Some updates

Well, I've done a LOT since my last update.

-Almost completely finished my keezer
-Brewed another APA (same recipe. I was closer this time with an OG of about 1.04 but still not where I'd want to be).
-Bought enough grains, yeast, and hops for 4 more batches (Watermelon Wheat, Apricot Wheat, Scottish Heavy, and Oktoberfest/Marzen.)
-Bought some more equipment (3 Better Bottles, siphon, some CO2 gauges)

I plan on brewing the apricot wheat tomorrow.

The apfelwein has been pretty tasty. It's a bit strong and tart. People don't really know what to think of it at first, but I think it grows on you.

I tapped the APA, but it could probably use a bit more time conditioning. It's not bad, but hopefully the second batch is better.

More rhizomes

We added Cascade and Nugget rhizomes to the hop garden today.

First All Grain

I brewed my first all grain beer last Weds (6/10/08). A few things went wrong, but I think they will be easy to fix. My mash was a few degrees too high, and I think that is what caused me to miss my OG. It was 1.03 instead of 1.05 (aka WAY off). My siphon didn't work well (or at all), and I had to go to using the spout on my kettle. This cause quite a few things to happen, the worst being not getting much of the hops out. I think to fix this next time I am going to use a hop bag. I only got ~3 gallons out of it.

Apfelwein

I made my first alcoholic drink today that isn't beer. It's a German hard cider. All the people on one of the brewing boards I read rave about it, so I decided to make a batch. It's real simple, pretty much just 5 gallons of apple juice, some corn sugar, and yeast. Let it ferment out for a few weeks, and you're done.

Hop Garden Update

Just took the potted hops and planted them in the ground. These are the varrities I have (from left to right):

Tettnanger
Centennial
Fuggle
Saaz
Mt. Hood

Keg and Batch #5 Updates

So I've been going on a shopping frenzy.

Recently I have purchased:
4x 5 gallon Cornelius kegs
1x 10 lb CO2 tank
1x Dual gauge regulator
2x Faucets
All the hoses/connects I need to dispense from 1 keg (eventually there will be a second (and third...) tap installed)
1x Digital Temperature Regulator

Pretty much all I need now is to buy a freezer, and make some beer. Oh, and new gauges for the regulator. That's a long story.


My 5th batch, which I also purchased, will be my first all grain batch. It is a West Coast style pale ale (similar to a Sierra Nevada PA). I'm also planning on making a batch of apfelwein. I'll actually probably make this before I make the pale ale.

New Brewpot

No update in a while, mainly because I have been graduating/moving back home/going to San Francisco for the last few weeks. Today I bought a turkey fryer to use as a brew pot so I can do full boils. This is a 35 qt. aluminum pot. It's pretty nice. Comes with a spigot on it, and I'm going to look at getting a Counter Flow Chiller to hook up to it.


Also, kegerator is in the works. Slowly acquiring parts.

Batch #2 Picture

Here's a picture of my second batch after it has been poured. I didn't do a great pour, and gave it a little bit too much head. It is the AHS Promotional Amber Ale.

Edit: As far as the tasting goes, I've posted a bit in the past on it and how it has improved over the weeks. It had a good amount of malt flavor and was pretty smooth. It's improved a ton over the last few weeks. Good body and full flavor. Goes down very smooth. Also a note on the color, it is a little bit lighter than this, my camera isn't that great. It is still darker, but is more of an amber color.

Brewing Books

I just picked up the MBAA Practical Handbook for the Specialty Brewer series off books. I'm a couple chapters into the first one, which has primarily talked about water and malting so far. Here's a picture

Batch #4 Bottling

I bottled my fourth batch today, a hefeweizen. It tasted pretty good, a little bit of banana flavor, but not as much as I expected. A little sweet too. The FG was spot on at about 1.012.

