Somewhere during cooling, the hoses did not fit the immersion chiller. Ilan looked at the small batch, the loose parts, the hassle around a few litres of beer and said roughly what every professional brewer would think at that moment: what are we actually doing
This is Pro Goes Homebrew. A Kegland story series in which we challenge pro brewers to brew a beer on a small kettle. How do they work? What happens when routine and scale fall away? And what can we, as homebrewers, learn from their craft, curiosity and experience?
It is actually a lot of hassle
Some brewers light up the moment you put a small kettle in front of them. Ilan did not, at least not immediately. Or rather: at first, Ilan was enthusiastic when we called him. It had been four years since he had brewed on a small scale. A brief return to the old days, away from the large installation, playing with a small batch again.
On a free Friday, we met Ilan and his colleague Miguel at the Poesiat & Kater brewery in Weesp. For a brew day they will not quickly forget.
“We’re going to brew on a very, very, very fancy small brew kettle,” Ilan said, while the professional Poesiat & Kater brewhouse stood behind him. And that is exactly where the joke of the day lived. For homebrewers, a BrewZilla is already quite serious. For a professional brewer, it feels like a lot of hassle.
“It is actually a lot of hassle.” - Ilan
Something happened to Ilan that he had not expected. As a professional brewer, he felt like an amateur from minute one. Not in a romantic way. More like: what exactly are we doing?
The brew day did not even take that long. After a few hours, the wort was in the fermenter. Normally, Ilan spends seven to eight hours in the brewery. Now everything moved quickly. Malt in, stir, hops in, filter, boil and chill.
But he did not know what he was going to brew, had not calculated the recipe himself and, by his standards, was not really well prepared. He did not know exactly how finely the malt had been crushed. He did not know all the choices that had been made beforehand. And if something went wrong later, where would you even start looking?
🧾 Recipe: Oat Cream Milkshake IPA.
A 7% New England IPA, brewed on the BrewZilla 35L Gen4 and fermented in a 30-litre FermZilla All Rounder.
- Batch size: 10 litres
- SG: 1.076
- FG: 1.023
- Colour: 9 EBC
- IBU: 13
- Grain bill: NO-OX malt, oat flakes, wheat malt, lactose and rice hulls
- Hop stand at 80°C with Azacca, HBC 638 and Sabro
- Double dry hop on day 2 and day 5 with Azacca, HBC 638 and Sabro
- Yeast: Lallemand London English-Style ESB
- Water profile: Weesp tap water → Hoppy NEIPA 3:1
- Mash schedule: 65°C for 60 minutes, then mash-out at 75°C
Oxygen is your biggest enemy
“As if it was the second or third brew of my life,” he said later.
“It felt like this was my second or third brew day ever,” Ilan said afterwards. Maybe that is what happens when you take craft out of its familiar system. A professional brewer is not only professional because they know everything. Mainly because they work in an environment where many risks have been organised away. The tank is closed. The lines are clean. The actions are familiar. The order is right.
On a small kettle, all those certainties end up back on the table. Literally. Hoses that do not fit. A fermenter standing open. A vessel being cleaned on the floor. Adding sugar in a way that would make no financial sense at professional scale. Transferring without the oxygen control he normally wants.
Ilan is not the kind of brewer who gets carried away by nostalgia. He is precise, critical and used to eliminating risks. Whether he felt like an amateur? “Basically the whole time.” And yet there is no contempt in that. Rather, sharpness. Because precisely because he felt uncomfortable, he started naming out loud what brewing is really about.
“A lot of times the most risky things occur after the brew.” — Ilan
Oxygen, for example. For Ilan, that does not only start at bottling. Oxygen is the enemy that can appear anywhere. During sparging, when wort splashes. During whirlpooling, if you slosh too much. Even during mashing, where auto-oxidation can already cause damage early on. And of course during transfer to the fermenter.
He told us about an old homebrew that, because of extreme splashing, had turned grey and oxidised within a week of packaging. A hard lesson. One you do not forget.
The same goes for the risk of infection. Ilan put on gloves. Ethanol on the scissors. Ethanol on the yeast packet. Spray the couplings. Spray the tri-clamps. Everything that touches the product must first be treated as if it could ruin the batch. In the brewery, Ilan said, that is logical. If something goes wrong there, you lose 2,500 litres. On a small scale, the damage is smaller. But the principle is the same.
The moral of Ilan’s story: professional brewers do not do it better because they never make mistakes. They mainly know how many places things can go wrong. And on a homebrew kettle, you suddenly see all of those places again.
Five tips from Ilan
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Treat oxygen like an ingredient you do not want to add
Oxygen does not only enter your beer at bottling. Things can go wrong much earlier. During sparging when your wort is splashing, during a wild whirlpool, during mashing through auto-oxidation and of course when transferring to your fermenter. Especially with a soft, hoppy IPA, you want to avoid every unnecessary splash.
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Work clean at every small point of contact
Infection does not happen in one big dramatic moment, but precisely through small things you skip. A pair of scissors. A yeast packet. A coupling. A tri-clamp. Ilan sprays everything that comes into contact with the beer. Not because that looks exaggeratedly professional, but because one careless moment can be enough.
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Prepare your recipe as if you may need to trace it back later
If you do not know exactly what you are brewing, learning becomes difficult. Which malt was in it? How finely was it crushed? Which choices were made beforehand? If the beer later tastes different than expected, you want to be able to find out why.
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Do not confuse small brewing with simple brewing
A small batch may feel less scary because you cannot lose 2,500 litres. But the risks are the same. Oxidation remains oxidation. Infection remains infection. Only the scale changes.
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Professional brewers make mistakes too. They just recognise them earlier
Ilan’s lesson is not that professionals do everything better. On a small kettle like this, they can feel like beginners again too. Their advantage lies in seeing all the places where things can go wrong. And that is exactly what makes their perspective so valuable for homebrewers.