Floating Signs

I love to brew (and drink) my own beer. To me it is a fusion of both science and faith, of technology and mysticism, and, well . . . it’s beer.

The science of brewing is straightforward and multivariate. Both ales and lagers are made from malted grain, hops, water and yeast. Put them together and a few weeks to a few months later you will probably have beer. How you put them together is a question that can be answered ad infinitum. Each recipe can be crafted differently than the last. What style should be brewed next? What types and roasts of malts would yield the perfect color? How much and which varieties of hops should I use to produce earthy, citrusy, or floral aromas? Brewing is a playground for those who love to question and to experiment.

The mysticism in beer brewing lies not in the preparations of the brewer, but in the metabolic enthusiasm of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Ale yeast. 

Outside of my family, yeast may be my favorite type of organism. 

After choosing the right recipe for the style of beer to brew, mashing the grains, boiling the “wort” with specific amounts of hops added at different times, after all this organization and control, the rest of the process is left up to single celled fungi that eat the sugars and the organic compounds surrounding them. We have a taste for their wastes; alcohol, carbon dioxide, and esters that lend the beer different flavors. Though I can comment on the chemistry of yeast excretions, compare yeast subspecies, and comment on the fruitiness or dryness of their wastes, how they turn a slurry of brown sticky liquid into beer is more like magic than anything else.

Yeast magic (which scientists sometimes call “fermentation”) can last anywhere from 3 days to two weeks and during that time I am in the dark. I’ve taken a step into Kierkegaardian discomfort, full of hope and worry. I don’t know exactly what is happening in the mystical bucket and I want a sign.

One of the ways to tell what is happening on the yeast front (and easing my faith-challenged mind) is by taking measurements of the density of the brew at different times. To measure this, I use a hydrometer. 

A hydrometer is essentially a beer buoy. In denser liquids the hydrometer floats higher, bobbing about near the surface. In less dense solutions, the hydrometer sinks. By comparing the first measurement (original gravity) with subsequent measurements, a brewer can calculate the amount of alcohol produced by the yeast and can get an idea of how close the beer is to a final target (final gravity) and final alcohol amounts.

The hydrometer won’t tell me what the beer will taste like in a month, or how it will age, but it will tell me approximately how much maltose my yeasty friends are or are not using. It can tell me whether the young brew is going to be sweeter or more dry, or even if the yeast cells are done with their magic. It is a floating beer sign.

It occurred to me as I brewed my last batch (a stout with a sweet grain bill and hops I harvested in 2010), that I could really use a type of hydrometer for my daily life, a kind of floating sign that could give me some general feedback about how I’m doing as a Dad, a husband, a teacher. Then I realized that I had several. My daughters (who at their young ages lack any kind of filter and tend to be very overt in their signing). My students. My wife (who, thankfully has a very kind filter and allows me to be my geeky self the vast majority of the time). My family and friends. 

This blog is about floating signs. 

It’s also about beer.