The Wiki for Tale 5 is in read-only mode and is available for archival and reference purposes only. Please visit the current Tale 11 Wiki in the meantime.

If you have any issues with this Wiki, please post in #wiki-editing on Discord or contact Brad in-game.

Guides/Beer

From ATITD5
Revision as of 14:38, 24 December 2010 by Yerbouti (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigationJump to search
Delimiter Large.png
Tale 4 information
  • Information on this page has been lifted from Tale 4
  • Do not assume any information on this page is valid for Tale 5
  • Please update this page so that it becomes the relevant information for Tale 5
  • If you can confirm information is valid for Tale 5, place the symbol T5ok small.gif next to that item with the {{5ok}} tag
  • Once this page is fully updated with Tale 5 information, please remove this stub
Delimiter Large.png


Brewers!

In an effort to make the sharing and finding of beer recipes (and yeast locations) easier,
a database has been created at http://beer.drunkenfumble.com/. If you're interested in
sharing your research, please check it out.

Overview

Beer.jpg

The national beverage of Egypt. Beer is brewed in a Beer Kettle using various combinations of malt, wheat and honey, stored in a Small Barrel, and served at a Ceremonial Tasting Table.

Aside from being drunk to increase Beer Tasting skill (an important route to Perception improvement), beer may be brewed into ambrosia for festivals, or distilled into spirits using an Alembic.

Beer Characteristics

Individual beers can vary across many characteristics, depending on the ingredients and yeasts used in their brewing:

  • Potency, or alcohol content: no special potency, Potent, or Very Potent.
  • Color: no color, Brown, or Black.
  • Sweetness: Dry, Sweet, or neither.
  • Special Properties: Fruity and/or Spicy.
  • Flavors: up to two of Barley, Bread, Honey, Banana, Blackberry, Cherry, Date, Grapefruit, Orange, Pear, Prune, Jasmine, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Clove, or Nutmeg. Such flavors can be "bold", "noticeable", or merely a "hint".

Beer is stored in small barrels. A barrel of beer is very heavy, with weight 100 and bulk 1. There is no way to empty a full barrel of beer other than by using it (by unkegging it at a tasting table, or by distilling it or making it into ambrosia).

Spoilage

If beer stays too long in the barrel (or on the tasting table), it will eventually spoil, rendering it unfit for drinking. Beer can only go bad after it has been kegged; it can sit in the kettle indefinitely before then. The more potent a beer, the longer it will last after kegging.

  • A Very Potent beer will last over a week.
  • A Potent beer seems to last one Teppy day.
  • A non-potent beer lasts only one Teppy hour.

You will not be told whether a beer has gone bad until you attempt to drink it. Beer will also spoil on the tasting table if left out long enough. Spoilage does not affect a beer's fitness for distilling, ambrosia making, or donating to university research.

Drinking Beer

BeerTasting.png

Beer is drunk at a Ceremonial Tasting Table. Served in mugs, each barrel provides 21 servings. Click on a mug to fill it, then click on it again to drink.

Drinking beer differs from wine in two important respects. First, unlike wine glasses, all mugs are identical -- there is no mug on the table that is "better" for drinking. Grab whatever you like. Mugs are provided automatically and for free; they are not individually crafted as wine glasses are.

Second, the results of a taste of beer are the same for everyone. That is, what you taste is exactly what the barrel has to offer; there is no "beer palate" to refine. (That said, multiple Beer Tasting points can be had from the same barrel -- see the Beer Tasting article for discussion.)


Beer Making Overview

Beer is made from honey, malt and/or wheat (anything else displays "You can only use Malt and Honey in beer."), brewed in a Beer Kettle. You must have the Beer Brewing tech (available at a University of the Human Body) to make beer.

It takes 60 Wood and 25 Water to start a kettle of beer. Once started, the beer making process goes through two phases:

  • Brewing (20 minutes) -- in which grain and honey are added to the brew.
  • Fermentation (40 minutes) -- in which local microbes enter the kettle and convert the brew's sugars into -- ideally -- alcohol.