A note on the sanitation, I'm not sure if I used proper procedure, and don't know if it will mess up the beer at all. My hope is that since it is a hefe it will be ready before anything has a chance to contaminate it. I used Iodophor to sanitize for the first time, and I didn't realize that you couldn't reuse the solution that much. I also found somewhere telling me to not use hot water with it, which I did, but I didn't find anything telling me why not to use hot water, so I'm not sure.

Beer School

Also, I wanted to mention that I decided to go to a professional beer brewing school. I'll either be there in the fall or spring. Hopefully the fall, but I have to work a few things out as far as getting myself prepared for the course. We'll see how it all goes.

Batch #2 Tasting #3

So I had another bottle of my second batch today, and I am amazed at how much it has improved. I guess I was just a little anxious. It really cleared up a lot too. The head is nice, but not overpowering (I don't think it should be for this beer). The carbonation is really nice too, I think it just took a little longer.

It has a very good taste, nothing too complex, but it really does taste quite nice. It's very smooth.

Fermenter Pic

So I finally got my camera charger in the mail, and wanted to take a pic to post. This is my hefe in the fermenter chugging away (and a few bottles I've been saving up for when I bottle it).

Batch #4 Brewing

The other day I brewed my fourth batch. It was AHS Hefeweizen Mini-Mash kit. It was my first time doing a mini mash.

A few notes:

Towards the end of the steeping, I turned the gas back on to keep the temperature up around 155, but I turned my back and it creeped up to about 168. It was probably there for 3-5 minutes. I took it off heat immediately and let it sit and cool down. It was towards the end of it anyway, so I let it sit for the rest of the time (probably another 5 minutes), and then let the grains drip out and poured some 170 degree water through it.

It was the first time I used a yeast starter. The wort I used to make the starter was probably a lot more concentrated than it should have been (I put too much DME in). I decided to even it out with a little more water. The bottle was too small though, so it ended up over flowing when it fermented. I poured into a larger jar (got my erlenmeyer fask in the mail the next day), and it seemed to go alright, but I lost some yeast. There was still a good amount there.

To cool it down, I used a mixture of an ice water bath, and adding cold water to the wort. I was concerned I wouldn't have enough ice and would take too much time (my sink at school is smaller) which is why I did this. Hopefully it doesn't effect it much.


Target OG was 1.050
My OG ended up being around 1.045

Stir Plate

I'm using a computer fan and old cell phone charger to make a stir plate for yeast starters. I'll post pictures as soon as my camera charger comes in.


I picked up a 1000 mL Erlenmeyer flask from Edmund Scientific and a stir bar from Sciencekit. Both of them use the codeMCSCIEDGE for free shipping (they are different sites though).

White Ox Wheat Beer Tasting

I went to Friar Tuck's and got a pick-6 of a few IPAs and a few Wheat beers. Here's the first of them. Also, I'm switching to a 100 scale instead of 5.


White Ox Wheat Beer

Date: April 11th, 2008

Color: Very light, more yellowish with a hint of a sort of gold.

Clarity: A bit hazy, but not super cloudy.

Aroma: It smells a bit malty and a bit sweet.

Head: Mediocre. It didn't hang around too much.

Tasting Notes: It's interesting. You can definitely taste the wheat and sort of citrusy undertones, but it is a little sweet to me. Not so much initially on your sip, but it sort of hits you as you swallow. It's also very light. I would have preferred a little bit more body to the beer.

Rating: 65/100

Batch #4 Ordered

I just ordered the kit that is to be my next batch. It is the Bavarian Hefeweizen from Austin HomeBrew. I went with the mini-mash kit, and it will be the first time I try it out mini-mash.

If I get it in time, I'll probably start brewing next Wednesday, and if not, then probably the following Monday.

Long Hammer IPA Tasting

I picked up a six pack of this today at Schnucks, and cracked into one as I was eating a turkey sandwich and some strawberries.


Long Hammer IPA

Here's another IPA I am trying...

Date: April 9th, 2008

Color: Light, a golden color.

