Home Brew

In my latest attempt to keep myself sane while being a homemaker, I have decided to try brewing my own beer. It helps to have an alcoholic husband (oops!). I meant a husband who appreciates good beer :) Of all the different beers that he has tried in the past 3 years here in the US, he thinks that Samuel Adams is the best. All who do not agree with him can buy what you think is the best and enlighten us with some of that :)

It is not that difficult to brew your own beer. We bought a beer equipment kit which contains most of the equipment that you need to brew your own beer. Additional things that you need are utensils that you probably already have in your kitchen, at least I do. All the equipment needed are:

• Two 6.5 gallon buckets (one for fermenting and the other for bottling)
  
• A lid for the fermenting bucket
  
• An air-lock for the fermenting bucket
  
• A thermometer to check the temperature of the wort (unfermented beer)
  
• A bottle brush to clean the empty beer bottles
  
• Plastic tube for siphoning the beer from the bucket into the bottles
• A sanitizing cleaner to sanitize all the equipment plus beer bottles
• A capper to secure the bottle caps to the beer bottles
• A large pot to boil the wort
  
• A long spoon for stirring while cooking the wort
• 50 empty 12 oz beer bottles (our neighbor kindly donated some to us)
• 50 new bottle caps (they come with the beer kit)

Next, we bought a True Brew Nut Brown Ale Beer Kit which contained all the ingredients needed for that particular brew:

• A can of Hopped Light Malt Extract
• 1 lb of Light Dried Malt Extract
• 1 lb of Amber Dried Malt Exctract
• 1 lb of Special Dark Brown Sugar
• Grains: Chocolate and Dark Crystal Roasted Barley
• 1 oz Hop Pellets
• 1 pack of Ale Yeast
• 5 oz Priming Sugar

To brew the beer:

1. Clean and sanitize all the equipment.
2. Boil 4 gallons of water (this step is not listed in the beer kit instructions but recommended by the book 'How to Brew' by John J. Palmer)
3. Remove label from can of malt extract, wash the can and place it in a pot of hot water to soften the syrup.
   
4. Place all the grains into a steeping bag (provided in the beer kit).
   
5. Bring 1.5 gallon of tap water to boil in a large pot, turn off the heat, place the grains into the hot water and steep for 30 minutes. Remove the grains and heat water to near boiling again.
   
6. Turn the heat off and add the can of malt syrup while stirring continuously.
   
7. Add the other 2 dried malt extract and brown sugar, still stirring continuously until everything dissolved.
   
8. Turn on the heat again and bring the liquid to boil but be careful not to let it boil over.
   
9. Boil for 43 minutes then add the hops and boil for another 2 minutes. The liquid is now called wort which is unfermented beer.
   
10. Pour 3 gallons of cooled boiled water into the fermenting bucket.
    
11. Carefully pour the wort into the fermenting bucket and add more cooled boiled water until there is a total of 5 gallons of wort in the bucket.
    
12. Let the wort cool to below 90F.
    
13. Sprinkle the yeast over the wort, wait for 10 minutes and give it a gentle stir.
    
14. Insert the airlock into the opening in the lid for the bucket.
    
15. Seal the bucket with the lid, fill the airlock half-full with water and keep it undisturbed at a temperature below 80F.
    

The fermentation will take about a week before the beer can be bottled. During the first 2 - 3 days of fermentation, you will be able to see bubbling caused by the release of carbon dioxide from the fermentation process.

With 2 kids who love to get into everything, we had to find a safe place for the beer to ferment undisturbed. We chose the wardrobe in the study room. The video below shows beer bucket in the wardrobe and the airlock bubbling away :)

It will stay in there until next Wednesday or Thursday when we will start bottling the beer into the 50 beer bottles. I will have another blog entry then to document the process :)