The brewing phase counts down from a 1200-second timer. At any point during this stage, you may add grain and/or honey. The type and amount of ingredients, and how early or late in the process they are added, determine a number of factors -- not least the amount of sugar and vitamins available in fermenting.

The fermentation phase counts down from a 2400-second timer. At any point during this stage, you may seal the kettle. Sealing the kettle prevents any (more) microbes from entering. While you can get drinkable beers from an unsealed kettle, most of the time you will want to seal the kettle after the yeast microbe has entered, and before bad microbes enter. (See below, #How to Find and Isolate Yeast.)

Once the fermenting is done, you may leave the beer in the kettle indefinitely. With an empty small barrel in your inventory, you may Take the beer (kegging it). You are given a display showing the statistics of your beer.

  • If the beer is undrinkable, it will automatically be thrown out, and your barrel is left empty.
  • If it is drinkable, you are given an opportunity to name the beer for later use. (Once you use the beer, your barrel is returned.)


The Brewing Phase

The brewing phase lasts for 1200 seconds, or roughly 20 minutes. At any time during this phase, you may add ingredients (honey, malt, and wheat) to the kettle. The type and amount of these ingredients will determine some of the attributes of your beer. These attributes are further modified by the time at which the ingredient is added.

  • Glucose is a sugar, and is provided by all ingredients. Honey adds 10 glucose per unit. Light, medium, and dark roasted malt add 2 glucose per unit. Raw malt adds 1 glucose per unit. Burnt malt adds no glucose. Wheat provides 120% of the glucose of a similarly roasted malt.
  • Maltose is a sugar created by grain. Light, medium, and dark roasted malt add 10 maltose per unit. Raw malt adds 5 maltose per unit. Burnt malt adds 2 maltose per unit. Wheat provides half the maltose of a similarly roasted malt.
  • Barley flavor is created by malt. The earlier in the brewing phase you add the malt, the stronger the barley flavor. Raw malt gives twice as much barley flavor as light, medium, and dark roasted malt. Burnt malt has no barley flavor at all. The counterpart flavor in wheat beer is Bread.
  • Bread flavor is created by wheat. The earlier in the brewing phase you add the wheat, the stronger the Bread flavor. Raw wheat gives twice as much Bread flavor as light, medium, and dark roasted wheat; burnt wheat has no Bread flavor at all.
    • In addition, Bread flavor is produced by yeast whenever there is wheat in the brew. This is added to the Bread flavor created by the ingredients. The amount of flavor created per alcohol varies by yeast.
  • Honey flavor is created by honey. It works the opposite of barley flavor: the later in the brewing phase you add the honey, the stronger the honey flavor.
    • In addition, Honey flavor is produced by yeast whenever there is malt in the brew. This is added to any Honey flavor created by the ingredients. The amount of flavor created per alcohol varies by yeast.
  • Color is created by malt. The earlier in the brewing phase you add the malt, the darker the color. Also, the darker the roast of the malt, the darker the color. Burnt malt is mainly used to create color.
  • Tannin, a bitter flavor, is created by malt. The earlier in the brewing phase you add the malt, the greater the effect on tannin. Also, the darker the roast of the malt, the less tannin it creates.
  • Vitamins, which are consumed by microbes during fermentation, are created by malt and honey. The later in the brewing phase you add the ingredient, the more vitamins are created. The darker the roast of the malt, the fewer vitamins it creates; honey creates fewer vitamins than dark roasted malt, and burnt malt creates no vitamins at all. Raw malt is mainly used for vitamins.
  • Grassy flavor is created by raw and light roasted malt. (Grassy flavor can also be created by yeast during fermentation.) The earlier in the brewing phase you add the malt, the greater its effect on grassy flavor. Raw malt adds significantly more grassy flavor than light roasted malt. If grassy flavor goes above 100, your beer will be undrinkable. The counterpart flavor in wheat beer is Herbal.
  • Herbal flavor is created by raw and light roasted wheat. It functions the same as Grassy flavor does with malt beer, except that a high Herbal does not appear to ruin a brew.

Note that Banana, Blackberry, Cherry, Date, Grapefruit, Orange, Pear, Prune, Jasmine, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Clove, Nutmeg, and Nasty flavors are determined entirely by the yeast being used. They are not created by the ingredients.

