Since May, Kevin and I have been talking about brewing beer. I'm a chemical engineer, we both enjoy beer, it really just makes sense. We've been reading the books we have plus plenty of articles from Beer Advocate Magazine. Last week we finally decided to take the plunge and brew our own beer.
Step one was to get some improved equipment and the ingredients. We ended up ordering from Northern Brewer a Deluxe Beer Starter Kit with glass carboys, bottling bucket, funnels, tubing, locks, siphons, bottle caps, etc etc. We also decided that for the first batch, it would be wise just to use a recipe kit that included all the ingredients we needed to brew a certain style of beer. Based on the reviews, total time to make, and what we were in the mood for, we chose to brew a British Bitter.
All of our boxes arrived on Saturday, so we hoped to start the brew process on Sunday. The start time would all be determined by the yeast. We ordered a liquid yeast and it could take it anywhere from 3 hours to a few days to fully activate. So we smacked the yeast packet (literally) and let it get to work.
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| Yeast container is all puffed and ready to go! |
Now we are ready to brew. Basically you boil, cool, add yeast, wait, bottle, wait again, enjoy! Today we did the first three steps and started step 4. First up was to add spring water to a boil kettle with crushed malts.
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| Boil kettle with the crushed malt ready to be added |
The malt steeped for 20 minutes and the mixture was brought to a boil. Once at a boil, a malt syrup was added. We now have wort.
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| Thank you for the flavor and color you will impart in the beer |
Once the wort was brought back to a boil, it was time to add the first dose of hops. The hops was added and the timer set. With 15 minutes left, another dose of hops and a dose of a dry malt would be added. Then with 1 minute left, a final dose of hops is added.
Once the boil time was over, it was into an ice bath to cool the wort as quickly as possible. At the same time we needed to sanitize all the equipment that will be used to transfer and hold the beer as it ferments. We purchased a solution called Idophor, but ended up using a what came with the recipe kit, StarSan.
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| Transferring the sanitizing solution to the carboy. This stuff is foamy! |
Once everything was sanitized, it was time to add more spring water and the wort to the fermenter. After everything is transferred and the carboy is filled to 5 gallons, the specific gravity of the wort is measured. When the wort is cool enough, the yeast is added. Then it's time to seal it up and let the yeast get to work. In 1-2 weeks, active fermentation will be complete and time to move on to bottling.
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| Ready to ferment! |
Check back in a few weeks when it's time to bottle. Between now and them, stop by and help us get enough bottles ready to use!