Clarity: Clear

Aroma: A very strong hop aroma with some citrus. Smells like cascade, but I don't know that much.

Head: Mediocre. It could have been my pouring, but there wasn't a ton.

Tasting Notes: I like it. There is a very strong hop aroma which is what I look for in a IPA. It is definitely pretty bitter, which is to be expected, but I would prefer a little less bitter, or some other flavors backing it up. On the whole though, it's a very good IPA, in my opinion.

Rating: 4/5

Hops Planting

My dad called me earlier today to let me know he had planted the hops plants he bought in our backyard. I think he bought about a half dozen plants, and several different varieties. I don't remember all of them, but I know there was a Saaz and Cascade, and I think also a Tettinger. The Saaz and one other are already about 1' tall (he planted them in pots earlier than the rest). They aren't supposed to give off much hops their first year if any, but it will be interesting to see.

Also, I just ordered a new battery charger for my digital camera so hopefully I'll be able to post some pics on here.

Sam Adams Honey Porter

I'm not going to write up a full review on this, but I tried one tonight. I actually liked it a lot, and I'm not that big of a porter guy. It had some pretty good taste, and it wasn't too strong one way or the other.

Batch #3 Tasting #1

It hasn't been that long since I bottled it, but I've been pretty impatient so I decided to crack open one of the second batch during Andy/Kitty/Emily's birthday and give it a try. Jevon and Cecilia shared the bottle with me.


Shanks' Belgian White Tasting

This batch was more my batch than anything else I've brewed so far. I took a general guideline but improvised a lot more whereas the other batches I pretty much followed a recipe kit. Because of that I was really anctious to see how everything turned out.

Date: April 5th, 2008

Time Since Bottling: ~1 week

Color: Golden with a hint of orange.

Clarity: Slightly cloudy.

Aroma: Not much of an aroma, but a kind of wheaty smell.

Head: I poured a 12oz bottle into 3 small glasses for tasting, so it is hard to build up head, but there wasn't much there. There was some, just not a lot.

Tasting Notes: This was a pretty early time to taste it, but I am pretty impatient. KNowing that, I didn't expect a whole lot going into it and I also knew that it would probably change a bit over time. To start off, it had a sort of watery taste. That is, when you first took a sip, nothing initially hit you about it. It wasn't bad or good, it just was sort of absent. Shortly after though, you start to taste it. It had a very wheaty taste to it. You could get a hint of the coriander and sweet orange peel, but not very much. It will be interesting to see in a few weeks where the taste sort of settles, but if everything were to stay the same right now I would use a little less wheat (I would throw in some other grain that is lighter in color) and quite a bit more coriander and orange peel. I didn't really taste anything that I could quite identify as the orange blossom honey, so hopefully I will be able too in a few weeks.

All in all, I think the beer tasted a lot better than my first two batches at this point in their lifespan. I don't know if that is saying much for the recipe, but I think my technique is getting better. It is definitely identifiable as a wheat beer when it hits you, but I hope that the coriander and orange peel become more evident so that it will be more distinctively a Belgian White.

Batch #2 Tasting #2

Just very briefly I wanted to comment on how I tried my second batch again (the one I thought I messed up on). It was a little bit better after sitting for a while. I tried a bottle that has been in the fridge for at least a week. It was a lot smoother and had a little more head (still not as smooth or as much head as I would like, but an improvement.) I will be interested to see where this goes in a little bit more time. Also, I think I might crack open my first beer of Batch #3 tomorrow...

Colorado Mojo IPA Tasting

I went out to Silvercreek earlier today for their Appy-Hour, and decided to try one of their drink specials:


Colorado Mojo IPA

Their specials list had a few beers I haven't heard of before, which is what I've been trying to drink lately. I went ffor this IPA pretty much because I've been into IPAs and PAs lately.

Date: April 4th, 2008

Color: It was pretty light if I remember correctly, more of a golden orangish.

