« 1st Homebrew

04.12.2009

Today marks a couple of important things in my life.

1. We commemorate the Lord Jesus raising from the dead and giving us Life, abundantly!

2. I attempted my first homebrew.

Obviously, the latter is less important but because I don’t have any videos of the open tomb or of Jesus appearing to the disciples in the upper room, I’ll just post some videos of my homebrew experience. Pretty schwanky.

If you’ve never done a homebrew before, here’s how it works:

  1. Buy a recipe off of Homebrewery - David got me the “Scottish Wee Heavy” for my birthday.
  2. Get a good kit. If you live in the Upstate of SC, go to Thomas Creek and order a good homebrew kit. I don’t know what’s good because I was given one by my uncle for my birthday.
  3. Boil a big ole pot of water (outside, unless you want your house to wreak of yeastiness).
    • Once it reaches 120 degress Fahrenheit, you’re ready to add your grains.
  4. Cook your grains for about 20 minutes, no higher than 170 degress - otherwise you’ll get some bitterness (not the good kind).
  5. Add your malt mix and the bittering hops. This is sort of cheating when you get it in a kit because malt is usually a liquid that comes from cooking grains over a period of about 8 hours (if you’re doing it at home).
    • The malt is food for the yeast - the yeast makes the alcohol and the flavor. It’s pretty crazy how much a different yeast can change the flavor and consistency of your brew. Read up some more.
    • There’s a difference between the bittering hops and the flavoring hops. Not a crazy difference, but essentially the bittering hops are added at the beginning and the flavoring hops are added at the end. Although some flavoring comes from the bittering hops, it’s mostly aroma. The flavoring hops are added at the end of the boil, just in time to give your brew some kick. The type, when you add it and several other factors come into play.
  6. Boil for 2 hours. That means about 200 to 220 degress. Make sure you don’t boil over your pot. We did this outside in a big country boil pot over a large bunson burner.
  7. Add water to your mixture depending on the recipe and set it in your fermenting vessel of choice. I have a glass carboy as well as a plastic bucket made especially for brewing (hole in the cap, spicket on the side).
    • Make sure these have been sterilized - we did this in a tub of warm water and a little more than a capful of clorox. If any bacteria get in there, your yeast is done for and your beer could be ruined. Take the time to carefully clean your equipment.
  8. Set for 2 weeks or more depending on your recipe.
    • Sadly, ours calls for 3 to 6 months of fermentation, in which case you add priming sugars made from corn starch. The yeast feeds on this inside of the individual beer bottles and creates CO2 as a bi-product, which carbonates your beer naturally. CO2 is always a bi-product, but in the initial fermentation, it is just released outside of your fermentation vessel.

So, enough with the lingo. Go to My Qik Page for videos!