Bubbles!

If you're new to my blog, I recommend you start at the beginning to have the opportunity to truly learn from my mistakes and laugh at my failures.

My intro post can be found here:
Intro & My First Home Beer Brewing Kit

From there you can navigate forward using the Archive on the right side of the page.



December 31, 2012

Bubbles = Alcohol  = :)

We left off with my first home brew being put into the fermeter bucket.  By the next morning the airlock was alive with activity.  Those lovely bubbles are an indication that the yeast is doing it's job and turning the sugars from the malt into alcohol.  A good sign - I didn't want my first brew to be O'Douls.  What good is beer if it can't get you hammered, right?

The CO2 being forced up through the airlock (whose purpose is to allow gas to escape, but no air or outside contaminants to get in) is also an indication that my fermenting bucket is airtight.  Assuming everything was properly sanitized and the cats failed at their attempts to ruin my Christmas present, we should be on our way to a healthy beer.

The yeast is binging on sugar and farting up a CO2 storm!

By day 3 most of the activity in the airlock has ceased.  The yeast has served it's initial purpose and created alcohol.  (Edit - do not use an airlock as an indicator of fermentation.  Use gravity readings).  At this point, I'll follow the guidance of the guy at the brew supply store and leave the bucket alone for at least another week.  My new friends in the forums at www.HomeBrewTalk.com agree that no harm can be done by leaving the beer this way for a while longer.  I've read that it's safe to leave it for up to a month (Edit - I leave it for as long as 6-8 weeks at times with no ill side effects)... I'm far too impatient for that, though.  I could be hit by a bus in that time and never get to taste my first home brewed beer.  Then I'd be forced to walk the earth for eternity, a sad spirit with unfinished business.

Oops!

My research and help from the nice people in the home brewing forums has uncovered a few oversights up to this point.

First - the brew kit did not supply me with an adequate number of buckets.  By giving me a combo fermenting / bottling bucket, they leave me with a bunch of sludge at the bottom of the bucket which will make it's way out the spigot and into my bottles.  I guess that's what the 6-gallon carboy was actually for.  I've ordered a second bottling bucket that I will siphon the beer into at bottling time.

Second - I should have taken a hydrometer reading when the wort first went into the bucket.  This is done to determine the gravity (or density) of the beer.  A second reading should be made right before it goes into the bottles.  From these 2 numbers I would have been able to calculate the alcohol content of the beer.  It also let's me know whether or not fermentation is complete.  Now I'll just have to make a guess.

Edit - Extract has a known gravity.  Your OG should always be exactly or very close to what the kit or brewing software calls for.  If it's off, you likely used too little or too much top off water.

Third - I may never stop needing new equipment.  One brew at a time is not going to satisfy my new addiction.  Having the spare bottling bucket will help, but I'm probably going to eventually need more buckets, bottles, airlocks, carboys, etc...  I may have found a way to get a lot of this stuff on the cheap, however.

I'll cover these issues in more depth in my "What I've Learned" post.  Until then, happy drinking and happy New Year!

Brewing My First Beer / Wort

If you're new to my blog, I recommend you start at the beginning to have the opportunity to truly learn from my mistakes and laugh at my failures.

My intro post can be found here:
Intro & My First Home Beer Brewing Kit

From there you can navigate forward using the Archive on the right side of the page.




December 26, 2012

As I mentioned in my previous post, I purchased the True Brew Pale Ale ingredient kit.  Please feel free to comment with suggestions, feedback or just to say hi.

Now it's time to brew!

1.  Equipment List

Bottling / Fermenting bucket with lid

Large, stainless steel brew pot (stock pot)

Long, plastic spoon

Airlock

Spigot

Thermometer

2.  Sanitizing My Equipment

Please note:  This is the last time it's safe to have cat hair in the bucket.

Everything I've read has said that brewing beer can be easy, but screwing it up is equally easy.  Where most go wrong is with inadequately cleaned equipment.  Let's hope I get this right because an infected first batch doesn't sound good to me.

The guy at the brew supply store sold me an iodine sanitizer which I was instructed to dilute to 1/2 tablespoon per gallon of water.  I added the 1/2 tbsp and gallon of water to my fermenting/bottling bucket and submerged any of the equipment I'd be using into this mix.  I cleaned the bucket itself and inside of the lid with a clean sponge soaked in the solution.

3.  Brewing!

With everything nice and sanitary, I brought a gallon and half of spring water to a boil.  I used spring water because I don't want my first beer to taste like my nasty, city tap water... not sure how much it imparts it's flavor, if at all, but better safe than sorry.

While that boiled I remove the label from the Malt Extract can and submerged it in a sink full of hot water to soften it.  I imagine it's a similar consistency to molasses.

I followed all the instructions for steeping, reheating, adding dried malt bags and hop pellets (they look like rodent food, but smell like IPA!).  The mix goes back on the heat.  I'm warned that it will foam up as it boils, but removing it from the heat will allow the foam to subside.  My brew does foam a bit, but not to the point that it's going to boil over the top of my giant pot (I hope this isn't a bad sign).  It boils like this for another 25 minutes or so.

