Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine® is headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado, and thanks to recent amendments to our state’s constitution, we’ve grown accustomed to (and a bit weary of) the occasional comment about certain botanical relatives of _Humulus lupulus. _But when we talk about brewing high, we’re specifically referring to elevation. After all, we’re almost a mile above sea level.
It’s well known that cooking—baking, especially—at high elevations sometimes means adjusting recipes. The same is true for brewing, but the effects are probably not as great as you might think. If you brew your beer at high elevation, here are the main points to keep in mind.
Lower Boiling Point
Water boils at 212°F (100°C) at sea level, but the boiling point drops by 1.9°F (1.06°C) for every 1,000 feet (305 meters) you climb in elevation. This is because the air pressure decreases with distance from the center of the earth, and the boiling point of water is directly related to air pressure. Here are a few examples of how the local boiling point changes.
- In Denver, Colorado, at 5,280 feet (1,609 meters), water boils at 202.5°F (94.7°C).
- In Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 7,199 feet (2,194 meters), water boils at 198.9°F (92.7°C).
- In Cusco, Peru, at 11,000 feet (3,353 meters), water boils at 191.7°F (88.7°C).