Subject: Brewed! or The Beer's of East Africa No. 4
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 11:17:15 -0400
From: Dennis G Elmer <skipafrica@juno.com>
To: dbgrowler@provide.net

Hey,

        Arusha is about to experience a new revolution.  The first ever
ale brewery is about to officially open its doors here, and yours truly,
the ever vigilant DBG foreign correspondent is not only going to be there
to record events firsthand, but also to create the entertainment as we
go. . .

        We brewed the first batch on Thursday, June 28th and boy did it
remind me of the time when I did my first batch of beer.  No, it was
worse than that.  It reminds me of the time I was a Faulknerian mongoloid
idiot man-child and tried to brew my first batch.  No, it was worse than
that. . .

        Boy is it going to taste bad.  First, while I quite properly
brought up the point that we would need some kind of grain mill two days
before brewing, we of course did nothing to acquire one.  So while the
mash water was heating and I was setting up the equipment (and blithely
ignoring the fact that you had not wandered out to the garage and crushed
the grain prior to, you guessed it- doughing in) the grain politely but
firmly sat there refusing to spontaneously crack into the appropriate
sized bits of starch and husk that I needed.   So imagine my surprise
when we came up to temperature and I reached for the bag to find it in
the original condition in which I had left it!  No problem, says I, we'll
simply meander down the lane (a bit of a picturesque word for the rutted
and crater strewn driveway to hell they passed off as a road to the
unfortunate car owning individuals that chose to live in that direction.
For the pedestrians were lucky to have such large and jagged toe holds to
ascend the steep and slippery slope.  I knew there was a reason for
boulders to live in the road.  They make excellent handholds when
scrambling uphill. . .) where was I, oh yes, upon reflection and careful
re-reading of this paragraph, I was meandering to the nearest grain mill
that I just know that I say when we passed up the cliff, er, road.  Said
grain mill had only two settings- 1.  Crack the white kernals of what
they call corn here (imagine hominy on steroids) into exactly two pieces
or  2.  Fine ground flour that remarkably resembles fine ground flower.
Guess which one I chose?  Wrong, I chose the entertaining path of having
him dump it through the large setting so the grain would have the fun of
a thrill ride from hopper too bag with hardly a scratch or two on every
100th grain or so.  Wheeee!  And only 100 shillings.    Do it again, do
it again. . .

        Did I mention that when we arrived for the 9 AM brew we
discovered that the regulator for the gas cylinder was in fact a fine
replica of a regulator but apparently did nothing to actually facilitate
the removal of gas from a cylinder?  It had a stem that was finely
crafted to end exactly 1/16th of a milimeter above the post that needed
to be depressed (did I mention depressed yet) to liberate the gas that I
knew just wanted to come out and play the ride the chute game like its
friend Mr Malt.  So we decide to drop a small pebble in and allow that to
make a spacer that would then depress said post.  Worked like a charm.
So well in fact that when the regulator spontaneously popped off the vent
of gas from the pebble now wedged in there real tight against the post
sounded like a locomotive venting steam in the 8 ft x 8 ft. space we were
occupying.  First thought, how to trample Fred and Sixbert (my trusty and
faithful breweing companions) as I vault the cylinder from the back of
the room and get the hell out of there before the lovely headline
"Arusha's First Ale Brewers Immolate Themselves and Three Goats in
Stupidity Induced Accident" became a reality.

        But then common sense took over.  Why would propane spontaneously
burst into flame?  It's not as if there was a source of flame to ignite
it, right?  So the sight of Fred casually leaning over with his Swiss
Army Knife (that he has never killed a gazelle with) and trying to flick
out the stone with a cigarette hanging from his mouth reassured me that
all would be well.  Just after I peed my pants.  But get it out he did
and hardly anyone lost any eyebrows. . .

        So that experiment wisely abandoned, but too stupid to not brew
at all, we jumped in the car and headed back to town to get a new
regulator.  At this point Sixbert points out that we would have had to go
to town anyway as we had, of course, left the fancy new thermometer and
hydrometer that had travelled 15,000 miles just to join in the fun.  Said
items collected one hour later, we were back to brewing.

        It was at this point that we had a flame source and were ready to
heat the aforementioned mash water to bring it to temp and tackle that
stubbornly resistant grain when I asked why they were digging that
particularly large trench that we had driven (if you want to call it
that) across on the two well placed stones at wheel width that spanned
the gully.  Oh, because there is no water was the blithe reply, the pipe
is busted just there and they are going to fix it.  Now, I realize that
neither Fred nor Sixbert have ever brewed.  But as a consumer for the
former and a retailer for the latter of fine Tanzanian beverages, surely
both must have realized that the reason beer is wet may be in part due to
water.  Besides, I reasoned logically, our label says Water, malt, hops
and yeast.  Notice the order of importance here.