Malt beer is able to produce the following flavors: Barley, Banana, Cherry, Date, Orange, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Grassy, Nasty.

Wheat beer is able to produce the following flavors: Blackberry, Grapefruit, Pear, Prune, Jasmine, Vanilla, Clove. They also produce Bread and Herbal flavors, which are the equivalent of Barley and Grassy in barley beer.


Ingredient Characteristics

Ingredient Glucose Maltose Color Vitamins Barley Flavor Bread Flavor Honey Flavor Tannin Flavor Grassy Flavor Herbal Flavor
Malt (Burnt) -- 2 12 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Malt (Dark Roasted) 2 10 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 6000 / (T + 240) 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- -- 1.5 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- --
Malt (Medium Roasted) 2 10 3 * (T + 240) / 1440 8400 / (T + 240) 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- -- 2 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- --
Malt (Light Roasted) 2 10 1.5 * (T + 240) / 1440 12000 / (T + 240) 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- -- 3 * (T + 240) / 1440 1.5 * (T + 240) / 1440 --
Malt (Raw) 1 5 1 * (T + 240) / 1440 15600 / (T + 240) 12 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- -- 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 12 * (T + 240) / 1440 --
Wheat (Burnt) -- 1 12 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Wheat (Dark Roasted) 2.4 5 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 8400 / (T + 240) -- 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- 1.5 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- --
Wheat (Medium Roasted) 2.4 5 3 * (T + 240) / 1440 9600 / (T + 240) -- 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- 2 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- --
Wheat (Light Roasted) 2.4 5 1.5 * (T + 240) / 1440 10800 / (T + 240) -- 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- 3 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- 1.5 * (T + 240) / 1440
Wheat (Dried, Raw) 1.2 2.5 1 * (T + 240) / 1440 12000 / (T + 240) -- 12 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- 6 * (T + 240) / 1440 -- 12 * (T + 240) / 1440
Honey 10 -- -- 1200 / (T + 240) -- -- 1200 / (T + 60) -- -- --

T = Time remaining (based on nearest tick; see below)

Formula is for 1 deben of ingredient -- multiply result by # of ingredient.

Each calculation is rounded off to the nearest whole number.

Example #1: Adding 30 Malt (Light Roasted) with 300 seconds remaining creates 60 glucose, 300 maltose, 17 color, 667 vitamins, 68 Barley flavor, 34 Tannin flavor, and 17 Grassy flavor.

Example #2: Adding 30 Wheat (Medium Roasted) with 900 seconds remaining creates 72 glucose, 150 maltose, 71 color, 253 vitamins, 143 Bread flavor, and 48 Tannin flavor.

Example #3: Adding 60 honey with 600 seconds remaining creates 600 glucose, 86 vitamins, and 109 Honey flavor.


Timing and "Ticks"

For the purpose of these above formulas, it's important to note briefly that the game views the brewing phase not as 1200 seconds, but as a series of "ticks" spaced 12 seconds apart. Ticks occur on every second evenly divisible by 12 (except for 0): 1200, 1188, 1176, etc. When making calculations, the game will round off to the nearest tick. If the add time is exactly halfway between ticks (e.g. 1194 is halfway between the ticks at 1200 and 1188), it will round downward to the lower tick. The only exception is the final six seconds of the brewing phase (between 1 and 6 seconds remaining): this range is not rounded down to zero, but rounded up to 12.

In other words, adding an ingredient with anywhere from 1200 and 1195 seconds remaining will be calculated by the game as an add time of 1200. Adding between 1194 and 1183 will be treated as 1188, and so on. At the end of the brewing phase, anything between 1 and 18 is counted as 12. To put it graphically:

Actual Add Time Effective Add Time
1200 - 1195 1200
1194 - 1183 1188
1182 - 1171 1176
(...) (...)
42 - 31 36
30 - 19 24
18 - 1 12

The Fermentation Phase

*http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale3/Guides/Beer (Link to T3 Brewing Guide -- may be out of date and/or inaccurate)

The fermentation phase lasts 2400 seconds, or roughly 40 minutes. During this time, local microbes -- most importantly, yeast -- will enter the kettle and go to work on the sugar in the brew. It is not possible to add further ingredients during this phase.