Clarity: Just barely cloudy. Not entirely clear, but not much cloudiness.

Aroma: Considering it was an IPA, I was surprised at how little aroma there was. I could smell some hops, but it wasn't much of anything.

Head: It was a good head. There wasn't a solid amount to start out with, but not a ton or anything. What I was really impressed by was how long in hung around. It retained the head very well.

Tasting Notes: It was just so-so. The side of the bottle said it used Amarillo hops which I like so I was excited, but I just didn't get that much hop flavor from it. Sure it was there, but it wasn't as overpowering as I've had from other IPAs. It also had a bit of a funkiness that just sort of hung around with you after a sip. Not bad tasting or anything, but the malt just kind of hung in your mouth, and it wasn't what I really liked. I would have preferred a smoother finish.

Rating: 3/5

Schlafly Beer Tasting

Since now that I've updated a lot of my previous brewing history to this point, I won't have that much to write about. I decided to write about other beers when I have them. Today I was at Schnucks picking up some fish to cook, so I decided to get a 6 pack of a pale ale. I settled on:

Schlafly Brand Pale Ale

I went for this one because I wanted a pale ale, and I saw it had bottles I could reuse. That was pretty much the extent of what went into my decision.

Date: April 1st, 2008

Color: A light amber, almost orangish color.

Clarity: Clear

Aroma: Nothing that particularly hits you if you weren't smelling for it. There's a bit of hoppiness, but it is very subtly if there at all. A more malty smell.

Head: Pretty solid head. When I poured it I got about 1", and it sticks around a bit. It doesn't seem to go away completely either, there's a little bit left hanging round for as long as it took me to finish.

Tasting Notes: It's pretty solid. It's the kind of beer that I would enjoy anytime, but not necesarily go out of my way to drink regularly. It has a good malt flavor and a little bit of a hop kick at the end. It goes down smooth. It's a good Pale ale.

Rating: 4/5

Batch #3 Post #2

Notes from today's bottling:

I finished bottling the third batch. Other than spilling more beer than I would have liked, it all went well. This time I cleaned the bottles by hand, but then used my dishwasher at home to sanitize them (it has a setting that is supposed to do that). If that works well it will be a whole lot easier than cleaning all the damn bottles by themselves.

I ended up with 12 twenty-two oz bottles and around 61 twelve oz bottles.

I went back to the Fox Valley Homebrew and Winery shop in Aurora earlier today and picked up another case of bottles because I didn't have quite enough. While I was there I also picked up a 21 inch stainless steel brewers spoon and some more caps. It's longer than my other one so I won't burn my hand and there will be less risk for contamination in future batches.

I've been thinking about my next batch and I might try to experiment a bit and try for a pale ale. I'm wanting something with a lot of hop aroma and flavor, but not quite as much bitterness as an IPA. Also a lighter color beer would be nice, as the three batches I've made so far have been relatively dark colored.

After the problem I ran into before of mixing up my different bottles between batch 1 and 2, I decided to buy a permanent marker and just write a number 3 on the cap of all of this batch. Problem solved.

Next time I am bottling I need to remember to use the hose which is a little thiner. The one I have was a bit too wide for the bottling wand, and it sort of leaked a lot.

Batch #3 Post #1

So I am in the middle of bottling, but letting some stuff settle out. I'll post more later on the actual bottling process, but I thought I'd take this time to give the recipe for my third batch:

Batch #3:
6 lbs. Dried Wheat Malt Extract (55% wheat/45% barley/9EBC)
1 lb. Orange Blossom Honey (Dutch Gold Brand)
1 lb. Crushed Wheat Grains (Briess White Wheat Malt, 6 Row, Lovibond 2)
1 oz Hallertauer Leaf Hops, Alpha: 8.6
1 oz Willamette Pellet Hops, Alpha: 4.6
1.5 oz crushed coriander
1.5 oz sweet orange peel

