Yesterday morning I awoke with a strange desire to brew my own beer. It's been in the back of my head for a year ever since I brewed some apple cider for Thanksgiving '08, but I can't really say what brought it to the forefront. Never being the one to back down from another potentially disastrous project, I set out to the Homebrew Headquarters in Richardson. They have everything you need there as well as several employees who are MORE than willing to help you out with any questions you may have. Go check them out some time.
So I brought home an Australian Pale Ale. Trey has made it twice and his beer has been fantastic, so I figured why mess with a good thing. And I got some dextrose corn sugar because its more easily fermentable than table sugar. And then I got a bag of light malt extract. That's new, Trey never used that, so hopefully my beer will be way better than his. The can of Australian Pale Ale was actually a thick, molasses like syrup that contained all the hops and barley and some sugars. Adding more sugar = more alcohol, so I didn't mind supplementing.
Mix and boil. That's about the only step after sanitizing everything. And sanitizing requires little more than a bleach water soaking for everything involved. My coworker who is a master brewer once told me, sanitation is important, don't skimp on that step ... but also, bear in mind that people used to brew beer in animal skins over open fires with river water, so don't sweat it too much. Who knows how good their beer (or mead) tasted, but they still succeeded in getting drunk. And isn't that just the whole point?
So I made Daniel stand and stir while I was finishing rinsing the bleach off of everything. My little bitty pot started to boil over -- which we were prepared for -- so as it boiled, we scooped it into another bowl and were planning on boiling the wort in two stages. Pretty stupid, but feasible. So I'm in the bathroom rinsing when I hear, "OH NO!" Daniel was stirring with a plastic spatula and when he pulled it out, it no longer existed. The fucking thing had melted down to a stub. As Keiff later pointed out, the only portion remaining was the part stamped with "Caution: Not Heat Resistant." So there we were with a bowl full of cold wort and a pot full of hot wort and a heaping helping of melted plastic. Down the sink it went as I rushed to my car to speed to Homebrew Headquarters before they closed. And I bought another batch of ingredients ... and a 20 quart stock pot.
The second time, Keiff came over to help and it went rather smoothly. We boiled the wort for 15 minutes until it got this really nice, dark caramel color. Then we cooled it down as best we could in a sink of ice, added 4 more gallons of spring water and poured it into the fermenting bucket. I measured the temperature to be right at 80°F which is pretty ideal for the yeast, so I pitched them in. I was worried about them because they weren't bubbling by the time we went to bed, but this morning, they're burping away. I'm so excited. Keiff wants to make a batch now and I told him we could use my equipment and take turns buying ingredients. In a few weeks, we'll bottle, which is also pretty easy with the equipment I'll be borrowing.
And then it'll be Febrehabruarv. Double-edged sword there. Sure, I won't be able to drink the beer I just worked so hard to produce. But, the beer will also continue to improve with age. You have to wait about a week after bottling so the secondary fermentation in the bottle can carbonate the liquid. But they say if you wait up to a month it'll be worlds better. So that's just what we'll do. Beer tasting party at my house, March 1st. Who's in?