During fermentation you may take one action: sealing the kettle. Sealing the kettle prevents any further microbes from entering for the remainder of the phase. This allows control (in a limited fashion) over which microbes will act in your brew.


How Microbes Behave

(For a full listing of microbes and their characteristics, see the Microbe article.)

There are 100 numbered microbes in the game, of which over half are useful yeasts. The remainder are Lactobacilli, Molds, and Acetobacteria -- these are generally harmful to a brew and should be avoided. In order to make drinkable beer, a brew needs alcohol and therefore at least one yeast. Thus, it is necessary in many spots, and useful in others, to isolate a yeast before you try to make beer.

A desirable microbe which converts sugars to alcohol and flavors.
  • Mold
An undesirable microbe which converts sugars to mold.
  • Acetobacterium
An undesirable microbe which converts sugars to acetic acid (vinegar).
  • Lactobacillus
An undesirable microbe which converts sugars to lactic acid.

(For simplicity, this article will use "yeast" and "microbe" interchangeably, since yeasts are the important microbes for brewing beer.)

All microbes consume the sugar (glucose and maltose) in a brew, generating their product -- alcohol, in the case of yeasts -- on a 1:1 basis. Glucose is always converted first, then maltose. Microbes also consume vitamins as they work. A yeast will produce alcohol up to its alcohol cap provided it has enough sugar and vitamins to eat.

Every microbe shares six characteristics: growth rate, alcohol cap, glucose floor, maltose floor, vitamin ratio, and vitamin threshold.

  • Growth rate is either 10%, 20%, 30%, or 40%. During fermentation, a microbe will consume sugar and vitamins in a series of "bites". Each "bite" is larger than the one before it. The microbe's growth rate describes how quickly the bites increase in size.
  • Alcohol cap is the maximum alcohol that can be created by a particular microbe. When the alcohol level of the brew reaches this level, the microbe will stop working.
  • Glucose floor is the minimum amount of glucose that the microbe will leave behind. When glucose reaches this level (or if it was less than the floor to begin with), the microbe will stop consuming glucose and start working on the maltose.
  • Maltose floor is the minimum amount of maltose that the microbe will leave behind. When maltose reaches this level (or if it was less than the floor to begin with), the microbe will stop working.

Example:

  • Yeast-27 has a glucose floor of 7, maltose floor of 203, and alcohol cap of 573.
  • A brewer is using Y-27 to make a beer, adding 20 honey and 50 medium malt during the brewing phase.
  • Total sugars in the brew: 300 glucose, 600 maltose.
  • During fermentation, Y-27 will first convert 293 glucose into 293 alcohol (leaving 7 glucose).
  • It will then work on the maltose, converting 280 maltose into 280 alcohol (leaving 320 maltose).
  • It will then stop because it has now created 573 alcohol (the alcohol cap).

Additionally, a microbe consumes vitamins as it works. If the vitamin level drops below a certain threshold (which, again, varies by microbe), the microbe will stop converting sugar into alcohol, no matter how much sugar it has to work with.

  • Vitamin ratio ranges between 1 and 8. It measures how much alcohol is produced by each vitamin eaten. For instance, a microbe with a vitamin ratio of 6 will need to eat 1 vitamin for every 6 alcohol it produces. (Due to the rounding that takes place with each "bite", the overall ratio of total alcohol produced to total vitamins consumed may not exactly equal the vitamin ratio, but it will be close.)
  • Vitamin threshold is the lowest vitamin level at which the microbe will continue to take "bites". As long as vitamins are equal to or above the threshold, the microbe can take another bite of sugar and vitamins. Once vitamins drop below the threshold amount, the microbe will stop working. (The vitamin threshold is not the same as a vitamin floor. It is perfectly possible for the vitamin level to fall below the threshold; this merely ensures that no further bites will be taken.)