-Steap the crushed wheat in ~3.5 gallons of water at 152 degrees for 30 minutes (kept right around/under 150 degrees)
-Brought to boil
-Add 6 lbs. of Dried Wheat Malt Extract, dissolve
-Added 1 lb. of Orang Blossom Honey
-Brought back to boil, added 1 oz of Hallertauer hops for bittering, and boiled for 1/2 hour.
-Add 1/2 oz of Willamette hops and .5 oz of coriander and .5 oz of Sweet Orange Peel and boil for 15 minutes
-Add 1/2 oz of Willamette and .75 oz of coriander and .75 oz of S.O.P and boil for 10 minutes
-Add .25 oz of coriander and .25 oz. of S.O.P., and remove from heat.

Note: I didn't add the first amount of S.O.P. until probably 5 minutes or so after I said I would

O.G.: 1.055
F.G.: 1.016
(probably more like a FG of 1.012 cause I added the priming sugar before measuring.)

Moment of Pride

Last night I went over to John's house and brought a few of my beers with for my friends to try. After pouring him a glass of my first batch, Tim immediately said "that's like a Belgian White, kind of like a Blue Moon". That was pretty cool.

Homebrew Shop Review

Fox Valley Homebrew and Winery - Aurora, IL

I went to this shop about 2 weeks ago with my dad to pick up some ingredients for Batch #3. It was in a pretty cool looking location, in downtown Aurora right next to the river. It was the first real homebrew shop I've been to (I went to a place that sold homebrew supplies, but was a hobby shot), so I didn't know quite what to expect.

Anyway, we went on a Saturday. You walk in and it is sort of plain looking with a little display area with some various homebrew equipment. They have a room behind their office/desk area with all of their supplies. It was a little bit cramped in there, but they had a decent selection. They only had LME in name brand cans, none that you could buy by the weight, which was a little disappointing. A good selection of grains which they also will grind for you. Considering the hop shortage, they also had a pretty good selection of hops (I would say about 10 different kinds stored in a freezer).

Pricing varied a bit. Their hops and malt extract seemed a little expensive compared to what I've found online, but they had some decent prices on certain equipment (they had bottles for pretty cheap comparatively). I picked up a large wire and mesh strainer for more reasonable (and a larger one) than I've found most places online.

The guy there who helped us was really friendly. They also sell wine supplies, which was more his expertise. He knew the basics of beer making, but didn't know a whole lot more than I do. He was nice enough though to call up one of the guys who knows more about beer when I had questions. That was pretty impressive customer service. He also said usually they had someone there, but it just happened to be a time when they didn't. They also apparently have some classes and tastings for wine and beer making, which also seemed pretty cool. I might have to look more into that over the summer.

Overall Opinion: It was a pretty decent place. I'll definitely go back. It's hard really to give an opinion since it is the first dedicated-to-brewing shop I've been to. If you are as big of a stickler for costs like I am, you can find some decent buys there, but know comparative prices of what you want online. If you are just looking for one or two ingredients, it is probably cheaper than buying online with shipping costs figured in, but if you are looking for buying all your ingredients for a batch, the costs can add up.

Batch #1 Tasting #?

Belgian White Tasting

So I['m back home for the weekend where I have a few bottles stored where I know what they are.

Date: March 28th, 2008

Time Since Bottling: ~5 weeks

Color: Dark Golden with a hint of orange.

Clarity: Cloudy

Aroma: Light-Medium Hop aroma (sweeter smelling hops), and a bit of coriander.

Head: Started with a good 1"+ of head after pour. After about 5 minutes sitting has about 1/4"

Tasting Notes: Fairly light tasting. Sweet at first, but turns more spicy quickly. It starts off smooth but kind of hangs in your mouth after swallowing. You can taste the coriander, but I wish there was more of an orange taste in it. The next batch I brewed used sweet orange peel instead of bitter orange peel, so I will be interested to see how it turns out. We also used more coriander and orange peel. After about half of the glass, there is still some head left, it seems to be holding pretty well. It is leaving a little bit of "head rings" on the glass as it is being drank, but not much. This is a little spicy/bitter for my taste, but it isn't bad. About 10-15 minutes after pouring I'm close to the end of the glass, and there is still some head, which is good to see.