        Easy says they, this is Africa, and I had to agree.  It was
Africa.  So we wisely decided to walk up the road with a 30 liter
container and a twenty liter container and fill them at someone else's
tap and carry them back down to our little brewery on the hill as I like
to fondly refer to it.  Did I mention the aforementioned road?  About the
footholds?  And handholds?  50 liters of water will not carry itself.  No
matter how you beg or plead.  I suggested turning on the tap and waiting
until the newly formed stream reached out place, but no, let us be men
and fetch the water down the hill and all come tumbling after.

        It is at this point that I can return to the narrative that I
never left.  The water was heating, I was setting up, noone had yet been
killed and people look better without eyebrows anyway.  So after having
subjected the grain to a grinding that did not occur, I decided to
re-weigh it just in case things had changed.  Apparently a scratch or two
on every 100th grain shaves off one half kilo from a total 4 kilos of
measured malt.  Of course when I say that I went to re-weigh the malt I
meant that I again meandered down the lane (isn't that a lovely picture)
to the nearest duka (shop) that sells dry goods to borrow their scale as
we wisely decided that leaving the scale and all that excess malt back
home would be a good idea.  So one half kilo lighter than our original
intention, we set about crushing the grain.

        I'm glad it was a half-kilo lighter.  It still took us about an
hour and a half to accomplish what the $120 grain mill I refused to buy
in the US would have taken 10 minutes to do.  If you were slow about it.
First we borrowed a kinu (mortar that is anywhere from 1-4 feet tall and
has a correspondingly large pestle for bashing things in it with) and
bashed away.  Ours was of the 1 foot variety and a larger one was not to
found in all of the village around.  So when we realized that the pointed
twig that was apparently our pestle was crushing the grains singly
against the bottom of the mortar, we went to plan B.  We put the grain on
a piece of canvas and passed the aforementioned twig that served as our
pestle over the grain in the vain hope that it would work like a rolling
pin.  Now I know why we have rolling pins.  Next we folded the piece of
canvas over and bashed it repeatedly and collected the 10 or twelve
grains that were actually hit and repeated the process all over again.
Eventually someone took pity on us and realized that we were not playing
with our food, but were actually trying to crush it.  So they brought a
fancy hand grinder from France that had smething about Legumes in french
on it.  And smelled like coffee.  You simply dumpt the beans, er malt,
into the hopper and turn the crank and this ingenious little device then
stirs the grain so that you get to see the ones that were previously on
the bottom come whirling up to the top and the ones on tip slowly
disappear under their advancing friends.  And occsionally one grain would
accidently get caught against the side and would accidently crack.
Actually, I exaggerate.  It was worse than that.  Did I mention one hour
and a half.  Twice through the grinder and we had maybe 50% of the grains
actually cracked.  Good enough, says I, we ain't building no piano.

        By this time the water has been up to temp for about 2 hours.  I
then decide it is time to look at the mash/lauter ton before dumping in
the water.  The typical two bucket setup one would expect to find in a
third world brewing situation that has no equipment or expertise.  Boy, I
didn't know you could make holes that little in a bucket.  Small enough
that the surface tension of water is too great to actually allow water to
enter the lower chamber and air to exit when the buckets are pushed
together.  Opening the valve helped, it allowed the air to be pushed out
by the 1-2 drops a second that were actually getting through the holes
that were accidently made large enough to allow liquid to pass.

        Did you know that if you cut a strand of barbed wire off of a
fence and twist it about so that you have 4 prongs facing in the same
direction and then hold this device under a flame you will burn your
hand?  And you can also then press the prongs into the bottom of a bucket
that will create the most perfectly sized holes for getting hot plactic
on to the remaining unburned surfaces of your hand.  And if you are still
too stupid or insane to give up, you can then brew.

        Did I mention the term doughing in yet?  Good, because I like
that term.

        We did that and guess what?  Even in Africa when all around you
is chaos and your eyebrows are gone, 176 degree Farenheit water when
added to 3.5 kilograms (notice the excellent mixing of measrement
systems) will fall to precisely the temperature you want if you are
willing to accept the exact temperature to which it has fallen as the
temperature that you want.  In this case, only 2-3 liters of
alternatingly hot and cold infusions were necessary to make the
temperature a pleasant 150 degrees Celsius.  Sorry, wrong system.
Farenheit.  We then stripped off our clothes and ran around stark raving
mad in the streets, no, wrapped them around the buckets to keep them warm
as the temp by this time had fallen to 60 degrees outside.  Gotta keep
your beer warm.