A sealed kettle which contains a single yeast may be modeled as follows:

  1. If the vitamins remaining is less than the vitamin threshold, stop.
  2. If the alcohol produced is greater or equal to the alcohol ceiling, stop.
  3. Take a "bite" of sugar. The first bite is always 10 sugar; further bites increase in size as governed by the growth rate.
  4. Consume glucose, up to the limit set by the glucose floor.
  5. If no more glucose can be eaten, consume maltose, up to the maltose floor limit.
  6. Produce 1 alcohol (and proportional flavors) per sugar consumed.
  7. Consume vitamins equal to the number of sugar consumed divided by the vitamin ratio.
  8. If both the glucose floor and maltose floor have been met, stop.
  9. Return to step 1.

In other words, the yeast will produce alcohol until one of three things happens:

  • It runs out of sugars
  • It runs out of vitamins, or
  • It produces as much alcohol as its alcohol ceiling.

Yeasts will always convert glucose in preference to maltose.


Flavor Production in Fermentation

We've seen above that some of the flavors in a beer come from the ingredients: Barley and Grassy flavors from malt, Bread and Herbal flavors from wheat, and Honey flavor from honey. In addition to these, there are a variety of flavors which are created by yeasts during fermentation, as a byproduct of alcohol production. Every yeast produces these flavors in their own fixed proportion to the alcohol produced.

Because every yeast has a limit to the alcohol it can produce (the alcohol cap), so too does each yeast have an effective limit on how much it can create of a given flavor. Every yeast produces every flavor to some extent, but only some yeasts are capable of producing a flavor in sufficient quantity to be "tasteable" (200 or more). For instance, Yeast-82 can produce up to 254 Vanilla, and is thus desired for making vanilla-flavored beer. Some yeasts produce no special flavors in any significant quantity. A few yeasts produce large amounts of undesirable flavors, such as Nasty or Grassy.

There are two sets of flavors produced in fermentation: those generated by malt and those generated by wheat. If you have no malt in your brew, none of the malt flavors will appear; similarly for the wheat flavors.

Flavors derived from malt:

  • Orange (fruity)
  • Banana (fruity)
  • Cherry (fruity)
  • Date (fruity)
  • Honey (fruity) - Note that this adds to any Honey flavor created by the ingredients
  • Nutmeg (slightly bitter)
  • Cinnamon (slightly bitter)
  • Grassy (unpleasant) - Note that this adds to any Grassy flavor created by the ingredients
  • Nasty (unpleasant)


Flavors derived from wheat:

  • Bread (pleasant) - Note that this adds to any Bread flavor created by the ingredients
  • Grapefruit (fruity)
  • Pear (fruity)
  • Blackberry (fruity)
  • Prune (fruity)
  • Jasmine (pleasant)
  • Clove (slightly bitter)
  • Vanilla (pleasant)
  • Herbal (unpleasant) - Note that this adds to any Herbal flavor created by the ingredients


(Note that Honey, Bread, Grassy, and Herbal flavors are also created in the brewing phase from ingredients. Yeasts will produce additional quantities of these flavors during fermentation.)

Flavor in Mixed Malt/Wheat Brews

What happens if a brew contains both malt and wheat? In that instance, it will produce both malt and wheat flavors, in proportion to the relative quantities of malt and wheat it contains.

  • Example: A brew is made using 30 raw malt and 20 medium wheat (plus some honey). 1000 alcohol is produced. Of the grain that was added, 60% was malt and 40% was wheat; thus, the beer will generate 600 alcohol worth of malt flavors and 400 alcohol worth of wheat flavors.

If a brew contains neither malt nor wheat (that is, it only contains honey), then none of the malt flavors or wheat flavors will generate. This situation pretty much dooms a brew to failure: since honey does not create tannin, there will be no bitter flavors to counteract the sugar, and the brew will end up "Cloying Beer" and be undrinkable.

Output

You can collect your finished brew anytime after the end of the fermentation phase. You must be carrying a small barrel to do this. When you keg your brew, you will receive data on its attributes -- you will never know for sure how your brew turned out until you try to keg it. If your brew is undrinkable for some reason, it will automatically be thrown out. If your beer was successful, it will be stored in the barrel and you will have the option to name your beer.