Batch #2 Tasting #1

Amber Ale Tasting

So I'm pretty sure the bottles I've opened lately with no head have been my from my second batch. It seems for some reason some of them have been carbonating more than others. I'm guessing that the priming sugar didn't get mixed in too evenly. It doesn't seem to make that much sense, but it's the best I could come up with. A few of the bottles had real nice carbonation while some had almost none and some were just a so-so head.

Date: March 27th, 2008

Time Since Bottling: 2 weeks

Color: Fairly dark amber color.

Clarity: Slightly cloudy.

Aroma: Not too strong, more malty than hopy.

Head: Varies. Anywhere from a good amount of head to almost none at all.

Tasting Notes: As far as my tasting notes go, I like this one. It's not great or anything, but it goes down pretty smooth. There isn't too strong of a hop aroma or taste to it. I would probably use more or stronger hops next time, but not too much. It has a pretty malty flavor to it that I enjoy.

Batch #2 Post #1

Alright, for my second batch, I decided to make something a little less ambitious, an Amber Ale Again, I bought the kit for this from www.austinhomebrew.com.


Ingredients

Grains
1/2 lb. Crystal 60L

Malt Extract
7 lbs. Amber Extract

Hops
1 oz. Sladek (half for bitter, half for flavor)

Yeast
White Labs California Ale 001


The process was pretty much the same, and I used bottled jugs of water again. I used a different method of cooling though. In the episode of Good Eats on brewing, Alton Brown suggested to just buy a 7 lb bag of ice and pour the hot wort over it to cool it down. I did this, but I don't know how much I liked the process. It wasn't the exact amount you needed, and it also was hard to control. I think in the future I might freeze my own ice in a smaller quantity to put in the wort and still use an ice water bath so I have a little more control. I already brewed #3 so I think I will do it on #4.


Another thing I tried for the first time on this batch was to save the yeast. Yeast can be pretty expensive ($6.50-$7), and it's one of the areas that you can keep the costs down especially if you brew repeated batches of the same style. Basically after the primary fermentation winds down you can scoop some of the yeast off the bottom and put it in a sterilized jar and keep it up to about a year in your refrigerator. You've got to try and separate the yeast from the other stuff in there, but it's not too hard, you just need to shake it up, let the heavier particles settle on the bottom and the yeast on top, and then skim it off into another jar. You do it a couple of times and you should have mostly yeast left. I am planning on brewing with this yeast sometime over the summer (there's a few more things I want to try first).

Up to this point...

This is a list of all my brewing activities up until this point. I'm going to try and go back and flesh out the other stuff in subsequent posts, but for all the stuff I have posted and is described in this post, I will be recalling past events and not writing them immediately afterwards like I hope to in the future.

Batch #1 - Belgian White - Brewed February 7th, already bottled and tasted
Batch #2 - Amber Ale - Brewed March 2nd, already bottled and tasted
Batch #3 - Different Belgian White - Brewed March 16th, currently conditioning and waiting to be bottled.

Homebrew Supply Shops visited:
Leisure Time - Urbana, IL
Fox Valley Homebrew and Winery - Aurora, IL

Uh Oh...

So quite a few bottles of either Batch #1 or #2 have come up tasting pretty bad. I forgot to label them and mixed em up, so I'm not sure exactly (and since my first batch originally didn't taste quite like a Belgian White, I'm not positive which it is).

I tasted the second batch a couple of days ago, and it seemed fine, so I think that these are probably the first.