It's at about this time, when I'm thinking how amazing it smells, the lady friend walks in and shares a differing opinion on the odor now filling our house.  I interpret this as a huge success!

Boil, boil, toil and trouble.  Get me hammered on the double!

Once the brewing has completed, I removed the wort from the heat and resist the urge to pour myself a mug of hot, highly concentrated, non-alcoholic, non-bubbly beer.  While it's cooling I dump 3 gallons of cold spring water into my fermenting / bottling bucket.  Then I pour the wort in and add more spring water.... Damn cat!  Get out!!.... to fill it to 5 gallons.  Next I take a temp reading.  80 degrees.... Ahhh!!  Stupid cats, get out!!!  The instructions say it safe to add the yeast when it's below 90.

Damn, that looks good!  And beer isn't bad looking either!

The yeast packet is sprinkled over the top *look around for feline saboteurs and close the door*, allowed to rest for 10 minutes then gently stirred in.  I put the lid on the bucket and fill the airlock halfway with water. In the picture above, you can see I also put a plastic bag over the spigot to prevent any contaminants from getting into/onto it (unnecessary... it won't be used).

Edit - Dry yeast should be re-hydrated in a specific volume and temperature of water.  They all provide instructions on the package.

From here it's a waiting game.  I should start seeing activity in the airlock within the next 12-24 hours (though not always).  The instructions call for a week in the fermenter, but I'm going to follow the advice of the guy from the brew supply store and leave it in an extra week... you know, so the yeast can eat it's own poo (diacetyl) after it's done with the sugars from the malt/grains.

See you in the morning, beer!

Please subscribe and follow my mis-adventures in brewing!

Purchasing My First Beer Ingredient Kit

If you're new to my blog, I recommend you start at the beginning to have the opportunity to truly learn from my mistakes and laugh at my failures.

My intro post can be found here:
Intro & My First Home Beer Brewing Kit

From there you can navigate forward using the Archive on the right side of the page.



December 26, 2012:

Shred's Home Brew #1

So, with the Christmas fiasco over, I've had a few minutes to read through some forums and skim some of the pages in my book.  I think I better understand what most of the equipment is for

It would seem the carboy (the big, glass water bottle thing) won't be needed for my first brew as I'll be making a basic Ale.  In my kit, the carboy would be used only when a secondary fermenting or conditioning vessel is required... like with a lager or a beer requiring special additives/flavorings.

Just in case "big, glass water bottle thing" wasn't descriptive enough.

Many people apparently use 1 bucket for fermenting then another for bottling.  My bucket doubles as both as it has a spigot at the bottom and an airlock at the top.  As I understand it, the 2 bucket system is used to help prevent sediment from the bottom of the fermenting bucket from getting into the bottles.  My spigot is about an inch off the bottom, so I'm assuming it was designed with this in mind.

Edit:  Nope - had to buy a second bottling bucket or I would have had beer bottles full of sludge.  As the yeast finishes fermentation it drops out of solution and it, along with proteins and various other materials, settles to the bottom forming what is known as "Trub" (pronounced Troob).

Many commercial breweries as well as homebrewers will wash this trub layer and repitch the healthy yeast in future brews.

Now it's time to hit the brew store to find a boxed recipe... any of you who know me know it kills me to make anything out of the box or by strict recipe, but as this is an advanced chemistry and I don't want to blow my house up or poison anyone (well... neither of those is completely true), I'm going to err on the side of caution for at least my first attempt.

Note:  You'd have to be a complete idiot to blow your house up brewing beer.  Burning it down is another story.

I do a Yelp search and come up with a place nearby with glowing reivews, Brew & Wine Hobby.

I set my nav and head into the back alleys of East Hartford, CT.  Down at the end of an industrial area my nav tells me I've arrived.  I look around, turn around, look around some more, and then I see it:

How could I miss it!?!

I enter the store and I'm confronted by industrial shelves 100' high, covered in boxes, and trinkets, and whosiewhatsits... okay, it's not really that big, but I have no idea what I'm looking at.  Eventually I get my bearings and find an area in the back where they have boxed ingredient kits.  My research has told me a Pale Ale is a good way to start.

Pale Ales use warm (ale/top) fermentation (generally between 65-70F), so no special refrigeration is needed, and it doesn't require the use of a secondary fermenting vessel.  They are bottle conditioned, meaning once the wort (gross word for unfermented beer, prounounced wert) has finshed in the fermenter, it's transferred directly into the bottles to be conditioned - basically, to become bubbly and allow the flavors to mature and meld.  I pick one and head up to the register.

I ask the gentleman behind the counter how many other dummies he's had come in today (the day after Christmas) with stupid questions about their first brew kit.  He warmly replies something about it being fun to help newbies.  I take this as a sign of weakness and pounce!

"Is this a good first ingredient kit?  What size bottles should I buy?  What's that over there?  What does this do?  Oooo pointy... Ouch!"

He quickly hides all sharp objects and asks which equipment kit I have.  I pointed to the box in the store identical to mine and he informs me I have a wine making kit.  I look at the Pale Ale kit on the counter and say, "Well, I guess I'm making wine then."