Beer Attributes

When you keg a beer, you will be shown the levels of the various attributes as well as the final flavor. The attributes are:

  • Alcohol
The higher the alcohol value, the more potent the beer.
  • Color
The higher the color value, the darker the beer.
  • Mold
Produced if there was mold among the microbes that worked on your brew. If there is too much mold, you get undrinkable Moldy Beer.
  • Vitamins
Vitamins remaining; no effect on the taste of the beer.
  • Glucose
A sugar; the more sugars, the sweeter the beer.
  • Maltose
A sugar; the more sugars, the sweeter the beer. Not as sweet as glucose.
  • Lactose
A sugar. Despite being displayed, there is no way to get lactose in a beer.
  • Citric Acid
Despite being displayed, there is no way to get citric acid in a beer.
  • Lactic Acid
Produced by lactobacteria; too much will produce undrinkable Sour Beer.
  • Acetic Acid
Produced by acetobacteria; too much will produce undrinkable Vinegar Beer.
  • Barley
A flavor produced by malt.
  • Bread
A flavor produced by wheat.
  • Banana
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from malt.
  • Blackberry
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from wheat.
  • Cherry
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from malt.
  • Date
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from malt.
  • Grapefruit
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from wheat.
  • Orange
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from malt.
  • Pear
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from wheat.
  • Prune
A fruity flavor produced by yeasts from wheat.
  • Honey
A fruity flavor produced by honey.
  • Jasmine
A pleasant flavor produced by yeasts from wheat.
  • Vanilla
A pleasant flavor produced by yeasts from wheat.
  • Nutmeg
A bitter, spicy flavor produced by yeasts from malt.
  • Cinnamon
A bitter, spicy flavor produced by yeasts from malt.
  • Clove
A bitter, spicy flavor produced by yeasts from wheat.
  • Tannin
A very bitter flavor produced by malt and wheat.
  • Herbal
An unpleasant flavor produced by raw and light wheat.
  • Grassy
An unpleasant flavor, produced by yeasts or by raw or light malt. Too much grassy flavor will produce undrinkable Grassy Beer.
  • Herbal
An unpleasant flavor, produced by yeasts or by raw or light wheat.
  • Nasty
An unpleasant flavor produced by yeasts. Too much nasty flavor will produce undrinkable Nasty Beer.
  • Microorganisms
A list of the microorganisms that entered your brew during the fermentation phase, listed in order of when they entered. You can control the list of microorganisms, to an extent, by choosing when to seal your kettle.

Beer Qualities

A beer may have the following qualities:

Property name Condition to be met
Very Potent Alcohol >= 1200
Potent Alcohol >= 800
(no name) Alcohol < 800
Dry (Glucose * 2) + Maltose < 150
Sweet (Glucose * 2) + Maltose > 300
(no name) 150 < (Glucose * 2) + Maltose < 300
Black Color > 500
Brown Color > 200
(no name) Color < 200
Fruity Orange + Banana + Cherry + Date + Honey > 500
Spicy Cinnamon + Nutmeg > 300
Bold flavor Flavor > 1000
Noticeable flavor Flavor > 400
Hint of flavor Flavor > 200
(no description) Flavor < 200

Each flavor in the beer (cherry, nutmeg, etc.) may be "bold", "noticeable", or just a "hint". A flavor that is very strong can drown out a weaker flavor; if you have 1000 honey flavor and 200 barley flavor, the barley will not appear. A flavor is drowned out if it is less than 50% of the most powerful flavor in the beer.

If two or more other flavors are greater than 50% of the strongest flavor, it will have "muddled flavor", and none of the flavors will apply.