Either way, it is rather flat and tastes pretty funky. There's very little head at all, and it isn't sticking around. If it is #1, it's gotten darker. If It is #2, its gotten a little bit more of a different color to it (#2 was an Amber Ale that I sampled a few days ago and seemed fine.) My bet is that for whatever reason, the first batch didn't have a long shelf life. It tasted pretty good the first time I tried it (actually pretty close to a Belgian White), but seemed to bitter more with age. I hadn't tried one in probably a week and a half.

Batch #1 Post #2

So this beer seemed to go pretty good as I brewed it. I wish I kept better track of the exact temperatures and times of everything, but I'll lay out in genera what I did.

The water I used was store bought spring water from Meijer. The kind that comes in big jugs. I don't think there's anything in particular wrong with Urbana water, but I decided better safe than sorry.

- Took the yeast out of the fridge a few hours before to let it warm up.
- Brought the water up to 150-155 degrees.
- Took it off the heat and steeped the grains in 2.5 gallons of water starting at about 155 degrees for about 15 minutes. (meanwhile I placed the LME in some hot water to make it pour better)
- Brought the temperature back up, and then dissolved in the LME.
- Brought the batch up to a boil, and added half of the hops and let boil for 30 minutes
- Added the crushed coriander and bitter orange peel for 15 minutes
- Added the last half of the Amarillo hops for flavor for 5 minutes.
- Removed from heat and cooled in a ice-water bath. Got it down to about 80 degrees in about 15 minutes.
- Poured 3 gallons of water into my fermenter and then added the batch.
- Pitched the yeast.

Note: I didn't strain the beer before putting it in the fermenter, so the orange peel, coriander, and remains from the hop pellets went into the fermenter.

The biggest problem I had in brewing was that I forgot to shake up the water that I added afterwards. You need to aerate it usually and I didn't do that. So after about 24 hours I didn't notice any signs of fermentation, and upon realizing my mistake I opened the fermenter up and mixed it real well. It seemed to go fine from there.


Fermentation

I let it ferment for about 7 days, but then I started to get concerned that the spice and hop sediment would start to give the wort a bad taste. So I racked it to a secondary fermenter. In hindsight, after reading up on it (www.howtobrew.com), I realized that I aerated the beer too much when moving it (I used the spigot and just poured it through the tubing into the other fermenter). I also think that I ended up racking it too soon. There was still a fair amount of fermentation going on inside (if I recall, probably bubbling every 15 seconds or so).

After another week in the secondary fermenter, I bottled the beer. The process is pretty simple here, you just boil some water and dissolve some priming sugar in it, then mix that in with the beer and bottle it.

Batch #1 Post #1

In hindsight, I was a little ambitious on my first batch. I chose a semi-complicated beer to brew. I got the kit off of www.austinhomebrew.com. They seem to have one of the top HomeBrew ingredient sites on the web, and offer a wide variety of their own recipes. Since I was flying a bit blind but eager to jump in, I chose their Belgian White Ale.

Something I'll explain briefly about picking a beer that I came to learn. Pretty much every HBer starts out with Ales. There are two prime categories of beer - ales and lagers. The difference is in the type of yeast they use. Ales use top fermenting yeast and lagers use bottom fermenting yeast. The bottom fermenting yeast usually requires a fairly cool environment to work. It's in the 50-60 degree range. Ale yeast, however, ferments best right around room temperature, making it much easier to use for HBers. I believe lager yeast also sometimes lets off a sulfuric smell that Ale yeast doesn't.

So back to my selection. I had to pick an ale, and I like Belgian Whites. That was pretty much my reason.

The ingredients:

Grains
1/2 lb. Flaked Wheat
1/2 lb. White Wheat Malt
1/2 lb. Belgian Pilsner

Malt Extract
6 lbs. Liquid Wheat Extract

Hops
1 oz Amarillo (half for bittering, half for aroma)

Spices
1/2 oz. Crushed Coriander
1/2 oz. Bitter Orange Peel

Yeast
White Labs Belgian Wit Ale 400 #00015


Right now I'll break down the basic process. Since, at the point that I brewed this batch, I didn't understand that much more. The crushed grains and malt extract are sort of the same thing. That is, malt extract is the extract of grains, and all you need the grains for is to extract stuff from them. You can get it in dry (more concentrated) or liquid form (which has the consistency of molasses). This happened to come with LME. From what I've read, it doesn't particularly matter which one you use, you just have to make sure to use the right quantity. DME is basically LME without ANY water, so you use less by weight of the DME. There's a specific percentage but I don't have it on hand right now.

