similar instrument delivers a shower of sparge water over the grain bed as wort is drawn from the bottom of the mash tun. The trick is to draw wort from the mash tun at the appropriate speed to “set” the grain bed so it can be used as a filter, and then start the flow of water from the sparge arm at a rate that does not flood the mash tun. Essentially, the liquid level inside the mash tun remains the same, with wort running out of the mash tun and water coming in through the sparge arm at roughly the same speed.
When trying to remember the difference between the two sparging techniques, I think of the sparge arm “flying” above the mash. If you’re into do-it-yourself projects, you may be interested in constructing your own rotating sparge arm. You can also simulate the fly sparging method by pouring your sparge water through a colander or screen over the mash. Though the fly sparge method is an efficient way of sparging your grains, a true fly sparge requires some additional equipment, time, and effort.

What is Batch Sparging?
By comparison, batch sparging is a sparging technique that is faster and simpler process. Instead of a constant rain of water over the grain bed, a batch sparge involves adding all of the sparge water at once – in one batch.
Typically, the homebrewer will first drain all of the wort from the mash into the brew kettle. These may be called the “first runnings”. Depending on your beer recipe, this may yield 50-70% of the total wort needed for the boil. Then the remaining volume of sparge water is added to the mash tun (some brewers will stir the grains) and drained into the brew kettle. If more wort is needed, you can always do another batch sparging.
For example, let’s say you’re brewing a five-gallon batch. You know that you want 5.5 gallons in the fermenter (the extra half-gallon to account for trub). From experience, you know that you boil off 1.5 gallons of wort during a sixty-minute boil, so you need to start with 7 gallons of wort in the brew kettle. After your mash, you’ve collected 3.5 gallons of wort in your brew kettle. Batch sparge with an additional 3.5 gallons of water (usually with the temperature in the ballpark of 165-170˚F) to reach your desired pre-boil volume.

So which sparging technique is better?
Neither the batch sparging method nor fly sparging method is inherently better than the other. It all comes down to what you prefer as a homebrewer. Fly sparging tends to get a slightly better brewhouse efficiency, but it requires extra time and equipment. Batch sparging is faster, but there’s a higher risk of losing efficiency.
Both of these sparging techniques will ultimately get the job done. Try them both and choose for yourself the method that works best for you.
Are you an all-grain homebrewer? Do you prefer a batch sparge or fly sparge?
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

You’re brewing a beer and it tastes just fine after primary fermentation. You move it to secondary, bottle it, and when you go to taste it…butter bomb! This sounds like a problem with diacetyl.

What is Diacetyl?
Diacetyl is a natural byproduct of fermentation. A small amount of diacetyl is acceptable in certain beer styles, most notably in a variety of ales and a handful of lager styles, but most lagers should not present any diacetyl. Excessive diacetyl in any beer can be a defect.

Causes of Diacetyl in Beer
Diacetyl is produced when beer is fermented. Diacetyl can be produced in excess when yeast is stressed, such as when fermentation temperature is too high or wort isn’t sufficiently aerated. Diacetyl can also be caused by bacterial infection.

Determination of Diacetyl in Beer
Diacetyl is detected as a butter taste in the beer’s flavor and aroma.
The challenge is that there may be a diacetyl precursor in a sample of beer that you can’t taste or smell: acetolactate. So how do you test for diacetyl when it isn’t actually present in your beer? How do you catch the diacetyl before it’s too late?

How to Test for Diacetyl in Beer

1. Using cleaned and sanitized equipment, pull two small (~2 oz.) samples of wort from the primary fermenter and cover them with aluminum foil.

2. Place one in the refrigerator and the other in a hot water bath. The heated sample should rest at 140-160˚F for 20 minutes.

3. Place the heated sample in the refrigerator with the other sample (or in an ice bath).

4. When both samples are chilled, take them out for a taste. If you can taste diacetyl in the unheated sample, there is diacetyl in your beer. If you can taste diacetyl in the heated sample but not the unheated sample, your beer has acetolactate, which was converted into diacetyl by the high temperature. In either case, do a diacetyl rest. For an ale, this may just be a couple extra days in the primary fermenter. For a lager, you should increase the temperature of the beer to about 60˚F, which will help the yeast “clean up” the diacetyl in your beer.

Tips for Preventing Diacetyl in Beer

• Clean and sanitize equipment thoroughly to prevent infection.
• Shop for beer yeast depending on diacetyl production – check the manufacturer’s website.
• If brewing with a high amount of adjuncts, consider using supplemental yeast nutrient.
• Aerate wort well, using pure oxygen if possible.
• Pitch an adequate amount of healthy, viable yeast.
• Keep fermentation temperature within the yeast manufacturer’s specifications.
• Perform a diacetyl rest after primary fermentation. In the case of lagers, raise the temperature to 60-68˚F for 2-3 days before transferring to secondary and cold conditioning.

Have you ever had issues with diacetyl or a butter taste in your beer? What have you done to remedy the situation?
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.