Unsuccessful Brews

Not all brews become drinkable beer. There are many situations which will cause a brew to fail:

  • Nonalcoholic Soup (undrinkable)
Alcohol < 100
Any brew with alcohol < 100 will be described as "soup" instead of "beer". Moldy Soup and Vinegar Soup are also possible, if mold or acetic acid are high in addition to low alcohol. (High lactic acid just makes Nonalcoholic Soup.)
  • Cloying Beer (undrinkable)
Glucose + (Maltose/2) > Tannin + Cinnamon + Nutmeg + Lactic
  • Bitter Beer (undrinkable)
(Glucose * 2) + Maltose < Tannin + (Cinnamon + Nutmeg)/5
  • Caustic Beer (undrinkable)
(Glucose * 6) + (Maltose * 3) < Cinnamon + Nutmeg (very high fruity flavours can also produce Caustic Beer)
  • Grassy Beer (undrinkable)
Grassy > 100
Although a too-high Grassy flavor will ruin a beer, I have yet to observe a similar failure with Herbal flavor. I've brewed wheat beers with as high as 380 Herbal which are perfectly drinkable. --Hekatef)
  • Moldy Beer (undrinkable)
Mold > 50
  • Nasty Beer (undrinkable)
Nasty > 100
  • Sour Beer (undrinkable)
Not well understood, but may be (Lactic + Acetic) > (Glucose + Maltose)
  • Vinegar Beer (undrinkable)
Acetic > 50

(my first attempt yielded Acetic = 73 and an undrinkable Vinegar Beer: Temm) (my first attempt yielded Acetic = 62 and an undrinkable Vinegar Beer; Fugue) (ditto, Acetic=62, Vinegar Beer --Numaris) (My experiments show brews becoming Moldy upon mold > 50; therefore I would assume the same threshold exists for the Vinegar fail. --Hekatef)

The exact effect of Lactic is still uncertain, but I have had several beers that should have been Cloying, but were drinkable, and had some lactic acid. Simply adding lactic to tannin in that formula fits all my results.

(It appears that lactic acid does not directly spoil a beer the way mold and acetic acid do, though the sour flavor might ruin a beer -- or possibly save it from cloying or bitterness. In this respect, one could say that lactobacilii are the least useless of the useless microbes. --Hekatef)

Multiple Yeast Beers

Beers can have as many microbes in them as you care to let get in. Mold, Acetobacterium, and Lactobacillus may be hard to work around, because they add factors both harmful and little-studied.

Generally, you see the largest effects on the resulting beer from the first few yeasts in the kettle. While computing each yeast independently may get you a rough approximation of the flavors and alcohol resulting, the results are not really cumulative or averaged.

Vigorous yeasts (with high alco max or low floor values) can have a big effect even if they enter late. One example from the last Telling was of a particular yeast added at the very end of the list of microbes. Its presence or absence made a 300 alcohol difference in the maximum alcohol generated.

Another example:

I tested two spots:
1) Y3 Y59 A6 M63 Y24 M87 L61 Y65 A62 Y49 L44 M47 Y67 L52 Y64 Y90 Y2 M71 M55 Y82
2) Y3 Y59 A6 L61 L52 M63 Y24 M71 L44 M47 Y65 Y67 Y90 Y49 M31 L85 Y64 M87 L69 Y91 A22 A62 Y2
1 gave 1421 alc and 20 cinnamon, 2 gave 1250 alc and 379 cinnamon. In 1 nearly all of the effect was done by Y3 but in 2 Y59 was able to act more, perhaps something to do with entry times?

More research in this field needs to be done.

I have had great success with predicting multi yeast recipes. Stats seem to be location/seal time dependent. Exact seal times are important. Just run your yeast tests using teh exact seal time and this will give stats that can be plugged into beercalc to predict recipes. This strategy has worked very well for me for several locations.

Practical Beer Making

Figuring out what will result in good beer takes three steps:

  • finding and isolating a yeast,
  • finding out what the yeast does,
  • and then using that information to make beer.


How to Find and Isolate a Yeast

Very little detailed study has been done on molds, acetobacteria, and lactobacteria. These microbes all produce undesirable flavors that will ruin the beer if too strong. It is never desirable to have anything except yeasts in your kettle. In the fermentation phase, your job is to seal your kettle at the proper time to keep out the "bad" microbes and allow only the yeasts.

You isolate a yeast by running a Yeast Test. This kettle option is a shortcut that eliminates the brewing phase, thus taking only 40 minutes to complete. At the end of the test, you take the 'beer' (you need your small barrel!) and get a display of the results. At the bottom is a list of the microbes that are in the kettle, in the order they entered (first to last).

