Mmmmm......Beer

As most of you know, I like to make my own beer (homebrew). Many of you have asked me how the process of beer making goes, and you usually look all glassy eyed when I explain it. Perhaps this will help.

Saturday, Max and I went to the Winemakers Shop in Clintonville to purchase the necessary ingredients, some grains, hops, malt extract, yeast and irish moss. I am what is referred to as an extract brewer. I do not have the skills or equipment to brew beer from all grain, so I do a mixture of grains and extract (which is a super condensed version of what I would get if I did use all grains). Saturday afternoon, I prepared the yeast which comes in a "smack" pack. A smack pack is a little pouch which contains yeast food and another smaller pouch with the yeast. You smack the pouch to break the little pouch open, spilling the yeast into the food. The yeast get all happy and fat for 24 hours.

I did get some new equipment for this batch. Previously I did all of this on the stove in our kitchen. Beth really despised the smell, which did linger in the house for a couple of days, and I really hated waiting for hours for the stuff to boil. So, I solved both of our problems by purchasing a big turkey fryer! Sunday morning I ran all over until I found a place where I could purchase a propane tank, then I came home and set up my new brewery (which by the way is called Cat in the Kettle Brewery).

Here's a picture of the set up.

I have the propane tank hooked up to the turkey fryer with a 10 psi gauge, on the fryer I have my brew pot. Next to the fryer you see a white bucket with a colander and an oven glove. Then a little pot.

At this point I have 2 quarts of water in the brew pot and I'm bringing it to 170F. At that temperature I will add the 2 pounds of grains and turn off the heat and let the grains steep for 45 minutes. After the steep, I will pour the grains into the colander and rinse them with water from the little pot that I have at 170F.

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I will then throw away the grains and put the sweet liquor from the rinse back into the brew pot and add enough water to get to 2.5 gallons. I will then add 6.6 pounds of extract and the whole hops to the brew pot and bring to a rapid boil.

This stuff can boil over pretty easily if you don't watch it closely, which I didn't do this time. I stepped away to help Beth take laundry downstairs and when I came back, it was a raging boil over! Don't do this.

Anyway, once the boil starts I will wait for 45 minutes and then add a fining agent, the irish moss. Irish moss is used to help the beer clarify. Kinda important since I don't filter. Now, in some recipes, there will be a complex series of hops additions done at certain times in the boil. Depending on when the hops are added in the boil will decide if they are bittering hops (early in the boil) or more for the hop aroma (towards the end). I am making a fruit ale, and therefore don't want much hops either bittering or aroma to compete with the fruit taste. So, only one addition of 1 ounce of Willamette hops right at the begining.

After boiling for an hour, I need to cool down the wort (what I've been cooking for the past hour) to around 70F as fast as possible. This needs to occur quickly to have a good protein break and to limit the possiblity for contamination. From this point on, I have to be paranoid of bacteria and fungi entering into the wort. If that happens, the beer will be undrinkable. There are a lot of ways to cool the wort, but being of limited funds, I opt for the cheap version, the tub. I fill the bath tub with cold water and let the brew pot sit in it, covered for about 30 minutes.

Then I will add the wort to the plastic bucket (the primary fermenter), straining it through the colander to remove the hops, which contains 2.5 gallons of cold water, . I do this as vigorously as possible so that I will areate the wort well. Then I will add more water, if necessary, to get to 5 gallons. Before I do any of this though, I have to sterilize the fermenter, the lid to the fermenter and anything else which might come into contact with the wort. After I check that the temperature of the wort is 70F, I will then pitch the yeast (pour the yeast into the wort)

I then put the lid on the fermenter and attach an air lock which allows the CO2 the yeast are making to escape, but not let anything into the fermenter. Then I let it sit for a week. Usually that is.

This morning Beth told me that I had some very vigorous bubbling going on. I looked at the fermenter and the lid was all bowed up and foam (technically called krassen) had filled the air lock. I pulled out the air lock and a huge hiss of CO2 came out. I put it back in and hoped. I stopped by at lunch and it was all jammed up with foam again and it looked like it was going to blow.

Beth informed me of how very unhappy she would be if it exploded all over the kitchen. I decided that I should probably do something about it. I ran to Home Depot and got a tiny diameter flexible PVC pipe to put into the hole the air lock goes into. Then I ran the other end of the tube into a pot of water. It appears to be working like a charm!

I'll tell you guys about the next steps in about a week!