So why use grains at all and not just all ME? ME is bland and doesn't have as much variety. It is a good base to use, but you can get a lot more variety in using grains. You could use all grains, but this requires a lot more time and extra equipment. One day I think I'll venture into this stage, but it is a ways off.

So the reason for the grains/ME is to give the beer flavor and the yeast something to eat. This is basically what they are going to be turning into alcohol.

Hops bitter the beer, give the beer flavor, and also aroma. From what I've read they also can preserve the beer better. Hop selection is very important, but I don't really know enough about it to write intelligently on the subject, so I won't for now. Basically though, you need to select the hops with the correct bittering and flavoring/aroma potential for the style of beer you are brewing.

The Yeast might actually be the most important ingredient, and the least understood ingredient by HBers, and that is true for me. I know what they are doing, but I don't really know what makes one strain better for a type of beer than another. What I do know is what they tell me, and that's why I went with my choice.

I'll add another post on this batch later.

Starting it all off...

So recently I decided to start brewing my own beer. I am a novice at this, but I think it will be a good idea for me to keep track of the steps I go through and some tasting notes as I go through. Facebook is as good a place and any, and while most people won't be interested in it, some might. If you do find this interesting and have questions as to why I did anything I did, please ask. There's a good chance that question will help me to better understand it myself.

For my first entry, I'll briefly start with the equipment I chose to pick up and what caused me to do it. I bought most of this equipment about 6 weeks ago. It cost me in the range of $125-$150. The vast majority of it came from www.homebrewit.com. They didn't seem to have the best designed website, but the prices and shipping were the cheapest I found on the web for most of the stuff. They also happened to ship from Indianapolis so I got everything within 2 days. I would recommend them with some exceptions that you can PM me about if you want more information.

Brewing Equipment:
1x 20 quart Stainless Steel Pot with Lid (Overstock.com)
1x Stainless Steel Spoon (Meijer)
1x Digital Probe Thermometer (Meijer)
1x Mortar and Pestle (Meijer)
1x Hydrometer

Fermenting Equipment:
2x 7.5 Gallon Fermenting Buckets
2x Spigots for the buckets
2x Bucket Lids w/ Airlock Hole
2x Airlock

Bottling Equipment:
1x Bottle Filling Wand
1x 6' Tubing
1x Bottle Cleaning Brush
36x 22 oz bottles
24x 12 oz bottles
1x Red Manual Bottle Capper


In reading up on the subject, I discovered that the exact equipment you needed to brew beer varies. For one, some techniques are optional and not necessary for novice brewers. Additionally, there is different equipment that can be used to accomplish each stage.

So why did I choose what I did? The first was that I watched an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown used much the same equipment. There were a few differences, but for the most part it is the same stuff. While I am not really a huge fan of Alton Brown himself, his show usually has some pretty practical advice. He takes into account things that really matter to people like ease of use, cost, and similar.

Man love for Alton Brown aside, I'm not going to blindly go by something he says, especially when it isn't cheap. So I did some looking into the choices myself. He recommended a different type of bottle - a Grolsch style that caps which he said are easier to use. Those apparently don't work that well and actually can mess up batches of beer beyond your first one. There is a rubber washer that if not replaced every time can contaminate the bottles. This seemingly eliminated the ease of use argument that caused Alton to recommend them. There were a few things like that which caused me to go into a different direction. Through the few batches I did brew I learned a few things that would cause me to change a few things as well, but I will save those for later.