        I forget what happened next, but I am sure it was fun.  Despite
having read countless books that I had supplied on brewing and despite my
400 recountings of the process, Sixbert was still surprised that the
grain had to sit for an hour and a half in the mash tun.  And an hour to
sparge.  And an hour and a half to boil.  And a half hour to chill.  But
we made it throug with only repeating the times 40-50 times before we all
understood that we were going to be there a while.  That's when we
ordered the grilled dead cow.  I remember that part because I took a
picture of it.

        Did you also know that a two bucket system like the one I am
using takes 7 liters of water to reach the bottom of the inner bucket.
And that despite that fact that I knew that one half kilo had evaporated
from the malt prior to cruching it and that another half kilo must be
scattered around on the floor from all the rolling, pounding and grinding
(to use the term loosely), I still added 8 liters of water to the bucket
before dumping in the grain.  This in addition to the 2-3 liters
necessary to come to proper mashing temp.  Pale ales are best mashed in
with a thick mash.  Did I mention this beer was going to taste horrible?

        Four kilos of malt (8.8 pounds for those of you too confused at
this point to follow this narrative) in an effective liquid content of 18
liters is not a thick mash.  And it was only 50% crushed.  Is it a
surprise to anyone here (boy you're lucky you're not here) that the first
runnings were a whopping 1.020?  A nice cloudy run-off just like you want
to see. . .er, quick temperature check.  120 degrees from the tap.  After
having added 5 liters of 212 degree water to the mash at 150 degrees.
Did you know that in a two bucket system on a 60 degree day that the 7
liters below the inner bucket will drop to .14 degrees in minutes even
when wearing all of your clothes?  Impossible? Do the calculations
yourself and you'll see that it is the only possible explanation for the
run-off temperature.  And the cloudy wort.  And the fine conversion and
extraction rates you can achieve at 120 degrees.

        At least I could vigorously boil it for a few hours and
concentrate the wort and make a 10 liter batch.  So off we went and fired
up the kettle.  It actually boiled for a while.  Enough to form a hot
break.  Sixbert got to see the cornflakes that he had been bugging me
about the first 7 hours of the process (when are we gonna be there. . .).
 Then when I added the 3/4 once of Galena pellets I apparently
overwhelmed the flame because the boil never came back.  We watched this,
mistified for about a half hour.  Then we tried closing the window and
the door.  Fred wrapped his shirt around the kettle, apparently reasoning
that if the flame could not even boil water it would certainly not burn
ordinary cloth.  Surprisingly he was right.

        That's when I remembered the spider's ass.  Quickly and with
confidence I extiguished the flame and grabbed the burner.  Boy, it sure
was a good thing that my burnt hands were already covered in melted
plastic.  Grabbing a hot burner is a great way to remove melted plastic
from ones flesh.  Post yelping, I grabbed the burner with a cloth and
unscrewed the fixture holding the jets in place.  To my surprise, I did
not find a spider's ass blocking the dual jets.  Spider's asses are not
that big.  But it wasn't even blocking one jet.  It was worse than that.
Apparently the chap that had put the water impervious holes in the lauter
tun had also bored the gas impervious holes that served as jets for my
new cooker.  Oh despair.  I've already mentioned depressed, right?

        But then I remembered.  The iron age followed the bronze age and
bronze weapons were no longer made for a reason.  So I pulled out my
trusty Swiss Army Knife (that has also never been used to kill a gazelle)
and pulled out that little tool that noone knows what it is for.  You
know the one.  The little hook shaped thing with the small bump on the
end.  Actually I do know what it is for and if anyone can submit the
proper guess to the editors of the Growler they will win the
International Accolades Award.  I then folded this impressive tool back
up and unfolded the awl instead, all those tools look the same when
folded and you know you are never going to grab the right one the first
time anyway.  I then carefully bored a 1/4 inch hole into each jet to
really get a flame going.  Besides, noone had eyebrows left anway.

        Worked like a charm.  Big flames.  Lots of boiling.  Lots of fun.
 Time for the finishing hops.  Time for the wort chiller. Time to end the
insane nightmare and go home.  Back up.  Wort chiller.  Back up further.
No water except up the hill.  With a hot kettle.  And already burned
hands, but at least my knees were ok and the last burn had just healed,
damn it (Batch 200, 2001).  But wait.  The 15,000 shilling bribe plied
earlier to the workmen had come through. The house next door had water.
And we had a long hose.  And I like short incomplete sentences.