  1. Run a yeast test (The Yeast option, which takes 25 water, 60 wood, 2400 Teppy seconds (about 44.25 minutes real time)), leaving the lid open until the end. If the first microbe in the list is not a yeast, start over in another spot. Don't forget to have a small barrel with you so you can get the results of the yeast test!
  2. Once you find somewhere where at least the first microbe is a yeast, run a new yeast test, closing the lid at 1200 seconds (the halfway point of the fermentation phase).
  3. If the results show no microbes, it means you have closed the lid too soon; run a new test and close the lid at 600 seconds (remaining). If the results show more than one microbe, run another yeast test and close the lid at 1800 seconds to see if you have isolated the time when the first yeast enters the kettle.
  4. Keep running yeast tests, dividing the times when the yeast might have entered in half, until you get only the first yeast. This tells you your sealing time when making beer -- close the lid at the same time as you did in this successful test so that only this first yeast will be active in your beer.

NOTE: If you are in a spot where the second (or more) microbes are also yeasts, you may also want to try making multi-yeast beer by finding the seal time that gets you only 2 yeasts (or 3, etc, up to however many you have). While the results of multiple-yeast brews are hard to predict, some people have successfully used the beerCalc tool to do this. Moreover, many beers made without sealing the lid are effectively multi-yeast beers, and you can find many such recipes and locations on the Wiki (do a search for your yeast -- e.g., search for Y3 to find pages with recipes for that yeast).

#Yeast Map - please report the locations of the microbes you find in the map above!

Microbe Transition Lines

Hellinar - Inspired by Jaby's work on large scale microbe distribution, I've been testing the changes in microbe distribution on small scales. These tests demonstrate that the microbe population shifts as your kettle crosses coordinate lines. The degree of shift is dependent on the degree to which the coordinate is divisible by two. Thus if the coordinate you cross is divisible by 128, most of the upper microbes will change. On the other hand if the coordinate can only be divided by 8, or 4 or 2, the shift in order is likely to be small. This shift occurs very sharply within a small fraction of a coordinate. So avoid placing kettles on such a high power of two coordinate. On the other hand, if you are searching for new microbes, place four kettles on odd numbered coordinates around the point where two lines divisible by 128 cross. This will give you four sets of well shuffled microbes.

How to Find Out What a Yeast Does, or the Fermentation Phase

Once you have isolated a yeast, if it has not already been analyzed, run a couple of test beers.

Making beer is just like doing a yeast test, except that a brewing period, 1200 Teppy seconds long, is added BEFORE the fermentation period. During brewing, you can add honey and the various malts at any time, though it calculates results in 12-second "ticks." Once you've finished brewing, it immediately goes into fermentation, and you should close the lid at a time that will catch the yeast(s) you want but no other microbes.

You should try:

  • One test with low amounts of sugars and vitamins, which should get you at least one of the floor values for your yeast.
  • One test with lots of sugars and vitamins, which should get you the max alcohol for your yeast and reveal any flavors it produces.

Don't expect these beers to be drinkable! These are just to get the yeast values which will allow you to make good beers.

Yeast and Recipe Research

Yeast Map

Yeast locations can be reported in the Beer Database for easy retrieval.

Yeast Attributes

See Yeast page to read or post yeast attribute results. These are the numbers you want to plug into the Spreadsheet below.

Recipes

Beer Database

Recipes Page

NEW! File:Beer Calculator.zip - Hekatef's beer calculator. Select your microbe from the drop-down box, enter ingredients and time, and get your results! Contains detailed information on over a dozen microbes.

Yerbouti User Page

Old T3 BeerCalc spreadsheet (Note this version has a broken cell calculation under Herbal Label (P2). I found a spreadsheet called 1.4.1 from http://wiki.atitd.net/tale3/Guides/Beer/Spreadsheet which seems to have more yeast values (probably outdated) but no broken cells) - Cegaiel

Tale 4 Beer Spreadsheet - Above link no longer works. Correct link.

ATITD Timer - very useful for hearing when your beer kettle wants attention.


Warning
This information provided courtesy of the Tale 3/4 wiki, Some information might have changed.