I let the patient man standing behind me go ahead and I proceed to look at the box more closely.  It seems to have different contents than the nearly identical box I received.  For one, my kit had a beer making guide in it, and a capper.  How could it possibly be for wine making?

I look up the kit on my phone and show the nice man what I actually have.  He's surprised that they would include a 6 gallon carboy as most beer recipes call for 5 and air at the top is apparently bad.  He does, however, agree that what I have is for making beer.  When it comes time to use the carboy in a later (my next?) recipe, I'll use that extra gallon for customizing a box recipe and make a few more bottles.

I purchase the Pale Ale ingredient kit, 2 cases of brown bottles (48) and an iodine sanitizer.  Apparently the B-Bright in my equipment kit is a cleanser, not a sanitizer (I later find that my B-Bright is actually supposed to be C-Bright... a sanitizer.  Oh well.  Thanks again, Monst..... no names).

This is the ingredient kit I bought.  It was about $32 and makes 5 gallons of beer.

The guy behind the counter tells me to ignore the instructions in the kit, which say to leave the beer in the fermenter for 7 days, and do 14 days.  Ahhh!  Another week I'll have to wait.

His reasoning is that while 7 days is long enough for the yeast to munch on all the sugars in the wort (usually), leaving it longer allows it to find other things to eat.  The yeast produces byproducts as it eats the sugars, but given time, will go back and clean some of those up.  This results in a "cleaner" beer.  Basically, the yeast eats, takes a dump in my beer then, in an act of true gluttony, goes back and eats the yeast poo.  At least, that's how I translate it.

Edit - I generally leave my beers for a minimum of 3 weeks and a maximum of 6 weeks now.  This gives the yeast time to fully ferment the beer.  Additionally, after the first 3-5 days of fermentation it's safe to begin increasing the temp slowly to around 68F, the yeast will eat up the diacetyl created during active fermentation.  Diacetyl can create off-flavors in beer.  

Consult the guidelines on your specific yeast to determine what the appropriate temperature range is for the primary fermentation.

Naturally, they have their own instructions for proper dilution of the iodine sanitizer and tell me to ignore the instructions on that package as well.

He helps me load my car and I head home.  The anticipation of starting my first ever brew is killing me!

Stay tuned.

Intro & My First Home Beer Brewing Kit

My name is Chris or Shred for short.  I'm in my mid-thirties (at the time this blog was started) and I love beer.  It's my hope that fellow beer-lovers, aspiring home brewers and anyone with some time to waste will join me in my new adventures in home brewing.

Edit - Homebrewing is an amazing creative outlet as well as a deliciously infections disease.  In 1 year I've gone from brewing by myself to having 6-8 friends over every Thursday night for a crazy brew night in the garage with burners, mash tuns, kettles and beer everywhere.  To date we've collectively brewed several hundred gallons of beer.  

Federal law says you are allowed 100 gallons of home-brewed beer per year per adult in the household up to a maximum of 200 gallons.  If you are a law enforcement agent, I feel I should clarify... not all of the several hundred gallons produced reside at this household... maybe.

This blog will serve as a reflection of things I learn as well as my recipe journal.

Our journey begins now:

Christmas Morning 2012... a large gift is placed before me.

At the lady friend's guidance I begin tearing into the colorful, snowman paper.  A plain-ish white box is extracted.  I'd actually forgotten that I'd added it to my wishlist.  Now out of it's papery, festive prison I say hello to my new friend, the True Brew Gold Complete Beer Equipment Kit (K6).

The kit came highly reviewed on Amazon so I figured, being a complete novice (I have no idea what I'm doing), my best bet is to trust the reviews.  According to the package, the kit contains a whole bunch of gizmos I've never heard of. (True Brew Handbook & Kit Instructions, 7.8 Gallon Fermenting Bucket, 1 Lid Drilled & Grommet, True Brew Rack & Fill kit, 6 Gallon Glass Carboy, Fermometer Fermentation Thermometer, Small Buon Vino Drilled Stopper, Hydrometer, Bottling Spigot, Emily Double Lever Capper, 3 Piece Airlock, Bottle Brush, C-Brite Sanitizer 8-Pack).

EDIT - I was not overly thrilled with this kit or the company selling it for a number of reasons you'll be able to read in my not-to-distant-future posts.  Take a look at my "Buy Equipment" page for some recommended kits offered by my sponsors.

True Brew kits are made by BSG HandCraft, formerly Crosby & Baker:

BSG HandCraft official public site

A second, smaller package was then opened.  "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" by Charlie Papazian (buy it here).  The book contains roughly 8x as many pages as an entire encyclopedia set and I've got dinner to cook at my parents' house, so becoming a leading expert on home brewing will have to wait another day.

This guy is more than just a beer nut. He's a Nuclear Engineer & President of the Brewers Assoc!

Charlie Papazian Wiki

What little I was able to read from the tiny manual included in the kit tells me it's gonna be at least a month before I taste my first home brew.  I'm also gonna need to consult someone with a bit more experience for techniques, identifying equipment and best practices.

A trip to the local brew supply store is in order tomorrow.