Homebrew

Inspired by CJ's (excellent) double chocolate milk stout, I decided to change my birthday gift wish from goggles & socks to a 5 gallon pot. While I didn't get the pot, I got a home brew starter kit, and Jesse & I ended up borrowing the Dolphin Club's 8 gallon pot. Home Brew #1 started in our closet sized studio apartment on May 1st, 2011.

I had to watch a few YouTube videos to educate myself on what I was about to do, as I have never brewed beer before -- have only drank it. What I learned online is that there are 4 major steps to brewing (from extract):

COOK

CHILL

FERMENT

BOTTLE

--West Coast Pale Ale-- // Home Brew #1 // --Partial mash + Extract--

COOK

1. We filled the huge pot with ~4 gallons of water and heated to 155 deg F.

2. We poured 2.5 pounds of grain into a cheesecloth and let it seep in the pot for 45 min.

Now we had what is called wort, (a sweet mixture of sugar water)

3. We then turned up the temperature to a boil.

4. Added 6.5 pounds of malt extract (liquid).

5. And boiled for an hour, adding my favorite things called HOPS at specific time intervals.

The BOIL sanitizes everything.

We added the hops at the HOT BREAK: when coagulated proteins create a foamy wort on top

6. BITTERING HOPS (we used 1 oz of Centennial) were boiled for 60 min

7. FLAVORING HOPS (we used 0.5 oz Cascade) were boiled for 30 min

8. AROMA HOPS (we used 0.5 oz Cascade) were boiled for 5 min

We were careful to prevent a BOIL OVER and were in the kitchen with our noses in the wort stirring every 10 min.

End: Cook. Next step: Chill

CHILL

1. We put a lid on the pot (aluminum foil worked well)

2. Transferred it to an ICE WATER BATH in the kitchen sink & let cool ~30-45 min

3. We wanted the temperature to be ~75 deg (definitely below 90 deg) or until we could touch the outside of the pot with our hands

At this point, since there is no more boil, everything that touches the wort needs to be SANITIZED...sanitize-sanitize-sanitize.... (we sanitized the fermenting bucket in the bathtub)

We've heard from one of Jesse's friends that it is important for the cooling process to happen quickly, as this is a potential step of contamination. We kept on adding more ice cubes in the water bath when they melted. *note* it would be a good idea to make sure you have plenty of ice cubes, starting the night before, if you do this on your own.

End: Chill. Next step: Ferment

FERMENT

1. We poured the wort into the (sanitized) bucket.

2. The volume was ~ 3 gallons, so we added water up to ~5 gallons (a lot of it boiled off)

-- Don't pour in the hops and random bits of oats into the fermenting bucket!

-- Since we didn't want to wait 3 hours for a SETTLING STEP (it adds 3 hours in-between the "chilling" and "fermenting" steps), we used some mesh to act as a strainer. Of course, we sanitized the mesh first, especially it came from the depths of a dusty basement.

3. We poured the wort into the fermenting bucket

4. We poured the yeast into the bucket (Jesse made a "yeast starter the night before")

We stirred like crazy to oxygenate the wort (can we call it beer yet?)

5. Snapped the (sanitized) lid on. Attached the (sanitized) rubber stopper and (sanitized) airlock.

6. Got vodka from the freezer and poured some into the airlock.

7. Transferred to a cool corner of the room. Desired temp: 65-75 deg.

8. Waited a day for bubbling to occur.

9. Let it ferment....