        Hose connectors are unknown in Tanzania.  Instead what you do is
take a bit of hose twice the diameter of the next hose or fitting you
would like to attach it too and then you take a length of inner tube
rubber and you wrap this as tightly as you possibly can around the two
ends that have been put together and you then untrap the poor unfortunate
fool who allowed his thumb to be used as the spacer that allows the free
end of the rubber to inserted under the last loop to form an impenetrable
barrier and then you make sure that you are no where near this junction
when the tap is turned on because of course it is going to leak and spray
like hell because as you know you should have tried better to match the
hose diameters anyway.  I like long sentences too.

        1/16" inch copper tubing is not the best choice for a wort
chiller, just so you know.

        And boy does the pressure in a hose rise when water goes from 1
inch to 1/16th of an inch.

        Did I mention the spray?

        But the beer got cool.  I think it was tired of waiting.

        For those of you that were paying attention earlier, and for
those of you still paying attention now, you may have noticed earlied
that I mentioned 3/4 of an once of Galena.  That's a Russian name,
according to Fred and it means 12% AA.  Despite that fact that I knew
that I had only 3 kilos of malt instead of 4 and that my target gravity
was impossible with only 50% of the malt crushed and that I had only
collected about 15 liters and had not actually boiled any of it for more
than a half hour I still insisted on lowering my hops by 1/4 ounce from
the intended 35 IBU level from the original hop bill.  I refuse to let
reality interfere with my calculations.

        Beer cooling and only one more thing to do.  I have no specialty
grains.  So carmel syrup would have to do to add a little color and
flavor to the finished product.  I don't have carmel syrup either but
they do have sugar here.  Wonderful raw sugar that would make a lovely
syrup.  Now I was told all I have to do is boil the sugar and you have
carmel.  In my head I pictured dumping sugar in a pot, putting it to the
flame and ending up with blackeded and charred grains of sugar.  Fred
comes to the resuce when I ask about it and says take sugar a moisten it
and then boil.  Lovely sugar syrup.  So we do that.  Never let Fred come
to your rescue, he's the guy that drove my car off a bridge inot a river
because he missed and his story on what happened is, and I quote, "I
don't know".

        Sugar and water does indeed boil and it does make a lovely amber
syrup that gets thicker and thicker as you boil it.  And then an amazing
thing happens.  Just as you pull it off the heat to use, the last of the
water sizzles out of the hot pot and the whole thing recrystalizes in
about 1/10th of a second and you have slightly browner sugar than you
started with.  Lovely.

        Sixbert is a trained chef.  And also a very patient man.  After
watching us do this, he calmly says that to boil sugar you take sugar and
put it in a pot and then apply a flame to said pot and it boils.  We
don't beleive him as the experience of youth has taught us to doubt
everyone who knows more than us on any subject.  We go out and buy more
sugar and then Sixbert dumps it in a pot, turns on the hear and calmly
makes a lovely carmet by melting and boiling the sugar.  I took a picture
of that too.  I should learn to trust the images in my head, but that
scares me because I am actually privy to the images in my head.

        Addiing boiling carmel to cool wort makes a lovely sizzle and
then you have to stir like hell to get it to dissolve again.  Should not
have messed around so much when the wort was 212 degrees now should we?
But dissolve it did and 27 tea strainers hoplessly plugged with pelleted
hops, hot and cold breaks and little bits of blue plastic from burned
holes that apparently flake off and hide themselves in cloudy wort as it
passes through a hose into your kettle later we had beer in the
fermenter.  Add the yeast, scurry out of there before anyone can accuse
you of the mess and go home.

        Then go back and take a sample for the gravity reading becasue
after all, this is a learning exercise and you need to know how you did
with the new equipment and ingredients.  1.040 actually, which is
surprising as hell if you didn't know that I added 10% sugar to get the
gravity up there.  I panicked, sorry.  I already mentioned the beer is
going to taste horrible, right?  The wort is bitter.  For those of you
that have ever taken chloroquin (come visit me for the chance),
chloroquin is less bitter. And chloroquin is more bitter than compari.

        I don't think that Tanzania breweries need fear the newest kids
on the block.  I know there is a learning curve to everything but the
flat line I am looking at has no perceptible rise in the near future.  I
have a list about 3 feet long of the things we need to change and improve
along the way.  I have a smaller list of the things we did right.  It
says:  1.  Ordered dead cow and ate it.  Maybe I'll skip the whole new
brewery thing and just head to the bar and eat dead cow.  After all, they
have better beer there right now.

Yours truly,

Skip, the Faulknerian Mongoloid Idiot Man-child Elmer
Foreign Correspondent and Brewer Savant